Hollyweird with the old man

I was all set to do a review on Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (or as Paul called it in all his maturity, Hellboy and the Golden Shower… clever, am I right?), but my trip to LA to attend the world premiere of the film really made me realize a couple of things. One thing I expected was for it to excite me about film again. And it did.

During the last couple of years of being out of school and not having actually shot anything my love for film almost seemed lost. Making movies seemed hopeless. And writing seemed fruitless. And I think that’s why so many people come out of film school and become electricians. The passion is bogged down by endless limitations. As I watched Guillermo Del Toro stand at the podium and introduce his film, and just listening to the reaction of the audience, I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

These kinds of realizations are expected. An even bigger moment for me is what happened with me and my father. There’s this thing that happens when a person dies and we put them up on a pedestal. We honor them and remember them. We immortalize them. What we forget to do is humanize them. My father isn't dead or anything, but I've always wanted to see my father as something more than just a man who taught me how to give a proper hand shake. And now I feel that I can.

During this trip my dad stopped being just a parental figure to me. He wasn’t just the leader of all small clan, he was my friend. During this small trip he became someone I could easily hang out with. We became a team. He was the driver and I was the navigator. I was the idea man and he was the planner. We were like a well oiled machine.

You should’ve seen us. A couple of nobodies walking around on red carpets, going to Hollywood parties and trying to get whatever picture we could with our phones (he looooves his Blackberry.)





He’s also a good lookout. When I wanted to get past security, cross some closed off areas and hang out behind the press he’d get my back. He just went with everything. When I wanted to say hi to Seth MacFarlane, or when I asked Jeffrey Tambor if the Arrested Development movie was happening (he said it was definitely happening by the way) or when I wanted to take a picture with, I’m guessing completely wasted, Ron Perlman.



There are moments I’ll never forget either. A list of small memories I’ll keep with me until I’m old and to take out when I need to smile. When we ended up being the only white guys at a rowdy Magic Johnson’s T.G.I. Fridays. When I was talking to Guillermo Del Toro and the only picture he took was so blurry it looks like a big foot photo. When he kicked the Japanese guy out of his seat on the plane so he could have more room to sit. Or my favorite memory is us being in the Mann Village theatre, surrounded by cheering fans and my dad is sleeping during Hellboy’s final epic battle. Gotta love that.


What Ryan's listening to: Maps by Arcade Fire (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
Ryan will return with a Hellboy 2 review!

Space Slut

Before Han shot Greedo, he was makin' out with some space hussy.


From a scene cut out of A New Hope





What Ryan's listening to: "Meds" by Placebo

Growing Pains

I had been nervously anticipating my friend’s wedding for quite some time now. It had been stressing me out. Loss of appetite. Developed facial tick. Loose, watery body waste. I had it all and I wasn’t even the one who had to bind my eternal soul to another human being.

Doesn’t that sound fucked up? Binding souls and whatnot?

The Groomsmen gathered, trying on their suits and being fitted correctly for the special occasion. I stared at myself in the mirror. This wasn’t just a suit. This was a goddamn tux. With cufflinks and vests and fucking suspenders. Suspenders!

Looking at myself head to toe in that mirror is when I realized that I am fucking old. Really fucking old. It’s easy to fool yourself when you have a little kid’s haircut, t-shirts with dinosaurs on them, and an awesome Boba Fett belt buckle.

If I hadn’t realized this I’d probably turn into that creepy guy who goes to high school parties and hits on fifteen year olds. Like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused but never that cool.

What was worse is sitting there during the actual wedding, listening to the priest go on and on about love, commitment and honor. Every word he spoke rocked my core. As if it was emphasized with a large church bell going off right over my head.

And as I sat there at the reception, listening to slow songs start, and watching my friends and family grab their significant others, I just looked down at my eleventh rum and coke and then threw up into the biggest handbag I could find – maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was the notion of bound souls. I wondered, what exactly binds souls? The ability to tolerate another human being? Enough free space to love someone as much as you love yourself? Troll magic?

Or maybe it’s how people measure success. Basing it primarily on three factors: a job, a wife and kids. I clearly was in no way successful. This is something my friend’s dad (in all his arrogant cock suckeriness) made evident to me.
He took a small joke like me wanting his son to marry my sister and turned it into – this is a direct quote – “Ryan wants his sister and my son to get together so he can be in a family with some success.” (This is in front of my parents, by the way) He then followed with, “We can’t all be medical doctors.”

