The Furnace

New Years Eve in Times Square

2009-01-03T13:39:00.002-05:00

Another year and I've now twice had the pleasure of being able to spend new years in the Vivi-office overlooking Times Square. This years celebration was a little quieter than last year's ball dropping and the temperatures outside were undoubtedly a bit more freezing. Still, when the ball did finally drop and the confetti got dumped from the rooftops above the street, there's no denying the excitement was palpable. I ran another camera to capture some time lapse footage as I did last year, so I will be posting that video once I've had a chance to put something together with it.

2008, my year in pictures

2008-12-31T17:01:00.003-05:00

This is a selection of pictures that I've uploaded to Flickr this last year that represent some of my experiences and observations through the lens of my photography. They are a mix of personal favorites and significant milestones in my life's experience. I would provide a running commentary but time is short and I think it's best just to let the images speak for themselves. It's only about 30 pictures altogether... some you may have seen before and others maybe not. To watch the slideshow, I believe you need to click on the image to move to the next in the series. Enjoy!

My Best and Worst of 2008

2008-12-31T15:42:00.002-05:00

This is a submission to an online contest "Best and Worst Photo of 2008" on Flickr. The idea is to take your best picture of the year and juxtapose it with your worst. Picking a "best" image can be tricky when you are doing the judging. I had a lot of favorites and off-the-cuff portraits that mean something to me, but do they translate to other people as well? I love my cats dearly and felt like I had some breakthrough photography with them as subjects, but does anyone really care about tabby cat photography? Ultimately, I went with my gut instincts in picking something simple but effective.

Defining "worst" is much harder than establishing some basic criteria for "best." This got me to thinking about what my "worst" photo is... Worst technically? Worst composition? Least flattering portrait? Most of what I would consider really short on technical or other contributing factors get deleted right away. Nevertheless, this was the year that I went DSLR and, as a result, took on a volume of shooting that was unprecedented heretofore. Part of this was the learning process of getting to know my camera and firming up my own aesthetic as a photographer. Another part was just embracing the ease and joy of snapping off picts at a rate that was never available to me before. As a result, there were a LOT of unnecessary, uninteresting or "ugly" images in my catalog.

Going off of both criteria, I selected the "Red, White & Bug" picture on the right, taken at our campsite in Iowa during a camping excursion in late August. I think it is a simple and uncomplicated image, but the silhouettes of the two insects bring a deeper context which is entirely subjective to the viewer. In other words, I wasn't trying to "say" anything with it as it just happened, but someone looking at it might see some deeper meaning in it.

The picture on the right was one of those moments that, in retrospect, did not call out for photographic documentation for any future or current generation's betterment but merely happened as a result of me being a bit trigger-happy and lazy with my camera. It was taken on the same camping trip when Jody playfully tried to bite her husband's butt while in the river. I can't exactly say it makes me proud as a photographer and I found myself wondering why I hadn't deleted it earlier, but then I wouldn't have a "worst" picture as good as this one.

Photo restoration

2008-12-19T13:47:00.003-05:00

Here was a fix-up I did for my ex, Samone, as part of a Christmas gift she's sending out to her family. It's a picture of her mom and sister from 1951 and was clearly showing signs of its age and was even torn in half and taped together. I was happy with the end result... click on the image for a larger version.

Camping in Iowa 2008 Edition

2008-12-14T23:09:00.002-05:00

So another year has passed and another trip has been made to the secret camping spot along the Maquoketa River in Iowa. I took pictures last year as well, but this year I had my new Canon 40D SLR camera and the assortment of lenses to accompany me. Needless to say, I went a little overboard in documenting the proceedings, but I think some good pictures came out of it. I shot nearly 400 pictures camping and another 100 or so on the road which have yet to be posted. It was an extremely difficult task weeding out the pictures that weren't worth posting, but I think this better gives a sense of the overall trip through the highlights. There are stories attached to the images of course, and I did my best to include some anecdotes on the website.

The Dark Knight's kind of town

2008-12-13T10:56:00.002-05:00

My friend and co-collaborator Scott Greene has recently purchased a Flip camera so he could start making and posting short videos to YouTube. Above is one of his first videos: a short tour of the Chicago locations used in the latest Batman film The Dark Knight. If you've seen the film (and let's face it, who hasn't?), then you might enjoy getting the inside scoop from a real Chicagoan. The Dark Knight is more Chicago than Gotham City and Scott Greene is here to present the proof. Nice one, Scott!

urban arrogance in motion: a day in the life of the EDGE

2008-12-07T18:02:00.005-05:00

HD Version

NOTE: You may want to playback and then allow the film to buffer (load) before playing through so it doesn't stutter during playback.

High Quality YouTube version

Flickr Version

Here are the results from my first time-lapse experiment with my Canon 40D Digital SLR camera. I pointed the camera out of my living room window towards the large and unwieldy EDGE building in Williamsburg. It has been topped off, but there's still a lot of construction of the building underway. Using the software that came with the camera, I ran a USB cable from the camera into my Macbook and set the camera to shoot one full resolution JPEG every 30 seconds. My tripod is cheap and shoddy and it took a few bumps during the day, mostly I'm sure from the cats playing around it and batting at imaginary insects. I then exported these JPEG's into a new project in Aperture, applied a basic contrast and color enhancement, cropped to a satisfying 1920x1080 size frame (it was definitely more than I would have liked), and uniformly applied these adjustments to the whole album. This was then exported as an image sequence of JPEG files, imported into Final Cut Pro and dropped into a time-line so each image was set to a value of 1/30 of a second. I added a soundtrack using different sound bank elements, trying to find a dark counterbalance to the daytime cityscape.

But most excitedly, this was my first foray into the world of HD video; it's a real treat to see all the detail that the camera picks up at full resolution. Of the three embedded versions I've posted, I like Flickr's the best at full-screen as the compression artifacts are a lot less noticeable. As I have a bit more time on my hands these days, hopefully I can make some more of these in the days to come...

The Violent Death of Joe the Plumber

2008-10-16T23:19:00.003-04:00

Due to the sudden popularity of "Joe the Plumber" and his political "relevance" after this week's presidential debate between Obama and McCain, I thought I'd share a movie clip which tells the story of the "real" Joe the Plumber from the 1981 horror film "The Beyond" by Lucio Fulci....

