my dinner with Matt Riddlehoover
So, the accomplished actor and filmmaker Matt Riddlehoover was recently in town to attend the screening of my good friend Steve Balderson’s feature WATCH OUT at Reel Affirmations, the Washington DC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Matt is the lead actor of the film, director of the feature TO A TEE, and we were fortunate enough to have time to grab a bite to eat at the infamous Mr. Henry’s of Cap Hill. my partner and producer Paul was able to join us, along with our other really good friend Paul, who we also call ‘shakespeare’. needless to say, it was quite a lovely evening of good conversation, and good times. Matt is a genuine good guy, and we talked a lot about indie film and indie gay film and what not. we also commented about a lot of what we were seeing out there, and what was the current state of the so-called indie-gay cinema, if such a thing exists.
I’m pleased to say that both me and matt agree on one thing: Beer. we shared a pitcher of sam adams, which is like heaven to me after a long day. paul and shakespeare had their usual ‘Big Girl’ G and T’s. Matt ordered the ‘shroom’ burger – not the veggie type, but a real burger with ‘shrooms’ on it, i had henry’s wings with ranch dressing (until they open a gay version of hooters, i guess henry’s will have to do), shakespeare had the chicken nachos, and paul had a club sandwich with onion rings. what i really enjoy about henry’s is more of the ‘gay cheers’ atmosphere, and how the staff sometimes even treats you better than ‘family’. anyhoo, beer and comfort food is always a receipe for a good times.
i think both me and matt agree that the whole state of indie film is one that has to be DIY, and steve’s docs about indie film (WAMEGO strikes back) are really great ‘text books’ for the current state of indie film. i really think that there are a lot of things that people can learn from this doc, and also from the experiences of other filmmakers out there. and the other really important component is having other filmmakers to sympathize and support each other, similar to the whole indie music scene. i think for indie film to survive, you have to build your network of like minded filmmakers that are genuine and sincere, and the ones that really do mean what they say when they want to ‘help’ out. ones that are happy to share their experiences and knowledge, and not those that treat this as ‘priviledge’ information.
fortunately, me and paul and ‘shakespeare’ are really happy that matt had a really great time while he was here in DC, and i’m really glad to hear that WATCH OUT is doing so well. i’m really glad that we were able to meet up and i’m also glad that we were able to take matt to our local hang out.
hopefully we’ll run into each other soon. in the meantime, we’ll stay connected on the ‘my-face-space-book-cyber-web-internetessess…’
xoxo,
-al
