NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Zoe Lister-Jones + Sam Rosen: STUCK BETWEEN STATIONS NYC Theatrical Premiere!

NYC Theatrical Premiere, One Week Only!

@ reRun Theater inside reBar Gastropub in DUMBO, Brooklyn 

147 Front Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

Just one block from from the York St F train stop!

*** Filmmakers & Special Guests in person
FRIDAY, Nov. 4 and SATURDAY, Nov. 5 ***

STUCK BETWEEN STATIONS is a witty romantic drama starring rising talents Zoe Lister-Jones (BREAKING UPWARDS) and co-writer Sam Rosen (FOUR BOXES), plus Michael Imperioli (HBO's THE SOPRANOS) and Josh Hartnett (THE BLACK DAHLIA). Acclaimed at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Brady Kiernan's directorial debut makes its New York theatrical premiere with a week-long run, November 4 - 10.

Casper (Rosen) is a young soldier home from Afghanistan on bereavement leave after the death of his father. On his last night in town, a near-miss bar fight in the old neighborhood leads to a chance run-in with his childhood crush Rebecca (Lister-Jones), now a grad student coping with a foundering academic career and a fraught relationship with her married academic advisor (Imperioli). Over the course of a single night, the two traverse a striking Minneapolis cityscape, growing closer but knowing they will inevitably have to part ways at dawn. As the pair muse on the nature of life, fear, youth, and disappointment, at turns falling in love and falling apart, their journey mirrors that of a restless generation torn between promise and malaise.

85 minutes. In English. Presented in Blu-ray. Unrated. A Wrekin Hill Entertainment release. 

 

SHOWTIMES: 
FRIDAY, November 4 (7pm) * SPECIAL GUESTS IN PERSON *
SATURDAY, November 5 (7pm, 10pm) * SPECIAL GUESTS IN PERSON *
SUNDAY, November 6 (12 noon)
MONDAY, November 7 (10pm)
TUESDAY, November 8 (10pm)
WEDNESDAY, November 9 (7pm, 10pm)
THURSDAY, November 10 (7pm)

GET TICKETS HERE http://stuckbetweenstations.eventbrite.com/

WATCH THE TRAILER

"Easy to fall in love with! STUCK BETWEEN STATIONS has very likable leads, adorable moments, heavy and deep exchanges and satisfyingly turns."
- Christopher Campbell, SPOUT

"The interplay between Becky and Casper is cautiously playful, funny and informed: They know enough about each other not to have to struggle for conversation. They're different enough to make it textured, wary enough to make it complicated. Real people may not be this glib and witty, but Rosen and Lister-Jones sell us on Casper and Becky nonetheless."
- John Anderson, VARIETY

"...there is a specificity to the script and a credibility and likeability to the central performances that kept me engaged. I didn’t know Zoe Lister Jones and Sam Rosen (both seen in “Breaking Upwards”) before seeing the movie; but I’d like to see more of them.

- Anthony Kaufman,REEL POLITIK

"The script, written by Rosen and Nat Bennett, is chock with enough wonderfully playful exchanges to keep the film humming...and there's a palpable chemistry between Lister-Jones and Rosen that makes such a transient bond feel possible and full of possibilities."

-IFC

http://www.stuck-between-stations.com/

http://www.facebook.com/stuckbetweenstations

 

Hoda Garnett, 1927-2011

Photo: Hoda Garnett

Hoda Garnett, née Abushady, age 84, of East Islip, passed away on October 13, 2011.

Born on October 2, 1927, in Alexandria, Egypt, Hoda was the youngest of three children born to Anna (née Bamford) and Dr. Ahmed Zaki Abushady, renowned poet, publisher, scientist and professor of medicine at the University of Alexandria. In 1946, the Abushady's emigrated from Egypt to the United States, arriving by ship in New York Harbor in April of that year.

Hoda was a photographer by vocation. She became a news photographer while serving in the U.S. Navy (1952-56), the first native-born Egyptian to become a WAVE. A long-time member of the Professional Photographers of America, Hoda's work garnered many awards and was widely published, appearing in LIFE magazine and elsewhere.

Hoda was a world traveler and a prolific artist. Living and raising a family for many years on Long Island's South Shore, she was drawn to documenting the landscapes of her locale: shore lines, light houses, bridges, night skies, snow-covered ponds, birches in bloom, children at the beach. Hoda had a keen eye for detail, a documentarian's compulsion to record, and a great appreciation for the beauty found in the everyday.

Surviving her is her husband of 55 years, Dr. Merrill Garnett; a daughter and a son: Joy of Brooklyn, NY, and Wade of East Islip, NY. She also leaves her sister, Safeya Abushady of Alexandria, VA, two grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

Memorial services and interment will be at the convenience of the family. Arrangements were made through Chapey Funeral Home, Main Street, East Islip, NY 11730

"erica"

"erica" (Times Square series). Seems timely. ~ JG

On Chilling Effects and Teaching

This is a great post from the ever-thoughtful Nancy Sims, aka @CopyrightLbn (via @IPJustice):

On not scaring people.

