Home Dipu Reviews is back in business

Yes, my third-ever blog, Home Dipu Reviews, is back! Okay, it never went away, it just got really, really, really, really, REALLY quiet. So quiet that I'm not sure if anyone besides me noticed that Tom posted a new review back in January. And I kept meaning to post reviews of the few movies I'd seen earlier this year. But for one reason or another, I never got around to it.

So I guess it's fitting that I restart my commitment to reviewing with a mega-review of The Dark Knight, the latest Batman movie. So take some time to visit an old friend you haven't seen in a long time and jog on over to Home Dipu Reviews, why doncha?

I am somebody!!

It's great news that Tom's efforts to get Six Man, Texas entered into IMDb.com have finally paid off. But forgive me for being a bit more excited about another piece of news related to this. Sure, it's great to have Six Man up there at last. But what else does this mean?

I. Am. On. IMDb.com!!

Back in 2000, Tom cast me in a couple of small roles in the sketch comedy film One Eye Peeled. I ended up playing about six different small parts in four different scenes, including a token Hindu in a beef commercial, a drive-thru funeral parlor assistant who played parts as a Hare Krishna and a Catholic altar boy, a customer of the same funeral parlor, a cast member of The Penis Monologues, a clueless bad date that drove a woman to beastiality, and a corporate lackey who gets fired, but not before reluctantly and badly simulating sex in a boardroom meeting with another corporate lackey in front of the company CEO to illustrate a third corporate lackey's idea to sell advertising via hookers.

It made sense, trust me.

I thought for sure this would be my ticket onto IMDb. And with several roles to my credit too, literally. Unfortunately, this film got stuck in post-production hell and was never released by the producer. So, no credit for me or anyone else.

Meanwhile, friends like Anita and Carolyn had gotten IMDb credits for being extras in another independent film, one that was still in production. They were lucky enough to get into the database before IMDb started implementing stricter rules about who qualified to be on the site.

Still, I figured I'm find my way onto the site eventually. There were other film projects; something would stick. But after One Eye Peeled, things didn't get much farther along. Cameron's animated superhero feature Point One ground to a halt during the animation stage; I would've had an assistant director credit there. Tom's documentary The Real Santa, on which I was part of the production crew, didn't get accepted to any film festivals (for reasons I still don't get ... I think it's a good documentary). My own short film projects didn't qualify. So by 2005, when I started helping out on Six Man, the whole IMDb thing seemed so far away.

But now, nearly three years later, Six Man qualified because it screened at a festival. And so, while my credits aren't very exciting, I am now one of the thousands or millions of non-famous people that nevertheless have a page on IMDb! Check it out! Also, if you've seen the film, please leave user comments and help expand the film's IMDb presence. Thanks!

Six Man Premiere: The Pampering

Jumping back to the Six Man, Texas premiere at the AFI Dallas film festival in late March, last noted in this entry...

Our premiere was that Saturday afternoon, with the red carpet event that evening. On Sunday, Tom and I met Alan and Mike at the filmmakers' lounge in the Victory Park building, near where the Dallas Mavericks play. We were to spend the day doing all the press interviews that AFI Dallas had set up. Actually, Alan and Mike were to do that (and you can see one interview here), but Alan had hoped to get me and Tom involved as well. However, they only wanted to interview two people, so Tom and I hung around the lounge for a few hours and got to learn what it was like to be a semi-pampered star.

Well, okay, not really. But we took advantage of the free stuff. One room had nice flat panels with Guitar Hero set up; unfortunately, they closed off that room before we could partake. But there were plenty of munchies, courtesy the festival's biggest sponsor, Target. Can you see their logo here?

Yes, even the Target logos are filled with candy
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Each of those drawers held a different treat, whether red hots, mint chocolate, chips of exotic flavors like Jamaican jerk, power bars, even gummi targets:

Yes, Target made gummi targets
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Of course, all the food was Target's brand Archer Farms. They also had Cokes, bottled water, and bottled iced teas. Okay, not terribly exciting, but it was fun to eat and drink the free stuff while we waited for Alan and Mike.

