Welcome to StaticBlog’s Live Coverage of the 54th Annual Grammy Awards
7 p.m. Rather set things out on an explicitly dour note, Bruce Springsteen begins things with “We Take Care of Our Own,” a barbed and sarcastic song that will likely be the most politically misunderstood and misinterpreted song since, well “Born in the U.S.A.” I have a feeling that much of this night is going to feel like a callback to 1985.
7:04 p.m. Nice to see most of the E Street band up there pounding away behind the Man. Can we have three hours of that? I mean, he could do it.
7:06 p.m. LL Cool J starts off with a prayer for Whitney Houston and her family. And then we have a clip of Houston singing “I Will Always Love You. Personally, I’d take her performance from the 1986 Grammys, when she was still a little taken aback by all the attention during a performance of “Saving All My Love For You.”
7:09 p.m. “Sir O.G. Paul McCartney”? Taylor Swift is LL’s “Round-the-Way Girl”? She wasn’t even born then.
7:13 p.m. Bruno Mars: “So get off your rich asses and have some fun!” Then he breaks out some moves worthy of the Godfather of Soul himself as the band makes like the JBs. If only Mars’ songs were half as good as his stage performances…
7:15 p.m. “Up next on the Grammy Awards, a performance by Chris Brown that you won’t want to miss!” The only way that might be remotely true is if Chris Brown were wearing an orange jumpsuit and was having chipped Spam piled on a metal tray.
7:20 p.m. Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys announce the first award, but not before saluting Etta James, who was probably the last image on the dead pool before yesterday.
Best Pop Solo Performance
“Someone Like You” — Adele
“Yoü And I” — Lady Gaga
“Grenade” — Bruno Mars
“Firework” — Katy Perry
“F***in’ Perfect” — Pink
Seriously — Pink?
7:25 p.m. Adele takes her first. Better back up a lorry.
7:26 p.m. I want to see some audience reactions from Kanye West, Jay-Z or Chris Brown’s ex during this crap. I mean, he’s working hard up there, but StaticBlog does not forgive as quickly as this idiots at the Grammys do. Unapologetic and idiotic in the wake of the Rihanna beating, and these jackasses will forget it all just to see some warmed-over Jacko moves and AutoTuned vocals. A standing ovation? Hell no. The only reason these people should be standing up is to bum-rush the stage and drag him out of the theater.
7:35 p.m. Fergie and Marc Anthony announce…
Best Rap Performance:
“Look At Me Now” — Chris Brown, Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes
“Otis” — Jay-Z & Kanye West
“The Show Goes On” — Lupe Fiasco
“Moment 4 Life” — Nicki Minaj & Drake
“Black And Yellow” — Wiz Khalifa
And the winner is Kanye and Jay-Z, who could not be there, possibly because they would rather be anywhere else but a place where Chris Brown is given a standing-o.
7:41 p.m. Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson deliver their power ballad, “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” and then the announcer teases that Maroon 5/Foster the People/Beach Boys collaboration that everyone warned you about. I don’t know about you guys, but the last thing the Beach Boys need is that quavering Foster the People guy trying to do justice to “God Only Knows.” What’s Adam Levine going to sing, “Kokomo”?
7:47 p.m. This guy is talking about “indie cred.”
7:50 p.m. Foo Fighters do “Walk” outside the Staples Center, where formal wear is in noticeably short supply. Bravo, Mr. Grohl. Nice to hear something that sounds spontaneous tonight.
7:55 p.m. Okay, this is better. Not that StaticBlog just can’t get enough of “We Found Love,” but that deep reserve of Rihanna photos has to go somewhere. Here’s another:
8:03 p.m. Since Chris Martin wrote “Paradise” using the Rihanna bag of tricks, we should have seen more of her after that “Princess of China” interlude.
8:05 p.m. Is the oncoming snowstorm causing satellite disturbances, or are we experiencing interference from meteorological egos?
8:15 p.m. Pauly Perrette and some guys who won something last weekend announce the first award in nearly 45 minutes.
Best Rock Performance:
“Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” — Coldplay
“Down By The Water” — The Decemberists
“Walk” — Foo Fighters
“The Cave” — Mumford & Sons
“Lotus Flower” — Radiohead
Well, the winner is Foo Fighters, because they actually performed rock in a rock performance.
