Reelin'
in the
Years:
Part
Six









Click here for part four

Film folk in Seattle, circa 2008-10.

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Above: Author Sherman Alexie (The Toughest Indian in the World)
introduces Kent Mackenzie's The Exiles at the NWFF in 2008. The Mile-
stone DVD features commentary from Alexie and Sean Axmaker.


















Alexie lets out a laugh after the screening of The Exiles.


















Barry Jenkins and NWFF program director Adam Se-
kuler after a 2009 screening of Medicine for Melancholy.


















Jenkins takes questions from the audience. Dig
the way the coffee cup completes the outfit!


















Actor/director/raconteur Melvin Van Peebles
and NWFF executive director Lyall Bush in 2009.















Boston Phoenix critic/filmmaker Gerald Peary in-
troduces For the Love of Movies at the NWFF in 2010.

More images to come...



Endnote: Cross-posted to Facebook and Siffblog. Click the
links for reviews of The Exiles, Medicine for Melancholy, For
the Love of Movies, and Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfoot-
ed Mutha. All photos taken with Kodak one-time use cameras.

Read more »

Reelin' in the Years: Part One

Chapter Two: 1990s-00s (click here for Chapter One)













Not sure when this was taken, but it was probably
around 1991. I volunteered at KCMU between 1988-
92, serving as music director for three of those years.
Here, I'm with Mike D of the Beastie Boys and some
fellow DJs, including Rob Green in his trademark
KGB t-shirt. I'm wearing my KXLU "More
Punk, Less Junk" tee. We wuz stylin'.












Not sure when this was taken, but I rem-
ember the location: the photo booth in
the Broadway Market on Capitol Hill.












Same story as above.












Cider at the Blue Star, circa '05.












At the 'Star again, around the same time.












Party at the Baranof, circa '08.












SIFF closing night part, '09.

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Endnote: Click the links for Reelin' in the
Years: Part Two (film folk), Three (cats),
Four (more film folk), and Five (relatives).

Read more »

Reelin' in the Years: Part Five

Chapter Two: It's All Relative
More snaps of the family (click here for Chapter One)

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Above: Dad and Granddad; between high school
and college. In purely cinematic terms, Dad served
in the Army post-M*A*S*H, pre-Apocalypse Now.

Grandma Fennessy. After her death in 1969, my
grandfather moved back to Ireland, never to return.

Mom
wash-
ing the
dishes.
There's
some-
thing
uninten-
tionally
noirish
about
this
photo.

Mom strikes a pose.

Mom and Dad in the Mad Men years.

Mom, me, and a bear.

Mom, me, and some chickens.

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Endnote: Click here for Part Four ("Celebs
Invade Seattle"). Cross-posted at Facebook.

Read more »

Reelin' in the Years: Part Five

Chapter One: It's All Relative
Snaps of the family. My favorite soap opera.

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Above: My grandfather, Edmund Francis Fennessy, in
the Irish Guards, circa 1918. A lifelong member of the IRA,
he was the ultimate badass. That said, I can't quite make
him out; possibly the guy in the back, to the far right.

My grand-
mother, Marguerite "Rita" Mitchard, and her
sister, Elizabeth "Bet" Mitchard, just off the boat
from Liverpool. Note the golf clubs.

Grandma Ransom (née Scav-
etta, later Kiley) and Mom.

Mom sings a tune.

Dad as a teen. After his stint in the Army (working
underground), he became a spectacle-sporter, and
has been wearing aviator-style frames ever since.

Mom in a photo taken, developed, cropped,
and crinkled by Dad.

Click here for It's All
Relative: Chapter Two

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Endnote: Click here for Part Four ("Celebs Invade Seat-
tle"). Cross-posted at Facebook. Thanks to my Dad for taking/preserving, scanning, and sending these images.

Read more »

Reelin' in the Years: Part Four













Click here for part two

Unlike part two, these pictures of film folk in Seattle, cir-
ca 2007-8, took place in venues other than Wallingford's
Blue Star Café (which I once reviewed for Seattle Sound).

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Above: At Quinn's on Capitol Hill. Filmmakers Robinson
Devor and Charles Mudede (Police Beat, Zoo), editor
Mark Peranson (Cinema Scope), and executive direc-
tor Michael Seiwerath (Northwest Film Forum). Per-
anson had just introduced the NWFF's Pedro Costa ret-
rospective. Photo taken on 12/07 by E. Steven Fried.










"Critics Critiqued," 2/08 installment of the NWFF's quar-
terly Filmmaker's Saloon. Mudede, Jay Kuehner (Cin-
ema Scope, GreenCine Daily), me, and moderator/board
member Johan Liedegren. Photo by the NWFF.

