EXTRA CRITICUM

Rosemary's Baby

The other night Ro and I were in the mood to stay in and watch a flick from our shelf of DVDs and since I'd never seen it, I chose ROSEMARY'S BABY.

New TV Season at a Glance: Friday

Up until recently, Friday night has been a dead zone night (much like Saturday still is but I’ll get to that tomorrow) and although it’s sometimes not great, there are some interesting programs to watch, if you aren’t looking for too much flash.

New TV Season at a Glance: Thursday

It's Thursday and premiere week for me has been largely a blank TV set due to my Time Warner cable box going out just an hour and a half before GLEE started up Tuesday night. You can imagine the shrieks that went on in Casa Altenburg. Had I been on the ball I would have realized that the attendent I was speaking to was halfway around the world and had no idea that there was a Time Warner store six blocks from me and that all I had to do was dash the defective box down there before they closed. But this is what you get when you hand someone a script that says CLIENT where the name should be - I know because the guy called me 'CLIENT' several times during our interaction which basically consisted of him telling me to unplug and plug back in the box. Anyway, by Wednesday morning I had exchanged the box although the damage was done - I lost the premiere ep of HAWAII FIVE O with a shirtless Scott Caan. I realize that doesn't mean anything to the straight guys.. but I also lost a bathing suit clad Grace Park. Now you understand the depths of my loss. Thankfully, they'll be nearly nude next week.

Blue Mountain Center... & The Great Escape?

Cross posted on http://alifesworkmovie.com/blog/

I’m here at Blue Mountain Center in the jaw-droppingly beautiful Adirondacks doing a residency on a pristine lake surrounded by trees verging on their fall foliage glory. You’d think I would write about how inspiring it is to hike with a botanist-writer, or kayak with a writer-painter, or accompany on guitar a singer-songwriter who killed “Girl from Ipanema.” You’d think I'd write about how these interactions with nature and people stimulated me to make brilliant edits on A Life’s Work. But no. I want to write about the photograph that’s hanging in my bathroom.

New TV Season at a Glance: Wednesday

Is it just that my life has so little entertainment value in it that it takes little else to amuse me than opening up my Fall TV Preview of Entertainment Weekly to hear the HAWAII FIVE O theme song? Yeah, these things make me happy. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, CBS took the center spot of the mag with a multil page spread promoting their shows; FIVE O is in the middle. When the page is flipped open, the theme song blares. Not to be played when in a crowded elevator (although you might find it funny). When I've really needed entertaining, I create a hip hop version of the theme song by opening and shutting the ad at various intervals. I'm glad that space age technology (the chip embedded in the ad) is being used for such a good cause. Kennedy would be proud. And by the way, you'll never be able to have that much fun when paper mags go away. (I'm keeping it on my shelf for later sessions of fun).

Snooki

This morning I woke up at about 6:30, rolled over onto my back, and thought about Snooki. Instantly I wondered, "Why am I thinking about Snooki?" I know virtually nothing about her. I saw about 10 minutes of Jersey Shore once. I read an article in the Times about her a month or so ago. But there I am lying in bed, enjoying one of the few quiet moments my life provides, thinking about Snooki.

New TV Season at a Glance: Monday REVIEW

First night of the new season has begun and while I couldn't watch everything, I did watch a lot -

Who says art doesn't pay the bills? (well, medical bills, at least... sometimes)

Really cool thing happening at a hospital in Brooklyn. Hopsital administrators across this under-insured country, take note! [Big thanks to Thomas Cott's You've Cott Mail for flagging Daniel Grant's Huff post.]

Interview with Indie Filmmaker Jared Katsiane

Longtime friend and fellow filmmaker Jared Katsiane is currently enjoying a rare treat. Several of his short films are screening simulatenously at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. I thought it would be a perfect time to sit down and ask Jared some questions about his experience as a uniquely independent filmmaker today. [footnote: Jared's answer to my final question below happens to fit perfectly with the theme of the Oct. 14th panel I'm putting together for the Producers Guild of Amerca, Art of the Possible: When to Pull the Trigger on Low-Budget Production. Stay tuned for more on this topic.]

First a bit about Jared:

Billy Idol Always Leaves Me Wanting More, More, More

I saw my sixth Billy Idol concert last night. 

Interestingly, as a nearly 35 year old, none of the prior five concerts occurred in the 80s. 

Or even the early 90s.

New TV Season at a Glance: Tuesday

For the most part, Tuesdays this autumn seem like one of those nights where the TV gets turned on while you're making dinner and answering emails and catching up on phone calls, but nothing to really spend much time paying attention to. Except for GLEE of course.

New TV Season at a Glance: Monday

As a kid I loved getting the Fall TV Preview issue of TV Guide. It was extra thick and contained what we now call "spoilers" - thumbnail descriptions of all the changes to returning series. With cable and the internet, TV Guide seems ridiculously irrelevant (and now it's the same size as every other magazine; part of the cool factor of TV Guide was it's digest size) and I haven't bought it in years.

In their attempts to reality-show us to death (not to mention NBC's gamble to transform prime time into talk shows - how did that work out for you guys?), the networks have lost a lot of viewers over the past decade.

Fortunately the new fall season is jam packed with narratives, maybe not great ones but at least it's a start.

Is it just me or does WEEDS (the show) have the opposite neurological effect as its herbal namesake?

Showtime has recently opened the vaults on the entire series of Weeds, a show I hadn't seen until now. So I set out to get acquainted with the suburban mom turned pot grower played by Mary Louise Parker.