I came across Zach Braff's Garden State blog tonight.  Pretty cool, methinks.  And boom...it's in the blogroll.  We bought our tickets for The Village today.  Will report.

Napoleon Dynamite is going into wider release, people!  No excuses!  Go see it!  And yeah, it's got an additional scene in this latest release, so I may have to go see it a fourth time.

Jamie and I went and saw Bourne Supremacy on Friday.  It was pretty intense.  Mark thought there was too much shaky, and I see his point.  I would suggest that the shakiness helped us see things from Bourne's shaky, fragile point-of-view, plus I don't how they would have pulled off some of the stunts and effects if the camera were showing us too much.  Sheesh!  Best car chase scene ever!

Wildfires abound around the town.  We've got a layer of ash on our car, but we're pretty much out of harm's way.

My name is Pete.  Welcome to my blog.  July has been quite busy.  It all started when Jason came out from the east coast back on July 2nd.  He came to visit his girlfriend out here, and Clinton took advantage of his presence to shoot a video.  We all met up at the Siebers (including Doug and Jeff and Lindsay) and started shooting.  Clinton rented a Panasonic DVX-100, which is an awesome camera that Mark can tell you all about.  I called Mark and got a plethora of operational advice.  We shot a few scenes and learned how to use the camera as we went along.  It really is amazing how good this camera makes our production values seem.  Anywho, we shot for awhile then went to a restaurant who tried to overcharge us by $100.  Took several go rounds with the owner to straighten that out.  We shot some more the next day, then on the 4th, most of us went to the Padres game at Petco Park followed by a cookout at the Wonders hosted by Jamie's cousin Aaron.  What a fantastic day!  There was a jerk at the park during fireworks, but we weren't going to let him spoil our day.

The following week, my sister and her family came out to visit for a few days.  They stayed down in Anaheim, which was pretty central to all the activities we had planned.  We met them at Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  The next morning we headed down to Carlsbad to go to Legoland.  We had a good time, in spite of the fact that the rides were definitely aimed at young kids.  Afterwards, we met up with the Siebers at Ruby's on the pier in Oceanside.  That was a very enjoyable experience, and I recommend it to those visiting the area.  On Saturday, the Theodores met us out at the construction site to check out our new digs.  The kids couldn't go inside and for some reason had the hardest time figuring out that we didn't actually live there yet.  The finish date has been pushed to mid-February, but hopefully they'll finish early.  We then introduced the Theodores to In-N-Out, which is really near our new place.  That night we ate at CPK at Hollywood & Highland where I'm sure we saw Robert Downey, Jr.  We just missed Hillary Duff at her premiere of The Cinderella Story.  My niece, Lauren, was anxious to try to catch a glimpse of her.  The kids spent the night with us that night to give Grace and Steve a much-needed break.  The next morning we took the kids down to the La Brea tar pits where you can actually watch them excavating some fossils amidst the tar-y ground.

After the Theodores left, we had a couple of days to catch up on work and housecleaning and such.  But then on Tuesday, we drove back down to Laguna Beach to see the Pageant of the Masters, where they recreate life-size works of art.  It really is amazing how they can make the 3-dimensional live people look like they are a part of the 2-dimensional painting.  We had a couple more days of normalcy before the Siebers came up this weekend for their anniversary.  We saw The Clearing and Napoleon Dynamite with them.  Yes, I did enjoy ND for the 3rd time.

Amongst all of this, I actually did get some work done.  I'm finishing up my first big project with my newest client, and I meet with the producers of CSI this week to discuss my next big project.  Jamie got booked yesterday for a 16-day straight job starting today.  She'll be quite busy, but the pay is good, and she's getting to work for a new stylist, so her experience and connections are growing by leaps and bounds.  OK, exhale.

Clinton's mom and several other of his female relatives came through town this week.  We went and met them for dinner on Sunday night down at El Cholo in Santa Monica after church.  The next day, while I worked, Jamie went with Clinton and his mom down to Playa Vista, as part of our plot to get our LA friends all to move to the same community.  She really liked Tapestry, so who knows?

