Mafia III - Today Is Not Now

A long time ago (when I was in college), in a  land far, far away (the great state of Wisconsin), my brothers and I filmed a movie on the fly and called it Mafia.  The idea came to us while David and I were taping a friend's wedding, and one of the groomsmen fainted.  The premise was that the mafia had tried to assassinate him, and the agents were going after the mafia.  In Houston, we filmed the second installment.  But if you have a second, you must have a third.  And so, while in Aledo, IL this summer, my brothers and I filmed the third and final in the Mafia Trilogy.

To give some clarity, Stephen, David and I each play one good character, and one bad character.  In retrospect, we should have dressed in particular colors throughout to indicate which character you were looking at, but the biggest key is the dirty, slicked back hair and bad accents.

After you've watched the movies, you'll be able to score yourself on the Mafia experience.  The higher the score, the more fully you experienced the movie.  Enjoy!

Part I

Part II

Score Sheet: (format blatantly stolen from the fantastic blog "Stuff Christians Like").

-You know which Alison is more embarrassed of after having watched the film this morning:  seeing herself in Mafia III, or seeing me in Mafia III.  +2 points
-You can successfully determine which punch actually landed on David's face. +3 points
-You are able to tell which building was edited in with CGI. +5 points
-You think you know which country Bruno's (David's evil character) accent is from. +4 points
-You said to yourself "David has an accent?" after reading the previous item.  -2 points (-4 for David)
-You are able to successfully follow the storyline.  +2 points
-Without asking anyone who was involved in the production.  +3 points
-On the first viewing. +10 points
-You asked for all the outtakes of Eva.  +1 point (and you get the honorary Grandmother Award).
-You asked for all the outtakes of the rest of us.  +2 points
-After reading the previous, you said, "They're all such professionals that there's no way there could be outtakes!" +3 points (+10 for the encouragement, -7 for lying).
-You think I'm a bad parent after watching this movie.  -1 point.
-You think that Eva is super cute.  +3 points
-You think I'm a good actor.  +8 points
-You can accurately determine where each scene is filmed.  +2 points for each correct scene.
-You can understand Jaque's (Stephen) mispronunciation of various words.  +3 points
-You finished watching both videos.  +7 points
-You watched the movie again.  +10 points (+12 for each subsequent viewing)
-You reposted these videos on your own blog/facebook.  +5 points
-You invite all your friends over for a viewing party.  +15 points

What's your score?  Are there any other scorecard items I should have used?

Mafia III - Today Is Not Now

A couple of years ago - I'm not sure how many anymore - some friends asked me to do their wedding video.  I was happy to do it, and in the course of the wedding, one of the groomsman fainted.  Ever creative, my brothers and I decided to make a short "movie" about him fainting.  Except instead of fainting it was an assassination attempt by the mafia.

I will not vouch for the quality of that particular video.  I will vouch for its amusement.

A couple of years later, we made Mafia II - Armed and Dangers... well, maybe.  Again, I won't vouch for its quality.  This summer, my brothers and I filmed the last of the Mafia trilogy:  "Mafia III - Today is Not Now".   David is currently working on editing it. The trailer is below.  Before you watch the trailer, there are a few things the viewer must understand:

• Each of us - me and my two brothers - play one good character and one bad character.  This may clear up some confusion in the 
• We do not now, nor have we ever, claimed that the story lines made all that much sense.
• We do not now, nor have we ever, claimed that the dialogue was Emmy-winning quality. 
• I will say David did a great job on the cinematography aspect of this one. I feel like its a good end to this particular series. 

With out further ado - the trailer to Mafia III:  Today Is Not Now.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday, Alison and I celebrated our two year anniversary!  Its been a wonderful two years of being together and growing our family.  Sometimes 2 years seems like a long time, but then someone told me yesterday that they had been married 49 years.  Now that's some perspective. 

We're in Aledo, IL - a small town of about 3700.  We went to go to the nicest restaurant in town, and it was closed.  At 6:30 on a Monday night.  And so were most of the other restaurants!  However, we did find something, walked around Aledo for a little bit and got some ice cream.  Very fun evening. 

Here's the most recent picture of us.  David took this picture yesterday while taking family pictures.

Back in the US of A

We are back in the US for a couple of weeks, and already its been quite eventful!  We spent a couple of days in Chicago hanging out with my brothers, and we got to take some fantastic pictures of Eva.  See the slide show below.

And - trains are the way to travel.  We took an Amtrak train from Chicago to Minneapolis.  We booked our own room.  This room had two seats, that folded into a bed, and a bed that folded down above.  So we folded the top bed down, stuck Eva up there for a nap (surrounded by mountains of pillows and bags) and watched the scenery roll by.

Trains are by far the best way to travel.

My brother, David, took some photos while we were out.  Here they are!

Aledo, IL - Home of Thugmuffin and Vanilla Milkshake

The latest music video from my brothers, Stephen and David. 

Newest Hit

My two brothers are currently at my parents house for the summer, in Aledo, Ill. (if you don't already know - my dad got a job up there and they are in the process of transitioning up there).  Stephen is in school at Visible College working on a worship arts degree, and David is enrolled at Full Sail University working on a film degree.

As an ode to Aledo, Ill (pop. 3000), they have composed a hip-hop song.  Its uploaded to youtube, as I haven't figured out how to embed my own audio files in this account yet.

Almost Famous

While I have decided to go into a career of teaching, my brothers have decided to move in more exciting directions.  Both of my brothers are involved in media studies.  David is taking courses at Full Sail university in Orlando, FL and Stephen is studying worship arts (after getting a degree in sound engineering) at Visible College in Memphis, TN.

So every once in a while, when they have posted work that they have done, I'm going to post it here - because what they're doing is kind of cool.  There are probably a few projects of theirs that I could post, but here are their most recent ones.

David:  Assignment for Lighting 2




Stephen: An arrangement of Cold Play's "Clocks"