Trailer for House of Hugs Productions pre 2008 Films

Finally, I completed a trailer for my first "official" films. This has clips from LIKE HIS FATHER, JIMMY'S HOUSE OF HUGS, SALLY'S DREAM HOUSE, EDDIE'S WINNING DATE, HAPPY AT HOME and I JUST WANT TO EAT MY SANDWICH. There are even a few brief clips from EDDIE'S and SANDWICH that were not in the original films.

Since there's only so much you can show in a trailer for a short film without giving the whole film away, I made this more of a musical trailer.
I hope you enjoy it.

Marblehead & More

I Just Want to Eat My Sandwich went the whole month of January without a screening. This was the first month since its release in July that it did not have a festival.

Now is catch up time. This past Wednesday, Sandwich screened at the Marblehead Winter Film Festival. On Friday night, it played right before the feature presentation at the Magnolia Independent Film Festival in Starkville, MS. Sandwich also has several more screenings coming up in the next 3 weekends, at the Macon Film & Video Festival in Macon, GA next week, the Lake County Film Festival in Graysville, IL on the weekend of March 1st, and then, a week later, at the All American Film Festival in Durham, NC.

I attended the Marblehead Winter Film Festival last Wednesday night, as it is in driving distance. (Though I didn't drive -- Dad did.) It was nice to see Mike Evers again, as well as the other festival folk. The audience was just as warm and supportive as they were last year, though, due to the weather, the number of people attending were significantly fewer.

Let me pause before continuing on to thank the people at the Marblehead Festival of the Arts for selecting I Just Want to Eat My Sandwich to be screened at your event. It's always a pleasure, and thank you, also, to those of you who attended!

I could not make it down to Mississippi this year for Magnolia and I can't attend any of the other festivals. I'm quite disappointed by this. I really wanted to check out Macon and get to see my cousins in North Carolina. But, the choice is attending the festivals or paying March and April's rent.

I'm so freakin' responsible...

OK, I'm in quite a funk this year so far as money has been very tight, that last Super Bowl, and my unreasonable (to say the least) former landlord threatened to sue me for "slender and defamation" (yup, that's right, "slender") for a truthful post I made on this blog 16 months ago. (I took it down since I didn't have the money or time to fight a suit that I would have won but it took a while for Google to get rid of the cached page, so he didn't leave us alone quickly enough.) And if that landlord is reading this -- your name isn't here -- you can't sue me for this! (Just get on with your life and be a better person, please.)

Also, this present Mercury in Retrograde has been tough. My mind has been more overwhelmed and frazzled than usual. Plus, I'm quite sick of my undiagnosed vision problem remaining undiagnosed.

This is the last day of Mercury retrograde -- which is the toughest. It will probably take a week for things to really pick up pace again. I'm just looking forward to some better times. And it at least is already starting with this crop of festivals screening Sandwich. To those festivals, I thank whole-heartedly for considering my film to be of entertainment value to your community.

:-)

Happy 40th, Rose!!!

Rose (aka Rosie & Rosemarie) and I have been close friends for over 30-frickin' years... We first met in the first grade but we didn't really play together until fourth grade. I remember first inviting her to my (or "our" I should say, being a twin) birthday party in the second grade. Gee, how do you find Rose in this picture? She's the blonde one -- I mean the REALLY blonde one. To the right you can see my messy head and then my bro, Bill.

September 13, 1975

Rose and I are twins. Yup, we are. Actually I have a twin brother and she has a twin brother. Joe was at our 8th birthday in the 3rd grade. See if you can spot him below.

September 13, 1976

If you guessed the other REALLY blonde child there, what keen observational skills you have.

So Rose and I started hanging out in the fourth grade. If you wonder what us children in Arlington did growing up, well, we might go the library on Saturdays, visit the gift shop across the street and then go to Center Subs for an American or Italian sub or Papa Gino's for pizza.

My parents have many more photos of us and but I'd need some search dogs to find them all. My parents have thousands of photos and most of them are in boxes or drawers. I went over to my 'rents today to find some and I did manage to dig up this one of Rose and our beloved first dog, Caesar. Rose was always into cats more than dogs but she had quite a fondness for Caesar, and, as you can see, he for her.

