One of “Boardwalk Empire”‘s saddest images—spoiler alert–was that of the mask of Richard Harrow, the show’s facially disfigured World War I vet and hit man with a heart, lying in the sand following the character’s death at the end of the fourth season.
It’s early, but let’s prep Jason Segel’s Oscar campaign just to be safe. James Ponsoldt’s “The End of the Tour,” which premiered Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, is the start of something beautiful for Segel, who sheds his Apatowian routine to fill the iconic shoes of David Foster Wallace. Segel eases into a drawl that matches the author’s hesitant lips, but this is no mere imitation: He channels every complicated facet of the Wallace’s personality, introducing a sympathetic loner whose softness is often belied by a hardened confusion about the world he inhabits.
Buried beneath Wallace’s fame is an insecurity that extends beyond unkempt hair and signature bandanas. Segel’s performance is a master class in capturing layers of expression with one’s eyes. That shines through in his interactions with Jesse Eisenberg, who portrays David Lipsky, the Rolling Stone journalist who spent five days with Wallace during his “Infinite Jest” book tour and forms the bedrock of the mini-biopic on display. No flattering reviews can prevent Wallace’s skepticism about how he’ll be portrayed in the unctuous but honest young writer’s profile, but his wall comes down so easily that what resounds is a man who wants desperately to be liked in an authentic way. Wallace shirks every Gen X wunderkind label the public assigns to him, yet somehow he’s paranoid Lipsky won’t like him. Segel showcases a restlessness that bubbles beneath the writer’s tender surfaces; it shatters his charm every so often, unwrapping a well-documented darkness.
“The End of the Tour” thrives because it doesn’t ask to be about more than it is. Writers will take to the long conversations these men hold about inspiration and self-doubt and notoriety, but this is a movie for everyone who’s ever pondered any of those things. Segel treats Wallace as something between a recluse and an everyman, and anyone who sees the film without having read Wallace’s tomes may not even walk away with the presumptuous “genius” label that too many biographical films insist upon. There’s some media commentary about the value of a splashy celebrity profile, but Segel doesn’t position his character as the clichéd, highfalutin literary type many movies portray, as if to say that we can’t truly know this god we’ve positioned among men. There’s an intimacy to this story, and that’s why the talky road-trip film is such an achievement.
Donald Margulies’ script — compiled in part from the transcript of Wallace and Lipsky’s time together — is largely responsible for that intimacy, but it’s Segel whose magnetism is most alluring. The simplest moments reveal the deepest psychology, like a stop at a convenience store where Lipsky informs a still-shy Wallace at the cash register that their time together is covered by Rolling Stone’s expense account. (Cue an abundance of Jann Wenner jokes.) There’s a flash of hesitation before Segel rushes back to the aisles to pile more junk food onto the counter. Juxtapose that warmth with an anger that appears when Wallace thinks anyone is talking about him behind his back or doubting his character, as when he’s convinced Lipsky is hitting on an ex-girlfriend who joins them for a leg of the tour. Segel eyes them from across the room and we see his mood shift before he can even jump up to confront Lipsky. Here, folks, is an actor who has grasped his character and wants you to as well.
The beauty of “The End of the Tour” comes in the ultimate compassion that flows between the two men. This is a rare movie that actually seems to capture more of its subject than the written word has, and that is chiefly thanks to Segel’s performance. You won’t want for “Dracula’s Lament” one bit with this new iteration of his career.
Many are voicing surprise at the comments of IMF head Christine Lagarde following the death of the Saudi monarch:
He was a great leader. He implemented lots of reforms, at home, and in a very discreet way, he was a great advocate for woman. It was very gradual, appropriately so probably for the country, but I discussed that issue with him several times and he was a strong believer.
After a reporter expressed surprise that a woman would say that, Lagarde added: “Very often, Saudi Arabia is portrayed as a place where women do not play quite the same role.” The last sentence hasn’t been seriously scrutinized, but it should be. “Quite the same role” is a remarkable way to describe a country that has a system of male guardianship.
