A-Sides With Jon Chattman: Bad Suns Rising; 'Dirty Snow' With The Royal Oui
Bad Suns isn't the name of another Stephenie Meyer tween schlock franchise. It's the moniker Woodland Hills' natives Christo Bowman, Miles Morris, Gavin Bennett, and Ray Libby use when making some...
View ArticleWhy Leo Doesn't Deserve the Oscar
Yes, it's true that when I was in 6th or 7th grade I owned a Leonardo Dicaprio tear-out photo book and while I can't deny that my young adult self started off as a fan girl of Leo's, I would like to...
View ArticleHe's Like a Holy Rollin' Stone -- Pope Francis
"GO without fear...the final judgment is already happening," says the new Pope, in the Rolling Stone cover story by Mark Binelli. The reporter adds that the Pontiff implores the crowds to think of the...
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Dum Dum Girls Go Glam in L.A. (CONCERT PHOTOS)
Dum Dum Girls - The Echo - 1/28/14 - Photo by Leonard Drorian If Dee Dee Penny's sequin nylons weren't enough, her Elvis-tinged vocals and gimlet eyed stare mesmerized those of us who expected to see...
View ArticleWhat This Year's Oscar-Nominated Films Say About Women
Jake Flanagin at Pacific Standard and Victoria Dawson Hoff at Elle recently floated an interesting idea: The Oscars should be entirely segregated by gender. Their proposal would create categories such...
View ArticleA Response to Bill Maher's Comments About God
I've been reading an interview with outspoken atheist comedian Bill Maher in The Atlantic. The interviewer asked him a question about God, and his answer was intriguing to me. The question was along...
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Movie Review: Tim's Vermeer
Penn and Teller's Tim's Vermeer is like a cinematic magic trick, one that unveils itself over the course of roughly 90 minutes -- and encompasses the years it took Tim Jenison to work the illusion....
View ArticleJerry Seinfeld, 'Comedian' and the Myth of Effortless Creativity
This past Wednesday, I hit a creative writing plateau. With each paragraph I composed, I slammed my fingers on the "delete" button as if it were a whack-a-mole game at a carnival. If I had chosen to...
View ArticleDeconstructing a Dutch Master: Tim's Vermeer
When the Frick Museum featured "Girl with a Pearl Earring" in "Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshius," its formidable Fall exhibition that just completed a...
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TV: Please Don't Hate 'Em! These Are the People Responsible for What You See...
Don't hate 'em! And I say that with love. I'm talking about the hundreds of television executives, producers and show buyers who I snapped in the picture above inside the massive lobby bar of...
View ArticleWhy Our Children Should Be Off Limits to the Paparazzi
A few days ago my wife and I wrote tweets urging folks to boycott publications that buy photos of celebrities' children without the consent of their parents (paparazzi generated pics). We got a myriad...
View ArticleFemale Rapper Dessa on the Dinner Party
"Be excellent," stated DESSA, born Margaret Wander, unapologetically on the most recent Fear No ART presents the Dinner Party. "A lot of people are worried about getting their demos straight, before...
View ArticleJay Leno's Tonight Show Legacy: It's the Viewers, Stupid!
On Feb. 6, Jay Leno will host The Tonight Show for the last time, leaving behind an amazing legacy to late-night television where he has reigned at the top of the Nielsen Ratings for almost two...
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Free the Nipple Aims to Topple Inequality in America
It's January 31st and I have 15 days left to raise over $200,000. Since I began crowdfunding last month to finish my feature film FREE THE NIPPLE and launch a campaign to decriminalize the "female...
View ArticleSVU's Star-Crossed Lovers
If Shakespeare wrote about sex crimes in New York... the result probably wouldn't look like this week's SVU episode. This thug was no Romeo. Nevertheless, "Betrayal's Climax" was a powerful episode,...
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Matt Jaffe & The Distractions
When someone thinks of an 18 year old, they might think of someone who is graduating high school or a freshman in college. Matt Jaffe is not your typical 18 year old. The San Francisco Bay Area native...
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Inside the Making of Sundance Official Selection The Girl From Nagasaki With...
These questions originally appeared on Quora. Answers by Michel Comte, Director, Writer, and Producer for 2014 Sundance Official Selection The Girl From Nagasaki. Q: What should the audience to take...
View ArticleSun Dancing on Snow: Shining a Bright Light on Social Justice
You fly in through Salt Lake City. You drive your rental car up and up and up to Park City. It's snow, Venti-sized drinks and premiere screenings day and night over the ten days of the 30th anniversary...
View ArticleNo Oscar, No Problem
For two weeks, Joni Eareckson Tada was living a Hollywood fairytale. The title song she sang for the film, Alone Yet not Alone, had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The fact...
View ArticleEven White Folks Get the Blues
We can talk all day about the ongoing tanning of America, but there are still large segments of the country where white folks and black folks live very separate lives. One of those places is Hollywood,...
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