Out of Focus

No, I have not been thinking about it forever, and no, I'm not a fan of Point Break

I now have conclusive proof (anecdotal, sure, but personally true) that drinking is more dangerous than skydiving. You see, Monday night, at a party for the opening of IFP Independent Film Week, while drinking a beer from a bottle, I somehow managed to chip the bottom of my front tooth, which also happens to be a crown from a biking accident when I was about 12. Meanwhile, last Saturday (Sept. 13), I jumped out of an airplane and landed with no injuries whatsoever. Jumping might actually be a misnomer. Rather, I fell (deliberately) out of an airplane. There wasn't much actual jumping involved. And the falling happened from roughly 11,500 feet.

Few people were more surprised than I that I chose to partake in such an activity. I'm not what I would consider the extreme sports type, and skydiving was neither a lifelong dream nor even a huge fear I decided I needed to overcome. I don't have problems with heights or airplanes, in general.

The first question most people asked me when I explained that I was planning to do/had done this was, "Were you planning to do so for a long time?" Nope. In fact, I vividly remember one of many San Francisco to Los Angeles drives down Highway 5, this one with my younger cousin David. It was probably about 15 years ago, give or take, when I was in my early-to-mid 20s. Somehow, the topic came up, and David (four years younger than I) mentioned that he had gone skydiving. He told me all about it and how great it was, but my response was essentially, "Wow, that is something I seriously don't ever see myself having any interest in doing."

And then, out of nowhere, a year or two ago (probably due to way too many episodes of The Amazing Race), I suddenly had this urge to jump out of an airplane. This year, kind of out of nowhere, as people began asking me about my summer plans, I found myself responding, "I'm not sure, but I'm thinking of going skydiving." Of course, that was easy to say, especially without any plans or any friends who might go with me. And then, suddenly one day in the midst of an IM chat with my friend Jill (which one of us brought up the topic is an ongoing debate), we both realized that we had been thinking of doing it.

That was in May. The entire summer went by with no action but plenty of threats to each other: "Are we going to do this?" "Yeah, of course." "When?" "I don't know. You tell me." Labor Day approached; Time Out New York listed skydiving as one of the 25 things to do before the end of the summer; Jill had her birthday dinner; and we picked a date (along with a third jumper, her friend Jess.) But we waited too long to make our reservation, and our original date was all filled up. We chose Sept. 13 instead, the weekend after I would return from the Toronto Film Festival and before my birthday.

I came home from Toronto with a horrible cold. Thursday and Friday, I barely got out of bed, hoping that I would feel better enough to drive 90 minutes out to Calverton, Long Island, sign away all liability, step into a harness that would make me look waaaaay heavier than I am, attach myself to a person who has jumped out of planes thousands (probably tens-of-thousands) of times, and then see what it was like to fly, or at least fall.

Below, with somewhat cheesy music and plenty of proof that I should never ever ever give thumbs-up or devil horns with my hands again, is what happened:

Obviously, I survived. A more complete description after the jump ....

The 5th Annual Birthday Post

That's right ... regardless of how often I write, I can always be counted on to mention that I've become a year older. There was the first one in 2004 when this blog was still a newborn (and I included photos of me as the same), and each year since, without fail, I've included another one. This year, the day is almost over, and wow ... I can't wait. It wasn't my favorite birthday. I guess if I celebrated at all, I did that last weekend (more on that in the next post, tomorrow). It's nice of Hollywood and the TV Academy to throw a party for me and all, but looking at all those who share this date with me, I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't just for me at all. I mean, it's not like I got to unwrap Heidi Klum myself, you know.

I had a different experience this year as I turned 37. The life of this blog has seen me go from early-30s to late-30s, and I've never been 100% celebratory during any of those. I've always hesitated with the "getting older" thing. And yet this year, as far back as April, I believe, when people would ask my age, I would for some reason answer, "I'll be 37 in September." 36, itself, had a very brief shelf-life. Last weekend, as I was signing in to jump out of a plane (video TK), the sheet asked for name, age and weight, and I had become so used to stating, "I'll be 37 in September," I actually wrote 37 before realizing I wasn't quite there yet.

This year, I had enough excitement with the skydiving, so I decided against any actual celebration. Besides, I guess I tend to prefer people when they don't feel obligated to treat me special cause it's my day. And that way, I get to guarantee my occasional misanthropic reputation at least one day per year. Being Jewish, Christmas wouldn't work, so every now and then for my birthday, I simply say, "Bah humbug."

But you know what? Let's celebrate all the other birthdays today. There are quite a few. There are my birthdaTE-mates, Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro, for example, all three of us entering the late-30s today. There's Stephen King, Ethan Coen and Bill Murray; Bridget Moynahan, Ricki Lake, Faith Hill, Liam Gallagher, Leonard Cohen, Chuck Jones, Nancy Travis, Angus Macfadyen, Cheryl Hines, Caleb Deschanel, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Jerry Bruckheimer, Henry Gibson, Bill Kurtis, Dave Coulier, Nicole Richie (!), Rick Mahorn, and (how cool is this?), the long-late H.G. Wells who would be 142 today. Oh, and of course, my boss Jane.

So why should I care ... there are plenty of people hopefully actually having HAPPY birthdays today. I'll settle for happy every-other-days-of-the-year. Too much to ask? Ah well .... maybe I'll just go skydiving again.

Off to Toronto (In case anyone was wondering ...)

I'm heading off to the Toronto Film Festival today for a week's worth of sitting in the dark. Well, not completely. I actually don't plan to duplicate my six-to-seven films per day schedule from last year, not because I can't handle that many or there aren't enough films I want to see, but for too many reasons to list here, I have to focus more on the other elements of festival-going this time. I plan to mostly stay away from the New York Film Festival titles (as I can see them here in the coming weeks) and focus a lot more on the films that otherwise may not be coming to a theater near you in NYC, unless maybe we have some room for it in the Spring.

It's a busy September ahead -- Toronto, Independent Film Week and New York Film Festival press screenings, skydiving (uh huh), my birthday giving me official late-30s status, some parental visits ... I'm already exhausted and wish it was October.

Meanwhile, assuming there is some content that pops-up here as I stubbornly keep telling myself there will be, not everything over the next week will be Toronto related ... but we'll see how much time I have. Either way ... stay tuned ... if you want ... or something.

And if you're in Toronto too, give me a holler!