On the Beauty of Art Weekends

During a dark week at The Daily Show last month, I had the rare opportunity to spend a whole week charting out a new screenplay with my dear friend, Lucas Loredo, back in Austin (Lucas is currently in the MFA program at UT's Michener Center for Writers). We relived past glory years in the service of creating something new, spent time with our beloved theatre directors Annie and Billy Dragoo (who changed the course of our lives) and reminisced on the formative years that made us who we are. We had an excellent time looking back, and more importantly, ahead.

The screenplay, which recounts our wonderful experiences performing in Austin High School's renowned theatre department, is something Lucas and I have been talking about writing for a long time. We finally decided we weren't going to make any headway unless we took a full week and bunkered down to structure the piece. During that time, we charted out the events and character arcs in the film, and mapped out the entire movie and its events on foam boards attached to the wall. In the evenings, we cooked dinner and watched coming-of-age films which have inspired us over the years, including Almost Famous (2000), Lady Bird (2017), Dazed and Confused (1993) and The Spectacular Now (2013), taking notes for our script along the way.

Leading up to our self-imposed writing "residency," I spent the last several months working on a quite long document in which I recall every single thing that happened to me in high school. Even though I've only made it about halfway into my junior year, the document is already over 150 pages long. It's a bit overwhelming, but the document has provided a wonderful well of memories from which to cherry-pick for our film. Lucas is particularly talented at story structure and the hero's journey, and I think his discipline, combined with many of the specific memories and ideas I've written down over the last few months, make us a great writing team (we've already made one short film together, Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding, in 2014).

A final script is a long way away, but we're finally on the beginning path to a dream project that means a great deal to me. On its tenth anniversary, here’s Lucas and me in action back in high school, in the Red Dragon Players' seminal 2008 production of Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, directed by Billy Dragoo and filmed here by Paul Schattenberg. One day I'll put up the whole show in its entirety.


Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Scene Seven from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.


Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Scene Eight from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

Speaking of Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding - this is a bit belated, but the film had its festival debut at the 2016 Black Cat Picture Show, followed by a screening at the Hudson Valley International Film Festival! I was thrilled to screen the film at the Black Cat Picture Show, only one year after my film You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory won their Best Student Film prize. You can see a clip from our film in the trailer for the festival.

In a bit of related news, I applied last fall to the University of Texas at Austin's MFA Film and Media Production program, which was a great experience in and of itself, as I was able to obtain letters of recommendation from my advisors and mentors and write about my interests and aspirations as an artist in detail. I had been considering applying to UT's MFA program for some time (it was the only graduate program to which I applied), but I certainly didn't expect to get into the school (they accept twelve students every year). In February, however, I was delighted to learn that I was offered admission, and for a time, I did not know what the immediate future held in store for me. When I was in Austin for my writing retreat, I also had my official UT campus visit, and I was astonished by the school's facilities, professors and classes - it had everything I could possibly want in a graduate school program. It was a very difficult decision. Ultimately, I decided that I was enjoying my current job too much and should stay in New York for the immediate future - but I was beyond honored to have been accepted to the program, and it was a wonderful experience touring the campus and imagining what my life would be like as a University of Texas graduate student.

Still, just being in Austin for a short period time makes me long for the opportunity to make movies there - specifically, one about growing up with my mother and father in the 1990s, and then the aforementioned film about the Red Dragon Players I'm currently writing with Lucas. They're both dream projects of mine, and ones I intend to make in the coming years.

I’ve been revisiting all kinds of wonderful memories from those glorious high school years lately. Nearly ten years after it first premiered, I re-watched the Red Dragon Players’ production of Jim Merillat's original musical Radio Eyes, in which I played the wildly erratic Inspector Riley. I received a copy of the musical from Jim (my DVD copy of the play was scratched), and it was a tremendous joy viewing the show with fresh eyes (it was one of my favorite musicals we performed at Austin High). I’ve also been looking at our productions of Round and Round the Garden (UIL), Over the River and Through the Woods (UIL), the aforementioned Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Willy Wonka, Seussical: The Musical, Into the Woods, Urinetown: The Musical, High School Musical and others. There’s an overwhelming amount of material from which to pull for our film, and I’m thrilled to have recordings of many of our productions (although I wish we had recorded our productions of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, Carson Kreitzer’s The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Jason Milligan's …And the Rain Came to Mayfield).

The memorable writing retreat in Austin has been surrounded by a welcome succession of what I'll call art weekends in New York, mainly spent with my wonderful girlfriend Sophia. After the production of our short play White Castle Valentine’s Day 2018 in February, she and I have embarked upon a series of escapades on the weekends, hoping to take advantage of what New York City has to offer.

