Center Stage with Mark Gordon

Audrey Napoleon

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 05:47:00 +0000

Audrey Napoleon is on the fast track to become one of the hottest icons in the progressive dance music scene. She came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about her career which combines music and fashion.

Audrey Napoleon is a new arrival to the hallowed halls of dance-music production—she released her first track at the end of 2010—but she’s an established force behind the decks, thanks to her residencies at Los Angeles’ Avalon nightclub and the Music Box. Even if you’ve never set foot in L.A. and you’ve never heard her name, it’s entirely possible you’re already familiar with her music—her track ”#Mysunrise” serves as the soundtrack to a popular Heineken commercial that’s making the rounds, and Napoleon herself appears in the ad as both the headlining DJ and the love interest.

Fresh from her New Years Eve performance with Deadmau5 in NYC, Audrey has just dropped the first video in her series, “Banana Soda es Muy Loca”. Three more videos will be released in this series, “Music is a drug to me… When I perform it’s like I’m transported into the crowd. I act like a maniac on stage.”

Energetic talent and grace like hers are rare in any profession. Match it with a keen instinct for electronic music, edgy personal style and a playful personality to arrive at one of today’s most gifted new stars. AUDREY NAPOLEON is simply electric.

AUDREY started out exploring progressive dance music then moved through many evolutions, including minimal, to arrive at her buoyant signature sound. She describes it as a dark romance and insists, “Nothing comes before my art and my music.”

Her lively stage presence is what sets AUDREY apart when spinning at top clubs around the world –destinations including Canada, The United Kingdom and Italy – which she claims is “one of the most magical places I’ve ever been.” Audrey has now shared stages with an array of massive talent (she has looked up to) – from techno legend Ritchie Hawtin, deadmau5, Wolfgang Gartner, and Nic Fanciulli to Umek, Joris Voorn, Simian Mobile Disco, M.A.N.D.Y. and more.
To fully experience AUDREY’s production work, listen to her recent 6 Song EP or singles like, “Bird Lynch,” featuring Penny. “Everybody Has The Right,” is her recent collaboration with D. Ramirez on Toolroom Records. “We had dynamic musical chemistry in the studio, and the song is enormous!” she explains.

AUDREY admits to not really paying attention to trends. “Especially in music, I’m in the studio trying to carve out my own way,” she explains. Her latest EP is a testament to this as it gives a nod and new spin to Boston on the track “Closed My Eyes,” alongside the ominous and hypnotic “Just Another Beatles Rip Off.” The track “Banana Soda es Muy Loca” is a playful adventure placed next to the even more mischievous “Foxy Boxy,” “Bitchy Queen” and Latin infused “Carlos Martinez.”

The Polish Brothers "For Lovers Only"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:06:00 +0000

The Polish Brothers came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about their film "For Lovers Only."

Said to be inspired by the French New Wave and Claude Lelouch's 1966 double Oscar-winner A Man and a Woman, the romance focuses on a journalist Stana Katic (Castle) in Paris on assignment, who runs into a lover (Mark Polish) from her past. Presumably enraptured by reconciliation, the pair flee Paris and travel "by train, car, and motorcycle as their love affair takes them across France from Normandy to St. Tropez."

About the Polish Brothers

The Polish Brothers 1999 debut film"Twin Falls Idaho" told the story of shy conjoined twins Blake and Francis Falls, who take residence in a rundown hotel to hopefully reunite with their estranged birth mother; secluding themselves from the outside world. It also introduced the world to a pair of American originals who would go on to create some memorable moments in cinema with films like "Jackpot" the story of a deluded karaoke singer on a tour of American dive-bars. It won the 2001 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award and the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival New American Cinema Award. Other films include, Northfork Starring James Woods and Nick Nolte, The Astronaut Farmer with Billy Bob Thornton, Manure with Billy Bob Thornton and Téa Leoni and "Stay Cool" with Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Chevy Chase, Sean Astin, Hilary Duff, Jon Cryer, Josh Holloway.

Melanie Merians "Covenant House California"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Melanie Merians, Chief Development and Communications Officer, came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about Covenant House California.

