Petty Official

S&Man (sandman) page live at UnionDocs

2009-11-23T10:11:00.004-05:00

The S&MAN page is live at UnionDocs if you want to pre-order tickets.

And I noticed the comments about where to purchase/see the movie if you're not in NY this weekend. Until it gets a commercial release ("soon," my distributor has been promising for two years), I'm instituting a barter policy. Email me (jt at softfordigging dot com) for my PO Box and send me something good, I'll send you a DVD back. Some things I'm lacking:

- a DVD of Hal Ashby's "8 Million Ways to Die."

- a collection of Enrique Metinides' photography.

- lunch with Gene Wilder

Or whatever, I'm not picky. Hope to see some good people this Sunday.

Vanity Fair

2009-11-11T16:11:00.000-05:00

Nice mention of S&Man (sandman) over at Vanity Fair today--

"I find it hard to believe that Hollywood always identifies and promotes the highest-quality work. The best scary movie I’ve seen this year, for instance, J. T. Petty’sS&Man (2006), has never received a wide release and remains nearly impossible to find in video or on the big screen. "

S&MAN (sandman) screening in Brooklyn

2009-11-05T14:28:00.001-05:00

UnionDocs is going to be screening S&MAN (Sandman) on Sunday, November 29th in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I'm going to be there, along with Erik and Bill Zebub, which should make for the kind of post-screening Q&A we'd tell our grandchildren about if not for consideration of their healthy upbringing. Save the date and use this as an excuse to skip out early from your Thanksgiving filial obligations. The venue's small and will likely sell out, so get your tickets early online. The info:

S&MAN screening

Sunday, November 29th, 7:30pm

UnionDocs

322 Union Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11211

http://www.uniondocs.org/

Kids love movies

2009-10-28T10:01:00.003-04:00

One of the most overused horror movie cliches of the last nine years is the fact that everything happens in that 4% of America not covered by cell phone service.

Part of my pitch for a FACES OF DEATH remake was always the idea that this device was completely unnecessary. If you've got a group of teens with cell phones when something horrible and violent is happening, they're not going to call for help, they'll use their phones to shoot video of it. Here's a fun little Chris Ware animation of a This American Life segment that illustrates the idea really well:

Audrey's Door Trailer

2009-09-25T22:28:00.003-04:00

Over at Fearnet you can see a trailer I made for my wife Sarah's new book, AUDREY'S DOOR. Official release date is September 29th, but it's already showing up in bookstores. They've got the trailer exclusive for a few days, then I'll embed a version here.

The music in the trailer is On Fillmore, same guys who helped me out for S&MAN and BLOOD RED EARTH. It was shot by Jeremy Saulnier, the director of the brutal and hilarious MURDER PARTY. It was edited and special effected by Chris Connolly, who did the same for BLOOD RED EARTH.

Take a look, hope you love it.

Pen Parentis Reading

2009-09-15T10:32:00.003-04:00

Me and the wife'll be taking part in the Pen Parentis reading series in a few weeks. It's an ongoing series of readings by New York authors with children; I believe Sarah and I will be the first couple doing a reading together, (probably an indication of the questionable wisdom of two writers under one roof.) The details:

October 13th, 2009

6pm-8pm

at The Libertine

(inside the Gild Hall Hotel, 15 Gold Street, NYC)

I'll try to find something to read suitably scarring to any Clemency Pogue readers out past their bedtimes.

This week in science

2009-09-10T10:09:00.003-04:00

Scientists levitate a mouse with a magnetic field.

A quantum computer chip actually succeeds in computing something. (3rd grade math is admittedly less awesome than levitation, but this'll be big someday.)

And the blessing/curse of Google alerts revealed the existence of the Weird West Emporium, who seem to be exactly the audience I made Burrowers for.

Old Familiar Tunes

2009-08-29T09:09:00.003-04:00

Found that Roberto Bolaño quote I mentioned a few posts back. I was nudged into sniffing it out by finally reading Kirkman's THE WALKING DEAD comics. The books are universally loved both critically and popularly, and I'm enjoying the read, the characters are interesting and the artwork is great. But so far they're just playing the old tunes we all know really well. Seems like audiences, and maybe genre audiences especially, want the comfort of stories that hit all the dependable beats.

Shouldn't the whole point of horror and science fiction be surprise? You go back to Lovecraft or Poe, you've got guys remarkably good at making you wonder what happens next, and then revealing a complete fuck-you of an answer that still fits the logic of the story perfectly. Nobody in 1841 saw an orangutan with a straight razor coming. Though genre audiences these days are all so well-informed, it's hard to come up with a decent surprise. But that doesn't excuse not trying.

Here's that quote, from 2666. It's Amalfitano disappointed that even enthusiastic readers these days "...are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze a path into the unkown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wound and stench."

And the word "imperfect" is important there. Moby Dick is such a flailing mess of a book, and thank god.

