Latest / Yeah Buddy! Podcast / Inside the World of Film Festivals: Film Critic Kierre Stowes Sets the Stage

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Inside the World of Film Festivals: Film Critic Kierre Stowes Sets the Stage · Yeah Buddy! Podcast

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Music.
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Yes, yes, yes. What's going on, world? This is your man, Buddy Rami,
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and we are back at each other with another episode of the Yeah, Buddy podcast.
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And if this is your first time tuning in, thank you all for checking it out, the podcast.
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And if you're a returning friend, man, buckle up, man. We are in for another
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exciting episode. You know how we do every episode.
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I always try to bring some of my friends in the entertainment business.
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We come through, chop it up, see what we got going on. And this episode is like no other, y'all.
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This episode, I got my good friend. We both reside, come from Yuba City,
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California, but now we're making waves out here in the Sacramento film community.
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This dude, he's an official movie critic. He has his third annual film festival
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coming up that he's going to be telling you all about this episode.
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He's got a whole bunch of other things in the works that he has going on, too.
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His TV show and a whole bunch of other stuff right now. But I want y'all to
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make it live and make it live for my good friend, Mr.
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Kier Stowes in the building.
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What's up? What's up? You're in the building.
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For sure, for sure. For sure, man. Thank you for sliding through and shit like
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that, man. Thanks for having me, man. Anytime, bro.
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And they're connected and stuff all like that so yeah yeah
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so uh we had you when i was doing the funny business podcast
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we had you come in time i believe that was when you was doing like the uh the
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first annual yeah that was our first year first yeah
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that was our very first festival that's right yeah but now you're back at
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it for the uh the third the third year man so just bigger better and just you
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know more films and just more people coming in and it's just been great man
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just the love from the community has been fantastic man yeah yeah it's just
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the folks people have been rocking with us and we're rocking with them man it's
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just a beautiful thing yeah so.
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So how did what what are some of the things that you've learned from i said
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doing the first film festival now to the third one just for the smash of just just put it all together.
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But, you know, it's a lot of work, man. So, you know, each year we try to get
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a little bit better and try to improve.
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So like every year we kind of look at like what worked and what didn't work.
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And so like the first year we learned, really, I need two days.
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And so that's when we added the second day. And then we kind of looked at this
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year, we kind of looked at, okay, well, we had a lot of features last year.
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So we kind of cut down the features so we can get more shorts just so we can get more films.
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You know what I mean? and so those are just some of the kind of things that we learned
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and then just the planning the organization i
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got more people on my team that are helping me out so i don't have to
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bury you know put in the load i used
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to have to watch all the films by myself yeah like the first year it was just
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pretty much me and my wife watching all the films you know what i mean so i
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hired so now i brought on some some actual film critics actually help watch
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the films and judge and score the films and i just feel like it makes it more
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of a cohesive festival now yeah and now i know that no one can say,
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oh, it's just Kier picking films and things of this.
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No, I got 10 people that are actually watching these films and scoring them
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and helping me determine which films are going to make it into the festival.
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Yeah, yeah. Because I'm pretty sure you can get some people who,
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in their films, get a little butthurt and stuff like that. Oh, man.
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They don't win. Yeah, man. We've had people, man, that we reject films.
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And I'm usually very thorough.
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If you're on my email chain, I'm always letting you know exactly what's going on every step of the way.
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And I'm the same way with people that even if I don't select your film, i
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email especially the local i'll email you directly say hey man
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your film didn't make it into the festival you know here's where some
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of the things that we liked about the film and these are
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just some of the things that maybe you want to work on and prove upon but
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you know don't fret you can always submit again for next year and you know we've
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had a lot of people that didn't get in like the first year and now they're in
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the festival this time you know what i mean but some people just took it negatively
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and they're just like i'm never submitted to your festival again because i didn't
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get in i'm just like that's kind of not a good attitude to have no yeah yeah
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yeah you know Because there's a lot of things that I didn't get in my life,
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and I didn't go, oh, well, I'm done with that.
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I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to come back even harder the next year,
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and then I'm going to make it happen. Yeah.
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Well, it's also just the wrong mentality to have that with your film festival,
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just because from going to your film
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festival, you have one of the most well-produced film festivals in town.
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Well, I appreciate that. I mean, yeah. I mean, the thing about me is I'm a film
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critic first, so I really do care about the films.
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You know what I mean? And that's kind of like my passion.
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You know, anybody that follows me on my socials, you'll know that's all I do
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is post about films like almost every single day. I'm constantly doing movie reviews.
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Everything I do is pretty much film related.
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So I'm really passionate about films. And so, like, you know,
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when I put something together, I want to do it right.
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And that's why we do it at the IMAX, because it's the best screen in town.
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I mean, there is no substitute for me.
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Everything I do, I put my heart and my passion into.
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So when it comes to, say, swing over to the film critic side,
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watching films and stuff, all like that, how many films do you usually have
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to watch for you to be considered like, okay, now I'm an official film critic?
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Is there some sort of like criteria? yeah it's kind of hard to say
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it's a couple different ways because like most
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organizations they they have expectations you're going to watch at
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least about 150 to 200 films a year that new
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films yeah and so that's what i try to hear too i try to watch as many films
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as i can every single year and i'm probably watching a new film you know at
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least two a week probably yeah and then when we get close to like oscar season
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or award season like in the fall i get screeners And so I'm just watching films
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like on a database, just like, just to keep up.
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Because a lot of the, like, I'm a film critic for the African-American Film Critics Association.
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And, you know, they expect you to watch at least, they'll send you a list and
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they expect you to have seen at least 75% of the films that are on that list
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in order to be considered for their award ceremony in order to vote.
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And so I'd make sure I'm trying to watch at least 75% of whatever that list is.
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So it's 100 films. That means I got to watch 75 of them.
