debor009

Taking a quick break from doing my taxes (ugh) to give a hearty thumbs up to Ceyda Torun's charming and heartwarming documentary Kedi , which is now making the rounds of art house theaters nationwide. For centuries Istanbul has harbored thousands of street cats. They are fed and cared for by the people of the city - and look remarkably healthy! - and yet they belong to no one. The film profiles the cats of Istanbul and the people whose lives are touched and sometimes changed by them. It is a magical film. Well worth seeing. You can read a review here and an article on how the film was made here . Really, I loved it. Go see this film!

I’ve been off the grid for the past couple of months trying to figure out how to move to Los Angeles in 2018 without breaking the bank. For two years my husband and I have been making periodic trips out to LA to check out neighborhoods, apartments, acting classes, travel distances to the studios, and the feasibility of getting to auditions by driving the grid and staying off the freeways. (As Bette Davis famously said, “Take Fountain.”) We really thought we could make it work, but the more research we did the less it seemed feasible. Paramount Pictures where Gloria Swanson makes her entrance in Sunset Boulevard . Single actors may join forces with a roommate or two and romanticize the Bohemian life, but husbands frown on additional bodies in the home and I’ve reached a point in life where dirt and junkies are just…well…dirt and junkies. Last August we flew out to LA to check out apartments in a few neighborhoods we’d identified as pleasant, reasonably safe, and within easy commute to t...

We’d never thought of creating a base in southern Nevada, or of splitting the year between two (or more) locations, but the minute we got home I was online and looking into it. The distance (about 300 miles depending on the route) was about the same as from my current location to New York, so even when I wasn’t physically in Los Angeles I could still make it to scheduled call times and classes, and there was still the option of uploading audition tapes. Taxes? Nevada has no state income tax, check. Apartment costs? A two-bedroom in Las Vegas can be had for around $1,000 a month. In some of the small towns to the south, like Laughlin , it drops to $550. So rent for a whole year in Nevada is roughly equal to the cost of one or two months in Los Angeles, which eases the pain of paying rent for a year when we may be away for long periods of time. Pets? We didn’t see any massive up-front pet fees, but breed and number limits are in place in some places, but not all. Location? The desert is...

The more we thought about getting an apartment in Nevada, and taking our own mobile accommodations to Los Angeles for that prime part of the year for auditions, the more it seemed like a good idea. My husband will be polishing his three draft novels - and developing new ones - so he can work anywhere. We would be out of the desert during that part of the year when it's ridiculously hot. We could park ourselves in different locations, from beach to mountains. If neighbors nearby got noisy or unpleasant, we could move. Plus we could stay mobile for location filming and take our pets with us. We're Westerners by birth. No limits, Baby! But what kind of mobile accommodations were going to feel most comfortable and at the same time be the most mobile? We found out that with more and more employment being do-able online a lot of working-age people are ditching the 9-5 routine and opting for a place-to-place life on the road, so researching RVs and what is involved was easy (search RV...

My husband and I finally went to see the local movie theater's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" event, which has been running every Saturday night at midnight since 2003. If you haven't seen Jim Sharman's 1975 film, it's a high camp take on old horror/scifi movies with a brilliant Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter, the Transylvanian Transvestite Mad Scientist. Curry plays it for all it's worth (the film launched him into starring roles) and Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick (early in their careers) also star. But in watching local "cast members" playing along with the film at the front of the theater, I was struck by just how difficult it is to be truly "naughty" anymore in an age when there are serious (and seemingly endless) discussions about such topics as a man's right to wear a dress into the ladies' restroom. When the film came out I can see where the action on screen would have elicited a lot of nervous giggles. But today t...

I have to tell you that all this talk lately about reaching out to women in film, creating special programs, help, etc rankles a bit. Maybe because it sounds just a bit patronizing and self-congratulatory....like helping disadvantaged children. (Or maybe I'm just having one of those mornings) In any case, women have been heavily involved in producing, directing, writing, and editing films since films were first invented as an art form. Every week their work hits the theaters; it just doesn't get the marketing it deserves typically. Kind of like The Hurt Locker (6 Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Sound/mixing and editing) vs. Avatar (3 Oscars: Cinematography, Visual Effects, Art Direction). Here's what women filmmakers have opening this week in theaters: The Red Pill , directed and co-produced by Cassie Jaye ; 13th , directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay ; Newtown , directed by Kim A. Snyder and produced by Maria Cuomo Cole ; and 37 , written and direct...

It’s ironic that you can move to a city of 12 million people and feel absolutely alone, but you can.  Sure, you can go to actor networking events, union workshops, and acting classes and meet fellow struggling actors (the city is overrun with them!), but if you’re looking for close friends to have fun with, people in the same hugely competitive business may not make logical soul mates. Plus crazy schedules can make it hard to connect outside of classes and auditions. When I tell an actor friend "Let's get together for lunch!" I invariably have to preface it with "What does your schedule look like?" Bumping into someone’s shopping cart at the supermarket could have you mistaken for a stalker, and I’ve watched (and appeared in) enough Investigation Discovery crime shows to know that you don’t look for friends in bars. (A couple vacationing at the beach a couple of years ago did that and didn’t survive the night!) The best bet for finding friends (not to mention p...