A DOC'S JOURNAL by Scott Solary

Despite a very late start, we were able to shoot, edit and upload the latest episode of ReelerTV.

This week ReelerTV provides a glimpse into the upcoming 45th New York Film Festival. "The Warriors", Coney Island, Harvey Weinstein and “Padre Nuestra” all make the news. We sit down with Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, co-stars of Wes Anderson’s latest film, “The Darjeeling Limited.” Lisa Rosman from Flavorpill joins us in the lobby to talk about the grown-up side of Wes Anderson, how Ira Sachs blew it, the Cohen Brothers’ success and what’s wrong with Noah Baumbach. Enjoy!

An interesting aside:

My first “job” in New York was an internship in the development department at the now defunct, Good Machine. "Happiness" was making it's way to the video shelves and "Crouching Tiger" was being written. My immediate supervisor was Dan Beers. He used to have the VHS copy of “The Warriors” on his desk. He could and would defend it as the greatest movie of all time, or at least, one of the greatest. Dan was also a huge fan of “Rushmore” and Wes Anderson. Last I heard, Dan was working with Wes Anderson and had an Associate Producer cred on “The Life Aquatic.”

It struck me as an odd coincidence when Stu brought the news item of “The Warriors” into an episode so strongly latent with Wes Anderson’s new film, “The Darjeeling Limited.” It made me realize that I haven’t seen Dan in a very long time and I'm sure he'd really like today's episode.

This is still one of my favorite openings of a film ever:

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I haven't blogged in a while because I've been working incredibly hard to kick off a couple new projects. First, I have been hired to produce another series for Magnet Media. Whereas the first series is about the tech behind post-production houses, this one spotlights the hottest producing talent of the music industry. I'll have more details when we get closer to launch.

I was also recently approached by my friends over at CBS Interactive to edit some mash-up videos of their TV shows. So far, I've concentrated on David Mamet's foray into television, "The Unit". I have total freedom to be as creative as I want. So far it's been great to just let my imagination run wild. I'm not sure how these will be promoted or what the master online plan is, but stay tuned.

Here are some of my latest online favorites:

"Don't Tase Me,Bro!" - or - what I like to call, "Celebrating the First Amendment: Southern Style!"

John Kerry was speaking in Gainesville, Florida where Luci and I met and were married. This is the same University where I saw Spike Lee and Timothy Leary speak.

CLICK HERE to listen to the kid's entire rant and here's another link if you want to see the aftermath.

I still don't understand why the cops were there in the first place. And while his rant is a little annoying, convoluted and aggressive, if you're giving a lecture at a state university and provide an open mic for audience questions, freedom of speech is kind of on the table.

The funny thing is, I don't think he was speaking out against Kerry at all. This kind of fascist behavior by police makes my stomach turn. They actually charged him with inciting a riot! Escort him out, ban him from lectures, but a TASER?! Come on.

I wish I could embed this video, but the proprietary people over at Cadbury, won't allow it. CLICK HERE!

I don't really get the connection between the video and chocolate, but damn that gorilla sure does commit to a scene!

Sir Ian McKellen breaks down the acting process for Ricky Gervais in a scene from "Extras".

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Luci and I went hiking up in Cold Spring with our friends Erik and Tina. They are over from Germany for a few weeks. We've been trying to get out of town for a day trip for a while. Here are some photos of our successful exodus.

Some old gas pumps welcomed us to Main Street:

The Main Street marina:

Crossing the tracks:

A birdhouse in "Vulture Valley." Named after the circling vultures we were sure were waiting for us to die.

A strange cotton-like wind dispersed seed pod growing in Vulture Valley:

Luci's view of us all finally sitting on the rock to relax:

Erik is donning his one-off Good Hard Working People T-shirt:

Canada beckons from above. Luci snapped this one too.

And the sun went down:

I couldn't resist:

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In this final installment of ReelerTV from Toronto, we talk with filmmaking legend, Peter Bogdanovich who's in Toronto to introduce John Ford’s film, “Bucking Broadway.” The recently found negative has been restored and a brand new print has been struck. Karina wraps up the Spout reviews with her Toronto regrets and a few thoughts on “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” ReelerTV will return to it’s usual weekly format beginning on Wednesday.

What a cool gig this was. I'm seldom starstruck, but Mr. Bogdanovich is just so calm, cool and collected, I was in awe. You can see my camera shaking a little bit. Another one of my Top-10 directors crossed off of my "I Want to Meet Them" list.

This was one of the most inspirational films to me so long ago. It's like a filmmaking manual in directing, acting, blocking and photography. Watch and learn:

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ReelerTV continues its coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival. In today's special episode we have an interview with legendary media personality and writer, Phil Donahue. He is in Toronto with the documentary, "Body of War" that he co-directed with Ellen Spiro. The film will have its world premiere tonight on September 11th, the day that moved Iraq war veteran and subject of "Body of War", Tomas Young to enlist in the Army in the first place. Karina reviews another one of the Iraq-themed films at the festival, "Operation Filmmaker."

Here is Keith Obermann reporting Bush's true plans for the future of American troops in Iraq:

Can't we just arrest him for war crimes now?

