Sunday May 24, 2009
Hey! Here's the link for the 2009 Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury (not Hartford! Dang!)

Nevertheless, here are some films I recommend or recommend keeping an eye on:
I recommend:
Examined Life (Cornel West and Slavoj Zizek are among the philosophers sharing their thoughts while out in the worls, i.e. a car driving around Manhattan and a garbage dump respectively. See below. Wednesday);
Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley's animated parallel story about Indian mythology and her own painful break-up scores with fun animations set to the music of Depression era vocal star Annette Hanshaw. Wednesday and Saturday);
August Rush (a reasonable and sometimes imaginative retelling of Oliver Twist, Thursday)
Up the Yangtze (a great little documentary about the social and personal economic aftermath of China's Three Gorges Dam project. Thursday)
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose (A great little documentary of the psychedelic folk band's life and times. Friday and Sunday)
Fados (Carlos Saura directs cinematic interpretations of the Portuguese song form, with some more modern iterations. Friday)
Trouble the Water (A harrowing documentary shot in large part in New Orleans' Ninth Ward with Katrina in progress. Sunday)
Also of interest:
TiMER (Tuesday)
Searching for the 4th Nail (from Romany American filmmaker George Eli, Wednesday)
No Kidding, Me Too (Joe Pantoliano's (The Sopranos) documentary, which he will introduce, Wednesday)
Invisible Girlfriend (The latest feature from Ashley Sabin and David Redmon (Kamp Katrina, Mardi Gras Made in China), Thursday)
Jaago Aids (multiple Indian filmmakers get together on this one, including Mira Nair (The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding), Saturday).
Follow the link above, and, if you're in the Danbury area between Tiesday and Sunday of this week, see a movie!

Sunday May 24, 2009
My Thoughts on Three Films

EXAMINED LIFE

A person I call friend of some acquaintance here at WWUH Radio has recently taken to playing a little game.
For example, I will come out with a statement like:
“Well, I’m going to the movies.”
He will counter with:
“Movies... hmm... why are they called movies?”
I’ll respond:
“They are called movies because it’s a colloquial term shortened from the name ‘moving pictures.’”
He’ll respond:
“Well, do the pictures actually move? Aren’t they just thousands of still images, each depicting a moment between movements?”
And so on.
When you’re in a rush to catch a 4:30 show of Star Trek, this dialectic ad absurdum loses its’ charm toot sweet.
I mention this because the popular concept of philosophy, leading nowhere but its’ own navel, would seem to lend a pall to the proceedings in Astra Taylor’s latest film on philosophy, Examined Life. Why watch nine modern thinkers talking about philosophy?
To be sure, anyone who queued up at midnight on Wednesday to be the first on their block to see Terminator Salvation probably was not waiting all their lives to see this film. However, those who enjoyed Richard Linklater’s Waking Life as an artful and entertaining platform for thought may indeed enjoy Taylor’s film full of oratory on and discussion of philosophy and its’ relevance, reinforcing and/ or contrasting its’ ideas by taking them to the street. And the park. And a small pond. And an airport, a moving car and a dump.
Princeton professor and writer Cornell West forms the connective tissue of this film, in a discussion filmed in the back of a car driving around in Manhattan, which is shown in small pieces in the beginning, middle and end. West’s suppositions on philosophy are placed in the context of the movement(s) for civil rights, the blues and an understanding and acceptance of the realities of the world and the moral contexts of capitalism and white supremacy measured against a true moral sense. He delivers all this with the intensity and positive energy he freely exudes, for example, as a favorite semi-regular panelist of Bill Maher in his various talk-show iterations.
Literary critic, feminist and philosopher Avital Ronell, a professor at New York University, strolls through Central park, unsure of what kind of discussion is expected for the camera, and articulates philosophy as a dissection of the promise of meaning.
Some of Cornell West’s fellow Princeton profs also join in: Peter Singer delineates a brief history of the development of an understanding of applied ethics in NYC’s 5th Avenue shopping district, though he winds up with an argument for basic moral obligations to help and not to harm others; and Kwame Anthony Appiah considers the implications of multiculturalism and what kind of intellectual resistance is faced when on crusades for a form of global citizenship while apparently waiting for a flight in the international airport in Toronto (he also relates his Ghanaian father’s opinion of his British mother’s butt, while musing on matrilineality in African cultures).
University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum discusses the reality societal, physical and mental advantages and disadvantages as she strolls along Lake Michigan, musing that a wheelchair bound person would not have been able to take that “walk” in previous generations when stairs were architecturally preferred. Painter and activist Sunaura Taylor (the director’s sister, as it happens) muses on her own societal life in a wheelchair, as well as gender discrimination and general human rights while vintage clothes shopping in San Francisco with UC Berkeley Ethics Professor and feminist activist Judith Butler.
Duke University teacher and writer Michael Hardt muses on the ideals and the realities of political revolutions, seen as part of an evolutionary process of the transferal of power from governments to people (i.e., towards actual, practical anarchy) from a rowboat in Central Park.
Slavoj Zizek is here also, returning to the idea of the temptation to find meaning (as mentioned in the first part of the film by Ronell) as it plays out among those who self-describe as “ecologists.” He criticizes the movement as a secular form of religious orthodoxy (a new “opium of the masses”), instead arguing that mankind should take on the challenge of finding poetry in a more artificial world. To make this point, director Astra Taylor brings Zizek to a dump.
Zizek, a bit insufferable in the feature length dose of Taylor’s previous documentary (2005’s Zizek), is merely here in a smaller ten minute chunk of a larger description about the role of philosophy and thought in our present day, and so is easier to take. In fact, not being a fantastically avid follower of philosophy myself, I can happily report that Astra Taylor’s second feature doc on the subject is engaging, artful, beautifully and imaginatively photographed, and, appropriately, thought provoking. Perhaps, though, it will not be what every philosophy student was hoping such a movie would be.
Then again, half of them are still sitting around debating whether a movie is a movie.

