The psychology behind recognition, that feeling of familiarity upon seeing the face of a loved one, is stretched and manipulated in the modern era. We see the faces, hear the voices and experience the mannerisms of celebrities all the time through television, radio and social media imagery as our world is increasingly populated by screens and viewing devices. But as many of us have experienced before, the feeling of familiarity is exposed as a somewhat of a lie the minute you meet a celebrity you think you know in person, and realize there is only the perception of a relationship. For one thing, this person doesn’t know you at all, and for another, you have only been experiencing their public persona. Behind the façade, there are deep waters that make up the essence of this person, and their true selves remain a mystery.   This is perhaps no more evident than in the case of Robin Williams, a true comic genius, one of a kind in his generation, successfully and brilliantly making the jump to heartfelt dramatic work, brining joy and compassionate emotion to millions, yet ultimately ending his life in tragedy.   Marina Zenovich, director of the new HBO […]

Skateboarding can be a punishing sport. It’s conducted on surfaces that are unforgiving when you make mistakes, like concrete sidewalks and steps, metal handrails and wooden ramps. It’s not a question of if your body is going to slam into something hard, pointed or jagged, but when. But at the same time, the reward for mastering the skill can be transcendent, a small board with wheels making it possible to hover above the urban jungle that is America these days, to fly or glide through the environment with a simple elegance or to create ballet−like beauty surrounding mundane and ordinary spaces. It can be so much more than a way for adolescents to kill time after school; it can be a metaphor for life, with built in lessons about character and the limits of the possible. It often provides a medium through which a community can form. There are skateboard shops, skateboard art, skateboard parks, skateboard talk and of course, skateboard videos.   Just as skateboarding seems to transcend the sum of it’s parts, Filmmaker Bing Liu has crafted a work of transcendent film out of the trappings of what might seem at first like a skate video. Minding the […]

Marfa Texas is a quirky place. It’s somewhere in the middle of Texas, kind of between El Paso and Austin, with absolutely nothing by way of cities or towns near it. But it’s a town filled with artists. In many ways, it is a kind of social experiment. What if the entire population of a given place was made up of artists? Here is a place where you can find out. Marfa is famous for its airstream trailer, its lack of any fast−food, and its large−scale conceptual art pieces like the Prada Store (look it up if you haven’t heard of it), and the strange “marfa ghost lights” seen in the sky at night.   The short animation playing at Sundance entitled simply, Marfa, by the animation team known as The Brothers McLeod, is a tapestry−like glimpse of some of the things that make Marfa, Texas quintessentially Marfa. The project is the result of some time that brothers Greg and Myles spent in the town, talking to people and making audio recordings, and accompanying the sounds of the environment and interviews of residents with hand−drawn−like representations of the various points of interest around town.   The film is a reminder […]

A Documentary can be so many things. It can be a tool for advocacy, an expression of personality, a means for inspiration by way of showcasing story, or in the case of The Last Race, showing at the Sundance film festival in the U.S. Documentary competition, a simultaneous memorial and celebration. The memorial is for the disappearing land and culture surrounding American stock car racing, the celebration is for the incredible community and tradition that has formed around the races. Riverhead Raceway, the last stock car racing track of its kind left on Long Island, threatened by the fact that the land on which it sits is worth millions of dollars for hungry developers, still has a thriving neighborhood−like group of enthusiasts that flock to the track weekly. The draw for these aficionados is not just the eleven−minute races, but the family bond as seen through fathers teaching sons how to build these cars, the food and beer before and after the events, the insider competitions and rivalries among drivers, and the sense of accomplishment for races won.   For Barbara and Jim Cromarty, the longtime owners of the speedway, the question becomes just what it is that they ultimately […]

Normally, when it comes to reviewing a film, there is an underlying assumption: the reader should be able to tell whether or not the experience of watching said film is worth it, whether or not they want go and replicate that experience. Of course we all know that each viewing will be different: I may watch a movie on the plane, and have a very different experience than someone watching the same movie at home, which will differ from someone watching it in a theater in Los Angeles, which will differ from someone watching it in New York. There will be different surroundings, different environmental influences that may enhance or detract from one’s concentration on the screen. Normally this difference is downplayed. I might, for example, don a pair of noise−cancelling headphones on the airplane so as to minimize these outside influences.  But these environmental influences are undeniably part of the experience of watching a movie. In A Thousand Thoughts, a contribution to the New Frontier category of mixed media film and performance art at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the exploration of these seemingly tangential experiences are highlighted, rather than seen as a contamination of the experience.   A […]