But I think it’s noteworthy that the source of the comments was hardly some random woman. It was the head of the IMF, an international financial institution purported to aid the global development but that is frequently criticized as doing the bidding of the rich and powerful — such as the major U.S. and European banks. And, like a good managing director, Lagarde is probably on the lookout for more funding for the IMF, it’s not straightforward to find out how much the Saudis have already ponied up. But once again, we see here the emptiness — even on the most limited basis — of a shallow diversity that seeks to put a woman or African American in a prominent position while maintaining incredibly oppressive power dynamics.
Back in 2011, when the Arab uprisings were in their seemingly promising first year I vigorously questioned Saudi Amb. Turki about the legitimacy of the Saudi regime. I did this because I could see what was happening: The uprisings were taking root — and deforming to into violent proxy wars — in secular states (Libya and Syria), which were at times somewhat critical of the U.S. establishment — while the pro-U.S. establishment regimes, largely monarchies like Saudi Arabia, were getting let off the hook. Those repressive monarchies would therefore be able to mold events in the formerly secular states. Democracy, equality and the voice of the people would not be on their list of goals.
So, when he came to the National Press Club, I asked Turki what the legitimacy of the Saudi regime was. I was immediately suspended from the Press Club for my actions, though that was receded by the Club’s Ethics Committee some 10 days later. I was very gratified for having received support from a good number of people during my suspension, but one unfortunate aspect of the suspension is that it drew attention away from what Turki said in our exchange.
His first line of defense to my questioning the legitimacy of the regime was this:
I don’t need to justify my country’s legitimacy. We’re participants in all of the international organizations and we contribute to the welfare of people through aid program not just directly from Saudi Arabia but through all the international agencies that are working throughout the world to provide help and support for people.
I thus wrote at the time:
Turki’s response that Saudi Arabia gets legitimacy because of its aid programs is an interesting notion. Is he arguing that by giving aid to other countries and to international organizations that the Saudi regime has somehow purchased legitimacy, and perhaps immunity from criticism, that it would otherwise not have received? This is worth journalists and independent organizations pursuing.
I suspect that that’s exactly what we’re seeing manifested in Lagarde’s comments. Some have noted aspects of the collusion between international financial institutions like the IMF and the Saudis, see for example, Adam Hanieh’s piece “Egypt’s Orderly Transition? International Aid and the Rush to Structural Adjustment.” Too often in poor countries around the world, the form of “development” that’s funded is a collusion between what the IMF wants and what states like Saudi Arabia want. Not exactly a prescription for fostering meaningful democratic development. But an excellent example of backscratching between elites. Really, a manifestation of Husseini’s first law of politics: the powers collude and the people get screwed (and not in a good way).
The relativistic part of Lagarade’s comment — “appropriately so probably for the country” — also echoed Turki: “After how many years since the establishment of the United States did women get to vote in the United States? Does that mean that before they got the vote that United States was an illegitimate country?” Indeed, my questioning of Turki was cut off when I tried to follow up with “So are you saying that Arabs are inherently backward?” — that they should be 100 years behind U.S.? Though perhaps the most amusing part of Turki’s comments about women were not in response to me, but the obsequious question that followed mine — asked by a worshiping female — where he refers to a “colleague” being “a woman as you can see.”
The initial media wave of calling “King Abdullah” — why exactly should a reasonable person actually use such absurd titles without scare quotes? — a “reformer” has brought on some minimal backlash. But it’s largely constrained to domestic issues.
The geopolitical threats to democracy and peace are even more daunting — and full of myth. Saudi Arabia has been a center of counter-revolution and worse in Arab countries. The Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, as did the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh for a time. The Saudi regime reportedly tried to prevent the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak from stepping down. Saudi Arabia moved into Bahrain to stop a democratic uprising there. But much of its power is more indirect — for example, through a sizable media infrastructure that highlighted uprisings in secular republics and ignored democratic moves in monarchies.
All this has totally deformed the Arab uprisings the last four years, leading to horrific civil wars and the prospect of wider wars — and it was foreseeable, which is why I and others sought to challenge it from the beginning.
On the U.S.-Saudi relationship, now, the Harvard Political Review tells us:
The partnership was straightforward: Saudi Arabia provided special access to oil for the United States, and in return the superpower developed military installations across Saudi Arabia to advance mutual security goals.
In fact, it was not about “access” to oil as Noam Chomsky has noted, but about control of oil, as well as investment in Western banks, not in real regional or global development. As Eqbal Ahmed was fond of asking: How did the wealth of the Mideast get separated from the people of the region?
