Sweet Dreams

About 10 years ago, which was a whole other lifetime, my friend Allen Wolf passed along a screenplay he had written to me called "In My Sleep." While I am generally cautious about reading friends' scripts, Allen is one of the exceptions to the rule--his stuff is always solid and he's a proven filmmaker, having written and directed the 30-minute short "Harlem Grace" for his senior thesis at New York University, which went on to be a finalist for the Academy Awards.

Allen wrote "In My Sleep" in 2001 (I could have sworn it was earlier than that, but I'll defer to him on this one) and after all kinds of false starts, casting changes, and fundraising, his film finally opened in L.A. over the weekend. It did damn well--a $9,285 average on a single screen--and the audience I saw it with thoroughly enjoyed it. It was interesting to me to see how much has changed since I read that initial draft, and how much has stayed the same. The story centers on a womanizer named Marcus (played by actor Philip Winchester, a real discovery) who suffers from parasomnia, a sort of sleepwalking condition where he does things in his sleep that he can't even remember the next day. After receiving mysterious phone calls and presents, Marcus awakes one morning covered in blood and fears he's murdered someone in his sleep. He begins to piece together not only the events of that night, but of his past. (Special shout out: my friend, the awesome Beth Grant, plays his mother.)

The film is still playing at the Sunset 5 in L.A. and opens this Friday in New York. You can find more information at the official website and I highly reccommend supporting true independent film and checking it out. In the meantime, you can watch Wolf and Winchester (that sounds like a gun manufacturer) discussing the film above.

--Jenelle Riley