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Blogs

In These Tech Times: Why I Should Write About Stuff

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Thursday, 15 November 2012 13:05
Written by Brad Balfour

at-pepcom-a-demoAt a recent event produced by Pepcom -- a technology marketing company -- I scanned the Metropolitan Pavilion looking at all the tables of tech stuff with publicists, marketers and executives hovering around, and watched them engage journalists and analysts in conversations about the wares they were promoting.

I listened to the pitches, watched some of the demos and glanced at the literature I had culled.

I got into a conversation with myself. “Self, what am I doing here?” 

I had to ask: what kind of writing do I want to do about all this cultural material whether it be the many versions of digital cameras, touch screen phones and various storage devices among the many others.

Besides my reviews, an interview or two and an occasional press conference report, I had to think how else I could write about all this without my eyes glazing over or my brain calcifying at the thought of finding ways to reiterate the tech manual.

I was at a gathering of New York’s many tech geeks and I wondered how many devices can one review; how many variations can you analyze or test without just stewing in minutiae.

Then I hit on it -- while we like to think other people inform us the most with films, tv, or music a surrogate or simulacrum for expressions of personal relationships, I think we really define ourselves by our devices.

Yes I do. We get command over our world by being able to manage a cell phone, tablet or new version of an operating system. In a funny way, the real surrogate for relation-building lies in our devices; they allow us to reach out to many and maximize contact.

I am not one of those quasi-luddites who speak of turn off your cell phone day and think they need email addiction therapy. I love my tools and tools they are.

Is our life informed by a use of utensils in the kitchen, our capabilities in driving a car or how we shape our environment by the ways we create comfort for ourselves?

I proudly say, "Yes," and figure -- even if I may not have the most original thoughts on how my devices work or the best judgement and reviewing them -- celebrate having the chops to use them with some facility and skill. So if my writing can do anything, it will be sharing the pleasure of getting better at it.

In These Tech Times: Watching a "Revolution"

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Thursday, 15 November 2012 09:13
Written by Brad Balfour

Recently I wrangled an invite to a unique preview event -- a look at the producer J.J. Abrams’ latest series, revolution-posterRevolution -- hosted by cast member Tim Guinee (Iron Man).

Watching the first episode of Revolution (created by Eric Kripe and directed by Jon Favreau) being played before me with an audience of hardened New Yorkers so dependent on their machines, electricity and technology with a side show of bike riders supposedly pumping to power up the generators electrifying the event.

I thought about how dependent we were and how this show played on that feeling.

It was a sensible feeling to exploit -- we are after all out of touch with the survivor’s sensibilities necessary to adapt to less than ideal conditions we so desperately need to live in a city like NYC. Think about it, what really draws us to a series like The Walking Dead?

It’s more than just the fear of Zombies run amok threatening to tear us limb from limb and consume us literally. It’s the chaos and the loss of a secure world that we know and feel safe in.

Look at the profusion of post-apocalypse dystopia. It’s not just a matter of economic collapse. It’s a matter of surviving on the most basic level at all -- dirty, smelly, no hand sanitizer, eating what can be found whether it be old cans, dead animals or human bodies.

Take films like The Road, A Boy And His Dog, Book of Eli, the German film Hell, or even The Hunger Games. They all intrigue because we have to ask -- could I cope? Can I survive or do I want to without the tech-generated creature comforts?

On a pure sci-fi level I could tear apart the gaps of logic seen in this first episode of Revolution. Ok, so the large-scale energy net created by our power grid is gone whether by electromagnetic pulse or some energy absorbing device. But after 15 years later would people have been able to create the idyllic rural havens with alternate energy sources enough to keep some machinery going?

Just the idea of a fascist para-military force attempting to impose order sometimes seems more forced than likely. But while I could rend it apart I admire Abrams, his team and  producers, and the network’s belief in an intelligent audience willing to ponder. 

Why not?

Everyone has these primal fears.

A Start to Spring -- Denver Style

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Tuesday, 10 April 2012 01:15
Written by Brad Balfour

at-takis-in-denver

As I sit outside at Taki’s, a little Japanese dive on Colfax Avenue in the Capitol Hill section of Denver -- slightly east of downtown -- I marvel at the warm saki I am sipping and the fine Spring weather I am enjoying.

What a strange place Denver can be -- if for nothing else than for its odd climatic moods. I have been here in the dead of winter getting slammed with a 10-ft snow -- only to have it all melt away by the following morning with the temp rising above freezing.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I came from the lingering cool of a New York March-into-April only to see people in the Mile High City galavanting in shorts and sleeveless t-shirts (always a pleasurable sight after winter’s cover-ups). But I still have to be thankful that I finally find a Spring here -- and through the glow of a this light aromatic liquid as well.

