Sophomore Jack Kyser is Edward Teller (James R. Burton Award Nominee - Best Supporting Actor 2006-2007). From The Red Dragon Players' production of "The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer" - October 2006.
Jack is a 2013 graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he was a Dean's Scholar and film major. He is currently in pre-production on his first feature film. Jack’s previous seven short films have screened at film festivals nationwide over the last several years. He is the recipient of numerous awards from Tisch during both his enrollment and post-graduation, including the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, the Sony Electronics Scholarship and the Emerson Scholarship. He currently works as an editor at Comedy Central for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Previously, he was an associate producer and assistant editor for Emmy-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski, and interned for a year-and-a-half at Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions. He studied acting at Manhattan’s Herbert Berghof Studio under the direction of Austin Pendleton. During his four years at Austin High School, Jack performed in twenty-three plays and won fourteen Best Actor or All-Star Cast awards at all levels of UIL competition, and advanced to Nationals competition in Monologue, Duet Musical and Shakespeare performance. He has written a monthly film column for Austin Family Magazine since 2004.
On Sunday, August 9th, I did something I've always wanted to do - screen a few of my short films for my friends in Austin. I've had a chance to show these movies on the big screen in New York over the years, but never in my hometown. I was honored to have a small gathering of dear friends join me at the Violet Crown Cinema for the screening, which also served as my belated 31st birthday party.
In preparation for the event, I wrote down a few thoughts about the films themselves, hoping to provide some insight into what I've been trying to accomplish with my film work. I thought I'd share those thoughts here on this blog.
Thank you all so much for being here, and I hope this isn’t too self-aggrandizing. This is something I had wanted to do last year for my 30th birthday, but that wasn’t possible due to COVID-19.
I thought I’d offer a little context for what you’re about to see. These are three short films I made, preceded by sort of a throwback joke trailer I made in high school. The first film, You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory, was my senior thesis film at NYU, which meant it was a script workshopped for a semester in our Advanced Production class. That semester ended with students pitching their films for an allotment from the school, as not everyone gets to make a thesis (at least not with the resources and equipment NYU has available). I was lucky enough to get the allotment, and as we were still students, I didn’t have to pay my cast and crew. Even still, the shoot was costly, and so many of you contributed in some way to make it possible. That's one of the primary reasons I wanted to do this, to thank you and also show you that we did actually make something. I don’t know if it’s good, but we didn’t go on vacation - your money was definitely spent on a movie.
The last two films, Jack and Lucas Go to a Wedding and Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, are independent projects I wrote and directed after college. The main difference on these shoots was that most of our crew members were working professionally and we weren’t operating with the support of a university, so everyone had to be paid and all camera gear and equipment had to be rented. I did fundraising campaigns for both films, and again, so many of the people in this room helped out, for which I am forever grateful.
Of these two post-grad films, the first is a movie I made with my old friend Lucas Loredo, which we shot entirely in a hotel room. The second was a collaboration with the lead from my thesis, an excellent actor named Mike Wesolowski – so you’ll see him in two different movies.
Looking at these films now, I see a lot of things that I didn’t necessarily see at the time. The primary one being judgment – which is not to say the movies themselves are judgmental of the lead character, but rather the character is often very judgmental and critical of himself.
I can’t say that any of these films are autobiographical – despite the fact that the character I play in one of them is named Jack – but they do to a certain extent reflect versions of things I've felt over the years in an exaggerated way. But I see myself toeing the line here between trying to have an empathetic protagonist while also presenting a character with some pretty extreme qualities. Sometimes the challenge was - how far can I take it before the audience says, "This guy is out of his mind!" A film of mine I was going to include in tonight’s line-up but ultimately didn’t, Jake the Cinephile, was described by one of my professors as an empathy dare – as in, I dare you to empathize with this character. He’s so off-the-wall. And I don’t think he meant that in a positive way. With that particular short, though, I’m getting the chance to sort of get a do-over, as I’ve developed it into a feature film which we’ll be shooting at some point this decade (production isn't easy these days).
