If you ever find yourself at the age of 45 alone and eating your last pack of Ramen noodles while watching pointless analyses of the Zapruder film on YouTube you'll probably come to the realization, as I did today, that somewhere along the line you took a serious wrong turn in life and ended up smack dab in the middle of Loserville. And once upon a ( Read more... )

I've been offline a couple of weeks. But Friday, after three lovely phone conversations (on my Virgin Mobile phone!) with three lovely individuals with Anglicized names representing Virgin mobile broadband, I've successfully reconnected. What a strange and wonderful world we live in. Here I am, this bohemian gadabout, the very image of the seedy ( Read more... )

One of the greats died this week.

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RIP Levon, I never knew you but I loved you and I heard my wild Southern soul in your voice.

I filmed this in December but just finished it this morning. It originated as a dance, but in the editing became much more about stillness and the moments before and after movement. Which is kind of like writing something and then realizing the best part about the story is the typography.

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So I was sitting out on the porch just now, enjoying a beautiful late winter day heralding the beauty of the coming spring. The colors and the scents and the sounds just overwhelming me as I quaffed a few Miller High Life's (the Champagne of Beer!).  And I reflected for a moment on a koan that Robert Anton Wilson used to be fond of quoting (and ( Read more... )

Here are eight of my favorite overlooked movie dance/musical numbers. Some of these are pretty famous, others less so--you'll probably notice the preponderance of the clips I've chosen are of "non-dancers" (a misnomer if there ever was one: if you have a heartbeat you can dance). I was going to do a top ten list but at the moment I'm coming up dry ( Read more... )

There's a video that's been making the rounds lately of Steven Spielberg watching the Oscar nominations for Jaws in 1976. To wit:

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Watching the video there's a few things that pop out at me.

1. Steven Spielberg was close friends with Joe Spinell?  Really? Who the fuck knew? It's kind of sad and revealing that the director of the highest grossing film ( Read more... )

I don't identify as a Christian. In fact, I may or may not have sold my soul to the Devil in the mid-90's...I need to check the fine print. There was something about a life as a famous writer that still hasn't materialized yet.

Anywhoo, whatever the case, I've read the New Testament*. Several times, in fact. And, truth be told, I kind of love it.

Yet ( Read more... )

The New York Times this morning has an interesting article on a new documentary about people obsessed with Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining.

No stranger to Kubrickiana myself, I'd like to see the film. But what really moved me was the article's last paragraph.

“This isn’t ‘Trekkies,’ ” said [the film's producer Tim] Kirk, referring to the ( Read more... )

I watched Drive last night. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Which really isn't a very cogent review, I realize, but it's either this, writing very simply about movies, or going into weirdo stuff nobody else will understand land, and I guess I'm choosing the former. I could go on and on about how it's really a spaghetti western...I could go on and on ( Read more... )