Sad to report that our documentary film, A Brief History of the Mustache in Cinema, has been shaved from the development slate of upstart cabler The Hair Channel. Collaborator Cary Carpe and I had been tapped to track the mustache through cinema for the new channel (a sort of E! for all things follicular) after…
Daedalus Howell Come every April, there are four words that get uttered here in Sonoma – “the film festival returneth.” Well, no one actually says it quite like that, but the annual cinematic juggernaut is such a transformative presence on the town that it deserves biblical-sounding lingo. Or at least something vaguely Shakespearean, like: “Is…
Toy Stories In the early days of the web, circa 1997, there was a plethora of Magic 8 Ball applications online that enabled users to make queries about the future without risking a repetitive motion injury from shaking the real deal. Among them was Marin-raised Jake Donham’s incarnation, which received a “cease and desist” notice…
I’m a browser by nature. By that, of course, I don’t mean I’m Firefox or Explorer – at least not until I wet-wire into the neural network (Then you’ll see! You’ll all see!). Rather, I’m a great reader of spines, those on books, those on DVD cases, those that are shelved alphabetically, vertically and occasionally…
A big chill passed through the Sundance Film Festival and it didn’t come from the Park City ski slopes. According to Boston Globe scribe Ty Burr, who covered the annual ?indie? festival cum market conference, the entertainment industry remains verklempt over distribution issues in the age of digital downloads, shrinking marketing budgets and an audience…
Imagine if Grace Kelley slid her pinky over her iPhone screen instead of answering the landline tethered to her would-be assassination in Dial M for Murder; or if E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, used his rollover minutes instead of hotwiring a Speak ?N? Spell to phone home. Contemporary communication tools have made us reachable 24/7, consequently, screenwriters…