Keep in mind that with McCain's tax cuts, this type of situation with the real Joe The Plumber would be entirely plausible. Vote Obama '08!

TOXIC

2008-10-11T19:46:00.000-04:00

for jen

What a shitty week... let's watch some movies!

2008-09-26T09:42:00.009-04:00

Ugh. That's the operative word (or is it a sound?) for my existence this week. It's been a rough and difficult emotional roller coaster and I've been ornery and temperamental as my poor Sherry can attest. Not that I've taken anything out on her directly, but I've not exactly been a box of sunshine to be around. How does this differ from normal Muggy behavior you ask? Well, let's just say I destroyed a piece of furniture by kicking it to death in the living room. It was an ottoman. The cats were not pleased.

But all this leads me to one conclusion: please let's escape these depressing doldrums by watching some movies! I have several, nay, dozens to watch at home both in standard def and that superior bluray format. But as I was lying in bed this morning looking out at the grey and ashen sky pouring out its sad, cold rain, I remembered a movie from the early '80s that I never got around to seeing called Parasite (which was originally released in 3-D). It stars a very young and hot Demi Moore but honestly I was more interested in it for the creepy creature effects. Anyway, it seems like a good day for some hot Parasite action, but it's an even better day for me to crank out some capsule reviews. So get out your pen and paper and get ready for some quality suggestions for you all to add (or delete) in your Netflix queue (or hell, maybe visit that mom & pop rental store down the street - they could use the business).

Having lived in New York on 9/11, I was curious to see how Oliver Stone was going to treat the subject in his film World Trade Center. And while there were some powerful scenes and painful moments of watching the two characters suffer as they try to survive being pinned beneath the rubble of the towers, the end result of the film was surprisingly maudlin and sentimental. I suppose it's hard not to be sentimental given the miraculous story of the two characters, but even so it felt a little overbaked. But on the subject of mass destruction of NYC, the JJ Abrahms Godzilla re-hash Cloverfield was a nice try at re-inventing the large-scale monster movie, but it ultimately fell short in its "Blair Witch" cinema-verite technique and the thinly conceived characters. It's possible the actors are to blame as well as they couldn't really inhabit the roles and pull them off convincingly. Some critics seemed to think there was some clever social satire buried in there but ultimately it was just more young, hot actors getting picked off in a genre film. I will give it points however for having some intense action scenes and a nice dark ending.

Speaking of darker material, I just re-watched Pennies From Heaven with Steve Martin from 1981. I've seen this movie several times over the years and know it inside and out, and there's a reason for that - it remains one of the most criminally neglected masterpieces of modern times. The manner in which the director Herbert Ross and writer Dennis Potter weave in these musical numbers (all of which are lip-synched to tunes from the thirties) to underscore the character's psychology was a brilliant and daring ploy that was ahead of its time (Chicago, eat your heart out). And the tap-dancing by Steve Martin is sublime, awesome stuff. Can you name another film that features Christopher Walken as a pimp tap-dancing on a pool table? What a unique and unusual film in the pantheon of Hollywood's history. If you haven't seen it yet, there is a gap in your life that needs filling. Fill it. Now.

We know that Joseph Gordon Leavitt is a good actor as evidenced by his work in the teen noir flick Brick, and he continues this trend of solid performances in the smartly written film The Lookout, where he plays a young man who is mentally handicapped after he gets into a fatal car accident and finds himself a pawn in a bank heist. Good performances all around and a well constructed story make this a highly recommended taut thriller. With similar praise I recommend last year's Foreign Language Best Picture The Lives Of Others though tonally, it's very different from The Lookout. The heart of the film is in the work of lead actor Ulrich Mühe, who becomes obsessed with the writer and his lover whom he is spying on. Some of the film felt just a little contrived to me, but Mühe's performance is heartbreaking and it really stuck with me in the weeks after watching the movie. It's a shame it turned out to be his final curtain call, as he was an incredibly gifted actor.

Some other great acting nods were well-deserved by Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt in The Assination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford. I was familiar with the Jesse James story from the Walter Hill's The Long Riders and the lesser-seen made-for-TV film The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James starring Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash as the elder James' brother (some inspired casting if there ever was). But this film takes the Jesse James myth and really turns it on its ear. I love me a good western, but what I really love now is a good revisionist western wherein the myths and legends of the west are given a more realistic and ambiguous treatment. I've always subscribed to that famous lyric in that song about "that dirty little coward who shot down Mr. Howard" but imagine my shock and surprise when I began to sob uncontrollably at the end of the film out of sympathy for the Bob Ford character. It's nothing shy of great Shakespearean drama. Highly fucking recommended.

The western do-over 3:10 to Yuma was pretty good, too, though I wouldn't call it "revisionist." It is well acted and smartly directed by James Mangold and is a good action movie, but it's fairly faithful to the genre from which it descends. At its core, it is a very good and fairly simple story. The Proposition, on the other hand, is what I'd call "revisionist western" written by Nick Cave (yes, the one with the bad seeds) and starring Guy Pearce (Memento), Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) and Danny Huston (son of John), it's a story that really dives into the murky territory of not-so-good guys vs. not-such-bad guys, twists your emotions and doesn't give you a clear-cut hero in the traditional sense of the word. My type of movie! Life is never so simple so why should our fables be any different? Similar to "Assassination" I finished the movie and then cried like a baby. I love it when a movie can be cooly understated and subtle and then hit you over the head when you least expect it. Danny Huston is also one of my favorite character actors out there now, so keep an eye out for anything he's in - that's a good sign the movie isn't going to be bad.

One not so great (but not terrible) movie with Danny Huston is 30 Days of Night - that vampire movie where a cult of vampires takes over a small Alaskan town during the dead of winter and feast on the inhabitants. One thing to note is that this all happens on Sarah Palin's watch... and people want her to be our next VP? The movie has some disappointing horror movie conventions, some forced character development and drama, but it's a somewhat watchable slice of horror, buouyed no doubt by my man Danny Huston's diabolical vampire leader.