A question I got once when someone watched one of the films was, is this really how you see yourself? And the answer is no. But that comment stuck with me, and a progression I’ve noticed in the projects I’ve been developing since making these shorts is a kindness and – I hope - a more multi-dimensional quality to my lead characters that acknowledges their positive, engaging attributes alongside their less-desirable ones.
That being said, I’ll always be attracted to losers, for lack of a better term. They’re just more interesting than winners. And I am proud of the movies you’re about to see. Theoretically, they should get better with each one, but I can’t promise there won’t be some regression.
So thank you for letting me make films where I was able to refine my style and articulate what I was feeling at the time and learn a lot about how I want to make movies - which ultimately you can only do by making them.
It feels weird to say this at a screening of my own work, but if you have cell phones, it’d be pretty cool if you silenced them. My attitude toward talking during movies is sort of well-known at this point, too… but again, I feel weird saying this at my own screening. Thank you all so much.
It's been a little while since my last blog entry, but I'm back! Near the end of last year, I made an acting reel, mainly comprised of footage from Alex Fofonoff's Blood and Thunder (in which I starred) and my films Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding, Jake the Cinephile and With Love, Marty. Take a look below if you're interested, and please share - I'd love to get more acting work (if anyone needs a Jack-like character in their movie, I'm your man!) Look for memorable appearances by excellent acting partners like Desi Domo, Alexis Gay, Bethany McHugh and Lucas Loredo. Thank you to Bobb Barito for his sound design and to Alex for so much great footage from Blood and Thunder.
Speaking of Blood and Thunder, we had a great first screening of the film back in December. It was truly an honor to share Alex's film on a big screen with a group of friends and collaborators. We're still in the process of getting the movie out there and submitting it to festivals, and I'm very excited for more people to see it.
My friend Marissa Rutka has a great new web series titled Coffee Catch-Ups that's online now, and it was a lot of fun to be a part of the production (and a subject in the series). You can find the two episodes where I'm featured before - in the first, Morgan Ingari and I recount the eye-watering events of Hurricane Sandy, and in the second, I go into Jake the Cinephile mode and offer out my rather obsessive-compulsive idea of perfection. Keep watching the series for more memorable guests and friends, like Charlotte Arnoux, Adam Boese, Nick Tanis and Emmy-winning guest star Jon Annunziata. The series was also nominated in the Documentary & Factual category of T.O. Webfest and will play at their festival later this month, so that's exciting!
In other news, my movie Jake the Cinephile is now available to watch online on Vimeo! I had a lot of fun screening this film at NewFilmmakers New York and The Beacon Film Festival (Freeze Frame) a few years ago, and I can't thank all of my extraordinary collaborators on the film enough. Here it is:
My senior thesis film You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory is winding down its festival run after screening at a number of festivals last year. We were proud to be nominated as a Finalist for Best Student Film at the Blow Up-Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival in December. And earlier, on Saturday, November 21st, I was thrilled to screen You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory at the Katra Film Series with some other great films. After the film screenings at Katra, there was a Q&A with the other filmmakers, where I was joined by my great lead actor Mike Wesolowski.
On Friday, April 22nd, By Sidney Lumet, the wonderful documentary on which I was an associate producer and assistant editor, had a special free screening at the Tribeca Film Festival at the SVA Theatre, followed by a lively Q&A with panelists Jonathan Demme, Treat Williams, Amy Ryan and Jenny Lumet moderated by director Nancy Buirski. It was a particularly exciting day because, before the screening, I was part of the production team on an excellent interview with Mr. Williams, where he discussed shooting Lumet's masterpiece Prince of the City (1981). From both that interview and the post-screening talkback, I learned so much great New York City filmmaking history in the span of a few hours.
The trailer for By Sidney Lumet is also now available for the world to see - you can watch it here. Earlier this year, the film screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham. But, for me, the most exciting screening of By Sidney Lumet was at the Austin Film Festival last October, where it played at the historic Paramount Theatre. It was a great afternoon screening, and a good number of my friends and family members were able to come see the picture on the big screen. Nancy held an excellent Q&A after the film was over onstage (I was also able to see a number of other films at the festival, including Youth, Brooklyn, Legend and Coming Through the Rye, and meet one of my favorite actors, Chris Cooper, for the second time).
