The Tribeca Film Festival is in town and one of the films I was most interested in was a documentary called Bending Steel about a man named Chris “Wonder” Schoeck who is training to become a strongman. Like sideshow Coney Island style bending bars over your head type strongman. I have always been fascinated with the sideshow and while I sort of hate magic, I love actual feats of strength that seem like magic. When I was a kid I learned how to blockhead (hammering nails into your nose) learned to swallow hot dogs whole with the idea that maybe one day I could learn to swallow swords. Two of my favorite photographers growing up were (and still are) Diane Arbus and Bruce Davidson who both documented sideshows and circuses and there was a time in my life where I really spent a lot of time researching and learning about this amazing culture.

Eventually my interest wained, mostly because there are only so many feats you can do. Unless someone is particularly innovative or captivating eventually seeing someone swallow a sword, eat glass, spit fire, etc eventually somehow gets old. But actual strongmen are few and far between. Sword swallowing is incredibly difficult and dangerous but I have seen dozens of people do it. But before Saturday I had never seen someone bend a steel bar into a bunny head.

Let’s get to the point here… After posting the trailer for Bending Steel on my Tumblr page I was asked to photograph the after party at The Red Door. Aside from free Sailor Jerry rum and a bunch of cute girls running around there was an amazing strongman show! Adam Realman, who hosts the Coney Island Sideshow Spectacular, hosted an evening full of incredible feats of strength featuring Chris “Harculese” Rider, Sonny “Man Of Steel” Barry, Steve “The Crusher” Weiner, Gary “The Brickman” Brown, Bill Solony and of course Wonder Shoeck himself. On top of that Cardone performed a straight jacket escape which is always impressive. The highlight for me was watching Adam Realman blow up a hot water bottle. It’s a feat I have heard about and seen online but never in real life. It’s legitimately terrifying waiting for the bottle to pop, especially being a few feet away from it. A piece of exploding rubber could honestly do some serious damage. Another highlight of the show was just watching the camaraderie of the strongmen. You had four generations of strongmen there rooting each other on. It was a cool glimpse into a world the most people never see.

I didn’t get a chance to see Bending Steel yet but I know it’s playing a few more times this week. Go see it if you live in NYC and if not I am sure it will get distribution and we will all be able to see it soon! Anyway, these photos are pretty cool but you need to see this stuff in real life to really appreciate it. Some of these guys are twice my age and they are beding steel like its tin foil meanwhile I seriously hurt my back trying to rip bubble wrap. Maybe it’s time I started strongman training!

Click here to see all the photos from the Bending Steel Tribeca after party at the Red Door!

Gotta make this quick as SXSW Music week is in full swing, but I wanted to try to get some more stuff up while I had a chance. I saw five films at SXSW and I shot the red carpet for each film. I have seen some really great stuff at SXSW and this year was no exception.

The opening film was the Incredible Burt Wonderstone with Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and Olivia Wilde. Steve Buscemi and Alan Arkin were in it too, but sadly they didn’t show up to the red carpet. Huge films that open at SXSW tend to be really, really funny and Burt Wonderstone was fucking hilarious. Go see it even though it’s about magicians.

The next film I saw was Prince Avalanche directed by David Gordon Green. It had Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in it. It was a slightly confused movie, somewhere in between a comedy and a slow meditation on loneliness. I enjoyed it but I think Paul Rudd fans will find it pretty boring.

The highlight of the festival for me was Joe Swanberg’s film Drinking Buddies. I have known Joe for about 10 years and I have seen probably 5 of his films and enjoyed them all but Drinking Buddies blew me away. It was his first film with big name actors and that helped make the film more accessible and added a lot of emotion that you don’t get from Joe’s indie film friends. I remember thinking Hannah Takes The Stairs was the most real film I had ever seen, but this film had that same realness with a lot of talent and acting chops behind it thanks to Ron Livingston, Anna Kendrick, Oliva Wilde and Jake Johnson. Jake Johnson is really a fantastic actor and was in my favorite film of SXSW last year, Safety Not Guaranteed. At the press conference after the movie all the actors were so complimentary of Joe, I was so damn proud. I think this movie is going to do really well and make Joe a household name. Fuck mumblecore jokes.

Spring Breakers had the most hype at SXSW and it totally lived up to it. Harmony Korine is a fucking lunatic and makes the most insane films that exist. Spring Breakers is no exception. I don’t even know if I liked the film but I was really glad to see it. You need to see it. James Franco plays his weirdest character yet and a bunch of teen idles play over sexed criminals. Also, on the red carpet watching teen girls try to trample each other to get to Selena Gomez was pretty amazing too.

