Sweet Dreams

Logline: A story about big dreams, small towns, and ice cream… mostly ice cream.

Production team: Director:  Jeremy McGovern; Executive Producers:  Joie Casarez and Matthew Smith; Producers:  Jeremy McGovern, Jenna Edwards, Andrew Robinson

About the film: “Several months ago I went home to Colorado to do some research for a script I am writing (‘Honor Farm’) which takes place in my hometown.  One night while in Pueblo, I was having dinner with my best friend Joie and she mentioned that my brother and I needed to stop by her brothers restaurant ‘Crooks Palace’ before I returned to Los Angeles to experience the amazing menu.  She raved about all the delicacies on the menu and how everything was made from scratch, she then went on to describe the astonishing array of homemade ice creams they had begun creating in the Crooks Palace kitchen with flavors like; sauerkraut, ghost pepper, sesame, popcorn and ginger.  I sounded odd, but my brother and I couldn’t wait to try it for ourselves, so we decided we would stop by Crooks Palace on my way to the airport (as Black Hawk is a small town about 1 hour west of Denver).  So, the day I left we went to eat at Crooks Palace.  The food was amazing, and Matt and Mike (the owners and childhood friends) were amazing hosts.  Then, after we had completely stuffed ourselves… the ice cream arrived.  Laid out before us was a dizzying array of home made ice creams.  Some of the names seemed to indicate flavors that should not be made into ice cream, but my brother and I happily tried them all.  All were delicious even the ones that raised eyebrows when they were announced, but the favorites from our sampling were the Ghost Raspberry, an inspired combination of raspberry ice cream with a touch of the ghost pepper (a pepper 1,000 times hotter than the jalapeño) so it tingles just a little as it melts, and the popcorn…yes, popcorn ice cream.  So after my brother and I were sufficiently stuffed and awed Mike and Matt came back out to chat with us.  We of course sang their praises and discussed other unique flavors they were working on.  Then they confirmed something that Joie had mentioned at dinner, they were planning something huge.  With a stockpile of several hundred flavors already invented, they were going to not only break but also double the current worlds record for most homemade flavors of ice cream by creating over 1,000 flavors…On National Ice Cream Day 2011!  ”

—Jeremy McGovern

Current status: McGovern made his first trip to Colorado in April.  He plans to go back to the store every few months over the course of the next year to document the progress.  National Ice Cream Day 2011, the day when (fingers crossed) the record will be broken.

For more information and to support the film:  Visit the film’s IndieGoGo page.