#goodjobtexasjr began this summer with one show. But it’s since grown into something much more.
Week by week, as we moved forward with the show, we’d see new segments added, and new team members would join us to help expand the show beyond its original studio space, and beyond its original mission statement. By the last show of #rocktober, #youngandfresh wasn’t simply a music show, but a showcase for the community.
It wasn’t long before it would become a showcase for the network…
When Nikki signed on to host a show on #goodjobtexas, I had a feeling there would be much more to #youngandfresh once we really got into it. One of Nikki’s gifts is the ability to look past the present moment of a project and see its future potential.
And there’s a LOT of potential in this one. Continue reading
Were I to put a lesson to the production of Magnolia, it would have to be that patience, persistence, and preparation ultimately pay off. (Were I to put a lesson to my blogging, it might be that I rely a little too heavily on alliteration – but that’s a post for another day…)
Over six weeks, we’d had to make occasional adjustments for locations, actor availability, and especially the weather. We’d faced drought one week, deluge the next. But Nikki and Chadd had brought a great team together, so we were able to keep moving forward, knowing that as long as we kept doing our work, it would still come together.
And in our last weekend of principal photography, it really did come together. Continue reading
Even today, there’s still something to be said for the experience of seeing a movie in a theater.
I know that more or less goes without saying, but every so often I repeat said experience and remember why it matters, without entirely knowing how to articulate it. Times like that, it’s better just to let the movie speak for itself.
Which is pretty easy when we’re talking about my favorite movie.
Continue reading
The thing I’ve noticed about my Favorite “Forgotten” Films series isn’t that most readers actually remember the films I’m writing about (the series began when I realized that everyone I know seems to recall these films, hence the use of quotation marks). It’s that nobody is surprised I love them. I’m not sure whether that’s a comment on how great these films are or on how well you really know me, though I appreciate it as a compliment either way.
That in mind, I’m fairly sure today’s entry will maintain the streak, as the film in question occupies a special place in a lot of hearts beyond my own… Continue reading
When we were working with The Renaissance Guild on Rumors, there was some discussion on whether to keep its late-80s setting or to update it to the present day. The decision was ultimately made to make it contemporary to our audience, which meant adapting some lines and references to make sense to a 2010 playgoer.
For one example: In Neil Simon’s original script, there’s a reference to the 1986 film Platoon. Someone (and it might actually have been me) suggested changing the title to The Hurt Locker, and we went with it. I thought it worked pretty well; like the movie, the play’s all about characters trying to defuse a bad situation before it blows up in their faces (though I’ll admit there’s a little less… drama attached to our play). But if I have to be honest about the reasoning behind my suggestion, I really just wanted to hear Danielle King say “The Hurt Locker“.
I bring this up to illustrate that the production of a play is not always a process of exact translation or transcription. Sometimes we have to make some changes to get the story and characters from page to stage. Which of course brings us back to the San Antonio Stage Script Study Group. Continue reading
“If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes.”
-Roy Batty
Even at the time, it seemed all too fitting that my first experience with Blade Runner came as an undergraduate. There’s something in the film’s mix of genre tropes, in a visual universe that’s at once startling and familiar, and in a philosophical subtext that’s so blatant it’s practically text, that appeals to the young intellect trying to assert itself before it’s really earned the right to do so.
But that I still revisit it today, some 20 years on, suggests that there’s something more to the film, something in the alchemy of all those elements. Why does Blade Runner still have that hold on me? Why is its power stronger now than when I first saw it? Continue reading
There are two things about my brother Chris that must be made clear. One: if he recommends a movie to our family, then it will be a very, very good movie; and Two: one of his absolute favorite filmmakers is Wes Anderson.
And so it was that Christmas Eve found us together, watching Rushmore for the first time. Though I’ve loved every Wes Anderson film I’ve seen, I’ll admit that I haven’t seen nearly enough of his work to justifiably call myself a fan. Of course I’ve never let that stop me, but after seeing his second feature, I feel a little more qualified to keep saying it.
One of the things I love about seeing a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse is the pre-show entertainment. So when the time came to see The Muppets, there really wasn’t much question of where I’d go.
Of course, as I walked into the auditorium, a clip from The Muppet Show was playing: Harry Belafonte’s transcendent performance of “Turn The World Around”. With just a few frames, I was a kid again, in that time when the Muppets HAD me with every show.
And when the movie started, they had me all over again… Continue reading
I’ve written before about the whole concept of certification, the idea (put forth by Walker Percy in The Moviegoer) that some places only become real to us once we’ve seen them onscreen. And I’m hard pressed to think of a place for which that’s more true than New York.
Of course I’ve never actually been there. But I can’t be the only one who feels like he has, because I’ve seen it in so many films and shows, heard it in so many songs, read it in so many stories. In the best of those, the city becomes a living character in his own right.
Which brings me to a certain subway train… Continue reading
Lee Hurtado, Writer 