The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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Saw Chasing Amy Wednesday night. Another film I wish I’d made.

That’s three in the past month, including The Daytrippers and Barbara Kopple’s Woody Allen doc, which I recently read got picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. When I see three like that in a whole year I generally consider it a good year.

So why’d I like Amy so much? Mostly great writing and very believable acting from a bunch of unfamiliar thesps. Looks kinda atrocious, but who gives a flying rugmuffin? If you get caught up in the story, you compliment its’ rough-hewn, documentary-like authenticity. If you don’t, you bitch about how it looks like shit.

It’s a ballsy film, mixing funny, slangy reparte and dick jokes with genuine emotion and heart. Could have been brutal. Ya need confidence to pull that off. Confidence in your own voice.

All during the year or so I spent working on Silverlake Life, I spent an hour each morning at the Time Cafe slugging java and writing a script in longhand. It was about an unusual menage a trois that grows out of a “happy” modern marraige, and tried to push the proverbial envelope about male-female relationships in the 90’s. I wrote two drafts, liked some of it, felt it needed more work, didn’t know where to go with it. It’s been sitting on my bookcase for three years.

Chasing Amy says everything I wanted to say. Kevin Smith pushes the dialogue into uncomfortable areas (people talking graphically about sex and, more to the point, about sex with each other) yet it’s fun and engaging because it’s stuff we all want to say and hear ourselves. Bravo.

Speaking of which, The Heck With Hollywood! has been re-licensed for tv and will be broadcast by Bravo and the Independent Film Channel starting sometime in June (they don't tell the filmmaker little things like exactly when it'll be broadcast, natch!). Check yer local listings, as they say.

It’s funny to think back to that time when I wanted to make fiction films. I proved to myself I could write a script, but that wasn’t enough for me. It had to be a great script, and I didn’t know how to make it great. And I didn’t have an ego that would let it go and give it to another writer to develop it further. So it gathers dust.

Not having written before, I had nothing to support my self doubt. With documentaries, when I begin to feel clueless, I have years of experience to fall back on, glowing reviews, awards, blah blah blah. I’ve watched my work play to audiences, heard their laughter, seen them get caught up in the story. With a script it’s just my alter ego sitting there going: “Hey, bud, this sucks!”

And so, editing on Home Page continues, and whenever I hear that alter ego whispering in my ear, I evoke a memory of Berlin or Sundance or Heck‘s Anthology Archives premiere and try to reassure myself.

You just can’t do your work if you’re too wrapped up in making a fucking masterpiece.

Before Chasing Amy, Marj and I repair to The Big Cup for some java and I peruse Inc. magazine while waiting 20 minutes for the nose-ringed fella in front of me to get served. Read about the guy who invented the Access guides, among other inventive things. In the article, he talks about the secrets of his success.

Don’t pretend you know stuff when you don’t, he says. Embrace that you don’t know shit. Embrace your curiosity. Your curiosity is what drives you. Go after that which you don’t know and want to know more about.

Makes total sense to me. With Heck, I wanted to learn more about the biz of movie making. With Home Page, I wanted to learn more about the Web. I followed my curiosity. Didn’t worry about asking stupid questions. Didn’t pretend to know the answers. Still don’t. That’s why it’s so funny to me when I get invited to be on panels, like I’m an expert or something.

My instincts got me here and my experience keeps me from veering off. Or so I tell myself. Instinct. Experience. Humor. Heart. These are the vital ingredients. Or so I tell myself.

Mixed with a lot of persistence.

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