How to Watch 'The Mirror Game'
I have my pick of weird little things this week that I could blow into an entire essay. I heard the faint sound of an AM radio station that my laptop charger was intercepting; I watched the Season 4 premiere of Cheers, where Diane gets onto her knees in a convent and prays for a sign1; I ate a huge salad in my car while listening to a Mozart mass.
Most weeks, that’s the kind of stuff I like to rhapsodize about here, in what I’ve taken to calling my “publication.” The standard-issue term, “newsletter,” feels like a misnomer; there’s no news. I’m not keeping you up to date. I’m just sending out emotions in story form.
But today: It’s! A! Newsletter! Because there is news! First and foremost…
The Mirror Game Premiered at Cinequest!
The movie I wrote and worked on [directed by my great friend Will(iam J. Stribling), based on my play, A Mere Conception, which I put on in 2019 with InHouse Theatre Company], started its world premiere run this Friday as a part of Cinequest’s virtual film festival, Cinejoy. Cinequest plans to hold its in-person fest in August (yay!) but the beauty of this virtual premiere is that one can attend the fest (and watch the film) wherever one finds oneself.
You can buy a ticket to watch The Mirror Game online via Cinequest’s website until April 17. There’s also a Q&A video that will play afterward with the cast, Will, our D.P.2 Alex Gallitano, and me.
Incidentally, the movie is also playing as a part of the Sarasota Film Festival and the Ashland Independent Film Festival, should you harbor some kind of virtual festival allegiance. It’ll be showing in Dubuque, IA later this month as a part of the Julien Dubuque fest, and at the end of April in Will’s hometown of St. Pete, FL. More to come on that front, I’m sure!
If you watch the movie before 6pm PT this Wednesday (4/6), consider joining the virtual hangout we’re throwing as a part of Cinejoy. It’s being held on a platform called Gather, which is new for all of us on team Mirror Game, but by all accounts is a fun way to bridge the divide between reality and virtuality…or whatever.
I spilled my guts on The Naked Man
No, this is not the tagline for an erotic horror/thriller I’m pitching. The Naked Man is a my friend Andy Greene’s podcast, and the gut-spilling is metaphorical (had to squeeze a metaphor in here somewhere, newsletter or no!). The release of this episode, which is titled “Marissa Flaxbart on Romance and Being Single,” dovetails pretty nicely with the movie premiere. The Mirror Game is also about romance and being single, among other things. The difference, for me, is that one of these things is a work of fiction where I have made-up characters to hide behind; the other is just me baring my sweet, lonely soul on the internet for anyone to find. Like, even more than I do here. Ack!
Andy has recently started a fun Substack of his own, Wanderings, which is practically a whole magazine of fun pop culture stuff. He devoted a lengthy chunk of this week’s Wanderings to talking about me and The Mirror Game, which is pretty flattering. Ah, if only there were a metaphor to describe what happens when creatives stroke each other’s egos in a kind of reciprocal, circular fashion…oh, wouldn’t that be the perfect metaphor to describe what this current paragraph is doing? Alas, no such metaphor exists.3
Thanks for the attention, Andy!
That’s it for Marissa-news this week. Next Monday, Metaforia will return to stories and emotions pulled from the minutiae of the week and elevated to feature status. It will probably not be about Season 4 of Cheers, but I’m not making any promises; I haven’t seen episode 402 yet and I have a feeling it’s going to be a juicy one.
This episode, which originally aired in 1985, also contains the first appearance of Woody. Is that anything?
DP = “director of photography” aka cinematographer
(this is a joke; of course it exists, but please don’t put it in the comments 😆)