Feed: THIS DIVIDED STATE - Official Blog of the Filmmakers - AggScore: 82.4

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Buy Killer at Large on DVD!

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Buy the DVD now, straight from the filmmakers. It's $20+S&H. Just click the PayPal link:

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Killer at Large will be available on DVD from the Disinformation Company on March 31st, 2009.

The DVD contains a producers commentary track featuring Executive Producer Shawn Talbott, Producers Bryan Young and Elias Pate and Co-Producer Patrick Waldrop. It also features a second commentary track with director Steven Greenstreet.

The disc also boasts 6 deleted scenes, theatrical trailers, footage from our New York premiere with Chevy Chase and Mr. Chase's testimony before congress about childhood obesity.

All in all, it's a packed disc and certainly one to look forward to.

Additionally, currently for sale is the abridged nutritional market version of the film. You can buy it from the Executive Producer here.

More details about the DVD and theatrical screenings prior to its release will be posted to the website as they're made available.

(For more information, feel free to contact Bryan Young at bryan (at) shineboxmp dot com.)

Killer at Large

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So, now that Killer at Large is out and you can get it everywhere, there's a flurry of press coverage for the film. I just want to let you know that to see all of the reviews, you should check out the "reviews" page at the Killer at Large website.

I also wanted to point out the video of Killer at Large on Oprah from last year.



(Also, just as an aside, there's a whole pile of new short stories over at my Short Story blog. Check them out...)

Killer at Large DVD release party

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As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, Killer at Large is being released tomorrow on DVD nationwide. In order to celebrate, the makers of the film will be hosting a party in Salt Lake City.

We'll be selling copies of the film at the event.

The facebook event can be seen here.

For those of you not on facebook, the details are as follows:

WHEN:
7:00 pm, Thursday, April 2, 2009

WHERE:
Juniors Tavern
30 E. 300 S.
Salt Lake City, UT

This is open to the public. Copies of the film will be for sale for $20.

For any other details, contact us at contact@shineboxmp.com

Two New Short Stories

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So, there are two new short stories available for your consumption.

So Many Nights Ago

and

A Simpler Time

My open letter in the local paper

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You can read the revised version here.

It ran in today's Daily Herald.

An Open Letter to My State Senator

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Senator Valentine,

You can imagine my shock, disbelief and utter dismay when I read in the paper this morning your proposed legislation for liquor laws in the State. 10 foot walls and redefining intoxication? I had to check the date on my paper twice. You see, the prohibitive temperance movement was officially over almost a hundred years ago and I thought the newspaper was perhaps printing historical reports.

No.

It was true. My representative in the State Senate, John Valentine (you, sir), proposed legislation that would require restaurants to pour alcoholic drinks behind 10 foot walls and make it illegal for someone to show any signs of being drunk, effectively eliminating casual drinking and the Utah restaurant industry.

As your constituent, I would hope that you do everything that is required to kill this backward looking and damaging legislation to the people of Utah and, more importantly, the people of Orem whom you represent.

As a State Legislator, I have to assume you know that the State of Utah depends on the sale of alcoholic beverages for almost dollarsignr100 million dollars in revenue that funds our state budget and other special earmarks for things like school lunches. This doesn’t take into account the hundreds (if not thousands) of people on state payroll who depend on the (mostly)free flow of liquor for their livelihood. Further restricting access to alcoholic beverages would obviously reduce the amount of revenue our great State could depend on in an already stressed economy, but also increase the unemployment rate and lead to all kinds of excess crimes from otherwise law-abiding citizens importing alcohol from neighboring Nevada, Wyoming and Colorado.

Add to that all of the dwindling profits from restaurants that serve drinks with food (in Orem alone!) and you have unemployment rates increasing in that direction as well as a decrease in Local and State tax revenue.

It seems to me that you’re probably not a stupid man and understand the ramifications of your bill and you know how damaging it would be to our State and Local economy. I assume you realize that Governor Huntsman would never sign it and your constituents (like myself) would never stand for it.