I'm a very big fan of Darren Aronofsky and am excited to see his new film The Wrestler which was all the buzz at this year's Toronto Film Festival, but I have to say that his third film, the epic The Fountain was quite a letdown on the second viewing. I saw it in the theaters when it came out and found its structure and visual style very compelling. I contemplated the film for days afterwards, piecing the fractured narrative together in my mind. It was one of those films that I told myself would be much better the second time around, but it turned out to be the opposite. The structure felt forced, the pace slow and the romance flat. Oh, and Hugh Jackman's protagonist was a jerk so it was hard to really care about his obsession to cure his wife's cancer. Really, the thrust of the film seemed to be much more about Darren Aronofsky's obsession with making this film in the first place, so it ultimately feels more about healing the director's ego.

On the topic of filmmaker pretension and hubris, M. Night Shyamalan's Lady In The Water was something I checked out purely out of curiosity to see "just how bad it is." And while I'd love to give the film an visceral shredding, not everything in the film is horrible - he's a filmmaker with undeniably sharp chops. That is not to say the film is good - it's plenty bad, but there were some well staged scenes and nice camerawork. Obviously this does not a good film make, but as people are quick to jump on the bandwagon of how horrible a film it is, I did want to point out that there's some redemption in the film, albeit through technical mastery (and I'm not talking about the fake looking CGI grass dogs). But really the most ludicrous and laughable aspect to the film has to be M. Night's casting of himself as a writer who will, according to the title character, "write a story that a boy will read who will grow up to change the world." It's just painful to watch, especially with all the talented actors signed on doing their best to inhabit these roles seriously. Clearly, the director's ego needs to be put in check here. I mean, I never thought I'd be one to side with Disney, but I think they were spot on when they turned his script down and complained "too much M. Night" in this one. No shit.

But sometimes director (or in this case director/actor) hubris is not such a bad thing. Who knew that RAMBO, Sly Stallone's fourth outing with the John Rambo character was going to be such a romp? Who knew!? I mean, this movie pulls no punches in the graphic violence department, easily outdoing any of the films preceding it in the series. I hate to sound like a teen boy with a love for giant machine guns and exploding body parts, but this movie tapped right into that vein and kept the juices pumping. You have a great formula for a good action movie here: a) sexist, misogynistic, brutal villains b) lots of big guns and explosions and c) a very pissed off, stoic Rambo. It's a bit campy for sure but I can't deny I had a great time watching the body parts fly when Sly mans that humongous Gatling gun towards the end of the film. Even Sherry, who was opposed to watching Rambo from the get-go, seemed to enjoy the visceral thrills that come with watching despicable characters get their bodies torn apart by machine gun fire. Hilarious, blood-pumping, testosterone-soaked fun. Definitely the best sequel of the bunch!

Oh, how could I write a lengthy entry doing capsule reviews of recent movies without mentioning the way overhyped Dark Knight? I was underwhelmed and a bit disappointed. To be fair, Heath Ledger gives a very good (tho shy of great) performance as The Joker. But this movie suffers from a very common issue in these comic-book movie adaptations: too-much-itis. The third act really falls apart with the unlikely development of (SPOILER ALERT) Harvey Dent's villainous turn. Really, I just got anxious for the whole thing to end and stop making all that noise. Now that summer's over it seems like it finally has.

Couple other quickies to wrap this up: The Bank Job with Jason Statham far exceeded my expectations and was a fun, dark thriller. David Mamet's Redbelt was exactly the kind of boring, talky action film that I would have mistakenly seen as a kid thinking it was going to be a cool martial arts fight film. Well, as an adult viewer, it was still really boring. I finally got around to seeing Donnie Brasco after all these years - mainly because I wanted to see some of my neighborhood, Greenpoint, featured in a mobster film. The movie's not too bad in the end, though some scenes reeked of Hollywoodism. Persepolis was beautifully animated and drawn (by hand! old school!) and was a great story to boot - that is a must-see for sure and it's a shame that it's a footnote in my entry here but I think I've done enough writing for today.

Stay tuned for the next installment in which I'll review that 1980's gem Parasite at long last. Until then, happy viewing...

I'm Different

2008-09-14T20:45:00.004-04:00

This was a re-edit of Ben's first video in his series of "One week/one song/one video" in which he takes on the touchy topic of public masturbation (this was "sex" week). Originally, the video was a re-hash of outtakes from the Broken Girl video, but as this was Ben's baby I helped him out when I could and let him do as he wished. I wasn't thrilled with the original result but, having liked the song and some of the moments from the original video, I told him I'd have a go at re-editing the piece, excising the "broken girl" outtakes and integrating more of the PSA film "The Child Molester." The result is dark, as is our wont, and somewhat jumbled and intentionally sloppy. I'm happy with it, even tho it is somewhat unsettling to watch. It definitely preys on the notion that what you don't see is more terrifying than what is actually revealed.

RNC Protest Teargassing footage

2008-09-06T09:58:00.004-04:00

Don't know the circumstances leading up to the police's decision to teargas the protesters, but it seems excessive from this clip. There was a lot of RNC protest arrests going on that the media paid no attention to whatsoever (surprise surprise), so here's the real deal. Incidentally, this was forwarded to me by Scott Greene, so thanks for keeping an eye out, buddy.

image overload

2008-08-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

There's lots been going on of late in a myriad of areas of my life. But rather than try to encompass lots into little space, I'll focus on one of my most recent investments - a digital SLR camera. The Canon EOS 40D is just about everything I could want in an upgrade into the DSLR market: it's fast, versatile and effective machine. And it's a beauty...

The Canon EOS 40D with Sigma 17-70mm lens

For those that think, "why do you need that? you already have a good camera and take good pictures." I say thank you, but what the reason for the upgrade is that I want more out of the pictures I take - more detail, more tonal range, more resolution - basically pictures that could exist on "the next level" Ultimately, a camera is only as good as the person behind it, but I wanted more range in my voice as a photographer, and the Canon 40D fulfilled that call (though, truth be told, were money not as much of an issue I would have rather gone the extra mile and picked up the Nikon D300, but that was substantially more expensive).