Covenant House California (CHC) is a non-profit agency whose mission is to reach out to at-risk homeless youth living on the streets and offer them hope and opportunities to turn their lives around. We help abused or neglected youth who have nowhere else to go. A large number have been thrown out of their homes while others have aged out or left the foster care system with no family, no support, and no one to turn to.

Since 1988, CHC has impacted the lives of more than 160,000 homeless youth out of our Los Angeles and Bay Area locations. More than 80% of our funding comes from private donations.

Center Stage with Mark Gordon is a weekly talk show that looks at independent film and the people who make it happen in front of the camera, as well as, behind the scenes. Each week, the program features some of the most inovative and creative people woking in film today. From award-winning actors like Ben Kingsley and Adrian Brody to cutting edge directors like Paul Greengrass and Darren Aronofsky, Center Stage with Mark Gordon gives an audience an inside look at the artist and the art form.

Center Stage with Mark Gordon airs Tuesdays at 7PM (PST) on KXLU Los Angeles, 88.9 FM and streaming at kxlu.com

For more information visit Center Stage with Mark Gordon.

Will Canon "Brotherhood"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:13:00 +0000

Will Canon came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his film "Brotherhood"

College freshman Adam Buckley sits blindfolded in the back of a van outside of a convenience store as the final step of his initiation into the Sigma Zeta Chi fraternity. Minutes later he finds himself dealing with the fact that a fellow-pledge just got shot while doing it.

Frank, the senior fraternity brother in charge of the night’s events, is able to get the injured pledge out of the store alive, but the fraternity’s troubles are just beginning. Thinking they can get out of the situation without taking the pledge to a hospital, Frank decides the group will handle things themselves. But when every move is met with disaster, Adam must find it within himself to go against Frank and his new brothers in order to save his friend’s life.

Center Stage with Mark Gordon airs Tuesdays at 7PM (PST) on KXLU Los Angeles, 88.9 FM and streaming at kxlu.com

Asiel Norton "Redland"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Asiel Norton came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his film "Redland."

As a family struggles to survive in rural America during the Great Depression, their daughter’s secret affair begins a journey into the unknown. From writer/director, Asiel Norton, comes this story about the eternal laws of survival and existence, and how one act can begin the dissolution as well as the rebirth of a family.

Asiel Norton was raised in a small cabin on Kneeland Mountain, CA. with no television, limited electricity, and water attained from a nearby stream. He attended the Brooks Institute of Photography, and has worked as a fine art photographer; in 2004 he graduated from USC Film School.

His first feature film Redland premiered at the 2009 CineVegas Film Festival, played at Montreal World Film Festival, and won Best Debut Feature at 2009 Raindance Film Festival in London. Norton was recently included in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2009 as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Norton is currently at work on his second feature film, “Hear I Sing,” a film about a Jewish woman struggling to survive in the mountains of Ukraine during German occupation in WWII.

Peter Greenaway "The Pillow Book"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 19:25:00 +0000

In 1996, Peter Greenaway came Center Stage to discuss his film “The Pillow Book.” Greenaway is looking to redefine the way we create and understand the art of moving images in cinema. “I’m looking for ways and means of finding notions of reinventing an idea of imagistic cinema."

Greenaway is critical of text driven cinema. “Why is it that we feel so culturally, somehow unhappy about the notion of cinema creating its own subject matter? Why do we have to have such a text driven cinema. So, my examination, not only in this film but many others is to see if it’s possible to find a much better equivocation between the notion of what the French would pompously call the primacy of the text versus the primacy of the image."

"The Pillow Book" is an excellent example of Greenaway merging image and text. "I became fascinated about the notion of the calligraphy, the idea of the ideogram which is both, at the same time, an image and a text. So, when you read the text in this film, you see the image. When you see the image you very much read the text."

About the film.

The film's title, "The Pillow Book", refers to an ancient Japanese diary, the book of observations by Sei Shōnagon. The film is narrated by Nagiko (Vivian Wu), a Japanese born model living in Hong Kong. Nagiko seeks a lover who can match her desire for carnal pleasure with her admiration for poetry and calligraphy. The roots of this obsession lie in her youth in Kyoto, when her father (Ken Ogata) would write characters of good fortune on her face. Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt (Hideko Yoshida) reads a list of "beautiful things" from Sei Shōnagon's the book of observations. Nagiko's aunt tells her that when she is twenty-eight years old, the official book of observations will be officially 1000 years old, and that she, Nagiko, will be the same age as Sei Shōnagon when she had written the book (in addition to sharing her first name). Nagiko also learns around this time that her father is in thrall to his publisher, "Yaji-san" (Yoshi Oida), who demands sexual favors from her father in exchange for publishing his work.

