The Staffa Corner | Celebrity Interviews & Entertainment Insights
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The Staffa Corner | Celebrity Interviews & Entertainment Insights
Jonathan Bowen on Film, Philosophy and Creative Journey | Exclusive Film Interview
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On this episode of The Staffa Corner Podcast, a filmmaker interview and celebrity interview explore independent filmmaking, Hollywood, and the modern film industry as Jonathan L. Bowen shares his journey from passionate film enthusiast to working director.
Jonathan reflects on writing 600 movie reviews as a teenager, studying cinema through a philosophical lens, and eventually stepping into filmmaking and directing. He also discusses a decade-long gap between feature films and what that experience taught him about persistence in the evolving film industry.
This conversation dives into the challenges facing independent filmmakers today, including how streaming platforms and film festivals have changed, making it more difficult for true indie projects to find an audience within the broader Hollywood and entertainment ecosystem. Bowen also highlights the importance of authentic storytelling through projects like The Comic Shop and how meaningful narratives continue to connect with audiences across film and television.
For aspiring filmmakers, writers, and creatives, this episode offers a grounded look at resilience, artistic identity, and navigating the realities of modern independent cinema and Hollywood filmmaking.
Tune in to The Staffa Corner Podcast for more celebrity interviews with filmmakers, actors, and entertainment industry insiders, featuring honest conversations from across film, TV, and streaming media.
Entertainment & Film Industry Interview - Jonathan Bowen's Journey Through Film, Philosophy, and Finding His Way Back
Greg StaffaYou're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host.
Jonathan BowenGreg Staffa.
Greg StaffaMy guest this episode is talented writer director Jonathan L Bowen. He has a long history in film, starting off in high school, writing over 600 movie reviews. Jonathan, thank you for joining us today.
Jonathan BowenThank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Greg StaffaOne of the things looking at your career path is there seemed to be a destiny that formed, but you didn't stick with the destiny. I would assume that someone that writes 600 movie reviews starting in high school would be destined to become a writer or a filmmaker or whatnot. When, instead, you went into philosophy, which seemed kind of counterintuitive to what your passions in high school were, why the disconnect and why philosophy? And why?
Jonathan Bowenphilosophy. Well, so I started in film school but what happened is I had applied to USC and UCLA and I was supposed to have about a 95% chance at USC but just didn't get in. So then I started in film school at Loyola, marymount, and I wasn't necessarily extremely mature at that point or like really ready to be living a thousand miles from home without any friends or family around, so I just hated it down at lmu. It wasn't their fault, like it really wasn't, it just didn't work out. So when I transferred back to oregon state, they didn't have a film major but they didn't have a lot of film classes. So I took um, they're all in the english department.
Jonathan BowenSo I took about seven classes in like film history when I was there, and I also found a couple other ones that were like, uh, film horror. I took some writing classes and I really I wanted to write a lot more. So philosophy was something that I well, this is going to be useful to me in film, because, as much as I love big action blockbusters, I really wanted to make movies that had some sort of a message, ideally, I mean not like a beat-you-over-the-head mess, just some sort of underpinning, philosophical meaning or something thoughtful about them thoughtful about them.
Greg StaffaWow, Oregon State, that's one of my favorite campuses. I think it's an underrated beautiful school to attend out there.
Jonathan BowenEugene, oregon. Well, so so, yeah. So Oregon State is in Corvallis, oh, and then U of O is just down the road like 20, literally like 28 minutes in Eugene. I remain a huge Ducks fan, though, because my entire family was Oregon Ducks, and I know that's bad to say, but I was a Ducks fan from the time I was five years old, so I didn't switch when I went to college. My best friend is actually a police officer in Eugene and he works all the games for Oregon, all the home games.
Greg StaffaBeautiful area. I had to go there for work and work on the campus for a little bit during the Olympic time trials several years ago. So I love that campus, but you went to a different campus.
Jonathan BowenYeah, but I've been on the Eugene campus many times. It's really nice.
Greg StaffaA beautiful area. Let's just settle on that.
Jonathan BowenYep, yeah absolutely so.
Greg Staffa600 movie reviews yes, someone that has done that. What got you started doing that in high school? I mean, that was at a time where it wasn't as common now for people to write reviews.
Jonathan BowenYou're right, that's a good point. It really wasn't. Maybe one of my little regrets is that I was extremely close to getting my tomato meter thing and at that time there weren't as many tomato meter critics. But what bothered me about it was that they're like I think there's at the time I don't know how they work it now but there was like a 400 word minimum and I had a bunch of many reviews on the site of like films from the 1890s and 19 early 1900s. These films are, you know, as you know, like a minute long, two minutes long. It doesn't need a 400 word review. It needs like a paragraph describing what it is, and I was just trying to kind of be thorough and review everything that I saw. So I didn't love the idea of like just to qualify. I need to go delete content from my site. I'm sure it's changed now. I could have probably put those things as a blog entry or something like that and just not called them reviews. But yeah, I really I love movies and I thought that running a review site could be really fun because I also love writing.
Jonathan BowenSo I got into a lot of freelance writing and started writing articles about different favorite directors. I wrote quite a few pieces for a place called Sweet 101. And I was the Hong Kong action movies editor, which is so funny because it does not pay well Like it was literally $25 a month for four reviews. But because I'm ordering these movies from Hong Kong, I could basically buy four movies for 25 bucks or very close to it, and they were non-exclusive deals. So I would take the articles and then distribute them on a place called ThemeStream and back in the day they'd pay $0.10 per view. So I would get articles that would make me $50 or $60, even though I wasn't being paid anything for their first run publication. So it wasn't a bunch of money, but it was enough money to feed my movie addiction and keep buying movies.
