Chillicothe

So I was talking with my brother (he's in Orlando, I'm in L.A., we're both from Enon, Ohio) on instant messenger the other day about a screenplay I want to write. It's about a guy that can't choose between growing up and staying a teenager forever. He asks if I've seen "Chillicothe," made by a fellow Ohioan (he saw it at a festival last year). "Nope," I reply, and I look for it on imdb and find all these great reviews. I doubted I ever WOULD see it, my pessimism being rooted in working with independent films since I moved out here. Luck has it, a couple of days later I'm rummaging through video tapes in the office and sure enough there is a copy of "Chillicothe". And that's only the first happy accident. The film itself is the big payoff.

Introspection without egotism. Adventurous without overstretching. Emphasizing the strengths of unknown actors. Very little useless dialogue. Nice segues into thoughtful non-sequitors (the video-store guy). And, it has similar characters and situations to those I want to use in MY screenplay, but with an entirely different story. Thanks to all that, I absolutely loved it. A very nice job, Todd. I wish you all the luck in the world. And don't worry about whether people can pronounce the title or not. If they like it (and they will) they will learn.

P.S. - I sold many great CDs to partially fund my move to L.A. from Columbus, using the philosophy of "I will eventually miss it and have to buy it again" (lost almost all of my Hendrix that way). I had to double-check before I wrote this, but I did keep the "The Joshua Tree." Go figure.