Out of Focus

Unemployment is fascinating. On the one hand, I feel like I need to be getting up and doing things: writing, contacting people about work, looking for freelance things, etc. It’s hard for me to do that in my apartment because of that occasional lack of discipline. I mean, I’m as able to multi-task as much as the next person — maybe even sometimes better — and it’s not so hard to email and search the web while watching TV. In fact, it’s probably harder for me to NOT email and jump from site to site while sitting on the couch with the TV on. Take right now for a second. You think my full attention is on this post? Ha! Never. With the 2005 National Spelling Bee on ESPN? (Not ESPN2, mind you.) Are you kidding. Transfixed, I am, and right now feeling so bad for the poor girl who just missed “Sciosophy,” yet still in awe of the boy who correctly spelled “gnotobiotic.” (Those “gn” words are especially tough. This one didn’t utilize the italian “nya” pronunciation for “gn.”) If you’ve seen Spellbound, I’m sure you have no trouble understanding why I so easily got sucked into this coverage.

Nevertheless, I must get up and go do some “work” (whatever that means exactly) out somewhere … I need a better office than Barnes & Noble, but I’m stuck on the Upper West Side, so it’s really just that or Starbucks. Meanwhile, I promised myself I was going to return to daily updating, so here I am.

(Ah man … this kid just missed “keratinophilic” — he spelled it “coratinophilic,” and really, who wouldn’t? For you Spelling Bee freaks out there — nice to meet you kettle — keratinophilic is “showing strong affinity for hair, skin, feathers, horns, and other epidermal material. Well, DUH! God that BELL! The bell when they’re wrong. It’s just so painful.)

So, anyway …

Continue reading “RANDOM THOUGHTS OF NOT-A-WHOLE-LOT: SPELLING BEES, GEEKS AND STAR WARS”

OK, so it’s a new month, new stuff is happening in life, new outlook, new new new … we’re just going to leave behind that little nasty month o’ May with it’s dental issues and computer problems and iPod crashing and lack of employment … well, that hasn’t been fixed yet, but we’re working on it! Tribeca ended in April (basically), then May started bad (no need to rehash or go into detail) and progressively got worse. But it didn’t end that way; things are looking up, I suppose, and it’s time to move on into June with a positive attitude, which will obviously involve releasing all the pent-up rage, or at least opinions, I have about some of the things in the entertainment world. It’s coming, oh yes it is.

But it may start slowly. I just can’t focus completely on the TV upfronts and cancellations and new seasons, and while I have seen Star Wars Episode III once, I am in the process of rewatching the first five films and then the Cartoon Network‘s animated Clone Wars series, which I hear is pretty incredible. Then I’m going to go see Epi III again. And no, I’m not a big Star Wars maniac, although like most people born in the late ’60s/early ’70s (1971 to be exact in my case), the films obviously hold a special place in my heart. And I didn’t worship or even love Epi III all that much — I basically found it satisfying but flawed. But I was curious to watch it all this way … so that’s what I’m doing.

BUT, there are two very important program notes that everyone should be aware of tonight. You be the judge of which one is actually “important” and which one is … less so.

The WB has been promoting the hell out of Beauty and the Geek. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them give as big a push to anything. And while it absolutely sickens me every time I hear the voiceover say or read on a poster the word “daring” associated with the “mind” of Ashton Kutcher, the show looks like the ultimate in train wreck reality television. Eyes … they just won’t avert on their own. Instead, transfixed they will be … at least for episode one. I’m interested to see if Kutcher’s producing prowess (hahahahahahahahahahahaha … sorry … moving on) will actually give The WB a well-produced reality show. That network’s reality series always suffers from the most annoying, drab, almost home-movie like production and, especially, narration. As interesting as The Starlet could occasionally be, just like the long-defunct Popstars, it was painful to watch, not because of content, because of how pathetically it was put together. (Well, strike that. The content was painful too, but in different and sometimes more entertaining ways.) Anyway, I’m curious.

