Posts Tagged ‘Film’
Who Watches The Watchmen?
I’m popping Excedrin like they’re M&Ms. Worse, I’m washing down my beloved acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine concoction with a thirteen dollar beer. Aaaaaaaaah, Los Angeles. I landed thirty-two hours ago, and drove straight to the Pacific Design Center where we were taping our movie show, “Spoilers.” Episode two features the cast of “Watchmen,” including Billy…
Read MoreTwenty-four Hours Of “Twilight”
The red eye may be as close as we get to time travel. Without it, there’s far less of a chance that I would have volunteered to fly to Los Angeles for twenty-four hours (well, 12 in the air, and 12 in L.A., anyway). What would motivate such a trip at the end of a…
Read MoreDon’t You (Forget About Me)
In an era of increasingly brazen, callous, and heartless sell-outs, perhaps no capitalist re-appropriation has incensed me like this one. I’m speaking, of course, of the JCPenney back-to-school ad that has dozens of sporty-looking, hoodie-wearing, completely-adjusted teenagers aping moves from John Hughes’ coming-of-age classic, “The Breakfast Club.” Ask my wife; I screamed for twenty seconds…
Read MoreIn Search of Paradise
Save for a few nights traversing the Midwest on his former 1985 Eagle Classic tour bus, I have little affinity for Marvin Lee Aday, aka Meat Loaf. Still, I was thrilled when I spotted his brand-new documentary, “Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise,” was on the MSG Network last night. (My wife, in contrast, was…
Read MoreDaylight Is Coming (And No One Is Watching But Me)
In 1910, director D.W. Griffith and his acting troop (Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, amongst others) were sent west by the Biograph Company. There, in a small village named after landowner Harvey Wilcox’s summer home, Griffith filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, “In Old California.” Movie-makers began heading west in droves, largely…
Read More“Mister Rogers & Me” In 25 Words Or Less?
I’ve been drafting our Independent Film Week application as Chris fine tunes our submission. We’ve made some elegant revisions tonight, including the addition of a cute piece of footage of Ethan and me, some evocative driving b-roll, and a song by Davy Rothbart’s brother’s band, The Poem Adept, “Bear & Raccoon” (though we haven’t officially…
Read MoreExtra Pickles, As Always
Years ago, when I was recording the first of two albums (“Almost Home” and “Love & Other Indoor Games”) at my pal Kevin Anthony’s Control One Studios, I began most sessions with a delicious, toasty Turkey Ranch Sub from Quiznos on 23d Street. Tonight, Chris and I are editing just a few blocks from there,…
Read MoreA Ghost Of Hearts
Like a lot of guys of my generation, Chris Suchorsky’s mind was blown by “The Empire Strikes Back.” What distinguished Chris most of the rest of us, though, was how geeked out he was by the making-of documentary he saw on HBO. When Chris saw Kevin Smith’s no-budget, 1994 Sundance phenomena, “Clerks,” he wanted in…
Read MoreOscar Awesomeness
My day job includes oversight of MTV.com Movies (hence last month’s sojourn to the Sundance Film Festival). Our movies coverage was an outgrowth of our news. Chris Connelly’s “The Big Picture” had long since established MTV News’ presence in the movies space on television in the late ’90s, as MTVNews.com was hitting a stride in…
Read MoreBenjamin Braddock, Holden Caulfield & Me
There’s a great article in Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue on the making of one of my all-time favorite film’s, The Graduate. Of course, the film, released in 1967, somehow captured the zeitgeist of the late ’60s, especially the generation gap between parents weened on Eisenhower-era prosperity and optimism, and their increasingly disillusioned kids; Kennedy had…
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