Merry Xmas!!!

Just in time for the holidays. A small gift from me to you. Enjoy and have a safe and merry christmas.

Rabbit in Your Headlights

DOPE…

 

Gilles Peterson May Have Saved My [musical] Life

The current music scene is awful. It sucks. I am no longer interested in being a witness to the self-destruction of hip hop nor am I interested in destroying my brain with terrible pop music. People forget that pop music used to be amazing. Now its garbage. I struggle to find good new music. But I may have come across the one person who can spark a Randy Music Renaissance. His name is Gilles Peterson. I knew a little bit about him through his Brazilian jazz projects. But I didn’t realize that he had a radio program on bbc radio one in the UK. My man Shaka hooked me up with a show of his that features the great Madlib and J-Rocc. So after listening to that show I found the other ones and have been obsessed with it ever since. Part of the reason is that I’ve really been interested in expanding my musical horizons and coming across different musical interpretations. I’ve noticed that I’m really into electronic/synthesizer based music and Gilles Peterson plays a lot of that stuff. He’s definitely opened my eyes to a whole new world because I wouldn’t know where to start to get this stuff. It’s also cool because it exposes the DOPE music scene in London and the UK which I would love to experience firsthand at some point. I’m always down for another reason to travel. Anyway, here is a link to the latest installment of the show. Click on “listen now” to hear it. It’s only up for 7 days per episode so don’t miss out on listening. The other great thing is that they have a track listing for EVERY single show since 2002 so you can start to build your own collection. In fact the link I’m posting features the track list for this particular show. I hope you guys enjoy. Let me know what you think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ny75n#segments

Fuck Sovereign Bank

That is all.

Osvaldo’s at the 2009 Queens International Film Festival

What’s up everyone? Osvaldo’s will be screening at the 2009 Queens International Film Festival THIS SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14TH AT 2PM at the Holiday Inn Manhattan View located on 39-05 29th Street in Long Island City in Queens. I apologize for such a late notice but I didn’t get the screening information until recently. I hope some of you can make it out. Here is the link to buy tickets if you are interested: http://www.queensfilmfestival.com/films/detail.asp?fid=561

Thank you for all of the support so far for the film.

Osvaldo’s in Boston Latino Film Festival

Osvaldo’s is an official selection of the 2009 Boston Latino Film Festival! I am excited to be a part of the program and this makes the 6th out of 7th month that the film will be screening. This is our 8th festival so far. I am really humbled by the success and I hope there is more to come. If you are in the Boston area or know people in the boston area please come out. It will be screening on SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12TH AT 4:30 PM AT CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE LOCATED AT 1000 MASS AVE; STORE FRONT. I hope people can make it out. If there is more information I will pass it along. And just for the hell of it here is the trailer for the film:

 

The Anniversary

One of my best friends was Timothy Ruiz. Tim was an intelligent, religious, compassionate and vibrant young man. He came from an outstanding family and was simply one of the best people that I have ever or will ever know. Sadly, Tim was taken away from us. My first year at NYU in 2005, I did a short documentary on Tim’s family a year to the day of his passing. It is entitled “The Anniversary.” I never did anything with this film. I showed it at school and to his family and that was it. It was too personal and hurtful for me to just push it out there. This is the first time that I am putting it out here publicly. I am very proud of this not necessarily for the filmmaking but because I knew it was something I had to do and I did it. It would not have been possible without his fantastic and amazing family who I need to do a much better  job of keeping in touch with. They are the best. I also want to thank Daniel Patterson for shooting it and Darius Clark Monroe for doing sound. But I want to thank them even more for supporting me through that process. It meant a lot to me. Please watch it in its entirety. I am leaving out the details of his death because it is at the end of the film. Let me know what you think.

 

Here goes…

Say Grace Before Drowning

Nikaytu Jusu is a thesis candidate at the Tisch School of The Arts graduate film program. She is a schoolmate of mine and is a very talented director. She has enjoyed some nice success early on in her career. She is close to wrapping production on her new short “Say Grace Before Drowning” and she has just released a teaser for the film. It is shot by the very talented Daniel Patterson and I believe it is edited by the multi-talented Keith L. Davis. Check it out and please support Nikki’s film when it drops in 2010.

P.S. I used the word “talent” three times so you know this is gonna be good.

P.S.S. Apologies to Nikki for using the youtube version but the vimeo embed code wasn’t working on here for some reason.

UPDATE: If you want to know more about Nikki and her work please visit http://nikyatu.wordpress.com/

Collapse…

Continuing in the movie a day challenge, I am going to give my impressions of the new documentary, “Collapse” by Chris Smith. Collapse features former LAPD cop turned investigative reporter, Michael Ruppert and his theories on the direction in which our global society is heading. He comes from a significant intelligence background with both of his parents working in some capacity with the CIA, and in fact since he was a teenager, Ruppert held above top-secret classification within the CIA. He has been following all forms of intelligence for over 30 years and paints a harrowing picture of our future. In its most simplest terms, Ruppert’s premise is that when our natural resources eventually run out, our present global pardigm and system will collapse. This seems like a rather obvious statement to make but the film shows that this is way more complex than we imagine. “Collapse” goes into great detail to illustrate how oil lies at the foundation of everything that we do, spend, consume and expend.

I think the film does a fantastic job of presenting Ruppert as an outsider character. The singular interview a la Errol Morris is a simple but wildly effective approach to letting the man use his own voice. I don’t think there would be any other way to present Ruppert and his theories and capture the essence or danger of what they contain. There is an intensity, passion and sadness to the man that the film succeeds in capturing. The cinematography is beautiful for something that is so straightforward. It looks like an interrogation in a basement that looks like the Saw movies and there is a constant dolly shot that adds a creepiness and threat of danger throughout the piece. I think the film overall is great.

Now to the meat of this thing. I totally buy what Ruppert has to say. You can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever but the man knows too much and analyzes the information too well for it to be dismissed. I wish I could go into detail but I don’t want to ruin the film for those who haven’t seen it. I will say that the issue is way more complex than just saying oil rules the world and Ruppert makes that abundantly clear. I do believe that we are running out of the one currency that makes this world go round and I do believe that we have to begin to figure out ways to adapt to this changing world. Collapse has definitely made me re-think a few things and I appreciate when a film can impact me in that way.

Here is the trailer:

Madvillainy 2 Snippets

So for those of you that don’t know I am pretty much obsessed with Madlib and DOOM. If you check my ipod I have hundreds of songs by them. You can throw J Dilla  into that group as well. When Madlib and DOOM came together a couple years a back for their album MADVILLAINY I can’t tell you how gassed I was. It is one of the best albums I will ever hear in my entire life. Here is the first album if you wanna check it out:

http://www.imeem.com/artists/madvillain/album/31jG7SoB/madvillainy-album/

Naturally, you expect for the duo to drop another album because of its critical acclaim and audience approval. We have gone a couple years without hearing anything from the new album. Now we may have come a cross a sneak peek of what is to come soon. I don’t know if these are demos or actual tracks on Madvillainy 2 but they do come from J-Rocc who is a part of the Stones Throw camp. These tracks are ridiculous and now I am officially amped for the new joint to drop. Here is the clip of J-Rocc spinning some of the tracks on east village radio. Enjoy and let me know what you think.