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The Keith Olbermann piece below was broadcast one year ago today. All you need to do is change the date, update the statistics and run it again. It still rings just as shamefully true.

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In this episode ReelerTV goes retro in black and white in tribute to the forthcoming biopic about Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis. The Reeler talks to legendary rock photographer turned director Anton Corbijn about the making of “Control” and Karina Longworth wraps it up with her thoughts on the atypical rock film. Enjoy!

The clip teases the song, "Transmission". Here's a live performance brought to you by the fine folks at YouTube:

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I'm heading back to New York bright and early in the morning. Toronto's been nice and all, but it's not New York. There are too many little quirks here for me to ever be comfortable enough to stay. Then again, I didn't see nearly enough of it to fairly judge.

We had a full day of production doing three interviews, intros and outros for two shows and the last installment with Karina. What we did today will be the content for the next 3 daily shows. I would have to call today "legendary" for 3 reasons. Two of them, will be apparent in the last 2 daily episodes of ReelerTV (Tues. and Wed.) Not to slight Anton Corbin at all. He's a legend in his own right. And the last reason was a run-in with Mr. Pretty Woman himself, Richard Gere. We were getting off the elevator to interview legend #2 as he (#3) was getting out of the next car. Kinda cool.

Because I didn't see nearly enough films, but instead, spent the majority of my time producing the daily videos, I feel like Toronto was more of a tour of the most posh, exquisite and expensive hotels than an International Film Festival. For some reason, publicist seem to think that a hotel room provides the best interview space. They are usually nondescript and could be anywhere in the world as far as the camera is concerned. Despite all that, we did every one of our interviews in hotel rooms or lobbies. Oh well, at least they were nice ones. This is the main reason we do the opening and close of the show outside. It gives a feeling of a specific location to each show.

Here's a moody shot of the lobby in the swankest of them all, The Fairmont York. The picture doesn't really do it justice. (I didn't take it)

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As expected I was unable to see any more films due to shooting and editing. The timing has just been bad. The plus side is that the films I wanted to see will be coming to New York's screens and soon after, Netflix.

Back in Brooklyn, Luci has diligently finished digitizing all the footage for her upcoming doc, "All's Well and Fair." Somehow while attaining that feat, she is also keeping ReelerTV alive and well amongst all the outlets (too many to link to) . She's the epitome of work ethic.

I was still exhausted today from Thursday's night late edit . I finally got to sleep around 4am, but had to be up and taping the Scott Hicks interview by 10am. You can see the results of that interview in episode 2 just below this post.

There won't be a show on Sunday, but we'll return on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to wrap up the festival coverage. Not to take away from the first two, but I am especially excited about these last 3 episodes. You won't want to miss them.

My exhaustion was compounded on Friday by a couple of parties. The great people at Renew Media, namely our friend, Brian Newman, had an early celebration. There, I was able to catch up with a few people I haven't seen in a while, namely film critic, Anthony Kaufman, Florida Film Festival's Programming Director, Matthew Curtis and NewFest's programmer Basil Tsiokos.

For you cigar fans, there was a vast display of Cubans for sale on the patio. I took this picture for my cigar-loving friends to salivate over:

After a quick bite to eat, I walked to the Control party. I was expecting to hear lots of Joy Division and New Order, but, alas just the typical 80's party music. Despite how tired I was, I was glad I went. I made a handful of new friends. Doing so much work at home lately, it was great to be able to get out and socialize. I also don't go to too many film events in New York, so I was happy to be able to see everybody face to face in the offline world.

Regarding my review of "Captain Mike Across America" check this post on the Toronto blog site that has nothing but praise. Biased?

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MUSIC! In the latest daily installment of ReelerTV's coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival, we interview Scott Hicks. He's having his world premiere of his documentary, "Glass - a portrait of Phillip in 12 parts" about the legendary, minimalist, New York Village composer, Phillip Glass. Karina Longworth joins us again to talk about "Love Songs" and "Heavy Metal in Baghdad." Enjoy!

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ReelerTV begins its daily coverage live from the Toronto International Film Festival. In this first episode we go to the red carpet for Neil Jordan's latest film, "The Brave One" and Karina Longworth from Spout Blog gives her recommendations. Tune in daily for more Toronto Film Festival coverage. Enjoy!

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The first day of the festival started for me with a screening of Michael Moore's latest doc, "Captain Mike Across America."

A QUICK REVIEW:
The film follows "Captain Mike" across the country as he tries to get out the youth vote to oust George Bush 5 weeks before the 2004 election. His failure to sway the election is acknowledged in a lengthy title card sequence that opens the film. What follows is Michael Moore's brand of the tent revival with himself as the charismatic evangelic leader as he speaks to college campuses across America. There's lots of funny moments and great music performances by Eddie Vedder and Steve Earle. The film fails to give any new information to the converted and comes across as a little self-absorbed. It's documentary melodrama at its finest. It's not hard to let your emotional buttons get pushed if the Iraq war, the Bush administration and the lazy mainstream media already sadden and anger you. He obviously cheaped out on the photography and more than half of the film is lo-res. No digital projector in the world can make this film look good. In the end, I enjoyed it, but felt that it was nowhere near its potential. All it needed was a lot more money and a little more foresight. Weinstein Co. is sure to make a mint off this one. Wait for the DVD, this is no Fahrenheit 911. (did someone say Bit Torrent?)

