In the coming months Driven By Boredom is going to get a make over. The facelift is tentatively scheduled for April 1st but knowing how these things work, and on my limited budget, it could be 2015 before it really happens.  Part of that redesign is going to give the party photos their own part of the website so that I can do more blogging about other things without bumping the photography down to the bottom of the page.  This is going to let me do a lot of shorter blogs and do posts on videos, music, events and other things that I usually just post on my Tumblr account. I really want to do a lot of shorter posts like I was doing when DBB 3.0 first launched and soon I will be able to do that.  I mention this for two reasons, one is to keep you updated on things on DBB, and the other is because I am about to do one of those type of posts right now… (This actually ended up being a lot more substantial than I thought it was going to be…)

Hulu Plus announced recently that it has worked out a deal with the Criterion Collection to stream their films uninterrupted.  Criterion owns the digital rights to over 800 films and over 150 films are available now.  The films will be shown with commercial before the movie so that you don’t have to have unnatural breaks while watching.  Some Criterion films will be available on a rotating basis with commercial breaks as part of Hulu’s basic service.

I actually just quit my Hulu Plus subcription. Many of the TV shows I wanted to watch weren’t available to stream on mobile devices. It seemed totally pointless. I have no real interest in watching every episode of Cougar Town or The Dick Van Dyke show. I am pretty sure the addition of Criterion Collection is going to get me to sign back up. If you aren’t familiar with the Criterion Collection you probably have no business watching any of their movies anyway (although they do have a couple of Michael Bay films in there…) but they have one of the largest libraries of film classics around.  All their films are amazingly restored and are usually the best (and in many cases only) versions around.  Criterion DVDs run between $30 and $40 for a single film so being able to watch them all for $7.99 a month seems like a steal.

I am a huge film nerd and one of the main reasons I moved to NYC was so I could watch movies. I was driving 6 hours to NYC from Richmond, VA every month just to watch films that I couldn’t get in Virginia. When I was living in Richmond I was watching more than 30 movies a month and amassed a DVD collection of well over 1000 films (Including 36 from the Criterion Collection). Unfortunately when I moved to NYC I had much less time and much less money to devote to my film habit. I watch maybe 5 movies a month now and usually they are Hollywood films because I don’t devote the time to figuring out what is playing at Film Forum or the Angelka.

I just wish that Netflix streaming and this Hulu Plus Criterion thing existed when I was living in Richmond. I probably would have watched 50 movies a month and had an even deeper understanding of film history.

Anyway, here are the trailers to 3 of favorite films in the Criterion Collection.  More than 20 of their films are in my top 100 list so it was impossible for me to pick my three favorites so I picked 3 films that you may not have seen before that are also easily accessible.  I understand that not everyone has the patience to sit through hours of silent Stan Brakhage films.

My first pick is Man Bites Dog which is in my top 10 films of all time for sure. It is a French mocumentary about a serial killer that is unflichingly realistic and one of the most brutal, and often funny, films I have ever seen.  My second selection is The Harder They Come. Another one of my all time favorites, it is about a Jamacian guy who can’t make it as a musician so he turns to crime.  But after he becomes famous for his crimes his record becomes a huge hit and he becomes a folk hero.  The movie was made entirely in Jamacia and features Jimmy Cliff in the starring role. The soundtrack is one of the best Reggae records of all time.  The last film I chose was F For Fake. It is a documentary about art forgery directed and hosted by Orson Welles. The movie is a documentary unlike any other I have ever seen and has an amazing twist ending.  If you haven’t seen it you need to.  Enjoy the trailers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcPhaieTg4o[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvIEfPxLjcY&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n52q_BywGuY&feature=related[/youtube]

Last Sunday I got asked to come down to shoot a screening of Tell Them Anything You Want a 40 minute documentary about Maurice Sendak.  Sendak as you probably know is the creator of Where The Wild Things Are and about 100 other children’s books.  The film was directed by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze who were on hand to do a Q&A after the screening.  The screening was the third film in a weekly series presented by Oscilloscope Laboratories’ The Circle of Trust Screening Series at Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel.

