The Voices in Frank's Head

First, yes, I know it's been forever since I've updated this blog. I said it was possibly ending, but after a couple of years, I finally had something that I wanted to share. This simply seemed like the best vehicle for putting it out into the universe. With the help of some friends on Facebook, I managed to create at least the first draft of my bucket list. I will invariably add a few things to this as the years go on. However, I figured it was time to at least start one. Therefore, in no particular order, here are the items on my bucket list. Drive Route 66 from beginning to end; Visit Prague; Visit a random city and take a walk that only ends once I've taken a picture of every letter of the alphabet; Attend the Pierogi Festival in Whitting, Indiana; Visit the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa. This, by the way, is the house that Grant Wood posed his models in front of in his famous painting, American Gothic . Go to Chicago and re-enact Ferris Bueller...

The Avengers  had a special showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. I was lucky enough to get video from this event from the producers. I'm so excited to be able to see The Avengers  in theaters this coming Friday.

The Five Year Engagement , starring Jason Segel  and Emily Blunt , opens in theaters everywhere this Friday. I look forward to it. Hopefully, they will explain the important questions that this film raises, like, why did this couple rush their engagement?

She Wears an Yellow Bikini in Honor of Lee Pockriss Lee Pockriss , who wrote such catchy songs as "Itsy, Bitsy, Teeny, Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", passed away at his home last week at the age of 87. He went on to write music for The Muppets  as well as movies like Sister Act 2  and Revenge of the Nerds 2 . Lee Pockriss will be missed by all who love music.

A press release came across my desk recently, announced that John Myhre  had been named production designer for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. The odd thing is that I had to do a double take when I saw it. I could have sworn, when I first saw it, that it said John Mayer  was named production designer for the telecast. This prompted me to wonder why a singer was designing the production - for about 5 seconds until figured it all out. Will someone please tell me that I'm not the first person to confuse John Myhre with John Mayer?

Amanda Seyfried will appear in a biopic of Lucy Loveless, the star of the legendary porn flick Deep Throat . Also, ABC has ordered 5 new episodes of the show Pan Am .

The trailer for Keira Knightley's  new movie A Dangerous Method  is now on-line. I was excited about this movie when I first heard about it because: This film involves Keira Knightley getting spanked and I'm a pervert. However, as I watch the trailer, I have to confess that the film contains other exciting elements beyond simply spanking Keira Knightley. It looks like a really great and truly thought-provoking film from director  David Cronenberg and writer  Christopher Hampton . But I'm still a pervert.

I learned, thanks to a Google News Alert, that  Ridley Scott  will soon have an eight-part series entitled "Prophets of Science Fiction" on the Science Channel starting on Wednesday, November 9. He is, of course, the creative genius behind such movies as  Alien , Blade Runner,  and  Gladiator . I'm glad that I saw this because, quite frankly, I didn't even know that there was a Science Channel. 

The new trailer for The Muppets is now on-line. The movie will be released this Thanksgiving and, judging from the trailer, it is going be a really entertaining show. I'm thrilled that I'll be able to see Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel on screen in something other How I Met Your Mother . I love that show, but it's still refreshing to see them play a different character.

Marvel Studios announced on Friday that the trailer for next summer's most highly anticipated movie,  Marvel's The Avengers , has been downloaded over 10 million times in its first 24 hours on iTunes Movie Trailers , shattering the most-viewed trailer record in the site's history. Scarlett Johansson is the Black Widow The trailer, which debuted Tuesday, October 11, exclusively on iTunes Movie Trailers, gave fans a sneak peak at Marvel's The Avengers - the Super Hero team up of a lifetime-based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series The Avengers , first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Marvel's The Avengers  unites the world's greatest super heroes when Iron Man ( Robert Downey, Jr. ), Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ), Captain America ( Chris Evans ), The Incredible Hulk ( Mark Ruffalo ), Hawkeye ( Jeremy Renner ) and Black Widow ( Scarlett Johansson ) join S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Nick Fury ( Samue...

There's a new movie coming our next year called The Raven . It's inspired by the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe . I've only seen the trailer and some of the press materials for it, but this one looks like it has a lot of potential. In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allan Poe (played by John Cusack ) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (played by Luke Evans ) to hunt down a mad serial killer who's using Poe's own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue ( V for Vendetta , Ninja Assassin ), the film also stars Alice Eve ( Sex and the City 2 ), Brendan Gleeson ( In Bruges ) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen ( Faster ). When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields discovers that this crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper-part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe...