The only assumption then that I can make is that this is political grandstanding of the highest order and as your constituent I would hope that you let this bill die and support efforts to progressively liberalize the responsible consumption of alcohol for the good of our great State and community.

After all, it was Benjamin Franklin who said, “Beer is proof that God loves us.”

Sincerely,
Bryan Young
Resident of Orem

The Food Lobby Goes to School

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You Are STILL Being Lied To

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So, Elias and I wrote an essay about obesity that's been published in the new Disinformation collection. It's called "Cheap Crappy Food = A Fat Population"




Steve titled it and put his name on it, too.

I hope you check it out. There's a lot of other cool stuff in there, too. (Including an all new R. Crumb comic about Philip K. Dick.)

New Huffington Post Editorial

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It's called "Nuclear Pork, the Stimulus Bill, and why you need to call your Congressperson"

Click here to read it.

Another Short Story.

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I posted one up last night.

Check it out here.

An Interview With Bryan

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So, I'm participating in this thing I found at this blog I've started trolling... You post this interview and you offer to interview anybody who comments that they want to be interviewed... So, the rules are below, and my interview is below the rules.

The rules are:

1) Leave me a comment saying "interview me".
2) I will respond by emailing you 5 questions (I get to pick the questions)
3) You will update your blog with answers to the questions.
4) You will include the explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

1) Someone tells you the Star Wars movies are overrated and boring - especially Empire. What is your reaction?

To be completely honest, if somebody told me that the Star Wars movies were overrated and that The Empire Strikes Back was boring, I would most likely wonder what they would find exciting? I mean, what would it take? A film opening with a dude getting punched in the stomach, having his intestines pulled out and have him tossed out of a train dragged by his entrails?

I wouldn't get offended. I would certainly silently think far less of them, though.

2) You're from Utah, a place famous as a Mormon state. What, if any, impact does religion have on life there?

It means I can't buy a six pack on a Sunday, which is really annoying when you want to spend a leisurely Sunday drinking a Guinness. Also, the beer is all 3.2% which really, really sucks.

Other than that, everyone is really nice, despite my atheism. And liberalism. In fact, watch the trailer for This Divided State and you'll have a great idea of the community I live in and how it affects me.

3) You have to remake Taxi Driver, but give the role of Travis Bickle to a female actress. Who would you choose and why?

I think I would hate myself for having to remake it, but I think I would pick Scarlett Johansson. She's gruff and great and can be incredibly socially awkward in a good way. I would also like to see her shoot Sport in the stomach after saying, in that sultry, Lauren Bacall voice, "Suck on this!"

The thing is, Taxi Driver can't work with a girl in the Bickle seat... At least not for the Cybill Shephard subplot, anyway...

4) Oliver Stone - genius or past his sell-by date?

You know, W. was pretty good, but not anywhere near as good as Nixon, Platoon, U-turn, or Salvador. But when the man is on, he is on. Seriously. I wrote up something about Salvador not more than a few months ago (check that here) and it hit me right between the eyes, both as a filmmaker and politically.

I don't know what he's got planned next, if anything, but he's certainly been a genius. Maybe he's peaked, but we'll see.

5) Utah is the home of the Sundance Film Festival - what are your thoughts on the festival and has it ever helped you personally as a film maker?

I'm pretty sick of the festival. I've been most years in the last eight or ten years to see films and do various marketing activities (*cough*The Misbehavers*cough* (here's the trailer)) but I'm not sure how much good it's done. We have lots of meetings with industry people during the festival since they're all in town and good things have come of that. Sure.

In fact, last year, under the nose of the festival, we rented a condo and bought a giant bigscreen TV and screened Killer at Large to a bunch of distributors.

The problem with the festival though, is that it's too big for it's britches and a lot of the films really aren't that good. I've watched so many Sundance movies, documentaries, shorts, features, etc. and a lot of the time they aren't that good. And the ones that are good already have agents and distributors and studios behind them. At that point, why do they need an independant film festival?

Overall, though, I think the festival has had a positive effect.

LOST - Trailer for Season Five

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Killer at Large site back up

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We've had some web problems, but they're fixed now.

KilleratLarge.com is back online.