Somehow amongst all the fury of Luci getting a rough cut of her film together and her heading to Germany whilst I crank on my 5th week of 10 - 12 hour days, we were able to team up to produce a special fall episode of ReelerTV.
Check it out. The Reeler feels fall in New York. Tamara Jenkins, director of The Savages talks about her bulletproof cast and Karen Wilson reviews Margot at the Wedding and Redacted.
Showing all the signs of relaxation, Luci sent a pic from Sylt, a beach in the North of Germany. Chilly, but beautiful.
Last Wednesday night, Luci and I went to see the Raveonettes play at our local venue, Southpaw. The opening band, Gliss, was really cool and had the kind of sound you'd expect for a band opening for the Raveonettes. However, the second band - Nicole Atkins and the Sea were the exact opposite. I have no idea what they were doing on this bill. To keep it short and as polite as I can be, suffice it to say they were underwhelming, melodramatic and ultimately, boring. They totally took the wind out of the show's sails before the Raveonettes came on. Apparently they have a following and lots of people came out just to see them, but then fled Southpaw once the Raveonettes hit the stage and the legitimate sound of rock hit their tender little ears.
Someone did a little recording of the show. Here's their clip:
Last time I saw the Raveonettes, it was just Sune and Sharin with acoustic guitars and a tambourine. This time, they were plugged in and the drummer played a 2-piece kit to a click track. I sincerely hate bands playing to pre-recorded material. Once it's introduced, I begin to doubt the reality of everything I hear. To be fair, they were really singing and playing, but there were times when a bass line or a drum fill would kick in and it obviously wasn't happening live. Beyond that, they put on a great show and the crowd dug it.
On Friday, a group of us went to a sold-out screening of "Control" at Film Forum. I was really impressed. The cinematography is stunning, but expected being a photographer's film. The acting is also spot-on. I do wish the band's characters were more developed. I was also expecting to be more in the head of an introspective depressive, whereas, I saw the Ian Curtis of "Control" as a guy who was driven over the edge by marrying too early and being torn between two lovers. Despite what I wanted or hoped for, the film totally works on every level. Luci summed it up best on the walk out of the theater when she said, "I've been waiting for that since I was a teenager."
ReelerTV Weekly - Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Warriors and Happiness
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:
ReelerTV Signs Off From Toronto with Peter Bogdanovich!
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:
ReelerTV Toronto #4 - War, Politics and Film with Phil Donahue
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:
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:
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)
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!
Captain Mike Review and Drawing Blood on the Red Carpet
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
Last month we sent out a mass email asking for help qualifying an episode of ReelerTV Weekly for New TeeVee's Pier Screening event. Even though we had one of the highest ratings and view count, our episode was a little too long and we didn't quite qualify. They're having another screening this month and we would really like to get in, but we need help. Please go to their website: screenings.newteevee.com/ and find our video titled, "ReelerTV @ Tribeca Film Festival #06". Click it, watch it (if you haven't already seen it) and if you don't mind registering (should be quick) you can vote. We suggest 5 stars, but we're a little biased.
While you're there, if you like reading web 2.0, online video and tech stuff, click around New TeeVee. It's part of a larger web community called GigaOm. It's all my daily reading.
Here's some details below about what the Pier Screening series is all about.
August 29 Pier Screenings: Citizen News
We’re closing out our summer San Francisco Pier Screenings series, and are bringing the event back to the pier. For the month of August, we're soliciting contributions in the category of "citizen news." What does that mean? Any non-fiction, short-form video created that tells a story about something out there in the universe.
Could be a documentary, could be a news spot, could be an interview, could be a cellphone-cam clip of an important event. Please keep it under five minutes and make sure you own the rights. We're looking for compelling videos that showcase a unique perspective or analysis.