8:17 p.m. Ever the polished, bloodless studio automatons, it turns out that Maroon 5 can do a pretty perfect “Surfer Girl.” Gotta get them for my son’s bar mitzvah.
8:18 p.m. Oh yeah, I forgot.
8:20 p.m. Foster the People squeaks through “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” but at least Foster wore a striped shirt for the occasion.
8:23 p.m. Beach Boys sound solid on “Good Vibrations,” but can’t we have a reunion without Mike Love?
8:32 p.m. Stevie Wonder announces Sir Paul McCartney, Dame Diana Krall and Sir Joseph Walsh do “My Valentine” from his latest album, “Kisses On the Bottom,” which is a well-intentioned title, but he should have known what to expect on that one. One of his better ballads in quite some time — too bad it’s planted in a gooey, heart-shaped “Great American Songbook” cash cow.
8:36 p.m. Common and Taraji P. Henson offer a nice tribute to Gil Scott-Heron before announcing:
Best R&B Album:
F.A.M.E.— Chris Brown
Second Chance — El DeBarge
Love Letter — R. Kelly
Pieces Of Me— Ledisi
Kelly— Kelly Price
And the winner is deeply disappointing.
8:42 p.m. The Civil Wars play on Taylor Swift, who looks absolutely amazing rocking the Great Depression clothes. A good move. Sounds much better this year, too. Really progressing, this girl. Got a deserved ovation and looked genuinely surprised after doing “Mean.”
8:50 p.m. NPH announces:
Song Of The Year:
“All Of The Lights” — Jeff Bhasker, Malik Jones, Warren Trotter & Kanye West, songwriters (Kanye West, Rihanna, Kid Cudi & Fergie)
“The Cave” — Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford & Country Winston, songwriters (Mumford & Sons)
“Grenade” — Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Bruno Mars & Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Bruno Mars)
“Holocene” — Justin Vernon, songwriter (Bon Iver)
“Rolling In The Deep” — Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth, songwriters (Adele)
And the winner is Ms. Adkins and Mr. Epworth.
8:55 p.m. Is Katy Perry dressed like Gumby? Did she short something out?
8:57 p.m. Will somebody please get rid of that stupid pseudo mosh pit full of trust fund Grammy kids?
8:59 p.m. Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley announce Best Country Album, and Lady Antebellum shut out Eric Church, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean and Taylor Swift. That’s pretty damn shocking, actually. Thought Oklahoma’s Own(tm) Blake Shelton had a good chance.
9:05 p.m. Gwyneth Paltrow intoduces Adele, who seems to be making a solid vocal recovery. The rest of this evening is pretty much coronation. “Rolling in the Deep” cannot be stopped.
9:10 p.m. Big, massive standing ovation, nice lingering closeup on the singer as the Staples Center erupts. She did well, and will be rewarded.
9:16 p.m. Taylor Swift announces the Lifetime Achievement Award for Glen Campbell.
9:17 p.m. The Band Perry does “Gentle on My Mind.” Had no idea Elizabeth Banks could twang.
9:19 p.m. Oklahoma’s Own(tm) Blake Shelton plays a nice, faithful version of “Southern Nights,” a song that never made a lick of sense but could never be denied.
9:23 p.m. Glen Campbell, who is retiring following his Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis, performed “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which is fine, but would love to hear him sing his best single, “Wichita Lineman,” written by Oklahoma’s Own(tm) Jimmy Webb. Nice performance, probably the last time most of us will hear him. Good luck, sir.
9:31 p.m.Oklahoma’s Own(tm) Carrie Underwood duets with Tony Bennett. She held her own with one of the greats before announcing:
Best New Artist:
The Band Perry
Bon Iver
J. Cole
Nicki Minaj
Skrillex
And the winner is Bon Iver. Sweet hookup.
9:37 p.m. Yes, he’s talking about important programs such as MusiCares, which does a lot for artists who need help, but it still feels like the Neil Portnow Seventh Inning Stretch. He needs some magnetism coaching.
9:40 p.m. Dobie Gray died? Damn. Well, it’s time to…
Pay tribute to Whitney Houston. Jennifer Hudson performed “I Will Always Love You,” and did a great job considering how quickly this had to be put together. I’m surprised that there’s been so little tribute to her this evening.
9:48 p.m. Where is LL Cool J? Did he fade into the background like he did in Barry Levinson’s acclaimed perennial holiday favorite, “Toys”?
