THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY

Ever since I bought my Sony T100 that uses a Memory Stick Duo card and I bought a Sandisk 4 gig SDHC card for my D40/D80 cameras, my life uploading images has been bothersome to say the least. The Sony card doesn't fit in my Lexar multi-card reader without first sticking into a separate Sony adapter. I'm constantly searching on my desk for the damn little adapter piece that manages to always get stuck in between papers, fall into my drawer, or worse, fall on the floor. In the case of my Sandisk SDHC card (the Ducati Edition from the Extreme line), the big selling point for me to buy the card was not only could it fit into my card reader but it also can fit in any USB port - theoretically making it twice as convenient to unload my images to a computer. But the rub is that my Lexar card reader (purchased at Walmart in January 2004 while on a road trip to Ruidoso, New Mexico) can't read the card. It has read other SDHC cards before so I don't know what the incompatibility issue is. So every time I want to use it, I have to turn my iMac around, unplug one of my USB devices, put the card in, turn the computer back, upload the images, turn the computer back around, take the card out, and turn my computer back to where it started. When you have to do this every single day it becomes really annoying. The idea behind the convenience of having the USB attachment on this Sandisk card isn't so you can't use it with your card reader, the idea is that if you find yourself at a computer that doesn't have a card reader, you can still upload images in a snap. But spinning my computer around day after day wasn't my idea of a snap. I couldn't take it anymore so I went to Fry's yesterday (the absolute worst place for customer service but the best place to find all your computer and electronics items under one roof) and bought a new card reader. Well finally I can breathe easier and upload images quickly and easily all from the same device! I selected a Sony 17 in 1 multi-card reader / writer because I figured it was probably the only reader that would let me use my tiny Memory Stick Duo card without having to use that damn adapter. It's also really nice and sleek and minimalist looking too. Even though Sony makes PC's, the design is very evocative of my nice aluminum iMac. I tried it out as soon as I got home and it works like a charm - the best part of all.

OUTFEST 2008

From July 9-21, I attended Outfest, the 26th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Outfest is the oldest continuous film festival in Los Angeles and definitely the largest and most attended one in the city. This year's festival featured 212 films and videos from 25 countries in 7 different venues over 13 days.

Outfest and I go back a LONG way - I've been going to Outfest since 1987 when I had just graduated high school. Over the years I was their first college intern (back in 1991), as an entertainment journalist and film critic I covered the festival for numerous Frontiers Magazine cover stories, was a juror on the American Narrative Films jury in 1999 with actor Wilson Cruz and director David Moreton, have been a participant on panel discussions and moderated post screening Q&A's, but this was my first year going to Outfest just for fun. My only agenda was to film a couple panels that "Desert Hearts" director Donna Deitch was on for possible use in my documentary "Desert Hearts Mon Amour" but other than that all I planned to do was see films, connect with friends, look for possible interviewees for my documentary, and have a fun two weeks just hanging out.

The best films I saw this year were: "The Secrets" (a tense and sexy story about the friendship and bourgeoning chemistry between two orthodox Jewish women); "Wild Combination" (a documentary about avant garde composer and musician Arthur Russell); "Hamlet 2" (the funniest damn movie I've seen all year - watch for it coming soon to theaters); "Breakfast With Scot" (the poignant and wacky opening night film); "She's A Boy I Knew" (a documentary directed and about a male to female transexual); and "Trinidad" (a documentary about the frontier town in Colorado dubbed, "the sex change capitol of the U.S." and transexual Dr. Marci Bowers, the top sexual reassignment surgeon who practices there).

Here's a photo recap of the festival.

OUTFEST, Opening Night at the Orpheum - a longtime tradition. The Orpheum is a restored downtown Los Angeles Movie Palace.


Filmmaker & Women On A Roll founder Andrea Meyerson, partners Valerie Madden and Tina Scorzafava (a talented filmmaker), and Me.

Me and Monica Trasandes, my former Frontiers editor. There's some real history here. We were young pups together. We sat next to each other at the first press screening of "Showgirls" - if that doesn't bond you for life, nothing will!

Two femme fatales (Calpernia Addams and Andrea James) and me LOL.

The main Outfest location - The Directors Guild of America, on Sunset Blvd.


"Boys Don't Cry" & "Stop-Loss" director Kimberly Peirce conducted "A Conversation With Donna Deitch." Donna was the recipient of the 12th Annual Outfest Achievement Award on Opening Night. (Photo Credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

Kimberly, Donna, and Me (photo credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

Donna Deitch, Kirsten Schaffer (former Director of Programming and present Outfest Interim Executive Director), and Kimberly Peirce (photo credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

In back of the DGA

S & Me

The Outfest Legacy screening of a restored print of seminal gay and lesbian documentary "Word Is Out."

