May 2013
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“Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it,...”
– As said by Geraldine (Sarah Silverman), in writer/director Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz, one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s romantic and funny, but not at all a romantic comedy. Instead, it’s the rare film that’s actually made for thinking adults...
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Sterling Hallard Bright Drake in NYC tonight,...
Sterling Hallard Bright Drake will be playing as part of NewFilmmakers New York’s Spring Series tonight, Wednesday, May 15th, at 6:00PM at the Anthology Film Archives on the Lower East Side at 32nd Avenue & 2nd Street. This is it, the end of the line, the last screening of SHBD, which has had a great run. Unfortunately I won’t be there as it’s graduation week at Whitman...
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“Is there a difference between ‘cinema’ and ‘movies?’...”
– Steven Soderbergh, from his “State of Cinema” address at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which you can read or watch or read in its entirety at Indiewire. It’s as depressing as it is awesome.
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“If nothing else, it revived my faith in the auteur theory….You cannot...”
– Stephen Metcalf on Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain via the 5/1/13 Slate Culture Gabfest podcast, the But Mostly Pain Edition. Metcalf reminds me a lot of Terrence Rafferty back when he was the New Yorker’s primary film critic in that hearing him discuss something he detests is way more...
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April 2013
13 posts
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The Cold Open #8!!!
The Cold Open #8:
In our latest Cold Open Podcast, Annie Petersen, special guest Will Witwer, and myself start with a discussion of what has intrigued us most in recent media, which includes the arrest of America’s Sweetheart, Reese Witherspoon, and the varying ways we followed the events surrounding the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt and capture of the...
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“The statistics are sobering: For every female lead in a movie, there are three...”
– From Pamela McClintock’s “CinemaCon: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Question Results in Awkward Silence” in The Hollywood Reporter (which is not really even about Fifty Shades, though it ends with a killer quote arising from said question). Even more depressing is that these...
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“I want to sell you hard on the notion that in this age of digital video—in which...”
– From David Edelstein’s excellent Vulture piece, “How Documentary Became the Most Exciting Kind of Filmmaking.” The Queen of Versailles, Searching for Sugar Man, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Imposter, Five Broken Cameras—the list of great recent docs goes on and on, and...
The Cold Open, Ep. 7 →
In The Cold Open Podcast #7, Annie Petersen and myself start by noting our favorite things in recent media, which in this installment includes rumblings about a possible Kate Upton and Diddy hook-up, the Facebook and Twitter release of what look to be Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn’s prom photos, and Harmony Korine’s polarizing but hypnotic Spring Breakers. We then delve deeply into AMC’s two-hour...
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Then & Now Part 1: Major League Baseball, August...
Around 1980 I started collecting the ticket stubs from the events I attended, which has left me with upwards of 1000 sports, concert, and theatre tickets. I didn’t start collecting movie tickets until they became a professional tax write off—if I had been collecting them as long as I’ve been collecting the others, I’d have thousands of more ticket stubs than I do! I...
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The Austin 100 on NPR!
NPR’s Stephen Thompson (also of Pop Culture Happy Hour renown) has assembled the 2013 version of The Mix: The Austin 100, a playlist of 100 songs featuring bands that played at SXSW this year. It’s all over the map in all the best ways and I’ve been listening to it like crazy for weeks. The Austin 100 will remain available for free download until this Friday, April 4th. Get in...
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March 2013
13 posts
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Trouble the Water @ Whitman College This...
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Incorporating remarkable home video footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts—an aspiring rap artist trapped with her husband in the 9th Ward. Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine producers Tia Lessin and...
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“Justin Timberlake is not going to park it on Twitter 24/7 like Lady Gaga or...”
– From “20 Notes on the 20/20 Experience,” Grantland writer Steven Hyden’s review of Timberlake’s new album. It’s ironic that he opens his review by invoking a notorious Greil Marcus review of Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait, (perhaps) unintentionally reminding us that...
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“The average citizen knows only too well that it makes no real difference to him...”
– From a May 17th, 1928 editorial in Life by Robert Sherwood, which ultimately led to Will Rogers running for President as “the bunkless candidate.“ About his candidacy Rogers said, “Our support will have to come from those who want nothing and have the assurance of getting...
“Sometimes I think I know what it was all about, and how everything happened. But...”
– Frank Sinatra, as quoted in the introduction of Frank Sinatra: History, Identity, and Italian American Culture, edited by Stanislao G. Pugliese. It’s rare to get something as unvarnished and self-reflexive as this nugget from a celebrity of Sinatra’s stature. How weird and surreal...
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“Hulk is a tricky son of a bitch. He’s the Claudio of superheroes. Because...”
– Joss Whedon, on the very real difficulties of making a movie starring the Hulk. I’m sure they’ll try it again somewhere down the line, against Whedon’s better judgment, but I’d argue the Avengers definitively proved he’s best served as a subsidiary character,...
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WatchSweet Jesus, can April 7th and the two hour Season 6 premiere of Mad Men get here fast enough or what? If it wasn’t for The Americans and House of Cards I’m not sure how I would have survived the winter, but now it’s time to clear the decks and make way for the boss, which you can tell isn’t Pete Campbell just by looking at him in this promo. Oh Pete, Cos Cob is where...
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February 2013
9 posts
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Sterling Hallard Drake at the Festivus Film...
Greetings from Big Whiskey Studios’ current headquarters at the Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver, Colorado. Sterling Hallard Bright Drake will be having it’s final festival screening ever this weekend at the Festivus Film Festival here in Denver. We play as part of the Mixed Bag Shorts Block that’s screening on Sunday, February 24th at the Oriental Theatre at 3:00 PM. In...
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Sterling Hallard Bright Hallard in Texas this...
This weekend, Sterling Hallard Bright Drake will be playing at the Thin Line Line International Documentary Film Festival in Denton, Texas. Our screening is Saturday night, Feb 9th, at 10:30PM at the Campus Theatre. Thin Line is a highly regarded festival and its lineup is spectacular, so if you live in the Dallas metro area, come on out and see some great docs over the next week!
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Sterling Hallard Bright Drake in Victoria, B.C....
Sterling Hallard Bright Drake makes its international debut at the Victoria Film Festival as part of the View and Vote doc-block playing TODAY, Sunday, February 3rd at 4:45 PM at the Empire Theatre #5 in Victoria, B.C. Zack and I can’t make it, but rumor has it composer extraordinaire Josh Karp, AKA Budo, will be in attendance to see it with an audience for the first time. If you live in...
January 2013
16 posts
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Many Nights of Movies (Part 5.2): Home Movies,...
What are the movies that you come into at any given point on cable and then just watch until the end no matter what? I’ve got a number of them, although Road House and Dazed and Confused most quickly come to mind. Hell, when all the disparate parts I’ve watched of both are added up I’ve probably seen them over 50 times apiece. And there would be another in this pantheon of...
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Sterling Hallard Bright Drake's February Schedule! →
The Big Whiskey Studios web site has been updated to reflect the locations, dates, and times of Sterling Hallard Bright Drake’s February screenings at the Victoria, Thin Line Doc, and Festivus Film Festivals! Check it out and come on out and see as many films as you can if you’re in any of these areas!
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It's not about the bike...
… and for a lot of people with cancer, as well as their loved ones, it never was. Sure, we loved rooting for Lance Armstrong and the fact that he was dominating Tour de Frances year after year made his story all the more remarkable, but it was the story outside of bicycle racing that mattered and gave millions of people hope that maybe they too could defeat long odds and live strong. My...
