“Why make a movie about something one understands completely? I make movies about things I do not understand, but wish to.”
–Seijun Suzuki
Consumer Reports Viral Videos
Hip and entertaining with a focus on vehicles, these internet branding videos were intended to introduce Consumer Reports to a younger generation. Each video features a race of one kind or another, pitting funny-man Brandon Taylor against a mild-mannered Consumer Reports test driver named Jake…
The Art of Editing Comedy
Since the films that have inspired me the most are overwhelmingly dramas, usually darker ones, editing comedy is something I never imagined I’d be doing. But perhaps my forays into comedy not have been without reason. As it turns out, I really enjoy editing comedy and discovered I have a natural instinct for it. Maybe this isn’t so surprising since comedy and drama are really flip sides of the same coin. After all, it’s no accident that the theater masks of ancient Greece represent both comedy and tragedy—comedic moments are frequently precipitated by tragedy (however minor) and tragedies are often incited by absurd, even laughable acts. That said, good comedy is as hard to pull off as drama; in fact, it’s sometimes easier to make people cry than laugh…
The Hurt Locker
A high-pitch fever dream that explodes in your brain like an IED, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker leaves your head spinning, ears buzzing and veins pumping with adrenaline. “War is a drug,” the film cautions from the outset, but in the hands of Bigelow so is cinema. Though watching a film is hardly a substitute for reality, this one is so realistically shot, so well acted, so tightly edited and precisely sound designed that you come close to feeling the visceral horror, fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, and strange euphoria of war, of living at a level of pure survival where the smallest decision can make the difference between life and death…
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Into Great Silence
The thick of summer is undoubtedly the province of the blockbuster. Fast-paced editing, amped-up music, explosive pyrotechnics, death-defying stunts, excessive CGI and throwaway plots beckon the masses. I, myself, am not immune to its siren call. Last weekend, my weakness for comic book heroes and desire for escapist entertainment lured me to the theater where I watched The Incredible Hulk and Wanted back to back. Both were entertaining, fun, and action-packed—but, let’s face it, the pleasures of the summer blockbuster are like eating a Big Mac and fries. Flavor is high, obviously enhanced, but as food usually lacks nutrition and the subtle complexities in taste. Wanting to balance my filmic diet, I decided to seek out the very antithesis of the summer blockbuster: something slow-moving, lengthy, with no music, minimal dialogue, and a subject matter completely devoid of drama. What I found was a documentary about the preternaturally silent lives of Carthusian monks…
