Tacos and Beer

I got an electric car, specifically a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5. It’s not a hybrid — it’s 100% you-gotta-plug-it-in-and-charge-it electric. Stacey and I had been sharing one car (a not-electric Mazda 3) for several years. Which is fine most of the time. Neither of us drive all that much, and most of the time when we do drive somewhere we’re together. But Birmingham, Alabama, doesn’t offer much in the way of mass transit. So on the occasion we do need to drive different places… I got an electric car, specifically a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5. It’s not a hybrid — it’s 100% you-gotta-plug-it-in-and-charge-it electric. Stacey and I had been sharing one car (a not-electric Mazda 3) for several years. Which is fine most of the time. Neither of us drive all that much, and most of the time when we do drive somewhere we’re together. But Birmingham, Alabama, doesn’t offer much in the way of mass transit. So on the occasion we do need to drive different places at the same time, it’s a hassle. ...

Tonight at the Sidewalk Cinema (the best movie theater in my area and, not coincidentally, the only indie movie theater in my area), my pal Jeremy is having a Tape Night event. Jeremy and Sidewalk host Tape Night a few times a year. As you might guess from the name, it involves projecting a movie from an honest-to-goodness VHS tape on the big screen. Now, VHS is not known for it’s visual clarity. In fact, it’s known for being generally low-res and muddy. But VHS movies look surprisingly good on the Sidewalk Cinema screen. And part of the fun is the retro nostalgia of watching a movie the way we watched so many movies back in the 20th century. Another part of the fun is the actual movie featured at Tape Night is a surprise. But Jeremy usually drops a few hints. For tonight’s screening, the hints are that the featured movie was shot in Alabama and released in 1976. Given that there aren’t a lot of movies shot in Alabama, those are really big hints! I am pretty sure I know what...

HIDE AND CREEP is a Thanksgiving movie. But there’s really only one clue in the movie to let you know that. I’m not a big sports guy, but in Alabama (where I live, and where HIDE AND CREEP is set), college football is wildly popular, and one of the biggest college games of the year is the Iron Bowl. That game pits the University of Alabama against Auburn University, two teams with legions of passionate fans. Hide and Creep is a Thanksgiving movie. But there’s really only one clue in the movie to let you know that. I’m not a big sports guy, but in Alabama (where I live, and where Hide and Creep is set), college football is wildly popular, and one of the biggest college games of the year is the Iron Bowl. That game pits the University of Alabama against Auburn University, two teams with legions of passionate fans. But I’m not one of those fans, because, like I said, I’m just not a sports guy. But I thought having the movie take place on the weekend of a big regional sports e...

Digitizing old video sources (stuff made in the 20th century) is a hassle for multiple reasons. Probably the biggest is that old video was stored in an interlaced format. This Wikipedia article digs into the details about interlaced video, but the short version is interlaced video is captured and stored as half-frames instead of full frames, and combining those half-frames for playback on modern displays (which are almost all progressive instead of interlaced ) can get messy. This is true for material that originated as video, and it’s also true of material that originated as motion picture film. The film-to-interlaced-video process often involved a hack known as three-two pulldown . That hack was necessary because of differences between motion picture film frame rates and video frame rates. Adding to the hassle of dealing with old video material is the fact that modern video editing software (stuff like Adobe Photoshop and DaVinci Resolve) just “fixes” the interlacing behind the...

Couldn’t let the day pass without a blog post noting that Stacey and I got married twenty (!) years ago. Stacey is the best. And I think it’s fair to say that, after twenty years, our relationship now has quantity as well as quality. Here’s a relatively recent photo of Stacey and I together in Iceland.

You ever watch one of those movies where you go in skeptical for whatever reason, but the movie ends up winning you over? I try to go into a movie with an open mind, but we all have baggage as film watchers. It reminds me of that scene in The Empire Strikes Back , when Luke asks Yoda what’s in the creepy tree. “Only what you take with you,” Yoda answers. I remember starting the first Goosebumps movie and thinking, “Eh, I dunno, it’s based on a bunch of kids’ books I’ve never read, and Jack Black isn’t as funny as he was back in the old Tenacious D days.” But the more I saw of Goosebumps , the more I liked it. And then Black delivered an incredible line of dialogue (“Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts… The beginning. The middle. And the twist!”), and I was all-in on the movie. As much as I enjoy being won over by a movie, I gotta admit, it’s even more fun to watch someone else get won over by one of my movies. Which is not something I witness often. But it ...

