Clear Eyes, Open Heart.
by Matt Paley
Tim Hetherington died yesterday, killed by mortar fire in Misrata, where Libyan rebels are clashing with Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces. Hetherington was traveling with Chris Hondros, Guy Martin, and Michael Christopher Brown (photojournalists all) at the time of the attack. All four photographers were wounded; Hetherington died first, and Hondros soon after. At the time of my writing, Martin is reported to be alive, in very serious condition; Brown is wounded but stable.
A photo taken yesterday by Hetherington, hours before his death.
Hetherington was best known for Restrepo (2010), an intimate, lyrical, harrowingly visceral experience of war, which he co-directed with his longtime collaborator Sebastian Junger. Restrepo is a beautiful film; it’s also a film I’ll be unable to watch again.
I point, instead, to Diary, Hetherington’s last film work, which he uploaded to vimeo only three months ago. A dream-like meditation on the disparate worlds Hetherington moved between and his struggle to unite them, Diary appears now as an affirmation of all that Hetherington lived, and lived for. I won’t say any more about the work – I feel uncomfortable doing so, tonight – except to ask you to watch it.
From Hetherington’s vimeo page:
‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.
Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington
Edit + Sound design by Magali Charrier
19′ 08 / 2010
May we possess, as Tim did, the courage to live life in extremes, eschewing comfort for that which drives us; the dedication to push ourselves and our mediums to the very limits; and the strength to document with compassion, reserving judgement. Rest in peace.
Le Quattro Volte
by Brian Barth
Le Quattro Volte, dir. Michaelangelo Frammartino (2011)
When A. O. Scott says that a film “reinvents the very act of perception,” you listen.
Michaelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte (2011), is the most transfixing and profound narrative I have seen in years. The film structures itself around the four modes of transmigration (an ancient model of reincarnation); a soul wanders from man, to animal, to vegetable, to mineral. An old man trades his goats milk for dust swept up in a church in order to delay his death. Eventually he passes, and we follow his process of transmigration. For such a simple story (that has no dialogue whatsoever), it might seem odd to commend the writing, but any filmmaker that can weave a riveting story while forcing the viewer only to watch understands screenwriting in its truest form. The camera does all the talking.
The cinematography is disturbingly objective: think Robert Gardner without the narration. After the first cycle, you actually start to feel like a spirit, witnessing humanity as a species and people as animals. We scan around the old town up in the mountains; Andrea Locatelli’s camera is often perched on top of houses, hills, steeples. We’re not serenely floating as much as hovering, with a nagging feeling of menace; the next second we’re shocked by the most suffocatingly subjective camera–we are buried in the center of a pile of ash, sealed into a stone tomb or built into a wooden conflagration. In the final stage, we are released. We are smoke and ash. We sweep over the forest where his favorite tree was, we brush the field where his goats fed and we snake through his old mountain town.
What this film capitalizes on so successfully is the simple pleasure of watching. Much like the beginning of There Will Be Blood or Wall-E, it’s comforting when a director forces you to watch. It’s an act of confidence: “I know what I’m doing, just let me show you.” Its effect in Le Quattro Volte is that and more. There are only a few things in the film that place us in time; otherwise this story could have happened hundreds of years ago. In the terms of transmigration, it absolutely has. It’s happening all the time.
RICKETS: Official Selection
by Adam Hirsch
Our very own Brian Barth has officially stepped on to the festival circuit!
His experimental film RICKETS (2010) will be premiering at the Boston Underground Film Festival ’11 and the Kansas City FilmFest ’11.
RICKETS explores a transformed landscape as it follows the simplest aesthetic narrative — white to black. The textures and rhythms of the image come from the serious digital distortion (achieved entirely in-camera) of the perfectly scenic setting of a boat trip down the Hudson River. The camera captures an alternate, underlying world, an almost microscopic vibration that pervades our existence.
Keep an eye out (for all our loyal Boston followers) – make sure to pick up some tickets for BUFF.
And while you’re there, be sure to also check out the extraordinary nunsploitation film Thy Kill Be Done (2010, dirs. Greg Hanson and Casey Reagan). It’s exactly what you think it is in the best way possible.
Our shoulders are all waxed and ready to rub. Come out and support Brian, the Company, Boston filmmaking, and, heck, just to see some really great film.
The Warning Bell Cycle
by Matt Paley
Friends!