We’ll be judging the videos this month based on number of views, votes cast, and stars received on the NewTeeVee Pier Screenings site. The top six videos will be shown at the live event on August 29 on a large 16-foot outdoor screen at a pier in San Francisco. The live audience at the event will choose the top three winners for the night. Metacafe will promote the top three audience winners from the live event on its front page, and Fabrik will be giving away high capacity hard drives (think 1 terabyte).
A Tribute to Two Masters, Rocket Science, J-Lo and Winona
This week's ReelerTV News reveals Film Forum's fall film slate, pays tribute to Bergman and Antonioni and discusses Picture NY's efforts to keep indie filmmaking cheap and easy in New York. We dropped in on Jeffrey Blitz to talk about his latest film, "Rocket Science" and Logan Hill from New York Magazine sits in the lobby to preview and review Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's biopic, "El Cantante" and David Wain's biblical comedy, "The Ten". Enjoy.
In this week's episode, it's Norman Mailer week in New York, Harvey reads Harry Potter and Taste-a-Vision is explained. The Reeler takes it to the red carpet to ask the cast of "The Ten" about their cardinal sins and Time Out New York's film critic Josh Rothkopf hangs in the lobby discussing "This is England" and manages to praise Lindsay Lohan's acting chops at the very moment she was trying to run down her ex-assistant's mother in Santa Monica. Pure kismet. Enjoy.
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This episode of ReelerTV Weekly talks about Leo DiCaprio's latest ecocatastromentary (can't find that one on Google yet), Todd Hayne's latest YouTube leak and Sydney Lumet. Then we prod the public for their latest movie going faves and wrap it up in the lobby with Karina Longworth from Spout Blog and New TeeVee (my daily reading).
Keep watching and subscribe with RSS through The Reeler or iTunes.
Drop in to YouTube, Veoh, Facebook, MySpace or blip.tv and be our friend, leave a comment or grab an embed code to toss around to other sites.
In this episode of ReelerTV Weekly: Is it 1.18.08 or Cloverfield? New York's weed scene, Steve Buscemi sits down press junket style and Matt Singer from IFC News reviews "Talk to Me" and "Interview" from the lobby of the Pioneer Theater. ENJOY!
Stu hosted a great little soirée for us and the Reeler's 2 year anniversary last night at the Parkside Lounge. You can never go wrong with $2 High Lifes. Here's to lots more Reeler Weeklies.
New York City Cinema in a Weekly Dose of Online Video Goodness!!
Luci and I are very excited to be producing the Reeler's brand spankin' new weekly show about New York cinema. This one is on location at the East Village's Pioneer Theater. Hope you enjoy it. Please share your thoughts at the Good Hard Working People's blog
This week's episode features Steve Zahn, the co-star of Werner Herzog's latest, Rescue Dawn, recalling the physical toll and creative rewards of working with the great filmmaker. Our "In the Lobby" segment welcomes Reeler critic Vadim Rizov to discuss both Rescue Dawn and this week's bad-kid thriller Joshua. Stay tuned on the site for more about each of these films and much more happening around New York, and please continue checking in during the weeks ahead for the latest on ReelerTV.
We did it. We managed to create, shoot, edit and post 11 four-minute+ shows in 11 days. This was also an experiment in our capabilities of viral campaigning. Through hosting the video on two places (Blip.tv and You Tube), utilizing our existing blogs, websites and mailing lists, we were able to get over 4,500 hits within a 10 day launch. These aren't huge numbers, but considering the short amount of time and small scale of our operation (2 people), we're quite proud of all our efforts. Today's episode doesn't count and we're sure the numbers will grow in time as these films are released and reviewed.
We hope to have more exciting news about our web 2.0 endeavors soon. Meanwhile, we'll anxiously wait for an acceptance letter from a festival delivering the good news about "All God's Children". We know it's out there.
In the meantime, enjoy Eva Mendes chatting it up with S.T. "The Reeler" VanAirsdale. Luci and I saw her movie, "Live!" last night and it is awesome. The film is directed by multiple oscar award-winning documentarian, Bill Guttentag. Despite how much you think you are above being interested in witnessing the demise of others, this film pulls you in and unlocks and excites your inner voyeur to the point of guilt. But that's the point.
