Happy Father's Day...

Flashback's to my childhood. Happy Father's Day!

The Sunday Night Paradox...

You are laying in bed, wide awake at 1130p on Sunday night. The new work week starts in just 8 short hours. You took 2 beautiful days off, slept late until 9a, enjoyed the late summer evenings, grilled burgers, cold beers, and didn't think about work one small bit. Then it hits you - staring you in the face is the week of hell: long meetings, looming deadline, customer expectations not to mention family time, doctor's appointments, and other social commitments. You know that the quicker you can get to sleep, the quicker you can deal with it all, but you can't sleep because you keep thinking of more things that you need to deal with...

...And, that, my friends, is the dreaded "Sunday Night Paradox"!

Swimming Pools, Movie Stars...

Because you asked for it... In 2005, I made my acting debut in two movies: Memory and All The King's Men. Both films are now on DVD. If you decide to follow the links and pick up a copy, all profits will go to Autism Research.

Review of Memory (a film by Bennett Davlin) from IF Magazine: "Okay, noting that MEMORY is better than PREMONITION is arguably not saying much, but in fact, this little genre thriller is better than a lot of similar flicks that have come before.

Part of the charm of MEMORY, directed by Bennett Devlin and written by Devlin & Anthony Badalucco from Devlin’s novel, is that it has a sense of real independence. For one thing, it’s doubtful that a major studio would go along with the mystery that our hero winds up investigating – a string of child abductions/murders perpetrated by someone whose memories are leaking into the hero’s mind.

Billy Zane plays Dr. Taylor Briggs, a medical researcher who, in an odd accident at a none-too-tidy hospital, winds up with a strange substance introduced to his bloodstream. Taylor, rational fellow that he is, at first thinks he’s hallucinating when he begins without warning to jump into experiences that are not his. Gradually, little clues pile up to indicate that Taylor is in fact having flashes of someone else’s memory – but whose? And how can Taylor find the person, who seems likely to keep killing?

There’s a pleasing air of freedom here. It’s rare in this sort of genre film to have character moments that are real character moments instead of having everything add up as clues – the filmmakers clearly enjoy creating all aspects of Taylor’s world, some of which tie into the main plot thread and some of which are just there to supply color. It’s a nice change from movies where, if we’re told anything, we can safely assume we’re meant to instantly add it to our store of knowledge (which often results in the audience figuring things out far sooner than the filmmakers intend). There are some good plot twists here and, even for those who can see the last one coming far in advance, everything seems consistent within the film’s mythology.

Zane is appealingly rueful and understandably apprehensive as Taylor, who goes through a visible personality transition throughout the course of the story. Tricia Helfer (Number Six on BATTLEATAR GALACTICA) makes a likable, distinctive romantic and eventually investigative partner and Ann-Margret and Dennis Hopper (the latter underplaying urbanely) contribute good supporting performances.

MEMORY is the kind of funky, mildly trippy psychic thriller that used to turn up far more regularly in theatres in the days before DVDs. It doesn’t remotely reinvent the wheel, but it’s got its own identity, the filmmakers actually care about their storytelling and it is ultimately both sincerely creepy and reasonably enjoyable."

Update: Swimming pool planned for next summer.

StarTunes or iBucks...

Living a good 30 miles from the office, I work alot from my friendly neighborhood Starbucks. I use their wifi via the wonders of T-Mobile. The welcome web page allows you to download different Starbucks "mixes" from iTunes. But wouldn't it be cool if there was a pop window that displayed, in real time, the actual songs playing in the store, and you had the option to purchase that song from iTunes in real time. Hmmm.....

Tivo-zon...

Love my Tivo. LOVE MY TIVO! Bought our first Tivo in 2001 and our second in 2004. Tivo has since added features like yahoo access to photos, weather and movies, ability to listen to popular podcasts, download and watch popular videoblogs like CNET or Rocketboom, and just recently added the ability to download movies from Amazon. Which left me thinking, this is potential the tip of the iceberg. What if you're watching Oprah and she announces her new bookclub selection and you could press the thumbs up on your remote and order the book. A new revenue stream for Tivo and Amazon and maybe Oprah. What do you think?