The Saudi regime paved the way for the U.S.’s wars against Iraq and elsewhere, postured as helping the Palestinians while in a tacit alliance with the equally hypocritical Israelis. Saudi regime fosters violent al-Qaeda type violent extremism and its U.S. violent mirror image.
In the 1950s and ’60s, the U.S. backed the Saudis to undermine Egypt’s Nasser and slay the prospect of pan-Arabism. Robert Dreyfuss has written: “Choosing Saudi Arabia over Nasser’s Egypt was probably the single biggest mistake the United States has ever made in the Middle East.” Though “mistake” is probably wrong — it has benefited elites tremendously at the expense of people in Arab countries, the U.S. and around the world.
Liberal love making much of the Bush-Saudi connection, which is true enough, but the Saudi-U.S. bond was forged by the great liberal FDR.
Shortly after World War I, the British Foreign Secretary “Lord” Curzon spelled out British aims: “Arab façade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff.”
So, similarly to Lagarde’s comments, how could any person awake to global dynamics be surprised by the sorrow from elites in the U.S. or that the British flag should be at half-mast with the passing of so useful a native?
“An image that arises on hearing mere words without reality (as its basis) is verbal delusion.” – Sri Swami Satchidananda
So, I talk a lot about goal setting and positive affirmations on The Traveling Cup. It’s no secret (because that’s a lie), but there is power in speaking and writing down the future you want.
That’s why creating a photo board and pasting it up on a wall along with writing down a positive affirmation every morning is part of the life plan.
Top performers in the world do this all the time. Surgeons, athletes… you name it. The difference, though, for these top performers is that they see every step. They don’t just see the finish line sprint. They see the journey, not just the destination.
Macro to Micro
Instead of just speaking, thinking, or writing down an affirmation, there needs to be specific action taken to bring it into… well, reality.
In the book The Secret, the theory goes that if you think positive affirmations and frame your thinking to be optimistic and positive, then the universe will align to bring you said reality. Okay — that sounds like fun, but there’s more to The Law of Attraction than that.
If I think “I am building muscle and cutting fat to 12 percent” yet I’m sitting on a couch and eating chips and guacamole (which are totally delicious), then this positive affirmation will be as substantial as a cloud. It will wisp away with the very next bite.
That’s where the power of action comes in. There needs to be specific action taken to bring about said goal. If one of my goals is to get to a certain weight or body-fat percentage so that I can be a healthier and happier person so that I can do more and have more impact in my life, then there needs to be specific action taken to make it happen. That means going to the gym, not buying unhealthy food, and having part of my morning ritual include a healthy start.
Millennials will remember a popular saying in middle school: “You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?” I’m not really sure where they came from. Maybe TLC or Naughty By Nature, but the point is that taking action is harder than words.
Keep it simple by including just five minutes of an activity in your morning ritual that builds toward your goal. If your goal is to shed some weight, then become aware of your goal first thing in the morning by stepping on a scale or drinking a large glass of water first thing in the morning (add in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar because it alkalizes the body).
I know, I know. I hear many people laughing at the simplicity of this action. Drinking water or weighing oneself isn’t going to drop weight. What it will do, however, is get the mind to start the day off by treating the body right. That’s the mind-body connection. Or why psychologists call the stomach the second brain.
If the first thing you do in the morning is to treat your body right, then your mind will sharpen focus throughout the day. If your morning is chaotic like mine used to be (and sometimes still is… alarm, rush, coffee-to-go running out the door combing the hair in the car) then the mind is already in the rat race. Already spinning in place on the hamster wheel.
And the whole point is to get out of the rat race.
What about you? What do you do first thing in the morning that aligns with one of your goals?
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The suns rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” — Alexander Graham Bell
How would you measure up if someone observed you and wrote down what you were doing once a minute? Would they see you scrolling through social media, talking on the phone to your relative about a problem at home, or taking action toward your dreams?
Larry Rosen and his research team from California State University observed college, high school and middle school students as they completed their homework assignments. They recorded, once a minute what the students were doing as they studied. The results are astonishing. The students knew they were being observed and still engaged in some form of distracting technology for 35 percent of the time within just the first 15 minutes. One observer from a research project at Saint John’s University was surprised to see a first year law student begin texting within the first 17 minutes of her first class.
