BNFF11 REVIEW: White Knuckles [2010]

“Why don’t you give me something to be joyful about?” Love can seem so easy from the outside. Two people: completely enamored with each other, their smiles easy, serene, and unmistakably genuine. You look at them and think 40-years of marriage would be pure bliss, a harmonious dance that could never last as long as it should. But we forget that behind each joyful façade lurks the reality of who we are. A relationship takes work and the longer it spans the more care is necessary to keep it viable.…

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ARTWORK: Buffalo, Consumerized – The 2011 Lord Bedlington Cup Triptych

Expanding upon my Buffalo, Consumerized series, I decided to commemorate the first Lord Bedlington Cup. But while looking for a shot that embodied the event, the idea to make the piece a triptych came up. By making a vertical piece, the top being the Bedlington Terriers FC, the bottom the FC Buffalo Blitzers, and the middle a combination of the two, all aspects of the evening could be represented. It would have been silly to place the trophy graphic on a photo of the winner lifting the same entity, so…

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PHOTOGRAPHY: The 2011 Lord Bedlington Cup – FC Buffalo/Bedlington Terriers FC

To commemorate Bob Rich’s generosity towards soccer at home and abroad, his Lord Bedlington Cup was formed. Pitting the FC Buffalo Blitzers against the UK’s own Bedlington Terriers FC, the international friendly became a means to promote the sport and the city of Buffalo in one fell swoop. With a stunning turnout of 3,821 fans from both sides of the Atlantic, the first Lord Bedlington Cup was a resounding success. The least of which was the fact that the trophy will stay in America as Buffalo blitzed Bedlington by the…

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Posterized Propaganda July 2011: ‘Pooh’ and Friends Trump ‘Monte Carlo’

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact that impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. Photoshop: the Bad, the Really Bad, and Some Success You see it a lot these days—the dreaded floating head Photoshop hack job. July 2011 is no stranger to the…

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REVIEW: Scenes From the Suburbs [2011]

“I wonder what happened to the other moments” There is no better praise to heap on a short film than to admit you watched it again right after the initial viewing. Scenes from the Suburbs is just such a piece, not because of the connection to one of my favorite albums of 2010—Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs—nor the fact it’s directed by Spike Jonze, but because it really hits upon the jaded cynicism of our current world. No longer do we live in an environment deemed safe. My childhood of leaving…

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REVIEW: Larry Crowne [2011]

“Beaver Fever. Catch It!” I really like the poster. The sky blue with the alternating thick/thin sans serif font and the jarringly bright yellow, drawing your eye to it and down towards the pair of movie stars at bottom right. Julia Roberts looks ecstatic and Tom Hanks suavely cool on his scooter—this could be a gem of a film with some sophisticated style. Alas, though, it is not. After starting with the charming joke of a middle-aged man living and breathing his retail sales job, picking up the trash in…

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REVIEW: Season of the Witch [2011]

“Ever get the feeling God has too many enemies?” Despite the random list of characters I’ve seen Nicolas Cage play—not to mention the almost infinite selection of those he could portray in the future—an armored knight fighting in the Crusades was not something I ever imagined to see him attempt. That malleable, chameleon-like hair of his doesn’t quite fit the 14th century, especially when juxtaposed with Ron Perlman’s brutish scowl for the duration. Watching the two very different actors joke before a fight about how the man with the least…

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DESIGN: Buffalo Spree magazine – July/August 2011 cover entry

2011 Buffalo Spree magazine – July/August 2011 published by Buffalo Spree Publishing, Inc. Cover contest entry: For the 2011 Buffalo Spree magazine, July/August Best of WNY issue, our company’s art department was put to the task to create a striking cover. With my entry, I wanted to make people stop and pick the magazine up from the newsstands to see what is going on. It’s very minimal—the concept of ‘Best of’ stripped down to its essence, an envelope containing the winner. It would have, at the very least, definitely stood…

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REVIEW: Bad Teacher [2011]

“Peanut Butter everywhere …” I wasn’t the biggest fan when it was called Bad Santa and took place in a department store, so, suffice it to say, Bad Teacher’s foul-mouthed comedy never quite hit home. Scribed by writers from “The Office” and, what is sadly much lower on my anticipation list now, Ghostbusters III, Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg have one thing going for them—laughs. If it weren’t for a healthy amount of laugh-out-loud instances, the void of any engaging conflict coupled with the broadest performances I’ve seen in quite…

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REVIEW: Barney’s Version [2010]

“Montreal 2, Boston 1” It begins with an aged detective, a man unafraid of police brutality, and his newly released novel about the circumstantial evidence surrounding the disappearance of a young man at the summer home of a friend. Detective O’Hearne (Mark Addy) has never let go of the assumption that Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti) shot and killed his Best Man from two weddings, Boogie (Scott Speedman), in a drunken stupor after the discovery of an adulterous tryst. To that end, he has been a constant fixture in the television…

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REVIEW: The Eagle [2011]

“Please help me regain my father’s honor” The case of Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle is one of preconceptions and a desire to sound important on behalf of critics. With below average notes across the board and an almost universal slamming of lead actor Channing Tatum, the biggest surprise to me watching was how much I enjoyed not only the stunning cinematography in dream sequences tinted amber and the kinetic masses of muscle, blood, and swords in frenetic fight sequences, but also the central performances of a Roman soldier and the…

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