The last film I saw was Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s film Don Juan. He wrote and directed and starred in it. Tony Danza played his father and was really great in it. Tony Danza needs to be getting more work. Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the other hand can fuck himself because he made a film about how bad porn is. Fuck that shit, you puritanical motherfucker. Don’t go see Don Jon. Stay home and jerk off to porn instead.

Click here to see all the red carpet pictures from the 2013 South By Southwest Film Festival.

Every year I split my South By Southwest adventure into two parts. The second week, which starts today is music week and total hell. I work 20 hours a day, take thousands of photos and never sleep, but I tend to make more money than any other week of the year. But the first week is sort of a vacation. I work for the Village Voice, who let me do whatever I want, and I get to shoot movie stars, eat BBQ and watch a bunch of movies. After 10 years of this I have so many friends in Austin and the SXSW Film Fest is pretty much my favorite event of the year.

For my Voice gallery I set up a bunch of mini photo shoots with actors and directors and then I also shot a few red carpets. I will get the red carpets up this week if I have a minute to do so but I wanted to get these portraits up because I am really happy with them and I think you will dig them. My insanity starts tonight but I have a few hours before I have to start working.

The highlight of this gallery is actually for a SXSW Interactive but it features a bunch of movie/tv stars so I am keeping it in this gallery. It’s the cast of JASH the comedian run new YouTube channel from Tim & Eric, Sarah Silverman, Michael Cera and Reggie Watts. I am a fan of all of them so it was great to get a chance to shoot them. I knew Reggie back when I first moved to NYC. I didn’t know if he remembered me but when he realized I ran Driven By Boredom he started talking to me about the naked girls I shoot and told Tim & Eric they needed to see my site. It was a pretty good look and I have loved Reggie’s stuff for years so maybe he and I can do a real shoot because he is the most photogenic human alive.

I got to shoot the stars and director of Milo a film about a monster that lives in Ken Marino’s ass. It sounds completely terrible but I have heard nothing but amazing things about it and I cannot wait to see it. Evidently it is absolutely hilarious. My friend Joe Swanberg (who’s film Drinking Buddies seems to be the talk of the festival) told me that the director Jacob Vaughn was really good and it stars hilarious people in Ken Marino, Gillian Jacobs, Steven Root and another comedian I know and love Kumail Nanjiani. Ken Marino was of course on The State, the last great sketch comedy show and directs pretty much the greatest thing on the internet, Burning Love. Gillian Jacobs is on Community which is one of the weirdest and best shows on TV. She aslo happens to be totally not ugly and was the nicest person I met all week.

My favorite photos I took were for the film Short Term 12, another movie I hear great things about. I got to shoot Brie Larson, who is in pretty much every film at SXSW, and John Gallagher Jr. John is one of the stars of The Newsroom which is the best new show on TV. If you haven’t seen it stop fucking up and steal someone’s HBO Go password immediately. I got to shoot them by the river and it made for some lovely photos.

I got to shoot M. Blash and Chloë Sevigny for their film The Wait. I have had a crush on Ms. Sevigny since I was 15 and I actually was kinda star struck around her which hasn’t happend to me in a long time. I shot her in a plant. It was really important. The first photo I took all week was of Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere. There is a documentary about him called “We Cause Scenes”. I have been an Improv Everywhere fan for a long time and I noticed him at the convention center right after I picked up my badge. I also got to shoot Paul Walker and the director of Hours. Paul was really excited and knew all about my 35mm camera which I was not expecting. You don’t expect the star of Fast and The Furious 6 to be a camera nerd. I shot my friend Davy Rothbart who runs Found Magazine with two of his Medora documentary stars. He spent a season with a high school basketball team in a dying town in Indiana. The film looks really phenomenal as well. I also shot Josh Duhamel, the star of the film Scenic Route. He seemed like a really good dude unlike Adam Brody from Some Girl(s) who pretty much acted like I didn’t exist. His co-star Mía Maestro was lovely though and I very much want to see the Neil LaBute film.

So yeah, that’s a huge write up, but I really like these photos so you should look at them.

Click here to see all my South By Southwest Film Festival portraits!

As we speak (or as I type) I am on an airplane headed to Austin, Texas on my way to South By Southwest. This is not just any SXSW for me; it is my 10th straight SXSW. I started out traveling to Austin when I managed a dance pop band called The Gaskets. After the Gaskets broke up I started going as a member of the media, covering it for the last six years with a camera in hand. This year I am going to be EXTREMELY busy and I will be on the road for at least two weeks. I have a feeling that I won’t be able to update this site as much as I would like to so I wanted to put this post up. I WILL be updating my Twitter, Instagram and most importantly my Tumblr. I will be posting highlights from every day on Tumblr so check over there if I am slow to update this site.