Moving on, how long has it been since I’ve mentioned the greatest channel on the telvision spectrum? Namely Turner Classic Movies. Too long, yes I know. But there couldn’t be a better time to encourage you to check out TCM then tonight (and the next three nights, for that matter). The great Steve McQueen would have turned 75 this past March, this November will mark the 25th anniversary of his death, and in the past few weeks, not one but two DVD box sets of McQueen’s films have been released, aptly titled “The Steve McQueen Collection” and “The Essential Steve McQueen Collection.” Don’t let the titles fool you: the box set without the word “essential” contains The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, two movies which certainly are … essential that is.

But I digress. (Shocking!) Tonight at 8 PM and again at 11:30 PM (both times Eastern), TCM will premiere Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool, a new documentary about the man who was simply one of the coolest (there really is no better word) actors to ever grace the screen. For some reason, he hasn’t retained the mystique of a Dean or Brando, but he should. Along with the doc, over the next three days TCM will be airing not just The Great Escape (tomorrow at 8 PM) and The Magnificent Seven (Friday night at 11 PM), but also the classic Bullitt (tonight at 9:30 PM) featuring one of the greatest car chase scenes in the history of cinema, The Cincinnati Kid (tonight at 1 AM) and, the movie that really started to make him famous, the original The Blob (Friday night at 8 PM).

If you’ve never really seen any Steve McQueen, invest some time in TCM tonight and for the rest of the week. If you’re already (and justifiably) a McQueen fan, I’m sure you’ve already set your DiVo! As have I.

That’s it for me today, but I’m already working on stuff for the rest of the week, and hopefully I can now really say that I’m back, for better or worse, in full force doing whatever the hell it is I do here. Yay?

And I was so proud of regularly contributing to this blog, too. Well, I really do plan a return to whatever it is I regularly do in this space. I mean, did anyone pay attention to the television upfronts and the new fall schedule last week. Way to go NBC! If you want to be the fourth place network, you be the best damn fourth place network you can be. Jeff Zucker and Robert Iger should leave their respective NBC and Disney gigs to start an entertainment company together. Both of them are directly responsible for the demise of their respective entertainment entities, yet they both manage to fail upward! I gotta figure out how to do that.

Anyway, when a person you don’t see that often bumps into you on the street, you say, “How are you doing?” and he says, “No, how are YOU doing?! I’ve been to your blog,” you might realize that you’ve been laying it on a bit thick. Granted, this has been a crappy month, and last week continued the trend of annoying annoyances with my iPod deciding to die prompting yet another trip to Apple’s “Genius Bar.” But all equipment seems to be working now, and things appear to be looking up, at least a little bit. And hell … the month is almost over.

So back to business I will get to chat about those pesky upfronts, the upcoming summer movies, and that little thing called Star Wars, but for now, I’ve got to run. Thanks to everyone who sent me nice messages in response to my vague “my life is hell” entries. I appreciate it, especially from strangers, in fact, and it’s nice to know at least a few people care about this space other than just myself.

Regularly scheduled programming will return sometime between tomorrow and Monday, I swear. Until then ….

OK, so maybe I’m starting to feel a little better, even if Apple is pissing me off with this delay fixing my laptop. I keep getting different answers from them. Very annoying. Hopefully all will be good.

Last night helped. Gothamist’s Laughable Hype last night was absolutely fantastic. Talk about needing some laughs, and boy did I get them (and shit, how lame did that sound)? I think Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel may seriously be the funniest people alive. Jessi Klein, as usual, had me laughing hysterically, and both Nick Kroll and Chelsea Peretti were as clever and funny as always. But I had never seen Aziz Ansari before, and that guy is seriously funny. Even standing for the entire show wasn’t so painful because I was laughing so hard. Major kudos to both Jens (Carlson and Chung) for putting the night together.

Oh yeah, and speaking of Gothamist, our final interview of the week is today with Dalmar James of Zoom In. If you’re interested in film and video post-production, you should check-out Zoom-In and give Dalmar’s interview a read.

So this week in New York are the TV upfronts — where all the networks reveal to advertisers and the world at large what their fall schedules are going to look like. We get to hear all about the new shows coming and the unfortunates that have recently been cancelled. So it only makes sense that to add to my depression during this horrid horrible month of May that the wizards at NBC have decided to cancel one of the best shows they had on the air — American Dreams, often mentioned on this site. Oh yay!