In a well-regarded study of 8 to 18 year olds, the Kaiser family foundation found that our youth are engaging in entertaining technological distractions for 7 to ten hours a day, 7 days a week.
With school and work and home life, how is this possible?
The same way that it’s possible for you to read this while you are sitting in front of your television, or periodically texting a friend. It’s become difficult to track technology use because so many of us use technology while we are doing something else. If you add a personal conflict or problems at home to this distraction, you’re in even more danger of losing the way to your dreams.
Research by Russell Podrack, a renowned neuroscientist, demonstrates a damaging bottleneck effect from multi-tasking while learning. Our short-term, or working memory can’t handle too many bits of information, and it can only hold information for about 10 seconds. If you overload this short term memory by responding to a text now, rather than waiting until you are done reading this article, you will interrupt the flow of information from your working memory to the long-term memory area of your brain, where copious amounts of data are stored, processed, and made ready for retrieval by your conscious mind.
Unless you are paying concentrated attention as you read this, you won’t transfer the information completely from your short-term to your long-term memory. You won’t be able to use what you learned without thinking about it and it will be challenging for you to quickly access this content in your memory to make a point, inspire a new habit, or learn something new.
You see, you can talk with a friend or listen to a book while you are driving because the mechanics of driving are deeply embedded in this long-term memory section of your brain. You don’t have to think about driving, yet you can quickly bring it back into focus if someone slams on their brakes in front of you.
For this reason and so many others, you must be vigilant about protecting your time, your mind, your energy and your resources. Don’t be fooled by the idea that you can afford to waste any of your one and only lifetime.
“..as if you can kill time without injuring eternity.” — Henry David Thoreau
And remember, what you focus on expands.
We all have the same 24 hours each day. What are you expanding? Where are you directing your energy, your thoughts, your actions and ultimately your life?
Whether you realize it or not, you are choosing your life with your focus.
Ask yourself the big questions.
Who are you? Where are you headed? How will you get there?
Be careful. Be sure. Be you. Focus.
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed.
No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined.
No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled.
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. — Henry Emerson Fosdic
Beating blank page syndrome can be worse than your first date – content creation is fraught with peril for many small businesses.
Great Content Marketing Starts Here
Give up on the introduction and start at the middle or the end.
Even a crude outline can get you started: napkin, match book covers, menus – wherever inspiration hits.
Write a story: setting, players, tone, conflict, “Romeo and Juliet” elements.
Whip out your phone and start talking for playback in front of the page.
Read more: it’s going to inspire you to be a better writer.
Write in increments: give yourself a timed period to create content and review the results later. But, this may crank up the anxiety and limit the content. Test it.
Use a different medium: pen, paper, video or audio.
Forget writing content – visual may be the best way to tell your brand story.
Content Pain Points Every Business has to Come to Grips with
What in God’s name is your budget? It’s a moving target; start small, test the content ROI (is is getting read?), talk to your customers, monitor your conversion metrics, start with 20-30% of your overall budget.
How do you make content that the visitor wants to share? Key attributes: useful, emotion laden, factual, practical, newsjacks (events, moments in time, stuff that relates to your biz).
Is your content distributed and published? A blog is not enough: you gotta do more.
In-house or outsourcing; or some combination of the two. Your probably better off with the latter.
Where do you find visuals to insert with your content? They are on your web site, embedded in your social channels and/or part of the visual story every employee tells with their profiles across the web.
What is SEO and how do we optimize our content. Use a keyword in your title and repeat it maybe once or twice on page of 300-700 words. Google understands more than you will ever know BTW.
Stellar Content Has these Hallmarks
A great blog post is between 700-1,500 words, has three images, with a conclusion section, integrates calls to action to drive a desired action leading, uses lots of “white space” and font size is from 10-12 points.
Mobile usage is driving 30-50% of content “consumption” (be mobile savvy) but “brand stories” may drive significantly more engagement: mix and match the size of your content (long or short form).
Content syndication is critical in today’s “technology drenched’ world: use rinse and repeat cycles to reach today’s distracted consumer and professional. (Note: embedded link will take you to a post with a list of the top 25 platforms & more).
Personalty still drives content engagement for both B2B and B2C brands and it’s becoming increasingly more important to use imagery that gets attention in the marketplace.