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You know what I mean? and just kind of go from there do you
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ever get like a like a film critic burnout where you're like you know i just can't
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watch no fucking movies right now you know i don't get a burnout but the
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issue i have is i can't really watch films because i'm
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watching so many new films so i have i buy dvds all
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the time the blu-rays all the time i got like a you know a thousand
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probably blu-rays dvds at the house yeah and like
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you know there's like something that i haven't even watched before you
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know what i mean and it was like my favorite movie of like 2022 and
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i haven't even re-watched it since i saw it in theaters just because
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i'm constantly watching new films so it's not so much getting
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burned out watching new stuff i just get burnt out and i want
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to be able to just like chill and watch some old stuff sometimes you know
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what i mean and so so that's the burnout part that i get
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because i like watching movies it's kind of like my time to like relax
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and just you know wind down you know i get home after a day
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of work and i just throw on a movie or something like that just
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to kind of relax yeah so one of the biggest like
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critiques that i hear from just like not not
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but just like the average like movie consumer and
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stuff like that is that like there's nothing original
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coming out of like hollywood coming out of the hollywood
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studio system and down in la from like from
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you having to watch so many types of films is that not that you agree that there's
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nothing original or it's just that that's not nothing they're putting the their
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big bucks behind you know it's it's kind of twofold because yeah i agree if
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you're looking for like a major blockbuster it's either going to be a sequel
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of some sort some sort of disney intellectual property You know,
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which would include like the MCU and things of this nature, superheroes, things of that nature.
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Yeah. And that's kind of what dominates the box office for the most part.
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But there's a lot of really good indie stuff. You know what I mean?
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It comes out if you watch the Oscars. Right.
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Most of those films were not big blockbuster films. Most people hadn't seen.
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I saw that film, but most people hadn't seen it before. What did you think of it?
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You know i liked it wasn't my favorite film of the year but it definitely was in
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my i don't know top 25 or something like that so i
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did like it for what it was i didn't think it was the best film of the year
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but that's just my personal opinion but but i did enjoy
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it and i do like that only cost which i know
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a lot of people say it's still a lot of money but it only cost six million dollars to make
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you know but it was competing against like dune 2
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which cost like 200 million dollars to make and so
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i kind of liked it it had a chance you know
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what i mean and one being you know competitive against like
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all these big you know machines that are out there in terms
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of the blockbusters yeah i think they caught it at a at
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a right time too because we're coming
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out of a time where like not just like the fires but then also the the strikes
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yeah and everything like that so just the whole people try to get back into
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the whole mode of like doing all this oscar campaign season or emmy campaign
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season just the whole the whole entire structure of the movie studio system has been thrown off.
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This was kind of just the perfect time for that movie to come.
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Especially because you're talking about.
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Sex work, sex world, stuff like that. With the whole Me Too movement being so big.
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This is really, even if you talk about the problem with the movie still now,
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it even goes back to the whole Me Too movement. For sure.
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For it to come back full circle now with this small movie.
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Empowering sex workers and things of this nature, which is something you
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don't necessarily see you don't see it but yeah right so we
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might have slaves yeah so it
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is a little bit different in that sense so i do like that aspect of
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it but yeah i agree with some of the sentiment that like the
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big the big movies the big blockbuster movies tend
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to be you know sequels and and
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marvel films and dc films and stuff like that
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and that kind of i don't like that part about it because it
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is kind of camel cannibalizing the film market
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yeah and so like some movies like a Nora didn't really play
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that well at the box office you know I think it came out for about a week
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and then it immediately goes to streaming and so my concern as
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a film critic is I like to be able to go to the theaters you
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know that's why my festival at the IMAX it's like let's go to the theaters let's
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keep that trend going you know what I mean and so
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I just don't I don't necessarily dislike streaming movies
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because it is nice to be able to watch the movie at home and not
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have to go to the theater but I still want to
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be able to go to the theater you know what I mean and I don't only want
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to go to the theater just to see marvel films you know what i
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mean so that part about it it does frustrate you need like
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that that strong because on the flip side to that like netflix
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puts out a lot of original what it looks like it would be big blockbuster
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movies but it's just a lot of money put into like a made-for-tv movie yeah you
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know what i'm saying sometimes that is the case but i mean but netflix i will
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say of all of them they they are they do have the best shot of getting a really
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big blockbuster a film that could have been a block but like like extraction
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with chris Yeah, I really like those films, right?
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But that's a film that probably could have played that could have been like his John Wick, you know?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they just decided to go on Netflix,
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you know? So there are some good movies to go to Netflix, but,
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You know, I wish that more would go to the box office. So, like,
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extraction would be dope to see on the big screen, right? You know what I mean?
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So, that's just, like, straight action. Like, I would love to see that on the big screen.
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Yeah, it kind of takes... I guess, well, I mean, it just depends,
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because it's still, like, it's still cool to see those types.
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It still feels like, you know, back when you got, like, bootleg movies,
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stuff like that. It's like, I shouldn't be watching this on TV right now.
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Right, right. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much streaming dead.
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It took over, like, the bootleg. You know what I mean? Yeah.
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Now you can just, you know, 20 bucks, you can get a streaming service and watch these films.
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Or the other issue with streaming, though, is that films in general don't play
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very long at the box office.
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Yeah. You know, they used to have a much longer run. Now it's like it's out
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even like bigger movies. Yeah.
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You know, it'll be out for, but, you know, it's going to be streaming in a month.
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So a lot of people just say, well, why go to the theater if I can just wait
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30 days and, you know, Netflix will get it or Amazon will get it or something
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of that nature. and maybe I'll pay $4.99 in some cases, but that's still cheaper
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than going to the theater.
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And so a lot of people wait. So I think that also kind of hurts the box office
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a little bit because now we're in that mentality where I'll just wait a month and watch it at home.
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Which also justifies the big-time studio's decision, just like whatever's going to make us money.
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We ain't got time to take no experimentation, none of these experimental films.
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Yeah, because now, so yeah, I mean, that's a problem. We have a two-month window
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to take this movie that we've been working on for the past six years.