Anyway, in honor of my 10th at SXSW I wanted to give you a little break down of some of the highlights of the last 10 years. Austin is crawling with musicians and celebrities so this list is going to sound a little (okay, a lot) name droppy, so I apologize for that in advance. Just don’t read it if that sort of thing is as grating to you as it is to most people. I am going to include some links and photos to keep you guys entertained while I am busy taking photos 14 hours a day. And if you are going to be in Texas over the next two weeks hit me up! See you guys in a food truck line! (Read the article)

One of the highlights of my photo career is in little red boxes all over New York City right now. After close to four years of working for the web version of the Village Voice I finally got to shoot a print cover, and not just any cover, I got to shoot Lloyd Kaufman. If you don’t know, Lloyd Kaufman is the co-founder of Troma Studios the world’s longest running independent film studio in the world. Lloyd and his crew have been making and distributing some of the worst best films known to man. When I was 14 or 15 a friend who worked at a video store introduced me to the sick world of Troma and I have been hooked ever since. Lloyd Kaufman is one of my heroes and to be able to shoot him for my first Voice cover is a huge honor.

The story was written by my juggalo anthropologist partner in crime Camille Dodero. We traveled to the Gathering of the Juggalos, not once, but twice and we will be forever bonded in Faygo.  I was so psyched she brought me along on her Tromatic journey. You need to read her article on Lloyd!

When the Voice’s photo editor started talking to me about the shoot all I could think about was putting Lloyd in a tutu and having him pose as the Toxic Avenger. Toxie, as he is lovingly called, was the first Troma superhero and The Toxic Avenger was Troma’s first big hit in 1984 and pretty much the basis for everything that has come since. Toxie fights crime with a broom dressed in a tutu and luckily for me the 66 year old Lloyd was ready to take off his pants and put on the pink skirt. The issue was due to come out on July 4th and the original poster for the Toxic Avenger featured Toxie standing in front of an American flag. Troma already had a green screen set up in their office so we just remade the poster with Lloyd as Toxie. It was perfect.

I shot a ton of other photos of Lloyd as well and I was also given a tour of Troma’s Long Island City office. There is so much weird stuff in there and I got to take photos of it all.  After the photo shoot there was a casting for Troma’s newest film, a remake of their classic “Class of Nuke ‘em High”. My friend Zac was actually the first person to audition and he ended up getting completely naked and vomiting fake green puke all over the place. Zac is not a skinny man and the whole thing was quite horrific in the best possible way. I decided you need to see all of these out takes so I am providing a wonderful gallery of pictures of Lloyd, the Troma offices and a naked fat man puking. Be warned it is very not safe for work.

So yeah, read Camille’s article and then click right here to see all my outtakes from the Lloyd Kaufman Village Voice shoot and my tour of Troma Studios!

Just saw this trailer for Django Unchained the new film from Quentin Tarantino. It’s been out for a minute but I wasn’t aware of it until last night. Since 95% of people have never seen any of the Django films let me give you some info about this film and why I am fucking exited about it.

I am a film nerd but it’s kinda under cover these days. I actually moved to NYC mostly so I could see films that I couldn’t see when I was living in Richmond, VA. I pride myself in having an eclectic taste and watching the Hollywood blockbusters as well as the underground indie stuff and all the film classics but my specialty is exploitation film.

I could give you 100 pages on exploitation film but let’s try to make it simple. Exploitation pictures were generally low budget films that exploited things like violence, nudity, etc to make a profitable fim cheaply. My personal favorite subgenre is Blaxploitation which “exploited” the previously untapped African American filmgoing market. Before 1971 there were pretty much no films catering to a huge American population. These films were made cheaply and often featured sex and violence to sell the picture.

As you probably know Quentin Tarantino is a huge exploitation fan and pretty much every film he makes is a reference to a bunch of them. Jackie Brown is actually named after exploitation director Jack Hill and his Blaxploitation classic Foxy Brown. His Grindhouse film Death Proof is just his own attempt at making a Carsploitation film and Kill Bill is just one reference after another.

Okay, so let’s get to the point cause this is beginning to drift. Tarantino is remaking Django. It’s been made 30 times and the original was pretty much a remake of a remake. Four years ago I reviewed Sukiyaki Western Django, the Takashi Miike remake of Django which actually featured Quentin Tarantino in an acting roll and I am going to quote that to you for some important background…

Let’s start with answering the question: What is a Spaghetti Western?

