Friends and colleagues (and some folks who fall into both categories) have been asking me what exactly I'm doing these days, what with my byline appearing in some half dozen outlets now on a regular basis, making it hard to find the common thread. Well, there is one, kinda. Around January, I became involved with a newly launched online magazine called Stream, which focuses on independent filmmakers using the internet as a major resource for production, marketing and other related areas. It's a great way to delve into new media discourse without getting bogged down with constant reporting on the corporate world (although there's a little of that), and I'm constantly amazed at all the artists out there becoming pioneers of fresh distribution models. History is now, people.

I add news updates and features to Stream on a daily basis, and we've got a wide variety of material, from filmmaker profiles to revenue reports to festival dispatches and more. The magazine is attached to a revolutionary online film search engine called The Looking Glass Guide that's well worth checking out.

In the meantime, I'm still regularly contributing to New York Press (although I'm just doing a few pieces a month now, rather than jotting down a couple reviews each week), and I've been doing a number of interviews, features and festival notebooks for indieWIRE.

I've also got a couple of magazine pieces on the stands now: A nifty survey of Christian cinema in Hollywood that I wrote for Heeb, a survey of some up-and-coming writer-directors for Moviemaker (print only), and an overview of New York City film production for The Hollywood Reporter.

On the more eccentric side of things, I wrote an essay about Jonas Mekas' A Letter from Greenpoint in the brilliant new issue of Reverse Shot, and Cinematical, a blog I've admired and learned much from over the years, has brought me on board to contribute posts throughout the week. Recent subjects range from Amy Poehler to movie accents to misogyny. Yes, misogyny.

A MEKAS MENTALITY













In fifty years of tooling around, Jonas Mekas hasn’t changed his groove. Once the Super 8 camera provided him with the means to capture New York in all its gritty permutations, and now the mobility of cheap digital technology has made this goal even easier. Writing in his film column for the Village Voice in 1963, Mekas predicted that “the day is close when the 8mm home movie footage will be collected and appreciated as beautiful folk art, like songs and the lyrical poetry that was created by the people.” More than a prophetic statement, it was a declaration of aesthetic intent. Ever the fierce guardian of independent cinema, shielding it from the deleterious pressures of studio product, Mekas recognized cinematic redemption in the formal properties of thriftiness.

Read the rest in the new issue of Reverse Shot...