Sometime in early '80s. Rose, do you think it was '82?

Rose and I had gone to separate junior highs but stayed friends throughout and then reunited in high school. Rose is partly responsible for adding Ken to my life as most of my friends from high school went to Rose's junior high. Sophomore year was the big year for innocent basement parties and after I threw Ken his sweet 16 party, our friend Christine held a joint Valentine's Day and Rose's sweet 16 party.

Ahh, Sweet Rosie in 1984. :)

Rose and I didn't have too many classes together in high school. We were in the same English class sophomore year (with KEN) and art for a couple of years. We were travel buddies as we both went on the school trip to Italy in the spring of '85 (and yes, the Italian guys loved her) and to Walt Disney World in February, 1986 (with KEN). I really thought I would put up some of those photos (and who doesn't want to see more '80s high school photos?), but I thought I'd have this be the photo to represent our high school bond...
This was at our art teacher, Mrs. Banner's house sometime in the spring of '86. I haven't mentioned yet that Rose is quite an amazing artist -- extremely talented. I was always decent at art and had a little more talent than most people, but that's it -- I was and am just better than average, whereas Rose is truly gifted.

Rose went off to Cornell and I to Skidmore. After graduation in 1990, Rose moved to New York City and I moved back to Arlington. Yup, back home. But I would go visit and Rose always came back on Christmas.

Christmas Eve, 1990 at my parents -- In this photo we have Rose, KEN
(making a special guest appearance in this post), me and Ken, Sr.

Visiting Rose at her Greenwich Village apartment in the winter
of 1994. A typical weekend NYC breakfast -- bagels with tons of cream
cheese and Tropicana. It had to be Tropicana.

In September of 1996, I decided to finally upgrade my efforts in pursuing an acting career and move to New York. (And no, I didn't live with my parents the entire time -- just a mere 4 years after graduating college... hey, believe me, that's not bad considering where I come from.) Rose was not so happy with her roommate situation and her roommate was contemplating a move anyway, so it all turned out to be rather excellent timing and I moved in with Rose. I left a bigger apartment that I had by myself to live almost dorm-like style with Rose. But that's what you do to live in Manhattan. It was an awesome location and Rose and I had the most fun times we ever had together. We had not been rebellious teenagers. I did not have any wild stories to tell you about us growing up because we were such good girls.

But in NY we had FUN. As much fun as feeding a cat pizza.

OK, I had to find some way to segue into the next photo. Yeah, I know, it didn't work very well...

Rose letting her now dearly departed cat, Techno, sniff some pizza. This was
most likely in 1997 though it could have been '96 or '98. Oh, Techno!!!!

In New York we could hop across the street for a few drinks on the weekend. We rarely had to pay for all our drinks because usually the bartender or other guys would buy them for us. Rose already had her bartender buddies, so I didn't have to do much work (thanks, Rose!). We also could find some of the best meals in such cozy little restaurants all within a few blocks of where we lived. There's really nothing like going out in New York.

When I turned 30 in 1998, I decided that I had to make the big move to Los Angeles. I had a weird relationship with New York. I couldn't quite forgive it for being so big and overwhelming, much less forgive it for having New York sports teams -- and fans! But New York brought Rose and me closer together than we had ever been before. And our little apartment felt like home, our safe refuge from big bad New York.

I missed my Rose. But there was always Christmas Eve at my parents.

Christmas Eve, 1999, with another special appearance by KEN!

Christmas Eve, 2003, I believe

What kind of person is Rose? She's very intelligent, talented, opinionated, loving, devoted, artistic and unique. I love that she's not afraid to speak her mind. She doesn't care if her opinion is popular or not and that's so refreshing. If she loves you, then she LOVES you. She is there for you. To those who have not met her, watch out -- she's much sharper than she lets on sometimes. And no, Rose, I don't mean that you act dumb!!! It's just that when you meet fun-loving Rose, the girl who came out of her shell in her 20s, she doesn't feel the need to tell you how bright she is.