Anyway, here are some links to new sets I've set up to catalog some of these new shots I've been getting with my new camera. The entire workflow has had to change from my basic P&S/iphoto ways into a RAW/Aperture workflow that will take some getting used to. And as I am probably an hour away from leaving to go on my camping trip in Iowa where I'll be taking even more pictures, I figured I should get the jump on distributing some of these picts forthwith...

Note these picts lead to my general Flickr library, which has many other shots from these photo sessions for you to browse...

Clouds Over Brooklyn

Sherry's birthday shenanigans

The Amazing and Talented Buñ

Another trip to Coney Island

BBQ Funs

Co-workers (and former co-workers) from Vividas

Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg... keep coming back for my latest pictoral observations. In the meanwhile I gotta get outta here - there's some pictures waiting to be taken...

i piss in your mccarren pool

2008-08-17T20:14:00.002-04:00

Today, i piss in mccarren pool.

McCarren Pool - "The Good Old Days"

It was bad enough to deal with the influx of foot traffic, loud drunk asses and general noise pollution, but tonight my tolerance for the hip and happening McCarren Pool sunday parties reached a new low (or is it high?). Armed with my new Canon 40D DSLR, I headed over to the free Sunday show to snap off some "fancy schmancy" picts of the hipsters and squares with my new toy. After waiting in line 10 minutes, I was told at the gate to "talk to that woman over there" who then told me "you have to walk around to the back of the pool and talk to security." She was unable or unwilling to explain exactly why I needed to see security other than "that's how they're doing this now." After a long trek around to the other side of the pool, I found the VIP guest entrance and had to wait in the disorganized line to see the disorganized girl with the VIP guest list. "I was told to come back here from the front gate." "Oh he'll need to tag your camera." she directed me to the security guard next to the table, who then finally explained "We need to hold your camera for you, if you go in there they will confiscate your camera. You need to be on the Fuller list." Flummoxed and beset, I tore the green tag off my camera. Agitated: "Sir I just TOLD you you need to turn this in before you can go into the pool." "I'm not going in." I snapped back, and walked out of the entrance, throwing the bright green tag into the trash as I passed it.

Fuck you, McCarren Pool, I said, flipping the bird to the back of the mainstage as some bad sampled hip hop beat pounded the air.

I piss in your pool.

The Rubber Room

2008-08-04T00:49:00.003-04:00

This was the last of Ben's "song/video of the week" experiment focusing on the theme of rage. We shot Ben against a green screen in my living room using an old VHS camcorder with a manual zoom lens and plugged it to record directly into the mac mini in my entertainment center. The footage is public domain movies that Ben pulled down from archive.org. The four films used include a PSA type short about dealing with troubled children and other examinations of mentally disturbed people. The video closes with a film which was essentially an extended "relaxation" drug commercial for the day. The song, written and recorded in under a week by Ben Warren, is entitled "Rubber Room." The video represents about 5-6 hours of work and is mostly effected through analog methods (i.e., physical materials and not digital enhancements).

PS - This edit is slightly different from the original one that Ben posted within the "one week parameter." I cut down the mosquito bit from the ending and tweaked some of the background edits during the song itself. I'll be reposting the other videos that we worked on together after I've done some other minor fixes in the days to come...

Ben's Alcohol music video

2008-07-21T19:43:00.004-04:00

As part of Ben's Sex, Drugs, Alcohol and RAGE experiment, he's been doing a fresh song each week accompanied by a new music video. Without any prodding, I volunteered to help out however I could, mainly in post-production, to facilitate his ambitious goal of a song/video each week, but this last week's entry had me a little more hands-on as I agreed to take on the task of shooting and editing the video this last weekend. I heard the song for the first time Friday night and said to him, "I see you on a roof - MY ROOF - performing the song in a single static shot that would feature you acting out the song in different capacities." What I meant by that is that we'd set the camera in a single fixed position and then let Ben act out the song say dramatically with a girl, alone with guitar, with bottle, etc..

What ultimately happened is the result above - I quickly realized that the lighting on my roof (in 100 degree heat much less) wasn't going to suffice for a fixed camera approach, and so the handheld multi-pass jumble was the logical compromise. Ultimately, it gave us both more freedom to do what we needed to get the job done. Sherry got lassoed in at the last minute to hold a flexi-disc to bounce some light onto the subject while I captured him with my mini-DV camera sporting a cheap fish-eyed lens. I did the edit as a multi-clip pass in FCP, then had to spend some time re-syncing the individual clips because his performance was slipping out with the mixed track once I got down to editing it. All in all, probably four hours spent making it...

decisions, decisions

2008-07-10T23:49:00.003-04:00

Things owed myself (if not this blog)...

2008-07-08T23:36:00.001-04:00

- an explanation of the events of July 4th
- a general life summary/assessment
- a clear articulation of my future goals
- a rejection of misguided politics and public interpretation of world events
- a recipe for a tasty and spicy vodka infusion
- a formal review of my pioneer plasma display
- a love letter to my cats
- a clearcut examination and explanation of my choice in the digital SLR camera market (once I have made one)
- a story regarding the short-term effects of conquering my skin disease tineas versicolor
- a collection of capsule reviews related to my favorite action movies of the '80s
- something unrelated to this list

Matt & Ben have coffee part 1

2008-05-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

Ben & I recently sat down for coffee to discuss the recent NEW YORK STALKER project and our future plans. It was sort of a way for us to make an assessment of the experience and hopefully shed some light on what inspired the whole thing and where we want to go next...

M: Let's start with the songs themselves... can you tell me about writing the song "Broken Girl"

B: Sure, "Broken Girl" was written about my ex, Christina. We had a long and very dysfunctional relationship which was fertile soil for songwriting. She wanted marriage and kids and I wanted to be a rockstar...it became living hell from which we barely recovered. Actually, she recovered well enough to get married and have kids with another man.

M: So you wrote this while you were still in the relationship with her?

B: Yes, she actually liked the song. When I showed her the video, she loved it; she said she knew it would take three girls to accurately portray her. She always hated you...

M: Yeah I think she suspected I was after you from the start. Maybe it was the skirt I was wearing when we first met.

B: Yes she knew something was up even then...she was like, "which skirt is it going to be - him or me?"

M: Well, I'd say you chose the right skirt.

B: My question to you is what made you think that song was ripe for video?