The film was fantastic, I got free food and after I ate I got to watch the Jets lose on the movie screen.  What a great night.  Honestly if you get a chance to see this film you should.  It’s available for sale from Oscilloscope and worth going out of your way for. Sendak is an interesting and hilarious man in the last years of his life who has accomplished so much but is much more concerned with what he hasn’t done.  I have a feeling if I make it to my 80’s I will be just as pissed off about it, although probably with a much less impressive resume to look back on. Spike Jonze befriended him in the 1990’s and made the documentary over the five years that it took to make the Where The Wild Things Are movie. Sendak really trusts and loves Jonze and it comes out in the film and makes for a really intimate portrait of a brilliant man.

This write up is probably really poorly written because I am trying to write it and watch Obama’s State of the Union address at the same time.  So I am just gonna go ahead and get these photos up. But two things I should note.  The first is that I didn’t really shoot this like I would a party. These pics were for press and in house reasons for the Liberty Hall screening series so I mostly just took environmental shots to show the big crowds and then some photos of the introduction and the Q&A.  The second thing I should mention that a long with the directors of the film Catherine Keener showed up for the Q&A.  She is in the film and happened to be in town so Spike and Lance brought her a long.  I am a pretty big fan of all three of them so it was really great to shoot them and talk to them for a second after the film.

Okay, let’s do this. Click here to see all the pictures from the Tell Them Anything You Want Screening at the Ace Hotel’s Liberty Hall.

Ps. Oscilloscope Laboratories is way worth checking out as well. They have released several documentaries that I have loved and pretty much every film in their library looks well worth watching. They have a subscription service that you can order for $150 that sends you their next 10 films (on DVD or Blue Ray) before they have been released to the public and you don’t even have to pay shipping. Hell of a deal..

My attempt at doing a weekly, or at least semi-weekly Mp3 post continues today with a few selections from the Every Which Way But Loose soundtrack.  I have been talking about getting the poster art for Every Which Way But Loose on me forever. It features Clint Eastwood looking like a total bad ass while being hugged by an orangutan. We don’t even have to talk about how awesome that is. I mean, it is life changing and you know how much I love dumb tattoos of old conservative white guys who have starred in movies with apes. But even though I have wanted the tattoo for several years I didn’t actually watch the movie until a few months ago.

I loved it even more than I thought I would. Clint Eastwood plays a street fighter who goes from town to town fighting for money and trying to rescue a girl who doesn’t want to be rescued. Totally unrelated to the plot is his pet orangutan Clyde who spends the movie getting drunk and looking cute. The movie would be barely changed at all if you removed the ape, but the movie poster would probably only have been 1/10th as awesome.

One thing about watching Every Which Way But Loose is that you will finish it with Eddie Rabbit’s title track stuck in your head.  For me it was probably a week before I stopped singing it aloud to strangers on the subway. I knew I needed the album so I went on eBay and picked it up on vinyl and after some desperate searching found a download of it online.  The soundtrack is pretty amazing. I am not even really a country music guy, but there are a bunch of really amazing songs on it.  There are also a bunch of random instrumental songs that I don’t really care for, but luckily we live in a world where you can just delete those from your iTunes library.

For your listening pleasure today I am going to pull three of my favorite tracks. The first is the previously mentioned title track, Eddie Rabbit’s “Every Which Way But Loose”. It is super slow and twanggy but somehow it is the most catchy damn song on earth. It will probably be in my head from now till Christmas.

Eddie Rabbit – Every Which Way But Loose

My second choice is “A “Six Pack To Go” by Hank Thompson.  I have loved this song ever since my friends punk band in covered it nearly a decade ago. It’s a rocking country tune about getting wasted instead of paying rent. How can you not love that?

Hank Thompson – A Six Pack to Go

My third choice was a bit harder to make. I wanted to go with a Charlie Rich song because he is actually in the movie playing live at one of the country-western bars in the film. I also considered Mel Tillis song “Coca Cola Cowboy” because it is fucking awesome but I figured I should figure a lady since Sondra Locke is one of the stars of the film and has two songs on the soundtrack, but her character is sort of a bitch, so fuck her. I went with the Carol Chase song “I Can’t Say No To A Truck Driving Man”. It is a fantastic little ditty and super catchy.

Carol Chase – Can’t Say No to a Truck Drivin’ Man

Anyway, this write up is not super coherent so I am going to go, but you should probably watch the movie as soon as you can and do what you can to track down the damn soundtrack. Have a good day.