We’re sorry we haven’t kept in touch (you look great, by the way). But while 2011 has, thus far, proved a year of bad communication, it’s proving to be a great year for work. Over the next few weeks, we’ll finally begin talking about Adam’s new short, Giampaolo’s Hollis Frampton opus, Jake’s new screenplay(s), Peter’s Kenneth Bowser project, Brian’s first festival appearance(!), and more. There are some structural changes coming to Saint Eliot as well; expect some changes to the website in the coming months, to reflect the changes brewing under the hood.
Today I have the pleasure of introducing my latest project (with Brian Barth and Skin Horse Theater’s Brian Dorsam), a four music-video cycle starring folk-rock goddess Devon Sproule, to be released with her upcoming album, I Love You, Go Easy. I’ll let the teaser do most of the talking for now; suffice to say, we’re very excited about the new album, about the project, and about the work to come.
2011 Film Preview
by Jake Teresi
I’ll admit it: a list looking ahead at the year’s best offerings is almost futile. When I made last year’s list, I chose 3 films that were later pushed back a year, 2 films that were eh, and 2 films that just plain stank. Only 3 I picked ended up being memorable (those were Inception, Black Swan, and Rabbit Hole). Many of the films that meant the most to us came out of nowhere or, more specifically, a little festival in Utah. Still, it’s worth getting excited by a whole slew of new films, even if we risk disappointment. If last year was any indication, there are many poignant experiences still to be had in the dark of a movie theatre. (more…)
Everybody’s Looking
by Giampaolo Bianconi
The Fighter, dir. David O. Russell (2010)
The most impressive thing about The Fighter is its dedication to media reenactment. For the film’s boxing matches the filmmakers looked not only to acquire the actual cameras on which those matches were filmed, they acquired the original HBO crews to recreate, shot for shot, Micky Ward’s fights. From my description, you might think that what emerges is something annoying in its quest for authenticity. Yet the performances—from Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams—are so strong in their own right that they maintain aesthetic reenactments while steering clear of cheap imitation. (more…)
Stillness and Motion
by Matt Paley
I discovered the work of Claire Morgan, my computer tells me, on March 23rd, 2010. I know that as soon as I saw her work (via notcot.org, I’m sure), I wanted to share it — a whole folder of images I pulled onto my desktop attests to that — but, until now, I haven’t. Chalk it up to vanity; I must have felt that I didn’t have anything eloquent to add. Criminal, that. Ms. Morgan’s work must be shared.
Meticulously ordered, balanced, constrained, calculated, rhythmical, and yet – to my mind – organic, natural and transcendent. When looking at Claire Morgan’s work, there is, first, the stillness: an entire world frozen in time; fragile, impossible, uncanny, and not to be disturbed. And yet there is also the motion: a sense of wonder, fascination and beauty, of life, of chase, and very often of flight. (more…)
Whatever
by Giampaolo Bianconi
Somewhere, dir. Sofia Coppola (2010)
Richard Brody—a critic whom I respect—said of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere that it was “One of the most radical films ever made in Hollywood, if the root of the cinema is the conjuring of inner life through outer particulars. The gap between the life lived and the life perceived—a quiet tragedy, Sartre-style—is traversed with the tender, near-weightless glide of a Ferrari on a freeway.” I thought about Brody’s assessment of the film for a long time after I saw it. Aside from being simple amazed with Brody’s coining of the term Sartre-style to refer to an aesthetic, I wondered if we could have seen the same film: I would hardly call Somewhere, with its by now clichéd neo-Antonioni visual metaphors strained through Stephen Shore cinematography, radical.