Shabbos Goys for the Born Again

2009-08-28T16:15:00.003-04:00

Found this in my mailbox from Bob. Can't tell if its' a scam, a joke, or an honest-to-dog service, though I imagine Epictetus would say it doesn't matter, and am sure they'd take your money if offered.

It's Eternal Earthbound Pets. A nationwide group of concerned atheists who, for a fee, will care for pets left behind in the Rapture. Does make me think about how interesting a world suddenly devoid of the devout would be.

Loofah

2009-08-27T10:20:00.002-04:00

So two things kept me from blogging for a while. First and most importantly, I'm trying to be good dad, working writer, and passable husband. All of which take up a bunch of time. Secondly, I'm always struck by the anxiety of whether or not a blog post is good enough to warrant pushing the prior post down the page. And there's not much better than big-balled Japanese raccoon dogs.

Been in a fairly heavy research phase, thinking about Augmented Reality and Darren Brown, which lead me by a roundabout path to the wikipedia page on Loofah Gourds. The picture below is a cross-section of a Loofah, magnified 100 times. Kinda beautiful and scary, right?

Tanuki Battle Technique

2009-07-20T08:36:00.002-04:00

I'm kicking around a story idea that involves Japanese trickster mythology, reading up on kitsune stories, and came across the Tanuki. Gotta be my new favorite animal, they're a sort of wild raccoon dog with all sorts of luck attributes, like big eyes to represent watchfulness, or a big belly to represent an ability for bold decisions. But their chief attribute, as the 1881 woodblock print below illustrates, is a representation of their financial luck, being their huge testicles.

The tanuki's theme song translates to something along the lines of "My balls are so big, they swing even when there is no wind," and is sung to the tune of "Shall We Gather at the River," probably undermining the John Ford cannon more than the opening Wild Bunch massacre could ever hope to. You can hear a version of it in the video below, which also demonstrates the possibilities of weaponized raccoon-dog testes.

THE SNAKEHEAD by Patrick Radden Keefe

2009-07-16T07:33:00.002-04:00

My friend and sometime co-conspirator Patrick Radden Keefe has a book coming out from Random House in about a week called The Snakehead. I helped him shoot a little trailer for the book, imbedded below. More info at the book's official site.

Thank you, Janice!

2009-07-16T07:31:00.002-04:00

I've lost your email address in my last near-computer-meltdown. But thank you, they're awesome and terrifying. The restraining order is being processed.

NYAFF Winner

2009-07-07T16:12:00.002-04:00

The New York Asian Film Festival wound up this past weekend; I was on the jury, along with journalists Alison Willmore and Glenn Kenny, producer Karin Chien, and Sony Pictures Classics exec Matt Harvey. It was a surprisingly lively debate, but I'm real happy with what we ended up with.

Love Exposure won the top prize. My argument for it was cribbed from some part of 2666 that I couldn't find again in a recent skimming. But the gist of it (I think Amalfitano says it) is about how great works need to be overambitious, drastically imperfect, flailing around in unmapped territories. As in Moby Dick is a great work where Billy Budd is not, because Moby Dick is a story too big for Melville to control. You get a great work when a master engages in open combat, not just sparring to keep his knives sharp. I'll try to find the exact quote at some point. But I think that describes Love Exposure pretty well. It sprawls and flails and has about 160 minutes of brilliance and real pleasure in its 240-minute running time. Real interesting movie to come from the same guy who made one of my favorites, Suicide Circle, one I still name as a movie that's incredibly frightening without necessarily being scary.

You can see all the awards we dolled out here. Fish Story was as much fun as I had watching a movie at NYAFF. Crush and Blush was the biggest surprise.

In other news, the family rabbit ripped the steel kick-plate out from under our dishwasher and chewed a hole in the drain line. Anybody know any good rabbit recipes?

possible meltdown

2009-06-25T14:49:00.002-04:00

Fun bit first-- I just signed a giant stack of the three Clemency Pogue books over at Books of Wonder in Manhattan. Mildly obscene commentary added to every third signature! Go get some clempog at Books of Wonder.

The more frightening part-- Got within a few pages of finishing a script a few minutes ago and my computer felt like it was overheating. Tried to pull the power supply out and discovered that it was fused to the machine. Am now frantically backing up, blogging so that I have something to do while files transfer.

Black Dog Runs at Night

2009-06-22T21:33:00.002-04:00

Pretty much anything that comes from Canada I think of as something from the country that created The Big Snit. And those Canadian tax dollars do seem to support some amazing animated shorts.

This is The Black Dog's Progress, by Stephen Irwin. Some observations:
- All questions left dangling by "Fire Walk With Me" are in this answered.
- When in doubt, have a character vomit blood.
- If not answers to "FWWM," it at least expands nicely on the credit montage of "The Hangover."

Petty Pretty Horses

2009-06-19T11:16:00.002-04:00

To follow up yesterday's post, here was another option for the music over the closing credits of Burrowers. In the temp score, we were using Tom Waits' "Green Grass," (and really, what artfag film geek who came up in the 80's doesn't want to end their movie with a Tom Waits song?) I told my cowboy Carolina crooner uncle Dave that I was thinking about finding somebody to record a version of "All the Pretty Little Horses," and he responded with this.