On March 16th, we saw Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero on Broadway, which was, honest to God, one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. Then again, it was written by Lonergan, so what did I expect? Michael Cera, Bel Powley, Chris Evans and Brian Tyree Henry were all exceptional – I’ve since bought a copy of the play, and I’m in the midst of learning one of the many outstanding monologues from the show. The next night, on St. Patrick’s Day, we screened one of my favorite films of all time, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006), at my apartment – I mean, how else was I supposed to spend St. Patrick’s Day? Scorsese’s film has lost none of its immediacy and power in the now twelve(!) years since its release, and the picture still stands as the defining cinema release of my lifetime (seriously). On Sunday, I treated myself to a double-feature of Francis Lawrence’s riveting Red Sparrow, which way exceeded my expectations, and Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, one of the first Marvel movies actually about something. The immensely talented Coogler also gives us the best and most complex superhero villain in some time, with Michael B. Jordan excelling as Eric Killmonger.

This is a bit of a brief tangent, but in the fall of 2016, I had the pleasure of seeing Kenneth Lonergan in person three times within a two-week period. The first time was at the Museum of the Moving Image, where Lonergan spoke after an early screening of his new film Manchester by the Sea, which was the second-best film of 2016 (after Martin Scorsese’s Silence). I saw him again shortly thereafter at the opening night screening of Nancy Buirski’s By Sidney Lumet, on which I was an associate producer and assistant editor.

By Sidney Lumet opened on October 28th at Lincoln Plaza Cinema (which has sadly now closed after thirty-five years of business) and received rave reviews. On opening night, there was a Q&A after the film with Nancy and Christine Lahti (who starred in Lumet’s Running on Empty), followed by a great after-party at the Tisch WNET Studio in Lincoln Center. Lonergan joined us for the after-party, as well (our editor, Anthony Ripoli, edited the Director’s Cut of Lonergan’s masterpiece Margaret), but I didn’t actually get to meet him until after a screening of Margaret the next weekend (also at the Museum of the Moving Image). MOMI screened the Director’s Cut of the film (they were doing a retrospective of all of his films), and Lonergan held yet another fantastic Q&A. After the screening, I shared with him my adoration for both Margaret and Manchester by the Sea (not to mention his first film, You Can Count on Me). It’s always an honor to get to meet your heroes, and I’ve truly enjoyed familiarizing myself with his work as a playwright this year.

But back to the present! The next weekend, Sophia and I went to the David Bowie Is exhibit at Brooklyn Museum, which was astonishing – an aural and visual experience like no other. On Saturday, I saw The Panic in Needle Park (1971) at the Quad Cinema as part of the Pacino’s Way retrospective. I could have lived at the Quad during this run of films, screened mostly on 35mm. At this particular screening of The Panic in Needle Park, director Jerry Schatzberg introduced his film, and discussed working with Pacino in depth. He also directed the masterful Scarecrow (1973), with Pacino and Gene Hackman, which has long been one of the unheralded highlights of 1970s cinema. I was sad to be working during Pacino’s visits to the Quad, where he screened his passion projects Salome and Wilde Salome – but I cherish my memories of seeing him onstage in The Merchant of Venice (2010) and Glengarry Glen Ross (2012). Pacino recently turned seventy-eight, and he continues to inspire and amaze – most recently in his magnificent performance in Barry Levinson’s Paterno on HBO (less than a year after Levinson’s great The Wizard of Lies with Robert De Niro, also on HBO).

And then, on Sunday, Sophia and I saw Wes Anderson’s new film Isle of Dogs, which filled me with joy. It’s an emotional, beautiful movie – I was smiling the entire time. You can read my full review of Isle of Dogs for Austin Family Magazine here.

In Austin, in addition to my residency with Lucas and my UT campus visit, my mom and I saw Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which was a total blast (and just flat-out mind-boggling that Spielberg released the film within the same three-month period as The Post). We also saw John Krasinski's A Quiet Place, which I wish I could say I viewed in a very quiet place. I loved the movie (between this and 2016’s The Hollars, Krasinski is one talented director), and I think filmmakers should slowly start conditioning audiences to this level of silence in more movies. It is a truly effective dramatic tool – and it requires audiences to shut the hell up.

When I returned from Austin, the art weekends continued. Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here was a strange, beautiful and mesmerizing movie with one of the world’s greatest and most interesting actors, Joaquin Phoenix, at its center. Ramsay strikes gold once again, after her masterful We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) - there was no scene in this film that unfolded how I expected. And this picture could have been so violent, reveling in the brutality of our protagonist's methods - but Ramsay isn't interested in close-ups of hammers bludgeoning heads. She's interested in more specific details, and the effects trauma has on the human body.