Greg StaffaIt doesn't doesn't pay well, but it's it's more of a passion for people that absolutely it really wasn't.
Jonathan BowenYeah, it really wasn't about the money and thought I was making money online on my other sites, but they were like joke sites.
Jonathan BowenI ran a couple of celebrity sites and other sites, but they were like joke sites. I ran a couple celebrity sites and so the movie reviews were kind of like another aspect of that and I thought, well, if I want to be a director, I really feel like to me personally I'm not trying to judge anyone else, but a director should have a deep knowledge of film history and should understand what else is being created. Because if you're going to kind of like throw your drop into the huge well of cinema history, I feel like you should kind of know what's in the well already, like what's not not. Like all of us are going to have seen everything, but like at least try to have seen the big movies and you know, I think it would be a shame to sit there and you know you make it as a director and tell people you haven't seen citizen kane or you know like you don't really know who Orson Welles is or things like that would just be embarrassing.
Greg StaffaOrson Welles. No, I'm just kidding, right yeah. I did read somewhere that you try to watch two movies a day.
Jonathan BowenYeah, I watch about. I usually watch about two movies a day, of course. That's you know. As I'm busy with this film, it's probably dropped to more like 10 a week. That's still not that bad. There'll just be a couple days where
From Film School to Philosophy
Jonathan BowenI watch one, and then maybe Friday night I might watch three or something like that, and try to make up a bit. I just love movies so much I'm always searching for the next gem. I don't really mind, you like I have my favorite genres, but I don't exclude anything and I certainly try to be pretty broad with what I watch. So sometimes I do just watch a movie. I know it's going to be dumb, but might be fun, uh. And other times I'm like, okay, fine, this is. You know, this is a serious movie, we'll watch this.
Greg StaffaI think Tom Cruise also has a philosophy where he tries to watch at least two films a day.
Greg StaffaI know his schedule is a little bit busier than ours but it's something that he's always I believe I've read this in an interview it makes him a better actor. To be able to understand and see different films, because I don't think anyone sets out to make a bad film. And so by studying film you can, you can try to learn of you know what went wrong or what happened or whatnot, versus just watching and saying, well, that's stupid, that was a dumb film, that's so true and yeah, you're right. But no one ever says, well, let's go make a dumb film, let's go make something that's stupid and hated, it's something happened along the way. And if you can study that and understand that and try to avoid those pitfalls, versus just shrugging off a film and saying, well, that sounds like a stupid film, it makes him a better actor and he produces too. So you're in good company with that kind of mindset.
Jonathan BowenI absolutely agree with that idea because a lot of the times you you actually learn more from bad movies or whatnot, like you learn things that don't work and it makes you, it kind of reinforces that idea of, okay, well, you know, if I'm doing a movie like I saw this play out this way and you know I don't think that that was highly successful choosing that path.
Greg StaffaWhat has been a film that you have watched you do not necessarily review it, but what is something that you just didn't get that audiences are like this is the best film ever. And you watch what is one of your biggest disconnects between audience and critic reaction to your own reaction oh, unfortunately, I I definitely have many of those.
Jonathan BowenUsually they're all nominated for best picture. But or when, like in recent examples, um, boyhood, I thought I didn't only think it was boring, I thought it was actually very poorly acted on top of that. So I why critics liked it. I mean, some of the main people were fine, but like a lot of the stepdads that came in or whatever, I I wouldn't even like entertain working with actors who can't, you know, bring it a little more than that. It just wasn't anything there. And then the other ones would be.
Jonathan BowenIt's a lot of things where movies where nothing happens, like Nomadland, didn't like it, don't understand it. Obviously, a lot of people love it, maybe another one, but audiences didn't really like it. Critics did would be Mother. And what bothers me about saying these movies is I love all those directors and like respect all those directors for what they've done. I could not wait to see boyhood because the, the way that it was made, was just so cool and so original and he's one of my absolute favorite directors. Uh, ever since, even like I think when I really became into him is when I saw Waking Life, because that's just such a philosophical movie, and I saw it in when I was a philosophy major in college. So so when I say, you know, I don't like these movies, it's like these are pieces of art and they connected with a lot of other people, so I'm glad that they are around. I just maybe you know some things just don't connect with me personally, but that doesn't mean that they're not like. You know the extremely worthy pieces of art.
Greg StaffaThat's just how it goes, you know you think part of boyhood's problem was that there was that huge gap that was 12 years of filming it Right. Does Hollywood not like risks like that?
Jonathan BowenYeah, absolutely. That's why I found it so interesting, because studios and everything driven by money, it's so immediate. There has to be a quick timetable for how are we going to get this money back? The money focus is, of course, going to drive most of the industry, so to be able to take a risk like that, I always appreciate it. One of my favorite things is A24 movies. So I'll be honest, there are some A24 movies I really don't like, but there's others I absolutely love. And what I love about even the ones I don't like is that I know that I'm getting the director's vision, like I'm getting what they wanted to show me and not what like some. You know, some executive or a boardroom decides that I've wanted to see. So I like like them taking chances because I shouldn't like everything. That's normal, it's not all going to connect with me, but knowing that I'm seeing a movie that is somebody else's vision and they got to make it the way they wanted, I love that. I think that's great.
Greg StaffaAnd for those that don't know, a24, I believe, the group behind everything everywhere all at once, which I think won Best Picture.
Jonathan BowenYes, yes, it was very successful too for them financially.
Greg StaffaYeah, it's not easy to say the movie, but they've been uncut gems. I think they're behind a lot of stuff on Netflix, but a very, very popular group is A24. So just to clarify that.