Not the usual thing I look for in Denver, but that's one of those little surprises that makes this city a worthy place to visit even for a have-seen-it-all New Yorker. Hey, even the waitress, Justina -- a former Oregonian from Roseburg -- found this place a better place to park oneself after a life of too many rainy days and gray.

And she doesn’t drive -- making the bus from Lakewood, CO, her main means of transport, a curious turn given that I'm in a place where people are so car-driven. So I linger over the saki as the 4:30 - 7 pm happy hour ends and my daughter makes her way from Aurora westerly -- late as usual.

James Bond Makes The Perfect Holiday Fest

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Sunday, 25 December 2011 12:51
Written by Brad Balfour

James-Bond-007-Gun-Symbol-logoThough the run-up to the holiday season (especially the month leading up to Christmas) usually means a slow up on festivals -- film or otherwise -- unless seasonally related, virtual fests are everywhere, especially on television.

Now EPIX, the premium entertainment service available on TV, video-on-demand, online and on consumer electronic devices, has created its own virtual film festival for fans of exotic locations, fast cars, beautiful women, crazy gadgets and vodka martinis, shaken, not stirred…

So the channel will present a James Bond film every night at 10pm ET from December 1 - 24, 2011, concluding with an all-day marathon of Bond movies on Christmas day.  What a way to take a break from the holiday rush and escape with Agent 007 in films like Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies and many, many others.

That is for the love of a James Bond and the films that have drawn on his various incarnations from his earliest appearance in a 1954 BBC version to the incarnation as created by Pierce Brosnan.

EPIX is the only premium service providing its entire monthly line-up of new Hollywood hits, classic feature films, documentaries and original concerts, comedy and sporting events on all platforms.

A joint venture between Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Lionsgate, EPIX has access to more than 15,000 motion pictures spanning the vast  libraries of its partners and other studios, EPIX provides a powerful entertainment experience with more feature films on demand and online and more HD movies than any other service. 

 The only thing missing is a hot babe or a fast run in the Aston Martin -- or the equivalent Corgi toy replica.

Schedule

  • Thursday, December 1     
    Casino Royale
  • Friday, December  2          
    Dr. No  
  • Saturday, December  3     
    From Russia With Love
  • Sunday, December 4        
    Goldfinger
  • Monday, December 5        
    Thunderball
  • Tuesday, December 6       
    You Only Live Twice
  • Wednesday, December 7  
    The World is Not Enough
  • Thursday, December 8       
    On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
  • Friday, December 9            
    Diamonds Are Forever
  • Saturday, December 10    
    Live And Let Die
  • Sunday, December 11      
    The Man with the Golden Gun
  • Monday, December 12     
    The Spy Who Loved Me
  • Tuesday, December 13          
    Moonraker
  • Wednesday, December 14    
    For Your Eyes Only
  • Thursday, December 15         
    Never Say Never Again
  • Friday, December 16              
    Octopussy
  • Saturday, December 17
    A View to a Kill
  • Sunday, December 18           
    The Living Daylights
  • Monday, December 19        
    License to Kill
  • Tuesday, December 20    
    Goldeneye
  • Wednesday, December 21  
    Tomorrow Never Dies
  • Thursday, December 22         
    The World is Not Enough
  • Friday, December 23         
    Bond Girls Are Forever
  • Saturday, December 24     
    Goldfinger

All-day Christmas Marathon

  • 7am ET
    The Spy Who Loved Me
  • 9:15am ET
    From Russia with Love
  • 11:15am ET
    Dr. No
  • 1:15pm ET
    On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
  • 3:45pm ET
    Goldfinger
  • 5:45pm ET
    Thunderball
  • 8pm ET
    Live and Let Die
  • 10pm ET
    You Only Live Twice

For the complete schedule & information on the All-day Christmas Marathon or more info on EPIX, go to: www.EpixHD.com.

EPIX info can also be found on Twitter @EpixHD; and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/EpixHD

A Day in The Life?

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Monday, 23 August 2010 15:53
Written by Brad Balfour

I have been torn all morning. The gauntlet was thrown down by famed director/producer Ridley Scott and documentarian Kevin Macdonald. So read the press release: "YouTube joins world famous filmmakers Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald in asking people around THE world to help them create the first user-generated feature-length documentary film shot on a single day - July 24, 2010.

Life in a Day is a historic global film experiment that enlists the global community to capture a moment of its varied life on Saturday, July 24, 2010, and to upload that footage to www.youtube.com/lifeinaday."


Do I dig out my video camera and record my day -- or parts of it -- exposing to all the world what I did and actually upload it?

I am still not sure that I am going to do something. There are still fewer than 12 hours left; I could do my part. But can I throw down a few moments of where I am today, what I am doing, and cogently put it out there on YouTube? Then the anxiety set in and I faced my dilemma.