Last night, Jamie and I went to see The Terminal at the ArcLight.  In spite of my initial reservations, I quite enjoyed it.  It was a great mix of humor and story and love and sadness.  Plus, there seemed to be a tribute to Wes Anderson there in the middle, in which I laughed out loud quite a bit.  Thanks, Ben Dudley, for your recommendation.  When I went out to get popcorn and a soda, Harland Williams was in line in front of me.  After he left, the concessionaires and myself tried to recall the stuff he's been in.  My first recollection was from The Whole Nine Yards.

A week or so ago, Jamie mentioned how awesome the trailer was for Napoleon Dynamite to one of her former co-workers, Joy, at Hawk.  The next day, Joy called Jamie and said that they were doing a sneak preview at The Grove on Tuesday, and she saved us some passes for it.  Now, these 'passes' aren't exactly a guarantee.  You have to show up early and wait in line and hope that you are close enough to the front to actually get in.  And we knew the passes were somewhat widespread, because Clinton's friend, Colin, way out at Chapman had come across some passes as well and was planning to come up for it.  So, I figured we'd need to get there a couple hours early.  Colin, in fact, got in line at 5:00 p.m. for the 7:30 showing.  Fortunately, earlier in the day, Joy had received a call from the movie rep that had given her the passes to give out at Hawk.  The rep asked Joy how many she had passed out.  When Joy told her that she had passed out a significant amount, the rep asked if she could reserve some seats for Joy and her friends.  Joy said yes and promptly called Jamie to let her know.  Jamie called me and let me know that we didn't have to go early after all.  Score.  It turned out that Jamie was stuck at her shoot until late last night, so she couldn't make it, which freed up an extra reserved seat.  We rolled in about 7:00 p.m., got Joy from Hawk, and went into the theater.  She talked to some people at the head table, and got some reserved seat passes for us.  We grabbed Colin out of line, while his friends glared at us, and we all headed in while the line that reached for a city block was still stuck outside.  On our way in, we were given a 'Vote for Pedro' t-shirt, and then were allowed to sit in the roped off center section.  It gets better.  We put our stuff down to save our seats, and then Joy and I headed out next door to the theater to the adjoining restaurant called 'The Farm', where she also works.  She was able to get us free brownies and drinks, which we were allowed to take back into the theater, because, as Joy puts it, they are in cahoots.  So, there we are sitting in the best seats after not waiting, snacking for nothing to our hearts content.  On top of all that, the movie was very funny.  It stayed funny all the way through.  It wasn't thick on story, but it didn't really matter, because of how funny each little scene was.  I don't know if this movie will make it out of its limited release, but at least look for it on DVD when it comes out.

I haven't gone surfing just yet, but I hit the six week mark today of working out every weekday.  I only missed one day during that time, because I was both sick and out of town.  Results?  Well, it kind of seems like there should be some dramatic differences based on that regimen, except for one important detail.  I didn't really change my diet.  The only significant change is that I try to stop eating when I'm full.  Novel, I know.  In spite of that fact, there definitely has been a change.  I've probably lost 5-7 pounds and can actually tighten my belt one more notch.  Not too shabby, but I've still got some work to do.  I really thought that working out would be easier once I got in the habit, and I think doing something every day for six weeks should be habit-forming, but every day there's still that option to sleep in.  The way I see it, though, the first six weeks has really been kind of a primer or a base coat.  Hopefully, the next six weeks will see some accelerated improvement.

We saw Harry Potter today.  It was pretty darn good, I must say.  I can't rate it very objectively having read the book already and the one that follows it, so I'd be interested to hear reviews from some of you who have not read the books but have seen the movies.

