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chase the light

Category: Movies

Saints & Sinners Lounge

There was a little meeting of the Ghosties crew at the [Saints & Sinners Lounge] Tuesday night. Lots of Martinis were had by all. In fact I think I doubled my entire lifetime intake of Martinis that night. Not a big Martini drinker so round about 4 in the morning I was a hurting puppy. […]

It’s Over! …and Ghost Rider Trailers Are Out in HiDef!

Well it’s over. [Ghost Rider] wrapped for me today and now it’s holiday time. It’s going to seem like a distant memory when this comes out next February but it’ll be cool to see it after so long because I’ll have forgotten most of it. The [HD trailers] were released on Apple’s website this week […]

Nicolas Cage Visits the Ghost Rider Crew

Nicolas Cage stopped by today to say hello to the Ghost Rider crew. He was filming in the area today and so swung by afterwards and watched a few sequences of the movie with us. His wife was with him and he talked a bit about loving what we were doing with the effects. Then […]

L.A. Marathon No. 21

[L.A. MARATHON VIDEO LINK] Since I’m basically trapped inside today because of the L.A. Marathon. I might as well just enjoy it. Besides, how many people have 25,000 runners going by their house at any given time. The added bonus this year was I actually knew someone in it. So I grabbed my beach chair, […]

Cheers Buddy.

This weekend one of the guys I had worked with on Polar Express decided it was all too much. So he took his life. I worked with him a lot on the caribou sequence in Polar and man did I ever ask some dumb questions of him over a period of several months. From the […]

Oh Sure, Now They Make the Cool Poster…

Zathura, out on DVD Tuesday. And the DVD poster is soooo much better than the theatrical poster. It only made 28 mil. at the box office. At about 9 bucks a ticket these days that was about 3 million people that went to see a movie about a house in outer space. Not so good. […]

Ghost Rider Revealed

The first look at Ghost Rider was revealed today. Check him out [LINK]. He looks pretty freakin’ cool even in a compressed quicktime file. Official Site [LINK] and fanboy reaction [LINK] is positive. The release date is February 2007 and lots of work to do. It’s a flaming skeleton on a flaming motorcycle, that’s cool.

Cinespia: Lee Marvin Kicks All Ass All the Time

That’s not Lee Marvin, but it is Jules. She was my roomate in college and did a nice turn in a supacool flash blowout photo from tonight’s Cinespia. Although it doesn’t really look much like her with the jutting chin and all. Her chin does no jutting in real life. It just does normal chin […]

Mr. Oscar

We won the Academy Award last night for the Visual Effects on Spider-Man 2! A long overdue first for Imageworks. Yes I fondled the little gold men. Heavy little buggers. We had champagne to drink, sandwiches to eat, and balloons to pop. [John Dykstra], [Scott Stokdyk], [Anthony LaMolinara] and [John Frazier] all picked up an […]

IT’S A WRAP!

It’s a wrap! Ha! See what I did there? It’s a wrap, like gifts or presents at Christmas… and the movie wrapped? Anyone, hello? This stuff isn’t easy, ya know. As of half an hour ago, Saturday October 2nd, 10:30pm, I put my last shot on The Polar Express [LINK] to film. Done. A few […]

Ooompa Loompa Exploitation

The L.A. County Museum had an outdoor screening of Willy Wonka tonight and of course Wonka aficionado George was game for going. It quickly turned ugly when a Oompa Loompa started making the rounds. I actually kinda felt bad for them as this is either one of many Oompa Loompa gigs during the year or […]

Controversial Movies

Spanning the last century, two films are currently causing a ruckus in Los Angeles. One made in 1915 and one to be released this month. The Silent Movie Theater is no stranger to controversy, yet when you drag out the old film school standard of “Birth of a Nation” [LINK] prepare for a fight. I […]

Polar Express Happy Hour

Polar Express is nearing the finish line with some departments wrapping up this week and others (mine) still in the fight. We had a beer swill Friday night with raffles, beer and cake. “Gee Wally, I really hope we get more than a lousy cake when our department finishes.” With the light at the end […]

White Castle Go Home

[VIDEO LINK] When you live in the land of “In-N-Out” burgers the thought of White Castle coming to town is laughable. To help promote the film “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle” the White Castle restaurant chain opened up a temporary store on Sunset Blvd. Just to remind myself how bad the burgers are […]

Ode To The Mariner

The players: Chris, Jill, George and Kevin. We were cruising up Fairfax towards Santa Monica Blvd. when I mentioned I liked the BMW Z8s. There was a grey one directly in front of us which I was refering to. I said it was nice but it was not worth the $170k price tag. Which immediately […]

Marking Your Territory

The train is picking up steam… The Polar Express: Variety states that producer Steve Bing [LINK] has made “one of the boldest moves ever taken by an independent producer” and personally invested $80 million — reportedly half of the film’s production budget — in Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming children’s fantasy film. Adapted from Christian Van Allsburg’s […]

Cinespia Is Back!

In a nod to L.A., the first screening of the summer at Cinespia [LINK] was Chinatown [LINK]. Hadn’t see in it in about 15 years and it was great. I kept thinking of Blade Runner since their film noir styles are almost identical. I went unprepared without an extra blanket or the candles. By the […]

Punky Brewster, Pizza, Elizabeth Shue’s Butt

[ELIZABETH SHUE”S BUTT VIDEO LINK] So, like Anne Marie and I (who I haven’t seen in over 3 years since we shot this photo at the Metreon in San Francisco [LINK] ) went to the Apple Store today amongst other things, and like oh my God Punky Brewster [LINK] was there! Then later that night […]

Six Feet Under = Eighteen Wheel Thunder

Woke up this morning to the sound of trucks and workmen yelling. According to the memo [LINK], “We will be filming in two areas and they are the exterior of the townhouses just south of the Activities Center and then in the meeting room of the Activities Center itself. The approximate hours of filming outside […]

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Saw Eternal Sunshine [LINK] today and it got me to thinking about what I would have erased from my memory. In the film, Kate Winslet [LINK] and Jim Carrey have each other erased from their memories so they can deal with the pain of the relationship. One does it on a whim after a fight, […]