'Beautiful...' online!

The award winning short I directed, wrote and produced is now online! 'Beautiful Women Wake Up Early' was shot in 2011, spent 9 months in post production and was selected and screened at the New York International Film Festival- LA edition in 2012. At that film festival it won Best Experimental Short. The screening took place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, Calinfornia.

I'm very proud of this short, the whole cast was a thrill to work with and the crew was excellent and creative, helpful, passionate; with everyone's collaboration the vision in my mind came to fruition.

Below is the link. Enjoy, leave a comment if you like on the page and share with others. Thanks.

https://vimeo.com/122233098

One of the best Directing Debuts in cinema!

I have seen some really impressive film directing debuts and Ridley Scott's 'The Duellists' is no exception. Cinematographer Frank Tidy ('Under Siege', 'Hoodlum') worked with Ridley on many commercials before they shot this stunning historical drama. 'The Duellist' is quite epic as far the scope of years that it covers. The story is based on Joseph Conrad's short story. Ridley says on the excellent commentary on the special edition dvd that the script was 'elegant' and 'sparse'.

I was wondering how can one make a film about two men dueling for a whole film and keep it interesting. Since the film covers many years (early 1800's to late 1800's), you get to see how these two men (played wonderfully by Keith Carradine and Harvey Keital) move up in the ranks and while one becomes more wealthy than the other, you get to see the toll this mancho, competitive combat takes on both men and the cost of it.

Ridley's commentary on the dvd is so informative, so encouraging and rewarding because here is someone who makes some of the biggest films in modern cinema and he's sharing how he carried his first feature along the way in a very professional and proficient way. Ridley operated the camera, they shot it all on location in France and London for 58 days, small crew and they came in on schedule for $900,000. Incredible!

The duel begins over a petty situation which then ends up being forgotten about as the years pass by. The story is about honor and pride.

Sure there are mishaps in the film but that's okay, because in the end it's the story that matters and what it conveys.

One of the best car racing films ever!

In 1971 Steve Mcqueen released his love project 'Le Mans'. Over forty years later I had the great priviledge to watch this incredible film on TCM this month. It's movie that cost his company Solar Productions lots of cash. There were accidents during the making of the film as well as a filmmaker John Sturges pulling out of the project after facing conflicts with Steve Mcqueen on location. Lee Katzin was brought in to finish filming. He was known as tv director (In the Heat of the Night, Miami Vice, Chips).

I would like to had seen this film on a large movie screen with surround sound. But to see it in the comfort in my house has been an incredible experience. The sound in the film is so well crafted as well as the choice of camera angles. There is no dialogue for the first 37 minutes. This film is about car racing. That's really it. It covers the 24 hour car race in france. I learned plenty about the race by watching this film. Steve Mcqueen loved racing in his private life. As a international movie star, car racing kept him grounded. He had to prove himself to those car racers and he did. He was in the top five in some highly competitive car racing events in the past.

The way the whole race is covered from 4pm to 4pm the following day is wonderful. The night footage in the pouring rain is excellent. The whole movie can be intense, especially the car crashing.

This compared to Renny Harlin's 'Driven', Tony Scott's 'Days of Thunder', Sydney Pollack's 'Bobby Deerfield', 'Le Mans', I enjoyed it more than the movies previously mentioned. I love how focus, direct and pure 'Le Mans' is.

The writer of 'Le Mans', Harry Kleiner, is the writer of 'Bullit' which also starred Steve Mcqueen.