M: It immediately struck me as a very dramatic and intense song. There was a lot of self-loathing to the lyrics and the music itself was very dark - I liked how the song feels like it's building towards a certain doom, an inevitable bad ending of sorts. At least that’s the feeling the music and words kind of gave me. I liked it.

B: Well, yeah - the song becomes a self attack, I didn't want it to be a finger pointing song, so the chorus becomes more of a "you thought I'd save you from the wreckage of your life but guess again , I'm just as fucked up as you."

M: When I first described the plot of the video to you - that you would be walking around as a serial killer as we witness your prior victims being discovered - did you think "of course - that's perfect" or did it take some getting used to?

B: I thought, "Of course, that's perfect MATT," and I'm sure Christina thought the same thing... "that fucking pervert!"

M: There is an odd use of our girlfriends and ex-girlfriends with this song and the video project. You wrote the song about your ex Christina, then in the video you employed your current girlfriend Gina to play a corpse that gets dumped in a garbage heap. My ex Jen Rock played the first victim and I have to give her credit and say Jen was totally essential to us doing that video since she really liked the idea for it and agreed to take on the task of handling the make-up.

B: Oh sure Gina and Jen were huge. And Jen really rocked the makeup. When you first hit me with the idea, I remember her saying, "I want to be a dead girl!"

M: Well, she got her wish. Of the three videos we did - "Broken Girl" is the most pure horror. Were you concerned about being involved with something that could be viewed as misogynistic or hateful towards women?

B: Not at all, if you follow my career, through the What's Up Show and so on, you can see a pattern emerging: a distaste for all that is feminine and an interest revolving around seeing them made to suffer. Mom, goddamn you! Goddamn you! No, in all honesty, I think creation is creation. It has nothing to do with all that PC shit....Were you afraid that you would be considered anti woman?

M: I knew people could misconstrue my intent or otherwise think me a creep for making such a video, but what do I have to lose? People see what the want to see. I have my own values and beliefs and they're not always going to necessarily be reflected by what I create. It really helped to have the support of our girlfriends with the project in that regard - their "being OK" with the material was definitely a vote of confidence to me in moving forward. But really, at the end of the day, I don't think when you watch "Broken Girl" you get a feeling of "yeah, man, strangle that bitch!" The video's not an experience for the viewer to vicariously experience the thrill of stalking and/or killing. But this raises an interesting question in terms of the material, do you have any stalker in you when you walk the streets of NYC? Like have you ever found yourself following a woman that you're attracted to?

B: YES. I can literally walk the streets for hours behind a woman who looks particularly good from the back. I just watch though - I don't touch! It is the best free entertainment in the world - just follow a beautiful girl... WAIT that rhymes -

M: Well this segues nicely into the second song of the trilogy - "Seen a Girl." How long have you had that song kicking around your catalog of tunes?

B: Since you rejected it from God The Band!

M: Oh, is that true?

B: Don't you remember I was playing it to you and Danny Rockett in the kitchen of our house in Hatfield, PA. Everyone liked it but some were afraid it didn't "fit."

M: Hm... I don't remember that, but even so, I don't think the song would have fit with the GTB mold, if there was one. But Danny did write some similarly themed love-song tripe that managed to make the grade. I'd say it probably didn’t get picked because we didn’t want you taking over the band, Ben. We were God The Band - not Flies of the Marketplace.

B: Ouch. Well, regardless I always liked that song and was thrilled when you expressed interest in making a video for it.

M: Well, I liked the song, too, though it's not the kind of thing I would normally gravitate towards in adapting it for music video.

B: Right, it's a Beatlesy, happy thing...

M: Exactly - and it could make for a Beatlesy, cutesy sort of video if you wanted to play it safe. It’s obvious when you hear the song that you’re being sincere – it's a sweet and heartfelt little ditty. There isn’t that level of menace or twisted irony that comes off in the video.

B: Did you find some parallels between that song and "Broken Girl"?

M: No, not really. I wasn’t really seeking to make those types of connections at any point. I mean, there was a thematic connection between the ideas, but it wasn't originally worked up as a trilogy of stalker incidents. It wasn’t like “ok, we have Ben as a serial killer, now let’s see what he’s like with his mother and so on.” I think as it happened I had volunteered to work up some music video ideas for some of the songs off some of your albums and “Seen a Girl” one came out of one of those brainstorming sessions. I still have the little piece of paper where i wrote out the idea for it. Originally you were supposed to be accompanied by a trio of black female back-up singers as you were stalking your mom. Kind of a “Little Shop of Horrors” touch.

B: Damn! I miss that idea...oh is that mysogonistic?

M: No, actuallly, it was out of budget. But that’s fine - if we did have the resources to shoot the back-up singers for the video, it would have taken on a higher level of camp which would probably have been too cutesy for my taste. The way it ended up, it’s a somewhat unsettling video – especially with the revelation that this poor old woman you’re following around is your mother.

B: Who do you like in terms of horror directors?

M: Well, i think what Polanski did with the genre is somehwat unparalleled - he's easily one of my film gods, both in terms of horror and otherwise. I do like some of the Italian directors like Fulci and Argento, but they run the gamut from brilliant to just bad. You kind of need to check your brain at the door when watching that kind of stuff. It's funny - we acknowledged all these horror films that the trilogy was "paying homage" to when we sent out the press release and really, the only one with any real direct point of reference to me is John Carpenter's Halloween with all those shots of Michael Meyers stepping into frame... seeing "the shape" ominously juxtaposed against wide shots of unsuspecting victims going about their business. That stuff still gives me chills.

B: I love John Carpenter too, I just watched "The Thing" which I borrowed from you a few weeks ago and it's just amazing, gets better with age actually...someone just recently told me that the movie Halloween was shot in just a few weeks. I was like "you have got to be kidding..."

M: I notice you've written a lot of songs with the word "girl" in the title. Was "Seen a Girl" always a standalone piece or did you write it as a companion piece to something else?

B: It was written as its own song. I remember (surprisingly enough) seeing a girl on a bus and it was just love at first sight. It's weird isn't it how you can love the way a person looks and imagine what they are like and what personality they will have just by their features and expressions? You construe their intellect, their values...it's so cool, none of the bother of actually really going through a messy relationship.