9:50 p.m. Oh, there he is, paying tribute to Don Cornelius before introducing the worst man in America, Chris Brown, who has gotten too much mileage out of this night. My whole life, I’m exasperated with popular culture, but the collective amnesia on this jerk is not to be tolerated.
9:55 p.m. Fortunately, Foos are making me feel better, kicking the hell out of “Rope” in a completely insane remix with Deadmau5. Better than that David Guetta garbage.
10:04 p.m. Drake announces Nicki Minaj doing a performance of “Roman’s Revenge” that makes Lady Gaga look like Amy Grant.
10:12 p.m. Lady Antebellum announces…
Record Of The Year:
“Rolling In The Deep” — Adele
“Holocene” — Bon Iver
“Grenade” — Bruno Mars
“The Cave” — Mumford & Sons
“Firework” — Katy Perry
Oh, who are we kidding?
Adele wins it. She’s a lock for the rest of the night: Diana Ross announced the Album of the Year, and she won there, too.
And as a grand, grand finale, Paul returned with Springsteen, Walsh and Grohl in tow for “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End.” No “Her Majesty,” but plenty majestic. Good night!
“Arrested Development” movie to be preceded by 10-episode miniseason
Start your final countdown now. Read the glorious details here.
Interview: Cliff Martinez, film score composer, “Drive”
Cliff Martinez owns a piece of artwork, displayed in the entryway of his home/studio in the San Fernando Valley, that offers a glimpse into the storied past that led to his work as a film composer for current movies such as Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” It is the album art for Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s classic 1969 album, “Trout Mask Replica” — the one with Beefheart holding a fish head in front of his face.
On the poster, Beefheart inscribed the following: “Cliff, don’t jump. Gravity will be jealous.” Beefheart, aka Don Van Vliet, signed it one week before Martinez, a drummer in Los Angeles’ fertile post-punk scene, got a call to play on Beefheart’s final studio album, 1982′s “Ice Cream for Crow.”
“I pick up the phone, and I just hear, ‘What are you doin’?’ And I said, ‘I’m watching TV,’” Martinez said in a recent phone interview. Martinez said that eccentric artist behind “Lick My Decals Off, Baby” and “When Big Joan Sets Up” took a pause, then piped up again. “‘Anything good on?’” he said.
Van Vliet offered him the job. “I couldn’t have been more thrilled if I had been playing with Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis,” Martinez said.
Nearly 30 years later, long after playing with Beefheart and serving as drummer on the first two Red Hot Chili Peppers albums, Martinez, 57, is an in-demand composer of film scores. Just this year, his work can be heard in “The Lincoln Lawyer,” “Drive” and the latest film by frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh, “Contagion.”
“For the better part of 2010, I was just catching up on my thumb-twiddling. And then all of a sudden this happened. I’ve never done three in a year, and the year’s not even over,” Martinez said. “I guess all of that time I stood by the freeway with the “Will Score for Food” sign finally paid off.”
Martinez’ work on “Drive” recalls the gleaming, robotic pulse of Tangerine Dream’s “Risky Business” score or Giorgio Moroder’s Eurodisco compositions for “Midnight Express”: atmospheric washes and kinetic bursts of dance music for night drivers. He built his score around the core songs Refn included as references on the rough cut: new tracks such as “Nightcall” by Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx, a mid-tempo dance song with a distinctly mid-1980s sound. He said he often uses keyboards with specific sounds as core instruments in his scores, but his most prized musical instrument is a Baschet Cristal, a 1952 invention that first caught Martinez’ imagination when he was in grade school.
“I saw it as a child in 1964 or ’65 at the Museum of Modern Art,” Martinez said. “The guys who built it, the two brothers, Francois and Bernard Baschet, had an exhibit of 12 instruments they created. It was just one of those things that you see as a child that just completely reupholster your brain. And I think the Beatles happened the same year on Ed Sullivan, so I think those things are what made me want to be a musician — and not just an ordinary one, but a weird musician.
“Nobody knows what it’s supposed to sound like, so everyone assumes I know what I’m doing,” he said. “It is laid out like a piano, sort of, so in a sense it’s kind of intuitive, but I can’t think of any other instrument you play with moistened fingers on glass rods.”
