Internet empowers indie filmmakers | Video | Reuters.com

Reuters covers the Power to the Pixel conference we attended in London.

(tags: film indie youtube digital distribution independent video “power to the pixel” “london festival” BFI foureyedmonsters crumley buice)

Quit Whining: How To Make An NYC Startup Work – Silicon Alley Insider

“We hear it all the time, so it must be true: Launching a startup in NYC is harder than anywhere else: You can’t find good people, there’s no space for fledgling companies, everything’s too expensive and there’s no money to be found. But SAI contributor a

(tags: Business entrepreneurship startup article)

Power to the Pixel breakout session, London

I participated in this Q&A; session about Four Eyed Monsters and the future of film distribution, exp

(tags: brianchirls foureyedmonsters powertothepixel londonfilmfestival richardayers)

Today, I decided that it would be cool to have an elimination tournament of “Frat Pack” movies. Films would be judged, two at a time, by a panel of judges to be selected by me. The winning film would be rewarded with a mention on blog.chirls.com. To qualify, a film must have at least two of the following actors: Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughan, Jack Black. Films directed by Wes Anderson are ineligible, as are films whose titles begin with “Meet the.”

Other highlights: made breakfast, changed sheets.

Dear Iowans,

Thank you for showing us what life is all about.

Your pal, New Yorkers

“I left God’s country,” said Leon Mosley of Waterloo, Iowa, co-chairman of his state party. “They could use a bunch of people from Iowa to come here to show New Yorkers what life is all about, what being patriotic is all about, and what country is all about. I’m as confident about Bush being re-elected as I am that eggs are going to be in New York tomorrow morning.‘’

NYT

I should be asleep, but this one’s too good to pass up. After the last post, I started poking around that website with the Daily Show clips. I found another one on the current administration’s efforts to gain the authority to suspend the election. Watch it. Jon Stewart et al are brilliant. Thanks to Lisa Rein for keeping an eye on it for when we’re too busy working on important stuff to catch the show.

We don’t usually like to write about Politics so much here at blog.chirls.com. But there’s so darn much going on lately, and the stakes are pretty high these days. I’m looking forward to the time when i can go back to sleeping through it all.

First thing is a letter from former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to the Senate Intelligence Committe. I’ve liked this guy ever since I saw him on the Daily Show way back in July 2003. He gives great interview. And now I’m totally a member of the Joe Wilson Fan Club. The biggest surprise about the letter is that it’s actually a decent read. It’s nice to see that at least one of these guys is actually a good enough writer to make something like this interesting.

Next on the list is a story at Salon about comic book guy Alan Moore, of “Watchmen,” “From Hell” and something about Extraordinary Gentlemen. Sadly, I’ve yet to read those. I occasionally swing by Forbidden Planet, but I run like hell the other way so I don’t end up buying every graphic novel and action figure in the store. Anyway, read the freakin’ story.

Mark Glassman and some other guy wrote a story about some guy they call Sandy who is not actually named Sandy but may or may not have crammed classified documents down his undies.

Chirls rock band pals, Han Shot First, finally got some audio files up on the ol’ inter-thingy. Check out “My America.” I know, I know. More politics. But it’s actually a pretty good song, so it’s cool. These guys gig around town pretty often, and they sound great. Check ‘em out.

“This is an election year, I want people to get their head up out of their mashed potatoes and learn something about the issues and go and vote…I’m not telling them how to vote. I’m saying, get information about the issues.”

• Linda Ronstadt to the Los Angeles Times, via Salon (clickthrough ad required)

We spent the long weekend in the District of Columbia for the country’s 228th and Mark’s 26th. (That’s our nation’s capital, not 116th St., for any of our in-from-out-of-town readers who might be confused.) After the three-plus hour schlep down and the rotten weather, in comparison with BSP’s reports of perfect weather back at home, I was ready to swear off leaving The City forever. That really is a strange little town. Their taxi cabs are like all different colors, and they don’t turn the little roof light off when they pick people up. The subway (called the “Metro” in a pathetic attempt to sound almost as cool as every other city in the world) has only about three stations. And there’s all this sky everywhere. But we had a generally good time anyway, particularly at that fabulous UK-themed Fourth barbecue. Good food, nice people and rain. I realize now that Manhattan (between Canal and 110th Streets) is not the only place in the world. With enough alcohol, free food, the opportunity to verbally smack a few Republicans around, and with all my friends leaving town anyway, one really can have a good time in other places along the east coast. Next trip: Brooklyn.

Also, thanks to Ass for finding this timely link for us today. Have a look at those t-shirts at the bottom. Hmm…some of those designs look vaguely familiar.

