New Stadium, New Look Cubs?

The New Yamkee Stadium
The New Yankee Stadium

Got my first glimpse of this year’s version of the Cubs at Yankees Stadium in the first game ever played in the new ballpark. It’s a good thing that the games were exhibitions because the Cubs were soundly trounced.  Hopefully when these two teams meet in the Word Series (as predicted in last Sunday’s New York Times), the result will be quite different. In the game I saw, Lou didn’t start either Soriano or Ramirez, and he pulled Derrek Lee out after only a few innings, so it is pretty clear that he wasn’t playing to win…at least that’s what I was telling myself.  And there were some bright spots, like seeing new acquisition Milton Bradley get on base several times and Micah Hoffpauer look like a hitting machine. But it was troubling watching the Yankees tee off on Ted Lilly like he was throwing batting practice.

The Yankees were clearly playing to win. They fielded their regular season starting line-up, including Derek Jeter’s debut in the lead-off position. They also seemed very pumped up to be playing in their new home, and wanted to put on a show for the home crowd. I have a feeling that Pinella, knowing this would be the dynamic, fielded the B team just so the Yankees couldn’t show them up.

So, what about the stadium? It’s VERY impressive, but not necessarily in the all the right ways. Continue reading “New Stadium, New Look Cubs?”

Steven Bach

I was very sad to read in the New York Times about the death of Steven Bach. Steven and I were colleagues at Columbia University, and we discovered we had many other things in common. We both went to Northwestern and we both worked at United Artists at the same time, although we didn’t get to know each other until we were at Columbia. Steven was instrumental in shaping what has become the producing program at the school, and even after he moved to Vermont, he came down for guest lectures a few times every year. The students loved his lectures on the history of producing and the origins of independent film.

The last time I saw Steven was at a lecture and book signing for his latest book about Leni Riefenstahl. Steven, as usual, was fascinating and entertaining, and he was genuinely pleased by the number of Columbia students who attended the event. Continue reading “Steven Bach”

Guadalajara rocks!

Just got back from the Guadalajara Film Festival, after gorging on undistributed Latin American films and tequila.  There was a palpable sense here that filmmakers are opening up to alternate paths of distribution, and ready to do whatever it takes to get their films out to audiences. I walked away feeling that this new realism might actually lead to something interesting.

On my final night in Guadalajara, I went to see Emir Kusturica’s new doc about the Argentinan soccer star Maradona. As an American with very little interest  in soccer, I found the film incoherent.  But after the screening, Kusturica came on stage with his band–Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra–and it became the highlight of the festival. Emir plays a mean lead guitar, and the band puts on quite a show. I heard someone describe their music as Yugoslavian Punk, but to my ears it sounded more like Weimar Republic-era cabaret, as performed by Devo. An audience of around 4000 Mexicans went wild.  It was a stunning example of cross-cultural communication—which after all is one of the missions of an international event such as this. Check out this crude video (taken on my Treo Pro) for a taste…

Film Critics List

Inspired by Gerald Peary’s new doc ” For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism,” and the current crisis in legit film criticism, I’ve compiled a page of links to the film critics that matter to me. You can find the page here. At some point I’d like to to develop this into a live feed that combines the latest articles by these critics in one place. If there’s anyone out there who would like to help me do this, please let me know. In the meantime, I’m open to suggestions about who is missing from this list. Are there archives on line of critics who are no longer with us? I’d like to make this as useful as possible.

UPDATE:
Just for the sake of clarity, these are not critics I necessarily agree with, but they are people I think are serious and worth reading. I’ve both loved and hated all of them at one point or another.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
The suggestions are flooding in, and it’s clear that this list is woefully incomplete. I’ll be adding all legitimate suggestions as I can get to them. This is no longer to be thought of as MY list.

Wavy Gravy…the real thing

Wavy Gravy

I’d like to bring to your attention a movie that Emerging Pictures is repping which will have its world premiere next week at SXSW. It’s the life story of Wavy Gravy, a guy who I was vaguely familiar with from the movie “Woodstock.” Those of you who have see that film might remember him as a kind of goofy guy in a cowboy hat who ended up becoming the unofficial MC of the event. He mentions in “Woodstock” that he’s “from the hog farm,” which I always thought meant that he was from some hog farm in upstate New York. Little did I know.

Now that I’ve seen the film “Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie,” I know better. Wavy (as he is known) is the personification of the counterculture and proof that it is alive and well and having a true impact on the world we live in. The Village Voice once called Wavy a cross between Harpo Marx and Mother Theresa. I couldn’t have said it better myself. The only thing they left out is that he is also Zelig…somehow turning up at every significant counterculture event from the ’50s though today. Wavy’s story is the history of that culture, but more importantly, it is the inspirational story of someone who made up his mind to devote his entire life to doing good in the world…and has made good on that commitment. When the film is over, and you’ll be singing along with Wavy’s song “Basic Human Needs,” and you’ll want to get out and make a difference yourself.

Those of you who are going to SXSW, please make a point of checking it out. There’s a pretty amazing party planned for afterward…details to come.

Who collapses now?

no-metsI know it’s considered bad form to wish bad things on anyone…but I suppose everyone has their exceptions. For me it’s Republicans and the New York Mets.

Why the Mets? As we all know, our team affiliations are formed when we are young, and my formative years were spent in Chicago. These things become ingrained in ways that are unexplainable. Why are our emotions so wrapped up in what team we root for? In my case, being a Cubs fan became entangled in something far larger.

In 1969, I was just beginning to make friends at a new high school when my parents announced that we were moving to New Jersey. Continue reading “Who collapses now?”

Columbia Produces!

(from left to right) Shilpa Makikar, Geoffrey Booth, Sarna Lapine, Molly Pearson
(from left to right) Shilpa Mankikar, Geoffrey Booth, Sarna Lapine, Molly Pearson

Congrats to our new Columbia producers. On January 31, four of our students presented their thesis films, the final step before graduating with their MFA in film with a concentration in producing. Our February graduates are Geoffrey Booth, whose thesis film is “Cemetery Club,” Molly Pearson with “Last First Kiss,” Sarna Lapine with “Sinkhole” and Shilpa Mankikar with “Security.” Watch for their films at film festivals throughout the world.

Bali High

Beth & Ira at the Sea Temple
Beth & Ira at the Sea Temple

From having read a little about the place, I knew that Bali was going to be a very different place than any I had ever visited. But there were a few things I hadn’t anticipated.

For one thing, I had completely forgotten that newly elected president-elect Obama had spent time in Indonesia…and was quite the local hero. On our first day in Bali, our tour guide Merte , with a little prompting, gave us a glimpse into the pride of the Balinese people in having a part in this historic event. That morning, the local newspaper reported how schools all over Indonesia had set aside 15 minutes of prayer on election day, hoping to help Obama get elected. Continue reading “Bali High”

Anxious for news

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, so I have a lot to catch up on. First I owe an election night report.

Beth and I boarded a Cathay Pacific flight to Bali via Hong Kong at 10pm on the night before the election. I knew we would have about 2 hours to catch some election results between flights in Hong Kong. We landed at about 8am on Weds local time, which is 7pm Tuesday night in New York. We raced to the business class lounge, not knowing whether we would be using wifi on my phone, or my laptop, or some other method of getting some news. At the lounge we immediately found a wide-screen TV tuned in to CNN. There were a handful of people gathered around, and other folks would stop to glance at the TV as they passed by.

Continue reading “Anxious for news”