Shot of the Day #190: Puck o' the world, Ma!

Shot with iphone. Click to enlarge.

Some cool news was announced today...looks like Im hosting and moderating a Q&A with Park-Chan Wook, the visionary director behind SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGANCE & one of my favorite films of late, OLD BOY, at Comic-con! His new film, THIRST, is coming out in a few weeks and Focus Features is putitng on a special advance screening of the movie down in San Diego, and with G4 co-sponsoring it, I was asked to be the MC of sorts. Holy scinikes. Such a wicked honor...but what if the movie...um...."Sucks"?

Thankfully there was a screening tonight, so Luke and I checked it out at the Clarity screening room with some familiar faces (Devin from CHUD and his lovely friend Lind....Collins-my evil Doppleganger, etc) and some new ones (Mali from ucrave.com, who was SUPER cool)...but when I parked, I was instructed to take the only one available...the personal space of one Pizzartiste, Wolfgang Puck. That's right, the guy who created the Goat Cheese pizza. I don't know why, but a little bit of me felt all the more special knowing I was in his space. Walked a little taller all the way into the theater, i did. But will the movie stand tall as well?

Thank god THIRST was pretty fantastic. A clever, almost Cronenbergian take on the Vampire mythos, it kept me rivetted the entire 2 1/2 running time (I hope people at SDCC stay for the whole thing!) and made me realize that shit product like TWILIGHT is good for the vampire genre...it forces real artists to look at the conventions of the mythology and create new visions of the lore, similar to films like NEAR DARK, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN & RED-BLOODED AMERICAN GIRL (a VERY overlooked 80's gem). THIRST was confounding, challenging cinema, and I walked out feeling positive the Q&A will go great.

If you're at Comic-con and need something to do on Friday night, come to the THIRST screening! I can almost guarantee...it wont suck (pun intended). Details coming, but the gist is, the screening is at 9pm in a secret location, but you can pick up free passes at the G4 booth starting Friday at 11am. First come first serve! Hope to see you there!



Joe