Goodbye 2007, Hello Blog

2007 really was an incredible year for Matt and me. I hate that it's over! Here's a quick recap. In January, Canon USA traveled us up to San Francisco to talk about their cameras at MacWorld. A week later, my first feature PURGATORY HOUSE was wide-released on DVD. It was fun to see it on the shelves of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores as we traveled throughout the land this year!

Later in January, Matt and I found ourselves back at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where his film WAITRESS (starring Keri Russell) was the hit of the festival! Seeing it with it's first audiences was amazing. They laughed, cried and cheered. Fox Searchlight picked it up the night after it's world premiere, gave it a high-profile theatrical release in May, and it reached #4 at the Box Office! This latest Sundance success led directly to new agents for Matt, who landed him a lyrical, true-story 1940’s period piece called THE PARDON (starring Jaime King), which whisked Matt away to Shreveport, Louisiana for ten weeks.

Only four weeks after getting home from shooting THE PARDON, Matt was whisked away to Toronto for another ten weeks to shoot THE ECHO, where he learned to speak Canadian, eh? THE ECHO is a remake of the Filipino hit SEGAW, produced by the same people who did THE GRUNGE, THE RING, and THE DEPARTED.

Meanwhile I spent the year gathering forces for my next feature film, a quirky comedy called ODD BRODSKY. Hot off the success of PURGATORY HOUSE, I landed a meeting at Sundance (in January) with Saturday Night Live alumnus Rachel Dratch. She read the script and loved it. I think it could be a break-out role for her. With Dratch attached (Matt loves to say that rhyming pair), I began a string of meetings with potential producing partners, meticulously laying the groundwork and building a strong team. Later in the year, I met up with Chris Wyatt (the producer of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE), who said he’d loved what I did with PURGATORY HOUSE and hoped to work with me! Pretty wild!

Between pre-production work, film festival screenings and Canon shows, I also acted in 3 films this year, was a judge for the Prism Awards, Cine Eagle Awards and served on the Selections Committee for the Dances With Films Festival. And somehow I managed to travel out to both Shreveport and Toronto and spend a decent chunk of time with Matt while he was shooting those 2 films! On our time away from the set, we took in all the sights of Shreveport… well, not much to do in Shreveport, but we had a blast in Toronto! We even went down to Niagara by the Lake, and Niagara Falls—which featured the most spectacular rainbow we’ve ever seen! (See photos). I attended the Toronto Film Festival with Diane from Tehcnicolor, and Matt saw the Blue Jays play at home, adding to the extensive roster of stadiums he’s visited across North America.

Other travels included our yearly pilgrimage to Portland to visit Matt’s dad and family, and my trip to Austin, to visit my brother Josh and his fiancée Amy. Later, while Matt was still working in Toronto, my friend Katrina and I drove up to Napa to attend their beautiful wedding. Around this same time I completely redesigned our little bathroom and turned it into a whirlpool spa that Matt hardly recognized when he got home!

Considering the busy-ness of the rest of the year, our last couple months have been quiet and restful, including a relaxing cruise to Catalina and Ensenada. We’ve enjoyed driving around in our new Prius, and would recommend it to anyone, especially with the high gas prices right now. It's getting an average of 47 miles to the gallon. That about does it for this year. Goodbye 2007. You were very good to us. Life doesn't get much better than this. We'll miss you...

Wishing you a very happy holidays, and spectacular New Year!