Denby Does Boston
by Giampaolo Bianconi
New Yorker film critic David Denby prefaced his list of his favorite films of the year with a tidbit about Boston on film. Denby wrote:
“In recent American movies, Boston—not New York, not Chicago, not Los Angeles, but Boston—has provided the significant setting and a special urban music of slang, oaths, nostalgia, taunts, affection. The cycle of Boston films began, in 1997, with “Good Will Hunting,” which was written by its stars, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who were childhood friends in Cambridge. Dennis Lehane’s soulful Boston thrillers have served as the basis of Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece, “Mystic River” (2003) and Affleck’s directing début, “Gone Baby Gone” (2007). The Boston screenwriter William Monahan wrote “The Departed” (2006), in which Mark Wahlberg, from Dorchester, appears in a supporting role as a fast-talking cop; Wahlberg now stars in “The Fighter,” set in Lowell, just to the northwest of Boston, as the real-world boxer and welter-weight champ Mickey Ward. Earlier this year, Affleck appeared as a Charlestown bank robber in “The Town,” his second film as director, and he plays one of the local executives who get whacked by a downsizing Boston conglomerate in the new “Company Men.” That’s seven major films. Now, you could say that the entire phenomenon is sparked by Bostonian male stars. True, of course, but Affleck, Damon, and Wahlberg wouldn’t get money for these films from the hardnoses of Hollywood finance if the movies weren’t expected to resonate around the rest of the country. So what is the source of Boston’s appeal? All these movies are about white working-class ethnics—Irish Catholics, in particular—who can talk a blue streak, and all of them are about men and women in clans. Families, friends, neighbors. The clan makes you and it threatens to destroy you, and for the heroes (who are all male—Arise, ye daughters of Hibernia!), the question becomes: Do I leave or do I stay? Do I let the clan define me or must I strike out on my own? And for the rest of us, the question might be: Is this neighborhood and ethnic solidarity not only a celebration, an atmosphere of terrific rough talk and family warmth, but a shudder of anticipation, a last united stand in multicultural America?”
A timely question–one I’ll certainly be thinking about. The only shudder here is that Boston becomes, in Denby’s eyes, the last refuge of white America. We all know Boston has a tremendous reputation for racism–but more so than L.A., New York, or Chicago? If Denby wants someone in Boston to make Crash, he shouldn’t insult our intelligence. Even Shaq happily calls Boston home (this is a petty point, I know). And though the whiteys of The Fighter certainly come out clan-like, they’re worlds away from the people in Company Men or even Good Will Hunting. Boston is also home to the highest concentrated number of Brazilians outside of Brazil, another sign on if tremendous diversity which hasn’t yet seen the light of the camera or projector. Yet how right–despite how narrow–Denby’s analysis is will be shaken slightly off balance, I expect, by other films from The Hub, as the city continues its on-screen ascent.
The St. Eliot & Company Top 10 of 2010
by Adam Hirsch
Another year passed, another crop of films come and gone.
We publish our list now, at the cusp of 2011, because we needed an extra ten days or so to collect our thoughts — and to steal the time and search under the sofa cushions for the extra money to see every possible movie.
The first list you see is the official Company list. Farther down you’ll see all of our individual lists, a special list from Paul, and an explanation of how the Company list was computed.
1. The Social Network
2. Toy Story 3
3. Exit Through The Gift Shop
4. Black Swan
5. Carlos
6. The Fighter
7. A Prophet
8. True Grit
9. Winter’s Bone
10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Finally Serious Men
by Giampaolo Bianconi
True Grit, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen (2010)
My previous opinions on this blog can attest to my cagey relationship with the Coen Brothers. Some films—like The Big Lebowski—stand out as undeniably great, while others—anything from Miller’s Crossing to No Country for Old Men—seem a little too content with their supposed perfection for me to find them genuinely good. True Grit, though, appears to demonstrate a new direction for the Coen Brothers. (more…)
Why I Want to Fuck Gordon Gekko
by Giampaolo Bianconi
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010), dir. Oliver Stone
23 years ago, Wall Street had it all: fat ties and golden tie buttons, suspenders, cocaine, Daryl Hannah. It consumed the zeitgeist of the 80s and spat it back out with cold venom. No one can forget how gaunt Gordon Gekko was—he looked like he should have had the heaviest shadows under his eyes (but this was Hollywood and of course he had nothing of the sort).
There are so many Gordon Gekkos that have come out of our culture—people who swallow the cruelty of a generation wholesale and spit it out with extra fire–but just because Gekko is a type doesn’t mean we’ve had one in a while. While the 80s were easy to embody, to critique, and be dissatisfied with, Bush was too much of a buffoon for anyone to really do anything but groan. Haven’t you missed Gekko? I have. (more…)
Creation Myth 2.0
by Giampaolo Bianconi
Hi, yes, I’m back, and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I hope you’ve missed me because I’d like to do it right away.
The Social Network (2010), dir. David Fincher
“We lived in farms and then we lived in cities and now we’re going to live on the Internet,” says Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) towards the end of The Social Network. This is how history works, this is how progress works: once it moved westward for land and gold, now it moves westward towards a multitude of server space and Silicon Valley venture capital. (more…)
Sunday Night Watch: The Highway of Tomorrow
by Giampaolo Bianconi
This has long been a Youtube favorite of mine: a 1958 Disney cartoon focusing on the Magic Highway of Tomorrow. One of the weirdest things about this is that it’s all analogue. If anyone can suggest any relevant reading about the switch from analogue to digital computing, please do. For now, enjoy this short ‘toon. Anyone interested in extra credit should compare to this video Le Corbu. Also looks a little like Dubai if that’s more your bag. Meanwhile I’m waiting for our heated pavement to melt the snow outside (this shouldn’t even been an issue thanks to my hovering car).
