Just Before Dark

Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin are touring around with their latest...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:03:36 -0500

Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin are touring around with their latest documentary “Undefeated”. It just had a run at the DOC NYC festival at the IFC Center where they won a special jury prize. Earlier this year, they debuted at SXSW and picked up distribution through the Weinstein Company. Since then, they’ve been going from festival to festival picking up awards.

The film follows a North Memphis high school football team through a season. The filmmakers follow the students and coaches - each a great character and story in their own right. It may be unfair to describe it this way, but it’s sort of “Friday Night Lights” (the documentary) meets “The Blind Side” in the best possible ways. T.J. and Dan moved down to Memphis for 9 months to make the film and managed to blend in and captured some incredibly candid behavior from the students on film (which would seem to be a fairly impossible feat around high school kids). The film manages to be incredibly emotional without becoming saccharine. Coach Bill Courtney delivers a series of speeches to his team throughout the film that were so good that they could have been scripted, but weren’t.

The wide release of the film nn February 10th is going to start in 15 major markets, which is an incredible release for a documentary, but it is well deserved. Even if you don’t like football, this film is well worth a watch. The filmmakers are now in Denver at the Starz film festival.

I don’t know if Undefeated is eligible for awards season this year, or if it will have to wait until next year, but I can’t imagine that they won’t pick up some nomiations (if not the awards themselves).

In keeping with the “Game of Thrones” theme,...

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:13:49 -0400

In keeping with the “Game of Thrones” theme, here’s the video fx reel from BlueBolt for some of the effects they did for the first season of the HBO show. BlueBolt still a relatively new facililty (even though the founding members have been at this for years now), but they’ve been picking up some big jobs, and you can see why.

I only wish he had been wearing the outfit on the left when we...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:23:00 -0400

I only wish he had been wearing the outfit on the left when we saw him at Momofuku last week.

Kottke posted about the NoteSlate earlier today, and I found...

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:11:33 -0500

Kottke posted about the NoteSlate earlier today, and I found myself getting way more excited about this than I have been about an iPad or Kindle.

The device has a 13” display, and has only 3 physical buttons (Save current screen, Show last screen, Delete current screen). I am always using whiteboards in customer meetings and end up having to take pictures of them with my iPhone to remember what we talked about. Having this device in my bag would save a ton of time and Dry-Erase markers.

They plan to ship a single-color version for only $99 in June, with a possible 4-color version being developed down the road.

The Fab Faux is made up of 5 journeymen musicians who live to...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:12:27 -0400

The Fab Faux is made up of 5 journeymen musicians who live to recreate live the things that the Beatles created in studio with remixing and overdubs. You may recognize some of them from their other gigs (Jimmy Vivino is the Music Director for Conan O’Brien and Will Lee plays bass on The Late Show with David Letterman). This video is of them at the Sirius studios faithfully covering the Side 2 suite of the Abbey Road album. It’s 18 minutes long, but surprisingly mesmerizing, and worthy of that break you know you need from work right about now. The Fab Faux are: Will Lee, Rich Pagano, Frank Agnello, Jimmy Vivino, and Jack Petruzzelli.

lazysundae: Popbar Genius sweet merciful crap. how did i not...

Mon, 24 May 2010 02:31:30 -0400

lazysundae:

Popbar

Genius

sweet merciful crap. how did i not hear about this place sooner? might have to have dinner in the west village tomorrow night just to swing by popbar.

This video is from an exhibition at the Mobile World Congress...

Sat, 22 May 2010 03:07:00 -0400

This video is from an exhibition at the Mobile World Congress by Paris design collective Superbien. It was made by projecting video onto plain white blocks in the room. It starts out very simply, but they do a beautiful job with it.

I defy you to watch this animated video that James Blagden and...

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:18:49 -0500

I defy you to watch this animated video that James Blagden and Chris Isenberg created and not laugh. It’s an animation to go over former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Doc Ellis retelling the story of how he pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD and greenies.

(via boingboing)

innovations in haircuttery

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:16:38 -0400

Me: Gotta get a haircut
A: Just don't get a fauxhawk.
Me: Maybe instead I'll get a fauxmullet
A: Just a tiny mullet atop your head.
Me: Demimullet.
A: Sounds like something you would get at Le Bernardin
Me: Or perhaps I'll get a fauxbald.

Michel Gondry DVD 2

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:40:10 -0400

Michel Gondry has released a follow-up DVD to his Director’s Series with some more classics and work that he has created since the first DVD. Included on this volume are videos he did for bands such as The White Stripes, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones and, of course, Bjork. It also has such internet hits as “Michel Gondry Solves a RUBIK’S CUBE With His Feet” and “Michel Gondry Solves a RUBIK’s CUBE With His Nose”. List price is $19.95, but you can get it for a few bucks cheaper if you buy it directly from the Michel Gondry store. That’s $2 you could put towards a customized toilet paper roll drawn by Michel.