Jamie and I (and Clinton) bought tickets for a matinee of Harry Potter tomorrow.  She's “super-excited”, while I am merely “looking forward to it”.  I watched Bjork's Dancer In The Darktoday.  It was quite sad, but somehow not depressing.  It was sad enough though that I was still sad an hour after watching it.  Jamie would probably have found it depressing as well, but the enormous personal sacrifice that Bjork's character willingly makes in spite of everything kept it from dipping to depressing for me.  The musical numbers also kept the spirits up.

On another note, Tony & Martel have decided to rent an apartment across the park from us in Playa Vista, so we'll be neighbors.  It's already turning into a little community for us.  Hopefully, we can get Clinton to get a place over there as well.

As I was checking off the categories, I saw 'Celebrity Sightings', and I thought of a couple that I may have forgotten to mention.  You know the dorky looking guy with the spiked red hair in the new Burger King commercials set in an office?  We saw him at Anthropologie.  OK, not really a celebrity, but still.  The other actually happened months ago now.  We were at church at Bel Air Pres, and we were exiting out to the courtyard after the service.  That's when we saw the Hoff.  That's right, David Hasselhoff, in all his Germans-love-him glory.

That's enough categories for one night.

July 2nd - The Clearing
Robert Redford and Willem Dafoe.  The trailer's got me intrigued on this one.

July 9th - Anchorman
Yes.  I'm Ron Burgundy?

July 16th - I, Robot
At the moment, I haven't seen too much about this movie other than that Will Smith is in it, but it looks like the best one scheduled for release this week.

July 23rd - The Bourne Supremacy
I really liked The Bourne Identity, so I'm hoping that this is a strong sequel.  Catwoman comes out this week as well, and I just want to note how stupid that movie looks to me.  Any comic book fans out there know if the Catwoman character has a deep history in comic books, or is she just a peripheral character?

July 30th - The Village
I've loved everyone of M. Night Shyamalan's movies, and this looks to be no exception.  Very psyched.  However, this film has some heavy competition in my eyes with The Manchurian Candidateand Garden Statecoming out the same weekend.  Manchurian stars Denzel Washington, whom I'm becoming a bigger fan of lately, especially after Man On Fire.  Garden State, which Jeff keeps talking about, was written and directed by and stars Zach Braff (of Scrubs fame).

UPDATE: Added links as requested.

Jamie and I went and saw Stateside this past week.  It wasn't great but wasn't terrible either.  We went to see it because we knew Tony played some part in it.  It turned out to be a pretty small part, but it was worth a day at the ArcLight.

It's about this time of year that I used to prepare the movie going schedule for the summer at ubc.  Since I don't do that any more, I thought I'd share my summer picks here.

June 4th - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Yeah, that's right.  I read the books.  The first two movies were pretty good as well.  I am a little nervous about the new director, but I'm hoping that Rowling has enough say in the finished product to keep it from going bad.

June 11th - Napoleon Dynamite
I've mentioned this before.  Sorry, it's only going into limited release.

June 18th - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
If the name doesn't say it all, then Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn should say it.  Granted, Starsky & Hutch was a flop, but this premise should be a better backdrop for their styles.  The Terminal also comes out this week, but I'm still undecided.  The first teaser teased me not, but the first trailer peaked some interest.  Plus, Hanks and Spielberg can't be too bad.

June 30th - Spider-Man 2
Very excited.  Plus, it could be the Dudley's big screen debut!

Well, I was going to do the whole summer, but I accidentally hit back in the browser and lost this whole post, and now I'm so annoyed that I had to retype it that the rest of the summer will have to wait.

I put in another solid week of working out.  I think I might just be forming a new habit.  It's produced some other good side effects.  In order to stay consistent, I'm getting up early to work out first thing in the morning.  By early, I mean a little before 8:00 a.m.  Doing so, I can be done and showered and start to work by 9:00 a.m. with the whole day ahead of me.  Pretty sweet.  I know you are all wondering what kind of awesome effects the working out is having on my well-manicured physique.  Well, the jury's still out on that, but I fell pretty good about it.

On another note, I went to buy tix to Superman on Tuesday, and it was already sold out.  For May 18th!  Merde!

