awwww

my work associate jarod's kid is just too cute!!!!

Go: See Zack and Miri with a fullhouse

Go!!

And do yourself a favor - see Zack and Miri in a crowded movie theatre, with lot of others laughing their heads off. It's a group experience you won't want to miss.

Newspapers, the primal love along with radio and movies

We get the NYT delivered to our home here in Texas. $58/month. That's a lot, but we love it. But we're old school newspaper lovers. I probably started reading the Times when I was 12. It's what being a grown up was all about. And later, the career media I aspired to. I went another direction, but still love the New York Times. Though i don't quite read it everyday anymore, and haven't for awhile. I skim. But relish in the moments when we can sit together and the smart world comes to me to interact with. I love the online edition too - it's particularly great for easy sharing like I'm about to do here: But it's not the paper itself. You don't get the same easy happenstance. I hate to be an old codger mourning, but I love newspapers and magazines, and really don't want to see them disappear. I feel the same way about smart movies in movie theatres and radio programmed by real individuals in my community. But newspapers, primal.

The Media Equation

Mourning Old Media’s Decline

By DAVID CARR

Published: October 28, 2008

The news that Google settled two longstanding suits with book authors and publishers over its plans to digitize the world’s great libraries suggests that some level of détente could be reached between old media and new.

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Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor

Employees of The Monitor looking through a prototype of a weekly newsmagazine that will supplement the Web site.

If true, it can’t come soon enough for the news business.

It’s been an especially rotten few days for people who type on deadline. On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor announced that, after a century, it would cease publishing a weekday paper. Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force — up to 3,000 people.

Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it.

(continued)

Michael Barnes on Paul Woodruff's "The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched."

I really enjoyed this Michael Barnes Out and About column in the Statesman today about Paul Woodruff's book, “The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched,” which will be discussed at the Texas Book Festival on Sunday.

The Statesman page isn't linking properly, but I found this particularly interesting:

“People need theater,” Woodruff writes. “They need it the way they need each other — the way they need to gather, to talk things over, to have stories in common, to share friends and enemies. They need to watch, together, something human.”

Woodruff ranks theater alongside religion and language as essential distinguishing human characteristics. I’d add socializing to the list, for many of the same reasons.

Both kinds of watching and being watched, social and theatrical, start early in life. “We hardly take ourselves very seriously unless we can get others’ attention,” the slender, hesitant Woodruff says at rain-splashed Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Boulevard. “The first thing we know as an infant, after finding a mother’s breast, is how to get her attention. And newborns are excellent at that.”

Yet the process doesn’t stop there.

“Learning how to give attention is a little harder,” he says. “We are naturally wired for getting it more than giving it.”

Thriller in Austin syncronized worldwide

Ok, I wasn't there. And the Thriller video isn't even a personal touchstone for me. But still totally cracks me up, and makes me proud of my Austin buds. Go Alamo Drafthouse.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK Highly Recommended!!

I first saw Synecdoche, New York at the Toronto Film Festival this year. I found it breathtaking, heartbreaking, funny, moving, romantic -- completely engaging on every level. The acting is sublime! I saw it again tonight and loved every single minute again.

In this time of decreasing art house audiences, megawatt blockbusters, and fractured niche comfort zones, I wonder how much room there is for a movie like this. This is a movie that I find so utterly satisfying. This is a movie that I know is not for everyone. But this is a movie that totally speaks to me. Go see it.

Order of Myths w Margaret Brown in person. Highly Recommended

I really love this film! Come see Margaret Brown in person for this special AFS presentation in advance of her Alamo South premiere on Friday. Or go when it opens. Just don't miss it.




THE ORDER OF MYTHS
With Director Margaret Brown In Attendance
Monday, 20 October 6:30 PM | The Alamo South Lamar (1120 S Lamar)
Tickets are $4 for AFS Members and $6 for Non-members. Buy Tickets>>

The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (“Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt”), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.