By Sidney Lumet spans Lumet's entire career, from 12 Angry Men (1957) to Dog Day Afternoon (1975) to Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), and it's really been great to see the film and Lumet's work so justly celebrated over the last year.
Meanwhile, Loving, the narrative film adaptation of Nancy's first film, The Loving Story (2011), wrapped production last fall, and earlier this year Focus Features bought the film to release in the fall. Directed by the astounding Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special) and starring Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga and Michael Shannon, Loving recently made its world premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and it was the talk of the festival. Loving is shaping up to be the second masterful film by Nichols this year (after Midnight Special, which I'll discuss below), and it's a very exciting time for Nancy's career.
The Cannes line-up this year, by the way, was particularly exciting - in addition to Loving, there were new films from Sean Penn (The Last Face), Woody Allen (Cafe Society), Paul Schrader (Dog Eat Dog, starring Nicolas Cage) and Jim Jarmusch (Paterson), along with a special screening of Jonathan Jakubowicz's Hands of Stone to honor star Robert De Niro, who is supposed to give another great performance in the film. And in the absolute best news of the festival, STX bought the international rights for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, which is the movie I've been waiting for my entire life. If The Irishman is indeed moving forward, it's the best news of the century.
By the way, I suspect Penn's The Last Face (which was received poorly) is a good film, and critics are simply making it difficult for the movie to find a distributor. Meanwhile, most studio crap gets a pass - I'll have a bit more to say on critics dismissing interesting cinema while giving bloated, uninteresting superhero films way too much leeway a little later.
On Saturday, April 23rd, ten years after the best concert of my life (seeing The Rolling Stones in Zilker Park in Austin), I went to the only concert that can ever top it - finally, after waiting for so long, I saw Bruce Springsteen in concert. That's right, I went down to The River to worship at the altar of The Boss. His two performances at Brooklyn's Barclays Center marked the end of The River Tour 2016, in which Springsteen and the E Street Band performed the entirety of their 1980 album The River (along with a large number of other Springsteen songs). As you might expect, I rocked out. From the homemade Springsteen t-shirts worn by fans congregating at the nearby Shake Shack to the power and majesty of the music itself, this concert was three and a half hours of joy. The River is such a beautiful, haunting album (here's a link to some of the videos I took on my phone during the concert).
And his live performances of these classic songs were as full of exuberance and passion as I've heard (though I feel quite familiar with his live work, having watched recordings of his concerts for years now). There was simply so much energy in songs like Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Born to Run, Badlands, Out in the Street, I'm A Rocker, Cadillac Ranch, Crush On You, Two Hearts and You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch). He crowd-surfed, he threw multiple guitars off-stage (toward someone waiting to catch them), he got a married couple onstage to slow-dance, he danced like a madman, he busted through the crowd like The Boss.
And then there were the songs that nearly moved me to tears. He opened with Purple Rain, as this was two days after the tragic passing of Prince. And then The River stand-outs Fade Away, Stolen Car, The River and Independence Day broke my heart, along with two of his most emotional and triumphant songs, Lonesome Day and The Rising.
Earlier this year, my roommate Bobb got a vinyl record player for our apartment, and my used copy of The River I purchased from Other Music (which is unfortunately closing in June) has received more play than almost any other record in our collection. It's just a masterpiece, and as someone who considers Bruce Springsteen my favorite musician, I'm embarrassed I hadn't explored it and appreciated it the same way I have with Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A., The Rising, Magic, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Devils and Dust and so many other seminal Springsteen albums until this year.
April 29th was the fourteen year anniversary of my dear dad John Kyser leaving this earth - what a fun, loving man he was. He is deeply missed. To the right, you'll see some pictures taken by my great mom Gretchen Kyser.
