Fade to Black

I was just reading that a chain of the Art-house/repertory cinemas in Toronto will be closing down. I have fond memories of the Festival Cinemas. It was there that you could see relatively new films, but not the crappy ones. They always programmed excellent foreign stuff, new prints of classics and just crazy shit. Where else are you going to see Lars Von Trier's 280-minute 'The Kingdom' in it's entirety?

Every year they had a 'pick the Oscars' contest and once I won it. The prize: Free Movies for a year plus a guest. Needless to say, I watched a ton of movies that year. The place was dark, musty and never ever full. However, that was part of the charm. You felt part of a club.

The way we watch movies has changed the game, Netflix has changed the game and pirating has changed the game. I understand when places like this go under, and I'm surprised that they stuck around for so long. Prost.

Bookworms.

The Times asked a bunch of bibliophiles what they thought the best book by an American author was in the past 25 years. The results are here. On top was Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', which I haven't read. Come to think of it, I haven't read any of the books on that list, which I think is a damn shame on my part. For what it's worth, I think the best book I've read by an American writer in the past 25 years would have to be Helen DeWitt's "The Last Samurai", which is always confused for the Tom Cruise movie, which was unfortunately titled the same thing. It was so creative in it's narrative structure. I still don't know if Ms. DeWitt has done anything else, or if a movie adaptation is in the works.

Ladies, how hot is this guy?

Research from the crew at UofC has shown how women use men's faces as judges for flings and fathers. Not any of it is surprising.

Perhaps most notable, is a woman's ability to determine a man's testosterone level solely on looks. That's kind of scary:

The women were asked to rate the men on four qualities: "likes children,"
"masculine," "physically attractive" and "kind." Then they were asked to rate
how attractive they found each man for short-term and long-term romance.
The
study found women did well at rating men on their interest in babies, and those
they rated masculine generally had higher testosterone levels than those that
didn't.

On to the good news:
The features that research has suggested denote high testosterone levels include a prominent jaw and a heavy beard.

Awww yeah.

Tragedy

The bad news is that the hard-drive on my laptop completely conked out a couple of days ago, and Apple says it will take about a week to get fixed. Thankfully, everything is generally backed up, and there was nothing of great importance on it. There was a lot of music, but I can always download that stuff again.

I'm just a magnet for computer problems. In the new year, my external harddrive (with all of my film stuff) died, before leaving Chicago last summer, my dell laptop broke down yet again for the one year that I owned that piece of junk for. Dell laptops are crap. I'm just happy that I've got important stuff backed up, and I will continue to be vigilant about that. Computers are great, but they break down. Get the extended warranty.

Don't Drop the Soap

Perhaps the hardest part of teaching is dealing with academic dishonesty. Cheating on exams, essays and lab reports is rampant, and there's very much one can do. It's usually very hard to accuse a student of cheating and to provide the proof of it.

I think that most students have cheated in one form or another in school, but we've got to be willing to pay the penalty for our actions. From what I've seen, most instructors make a judgment call depending on how severe they feel it is.

Not to get into details, but a student (not one of mine) created an entire web of lies (that included me) surrounding an entire semester's worth of work. Completely suspicious, the said student has yet to provide a reasonable answer to how this work was done and provides a changing story every single time. We had a small 'hearing' yesterday, and the chair ruled to send it off to the disciplinary branch of the university. No doubt, he will get kicked out.

I genuinely feel bad for the kid, as he made a stupid mistake, and we should all be able to make mistakes. Also, his entire college is done for, and tens of thousands (if not hundreds?) of dollars are down the drain.

Students are well aware of the rules, and must abide by them and pay the penalties if they are found to not abide by them.

Marathons

Two weekends ago was the NYU 1st year grad film showcase (which I was a part of). Last weekend was the 2nd year film showcase, and this weekend is the thesis showcase.

After working on some of them, and getting to know the people that made each of them, it's still such a thrill to see YOUR work on a big screen and your name in the credits.

It's also humbling to know that I'm part of such an incredibly talented group of people that can consistently churn out beautiful work.

If you're in the NYC area this weekend, check out the Thesis Screenings.

How's the Weather?

It's been a long time since posting. So much has happened in the past week:
-finished editing my last short film of the year.
-screened it on Sunday afternoon.
-moved to some new digs this weekend.
-brokers are evil people, and I hate them all. Or at least one in particular. Not Fun.
-not being able to steal wireless signal, is not fun.
-packing up is not fun.
-packing stuff away, is not fun.
-waking up in a strange house for the first time is fun.
-living closer to the train is fun.
-having more space is fun
-having windows is fun.
-having awesome people help you move is BEAUTIFUL.
-went to a psychic. what i learned:
-I will die at age 87
-Great change will occur for me on the 16th of this month. It will be good.
-The next two weeks will have misunderstandings. I should keep conversations to trivial things like the weather.
-Went to a Mets game last night
-went with a bunch of film kids from my program. It was great to know that although we sometimes are a bunch of snobs, we all like the ball-game.

Haute Cuisine

The Village Voice has a great review of fried chicken joints in NYC. Apparently, the latest trendy food thing is Fried Chicken. It's something you would eat before eating Magnolia Cupcakes, I guess.

These new 'gourmet' joints have regular sides (except gourmet), and then use free-range chickens and other frou frou changes.

The results of their taste test? Popeye's still rocks. Really, was there really a contest?

Victoria's Secret: Getting Cash from Dudes

It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out: Apparently, men are more likely to part with their money after looking at scantily clad ladies.

However, from the article I learned one thing:
-testosterone can be measured by relating the lengths of the index and ring fingers : a relatively long ring finger is a sign of a high-testosterone man.