And yeah, I blurred the expletive from the post-it on the CD he sent because, you know, kids read this site.

All the Pretty Little Horses

2009-06-18T09:51:00.002-04:00

I've had a few requests for the song that plays as the credit crawl starts on The Burrowers, (and need some new posts quickish to push that mildly embarrassing "my rabbit is cute" video into the archives). The song is traditional, called "All the Pretty Little Horses," performed by Glaswegian troubadour Grant Campbell. I met him in a pub in Glasgow on my way to Up Helly Aa. From looking at him, you wouldn't think he's the result of putting Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits together through Seth Brundle's transport machine. But I'll be damned if he's not. Here's a link to All the Pretty Little Horses.

And, extra credit-- I know Grant's looking for a music-video type edit of footage from the movie to the song. Anybody wants to rip a DVD, cut a Pretty Horses montage, and post it online, I'll send them a DVD of S&Man.

Lorraine Operating Procedure

2009-06-17T10:25:00.003-04:00

I don't really have a good explanation for this one, outside of figuring out the Zack Snyder cheapshot effect on my new camera and trying to maintain my position as the #5 slow-motion lop photographer on the web.

Burrowers at Flyover Film Festival

2009-06-10T18:39:00.002-04:00

The Burrowers is playing in Louisville this weekend at the first annual Flyover Film Festival , co-founded by Kentucky native and Burrowers cast member William Mapother (Google Alert shoutout to Mr. Mapother). Who you can find blogging here if you want to find out why he takes the controversial stance of supporting elder abuse. I think. I just kinda skimmed it.

And I know, I know, The Burrowers is already out on DVD, you could half-watch it on your iPhone while completing a sodoku and literally flying over Louisville. But Flyover has a 35mm print, and it's a goddamn Western, it wants seeing on a big screen.

Even if you have an awesome video set-up in your basement, watching a Western on DVD is like kissing the skinny little sister of the girl you're actually interested in.

So go kiss the girl you really like! It screens this Saturday, June 13th at 9pm. Buy tickets here! I'll be there on Saturday for the screening.

Fangoria NY 2009

2009-06-08T10:01:00.002-04:00

I stopped in at the goth nerd fandango at the Javitz Center on Saturday to check in with some old S&Man friends and the Glass Eye Pix folks. And ran into Janice, who had made her own Burrowers T-Shirt!

Well done! I think Janice may have now matched / overtaken the marketing efforts of Lionsgate for the movie. I was of course there to show my support of peanut butter and chocolate.

Burrowers Concept Art

2009-06-07T08:55:00.002-04:00

Jerard Marantz, who Almost Human brought in to do some concept sketches while we were designing the creature, just posted those sketches up at his blog. It's great work, really got us from mostly there to where we wanted to be.

The archives are shallow, but well worth checking out, especially March's post "Class Demo." There's a demon in there with asymmetrical legs that needs to be moving on a screen.

RSS up and running

2009-06-06T09:38:00.002-04:00

Thanks to some advice from my brother-from-another-mother / brother-because-he-keeps-getting-my-sister-pregnant David Brunton, I've managed to unfuck my RSS feed. Which should make my frequent two-month gaps in blogging less annoying.

Also got my favorite review of Burrowers, forwarded by my friend Mike. He was in San Salvador and a street vendor sold him a pirated disc for something less than a buck with the pitch, "Esta fue buenisima. Mejor que Appaloosa."

Burrowers 87: Brood X

2009-06-03T19:58:00.002-04:00

Wikimedia released their pictures of the year, and yes, horses and fire are beautiful (but don't expect either of them to hit their mark on a film set). Down the list, though, they have a prizewinning animated gif of a molting cicada that's kind of pretty to look at.

I've cited cicadas a few times as reference for the creatures' feeding cycle in The Burrowers, (where the creatures come above ground once every three generations, instead once every 17 years). I was either 9 or 10 years old when I first saw the Great Eastern Brood (AKA the more tabloid friendly "Brood X"), and remember being shocked that there could be something in real life that was not only so much like science fiction, but so much like cheesy science fiction from the 50's. Giant insects that carpet the streets so thoroughly that riding your bike constantly sounds like eating Rice Krispies? Insects so numerous that if you stand still, you can hear the sound of a million tiny legs climbing a hundred trees? Seems like the only explanation for either case would need to come from radiation or Charlton Heston.

NYAFF Trailer

2009-06-02T20:00:00.002-04:00

I'm on the jury of the New York Asian Film Festival this year, and they just posted the trailer to YouTube. Check out the crazy:

Spending time as an American genre movie maker, it gets hard not to see these as Premakes; you almost have to consciously not imagine the watered down Sarah Michelle Geller future version of the movie you're watching, which is kind of like trying not to imagine the Staypuff Marshmallow Man. Why in god's name did they let me on the jury?