Then we discovered the pool hall. Well, one table. But it was early enough in the day that Tom and I had it all to ourselves:

Yes, even the pool table was branded by Target
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Yes, I'm going to start each caption with "Yes" even if it's me shooting pool
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Yes, that's the view of the Plaza outside the filmmakers' lounge
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So that was fun for awhile.

But now for some T&A. Because in the Plaza below, there was an Amazon army of shapely plant women:

Yes, plant women!!
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What a view on the other side of that window, eh?
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Are those real?
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So imagine our disappointment when, upon closer examination, we realized these plant women weren't real plants. They weren't made of ivy growing into a carefully controlled shape. The plant women are all plastic plants. The illusion was shattered; the plant women were as plastic as a Hollywood actress. Heh, holly. Anyway...

Six Man Premiere: On the Red Carpet

Okay, this week I'll be blogging a bit belatedly about the Six Man, Texas premiere at the AFI Dallas film festival on March 29.

We didn't know until just a couple of days before the film's premiere that we'd get to take part in a red carpet event. The festival held a number of these red carpet events at numerous theaters throughout the opening weekend. It was a short red carpet, and it didn't lead into the theater, but hey, I'll take it! Our red carpet event was in the evening, and Six Man had already premiered a few hours earlier. So it was a tiny bit odd in that we weren't heading into the premiere from there because our thing was already done. But hey, we still got to walk it!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any celebrities. Someone said Mischa Barton was on the red carpet we had been on, but an hour later, so that's as close as we came to anyone marginally famous. I guess our time on the red carpet was for the documentary group, so ... lots of unknowns. Including, of course, us.

And I was clearly not a professional. When you see a Hollywood star going down a red carpet, they don't usually have 2-3 cameras themselves, busily snapping shots and shooting videos of their fellow carpetgoers and even the phalanx of photographers and reporters. But, shockingly, I had multiple cameras and was happily taking shots of our group and getting shots of me taken on the red carpet. Geek alert, I even snapped one shot on my iPhone so that I could send a "live" shot from the red carpet via email. And I was filming from time to time. And I was even carrying my laptop, because director/producer Alan had hoped to use it for a slideshow presentation right after the red carpet. Turned out I coulda left it at home. Oh well.

And, for the record, I wasn't the only carpetgoer snapping shots from the red carpet. A number of people behind us were brazenly doing so as well.

Our group on the red carpet consisted of Alan, Mike (the editor) and his wife, Tom, some of the guys from the main football team featured in film, and me. Most of the time, we all milled around behind Alan while he was interviewed by various reporters from outlets like AT&T U-verse. Mike finally got to be interviewed halfway through, and Tom got a couple of minutes at the very end of the phalanx. I got to walk the carpet with the group and have my photo taken ... and to return the favor.

Tom and I were the only ones in our group in suits. Tom thought it'd be best to be dressed up, so after the film premiere was over, we rushed to his in-laws' house to change. But we weren't fast enough, and so we missed the first few minutes on the red carpet, as well as one group shot. But we still made the video highlights! (see below).

It seemed at least a few of us felt a kind of childish glee while we were on the red carpet. Certainly, I did. For nearly half an hour, we could pretend we were important and famous. Being in a suit helped that illusion too, so I didn't regret missing the first few minutes.

So, that was my brief experience on the my first-ever red carpet event. But what's that? You want proof I was really there? Okay, here are a couple of stills from the official AFI Dallas Day 3 video highlights. In this first still, Tom, Mike, and I, as well as others from our group, are standing at the back next to the logoed wall on the red carpet as Alan is being interviewed at the railing. Tom and I are in the very back; we're the ones wearing suits. Tom's head is shaved, by the way. I'm the guy in the suit juggling, what else, multiple cameras.

We're on the red carpet!
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Below, that's me in the top right corner heading out of frame with my laptop bag.

Me on the red carpet!
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To see the actual video, click here  and scroll down to the Day 3 highlights, or click here for the direct link.

What's that? This pixelly footage doesn't prove to you that I was really there? Okay, how about these shots:

Our team on the red carpet
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A celebrity's point of view: The view from on the red carpet
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Alan being interviewed by the waiting phalanx of reporters
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Absolute proof of me on the red carpet!
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Uncle Fester? (Yes, that's Tom)
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More stories and photos from Dallas to come later this week!