Amber drops me off at Calgary airport with some kisses. I am tagged for chemical testing before entering security (gotta be the goatee). No chemicals have made contact with me. Eat home made donuts Amber packed in my laptop bag. Read about what I can learn from the poor. At the gate I overhear a … [Read more…]
Last night I watched the film The Impossible starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts about a family who is ripped apart by the 2004 tsunami. I didn’t cry once. I cried several times. The film is emotionally driven as loneliness, loss, empathy, and shared humanity feature in every scene. A welling soundtrack accompanies all of … [Read more…]
As I updated my operating system on my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, I was led to believe that my old copy of Final Cut Pro would not work as it was designed for PowerPC and not the new Intel processors (as it turns out, FCP still works). So, I had to decide … [Read more…]
Something I really appreciated about the old Canon miniDV camcorders was that the timestamps they recorded onto each clip was visible and useful in sorting footage in the old iMovie. More recently, as I edit home movies in an old Final Cut Pro suite and as I mix and match footage from my Canon ZR950, … [Read more…]
After months of research, my first inkling proved to be my conclusion. I should have paid more attention to Blink when I read it. So, here it is! I wanted to make the 72 minute documentary available online after the festival circuit was exhausted (it proved to be a very, very small circuit). But most … [Read more…]
Touching tweets on the loss of Maurice Sendak a couple days ago: “We’ll be roaring our terrible roars today.” -Timothy McSweeney “‘Please don’t go…. We love you so.’ RIP Maurice Sendak” -St. Martin’s Press “Maurice Sendak.. Your mom has dinner waiting .. RIP.” -leearenberg Also got this great quote from the Wild Thing himself in … [Read more…]
What a great evening! We had 37 people come out the evening of March 3rd to the world premiere of my second feature length documentary. People from various parts of my life (long time friends, cohousing, church, work) and a few strangers who came with some friends filled the seats at 7 pm. Blaise and … [Read more…]
A couple weeks ago, this graphic video surfaced of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was quick to condemn the acts and the United States as a majority expressed disgust. There were some who said it was normal, acceptable and even important that Marines disgrace their … [Read more…]
The only store I would frequent the last 3 years is Roger’s Video, actually a rental store, but I would pick through their previously viewed DVDs and bring them home by the half dozen every month or so. With their reward points system and regular sales, I’d get the usually mint condition movies for about … [Read more…]
Over on my Zaak Watches Movies by himself blog, I’ve reached the 700 movies milestone. I started the blog about four and a half years ago when I was living in Guatemala as a way to practice writing but also to write about the values I drew from film. The reviews were longer and far … [Read more…]