Passing the Wintertime
by Giampaolo Bianconi
We’re in the middle of a blizzard here in Boston, so I thought I’d share some tips for those who need a hand getting through it.
1) The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I – Probably the best Christmas gift anyone could get this year, unless you needed a kidney or something. Twain stipulated that his autobiography only be published 100 years after his death. Lucky for us, we live to see the day. At over 700 pages, volume I is endless amusement to help you weather the storm.
2) Casino – Martin Scorsese is the only person who can make a casino look and feel like a cathedral. Strange (or maybe not so strange) that a film about the desert gets you through a snow storm. Special bonus: anyone who dresses as DeNiro or Pesci from this movie for Halloween 2011 will get something special from me.
3) Hollis Frampton on Ubuweb — Okay, I have to come clean. This is where I’ve been for the past however many months. I’m writing a senior thesis about Frampton, and before I was able to get my hands on the bulk of his films, I was leaning on Ubuweb like Walter Brennan on a wall. Do yourself a favor and watch Gloria!. If you don’t shed a tear you’d better get back on the yellow brick road.
4) A Winter Romance — Dean Martin’s 1959 Christmas album is good enough to listen to for a few days after Jesus’ Birthday has passed. In fact, I’ll probably have it spinning well into the new year. Put it on, listen to “Baby, it’s Cold Outside.” It doesn’t get any better.
5) Woodford Reserve – Whatever you’re doing, have some of this. You can replace the ice with a little clump of fresh snow from outside. And yeah, you can have another. Even a few others. The later you wake up tomorrow the later you have to shovel snow. Either that or you could wind up doing some serious playing in the snow.
Top Criterions of 2010
by Giampaolo Bianconi
Let the year end lists roll out. In preparation for our Company selection of the best films of 2010, I thought I’d tease out a selection of the best DVDs of the year from the Criterion Collection, one fetish for which I will never apologize.
1) Colossal Youth, dir. Pedro Costa (2006) — This film is enormous. Puts Costa in league with Béla Tarr. I love this movie.
2) Lola Montes, dir. Max Ophuls (1955) — Lush from the man who invented it. A spectacle gets the DVD it deserves.
3) Red Desert, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni (1964) — There’s only one way to watch Antonioni’s first foray into color filmmaking: on film. If you can’t do that, do this.
4) Underworld, dir. Josef von Sternberg (1927) — The film that launched the classic American gangster genre. There is a world inside the world.
5) Paisan, dir. Roberto Rossellini (1946) — Rossellini’s episodic follow-up to Rome, Open City is even more beautiful and, until now, much harder to find.
Runners-up: Make Way for Tomorrow and Night Train to Munich. No matter how good Criterion’s releases are, I always manage to find a fault: couldn’t they put out more Godard instead of Broadcast News? Do they really need to remaster The Ice Storm or Easy Rider instead of giving Kiarostami some extra distribution? But I guess Criterion gotta eat. Either way, a continual tip of the hat from me (even though you’ve been tipping my wallet for a while now).
Robert Houllahan and The Low Anthem
by Matt Paley
Beautiful. Robert Houllahan, our friend over at Cinelab, just had his video for The Low Anthem’s new single, Ghost Woman Blues, featured on NPR.org (see it here), and it’s something special.
The Low Anthem recorded their (soon to be released) album Smart Flesh in a big, cold, empty warehouse (actually an abandoned pasta sauce factory) in Rhode Island last winter. Rob hunkered down with them, with some 16mm and some 35mm, and set about documenting the experience.
I remember Rob showing me the footage, a few months later — it was easy to visualize a nice landscape piece coming out of it, with that beautiful New England winter quality of light — but I don’t remember Rob telling me what he intended to do with it.
I’m a little surprised how cohesive it all feels, now! When I saw the footage for the first time, I saw it as a diary of the light in the warehouse — and it is, still — but not an expression of a sound or a feeling. But I hadn’t listened to the music yet (Oh, that music!)
