An attempt at joining the masses….
We are big fans of the Amazon episodic series “Modern Love” and have been trying in earnest to find something that might replicate that viewing experience. Enter “Joy & Jim” a modern exploration of love whose pilot episode debuted at the Pan-African Film Festival last weekend. Read more…
Documentaries are at their best when they play out like narratives. Much in the way historical fiction has become one of the fastest selling book markets, immersive documentaries have the power to transform the viewing experience beyond just the subject matter. Read more…
One of our favorite films of last year, Emily Cohn’s hilarious coming-of-age film CRSHD is now available on HULU. We highly encourage you to check it out. Trust me there will be at least one, (if not more, characters you can relate with. Promise. Read more…
This past weekend one of our favorite film festivals kicked off its 27th installment: Slamdance. While overshadowed by the more ballyhooed Sundance, this Park City-based festival showcases promising filmmakers long before they become household names. To date the film’s screenplay competition has introduced the likes of Marc Forster (“Loungers), Rian Johnson (“Evil Demon Global from Hell!), Christopher Nolan (“Following) , Bong Joon-Ho (“Barking Dogs Never Bite”) and the late Lynn Shelton (“We Go Way Back”) to name a few. The documentary portion of the festival has introduced the likes of “The Real Dirt on Farmer John” (2005) and more recently “The Art of the Prank” (2015) and “Kifaru” (2020). Read more…
Earlier this week we were stopped in our tracks by “I Will Be Gone” the second single from Emily Rodgers. The song features amiable acoustic guitar, commanding vocals and a bed of windswept folk-rock a la Lera Lynn, Kathleen Edwards and Tennille Townes. Lyrically the song is more telling as it unwinds the memory of her schizophrenic brother and his death by suicide. A violin and pedal steel enter the frame and both wobble steadily as Rodgers eulogizes poignantly. Her vocals while arresting are limp and weary (think Lucinda Williams) and the sonic veneer has a hazy vibe that calls to mind Mazzy Starr, Neil Young and Cowboy Junkies. Read more…
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post by all accounts is our longest to date, but if you’re a cinephile like us, you’ll want to keep scrolling.
We haven’t talked up film since our year-end list of favorite movies. As we have documented previously COVID found us watching more film than listening to music and we don’t see that trend stopping anytime soon.
The all-virtual iteration of the 2020 Florida Film Festival allowed us the opportunity to view every single film on the Eventive streaming platform. While that made for an insane amount of screen time, it sure did leave our hearts and minds full. At the end of the day is there anything else we can ask for?
SITH will be making its SXSW Film Festival debut next month and to say we are pumped is an exaggeration. We just received the list of films screening this year and to say we are excited would be an understatement. While mathematically and logistically it will most likely not be replicable we are hoping to adopt the same all-in approach that we adopted in FFF.
SXSW’s 2021 program includes 57 world premieres, 3 international premieres, 4 North American premieres, 1 U.S.premiere, 8 Texas premieres and 53 films from first-time filmmakers + 84 short films including music videos, 5 episodic premieres, 6 episodic pilots, 20 virtual cinema projects, 14 title design entries, plus 30 special events. The format will feature seven films at a time in two hour increments from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. We’re hoping to use the Connected Brightcove smart TV app features give our tablets and laptops some much needed rest.
Clearly our plan is too ambitious but as Mason Jennings once opined, “I believe you fall in love, you should jump right in.” And to say we are smitten with the SXSW film festival this year is an understatement. Fingers crossed our ambition will be met with success.
Without further ado, here’s the list of films screening this year. Feel free to comment and let us know if there are any you are excited about and/or want us to document. We already have at least two-to-three dozen (and more) we hope to see. Read more…
As we usher into 2021 we’re trying to shed more light on the arts community and how it’s shining a light through troubled times. One such artist doing exactly that is British-by-way-of-Italy singer-songwriter Jack Stafford. Read more…
We always love shedding light on the great things the Americana Music Association (AMA) is doing and today that is no exception. The organization announced a new board of directors and many of the names on our list are some of our favorite organizations in the music business. Head to the jump to see the list below: Read more…
We won’t deny it, we’re romantics at heart. Maybe that’s the chemistry of a journalist and a violinist tying the knot and doing life together or maybe it’s just we’re wired that way. The most likely reason though might just be that Feb. 13 is our wedding anniversary. Either way that movie gets watched in some capacity every year and will remain a staple of the SITH household. And yes we know it’s one of the worst movies released that year (if not ever) but Feb. 13 and 14 will forever be linked to our marriage, so yeah, there’s that. All this to say, we’re unabashed saps about Valentine’s Day and the “holiday” always has us jonesing for new love songs to add to an ever-growing playlist.. This year we’ve found two that do just the trick. Read more…
By now everyone you know and their closest relative has an opinion on the Phoebe Bridgers incident on SNL. All I’ll say is John Hiatt sang it best in “Perfectly Good Guitar.”
There are countless numbers of children across the globe who would love nothing more than to have a guitar in their hands. One destroyed guitar is one too many. People want to cite her mental health and that music is catharsis but there are hundreds of other ways to be cathartic without smashing a guitar. There isn’t a single artist who has ever smashed a guitar who gotten a pass for said situation. Call me old-fashioned, call me square, call me out-of-touch, Phoebe Bridgers knew what she was doing and she did it anyways. Was she trying to be feminist? Was she trying to be a bad-ass? Who the heck knows? Call me a misogynist but let’s face it, if she wasn’t so easy on the eyes, she’d be 70 percent less popular.
Is she talented ?Yes. Is she worth the accolades? Absolutely. Is she worth a free pass? Hell freaking no. Feel free to share your ten cents in the comments below. I’ve never backed away from a good dialogue. Then again I’d rather listen to folk singers than electric guitar-smashing narcissists, so what do I know?
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