Earlier in March, we held the Second Annual Lip Sync Battle Contest at my apartment, where friends attended and took turns performing sections (or the entirety of) songs that they chose (and rehearsed) before the competition. To commemorate the one year anniversary of our first party, I edited together a trailer of our performances from last year's inaugural contest. Take a look here and marvel at the talent on display.
Congratulations to our outrageously talented winners Mo Faramawy, Marissa Rutka, Taylor Frey and Alex Schaefer, as well as our Special Jury Prize winners Jon Annunziata and Emma Viles (traveling all the way from Boston!). There were magical performances by everyone and excellent judging all around.
We're not even half-way through the year, but there have already been several outstanding new film releases - although it's sometimes disturbingly difficult to find them when so many screens are devoted to the latest superhero monstrosity. In all seriousness, any self-proclaimed lover of film owes it to himself or herself to actively go out and see the new films from Richard Linklater, Terrence Malick, Jeff Nichols and Joel and Ethan Coen in a movie theater. It is more important than ever to support great cinema and choose wisely, particularly when nearly every screen in the city is dedicated to garbage (even when the garbage is supposedly "good," I simply find myself bored, desperately wanting to watch a real movie). Many, many worthy films open every Friday, and they're often lucky to survive even for two weeks in New York. I shudder to think how many films like Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret (2011) I've missed and have flown under the radar - and I'm someone who keeps up regularly with what's out there.
In my last post, I wrote in detail about my love for Linklater's flat-out amazing Everybody Wants Some!! Instead of making a top ten list this year, I might just list the ten best uses of music in the film. Linklater's new movie deserved a wide release, but Paramount Pictures didn't let that happen. Anyone who has seen the movie has fallen in love with it, but the studio simply didn't give the picture the chance it deserved and allow word-of-mouth to spread. Linklater is a national treasure, and actor Glen Powell delivers a star-making performance here (plus, my friend Jenna Marie Sab plays the mud wrestling champ, and Bernie Tiede served as the set cat wrangler).
It's a miracle that a movie as contemplative as Malick's Knight of Cups exists in this day and age. Richard Brody wrote a great piece on the film for The New Yorker (it's worth noting that Brody is one of the only film critics who actually seems to appreciate daring filmmaking anymore - some of the reviews for Knight of Cups would lead you to believe your money would be better spent seeing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).
Malick finds real beauty in the decadence of Los Angeles, with locations as evocative as anything in his filmography (production designer Jack Fisk does amazing work, as always). Malick also benefits from having an incredibly strong, emotive lead actor in Christian Bale, who is fascinating to watch in every quiet moment of this film. He seems to relish Malick's style of filmmaking, inviting us to share his character's very real struggle without having anything close to a traditional scene of dialogue.
The scenes with Bale's father (Brian Dennehy) and his brother (Wes Bentley) are some of the best in the film. Cate Blanchett makes a memorable impression as Bale's ex-wife, in a sequence in which we come to understand so much about his character through his reactions to her work as a nurse.
It's interesting to see Malick film the modern-day emptiness of a heavily materialistic culture, partially because I'm so used to seeing the natural world represented in his films. This is only Malick's second non-period piece (after To the Wonder), and I love seeing him capture our world in a way that emphasizes both the beauty and the trappings of a decadent wasteland.
Structuring the film in sections named after tarot cards fits so well with this story of a man on a quest to find meaning in his life and world. The experience of a hard-partying Hollywood player has never been put onscreen quite like this before, with so much contemplation as to what it all means and what role he's playing. There's a very memorable scene in which Bale's apartment is robbed and he's held at gunpoint. One of the burglars asks why there isn't anything of value in his home, and Bale doesn't have an answer.
As always with Malick, I found myself lost in Knight of Cups in a beautiful way, and I was made a little less aware of the current time and space around me. There's no way in his pictures to really know where we are structurally in the story, and so our minds are free to wander and take in the beauty of each moment. We simply exist in the space of the movie, and that is a wonderful thing.