Jonathan BowenYes, it's always quirky, it's always weird. Stuff like Spring Breakers not my favorite movie, very strange but they just I think also they were I think they did midsummer, if I remember right but a lot of movies that are just really good and I think it's nice to have that out there. This. This is nothing against the major studios, because I'm a businessman as well. I I honestly would behave a lot the way that they do, because when you see a movie come out that audiences say they do, they're so sick of movies based on board games, superheroes, blah, blah, blah Well then prove it. Because when Mickey 17 comes out and they spend $110 million and it doesn't make any money if I'm a studio executive, I just learned all I need to know Minecraft comes out makes $166 million. So yeah, I'm kind of down with listening to audiences moan about how Hollywood is so unoriginal. They're giving you what you asked for. This is what you want. I mean, look at the numbers. People don't want to see an original sci-fi movie, they want to see Minecraft.
Greg StaffaAnd that number shocked everyone. We want to get more of that, yeah, absolutely.
Jonathan BowenSo I really try to go support those little movies Like Black Bag, for instance recently was just absolutely amazing and I really like Death of a Unicorn.
Greg StaffaI know it was kind of a little mix when it comes to critics but my wife and I thought it South by Southwest for many years. It's my usual once a year trip down to Texas to do that. Oh, that's fun festival circuit. And then the more studio driven. I mean south by southwest has some studio films but there's kind of a group of directors that kind of fall into that film festival category and then there's another group that tends to fall into the hollywood. Why is there that disconnect? I mean, one of my, a director I love, is, uh, jason healy, who, um, he had a film out a couple years ago at South by Southwest one best director, I believe, or best picture, but he struggled to do more of the mainstream stuff. He was involved in Lightyear and he was involved in another Pixar film. But why does it seem like these directors that kind of win the awards at film festivals have a hard time making it kind of that leap to the more hollywood style? Is it because of studio involvement?
Jonathan Bowenyeah, I think it's. I think it depends on the person like and what what it is their like propensity was so like. For me I find something that's very difficult is that as a director I don't think really like an indie director. I've always been one of those people who's not real hipster with my movie tastes. I like stuff all over the board. Don't get me wrong. I love Sean Baker's work. It's all good, but I tend to lean a little bit more mainstream. So when I think about a story I think about it sort of connecting with audiences.
Jonathan BowenI guess I don't come up with super weird ideas. I wish I did, because I've noticed the same in film festivals, that sometimes I've had success but I can't get the
600 Movie Reviews and Indie Writing
Jonathan Bowenhigh-level success out of it because I'm not let, let's say, making you know real issues movies, and also I don't necessarily think in a way that's like really off kilter. So I think for some of these directors they make really cool, interesting work. That's a little bizarre. And then it's like how do you go from doing that to doing like an MCU movie that needs to appeal to people in 140 countries around the world or 175 or whatever we're looking for? That's not an easy thing to do. And then also nobody has ever been there telling them what to do on their indie projects. They probably mostly just did it like I did.
Jonathan BowenYou do it yourself with your team, and it doesn't mean that you don't have anyone else giving you input, but you don't have a studio coming in and telling you bizarre things like yeah, so we can't do that because that that would offend people in the Middle East, or we can't do that because that might not be seen as sensitive to China and China's a big market for us. So you know, or things like that, where it's like, wow, all these considerations you never even thought of. You know, making a festival movie and now you're making a movie for a major corporation, you know.
Greg StaffaA few. I mean, several years ago we used to have these things called VHS and DVD. Even and I mean stores have stopped selling DVDs, but those used to be you used to be able to make a film that was out in the theaters that didn't do very well, but then you would rely on the VHS sales and the DVD sales to kind of pick up that film, to make up that gap. And now we don't have that market revenue anymore. We have streaming, but that's not the same as what VHS and DVDs used to do for a film.
Greg StaffaSomething like a Good Will Hunting could have done okay in a theater, but it didn't. Even though it had Robin Williams, didn't have that full star power, but DVD sales, vhs sales brought it up to be something that was very profitable for that film. Is that something that is impacting directors? You think that that's why we're not getting someone like you or Jason Healy to to do more, more, better, because there isn't that that kind of I don't want to say crutch, but assistance in making a movie, the studio taking a risk and saying we'll make it up on DVD sales if the film only does, you know, 70 million, we'll make it up other ways and it'll be profitable for us. Is that part of it, or is streaming making up for that?
Jonathan BowenI mean. So that's kind of like. I wish I could speak even more intelligently to that, but, from what I understand at least, streaming has not really filled the gap, and what bothers me is that I believe that it can fill the gap. We don't need DVDs. I love physical media, don't get me wrong, but what I mean is we shouldn't need it for that. But what I see happening a lot is.
Jonathan BowenOn my first movie, I'll give you one example. We finished a movie. It's, you know, I think, $285,000 movie, so not super expensive and not a ton of money to recoup. But the offer that I got given and keep in mind this was way back, like 2013 maybe is when we were looking at this deal Netflix offered us $2,000 for the movie. Like we were looking at this deal, netflix offered us $2,000 for the movie. That was a no for me, and Netflix wasn't that big of a deal 12 years ago it was kind of pretty new. Now Netflix was a big deal as far as sending DVDs in the mail. I was actually a subscriber since, I think, six months in, so I was one of the longest termed Netflix subscribers and I only lost my DVD program when they closed it about what two years ago or something like that, I kept on going with that.
Jonathan BowenSo I think streaming can make up, but they've got to be a little bit more generous and I don't expect them to find money out of thin air. But what I'm saying is like when you spend $320 million making the Electric State, it doesn't go to theaters, it just goes right to Netflix. Why don't we not be spending that much money on a, frankly, extremely mediocre movie? And why don't we be spreading that money around a bit and saying look, if there's 2000 feature films that go to festivals over a course of a couple years, why don't we try to find the best, like 25 of those? And you know the actual indie movies though I'm talking about, not like your movies, where it's like oh, it's an indie movie starring two a-listers. Well, okay, I mean, I guess that fits the definition of independent if it was made outside the studio system. But yeah, most of us would call a 20 million dollar indie not really an indie movie.