Seeing the film a second time, I was struck even more by the connection between Joe (Phoenix) and Nina, the young girl he rescues from a New York City brothel. Subtly over the course of the movie, they recognize each other as having both experienced abuse and trauma in their lives. Both characters use counting mechanisms to cope with their suffering – as a child, Joe held a cellophane bag over his head and counted down in order to repress the brutality exacted upon him (and his mother) by his father. Likewise, Nina counts down in her head when she is preyed upon by men inside the brothel. These elements are beautifully woven together in an underwater sequence in which Joe attempts suicide, and as he counts down, he begins hearing Nina’s voice counting instead of his own, leading him to abandon his suicide attempt and attempt to rescue her. When I was in Austin, the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar had a You Were Never Really Here promotional photo booth, and you can bet I spent some time in there. Very well done, Amazon Studios.

The next weekend, I travelled down to Charlottesville with Sophia, where we stayed with her family and had a truly great time, as always. We even held a photo shoot with her friends Ivy and Clara, in which Sophia’s mom Maiya took some fine and truly strange portraits of us – you can see some of them throughout this post (I’m smoking a fake cigarette, by the way). While we were there, we spent time at a nearby reservoir, held a lavish banquet with friends, ate outside near the Blue Ridge Mountains, and, on our final night, watched Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) with Sophia’s dad Walter (I first saw this film when doing research for Blood and Thunder, and it remains one of the best and most original westerns I’ve ever seen).

Once back in New York, Sophia and I ventured to the Tribeca Film Festival the next weekend. On Friday, April 27th, I had my first virtual reality experience at Tribeca’s Horizons program. I was mainly attending because the program featured a short VR film by Terrence Malick, and it was beautiful (it’s telling that I finally tried out VR only because of Malick’s involvement). The next day, Alexander Payne spoke at Tribeca, with fellow Nebraskan Dick Cavett moderating the Q&A. What an amazing filmmaker and human – I sat in the front row and took notes, as every piece of filmmaking wisdom Payne offered was so valuable. Afterward, he told attendees he’d be around to talk in the lobby, and so I got to speak with him and share my adoration of Downsizing (2017). I could tell I was among devoted Payne loyalists, as much of the audience was quick to share that they loved Downsizing, too (which I maintain will be considered an ambitious modern classic in due time). I wish there were more like Payne – humble, Midwestern, authentic voices who make soulful movies about real people.

That evening, Sophia and I watched the recently released Criterion Blu-Ray of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993), which is just as astonishing and powerful as ever. I saw a restoration of this film at the 2013 New York Film Festival with Scorsese in attendance, and it’s taken this long for that stunning transfer to make its way to DVD and Blu-Ray. Thankfully, the Criterion Collection has given the movie a welcome home.

Sunday, April 29th was the sixteenth anniversary of my dad's passing. I know I share a lot of the same videos of him, but here's something he shot on our family's 1996 trip to New York. He was a wonderful soul, and over the years I've been overjoyed to transfer more and more of his home video recordings as a way of remembering him.


The Kyser Family in New York - 1996 from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

In the midst of all of this, I caught a screening of Avengers: Infinity War before going to my evening shift one day, and I was surprised by the film’s effectiveness – particularly Josh Brolin’s performance as villain Thanos. You can read my full review for Austin Family Magazine here.

The next weekend, we saw Jason Reitman’s Tully, which was a delight, reuniting the dream team behind Young Adult (2011) – Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and star Charlize Theron. It’s exactly the kind of interesting film that rarely gets made anymore. Reitman never ceases to surprise and engage me – he never makes the same film twice (I remain a fan of his slightly un-loved Labor Day and Men, Women and Children). Tully is also a movie that I heard people dismissing before it was even released. I’m irked every time I hear people talking about a film they haven’t seen, prejudging it and having no real interest in what the picture might have to say – instead reducing the movie to its most basic elements. This happens with older films, too, as social mores change and folks want to reevaluate certain films based on a new set of criteria and whether it aligns perfectly with today’s ideas. What they don’t seem to understand is that the capturing of a certain time and place is precisely what makes a film interesting, and in time, today’s seemingly evolved values and ideas are going to seem outdated, too.

On Friday, May 11th, we saw Carl Theodor Dreyer's astounding film Ordet at the Quad Cinema, followed by a Q&A with one of the greatest of all filmmakers, Paul Schrader. He gave great insight into Ordet and its influence on his new film First Reformed. The impact Dreyer's film had on our audience was palpable - it's a thoughtful examination of the role religion plays in our lives, and it takes on a kind of meditative quality as it goes on. There's something nearly God-like in its slow pans and long takes, creating a truly spiritual feeling I haven't experienced since Martin Scorsese's Silence.

There is a shot near the end of the film in which the camera does a slow, nearly-360° rotation around Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) and his niece (as her mother lays dying) that simply took my breath away. It was one of the most profound and haunting marriages of dialogue and camera movement I have seen in some time, and it will not leave my mind any time soon.

