Airplane Bloggin’: Desert Sunrise Edition

We did the North American premiere of My Brother last nite, in our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. with Special Olympics National and chapters from all around the world. It was a great experience, having a room full of people for whom this is such an important movie – not only those with intellectual disabilities but others in their lives who are inspired by what these athletes do, by their bravery. We got quite the round of applause from this admittedly stacked audience that even included Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics, and her husband Sargent Shriver. They offered to throw a part for the movie at their place in the next few weeks. Even if it doesn’t happen, it was nice to get the offer. I ended up hosting the Q&A with Tony (the director), Vanessa, and the rest of the cast, which was interesting to do in front of a pretty packed house. I still got it.

Whatever that is, I have no idea.

The past few days have been super stressful – number of things going on, including switching to a new publicity team for My Brother, for the final pitch (the team that did Dreamgirls). This was problematic because of the publicist with whom we’d been working for so long, and who has done a bunch for the movie without being paid – but it was jointly decided that we needed new blood for the final push to have Vanessa on talk shows before the movie opens. A lot of nasty language was back and forth after the announcement to our old team, and I took the high road on most of it. (I know, hard to believe).

Also been trying to move forward on Slaughter, and though we’ve had a few road bumps, I think we’re basically OK and headed in the right direction. Bobby and Nathan sent over a treatment with some great new improvements, and I am thrilled to see it coming along.

After the late nite in DC with the premiere, we had a seven fifteen flight direct to Phoenix from Baltimore, which turned about to be farther enough from where we were in DC so that we could just miss our direct flight. The airline accommodatingly booked us on another airline, not direct but without any extra charge. We landed in Denver a couple of hours ago, had a bit of lunch, I answered email and phone, and now we’re twenty minutes into the way to Phoenix. Once we hit Phoenix, we’ll be renting a car and driving to the desert, to Sedona, a small but very well sponsored film festival. I am excited to be going, relaxing, etc. They do room and board, so I don’t even have to split a room. And we have a print of the movie. What I mean by that is that we have the film as a movie on reels, not as a DVD or tape. Now admittedly, it’s a test print, and has a flew glitches, and the timing (color grades) are a bit off, with the whites being too bright, and the darks too dark, but it looks so much better than showing a DVD. If you’ve never seen one, the movie reels (six reels, at 20 minutes each, the last two reels of My Brother being short), the reels are heavy and carried around in these metal cans that protect the film from being damaged. And they weigh a shitload, but at least you can check them with the rest of the baggage- the cans are pretty sturdy.
And that’s where we are – up in the air, 30,000 feet up, its sixty degrees in Phoenix now, and we’ll have to get the movie up to the projectionist for the festival by about seven so it can be assembled for viewing. We have a screening today and another on Friday, and it will be cool to be at a festival with the print, a festival where everyone does their own thing while out there.

Its been really busy, and Im doing regular 14 hour days, so though there is a lot to talk about, I just haven’t had time to write much. Except on the plane trips, where I have a moment to reflect and complain.

Doing the redeye back to NYC on Saturday nite, and then have a friend coming to visit NYC for six days or so. She gets in Sunday afternoon, and I get in at 6AM. Either I am gonna be really tired, or the apt. is gonna be a mess. Either way, we’ll deal.

She actually set up a premiere for My Brother in Kansas City MO, with huge press coverage, that will take place while she in in NY. Sounds like its going to be great. It’s the second movie Fox4 (the television station promoting it) is doing in this series, the first was the Terence Howard movie, Pride, that opens in March as well. I think we’ll be booking Kansas City as a result of this screening, because Fox is doing 6o radio spots and 20 TV spots to cover it.

Well, I am about of current news, since I don’t blog on my sex life anymore. If I eat any peyote in the desert….Oh wait, forgot to mention, I am a seriously nervous flyer. A friend gave me two Xanax for the flight and wow-eee, do those work. I slept 75 percent of the way to Denver and I am still totally non-plussed by the bumpy ride. Pretty awesome stuff, and given the travel schedule,, back to NY, then Houston, back to NYC, then Houston, and then Florida (I think), it might make sense to get a hold of some of this stuff. I don’t even feel stressed out, even though I should be,.

Phoenix is 60 plus and sunny. Hope you’re keepin’ warm.