Wholphin

Due to tropical storm Fay, the Wholphin will be screening at Sweat Records in Miami will now take place on Monday, August 25th. The lineup for “Music Movie Monday” will still be a selection of shorts including a documentary about a band of Scottish 9-year-olds singing “Satan Rocks” at their county fair; an animated short about an aging rock star and his heroin-addicted carnival monkey; David Byrne covering old country songs in an abandoned storage facility; the effect of Terry Bozzio’s instructional drumming videos on Morrocan youth; and much much more. Stay after for a live crying competition!

Monday, August 25, 8PM
Sweat Records
5505 NE 2nd Ave.
Miami, FL 33137 

San Franciscans: Scott Prendergast’s first feature film, Kabluey, will be opening at the Opera Plaza Cinema on Friday, August 1st. If you’ve seen Wholphin No 1, and therefore The Delicious, you know exactly who I’m talking about and are probably holding up you’re right hand and jubilantly making little “nang nang naang” noises right now. Kabluey, a film that Prendergast calls a “melancho-medy,” is the story of a slacker uncle who moves in with his sister-in-law and two nephews while his brother- their father- is away fighting in Iraq. While I haven’t seen the film yet, I have my calendar marked and no doubt that it will be just as hilarious, insightful and endearing as all of Scott’s early work. 

If you manage to secure a spot for opening night you’ll have the added pleasure of being greeted by the director himself. And in the meantime, you can watch the trailer and find out more about the film and other screening locations here.

Of the twelve sites that I have bookmarked at the top of my browser right now, there is only one video destination aside from this very site, and that is Lumen Eclipse. It is a place that I can go where I know I will always find something strange and new and wonderful. Lumen Eclipse presents and promotes great video art in both the virtual and physical realm by hosting 8 new films every month on their website, and then taking the work outside and projecting onto the sides of buildings in their native Harvard Square. And in this, their third year, they have found yet another way of bringing art into the community: the Lumen Eclipse 1-Minute Film Festival, which will be held Saturday, October 4th in the newly designed outdoor space on Palmer St in Harvard Square. For more information on the festival and instructions on how to submit your film visit them at Lumen Eclipse.

YouTube launched their new high-quality, short content channel, The Screening Room, last week with four films, including Wholphin No. 1’s “Are You The Favorite Person of Anybody?”

The launch kicked off with an in-theatre screening of the first four films and a casual Q & A with the filmmakers, and then moved upstairs for a rooftop party where mash-up DJ Synchronize Live featured a sneak peak at the next four films playing in the Screening Room starting in July, including Wholphin No. 1’s “The Big Empty,” as well as our very talented animator friend, Josh Raskin’s, John Lennon-starring short film, I Met the Walrus.

Check out the Screening Room here.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, filmmaker Rick Castaneda (The Golden Egg) and Wholphin’s Brent Hoff at the Screening Room launch.

In between the stellar shorts programs at this year’s Cinevegas Film Festival, we joined the former and new SXSW festival heads, Matt Dentler and Janet Pierson, respectively, at the blackjack table (see photo). Janet bet her husband that she wouldn’t gamble, but like a pro went on to teach us all a lesson, raking in $200 in half an hour.

It must also be mentioned that Cinevegas easily took home this year’s top festival schwag bag award with Nalgenes to keep us hydrated, custom-made band aids and hangover pills to keep us stylishly wide-eyed, and Grey Goose vodka which, unable to carry it on the airplane, we gave away to a nice cab driver on our way out of town.  

Endless thanks to festival programmers, Trevor Groth and Mike Plante who, as always, put on a damn good show.

Wholphin’s Brent Hoff, SXSW’s Janet Pierson and Cinetic’s Matt Dentler at the blackjack table at the Palms.