Source for the plot synopsis taken from wikipedia

Adrien Brody "The Pianist"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 05:06:00 +0000

Adrien Brody came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his work on the film "The Pianist." The interview took place just weeks before Brody would become the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Academy Award for 2002.

In "The Pianist", a brilliant pianist, a Polish Jew, witnesses the restrictions Nazis place on Jews in the Polish capital, from restricted access to the building of the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is rounded up to be shipped off to the Nazi labor camps, he escapes deportation and eludes capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw.

The son of Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy and retired history professor Elliot Brody, Adrien Brody grew up an only child in the Woodhaven section of Queens, New York, where he accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice. He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York.

Despite a strong performance in The Thin Red Line (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in The Pianist (2002), drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Red Hawk Management

Tom Shadyac "I Am"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:15:00 +0000

I AM, a prismatic and probing exploration of our world, what's wrong with it, and what we can do to make it better, represents Tom Shadyac's first foray into non-fiction following a career as one of Hollywood's leading comedy practitioners, with such successful titles as "Ace Ventura," "Liar Liar," and "Bruce Almighty" to his credit. I AM recounts what happened to the filmmaker after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged a changed man. Disillusioned with life on the A-list, he sold his house, moved to a mobile home community, and decided to start life anew.

Armed with nothing but his innate curiosity and a camera crew, Shadyac embarks upon a journey to discover how he as an individual, and we as a race, can improve the way we live. Appearing on-screen as character, commentator, guide, and even, at times, guinea pig, Shadyac meets with a variety of thinkers and doers--remarkable men and women from the worlds of science, philosophy, and faith--including such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch. An irrepressible Everyman who asks many questions but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in completely new and different ways.

All proceeds derived from the release of I AM, in all media, will go to THE FOUNDATION FOR I AM, a not-for-profit established by Shadyac to fund various worthy causes and to educate the next generation about the very issues and problems explored in the film.

Peter Jay Brown "Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 10:55:00 +0000

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST is a feature documentary that reveals the true 30-year odyssey of the most wanted environmentalist today, Captain Paul Watson, the cult hero of Animal Planet’s critically acclaimed “Whale Wars”. The founder of Greenpeace, Watson was eventually ousted from the organization for his uncompromising passion to protect the planet and his unconventional methodology. Free of bureaucracy and politics, Watson forged his own personal Armada, The Sea Shepherd Society, a small vigilante organization dedicated to protect the aquatic life of the planet at all costs.

Filmmaker Peter Jay Brown, a highly visible star of “Whale Wars”, documented the mythic deeds of The Sea Shepherd Society, while acting as the cinematographer, deckhand, quartermaster, Zodiac driver, officer and even captain in Watson’s absence. Brown gave us an intimate and honest look at what really went on behind the scenes on some of the most infamous environmental campaigns ever. For 28 years, Brown has recorded the breathtaking beauty of the life aquatic in all its glory, as well as anguishing despair, bearing witness to the brutal slaughter of the helpless.

Risking their freedoms and their lives, the renegade eco-warrior and his band of environmental pirates combat those who seek to pillage and profit from the destruction of the ocean and its inhabitants. Using guerilla tactics, they boldly, even jubilantly patrol the world’s waters targeting kill-happy poachers and covert corporate cabals, terrorizing and provoking confrontation while flying the skull and cross-bone flag of their fleet. Watson’s use of “manufactured awareness” and Strategic Media Traps, defies convention as he brilliantly navigates his fleet by ramming vessels, inflicting damage to whalers, drift-netters, long-liners and seal hunters who operate illegally world-wide.

The journey of Watson has included thousands of individuals, crew, and volunteers over the years. Everyone from ex-military to ship welders and engineers, college students to hippies and bums, and the vegans who took over the galley have flocked to Sea Shepherd campaigns. The efforts of each and every one of them made the story of CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST what it is.