It was his sense of musical adventure and discovering new sound opportunities that led Martinez into film. In the mid-1980s, when the Red Hot Chili Peppers were recording their second album, “Freaky Styley” with George Clinton, Martinez bought a sampling drum machine. It had only about five seconds of sampling memory, but Martinez would record what he refers to as “rude noises” and construct percussion loops.
His experiments with the rudimentary sampler first gained attention from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” but then Soderbergh, who was just starting his career as a filmmaker, chose Martinez to score 1989′s “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” Martinez spent the next several years scoring Soderbergh films, including “Traffic,” “Solaris” and “The Limey.”
“He said, ‘That stuff will be perfect for my next movie,’” Martinez said of his first collaboration with Soderbergh. “When I saw the movie, I said, ‘I don’t get it, Steven. This doesn’t sound like it will work at all,’ and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll do something different.’”
For Martinez, that spirit of doing “something different” goes all the way back to his days in the L.A. underground. During the “Freaky Styley” sessions, Martinez said the Chili Peppers would be recording an instrumental track at Clinton’s Detroit studio that, to their ears, was fatally flawed. He said that Clinton set the young men straight.
“He said, ‘That’s not a mistake. That’s the funk,’” Martinez recalled. “That was a very Beefheartian thing to say.”
Movie Review: “Phase 7″
Rating: 72
Not everyone left to make their way in an apocalypse will have the necessary skills to survive, and as Edgar Wright proved with “Shaun of the Dead,” some of the last remaining humans might be complete dopes. With “Phase 7,” director Nicolas Goldbart introduces the world to Shaun’s inept Argentine cousin.
Much like “Shaun,” “Phase 7” (currently in midnight showings at AMC Quail Springs Mall) is a darkly comic trip down a familiar horror road: Survivors attempt to hold on after a deadly virus brings society to a standstill. At first, Coco (Daniel Hendler) and his extremely pregnant wife, Pipi (Jazmin Stuart), seem completely oblivious to what is happening around them, shopping and bickering at a Buenos Aires supermarket as frenzied fellow shoppers fill their carts in anticipation of the gathering storm. Even after the World Health Organization and Argentina’s authorities enforce a quarantine, Coco and Pipi just treat it like an annoyance. Coco seems more annoyed at the lack of Internet than he does at the possibility that he could die.
With their new apartment building shut down by the local authorities, Coco and Pipi get to know their neighbors a little too well. Guglieri and Lange (Carlos Bermejo and Abian Vainstein) are the first of the group to turn on their fellow tenants, attempting to kill the elderly Zanutto (Federico Luppi) to take his food and medicine. Coco winds up on friendly terms with Horacio (Yayo Guridi), a survivalist who was paranoid long before suspicion was needed, and the two mismatched knuckleheads soon become a united front, much to Pipi’s irritation.
While it is rarely as funny as “Shaun,” “Phase 7” is cut from the same cloth in one key respect: It illustrates how some people are not natural heroes no matter how the pressures of a catastrophe might hit them. When the world is running down, Coco amuses himself by sculpting his shaggy beard into a grotesque sideburn-handlebar mustache combo. If it weren’t for Horacio, who is obsessed with the notion that the pandemic is “Phase 7” of a plan to shape a “new world order,” Coco and Pipi might just argue themselves to death instead of defending themselves and planning for some kind of post-apocalyptic future.
Clearly working from a minimal budget, Goldbart restricts most of the action to the apartment complex as the tenants’ worst impulses come to the fore. As order breaks down, the body count climbs in the building thanks to an unexpected aggressor’s uncommon shotgun skills, and Goldbart spares nothing when it comes to gore and carnage. “Phase 7” does not redefine its genre, but it provides a goofy counterpoint to Stephen King’s “The Stand,” showing that the slack and incompetent could inherit the Earth.
— Lang
Home Video: “The Company Men”
Rating: 85
John Wells’ “The Company Men” details what happens when the Boston-based shipping conglomerate GTX misses its quarterly projections and starts handing out walking papers in an attempt to meet the stock price demanded by its shareholders. The film follows three men at distinct career stages who all met inglorious ends at the hands of hard-line CEO James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson): Chief Operating Officer Gene McCrory (Tommy Lee Jones), middle manager Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) and hotshot sales executive Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck).