M: So true - from that standpoint I'm the biggest slut of New York City.

B: Right. For me, who is generally a voyeur, that's how i exist. I go through a 5 year relationship in 30 seconds, come in my pants and then I transfer to the L train.

Matt & Ben have coffee part 2

2008-05-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

M: OK moving on.... "Like You Do" sounds deceptively simple at first - like a basic rock blues riff but it goes off somewhat unexpectedly in the lead-in to the chorus - was this something that came natural to you in the writing or did you go through a lot of trial and error in getting it to sound right?

B: I like that part - it actually came easily to me when I was writing it chord-wise, but the lyrics took longer. But back to the blues riff, you know something weird, when I was learning guitar I would go into this guitar shop to play some amps. I was really young and this guy was playing just a blues vamp, the same as the first few notes of that song, and I was totally captivated, bum bum bum... I was standing in the middle of the music shop transfixed. I looked at his fingers to try to learn from sight what he was doing, and I STILL LOVE the sound of just the simplest blues chords...but I HATE the blues.

M: Right well you use that standard blues riff as a sort of springboard - you abandon it pretty quickly and that's where the song gets interesting. One thing that really sticks out to me with "Like You Do" is the production - the song sounds really amazing as it swells up to the chorus.

B: Two words, no three...Caleb "KBC" Sherman - he produced it.

M: You guys have quite a history together as performers from the "What's Up" band and as musical collaborators afterwards. What exactly is his role in producing a song like "Like You Do?"

B: I gave him "Like You Do" with NOTHING - just the chords and no vocals. He gave it back to me LIKE THAT! It's scary...he should be the stalker!

M: So you didn't really play any of the instruments on that song?

B: Nada. Nothing. Nil. Netay.

M: Wow, how very Monkees of you.

B: I excel at taking undeserved credit. But that build-up to the chorus, in the video you have that shot panning up to all the photographs on the wall - truly a moment. What was your inspiration there?

M: My inspiration was basically "wouldn't that look cool?" I don't think I was consciously lifting anything out of a specific film or anything like that. Really, the inspiration, in this case, would be the music - it has a wonderfully demented build-up right there. I thought that would be wicked to kind of mirror the dementia of the music with a simultaneous reveal of the frightening extent of your character's obsession. Can you tell me what the song is really about?

B: Russ Irwin! Russ was a member of the semi-legendary underground comedy troupe Whats Up with me and Jason Paige. Now he's playing keys with Aerosmith. He went on to fame and fortune as I collapsed in the corner. So you have the makings of a pop song right there: jealousy, regret, envy. He goes everywhere, tours all over the world making bank, as I read online tutorials about how to legally rob banks...so I tried to make the song about hanging out with him, but as three people: me, him and my jealousy.

M: Are you still jealous of his success?

B: I'm positively livid! No, I was upset when he left the show...but he was absolutely right to join Aerosmith of course! But I am that single minded - I was like what about the public access show! I realized i was being childish and the song really taps into that childlike sort of world revolves around me, i don't think I'm that envious now though...10 years later...his life probably has just as many plusses and minusses as mine....THAT MOTHERFUCKER!

M: Well to me the video, if not the song, is about self-obsession as much as it is about your preoccupation with the subject. That’s why it translated well into this idea of you stalking yourself. Did you realize that the whole idea of this video was to mock you and your self-importance as an artist?

B: Sorry to say that I've lost all feelings of self-importance a long long time ago, I've gone from wanting to take over the world to wanting to take out the trash...c'mon Matt admit it, you're jealous of my awesome talent!

M: Well I remember recording the RAWK! album with GTB and having to concede that you could play that one guitar riff in "latch key kids" better than me - but I don't know if I was jealous really. More frustrated with the limits of my abilities.

B: I'll take that as a simmering pool of unxpressed envy. We'll use that for the NEXT video, but with "Like You Do"...did you storyboard that video out?

M: I didn't write out a shotlist or phsyically draw storyboards - it only leads to humiliation and mockery when people see my ragged stick figures and ask "what the hell is that?" But it was mentally storyboarded - I had nearly every shot and edit worked out beforehand, especially in the first half and that happens from listening to the song over and over again, envisioning the video as the song plays out. That's a very exciting time for me because there's no limits at that point - only what your mind can conjure.

B: Did you run into any major problems during shooting aside from needing a better looking star?

M: Hell no, Ben - I like the way you look - I'd much rather work with someone who has interesting features than just another pretty face.

B: Oh fuck off!

M: The biggest problem with the "Like You Do" shoot was the limited time we had to do it. We did all three videos over a 4 day weekend in September and "Like You Do" was the last video we shot and so it was foolishly relegated to one day of production.

B: Right. Three days of the condor. What would you change if you could?

M: Well I just think a lot of shots are below my standard of what passes for good. The end product and the video that was in my mind were two different things. The video we ended up with isn't bad, it's just compromised. And this is very much due to the fact that we were cramming everything in to one day - we had to keep things moving forward so my standard was lowered from "that's good" to "that's good enough."

B: Sure but I think everyone thinks that...John Carpenter probably still doesn't like that looney bin parking lot shot in Halloween either.

M: So back to writing about your jealousy, did this translate to you at all when making the video?

B: Well sure, I mean putting a visual to an abstract feeling in a song is always settling on a particular choice and I thought this choice - stalking myself - was a bold and interesting choice so i thought it was going to be fun to see what we ...WE came up with. I still don't think anyone watching the video will really follow it like a linear story which is fine. It's like all those videos we used to watch at the beginning of MTV that they spent so much time trying to make a story and basically kids just kinda glazed over and bopped along oblivious.

M: I like story-driven music videos - they're much more interesting to me than "let's shoot the band playing in 10 different locations and cut it together." Blah.

B: During the shoot, I saw a different side of you - you were relaxed and precise with things. I'd like to see you directing much more, actual TIME doing thing after thing. You were in the zone.

M: Well thanks for that, though I’m of the opinion that if it’s a good shoot and the director is being clear with his vision and the actors are comfortable and doing good work, then there has to be a good crew supporting the whole endeavor. This shoot was definitely a success because of the people who were supporting the project by volunteering their time to do it.

B: How crucial was Bowls MacLean?