So there is this movie Tiny Furniture. I have talked about it before and I will talk about it again but what you really need to know is that it comes out Friday at IFC Center and that it is very good.  It won best feature at SXSW and Lena has been tapped to direct an HBO series produced by Judd Apatow and she is going to adapt and direct movie version of the next book by the people who wrote Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. It is being produced by Scott Rudin. If you don’t know who he is… Google him.  It is all fucking very impressive. And we are all very proud of Lena. On top of Lena’s awesomeness, the music for the film was done by my good friend Teddy Blanks who I have plugged on here a billion times.  Anyway, you must see this movie. (It opens in LA next Friday, btw.)

Last night they held the New York premiere at Moma and I didn’t go because I have already seen the movie twice and I had seriously important things to do like update this stupid website.  But I did go to the after party but of course I got there late and Lena and Teddy had already left and so had my brother so I hung out, took a few photos, chatted with friends of exes and exes of friends and then left and stuffed my face with a giant cookie, a cannoli and a McRib. It seemed like the thing to do.

Anyway, the important thing is that you must see Tiny Furniture and then you need to click here to see all the photos from the Tiny Furniture after party at Santos Party House.

By the way, you should watch the Tiny Furniture trailer here, but I promise the movie is way better than it looks. If you think it looks good you will like it, and if you think it looks insufferable, I promise you that it is not nearly as self indulgent as it looks. I give you my word.

Also, you should read Lena’s profile in this weeks New Yorker because it is really funny and my ex-girlfriend Isabel is interviewed for it and she is hilarious.  Okay bye.

Marlon Brando. Robert De Niro. Denzel Washington. Johnny Depp.

What do I have in common with these men?  Absolutely nothing. Those bastards don’t hand a candle compared to my acting chops.  As one of the worlds greatest, if not THE greatest living actor you that I have never really acted on film before .  I did play Bambi in “Bambi” in my first grade play, my stirring cameo as Prince Charming in “Sleeping Beauty” and of course I was King Arthur in the third grade… and who could forget my performance as the Mad Hatter in “Alice In Wonderland” nearly 20 years before Depp tackled the role? But after the 6th grade plays were no longer mandatory in school and I stepped off the stage for the last time.

But as far as film goes my work has been fairly limited. I have never really found a starring role that stretched me enough as an actor.  I did take a completely silent part in a music video, as I wanted to know what it was like to convey all that emotion with just a look or a glance, without being able to rely on the power and emotion of my famous voice. Plus I did play an extra in two different porn features, but we will just ignore those for the time being…

But today I return to acting and I am giving out the goods for free.  I bet  you never thought you would be able to watch me act any time you wanted from your very bedrooms! The treat for you is almost too much to imagine. I almost envy you. TreV from The New Pop asked me to be in a short film. I instantly refused the part because the internet is clearly beneath me and he could not afford my $40,000,000 fee.  But when I found out he was looking for an actor to play a nightlife photographer from Brooklyn I had to reconsider. Could this be the challenge of a life time?  When would I ever get to push myself this far.  I wanted to know if I was up to it.

Fortunately for you I was.  I bring to you, for the first time, my greatest work as an actor.  Nay, I bring you the greatest work of ANY actor. I bring you a story of mystery and intrigue, love and loss, and both South and North Williamsburg.  Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself as best you can for… Halfway There.

Ps. Yeah, I posted a similar film before, but it got redited and reshot and now you have this. This is better.

The Scene Episode 3 – Halfway There from Trevz New Pop on Vimeo.

I got to see Tiny Furniture again and it was still fantastic the second time.  My friend Lena Dunham’s second feature had its NY premiere on Friday at BAM Rose Cinemas and then they had a special outdoors screening as part of the Rooftop Films summer movie series. It was a very cool event where they had a huge inflatable screen set up in the parking lot across from BAM. It was really cool to watch a movie outside like that and the distractions of the city and the sometimes questionable sound were offset by the surprsingly great weather.  It rained during the day and the event was almost called off, but the rain let up a few hours before the screening and didn’t really start again until the credits were basically rolling.  The Q&A was pretty wet and just a few brave die hards with umbrellas stuck around for the free beer and after party, but the whole event was great none the less.