“You negotiate,” says Brown. “I’ll ram ships.”

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST is a harrowing, sometimes amusing, eye-opening adventure and an arresting tale of cloak-and-dagger action. Delving into what “manufactured awareness” really is and how radical measures are deemed necessary to resolve an issue or institute change, CONFESSIONS also revels in the humor of a situation and presents an uninhibited look at the lives of the men and women looking to change the world. Its uniqueness lies in how Brown has been able to demystify the work and ideas of “eco-terrorists”, a term taken from a quote by Watson, who suggested that “there’s nothing wrong with being an eco-terrorist, as long as you win.”

Mark Gordon Sings "Days of Wine and Roses"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:53:00 +0000

Recorded live with Sam Sorensen on the piano. The recording was engineered by Damien Chock.

Tune in Tuesdays at 7 PM (PST) as KXLU Los Angeles presents Center Stage with Mark Gordon. Each week the program looks at cinema and the creative people who make it happen.

Past guests have included: Darren Aronofsky, Adrian Brody, Ben Kingsley, Benicio Del Toro, Gwyneth Paltrow, Haskell Wexler, Vittorio Storaro, Sting, Alex Gibney , Paul Greengrass, Davis Guggenheim, Anthony Minghella, Errol Morris, Elliott Goldenthal, Hans Zimmer, Saul Zaentz, Quentin Tarantino and Howard Zinn.

Center Stage with Mark Gordon "live" on KXLU Los Angeles, 88.9 FM and streaming at KXLU.com Tuesday at 7PM (PST).

For more information about Center Stage with Mark Gordon

Mark Gordon Sings "Bring Him Home"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Recorded live with Sam Sorensen on the piano. The recording was engineered by Damien Chock

Tune in Tuesdays at 7 PM (PST) as KXLU Los Angeles presents Center Stage with Mark Gordon. Each week the program looks at cinema and the creative people who make it happen.

Center Stage with Mark Gordon "live" on KXLU Los Angeles, 88.9 FM and streaming at KXLU.com Tuesday at 7PM (PST).

For more information about Center Stage with Mark Gordon

Amy Arbus "The Fourth Wall"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 07:16:00 +0000

Amy Arbus came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about her book "The Fourth Wall."

What happens when a performing actor leaves behind his lines, staging, sets and lighting, and steps beyond the "fourth wall"? Amy Arbus has been exploring this question in a series of dramatic portraits of celebrated actors, both on and off Broadway.

The Fourth Wall Limited Edition is signed, hand-numbered and includes a 24-minute DVD with voice-overs by Amy Arbus speaking about her experience photographing the stage legends.
Fully costumed but stripped of their context, Arbus' actors remain fully in character as they venture outside the fictional setting of the play and the safety of the theater. Staged in anonymous public spaces, the images achieve an unexpected blend of spectacle and art; formality and spontaneity; performance and reality.

Collected in The Fourth Wall are some of the modern stage's most gifted actors, including Alan Cumming in Cabaret, John Malkovich in Lost Land, Liev Schreiber in Talk Radio, Ed Harris in Wrecks, Cherry Jones in Doubt, Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens, and Ethan Hawke and Martha Plimpton in The Coast of Utopia. The book includes actors from such successful and ambitious shows as Wicked, The Light in the Piazza, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Color Purple and Sweeney Todd to name a few.

Angela Ismailos "Great Directors"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:10:00 +0000

Angela Ismailos’ GREAT DIRECTORS is a celebration of films and filmmaking starring ten of the worlds most acclaimed, provocative, and individualistic living directors. The documentary, which had its world premiere at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, is a deeply personal and intimate look at the art of cinema and the artists who create it, and features original, in-depth conversations with world-class filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles. These interviews more than just chronicle Ismailos’ encounters with ten remarkable men and women. Extensively illuminated by clips and historical archives from the subjects’ works, they also reveal the distinctive personalities who created the timeless images that have long inspired Ismailos—and all of us. Intercutting among the filmmakers in a freely associative way, Ismailos explores each director’s artistic evolution; the role of politics and history on their work; their feelings about the other great directors who inspired them (with Bertolucci paying homage to Pasolini, Breillat to Bergman, and Haynes to Fassbinder, etc.); and the agony and ecstasy of being an artist in a medium that is, paradoxically, also an industry.