But again, I’m not here to rant about that stuff … yet (although I am starting to get a little feeling back in that regard, so we’ll see). Instead, I’m here to talk about the second of our (read: Lily’s) three interviews on Gothamist this week: with Night Agency, a group of young upstarts (damn I’m starting to hate people in their 20s) running a very successful new media/”guerilla” marketing company. You’ve probably seen their work without even knowing it. For example, remember when there were all those posters for thetwoheadeddog.com all over town, and they’d have weird lettering on them, with gaps, sort of spelling out innocuous phrases? And the proper response would be, “What the fuck?” Only later would you find out that for some reason MTV2 decided that its new logo would be a two-headed dog. Well, the execution of that whole ad campaign was Night Agency. Does that help?

Check out the interview … they tell it better.

So I’m still working on putting all the pieces of life back together. It’s been a very difficult two weeks for me personally, and things haven’t really gotten much better. To make matters worse, the crown on my front tooth decided last Friday night would be a good time to pop off — thankfully it’s now been fixed — and even worse, my computer decided this morning — while I was waiting at the Apple Store Genius Bar to have something minor looked at — to die. As in, not turn on. At all. I guess it was being considerate, what with me being at Apple already. But now I don’t have my laptop (and therefore, most of my LIFE) for the next week or so, and I’m only praying that all my data (and iTunes!) weren’t lost. Because you see, I bought an external hard drive just a few days ago in order to back everything up before installing the new Tiger OS, but of course, I hadn’t actually gotten around to doing that.

Oy.

But, of course, the title of this post isn’t, “How has Aaron’s life gotten more difficult since he last posted a week ago.” No, it’s not. Rather, it’s an indication of another week of Gothamist Interviews. Here are a couple brief warnings, though. First, it’s not a whole week. Lily and I are only posting three interviews this week — today through Wednesday. Second, I really shouldn’t even say, “Lily and I,” because this time around, it’s about 95% her. No, it’s not payback for the difficulties of last month when she was in Greece, however, it just so happens that I haven’t been in the frame of mind to concentrate on finding and doing these interviews, so I simply backed out and told her she had to carry the load. I did help edit and format all three we’re doing, but she deserves the credit for these in full.

Starting TODAY with Yomaira Reynoso. Ms. Reynoso is one of the teachers featured in the just released documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, about elementary school kids learning ballroom dancing. Mad Hot Ballroom has been an audience favorite at film festivals around the world. It recently played at the Tribeca Film Festival and attracted over 3000 people to an outdoor screening at the “Drive-In” while also filling one of the festival’s largest venues, Stuyvesant High School. Now it’s getting a limited release.

Ms. Reynoso is probably the most down-to-earth and real person we’ve interviewed. Her voice comes through in the interview so clearly that if you’ve already seen the movie — or even maybe when you see it — you’ll nod and say, “Yup, that’s how I thought she’d sound.” Go read the interview and then go see the movie — or vice-versa. In their own ways, they’re both fun and illuminating.

So last Monday I posted how Tribeca was over and I should be back to posting more regularly. Then Monday and Tuesday, the world of my personal life sort of came crashing down around me, and I haven’t particularly been feeling like blogging much. There’s been a lot I’ve wanted to write about, too, but I just haven’t been able to actually sit and do it. For example, we’re right in the middle of a phenomenal Harold Lloyd series at Film Forum. We’ve already missed the brilliant Speedy, one of my all-time favorite silent films for numerous reasons, none less than the horse-drown trolley-car chase scene that goes right through Washington Square Park and the arch. Starting this Friday they feature the silent version of Welcome Danger, which apparently hasn’t been seen in 3/4 of a century. Hopefully I can get myself together enough to get to its one-week engagement.