Are you fucking kidding me? This guy is like Satan. (That is, if Satan looked like William Hurt... which I imagine he does) Generally I’d shrug a comment like that off given the fact that I’ve done so many things in my life that people only wish to do. My legacy lives on in archival Swiss Chalet commercials as a kid who once asked for a roll. I’d usually just counter his bullshit comment making fun of the fact that he’s a) a big raging period stain b) his new wife has had so many collagen injections that she looks like Howard the Duck (but with huge pointy implants) and c) that I have something that he’ll probably never have: respect from people. A complete cock shit like that guy would never really garner legitimate respect.

But maybe he’s right. Maybe there isn’t a way I can be successful being an “artist”. Maybe the first step is to bind my soul for eternity. I don't know, that sounds like the Devil's work...

Wow... the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Narrow Stairs, is terrible. You forget each song after you listen to them. People keep going on and on about how they went into a brand new direction as artists, but I personally think they should come back the direction they came, until they hit Transatlanticism and just hang out for a while. Hell, I'd even be alright if they stopped off at the mediocre Plans, at least there were a couple of decent tracks on that album.



What Ryan's NOT listening to: Narrow Stairs


I want to urge everyone out there to check out Sea Wolf. Saw their show the other night and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, judging by the lack of attendance, I’m guessing that not a lot of people know who they are. Leaves In The River is their debut album, and it is practically perfect in my eyes (and my ears!) Great sound. Great lyrics. Great looking band members. What more can you want?

Paul needs a Pepper Potts. Or a secretary. He just needs someone to keep him on time or to distract him from the Food Network and Dr. Who. When Paul and I had placement in school together, one of my jobs was to make sure Paul arrived on time for writing meetings.
Picking him up was always a gamble. Either he’d be asleep or would argue that I was too early because “John and Kate Plus Eight” wasn’t over yet.



He also had this uncanny ability to make us exactly twenty minutes late for everything.

Recently, Paul and I were given the opportunity to see a film that had been shrouded in controversy ever since the film’s title, Young People Fucking, made itself public.



Unfortunately, we were so late for the movie that we didn’t even manage to see the title actually fade up on screen. (In my mind the title doesn’t fade up, cum squirts up over black into the shape of the letters, even dotting the I’s – now THAT’S a title card I can respect!) The reason we were late is not only because of Paul’s inability to judge time and distance (and my willingness to go along with anything) but because of a lost GPS device. It meant that I’d have to hear about said device and the mystery of its whereabouts the entire length of the drive. When Paul is upset about something, he can’t let it go. It pretty much ruined his entire night. Poor little guy.

When we arrived at the theater (both us were out of breath from a two minute run) we had to stand in the back until we could spot a couple of seats to take.
“Just wait for a daytime scene” Paul said. As it turns out, young people don’t fuck during the day.



So, we watched half an hour of the movie standing up, until a couple left the theater in disgust (you’d think if you were sensitive to sexual situations/dialogue you wouldn’t go see a movie about some young people fucking), we were able to swipe their seats.

Ten minutes after our smooth transition from aisles to seat (trying not to shove my ass into the people sitting down), the overweight gentleman next to me fell asleep. You wouldn’t think I’d be able to notice casually glancing over, trying to avoid eye contact with a perfect stranger, but the thing is, Fat Person Sleeping was snoring. Right in my ear.

“He’s probably from the Globe and Mail” Paul whispered.

The best part about it was this guy slept through all the female nudity, but managed to wake up and laugh is ass off at any homo erotic jokes or male butt shots.

He was definitely from the Globe and Mail.

All that really needs to be said about the film is that it delivered what the title promised. There was in fact Young People Fucking in the film. But the beauty in the film is that it’s so easy to come in late and fully understand what’s going on. It would be good for them because all the movie makes you want to do is have sex with the person next to you (you know, if they weren’t some sleeping fat guy or Paul), so you could take off to the handicapped stall or the back seat of your car, shoot one off, and be back for more of the movie and feel like you’ve only missed a couple of blow job jokes.



What Ryan's listening to: "Secret Identity" by the Jealous Girlfriends