On Saturday night, Sophia and I saw one of my all-time favorites, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) in 35MM at IFC, as part of their Waverly Midnights: Scorsese program. It’s as much of a delightful and exhilarating ride as it was when I first watched it on VHS as a kid – frenetic, thrilling and truly bizarre. Over the past year, there have been a lot of terrific opportunities to see Scorsese’s work on the big screen – I saw Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1975) and The Last Waltz (1978) at the Museum of the Moving Image last year during their amazing Scorsese exhibit, and IFC has been screening much of his filmography over the last few weeks (I’m going back in June to catch another favorite, Bringing out the Dead, in 35mm). Soon enough, I’ll have seen most of Scorsese’s films in cinemas (so far, I’ve seen nineteen, including the ones that were released in my lifetime).

When back in Austin more recently, I watched Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives (1992) for the first time. This is perhaps the most formally fascinating film of Allen's career, and yet beyond all of the breathtaking handheld one-takes and jarring jump cuts, there's something truly unsettling here, both thematically and in the masterful performances. Husbands and Wives also has some very memorable set pieces - Sydney Pollack's drunken, rage-fueled visit to Judy Davis's house in the middle of the night is downright haunting (and, as more and more characters enter, it becomes one of Allen's best-directed group scenes ever). Meanwhile, two sequences with Allen and Juliette Lewis (when they retrieve his manuscript from a taxi driver, and then later share a kiss at her birthday party) will both linger in my memory for some time to come. This film is a scorcher.

My job at Comedy Central is going well – it’s always a joy to work on an interview clip with a guest I truly respect and admire. Here’s Sean Penn on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah this past March – with a (hopefully good) still I picked out for him. I’m currently reading his first novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, and it is a wild ride – a truly original and fascinating peek inside Penn’s mind. I miss seeing him onscreen these days, but Bob Honey is holding me over until his next film.

I also got to work on a great interview clip with Matt Damon and Gary White of water.org, which you can find here.

The film I directed last October, Four Play, is officially finished, and the film’s writer and producer, Ben Krevalin, is busy submitting the movie to film festivals. I think we made a pretty strong movie, with four really charming lead performances and some creative blocking in there. I suspect it will be some time before it’s available online, but if you’re interesting in seeing it, please let me know. And, yes, I’m still editing Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue. I’m getting closer and closer, and more and more excited with each passing day as it comes together. I’ve never taken this long editing a film (in fact, I used to pride myself on making and releasing new films with great regularity), but this one feels like it needs my full attention and focus. It’s already been in the works for two-and-a-half years – what are a few more months? Anyway, by the next time I post here, I’ll have a trailer ready – and a full film (and web series) shortly to follow.

A few extremely talented artists have passed away since I last wrote. Milos Forman was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time – and, in his incredible career, directed two films pretty much everyone can agree are among the finest ever made, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984). Actor R. Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket, Seven) was such a presence onscreen – he will be missed. I had the opportunity of meeting him when I was a volunteer at Dennis Quaid Charity Classic Golf Tournament in high school, and he was extremely kind.

I don’t think I’ve written anything about this year’s Academy Awards. There’s really not much to say – they got nearly everything right except the biggest prize of them all. I suppose it doesn’t matter ­in the end – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was always a little dangerous, and the film (thankfully) didn’t play by the rules of what’s expected in cinema nowadays. But I can’t imagine anyone in his or her right mind looking back years from now and thinking The Shape of Water was a superior film. But the fact that Sam Rockwell, Roger Deakins, Gary Oldman and Allison Janney are now Oscar winners is heartening (not to mention Frances McDormand receiving her extremely well-deserved second Oscar). It’s not every year that your favorite film has a shot at the big prize (see Silence last year), so I was certainly rooting for Three Billboards in a big way. But now the noise of awards season is gone, and the greatness of McDonagh’s film remains.

Lastly, I never thought it’d happen, but I’m going to Springsteen on Broadway with Sophia in July! I haven’t been this happy since the last time I saw Bruce Springsteen during The River tour and made something of a tribute video here.

I Just Want to Fight Like Everyone Else

My senior thesis film You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory has had a great recent run at film festivals over the last few months. On Saturday, August 8th, my film screened at the 9th Athens International Short Film Festival Psarokokalo in Athens, Greece. Please take a look at the festival's program here, which gives a nice run-down of the film.

On Saturday, August 15th, I drove up to Monroe, New York with lead actors Mike Wesolowski and Mary Goggin to attend the Hudson Valley International Film Festival, where You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory screened at 10:35 AM in Theater 3. Here is a link to the festival schedule, where you can see a nice write-up about the film. To the right, you'll see a picture of us on the festival's red carpet. We enjoyed a nice day of seeing the film in a lovely new theater, attending a few other films and enjoying the charm of small-town Monroe.

