Adam Baran

Just a reminder my short film Jinx! premieres this Sunday at NewFest!  If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s going to be screening in the “Women on the Verge: Women’s Comedy Shorts” program, with some other really great short films. 

If you like fucked up comedies about bitchy 2nd graders or are a fan of John Waters, Todd Solondz, or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane - this film is for you.  If you ever played hand-clapping games, obsessed over lanyard bracelets, or called “jinx” on someone who spoke at the same time as you - you need to see my film. 

We’re already in talks with cable networks interested in acquiring the film, so it’s not like it’s not good, capeesh? 

Here’s the info

JINX! : “Women on the Verge: Women’s Comedy Shorts”

Sunday June 3rd, 1:00PM

and

Sunday June 10th, 1:15PM

For tickets go to www.newfest.org

I was out at Cherry Grove yesterday on a day trip to get some local color (from the Sun, not the creepy L.I. fags who kept throwing shade on the LIRR) and I was walking around near the Ice Palace to try and find a place to go to the bathroom in peace.  I didn’t have my shirt on because, whatever, it’s the beach.  I don’t have like the most muscular body- okay well, scratch that, I don’t really have a muscular body at all.  I’ve got lots of chest hair - like a lot - and I used to be pretty ashamed of it, back in 2000 when it was all about the HX magazine smooth sculpted look.  But with the rise of bear culture, and the turning tides that have reproclaimed body hair as something hot, I began to own it, and found it was an asset to snagging guys. 

So I’m walking on the road, and this fat lesbian and her scary fat goth lesbian friend looks at me as I go past and go “That’s disgusting.”  It was kinda quiet how they said it, but not quiet enough for me not to hear it, obviously.  Can you believe that?  And so I just turned around and stared at this ugly woman, and her friend goes “Oh shit!”  Which was the best thing I could have done because no words could have made her feel better.  In fact, if I’d started to curse her off she would have won.  But afterwards I was a bit bugged about it - feeling similar to Kimberley Locke on Celebrity Fit Club when she was talking about creepo Dustin Diamond’s hurtful dildo comments - I let this woman steal my joy!  I know I don’t have the greatest body on earth.  I don’t particularly enjoy hitting the gym, so I’m a bit on the un-toned side, but whatever - of all the yuckos walking around out on Cherry Grove, and if you’ve been there you know what I mean - I’m the one who gets picked on?  Story of my life. 

What do you think?  Gross or a turn on? 

SAVAGE INTRUDER aka HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE

From 1969, it’s a bizarre mashup/rip-off of Sunset Boulevard, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Big Cube, among others.  It stars Miriam Hopkins as an aging alcoholic star of the 1930’s who is cooped up in her mansion in the Hollywood Hills, with nobody but the imaginary guests who come over while she’s on one of her benders.  During the day, she’s looked after by wrinkly secretary Gale Sondergaard.  What she doesn’t know is that there’s a creepy hippie played by John Garfield Jr. running around murdering and dismembering women in the Hollywood area.  And somehow, despite his scruffy appearance and oddly confrontational nature, he gets himself hired as her nurse! 

Once he’s hired, he basically gets the Wiliam Holden treatment - scenes are lifted verbatim from the Billy Wilder flick - and starts screwing around with Hopkins, taking her out to wild hippie parties and bringing the guests (who include midgets, queers, and whores) back to the apartment.  He’s also screwing the Asian cook, Greta, to whom he’s so politically insensetive that he affectionately calls her “a fortune cookie,” and later when she denies him something says, “Ah, I see, No Ticky, No Washy!”  Oh, and he murders her when she gets pregnant.  Somehow, inexplicably, nobody is able to fire this utterly creepy guy who can’t act for shit. 

Hopkins is desperate to become a star again, and her one public appearance - in the tacky Hollywood Boulevard Christmas Parade of 1968 ends in disaster.  She tells a reporter that the Strip isn’t the same as it used to be, “now the whores and queers have taken over.”  Oiy Veh!  Call YouTube!  There’s also great hippie acid trip flashback moments - Garfield Jr.’s memories of his mother getting gang-banged by 5 guys ends up more funny than scary

What’s really sad about the film is that poor Hopkins, who had a legitimate bitter feud with Bette Davis all her life (Davis hated her upstaging, Hopkins hated Davis for having an affair with one of her husbands) clearly thought she could resucitate her career by playing a character who’s a knock off Norma Desmond and Baby Jane rolled into one.  And you can tell that she’s pretty sick during the film, at one point she just disappears and we never see her again.  That was it - her final role. 

All in all, it’s not a must see, but if you’re at all a fan of the genre - this is pretty high camp.  Lots to laugh at, including the supposedly scary moments.  . 

I got word this week that my latest short film “JINX!” will have it’s World Premiere screening at this year’s NewFest (A.K.A. The New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival).  The film will be screening in the shorts program “WOMEN ON THE VERGE,” which I think is the absolute perfect title for any program that includes Jinx! 

Here’s the synopsis:  When nerdy second grader Eleanor tries to join a schoolyard game, a bully named Rachel “jinxes” her.  Unable to speak until someone says her name, Eleanor sets off on a madcap quest to break Rachel’s diabolical spell before the 3:00 bell rings.  As she navigates the cutthroat world of second grade , Eleanor seeks help from a stern math teacher, a deranged abstract artist, and a clueless father - with disastrous results!

Anyway here are the screening dates and times:

Sunday, June 3rd, 1:ooPM, and then the following Sunday 6/10, 1:15PM. 

Both screenings will be at the AMC Loews 34th Street Theater, at 8th Ave. 

The NewFest website www.newfest.org should have all the info about buying tickets sometime this week. 

If you missed my previous cast and crew screening, I hope you’ll come check this out! 

I just woke up from a terrifying dream where my mother died and I was wailing and howling with grief and thinking I was somehow responsible for it by my sins or something or other.  Lovely, right?  But wait, it gets better.

When I wake up, and feel relieved that it was only a dream, I find my bed crawling with ants that had crept in from the window and noticed I have a new comforter and wanted to see how cushy it was. 

So that was a great way to wake up.  I killed all those little fuckers gleefully and then bombed the window and ledges where they came in with Black Flag, and now I have to call up the exterminator.

On the bright side, at least it wasn’t roaches.   

Like, how’s your Tuesday going so far???