Documentary Festival on The Auteurs

Speaking of Awesome movies you can watch online right now!
Go to TheAuteurs.com and they have several festivals of films including The Documentary Festival

"Harlan County", "Salesman", "Monterrey Pop" awesome!

Here's a short film I love too!

Michael Caine rocks!

How awesome is Michael Caine! I was reading this article today from NY Magazine.

I had the great honor of meeting Mr. Caine in Hollywood when we did a tribute to him at the Cinerama Dome in 2002.

I'm a master procrastinator and I was kind of joking with him about this problem in the green room and he gave me the best advice, he said, "Oh, you just have to work, don't think about it. And Don’t listen to any negatives. Don’t ever let anybody say anything negative to you and let it affect you at all. Just work. Go ahead."

As a working class gal, I love artists who work and talk about art like a job. It makes sense to me somehow. Michael Caine is one of the most prolific film actors, averaging 2-3 films a year, an average that continued until very recently. To date, Caine has appeared in 132 features and television films.

What I would give to have had the chance to hang out in his London flat in the 60's.

"I was friends with Stan Getz, and Lionel Bart, who wrote Oliver! The painter Francis Bacon lived next door. He always tried to get me into his studio to paint me, but he was very gay and I thought, “I’m not going up there.” An actor called David Baron said he was going to write a play, and I said I’d act in it. He called it The Room and he did it under his real name, Harold Pinter. In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn’t know anyone unknown who didn’t become famous."

I used to joke that maybe we are living in Paris in the 20s and no one knows it yet.

The Los Angeles Asian Film Festival - April 30-May 7

The Los Angeles Asian Film Festival starts next week! April 30- May 7.

One of the films in particular you should go check out!

"White on Rice" directed by David Boyle looks really good.

I programmed Boyles' first film "Big Dreams Little Tokyo" and this guy has a very unique style and quirky tone - I can't wait to see his second film May 3rd!


These are just a few of the films. You can buy tickets here for all the films!

Just arrived at SFIFF52 - the Shaggy Cineaste is here too!

The oldest film festival in the Americas!

Frownland at Cinefamily this week!

"People should be as hard on the films as the films are hard on the
audience. I wanna live inside of a culture where that is not just
acceptable. That is par for the course."

Check out "Frownland" this week at Cinefamily.

You can read more about it here on Mike Plante's blog.

"It wasn¹t like I made it to get the money back, the same way you don¹t go
on vacation thinking you¹re going to get the money back."
- Ronnie Bronstein

FROWNLAND Double feature with THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED by Josh Safdie

April 23rd: 9:45pm
April 24th: 7:30pm, Midnight
April 25th: 5pm, 9:30pm
April 26th: 5pm, 9:30pm


At Cinefamily:
http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/

Speaking of great little movies you can watch online.

FORGIVEN played at Sundance and AFI FEST and the lead actress and I went to acting school together! Yay U of U!
You can watch it here!

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles - April 21-26

Yay! The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles starts next week! April 21-26
One of my favorite festivals in Los Angeles - go see some movies!
Some I'm really looking forward to seeing:

SIDDHARTH THE PRISONER (film noir type)

BOMBAY SUMMER (truly indie film, along the lines of THE POOL)

FIRAAQ - this screened in Toronto 2008 and is the directorial debut of the the famous actress Nandita Das

SUPERMEN OF MALEGAON - looks to be a hilarious doc about the making of a superman movie in a small town in India.

They are saluting Anil Kapoor too!
Half of this year's feature-length films happen to be directed by women!! Yow!

These are just a few of the films. You can buy tickets here for all the films!

"Apart from That" online

Speaking of awesome movies you can watch right now online!
I loved this movie! You can watch it on Joost right now for free!
Thank me later - next time you see me!

Dungeons and Dragons et al...

I read this week that Wil Wheaton teaches his son to slay dragons and that Dave Arneson co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons died at age 61. RIP Dave.

I haven't thought about Dungeons and Dragons for years, but I have very fond memories of the game even though I only played it one time. I was never really into science fiction but when I was 17 I was IN LOVE (the way you only can be when you're seventeen) with a guy who was REALLY into everything sci fi! I was Mormon and didn't drink or do anything bad really so I though he would lose interest in me if I didn't embrace all things geek.

One night he patiently explained Dungeons and Dragons to me and we made out for seventeen hours. So awesome! I miss those dragons sometimes. Ah to be 17 again.

April's 3rd Saturday in Chinatown - April 18 - 8pm

Hope you can make it!
Performances at 8pm - films to follow.
These two gents are awesome and "Road House" rules!
Let's drink to W out of office.



April 18th 8pm
Two of my favorite actor/storyteller/comedians
Perform at 8pm followed by the films.

C. Brian Smith
(contributer to VanityFair.com, The Advocate, and Mean Magazine. C. Brian is a regular contributor to Sit 'n Spin)

and

Stirling Gardner
(also a regular contributor to Sit 'n Spin and is damn funny)

Short stories about Mullets, white trash, Road House and the ex-president George W. Bush.

Followed by double feature of "Road House" & "W" complete with drinking and trivia games with prizes!

8:00 pm
$5 suggested donation at the door
Beer and Wine available in the gallery

Come early for the good seats on the floor!
Prizes and Trivia - we encourage audience participation.

Third Saturday in Chinatown
North Hill Exhibitions
945 N. Hill Street
Los Angeles, CA
213.626.2020
North Hill Exhibitions is 2.5 blocks west of the gold line Chinatown Metro stop. There is plenty of parking on the street or several lots on Hill st.

See you soon,
Shaz & Cindy

www.norththillexhibitions.com
www.shazbennett.com

Check out more about the performers:
www.stirlinggardner.com
www.cbriansmith.com

Join our Facebook group

Run DMC inducted into the Hall of Fame!

Very moving speech from Eminem for the induction - love the line, "if you grew up on hip hop like I did, they are the Beatles" Two turntable and a microphone.
Run-DMC was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday night. Joseph Simmons (Run) and Darryl McDaniels (DMC) had pledged never again to perform under the Run-DMC moniker out of respect for their late DJ, Jam Master Jay, who was murdered in 2002. Run-DMC kept its vow on Friday night. "They tell me I could get Grandmaster Flash [to fill in]," McDaniels told MTV. "But I can get any DJ in the world if I want. It wouldn't be right. I can't replace my drummer."

Analog Blogger!

Liberia's Blackboard Blogger from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.

How to get big calves...

No pain no gain!