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24 hour movie people.

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Going into the Sidewalk Bad Movie Marathon , I was a little nervous. I mean, I wasn’t going in with any delusions of “winning.” But I was worried about falling asleep like two hours in and getting booted super early. Turns out my worries were unfounded. James and I made it a full 24 hours. I think we probably could have made it a few hours longer. But he and I had agreed we’d try to stay in at least 24 hours, and after we made it that far, we decided to go ahead and go home for more comfortable seating and less bad viewing options. It also turns out that watching bad movies with friends and acquaintances is fun. As you might guess, it does turn into something of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 situation. I think my best quip of the event was when Kelsey Grammer showed up in a terrible Transformers movie and I said, “This new season of Frasier sucks.” How bad were the movies? Pretty bad! A few that stood out as particularly terrible: The Emoji Movie , Son of the Mask ,...
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Bad movies, good cause.

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My birthday is January 31, which is Friday. I will be celebrating this year by participating in the Sidewalk Film Festival’s Bad Movie Marathon. The Sidewalk fest happens every year in lovely downtown Birmingham, Alabama, so it’s my local film festival. I’ve been attending it nearly half my life at this point. Sidewalk is also one of the big reasons I am a filmmaker. Chuck and I attended the very first Sidewalk in the late 1990s, and that was the first time we realized if we made a movie, someone might screen it. My birthday is January 31, which is Friday. I will be celebrating this year by participating in the Sidewalk Film Festival’s Bad Movie Marathon . The Sidewalk fest happens every year in lovely downtown Birmingham, Alabama, so it’s my local film festival. I’ve been attending it nearly half my life at this point. Sidewalk is also one of the big reasons I am a filmmaker. Chuck and I attended the very first Sidewalk in the late 1990s, and that was the first time we reali...
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Snow day.

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Stacey and I got up early this morning to see some snow. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten significant snow here in Birmingham, Alabama, and a minor winter storm rolled in around 1 a.m. today. We were afraid we’d miss the snow if we waited too long, but it turns out it stuck around. As of 1 p.m., it’s about 38 degrees Fahrenheit and overcast, and there’s still a lot of snow on the ground, parked cars, and buildings. Most of the actual snow happened while we were sleeping. When we went out around 7 a.m. we saw some classic Alabama “wintry mix” — sleet, snow, and cold rain. Stacey and I got up early this morning to see some snow. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten significant snow here in Birmingham, Alabama, and a minor winter storm rolled in around 1 a.m. today. We were afraid we’d miss the snow if we waited too long, but it turns out it stuck around. As of 1 p.m., it’s about 38 degrees Fahrenheit and overcast, and there’s still a lot of snow on the ground, parked cars, an...
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Low resolution.

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I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions. I have plenty of opportunities to disappoint myself without setting difficult goals. That said, I have set a couple of hopefully not difficult goals for myself this year. First, I want to watch more new-to-me movies. For a while now, at least since the pandemic, I have spent a lot of my viewing time on comfort movies — films I love (or at least like) and have watched numerous times. I’m sure I will continue to re-watch old favorites in the future, especially when I want a movie I can halfway watch while I am doing something else. I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions. I have plenty of opportunities to disappoint myself without setting difficult goals. That said, I have set a couple of hopefully not difficult goals for myself this year. First, I want to watch more new-to-me movies. For a while now, at least since the pandemic, I have spent a lot of my viewing time on comfort movies — films I love (or at least like) and have watched nu...
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Master of dungeons.

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A couple of months ago, my friend (and bandmate ) Pete asked me if I knew anything about DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. I am a middle-aged nerd, so, yeah, I know something about D & D. Pete, who also has nerdy interests, had somehow made it to near middle-age without ever playing D & D. Or any other old-fashioned pencil/paper/dice role-playing game. Even though I haven’t played DUNGEONS & DRAGONS in 30 years, I offered to run a game so Pete could experience an old-school R.P.G. first-hand. We invited a few more friends and set a play date — that was today, Black Friday. After setting the date, I panicked a bit. Because I wasn’t sure where to start. Thankfully, the internet is much more advanced than it was the last time I played DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. A couple of months ago, my friend (and bandmate ) Pete asked me if I knew anything about Dungeons & Dragons . I am a middle-aged nerd, so, yeah, I know something about D & D . Pete, who also has nerdy interests, had s...
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Screenwriting software.

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Back in the olden times, when people wrote movie scripts with typewriters, I can only imagine that properly formatting a screenplay was tedious at best. (If you’re not familiar with what a screenplay looks like, check out this NoFilmSchool.com article that explains how screenplays are formatted and why they are formatted that way.) When I first started writing screenplays in the early 2000s, software was available to make the process easier. But the industry standard, Final Draft, was famously expensive. And the competition wasn’t cheap. Chuck and I won a copy of Movie Magic Screenwriter at an early Sidewalk Film Fest . (I think it was called “Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000” at the time, because back then all the software companies were appending a “2000” to the end of whatever they named their software.) I am pretty sure I wrote Hide and Creep using that software. I guess if we hadn’t won that, I would have written it in Word and manually put in all the weird tabs and spacing t...
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Ranking classic STAR TREK.

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The classic 1960s STAR TREK TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, STAR TREK reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times), I have opinions. I decided I’d start making... The classic 1960s Star Trek TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, Star Trek reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times),...
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Endorsements.

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When elected officials do terrible stuff — and they seem to be doing a lot of terrible stuff these days — it’s frustrating to see people who could stand up to those elected officials stay silent. I mean, I can say it’s bad when states basically outlaw D.E.I. programs, but I’m just a guy with a blog. I’d like to see business leaders and university presidents standing up against bad policy. When elected officials do terrible stuff — and they seem to be doing a lot of terrible stuff these days — it’s frustrating to see people who could stand up to those elected officials stay silent. I mean, I can say it’s bad when states basically outlaw D.E.I. programs , but I’m just a guy with a blog. I’d like to see business leaders and university presidents standing up against bad policy. So it’s nice to see Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish both endorse Kamala Harris for president. I suspect a lot of people in the entertainment industry are loathe to make political endorsements because the...
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