You asked for it... Hempmento

A few years ago my friends and I made the short film Hempmento, a 28-minute parody of the indie hit Memento. It's played in some film festivals, and always gets some good laughs. A number of you (and by you, I mean Looney) have asked to see it. Well, we finally got it on iFilm, so here it is. Again, it's 28 minutes long, and is quite, um, adult in language and subject matter. But if you've seen Memento, I think you'll enjoy it. If you haven't seen Memento, you'll still probably thing it's goofy because, well, it is, but it definitely helps to see its inspiration.

UPDATE: I just noticed that for some reason the video didn't show widescreen when embeded in my blog, but instead was stretched top and bottom. The link to watch it at the iFilm site, however, looks right, so I've removed the embeded video.

Just follow this link to watch the movie at the iFilm site.

Go read Looney.

Whether you've seen Schindler's List or not, you should go read Looney's review (yeah, he finally got around to watching it -- not the most punctual of guys, our Looney...).

And go say hi to Brad, too. He directed and edited this scene from our movie Hempmento.

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Blog Newbie

My buddy Brad and I have been real-life friends for many years, and he's one of the few people on the planet whose opinion in movies I trust implicitly. He's a professional editor and cameraman by trade, and he and I have worked on a number of fun, original film & video projects (billing ourselves as the Stabloski Brothers).

Anyway, Brad has a blog now. It's called Stab Film. He only has one entry so far, about Mr. Scorcese, and you should go over there and welcome him to our crazy blog world. Don't be afraid to tell him he's full of shit, either, because he often is. And if you love film, or even just like it a shitload, you should make him a regular part of your blog surfing.

Of course, Brad, that means you have to regularly post on there, dude, or we'll eviscerate you.

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Closing Night: Morgan Freeman Wins, We Don't.

Sunday, October 24.
Well, I practically mowed Mr. Freeman right over on the Red Carpet. Since I'm such an important filmmaker, I get to walk the Red Carpet just like the celebs. Last night I was moving rather briskly along, people watching instead of watching where I was going, and looked forward just in time to stop from plowing into Mr. Freeman. Thank God for my ninja-like quick reflexes. I spoke to him for a brief moment and then headed inside for the Mayor's Reception before the evening's presentation. I chatted with Mayor Hickenlooper for a little while -- super-nice guy. Lisa Kennedy, the Denver Post's head film critic, introduced herself to me and said she'd made it to our screening Wednesday night and enjoyed our film. She said she'd definitely give it a mention when she writes her wrap story about the festival. Other than that we drank some free drinks and debated on whether or not Hempmento had a chance at the People's Choice Award for best short. I contended it didn't, not so much because it wasn't the best (which, of course it was) but because, since it was shown with a collection of shorts from other Colorado filmmakers, the audiences would be weighted toward the movie they came to see. In other words, while our friends and perhaps the few people who weren't there for any particular short might have given it a 10 out of 10, people who worked on or were friends with people who worked on other shorts, no matter how much they enjoyed Hempmento, would give it a lower score than their own. Okay, that's my Kos brand of rationalization. But I was right. We didn't win. I can't even remember what short won, but I believe it was a short that showed before a feature (which means everyone in the audience could have given it a 10 because they didn't have any vested interest in it or any other short). We're still proud as hell, though, as should be everyone who worked on it. Huge, huge thanks and congratulations to all of you!

After they did the film awards, they showed a highlight reel of Morgan Freeman's work, then interviewed him onstage. He was so engaging and charismatic, and told some great stories. Afterward we hit the Last Reel Reception at B-52's. We waited in the food line for about 1/2 an hour, then pigged out for a while.

After making a couple rounds people watching, we were done. Out. Kaput. So we called it a night, said goodbye and thanks to the festival, and headed home.

This was such an amazing experience, made even more special because I was able to share it with friends. Without these people, Hempmento never would have gotten made:

Brad Stabio
Kirk Anderson
Michael O'Shea
Lisa Rosenhagen
Dave Shirley
Lowel Pierce
Mike Ackermanhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Brook Aitken
Chris Thomas
Steve Zammar
Lisa Rucker
Matt Hemphill
Brian Steele

Thanks again, everyone. You all kick ass.

So what's next? The HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. At least, we hope so. Entry deadline for films is 11/5/04, so we're getting our stuff together for that. Unfortunately we missed the Sundance deadline by a month -- obviously we were so preoccupied with Denver we didn't even think about Sundance. Oh well, it's probabaly better, because it'll give us a year to try to get a few more festivals under our belt before we go for the big one.