One thing I have yet to mention was the opening entertainment for the movie.  My good friend Teddy Blanks did the soundtrack and the title sequences to the film and he preformed a short set before the movie.  Video artist Christian Shultz creates videos for all of Teddy’s songs which were projected behind Teddy on the giant inflatable screen as he played.  One of the videos features a man dancing while a girl behind him masturbates on a bed.  I was wondering if Teddy was going to perform it at such a family friendly out door event… he did. They turned the video off within 20 seconds but let him keep playing.  I think it is a pretty great acomplishment to be censored by BAM.  To see more weird video art and madness from Teddy and Christian you should check out their insane website: Too Hot For The Internet.

One other thing of note, my parents came with my brother and me to the movie and while it was great to have them there it was very awkward to watch some parts of the movie with them.  If you have ever seen your mother laugh at a joke about a “cum omelette” you know what I mean. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of my parents in the gallery though because they abhor my website as any good parent should.

The gallery is pretty small because I expected to do most of my shooting afterwards but the rain put a stop to that, but you should click here to see the pictures of Teddy Blanks & Tiny Furniture at BAM anyway…

Tiny Furniture is out nation wide and on IFC On Demand in October.

Wow. What a crazy evening. I got a chance to cover the Anthology Film Archives 40th Anniversary benefit “Return To The Pleasure Dome” at the Hiro Ballroom for the Village Voice.  It was honoring the legendary Kenneth Anger and featured performances by his band Technicolor Skull, Jonas Mekas performing with Now We Are Here, plus some other bands… the Virgins, Sonic Youth and Lou Reed. On top of all that Moby DJd, actor Ben Foster hosted and we were treated to appearances by Phillip Seymore Hoffman and Julian Schnabel. It was a pretty crazy night… and for $500 a seat I am pretty sure it had to be…

I really wanted to attend because while I have enjoyed his films, I really appreciate Kenneth Anger as this sort of legendary film icon.  Aside from making some of the most ground breaking experimental films in history the guy wrote two amazing books, Hollywood Babylon and Hollywood Babylon II.  I am a big movie nerd and his tales of old Hollywood have prominent spots on my bookshelf.  When I heard that not only he was going to be there, but that he would be playing a theremin I had to be there. Music in his films is so important I needed to see what he was going to do for himself.

I got there a little bit late and unfortunately I missed most of the Virgins’ set.  There guitarist is a friend of mine, and I hadn’t seen them so I was pretty excited about finally seeing them. Like I said, I didn’t catch most of their set but I feel like the toned it down a little bit for the film benefit crowd.

After the Virgins Sonic Youth played. It was the second time this year I have had a chance to shoot Thurston Moore but last time was with his punk band at SXSW.  I have never been a very big Sonic Youth fan, but they are a band I have always greatly respected and their documentary “1991: The Year That Punk Broke” was a pretty important film in my musical development.  It was great seeing them live. Kim Gordon was awesome.

Between sets Moby DJ’d and played a lot of weird spacey avant gaurd music which seemed to be the theme for the night. I guess I should point out at this point that the bands all played behind silent experimental films that the Anthology Film Archives has restored.  I noticed films by Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas and of cours Kenneth Anger.

When Lou Reed played everyone was amazingly excited.  Philip Seymore Hoffman gave him a bit of an introduction after asking everyone to donate money to the Archive. As soon as he got on stage we were told that we were not allowed to even dare to photograph him or he would walk off stage.  Now I have to say I am not a huge Lou Reed fan, and I am not even really a Velvet Underground fan, (I know, I’m sorry) but even I was pretty excited to see the great Lou Reed… At least until he started playing.  He just played feedback while he watched Maya Deren’s Meditations On Violence. Another guy was distorting his feedback from the side of the stage. He played in the back in the dark and didn’t even address the crowd. This, combined with his anti-photo decree, makes Lou Reed a total dick. I’m sorry, but I have been to a lot of terrible noise shows in my life, but at least guys wrapped in tin foil playing Game Boys and yelling into toy megaphones is at least entertaining.  People paid $500 a seat to see Lou Reed, the least he could do was say something to the crowd.

After that it was Kenneth Anger and Technicolor Skull’s time to shine.  They played super weird music that you would expect from any band with a theremin combined with smoke machines and Kenneth Anger films in the background.  The whole thing made for a very weird experience that while not exactly pleasant was certainly a lot more genuine an interesting than Lou Reed’s seven minute set.  The one problem I had with the set was that because of the smoke and the lighting it was very difficult to photograph, but when I later looked at the shots I had, it reminded me a lot of stills from an experimental American New Wave film, so I guess that seems extremely appropriate in the end.

