EXTRA CRITICUM

Why You Should Never Trust Me as a Film Critic

When I was about eight years old I saw a film called Manster (1959) on TV. This film, sort of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde affair, scared the bejesus out of me. One image in particular burned itself deep into my consciousness. Our hero, who is given an experimental drug by a mad scientist, undergoes some serious changes. In fact, he grows another head, a seriously ugly head, but before the head sprouts out of his shoulder, an eye appears. Here is the image:

Fascinating HuffPost piece on the unsustainable nature of free content online

Check out this fascinating piece by Bevin Carnes on the Huffington Post. In essence, artists need to get paid. We need to eat. Otherwise, how are we going to honestly be able to continue to "create?"

The High Cost of Free Culture

My New TV Talk Show on BCAT

Hey fellow Extra Critcum Dudes and Dudettes,

A lifelong dream of mine has now materialized...I am a talk show host of my very own talk show on BCAT public access television - in Brooklyn yo !

So if you can check it out... I've been compared to the following of which I admire them all in one way or another:

Steig Larsson's Revenge Fantasy

I have a reputation for being a bit of a contrarian. It’s not unearned, but I don’t think I’m reflexively contrary. I like plenty of popular things. For example, I’d happily posit The Matrix as the greatest science fiction film ever made.

That said, I am a little suspicious when everyone agrees on something. It doesn’t happen very often, culturally speaking, and it makes me wonder what buttons are being pushed, what complexities are being glossed over. Which brings me to Steig Larsson and his The Girl Who…trilogy.

Desert Island Discs

It's rare that any of us would ever actually be stranded on a desert island, but for some reason, we humans love to make lists in anticipation of such an event.

This weekend, I am moving into a spare room in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, which - after nine years of living alone in a studio apartment - might as well be a desert island.

I planned to put most of my stuff in storage, and give the rest away, a purging process that has been more than difficult. When choosing what to keep and bring with me, I thought it might be nice to bring my remaining vinyl records and my stereo rack system with turntable. I liked the idea of playing records in Queens, alone in my room, desolate, lonely, longing.

But still, I couldn't put all of my CDs in storage. After 13 years of working in the music industry, and having inherited my father's penchant for record-shopping, I've got a lot of CDs. So I allowed myself to cherry-pick the few discs that I absolutely cannot live without, for however long I will be in that month-to-month living situation in Queens while I look for a job (or a life) elsewhere.

I figured I'd take about 30 discs with me.

Our ever-shrinking notion of "shelf life" and what it's doing to our culture

In the film business, conventional wisdom dictates that a property has value theatrically for a few months, then on DVD and television for another year to 18 months, tops. There are a few exceptions, of course. Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz spring to mind. But generally speaking, the moment a film is deemed "finished," the clock starts ticking. There have been a few rare cases in which a film was "pulled off the shelf" and released months or years after completion by someone who, seeing it, believed in it and had the moxie necessary to push it though to release. Two examples of this phenomenon are Blue Sky and Repo Man, which was discovered and released by the brilliant George Mansour.

It's understandable, I suppose, why the Hollywood machine (if one can even use such a term for such a multifaceted organism as this) would need to constantly churn out new product. Without new material, the possibility for new audiences would eventually dry up and revenues would soon evaporate.

But why small town film festivals and tiny regional theatres (stage theatres, not movie theatres) are so enamored with the new is beyond me. Think about it. You're in a small town or smallish city, one lacking a suitable Art House for off-beat cinema. The local festival announces a lineup. Do you really care whether all the films are premieres? I doubt it.

Inception and the Open-Ended Movie

When I left Inception I thought, so, was it all a dream or was it real, and more importantly, do I care? The answer to that last question is no, not in the least, and so I haven’t really thought about Inception since.

Now to be fair, I’m not big on mindfuck movies. (Inception is less a mindfuck than a mindgrope-- thanks to Stacey D. for that one.) But I did leave the theater thinking about open endings and why some are satisfying and others are not. But before I get to that, I suppose a definition is in order.

The Kids Are All Right: So much better than Anthony Lane would have us believe.

So I’m behind on my New Yorker reading. And behind on my movie-going. Last week, both schedules miraculously came into perfect alignment when a day or so after I finally saw Lisa Cholodenko’s marvelous film, The Kids All All Right, I read Anthony Lane’s embarrassingly biased review.

I generally shy away from reviewing reviewers (or critics, as they prefer to be called) on this site because, let’s face it, we do an awful lot of it over coffee or cocktails. Don’t we?

But this silliness, I just can’t let stand.

Pulled from the Archives: Licata, Warnock, Duricko & Outlaw

Every few months or so, the editors at E.C. take a stroll through our archives and pull a group of interesting posts that are loosely related in theme to offer up to our readership for a second read. If you have a favorite post you'd like us to "pull from the archives," just email us and we'll try to locate it for you. Or, you could also just use the handy Lijit Search box in the right sidebar.

Stage Presence is a Universal Language - Part I by Marissa Danielle Duricko

I am SO 1976 by David Licata

Ausser mir vor Angst = Scared to Death by Paul Outlaw

Just because you've had sex doesn't mean you know how to write about it. by Kathleen Warnock

It's all about perspective, isn't it?

At what point does one pull the plug on a prickly negotiation? In preparing our 2012-13 schedule, we've just encountered an odd request. A potential visiting artist has asked for two dressing rooms -- one for him, the other for his children.

I can write to you all about this now because as of late last night, our negotiations ended abruptly when this artist (who shall remain nameless) withdrew via a text message from his manager. Luckily for us, he wasn't our only choice. But the whole fracas made me fume. I mean, really fume. And of course, having been on the other end of such negotiations -- as the visiting artist trying to squeeze whatever I can from an agreement -- I understand how this happens.

Northeastern Pennsylvanianites. Come see my film Aug 13th!

If you're going to be in Scranton, Friday evening Aug. 13, I hope you'll join us for a screening of We Pedal Uphill: Stories from the States at the Vintage Theatre. More info on the film at: wepedaluphill.com

More info on the screening at the Vintage Theatre's website.

I will be there at the 7PM screening Friday night, which will be followed by a Q&A and discussion.

Brotherhood is the quintessential high-concept film and better than it has any right to be

When a friend sent me the screener to Nicolo Donato's feature debut, Brotherhood, I must admit I was primed to loathe it. Frequent readers of this blog may recall my views on the detrimental effects of the high-concept Hollywood model on American theatre. [ed note: See: High-Concept: Choking American Theatre to Death]. Suffice it to say, I think young filmmaker and young playwrights ought to be writing from the heart rather than cooking up some high-concept plot which, nine times out of ten, ends up feeling, well... just that. Cooked up.

So when I saw that Brotherhood was a Romeo & Juliet story turned gay AND within a Neo-Nazi Skinhead milieu, I almost didn't watch the thing.

Spirit In the Material World

As I'm clearing out my apartment in anticipation of moving at the end of the month - something I've been having a hard time with - I'm sorting my physical music into three piles: pack, digitize, or giveaway.

"I just don't understand what the point of CDs is anymore," a friend said to me, after hearing how I'd spent my day dismantling a wall of them and boxing them up.

"So, what, you just download everything?" I asked, blinking.

The Kickstarter Experience

In The Future of Independent Film Financing? I interviewed filmmaker Jacob Hensberry about his film Planet X and his decision to fundraise via Kickstarter. Here, as promised, is the follow up interview.