On occasion, I find that life slows down a bit. On those sad, slow days when there’s no movie premiere party, the Simpsons rerun showing is a clip show and pre-production on my next film has halted ‘cause I’m waiting to hear back from a co-writer, I can come dangerously close to experiencing boredom, or worse, full-blown ennui. In these rare cases, the last resort to avoid heat death of the universe that is my brain is that most desparate, contemptible activity: reading. Newspapers, magazines, even sometimes weblogs. And once, I read a book. I’ll be honest with you, dear loyal readers, it’s come to that.

In my usual, attention-grasping style, I’m going to share something silly that I read. I found it in that silliest of publications, The New York Times. Michael Jernofsky and Sarah Kershaw write:

Shawn O’Hara, national chairman of the Reform Party, which was founded by Ross Perot, sought to play down differences with Mr. Nader. He insisted that Mr. Nader’s views were not entirely out of synch with the party as currently constructed, at least on some issues, like their mutual opposition to world trade agreements and the United States military role in Iraq.

“We’ve moved to the center,” Mr. O’Hara said, while conceding that he once favored the execution of doctors and nurses who performed abortions but now embraced abortion rights as provided by federal law, as Mr. Nader does.

For those of you who are in the pitiable position of being bored enough to care about politics, the full article is available at the Times website. There. I feel much, much better now.

Ok, this is pretty hilarious. Our beloved President has posted a fun little video ad on his campaign website. It’s a series of clips of a bunch of Democrats saying nasty things about Bush, ending with something about how we should be optimistic instead of getting all pissy. They even managed to get Hitler in there somehow. I think it was from that moveon thing from way back. But that wasn’t made by anyone in the Kerry camp, and they denounced that anyway. [more from Salon]

I can see where that message might appeal to some people, but is it really worth giving the Dems an opportunity to make their point right on the main page of georgebush.com? Are these guys being ballsy, desperate or just plain obtuse? I mean, Hitler? Honestly. The Kerry campaign doesn’t seem to find this as funny as I do. Check out this blog entry . Bush has a blog too. I have no plans to waste my time with either of them.

Speaking of entertaining politics, both the New York Times and The New Yorker have profiles of Governor Schwarzenegger this week. Both very well written, interesting and informative. They both portray him as quite charismatic and give a deeper, more nuanced impression of him than most media coverage he’s received so far. I still think he’s a schmuck.

Coincidentally or not, Terminator 3 was on tonight. As I’m staying home to do laundry, I watched it. All of it, actually. It’s surprisingly not awful. Two aspects that bother me about it are the handful of gaping holes in logic and the dumbed-down, exposition-heavy dialogue. Funny and maybe a bit ironic how these guys over-explain everything, giving too much information in movies and give way too little in politics. I would have thought it should be the other way around. However, there are some similarities. Like much politics today, Terminator 3 is basically a parody of the last one from a decade ago but dumber and with a lot more unnecessary destruction.

I’ve got a few goodies for those of you who are missing out on all the way cool stuff I do and see every day. Most of you, I know. But hey, that’s why I’m here!

The New York Times did a whole section on the history of Times Square, which just turned 100 in April. I know this one is way old, but it’s good. And like the Times, I like to come to the story way behind the curve but give it the full treatment. There’s a cool slideshow narrated by James Traub. A Day in the Life is surprisingly fascinating: “And what of the sights? ‘We did see the Eiffel Tower,’ says Julie Pasket. She meant the Statue of Liberty, but the confusion is understandable. All those French structures look alike.” Even better is a comment by Elaine Swann, 85, in Their Times Square who says, “The idiot tourists come in droves. I want to kill them when I’m trying to get across the street.” I know, Elaine. I know.

Next up, Monday was the premiere event for Meme, a new “music, art and mixed media” organization. Off to a bit of a rocky start with a 25 minute atonal clarinet/laptop duet, the evening turned out nicely, thanks in part to the handsome and funny host. The second piece, another atonal clarinet/laptop duet, was quite a bit better than the first, mostly because it was quite a bit shorter. This time, they played in front of a large, digital projection of a screensaver, which eventually dissolved to reveal soft-core porn. So that was pretty cool, I guess. Everything after that managed to be relatively innovative and engaging. A guy jamming on his electric cello, Kamala singing a Mozart opera thing into a webcam and a fun music video/sex documentary. there was plenty more after that, but I had to leave around 12:45 am to go somewhere even more fabulous. Not to go to sleep or anything like that.

Wednesday was more mainstream, but no less fun. Metropolitain Opera in the Park on the Great Lawn. One of my favorite summer events, almost up there with the (practically identical) Philharmonic in the Park. An unusually large crowd turned out for Madama Butterfly. I didn’t really follow the story, since it was in French or something. But the wine was good…or at least, there was a lot of it.

Keep an eye out for the Philharmonic as well as Bryant Park Movie Night every Monday this summer. See you out there.