Midnight Special is really, really special. The films of Jeff Nichols take place in cheap roadside motels, gas stations, backwoods areas and on dark highways. The locations alone have more character than most other studio films out there. All of his films are about parental concern in some way or another, and about a kind of anxiety and longing at the heart of modern southern men.
Interestingly, both Mud (2013) and Midnight Special feature powerful late scenes that help unearth the themes of the film, followed immediately by a rousing shootout. These critical scenes – in Mud, the titular character giving our young protagonist advice on love, and in Midnight Special, a child comforting his parents about to lose him – have a beautiful romanticism to them. And then Nichols leaps immediately into the thick of an adventure. It’s exhilarating filmmaking.
I love how dark Nichols and cinematographer Adam Stone allow some of these scenes to get – we actually feel like nighttime is upon us. And the darkness only helps conceal the mystery, along with the beautiful score from David Wingo, who also scored Mud, Take Shelter (2011) and the films of David Gordon Green.
Edgerton is silent and strong, providing a subtle, effective presence in each scene, while Shannon is riveting as a father willing to do anything for his son.
Midnight Special is an emotional story about parents protecting and eventually letting go of their child, and how others along the way are deeply affected by the child's vision. Nichols is so good at making movies that are about so much more than they seem, and they always sneak up on you and reveal themselves in profound ways. The combination of supernatural imagery with ordinary life is even more prevalent here than in Take Shelter, but Nichols uses special effects only when necessary, and only in the interest of enhancing the story.
With these last few films, Nichols has created a new American South that feels real and heartfelt. Here, he embraces his inner Spielberg and makes a film full of haunting images, quiet characters whose inner lives speak volumes, and an atmosphere that lingers long after the credits are finished.
In February, Joel and Ethan Coen released their latest masterpiece, Hail Caesar! Josh Brolin, in his third collaboration with the Coens, leads a hilarious ensemble cast, and the picture is a treat for anyone who loves classic cinema. The Coens have a great time paying homage to classic studio films from the 1950s. They're also two of the only major American filmmakers to deal seriously with religion in their films. Hail, Caesar!, which begins and ends with Eddie Mannix (Brolin) in confessional, is fascinating when you consider the minor sins for which he atones, as opposed to the things he doesn't confess. He doesn't give a second thought to anything slightly immoral that involves running Capitol Pictures more effectively, whereas smaller things, like having an occasional cigarette, weigh on him heavily. This is a dense film, and worth seeing multiple times. Every film from the Coens is like a puzzle, and as you're watching it, you know the pieces are going to add up to something brilliant, but part of the fun is trying to determine how seemingly throwaway scenes contribute to the overall picture.
If you want brilliantly-written, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-style fun, run to see Shane Black's The Nice Guys, in which Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling make a hilarious pair of private eyes. This is precisely the kind of movie that deserves to be making loads of money - if only America wasn't so simultaneously force-fed and obsessed with superhero atrocities. Jodie Foster's Money Monster is also a great, tight thriller reminiscent of Sidney Lumet's work - and features a fantastic supporting performance from my friend and NYU peer Grant Rosenmeyer! He plays Tech Dave, who spends a great deal of time in the control room and later in a van with Julia Roberts.
A24 continues to release the most memorable films out there - The Lobster is amazingly inspired and strong, with an extraordinary performance by Colin Farrell. And earlier this year, The Witch unsettled me deeply. Talk about a production company on a winning streak - in the last year, they've released While We're Young, Ex Machina, Amy, The End of the Tour, Room and Green Room, in addition to the above titles. If I see their logo attached to a movie trailer, I'm seeing the movie without a doubt.
I was a little late to the game in seeing it (after it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film), but Son of Saul by László Nemes is a work of art. In short, it's important to go out there and see the original films. So please go support The Nice Guys, Money Monster, The Lobster, A Bigger Splash, Weiner, Maggie's Plan, Elvis and Nixon, Miles Ahead, The Family Fang, Green Room and - if it's still playing near you - Everybody Wants Some!!
Earlier this February, I attended the first screening of the Blackhat Director's Cut at BAM, with Michael Mann, one of my favorite directors of all time, introducing the film. I was a fan of this movie when it first opened a year ago, and I love this restructured version even more.
