Columns
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Hope, Soderbergh, Bowie, Hannah, Bolano and Glass (Google and Ira): Sunday Morning Links
The San Francisco International Film Festival is underway, the first under the San Francisco Film Society’s new head, Ted Hope. In an interview with Casey Burchby at the San Francisco Weekly, Hope tells the story of his move from producing in New York to running the organization in the Bay Area and how it reflects his own evolving ideas on independent media in the 21st century. I especially like this quote about how artists can rethink their process in a time of plenty. Emphasis added below: Burchby: I wanted to connect your vision for the SF Film Society to the […]
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Sun Don’t Shine — A Hammer to Nail Review
Sun Don’t Shine is being distributed by Factory 25 and opens theatrically on April 26, 2013, in NYC and Seattle, in addition to becoming available on VOD. It world premiered at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the film’s Facebook page to learn more. NOTE: This review was first published at Hammer to Nail on November 29, 2012, in conjunction with the film’s ‘Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You’ nomination. We hear it before we see it. A sharp, resounding slap jumps out from the soundtrack. Milliseconds later, the first jittery, violent, sweaty images of Amy Seimetz’s […]
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Six Questions Apple Needs to Answer in 2013
Apple has enabled cottage industries of graphic designers, musicians and, increasingly, Apple bloggers. As someone who uses Apple products, and who owns a bit of Apple stock, I follow the company pretty closely. So, I’m reading all the tech and finance blogs, with their pre-earnings chatter about Tim Cook’s ouster (not happening), dividend hikes (probably happening), and spaceship campus cost overruns (definitely happening). But as someone who wants to see the company grow because its products are evolving, here are the six Apple questions I’d like guidance on. Forget the Apple TV, where’s the Apple TV SDK? The iPhone has […]
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Failure, Brian Eno, the Vanishing Gallery Show and More: Sunday Links
At Vulture, Jerry Saltz bemoans the “Death of the Gallery Show,” particularly the effect new ways of seeing and purchasing art are having on the discourse around art itself: Gallery shows: light of my life, fire of my eyes. I love and long for them. I see maybe 30 a week, every week of the year. Much of what I know about contemporary art I learned from hanging around artists and from going to galleries. Bad shows teach me as much as good ones. A great thing about galleries—especially for someone who spends most of his time alone at a […]
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Kickstarter Tax Implications, Veronica Mars, SFX and a Tragic Dimension: Sunday Morning Links
Bruce Sterling’s closing remarks at SXSW Interactive have been posted at Wired’s Beyond the Beyond blog. It’s a long talk on the aesthetic and moral dimensions of disruption, an emergent Southwest and the tackiness of 3D figurines. An excerpt: And then there’s this empty pretense that these innovations make the world “better.” This is a dangerous word. Like: “If we’re not making the world better, then why are we doing this at all?” Now, I don’t want to claim that this attitude is hypocritical. Because when you say a thing like that at SouthBy: “Oh, we’re here to make the […]
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Wayne Coyne on “Paul is Dead”
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne appeared as a guest DJ on the All Things Considered radio show and podcast recently, speaking about his band’s own songs and their influences in a great interview that began with a startling track: “Strawberry Fields,” by the Beatles. Okay, it’s a fantastic song, but what startled me was Coyne’s reasons for selecting it. Coyne describes listening to the track as a kid, discovering the so-called “Paul is Dead” conspiracy and having the song’s final words, “I buried Paul” “seared into” his brain: “What a strange, strange way to end any record by any weirdo […]
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Remembering Roger Ebert, 1942 – 2013
“Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet…” — Alain De Botton I hadn’t recalled my dank childhood basement in quite some time, but the room, with its wicker furniture, orange-ish carpet and large, wood-panelled Sony TV, came flooding back last week upon reading of the sad passing of film critic Roger Ebert, just one day after he posted a “leave of presence,” a slowing-down that was still more active than the combined work of two men these days. It was in that basement that I’d faithfully watch […]
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Upstream Color — A Hammer To Nail Review (and Interview)
(Upstream Color premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January. It opens theatrically in New York on Friday, April 5, and will roll out to other cities in April and May before becoming available on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD on May 7. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) Here’s the plot of Shane Carruth’s new film Upstream Color, for all the good it will do you: A young woman named Kris (Amy Seimetz) is kidnapped by a man named in the credits only as the Thief (Thiago Martins). The Thief has been conducting secret experiments in mind […]
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Shooting With John: Rodrigo Lopresti
Every project is an opportunity for growth; a new lesson and challenge of its own. It’s difficult to find directors you can trust. But when you do, you never want to let them go. I think one of the things that defines a good director is the ability to know when it’s time to step in, and when it’s time to step aside. Here’s what I want to talk about, though: letting go. To me, the best work is not tightly controlled, forced, or formulaic. I think good filmmakers and good actors understand this. But there’s always a tension — […]
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What’s In My Instapaper: Game of Thrones, Bitcoin, Video Game Death, Chloe Sevigny and More
Here are my weekly Sunday morning links. A sophisticated discussion of videogames and violence is contained in Adi Robertson’s “Death is Dead: How Modern Videogame Designers Killed Danger” at the Verge. The article quotes David Cage, whose Beyond: Two Souls is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, proclaiming, “If the character doesn’t hold a gun, designers don’t even know what to do.” That leads to a discussion about the relationship of death to videogame narrative: But unlike Cage, most of the writers giving talks at GDC don’t come into a game with complete control. They’re brought on to […]