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Right. We have a two-month window to get into the green. Right.
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That's it. And that's it. That's all you got. You know what I mean?
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You might get lucky if it's a bigger movie than the foreign overseas market.
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You might be able to get some legs over there, but by the time it gets to China,
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it's already streaming here.
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You know what I mean? So it's like, they've lost that money in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, it takes too much to even get back into.
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Into the dream because they got to at least make double what it is they put in there
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yeah because of marketing and stuff marketing still costs 150 million
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to make you got to roughly figure they spent another 150 on
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marketing yeah right because you got to have the actors go out
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and pitch the movies you got to have the commercials you got to have all
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the trailers getting on tv all that stuff
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costs money yeah so which was another thing that i was
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talking about like with the like with that norm movie like how people talk about like
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it was a six million dollar movie and stuff like that but they put about 18
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million dollars yeah so they knew where they was going they
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knew what they would go for it they was like we like this movie cost
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six million dollars but to make it an academy award with
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a movie like no we put an extra 18 million dollars exactly and
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they say indie you know and like 6 million 18 million it
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sounds like not a lot but i but like i said you talk to
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anybody here locally anybody they're coming to my my film
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festival you know what i mean oh my god they've never
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had a six million dollar budget you know what i mean like thinking like if
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they were able to get a six million dollar budget yeah yeah yeah
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and then have another you know 12 million dollars of marketing
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on top of it oh man you know what i mean well
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you're fucking mine right right exactly
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so you just end up on tubi yeah you do
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you watch a lot of the tubi the tubi movies and stuff like that you know
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i've seen some here and there but i just stay so busy with
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having to watch like current movies a lot of times so i kind of just stick to
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like uh you know the ones that you're supposed to watch yeah you're the ones
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i'm supposed to watch the ones that maybe have potential to see around award
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season or something like that those are the ones i try to gravitate towards.
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Another ones that just made on iphone and with the wigs all to the side yeah
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yeah i you know i say it goes for the festival yes.
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Speaking with so it's like as far as the festival goes like that
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are there any films like in the past i don't know if
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you want to play like favorites with films that you're looking forward to or anything like that
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but like are there any films in the past that you sat
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back watching was like oh wow good ass
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fucking movie yeah you know i don't want to talk too much about the films they're
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going to be in this in this festival because i think you know they're all
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have value and they're all good so i don't want to yeah and sometimes
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i have to do that because i go on other shows and stuff they ask about
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well what kind of films are in the festival and i explained some of them
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but i know in the past like last year we had a film called you're
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on your own kid it was like kind of a horror twist to
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it i thought that was a well-done film that was a film that you
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know if he had the budget i would love to see like a feature film
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based on that you know what i mean yeah but you know
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but you know we get a lot of features we get a lot of shorts
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but for the most part they're mostly shorts that we play
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and so you know it's it's it's rough because their budget's so small they can
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only shoot for you know 10 minutes or 15 minutes and so it's great in that snapshot
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but you wish that they had a bigger budget so they could flesh it out and make
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it a little bit more expansive yeah you know flesh out the characters give you
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some backstory that kind of stuff and.
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Are you going to be in any of the films this year? Yeah, man, I'm in one, actually.
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So I don't really act a lot, you know what I mean? I used to act when I was
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younger, but I haven't done it in years. I'm really rusty. I'm out of practice.
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But I don't really act a lot. But every once in a while, somebody will ask me
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to do something, and I'll just say, you know what?
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That sounds like fun. If it sounds like fun, I'll do it, you know what I mean?
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But if it sounds like work, I'm not going to do it.
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Like, yeah, we need you to be here for the next three weeks,
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you know, shooting at 2 a.m.
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I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not me.
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And you're doing it for a copy credit deal yeah for the
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art of it yeah so i had a good friend of mine his name uh
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sean kilcoyne he asked me to be in this film he wants he
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he's doing a he did a parody of the movie they live the famous
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fight scene with roddy roddy piper um it's
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like an eight minute long fight six minute long fight scene something like that
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and so we did a parody version of that it's kind of a slapstick version of
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it um so that film will actually play on sunday the 27th of
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april so um so that's the that's the only one i'm in this year okay
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i was gonna say because i went to the film festival
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last year and shout out
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to troy man because that film right there that zombie movie
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was probably like one of my favorite films yeah i know
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mike rose our mutual friend in the city he said
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that was his favorite film of the whole festival so yeah but yeah
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you know everyone so if it's fun i'll do it you know a zombie
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movie something like that you know you want to kill me on screen i'm good
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with that you know what i mean slapstick film you want to beat me up on screen
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you know i'll do that kind of stuff it's fun you know what i mean it's something
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out of my comfort zone so i like it okay cool and so i know we have the um the
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film festival is coming up the
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third annual yeah saturday movie book film festival that's from april 26.
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And 27 that's at the esquire imax theater
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in downtown sacramento do you
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have the i guess the the itinerary set yet
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uh we're still working on that i haven't released it
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just yet because we're still working on getting the films massaged
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and i don't like to roll out the itinerary because the imax is very particular
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about the films that in the format that they're in
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they all have to be converted to dcp format and so
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until they all get converted i don't like to just break down
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exactly but on my website it does have a list of all
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the films that we'll be playing in the festival okay how many films do you have total 46
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i believe yeah yeah 46 over the
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next two days so over those two day so it's a
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lot of films and two features included in that so yeah so
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it's it's gonna be like boom boom boom and that
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was one of the things i learned a lot of people i asked people in community
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you know kind of what do you want to see what you know this is for the community
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what would you guys like to see in the past well they said more films yeah and
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i said well either got to add another date you know or i got to figure out a
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way to get more films into the two dates that i have and so that's what i decided to do for right now.
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But we do have plans in the future to maybe have a second festival at another
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time or something like that. Okay, cool.