The next weekend, on Saturday, August 22nd, my film screened at the Black Cat Picture Show in Augusta, Georgia at 6:00 PM (here is a link to their full schedule). Le Chat Noir, which hosted the event, did a wonderful job promoting the festival and championing the movies, including posting about our film on Facebook with a great write-up - I truly wish I could have been there. You can see pictures from their excellent screening below (here's a link to one of their posters they had up for the festival, which you'll see prominently features my crayon drawing poster for the film)!

And then, on Sunday, You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory actually won the Best Student Film prize at the Black Cat Picture Show at their award ceremony!

Here's an article from Metro Spirit about the Black Cat Picture Show, and a picture of their awards before the festival began.

On Thursday, October 1st, You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory screened at the Santa Monica Independent Film Festival at 7:30 PM at the Santa Monica Playhouse. Here is a link to all of their Official Selections and their screening schedule, as well as our film's page on their website, where they posted an extremely kind write-up about our film:

"This delightful short hailing from Brooklyn, New York opens with a great little visual hook and just gets better from there. Director Jack Kyser pulls off some exceptional filmmaking while exploring the deeply flawed character of Charlie, expertly portrayed by actor Mike Wesolowski. Cinematographer Benjamin Dewey shows off his formidable camera skills and helps shape Kyser’s vision with some pretty cool stuff. An NYU Tisch School thesis film, You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory is a true cinematic achievement and we can’t wait to see what comes next from this talented director." Thank you so much, SaMo Indie!

I sadly wasn't able to be in Los Angeles for the screening, but my friends and loyal supporters Bolton Eckert and Laura Donney attended the opening of the Santa Monica Independent Film Festival, and they said You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory played to an awesome, enthusiastic crowd. You can see some of Bolton's pictures from the festival to the left and above (and check out more of the SaMo Indie website here).

By Sidney Lumet, the great film on which I'm honored to be an Associate Producer and Assistant Editor, continues to have an incredible film festival run. The film will screen at this year's Austin Film Festival at the Paramount Theatre on Friday, October 30th at 2:00 PM. Director Nancy Buirski will be there for a Q&A. I'm thrilled to go back to Austin for the screening and see many of the other films at this year's festival, including Todd Haynes's Carol, Paolo Sorrentino's Youth, John Crowley's Brooklyn and Brian Helgeland's Legend. It will be particularly exciting to see By Sidney Lumet at the Paramount, a theatre where I've seen countless films and enjoyed many of the seminal theatrical experiences of my life - Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Godfather among them.

By Sidney Lumet also screened on Sunday, October 11th at the Hamptons International Film Festival for its North American premiere, followed by a Q&A with Buirski, Jenny Lumet (Sidney Lumet's daughter and writer of Rachel Getting Married) and the great actor Bob Balaban - all of this after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May! Here's a great write-up from the East Hampton Star about the film. It was a lot of fun to travel to the Hamptons, as I had never been, and see the picture there with a large audience.

To the right, you'll see a picture of our editor Anthony Ripoli (Margaret) and me in the edit room preparing the cut for our latest screenings. Like our Facebook page for more information, and I'm excited for everyone to get to see this movie about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, whose work - from Dog Day Afternoon (1975) to Network (1976) to Prince of the City (1981) - has inspired me for years.

Throughout June and July, I put the finishing touches on my new film Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding. My wonderful collaborators Benjamin Dewey and Bobb Barito did a remarkable job, as they always do, with the color correction and sound design of the picture. We finished the film in late July after completing the color, sound, visual effects and titles - check our IMDB page for the film!

On the evening of Friday, September 11th, my friend and collaborator Lucas Loredo and I screened Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding for the first time at NYU. Before the screening started, Alex Fofonoff premiered an exclusive trailer for his feature film Blood and Thunder, in which I have the honor of starring. In that sense, it was a night showcasing some of my acting and directing. We had an incredible turn out, with almost every seat filled in the theater. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to see Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding - you are all the best! Lucas and I appreciate it so much.

Speaking of Blood and Thunder, we had our final day of ADR in September (see the picture to the right). I've had the chance to watch the final film, and I am very proud of the work we've done - Alex has made a really extraordinary first feature, and I'm honored to be a part of it.

Near the end of July, I visited Los Angeles for the first time in seven years, and I had the chance to spend a lot of time with my lifelong friend Bolton Eckert, who now lives in Los Angeles and recently graduated from the Art Institute of Santa Monica. I started the trip off by meeting up with an awesome group of close friends from NYU, including Spencer Jezewski, Jeremy Keller, Lauren Ciaravalli, Stevo Dwyer and Auri Jackson at Bulgogi Hut, where we ate some Korean BBQ. After dinner, Spencer took Bolton and me on an excellent hike along hills overlooking Griffith Park and a truly incredible nighttime view of Los Angeles.