When we went to see Envy this weekend, we got to see a trailer for Napoleon Dynamite.  I don't know if they can sustain a whole movie of the same caliber as the trailer, but I sure hope so.  Man, we laughed hard.  It goes in limited release in June.  Keep an eye out.

I'm pretty excited about a special event happening at the ArcLight this month.  They are showing Superman: The Movie, but with 20 minutes of additional unseen footage and some reworked special effects.  Also, there will be a Q&A with the director, Richard Donner.  I hope I can score tickets.

Clinton and I went up to the ArcLight to catch a special AFI presentation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last night.  It was quite pleasant.  The audience was full of film buffs.  The popcorn was free.  And the film we were watching was the producer's (Saul Zaentz) personal print.  Which made me think that I want to have my own personal print of a movie I produced some day.  After the movie was over, everyone headed to the restroom, where Clinton spotted Luke from The O.C.  Pretty exciting.

I got an ice cream freezer for my birthday, and it got its first use at our place for Taco Tuesday.  I made vanilla ice cream, then added chopped up chocolate chip cookies to the mix during the last 5 minutes.  It was quite tasty.  The freezer is really cool, too, because no ice or rock salt is necessary.  You keep the freezer bowl in the freezer.  It has some sort of liquid in its lining that freezes.  Then, you put your ingredients in the bowl, and turn on the mixer.  Twenty minutes later, you've got cream.  I'm really looking forward to trying out my favorite homemade ice cream flavor: Big Red Peppermint.  I would have made it first, but we haven't found Big Red (the soda, not the gum) out here in California yet.  Boo.

In an unrelated story, we saw David Spade once again at The Grove last night.  This time we saw him at the theatre where we watched The Whole Ten Yards.  I didn't notice, but Jamie said that he was laughing really loudly and then left halfway through.  As for the movie, it wasn't as good as the first one, but it wasn't too bad.

So, B-dub and Jan came into town last week, which was mucho fun-o.  We did a ton of stuff, including going down to the beach in San Diego where the Dudley's had their group from UBC.  We hung and relaxed at the Sieber residence for a couple days, where Jeff and Sieber extended family joined us for Dr. Pepper tacos.  Then we had a fun-filled day in LA, seeing the sights, eating good food at Rubio's with Clinton and some of his Baylor friends, going to see a movie at the ArcLight (Eternal Sunshine, which I loved, but the girls hated) where Mike and Robin Hogan joined us, eating good food again at Vert, then capping off the day with the Crowders at Trader Vic's.  Now, sadly, Jamie's sick, and I'm doing my best to fight it off, but I seem to be losing.

I've now seen several different trailers for Jim Carrey's upcoming release Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind.  The initial teaser struck me as bizarre and a little bit darker than I usually like.  But then, out came the full trailer, and all of a sudden I had a better feeling about it, and I am now looking forward to seeing it.  After pondering what could have caused my change of heart, I realized that it was the use of ELO's (Electric Light Orchestra) Mr. Blue Sky in the background.  If you know the song, then you know it's hard for the mood to be dark when that song is happening.  Anywho, I just thought it was interesting that a song choice for a trailer can really change a lot.

We got to the ArcLight at about 11:40 p.m.  Outside the entrance were several camera crews interviewing people.  As Jamie and I entered the lobby, we were approached by a man and woman who wanted to interview us about the movie.  We answered their questions, while reserving judgment of the movie until after we saw it.  Unfortunately, they just said they were from a “Christian magazine”.  They didn't tell me which one, but I guess I'll be seeing that magazine in heaven.  Anyway, we headed into the theater, dodging other reporters, and settled in to our reserved seats.  (For DC Talk fans, there was a possible K-Max sighting.)  The movie was playing in the CineramaDome, which I'm not a big fan of, but what is important to note is that this particular screen has a curtain that covers it entirely.  It opens for the previews, then closes and reopens to set the feature apart.  So, the previews played, the screen closed, reopened, and then we all just sat in black silence waiting for the movie to begin.  It didn't.  The lights came back on, and we had to wait several minutes for them to work out the problem.  Very un-ArcLight.  Eventually, it got started, and was captivating from the first moment.  I did have to fight hard to watch it as a movie on its own terms, because all the controversy and things I heard would pop into my head as a new scene would begin or a new character would appear.  Man, it was gut-wrenching.  It was bloody and violent.  Kind of like real life.  I've read about people who complain that it was too violent, about people who had to leave in the middle of it.  I guess I'm just glad that Jesus didn't leave in the middle of it, that he endured it until everything was accomplished.