I'm gonna wear a baseball glove all the time from this moment forth.

Note to self: when trying to get money from people, have a Victoria's Secret catalogue laying around.

In Dusty We Trusty. (Warning: May Contain Talk of Sports)

Baseball's still getting going and all of the teams are busy jockeying for positions. Fortunately, there's still a lot of ball still to be played, dogs to be eaten, and cold beers to downed.

Some teams are showing promise The Sox are finding their groove, The Jays are keeping up with the big boys, and the Cubs are right in there too. HUH?! Don't worry, The Onion got an exclusive interview with Dusty Baker, and he lays it all out:

"The guys are in a bit of a groove right now, but they'll
snap out of it," Baker said. "It's early yet. There's still plenty of time to
get back off track and give the fans the kind of season they've come to know and
expect."
"I'd love to go out there and lose all 162 games for this city, but
both the players and the fans know that's not possible no matter how bad you
are," he added.

I'm glad Dusty's on it. I was starting to get a bit worried.

Know your Enemy!

There's been so much hubbub and sensationalization of the fact that Iran's ability to produce Nuclear energy is on its way. For some reason, which I don't understand, there are rumours of military strikes from the US side.

I feel that there needs to be some facts and understanding of exactly what Iran has done, and it's ability/desire to produce nuclear weapons. Nature has produced a very sobering article that should cool the hot heads.

I hope Iran continues it's Nuclear Power initiative and I wish that more countries had the knowledge and resources to be able to provide electricity in a cheap and efficient manner to its citizens.

Girls Will Be Girls

It never ceases to amaze me just how mean females can be to one another.

Not very nice.

Say hello to my little friend...

Don't mess with me folks...I'll make my new friends take care of you.

I Pledge Allegience to our New Leader

Hey, he promises to lower taxes and gas prices! I'm voting for Zod in 2008.

A Fish out of Water.

A story that's been getting a lot of press, and rightfully so, is that weird fish/land creature that was found up in Ellesmere Island in a quarry.

The article appears in Nature, and I think it will be one for the ages. It's the 'missing link' between water animals and land animals, which eventually gives rise to us.

Definitely worth a read, or peep the NYTimes article.

More Streets Stuff

At the risk of becoming The Streets fansite, there is an article off of the CBC site about how British artists are more and more performing with their accents. In my naivite, I thought people sang in this kind of 'universal accent'. Like Phil Collins. Your favourite artist. The words/phrases I've learned since listening to The Streets/Dizzee Rascal: chuffed, geezer, radge, Day-Vay-Day, nowt, to validate one's wages, fit, "th" sounds like "f".

Working Girls

I just read a very interesting essay by Alison Wolf about the repercussion of generations of women choosing careers over the 'traditional' role of housewife.

She raises many good points some of which I agree, some of which I don't. I don't want to paraphrase or quote any of it, as I feel the entire piece should be read and digested as a whole, as taken out of context some passages would definitely enrage people.

One thing that was pretty much not addressed in the article was the role of the father in the home as more women choose careers.

I grew up in a home with two working parents, and so did everyone else I know. I feel that there must be a balance between both parents in terms of child-rearing, meals, cleaning etc...
I think we all turned out OK, and society's a better place.

Extra! Extra! Crime Doesn't Pay!!

Having orchestrated the death of Biggie & Tupac (according to Nick Broomfield's riveting doc), Suge Knight has filed for bankruptcy.

He's huge and scary, and I doubt we'll see him in the poor house. This is clearly just some economic maneuvering.

Let's all cry together.

Go Ozzie Go! (Gratuitous Sports Rant).

There was a very nice piece in the Sun-Times about my favorite manager Ozzie Guillen.

He speaks his mind always and is filled with honour, humility and respect. My kinda guy:

''I know people say that God says when someone slaps your face, turn the other cheek. No, no, you slap my cheek, I will kick your ass.''

In other news, my South Side brethren won their first game by slapping Cleveland 10-4 at the Cell. I was there on opening day last year, and it was great. I wish I was there to see the World Series banner unveiled.

Most of the predictions are in, and a lot of pundits are choosing the Sox to repeat at least as AL Central Champs, if not the World Series. What a far cry from the dismissal of last year this same time.

My Predictions:
AL East-New York (Unfortunately)
AL Central-Chicago
AL West-Anaheim (or is it Los Angeles?)
Wildcard-Toronto (all of the off-season moves by Ricciardi should pay off)

NL East - New York (they just look awesome on paper)
NL Central - St. Louis
NL West - San Diego
Wildcard- Milwaukee

In summary: Go Jays Go! And.....SOUTHSIIIIIDE!

That was the martini shot....that's a wrap!

My crew finally wrapped our final shoot! Yay. I'm absolutely exhausted, and ready for a few days of R&R, and looking for a new place to live.

The way we do things at NYU during the first year is this: the faculty assembles a crew of 5-6 people (a balance of people with experience and none whatsoever) and we all rotate crew positions. The key positions are: Director, Director of Photography, Sound, Gaffer and the Assistant Director. If there is an extra person, they get those couple of days off to pre-produce their film if it hasn't been shot. It works out well, as everyone becomes educated in all aspects of the filmmaking process.

Our films are going to be 5 minutes long (for faculty evaluation, but can be longer if we submit them to festivals), and we gave everyone three days each to shoot.

I had tons of fun, spent way too much on my production, but also learned a lot (in theory, my main concern). It was also just really cool to collaborate with my classmates and help achieve their vision, and see their ideas unfold.

No more crack of dawn call-times...no more 12 hour days...no more stressing out...huzzah!

Now the realism of post-production starts.