Mark Hartley "Not Quite Hollywood."

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:30:00 +0000

NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD :

THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF “OZPLOITATION”

Free-wheelin’ sex romps! Bloodsoaked terror tales! High-octane action extravaganzas! They’re the main ingredients of NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, the first detailed examination and celebration of Australian genre cinema of the 70s and 80s.

In 1971, with the introduction of the R-certificate, Australia’s censorship regime went from repressive to progressive virtually overnight. This cultural explosion gave birth to arthouse classics, such as PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and MY BRILLIANT CAREER, but also spawned a group of demon-children: maverick filmmakers who braved assault from all quarters to bring films like ALVIN PURPLE, THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, PATRICK, TURKEY SHOOT and MAD MAX to the big screen.

As explicit, violent and energetic as their northern cousins, Aussie genre movies presented a unique take on established conventions.

In England, Italy and the grindhouses and Drive-ins of America, audiences applauded our homegrown marauding revheads with brutish cars, our spunky well-stacked heroines and our stunts – unparalleled in their quality and extreme danger!

Full of outrageous anecdotes, a large cast of local and International names and a genuine, infectious love of Australian movies, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD is a fast-moving journey through an unjustly forgotten cinematic era that was unashamedly packed full of boobs, pubes, tubes… and even a little kung fu.

Cathryn Collins "VLAST" (POWER)

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:10:00 +0000

Cathryn Collins was in town with her documentary VLAST (POWER). The film was playing at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Collins took time out between screenings to talk about the film. The interview was originally broadcast Tuesday June 22, 2010

In the documentary VLAST (POWER), Cathryn Collins goes where few others have in unearthing the actions and reasons behind the Russian government's systematic campaign at toppling the mega-billionaire oligarchs, chief among them, Mikhail Khodorovsky, the wealthiest man in Russia.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a volatile but highly advantageous environment for young Russian businessmen eager to build the fledgling market economy by any means necessary. Striking extraordinary deals with the government to acquire newly privatized industries, a small group of men became phenomenally rich almost overnight. The most successful of these oligarchs was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who quickly became the wealthiest man in Russia. But Khodorkovsky was invested not only in business, but also in true social reform and a new ideal of an open society, an attitude that ran afoul of the absolute rule of Vladimir Putin. Within months of announcing a deal which would have opened the formerly state-controlled Russian oil industry to investment by Western corporations, Khodorkovsky and his business partners were arrested and jailed for fraud and tax evasion. Tracing Khodorkovsky's dramatic, ambiguous rise to power and subsequent fall at the hands of Putin's KGB-infested government, this probing, deeply troubling documentary reveals a nation still unsure of its commitment to economic and social liberties. Written by Los Angeles Film Festival.

John Kastner "Life with Murder"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:43:00 +0000

John Kastner came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his documentary "Life with Murder."

In January of 1998, the murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Jenkins shocks the small community of Chatham, Ontario. Jennifer has been shot five times; her lifeless body is discovered by her parents, Brian and Leslie, in the basement of their home. Jennifer's brother, 20-year-old Mason, is nowhere to be found. As the Jenkins struggle with their grief, police quickly zero in on the most likely suspect: Mason. He is soon arrested, charged and ultimately convicted of the first-degree murder of his sister. But Mason adamantly claims he is innocent, and his parents are faced with an agonizing dilemma.

Trapped in the nightmare scenario of trying to cope with the murder of their daughter by their own son, the Jenkins must make perhaps the most heartbreaking decision a parent could face: whether to stand by Mason and welcome the alleged killer back into their lives or break with him completely, thereby destroying what's left of their family.

To the surprise of many, Brian and Leslie decide to support their son. Even as horrifying secrets come to light and the strain mounts on their own relationship, the parents remain determined not to abandon their only living child. Then, in an astonishing twist, the film reveals who really killed Jennifer Jenkins: the killer confesses on camera.

Life with Murder combines gripping police interrogation videotape, poignant home videos, revealing interviews and astonishing access to the Jenkins family to tell a remarkable story that unfolds over the course of a decade.