M: Oh absolutely crucial! And not just because he was lending us his VX100-B camera to the cause. I think his presence definitely helped keep me relaxed because of our own history from working together. There wasn't any tiptoeing around our egos when it came time to do the thing, which makes everything flow much better. And Bowls is hilarious - he has a gift for saying funny shit... just a fun presence on the set. It was great having Anthony "Zonalpony" Lopez shoot those picts of you dressed up as "Lee Ann" for the "Like You Do" video, too. It's really cool to have all of these friends' various talents come together like that.

B: You need more things to direct, check out fuckben.com for more songs!

M: It seems there's a disparity between what these songs were about or where you were mentally when you wrote them - do you feel that now when watching the videos?

B: Not really...whenever you draw something in the sand, through a song or a video, you know all those thoughts or feelings are going to change, except with anti-Bush songs! Feelings are fleeting, get em down and move on...so what are you going to do now?

M: I don't have anything in the queue production-wise - just trying to get more people to see the stuff that's already done like Family Tie and the stalker trilogy. But I'm working on a feature length horror film screenplay which has been getting kicked around the noggin for a few years now, so hopefully that will take some shape in the months to come.

B: What's the film about?

M: It's about a bunch of 20-somehting adults living in Brooklyn who are getting murdered for other people's amusement - basically a post-modern slasher film for a hip young audience. It's a hipster bloodbath.

B: Well living in Greenpoint must be great for inspiration.

M: Yeah i'm in the thick of it. I'd love to try something non-violent, non-dark one of these days but you know, they say, "write what you know" and that kind of stuff never comes naturally to me. And what about yourself - what's next on your agenda?

B: Gotta play live more, probably do solo shows with a twist...recording an album with Caleb Sherman called "C The Deuce" about a white guy who has a 'race-change operation to launch a career in the entertainment industry, and I still have 10 songs on my hard drive that I'm calling a "new album." but in actuality I've been recording it for years.... It sucks to be constipated.

M: But it seems like you usually have a few things going on simultaneously - you let projects simmer so that the flavor is all the richer when it's ready to be served.

B: And i want to collaborate with you MATT!

M: You want to do everything like I do.

B: Ha.

M: Well, let's start with this new album - any good stalker material for me to run with?

B: Only if I’m stalking myself.

Mug's May Movie Digest

2008-05-25T09:15:00.003-04:00

So here are some capsule reviews of some movies I've seen lately. Some of them are new new, like in the theaters new, and others are only semi-new, or on Bluray HD DVD new, which is nearly just as good as seeing the movie in the theater in my opinion (sometimes I would argue even better). So without further ado and in no particular order...

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skullfuck turns out to be an adequate, if not entirely fulfilling, entry in the series. Maybe I wasn't disappointed since I went in with very low expectations and found myself enjoying the major action sequences in spite of myself. Yes, the bombast of some of the bigger scenes nearly crushes the film beneath it and no, this is not Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it's an enjoyable, if not ultimately dismissive, two hours at the movies. No doubt many loyalists will disect the film from start to finish with issues and while it's far from perfect, it works as mindless entertainment. Harrison Ford does a good job reviving the character and he still moves quite well for someone his age (at least, that's what the magic of the movies would have you believe). Now if only they could have had a less turgid plot and some more believable FX, they might have had a gem instead of the B-grade fodder they ended up with.

But on the subject of action-film bombast, I sat through Live Free or Die Hard last night on Bluray, which was something I was kind of dreading as, like Indy, I have very strong feelings and childhood associations about the first film in the series. Turns out I was right - this was, by far, the weakest entry in the series and it feels virtually interchangeable with any other big budget action vehicle save for the occasional John McClane wise-crack or in-joke reference to the first Die Hard movie. The introduction to John McClane's character is just painful to watch as he accosts a young man making a move on his now grown-up-and-very-hot daughter and it doesn't get much better from there. Justin Long is enjoyable in his role as a computer hacker as is Timothy Olyphant's steely-eyed villain, but director Lens Wiseman has a very poor sense of camera placement when shooting dialogue and some of the editing is simply out of control. Like Indy 4, Die Hard 4 was clearly a process of "filmmaking by committee" and the end product clearly suffers as a result.

Even more self-consciously bombastic in its over-the-top action sequences is Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen and Paul Giammatti. Both of these guys are extremely talented actors, so seeing them in a cheesy action film should elevate the material to at least some level of cool, right? Not when you have a sexist director who is gun-obsessed and has the gall to try to fit in a "guns are bad" message amidst the never-ending cascade of squibs and rat-a-tat gunfire. It seems they were trying to make something that was self-aware of its ridiculousness so they pushed it further and further and it ended up being just as dumb (if not dumber) as the action movies it is purportedly sending up. It's like they're saying, "We know this material is really stupid (wink-wink) but here's some more brain-numbing action scenes because we're smart enough to deconstruct it." Well they failed miserably. The end result is tedious, tiresome, and gratingly stupid.

All three of these action movies suffer from the same fundamental problem: how can you get "caught up" in the tension of an action scene when you know for absolute certain that the hero will emerge unscathed? We all know that CG effects are out of control in the modern blockbuster movie, and these films are no exception: the obviousness of their special FX, green-screen compositing and over-the-top stunt coordination makes the whole experience feel like a computer generated "virtual" rollercoaster ride. If this is the best that action movies are going to give us in this decade, then it's a genre I'll gladly skip.

On the positive side, I saw a movie called The Fall several weeks ago which is only now getting a wider distribution. Director Tarsem Singh (The Cell, music video for REM's "Losing My Religion") took 10 years to develop and shoot this movie which is sort of a cross between The Princess Bride and Lawrence of Arabia. It's a "story within a story" film that has a paralyzed stunt man (Lee Pace) telling an improvised fairy-tale to a young girl from his hospital bed so that she can get him pills for him to end his life. The movie switches into these gorgeous and exotic locations all over the world as it visually realizes the story being told from the little girl's perspective. Dramatic parallels between the two realities unfold within the fantasy world and the "real" world that these characters inhabit. It's a stunning and beautiful film - an accomplishment all the more praiseworthy for the unexpected emotional punch it packs along the way. It seems, critically, that this movie has had some mixed reviews and the effect of it on audiences is somewhat polarizing, but for myself, it is nothing shy of brilliant, inspired film-making and I recommend it unequivocally. Watch the trailer below... Tarsem Singh is a visionary.

