Brianland

The Making of “Jack on Film” . . Believe it or not this whole thing started when I got a call on January 12th, 2021 — six days after the Capitol insurrection (!) and still deep in the pandemic lockdown daze.  A musician friend I’ve known since 1976, Will Hodgson, was home with his kids […]

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Some reflections on The Beatles post Peter Jackson’s masterpiece, and some fun facts picked up along the way . . . It was so much the blending of the four compatible yet different personalities that was key to their creativity and longevity. And that there were four different individuals for people to identify with and […]

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The Beatles: Get Back Time-Coded and Annotated . Some of the characters beyond the Fab Five: (And yes, it’s five — because in this doc The Beatles become a quintet.  😉) Peter Jackson — the cinematic master behind this entire production Jabez Olssen — Peter Jackson’s super-skilled right-hand-man editor – never seen on screen, but […]

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. One thing I learned during my lockdown Film Studies deepdive is just how subjective movies are.  I know all art is subjective, but maybe film is the most because of how it’s every art form blended together and being experienced at once. Something I picked up from a Tarantino interview — that a book […]

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. I love Loving Vincent. I’ve loved Van Gogh since the big Metropolitan Museum of Art show “Van Gogh in Arles” in 1984 and the “Saint-Remy and Auvers” show in 1986, and reading his Dear Theo book of letters to his brother around the same time.  Those shows and that book changed my life by […]

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New Hunter-Garcia Musical comes up Roses . . Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Behold — a re-imagining of the Hunter-Garcia songbook.  New life.  New arrangements.  New band.  New set.  New stage.  New story. If you’d like a fresh way to approach Grateful Dead music — go to this show. If you like the Dead and theater […]

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. Let There Be Songs To Fill The Screen . . I remember when I first saw the long-in-the-works Beat Generation documentary “The Source” at its premiere in Manhattan with McClure, Amram and all these other luminaries and we all went to the afterparty at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and everybody was freaking out that […]

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. On The Bus and On The Road . . “Put your good where it will do the most,” …….. as Ken Kesey said, and Wavy Gravy recounted in the luminous new documentary, Going Furthur. This movie is really funny — and not in a you-had-to-be-there way.  A huge part of the Merry Band of […]

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When Conflict Television Was Born or . . . “I’ll sock you in your goddamn face.” . . 1968  — The year so much changed . . . Martin and Bobby . . .  North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive galvanizing Americans’ opposition to the war . . .  The Beatles open their Apple Core . . […]

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Pet Monkees & Other Oddities . . So … hold on — the guys who made Pet Sounds were the same people who made the The Monkees’ “music”?!  And the goofy band on those Sonny & Cher albums were the same cats who played The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man?  What?!  Crazy!  But true.  And they […]

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