Greg StaffaI think that's just kind of not, you know I think that's part of the problem was, I think when streaming first came out, they saw it as a platform for all kinds of indie directors to get their their products out there, right, and instead what happened was, you know, you see Adam Standler being almost Netflix exclusive with his films. Now You're seeing the Rock on all kinds of different streaming platforms. You're seeing Harrison Ford doing streaming television. Who thought 10 years ago Harrison Ford would be on TV shows? And yet here he is on streaming platforms for Paramount and and um and apple. So I think, right, all of a sudden we saw a flood of a-listers going to streaming, when initially I think the hope was that all these independent filmmakers would have a platform that they could put their stuff on that was easy and cheaper and kind of avoided that Hollywood route or the studio route, and instead it was quickly overtaken by the A-listers and kind of drowned out that opportunity for more creative outlets and I think that's kind of hindered them Interesting.
Jonathan BowenI mean, I think Netflix, and I think this could apply to a number of the streamers but they've put themselves in a position with so many subscribers where they are tastemakers as well now. So I see a lot of stuff on Netflix where it's like if Netflix decides to push that movie, everybody's going to watch it and everybody includes me. If it hits the top 10, I will see it because I feel like I should have seen it. But at the same time, I sometimes feel like a pig at the trough, where stuff is just being put in there and we just all lap it up and it's kind of like, you know, this stuff isn't even good. It's. It's not that it's bad, but it's just it's not very good. And if they push it on us, then we're all too lazy to like go actually find a movie. So we're just like oh well, yeah, this is the new movie on Netflix for the week. So I guess you know I guess that 90s you have to be a lot more active, like you either go specifically and you see it in the theater or you go to the blockbuster and you browse the whole thing. You're like all right, do I want to see this? Maybe you even ask a video store employee I did that and say hey, what have you heard about this thing? Or I'm looking for a good horror film. You got any recommendations? And so I feel like we all got a more curated experience.
Jonathan BowenNow they're using this algorithm, which may or may not work. It doesn't work on me because I watch everything. So the algorithm is beyond confused because it sees me watch like la la land and thinks I love musicals, and then it will see me watch some like violent horror film or some stupid action movie and think I like that, and I'm like no, I watch everything, so your algorithm is not gonna work at all. I'm always insulted when it like I watch some absolutely terrible movie and it says something like you might also like and then suggest like four or five more absolutely terrible movies I've seen and I'm like man, it knows that if I watch this movie, I'll watch anything.
Greg StaffaYeah, it's unfortunate. I mean, one of the things that was nice about when Netflix used to mail you stuff is I think people took a lot more chances on oh, this might be interesting. Oh, I get five movies sent to me from Netflix. I might as well have tried this one. If I don't like it, I have four other movies I could watch. I think it would give people a lot more chance to take chances on their filming views. And now everything's kind of forced to us that you need to watch this, this and this.
Jonathan BowenYou're right, it is. It's kind of fed in there where it's like you know they really highlight like this is the movie that you should be watching right now and of course you can go find it. But I have one interesting thing to me, and this just kind of shows that it's hard to find necessarily be shown what you want to see. Sometimes I will see a director's movie, a couple of their movies, and let's say they're a smaller director but they've done a number of movies, four or five movies. So say they're a smaller director but they've done a number of movies, four or five movies. So I'm kind of like, all right, you know, this is what I'm going to do as a fellow director. I want to watch all their work. I'm just going to go find all their stuff and see it and see if I can see what motivates this director, like what interests them, what stories they gravitate towards and what's their style.
Jonathan BowenSo sometimes I'll do a search because I'm like, okay, let's go find this next movie, and it says like, oh, it's, you know, it's on Amazon Prime or
Streaming's Impact on Independent Film
Jonathan Bowenor there it is on Hulu. And I'm thinking that's crazy because I spend hours browsing. I've never seen that movie shown to me, but it is there if you search for it. So that's the kind of weird part is like you almost have to do some offline work, like you have to go to Wikipedia, look up a director, see the five movies they've done and then search because sometimes, even though, like maybe who has the rights for it, it just will never show up on.
Greg StaffaAt least for my account, it will never show up under any section or whatever I think part of that is for a long time, Netflix was about enjoyment of movies or enjoyment of content, you know, TV shows or movies. They didn't have a skin in the game.
Greg StaffaNow they have Happy Gilmore 2 coming out and as much as I want to see it they have an invested interest in it, and so it is on all their ads, it's on their main page, it's on there, you know, true. And so they have a vested interest in that performing especially well versus something else. And so back, you know, 10 years ago, when they didn't have a skin in the game. It was, you know. Look at these movies, look at these unusual things. They would promote directors more. They focused on, you know, the outliers of film, but now it's a money thing for them and they need, like, a Beverly Hills Cop 2 or 4 or whatever it was that Netflix just had, or Happy Gilmore 2, to do better, and so that gets pushed front to that, because they have skin in the game.
Jonathan BowenWell, Amazon has a really good point.
Greg StaffaAmazon has Reacher, so you're not going to find some independent film where they really want to promote Reacher because it's on Amazon. And so they went from being independent showcasing movies to now being a studio, and I think we sometimes forget that that's. You know they have a vested interest in some of the content that they're promoting. They're not this neutral thing that they used to be.
Jonathan BowenRight, you're really right.