The girl has a quick mind. She's a mean Tetris player. And in 6th grade, I played Spit with her at lunch. It was exhausting to keep up with her and I felt lucky the times I could beat her. (She beat me much more than I did her.) She's fast. But I have to say that while she seemed competitive I never remember her making me feel bad for losing.

She also loves her some Red Sox!!!

My dear Rosie, I know things have not been the easiest for you in the last few years but you've shined through the tough times. Life has so many wonderful things in store for you. You can do whatever you want. You deserve so much love, happiness and success. Just have faith in yourself, Girl. Amazing new beginnings are ahead for you! I hope you see them the way I can.

Thank you so much for being my friend. I love you so much. Enjoy your 40th birthday and enjoy this new year and new decade.

Love,
Julie

P.S. And Happy 40th Birthday to Joe, too!!!

Patriots & Retrograde

OK, I'm heartbroken tonight. Before any of you NY fans start gloating, I want to say that when my teams have won I have never, ever, felt the need to put down the other team or their fans.

Congratulations to the Giants for a job well done. I want to say I'm not trying to that away from them. But I do believe it is a little easier when you are the underdog. In my view, the Patriots are still the greatest team. No other team, including the Giants, was under the insane amount of pressure the Patriots have been in this season leading up to today. First you have the whole camera-gate thing which was blown WAY out of proportion by salivating Patriots haters. Then when you on a roll to perfection everyone wants to stop you and the pressure to stay perfect is overwhelming.

I think what the Patriots did this season was gutsy and braver than any other team. They could have made it easier for themselves to win the Super Bowl. They could have rested players and allowed themselves to lose a game. If they had lost a game during the regular season I think they would have had much less pressure on them in this Super Bowl. There's no team that could have handled it better. I'm actually proud of them for going for it all. It was incredibly courageous.

I can't tell you how much I can't stand when I hear comments about how it's not fair the Patriots have won the Super Bowl so many times -- that it's time to let someone else win it. I think is that what football is supposed to be about? To stop trying? To let someone else win? I mean, how is that respectful of the game or of the other team? I think the Patriots have made other teams better because they always gave the best of themselves. You're supposed to play to win. And if you keep winning, well, it's up to the other teams to try to stop you.

For the past few I've gotten gut feelings before each Patriots game and I kind of hate that my gut has always been right. (I even had a gut feeling in 2004 that the Red Sox would come back from 0-3 to beat the Yankees and felt like the Patriots were going to win those other 3 Super Bowls.) These past two weeks I've felt completely off and unnerved. Last night I dreamed how the game went -- low scoring game with the Patriots ahead at the half. I didn't get to the ending but the Giants got ahead and I didn't feel good waking up.

I just want to say that I don't want to hear anyone say that they choked. Yes, the Patriots lost the most important game. But no team accomplished what they did this year. No team has ever won 18 games in a single season. And while the Patriots won't say this, I will -- it took for Tom Brady and his offensive line to be injured for another team to beat them.

I'm not happy that this game happened with Mercury being in retrograde. Of course both teams are living with the same alignment of the stars. But Mercury rules Virgo and Gemini and I think that the Patriots are a Virgo team. I know it sounds silly, but they're hard-working, humble, self-critical and into action more than talk. The whole character of the team is very Virgo. I even wonder if Tom Brady, a Leo, has Virgo for his ascendant sign because he seems like such a Leo/Virgo combination.

My point is that Mercury in retrograde is harder on Virgos and Geminis that it is for other signs. (And thus, hard for me right now as I'm a Virgo with Gemini rising.) And it just felt like it wasn't right for my Virgo team.

I know a lot of this post may seem silly and irrational to some. I'm not completely rational right now. I'm just feeling very protective of my Patriots and really don't want anyone bashing them. I've never seen any team get such undeserved negative attention.

I know I shouldn't let a game bother me so much. I'm too attached.

All I can think is of how motivated they'll be next year. I'm not sorry to tell you frothing Pats haters, that the Patriots may be down at the moment but they're so far from out.

I'm always so careful of what I say. But being careful didn't help with this Super Bowl.

They're going to win another Super Bowl. And SOON...