Kevin Tostado - The Blog!

Previously posted on YellowLightsMovie.com:
As I write this post, a finished copy of Yellow Lights is on its way to the Sundance Institute’s LA office to be reviewed for possible inclusion in the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, we will not hear back until December if we’re selected, and if we’re not selected, we may not hear anything at all!

So now that the movie is finished, Tom and I are beginning work on the special features for the DVD to be on sale at some point in the future, possibly on this very site! Things we plan to make are a full behind-the-scenes documentary with interviews of all the cast and some of the crew, a deleted scene, blooper reel, and much more to come. I don’t want to give away all of our surprises. We’re also trying to finish up the trailer. Right now, we’re just trying to add some music to it to give it some more character.

Add Yellow Lights as a MySpace friend and help get the buzz going for our movie! The more people are talking about us, the better chance we have of getting into festivals and having Yellow Lights go somewhere! Keep checking the website to find out how things are coming along with the movie as Yellow Lights slowly starts up its festival run.

[tags] Yellow Lights, movie, indie, Hollywood, Sundance [/tags]

In the tons of free time that I have with my new job, I decided to spend my one day off this week by going to the movies. The movies that I went to see today were the infamous Snakes on a Plane and the college comedy Accepted.

I went into Snakes on a Plane (SoaP) knowing full well that the movie was likely going to suck and did not want to give myself false expectations of it being an amazing movie. Well, I can pretty much say that my expectations were exceeded, but only slightly. SoaP does a good job of scaring the shit out of anyone who is afraid of snakes (and perhaps others who just scare easily). Samuel L. Jackson seems definitely at home in the role as it seems he decided to just use his image of being a badass as his motivation in every scene. It does a good job of living up to the hype of being a movie about snakes on a plane, and not much else. I usually rate a movie by whether or not I would buy it when it comes out on DVD (and for those who don’t know me well, I have a ton of DVDs), and I’m kind of on the fence about whether or not I would spend the money to buy it. I mean it was enjoyable, and I definitely had fun hearing Samuel L. Jackson say the already classic line “I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane!”, but for me it didn’t quite live up to all the hype. Similarly, it seems like most moviegoers felt that way as well since SoaP has only pulled in an estimated $15.25 million in its first weekend (to contrast, PotC 2 pulled in a whopping $135 million in its first weekend).

The other movie I saw was Accepted, an Animal House inspired comedy starring Justin Long, the “Mac” guy from the PC vs Mac commercials. I first saw Justin in the tv series Ed where he played a lovable geek/loser, a role which I could identify with. He then had another role in the movie Dodgeball, where he played a similar type of character. At the San Diego Comic-Con, most of the cast were there to promote the movie, but they only got about 5 minutes of stage time. The one plus from Comic-Con was the keg party they threw on the lawn of the San Diego Hilton - Convention Center with a concert, beer, daquiris, BBQ, brownies — all free! That was one hell of a marketing gimmick and it definitely helped spark my interest in this movie.

I also really enjoyed that the premise of the movie involves going to school at a fake college, developing a curriculum, and going to an unaccredited institution. It made me proud to think about how our fake school is now a “new Ivy” after only graduating one class!

So go see Accepted if you get a chance. Little Miss Sunshine is another movie that I saw a few weeks back that has just started to see wide release. Go see that one as well!

[tags] movie, Accepted, Snakes on a Plane, Snakes, Plane, Hollywood, review [/tags]

For the last 4 days, I’ve been volunteering and attending the San Diego Comic-Con. It has been a lot of fun and I’ve gotten to see a lot of cool promos for upcoming movies. The trade show took up the entire bottom floor and apparently walking every aisle is about 3 miles in distance.

On Friday, I went to a Bryan Singer panel where he talked about Superman Returns and the strong possibility of having a sequel made for 2009. He also showed some hilarious bloopers from Superman Returns.

Steve Sansweet gave his annual “State of Star Wars” speech where he announced that the all-CGI Star Wars TV show would hit the networks in 2008 and would be like “nothing you’ve ever seen before”. He also said the live-action show is still being developed and should hit networks “later this decade”.

