I love my international friends

Since my friends have left me for other countries, technology has allowed us to keep in touch.

This is Ayesha, she's in India.

Yay Skype!

I am working on a SAG Indie

After last summer's "Just Lucky"
Comes the short before the feature "Grace"

Meet the cast at HERE!

I've been working with director Anne Welles, who after a trip to LA has begun pre-production on her scripts. I'm acting as assistant director and producer of the SAG Indie. I'm excited about the process and the scheduled five action-packed shooting days in varous loactions in Falls Chruch and Arlington.

Last summer's experience was an awesome one as I met and worked with photographer Barry J. Holmes, and other actors from LA. Having just completed casting it seems as thought the talented cast will serve well to garner excitement and funding for the project.

Check out Lunatic Fringe Productions.

I take back my earlier Katy Perry comment

I was so hurried in my criticism of Katy Perry, or maybe just her single that has been at number one for 4 weeks, that I failed to overlook her path to stardom.
Instead of being a pop icon glimmering in the moment as young fans worship her for her catchy lyrics instead of musical clout, Katy Perry instead paid her dues and can actually carry a tune. I thank Entertainment Weekly for pointing this out to me as my jaw dropped to the bombshell-cross wearing girl posed in a barber-shop chair (an allusion to her "One of the Boys" title, maybe?).
Her soulful, jazzy, mixed-media album released in 2001 under her name "Katy Hudson" (changed to Perry, her mother's maiden name not to be confused with Kate Hudson), actually has gut, worthy of play in any coffee shop. So I take back my comment and throw to the wind what pop-star may pop up next with a bag of great tricks.

Check out some of Katy's songs like Growing Pains or When there's nothing left.

I forgot about Stanley Kubrick

It's been about two years since I ventured into Robert Kolker's class on Stanley Kubrick. As a class we watched the entire collection from The Killing to Eyes Wide Shut, and it is in that process I learned to have a critical eye tow ards film; gathering patterns, aesthetics, and themes that I had not seen before.

Yesterday the National Gallery in Washington, DC held a special film series featuring Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Eyes Wide Shut with professor Kolker and James Naremore, calling it "two views." Yet in the end there was not a separation of views, but almost an agreeing factor that Kubrick was a mysterious man with filmmaking techniques that looked nothing like the ways of any Hollywood hotshot.

In my second and third viewing of the films, the first time on the big screen, I got to experience them with new light and appreciation. Their mature stance on an adapted story and using actors as toys in a fictional world set to resemble our own, marveled in its ability to speak on politics, gender, fantasy and beliefs. A Kubrick film can be watched over and over again with new discoveries every time. I can't put a finger on how layers keep appearing over the celluloid that can be pealed back to new levels of meaning, new visual experiences, and new translations of words. For example, it was made clearer to me that Eyes Wide Shut is about fidelity and features Kubrick's strongest female character in Nicole Kidman.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to many years ahead of movie watching (and making), rediscovery, and exploration of what a film can encapsulate to entrance generations to come.

I Love Sports

Justin said it, I agree

I finally saw The Dark Knight

Never have I ever thought that watching a movie only six days after it's opening would have meant I've caught up with the rest of the world.

The anticipation was growing as friends told me about going at midnight last Friday to catch a first glimpse of The Dark Knight. I instead indulged in another Bale/Nolan collaboration, The Prestige (in surround sound!). I loved Batman Begins, it's fight sequences character development, and well, Christian Bale. So two co-workers of mine, (and when you teach TV, Video, and multi-media production it is only appropriate you keep up with latest movie hit), hit the big screens to view the epic saga that drags us through the underbelly of Gotham to discover terrorism, frightful corruption, and good vs. evil like never been seen before.

The only thing living up to its hype though, was Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. To the point of me thinking, was that even heath ledger beneath the caked-up clown make-up? He took us on a suspenseful ride that even Batman was surprised to be on. The plot took (and didn't take) turns we could predict and it seemed imperative to its success that every dark corner be fleshed out in its two and half hour length. Although I may have enjoyed less of the mess, and a story that left two-face for the next episode, I appreciate it's undertaking as a film that needs maybe to be watched again for its full appreciation.

Yet unlike other comic book superhero movies, there's something about Batman that has always made him my favorite (even the campy Val Kilmer and George Clooney versions). Maybe it's his ability to use his billions for ridding the underworld of it's grime, maybe it's the technology (although I have to say, Iron Man has far surpassed Batman's batcave of toys), or maybe the way that Batman's story is more grounded in a sense of reality.

In an interview with Christopher Nolan in Entertainment Weekly he quotes Michael Caine who said "Superman is the way America sees itself, but Batmans is the way the world sees America."
Brilliant.

I think singer-songwriters may have found a way back

Amongst the Britney Spears and Jessica Simpsons there then came
Vannessa Carlton, Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, John Mayer....

And a few years later as Miley Cyrus fans could compete with former N*sync fans in terms of screaming decibel levels, the rising second generation baby boomers who are tearing down the Backstreet boys and Clueless posters, they are looking to listen to something, new, something fresh, something... GOOD!

Having growing up to the vinyl sounds of Elton John, the Beatles, Chicago, the Eagles, Rolling Stones, the list could go on, and later dismissing the classics I so dearly loved for the popular Usher, Beyonce, and whatever club hit was booming on the radio (How Shaggy's It wasn't me ever made it still boggles me), there is something about this time, as we grow older, more mature, that I feel like we no longer accept the dribble of pop and therefore yearn for the sounds like Coldplay, whose latest album offers a unique blend of vocal journeys and vivacious instrumental experimentalism. Or even something more home-spun, like switching my diet from cold pizza back to mashed potatoes and turkey sandwhiches, there needs to be more substance to what my mouth, or this case ears, take in.

Sara Bariellis has made a hit, David Cook who plays guitar (an instrument on Idol, gasp!) won America by a landslide, and a lot of the up-and-comings outside of hip-hop and rap have surprisingly less puff and more heart and soul (Think Charlotte Sometimes and Justin Nozuka).
A littel VH1 (when they play music) proves that there's room for songsters, even if you aren't from England (but still, Leona Lewis, girl, you can sing...).

Katy Perry may prove me wrong with a song I wish would get off the radio (or outta my head), but after over a decade of coffe-shops invading street corners across the country, I wouldn't be surprised to see buzz around new artists whose lyrics overcome popular standards.

** To Note, I will still and forever enjoy Usher, Chris Brown, Beyonce "Yeah!"