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And so say we have an aspiring filmmaker. They want to get their film submitted
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to the Sacktown Movie Buff Film Festival.
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What's the process like for them to get into the film festival?
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So we do everything through Film Freeway.
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So right now our submissions are closed, but they'll probably open up usually
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right after the festival.
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So it ends on the 27th, probably the 28th. I'll start opening up in April.
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We're also open up submissions on FilmFreeway.com slash SacktownMovieBuffs Film Fest.
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And they can just go there, submit their film.
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We have, I don't know, 10, 12 categories, something like that,
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between short films, animations, student films, whatever the case may be.
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And they can submit there. And it doesn't matter how early or how late you submit.
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You know, we're going to give everybody the equal amount of time.
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And so we have some films that were submitted last year, April,
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that are playing in this festival.
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Oh, dope, dope, dope. So you do your due diligence for every...
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Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, we take time.
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And then once the festival season has closed, we take a couple of weeks just
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to knock out all the other additional films that we hadn't caught up on yet
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and give every film an opportunity to play at the festival.
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And you say you have a team now of people and stuff like that.
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Yeah, so including myself, a total of 10 judges that we have.
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All of them are film critics.
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They're all well-known film critics in the community. And so they help me out
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tremendously watching films. and we disagree on films and we,
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you know, but we try to base it off of scoring.
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So I make every director or every critic go in, watch a film, score it on a one to 10.
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And then we look at the scores. And then that's a lot of times how we determine
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which film makes it to the festival. So it's not just me going,
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you know what? I don't like your face.
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So, you know, Phil's not playing in the festival or I don't like this.
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It's based on the scores.
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And so usually anything 7.5 or higher, you have a pretty good chance of getting in the festival.
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If the score is lower than that, then more than likely, unfortunately,
20:01
it's not going to make it. Okay. And then is there like.
20:04
Is there a particular genre that you kind of prefer when it comes to just like
20:08
watching films of Gerald and like when it comes to the films that you want to
20:11
see at your film festival?
20:13
Yeah. You know, I have my favorites. You know, I like a lot of action films.
20:16
So if there's something where the action is really done, special effects,
20:19
things of this nature. I like thrillers a lot.
20:21
Horror films are really good. I like comedies also.
20:24
But yeah, if you, you know, have a really well done, you know,
20:28
action film and it looks clean, it looks crisp and clear, then you probably,
20:32
you have a pretty good shot of it playing at the festival so yeah you know
20:36
it doesn't look too cheesy you know what i mean it's probably
20:39
gonna you'll have a good shot or a really good thriller just really it's
20:42
got to be a really good story you know and i always tell filmmakers before you
20:45
submit who who's your targeted audience you
20:48
know what i mean because i also try to think about the audience as
20:51
well so i try to play films that i feel like are going to be fan favorites
20:54
for the audience not just for me but also for the audience
20:57
so i try to think okay is this a film that you know
21:00
300 people 400 people in the audience would enjoy or
21:04
is this a film that only i would enjoy or only a handful
21:07
of you know really cinephiles are going to enjoy yeah so it's a little bit harder
21:11
to play films that i feel like only like true cinephiles are going to enjoy
21:15
like something experimental because some people may not get it or may not be
21:19
that interested in it so i try to do look for some fan favorite films to play
21:22
so okay but we do like a mix so okay and then i know.
21:27
Oh, then you have some events going on tied into the film festival.
21:31
So I'll get into the first one.
21:32
The day before the film festival kicks off that Friday, April 25th,
21:37
you have the Sactal Movie Buff film festival mixer.
21:42
Yeah. So the mixer is going to be crazy, man. We're already almost sold out,
21:46
unfortunately. So I don't know.
21:48
I think there's maybe like 45 tickets that are still available.
21:51
It's probably going to sell out in the next two weeks. But it's going to be
21:54
crazy, man. We're going to have it at Features Explored. We've got the Lab Rat band coming.
21:59
They're here in Sacramento. They are just blowing up everywhere.
22:01
And I see them all over town.
22:03
They played with Phil Harmonic, who was at our last festival,
22:07
ended up winning NPR's Tiny Desk Contest.
22:10
And then we had an R&B singer, Diamond Key, who's a personal friend of myself and my wife.
22:14
And then we have a Jakari, who's a hip-hop artist here locally as well,
22:18
that's just really passionate about his music. I just love his sound. I love his flow.
22:22
And then we got my boy, our both-our homie, DJ Mike Rose,
22:25
to be doing ones and twos there so yeah shout out to mike rose
22:28
man shout it through yeah shout out to mike rose of course
22:31
good good friend of ours and stuff like that and jacari did do do yeah
22:34
jacari yeah we're cool her whole dude but like the
22:36
music that he makes that i'm all yo yeah yeah shout out to
22:39
yeah no no i've had them all on my show and
22:42
i had a chance to sit down and talk with them and get their inspiration and what
22:45
what makes them tick that's what i like i like finding out what what
22:48
what makes people tick what makes people do what they want to do
22:51
and you know when i hear a story i'm like man you'd
22:54
be great for our festival you'd be great for you know our mixer love
22:57
to get you out there and just try to get more people involved and more you know
23:01
hopefully get some more fans out of it yeah one thing i liked about your mixer
23:04
is that i think i don't know if you know it's like going to different like organizations
23:09
things and stuff like that you have one like one of the i feel like one of the
23:12
rare mixers where you could get like.
23:16
Everybody from the community to come and just be in
23:19
one place it just that's they can talk and
23:22
yeah and that's kind of what i like you know yeah i mean
23:25
i kind of want to just like let's leave all that drama behind
23:28
and let's all just come together and have a good time and so you'll
23:31
see people there at the mixer that maybe outside of the
23:34
mixer may not be the best friend but they're there
23:37
they're mingling everybody's having a good time there's good
23:39
music we're having some drinks we're having food and it's
23:42
just a it's just a really good cohesive vibe you know because you
23:46
know the festival is going to be busy and i'm super busy during the festival i'm
23:49
answering questions i'm trying to make sure the films are playing properly
23:52
got a lot going on we got a whole work show on both days and so the mixer is
23:57
just like a time where we can all just relax and have a good time and just you
24:00
know just enjoy the night you know what i mean yeah and so that's why i like
24:03
doing the mixer and i try to bring in as many people from the community as possible
24:07
whether you're involved in film or comedy or whatever the case may be,
24:10
just come on down to the mixer and have a good time and rock with us.
