 |
|
Programming Notes / Top 5 Change
From Chicago, this is The Dope Sheet... I'm Adam Kempenaar.
* On Wednesday's show we said that we were leaning toward Top 5
Political Movies for next week's WBEZ edition of the show -- tying in
with "All The King's Men." We recognized two potential problems with
this list: 1) We kind of already did it when we did our Top 5 Movies
with a Conscience (Cinecast #40); 2) We just weren't that invested in
it personally.
Well, today we got an email from Dave Srock in Grand Rapids, MI
with a link to this article about the
Worst Movies of the 1980s
... and we figured hey, we love the '80s, and we've certainly had a
lot of nostalgia discussion on the show recently with Star Wars and
our Top 5 High School Movies. So... instead of Political Movies,
we're going to count down our Top 5 '80s Movies.
Feel free to email us your list
* Reminder: Our 'bonus' show with reviews of "Idiocracy" and our
third documentary -- "Hearts and Minds" -- will be posted next
Wednesday. Our regular show (WBEZ edition) will be available for
download Saturday night after it airs on Chicago Public Radio.
* We're going to announce the lineup for our Animation Marathon
during Wednesday's show. There is one spot up for grabs with three
movies in contention -- your vote will decide it.
|
|
|
| |
|
Everything You Wanted To Know About Adam... But Were Afraid To Ask
If you regularly check
our Calendar page
to see what's coming up on the show, you might have noticed that we
had producer
Scott Ferguson
lined up to do an interview for our next full show. Scott was the
Unit Production Manager on "All The King's Men" and had also worked
on "Eternal Sunshine" with Michel Gondry, who of course has "The
Science of Sleep" coming out.
Well, we had to postpone the interview and I thought that since
you've had to put up with Sam's personal ramblings, both on the show
and here in The Dope Sheet -- from the courtship of his
girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned wife Carrie, to his old job at "This
American Life," to his wedding and recent relocation from Chicago to
Milwaukee -- I thought I would go ahead and share the reason why. If
none of you are curious about my personal life, my apologies. If you
are, well, enjoy...
I work for the Chicago Blackhawks as the club's web producer.
Basically, I'm responsible for all of the content you'll find on
chicagoblackhawks.com. I even host/produce a weekly Blackhawks
podcast ... cleverly titled "HawkCast" ... the first of its kind in
professional sports. (
Here's the link
... but seriously ... don't check it out unless you are a huge
Blackhawks fan or the sound of my voice helps put you to sleep.)
So, what does this have to do with Scott Ferguson? Well, it's the
preseason and here is my upcoming work schedule:
Today/Thursday - Home Game
Friday - Fly to Columbus at 7 am, Game that night
Saturday - Home Game
Sunday - Home Game
I'm usually the last guy to leave on game nights since I put up
all the post-game coverage. So those can turn into 14-15 hour days.
Anyway, I'm not whining so much as explaining why it will be
impossible to fit in an interview much less find time to watch all
the movies we have scheduled, prepare for the show, and record it
(two shows, actually, with the bonus edition!). Why did we go back to
one show per week? This is a big -- but not the only -- reason why.
In other personal news: I'm the oldest of five children ... four
younger sisters. I won't bother with the pop psychology, but this
probably has something do with why I'm such an "anal, perfectionist
type" as our
friendly camp counselor/message board moderator Alex
has characterized me. Or as you can probably hear in the show
outtakes. I just like to call myself the 'anti-Sam.'
A while back a Dope Sheet reader suggested we could regularly use
this space to respond to one or two "personal" questions -- stuff we
wouldn't normally get into on the show. If you think it's a good
idea,
feel free to fire away.
We just might answer...
|
|
|
| |
|
Overlooked DVD Pick: Sherman's March
 Back when we were taking suggestions for our Documentaries Marathon,
we got an email from Bo Webb in Wilmington, NC that listed three
"docs you must see." His #1 was
Ross McElwee's "Sherman's March."
"My favorite doc," Bo writes, "and one of the reasons I decided
to be a filmmaker. He's a southern filmmaker and has had a string of
good documentaries, but this one is his masterpiece. It's funny and
sad and very personal. It defines a whole style of doc filmmaking."
Bo wasn't the only listener to suggest "Sherman's March," and if
I hadn't already seen it, it probably would have been part of the
marathon.
The "whole style of doc filmmaking" Bo refers to is the personal
essay. It's similar to what we see with Michael Moore's "Roger and
Me" -- also from the same year -- except that Moore is always front
and center shaping the discourse; McElwee is almost always behind the
camera, but is also the main character and narrator of his own story.
McElwee received a grant to make a film about the legacy of Union
general William Tecumseh Sherman's legacy. He sets out along
Sherman's bloody path through the South with (it seems) legitimate
scholarly aspirations, but instead gets caught up in his own
personal/romantic failings after his girlfriend dumps him. The full
title of the film ends up being: "A meditation on the possibility of
romantic love in the South in an era of nuclear weapons
proliferation."
If you like Chuck Klosterman -- and I do -- his
"Killing Yourself to Live"
takes a similar tack. He sets out to visit the death sites of famous
rock stars but spends most of his time writing about his own romantic
struggles than the musicians who died or any 'what's the meaning of
it all' questions.
If you really want to learn something about Sherman's legacy,
McElwee's film won't be of much use to you. But I love his
self-deprecating style of humor, and there's something fascinating
about watching someone document a trainwreck... which is in some
sense what "Sherman's March" is. It has the feeling of a
work-in-progress, that he is really making it all up as he goes
along, which is really interesting to me.
I haven't seen any of McElwee's other films, but if you enjoy
"Sherman's March," another one to check out might be "Something To Do
With the Wall," from 1991. You can read about both in this
New York Times article.
I might be wrong... but I'm pretty sure that the woman he shares
writing and directing credits with on "Wall" is his wife, Marilyn
Levine, who is one of the women he meets during "Sherman's March."
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