FOR MORE ABOUT LIFE WITH MURDER

Kate Davis & David Heilbroner "Stonewall Uprising"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:15:00 +0000

Kate Davis and David Heilbroner came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about their documentary "Stonewall Uprising."

STONEWALL UPRISING recounts the dramatic event that launched a movement whose impact has deeply affected the course of the human rights struggle. Told by those who took part-from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives, journalists, and a former mayor of New York-and featuring a rich trove of archival footage, the film revisits a time when homosexual acts were illegal throughout America, and homosexuality itself was seen as a form of mental illness. Hunted and often entrapped by undercover police in their hometowns, gays from around the U.S. began fleeing to New York in search of a sanctuary. Hounded there still by an aggressive police force, they found a semblance of normalcy in a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn. When police raided Stonewall on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they hadn't done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived.

A treasure-trove of archival footage gives life to this all-too-recent reality, a time when Mike Wallace announced on a 1966 CBS Reports: "The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage." At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history.

Kate Davis and David Heilbroner have been producing award-winning documentaries for 15 years. They co-directed STONEWALL UPRISING, the first non-fiction film to tell the story of the Stonewall riots by the participants. Their film, Scopes: The Battle Over America's Soul (History Channel, 2006), was part of Ten Days Which Unexpectedly Changed America, which won the Emmy® for Best Non Fiction Series in 2006. Jockey (HBO, 2004), was nominated for 3 Emmys® and won the Emmy® Award for Best Non-Fiction Directing. Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling (2004), was broadcast worldwide and had a limited US theatrical release. They also produced Diagnosis Bipolar (2010) and Plastic Disasters (2006) for HBO, and numerous social justice films including Anti-Gay Hate Crimes (A&E Networks, 1998) and Transgender Revolution (A&E Networks, 1999)

Adam Reid "Hello Lonesome"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:24:00 +0000

Adam Reid came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his first feature film HELLO LONESOME. The show originally broadcast Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

Single urbanite Gordon (NATE SMITH) meets Debby (SABRINA LLOYD) online and finds their new relationship put to the ultimate test. A suburban widow (LYNN COHEN) gets much more than she was looking for when she loses her license and leans on her neighbor (JAMES URBANIAK) for support. And, in the country, successful voice-over artist Bill Soap (HARRY CHASE) starts to make amends for being such a lousy father.

Sparkling with wit and humanity, HELLO LONESOME is the first feature film from writer/director Adam Reid and was inspired by a personal story from his own life. The cast includes Sabrina Lloyd (Sports Night), James Urbaniak (American Splendor, You Don't Know Jack), Lynn Cohen (Sex and the City, Munich), Kamel Boutros, Nate Smith (This American Life), and award-winning voiceover artist Harry Chase in his feature film debut. Adam Reid also serves as producer and cinematographer. Editing is by Scott Rankin and the original score is by Ted Gannon. The film features music by the Brooklyn-based band Jones Street Station.

FOR MORE ABOUT THE FILM

Henry Leutwyler Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:14:00 +0000

Prior to Michael Jackson’s death, Henry Leutwyler photographed crates of artifacts removed from Jackson’s Ne verland ranch in California. The resulting series of photographs document the inner turmoil of the public person who chose to model his private life on Peter Pan and the Lost Boys – children who never wanted to grow up. Leutwyler’s unemotional portraits are almost too intimate to behold, but when one digs beneath the surface, what emerges is the profound truth of a star’s sequestered reality. Leutwyler’s photographs unearth the “Lost Boy” forced to leave Neverland, and now these still lifes are as close as anyone will ever get to what Jackson once had, and ultimately left behind. “I have an urge to investigate people I have never met” says Swiss-born Henry Leutwyler. With twenty-five years experience creating portraits that document the famous and powerful, he has turned his gaze on the belongings that surround the individual. A selftaught youth who began his career by photographing “cheese and chocolates”, Leutwyler is a visual archaeologist. His work drills deep, allowing the objects to reveal more than the subjects themselves.

Henry Leutwyler
Henry Leutwyler is an internationally acclaimed photographer. A creative force in Paris for a decade, he moved to New York in 1996 where he lives with his wife and children. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Esquire and Fortune.