Jonathan BowenI think you hit the nail on the head because if you were making your own content, then of course you're not going to spend as much money licensing outside content, because it's not's not your stuff, like you didn't.
Jonathan BowenYou didn't green light it, it was just made somewhere else and now you're buying, you know, the streaming rights to it for a year or two years, you know whatever the term is. So I think that there's, it's natural they're going to, you know, push and promote their own stuff, and so that the sad consequence of that, from what I understand again, I I'm speaking from just mutterings that I've heard is there's a lot of indie filmmakers who have almost accepted that they're going to lose money on Netflix and if enough people find it and discover it, maybe Netflix will hire me to direct some episodes of one of their series or maybe they'll give me another chance. And I'm not saying that that's a dumb plan, but it's a sad plan that you have spent a lot of money making something and that the prospects of getting the money back are so dire, or at least lottery ticket-like.
Greg StaffaYeah, because even the film festival circuit doesn't bring that necessarily. I mean you could win Best Picture at a film festival and it really doesn't. It might help the sales to a studio or something like that, but it doesn't really put that spotlight on that one would expect no it oh, exactly like it's.
Jonathan BowenIt's crazy because there's really only that handful of film festivals and, without trying, of course, trying to sound too bitter, you know those ones, those ones like Sundance, like Tribeca, toronto. You know the household name ones South by Southwest. You know things like that. You can make an indie film and if you get in there you can get a good sale, you can make money. But the only thing I'd say about that is go through and look at them, if you really you know, you know what I'm talking about a bit.
Jonathan BowenLook at the movies that played Toronto, and these are movies that were made by Neon or A24 or Focus Features or star A-list people. And I can't tell you how many times I've watched a movie that says premiered at Toronto. I'm curious about it, so I watch it and I'm like that movie was absolutely horrible. And then I go to the Wikipedia. It says well, it had its world premiere at Toronto. Blah, blah, blah 22% Rotten Tomatoes score. So it's like you tell me, why are you, a festival that's supposed to be supporting great work, accepting movies with a 22% Rotten Tomatoes? That's absolutely awful by everybody's standard. But why? Because it had two A-listers in it.
Jonathan BowenSo what's happened is the major festivals that can actually do something for your career. They're not interested in little indie movies, they're interested in movies starring big people, and it's not. I don't totally blame them, because if you and I were running a festival and here's one movie that has no one in it total no names and it's great. Or here's one movie that has no one in it total no names, and it's great. Or here's another movie that's not great but it has like Paul Rudd in it and Jessica Chastain or something like that, and just throw out two names, I know that having a Paul Rudd, jessica Chastain movie is going to help my film festival more than this thing no one cares about.
Jonathan BowenBut that bothers me a bit because as a festival, isn't it your job to make people care about it? I mean that movie that has the A-listers, it will already do fine, like they've already got audience interest, because people like me I love Jessica Jastain, I'll see anything she's in. But the little indie movie it needs your help and legitimacy because no one wants to see it, because they don't have any reason to. So if you're Toronto, you have the power to say you know what we want to lift this movie up because it's good and we want it to find an audience. So I think
Film Festival Challenges and Changes
Jonathan Bowenwe're losing that a little bit, like compared to the nineties, where that actually happened a lot more.
Greg StaffaThis might be above your pay grade or knowledge or whatnot, but considering you've done many film festivals, what do you think about Sundance?
Jonathan BowenOh boy, I mean, I think it's crazy. I think it's a little sad because even though I've never been to Sundance just being like a huge Entourage fan I love the Sundance episode that was on that and I feel like it was an iconic location that everybody knew was kind of a pain in the butt but it was like a community thing, yeah it was a very small town, feel yeah and it's like you, you'd see, you could see everybody, you could see like huge people there, because it's all kind of cramped into this one space.
Jonathan BowenAnd of course I have my own little bias there, where I was kind of frustrated that las vegas was in the running as one of the alternate cities but we got eliminated after like whatever round and then it was down to the other you know three locations, because if Slytherin had moved and moved to Vegas I would have been very happy about it. And now I'm just kind of like I don't know. It's a little sad, but I think that they did choose a good location that kind of has that vibe. I think that's is a better vibe probably than somewhere else that maybe is too big. Boulder's not that big of a town.
Greg StaffaNo, and it's close enough to. Denver to be a yeah.
Jonathan BowenI've got one of my good friends lives in Denver. I actually just submitted and got rejected from the Boulder International Film Festival, which is another really good festival. So what I would be curious about is what do they think about sundance coming into their town and now their sundance is going to be the biggest game in town, where boulder is a good like b plus level festival or a mine I mean it's it's a really good festival. So it's got to be kind of frustrating to them.
Greg StaffaBut I didn't think they were actually going to do it when they announced that they were looking at it. I just Park City, Utah, was such a I haven't been there, but it's such a I've driven through it when the festival wasn't going on. It's just a beautiful little town. It is To have something like that, come through and just kind of change everything for a week or so. I think it was a big loss, but I just yeah we assume sundance with with park city, utah and something will be different about it yeah, I think that that's true.
Jonathan BowenWhen anything's been some way for a long time, it's like there's that tradition in history that you just kind of hate to see gone. But you know, I guess that those were the moves, and I mean it's also kind of like, well, you guys are the ones who located in utah. I mean, you know, I don't know that for them to act like, oh, it's a red state, it's like utah has always been a red state. It's full of mormons, like you know what, what do we expect over here?
Greg Staffayour latest feature, the comics shop. Uh, that's what you're out promoting right now. Cur, yes, um, is that what got rejected at the the boulder one?
