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Normally, I don’t do voiceovers for my video essays. I tend to let the audio samples and images speak for themselves; I suppose this habit traces back to high school English, where I was taught to use the text itself as the primary source for an argument in an essay. So, it made sense for my visual essays to rely solely on the audio-visual assets—a sort of moving image text, if you will. But for this particular video essay, because of my close connection to the city that birthed me, I felt having my narration, as a guiding narrative force, would be acceptable. Video Essay Transcript : When I was 22 years old I had a loaded gun pressed against the back of my head. It happened during an armed robbery in downtown Chicago. I was born and raised in Chicago and to be honest gun violence here is nothing new. When I was a child my aunt’s husband was shot several times up on the northwest side of the city. I’ve also had close family friends killed by gun shootings on the streets. H...

[Scroll to the bottom for the video] Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Jurassic World, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, The Night Before, Tangerine, Amy, The End of the Tour, The Martian, Bridge of Spies, The Wolfpack, The Visit, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Trainwreck, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Time Out of Mind, Danny Collins, El Club, Inside Out, Phoenix, Crimson Peak, Beasts of No Nation, By The Sea, It Follows, Youth, The Walk, The Hateful Eight, The, Nightmare, Ex Machina, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Creep, The Overnight and While We’re Young. Best Actor: Tom Hardy, Legend Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room Best Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro, Sicario Best Supporting Actress: Charlize Theron, Mad Max: Fury Road Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, Sicario Best Original Screenplay: Damián Szifrón, Wild Tales Best Adapted Screenplay: Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee, Chi-Raq Best Film Editing: Hank Corwin, The Big Short B...

Under The Skin - Directed by Jonathan Glazer Whiplash - Directed by Damien Chazelle Selma - Directed by Ava DuVernay Joe - Directed by David Gordon Green A Most Violent Year - Directed by J.C. Chandor The Immigrant - Directed by James Gray Goodbye To Language - Directed by Jean-Luc Godard Interstellar - Directed by Christopher Nolan Inherent Vice - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Nightcrawler - Directed by Dan Gilroy Birdman - Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu Foxcatcher - Directed by Bennett Miller Gone Girl - Directed by David Fincher Life Itself - Directed by Steve James Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Directed by Matt Reeves Boyhood - Directed by Richard Linklater Snowpiercer - Directed by Bong Joon-ho Ida - Directed by Peter Pawlikowsi American Sniper - Directed by Clint Eastwood The Drop - Directed by Michaël R. Roskam Wild - Directed by ...

Radical French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is still one of the leading figures in the movement to challenge and transform traditional forms of so-called Hollywood filmmaking. Last year, as an exercise in two parts, I created these two video mash ups (essays?) on Godard's own work. [Beneath each video is the original description that was published on its Vimeo page.] SOURCE: Pierrot Le Fou dist. Pathé Contemporary Films MUSIC: "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye (MAKING MIRRORS Album)   Unquestionably one of the most audacious and simultaneously problematic tracking shots in cinematic history, this sequence from Jean-Luc Godard's Week End (1967) succeeds in visually demonstrating a chaotic cross section of human existence. The downside is that we have to (annoyingly) hear cars honking on the soundtrack for nearly eight minutes. In reaction to this, I have manipulated this portion of the film by way of arranging the visuals to ...

There was a time when the movie theatre--a temple for the cinema--was a physically domineering social hub for people; up until the 1960s filmgoers would catch up on their world news via short subject newsreels that preceded the movie and sometimes even congregated at after-parties to discuss or argue over that night's feature film. These days, with dark auditoriums glowing with mobile phones and tablet devices, that's a hard concept to grasp. Still, it's nothing to be disheartened by. The moviegoing "social hub" has migrated from the offline experience to the online experience and that's okay. Besides, most people get their world news from YouTube anyway. I start with this point because there (again) exists some misguided fear--disgust, even--driven by culturally-disconnected gurus and so-called media "experts." Is it really an earth-shattering revelation that new generations of moviegoers expect more technically savvy films, up-to-date ne...

  It was only a matter of time before the big fish in the pond began seeing the incredible potential in digital distribution and new media exhibition platforms. It's more than just iTunes or iPads or online streaming. The potential comes in the revival of niche programming, a renaissance in avant garde indie content. Up until now, any indie auteur relied solely on festival exposure to have any chance at reaching a targeted audience; this would often prove to be a nominal gesture for said filmmaker because big wig marketers usually catered to the wrong crowd. We know now, with web 2.0 and filmmaking 2.0, that free online tools help content creators curate their targeted audience .  So when you add aggressive self promotion, free online platforms and sophisticated tools for distribution (tablet devices, small digital cinemas), you have a new wave of moviemaking and thus a resurgence in the cinephile moviegoing community . And for any exhibitor or distributor, a reviv...