Last night I attended the opening night of AFI SilverDocs which kicked things off with a screening of “More Than A Game.” Director Kristopher Belman and the complete cast (including King James) walked the Red Carpet for the press and fans that tried to enter the Press pen to snap photos and scream questions. Sorry guys but I don’t think LeBron is here to talk about Kobe or the Orlando Magic. Also folks, leave the questions to the actual press.
Here’s the some video I shot while I was on the Red Carpet (trust me it sounds cool but I’ve done press lines like this one before, it’s always a fight.)
As of the film I’ll be posting a complete review of that later today, I just got off the phone with director Kristopher Belman and I’m currently trying to finish the piece up before I have to go back to Silver Spring- but I will say this: never has a basketball movie ever made me cry. Ever. Not even Air Bud.
This is an amazing film that’s really more than LeBron, and yes, more than a game. The film will be screening again this weekend, check the SilverDocs website for the complete schedule and ticket information.
The Festival will run from Monday, June 15 through Monday June 22 presenting 122 films from 58 countries. Some notable films include tonight’s opening screening of More Than A Game- Kristopher Belman follows five talented young basketball players from Akron, Ohio. Led by future NBA superstar LeBron James and coached by a charismatic yet initially inexperienced player’s father, Dru Joyce III. King James is expected to grace the Red Carpet for tonight’s screening.
The festival will close with a piece that should be of local interest, The Nine Lives of Marion Barry. As any local should know, the former mayor has had his share of successes, failures, and returns. Directors Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer explore this enigma we call Marion Barry. The two directors and Councilman Barry himself should be in attendance this weekend.
You can view the complete schedules of films here. You can purchase tickets at the SilverDocs website, most screenings appear to be in the $10 range but if you are a real docu-junkie you can also get passes to the event, and related conferences and galas.
Amy and I will be in attendance all week so expect lots of recaps, reports, reviews, and if we’re lucky, maybe I’ll get to meet some basketball royalty.
To celebrate Martin Luther King Day I decided to be less destructive and more helpful.
That morning I gathered some food and drove down to the Arlington Food Assistance Center where I did my part and donated to the cause.
I then spent the rest of the day in a quiet Inaugural fashion. I went out on a date that included making an Obama themed bowl at Color Me Mine and an evening viewing of Frost/Nixon. Very presidential. I have to say however that Color Me Mine was everything Lazy Monday said it would be.
Sure, it’s chilly out today, and maybe it feels more like late March than it does late April, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little chilly in exchange for some free ice cream, does it? Ben & Jerry’s is giving out a free scoop of ice cream, for as long as their supply holds, in the greater world today. There are five B&J’s Scoop Shops in the District. Click on the pretty map for all the details.
There are a few outliers as well, including Old Town, Bethesda, and Fairfax, so zoom back if you’re out a bit further so you can get the ice cream love, too. Scooping starts at noon, be prepared to wait in a bit of a line.
The more time I spend telling jokes in and around DC, the more impressed I am with the quality of local talent we have hanging around here. The DC Improv is a great place to see national headliners, but there’s a great, bubbly mass o’ fun happening in smaller venues all around the area.
AFI Silver has extended the run of the magnificent “Lawrence of Arabia” with daily showings at 3pm and 7:15pm from August 31 through September 13. That’s right, daily!
My viewing a few weeks ago reinforced my love for both a sublime film and theater experience. If you’ve been too lazy to catch it, then you really have no bloody excuse now – “HUT HUT HUT!!”
A distributor’s worst nightmare, I’ve given in to the home theater phenomenon when it comes to the movie experience. When I watch movies I want to be transported, and I can’t get into it properly with all the inane audiences yapping and texting. So I’ve curtailed my movie theater outings to special events, films that just beg to be seen on a super large screen. And AFI consistently is the place to go for this kind of transportation.
Sunday nights through September 2 at 7:15pm you can catch David Lean’s masterpiece “Lawrence of Arabia” in “glorious 70mm” as AFI says – and it truly is glorious. The restored print re-released on my eighteenth birthday and has captivated me ever since. Though I’m a huge Peter O’Toole fan, here in his intense cinematic debut, it’s Omar Sharif’s fire and ice performance that really does it for me now (”You will not be in Aqaba!!”). It’s also easily one of the most compelling and quotable scripts of the last century, not to mention, relevant once again.
The beautiful restoration of AFI’s Silver Theater back into an old-school temple of film makes it a great venue to see epics like this one. It sears the screen. You have five chances to escape your couch and go. I suggest you take them.
“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”
This public street, leased to PFA Silver Spring LC and the Peterson Companies for $1 per year, and according to those very same developers, restricted to approved actions and activities, was off-limits to casual photographers like Chip Py.
On July 4th, 2007, it became free for all to digitize, even Flickr-ize when the developers changed their policy to reduce photographic restrictions. On July 5th, real change, not a policy statement, came to the Ellsworth Drive debate. First the Press got involved and then, just last week, the bomb dropped.
“The county considers Ellsworth [Drive] to be a public forum permitting the free and unfettered exercise of First Amendment rights by residents of the county and its visitors to the same extent as those rights are exercisable by residents and visitors to the county on any public sidewalk or public street within the county,”
No word yet on PFA Silver Spring’s reaction, but both Chip Py and I bet there’s freedom of speech at Peterson Companies headquarters this week!
Europe may have the Tour de France (perhaps a bit less exciting with the absence of a certain retired American), but here in Silver Spring we have a bike race of our own. In categories that began at 8:00am, men, women, kids and over-40s were all represented. But the real excitement started at 1:00 with the Silver Spring Grand Prix Men’s Pro 1/2/3.
With pros, including some national champions, entered in the event I was convinced the local boys were out of their league. Surprise! Ken Young, member of a team sponsored by Clean Currents and Don Beyer Volvo, took first place.
With the “ban” lifted, photographers were out in force, including yours truly.
“Road closed” – that is what the sign in the photograph of Ellsworth Drive says and that’s what PFA Silver Spring, LC, the developers of Downtown Silver Spring, said to photographers for years who thought about snapping a picture on this once fully public street. Until last month.
That’s when Chip Py started questioning the policy after he was harassed for photography. And when Metroblogging DC decided to organize a photo walk to visualize his concerns through Free Our Streets.
Now the developer has changed their policy, a first step in the right direction. But a policy statement subject to change at any time is not the answer. Welcoming photography, videography, and other filming on Ellsworth Drive, consistent with First Amendment rights as they would apply on any other public street is.
Chip Py’s run-in with the picture policeof downtown Silver Spring has morphed into a good old American fight for the right to express oneself…
…The Peterson Companies, the developer that took advantage of $100 million in generous taxpayer support to get their lovely downtown retail strip going, is apparently running scared, and has offered what it terms a compromise.
But it’s an empty offer. Peterson will put up a “Welcome Photographers” banner, but the reality is that the company is in no way conceding that the street it controls is open to the public in any meaningful way.
So its time for you to join our good old American fight for the right to express oneself. Its time for you to Free Our Streets with a Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk on the perfect day for a declaration of photographic freedom – July 4th!
Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk a declaration of photographic freedom Wednesday, July 4, 2007, 12:00pm – Noon
At the Green Turf, the corner of Ellsworth and Fenton Streets
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Before everyone goes 