Jonathan Bowenyes, which I I honestly I don't say this often I was really thankful to be rejected because since we got accepted to beverly hills film festival, I really didn't like totally want to have to go to two festivals within about three weeks, especially while trying to promote the movie and run my own company. It's festivals are really fun, but it's a lot of work because they they request all this extra material and then they say things like everyone has a specific thing. Like beverly hills will say it's a lot of work because they request all this extra material, and then they say things like everyone has a specific thing. Like Beverly Hills will say all right, so we do not provide poster stands, you need to bring your own poster stand. The poster needs to be on phone core. Oh, and, by the way, the postcards, we really would prefer that they be, you know, at five by seven, even though I have four by six as printed in the past. So you know, it's little things like that where you're like all right, I'll go print more of them in your preferred size, you know.
Jonathan BowenSo there'll be all these little pieces of work that you need to do just to get ready, and then, of course, part of it is trying to see if you can't get people to go like, invite people, get some promotion around the festival. Can't get people to go like, invite people, get some promotion around the festival, because now it is now. This isn't true, of course, with your major, huge film festivals, but festivals largely hope that you bring the crowds. So their attitude is we'll give you the venue, we'll give you the platform, but you need to bring your crowd and you need to get people excited. Well, that's pretty difficult if the thing is happening in Orlando, like that was our world premiere, and I don't know anybody in Orlando besides my friend from Denver who has a second home there, so I did get him to go.
Jonathan BowenBut then when we had something like the Beverly Hills Film Festival, which actually is in Hollywood, it's just started in Beverly Hills, so with something like that, almost our entire cast lives in LA and the producers live in LA, so we were able to get everyone there. I mean it was absolutely amazing because we had we even had our sound guy, we had our like our wardrobe lady, the whole cast. We had cast members who only had one or two scenes and they still showed up. So it was pretty neat and I think that to play Boulder wouldn't have really helped the strategy for marketing the film, even though of course it would have been a great honor. It wasn't necessary.
Greg StaffaIn what we're trying to do, One of the things that surprised me about South by Southwest, because I think what you're saying is true and maybe South by Southwest is big enough, but I've always been surprised in when I'm doing like red carpets and stuff like that, talking to people in line and it's families have been doing it for you know 10, 20 years or how long it's been going on it becomes a community thing Like this is our thing, and for so much dollars we just see all these different films that we that, and for so much dollars we used to see all these different films that never would have made it to our theater, usually Right, and so some of the bigger ones were able to draw on that community fandom versus some of the smaller ones.
Jonathan BowenYou're right. And those are the ones that survive, by the way, the ones that don't just depend on the filmmakers but that actually find a way to ingratiate themselves into the community, whether that's sponsorships or whether that's outreach and trying to, like, bring together local film fans. That is really the path to success for, like, a regional film festival. Because one thing that's kind of sad to me is when I went to submit this movie because it's been so long since I did my first feature and my earlier short as well I didn't have the connections to even get into some of the mid-level festivals. That would have been a slam dunk for me, because things like Action on Film Festival, which used to be in Pasadena, they moved to Vegas and I was very close to the festival founder, him, and I would keep in touch. I just emailed him a month before this, but he died in I think it was August a couple years ago, and I had emailed him in July and said, hey, you know, I know you're super busy with the festival, but when you're done with it all let's go have lunch. And then I hear, you know, he died. And so that ended the festival. No, there's no more festival.
Jonathan BowenAnd then in eugene oregon. I had won twice for best comedy feature and best short short comedy, and I don't know the reasons behind that, but they they also discontinued the festival, maybe like six, seven years ago, something like that. So I noticed that a lot of the places that I'd won awards or played just don't exist anymore, and that just shows you how tough it is to run a smaller festival that isn't known to the public. Everybody knows the Sundances, sure, but maybe they don't know what Holy Shorts is, even though that's a great festival. There's all these smaller festivals that the public is is not aware of.
Greg StaffaTell us a little bit about the
The Comic Shop: Personal Filmmaking Journey
Greg Staffacomic shop. I saw the trailer cute premise and then a little bit of a I don't know if it's a twist, but the trailer did not go the direction I was thinking the story would, and so that kind of got me hooked in the fact that it wasn't what I thought it was at the beginning, wasn't what I got at the end sure, yeah, so the comic shop is about this guy named Mike who's played by Jesse Metcalf and he owns a comic store in suburban Las Vegas.
Jonathan BowenBut he, running a comic shop was never really his dream or passion. He was the illustrator who went to art school and he kind of fell into this plan B when his primary artistic goals just did not pay the bills. So he's kind of dealing with basically a midlife crisis where he's after the pandemic and the store is now not even really providing the living that he wanted, let alone the artistic passion. So he's fallen into a little bit of drinking too much, just kind of not focused on living his life. And he meets a guy named Brandon who's a high school student and also really wants to be an illustrator one day. So the two of them kind of form this unlikely friendship where Brandon in a way helps pull Mike out of this depression and sort of make Mike realize that he's a very talented guy and, yeah, he might be 40 years old but life isn't over, he can try again, he can still do this. And Mike's not having it. For a lot of the time it's like, yeah, look, it's too late for me, kid, I'm not going to get a second chance. But he starts thinking maybe there's something there.
Jonathan BowenSo I think the movie is really a lot about relationships and how those can affect the way we see the world, because we also have Brandon and his dad, and his dad is a military dad who does not like the idea of his son wanting to be an artist Because he just thinks it's a pipe dream and it's just something that isn't going to make him any money. So there's a little butting of heads with that. The other thing we try to explore is the small store versus big store or independent comics versus Marvel and DC, sort of like that David versus Goliath thing. So there's a lot of different moving parts going on there.
Greg StaffaHow much of you is in there? Because here's a guy that you know wrote 600 movie reviews, had a feature film come out. You know his first one come out 10 years ago and the second one comes out 10 years later. There's a little bit of a gap. I would have to imagine that there was some. I don't know if there was self-doubt or what causes a 10-year gap in someone so passionate about films to not have a film come out for 10 years.
