Film The BFCA Awards Blunder I'm not going to belabor the point here. The BFCA runs the Critics' Choice Awards and tries to present itself as a professional, yet hip and relevant, awards group. They added Star Wars: The Force Awakens to their best picture sleight after the vetted balloting system using
Film Iris Review (Film, 2015) Iris is a documentary by Albert Maysles about acclaimed fashion and design icon Iris Apfel. Iris has played many roles in NYC culture. She first made her mark as an interior designer. Then, she began designing woven fabrics. All of this time, she traveled the world, collecting amazing fashion and
Film Suburban Gothic Review (Film, 2015) Not since Young Adult have I seen so much of my own personality and life experience appear onscreen for comedic and (arguably) terrifying effect. Meet Raymond. Raymond used to be able to see ghosts. Now all he sees is his future drifting away from him as six months of unemployment
Film Ballet 422 Review (Film, 2015) Ballet 422 is a single subject documentary film about the development of New York City Ballet's 422nd original ballet. Most of the focus falls on choreographer and troupe member Justin Peck. He is a performer with the lower company and picked to pull double duty because of his
Film Horror Thursday: Unrest Sometimes, for no easily discernible reason, a film works for you. I don't claim to understand why I enjoyed Unrest when so many claim it mediocre, at best. I just did. You can do worse with modern horror is all I'm saying. Read the full review
Film Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine Review (Film, 2015) Anyone who was alive and old enough to engage with the world in the 90s remembers Matthew Shepard. He was the young college student robbed, beaten, and left for dead for being gay. The two images forever emblazoned in my mind are the photo of him in the blue checkered
Film Krampus Review (Film, 2015) #LetItSnow Christmas is, ultimately, a celebration of family and love at the end of the year. What happens if a family is so horrible that the last member with any true holiday spirit gives up all hope? Krampus comes to claim the wicked with his chains, his birch branch staff, and
Books/Print Must Read: "Rust and Bone" By Craig Davidson #LetItSnow I can no longer consciously recall the sound that ice made as it broke. Sometimes I'll hear another noise--the low crumple of a beer can; the squeal of an old nail pried from a sodden plank--similar in some way, timbre or pitch or resonance, and realize it lives
Film Tangerine Review (Film, 2015) #LetItSnow It's Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. Sin-Dee and her best friend Alexandra are celebrating a momentous occasion. Sin-Dee just got out of jail. She's all excited to pick up her life where it left off when Alexandra drops a bombshell: Sin-Dee's boyfriend Chester is
Film Horror Thursday: The Thaw #LetItSnow When I saw The Thaw pop up in my Amazon queue, I assumed it would be a terrible rip off of The Thing and quickly committed myself to watching it. You need a quantifiable terrible film once in a while to sharpen your critical instinct and work on consistency in
Film Christmas Evil: An Appreciation #LetItSnow Y'all know at this point I love a good theme month. I'm playing with snow and ice for December. Just try to stop me. The idea for this came from a video Criterion released last week. John Waters was brought in and asked about his favorite
Music Listen: Four Hours of Fiddler on the Roof Demos People, this is pretty momentous. I'm not surprised it didn't get much press attention at first with the new revival announced around the time this was released. Basically, for $29, you can own four hours of demos (75 tracks) from the creation of the musical Fiddler
Film Horror Thursday: Circle Yesterday, Horror Thursday returned to Man, I Love Films after a long and unexpected absence. That's the problem with recommending a super tech-heavy show for a high school you work for: you're committed to making sure all the bells and whistles go off properly. I basically
Theater Deaf West's Spring Awakening Performs on Seth Meyers I've yet to see Deaf West's revival production of Spring Awakening, but I really want to. The company puts on beautiful, innovative productions of shows featuring casts of deaf and hearing actors. Spring Awakening is their second revival to come to Broadway. It's made
Music Adele's "Hello" and the Power of the Hook I return with a seemingly shameful confession that I will justify throughout this writing: I don't like Adele's "Hello." Specifically, I don't like the structure of the song and the melody of the verse. The build of the arrangement is quite dramatic,
Music The Music of Geek (by Me) Last time I updated you on the production of Geek! HS Edition by Crystal Skillman I was working on, I only had a scratch demo of the anime theme essential to the play. Now, with our first performance already behind us, I can share the finished mixes of a few
News Updates and Such I haven't abandoned the site. We have a very rough tech happening on the show I'm working on. The TL:DR is that some people are just choosing not to do their jobs because of a staff changeover. It's hurting the kids and I&
Film The Nightmare Review (Film, 2015) In two feature length documentaries, director Rodney Ascher has established a clear and effective formula for making non-fiction as frightening as big Hollywood horror films. Ascher focuses on the minutia of human thought and storytelling. He lets his interview subjects respond as long as they want to in whatever style
Art Halloween 2015: Haunt Video and Lessons Learned First, the super spoopy nighttime video with awesome music. This is for the competition I enter (and lose) every year. Someday. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTSr9g08Tcg] And the multitude of lessons learned for moving forward with haunting, decor, and art: * I can still bang out most of
Books/Print Yard Haunt 2015: Broodhollow & The Last Halloween: Daytime Tour The yard haunt is almost done for Halloween. Very close. I have close to two dozen little votive holders and ceramic pieces to scatter throughout the graveyard with LED tealights when it's going to get dark. But, yes, this is it. I'm proud. No other way
Art Drawlloween 2015: Day 26-28: Rat, Witch, Black Cat I've been working a lot--Halloween stuff, theater stuff, subbing stuff, family stuff. I've been sketching the past three days on the go to keep up with Drawlloween. Day 26: Rat Day 27: Witch Day 28: Black Cat
Art #Drawlloween Day 23-25: Gore, Skeleton, Mummy #31DaysofHorror The TL:DR is that I hurt my back while sleeping on Thursday night and have had intermittent levels of pain all weekend. I'm feeling a little better, but sitting too long is a no-no right now. This digital mixed media gore painting I did while subbing on
Art #Drawlloween 2015: Day 22: Candy #31DaysofHorror I love candy corn. I love horror. This was a match made in heaven. Ink on toned gray paper. 5.5"x8.5"
Event #31DaysofHorror: Random Acts of Violence Review (Film, 2012) Writer/director Ashley Cahill stars as Malcolm, a British ex-pat living in NYC. He's obsessed with the gritty, violent, dangerous New York of the 1980s and does everything he can to bring back the chaos. And by everything, I mean he murders random people for about 90 minutes
Art #Drawlloween 2015: Day 21: 8 Bit Zombie #31DaysofHorror I'm not the one who picked the theme. That's all I have to say about this one. Marker and highlighters on toned gray paper. 5.5"x8.5"
