Lisa Derrick

Director Julien Nitzberg returns to FDL Movie Night with To Be Loved and Understood, his ten minute mini-doc about comic genius  Patton Oswalt. And he’s brought Patton Oswalt with him! The American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor known for roles such as Spencer Olchin in the popular sitcom The King of Queens joins us to discuss, well, whatever we ask, and he’s willing to answer!

This video created by North Korean propagandists is pretty extreme.

The short film is an exercise in propaganda designed to show the worst of America, by highlighting one northeastern city’s homeless during the winter and claiming this is representative of the entire country. The images are truly heart-wrenching. It is a great shameful thing, a hideous reality that our country has so many homeless–it shouldn’t be happening.

The Revolutionary Optimists takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Kolkata (Calcutta), India where lawyer-turned-activist Amlan Ganguly has created a multi-faceted program, Prayasam, which empowers children to improve their communities. With some families working in the brickfields carrying 1500 bricks a day to earn $1.45–and many of children facing the same (lack of) employment options–Amlan creates schools and afterschool clubs that empowers the children and give them the opportunity to dream and to make those dreams into a reality.

She rocks. And she’s right.

A faux cardinal tried to bluff his way into the closed-door Vatican meeting of the world’s cardinals, making it past the first phalanx of Swiss guards before someone noticed his outfit was a little bit off. Not only was his cassock too short, but he’d tied a purple scarf around his waist, and was wearing a fedora.

This image has been repeatedly removed from Facebook user profiles because it’s been reported as pornography/nudity. Fail and fie on Facebook, or rather on the blue-stocking, onion-eyed morans who keep reporting it and the overworked outsourced workers who have no clue.

A Place at the Table –which includes interviews with Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group; authors Marion Nestle and Janet Poppendieck; Dr. J. Larry Brown, a former chairman of the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America; Joel Berg, head of New York City Coalition Against Hunger; and Academy Award winning actor and longtime hunger activist Jeff Bridges– paints a sobering picture of one of the world richest counties whose population is slowly starving in food deserts, while showing us that there has to be a change in long term policies for our long term good as a country.

My neighborhood just got an art upgrade from Shepard Fairey. Our local independent hardware and art supply store Baller Hardware, which is a perfect name for a store in Silver Lake, had a huge boring beige wall, so Fairey, who is friends with the owner and shops at Baller, spent the last two days with a two (cute) dude crew putting up a mural. Since it’s just down the road from me, I went back a few times and documented the process.

Patty Schemel was the drummer in Hole during one of the most gripping periods in modern music. As she was also one of the few women drummers to ever receive any amount of success and an out lesbian–though one who admittedly wasn’t “waving the pink flag” Schemel inspired fans while holding down the chaos of Hole’s live shows.

Numerous musicians and writers as well as Patty’s own band mates discuss her strength, feel, style, and grace as a drummer, as well as her importance as a cultural vanguard in Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel. Tonight’s guests, director/producer/writer P. David Ebersole and writer/producer Todd Hughes, combined interviews with video footage Schemel shot and rediscovered to create a portrait of strength, talent and vulnerability, plus an inside look at the personal lives of some of the most influential cultural figures of 1990s.

Now that we’ve dished on the dresses, speculated on the shoes, and have sampled all our at-home treats, it’s time for the show to begin. SETH MCFARLANE! He’s funny and this may end up being a franchise for him, kinda like Billy Crystal had for a while.  And the Academy Awards Oscars need some stability, what with the name change of both the ceremony and the the theater it’s held in, and the rules. I miss having only five films in Best Picture, since I think it dilutes the vote. I’d love to see Argo win, but it will probably be Lincoln, the easy choice.