The next day, we had lunch with a friend from high school and then travelled with our moms down to the Hollywood area, taking a guided tour of the Dolby Theater (where the Oscars are held), walking along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and visiting the handprints outside the Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Though I visited this same area seven years ago, it was much more fun this time around, particularly having a guide who knew the area - not to mention the added tour of the Dolby.

That evening, Bolton showed me around the Art Institute of Santa Monica campus, and then we paid a late-night visit to The Piano Bar in Hollywood, where we heard some great live music (followed by some In-N-Out Burger). On Saturday, Bolton, his mother and my mother took a tour at Warner Bros. Studios, led by our high school friend Eden Gallagher, who is now an Official Tour Guide. It was fascinating not just to hear the history of the great studio (the home of Clint Eastwood, all of the Batman films, as well as many of the greatest Scorsese and Kubrick pictures), but to hear it from an old friend as she drove us around the studio backlot with other guests.

After a mid-day visit to Venice Beach (and the chance to meet up with Spencer again at a nearby restaurant), we had dinner Saturday night with our friend from high school, Elizabeth Lefebvre, in West Hollywood.

On Sunday, Bolton and I drove out to Universal Studios and enjoyed an awesome day there. Because Bolton's wonderful grandmother, Myr, kindly bought us Front of Line passes for the day, we were able to ride almost all of the Universal rides without any wait, including the rides for Jurassic Park, The Simpsons, Minions, The Mummy and Transformers - not to mention taking the official studio tour, where we went through the Universal backlot and were treated to recreations and tributes to films such as Psycho, Jaws and King Kong. As with Warner Bros., Universal has such a rich cinema history, with Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg among the iconic filmmakers who help define the studio.

I was particularly enamored with one particular section at Universal Studios - The Simpsons World, which was full of life-sized characters from The Simpsons and classic Springfield establishments such as the Kwik-E-Mart, Krusty Burger and, of course, Moe's Tavern, where Bolton and I enjoyed some fine beverages (specifically, a Flaming Moe and a Duff). I truly felt like a kid here, and probably could have spent days in The Simpsons World section alone.

On Sunday evening, Bolton and I met up with Stevo and Auri at the New Beverly Cinema, which is owned by Quentin Tarantino. The New Beverly was showing a beautiful film print (from Tarantino's own collection) of Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) that evening, and it was a joy to get to see Tarantino's all-time favorite movie in his own cinema. I've been hearing about the New Beverly for years, and I'm so glad I finally got to see a picture there.

In May, I took a weekend trip to Boston with my friends Ben, Sally, Morgan and Catie. We stayed at Morgan's beautiful house in Winchester, Massachusetts, which overlooks the Mystic River. Over the weekend, we played games, went swimming at Walden Pond and enjoyed the beginning of summer - it was a blast.

I turned twenty-five in August, and to commemorate it, here's a throwback video to my first birthday party in 1991, a now-1990s-period-piece at Waterloo Ice House in Austin with memorable appearances from the late, great John Kyser, Richie Donnelly, Hazel Smith and Cathy McElroy.

Jack's 1st Birthday - August 5th, 1991 from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

Also, here's a video of the Kyser family in New York in 1996, including my father, mother and me on top of the World Trade Center.

The Kyser Family in New York - 1996 from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

Shortly before my trip to Los Angeles, I attended a conversation at Videology between film critic Matt Zoller Seitz and the great filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, where they discussed the films of Oliver Stone, followed by a screening of Stone's Natural Born Killers. I was fascinated by the discussion, as Stone is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers and someone whose work I haven't heard critically discussed as much as some of his contemporaries. I was excited to see the reverence both Seitz and Bahrani have for Stone's work, and their analysis of some of his greatest films.

Back in June, I very much enjoyed attending the High School Film Film Festival, organized and curated by Blood and Thunder cinematographer Oliver Anderson. It featured a lot of early films made in high school by NYU graduates, including a fun short I directed called Brokeback Santa. Here's the link to the full slate of shorts - you can see Brokeback Santa at 3:55.

Although I'm sure I'll write about many of these films more in depth in my end-of-year top ten list, I've seen several outstanding movies over the last few months worth mentioning. Ridley Scott's The Martian is an electric piece of cinema. It's one of the best Scott films and Matt Damon performances, and that's saying a lot. Damon has starred in many of the best films of the last twenty years, and his performance in The Martian is up there with his best work in The Departed (2006), True Grit (2010), Margaret (2011), Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Good Will Hunting (1997).