As the credits began to roll, an odd thing happened.  The curtain closed, the lights came up, and the film stopped rolling.  A few people began to get up to leave.  However, the majority demanded that they roll the credits, which they did.  Then they demanded that the curtain reopen, which it did.  Then they demanded that the lights go off, which they did.  Then, everyone stayed until the last credit rolled and then applauded.  If I were in Texas, this would not have surprised me, as I would have assumed that I was in the theater with a church group.  But I saw the movie in Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard.  I'd be surprised if there were enough Christians in Hollywood to fill a theater.  I just think it says a lot that even this audience showed this amount of respect for this movie.

We saw the movie tonight.  It is indeed powerful both in art and in message.  Mel Gibson's career will not suffer.  The movie inspired no feelings of anti-semitism in me, only devastation at the display of what my sin cost Christ, instead of me.  I don't know yet how a non-Christian might respond to this.  I will probably see it again in the next week.  Don't wait until it's on DVD; you need to see it in theaters to feel the full weight of its impact.  I would not take my niece and nephew to see it.  More tomorrow after I've had time to reflect.

It happened this Monday.  I got my email newsletter from the ArcLight, and it featured the 'sneak preview' of The Passion of the Christ on Tuesday at midnight.  (Technically Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.)  I thought, “Awesome!  I'll get an early shot at the movie, and come back and blog about it for you guys.”  So, I immediately bought tix online and called Clinton to encourage him to do the same.  So, the next night we went over to Clinton's for Taco Tuesday.  Jamie lasted until about 10:00 p.m., then went to take a nap.  We woke her up in time to get going, and headed down to the theater.  When we got there, the place seemed pretty closed up, but we went in, and the security guard told us, “No more movies tonight.”  We said, “We've got tickets for the midnight show in the dome.”  The dome is separated a little bit from the regular theater.  That seemed to satisfy the security guard.  Clinton went up to Guest Services to get his actual tickets, because he had been forced to order them over the phone, and all he had was a confirmation number.  The attendant did something, then told him to just bring a certain piece of paper back when we came to see the movie.  Clinton said, “I'm here to see the movie now.”  Everyone was pretty confused at this point, because we had showed up for the movie a week early.  Doug even wore a tie.  The good news was that the ArcLight had already validated our parking.  Real review coming next week.

(Three posts in one week.  Booyah!)

We saw The Station Agent last night.  It was pretty enjoyable.  It wasn't one of those movies that has a thoroughly satifsying conclusion, but many of the scenes are compelling and the comic relief is pretty good.   It struck me how low of a budget it must have been shot on, and yet how many people were involved with it.

The last thing we did on our Christmas trip to Vegas was to see Cirque du Soleil's Mystere.  It was quite cool, but I think the amazement factor lowers slightly with each Cirque show based on diminishing returns.  Along Came Polly was quite funny.  I'm not sure when the last time I saw a movie in which I laughed that much.

Sorry for the paltry entries in January.  I got really popular work-wise, which is good, but I didn't feel like spending my leisure time at the computer, too.  We'll see how February goes.

The other day, I heard an interview with Ewan McGregor, whose latest film project is Big Fish, to which I'm really looking forward.  Ewan was talking about the fact that he and a buddy are going to ride motorcycles around the world, basically from London to New York the long way round.  They will be going through Siberia, China, and Malaysia, and to prepare, they are going through Hostile Environment Training.  Apparently, this is training that journalists and others who are preparing to work in hostile territories endure.  Sounds to me like a perfect addition to my spy training wishlist!