24:13
Nice, nice. Like I said, yeah, you get it. And then you also have the panel discussion.
24:18
Yeah. I wish I had the fire. I forgot to get the fire update.
24:20
Yeah. So that's going to be crazy, too.
24:23
So I hand selects where we're celebrating women in film this year.
24:27
So I just basically hand selected some of the most influential women that I
24:31
know within the community.
24:33
And they're all, you know, leaders in this community.
24:35
You know, there's not like they're just women that I just handpicked.
24:38
But these are people that like when you're thinking of like the biggest names
24:42
in film, you know, we've got, you know, Laurie Peterson, who's,
24:46
you know, the ED of the CFAA, which everybody knows that organization.
24:49
We have the three local film commissioners are going to be there. Yeah.
24:53
You know, we've got Donna Garo,
24:54
who's the executive director for Access Sacramento is going to be there.
24:58
We have Sally Forcier, who's coming off an amazing run with the no address.
25:02
Film that's just been just blowing up all over here in northern
25:05
california and elsewhere which is a really really powerful and
25:08
moving film so it man it's it's going to be a great mixer
25:12
so for a lot of people what they like to do is for their i
25:15
said mixer but uh panel a lot of people think they like to
25:18
do for their panel is they like to have the directors come
25:21
up on there and do like a director's panel and i would
25:24
do that but the problem is i have 46 films i can't
25:26
have 46 directors on the stage at one given
25:29
time there's not enough time for that and so i'd rather
25:32
spend that time educating yeah you know you know and
25:35
these people offer programs training grants sponsorships
25:39
things of this nature and so i feel like directors and
25:42
actors and producers and people involved in film you're going to gain more
25:45
from having these experts in the film yeah sit down and talk to you about what
25:49
they do what their organization is all about and how they can actually help
25:52
you as a filmmaker yeah yeah i think that's one of the one of the huge impediments
25:56
from like an actor's point of view like up here is that actors we want to learn
26:01
and take from other actors but it's kind of like,
26:05
it's kind of like a dead end road trying to do it like that just because.
26:11
I don't want to be sound rude or anything like that but like an actor is not
26:14
really going to put on another actor. He could refer you to somebody.
26:18
It's always going to be that cast director. It's going to be the producer.
26:21
It's going to be the director. It's going to be somebody outside of your profession
26:25
And so like Sally, of course, yeah, she's a casting director.
26:28
She also is a producer. You know what I mean? So someone like that,
26:31
you're going to get way more value from someone like that versus just asking
26:34
your other friend is just an actor.
26:36
You know what I mean? He might tell you, hey, you should go talk to Sally.
26:39
But why not just hear directly from her? Yeah. You know what I mean?
26:43
And then so another thing is you you get to see a lot of movie you know movies
26:47
early and stuff like that would you be film crazy i just seen a movie freaky
26:51
tell last night and stuff okay yeah yeah yeah you got a chance i have not got
26:55
a chance to see that one unfortunately yeah they do it if you do get early screen
26:58
of it go ahead check i'm getting just a small it it reminded me of like.
27:02
It was like if like pulp fiction was on
27:05
like an acid trip okay yeah yeah no no it's
27:07
one that's on my radar but i just haven't had a chance to see it but yeah
27:10
being a film crew that is one of the purchase lots of
27:13
that you get advanced screenings you get to see stuff sometimes a week early
27:16
sometimes a month early and you know it's fun to be
27:18
able to see it before the everybody else gets to see
27:21
it but i'm gonna be honest i also really like just going and
27:24
seeing it open at night too you know what i mean with just like a big packed
27:27
audience everybody's excited to see it that sort
27:30
of stuff so so so sometimes i i
27:33
purposely pass up on advanced screenings just
27:35
because i want to see it open because you feel like that like when you see it
27:38
like with the as as an advanced screening
27:41
do you still feel like okay i'm in movie critic mode
27:44
whereas if you see like you if you see like on opening
27:47
night with everybody else you still see that anticipation everybody yeah because
27:51
when it's an advanced screening a lot of times it is predicated that you're
27:55
gonna get a review out the next day about that film and that to get people hyped
27:59
to go see it you know what i mean but it's just different just to be able to
28:03
just you know go with my friends you know sometimes we'll have like a movie
28:06
get together where we'll go eat dinner beforehand then we'll just go as like a big group,
28:10
like 15, 20 of us and just go watch and just have a good time.
28:13
You know what I mean? And then we can be out of the movie. We can kind of talk
28:16
about it, what we like, what we didn't like that kind of stuff.
28:18
And advanced screening, sometimes I don't get that. You know what I mean?
28:21
It's usually just me or me and my wife or me and one or two other people that
28:25
I invited, you know what I mean? And then, you know, that's it. So.
