Buster Keaton's classic silent, Steamboat Bill, Jr., will screen this Saturday at Chesapeake Arts Center with an original score composed by Anne Watts and performed "live" by Boister. You might have caught Watts (who's married to this blogger) talking about the show with Tom Hall on WYPR's Maryland Morning earlier this week. It also got [...]

During a recent interview with This American Life host Ira Glass, I asked about his favorite storytellers. Here's his list...
Errol Morris
Michael Lewis ("especially The Blind Side")
Malcolm Gladwell
Jack Hitt
David Sedaris
"The guys who put together The Wire" (David Simon, Ed Burns, etc)
"The guys who did Battlestar Galactica, which is a work of genius storytelling and, sometimes, [...]

Thinking about Larry Scott recently—he would have turned 52 on July 9—I visited the blog for Blood on the Wall$, Barry Michael Cooper's 2005 film starring the late artist. The film, shot mostly in Baltimore using untrained actors such as Scott, was directed by Cooper, who wrote the screenplays for New Jack City, Sugar Hill, [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
I saw How to Draw a Bunny, the documentary about Ray Johnson’s life. I had been familiar with Ray’s work, and I felt some sort of connection with him. Here’s a guy who could have been as popular as Andy Warhol, a guy who [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
As an artist and mother of three young children, I am affected by any book that I actually have time to read. On my nightstand at the moment is Mother on Fire by Sandra Tsing Loh. It's a fiercely hilarious book about Sandra's life as [...]

This year's Maryland Film Festival opens on Thursday evening with a program of short films hosted by Bobcat Goldthwait at MICA's Brown Center.It should be a hoot. The festival also includes appearances by John Waters and Fugazi's Ian Mackaye. Check the schedule for details.

Millard Kaufman, who created the Mister Magoo cartoon character, passed away a few days ago. Kaufman, who grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Hopkins, also wrote the screenplay for Bad Day at Black Rock, which earned him an Oscar nomination in 1955. McSweeney's published Kaufman's debut novel, Bowl of Cherries, in 2007. At the [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
The movie The Way We Were.  Stunning. Heartbreaking.  Never fails to punch me in the gut and leave me reeling.  It perfectly captures the beautiful tragedy of the great love of one's life.  It traces every universal pain in relationships [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
It is  a hard question for me cause I can't say that any one work caused an art epiphany, my head is always spinning. As a child I remember being fascinated with the decayed swan boats of Asbury Park  and the artificial sky and fake [...]