It would require that I try to lend some coherence to who I am. Whew. I mean, between writing interviews, posting on my Facebook profile, responding to my e-mails or phone calls, I encounter and interact with dozens, if not hundreds, of people daily. Living in Manhattan is a very public act of contact with humanity.

Yet this notion, to document some aspect of my life for a day -- rather than talking to others about theirs -- stirs anxiety in me. It also prompts me to think about who I am in this self-obsessed society, and to understand how this desire, if not the obsessive need, for fame, to post glimpses of our lives for all the world to see, has become transformed into big business thanks to the reality television game and viral site like Youtube.

It has given birth to the Heidi Montags and Kate Goselins of this world whose billowing presence in the mainstream media seems to run in contrast to what innate talents they may have or, so far, have shown they have.

But there are other kinds of self-driven media making that DRAW on the self but TRANSFORM it into something genuinely larger and, in doing so, offer something profound in the doing and the saying.

Veteran director Ross McElwee started out making a documentary, Sherman's March, about some larger subject like the effects of General Sherman's devastating march throughout the South during the Civil War, and turns it into a modern personal statement about his life, loves and fear of nuclear destruction. That's a different kind of self-directed art-making.

I am working on an interview with the Neistat brothers, who have made an HBO series out of the bits and pieces of video-recorded detritus from their lives [it will be up momentarily]. They have crafted a whole television series by telling stories about their life in quirky ways. I am amazed at how they do it, but this thought of making something from my own life -- even from part of today -- has me momentarily paralyzed.

So if I were to be actually selected out of what I figure will be thousands of entries -- what then would I think of myself?

Would I too be transformed into someone who is worried about my larger media presence?

Will that make me driven by what happens to me on stage, or through a camera rather than during direct encounters with those around me?

I can see how that media-infused cause makes people think they don't have to sweat the small stuff as long as they are viewed by thousands or millions.
According to the release, "Life in a Day is one of several efforts by YouTube to push the boundaries of music, art, and now film.

YouTube Symphony Orchestra and the recently announced YouTube Play partnership with the Guggenheim Museum are examples of the convergence of online video with traditional arts and Life in a Day takes this effort into the cinematic realm."

Okay, so maybe I don't do it this time. I missed the gauntlet thrown down before me. But what will be the implications of the film they will make out OF this raw material from many people's lives?

Hey, I think it's a cool idea with fascinating implications, like those photo books that document a day in the life of a different city. They give us a larger sense of the globe, of it being populated by people much like ourselves. But as we become more and more driven by our lives in the digital domain, what's next? Maybe, like Tron, will we just become more infused in the machine -- or will we transcend it...?

Ken Russell Comes To Town

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Parent Category: Blogs
Category: Brad Balfour
Published on Friday, 23 July 2010 05:00
Written by Brad Balfour

One of the greatest directors of all time, the 83-year-old Ken Russell, is enjoying a retrospective at the Lincoln Center Film Society, Russellmania, starting this coming weekend going on through July 5th. This is one filmmaker who pushed the envelope both creatively and professionally, and in many ways changed both the face of cinema, inspiring many of my generation both aesthetically and personally.

Not only will many of his best films be screened -- from rarely seen works such as The Devils (1971) and Savage Messiah (1972) -- but his Oscar-winning Women in Love (1969) and his extravagant version of The Who's Tommy (1975) are among the widely acclaimed films that will get a proper showing again.

More importantly, the eccentric British filmmaker will also make an extended appearance, spending six nights conversing with the audience about several of his most memorable and provocative films. And I will be there as much as I can.

On the opening night, Friday, July 30th, 2010, he discusses his experiences in making The Devils, his torturously graphic telling of an political persecution inspired by Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudon (with Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave). Though Russell was in New York not long ago for his production of the play, Mindgame, it's been years since he came here for such a substantial time to really talk about his work publicly.

On Saturday, July 31, Russell will answer questions about his sexually ground-breaking version of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. The film starred Glenda Jackson, Reed and Alan Bates, and is unforgettable for its nude wrestling scene, which showed male genitalia.


On Sunday August 1st, The Boy Friend will screen with Russell and one of its actors, Broadway vet Tommy Tune, in attendance. This is one of his many musically-inspired films, this time harkening back to the Jazz Age starring famous model Twiggy and Jackson. On Monday Aug. 2nd, the burly director will join the audience in discussing Mahler, one of his several biographical films inspired by the life of a classical composer. Another one of those fascinating cinematic re-imaginings, Lisztomania, will have Russell on hand this coming Wednesday, August 4th.

Finally, on Thursday August 5th, the Film Society will show his incredible visual fantasy version of the Who's landmark rock opera -- to be dissected by director and audience alike.

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