This Savage Art

By the end of the year you will be able to watch instantly on your Apple ‘puter. Yippeee! [Hat tip: Karina Longworth.]

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It’s 4:12 am, Tuesday morning and I just fed the boy so this is a rapid fire, stream of consciousness post because I need some sleep for tomorrow, I mean today. I’m still trying to get a grip on this whole new life, scheduling everything around my son’s schedule thing. It ain’t easy but you knew that already. I didn’t I guess. I mean, I knew in the abstract that I would be busier and time would be tighter but I never knew I would be flexing these organizational muscles that not only I didn’t know I had but found out I’m really a mess in the this department. One answer: iCal. Learn it, know it, live it.

iCal is a calendar app that comes with all Macs including this new MacBook that I saved up for and purchased recently. New Macs are cool. They just run and run their little Intel processors in a way that your old beaten up iBook couldn’t. Anyway, iCal rules my life now. It is my life. Boy needs to go to the pediatrician. Set-up an iCal reminder. Bresson double-feature at the Film Forum that I probably won’t get to see. Set it up in iCal. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the appointments you need to keep. iCal…you get it.

Hey, this is the best I could come up with at 4:12 am. Did you want to look at Walter Matthau’s face below for another two weeks?

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A new site [beta] with collective writings on gear, software and beyond.

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Apple announces streaming movie rentals. Related: “It’s hard for the studios to claim they have no idea how they’ll make money off the internet when all six majors signed on to Apple’s new rental service.” Good point John.

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I went to see Abel Ferrara hold court last night at the Apple Soho store to hear him speak about “how Final Cut Pro helped him get the upcoming Go Go Tales to the screen.” Sorry Apple but your little website blurb can’t contain this man. It’s the day after and I still don’t know if he ever used Final Cut Pro.

He was dressed to the nines in a tux ready to run off and see the opening night screening of The Darjeeling Limited at the New York Film Festival. I would have joined him but my measly Lincoln Center Film Society individual membership didn’t have enough pull to get me that ticket — I’m still waiting for my tickets to come in the mail. Still waiting…

The truth is it’s hard to convey what it’s like to be around the man. He’s a combination of, well, damn I can’t even come up with an amalgamation. Abel’s an original let’s put it that way. You could tell he was a little nervous talking about the technology. He spoke of how he cut this film by using two Avids [like I said, I thought this was an Apple event?] side by side and compared and contrasted the versions the closer they got to completion. That’s a new workflow to me. Interesting.

Once Abel felt a little loose by opening up questions to the audience he had his forum. It’s both heartbreaking and endearing to hear him speak about his films because you know so much has gone wrong with them in the past. Financing and distribution woes have taken their toll on his body of work and yet he perseveres like a stand-up comedian whose been batted around the club scene for too long.

He spoke of how all of his core group of collaborators all dropped off one by one in the last decade. I can imagine money had a lot to do with this and if you watch A Short Film About The Long Career of Abel Ferrara on the King of New York DVD you’ll see my point. The long rumored break-up of Ferrara with his number one guy and close friend, screenwriter Nicholas St. John, came down to this — “he had to get out, he couldn’t take the business anymore.”

As the alloted hour wound down Abel took a call on his cell phone, the man had somewhere to be — to see the new Anderson film but more importantly to hit up some of the philanthropist in the Lincoln Center audience for some cheech for his next project. All I know is we could have hung around and talked with him all night which he would have been more than happy to oblige. I still wanted to ask him about the recent news of the Bad Lieutenant remake/update/reimagining. Maybe next time.

Go Go Tales will be at the New York Film Festival October 5th and 7th.

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Director Abel Ferrara talks shop at the Apple Soho store this Friday, September 28th.

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Filmmaker Magazine’s Jamie Stuart checks out the next generation of Apple’s post-production package with his new short 12.5 Seconds Later…

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The iPhone has arrived and evil nerd Mike Curtis is all over it.

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