Friday, October 31, 2003

Make a movie! Yes, you too can make a 16mm motion picture, albeit a silent one. I just put my own personal Arriflex 16S package on eBay and you are welcome to buy it. It's an awesome camera, but I really don't use it that often, preferring to work with my (and Mike's) CP16/R's, which are self-blimped and therefore silent enough for shooting narrative films with dialog (such as synthetic conversation). The Arriflex 16S, on the other hand, sounds like a blender on "chop." But the CP's don't have the rock-steady pin-registered movement that the Arriflex does. Ah, tradeoffs. You know, Robert Rodriguez shot El Mariachi on a 16S and just dubbed all the dialog after the fact. You could do that, too, I guess. I just don't want to. Anyway. Bid away. Bid high. Make movies. Have fun.

posted 12:54 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Miro, Miro Just got my alumni newsletter this evening and guess what: my beloved UT Music School, under whose auspices I toiled from age 6 through my sophomore year in college, now has a resident string quartet! Check the Miro Quartet out on their website. My, aren't they a handsome bunch? Unfortunately, we've missed their October 16th debut in Bates, but they'll be back - in February '04. Somehow, I'd have hoped that a resident of UT would come back sooner, but with the hectic international performance schedules these guys appear to have (which is part of why I guess they got the faculty appointment in the first place), I guess it'll have to do. I also checked the UT performance calendar for the month of November and noticed that the beloved Jessen Series and Plan II Chamber Music Recital concerts are happening in parallel on the day I arrive for Thanksgiving week - AND - the UT Symphony is playing on the 24th. For those of you who will be in the Homeland during my stay, I propose that we legitimately go see the faculty recital at Jessen, then walk across campus to MRH and crash the Plan II shindig, consuming the hors d'oeuvres table, eventually migrating to Spiderhouse for coffee and desert and the usual postconcert dish session. Sounds like fun, eh? When you party with The Carl, you really hit it hard. Yeah.

posted 11:54 PM | 0 comments

Forever Burnt Orange So San Diego is going up in smoke. The mountain right outside my apartment is glowing orange. Go Longhorns! I'm wondering if someone will be knocking on my door in a few hours to force me to evacuate. It makes me wonder what I would take with me under those circumstances. My computer, I guess, and my LP collection, turntable, keyboard, a couple boxfulls of paper and books. My violin and all my cine equipment and still camera stuff. And the 13 rolls of fresh 16mm stock in my fridge. Um...and my brown cordouroy sportscoat and some other clothes and maybe some furniture, like my big oak desk or quirky Brittish pub table. And don't forget the really strange black carved chests that my mom bought in Hawaii back in '68. Okay, maybe not the furniture. But I could probably cram everything else into my nondescript mid-90's Japanese fuel-efficient sedan. I hope. I really hope it doesn't come to that, though.

posted 11:50 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Cup runneth over After the last few months of cinema pathetic, a spell miraculously broken by Lost in Translation and Taking Sides, I find myself suddenly awash with 3 intriguiging weekend-viewing options: 1\Mystic River 2\The Station Agent 3\The Battle of Shaker Heights Can't wait to see these. Will report as time permits. And coming in a couple weeks ... Sylvia (with Gwenyth Paltrow - yum) and Shattered Glass. Oh, and the cinematographer I interviewed in August - David Mullen - has a film coming out soon: New Suit, a fable about the wacky shenanigans of an LA screenwriter desperate to break into his craft. Saw the movie's trailer this afternoon and it looks great. Go David!

posted 10:17 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, October 11, 2003

Musique d'ameublement Just a fancy way of saying that all I'm playing is two chords and that you probably should be doing something else while listening to this ... like driving at night. :-) Installment two in the Songs for Driving at Night series: Melancholia. Download. Listen. Enjoy.

posted 11:54 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Taking Sides I encourage everyone to find out if and when the excellent movie Taking Sides is playing near them. My review is on the Movie Review section of this site. It is also my first four-star review ever. Okay, I know I only have three reviews up right now, but still ... As a side-note, I think it is imperative to watch Max as the perfect companion to Taking Sides. It's out on DVD and can be picked up at your nearest Schlockbuster. It was one of last year's best films and is really quite exquisite in all respects.

posted 1:47 AM | 0 comments

email me