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Zizek’s argument for embracing a poetry of the artificial would seem to find some expression in the ethical universe of James Cameron’s Terminator films. In 1984’s The Terminator, Cameron appropriated the dystopian time-travel romance of Chris Marker’s 1962 cult classic short La Jetee, crossing it with a murderous cyborg whose closest cinematic cousin was Yul Brenner’s evil robot gunfighter in Michael Crichton’s 1973 Westworld. An early (and career defining) turn by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and groundbreaking effects and makeup work by Stan Winston, helped turn the volume up to eleven on Cameron’s little film, and, surprise, surprise, next thing you know, he’s directing a sequel to Alien instead of another Pirahna movie.
The rest, as you know, made him “King of the World.”
Of course, the bouncing baby killer cyborg birthed by Cameron and co-creator Gale Ann Hurd has had little to do with its’ creators since “papa” left it after 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. With that second movie, however, Cameron further developed the idea of humanity coming to terms with an increasingly technological world, in a story that dealt with the first film’s effects on its’ surviving heroine Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and her relationship (or lack thereof) with her son, the young John Connor (Edward Furlong), soon to become the target of yet another time-traveling technological threat (played by Robert Patrick and a lot of pixels), and the young charge of a repurposed time-traveling cyborg (again played by Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Gale Anne Hurd stayed on as a producer for 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines which was written by Tedi Sarafian (Tank Girl), and then re-written by John Brancato & Michael Ferris (known for the Sandra Bullock vehicle, The Net), and directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571). The Skynet ruled/ post atomic apocalypse future, thought to be so neatly avoided at the end of the previous film, has, it seems, only changed. Most fans consider this film easily the weakest of the series, myself included. That said, it’s still pretty enjoyable. Nick Stahl plays the young adult John Connor who befriends a scientist (Kate Brewster). Arnold returns in the flesh for the last time in the series, as yet another T-800, coming up against Kristianna Loken’s T-X killing machine. Besides some decent action sequences, the film took the daring step of ending on what some would interpret as a “down note.”
(The 2008-2009 television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, by the way, was set between T2 and T3).
Terminator Salvation was set up to be the first Terminator film to bring us all the way into the dark future that was the backdrop for the first movie’s plot. Director Joseph McGinty Nichol (known as McG) came to this project from a much campier action franchise, the twenty-first century feature incarnations of Charlie’s Angels, and ready to work hard at restoring the unglamorous machine luster that defined the future war segments of the first two films. He began with yet another script by Brancato and Ferris, which was then punched up by Paul Haggis (Crash, Casino Royale) and Jonathan Nolan (co-writer of many of his brother Christopher’s films), who was brought in by McG’s choice to play the adult soldier John Connor, Christian Bale.
The end result, the first PG-13 feature film in the Terminator series, is nonetheless a stronger, more intense film, with action sequences worthy of the best of the series.
This film begins with the “present day” prologue where one Marcus Wright (newcomer Sam Worthington), a death-row inmate, is convinced to sell his body to Cyberdyne Systems (in the person of the dying Helena Bonham Carter).
Fast forward to 2018, where the landscape has been devastated in the post Skynet world and John Connor is a high-ranking soldier in the Resistance and its’ most audible voice. He is also an expectant father (Bryce Dallas Howard plays the pregnant version of Claire Danes’ character from T3), and has yet to experience the exact future he has grown up being warned of.
In this future, we are introduced to a young Kyle Reece (Anton Yelchin, put to better use than in Star Trek), who, with the Newt-from-Aliens-like Star (played by newcomer kid Jadagrace), comprises the “local version” of the Resistance in Los Angeles. They are inspired by John Connor’s broadcasts, and anxious to join up with him to fight Skynet, who kidnaps humans by the truckload to use in deadly experiments. Kyle and Star soon meet up with Marcus Wright, mysteriously alive and unaged, though we can immediately guess why that might be.
I always thought there would be problems inherent in delivering a “futurewar” storyline in the Terminator series, not the least of which is that the actual future war was not supposed to happen if all went as planned. The real character drama would be best served by developing situations that pose still stranger variations on the man vs. machine questions posited so well in T2; but it will prove, I feel, increasingly difficult to create such tales without repeating old ideas. T3 fell into that trap to a certain extent, with the T-800/ T-X showdown.
McG’s film surprises by giving a reasonably meaty story arc to Marcus Wright, who, it seems, is fighting his own resistance to Skynet in his own body, as he comes to understand that his body has been turned into a cyborg prototype intended to infiltrate human resistance cells.
The film really delivers on the action tip, however, showing us a Skynet that rules land sea and air, not just with Terminators of different sizes, but motorcycle-like variants that make for some very rocking chase scenes (and that have an entrance that rivals that of the Bat Pod in The Dark Knight).
There was one area, however, which I thought kept this sequel from truly reaching for the levels of the first two movies: the John Connor story arc was a little too thin for me, finding Christian Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard a bit underused (particularly Howard). The good news is that McG apparently has plans for a trilogy which will further develop everything that he started here, and, also, that the movie is a fitting blockbuster follow up that keeps the series alive. I hope McG gets to come back and finish off what he started, with Bale, Howard and Yelchin, and deliver us some more hardcore poetry of the artificial.