Wolfe Video founder Kathy Wolfe and "Desert Hearts" director Donna Deitch in front of a giant "Desert Hearts" poster. They had a small dvd signing in the lobby of the DGA.

Donna Deitch


Me & Donna (photo credit: Angela Brinskele)

Outfest Awards at the beautiful Ford Ampitheater. This is Craig Chester at the podium and awards presenter Momma.


Calpernia Addams and Momma.

More of Calpernia and Momma.

Outfest Closing Night, the Orpheum after party.

S, M, & Me

Moi

The huge Orpheum lobbby

Gorgeous lamps and details of the Orpheum ceiling.

The last marquee of this year's festival, Polaroid SLR 680 SE with Polaroid 600 Film.

CHRIS & DON. A LOVE STORY

This weekend I went to the Nuart to see Chris & Don. A Love Story. Chris was acclaimed writer Christopher Isherwood ("Cabaret") and Don is famed portrait artist Don Bachardy. They got involved in Los Angeles in the early 1950's when Chris was 52 and Don was just 18. Their relationship lasted more than 30 years until Chris' death in 1986. When they met, Chris was famous and Don was just arm candy. Eventually Don became as famous and prolific an artist as Chris. They were out as gay men and as a couple at a time when that was pretty much unheard of. Don (still painting in his 70's) is interviewed throughout, and there's lots of great archival stills and home movies. If you want to see a great love story go see this! The fact that the film is also about two great artists is just icing on the cake.

INTELLIGENT WOMEN, CYD CHARISSE, AN AMERICAN CRIME, KILLER COMEDIES & ROMAN POLANSKI

FINALLY SOME FILMS ALL ABOUT WOMEN!!! INTELLIGENT WOMEN!!!

You don't realize how much women's stories are missing from the screen 'til you actually sit through a few and think, "Oh wow, we're actually getting representation here." Especially in the case of all three films ("Sex & The City," "Bonneville" and "Baby Mama") where the perspectives are all late 30's to late 50's.

I know it's probably out of the theaters already, but I really loved "Baby Mama." Sure Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are great, but what really made me laugh out loud was Sigourney Weaver showing up the owner of a Surrogacy clinic who has no problem popping out babies even with her advancing age. A great cameo appearance.




I'm sure no one reading this has heard of "Bonneville" despite the movie starring three of the most amazing actresses on the planet - Jessica Lange, Joan Allen, and Kathy Bates - because this film had zero promotion. Sure I could quibble with little bits of the script but I don't care - three intelligent, mature women on a road trip through the southwest Utah on their way to Santa Barbara in a vintage Pontiac Bonneville convertible - this movie had all the elements I like. As a huge Jessica Lange fan, it was amazing to see a film with her in literally every scene!



And speaking of an intelligent woman who makes me laugh my ass off - I just watched Kathy Griffin host Bravo's A List Awards and she's just getting better and better. I think she's really come into her own this year. The absolutely funniest bit in the entire show was a memorial clip reel not of celebs that have died during the year, but of celebs that Kathy explained, "Are dead to me." PURE F*CKIN' GENIUS! Between her numerous costume changes (including one quick change down to her undies seen on camera), her singing intro, her satirical runway walk, and her quick quips, Kathy OWNED that stage, plus she looked incredible doing it. If you're a fan, definitely look for a rerun. And the awards were super fun - very tongue in cheek and irreverent. If you're a fan of Bravo reality shows (I'm personally addicted to most of them), the show is a must see.

Kathy working the A-List runway


With all this talk of fantastic gals, I must mention the passing of dance legend and silver screen star Cyd Charisse. She was just so timeless and elegant that her death just really took me by shock. When I think of old fogies, I never think of Cyd Charisse, yet how could it be that I read on Tuesday that she was dead at age 86? Cyd Charisse is forever long and lithe and sexy in my mind. Approximately 20 years ago, I went to an AFI tribute to Cyd at the now defunct Plitt Century Plaza Cinemas. My memories of seeing her there are burned into my mind. What a legend!



MISCELLANEOUS MOVIES:
This month I accidentally stumbled upon Tommy O'Haver's newest film "An American Crime" on cable. It's based on the true story of the most grisly case of child abuse in Indiana in the mid 1960's. Catherine Keener (another one of our finest actresses) plays Gertrude Baniszewski, a poor mother of something like 6 or 7 kids who temporarily takes in two teenage sisters as boarders while their parents work the carnival circuit. The older sister Sylvia Likens (played by Ellen Page of "Juno" fame) ends up becoming the victim of Gertrude's punishments - and each time the punishments turn more vicious and twisted. Eventually Gertrude's children and neighbor kids are abusing Sylvia for their pure amusement. O'Haver leaves a lot of the gruesomeness off-screen, but you get the full idea of the torture Sylvia endured. It's a fascinating case and I found the film both riveting and heartbreaking.