M+B is pleased to announce Neverland Lost, the premier exhibition of color photographs by Henry Leutwyler. In stark objectivity, Neverland Lost examines the Michael Jackson myth through portraits of personal items and pieces of his stage costumes—like the iconic sparkling glove—that were removed from Jackson's Neverland Ranch and intended for auction. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Thursday, June 10 from 6 to 8pm and a book signing for Leutwyler's newly released monograph by Steidl titled Neverland Lost on Saturday, June 12 from 2 to 4pm. The exhibition will run from June 10, 2010 to August 14, 2010.

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Nick Long of DEAD COUNTRY

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:48:00 +0000

Nick Long came Center Stage prior to his concert at the Fillmore where the band was opening for Sunny Day Real Estate.

Whitney Sander Talks about Green Building

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:34:00 +0000

Whitney Sander came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his work in the creating greener buildings.

Before founding Sander Architects, LLC, in 1987, Sander received his Masters in Architecture at Yale University, and was in the Peace Corps in West Africa from 1981-1983. Since 1991, he has taught Architecture and Art classes at Yale, UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts (San Francisco), and Woodbury University. As an architect Sander is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and is considered a leader in green architecture.

Profile:Sander Architects is the international award-winning firm whose approach to contemporary residential design has been making waves in the architecture world. Their Hybrid House uses components of prefab technology to create homes that are custom designed for each client. Homes that are not only green but also very high design. This is a time of extraordinary change for practitioners in the design fields and Sander Architects is a young exciting firm determined to be at the forefront of green architecture.

Recognition:Sander Architects has been awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Award for Architecture in 2002 and 2004, along with Pritzker Prize winners Richard Meier and Hans Hollein. Numerous other national awards include AIA awards in 1996 and 2003, Architecture Magazine's Home of the Year, and Architectural Record's House of the Month. Publications include magazines such as Dwell, GA: Global Architecture, New York Times and the Los Angeles Times as well as the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Their work has been widely published in books such as Another 100 of the World's Best Houses, noted architecture critic Michael Webb's Brave New Houses, Adventures in Southern California Living, and various titles by author James Grayson Truelove. Recently the firm was a semi-finalist in the 2006 Living Steel Competition - which highlights the firm in their "Featured Architects" section (visit the site) - as well as semi-finalists in the 2006 Global Green Sustainable Housing Competition, sponsored by Brad Pitt, to design low-income housing for post-Katrina New Orleans.

Philosophy:Sander Architects seeks to find a balance between poetry and pragmatics. Starting with essential elements: environment, program, site restrictions, we encourage forms to develop which satisfy these basic needs while embracing the possibility of the poetic. In this way, a house for an Orthopedic Surgeon becomes a covert study in anatomy: metaphorical skin and bones. The elements that make up an aerobics studio, its interior architecture and furniture, take on physical tendencies: tension, compresion, torsion, sinew. The entry for a sculptor's house is a 'vessel' whose propotions are based on a large-scale clay jar produced by the owner. These strategies are covert, not obvious, and allow the built environment to resonate thematically with the program and the people who use it. It is a strategy of innuendo, not declaration, a struggle with nuance, an attempt at quiet fertility. If the work celebrates what it means to inhabit, in grander terms, the work is a celebration of man's rhythms and rituals.

Idyllwild Performing Arts Center (IPAC)

Sander Architects won an invited competition to design the Idyllwild Performing Arts Center (IPAC), a new performing arts center for Idyllwild Arts Academy. IA is one of the country's top three domestic High Schools for the arts. The student body is represented by dozens of countries, including much of the Pacific Rim, South America and Europe. Sander Architects' site strategy was to place the PAC to one side of a present open parking lot, thereby creating a new green quad at the heart of campus. This space also aligns with Lily Rock, the dominant geological feature in the Idyllwild Valley.

The Building will be composed of a curved/sloped roof plane, which will be accessible from two different sides of the building where it will meet the adjacent grade. The Theater and Concert Hall masses will penetrate through this curved roof plane and will be sheathed in rusted cor-ten panels. The panels will have an irregular topography derived from abstracted verbal and musical phrases by composers and playwrights.