TYSON

Before seeing James Toback’s documentary Tyson, I had an impression of the man as a boxer who had lost it, by the end having to live down accusations of sexual misbehaviors (some led to a conviction), and repeated instances of cannibalism in the ring. He seemed to be acting out on a presupposition that so many people carry automatically about athletes in general, and particularly boxers (and wrestlers).
Toback’s documentary is made of conversational interviews with Mike Tyson in the present day. The interviewer is kept invisible, however, and the effect is that of a one-on-one confessional with Tyson that synthesizes the contrasts of Tyson’s life (his beginnings as a poor picked upon fat kid, which led to his infatuation with gangster life; his time in juvenile detention in upstate New York which led to his first encounter with a professional boxer, and, in turn, trainer Cus D’Amato, who introduced Tyson to the disciplines of boxing, and became a surrogate father; the young, skillful, Tyson who would down opponents in seconds who became the convicted rapist who bit Evander Holyfield’s ear) into a human story.
One refrain Tyson occasionally can be heard repeating in file footage is that we have no hope of really understanding where he came from, and the effects of racism and poverty on his life. The amazing thing to see in the older Tyson is that that aspect of his life still remains a mystery; he is a sphinx, perhaps at his insistence, probably even to himself.
Toback works with that mystery, as he was allowed, we’re told, a free hand in the editing of this movie. His portrait of Tyson reveals the contradictions and does not shy away from the full picture of the man. Watch this documentary and, whether you feel that Tyson was battered by his circumstance, or instead did the battering, you will admire the detailed, unjaundiced eye Toback brings to this story of rags, riches, crimes, allegations and, maybe, recovery.