I'll keep the blog alive, writing updates as I get them.

Peace out!

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Our First Review

A Google search of Hempmento this morning brought up this review from MovieHabit.com. All five short films from our showcase are reviewed there. Tiffany at Breakfast got the best rating with 3-1/2 out of 4 stars; Hempmento and Herbie each got 3 stars, and Killing Kevin and White Noise each got 2-1/2 stars. The review of our film, however, is glowing. "This is one of the funniest of the Coloradoans’ short films" it says. It also says Brad and I are film students. Ha! Not sure where that came from, but oh well. It's cool to have a review.

Last night Julie and I went to the Indie Filmmaker's Reception for a little while. It was at PostModern, where I hadn't visited in a long time. Love their space. The party was starting to get hopping around the time we left, but as a 35-year-old film student, I just can't survive all those late nights.

Just a couple more nights left of the festival, culminating in Sunday's An Evening with Morgan Freeman and the closing night reception. We'll probably hit the late night lounge one more time tomorrow night.

Day Seven: Our Second Screening

Wednesday, October 20.
We got a mention yesterday in the Denver Post's Buzzworthy section of the paper. Check it out!

That's the crowd on the left side of the theater last night. I knew a lot more people this time than I did Monday evening, mostly because the whole Citizen Pictures crew (who did Killing Kevin) were there. But there were still a lot of strangers there too.

That's Kirk, Brad, me, Michael and Lisa Rucker. Before the shorts started Brad and I gave Michael and Kirk a couple little gifts; Michael got a pipe (for display purposes only) and Kirk, who has never smoked anything ever in his life, got a trucker hat with a marijuana leaf and the word "Cannibus" on it. Very fitting.


Once again, the showing went great. Actually, much better than Monday night. The sound was better, the picture was better. The consensus among people I talked to was that everyone seemed to enjoy all the films much more this time around. For me, it was mostly because I was so nervous Monday night I couldn't really enjoy anything. Last night, however, I was much more relaxed and really allowed myself to just watch and enjoy. I even laughed out loud at our movie -- something I haven't done in quite a while given how many times I've watched it. Seeing it up on a real movie theater screen was about as cool as it gets. Again, the audience was fantastic and laughed loudly and often. What a rush! We got some fun questions during the Q & A session, like how did we prepare for the rolls, how did we write the script, and whose ass is it in the Polaroid (Michael's)?

Afterward some of us headed to the Forest Room 5 for White Russians and, in true Cinema Geek fashion, discussions ranging from film to cereal to music we used to roller skate to.

Now what happens? I'm not entirely sure. Everyone who attends the shorts programs gets to rate each of the on a 1-10 scale. The short that has the highest score gets the audience award for Best Short Film. I have to believe we're in contention for it, based on the feedback I've heard. We'll see. There are still some events coming up we want to attend -- tonight is the Independent Filmmakers' Reception, and Sunday night is the closing night with a tribute to Morgan Freeman. These late nights on school nights are going to be the death of me! More tomorrow!

Day Five: Our First Screening

Monday, October 18.
Ignore, if you can, the two big heads in the foreground. Back by the screen are all of the filmmakers whose films were in the Colorado Filmmakers Showcase I. Brad is to the left of the guy talking, and I'm next to Brad. This was the Q & A session after the shorts were shown. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

Julie and I met Brad up at the Filmmaker's Lounge to grab a bite to eat before the screening. The Filmmaker's Lounge is cool, a small room with free food & drinks for the filmmakers; a nice place to hang out. Brad had gotten a snazzy new brown corduroy sports coat (which appears to be the fashion du jour among men at the festival ... I'll be wearing mine Wednesday night) but hadn't taken the stitching out of the pockets. Here's Julie helping him out.

Then we headed down to the theater area to wait for everyone. We had some friends show who hadn't bought tickets yet and couldn't get in, as the screening was completely sold out. Wednesday's, incidentally, is also sold out. Once we got into the theater and it started filling up, my nerves started flying. I probabaly only knew about 10-15 people in the theater, which was great because ultimately you want to see if your film is enjoyable to people who have no vested interest in you at all. Since this was five shorts all by Colorado filmmakers, I'm guessing the majority of people in there were friends of the filmmakers. It was great to see people coming out specifically to support independent film by Colorado filmmakers.

Hempmento was the third film shown out of five. The first two were White Noise and Herbie. I'm not going to spend time critiquing them here. Suffice it to say I was impressed with the overall quality of the shorts in our collection. They were all very different from one another, which was very cool.