Jonathan BowenYeah, so that was the thing. Comic Shop is a very personal movie for me because I wrote it during that gap time where I had to focus on my day job, which is business to business, corporate videos, anything from senior living, training videos, anything businesses need and we've been successful at it. But it's not something that, for me, I feel passionate about at all. It's just a way to make some money and, you know, stay in the game a little bit. But I but at the same time I felt very much out of the game, like I'm.
Jonathan BowenYou know, I wasn't living in LA anymore and I wasn't pursuing my dreams in the way that I wanted because I, just frankly, didn't have the money, like I didn't have the money to take a chance, and because the first movie didn't really get enough traction or buzz, I couldn't really use it as a calling card either, because I didn't have any sort of way to get another chance at it. So I very much felt like Mike, and some of the premise of the movie was Mike was current Jonathan before Comic Shop as I wrote it, and brandon was young jonathan, who is, like indomitable spirit, very enthusiastic you're not going to take no for an answer and I thought what if young jonathan met old jonathan and I thought maybe old jonathan would actually have quite a lot to learn from young jon, like not your typical mentor or protege thing? I know I saw that written once on the film and was like yeah that that's wrong. That couldn't be further from the truth. I think Mike gets more out of the kid than the kid gets out of Mike.
Greg StaffaI think that's what I think. The kid opens his eyes Right or at least reminds him what it's like to dream again.
Jonathan BowenYeah, and that's the thing. Sometimes, as we get older, we start to create our own roadblocks. We think, well, what's the point? Why even try? It probably won't work out anyway. It's like, well, it won't. If you're going to put these obstacles in your own way, you've got to use the wisdom you've gained, but still not forget that youthful optimism where the world is your oyster. And it's hard to do I I know it's hard to do because I've I've been there. But I also think that it was important for me to, you know, like sort of tell this personal story in a way that was, uh, I guess, open to other people's interpretations and also, hopefully, something that could inspire people, no matter what it is they might want to pursue. So it's not like being a comic artist or filmmaker. It could be whatever it is that you feel sort of unfulfilled and you haven't had a chance to do because you're busy living life. You're busy living life, paying the bills, raising a family, maybe, and you know all these other things that happened.
Greg StaffaI found it very relatable. Just a trailer to my own life, Not to put you on the spot, but I was curious because I did like it. Who was the person or persons behind some of the drawings that we see in the trailer.
Jonathan BowenOh yeah, you know there was a number of people. So Travis Stevens did Technoman and Technoman was like a big kind of fake character in the movie that Mike and Brandon bond over and they end up meeting. You know a guy involved in Technoman who's played by Murray Sawchuck, murray the Magician here in Vegas. So the other one was I don't remember his last name, but another one of the artists was Paul. So we had a number of different artists actually involved in some of the illustrations because that was so important to this movie.
Jonathan BowenYou know the art and I knew that going in I was like you know, we're going to need a lot of art and we're also going to need to clear some indie comics and that that was a. You know how that goes. Sometimes you got to reach out to these companies like four or five, six times and did you get my last email like we would love to show your comics in our movie? Uh, you know, is there any way we can? We can arrange that, but that that really adds to the authenticity, I think as well, creating this world and I I love the Technoman thing because I kind of thought it was fun that even here I am with this tiny indie movie. You know it's not a Marvel DC thing, but I still get to create my own comic book character. That's kind of fun. It was cool.
Greg StaffaSo that's making the rounds right now, or trying to make the rounds. Has there been any bites from studios or opportunities, or is it still kind of early in the stages for that?
Jonathan BowenWell, so our big focus now is on our digital release on Friday and April 11. So it's really about, you know, getting as many people interested as possible and we've really seen a good response from sort of the whole geek culture community. And it's been interesting to me because I maybe did not grasp like how many people out there actually would be excited to see the movie. I thought this is going to be pretty tough. We're going to have Jesse's fans, hopefully we'll have some of Tristan's fans, but how do we get extra traction? And then we started to see like, oh, this is something that there's actually a lot of comic book fans out there who are our core audience, I guess you'd say, even though I think the movie is very relatable to general audiences. When you have no marketing budget and it's just like pure grassroots marketing, you really have to focus on that core group and then just hope it kind of like expands from there. You know.
Greg StaffaAnd no, I found it I mean, just interviewing the trailer again, I found it very relatable just my own life and things I have going on, um. But it's a nice trailer and I like that. It, like I said, it started off going in one direction and then completely kind of changes, and I like that that it didn't go the way I thought it was going to go. I'll put a link to the trailer at the bottom of this episode and wish you luck on that.
Jonathan BowenWill it be another 10?
Greg Staffayears before your next film, or is there something else worse?
Jonathan BowenI sure hope not. So this time around, like I really do feel a lot more confident as far as the traction we've got, um, one of the things, just you know, it's just a little thing. As you mentioned, the trailer, that was so cool for me
Making Movies That Connect
Jonathan Bowenbecause when our trailer went out, we were getting a thousand views an hour almost the entire weekend and all of a sudden, end of the weekend it's been like four days. I think I posted it Thursday afternoon or something and we had 100,000 views on the IGN trailer alone and there were other links to the trailer. So that was kind of making me think, you know, I might have something with this movie.
Jonathan BowenThis might actually get out there, and I believe that I'll be able to use this movie, you know, as a launching pad to what's next. I have other scripts that I've written. I've got a couple others I'm working on and the hope would be to be able to, you know, turn this movie, even a small success, into at least getting another opportunity to do a third movie. Like you said before, 10 years are up.