On Saturday, October 3rd, I attended one of the centerpiece screenings of Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs at the 53rd New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. The film is masterful, and in a strange way, it almost feels like Birdman in terms of its energy and pacing. With Boyle's stunning direction and Aaron Sorkin's breathless dialogue, the film is almost sensory overload - there's no way to see this film once and fully absorb everything that's happening. It does so well what many biopics fail to even attempt - Steve Jobs give us the experience of being inside the mind of its subject, and the result is a frenetic masterpiece.

On Thursday, October 8th, my friend Jess Mills and I attended an early screening of Steven Spielberg's excellent new film Bridge of Spies, which was followed by a Q&A with Spielberg and Tom Hanks. I have never had the opportunity to see Spielberg live before this event, and it was a thrill to see one of the greatest filmmakers and actors discuss their excellent new film.

Last week, Lucas invited me to a secret early screening of Charlie Kaufman's Anomolisa, his highly anticipated stop-motion animated picture. Lucas contributed to Kaufman's Kickstarter campaign for the film back in 2012, and the screening was held at Village East Cinema exclusively for its Kickstarter backers. Anomolisa is Kaufman's first film since Synecdoche, New York (2008), one of the best films of the last ten years, and his new picture has remained with me ever since I saw it - it's an extraordinary work of art that feels like something I might have dreamed. I suspect I'll be seeing Anomolisa again and hopefully become more articulate about its effect.

Scott Cooper's gangster picture Black Mass is stuffed with masterful performances, particularly from Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Peter Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane, Kevin Bacon and Julianne Nicholson. Depp's performance in this film might be the best of his career, right alongside Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) and Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco (1997). This is a great, bleak and haunting film that only gains in power upon multiple viewings - and as someone who loves their gangster movies, this is a really great one.

Noah Baumbach's Mistress America is one of my favorite films of the year and absolutely guaranteed to rank high on my end-of-year top ten list. In August, I saw an early screening of the film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, followed by a Q&A with Baumbach and star and co-writer Greta Gerwig moderated by Kent Jones. Mistress America does everything right - it has masterful staging of actors, it is shot precisely how a comedy should be filmed, and it's every bit as funny and moving as Baumbach and Gerwig's previous collaboration (and masterpiece) Frances Ha (2013). Man, I would love to be friends with them. They are making the kinds of movies I want to make.

James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour is as moving and perceptive as movies come. As someone who has never read any of David Foster Wallace's work, I didn't know how I would respond to the film. While watching the movie, I found myself constantly identifying with Jason Segel's Wallace, but in retrospect, I of course recognize that I'm much closer (in terms of the way I live my life) to journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg). There's that moment in the film when Lipsky goes into Wallace's bathroom and starts writing down the names of every pill bottle in his cabinet. And we don't realize the beauty of that moment until the end, when we see Wallace alone with the tape recorder. While Lipsky was trying to get the story - obsessively detailing the small things - Wallace was living in the moment. We want to be Wallace, but I think most of us are living our lives as the Lipsky character.

I connected deeply with Lipsky's need to document everything about his experience near the end - scrambling around Wallace's house with his tape recorder and describing every detail. Even if he didn't fully realize it at the time, the weekend meant something profound to him, and he was frantically trying to capture it before it was over.

Wallace is a deeply lonely character, and it seems to me that if Lipsky wasn’t trying so hard to get the story, the two of them could have been good friends, without any other journalistic objective in the way. When they’re spending time with the two women they meet in Minneapolis, Julie (Mamie Gummer) and Betsy (Mickey Sumner), simply hanging out and enjoying their company is enough for Wallace. When Lipsky tries to turn it into something else, it makes Wallace uncomfortable. Just be a good guy, he says to Lipsky. Even though Lipsky thinks Wallace is just putting on an act to appear like one of the "regular" people, Wallace really does feel that way - he's trying his best to remain uncorrupted. Eventually, he says, the technology will be good enough that we can be alone all the time and never have to experience anything authentic with other people.

Talking with Lipsky late at night in his bedroom, Wallace gives him a brief, honest look at his depression, which really isn’t a salacious Rolling Stone story at all - it doesn't involve heroin, as Lipsky seems to think. The next morning, when Lipsky says he doesn’t want to leave, Wallace says he knows how he feels. The End of the Tour is so perceptive in these small moments, and it has the richness and feeling of a memory pulled from one's own life. Without any real context for the film and its subject, I walked away as moved and enlightened from a film as I have in some time.

I am happy to report that Nancy Meyers's The Intern features Robert De Niro talking to himself in the mirror and Anne Hathaway making a Rachel Getting Married joke. But seriously, I loved this movie - show me De Niro in a leading role and I'm there. Speaking of De Niro, he turned seventy-two this August. With this year marking the twentieth anniversary of Michael Mann's Heat, there have been some excellent pieces written about one of the greatest of all films, including one from Variety about how the film should have been a major Oscar contender, and another with Mann speaking about the film. Mann released his first film in six years earlier this year, the masterful Blackhat, which was as artful an action film as you'll find and criminally overlooked by audiences.