The best panel of Friday was by far the Snakes On A Plane panel featuring Kenan Thompson & Samuel L. Jackson. They also showed 10 minutes from the movie, which confirmed that the movie will not be by any means a “good movie” but features a hell of a lot of Samuel L Jackson being one bad mother-f***a. They definitely recognized the importance of their fan base in the possible success of this movie by showing a montage of the songs, posters, images, etc that fans have created and posted online. The director also admitted that they were not making a trailer for Snakes On A Plane because they didn’t want to give the whole plot away. You can watch a funny response from the Q&A session by clicking on the pic of Samuel L Jackson below:

On Saturday, I went to a Lost panel in the morning where Jorge Garcia and Daniel Dae Kim (Hurley and Jin on Lost) were there as well as the executive producers. They answered a lot of questions about the future of the show including that they plan to have around 4-5 seasons total for the show, and that Season 3 will focus on relationships as well as getting into more of the science of the island. They also did their best to quash rumors such as the entire show takes place in Vincent the Dog’s brain and that the word “clones” will never be heard in Lost.

Partway through the Lost panel, Rachel Blake from The Lost Experience alternate-reality game grabbed a mic and started accusing the producers of being murderers and hiding the truth about The Hanso Foundation and The Dharma Initiative. I enjoyed this a lot because I’ve been playing along with the online game this summer and getting to be a live part of it definitely makes feel more involved with the show.

Quentin Tarantino got asked if he’d ever make a kid’s movie to which he responded “it’d be like no kids movie you’d ever seen” and that he’d let his kids watch it. Seeing Quentin in person makes me find him even more annoying. I enjoy his flicks, just not hearing him talk.

Kevin Smith was caught in traffic so his panel got bumped to the end of the day and shortened. Although Rosario Dawson did come on stage near the end to answer some questions about Clerks 2 and even called Kevin on her cellphone to have him talk to us through her speakerphone.

Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes came to promote Ghost Rider. I am not too familiar with the comic, but the trailer looked awesome and hopefully the movie will not turnout like Daredevil did (it’s the same director). Cage came out with these big glasses and a few of us thought he might be trashed based on the way he was talking.

For the Spiderman 3 panel, Sam Raimi walked out on stage and then announced he had pretty much the whole cast with him! They answered questions and did their best not to give plot points away, although Kirsten accidentally let slip that Topher as Venom will capture her at some point in the movie. They also played a rough version of a trailer that should hit the theaters during the holiday season that looked amazing! Especially the shot of Venom at the very end as he springs directly at the camera.

Finally, Kevin Smith came on and answered questions about Clerks 2 as well as his plans for other projects. He said he doesn’t plan to sequalize any of his other movies and he also advocated ass-to-mouth for everyone. I saw Clerks 2 on Friday night, and while I enjoyed sequences of it (Star Wars vs LOTR), overall I wasn’t too impressed with the film. When asked if Kevin was planning on doing The Green Hornet, he said he couldn’t make action movies like Bryan Singer can, and if he did make the movie, it’d pretty much just be The Hornet & Kato leaning against a car talking about sex and movies.

If you get the chance to go to Comic Con next year (July 26-29), I’d strongly advise it as you’ll have a lot of fun and get to see a lot of cool promos and celebrities.

For all of my Comic-Con photos, visit my Flickr photoset.

[tags] Comic Con, San Diego, Lost, Clerks 2, Spiderman 3, Kevin Smith, Snakes on a Plane, Samuel Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Bryan Singer, Superman, Ghost Rider, movies, Hollywood [/tags]

So it’s now the middle of July and I still have not yet been able to find a job in film production. It’s not that I haven’t been trying to get one, cause I definitely have. It’s just that it’s been hard to convince people via phone and email that this guy who just graduated from an unknown engineering college is the guy you should be hiring for the position in film production that requires 2-3 years of experience.

I’m definitely getting more open to working in TV again so I can have a paying job, although I know that’s not where I want to end up working. I just think that it may be difficult for me to get out of TV and back into film once I start down that career path.