Unquestionably a film of its time, “The Company Men” deftly portrays the dangers of an employee having too much of his or her self-worth wrapped up in a job: Phil worked his way up from the docks to the white-collar office, and in his late 50s, he’s ill-suited for restarting or reinventing himself. Gene had a surplus of cash on hand but squandered too much on his materialistic wife (Patricia Kalember) and his human resources director/mistress (Maria Bello), so his golden parachute feels like fool’s gold, and Bobby is forced to sell his Porsche, sell the house he shares with his supportive spouse (Rosemarie DeWitt) and kids, and exercise some career options he never imagined.
Wells produced “ER” for 15 years on NBC before moving to cable with Showtime’s “Shameless” and HBO’s “Mildred Pierce.” He got the bum’s rush from his former network when NBC deemed Wells’ cop drama “Southland” too expensive for the return it was getting and abruptly canceled the series on the eve of its second season. But like at least some of the GTX men, Wells, who offers an interesting audio commentary on the DVD, found a way to restart, moving “Southland” to TNT and committing to networks with fewer strings attached. An understanding of that background gives “The Company Men” even more resonance. Through the film, Wells is saying there are ways to move on if the worst-case career scenario comes into play.
— Lang
Blu-ray Review: “The Lincoln Lawyer”
Rating: 73
If the producers of “The Lincoln Lawyer” are not currently developing a series for FX or TNT, something is dangerously out of balance in Hollywood, because Mickey Haller, the fallen lawyer working his way back to respectability and keeping an office in the back seat of a chauffeured Lincoln Continental, is ripe for episodic treatment. As played by Matthew McConaughey, Mickey is shrewd, knows how to artfully cut corners when mounting a defense and, in this story based on Michael Connelly’s novel, he needs to know how to get out from under a bad client.
That client is Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), a Los Angeles real estate wunderkind who gets popped for assaulting a woman he picked up at a club. At first, Louis’ arrest looks like a frame-up, but then Mickey begins seeing parallels between this case and a former client (Michael Pena), and soon the defense becomes complicated by new, unsavory evidence.
Directed with workmanlike steadiness by Brad Furman, “The Lincoln Lawyer” feels like a corrective measure for McConaughey, who at one time seemed positioned to become the next Paul Newman but faltered with too many romantic comedies and too few meaty roles. He is strong here and finds some good chemistry with Marisa Tomei (as his district attorney ex-wife), and there is a sense throughout “The Lincoln Lawyer” that McConaughey is back on track with this performance, committed instead of lazing through another throwaway project. Connelly has featured Mickey Haller in four novels since 2005, and the concept is rock-solid. McConaughey might not be ready to move to television, but someone needs to put wheels under a “Lincoln Lawyer” TV adaptation.
EXTRAS: Multiple featurettes on the Blu-ray, including an interesting one-on-one discussion between Connelly and McConaughey.
– Lang
Adrianne Palicki: A Real American Hero? — A Nerdage/StaticBlog Sweeps Month Crossover Special on the “GI Joe” sequel
Nerdage: So, the first GI Joe movie was, to put it kindly, a bit of a mess. Casting announcements for the sequel, thus far, have been a mix of “huh” and “hmmm”…. RZA may play the Blind Master. DJ Cotrona likely to play Flint. Channing Tatum and Ray Park set to return as Duke and Snake Eyes. Elodie Yung signed as Jinx. John Chu set to direct. The Rock expected to play Roadblock. Bruce Willis keeps being rumored. And this weekend, the news that may cause Staticblog’s George Lang to see a GI Joe movie: Adrianne Palicki, Deadline reports, will play Lady Jaye.
What do you think, Lang? Are you buying tickets for a Dwayne Johnson/Bruce Willis film based on 3 3/4 inch action figures?
StaticBlog: Actually, if it were based on the 12-inch Vietnam-era guy with the awesome bristle-cut hair and beard combo, I’d be in, because Kung-Fu Grip is freaking insurmountable in plastic hand-to-hand combat.
But because this is the “Real American Hero”-era Joe, I’m basically in for the reason you surmised — Palicki, Palicki, Palicki. They can have the guy who directed the last two “Step Up” time-wasters and “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” at the helm, and yet they have Palicki, so everything’s going to be just fine.
Adrianne Palicki was, without a doubt, one of the best things about the first three seasons of “Friday Night Lights,” and as NBC viewers will certainly enjoy this Friday, her character, Tyra Collette, returns for the final two episodes of the series. She got a ton of bad press this spring when early costume photos from David E. Kelley’s “Wonder Woman” were given a trial balloon treatment by NBC and failed miserably in Internet comments sections everywhere. My personal view is that Palicki, standing nearly 6 feet tall with a distinctive beauty, was perfect for the role, but Kelley wasn’t the right guy. Joss Whedon was always the best choice.