I have to admit that I cringed when I first heard that Disney was re-releasing The Lion King  in 3D. However, the 3D version of the movie has since gone on to bring in $80 million and counting. Quite frankly, I find it hard to cringe at $80 million. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise then that the House of the Mouse will re-release four movies from their archives in 3D in the near future. Beauty and the Beast will be re-released in 3D on January 13, 2012; Disney • Pixar's Finding Nemo will be re-released in 3D on September 14, 2012; Disney • Pixar's Monsters, Inc.  will be re-released in 3D on January 18, 2013; The Little Mermaid  will be re-released in 3D on September 13, 2013 In addition, Monsters University , which is a prequel to the original Monsters, Inc.  movie, will arrive in theaters in Disney Digital 3D on June 21, 2013

It all started back in 2003, for me. On the set of "Checking In" At the time, I was working on a feature-length documentary entitled  Checking In: The Story of the Book-Cadillac Hotel , which focused on the historic Book-Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit. The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, which was the quasi-governmental agency that was working on redeveloping the hotel, wouldn't talk to me on camera about the project so I turned to some of the historic preservation groups, who were all too happy to talk about the hotel. Back then, I had already decided that I was going to leave Detroit permanently as soon as this project was done. Regardless, during that time, I met Francis Grunow . He invited me to attend a meeting of this new group called Detroit Synergy . I was hooked after that first meeting. I met so many people who had such energy, enthusiasm, and determination to get things done. I got involved in organizing a pub crawl where I met a man who ...

I had the weirdest dream last night. One of my friends, who isn't a filmmaker, was shooting a documentary on potato chips and I was editing it. Towards the end of it, two of my other friends showed up in the dream as Siskel & Ebert-type movie critics. As for any hidden meaning in this one, well, before going to bed last night, I was mildly hungry and debated eating a handful of potato chips. I decided against it because I'm trying to shed a few pounds. Regardless, potato chips were obviously on my mind when I went to bed. Although, a documentary on potato chips still sounds like a cool idea.

Katie Wech , one of the writers behind Prison Break and Prom , wrote an essay in The Wall Street Journal about what makes a good script. WSJ is not normally the go-to source for screenwriting advice. However, this is an outstanding piece, in my humble opinion. If you're interested in writing for the movies and television, I recommend reading her article entitled Why a Good Script Is Like a Thong Bikini . It is available here .

I managed to cut out of work early this afternoon. This meant that I was able to go see Captain America: The First Avenger instead. I loved this movie. It was, in my opinion, the best comic book inspired movie.

I've completed a couple of screenplay and submitted one for competition at the Toronto International Film Festival . I suppose it was because of those two things that I got an email this morning asking if I had any advice for a newbie screenwriter. I have to admit that I still feel like a newbie because I haven't had a feature length script made into a movie yet. Regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts with anyone else who finds this post through the wonder of the interwebs. First, I recommend picking up a copy of Story  by Robert McGee . It's an amazing book that will tell an aspiring writer most of what he or she needs to know. Second, I recommend downloading a copy of Celtx, which is available at www.celtx.com . This program will help to format your screenplay and do a lot to help make the process go smoother. Celtx is not as good as Final Draft, which is by far the most popular writing software on the market. However, Final Draft is expensive and Celtx has a full ...

Have you ever had this sudden desire to do something, even though you can't explain exactly why  you're doing it? Well, that's what happened to me last night. I had this sudden desire to submit an updated version of my screenplay for The Roswell Chronicles  to the Toronto International Film Festival . It will be in their screenplay competition as a feature length science-fiction film. I didn't have any plans to submit the film when I woke up yesterday. I was doing something completely different with my life when I had a sudden desire to visit WithoutABox.com . Once there, I saw that TIFF was accepting screenplays for consideration and that yesterday was the deadline for regular submissions. At that point, I simply got hit with this desire to submit The Roswell Chronicles  that quite overwhelming. Anyway, I ended up submitting my script just a couple of hours before their deadline. Now, I wait to find out where it will go from here. Thankfully, I have several...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 opens in theaters today around the world. It is widely expected to smash box office records, both in the U.S. and internationally. The bad news with this opening is that the Harry Potter movie franchise is coming to an inevitable close. It has been a fantastic series of 8 movies over the past 10 years. The good news, however, is that now that she is 21 years old, it's now acceptable to lust after Emma Watson .

I thought about using my mad video editing skills to create a video tribute to the men and women in America's armed forces. However, as any glance at YouTube will reveal, there is no shortage of such works. There really isn't anything left for me to contribute. Instead, I thought I would take a moment to honor the troops by showcasing some of the videos that they made themselves to deal with the monotony of life in a combat zone. The 380th Air Expeditionary Wing out of Al Dhafra Air Force Base in the United Arab Emirates handles air refueling, reconnaissance, and combat support for operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. More importantly, as this video below shows, the airmen of the 380th are very hot. The job of securing the personnel and equipment of the U.S. Air Force is done be a dedicated team of security policemen. These brave men and women are ready to handle any hostile force that approaches and, as this video below shows, they are clearly ready for American Idol ...