American actor and mixed martial artist Jason David Frank has passed away at age 49 by suicide. He’s best known for his role as Tommy Oliver in the Power Rangers franchise starting with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
After studying many different styles of martial arts, he created his own martial arts style called “Toso Kune Do,” which combines Shōtōkan, Wadō-ryū, Taekwondo, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do, and Aikido.
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Hi Mike, how was Tribeca?
It was fantastic.
For those who don't know, I was lucky enough to be invited to sit on the US Narrative Feature Jury at this year's Tribeca Festival. I just got back yesterday from ten days in Manhattan.
I found the whole thing to be absolutely rejuvenating.
Our category had five jurors: myself, Zoey Deutsch, Stephanie Hsu, Tommy Oliver, and Ramin Bahrani.
Kate was also on a jury - she was on the International Feature Jury (which included Brendan Fraser and Zazie Beets) so that meant we spent the week seeing different movies. We'd pass each other on our way to different screenings, sometimes in the lobby of the theater, and then meet up for dinner or a party and get to tell each other about the awesome movies we saw that day.
It was overwhelming to start with. At the Opening Night reception, we met Robert DeNiro, and we saw Martin Scorcese and Matt Damon (we were way too timid to introduce ourselves). I did manage to introduce myself to Kenneth Lonergan, who has made some of my all-time favorite movies (You Can Count on Me is one of the best movies I've ever seen), and the great Chazz Palminteri (I got to tell him how much I absolute adore A Bronx Tale). I also spent a fair amount of time chatting with Peter Coyote, who was incredibly kind and funny. We chatted a lot about Ken Burns.
After that, we went to the Opening Night film, a terrific documentary called Kiss the Future. We walked the red carpet (something I'm never quite comfortable with, but luckily Kate is a natural) and we saw the movie with a packed house. It was a beautiful film and really started everything off on an amazing foot.
And then the judging started. I got to watch all of the movies in my category in the theater, with audiences. A car would pick me up and take me to the screening. At my busiest, I saw three movies in one day, but it was usually two.
I made it a point not to know anything about the movies before I saw them - sometimes I went in without knowing the title. And I can't overstate how amazing it was to see these independent films with an audience, in a theater, instead of streaming. Having spent the better part of the last five years watching this primarily at home, I was shocked at how inspiring and energizing it was to sit in a theater with a crowd over, and over, and over again. I've never seen this many movies in a theater in such a short time, and I LOVED it.
I didn't only see movies that were in my category, though. I also made sure I saw other films at the festival that I wasn't judging - including Downtown Owl, the directorial debut of my friends Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe.
I made a point to go to the premiere of Suitable Flesh, starring the amazing Barbara Crampton and Heather Graham, and produced by my old friends Joe Wicker and Morgan Peter Brown from the Absentia Days.
And it wasn't all movies, either - I also got to moderate a chat with the brilliant Sam Lake about his upcoming Alan Wake 2 release. Sam was a joy to spend time with, and we had a lot to talk about.
And my friend and colleague Justina Ireland traveled up to NY to moderate a Master Class where a theater full of people listened to me ramble about horror movies for an hour.
(With Justina Ireland and Johnathan Penner - Penner ran the Escape from Tribeca program, and it was his idea to bring me to the festival)
And then, just before I left, I met up with some friends to see a Broadway show. Karen Gillan and Willa Fitzgerald joined Kate and I to see Grey House.
My experience at Tribeca was fantastic. It was such an amazing celebration of art and cinema, and I can't wait to go back. I spent a lot of it feeling overwhelmed, and feeling like I didn't quite deserve my seat at the table (imposter syndrome is just one of the staples of being a filmmaker, isn't it?) but I'm so glad I went.
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