By Nancy Sims on October 5, 2011 5:44 PM | 2 Comments

For folks who haven't thought much about copyright before, the end result of attending one of my presentations or workshops, especially ones focused on fair use, is sometimes a very constraining feeling of fear. I've known about the problem for a while, and have tried a number of more and less successful techniques to prevent or address it. Fear and risk-aversion is SO not a good copyright-education result.

On Monday I had to do a presentation for a slightly larger group than usual (about 50 people), and rather than repeatedly split in to small groups to discuss fair use examples, I switched up the plan a bit, and put some examples on the screen for whole-group discussion. The switchup resulted in a truly unexpected moment of insight. Here's the slide that caused the revelation:

This slide went up on the screen after a long discussion of the details and flexible nature of fair use. Even knowing about my "scaring people" problem, I was kind of shocked that, when I asked "Is this fair use?", the whole group answered back firmly, "No."

Reproducing an image like this would of course not always be a fair use, but the situation described on the slide is certainly not a slam-dunk, easy, clear, 100% "no way". Yet almost everyone in that room was pretty sure it was not fair use. Here was my fear problem demonstrated boldly (and in a distressingly large percentage of attendees.)

Not quite sure where it'd take me, I asked the group to walk through the four statutory fair use factors. What's the purpose? (Educational, non-profit, possibly commentary, they answered.) What's the nature of the copyrighted work? (Published, mostly factual, they answered.) What amount is being used? (Not much, they answered, just a small part of the book. I pointed out that it was all of the image...) What effect would this use have on the market? (None, they answered. I pointed out that if the rightsholder was willing to sell a license for the use, there might, in fact, be some market harm.) By the end of this quick exchange, I was pleased that the group seemed to have backed away from that initial fear-based response. In fact, they may have moved a little too far away - they stampeded kind of quickly towards "totally obviously fair use!" (Fair use is never totally obvious.)

On reflection, I think one of the biggest pieces of my "scaring people" problem may just be a too-fast transition from the general principles to specific application. We went from "here are the things one must think about in relation to fair use questions" directly to "do you think this is a fair use?" When you've only just begun learning about fair use, there are JUST SO MANY THINGS TO THINK ABOUT that even for the very smart, analytical, clear-eyed folks I often work with at the University, it's overwhelming to try to apply them independently right off the bat.

Taking a moment to stop along the way at "Here's a fair use question; let's think it through together" seems to be a really good tool for defusing the fear and sense of constraint. Tried a guided analysis process in a smaller group workshop today, and already the follow-up evaluations seem to show fewer participants feeling overwhelmed and/or confused after they leave. I don't think it's completely solved the problem - the uncertainty inherent in fair use just is kind of scary, especially when you're new at this stuff. But I'm glad to have accidentally uncovered another tool for my fear-defusing toolbox.

Don't forget to read the Comments.

 

Copyright Fraud Meets Salvator Mundi

Image via

via Techdirt:

Can You Infringe On Da Vinci? Judge Seems To Think So

from the the-public-domain-is-dead dept

by Mike Masnick Fri, Oct 7th 2011 12:07pm

JJ sends over this ridiculous story of a federal court issuing an injunction to stop the display of a photo of a da Vinci painting on a website, because it might be copyright infringement. As you may recall, Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. One would think that any work he created would now be in the public domain. In this case, we're talking about a painting called Salvator Mundi, which only recently was "authenticated" as being done by da Vinci (though, I'm still really skeptical concerning the whole art "authentication" business). Apparently very few people have actually seen this "newly discovered" da Vinci. The small company that was set up to own the painting and any money that comes from it, Salvator Mundi LLC (SMLLC), hired a photographer to create photographs of the image, but then wanted to massively control the promotion of the painting.

SMLLC is claiming copyright on the photograph of the painting, arguing that while it may not hold the copyright on the painting itself, it can still hold the copyright on the photograph. Of course, that's only true if significant artistic decisions were made in making the photograph... and then the copyright would only cover those pieces. Either way, someone got ahold of the photo and posted it to her own website. SMLLC claimed that this was infringing. The woman, Laura Sotka, tried to explain US copyright law the lawyers, who responded by suing.

The case is now ongoing... and the court's first big move is to issue a preliminary injunction, blocking the dissemination of the copyrighted photographs. Of course, that seems a bit extreme, especially if she's later found to be doing everything legally. Of course, it's not entirely clear what SMLLC thinks it's doing here either. Hiding the painting away doesn't contribute to culture and it certainly doesn't help make people any more interested in checking it out. And without more details it's difficult to say if SMLLC really has a legitimate copyright claim, but I find it unlikely. It is worth pointing out that under Bridgeman v. Corel, a photograph of a public domain image can not be protected by copyright. So unless there's something amazingly creative that the photographer did, SMLLC probably does not have a legitimate claim here. What's unfortunate is that the courts have been dragging such a silly case on for so long -- and, in the meantime, the woman being sued still has to live with such a bogus claim hanging over her head.

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