Also worth checking from this fall and this summer are Woody Allen's Irrational Man, with great performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone (I don't think I've written about how much I liked this film, as well as Allen's picture from last year, Magic in the Moonlight, with Stone and Colin Firth as charming as they've ever been - here's an excellent interview with Allen from the The Wall Street Journal); Maya Forbes's very moving Infinitely Polar Bear, featuring another wonderful performance from one of the best actors alive, Mark Ruffalo; Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which may surpass all other Mission Impossible movies as the best one yet, and, for my money, the best action movie of the summer; The Wolfpack, a documentary that made want to compare 30-best lists with the Angulo brothers (I love that multiple brothers agree that Oliver Stone's JFK is #2) - here's an excellent article from The New Yorker on The Wolfpack, a piece on watching Goodfellas with the Angulo brothers, and a video of the brothers meeting their hero, Robert De Niro; Joel Edgerton's The Gift, which scared me enough that I let out a loud yelp in the cinema; Inside Out, which may very well be my favorite Pixar movie and brought me such joy that I now own a Bing Bong action figure; Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World, which has hilarious Vincent D'Onofrio hovering and iconic Chris Pratt riding with his Velociraptors (the only thing Jurassic World is missing is Jeff Goldblum emerging from the darkness in the old Jurassic Park bunker, channeling Tim Robbins in War of the Worlds or something - "So you kids want to learn about the original Jurassic Park, eh? Follow me."); Thomas Vinterberg's beautiful Far from the Madding Crowd; Shira Piven's darkly hilarious Welcome to Me, with a great performance from Kristen Wiig; Stevan Riley's extraordinary documentary Listen to Me Marlon; and, lastly, David Wain and Michael Showalter's Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, which, as its own four-hour movie, is one of the funniest comedies ever made.

On a side note, after four consecutive film experiences earlier this summer without anyone talking or being an annoying-ass moviegoer, the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin has my heart. Particularly in New York, there are fewer and fewer cinemas where you can find a respectful and quiet audience serious about watching cinema (or theatre managers even remotely willing to police their audiences), so I'm grateful to the Alamo for doing what they're doing at a time when audiences only seem to intensify in their disrespect.

It's been a great year for one of my heroes, Al Pacino. He turned seventy-five this year, and you should celebrate it by seeing one of his three masterful recent performances: Dan Fogelman's Danny Collins, which I saw twice in cinemas, has beautiful performances not only from Pacino but also Bobby Cannavale and Annette Bening; Barry Levinson's The Humbling, an unheralded treat from 2014 written by Buck Henry and featuring excellent work from Pacino, Greta Gerwig, Charles Grodin and Dianne Wiest (I can't believe this film didn't get a huge theatrical release); and David Gordon Green's Manglehorn, shot in Austin and a truly remarkable triumph of mood and feeling.

Here's an article from Film Comment on the greatness of Pacino's recent work, and here's my ranking of Pacino's performances on MUBI. John Lahr wrote a great New Yorker article on Pacino last year, and here's an excellent video accompaniment to Lahr's article. In an interview with The Talks earlier this year, Pacino said, "You can't let your skin get too thick." It's a welcome return to the screen for Pacino, who I last saw onscreen in 2013's Stand Up Guys, a very enjoyable hang-out movie with Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin.

I haven't written about my reaction to this year's Academy Awards yet, but I was truly hoping to see Richard Linklater onstage winning Best Director. Boyhood was almost unbelievably overlooked by the Academy. It's a strange feeling, because on my original end-of-the-year top ten list, I ranked Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's Birdman as my favorite film of last year - and it walked away with Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography Oscars (but, infuriatingly, not with the Oscar it deserved above all others - Best Actor for Michael Keaton). However, upon watching Boyhood again, I cannot help but feel that time will reveal it to be my favorite film of 2015 over Birdman. I cannot complain, though, because Birdman is easily the finest and most inspired choice, in my mind, for Best Picture since No Country for Old Men (2007). Still, a Birdman-Boyhood Best Picture-Best Director split would have made me very happy.

In a perfect world, Linklater, Iñárritu and Wes Anderson all would walked away with Oscars this year, and a truly inspired script would have won Best Adapted Screenplay, such as Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, Damian Chazelle's Whiplash or Gillian Flynn's not-even-nominated Gone Girl.

But, as always, the best way to enjoy the Oscars is to just not visit the internet, where everything is an outrage and people actually don't like movies. And to anyone claiming that the Oscar winners this year didn't have enough box office appeal, remember, as Sam Adams wrote in this great IndieWire article, "the Oscars haven't abandoned movies with mass-audience appeal... it's theatrical audiences who, with rare exceptions, have abandoned anything but big-budget spectacle."