So the second film Herbie finished. The screen went black. My heart started beating double-time. I was squeezing Julie's hand (I had spilled a full glass of wine in her lap a while ago, so I was a bit surprised she would even hold my hand). It seemed like it took two hours for our movie to start. But then the familiar piano started and the screen filled with smoke. The movie began. I nearly peed my pants.

People loved Hempmento. They were cracking up, sometimes so hard they missed dialogue. It was obvious the majority of people in the theater had seen Mememto by the "lauging in the right place" that occurred throughout our film. But you could also tell -- and this was very important to those of us who made it -- that they appreciated our film on its own and not just the parody aspect. I took it as a good sign when the first title came up on the screen, "Cinema Geeks Presents," and people laughed at that. They laughed from beginning to end.

I've seen Hempmento a hundred times, and when I watch it now, all I see are mistakes and things I'd change. Plus, the sound in the theater was screwed up -- one channel was out or something, so the volume was pretty low and some of our sound effects (doorbells, knocks, etc.) were missing. And there were some glitches with the video toward the end. But I stepped back and let the audience's enjoyment soak me. They really did enjoy the movie. Which was our simple, ultimate goal: Make people laugh. Mission accomplished.

After our film were Tiffany at Breakfast and Killing Kevin (Costner). Both very good, very funny. Killing Kevin was made by a friend of mine, and it was extremely well done, incredibly funny. Some of my friends acted in it as well. It was great to see it on screen. Then it was over. The filmmakers went up to the front of the audience for questions.

It took a while for the questions to start. Most of them were general: "What were your budgets?" kind of questions. But some were more specific to the individual films. That lasted about 20 minutes or so. Then we left the theater and headed to the Colorado Filmmakers Reception at the bar Forest Room 5 (cool place). Here's the gang there.

We got a lot of compliments that night, from the other filmmakers, people in the audience, etc. Brad had gotten me a beautiful Cohiba cigar, so we smoked those as a celebration of last night and in anticipation of tomorrow night.

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Tonight's the Night!

Getting a little nervous now! We didn't do anything festival related yesterday. Tonight, however, is our first screening of HEMPMENTO at 6:30 p.m. Brad called me last night at about 9 and said tonight's showing was completely sold out, and Wednesday night's has fewer than 30 seats left. I keep checking and double checking to make sure I've got my tickets, my pass, all that stuff. Throughout the festival I've come to realize that we are pushing our short much, much more than most other short filmmakers. Our promo cards are everywhere, we're talking nonstop about it to everyone we can. I guess that's a bit out of the ordinary. It appears many shorts filmmakers just kind of put their movie in there and wait for people to come see it. Ah well. I'm not sure how many people will be coming specifically to see HEMPMENTO, how many will be coming specifically to see another short, and how many will be coming just to see the shorts program, but whatever their reason, they're going to see our film. And that's exciting as hell.

Day Three: It's Bacon!

Saturday, October 16.
After an hour-long highlight reel of Bacon movie moments, former NY Times movie critic Elvis Mitchell (the dude with the long dreads) interviewed Bacon on stage for about another hour. At one point Bacon said he'd be hard pressed to work with a director now who's done more movies than he has. We all kind of looked at each other and said, son of a bitch, he's right. Because the reality is, Kevin Bacon has been in every single movie made since 1985. It's true. Google him. Anyway, like at the opening night film Ray, they showed a short video thanking the sponsers of the festival. It's a mock reality TV program. "We took four movie watchers and made them sit through a film festival that had no sponsers." I'm in that video, and for most of it I have my shirt off. I had many people recognize me at the reception and say things like, "I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on." My wife was so proud. Anyway, that also means that Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick were watching me. Definite high coolness factor there.

That's my wife Julie and me and the reception that followed the Bacon award thing. My wife's hot, isn't she? I know you're checking out her cleavage right now, but that's okay, because I kept looking at it all night too. The reception was okay ... it was supposedly a diner theme (get it ... Bacon was in Diner), but other than some diner food and root beer floats, it was a pretty lame attempt at a diner theme. We chatted some more with Soleil Moon Frye. I got her a DVD of HEMPMENTO. Apparently her husband works on the TV show Punk'd, so she said she'd show it to the Punk'd guys. Oh, and here's a weird thing: She was with a woman who swears she saw HEMPMENTO last year at Slamdance. Thing is, we never submitted it to Slamdance. Hell, we just shot it last November. But she described our film exactly. So I don't know what's going on. We never did get down to the bottom of it. Anyway, we stayed until the late night lounge was open, then headed over there where the drinks were free and the people watching much more rewarding. This is Brad and me.