Content Measurement is Critical: have a finite grasp of these ROI drivers: Unique Visitors, Page Views, Return Visits, Time on Site, Bounce Rate, Engagement, Virality: (ReTweets, Shares, Likes, Comments, Revenue or Lead Generation.
Mix and match “snackable” short form content (images, video, infographics) with “evergreen” high value content to drive brand engagement, incremental traffic and revenue.
Build in cross platform marketing on all top tier platforms: Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook using plugin like Snap to automatically “push” content to other platforms or pure play content syndication cloud based services.
Great content is a mythic beast embedded within your business DNA
It “lives” within each of you and in the DNA of your company. Dig deep and look for it.
Just remember, great content requires creativity and lots of trial and error, coupled with “listening” to your conversion metrics (newsletter sign ups, lead inquiries and/or revenue metrics).
Iterate your way to success: look for patterns of engagement using analytics and social engagement and adjust your content marketing initiatives accordingly.
Be patient, content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
“Why so Many Web Sites are Lipstick on a Pig”
“How to Win Your Darwinian Digital Battles”
“The Ten Second Race to Content Nirvana”
The Best All Frills, No Chills Way to Build Brand Awareness
Ten Ways to be a Mythic Content Whisperer
“Ten Creative Ways to Use Lists for Content Curation”
“How to Redefine Your Marketing Strategy in a Tech Drenched World”
Ten Creative Ways to use Lists to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy
Several states are considering proposals to refer more campus sexual assault cases to local law enforcement, and there’s one constituency in particular that is against it: sexual assault victims.
The proposals vary in their specifics, but bills drafted in New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia all seek to increase the involvement city police have with campus rape reports.
And while lawmakers seem to be siding with student activists who have complained colleges are mishandling sexual assault cases, sexual assault advocates balk at the proposed legislative fixes, which would increase the role of the criminal justice system to get perpetrators off the street, because they say cops are just as bad at handling these cases.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) put forward a legislative proposal last week that, in addition to establishing affirmative consent as a statewide policy, would require that colleges make it clear to sexual assault victims they are able to report their rapes to city and state police in addition to their university. However, it wouldn’t require campus reports to be passed on to local law enforcement.
“All too often, when a woman is victimized on a campus, the recourse is campus police and the tendency is to keep it private because it’s embarrassing for the university and all too often, justice is not done,” Cuomo said in his State of the State address Wednesday.
Alphonso David, who is deputy secretary for civil rights under Cuomo and will become the governor’s chief counsel in April, told The Huffington Post the student victims will control the process and have the “right to determine who they want that information to go to.” Cuomo’s proposal, David said, would also require police to be trained on how to respond to college sexual assault reports.
“Part of this process is ensuring police officers are focusing not only on the law in determining whether or not there’s a criminal act, but also apply appropriate sensitivity concepts when they’re dealing with the victims,” David said.
Other state proposals are more aggressive in their attempts to push more college sexual assault cases off campuses.
Virginia state Del. Robert B. Bell (R) introduced legislation that would require faculty members or administrators of public colleges to report any violent felony allegedly committed by a student to law enforcement. Anyone who does not would be subject to a $500 fine for the first violation and up to $1,000 for each subsequent violation.
“A rape is a rape, even if it happens in college, and no one should believe he can commit this crime and get away with it just because he is a student,” Bell and his co-sponsors, Dels. C. Todd Gilbert (R) and David B. Albo (R), said in a news release last month. Bell couldn’t be reached for comment. The University of Virginia is already asking Congress to clarify what it is allowed to share in regard to sexual assault reports under federal privacy laws.
Legislation in Rhode Island, proposed by state Rep. Mia Ackerman (D), would require any reports of sexual assault to college security or university police be referred to municipal law enforcement.
“I’m convinced [local police] are better equipped overall to handle these types of crime,” Ackerman said. “They deal with it a lot more than the campus police departments.”
Ackerman told HuffPost the reporting requirements in her proposal wouldn’t apply to university deans or counselors — unlike the Virginia proposal — so a student could still seek help to deal with mental health issues associated with rape without having the information passed to law enforcement. Similarly, Cuomo’s proposal doesn’t require deans, counselors or other school administrators to send rape reports to cops.