In this cut, the romance between Chris Hemsworth and Tang Wei's characters is much stronger, and the characters overall are more fully defined. You know you're watching the work of a master visual stylist when you can practically feel the locations while watching the picture, and Blackhat has no shortage of incredibly memorable set pieces.
The sheer urgency and immediacy of the shootouts are as gripping as anything in Mann's filmography. The hacking scenes are beautifully filmed and visualized, and Mann's hyper-digital aesthetic has rarely felt more appropriate and essential, given the subject material. It's hacker versus hacker at the end of this picture. The film feels like it takes place in two worlds - one made up of sprawling and confusing physical geography, the other an unknowable and far advanced world that leaves the physical one muddled in chaos. On a side note, I was thrilled to be quoted in an IndieWire story about the Blackhat screening.
In April, I saw the current revival of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, which was an incredible production. I hadn't seen the musical since the 1990s, when I went with my parents to a production at Austin's Paramount Theatre.
As for this year's Academy Awards, I thought the winners themselves were right on the money. The final three Oscars went to exactly the people who deserved them - they got it right. Let's finally say it - Academy Award Winner Leonardo DiCaprio. We all know it should have been Oscar #4, as he should have won for Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), but no matter. The Academy awarded a magnificent actor and a truly kind person (from the few times I met him on The Wolf of Wall Street), not to mention an extraordinary performance.
In fact, I made the t-shirt to the right two years ago in the spirit of a possible DiCaprio win for The Wolf of Wall Street. That didn't happen. But I brought it back this year, and it happened.
The Best Director win for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Best Picture win for Spotlight are, again, precisely the choices I would have made - not just among the nominees, but for the entire year, period. I loved whatever it was Michael Keaton mouthed when Spotlight won - that's two Best Picture winners in a row for Keaton, baby (and you can bet he's coming back for more this year with his excellent-looking performance in The Founder). The awards were enough to start a hashtag like #OscarsSoRight.
I was a little sad about Sylvester Stallone's loss for Creed, though my two picks for Best Supporting Actor (Harvey Keitel for Youth and Keaton for Spotlight) weren't even nominated. But it's cool that, before Lincoln (2012), Steven Spielberg had never directed an Oscar-winning performance - and now, with Mark Rylance's brilliant performance in Bridge of Spies, he's directed two. I was hoping to see the Best Song Oscar go to Youth, the actual best song nominated, by an artist apparently not famous enough to perform (don't even get me started on the exclusion of Brian Wilson's song from Love & Mercy).
To be honest, I hadn't been so excited for the Oscars since The Departed (2007) won it all nine years ago, mainly because of the prospect of a DiCaprio win. And the other winners were largely excellent (Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight! Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer for Spotlight! Brie Larson for Room! Adam McKay and Charles Randolph for The Big Short!). Still, the tone of the evening oftentimes left a bad taste in my mouth - there's a way to critique the politics of the entertainment industry without disrespecting the films and people who are nominated.
It was a good awards season, for the most part, as well - with The Revenantbecoming a worldwide hit, winning the major BAFTA awards and Alejandro González Iñárritu winning the DGA for the second year in a row - he could not be more deserving. Spotlight, meanwhile, won the WGA award. Here's a great Rolling Stone article on Iñárritu, which includes Scorsese's thoughts on The Revenant (he calls it a masterpiece).
There have been some tragic deaths since I last wrote here, including musical legends Glenn Frey, David Bowie and Prince; Gary Shandling, who gave us masterful comedy with The Larry Sanders Show; Kathryn Altman, who so lovingly kept her late husband Robert Altman's legacy alive and well, particularly with the magnificent book on his career; and brilliant author Harper Lee. I had the honor of briefly meeting Harper Lee ten years ago with my friend Bolton Eckert at Horton Foote's ninetieth birthday party - she was an extraordinary person, and her work and legacy will live on forever.
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!
"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 SimpsonsWorld, 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.
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."