Watch the trailer for THE ORDER OF MYTHS>>

Buy Tickets>>


Official Film website: http://www.theorderofmyths.com/

THE ORDER OF MYTHS opens theatrically at The Alamo South Lamar on October 24. Tickets are available at http://www.originalalamo.com
The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city's two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous papier-mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines. Prize winner at Silverdocs, and official selection at Sundance, SXSW, Full Frame, Edinburgh and LA Film Festivals.

http://www.cinemaguild.com/orderofmyths/

FILM FESTIVAL LIST:
World Premiere, Sundance Film Festival, 2008
Winner, Cinematic Vision Award, Silverdocs, 2008
Official Selection, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, 2008
Official Selection, Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2008
Official Selection, Los Angeles International Film Festival, 2008

The film’s running time is 80 minutes; it is not rated.

CRITIC'S PICK! "A WISE AND SOBERLY AFFECTING DOCUMENTARY.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“BRILLIANT. HEARTBREAKING. A WINNER!”
– David Edelstein, New York Magazine

“BRILLIANTLY CAPTIVATING. AN INVALUABLE PORTRAIT OF US-AND-THEM AMERICA, A SMART, GENEROUS, POIGNANT, QUIETLY DISTURBING MOVIE.”
– Robert Abele, LA Times

“THE KIND OF ILLUMINATING WORK THAT SENDS AUDIENCES STUMBLING HOME IN A WIDE-EYED STATE OF ASTONISHMENT. A HAUNTING AND IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY.
– S. James Snyder, The New York Sun

“THE ORDER OF MYTHS IS THE BEST DOCUMENTARY IN AGES, AND ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.”
– Jeff Reichert, Reverse Shot

“HIGHLY SOPHISTICATED NONFICTION FILMMAKING. WONDERFULLY VIVID.”
– Michael Koresky, Indiewire

“AN INTIMATE EXCAVATION OF THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN RACISM.” CRITIC’S PICK
– Logan Hill, New York Magazine

“QUIETLY SHOCKING. DEFT, ENGROSSING.
– Vadim Rizov, The Village Voice

“REMARKABLY ASSURED. A LEVEL OF CRAFT THAT STUNS.”
– A. J. Schnack, Indiewire

“SMARTLY EDITED, UTTERLY ENGROSSING AND AS INTELLIGENT AN EXAMINATION OF AMERICAN RACE RELATIONS AS I’VE SEEN.”
– Pete VonderHaar, Film Threat

“A MOVING AND SURPRISING DOCUMENTARY.”
– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“A RICH PORTRAIT… BROWN PRESENTS A COMPLEX, PROVOCATIVE VIEW; AND SHE ENDS WITH ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS AND CHILLING TAG LINES EVER.”
– Andy Klein, LA City Beat

“A GREAT REMINDER THAT, EVEN IN THE YEAR OF OBAMA, WE REMAIN A NATION DIVIDED BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE.” CRITICS’ PICK
– David Fear, Time Out New York

Late Bloomers. NYer piece by Malcolm Gladwell.

I love how John goes out of his way to share particular articles or pieces of information that he knows I'll like, and he knew I'd love this:

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Annals of Culture

Late Bloomers

Why do we equate genius with precocity?

by Malcolm Gladwell

Happy-Go-Lucky Widget

Embed Happy-Go-Lucky Trailer, Photos and synopsis on your site.

It's a question of engagement

Had a blast in NYC last week for our annual trip in for the New York Film Festival opening night and weekend. Saw: Voy A Explotar, The Class, Happy Go Lucky, Wendy and Lucy, Hunger and Che. The highlights for me were definitely Happy-Go-Lucky and Hunger. Happy-Go-Lucky is deceptively simple, lingering, resonating soundly. Hunger, less than two minutes in screams the arrival of a major new filmmaking talent. No joke. It's a major achievement. Very, very powerful.

Very much enjoyed the experience of seeing Che at the NYFF press screening at the Ziegfield. Soderbergh said:

It's a question of engagement. Participate or observe? We have to make this decision everyday.