for your consideration: benicio del toro digs thelonious monk

Del Toro initially made a name for himself as being the guy at the audition who demanded doing every role in some alien patois unintelligible to everyone including himself, see his small role in Weir's Fearless as well as the following evidence; his most notorious;



Monk made a name for himself for being a genius piano player and eccentric;



enjoy the music then listen at 3:30 on . . .



Del Toro a fan of Monk? Both simply mumble mouths suffering the occasional Tourette's outburst? Completely unrelated? You decide.

for your consideration

Over the years, my cinematically saturated brain has made more than a few strange connections between actors and their inspirations, directors and their crib sheets, writers and their muses. This is not so much a place to expose homages and rip-offs but more a space to raise questions about more abstract and potentially subconscious influences on the work of film artists in general. Rather than further explaination, I will demonstrate. For your consideration;

When I first saw Kevin Spacey in Seven;



my initial reaction was that he was channelling HAL from Kubrick's 2001;



I've been making this connection for years. How strange then that in 2009 Spacey decides to make his own foray into AI voices with Duncan Jones' Moon;



Mere coincidence? Knowing homage? Spacey a robot? You decide.

various failures #3

I was lucky enough to catch Jim Carroll perform at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in 2001 where he performed among other pieces, "a child growing up with the sun" one of my favorite poems. This short short is in honor of that piece and the man's passing late last year. R.I.P.

various failures #2

and one more for this morning. this one more recent and again borrowing from the music of jenna gibbon, in particular her 'love song for serena' albeit in an altered form. this one is a part of my growing series of experiments with tone and mood, those seeking narrative need not apply.

various failures

welcome to the first in a long line of videos from my film school days to present that shall be presented under the banner; various failures. so without further preamble here is a video from 2008 for my girl jenna gibbon's song 'shelter' and yes that is muyenbridges experiments with persistence of vision that I borrow from. public domain is such a blessing.