On another note, Yellow Lights is almost to the point where Tom and I can sit back and say that it’s completely finished. Tom is meeting with Brian and Sean to do some final music work tomorrow, and then we’ll have a day or two left of work and it will be finished! A month from today is the earlybird deadline for Sundance, and we plan to have the film burnt onto a screener DVD and in their hands by August 18th. With the 15-20 festivals that we plan on submitting to, we need to save costs wherever possible, so submitting early will definitely help.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be volunteering at the San Diego Comic-Con. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s the largest convention in San Diego with 100k attendees and showcases everything from comic books to Hollywood movies to Japanese animation. I’m looking forward to the panels showcasing upcoming movies and tv shows including: Kevin Smith’s panel (always entertaining), a Lost panel with the executive producers and the actors who play Hurley and Jin, a 20th Century Fox sneak peek at upcoming movie releases in late 2006 and 2007, and a bunch more.

I decided to dig up some short clips that I shot at the 2003 Comic-Con of Halle Berry blowing me a kiss & Hugh Jackman singing both parts of Summer Lovin’ from Grease. Enjoy!

[tags] Yellow Lights, San Diego, Comic-Con, Comic Con, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman [/tags]

A new trailer for The Da Vinci Code has surfaced. Check it out here.

All of you non-senior Oliners, if you weren’t planning on sticking around after Expo, you’ll be missing out on the SAC movie kickout to see The Da Vinci Code on May 19th. Don’t miss it as it looks to be great!

Graduation on the 21st could also be a good reason to stick around…

[tags] Da Vinci Code, movie [/tags]

“Paramount Pictures is to make King Tut a pitch from scribe Neil Crawford, according to Variety.

Story is described as an action-adventure/romance pic, loosely based on Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s treasures in 1922 Egypt.” - From KillerMovies

This type of movie is definitely right up my alley. I’d love for this to have the feel of the Mummy yet stay historically accurate. I think if I ever make it big in Hollywood, I’ll someday make an archaeology/Egypt movie. That would be awesome…

[tags] Egypt, movie, King Tut, Paramount, pyramids, Hollywood [/tags]

I just watched a trailer for a movie coming out sometime next year called 5-25-77. The title is referring to the day that Star Wars was first released into theaters. And I think this is one of the funniest trailers that I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe it’s the fact that I used to be such a Star Wars geek, but hey it looks like this movie could rock.

I found the website for the movie at 5-25-77.com, but it’s pretty sparse and only has a bunch of pictures from the movie. Apparently, a short version of this movie was shown at the Houston Film Festival and got some pretty good reviews.
I know I’m looking forward to this coming out…whenever it gets released.

First of all, props to Kevin’s team, the San Diego Padres, for owning the Braves in extra innings, with a grand slam in the top of the 13th. Final score 7-2 Padres. Also, good job Red Sox, winning against the Angels in 10 last night.

Second, I went out last night to see The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It was hilarious. The problem is that they stole several of my ideas. First of all, the first few shots in the opening sequence closely resemble those from Bay State. Specifically, the alarm clock shot. Let the record show that our script used this introduction long before this movie was released.

There were also two more important (and slightly embarassing) things that had a striking resemblance to my life. First, in the scene where the main character/virgin, Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell), goes to a sushi bar on a date, he is wearing the EXACT shirt that I wore to the film. It is a light blue plaid button-down shirt from Old Navy. My date found this quite amusing.

Second, Andy mentions that he plays online poker for a few hours a night, “when he isn’t playing Halo.” I know what they’re trying to imply, and all I can say is this - Halo is not a loser’s passtime. While many losers do play Halo, the seemingly logical conclusion that they ask viewers to draw (Halo players are losers) is ridiculous. Even worse, we later see a paused screen of Halo 2 on Andy’s television while a scene is going on. Yet Andy had clearly said that he played Halo. Halo and Halo 2 are completely different. Yes, Halo 2 is the sequel to Halo. However, the gameplay and storyline of the second game pale in comparison to those of the first. Any real gamer would never refer to the two games interchangeably. So Andy Stitzer, supposedly characterized as a real gamer, is clearly shown here to be a fraud. I find it more likely that he is, in fact, a serial killer, as is suggested earlier in the film by Cal (Seth Rogen). This darker side of Andy’s character will most likely be revealed in the inevitable sequel.

Just for the record, I actually have played less than 15 hours of Halo and Halo 2 combined all summer. Despite these glaring errors and stolen ideas, the movie is excellent - hilarious, and surprisingly morally wholesome.

Now, I’m off to sort through the 40 one-hour MiniDV tapes of potential B Roll footage for the short video piece I’m working on for Olin College. I would strongly recommend checking out The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Over and out.