Where am I and what am I doing?
You may have noticed a certain amount of inactivity around this blog and the various Stomp Tokyo properties as of late. Heck, the main Stomp Tokyo review site is positively languishing. That doesn't mean I've been out of the film world entirely - far from it. Here's a quick narcistic rundown on what's going on with me and what keeps me from writing more often.» Bside Entertainment - Film distributor and purveyor of fine web site technologies to film festivals, Bside is expanding its family of supported festivals this Fall. Festivals for which we'll be providing the community sites include: the Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival, the Haydenfilms Online Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, and the San Diego International Film Festival. If you'll be attending any of those, please sign up for a Bside account and contribute ratings and reviews of the films you see. Anyone can participate in the Haydenfilms Online Film Festival, which starts on August 30th.
Bside is also distributing fine films like Before the Music Dies and The Outdoorsmen. More on those as screenings develop.
» The Austin Film Festival - last year I was a volunteer and this year I'm on staff as their Marketing Coordinator. When I'm not working with the festivals around the country with Bside, this local festival keeps me pretty busy, either doing the marketing work or watching screeners for the film competition. It can be exhausting but I love doing it. This year's Festival (October 19-26 in Austin TX) is going to be amazing - I've seen some fabulous films already just by screening, and I don't think I've seen more than a small fraction of the great films that end up actually playing the event. If you live in Austin you can't get a better deal than to pick up a film pass for a measly 35 bucks. And yeah, I'm the marketing guy but I really do mean it.
» There's a baby on the way. 'Nuff said.
» I do occasionally get some cult film-related stuff done - Film Buff Stuff gets the odd entry now and again, and we've been squeezing out new episodes of Stomp Tokyo: The Cult Movies Podcast about once a month. I've been attending Weird Wednesday at the Alamo Drafthouse pretty regularly, though tonight I'm missing out on Pinball Summer to catch up on some sleep and write this post. I did of course go to the premiere of Snakes on a Plane and it was 100% awesome - right down to the live snake show and the plastic snakes in the popcorn.
» What's up for the future? Well, you can expect to read more about the Austin Film Festival and the films in it, though probably on the official AFF blog rather than here. If I feel like reviewing something, though, it would probably be more appropriate to post it here. In November (after AFF) you'll probably see more from Stomp Tokyo - Scott and I have some new things in the works that we're looking forward to sharing with you.
» I'm going to try to be more diligent about posting here as I watch things, but at present I haven't seen much that really seems relevant - Snakes on a Plane, of course, though everyone on the web is writing about that. AFF screeners I can't write about. Christina and I have been enjoying back seasons of Alias on DVD but that's, like, soooo 2002. I did finally get Negadon: Monster from Mars from Netflix. (We begged for an advance screener from the distributor, but I guess not everyone has tuned into the church of Stomp Tokyo yet.) Maybe that's next.
Thank you, 
Bruno Kirby was one of my favorite character actors. He played mobsters, best friends, and assholes with aplomb – sometimes all three at the same time. I'll miss him.