Greg StaffaFinal question and again I appreciate you for coming on Back in your high school days you did over 600 movie reviews between high school and college. What would that younger you say about the comic shop? Were you a fair critic? Were you a tough critic? How would that younger you say about the comic shop Were you a fair critic? Were you a tough critic? How would that younger man react to the comic shop in his review?
Jonathan BowenI probably would have really liked it. Just because I was so like. It would have just hit me personally so close, because I always went to comic shops with my mom. I think I was a pretty fair critic. I would say I was usually pretty nice in the sense that like, if there's a fun big blockbuster, you know I might give it three and a half stars, Whereas, like, a lot of critics would be like, well, it's fun, but not that great, you know.
Jonathan BowenSo I don't know. I think I think just it would be hard for me because I did have movies like that where it's like this movie may not be that great but it really hits me. I hope people really do like the comic shop. But I even think like a movie like Maxine. My wife and I walked out of the movie at the end of it and she was a little let down and I kind of loved it because I'm so obsessed with the 80s vibe that I think I was just won over by the music, the atmosphere, the feel and I said I know I'm probably overrating it, probably you're probably right it probably was just a b movie but I was like I, for me it was kind of like an a because I just love the 80s feel of that movie I always try to include my mindset at the time or explain why this was a certain triggering thing for me to appreciate it.
Greg StaffaBut I also kind of have the Kevin Smith philosophy Kevin Smith before his heart attack and everything like that used to. You know, all this movie is trash and now he's like. You know, I've survived a heart attack, I've survived this and that I'm not going to waste my time being a jerk to some other guy's film that they invested countless hours for. I'm going to focus on the things that I like and focus on the positivity, because, you know, and like I said before, no one sets out to make you know what. Let's spend millions of dollars, let's just make a crappy movie, put junk actors out there and just go out and promote it.
Greg StaffaNo, you're right, Everyone's trying really hard, it's studio involvement or scripts, you know, having too many writers and script changes or just different things, or not being able to afford production costs. Or COVID changed how we do films and there's so many things that come out that, yeah, may come out to be a bad movie, but Hollywood's changed and it's changing fast. I mean the fact that it's like the fall guy couldn't make it as a big budget movie or a big blockbuster right.
Jonathan BowenThat surprised me a lot because I I thought the marketing, I thought that trailer was pretty freaking tall it. It was one of my favorite trailers of last year. The movie itself I didn't like quite as much, but it was still fun. You know it was still. I still enjoyed it. I think I just actually expected too much because the trailer was so good.
Greg StaffaThere's been a couple of trailers recently that have used pop music so well, right, and this one used the Bon Jovi song where it just fits so well. It did it fits so well. I'm trying to think of the other movie that I just the trailer I just saw, where it used a pop movie.
Greg StaffaIt might have been the thunderbolts, I don't remember oh, oh, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe but just using the music so well just made you want to see it and it didn't do. Well, I mean, you had a-list stars, you had an upcoming stuntman-turned-director doing a movie about being a stuntman.
Jonathan BowenThat was the perfect directing choice. I really liked that director. I think he's done some really fun work and what a cool journey he's had From being this awesome stuntman to directing these big you know big budget action movies. And it's like who would I rather have direct an action movie than this guy? I mean, he knows exactly what's going on.
Greg Staffait's considered a box office bomb hole I know and I think some of it's just we've changed the way we view our movies these days yeah, it's really true.
Jonathan BowenI mean, there's definitely times like deadline was commenting on death of the unicorn and like how does a movie with Jenna Ortega, who's one of the big it girls in Hollywood now, and Paul Rudd, and even supporting cast like Taye Leone and Robert Grant, how does a movie with that insane cast only manage to open to $5 million? That's not good.
Greg StaffaI think some of it's, because back when movies came out 10 years ago, you'd wait seven, eight months for it to come out on VHS. And then there was another excitement that was coming out in a month, and now it seems like these movies are out the next week, right Streaming. And so it's like well, why would I go spend you know $200 with my family of five when I can wait you know like three weeks and get it for $19 on streaming and watch it?
Jonathan BowenYeah, it is true.
Jonathan BowenI mean, and theater owners are right to kind of you know whine about that because you're completely right right to kind of you know whine about that because you're you're completely right when I was growing up, if you miss that thing in theaters you're looking at and this is for a big, big blockbuster that they're quick about you're looking at eight or nine months until that thing was on vhs, I remember smaller movies could take up to a year to get from a first day theater to to vhs and the thing that sucked there is you know that VHS sucks compared to theaters.
Jonathan BowenLike if you miss the theater experience, you're seeing it on this tiny, like 25 inch screen and like really crappy quality. And that started to change as you got DVD and Blu-ray, of course, and I think that that also impacted things, because then, all of a sudden, we're watching movies at home on a 75, 85-inch screen and we're watching them in 4K. So, yes, theaters are better than what we have at home, but the gap has been closed to something that audiences consider more acceptable. They're like I can deal with only watching this on my 85-inch screen in 4K instead of seeing it in the IMAX theater, which is better, but how much better 30% better, yeah, but when your family of five is costing you $200 to get popcorn in a film, I'd rather watch it on my 70-inch TV.
Jonathan BowenWell, jonathan.
Greg StaffaI wish you all the luck with the comic shop. I'll include a trailer to that, I hope it's not another 10 years before your next film, and maybe we can talk again sooner, when you have a more recent film coming out after this. I look forward to seeing what your future takes. I hope so too.
Jonathan BowenI'm really looking forward to seeing what your future takes. Yeah, I hope so too. I'm really looking forward to you know this. Hopefully, launching what you know can still be a good career. I'm not that old yet, thankfully, so thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate it. Thank you.