Production of ReelerTV got in the way of me seeing "Control" and "My Winnepeg" (see previous post below), but we have a great episode that I'm really proud of. "My Winnepeg" is playing again on Saturday night and "Control" is being released in a couple of weeks in NY so I'm sure to see at least one in the near future.

We went to an unruly red carpet to cover "The Brave One", Neil Jordan's new revenge flick set in NY starring Jodi Foster and Terrence Howard. I had to yell at a Belgian videographer to stop hitting me. I nearly grabbed his camera and pulled him off his step-ladder perch. The "funny" thing was, if I can be snotty for a second, is that despite their HD gear, step-ladder(used for a better view) and obnoxiously long microphone, they were unable to glean a single interview while we, with our unassuming Panasonic DVX were able to get time with Neil Jordan and Terrence Howard. You can see their bombastic yellow wind muff shoving in to our frame.

Here she is trying to shove it in Jodi Foster's face!

They did, however, provide us with light. Jodie Foster's Army of publicists kept her walking at a brief pace past us. We vowed to never do another red carpet again. Let's hope we can stick to it.

Watch the episode in the post above.

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During a day before the festival begins and a couple of days before any production happens, I had a chance to go for a solo walk through some of the hippest sections of Toronto. We had beautiful weather making for a relaxing day. I walked up and down Yonge and Bloor Streets and wound up at the By the Way Cafe for lunch and a local pint.

We should start production for ReelerTV on Thursday or Friday and have the first episode posted Friday or Saturday morning. It all depends on interviewee availability. We have some great interviews lined up with some legendary filmmakers.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to see some press screenings. I have to wait until 5 minutes before the projector rolls due to the pass I have, but after the miscommunication(s) with the press office, I'm happy to have a pass at all.

I am going to try and see:

Michael Moore's new one "Captain Mike Across America"

Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic, "Control"

and end with a personal hero of mine, Guy Maddin's latest, "My Winnepeg"

I'll post my thoughts tomorrow as to how it all went. There's a chance I won't be able to get into any of the screenings, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Unlike Sundance, where I only found the time to see one film, Toronto is looking like it might be more of a "festival" for me.

If I have the time and can get in, a major highlight will be watching the latest David Cronenberg film, "Eastern Promises!"

I thoroughly enjoyed "A History of Violence" and "Existenz" remains on my top 10 list and on my shelf in its old school VHS format.

A few Toronto observations:

There are little aggressive bees everywhere. They are quite pesky, but don't seem to mean any harm. I was told by a waiter that there's no need to be afraid. I have a pure hatred for flying bugs, flies first and bees a close second.

Torontoians (I made that up) don't blow their horns nearly as much as New Yorkers (but who does), but they seem to drive rather haphazardly. I saw one driver nearly run another car off the freeway right before a semi almost ran us off the same road. All of this happened without horn blowing.

Obviously, I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to all the films I'll get to see and all the fun I'm sure to have, but like everything, I have a few complaints:

The BIGGEST of all: Sponsored by Starbucks! So now I have to wear a Starbucks branded lanyard. At least it ain't Sanka.

There are a LOT of films. Here's a couple fest-goers trying to decipher the slate at one of the three box offices:

Their is NO signage to look for if you need to know where anything is. The lack of billboards and ads everywhere is a little refreshing, but annoying when you're looking for a locale hidden in a mall.

I ended my day with dinner at Spring Roll, one of the many Thai restaurants in the area. It was amazing. Stu and I were joined by Scott Tobias and Noel Murray, film critics for The Onion's A.V. Club.

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I'm very excited to be going to Canada to cover the Toronto Film Festival for the Reeler. Our weekly show will become a daily for 5-6 days. It will have a similar format to the Tribeca episodes, except this time, we have Karina Longworth from Spout Blog wrapping up each episode with S.T. VanAirsdale discussing the festival's films.

This will be my first time to Toronto and I'm really looking forward to it. I've heard only good things. I imagine I'm going to be super busy shooting, editing and encoding daily episodes. Luci will be holding down the NY headquarters and posting the videos in all the usual places for your viewing pleasure.

OTHER NEWS:

We began to work the Super 8 footage into "All God's Children" the other day. It's going to be a big improvement. While looking for potential places to overlay b-roll, Luci and I started playing with the structure of the ending. An edit here and a copy-paste there and it feels like a whole new film. Luci is going to continue to work on it while I'm gone. We hope to have it locked and finished soon after I get back to New York.

My Miss South Carolina video has hit another milestone: it's over 2 million views! I still can't believe the amount of people clicking in.

Check out the new Google Earth feature, Google Sky:

With some camera moves and screen capture functionality, we could see the birth of a new sci-fi filmmaking movement. Maybe it'll be called Galacticore.

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