So, I’m back in my old stomping grounds here in the Village. To quote Dorothy Gail once more, “There’s no place like home.” From the instant our plane descended to JFK I felt that old familiar energy. NYC will always be a part of me.
I’m staying with a new fest friend, Ian Fischer whom I met at Dragon*Con a few months back. He’s got a fab place not far from where I used to live back in the day. Opening night was fun. I dined with Frank Reynolds whom I met in line for Psycho Beach Party at Sundance back in 2000 when he had a film and I had a winning screenplay at Slamdance. Then we joined Ian at the opening night party where we met up with our fellow Dragon*Con alum, Voltaire. Films were screened, live music was played, and cocktails were consumed – no complaints here.
The following day was super fun. Ian’s doing a documentary about superheroes and I went out on his shoot with comics artist/writer Phil Jimenez. We wound up having a fabulously intellectual discussion about the nature of heroes, the horror genre, comics and life and philosophy in general. After we dined on authentic New York pizza which made me happy.
Thursday night was the first night of screenings. Unfortunately, a misprint in the program resulted in our missing the first few shorts, but we caught the last half of Edge, a fun S&M bedroom caper with a twist ending directed by new friend Ryan Blake George who was just hanging with my buddy JT Seaton at a fest in Florida. We also saw Resurrection of Officer Rollins which was outrageously funny. Directed by Nathan Cox, who turns out to be a neighbor from Hollywood – a fellow zombie filmmaking enthusiast – yay! 
The feature was “Must Love Death” which has been getting good buzz. I can see why. It’s certainly original – a torture porn romantic comedy. It has almost a Russ Meyer/John Waters feel at the opening, then sort of jumped all over the place. 
Definitely some of the most visceral gore I’ve seen in a while (and that says a lot.) Even sound FX of bones cracking had me flinching it was set up so disturbingly. If you’re into torture porn, this might be your thing. I found the comedy only added to the mean-spiritedness of a genre that isn’t my favorite, but kudos to the filmmakers for adding some new twists. I suspect this will do well with the right audience.
At the after party, this guy who looked incredibly familiar looked at me with eyes wide, “OMG, I know you!” We pieced it together fairly rapidly. The fellow in question was David Karges who had been my fest buddy at the Ohio Independent Film Festival like 5 years ago. No way! We had stayed in touch for a while then, as was apt to happen back in those pre-Facebook days, managed to lose track of one another. He’s since graduated from film school, has moved to New York and is shooting his first feature. We had a blast catching up and rediscovering our kindred spirits (both love Inside, both didn’t understand the fuss about Paranormal Activity, both are loyal devotees of Ketel One Vodka etc.)
Tonight Death in Charge screens though I was disappointed to find our block plays opposite Revenant which I’ve been eager to see. We opened for them at the Maelstrom Fantastic Fest in Seattle and it sounds like my kind of movie. This time we’re opening for a film called Sweatshop which also looks promising though (and is directed by a female!) In the meantime, I hope to grab a authentic NYC Reuben at 2nd Avenue Deli which is no longer on 2nd Avenue apparently, and distribute some trippin’ postcards at head shops, record stores and so forth. If schedules pan out I will see filmmaker and FX artist Jane Rose and my old boss from MTV and longtime friend Jason Strominger who’s making his own features these days.