I love the outer spaciness of the location in this one. Enjoy.
We saw a sold out screening of "Descent" last night. I'm just going to say "Powerful" and I'll be very interested in what the real critics have to say.
We're almost through with our Tribeca daily video run for ReelerTV. Two more to come.
Here's supercool Talia Lugacy hanging at the former Screening Room's bar on a windy New York afternoon. We hope we'll be able to get tickets to tonight's show. Judging by the illogical logistics for press to get a ticket to a public screening, we probably have a snowball's chance of seeing the film tonight.
We were finally able to go see some movies today. This morning we saw the press screening of "The Killing of John Lennon" and later in the afternoon, we saw the public screening of "Golden Door". John Lennon was a little long, with too slow of an ending for the morning, but seeing Martin Scorsese introduce "Golden Door" was an awesome surprise.
Having press passes does have its privileges. We got a sneak peak at the screener for"King of Kong" and it rocks. Not your typical contest doc. Whenever you get a chance, check it out. Oh yeah, in case you missed the show: ReelerTV #6
Today's show is with Marc Klein discussing his film, "Suburban Girl" with Alec "Voicemail" Baldwin and Sarah "Buffy" Michelle "Slayer" Gellar. The film's party was one of the nicest this year: not too crowded, complete open bar and gift bags with the novel that the film is based on, "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing" in it.
The interesting aside of "King of Kong" is that Sundance didn't/wouldn't program the film because of "Chasing Ghost" (the other doc about the arcade geek subculture) so they played Slamdance instead where the film got picked up by Picturehouse and Seth now has a 2nd picture deal as well.
I think this one breezes by. Enjoy.
While the daily indieWIRE wasn't being sent over the weekend, we were still posting videos. Scroll down for our weekend posts. We're Blip.tv stars!!!
We are hosting all the episodes of ReelerTV on blip.tv which is allowing large file sizes and very convenient codes for embedding all sorts of file types.
Today we realized that they are featuring two of our episodes on the front page!!!
Episode 3 about Vitus is being featured in the "Don't Miss" column on the right. And even more exciting: Episode 2 about Chavez is being featured in the loop of clips from various different shows on the top left (it's clip 12).
The Korean Mob, Battlestar Galactica and The Reeler collide!!
I have no problem with Korean gangster flicks, but I have to confess I'm more drawn by Grace Park's presence because of my geeky obsession with Cylons and Battlestar Galactica. Judge all you want. Us fans have to wait for MONTHS to see more of our favorite outerspace family so films like West 32nd give us a chance to get that home-y feeling.
indieWIRE hosted an amazing party @ the Apple store last night that we HAD to go to. I saw so many friendly faces that I hadn't seen since Sundance. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the open bar kept me out way too late. Despite the early call and the torrential downpour, yours truly was staking his claim @ a press junket between the Associated Press (AP) and the BBC for a slew of films that are in this year's fest.
Today's video features Fred Durst (yet another Jacksonville, FL native) and Jesse Eisenberg. Both guys were very cool and honest. Despite my pleas, Stu wouldn't ask Fred if he was in the film biz for the nookie, and if so, is movie nookie is different than music nookie. I guess we'll never know. Enjoy the show.
ReelerTV talks with Limp Bizkit frontman turned director, Fred Durst and his star, Jesse Eisenberg from Durst's directoral debut in "The Education of Charlie Banks".
Another hurried, yet fun edit for ReelerTV. Fredi is a great swiss gentleman as well as a self-professed magician and Theo proved to be the atypical "star prodigy". Great fun all around despite the uptight, authoritative Tribeca FF peeps. Weird, they are.
Check out the teaser video we here at Good Hard Working People made for the Reeler. We'll be producing daily videos for S.T. VanAirsdale and the gang during this year's Tribeca Film Festival. And we swear, we'll have a slicker website up soon. In the meantime, check out our Blog.
