Finito!

It is over! And I'm very happy with the result. There were of course bumps along the way, but my movie has still retained the essence of what I set out to create without any huge sacrifices.

Life is better...those last few pathetic posts are behind me. I've been proactive and taken steps to improve myself, and simply the act of DOING something and not moping helped a bunch too. And everyone involved is still OK. Nobody got hurt.

The weird thing, though, is that I thought I was going to be elated at the screening of my film, but it was much more bittersweet. And more BITTER than sweet, also. I put so much work into my 310, and it is a HUGE relief to have MY film at least be over, but it's sad too. I kind of don't want to say goodbye.

"The Dog Days of Winter" is the last thing I'm guaranteed to direct at USC. It's the last thing I'm guaranteed to direct EVER. So much of the last few years was building UP to directing my 310 project, and now it's all done. I feel I did a great job, and there are definately loads of things to still look forward to, but there isn't necessarily anything tangible I can point to and say "THAT'S what I'm going to do in a couple years." I'm going to try to direct a 480, and I'm going to try to make movies for the rest of my life, but it's all question marks right now.

Anyways, ponderings aside...time to ruminate on movies. I saw "The Departed" and thought it was pretty cool. I've always felt like a bad film student for not liking Scorsese. I didn't like "Taxi Driver," I was bored during "Raging Bull," I thought "Gangs of New York" was a pointless blood bath, I HATED "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"...I did like "The Aviator" quite a bit, but it wasn't a masterwork, just a very good movie.

However "The Departed" rocked. While it's not going to make my favorite movie list or anything, it is certainly at the top of my Scorsese list. Jack Nicholson kicked ass, and the rest of the cast was fantastic also. My appreciation for Leo DiCaprio grows a little more, as he continues to prove he IS an actor and not just a "pretty boy." Matt Damon was solid and I didn't even RECOGNIZE Mark Wahlberg until the last scene. All the side characters kept things lively too. The last twenty minutes were intensely gripping, and the final shot sells the film and the moral (a moral in a Scorsese movie? No way!). PLUS there is a make-out scene to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb," arguably the best make-out song ever. Well done!

I also saw "The Prestige" after hearing both positive and negative things from several people. Personally I enjoyed it a lot, though I still found it flawed. As a Nolan-o-phile, I'd rank "Memento" as his masterpiece, and "Batman Begins" as his rockin' piece of fun. "The Prestige" falls below "Batman" as far as I'm concerned, though it narrowly edges out "Insomnia" which, though well done, was kinda just a rip-off of the Norwegian version, except that it had Al Pachino which always counts for something.

My largest problem with "The Prestige" is that I figured out the twist about halfway through. It kinda was like watching a Shyamalan movie, where you figure out the surprise ending before you're supposed to, and then you're bored. However, I still applaud Nolan because, even though I figured out the twist, I was never bored. The other problem I had was...

SPOILERS!!! DING! DING! DING!!! TURN BACK NOW!!!

...while one half of the mystery (Christian Bale's half) WAS a surprise (even one I figured out), the second half WASN'T. It was real magic. Now THAT'S kinda lame. What is this? Harry Potter? Nolan is one of my favorite directors out there today because everything IS real. It all IS in people's heads. It's about their own personal struggles in a "real" world. Even "Batman" was taken down-to-earth and made believable. The fun of "The Prestige" was ruined for me to a point because Hugh Jackman really did accomplish real magic with the help of Tesla. That's really not all that much fun is it? Maybe if the question was left open in the end as to whether Hugh Jackman accomplished real magic or not, I would have been OK with things, but simply telling us it was real was...a little flat.

However, quickly I gotta say that David Bowie was fantastic. He really enveloped and inhabited his character magnificently. I thought he might come off as a little corny with too much flourish, since he IS David Bowie, but his restrained performance made Tesla all the more mysterious. Didn't know he had it in him.

AND I gotta say that I really wanted to learn magic after this movie was over. I think filmmakers and magicians have similar mentalities to a degree. We both love to shock and amaze our audience, cause them to wonder "how they did that," and surprise them. We do this by presenting something ordinary, twisting it around a bit, and suddenly reveal something to them that they've (hopefully) never experienced.

OK, so maybe that's a weak analogy...who cares? I DO have a bitchin' card trick I can show you...you'll never know how I did it!