Month: June 2007

On Saturday, the city too busy to hate became the city too hot to be walking around lost for an hour-and-a-half. But if I hadn’t gotten lost I wouldn’t have seen this great sign.(Ponce de Leon & Moreland, Atlanta)

I came to Atlanta to help save the world, but I wound up spending a lot of time standing in line with a friend that really, really needed to buy something the first day it came out. I was feeling quite guilty about this, but then someone reminded me that a world where you can’t help your friends isn’t a world worth saving.OK, I totally made that last part up, but that doesn’t give you the right to judge me. You’re not the king of me. Go make someone else feel bad, why don’t you.(Lenox Square Mall, Atlanta)

You’ve heard this story before: a budding auteur makes a movie for no money, wins audience raves and awards on the festival circuit, builds awesome word-of-mouth, and gets the holy grail of the indie filmmaker — theatrical distribution. Finally, you say to yourself, here’s proof that the little guy can win in this crazy world. I’m gonna support him, you tell yourself, because I’m a little guy myself and I wanna help him stick it to the Man.You go to your local art house cinema on the weekend it opens, ready to show the movie-powers-that-be that films like this deserve to be seen. You want to help this little movie you’ve heard so much about get its all important opening weekend per screen average because if it does well maybe, just maybe, other little films will get seen too. Because if a little movie like this can open, then maybe the money people will back more little films and the world will be a better place.So that weekend, you get in line with the other true believers, the lights go down and the movie starts. And two hours later, you’re in a cafe with the friends you dragged to this movie trying to explain why, uh, you know, this is a film that grows on you, or will, once you’ve given it some time to sink in.It’s not until later — maybe much later — that the only things that have sunk in are how much that movie you wanted so dearly to like flat-out sucked and how blinded you were by Indie Spirit that you didn’t realize it right away.Colma: The Musical opens today in San Francisco and in NYC on July 6. It was created by two auteurs for no money, won awards and fans on the festival circuit, and got picked up for theatrical distribution. Two hours after you watch it, you and the friends you dragged along will be singing the songs and ordering the soundtrack online.So go see it in SF, NYC, and/or LA and tell your friends to see it too. Because we need to help movies like this open.And if you don’t like musicals…don’t you at least want to stick it to the Man?More Colma:Fixing A MoleSF/SJ: Colma Stays!

(Grand St & Bowery, Manhattan)

Have you been to MoCA? It’s one of Chinatown’s lesser-known pleasures. Check it out at its current space before it moves into bigger digs next year.(Museum of Chinese in the Americas, Manhattan)

(Riverside, RI)

(Bouley Bakery, Manhattan)