Also, finally caught some popular comedies on my free Video on Demand channels that were surprisingly good and fresh:

I expected "Knocked Up" to be a gross out comedy or something lame and it actually turned out to be a thoughtful meditation on the differences between the sexes, and of course very funny too. I thought it would be completely predictable and it wasn't. Paul Rudd has a very funny supporting role as a p-whipped husband who just wants a little alone time.

And last night, I watched "Blades of Glory" and really enjoyed it too. Of course Will Farrell was great as usual, but Jon Heder (from "Napolean Dynamite") was hilarious as a very femmy ice skating champion. If you don't know the plot, the two guys eventually become the first all male figure skating pair - and their choreographed number is a show stopper. Amy Poehler and Will Arnet play a brother/sister pair who are Farrell and Heder's competition. Their ice skating routine set to Marky Mark and the Funky's Bunch's "Good Vibrations" was my favorite comedic moment in the film.



Perhaps you've heard there's a new documentary on cable about Roman Polanski and his infamous rape trial called "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired." The first professional interview I ever did was Roman Polanski! It was December 1994, I was just 24 years old, and I was at the junket for his film "Death and The Maiden," an excellent film version of the Broadway show starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley and I HIGHLY recommend it. My experience was like trial by fire and the only time I've had an experience like it. All the factors were things I hadn't trained for: the interview was to be done via Satellite with Polanski speaking from France; I had to plug into equipment I'd never used or been trained on; there was a time delay with asking questions and getting answers because of the Satellite hookup; and when it was my turn to ask a question, I introduced myself and said, "I'm Lydia Marcus from the Interview Factory" and Polanski laughed and made some joke about the name of the outlet I was working for but I didn't hear exactly what he said because of the time delay so all I know is that everyone assembled there for the junket (tons of press and pr people) are all laughing right after my introduction! Once I got past that hiccup and realized that they weren't laughing AT me, I continued on with my questions. I was really amazed at how open and honest Polanski was with me and all the other journalists. He really seemed like an open book.

I know that for a lot of people in the U.S., Polanski is considered both a pariah and a pedophile. I knew that he was known for having sex with younger women (including Natasha Kinski), but I also knew that he was European (and with that goes different social morays) and that he had been through the trauma of both the Holocaust and the murder of his wife and unborn child by the Manson Family. So I knew that whatever transpired in that rape case and in his jumping bail and leaving permanently to Europe, there were no easy answers or conclusions to be made. But watching "Wanted and Desired" I now realize there's so much of the story that I didn't know. I always was under the impression that Polanski immediately skipped bail and left for Europe but that's not the case at all. He actually went through the entire trial and some jail time (which was labeled as something like psychological observation but was actually jail time). As far as the documentary goes, I think the filmmakers did a shoddy job in telling the story with bad editing that doesn't tell the story very linearly and they completely omit the details of his wife's murder by the Manson gang and the fact that his unborn baby was cut out of his wife's womb! But, what they do get across, is that the Judge in the trial was so caught up in his own publicity and ego that he really gave Polanski and BOTH the prosecution and defense attorneys a raw deal. Even the girl (now an adult woman) that Polanski allegedly raped is interviewed in the doc. "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" definitely sheds a lot of new light on both the case and Polanski. What the documentary does do well is show how so much of the public's perception of Polanski came not through the actual trial but through the press' (both legitimate and tabloid) representation of the trial and Polanski. It's amazing how even in the late 1970's, the tabloid press in the United States was really out of control. In the end, Polanski didn't really have a trial by Judge but a trial by tabloid.

THE MAIL

So this week I exchanged film via the United States Postal Service with a complete stranger. A guy who saw my photos on Flickr, noticed that I had taken a photo of my spare fridge filled with all my Polaroid film and misc 35mm and 120 films too. Here's the shot:
He proposed a trade - he wanted some of my black and white 120 (medium format) film. I'm much more of a color shooter and I typically find 120 a pain to get developed (no, Costco doesn't do it). After beginning to scan my family's old color slides and seeing the fantastic color, I've been wanting to test the waters with shooting slide film. I asked the guy if he had any color slide film to swap and he did! So we discussed via flickr email what films we had to trade and we came to an agreement over a 12 for 12 trade and presto on Friday my film arrived. I had originally come into the possession of the 120 film for free (bundled with the purchase of a used camera) so basically for the cost of about 5 bucks total to buy the box to ship the film in and pay for postage - I got a dozen rolls of slide film I wanted. Pretty cool. To buy a dozen rolls of 35mm slide film would probably have cost me about $60-$70 bucks. I love that in today's paranoid age, that total strangers can still do something pretty awesome for each other.