Palicki also got seriously screwed over when “Lone Star,” the best reviewed pilot of the 2010 television season, got dropped by hair-trigger cancellation champion Fox after two episodes. Considering that “Friday Night Lights” is one of the best dramas of the past 10 years but never was a ratings success, Palicki could stand a break — even from a clankety-clank monstrosity. Having her involved suddenly makes the thing interesting.
Nerdage: Tangentally, the rumor mill has it that Bruce Willis may be intended to play the original “GI Joe,” though I don’t know if Bruce is likely to rock the bristle-cut and beard… The character made, I believe, only one appearance in the Larry Hama comics and didn’t, as far as I know, appear on the TV show.
I, of course, enjoyed the original Larry Hama comics as a kid, and heard he consulted on the first film. Still, I found that movie mostly a confusing mess, though it was filled with attractive people. Will John Chu have better luck than Stephen Sommers?
StaticBlog: OK, so I understand how Sommers got from the first two “Mummy” movies to “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” but how does Jon Chu parlay the “Step Up” movies, which are essentially “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” with electro-pop and slightly larger budgets, much less the Bieber hagiography, into “GI Joe 2: Cobra Strikes”? He must know how to follow a budget and make money or something.
Nerdage: Chu told The Deadbolt that he’s a big fan of GI Joe from back in the day, played with the toys, had the comic and everything, so maybe he’ll make a movie the fans of the property want to see. Here’s hoping, anyway.
StaticBlog: At least there’s Palicki.
Palicki, Palicki, Palicki.
Other Lives with Mates
Stillwater’s Other Lives apparently impressed Mates of State when they opened for the group during a show in Norman this past spring.
Other Lives is set to open nine shows for the San Francisco native Mates of State, starting with a show in Columbus, Ohio in October.
For a full list of shows with Mates of State, click here.
Those shows will come after the band plays six shows with Indie Folker Bon Iver in September.
Other Lives released its second album, Tamer Animals, on May 10 and so far has drawn positive reviews from music sites Pitchfork and Paste Magazine.
Plus, the band made perhaps one of the greatest music videos in the history of music videos that take place in space… (Probably only edged out by Michael Jackson’s Scream video. You just can’t beat Pong in space.)
deadCENTER: TrollHunter
TROLL!!!!!
Usually a term for people on the internet with no life, but this time around it’s just a really fun movie.
TrollHunter is a Norwegian made movie that begins with a group of college students trying to capture a story about bear killings. They end up following Hans, whom they believe to be a bear poacher, as he makes his way deep into a Norwegian forest and it’s there that they discover a 30-foot troll with an insatiable desire to eat Christians… seriously.
The movie goes on to reveal that Trolls have been kept quiet by the Norwegian government for years and when an accident happens because of a troll, the government usually places the blame on bears. (Makes sense)
The entire film is shot like a found footage documentary, where there are odd breaks and violent shakes and the camera is more often missing the action instead of lining up perfect shot. But unlike movies like Cloverfield, Quarantined and even the Blair Witch Project, TrollHunter makes the experience enjoyable and not as frantic as the others.
TrollHunter was a true highlight for me at deadCENTER as it was the final film I saw and it gave the entire festival, which was perhaps at its best in its 11-year history, a very satisfying ending.
-Adam Kemp
deadCENTER: Page One: Inside The New York Times
Maybe it’s the journalism geek inside of me, but the documentary Page One: Inside The New York Times was without a doubt the film I was looking forward to the most at deadCENTER this year.
Director Andrew Rossi spent nearly 14 months inside one of the biggest media outlets in the country and the insight he brings back on how the Times are changing to adapt to a news “right now” society is pretty fascinating.
The main “characters” of the film are social media expert and all around boy wonder Brian Stelter and the gruff but the amazingly quick-witted and hilariously blunt David Carr.
Page One addresses the main concern of falling ad revenues to the rising cost of printing a newspaper to the innumerable amounts of competition that those newspapers face from online sites.
Rossi’s ability to take a very niche and complex kind of subject like the decline of print newspapers and explain it so neatly is an understated quality.
-Adam Kemp