The occasional bursts of color are lovely, as are the often different speeds of the film. The imperfect sync on the performers, too, lends a floating, ghostly, out-of-time quality to the images — Rob isn’t encouraging us to feel any immediacy; we’re watching from far away — and he cuts to them at just the right times, because he knows we’re aching to see their faces.
But what’s really killer about the video is how he doesn’t linger on those beautiful tableaus. Many of them don’t get the time they deserve; Rob’s a restless (to the point of irresponsible) editor, and it’s not what we’ve been trained to expect. Yet the images do become distinct moments, and are given appropriate gravity, with his consistent fades to black. It’s a really surprising technique, and with the hurried editing, it pushes the video towards a different feeling, somewhere between really long takes of landscape footage (the way I might have done it) and really choppy MTV (the way most music video artists would have done it). The contrast serves that feeling, that slipping away, that they don’t make em like they used to that Rob is talking about.
Introducing: A Show About Us!
by Matt Paley
For the past couple months, I’ve been working with a few of the funniest people I know (including company writer Peter Warren) on A Show About Us, a filmed sketch comedy show in the vein of Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall, and The State. The show is about three 20-somethings – Sasha, the L.A. transplant; Ken, the alpha male Celtics-fanatic; Christian, the sardonic prep-school kid – living together in Somerville, MA. Although the show is broad in scope (the actors also play the characters on their TV, for instance, as in the promo below), many of the sketches focus on their efforts to figure out Boston and for Boston, too, to figure them out.
The above summary makes it sound like the show is all dropped ‘r’s and references to Lansdowne street. Writing and speaking a lot about the show the past couple of days, I’ve felt the need to clarify my position on living and working in Boston. Even as Boston has become a more popular place to film, its pop-culture identity hasn’t matured. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with The Fighter, The Town, or The Social Network; it’s just that they all present Boston as one of the two popular cliches: a tough Irish neighborhood, or Harvard. A Show About Us – and every project I undertake — looks to poke and prod at these stereotypes. I (and I know I speak for the five Saint Eliot members that grew up in Boston) am very proud to be a Bostonian. Part of the impetus for Saint Eliot’s creation was the shared dream of living and working here; even as we disperse (Jake is off to New Orleans!), we constantly talk about a shared future in Boston, with a new wave of young artists committed to expressing our peculiar point of view. We believe that by telling the stories that matter to us — or, in this case, expressing what we find to be funny — we’ll add to a cultural conversation we’re hoping to grow here. That doesn’t always mean writing about Boston. It means writing from Boston.
It was my unexpected thrill yesterday to be invited to share this view on WBUR 90.9, Boston’s NPR news station. You can listen to my interview with Ken Breese (who writes for and stars in A Show About Us) and host Sacha Pfeiffer here.
A Show About Us has called Improv Boston home for the past few months; we’re delighted to finish our run with a big Holiday Extravaganza! finale at The Brattle Theater tomorrow night. (what’s that you say? you’ll be in the area tomorrow? well, come on by!) Shortly after, we’ll be launching a new home for our sketches online.
I’m new to directing comedy, and not that funny myself, so the creation of this show represented a huge step into the unknown for me. I want to take this chance to thank the absolutely wonderful Sasha Winters, Ken Breese, Christian Kiley, and Casey Regan (the show is about them), as well as Mike Salomon and Peter Warren, our incomparable wordsmiths, for making this initially horrifying prospect a truly joyful experience.
Below I’ve included our promo for the Brattle show. Enjoy!
Ménilmontant (1925)
by Adam Hirsch
One of the great things about the internet is having access to things you wouldn’t ordinarily find.
In this case, it’s a 37 minute film by Dimitri Kirsanoff from 1925 called Ménilmontant. I saw it in a screening at Bard with the understanding that it was an “extremely rare film to ever see” and to savor it because the likelihood was that I’d never see it again (unless I, you know, checked it out from the Bard film library).
Ha! Here it is presented for you, in these holiday times. Incidentally, it’s also Pauline Kael’s favorite film (she, too, claimed it was impossible to find). A real gem.
The Little Imperfections
by Adam Hirsch
They came out about a week ago, but if you haven’t already watched them — you should. In an absolute stroke of brilliance, The New York Times Magazine decided to get fourteen A-list actors in front of a camera for short, silent single-take scenes. It’s called “Fourteen Actors Acting“. (Click the link to follow to it.)