And earlier this week, in an attempt to give my brain a break from action-movie overkill, I bumped up the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room in my Netflix queue which was a mind-blowing portrait of corporate greed and excess. I didn't know the details of the Enron scandal other than some shady accounting practices and insider trading from the corporate head honchos ultimately acted as their undoing, and that, as it turns out, is only half the story. It's a tale of greed and hubris for sure, but it also is a tragic character study as well; one that probes into the human nature of the situation in a capitalist society such as ours. Some scenes were really eye-opening like the revelation of their involvement with the infamous rolling blackouts in California in 2002. In several cases that the documentary makes, these were often the result of some of Enron's day traders calling up these power plant facilities and asking them to "get creative" to find reasons to shut the system down so they could create a higher energy demand and drive their stock price up even higher. Pretty amazing stuff that sounds like it's out of a James Bond story except this really happened! Not only that, but it begs the larger question of, if Enron is a case that got out of control and ended up being one of the biggest corporate scandals of our generation, how many other corrupted business practices are being made out there now? How many Enrons do we need before some of the leniency afforded corporations by our government demands reform? Pretty thought-provoking stuff, and, as a film, it never feels stodgy or too clinical and features great use of archival footage from the corporation's own in-house video productions.

Some other recommendations before I sign off would be 3:10 to Yuma, the western remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe was fresh, exciting and not entirely predictable. Ratatouille is another very well done animated story from Brad Bird that's not quite on par with The Incredibles but is extremely enjoyable and is gorgeous to look at. The sci-fi horror film Sunshine is also one of the best-looking films I've seen in a while and is a good entry in the genre of "doomed space expedition movies" even tho it falls off a bit in the final act when it goes slasher. And No Country For Old Men is better the second time through - a lot better, in fact.

with god on our side

2008-05-20T00:27:00.002-04:00

matt, originally uploaded by sara bizarro.

My friend Sara Bizarro (yes that's her real name) surprised me by illustrating a portrait of me based on one of my myspace portraits. it's part of a series of portraits she's done, the results of which can be seen here. You rock, Sara!

The Family Tie at Film Fest Reloaded

2008-05-19T21:50:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow night, "film guy" Bill Woods is hosting his weekly Film Fest Reloaded show in Staten Island and will be screening THE FAMILY TIE along with several other of my shorts and videos including the NEW YORK STALKER trilogy. Here's the release for the event...

Thanks Bill!

This Tuesday, May 20th, we welcome filmmaker, Matthew Glasson.

The filmmaker brings in an ultra violent black comedy romp, The Family Tie, about a young man who witnesses the destruction of his family at the hands of a psychotic business partner of his father’s. Swearing vengeance, the boy seeks out to destroy John and will stop at nothing.

Glasson, born and raised in the Chicago suburb of Mt. Prospect, IL, Matthew Glasson began allocating his energies at an early age as a performer, writer and filmmaker. He went on to attend film school at Columbia College in Chicago before moving to New York City to start a rock group called "God The Band."

During this time, he kept his filmmaking chops fresh by directing and producing music videos for the band and developing other short films. He currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he works as an editor and filmmaker.

For the film’s website, check out www.familytiemovie.com.

For the trailer, check out www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY5GFTBQ9xY.

So please join us this Tuesday, May 20th with filmmaker, Matthew Glasson at FilmFest Reloaded. Admission is free.

See you at 8 PM at Karl's Klipper, 40 Bay Street, across from the St. George post office in Staten Island, just 1 block south of the SI Ferry Terminal.

Thanks for jumping in...

Bill Woods
FilmFest Reloaded
www.filmfestguy.freewebspace.com

Blues By The Beach

2008-05-12T19:30:00.002-04:00

This is a trailer I recently cut for a documentary film "Blues By The Beach" about a night club bombing in Tel Aviv in 2003. There was a film crew doing a light-hearted documentary on the bar when a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the establishment. It's a pretty powerful and amazing film and it has been an honor for me to be tasked with the responsibility of cutting it together. You can watch the film online by going to the movie website bluesbythebeachfilm.com.

THE NEW YORK STALKER RETURNS! (and then he goes away)

2008-04-25T00:58:00.004-04:00

Today’s juicy episode of THE NEW YORK STALKER brings us to the final chapter in the series. In LIKE YOU DO, Ben’s attentions are focused on a mysterious blonde with whom he appears to be “excessively pre-occupied.” In a performance that channels the great Lon Chaney Jr., his few remaining strands to reality are visibly disintegrating as he follows her on the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Who is this striking blonde and what is the secret of her allure that holds him in such a twisted grip? There are no safe answers in the demented fantasy world of LIKE YOU DO.

This video definitely required the most post-production work of the three videos and was the one I spent the most time on mentally mapping out in my head. In that sense it was a similar experience to General Queer in that I could see a lot of the edits before I began shooting any of the footage. However, as a result of our ambitious shooting schedule of the trilogy (3 videos in 4 days), LIKE YOU DO ended up getting saved for the last day of production so it got rushed and feels slightly compromised (at least to what it was like in my head). Still I think given our limited resources and budget, on the whole we did pretty OK for four days of work. And looking at LIKE YOU DO, I'm amazed that we knocked that one out in one single day of shooting.

Funny tidbit of trivia - Ben's object of obsession, the blond (we were calling her Lee-Ann), was played by four different people including Ben. We had our buddy from the neighborhood Peter Hood drop by to lend us his trenchcoat and don the wig for a few shots with Ben following behind on Guernsey St.. Then we had Bowls wear the wig and jacket for the final approach when Ben is moving in closer at the end of the video. Ben's girlfriend Gina Leone came out of her way to Brooklyn to play the feet in high heel shoes for the tracking shot in the middle of the video. With this many "actors" inhabiting the role, this character must be quadrophenic.

I need to thank everyone again who helped out and supported the endeavor and for making the whole process go smoothly and efficiently. And, of course, special thanks to B. Bowls MacLean who lent us his camera, talents, body and sense of humor.