The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

Tower Theater seats got your ass hurtin' over at Reel Pride? Well switch it up a bit and go over to the Fresno Art Museum and sit on some equally uncomfortable chairs to watch some cool Spanish language films at the 2nd Annual Latino Film Festival going on this weekend. Check out the official site here for the lineup plus how to reserve tickets for the screenings. Don't have the cash flow? Don't worry, ALL SCREENING ARE FREE! Free is good. Yeah, I know Spanish language films might not be for everybody but you just never know what gem you'll discover if you don't give them a chance!

As we reach double digits, come along with myself and Bryan Harley as we welcome Barrazie & Jay From Sanger to sit around and discuss the happenings in our nerdy worlds including the exclusive announcement on the details for the next Fresno Swede Festival. **Language in ALL our podcasts are NSFW so be warned**

• We discuss the plethora of film festivals (Reel Pride & Latino Film Festival) going on in Fresno this week.

• Find out how to get a free beer at tonight's Dumb Drum Gettogether.

• Talk about The Fall, Burn After Reading & Lord Of The Rings Extended Editions.

• Chinatown exists and it has tunnels. We talk about the 2nd Swede Film Festival.

• We discuss Fresno's upcoming Public Access Channel which will birth Dumb Drum TV.

• Why I'm going to buy the Chevy Volt.

• Hackers access the Large Hadron Collider as we creep closer to the end of the world.

All this & so much more! Download now & remember: if you listen to this podcast, you have a chance to score a free beer. DO IT! Thanks to LateUpdate for hosting the podcast.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE DUMB #10

One of the biggest (the biggest?) film festivals in Fresno begins today and it all goes down over in the Tower District. There's a VIP dinner going on today (my invite must of gotten lost in the mail) at Bobby Salazar's followed by a screening of Ruby Blue. To be honest, most of the films screening I've never heard of but here's your opportunity to go and be pleasantly surprised (*sigh* no local films, it seems. Although there is the discussion panel on Sunday). The festival goes on through this Sunday and ticket prices are not listed on the web site but I'm sure that they shouldn't be too outrageous. Or maybe they are. Usually when these events don't list actual prices on the web site promoting the event, it means that the prices can't be too low. But if your a film fanatic and you wanna go see some movies that otherwise you probably would have to wait for DVD, here's your chance this weekend. For more info and the full out schedule, head on over to the official site here and start planning accordingly!

As we mentioned in our podcast earlier this week (you listened, right?) September is going to be an all out assault on the local film lovers as we have three film festivals occurring here locally. F.I.L.M.M. (Festival Featuring Independent Lyricist and Movie Makers) is the first one and it's happening this Saturday, September 6th here in Fresno at the Tower Theater and doors open at 6:30 p.m. The festival features short films, junior short films, and poetry, mixed with a little live entertainment as well. I haven't had a chance to attend in the past so I'm not exactly sure what to expect this weekend but you can bet your ass I'll be there and if you have the time, come on out, say waddup and help support local film & the filmmakers making them. Here's a quote from the press release:

The event was designed to give people in and around the Central Valley an opportunity to show their work publicly to a national audience. All of the showcased participants involved have been chosen by a set of professional judges who have established themselves within the film or poetry industry. It’s a true independent festival that wants to give an outlet or resource to those who are serious about their craft and exemplify the potential to be successful in it, but don’t have the resources in order to fulfill those dreams and aspirations. It is "FFILMM's" hope to give these artists those resources, and if nothing else just give them the opportunity to express themselves and show their creative ability.

About 20 mins. or so before after making a run to the downtown Smart And final to pick up some ice and random stuff, Bryan Harley brought a good point up as we headed back to the gallery: we were living the community screening at the end of the film Be Kind Rewind. It was true. The windows in the gallery were covered up by a patchwork of sheets, the projector made the images on the walls dance as all the other pieces on the gallery walls remained frozen and the most important part, the community, showed up. We didn't have a final number of exactly how many people showed up but the rough estimates that I received ranged anywhere from 30 to 50 people. Yup, Fresno came through and nothing could stop me from smiling this past Saturday. Ear to friggan ear. The entries were entertaining, people were laughing, conversations were being had...it was good times. I started to think that this is one of the few film festivals that occur here in town that actually made up mostly of local entries. I think that's what my original plan in creating this event was: to showcase what Fresnans can create. And I do have to say it was pretty tight! Hopefully we can continue this tradition with our 2nd Fresno Swede Festival. What's this I hear about a horror themed festival around Halloween?

A special thanks to everyone who attended and those of you that helped support the thing. Without everyones participation, there's no way it would of come out the way it did. If you guys have any comments, questions or suggestions for the next one, leave us some comments here or email us at thedumbdrum@gmail.com. And since I posted almost all the other entries here (at least the ones I had permission to post) here is Bryan Harley's instant classic, Robocop:



Thanks to Jay for the pics!

The Usual Swede-spects from Roque Rodriguez on Vimeo.
A collaboration of The Dumb Drum, Late Update & Dead Days, this was our entry into the Fresno Film Festival which went down earlier today and turned out to be a success. It was awesome meeting a lot of you guys out there and It truly showed how much community is interested in this kind of stuff. Thanks again for everyone's support and we're already planning our next festival...what can it be? Stay tuned! I will post some of the other swedes that were shown at the festival later on. Thanks again for all the support and I really believe that this was the first step towards thrusting Fresno into the filmmaking spotlight! Let us know what you think of the swede! Just for shit's & giggles, I've posted the original trailer right here:

Swear I can never have too much alliteration...So this week I had the honor of being a special, special guest over at the Fresno Famous podcast, Flowing With Famous! I joined hosts Famous Whitewater & The Fresnan as we talk about Timmy T, Autry vs. Dyer cagematch, the upcoming awesomeness that is the Fresno Swede Festival & the state of the Fresno film community and how we united to slay the City Council dragon to save the princess (sorry about the analogy, Ray). Yup, good times. So take a break from editing that swede, head on over here, download it and take a gander and leave us some comments!

Another podcast has hit the internets for you too consume. This time, fellow Dumb Drum contributor Barrazie shows up for his first EVAR podcast and joins me as we talk about the Entertainment Weekly Top 1000 Of The Last 25 Years list, how how uses his kids to steal stuff from stores, we detail our trip to City Hall and how we single handedly (ahem) saved the Fresno Film Commission, we propose a cage match on top of City Hall for Autry vs Dyer, go over some other cool podcasts, we tease our upcoming Swede Film Festival thingy and much, much more. All clocking in at around 42 mins. so get your podcast on and join us! Thanks again to Late Update for hosting our podcast!

CLICK HERE FOR THE DUMB #6!!

Starting this Friday and going through Sunday, the Tower Theater will host the Fresno Filmworks Fourth Annual Fresno Film Festival (Mmmmm...alliteration). What does that mean? It means you got something to do this weekend: GO OUT AND SUPPORT, SUN! Most of you won't and I have to admit, most of the stuff showing seems of little interest to me (why isn't there a focus on local filmmakers? Hotel Fresno is the only film that I know of being home grown) but I'll definitely be hitting up the festival. The point is we need to go out and support this kind of stuff. Sorry....feel free to bash my editorial rant down in the comments section. I'll for sure be there opening night to see Oscar nominated The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (check out the trailer for the film here) as I'm very happy to see a film like this opening the festival. Anyways, to see the full listing and information on the films showing, swing by the official site for the festival and I hope to see some of you out there.