28:28
No but that's cool though you know see those advanced screenings and then what are
28:31
some of the other perks that come along with you being
28:34
a beatable cricket the things that you say oh yeah this is what
28:37
i yeah it's my shit right here yeah well you know i get a lot i get the
28:40
advanced screenings but i also get a lot of really cool swag as
28:43
well so i do a lot of unboxing videos so a lot of
28:45
just movie swag stuff like that so it's always fun just
28:48
to kind of do those unboxing videos and stuff like that so
28:51
you just you know they send me stuff in the mail i get unbox it
28:54
and you know if i love it i can keep it if not you know i can obviously
28:58
re-gift it or use it as a raffle or something of that nature
29:00
so that's another one of the perks um you get not so
29:04
much financially with the with being a film critic per se
29:07
i do get a little bit of his just from my being a
29:09
social media influencer so i can get paid from like facebook and
29:13
instagram and youtube and stuff like that for the reviews themselves but
29:16
but more it's just about the perk getting into like the advanced
29:19
screens i get invites sometimes to award shows down in
29:22
la and stuff like that and i haven't had a
29:25
whole lot of time to just get down there and take them up
29:28
on some of those offers but that's something
29:30
i do want to do in the future a little bit more once things kind of
29:33
slow down for me a little bit started going down to la and watching
29:36
some of the awards and stuff around the war season but but um
29:39
i did go down to la to see an advanced screening of that
29:42
the tyler perry movie when that first came out his
29:45
documentary film okay but so i did get a chance
29:48
to see that and he was supposedly in the audience i didn't
29:50
see him um so oprah was supposedly audience but
29:53
i didn't see her either but that was really cool but you know.
29:56
We his his uh his his baby mama was is the one that produced the film or whatever.
30:01
And so you know we got to meet her and stuff like that and it was it was a really.
30:04
Cool event and affair so cool cool cool and then how much does social media
30:09
play a role with you being a a film critic.
30:14
A huge role. I mean, I was probably, so when I started, I built up an audience
30:19
just based off my reviews. I was just like a freelancer, basically.
30:23
And so what happened was, is, is my, my audience grew off of that.
30:27
People gravitated to my reviews or whatever case may be.
30:30
And so my audience started growing on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and
30:34
all the other TikTok now, I guess, and all the other little entities and marketing
30:40
companies started coming to me. So that's how I started getting advanced screenings
30:42
and things of that nature.
30:43
And then film critical organizations, you know, started reaching out and saying,
30:47
hey, you know, I think you'd be a great candidate for the African-American Film Critics Association.
30:51
I think you'd be a great candidate for, you know, the Hollywood Creative Alliance, you know.
30:55
Oh, yeah, I'd love to apply for that. You know what I mean? So,
30:57
you know, you got to pay your dues and you get in.
31:00
But like I said, you get those advanced screens, you get, you know,
31:03
sometimes you do get some cool swag, stuff like that.
31:06
And you do get opportunities where I haven't done it this year yet because I've
31:09
just been so busy. but I know with the African American Film Critics Association,
31:12
a lot of times they do panels with the actual actors and stuff like that.
31:16
So like last year, the holdovers or the year before actually holdovers with Paul Giamatti.
31:21
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I got an opportunity to actually sit in that panel and
31:25
ask questions of like Paul Giamatti and some of the actors, the film and stuff like that.
31:29
So, so you get some cool stuff like that. So just to kind of just feel like
31:33
you're kind of like, you know, that two degrees of separation or whatever,
31:36
being able to talk to, you know, some famous actors and stuff like that. So.
31:40
Okay cool interesting yeah because i i feel like social
31:43
media is just a one of those things like from an actor's standpoint
31:46
it's really starting to become more more pertinent
31:50
to be to be on social media to have this social yeah you
31:53
kind of have to i don't care what entity you're not just actor musicians comedians
31:58
i feel like that's really where you're going to make your brand because if people
32:02
are are feeling you on social media that can open up way more doors for you
32:06
It opened up doors for me just being on it from just just for the film critic stuff.
32:10
So if you're like a comedian, you're on social media and you start blowing up
32:13
just off your comedy skits or whatever case may be, that's going to open up
32:16
doors to get you into some venues or maybe get your own special or something of that nature.
32:21
Musician, same thing. And people see like, oh, man, you know,
32:24
you've got one hundred thousand followers for your music.
32:27
Like, we'd love to have you at our next venue and play our next show and stuff like that.
32:31
Social media is also how I found a lot of the people that are going to be in my mixer.
32:34
You know what I mean? like just on social media and saying oh
32:37
i see this guy's you know i see jacari's already
32:40
always out there putting out new content new music or
32:43
i see lab rats are doing shows like all over the city i want to go check out
32:47
one of their shows and so it just kind of goes hand in hand with just like giving
32:51
you more exposure i feel like okay cool and then so like when it comes to being
32:55
a being being a film critic what was the question i was about to ask you.
33:02
I can't remember skip that question we'll go to the next question I forget,
33:08
Oh, yeah. So now like swinging back to like with the film festival and stuff like that.
33:13
What is it that motivated you to say, OK, I watched enough movies and stuff like that.
33:18
I feel now I have enough knowledge to now take being a film critic and now throw
33:24
a festival for people to watch these where I would consider quality movies.
33:28
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I was doing movie reviews at a partner,
33:33
Jason, and he still works with me and my organization. And so we would do movie
33:36
reviews and stuff like that.
33:38
And so it was actually another film festival. It was an online film festival
33:41
that reached out to us back east.
33:43
And so a lot of people think that I got inspiration from somebody here locally.
33:46
But no, it was actually an online film festival back east that reached out to
33:49
us and said, hey, we really like what you guys are doing online.
33:53
We would love for you guys to review some of the films that we have at our festival
33:56
and then maybe have those individuals on your show and talk with them.
34:00
And so that's what we would do. We would watch those films at the festival.
34:03
We'd have them on our show. We would talk with them.
34:05
But the issue I was having is a lot of times people were like,
34:08
oh, well, how can we watch this film or whatever case may be?
34:11
And sometimes it was on the online online film festival but then
34:14
we also had local people that were contacting us and wanting us to
34:17
watch their films and we would watch it and then people will say the same
34:20
thing well where can we watch you know buddy's new
34:23
film well i don't know it's on youtube or it was on
34:25
here it was uh well he sent me a screener so you know
34:28
what i mean so i just came up with the idea i'm just
34:31
like you know what why don't we just do our own film festival
34:34
and that way local people here if they're interested they can just
34:37
submit to the festival and if your film's good enough we'll
34:39
play it at the festival and then everybody can watch it you know
34:42
what i mean you don't have to tell people where they can go they can go to sack down
34:45
movie buff film fest and they can watch it there yeah so that's
34:48
kind of where that idea kind of stemmed from okay cool yeah i remember the question
34:52
now so so as far as like would be like a film crew like actors or any other
34:55
type of people like we have like filmmakers we have uh like mentors you know
35:00
people that we go to like to train or like learn from get advice from and stuff
35:03
like that is there somebody like that in the.