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 ,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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),...

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...

I am trying to update this blog regularly, but I am not succeeding. I do have about 150 web browser tabs open on my phone of stuff I might want to blog about. So I am at least thinking about blogging. I finally got to visit Dr. No’s comic book store in Georgia. I didn’t get any comic books there, but I did see some very cool Morlock action figures (from the 1960 Time Machine movie). There’s a toy store in the same strip mall as Dr. No’s called 2nd Chance Toys and Collectibles . They have an impressive collection of vintage toys, including several very cool Shogun Warriors toys that are, unfortunately, too pricey for me. Speaking of comics, there’s an omnibus coming out soon collecting a bunch of Marvel/DC crossover comics. I suspect a lot of Gen X comic book fans have a soft spot for these comics. It always seemed like an extra big deal when Spider-Man would meet Superman or the X-Men would meet the Teen Titans. I’m glad these comics are being reissued, because they’ve...

Disney-Post-STAR WARS-Live-Action-Movies Double Feature: THE BLACK HOLE (1979) / TRON (1982); 1980s-Wendy Carlos Double Feature: THE SHINING (1980) / TRON; 1980s-Jeff Bridges-Sci-Fi Double Feature: TRON / STARMAN (1984); 1980s-Computer-Hackers Double Feature: TRON / WARGAMES (1983); First-Gen-CGI Double Feature: TRON / THE LAST STARFIGHTER (1984); Teleporter-Mishap Double Feature: TRON / THE FLY (1986); TRON Double Feature: TRON / TRON: LEGACY (2010); World-Inside-the-Computer Double Feature: TRON / WRECK-IT RALPH (2012) Disney-Post- Star Wars -Live-Action-Movies Double Feature: The Black Hole (1979) / Tron (1982) 1980s-Wendy Carlos Double Feature: The Shining (1980) / Tron 1980s-Jeff Bridges-Sci-Fi Double Feature: Tron / Starman (1984) 1980s-Computer-Hackers Double Feature: Tron / WarGames (1983) First-Gen-CGI Double Feature: Tron / The Last Starfighter (1984) Teleporter-Mishap Double Feature: Tron / The Fly (1986) ...

In the 1980s, CDs became the music industry standard for album releases. Even though CDs were smaller than the vinyl LPs they replaced, they could hold more music. A twelve-inch record can hold 45 minutes (give or take) of music, while a CD can hold more than 70 minutes of music. Some musicians decided that their albums needed to fill up a CD, even if they didn’t have 70 minutes of good music ready, and we got a lot of hour-long albums that would have been a lot better if they’d been edited down to 40 minutes. I’ve been thinking about the overlong albums of the ’80s and ’90s lately because of the overlong movies of the 2020s. I am certainly not the first person to complain that movies are too long these days. Vanity Fair published a piece on the subject last year. The Vanity Fair article mentions that producers and cinema owners and audiences complain about long movies. But those complaints don’t carry as much weight as they used to, and I can think of a couple of reasons for...

Apple likes to brag that a lot of their commercials and promotional videos are “shot on iPhone.” But of course Apple can afford some wild accessories for their iPhones, including Panavision lenses! Stu Maschwitz wrote an excellent blog post about how one attaches a pro cinema lens to an iPhone. Blackmagic has created a dual-lens 3D camera for making immersive video for Apple’s Vision Pro VR goggles. I’m not that interested in VR, but I think VR goggles would be fun for watching old 3D horror and sci-fi movies like Creature From the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space . And it might be fun to shoot a movie in the style of those classic 3D movies with this new Blackmagic camera. Ben Pearson wrote a lengthy and revealing article about the modern state of film scores over at Slashfilm . It was revealing to me, at least. Among other things, Pearson tries to figure out why we have fewer memorable musical themes in modern movies. No details yet, but apparently Kino Lorber i...