Seiwerath and actor/director Bobcat Goldthwait at the NWFF
in 7/08. Goldthwait was just about to introduce Hal Ashby's debut,
The Landlord, a film he hadn't seen. (Producer/board president Jen-
nifer Roth talked him into offering his services as a benefit for the
NWFF.) Instead, Goldthwait, who was in town shooting World's
Greatest Dad with Robin Williams, spoke to his affection for
Ashby's better known follow-up, Harold and Maude.














Me and Goldthwait. Before introducing The Land-
lord, he told me he'd always had a certain fondness
for Ashby's Secondhand Hearts with Robert Blake.

Daniel Clowes (Ghost World,
Art School Confidential) and editor/publisher/co-founder Gary Groth at the Fantagraphics Store on 9/08. I asked Clowes if he was still working with Michel Gondry on an adaptation of Rudy Rucker's Master of Space and Time. He said they had decided it was impossible. Instead, he, Gon-
dry, and Gondry's son, Paul, are working on an original project.

Click here for part six

Endnote: All unattributed photos taken by me with Kodak one-
time use cameras. Click here for Part One and here for Part Three.

Read more »

Reelin'
in the
Years:
Part
Three

Chapter
Two: Lola
(in a class
by herself)

Checking out the street through the blinds.

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[Please pardon any formatting problems below; Blogger ap-
pears to be enjoying a non-alignment pact with alignment.]

Herewith a tribute to Lola, my tiny grey cat. As

Robert Smith once sang, "All cats are grey (in the

dark)." Though undersized, she's energetic, af-

fectionate, and has the world's softest coat.

Waking from a nap, feeling woozy.

Feeling quizzical.

Star of her own personal David Lynch film.

Poster art for INLAND EMPIRE II: Lola Strikes Back.

A more pastoral version of the same image, courtesy me
(photo and ephemera), Susie Ghahremani (handbill),
and Giant Robot, who hosted her art show. For more
information about Ghahremani, please click here.

Not a very flattering picture, but the expression is priceless.

Click here for Chapter One: All My Cats

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Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook as Lo lo lo
Lola. Lo lo lo Lola. Click here for Reelin' in the Years,
Part One (me) and here for Two (film friends).

Read more »

Reelin'
in the
Years:
Part
Three



Chapter
One: The
Cats






The shot above doesn't do Onyx justice. I've never met a
more handsome fellow. He even won the Anchorage cat
show one year, and he was a mixed breed (like all our cats).

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After a flurry of images featuring me and my friends,
I figured it was time to give the cats some. It isn't that
my life revolves around the furry creatures—it doesn't,
I swear—but that they've always been a part of my life.

Sometimes they drive me up the wall (whining, scratching).
Sometimes I drive them up the wall (whining, scratching...),
but I appreciate their companionship and entertaining antics.

















Onyx enjoys the world's best nap.












Harpo posing in our overgrown yard on Garfield Street, surrounded by dandelion and clover. Feline lieukemia got him at two years old.







Emma, my first cat. She was so healthy for so much of
her life, I was sure she'd live a long time, but she was
felled by intestinal cancer at 11. She was a sweetheart.

Sterling posing for the camera—back when he
was small enough to fit atop my tiny dresser.

Sterling napping with Emma (he's on the bed, she's on the
floor). I've never had a cat who didn't love to laze in the sun.

Click here for Chapter Two: Lola (in a class by herself)

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Endnote: All photos taken by my mom (Anchorage) or my-
self (Seattle). In my case, I opted for Kodak one-time use dis-
posable cameras. Missing cats: Rover, Bayla, Luna, and Sam,
AKA Vlad the Impaler, all of whom were short-timers com-
pared to the characters above. Cross-posted at Facebook
as All My Cats. Click here for Reelin' in the Years, Part
One (me) and here for Two (my film friends).

Read more »

Reelin' in the Years: Part Two












Click here for part one

I took the following pictures at several different First Fridays, circa 2004-2006. The location: Wallingford's Blue Star Café. FF
is a long-running monthly opportunity for Seattle film writers and friends to eat, drink, gossip, kvetch, commiserate, and exchange and/or purge DVDs, CDs, and printed materials. Oh yeah, and to drink. Note that my weapon of choice is a disposable black and white camera, so the photo quality is a little...interesting.

Above: Sean Axmaker and Mark Rahner looking shady.

Sean telling me to stop drinking cider...or something. I have
no idea, incidentally, who took this pic. Whoever you are: your
composition skills are boss. David Bailey—watch your back!

Tom Keogh, Robert Horton, Jeff Shannon, and
Steven Fried go crazy with the condiments.












Richard T. Jameson: relaxed, Bob Cumbow: sur-
prised, and me: giddy as a goddamned school girl!

Clarke Fletcher and Jeff.

Saving the best—and only color photo—
for last: Mark and Bob prop
up Clarke.

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Endnote: Click here for more film folk photos.

Read more »