I’m thrilled to announce that my book DETOUR: Hollywood – How To Direct a Microbudget Film (or any film, for that matter) is now available as an audiobook. This book is a lot of things all wrapped up into one easily digestible text, which you can now listen to in the comfort of your own […]
How to Get The Perfect Shot in Your Movie: Filmmaking Lessons from Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’
March 19, 2021 by Leave a Comment
A lot of films have the perfect shot— the shot that all other shots in the film are measured against. It’s this shot we talk about, rewind and watch again, and labor over its visual meaning and methods through which the filmmakers brought this magic to the screen. For many cineastes and non-cineastes alike, it’s de rigueur […]
My COVID-19 Symptoms: What You NEED To Know
March 26, 2020 by Leave a Comment
I am 41 years old and I tested positive today for novel Coronavirus COVID-19. I live in Yonkers, New York, just five minutes away from the epicenter of the virus in New York State: New Rochelle. I am recording this because the best information I’ve gotten on this virus thus far, that has helped me […]
‘JOKER’ is the Most Important Film about Mental Illness in Post-Modern Cinema
October 16, 2019 by Leave a Comment
There is a term for the fear of, and subsequent feeling of superiority to, other races: racism. There is a term for the fear of, and subsequent feeling of superiority to, others who are attracted to the same gender: homophobia. There is a term for the fear of, and subsequent feeling of superiority to, foreigners: […]
Caution Moviemakers: Directing Movies with Sensitive Subject Matter
August 15, 2019 by Leave a Comment
[This piece was previously published in MovieMaker Magazine] There was an evolution from the Hays Code established in the 1930s, which lead a filmmaker like Howard Hawks to bury sexually suggestive dialogue into a conversation about horse racing in The Big Sleep, to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the late ’60s and early ’70s, which […]
The Midpoint: Life and its Mirrored Reflection
July 1, 2019 by Leave a Comment
It’s been five years since my sister passed away. It was July the first. After several days in a coma on life support, her procumbent physical form awaiting its final goodbyes from family and friends, what was remaining of her corporeal self lifted away from itself. Every year on this date I write something in […]
NO ALTERNATIVE: The Novel
June 8, 2019 by Leave a Comment
I am pleased to announce that the novel on which my film No Alternative is based has been rereleased by Kettle of Letters Press. This special edition features a foreword by actor Harry Hamlin, who plays the role of Judge William Harrison in the film, and an afterword in which I delve into the behind-the-scenes […]
#MentalHealthChallenge
May 1, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Despite our achievements in science and technology, and our willingness as a society to revise our social norms, the stigma surrounding mental illness still looms and it looms large. May is “Mental Health Awareness Month” and the reason behind it could not be more important. People forget the brain is a part of the physical […]
Kurt Cobain and the Ghosts of the Nineties
April 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment
We are surrounded by the ghosts of the nineties. Chris Cornell, Layne Staley, Dolores O’Riordan, Scott Weiland, Adam Yauch, Tupac Shakur, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, The Notorious B.I.G., and of course, Kurt Cobain. The reason I picked up an instrument was because Kurt Cobain killed himself. There was something inside me that wanted to keep […]
The Guitar: Kurt Cobain’s Fender Jaguar
March 27, 2019 by Leave a Comment
But not any Jaguar, a scratch-specific replica of Kurt Cobain’s one-of-a-kind Fender Jaguar electric guitar he bought in a pawnshop in Los Angeles in 1991. A few years ago, Fender set about recreating Kurt’s guitar to the ding in their custom shop and rolling the product out on the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s seminal and […]