Brad directed and edited Hempmento. At the lounge we worked the crowd some more, pushing our movie and chatting away. No notable celebrities to speak of there, but plently of wannabes and posers, present company included. Three straight days of late-night schmoozing took its toll on me, though, so Julie and I cut out at about 1:30 a.m. Tomorrow our daughters have a dance recital, so we'll be taking a day off from the festival, preparing for our first screening on Monday. More tomorrow!

Day Two: Hangin' with Soleil

Friday, October 15.
So last night we got to hang out with Soleil Moon Frye. Remember Punky Brewster? That was her. Soleil is in Denver for the festival with her documentary Sonny boy, which is about a trip she takes with her father, whom she is slowly losing to Alzheimer's. She's a very cool woman, very friendly and genuine. We chatted for a while about our films. When she found out HEMPMENTO was going to be shown after she was gone, she was really bummed and asked how she could see it. So I took her a DVD today. It's all about connections, my friends.

Last night was pretty much just a schmooze fest. I didn't make it to any movies, which was a bummer, but some of my HEMPMENTO buddies (Kirk Anderson, who wrote it with me, and Michael O'Shea who's shown below) went and hung out at the Director's Reception. We pretty much stayed in this booth the whole time...

...holding court, making people wish they were one of us. Or not. We met some cool people, had a few drinks, then headed down to the Late Night Lounge for some more drinks and schmoozing (this was where we met Soleil). We were also treated to a Trash Fashion Show. Yes, everything the models wore was made out of trash. It was good dirty fun!

More drinks. More schmoozing. Time to go. I headed home at about 2 a.m. Tonight: Kevin Bacon. More tomorrow!

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Day One: Denver International Film Festival

Thursday, October 14. Opening Night.
I'm going to do my best to write something here every day, if for no other reason than for me to have my memories of my first film festival somewhere I can find them later. Last night was the opening festivities of the Denver International Film Festival. The pre-movie reception began at 5 p.m., and while my wife Julie and I fully intended to get there close to 5:30, we didn't arrive until nearly 6:30. That didn't leave much schmoozing time, but I still managed to get a fair amount in, handing out promo cards left and right for our movie HEMPMENTO, telling everyone they have to come see it. Unfortunatly my filmmaking partner Brad Stabio, the director and editor of film, was out of town so he had to miss the evening.

The opening night film was Ray, about Ray Charles starring Jamie Foxx. It was really a fantastic movie. The director, producer, and some of the film's stars, including Foxx, were there. The movie was long -- about 2-1/2 hours -- and Julie was a hell of a trooper, having had surgery just this past Monday! Afterward, she and I went to pick up our daughters from their friends' house and got them home. I then headed back down to the after-party, which was a decent place for schmoozing, but the Late Night Filmmakers' Lounge was definitely the place to be (you can only get in there with a special pass, which I have because apparently I'm a Late Night Filmmaker). Lots of elbow rubbing going on there. I was a publicity machine.

The extremely cool thing was that a lot of people had already heard about HEMPMENTO. The word on the street is, it's going to be the "sleeper hit" of the festival. It's become the trendy movie to talk about, so much so that people are talking to me about people I don't know, saying, "I was talking to Charles and he told me that you told him it only took you four days to shoot. Is that true?" To which I reply, " That Charles! What a guy he is!" Who's Charles? Don't know, don't care, but come see my movie. Tonight we'll catch a movie or two, then hit the invitation-only Director's Reception so I can feel completely insignificant. Of course, I won't act that way. "Hi, Kevin Bacon. I'm Jeff Kos. I hear you're coming to see my movie..." Tomorrow night Bacon will be here to be honored with the John Cassavetes Award. I'm not sure what exactly the award is for, but I suspect it has something to do with Kevin Bacon being the only person who is zero degrees from Kevin Bacon. More tomorrow!

HEMPMENTO

Above is an image from my short film HEMPMENTO, which was recently named an official selection for the STARZ Denver International Film Festival. The festival takes place from October 14 - 24 of this year. Appx. 175 films were accepted from well over 1,000 submissions.

Hempmento, a parody of Memento, was created by a small group of friends calling ourselves Cinema Geeks. I co-wrote, produced and starred in the film; my friend Brad directed and edited it; my co-star, Michael (above left), also composed all of the music. It was such a fun project. We held a screening last month and people loved it. Soon after we were accepted into the festival. From here, we'll try to play the festival circuit -- Sundance, Toronto, South by Southwest, Berlin, hell, maybe even Cannes. Keep your fingers crossed for us ... hopefully some people with lots of money will want to fund a feature from us!


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