Process from Jonathan Poritsky on Vimeo.

Graduation Cake Guy by CarbonNYC

This time of year, I get a handful of e-mails from recent college graduates asking for jobs and advice about getting started in the film business. I always love responding to all of them. As a blogger, obviously I love it when people listen to my opinions. Naturally, I tend to repeat myself a lot, so I started thinking , why not just pile all of that advice into a single post that I can reference when people have questions. This advice isn’t limited just to college grads or even the younger set. If you’re in the mood for a career change there might be some tidbits you can use in here. So clean out those ears and listen up, here is the candler’s guide to starting out in the film industry. Continue reading at the candler blog…

• @repressd Whoops! Good job! Too many to read, great minds think alike.. Chew on this: Bedtime for Garbonzo #filmfoodeating NOW I’M DONE!
• My final #filmfoodeating Spider-Flan, Grouperman, Cat on a Pot Pie Roof, Beauty and the Feast, Cracker, Gumbo, Free Chili, Meat Streets
• Oklahomefries! #filmfoodeating that one’s for you @deadcenter
• Canard Boiled #filmfoodeating addendum to John Woo Edition
• Lard Target, A Feta Tomorrow, Face Froth #filmfoodeating John Woo Edition
• Purple Chrain #filmfoodeating @kashrutnews @Jewishtweets I know you’ll get this.
• Spinal Frappe, Henry Portrait of a Cereal Killer, Boureka (baraka), Black Nar-tzimis, Gentlemen’s A-quiche-ment #filmfoodeating
• Passion of the Slice, Greatest Story Jello Mold #filmfoodeating Jesus Edition
• Fiddler on the Stew, The Cholent (the chosen), Lentil #filmfoodeating Jewish Edition
• Husbands and Chives, Shadows and Nog, Brine and Misdemeanors, Bananas #filmfoodeating Woody Allen Edition
• Wages of Pear, Á Bout de Soufflé, Elevator to the Shallots, The Seventh Veal #filmfoodeating @CRITERION Edition
• Last Bite at McCool’s, Lawrence of Arrabiata, Cakes on a Plane, The Graviator, Meringues of New York, I Am Ham #filmfoodeating
• While You Were Eating, Juarassic Tarte #filmfoodeating contributed by my twitterless girlfriend
• Leaving Lox Vegas #filmfoodeating this one is sort of a repeat, but I couldn’t resist.
• Guacstoppers, Blue Chips , Leaving Manchego, Vicky Tortilla Barcelona #filmfoodeating
• You’ve Got Kale #filmfoodeating
• Detroit Guac City #filmfoodeating that ones for you @NachosNY
• Bakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo #filmfoodeating
• Gourd of the Rings #filmfoodeating
• I don’t know why this is trending, but I love it #filmfoodeating Schindler’s Grits

Unlike some other 2009 blockbuster, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have crafted a legitimate origin story for the franchise. The film opens with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock as children on their respective planets showing a distinct promise of greatness. Over the years, the Star Trek galaxy has become so vast that the characters within it seem to have shrunk in stature, considered more to be model citizens of the Federation than anything more. By focusing on the early years of these two shipmates, Mr. Abrams is emphasizing that Kirk, Spock and their cohorts are not the norm; they are extraordinary; they are superheroes. Continue reading at the candler blog.

The Castle in the Forest: A Novel by Norman Mailer

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book it tough to swallow as it humanizes one of the most vile people in history, Adolf Hitler. However, once I allowed myself to get into the book, I saw the genius behind Mailer’s work. If we humanize a man by seeing him through the eyes of a devil, what does that say about us? Layers and questions fill this book, making it more of a stimulating read than an informational one. Also, Mailer’s prose is incredible here. He is like a chameleon, entering an older dialect for an older tale. I knew he was great, just didn’t realize he was so diverse. A master of letters! (exclamation points add to the book’s charm. check it out.

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Drugs, guns, vulgarity and rims are just the tip of the pigeonholed iceberg that is Benny Boom’s feature debut, Next Day Air; but what this little caper has that so many other films of a similar ilk lack is heart, and lots of it.

The improbable story follows ten bricks of cocaine from a formidable drug dealer in Calexico, California to his dispatcher in Philadelphia by way of an overnight delivery service, Next Day Air. Donald Faison, of Scrubs fame, plays Leo Jackson, a chronically stoned delivery man for the fictitious company, whose mind is so clouded on the job that he delivers the coke to apartment 302 instead of 303, setting events in motion. The drugs end up in the hands of fledgling criminals Guch, Brody and Hassie instead of the diminutive yet feisty Jesus, who prefers to be called “Gee-sus” rather than “Hay-zoos”. While Hassie is sleeping on the couch, as he is for the most of the film, Guch and Brody, played with an incredible balance of humor and charisma by Wood Harris and Mike Epps, respectively, hatch a plan to sell the dope to Brody’s cousin, Shavoo, before the rightful owners get wise to the mistake. Think of it like True Romance but without white people and set in Philly. Continue reading at the candler blog.

The film opens with a hint of promise in northwestern Canada in 1845. A sickly young James Logan, who is to become our Wolverine, accidentally kills his biological father (who had just killed his adopted father!) with his newly discovered retractable bone claws and runs off to the woods. There, another boy, Victor, who we just learned is in fact James’s brother, is waiting. They run off together, promising never to separate and to never go back.

As it turns out, Victor is a mutant just like James. He will grow up to become who X-heads will recognize as Sabretooth, though filmgoers will never know that as he is never bestowed a fabulous nom de guerre as our hunky Logan is (Wolverine, rawr). Since their main power is the ability to cheat death, they live on through history, though oddly, United States history. For whatever reason, these two mutant Canucks fight in every major U.S. war of the last two centuries. This confusion is compounded by the question: if they are immortal, why did they choose to stay thirty-five forever? Normally I might gloss over these niggles, but this is an origin story after all; these are the questions we need answers to. Continue reading at the candler blog.

Setting aside (most of) the raunch and raucousness of 2007’sSuperbad, writer/director Greg Mottola offers us a view of young adults that has become frighteningly rare in Hollywood. Grounded yet hopeful, with limited but sufficient resources, James and his love interest, Em, are relatable and realistic twenty-somethings, not overly ironic Napoleon Dynamites or vacuous shells like those found on NBC’s failedQuarterlife (does anyone even remember that show?). It’s hard to describe their trials without giving away much of the film’s draw, so let’s mostly take a look at the who instead of the what. Continue reading on the candler blog…