If you saw The Animal, A Knight’s Tale, or Hollow Man you deserve to get recompensation for the hours of your life wasted. According to this BBC article, and a host of other news sources, Sony just settled a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit because they invented movie critic David Manning of the Ridgefield Press to give enthusiastic quotes to crappy movie posters.

So head over to the settlement page and get your measly $5 back. But c’mon, really … The Animal is "another winner!"?  Heath Ledger
is "this year’s hottest new star!"? Were any of you really fooled 
by this? They admit no liability and scream "free speech," which seems
more and more like the battle cry of the desperate these days.

More
unsettling — but no less believable — is that, as part of the same
lawsuit, Sony also admitted that they used actors to portray actual
moviegoers on their TV ads for The Patriot.
You know those ads, which look like they are interviewing Joe and Judy
Schmoe as they walk out of the theater? Clever marketing — hey, even I
was fooled by that one — but they aren’t the only studio doing it.

But
we all know they don’t need to stoop to such levels anyway. There’s no
shortage of critics willing to sing the praises of every film they see.
And there’s never been any shame for the studios to splash the most
obscure quotes from the most obscure critics in big, bold letters
across their ads. Usually, the hype is inversely proportional to the
quality of the offering. 

And here’s another bit of strange news: Iron Mike Tyson has retired from boxing and wife beating to star in porn movies. When you’re hard-up for cash, you gotta sink low. And we know from court testimony that he apparently has a lot to offer.

Regarding
Iron Mike’s upcoming feature with Jenna Jameson, David Manning of the
Ridgefield Press recently said, "I give it two thumbs up!"

Matt’s film, “Trickery of Travelers”:http://www.mankindpictures.com/trickeryoftravelers.html , will be screened at the “Portobello Film Festival”:http://www.portobellofilmfestival.com in London. Congratulations, Matt! Be sure to check it out!

Trickery of Travelers was shot in Super 8mm. While you’re on his website, be sure to check out Matt’s other projects.

So we’ve just moved into our new house. It’s been a really, really long weekend. My parents and sister’s boyfriend spent all day Saturday packing up all our stuff in the rental truck. We didn’t imagine it would take so long. We were dreading many hours on Sunday unloading, but some friends showed up and we got it completely unloaded in 20 minutes. Now, if only the boxes would unpack themselves as fast…

Needless to say, we’ve been tiring ourselves out these last few days. The great thing is that I’ll have a whole office to myself, and I plan to custom-build a desk center to house my entire editing suite. It should really boost productivity, and the surroundings will be much more inspiring with three windows in the room.

On a sad note, “Silent Page”:http://www.silentpage.com is calling it quits. They play their last show on July 22nd at the Ten Mile House in St. Louis. If you’re in the area, do go out and catch your last opportunity to hear this terrific band play. We’ve been working with them and featured their music in two of our movies, with terrific success. It’s apparently become too hard to keep the band together now that the guitarist is moving on.

Anyway, I have a feeling our money and time are going to be spent getting a few home essentials out of the way. On the list are:

1. New carpet for the living room and hallway
2. Taking care of a minor mold situation in three closets
3. Painting the walls and trim in the living room
4. Fixing a small leak in the tub.
5. Sealing the garage floor to kill the dog smell.

Yeah, there are a few things to do besides unpack.