Live Fast, Die Young Movie in Dayton, Columbus

A team of us are currently in Dayton and Columbus, Ohio where we’re releasing our latest film, ‘Live Fast, Die Young’.

The people of Ohio are terrific – I spoke at several Bible study groups and churches here.

This morning I was on the radio with my good friend Judah, an evangelist, and we discussed how often we’re persecuted for doing the most simple things – like even handing out tracts or postcards with a Gospel message.

But there’s real unity and brotherhood in Christ in Ohio. People are real and they’re rock solid in their faith.

God bless everyone here.

Wrapped principal photography on ‘LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG’

We just wrapped the movie ‘Live Fast, Die Young’ on June 21, 2008.

For those of you who want the storyline, here it is:

Story: At an exclusive Hollywood party on Christmas Eve, an A-list star dies of an apparent overdose. A detective holds a protesting core group of Hollywood insiders for questioning. The group, consisting of an A-list director, a top agent, a movie star, a media mogul, a writer, a wannabe actress, a studio head, and others, begin a deep and profound discussion on the meaning of life, including the existence of God.

What I like about this film is the underlying premise that our very culture is being manipulated by 5 companies. I mean, take a step back and look at my average day:

1) Turn on the TV at home – MSNBC is on;
2) Waiting at the airport lounge – CNN is playing;
3) Go to the hospital for my mom’s surgery – Fox News is playing;
4) Drive in your car (CBS 1070 is playing – the govt took away our cell phone privileges)
5) Go to the supermarket and we see the magazines at the checkout counter – same 5 companies.

Are you getting the picture? Throughout my typical day (and yours), we’re carefully being ‘taught’ how to think by a select few companies that control all the content in the world.

Very scary when you digest it.

Nevertheless, God is in control. Just be aware of what the 5 big media companies are up to.

The Genius Club at Cannes

The new feature film ‘The Genius Club’, from writer/director Tim Chey, will have it’s European premiere at the Cannes Film Festival/Market on May 18, 2007 at 12 p.m at the Gray 3 Theater. The interest in the film has grown since the film had a theatrical release in October 2006.

The premiere international distribution company, Eleven Arts, is handling international distribution. “We’re extremely proud to be associated with the film and congratulate Tim Chey on a terrific job in writing and directing such a powerful and emotional thriller,” says Kana Aida of Eleven Arts. “Foreign buyers from around the world have been inquiring of the film.”

“We’re delighted to be screening ‘The Genius Club’ at this year’s Cannes,” says director Tim Chey, of RiverRain Productions. “We’re looking forward to translating the film in many different languages.”

The Genius Club is produced by Arch Bonnema and Daishi Takiishi and is written and directed by Tim Chey. The official website is: http://www.TheGeniusClubMovie.com

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I was reading a story of a woman who kept her son in a small box for 2 years. The small child never knew what life was like outside the box. Horrible as that sounds, I wonder how many of us live in our own ‘little boxes’ – we are constantly bombarded by television telling us how to think; who we should be, what we should follow.

Nowadays, if you even mention Jesus Christ, the world collectively ‘rolls their eyes’ and this is happening even among fellow Believers. We need to remember that ‘we’ are the head and not the tail. We should be shaping our culture, not Hollywood.

Tim Chey
Director
The Genius Club

The Genius Club as a ‘catchphrase’?

As I was surfing the net the other day, I saw a lot of new sites referring to join a ‘Genius Club’. One person even invited his fellow geniuses to join ‘The Genius Club’ party at his house. I think the title ‘The Genius Club’ has entered the public lexicon already in a short amount of time.

This is due to the increasing power of the internet. We’re still shooting for a March date in Los Angeles next.

More info:

Tim Chey
Director

I like this review of The Genius Club

I like this quote I picked off the net:

”Seldom does a movie show the culpability of our culture,of our society, in the mayhem and madness we often find in everyday life. The film shows how our world is drifting through darkness. The mouthpiece for this thematic undercurrent is Armand, a genius who plans to blow up the city of DC unless a group of geniuses find answers to the world’s problems.

The geniuses are a professor, a seminary student, a casino owner, a pizza delivery guy, and others.

Armand provides the film’s final thematic statement by giving the password to the bomb in ‘3 words’.

Working on us to reinforce this world as Armand sees it is the film’s astounding mise-en- scene, a disturbing film-noir setting developed by the director and cinematographer. Flashlights barely illuminate the metallic walls of the ‘genius’ lair. A giant screen overlooking the genius table provides a ‘1984′ look of Big Brother and the pursuant scoreboard that ticks up or down, dependent on the answers provided by the geniuses. Bird’s-eye-view shots of Washington, DC show the world in peril. Thus, the film’s closing scene is in bright sunlight, which by then only serves as ironic counterpoint to what we see happening throughout the night.

This is Armand’s vision; both inhabited and described by Brian Mehlman, the FBI agent working for Homeland Security.

Though gripping and mysterious, this is not an action film. It holds our interest through the workings of the issues and more astonishingly, the inner workings of the past histories of each genius.

This is a very lean, dialogue-driven, tight film. It shows humanity in the end, even in the terrorist who lost his wife to cancer and to the pizza guy who lost his mother in a hit-and- run accident.”

We’re beginning a major overhaul of our website today. Stay tuned.

Heading to Los Angeles next.

After getting back from Hawaii last week with my wife, we’re now getting ready to roll ‘THE GENIUS CLUB’ out into theaters in Los Angeles for March 2007. I’m pretty much devoting 2007 to getting the film out. It’s been a long road, but I see the fruit beginning to grow – I received a ton of email saying how much the film has helped change people’s lives. We wanted to make a film that’s never been done before in Hollywood; to not be shy about tackling world issues and not be afraid of discussing God intellectually!

While we were in Hawaii, the pastor of a church, invited my wife and I up to the front and prayed for us in front of the congregation – I believe 2007 will be a great year.