Sunday April 19, 2009
Hello! Here's some more stuff from yours truly!
I saw Sunshine Cleaning today, and, let me confirm, all the to-do about the great performances by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are quite so! They are awesome, and they, with great support from Steve Zahn, Alan Arkin and others, raise up the level of this film beyond a script that is slightly predictable. This is very much worth your time on the big screen on a Sunday afternoon, particularly if you enjoyed films like The Good Girl. Heck, it even matches up nicely with Observe and Report.

Then I saw Neveldine and Taylor's sequel to their arch, over-the-top-and-beautiful-for-it action flick, Crank. Crank: High Voltage brings back Jason Statham, Amy Samrt and many of the others from the last entry. If you are a fan of the origianl, you will love the new one.

Also, HEY! THE NEW LOCAL CINEMA SCHEDULE IS UP HERE!
Back soon with more!

Saturday April 4, 2009
The WWUHFfies approach! Thanks to those who voted! We announce the results tomorrow night from 8-9 PM ET! We will also, of course, still keep you informed of your coming week in cinema in the WWUH broadcast listening area (basically Greater Hartford CT, Natch).
We will someday soon have a full fledged WWUHFfies History page, but I thought we might remember past winners and objects of shame with this list of the big recipients of WWUHFfies from years past:
2004 -
Biggest Best-in-Show winner: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (won five of the twenty-three Best in Show awards)
Other Best-in-Show winners: A Mighty Wind, Cowboy Bebop the Movie, Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Finding Nemo, 28 Days Later, Bhoot, Cold Mountain, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, Kill Bill Vol. I, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Rivers And Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time, Shanghai Knights, Shaolin Soccer, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, The Italian Job, The Secret Lives of Dentists, X2, The School of Rock, The Last Samurai, The Missing, The Princess Blade and Adaptation.
Biggest Film in the Doghouse that year: Two films! Both Matrix sequels (Reloaded/ Revolutions)
Also dissed that year: Freddy Vs. Jason, Gigli, The Cremaster Cycle, Seabiscuit and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2005-
Biggest Best-in-Show winners: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Fahrenheit 9/11 (Each winning 3 of the 33 Best-in-Show honors)
Other winners: Ray, Shaolin Soccer, Anaahat (Eternity), Around the World in 80 Days, The Bourne Supremacy, Bubba Ho-Tep, Festival Express, Finding Neverland, Garden State, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hero, The Incredibles, Jersey Girl, Kill Bill Volume 2, The Manchurian Candidate, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Napoleon Dynamite, Shrek 2, Sideways, Spider-Man 2, Swades, Tokyo Godfathers, A Very Long Engagement,
Biggest In-the-Doghouse Losers: The Passion of the Christ (grabbing two of the eleven dishonors)
Other losers: The Stepford Wives remake, Alien Vs. Predator, Blade: Trinity, The Chronicles of Riddick, Closer, The Phantom of the Opera, The Same River Twice
2006-
Biggest Best-in-Show winner: Sin City (receiving 4of the 29 honors)
Other winners: Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, King Kong, Black, Brokeback Mountain, Cinderella Man, El Crimen Ferpecto, Grizzly Man, A History of Violence, Hustle & Flow, Kamikaze Girls, Kung Fu Hustle, Land of the Dead, Murderball, Never Been Thawed, Rangeela, Red Eye, Rock School, Sarkar, Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wedding Crashers andWinter Soldier
Biggest In-the-Doghouse Losers: Domino (2 of the 20 disses)
Other losers: TheAmityville Horror, Be Cool, Boogeyman, Crash, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, The Dukes of Hazzard, Head On and The Ring Two
2007-
Biggest Best-in-Show winner: Casino Royale (Receiving 5 of 30 honors that year)
Other winners: The Departed, F**k, Hollywoodland, V for Vendetta, Apocalyptica, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Favela Rising, Heroin Town, Hostel, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, Night Watch, Over the Hedge, Police Beat, A Scanner Darkly, Slither and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Biggest In-the-Doghouse Losers: Deck the Halls (2 of 13 dishonors)
Other losers: An American Haunting, Basic Instinct 2, The Black Dahlia, Cars, The DaVinci Code, An Inconvenient Truth, Little Man, Lucky Number Slevin, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Poseidon and Ultraviolet
2008-
Biggest Best-in-show winner: Superbad (Winner of 4 of 36 winners)
Other winners: Halloween, Shoot 'Em Up, Chasing Gus' Ghost, Enchanted, Grindhouse, Hostel: Part II, 300, 30 Days of Night, Across the Universe, The Bourne Ultimatum, Brand upon the Brain!, Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I Am Legend, Into the Wild, Juno, The Mist, My War My Story, Pan's Labyrinth, Sicko, The Simpsons Movie, The Supermarket, Sweet Land, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Biggest In-the-Doghouse Losers: Mr. Woodcock (Got 2 of 7 dishonors)
Other losers: Beowulf, Disturbia, Introducing the Dwights, Lady Chatterley and Saw IV