Spaghetti Westerns were Westerns made by Italian’s shot in Spain, primarily in the 1970?s. They used Italian actors to play Mexicans in the west. They also employed international actors and had them all speaking different languages to each other. The most well known of these movies were the Leone/Eastwood “Man With No Name” films… A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More and Good The Bad And The Ugly. In these films Clint Eastwood spoke English to the Italian actors speaking Italian. When the film was released in the States, Eastwood’s dialogue remained his own, but the Italian actors had their voices dubbed into English. This was reversed for the Italian releases. These films were generally low budget, but often ultra violent making them especially interesting to American audiences. These movies gained significant influence in the world of American filmmaking.

So the next thing we need to talk about is Yojimbo. Yojimbo was a samurai film made in 1961 staring Toshiro Mifune made by the legend Akira Kurosawa in 1961. It was about a samurai who comes to a small town that is stuck in a war between two rival gangs who run gambling houses. Yojimbo convinces one gang to hire him for protection and then plays the two gangs against each other, getting money on both ends. Despite my love for Kurosawa and Mifune it is not one of my top 5 favorite Samurai films… however two of it’s remakes are two of my favorite movies of all time.

The first of these was the previously mentioned A Fistful of Dollars in 1964. This put Spaghetti Westerns on the map and made both Eastwood and Sergio Leone famous. Only 2 years later a bad ass motherfucker named Sergio Corbucci decided to remake A Fistful Of Dollars… only this time he added more blood. You know that scene in Reservoir Dogs when Mr. Blonde cuts off that cops ear? Well he stole that from Corbucci’s remake 1966 Django. Corbucci, while not as well known as Leone, is probably just as amazing, and definitely way more fucked up.

Okay so now Tarantino is finally doing is proper remake of the Django story and I could not be more excited. By the look of it Tarantino is not only referencing the original Django film but other Corbucci films as well. Specifically I see references to my favorite Corbucci film “The Grand Silence” which featured Klaus Kinski as a bounty hunter. The choice to cast the German actor Christopher Waltz seems as a bounty hunter seems like a direct homage to Kinski’s roll. The Grand Silence also features a lot of amazing snow scenes which you don’t see a lot of in westerns and you see a lot of great snow shots in the Django Unchained trailer.

This write up has become long and confusing and is a perfect example of why I started writing about film on my site but I hope this gives you some background about the movie and I hope you search out some of these amazing Spaghetti Westerns. Anything by Leone or Corbucci is very worth picking up. Lastly here are a few clips from some films so you can see what the hell I am talking about.

So everyone I know only cares about SXSW Music and over the last few years everyone in the tech community is raving over SXSW Interactive but as someone who has done nine South by Southwests I will tell you that by far my favorite part is SXSW Film.  I work my ass off during music week so I use the film fest as a mini vacation. I still work and cover the red carpets and things but I also get to see a bunch of movies. This year I think I saw 8 films and as with every other year they were all at least interesting if not fantastic. I also set up a few mini shoots with actors/directors from movies in the festival so I got some shots of something other than people standing on a yellow back drop.  Here are some highlights…

My favorite film of the festival was Safety Not Guaranteed. It’s a “quirky” film about a three journalists trying to do a story on a guy who posted a classified ad looking for a partner to travel back in time with him. It stars Mark Duplass and my biggest celebrity crush Aubrey Plaza. The film is absolutely hilarious, has fantastic performances from all the main rolls and ends with a bang. I got five minutes with Plaza, Duplass and Jake Johnson to do mini photo shoots which would have been awesome except about 30 seconds before I met the cast I stuck my hand in my pocket and when I pulled out a pack of gum I ripped open a cut on my hand and just started bleeding everywhere. It was really awesome meeting one of my favorite actresses with “I would shake your hand but it’s covered with blood.”

The most fucked up film of the festival was far and away was William Fridkin’s Killer Joe based of the Tracy Letts play of the same name. Matthew McConaughey stars as lawman turned hitman who has been hired by Emile Hirsch to kill his drug addicted mother so he can collect on her life insurance policy and pay back some scary people that he owes money. The also features Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church and Gina Gershon in secondary rolls that they knock out of the park. Haden Church gives a really dark film moments of much needed hilarity with his dead pan delivery. Another one of my all time celebrity crushes, Gershon is involved in one of the most fucked up scenes ever put on film which I cannot even mention without ruining it but it involves fried chicken.

