A Few More Moments from Ebertfest

I’ve been sick all week, so I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties. However, I solemnly swear to deliver full reports about the films at Ebertfest in the upcoming days. For now, here are some images from the non-movie-watching moments of this year’s Ebertfest adventure.

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Thursday Night: PowerPoint Karaoke!

Come see four improv comedians bravely attempt to give a PowerPoint presentation for a deck of slides that they have never seen before. This month’s contestants are Windy Bowlsby, Bill Young, Eric Knight, and Courtney McLean! The Bryant-Lake Bowl 801 W Lake Street, Minneapolis 10:00pm (doors at 9:30pm) Arrive early …

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Ebertfest: Day 2a

I slept late this morning, so I don’t have time to write-up the films I saw yesterday. (And yes, I want to talk about a couple of them in-depth.) What I do have are some lovely photos of the restored Virginia Theatre for your consumption:

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Ebertfest: Day 1

So. Here I am. I enjoy Ebertfest greatly. I’ve attended the film festival since 2009, and I find it to be a great, relaxing endeavor. The festival features only 12 films over the course of five days (compare that to Butt-Numb-a-Thon, which shows that many in 24 hours). The festival …

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Success from a Failed Time Lapse

Yesterday morning, I drove from Minneapolis, MN to Champaign, IL, a trip that takes around 7-8 hours of nonstop driving. Recently, I purchased a glass mount and a power cord for my Sony DSLR, in hopes that I could shoot more sophisticated time-lapse movies during my long road trips. Thus, …

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Cinematic Oddities: Berlin Express

The year was 1948. World War II had just closed, and the difficult job of cleaning up Germany was in progress. Over the rubble, the Allied powers collaborated, clashed, and ultimately sliced Germany into bits. This is the backdrop of a very strange film noir named Berlin Express. Berlin Express was …

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Best Funeral Ever

Documentary filmmaker Les Blank passed away last Sunday at age 77. He was perhaps best known for his association with a crazy German named Werner Herzog. Personally, my favorite Les Blank piece is Burden of Dreams, which captured the grueling four-year ordeal that was the production of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. The …

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Quick, Tell Me: The Employed Edition

Yesterday, I waxed nostalgic about my old job at a fish store. Today, please tell me about an unusual job you once had (or, perhaps, still have).

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Tales from the Fish Store

Once upon a time, I worked at a fish store. Specifically, I was once a manager-on-duty and African cichlid expert for a shop that bred and sold pet fish. The shop wasn’t a run-of-the-mill mall-based pet shop. It was a place for aquarium super-nerds. We had about 30 employees on staff, …

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Letting the Joke Rest in Peace

Waaaay back in the foggy mists of time, I used to run a web site named Cthulhu Coffee. The site is still out there, laying dormant in the darkest wayward corners of the Internet, looking very… HTML3. I stopped updating regularly somewhere in 2003, but for several years after, I kept …

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