For this year, The Dark Knight unsurprisingly rules the Best in Show noms with 8, and the unfortunate attmpt at comedy, An American Carol nabbed the most nominations for Doghouse awards. TUNE IN SUNDAY APRIL 5 AT 8 P.M. ET TO FIND OUT THIS YEAR'S WINNERS!

Saturday, March 28, 2009
THIS WEEKEND AT THE MOVIES... or HOW TO QUICKEN YOUR RECOVERY FROM STOMACH FLU!
Step 1: Monsters Vs. Aliens
Dreamworks' latest animated product is entertaining enough while seeming half-baked on a story level. Directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon tried to cobble together a broad parody of B-Movie sci-fi tropes through the decades. What turns up on screen is a bit too hodge-podge for the film's good. Reese Witherspoon voices Susan, a.k.a. Ginormica, whose wedding is ruined when she is hit by a meteorite which turns her into a fifty-foot woman. The government shows up immediately, of course, ready to collect her and lock her up with a group of creatures similarly collected over the years, and hidden away from the rest of the world including: a sentient glob of Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzoate named B.O.B. (voiced by Seth Rogen); a mad scientist transformed into a half-cockroach/ half-man (voiced by Hugh Laurie); an evolutionary throwback intelligent fish/ ape accidentally thawed from 20,000 year old ice in the 60's (Will Arnett); and a 350-foot mutated insect with the temperament of an overstressed puppy called Insectosaurus. Their warden is a cross between an R. Lee Ermey drill sargeant and George C. Scott's gung-ho Dr. Strangelove general, W. R. Monger (voiced by Keifer Sutherland), and when a menacing alien probe arrives near San Francisco, the general approaches the President (voiced by Stephen Colbert) with a desparate idea to use his crew of "Monsters" to force back the alien menace (voiced by Rainn Wilson). The action and animation is quite top-notch (Dreamworks has come a loooong way since Shrek, which wasn't all that bad to begin with), but the story gives us not enough for any character to get properly developed (Laurie's Dr. Cockroach and Arnett's Link are particularly hurt by this), but the vocal performances are quite good across the board, particlarly Sutherland's general (gee, who knew Jack Bauer had it in him...?...Oh, right...), Colbert's President (natch, he was, of course, a recent attempted presidential candidate himself... perhaps the most qualified since Pat Paulsen...) and Rogen's scene stealing, brainless but affable B.O.B.. This film was a slight disappointment overall, but entertaining enough (look for Sam's comments tomorrow night).
Step 2: The Haunting in Connecticut
You know, families keep on moving in unknowingly to haunted pieces of real-estate, only to end up calling in the local exorcist when freaky things begin happening. Hollywood keeps on making movies about the real-life haunting stories, and any such film has to overcome audience expectations, i.e., how stupid do characters look when they don't notice the supernatural things that we can see coming two reels before they do?
Unfortuantely, there is now a correlative with critics who write about such films: how can we hold on to any hopes for good scares when Lionsgate hands over a lesser script full of unscary scares to a neophyte director (Peter Cornwell was the director of a well-received puppet animation horror short called Ward 13, glimpsed rather obviously in one scene) and hamstrings the overall effort with the added requirement that it be PG-13 (all too often studio code for nonsensical jump-scares and loud noises replacing any honest attepts at character development).
More on this "horror" tomorrow night.
Step 3: The Great Buck Howard
Hallelujah! A decent movie!
John Malkovich stars as the titular Howard, a used-to-was mentalist (like the real-life Amazing Kreskin) who appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show 61 times (a fact he will flaunt not so subtly and not infrequently). Colin Hanks co-stars as Troy Gable, a drifting law-school dropout and would-be writer, who takes on a job as, first, Buck's assistant, then his stage manager. Troy follows Buck on his continual tour of small theaters in small towns and small gigs performing his blend of mentalist tricks, stage hypnosis, magic tricks and hokey cabaret singing.
Malkovich can eat a role like this for breakfast, and he breathes life into this temperamental performer with gusto. His Howard comes on with an aggressive handshake constisting of ten HARD pumps, whether he is greeting Jon Stewart or Martha Stewart (both of whom appear among a host of celebrity cameos from the real-life A-, B- and C- lists). Very soon, however, Buck reveals a temperamental side: his lack of bookings on Leno's Tonight Show seems to drive his outpouring of disdain for Johnny's successor; he constantly drops the name of numerous small celebs, including, of all people, George Takei, from "the Star Trek"; he cannot fathom the failure of his press agent (Emily Blunt) to draw the press to his attempt at a "big stunt" when a slightly bigger celebrity overshadows the event; his insistence on using the same cassette-recorded opening as his show's intro (and when a woman in Cincinatti tries to create her own introduction... whoa, watch out...).
Writer-director Sean McGinly has been writing and directing movies for over a dozen years, but few seem to be as heartfelt as this one. Sure enough, it turns out that McGinly spent a 14-month stint, beginning in the mid-90's (when he was in his early 20's), working for the Amazing Kreskin. While he admits to only the film's first ten minutes having a direct basis in reality (in this interview with ComingSoon.net), his affection for that world of fading celebrirty shows through the script, even as it lampoons the fragile egos who reside there. Colin Hanks doesn't get nearly enough work, and is an asset as this film's Benjy Stone of sorts (though Hanks' charge here more often seems drunk on minor celebrity than actual alcohol). Emily Blunt's Valerie, the press agent, predictably becomes the love/ lust interest of Hanks' Troy, but the narrative's center is held firmly on Malkovich's Howard, his career ups and downs, and Troy's fascination with even this small portion of the world's attraction to low level celebrity.
The Great Buck Howard is honest entertainment with a heart that will leave you with a warm little feeling after you see it.
So, here's to our cinematic health! Gee... maybe I should have skipped steps 1 and 2.
Particularly step 2.