Also starting on Friday and running through the end of the month is (seemingly, at least) the most comprehensive retrospective of the work of the great Michael Powell. The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s web page for the program is as much history lesson as schedule information. There are so many not-to-miss selections in this program, it’s ridiculous to even attempt to list them all, but I have to give a plug for one of my all-time favorite films (frequently mentioned on this site), The Red Shoes. I have actually never seen the film projected nor on a big screen, and even though I’ve already missed two of the screenings, thankfully there’s another one at the end of the month at which I will surely be in attendance.

Oh, and as importantly, tonight at 9 PM on IFC is the premiere of Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession about the late, great, Los Angeles-based, premium cable movie channel. I didn’t live in LA until after the demise of Z Channel, but all the people I knew who lived out there raved about it, and nearly two decades after it departed, it still has a cult following. I’ve heard great things about this doc, and even more fantastic is IFC’s schedule for this weekend when the channel will have an IFZ Channel Weekend this Saturday and Sunday (5/14-15) airing the kinds of films one used to find on Z Channel: The 400 Blows, White Nights, Wild Strawberries, Salvador, and more.

So that’s about all I can muster right now. I will try to come back with more this week, including talk about the festival and new movies (of which I’ve seen — ugh — none; there goes that New Year’s resolution unattainable goal.

Until next time, maybe tomorrow … just maybe ….

Well that was fun. Yes, the Tribeca Film Festival ended yesterday, and finally I can start to breathe again. Maybe even see some movies and watch some TV. (Yes, my job at the festival actually precluded me from seeing anything, until I finally had the chance to sit through the wonderful Favela Rising yesterday.) In fact, I finally returned home last night after 10 days at the Marriott Financial Center to discover that much of my DiVod TV from the past several weeks was (shudder) gone, so I’m going to be way behind and trying to figure out how to catch up.

Now I’ve got a week or two of wrap on the festival — cleaning stuff up and writing reports about how things went and what still needs to be improved before next year. I’ll write more about my TFF experience in the coming days and where I plan to go from here, and even more importantly, I’ll get back to praising and ranting as soon as I can.

I’d like some help from you, though — anyone who is in New York who attended the festival — I’d love to know what you thought. Not just about the movies, but about the experience. I’d especially love to hear from anyone who was attending Tribeca as a returning customer. We made a lot of changes at most of the venues (especially our main screening location, the Regal Battery Park): most seemed to help even if things still weren’t always perfect. If you’ve come to the festival in previous years and were there again over the last two weeks, what did you think? Did you have an easier time finding the information you needed? Did anything especially help? Did anything happen to piss you off? Did it look like a festival? Did you enjoy the atmostphere?

Feel free to comment or email me (link is above to the left), but I’d appreciate only serious responses. I don’t mind complaints, but if you’re not offering something constructive or real, I’d appreciate you not wasting my time. A lot of my job this year was dedicated to creating systems to help provide the audience with a better experience and an easier time actually getting to and seeing the movies. It’s still not perfect, but it is improving, , and I’d love to hear what you think.

Hi everyone. So I wasn’t really able to keep up my hope of visiting this site at least a couple times a week and providing some content. I hoped to write about Sin City. I hoped to write about the end of Miramax (as we know it) more, and why everyone who owns Disney stock should sell rather than suffer through the reign of Iger. I hoped to talk about the great finale (but that damn cliffhanger … hopefully that’s not the series finale) of American Dreams. I hoped to write about the reasonably satisfying season ender on The West Wing, although I fear for this show’s future since they’ll probably go with Jimmy Smits in the fall, and the Alan Alda character would be much more interesting for this creative group to tackle.

But I haven’t had time for any of that. The Tribeca Film Festival, which officially started last night with gala premieres of The Interpreter but kicks off with the bulk of its screenings Friday, has been kicking my ass. I don’t mind it; it’s been fun (and stressful), but a ton of work, and I’m basically working 16-18 hour days right now. I would say “with no end in sight,” but that’s not true. May 1 will absolutely be the end, and by May 6, I will be unemployed. So on the one hand, I’ve been hoping time would slow down to finish all I have to do before my big part of the festival starts tomorrow (with screenings of two big and great documentaries: Through the Fire about high school basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair’s journey through high school and deciding to enter the NBA draft, and photographer David LaChappelle’s Rize about krunking). On the other hand, I just want the whole thing to be over. But then on the third hand, once it’s over, I’m unemployed five days later.