“We don’t want the victim to be re-victimized by the whole process,” Ackerman added.
Indeed, any proposal that mandates campus rape reports to college administrators be sent to cops meets near-universal opposition from sexual assault survivors and advocacy groups.
The New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault likes proposals such as Cuomo’s that would make sure options are laid out to victims, but is strongly against the bill offered in New Jersey that would require colleges to tell law enforcement of sexual assault reports.
“Why, once someone enrolls in one of our colleges or universities, should they lose their right to make decisions about how to proceed after such a violent crime was committed against them?” asked Patricia Teffenhart, executive director of NJCASA. “Why are the rights of college survivors trumped by our desire to hold institutions and offenders accountable?”
But New Jersey Assemblyman John McKeon (D), one of the sponsors of that bill, noted the victims would still have a say in deciding how far the cases go in the criminal justice system. His office noted that they are open to making amendments to the specifics of the legislation, but they’re convinced these cases are better served by the cops.
“It takes out the thought that campuses, for obvious reasons, would be less than encouraging regarding the criminal prosecution of such matters,” McKeon said.
Survivors such as Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, a Columbia University senior with the sexual assault activist group No Red Tape, are not convinced.
“If a survivor comes forward and says, ‘Hey I need help, I want to get this guy out of my classes,’ that’s very different from saying, ‘I want to involve myself in a lengthy arduous legal process,'” said Ridolfi-Starr, who filed a complaint that prompted a federal investigation into how Columbia handles sexual assault cases.
Ridolfi-Starr pointed to testimony from other women in New York who said the NYPD inappropriately responded when they reported sexual assaults, or prosecutors who declined to take their cases. Aside from those cases, Ridolfi-Starr said she isn’t eager to refer more campus rape victims to the same agency responsible for the death of Eric Garner — an unarmed black man who was choked to death by an NYPD officer.
“Until law enforcement agencies improve their policies,” Ridolfi-Starr said, “it’s absolutely inappropriate to increase their authority or role in campus-based adjudication processes.”
There is something genius about setting a coming-of-age comedy in 2014, but making the main characters obsessed with ’90s hip-hop. You get the best of both worlds: the pop culture references, Bitcoin, iPhones and YouTube — paired with the flyest ’90s wardrobe a teenager could ask for, a soundtrack featuring NWA, Easy E, Snoop Dogg and, most important, the perfect flattop.
“Dope” is hands down one of the freshest films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa and starring soon-to-be huge Shameik Moore as Malcolm, an uber-nerd punk band singer growing up in a neighborhood called “The Bottoms” in Inglewood, California.
Gang violence is rampant, Malcolm gets picked on and his shoes are stolen regularly, but he is the perfect protagonist with his Wikipedia-like knowledge, impeccable sense of style and passion for getting into Harvard University. He’s the cool nerd.
Malcolm’s sidekicks, Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) and Jib (Tony Revolori), are equally dweeby and ’90s obsessed, and none of them fit in where they are. They have a punk band and comb through vinyl at the record store. Their loyalty to Malcolm is essential in a film that becomes a series of unlucky events strung together like shoddy beads on a string — you wait for everything to fall apart as they desperately pedal their bikes through the neighborhood trying to keep it all together.
With comparisons to “Superbad” and “Go,” among other films, “Dope” has become Sundance’s buzziest title, and with good reason: it’s blisteringly funny and expertly made. Famuyiwa playfully twirls clichés, stereotypes and nostalgia around his finger like it’s a game. The tongue-in-cheek tone surely serves to remind audiences not to take any of this too seriously. And yet, there are moments of poignancy where, in between laughs, you will find yourself rooting for this misfit crew like they are your youngest, most favorite siblings.
At the time of publishing, The Weinstein Company and Fox Searchlight are among the studios currently bidding to acquire the film for distribution. Whoever winds up with it, will have a winner on its hands. We can’t wait to see it again.
The Pirate Cinema turns worldwide torrent traffic into art. The results are equally beautiful, chaotic, inspiring, maddening, and there’s a slight chance that I can feel my brain melting.
The 2015 Sundance Film Festival has been taken over by virtual reality, but not every project being showcased here tells a story in a different way. Some filmmakers choose to make experiences based on computer-generated imagery; others prefer a live-…
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