Wednesday March 11, 2009
Hello, and welcome back to this uinfrequent blog.
If you care to read more recent blogging from yours truly, you should seek out our myspace page (and my blog therein).
(Also, you can find a Call It Thing (my music show) page on myspace as well as Call It Thing and Culture Dogs pages on Facebook now. Happy hunting (the myspace pages should be public, though you must be "on" Facebook to find us there. And mind the worms)
Many thanks again to our Marathon pledgers, Rich, Rob and Linda and our operator, Friday Accent on Jazz host Doug Maine.
Station management happily relates that, by Tuesday of this week, our fundraising efforts netted over $64,000.00 in pledges.
RIGHT NOW... you can still download a pledge form at wwuh.org snag yourself a snazzy WWUH T-shirt for a fulfilled pledge of $30 or more.
Thanks also to this week (and next week's guest) Mark Trencher from the Hartford Jewish Film Festival, beginning its' 13th year this Saturday at the Wadsworth Atheneum .
Also, thank you to Chris Baker for videotping another edition! Look for a couple of videotaped bits of our previous shows on archive.org . Just search for "culturedogs."
Monday March 16 thru Thursday March 19, WWUH will be broadcasting a special four-hour documentary (in four parts) produced by Brandon Kampe, and offering a document of the 40+ year history of our station. For a more detailed list of what is covered in what hour, look up my Call It Thing Blog on myspace.
Sam threw down a challenge to throw up an article about Alan Moore's filmography, or, rather, the large number of film versions of his work that he has mostly disavowed. I wonder how he felt about 1989's Return of the Swamp Thing with Heather Locklear? Do you suppose he was a fan of Melrose Place...?
In the meantime, become a fan on Facebook and a friend on Myspace!
Just don't bring up flippin' Twitter! Geez!