Sadly, it appears I am too late to get the combo deal of the DVD and a personalized portrait of you hand-drawn by Michel, but you can always hope.

lazysundae: bemore: i see myself purchasing this when it comes...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:34:32 -0400

lazysundae:

bemore:

i see myself purchasing this when it comes out next month

Right there with you. Best thing I’ve seen all day - thank you bemore!

sweet. merciful. crap.

i say it was bobblehead dwight in the break room with a sack of beets for the win.

I came across this video of a test shoot that Adam Guzman and...

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:20:27 -0400

I came across this video of a test shoot that Adam Guzman and Julie Tsao did of the visuals for Nosaj Thing’s live performance. Rather than just being a backdrop, the visuals act as the sole stage lighting for the show. The clip shows various samples, all synchronized to the music. Guzman says of the pieces:

As the set progresses, the imagery becomes less abstract and focused less on light. Patterns begin to form and space begins to open as if the two dimensions exploded into a third. The relationship the graphics create with the performer is interesting. As the graphics become more spatial, the performer flattens, becoming a 2-D cutout version of himself.

Nosaj isn’t playing any East Coast gigs until November, but he’s in the midst of a swing through California right now if you’re out there. You can get tour dates on his site.

(via Kitsune Noir)

Forget about those YouTube videos of people doing 3,000...

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:49:00 -0400

Forget about those YouTube videos of people doing 3,000 celebrity impersonations in 30 seconds - Rory and Craig have gotten it down to one word. Here’s their one-word impression of Woody Allen.

(via Peter Vidani)

i would like to cancel my subscription

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:08:19 -0400

me: Not sure i should ride my bike to dumbo today, Weather.com says it's going to rain.
nick: That's ridiculous, they're never right. You should ride.
me: Fine.

(Fast forward an hour and a lot of rain later)

me: Thanks for the great weather advice.
nick: AccuNick weather is 98% accurate. It'll stop any minute now.
me: I'd like to cancel my subscription.

I’ll be having nightmares about this for weeks.

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:33:44 -0400

I’ll be having nightmares about this for weeks.

"Where the Wild Things Are" Soundtrack Coming Soon

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:46:47 -0400

From the moment I saw the trailer for Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” movie with music by the Arcade Fire, I was excited to hear details about the soundtrack. Well, Pitchfork has now posted details on the upcoming release. The album is credited to Karen O and the Kids (the kids being noted Composer Carter Burwell, Bradford Cox from Deerhunter, and Imaad Wasif). The first single, All Is Love (cover shown above) is out August 25th, and the full album is due out September 29th on Interscope Records.

(via Pitchfork)

Arrested Development will never get old

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:09:01 -0400

Buster: Let me go with you. I was trained by Army. I speak the language.
Michael: You speak Arabic?
Buster: La-ach-ha-tem.
Michael: What’s that mean?
Buster: No, I was just clearing my throat... but I think it actually does mean "laundry," but like a child’s laundry. We don’t really have a word for it.

Like A Local is a travel service that helps tourists avoid the...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:31:27 -0400

Like A Local is a travel service that helps tourists avoid the traps and see cities from the prospective of a resident. Current TV posted this video following one of their tour offerings in Barcelona. I’m contemplating some overseas trips for later this year, and went to check the site to see what kind of offerings they had currently, but sadly found that the site is under construction. I hope they’re back up soon, this seems like a great way to see a city (sorry Lonely Planet guides, I think I might be done with you).

Filmmaker Murray Siple spent years making documentaries about...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:24:40 -0400

Filmmaker Murray Siple spent years making documentaries about extreme sports until a car accident left him a quadriplegic. After taking ten years off, he got back behind the camera to capture a story of a group of homeless men who spend their mornings collecting bottles and cans and their afternoons racing shopping carts down the steep hills of Northern Vancouver. It aired on the Sundance Channel, which doesn’t show any more upcoming screenings currently, but the National Film Board of Canada has posted the entire film online for free.

I’m going to be spending a little over a month in Vancouver for the Olympics this Winter. I just wish this was a year-round sport. I would have loved to see these guys in action in person.

Dan Barber, Executive Chef and Co-Owner of the Blue Hill...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:08:31 -0400

Dan Barber, Executive Chef and Co-Owner of the Blue Hill restaurants in New York and Westchester, gave this talk at the TED 2008 Taste3 Conference in Napa, California about a small farm in Spain making waves with a humane way of producing Foie Gras. The product they sell is so good that they have won major awards despite some protest that they aren’t true Foie Gras since they don’t force-feed the geese).

During the talk, he pledges to not serve Foie Gras at his restaurants anymore after having this stuff. A group of friends and I are heading out to Blue Hill at Stone Barns for my birthday next month. I certainly hope he’s changed his mind by then.

(thanks Ian)