The entire roof will be planted with drought-tolerant greenery, and will be accessible from two corners which will meet adjacent grade. Overflow seating for the concert hall will be on the roof, and movies will be projected on a side of the theater fly tower, creating a large area for outdoor movie viewing.

IPAC's structural system will be composed of light-gauge metal building components. This will be an excellent example of Sander Architects' Hybrid construction concept. All steel elements will be manufactured off-site by existing steel building manufacturers using computer-controlled processes. The elements will be made from predominantly recycled steel, and will be shipped to the site for easy bolt-together erection. Sander Architects has had success with this system in residential applications under the name Hybrid House; part prefab, all custom (TM). The extraordinary cost savings we have found with residences will be even greater in IPAC, since the light-gauge steel building typically spans dozens of feet, and is perfectly suited for this application.

Brad Anderson talks about "The Machinist"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:06:00 +0000

Brad Anderson came Center Stage to talk about his film "The Machinist." The interview was recorded in 2004.

Trevor Reznik is a lathe-operator who suffers from insomnia and hasn't slept in a year. Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him and, in the process, embroils two women in his madness.

Commentary by Brad Anderson
The Machinist is a dark, moody thriller. It is the story of a man running from a guilty conscience that is literally consuming him alive, uncertain, unaware even, of what crime he's committed. It’s literary models are the classic fiction of Kafka and Dostoievsky. Its film touchstones are Hitchcock, Polanski and Lynch. In other words, it is a story of overwhelming paranoia and foreboding.

The look of the film was inspired by the austere expressionism of early horror films - like THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, and VAMPYR and the shadowy films of producer Val Lewton like I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE SEVENTH VICTIM. We hope to create a "subtle nightmare" with this film, one that pulls it’s dramatic suspense and horror from everyday situations.

Peter Roger Director of "Oh My God"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Peter Roger came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about his documentary "Oh My God."

In every corner of the world, there's one question that can never be definitively answered, yet stirs up equal parts passion, curiosity, self-reflection and often wild imagination: "What is God?" Filmmaker Peter Rodger explores this profound, age-old query in the provocative non-fiction feature "Oh My God." This visual odyssey travels the globe with a revealing lens examining the idea of God through the minds and eyes of various religions and cultures, everyday people, spiritual leaders and celebrities. His goal: to give the viewer the personal, visceral experience of some kind of reasonable, meaningful definition of one of the most used-some might say overused--words in most every language. Rodger's quest takes him from the United States to Africa, from the Middle East to the Far East, where such fundamental issues as: "Did God create man or did man create God?, "Is there one God for all religions?" and "If God exists, why does he allow so much suffering?" are explored in candid discussions with the various Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even atheists the filmmaker meets along the way.

For more information about the film visit Oh My God

Aaron Eckhart

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:24:00 +0000

In 1997, Aaron Eckart was in Neil LeBute's film IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. This is a recorded interview from his appearance on Center Stage with Mark Gordon.

Director Neil LaBute's debut film is the wildly controversial story of two angry young businessmen who set out to destroy a naive secretary by pretending to fall in love with her. Chad (Aaron Eckhart), furious about the way women are ruining his man's world, enlists his wishy-washy co-worker (Matt Malloy) in a callous plan to date then dump a vulnerable secretary (Stacy Edwards). Both horrifying and hilarious, IN THE COMPANY OF MEN is "one of the best pictures of the year. This is a movie event." Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

"Disturbing and Controversial!" -David Ansen NEWSWEEK

"Two Thumbs Up, Way Up! A great picture!" -Siskel and Ebert

Cast and Crew

* Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Stacy Edwards, Matt Malloy

* Director: Neil LaBute

* Producer: Mark Archer

1997 Theatrical Trailer for "In the Company of Men", released Fall of 1997 by Sony Pictures Classics. Produced by Mark Archer, Directed by Neil LaBute. Winner of the Filmmaker's Trophy, Sundance Film Festival, 1997.

Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"

mark@stageandscreen.com (Mark Gordon) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:52:00 +0000

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about their documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.

The film gives us an inside look at Metallica during the making "St. Anger" and the difficulties they go through in the process. The directors shot over 1200 hours and followed the band around night and day for over a year to create this documentary.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE FILM