The most suprizing film was 21 Jump Street.  Every year at SXSW Film there seem to be one or two big blockbusters that premiere there and you aren’t exactly sure why. Festival curator Janet Pierson defended the Hollywood film before it’s introduction as saying they just like good movies and 21 Jump Street is hilarious.  She was right. I loved 21 Jump Street as a kid so I wanted to see it but I had very low expectations but the film ended up being one of the funniest movies I have seen this year. (I know it’s only March but I watch a lot of movies…) Jonah Hill was his normal funny self but he also produced the film and brought Channing Tatum on board. Tatum was unbelievably good in it and you have to give a lot of credit to Hill for believing that Tatum could actually be funny. If you aren’t aware, the 80′s TV show 21 Jump Street was not a comedy and instead of doing a remake the movie just takes the basic premise of the show (young looking cops going undercover in high schools) and making a really funny movie at it. Unlike other TV show film remakes they only took a few shots at the original show and instead focused on making a solid comedy that didn’t feel like a remake.

Lastly I wanted to talk about the premiere of HBO’s TV show Girls. I am gonna probably get into this show a lot more soon since it is written, directed and starring my friend Lena Dunham (and I even have a line in episode 7) but I wanted to at least mention it. Lena came to SXSW two years ago with her film Tiny Furniture and I was standing a few feet away from her when it won Best Naritive Feature and I was super proud of her and knew she was going to do big things.  I had no idea that she would blow up as quickly as she did. She showed the first three episodes of her Judd Apatow produced HBO comedy and they were even better than I imagined. Two Showtime execs were sitting next to me in the crowd and even they had to begrudgingly admit that the show was going to be a hit. Just be in front of a TV April 14th and you will see what I am talking about.

So yeah, SXSW Film was fucking awesome. I saw a bunch more stuff too so I just wanted to give quick nods to Mike Birbiglia’s Sleep Walk With me and Fat Kid Rules the World. Both were fantastic films that are well worth seeking out when they are released. And I also should mention that I shot photos of the stars/directors of Sun Don’t Shine, Beauty Is Embarrassing, Compliance and Small Apartments. I did’t get a chance to see any of the films but they all looked great and I hope to get a chance to see them soon.

Now click here to see all the photos I took during the 2012 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX.

Today we are going to take a break from photos and just regale you with stories.  I was thinking about what I was going to update with today and I realized I didn’t really have anything which led me to realize that I haven’t shot many parties or anything really. But I feel like the last week or so has been pretty productive and interesting so I guess I will just tell you a few stories and you will just have to imagine the pictures in your head… at least until I get my film developed.

I think my week of reasonable productivity began last Sunday when I photographed Veruca James naked in public.  Those are the last pictures I took that you have actually seen.  On that shoot I found out that my friend Colin had died two weeks prior and no one had told me. I missed the Facebook invite to his funeral. I was on very little sleep and while I had been expecting his death for some time it really had an effect on me. I had been planning a trip to Virginia to go to his memorial service for a few months ever since he checked into hospice and finding out that he died and I didn’t know about it really fucked up my head.  I wanted to see a movie to get my mind of things so I tried to get my friend Promise to go see Pirates 4 with me because it would allow me to zone out for a while but she wanted to see something with a little more substance so we went and checked out a movie called Blank City about the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression underground NYC film movements of the late 70′s and early 80′s.  The movie was so inspiring and so depressing to me. Here were these people making so much art and collaborating and just living in NYC when it was this burned out shell of a place where you could live for $50 a month. And here I am 30 years later taking photos of drunk people instead of making something relevant or important.

So this post ended up being obscenely long so I need to create a jump. If you want to keep reading click below unless of course you came to this post directly making these instructions just confusing and unnecessary.

(Read the article)

South By Southwest is more than just a music festival. The Interactive part of SXSW is getting bigger and bigger every year but it seems like SXSW Film gets a bit over looked. This is a mistake. The SXSW Film Fest is amazing. I have probably seen 25 movies at the festival over the last few years and I can’t think of one movie I didn’t like and I have seen a bunch that I loved.  This year I didn’t get to see as many as I would have liked to but I saw some great movies. I am not going to write anything up because I went in a lot of this stuff before.  You can read my write up of a few of the 2011 SXSW Films here. But I did want to get up all my red carpet shots for you guys. I know the ladies will be psyched to see the Jake Gyllenhall pics from the Source Code premiere. So yeah, get excited.

Click here to see all the 2011 SXSW Film red carpet shots at the Paramount in downtown Austin, TX.