See, I need three hands to take care of everything. That’s the problem.

If you’re in New York, come down to Tribeca. Nothing is “sold out” at the Tribeca Film Festival until the film starts. You can always get in a “Door Sales” line, and if you’re reasonably near the front, there’s a better than not chance you’ll get in. There are some great films being shown this year, and if you check the online guide, you’ll have the most up-to-date info. (The printed guide that came out in the New York Times is mostly correct, but there have been several films added and some schedule changes, so definitely check online.

One program I’ve seen a little bit of that I’d like to plug is Mackendrick on Film playing at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Tuesday 4/26 at 4:30 PM. If you’re a film student, cinema studies scholar, wannabe filmmaker or just all around cinephile, you will love this program which is a preview of a much longer .. well, I’m going to call it a filmic textbook. It’s only showing once in this festival, and it’s only part of the final program, but it’s marvelous, and after seeing the bits that I did (even less than what will be screened and discussed on 4/26), I couldn’t wait to see more. I highly recommend checking it out, and tickets are still available.

Anyway, as I will be moving out of my apartment into a lovely hotel downtown after tomorrow, the chance of me actually visiting any website, let alone my own, or even being near a computer is virtually nil. Please don’t desert me completely, however. I promise I will be back the week of May 2. And hell, after May 6, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands … and plenty of things left to rant about.

Thank GOD this week is over. Somehow, I always learn these lessons about how much I can handle, but when the opportunities arise to avoid these situations, I still take on everything. It’s a bad bad workaholic trait which I absolutely blame on my father and his side of the family. Cause, you know, genetics — and it’s easier.

So today is the last Gothamist interview that I have to worry about during the film festival. Our next week won’t be until my second week of unemployment (shudder!). Today’s interview was one of my favorite to do this week, but it was also the hardest. I found myself finishing it late last night — let’s put it this way, I didn’t go to bed until after the start of the Pope’s funeral!

My girlfriend works at a public high school in Manhattan, and a few months ago she became involved with something called “WET’s Risk-Taker’s Film Series,” a screening and discussion series for adolescent girls from all over New York City. My girlfriend is one of the mentors who lead the smaller post-film group discussions, and she suggested to me a few months ago talking to the women who run the thing. WET is an acronym for “Women’s Expressive Theater,” a non-profit theater company started and run by Sasha Eden and Victoria Pettibone.

I had a great, long conversation with Sasha and Victoria last week, and found myself talking to two of the most enterprising and with it women I’d ever encountered. You know how sometimes people talk about this big plan or that great idea, the things they’re going to do to rule their business or industries? Yet the whole time you just know they’re blowing hot air? They sort of turn “ambitious” into a bad word. Well, that’s not the case with Sasha and Victoria. Maybe it’s because their ambitions come with a mission that goes beyond simply personal success. I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that after hanging up the phone with them, I didn’t feel like they were full of themselves: I just thought that these were two women who had some pretty major plans, and they had a good chance of succeeding at most of them.

In fact, our conversation went so long that at least half of it didn’t make the posted interview. For example, all the plans I just mentioned above? Yeah, not in there. But it’s actually somewhat remarkable. WET is a non-profit theater company dedicated to creating productions and working opportunities for women. But they also produce events and throw benefit parties. Plus they started this outreach program I meantioned, the “Risk-Takers Film Series” at which working members of the film industry come to speak about the film they show the teenage participants. (For example, Ally Sheedy came to a screening of High Art to talk about her experiences working (and not working) as an actress over the past two decades.) And then they’re starting to develop projects for film and television with the goal of also having a full-fledged production company with multiple arms.

Anyway, the two of them are impressive. It’s almost depressing how fucking impressive as I sit here complaining about my little film festival job and having to write some interviews at the same time for a web site. Big deal, right? Who needs more than four hours sleep in a day anyway? But then again, it’s fun to play the martyr, and I guess that’s part of my Jewish upbringing and family genetics as well.