35:09
Movie critic world where you have a mentor and somebody says,
35:12
oh, here's a proper way to critique a movie?
35:15
You know, I mean, there's obviously there's not so much a mentor,
35:18
but I mean there's obviously, I mean, I grew up in the day watching Siskel and Ebert or,
35:23
sisco and roper ebert and roper i guess
35:26
later in the years and letter malton so i came
35:28
from that old school like critic style but for
35:32
me really i just kind of branded it and made it my own because i found that
35:36
like doing like really long written reviews on films or spending five ten minutes
35:41
talking about a film your audience just kind of loses you a little bit so i
35:46
personally came up with the idea like okay well let me just keep my reviews
35:49
like a minute a minute and a half.
35:52
Really really short written reviews give you a brief synopsis of
35:55
the film tell you what i liked it or not and that's
35:58
pretty much all you need to do and so i really didn't have a mentor that.
36:01
Told me to do it that way it was just from trial and error figuring out
36:04
okay what's really what's really gave me the most hits online
36:07
and i just found like shorter was giving me more hits
36:10
than sitting there talking about a movie that i love for
36:13
15 minutes because nobody really wants to hear that they just want to
36:15
hear like okay did you like it or not you know what i mean yeah
36:18
yeah yeah you know so you know because and then you know
36:21
i don't want to give too much away about the movie either i just want you to go see it
36:23
for yourself just like hey here's the brief synopsis you
36:26
know this guy he lost his wife and he's trying to find her or whatever case
36:29
may be i really enjoyed it you should go check it out and
36:32
that's you know and that and that i think that's enough for
36:35
people to say you know what i am gonna go watch the movie so cool
36:38
yeah because what one of the games i usually do on this show is
36:41
called like the mount rushmore or whatever it was like you just do
36:43
like your top four or whatever but i didn't really know how to spin that
36:47
for like this episode i didn't know if there's like a list of like critics that you
36:50
know like like a director but oh spike lee john singleton stuff like
36:52
that i didn't know if there's like a yeah like a critic yeah i
36:55
mean like i said i mean you know nowadays i just kind of just there's
36:58
not really one critic that i gravitate towards because i
37:01
disagree with critics all the time but more so for
37:04
actors or or directors or something like that there's definitely some actors
37:08
or directors if i know they're in any movie it's gonna you know i'm gonna be
37:11
interested you know i hear denzel washington's gonna be in a new movie I'm gonna
37:14
be like okay well what's it about you know what I mean not to say that I see
37:17
everything he does but there's a good chance it's gonna be good yeah I mean so.
37:22
And then, so with you being so, having to be so heavy on social media and,
37:28
you know, the profession that you're in, you're giving your opinion,
37:31
you know what I'm saying?
37:32
People love to comment. People love to, you know, give their opinion right back.
37:36
Do you, do you, do you get that to be like, if you give a review on a movie
37:39
that sometimes I, they feel the opposite. Do you, do you see those in the comments?
37:43
I do. I try not to respond because I feel like we live in a world where like
37:47
people tell you don't read the comments.
37:49
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. because like this is like any post you
37:52
see right if there's a post you see like on on the news or
37:55
whatever it doesn't have to be political just a post in general you go
37:58
to the comments there's just so many haters out there that are just going to
38:01
say something negative you know what i mean and so it i i try to filter the
38:05
ones that i you know what i mean that say something negative and just focus
38:08
on the ones that say something positive but people disagree with me all the
38:11
time and i just you know go oh that's your opinion you know what i mean like hey you
38:15
don't have to agree with me you know what i mean and i'm not saying
38:18
i'm it's my opinion yeah you know what i mean i liked it
38:21
maybe you didn't you know what i mean and there's nobody
38:24
that's going to agree with you a hundred percent of the time on every single movie
38:27
that you like yeah it's just not going to happen yeah no one's going
38:30
to follow you and say man every single time he
38:32
just does not miss you know like there's going to be some movie where you're
38:38
going to love and someone's going to say i thought it was hot garbage yeah yeah
38:41
that's just so that's just the nature of the beast so i just try not to affect
38:46
let it affect me because it does happen sometimes, more so on certain platforms.
38:50
I know TikTok's really notorious for that, where I'll get 20, 30 comments.
38:56
I used to get 30 comments. 29 of them would be good.
39:01
One of them would be bad, and my brain would just want to focus on that one bad one.
39:06
I really had to start pulling back and just say, come on, just relax.
39:11
29 people liked it. Why do you care so much about this one person that didn't care for it?
39:16
Or seeing something negative about you or negative about your taste in the film.
39:20
You know what I mean? Because some people say that. It'll be like,
39:22
oh man, your film taste is garbage. That movie sucked.
39:26
I've had people say that to me. And I'm just like, and I'll just ignore the
39:30
29 people that agreed with me and focus on that one person that has something negative to say.
39:35
And I just had to change my mindset and my mentality to saying, you know what?
39:39
There's always going to be somebody who disagrees with you. And some people just do it out of spite.
39:43
There's haters out there too. You know what I mean? Some people see you're trying
39:46
to do something positive.
39:48
And they're going to try to knock you down a peg. You know what I mean?
39:50
And that's just life. So...
39:52
No, yeah, that was just a question, because I say, yeah, get it from,
39:55
like, the comedian's standpoint and, you know, the actor's standpoint.
39:58
Yeah, same thing. If you're a comedian, there's going to be some hater that's
40:02
going to say something like, I don't think you're funny.
