April 27, 2007 by wilmington.

Some possibly-random (Dirk Gently may have been right, ater all, about the general interconnectedness of all things) observations:

1) Is it possible yet for people to take an objective look/listen at Wynton Marsalis’ music from the 90’s and, separating themselves from the ridiculous “Progressive” turf wars, assess it in strictly musical terms? I listened to “Citi Movements” and “Blue Interlude” recently. Since it made me think about an essay I wrote for a jazz radio program guide back in 1999, I think I’ll link to it here next week to see what people think of it now.

2) The current Major League Soccer season has more excitement - of both the legitimate quality-of-soccer and the manufactured media hype variety which all pro sports need - than any previous season of American soccer. 

The New York RED BULL look to have an exciting brand of attacking soccer and recently added Juan Pablo Angel, a very successful striker from the English Premiere League, and Clint Mathis, former poster-boy rebel for American soccer. It remains to be seen if the BECKHAM FACTOR is an example of the first or the second form of excitement mentioned above. Games are on ESPN2 every Thursday night and Fox Soccer Channel shows others on the weekends. Watch and see the level of our now 11 year-old domestic league.

3) Patrick O’Brian is one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century - possibly one of the best ever considering what the novel is supposed to do.

4) If you haven’t already - check out “Coffee Betsy.” [linked below as a Blog-Buddy] 

More to come…

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April 20, 2007 by wilmington.

Comment on this post to leave feedback on Bailey (as mentioned on the Sea Shanty Films home site). You can also download the film by right-clicking HERE and waiting for the 40MB file to download. You’ll need the latest QuickTime…and it will take a while to download even this compressed version of the film.

See the post below for instructions on how to comment. Be honest and as specific as you can. Questions are welcome. Looking forward to hearing what you (and whichever friends you might point to the film) have to say.

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April 16, 2007 by wilmington.

Look at the bottom right of one of my posts.

See where it says “Comments” or “No comments,” etc. Click there.

You will have to leave a name, valid e-mail address, and then answer a simple math question that prevents spammers and other disreputable scum from practicing their vile craft here. Then type your post and submit it. If you want to avoid doing this every time you comment, I believe you have the option to “REGISTER” at the bottom of the right-hand column of my blog page.

I will then receive an e-mail to accept you as a registered cyber-buddy or just approve your comment, and then you’re published my friend!

Try it! It’s fun and it strikes a blow for truth, justice, and the American Way…

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April 11, 2007 by wilmington.

Just back from South Mountains State Park. 2 nights of below-freezing tent life at a primitive camping site (it’s a 2 mile, 1,500ft. hike up to the site) during which I was the only human for several miles - including one night when I was the only person on that particular mountain for the night. Beautiful and very vigorous hiking, very diverse terrain and types of trails at what the brochure modestly describes as “one of the most rugged state parks in North Carolina.” My muscles reply, “Well….YEAH!”

Trying desperately to get to still-unfinished Sea Shanty work: DVD distribution of X-GEN/Wingnut, final tweaks to Bailey, and continuing post-production on The Spectre. The showing and weekend at New Bern were filled with laughs and fun culminating in a double feature of Kung-Pow! The Way of the Fist and Battlefield Earth. I’ll give your brain a chance to wrap itself around that prospect……and now we’re back.

We did not have the best audience numbers for the work-in-progress Spectre or public premiere of Bailey. The scheduling of the conference put us in the last block of films of the festival, and we did not get a chance to answer questions immediately after our showing (the final film, a hilarious Indian Jones parody, started immediately after Spectre and created a 20-minute buffer before the Q&A). We got some good feedback from those who did see it, but many people had left during the break before our block. Very disappointing, but understabdable: attending a festival can be exhausting.

We saw some good stuff, but the standout was Jim Haverkamp’s new film Willow Garden. They still had some sound issues to clean up, but this film was outstanding. Very unique look, excellent performances, and the directing and DP work were highly professional. A real tragedy whose roots lie in an old “murder ballad” folk song.

Spring Break still includes a trip to the NC Zoo in Asheville (modeled on the San Diego Wildlife Park), an 8am soccer game for me (umm…yay?), finding and registering for my 4th and final course as a 1st year Ph.D. studetn at Baylor, mounting distress that I will be taking crash-course French in less than 3 months, time to finish The Thirteen Gun Salute (and ensuing panic that I am closing in on the final third of the Aubrey/Maturin books!), and now-earnest work to sell our house and prepare for the move to Waco in  June.

Photos to come of camping and other bizarre stuff…

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April 4, 2007 by wilmington.

The update to the main Sea Shanty web page has been pushed off until I have 3 seconds to think. In the meantime, and if you haven’t already checked, see the Photo Page on this blog. Also, please enjoy the Luke-A-Roo page…it’s fairly self-explanatory.

I put up Derek’s photo of a very memorable moment from this past weekend at the New Bern Independent Filmmakers’ Conference. We at SSF have been big fans of Steve Zissou for many years. It was great to meet him and a few of his loyal crew. So many parallels between his work (and the community that comes together to make it possible) and the work of filmmaking…it’s uncanny.

Also - THURSDAY night at 9:30pm EDT [changed from 8:30 at some point on Thursday!!] , the Houston Dynamo play in the Semi-Finals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup. See it on Fox Soccer Channel and root for the first win by an American club team on Mexican soil. The Dynamo beat Pachuca in Houston 2-0 and will advance to the Championship Game if they win, tie, or only lose by 1. Basically, if the mighty men in orange score a goal, they’ve likely punched their ticket to the Big Game.

Also Also - Go see “Amazing Grace.” It’s the story of William Wilberforce - the man who spearheaded (spearheaded?!) the decades long effort to abolish slavery in England in the early 1800’s. The film is not perfect, but it’s got so much “meat” to it - characters, relationships, powerful moments - that you can forgive a few clunky or melodramatic moments. Michael Apted directed and the prinipal cast is outstanding (good to see Rufus Sewell who was so perfect in “Dark City”).

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April 2, 2007 by wilmington.

Guessing that you’ve found me b/c of the latest update to www.seashantyfilms.com (or because you’re just SO special that I told you about the blog already).

As I’ve said - this is all In Progress, but I’m putting it out for public consumption already so that people will have physical proof that we’re on the move! Unlike other websites, our lack of updates for months at a time should be considered a GOOD thing. Because it means we’re really, really busy with things that are GOOD for a production company to be busy doing. Like…making movies. And stuff.

New Bern blog coming soon (inspired by the killer photo Derek Smith created which will soon dominate our main site).

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