After Anger’s set Jonas Mekas came up and gave Anger an award for life time achevement.  Mekas spoke of how no living filmmaker had done more for cinnema than Anger.  He then asked the crowd to take up arms and attack the NEA and the Library of Congress and demand they create government run faclities to make film stock to preserve movies on film instead of digitally.  After his impassioned plea he recieted some sort of poetry over music as Now We Are Here played behind him.

The whole night was completely surreal and I think I would need an advanced film or music degree to understand it all but it certainly made for an interesting night.  From Julian Schnabel getting on stage to yell at the people in the back for talking to the guy who kept calling Thurston Moore “big guy” as he got off stage, it was a very weird fucking night.  I am very glad I was there.

If you want to see pictures from Anthology Film Archives “Return To The Pleasure Dome”  at the Hiro Ballroom click here to see it all…

And please, if you want to help preserve important works of cinema that are slowly turning to dust, please donate to the Anthology Film Archives… or at least go see a movie there… it’s only three block from Lit on 2nd and 2nd…

Despite being hosted by the hilarious Eugene Mirman, this might be the most boring gallery I ever post on here. It’s a bunch of people you don’t know standing at a podium. That being said, SXSW Film’s theme is “Tomorrow Happens Here” and my guess is that a number of these people will be familiar faces in a few years.

One of those faces will hopefully be my friend Lena Dunham.  Her film as I mentioned before won Best Narritive Feature.  She also won the Chicken & The Egg award which honors the best emerging female director. I went with her to the after party so there are a few shots from that thrown in with the film awards photos.

You can check out the list of winners here and try to dedicate your life to figuring out who the hell is who.  Most of these pictures are of presenters.  My hatred of captioning is why I don’t work for Getty or Wired and instead run a party blog, so you are going to just have to deal with it.

I just want to give a shout out to Travis Senger and his producer who made White Lines & The Fever: The Death Of DJ Junebug. I met those dudes during the music fest and they seem like good dudes. I haven’t seen their film yet, but it’s playing at Tribeca so hopefully I’ll get a chance to see it.

And lastly, I didn’t get a chance to see many of the films that won, but nearly every film I saw at SXSW I loved.  Janet Pierson and her staff did an amazing job of curating this festival and any of the films who won awards are well worth tracking down… especially Tiny Furniture….

Click here to see some extremely boring photos of people standing at podiums accepting and giving awards!

Aside from doing these film portraits, I signed up for some red carpets.  I sort of hate doing step and repeat stuff, but it’s a good thing to have in my portfolio when trying to get jobs at Sundance.  Plus knew the Voice would run it and I quickly found out that it was a great way to get into movies without having to wait in line.  I mean, I had to wait in the press area taking photos for the same amount of time, but at least I was being productive, getting paid and shooting the shit with other pro photographers which is always fun.  Complaining about light and step and repeat walls is one of my favorite things to do.

Cool stuff was getting to shoot Chloe Sevigny who I have had a crush on for 15 years and have never spoken to despite being in the same room with her several times.  I didn’t get to speak with her this time either, but I did shout “look right here!” at her a few times. Clearly the Get Low carpet was amazing. I had met the crew earlier in the day as per my last post, but it was still great.  Robert Duvall flicked off all the camera guys when we weren’t paying attention as a joke.  Not one person got the shot, that guy is a pro.  Sissy hugging me as per the last post was amazing too.  MacGruber was the only one of these films I didn’t attend because I think SNL is horrible. It was cool to see Val Kilmer despite him posing for less than 10 seconds.  Fortunately there was a lot of him to shoot… Of all the celebs who did the red carpet, Will Forte from SNL was the most generous.  After his time on the carpet, he left the ropes and went into the crowds of screaming girls and posed for pictures and signed autographs for another 5 minutes. It was a really classy move.

I shot the red carpets for Barry Munday, Cryus, Lemmy, MacGruber, and Get Low. If you want to see who everyone is, check the Voice gallery for captions.

Click here for the 2010 SXSW Film Red Carpet gallery.