40:04
Like, take any major comic. I don't care who it is, you know.
40:07
It could be Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle.
40:10
They post something, right? And there's going to be somebody in the comments
40:13
like, he's not funny at all.
40:14
I've never laughed at any of his jokes. You know what I mean?
40:18
There's going to be somebody that's going to say that, you know. so but that's
40:21
just you just can't focus on that you know and maybe they don't
40:24
like you but maybe they're just being a hater i don't know you know what i
40:26
mean but the fact is is focus on the positive focus on
40:29
the people that are rocking with you because those are the ones that
40:32
are supporting you those are the ones that are helping you grow your platform it's
40:35
so much crazy when you do look at it from the like like just try to
40:38
look at the positive because like when you do like how you say you like you
40:41
look at the negative and that i don't know what it is about that it the negative
40:44
only being by like 10 of it but it feel like yeah i
40:47
mean it's just it's just the way it is it's like you know you had a job right
40:50
and you know you're going through a review end of the year review there could
40:55
be all these great things that you did but that one thing that you're not doing
40:58
so well that's the one that you like that one day i came in late you know what i mean.
41:06
It's that one thing that one negative thing that they put in there that's the
41:10
thing that you're going to harp on that's the thing that's going to keep you
41:12
up at night you know what i mean not all that great stuff that they said about
41:15
what you do well is that one thing that you didn't do well,
41:18
that's the thing that's going to keep you up at night and got you stressed out. Yeah.
41:22
That's funny. Yeah, so before we do wrap up this episode of the Yeah,
41:26
Buddy podcast here, tell people where they can find you at, and then we'll do
41:30
one more recap of the film festival.
41:32
Oh, yeah, absolutely, man. You're going to find me anywhere,
41:34
man. Here, The Critic is usually what I go by on most of my social medias or
41:39
Sacktown Movie Buffs, Sacktown Movie Buffs Film Festival.
41:42
If you just type in Sacktown Movie Buffs, we'll come up. We're the only organization
41:46
that goes by Sacktown Movie Pub.
41:48
You type that in, we're going to come up on Instagram, YouTube.
41:52
Tiktok whatever case may be we have about 60
41:55
000 followers right now on all of our social media platforms and
41:58
we'd love to have you as another follower and help us grow as well yeah
42:01
yeah so go ahead and follow him and like i said we have the the sack
42:05
town movie buff film festival mixer uh it
42:07
kicks off yeah the film festival kicks off friday march
42:11
25th 2025 that goes down
42:14
at futures explore that's at 2533 r
42:17
street sacramento couple what is that like a theater or
42:20
something like that uh it's a it's april also oh that's
42:23
no why i say april april 25th so it's a
42:26
it's kind of like a like a co-op share space um
42:29
they the organization they are involved in film though it's called futures export
42:33
but they basically work with i forget the actual term but children with learning
42:37
disabilities and they help them like produce films and stuff like that so it's
42:41
a really really cool organization so when you support them you're also supporting people with with,
42:47
challenges and things of the nature that are trying to be filmmakers.
42:50
So I always like to support that organization just because they're doing great
42:54
work in the community with people that have challenges that are still involved
42:58
and passionate about film. Okay, cool. So yeah, my bad, correction.
43:01
April 25th, that goes down at Futures Explored.
43:05
And then of course, the 26th and the 27th of April, that's when the Sacktown
43:10
Movie Buff Film Festival actually kicks soft goes down as an Esquire IMAX leader
43:15
in downtown Sacramento, y'all.
43:17
So where can people go to get tickets after that?
43:20
They can either go to my website, which is SACTownMovieBuffs.com,
43:24
which will take you to the link, or you can go back to the FilmFreeway.com slash
43:28
SACTownMovieBuffFilmFest.
43:29
So either one of those will get you directly to tickets and get them while they're
43:34
hot because the mix is almost sold out.
43:36
We probably only have about 40 tickets left as of before we started this interview. So who knows now?
43:42
And then the blocks are filling out quite rapidly for both days of the festival.
43:47
Potentially could sell out. Okay, cool. So what, what, what,
43:49
what, what, so you're going to do one last sales pitch to the people here to
43:52
come to your field pass. What, what, what would you tell them to.
43:56
Tell them to get to your film festival? Well, I mean, we have films from all over.
44:00
We have films from NorCal, films from SoCal. We have films from other states.
44:03
So it's a great festival. These are great films that we personally have vetted.
44:08
Like I said, we have a team of 10 film critic judges that went through these
44:12
films and we selected, you know, some of the best, the best.
44:15
And a lot of these films are really, really good films. It definitely,
44:18
you know, they're shorts, a lot of them, but if they were features,
44:20
a lot of them, I feel like could be films that would go to a box office,
44:24
you know what I mean? So it's just going to be a great time, a great vibe.
44:27
You know, my boy DJ Mike Rose will be there playing music in the lobby,
44:31
so we always kick in and hang out in the lobby, so it's a fun little thing.
44:34
So you don't have to just sit in the theater and watch films all day.
44:36
You can take a break and come out and hang out with us in the lobby and listen
44:40
to some music, and so it's just a fun vibe, man. So it's just a good time.
44:44
Dope, dope, dope. Like I said, yeah, my name's been Buddy Romick.
44:47
You can catch me, follow me at YeahBuddyENT on all social media platforms.
44:52
You can listen to the yeah buddy podcast anywhere you listen to your podcast
44:55
at including my website www.yeahbuddyent well i say yeah this has been the yeah
45:01
buddy podcast this is my man kier
45:03
for sure thank you for trying to thank you man yes sir hey y'all we'll catch
45:09
you next time man like i said if you was a returning guest thank you man keep
45:13
spreading the word about the yeah buddy podcast if this is your first time i
45:15
hope to catch you on the next episode y'all my name It's been Buddy.
45:19
Catch y'all next time. Y'all deuces.
45:22
Music.