Also in the mail I received the two 4mb SD cards I'd ordered from Adorama. Here they are inside their little key chains sandisk included.My biggest SD card before this was a 2gb card, so it will be nice to do a lot more jpeg shooting or be able to do raw and not run out of room.

Lastly, I decided this week to order a Wacom Intuos3 6x8 tablet.
I've had a Wacom Graphire3 for a few years that's a LOT smaller. I originally used it in a photoshop class I took about 3 years ago and then it has just sat unused since then. Now I'm enrolled in a new photoshop class at Samy's and every desk has it's own Wacom. I lucked out and actually got the one large size tablet (I think it's 6x11) on my desk. As soon as I started using it I was really amazed at how much nicer it felt compared to my old Wacom because of the larger size and the nicer pen with a very tactile and soft rubber grip. Also because this new tablet is widescreen like my iMac 24" and each corner of the Wacom directly corresponds to your screen, it's a lot more intuitive to use. I'm constantly having issues with my hands, fingers, and wrists (yes wrists - I'm ambidextrous) due to typing and mostly the mousing, so after using the Wacom at Samy's, I decided to unearth my Wacom to use at home. But my Graphire3 felt so small and hard compared to the Intuos3. My original Wacom cost under a 100 bucks and this new one was $329. Yikes. I'm trying to save up to buy Photoshop CS3 and possibly Lightroom now so the idea of spending another $329 was not good. But, I discovered that not only did Wacom have the tablet I wanted refurbished for only $200, but that by buying the tablet I was eligible for a CS3 upgrade (to the Elements 4 that came bundled) at a reduced price! So instead of CS3 costing $650, I would get $300 off!! And if I buy Lightroom at the same time, Lightroom is discounted $75 dollars. So in this case, spending money on the Intuos3 is actually saving me money on CS3 AND saving my hands at the same time. I know that I can mouse a LOT faster, but it's really killing my hand/wrist/fingers. I think once I get more used to the Wacom that I'll be up to speed, but at this point, I'll sacrifice the speed for hand longevity. What's nice about the Intuos3 6x8 (and the 6x11) is that it has express keys (for key strokes) and touch strips (for zooming and scrolling) on both sides of the tablet. Since I'm ambidextrous, this means I can switch between either side of the tablet depending on whether my right or left hand is free. And this way I can also split up the repetitive tasks between two hands. The only area I'm not 100% ambidextrous is in holding the pen in my left hand. I'm a bit goofier and a little impaired when I do that, but I plan to practice more so I can switch off hands that hold the pen. I just started fooling around with Apple's Inkwell today, so possibly I can start writing stuff out more instead of typing too. You don't have to be a photographer to use the Wacom or any other tablet. Anyone can benefit from it. It really helps cut down on the stress of mousing. But the Wacom does come with a mouse if you want to use one, the only caveat is that it only works on the Wacom tablet (not on your desk or other surface). I prefer my Apple Might Mouse to the Wacom mouse, so I'm still using that too. If you want a tablet but don't want to spend $200 and up, get a Wacom Bamboo, they're very similar to the Intuos3 and the smallest one retails for $79 bucks. The Bamboo is really just a newer version of the Graphire3 I already own but now they've updated it with a scroll wheel and 4 express keys.

I wrote these comments using the Wacom and the bundled Corel Painter Essentials 3

Close up shot of the express keys and touch strip. You use your fingers to touch these, not the Wacom pen.

For more info on the Wacom Intuos3 6x8 go to http://www.wacom.com/intuos/6x8.cfm

THE NEED FOR SPEED

I found out about a great sale on Sandisk thanks to Ken Rockwell's site. Right now, most of Sandisk's memory cards have major rebates, and the rebates get bigger the more cards you buy. Different retailers have this promotion going on, but Adorama sweetens the pot by offering an extra 10% added to your rebate if you choose a Gift Check option instead of a Visa Check Card. I purchased two SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition 4 GB Secure Digital, SD Plus USB Memory Cards. The cost was $120 with free shipping, and I'll be getting either $70 dollars back in a Visa Check Card or $77 if I choose the Adorama Gift Card option. So essentially, this is costing me around $50 bucks for 2 really fast SD cards. The thing that's really cool about the special edition Ducati cards (besides their red color) is that they have a usb connection built into the card so you don't need to lug around a card reader to use them. Also, they have a much faster read/write speed (20mb a second) than the cheaper line of SD cards. The card also comes with a RescuePRO® Deluxe Recovery Software CD - which can come in handy if you have corrupted files or are trying salvage stuff you've erased.

I don't have any Ducati photos that I've taken, but in the spirit of things, here's a nice vintage mid 1970's Honda that I photographed in Venice Beach on March 3, 2008.