For all of you that went through film school — especially working with a Bolex and 16mm B&W Reversal — a lot of these will feel familiar in the best way. They’re just like those exercises and assignments you had to suffer through while trying to get a grasp on the medium, the ones you overexposed or had your actor-friend drop out at the last minute only to be replaced with your roommate’s drunk friend — only these are perfect little exercises, perfect little displays, and fourteen actors — including Matt Damon, James Franco, Chloe Moretz, Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton — who all seem to understand how less translates to more.
They can remind you why you like this crazy stuff in the first place.
What Should He Do?
by Matt Paley
I’m glued to my TV (with everyone else in Boston) watching the retooled Boston Celtics (now the old big three–or are they suddenly the big four?) play the new big three from Miami.
About 10 minutes ago–during the first commercial break–I got a big surprise when Nike unveiled their new Lebron James campaign. Playing on their eternal “Just Do It,” Lebron sat in the same chair–in the same shirt, in fact–that he announced his big (and ill-fated, from a marketing perspective) decision to join the Miami heat, and asked: what should I do? Should I admit I’ve made mistakes?
What followed was a real evisceration. Lebron stands at a podium under a Hall of Fame banner, in a totally deserted room. This went well, he says to the lone caterer. He watches his giant banner in Cleveland fall. Amidst some funny moments (Lebron imagines becoming an actor on Miami Vice, plays a villain in a cowboy film), Lebron speaks a lot of the things his critics (including myself) have been thinking.
“Rise,” as Nike has dubbed it, is a good move for Lebron–I’ll admit I’m impressed, and I’m a hater–and a better move for Nike, who so recently stunned the sporting world with their similar Tiger/Earl Woods commercial. Whomever is directing these ads is a true Don Draper–someone capable of extracting not just drama and complexity out of these superstars, but (what reads as) maturity. Lebron doesn’t look stubborn sticking to his guns OR pathetic asking for forgiveness. Instead, he asks the same question so many times–what should I do? what should I do? what should I do?–that by the end of the 30 second spot, we want what he wants– to put it all behind us. The message is clear, and the humor is an improvement on Nike’s Tiger Woods strategy, which, played straight, was melodramatic enough (Earl speaks from beyond the grave!) to strike many as a bit creepy.
The real winner here is Nike, who doesn’t have as much of a stake in Lebron’s likeability as they do in his marketability. This commercial is going to be talked about. And with all the talk–whether you forgive Lebron, or don’t, find it pandering, or find Nike to be profiteering–no one will deny that “rise” makes damn good television.
The Debut of I’ll Be Okay!
by Matt Paley
In September, I announced the upcoming release of I’ll Be Okay, the debut music video for the Boston-based hip hop group The Dean’s List. I promised a “delightful exercise in good pop: glossy, catchy, satisfying, sugary goodness.” After a month spent fine tuning and color correcting (with a little help–okay, a lot of help–from our friends over at National Boston Studios), I think we’ve delivered just that.
I produced I’ll Be Okay (with Ruchiki producer Liz Phelps) for music-video director Matt Pitkoff, who I’m excited to announce will guest-direct Ruchiki‘s own music video, Mermaid Princess. I’ll Be Okay will make its television debut on MTV networks in the coming month; check back in for more specific information soon.
Under The Boardwalk Empire
by Matt Paley
My good friend and frequent collaborator Adam Goldman called me last night seeking editing help. His Final Cut Pro wasn’t working and he couldn’t make head or tail of iMovie (a program which has become utterly unintelligible in the last few years). Rather than stumble around iMovie with him, I offered to edit his brainchild myself.
I’m glad I did. It took all of 30 seconds and provided a needed dose of creative therapy.
If you’re like Adam and myself, you’ve been patiently slogging though the first episodes of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, hoping that the show will suddenly hit its stride (and that the writing will miraculously improve) and live up to its obvious potential. But while I sat on my couch lamenting that Mad Men was nearing its Season 4 finale, Adam (ever proactive) developed a plan to improve HBO’s lackluster creation himself.
Without further ado, I offer you Adam’s alternate (obviously improved) title sequence for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
Check out Adam’s current blog, dear stupid blog, for more curiosities.
Another One From Reichardt
by Adam Hirsch
Kelly Reichardt, the patron mater familias of the Company, whom most of us here were mentored by during our days up on Annandale, has just churned out her newest work, Meek’s Cutoff, and from most of the internet buzz, it’s something. It was sold for theatrical release at the Toronto Film Festival, and as of today it’s loosely scheduled for a Spring 2011 release.