Jamie and I watched Far From Heaven tonight.  It wasn't a terrible movie, but I must admit that I was surprised that it garnered a best actress role for Julianne Moore and even more surprised that Todd Haynes was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.  My favorite part of the movie was the art direction, actually, followed by the cinematography, for which it deserved its nomination.  Of the actors, I thought Dennis Haysbert had the most powerful performance, but maybe that's because of the 24 connection.  I thought the writing was heavy-handed and “wretched“, and the writer's agenda was hardly subtle.  Apart from that, I'd still recommend it to those interested, just don't go into it with any Oscar-worthy expectations.

Jamie and I received the first two discs of the second season of 24 on Thursday, and we're already about to finish them up!  We've never actually watched it on TV, because we missed the beginning of last season.  When it came out on DVD, we ordered them on Netflix, and we were hooked.  I really don't think that I'd be as big a fan just by watching it on TV, because of the commercials and the having to wait each week for the next episode.  Anyway, I rate it as about 5783 Conans.  Man, I need to come up with my own rating system.

Jamie and I went with Tiffany (Tawny's sister) to the ArcLight yesterday to go see The Human Stain.  We arrived with one minute until showtime.  I can positively say “one minute”, because the sign at the box office said, “starting in one minute”.  The lines were long, a rarity at the ArcLight, so by the time we actually got to the register “The Human Stain” was “Now Showing”.  I asked for three tickets as Tiffany handed me cash for hers, and I was going to purchase all of the tickets with my card as usual.  They were having some problem with their system, so they asked for a different card.  Same problem.  So, the manager says, “Do you have any cash, and maybe we can help you out with the rest?”  I had enough for one ticket, and this because Tiffany had just given me the cash.  So, we got three tickets for the price of one.  The ArcLight has raised the bar once again.  As for the movie, it was quite a heavy movie with some wonderful performances, but it's one of those that I can't recommend, because there's no way of telling how others will respond to it.

I forgot to mention that Jamie and I went to see “love actually” this weekend.  You've probably seen the commercials for it, and you are probably thinking it's a feel-good, family oriented Christmas season story, like I did.  As it turns out, I think it also could have been called “boobs actually”.  I don't want to knock it as a movie, just because it had boobs, but I will knock the marketing of it.  Man, that would have been an uncomfortable movie to be in with a kid or a parent.

I went to see Intolerable Cruelty tonight in the rain.  I shall cherish the rain, as I will not see it again for months, I'm sure.  Jamie was working until 10:30, so I got an employee pass from her to go see a movie for cheap ($6 is cheap here) at The Grove's Pacific Theatre.  The word on the street is that this theatre is one of the top 5 grossing movie theatres in the U.S. or maybe even the world.  As a result, I'm guessing that this theatre is somewhat trendsetting.  Perhaps some of you have already seen the innovation that I'm about to tell you about, in which case, I guess it's not such a big deal.  Anyway, they have just installed automated kiosks for concessions.  You walk up to a touch screen, select what you want, insert cash or swipe a credit card, pick up your receipt, and then head to the express pick up stand, where your order is waiting for you.  It was pretty awesome, and tons faster than the lines one usually waits in for concessions, while you are nervous that your movie has already started.  This is bound to mean more money for theatres, which means either they could lower prices (fat chance) or they may take better care of the theatre or they might just pocket it.  Anyway, good idea somebody.

Intolerable Cruelty.  It might surprise some of you that I waited so long to see this movie as it is a Cohen brother movie, and my favorite movie is Raising Arizona.  It might surprise others that I went to see it at all as it didn't exactly gather acclaim or box office dollars.  Well, I went tonight and the verdict is 6034 Conan O'Briens, which is equivalent to pretty darn good.  I liked the movie taken by itself quite a bit, and it definitely had the distinct flavor of a Cohen brother film, in spite of the marketing campaign that did not have that flavor.