The PTA Movie We’ve Been Waiting For Since Boogie Nights . . Fifteen minutes into Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another I jotted the note — “The movie we’ve been waiting for since Boogie Nights!” Sumpthin else I wrote down a couple of times (and thought many more) – “Great cinematic storytelling!” Words like […]| Brianland
. . In the Spirit of Jack — a spontaneous love ode that just flowed out … to that thing they do in Lowell . . . What’s cool about LCK is — everybody’s there for Jack . . . but all on their own terms. Everybody has a completely different relationship with their family […]| Brianland
. Somewhere in America . . . Pranksters are gathering . . . and in this case it was Wonderland. A dozen acres of wilderness hills and valleys, with a sunken natural amphitheater on the highest point of land in sight. 150 or so Pranksters came from across the land, traveling by every mode there […]| Brianland
Imaginestock . photo by Christy Worsoe . Imagine, if you will, a place where music and love fill the air, and every person works for free to build a utopian kingdom. Imagine a secret island hideaway whose location is only shared to people who’ve earned an invitation by a lifetime of good deeds. Imagine a […]| Brianland
. Beat & Prankster fans rejoice! A new firsthand memoir has just been released of life with one of the Mount Rushmores of both the Beat Generation & the Merry Pranksters. That doesn’t happen very often, and there aren’t many options left. Anne Murphy (who later reverted back to her birth name Anne Marie Maxwell) […] The post Anne Murphy’s “Tripping With A Viper” about Neal Cassady appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
. TOTALLY DRAMATIC . . It wasn’t just a big-screen spectacular — it was a nail-biting drama! An old brother of ’70s shenanigans flew from Winterpeg to my place in Southern Ontario because I lived on the Path of Totality for the 2024 solar eclipse. We had invites to a big acid test weekend with […] The post Eclipse Totality in Bronte Ontario appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
“The Greatest Night in Pop” is The Greatest Documentary About Collective Creation . The Greatest Night in Pop (Netflix, 2024) directed by Bao Nguyen, is a spectacular riveting colorful fun documentary about the behind-the-scenes making of We Are The World in 1985 with footage of everybody who was involved. This is not only one of […] The post The Greatest Night in Pop movie review appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
. I hope everyone’s enjoying the heck out of the theater of the absurd that’s playing out on the national stage in the U.S. Diaper Don is losing his mind . . . and the cameras are rolling. We’re all going to witness over the next nine months [and beyond] this guy spinning more and […] The post Trump’s Losing his Mind appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
Jack on Film: Take 2 at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac . Here’s a YouTube playlist with great video of the entire Jack on Film show — . =========================================== Here’s a riffing interview with WCAP in Lowell about all things Kerouac — and the new “Jack on Film: Take 2” show — with nearly a hundred photos […] The post Jack on Film: Take 2 and Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK) 2023 videos appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
Imaginestock . photo by Christy Worsoe . Imagine, if you will, a place where music and love fill the air, and every person works for free to build a utopian kingdom. Imagine a secret island hideaway whose location is only shared to people who’ve earned an invitation by a lifetime of good deeds. Imagine a […]| Brianland
the Best in Kerouac & the Beats, Adventure, Politics, Music, Movies, Poetry & other Lifejoys| Brianland
. One thing I learned during my lockdown Film Studies deepdive is just how subjective movies are. I know all art is subjective, but maybe film is the most because of how it’s every art form blended together and being experienced at once. Something I picked up from a Tarantino interview — that a book […]| Brianland
. I love Loving Vincent. I’ve loved Van Gogh since the big Metropolitan Museum of Art show “Van Gogh in Arles” in 1984 and the “Saint-Remy and Auvers” show in 1986, and reading his Dear Theo book of letters to his brother around the same time. Those shows and that book changed my life by […]| Brianland
Beat Movie Guide (dramatizations — not documentaries) Last Updated: Feb 19th, 2023 With not one, not two, but three movies based on Jack Kerouac books coming out this year (2013) it makes sense to make sense of the world of cinematic dramatizations based on Beat works. Since real people are given different fictional names in […]| Brianland
I’m Not There — film review “Life is a crazy, dark circus.” FANTASTIC, inspired filmmaking. (I gotta look for more Todd Haynes.) Maybe I was super-well prepared for it by this late date, but as it was, I could easily follow it, and it painted a brilliant million-dollar-picture. Obviously the unsuspecting could be caught […]| Brianland
. If you’re a fan of funny films and/or sixties music — boy is there a new movie for you! The comic docu-drama “My Dinner With Jimi“, features master Hendrix, The Beatles, Brian Jones, The Moody Blues, Donovan, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison and numerous others, all seen through the eyes of the writer, humorist and […]| Brianland
The Benefits of Biopics . With James Mangold’s Dylan biopic currently shooting in New York with the Bobster’s blessing; and four different Beatle biopics greenlit for Sam Mendes; and Michael Jackson’s cousin Jaafar playing the King of Pop in a coming Lionsgate production; and Coleman Domingo directing, co-writing and starring in a musical based […]| Brianland
From Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy: Adventures in Politics 1980 – 2020 From the chapter — “Fun & Loving on the Campaign Trail 2020 — A Prankster’s Primary”. . The next day — Tuesday, February 4th, the day following the night of the Iowa caucus vote-counting debacle — I pulled off three rallies: Biden, Tulsi […]| Brianland
First of all, he’s an Irish leprechaun, and I’m very pro Irish leprechaun. Second — he’s also an empath . . . as opposed to a sociopath. As he likes to say in his Irish way — “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” He’s smart, hard working, Gets Things […]| Brianland
. The Jerry Garcia-directed film “The Grateful Dead Movie” will be back in theaters for one night (Thurs Aug 14th) — and for *the first time* IMAX has remastered the picture in 4K and remixed the sound for their surround-sound speakers. (!) Revisiting the film, here’s some deets you may not know … or you […] The post “The Grateful Dead Movie” — How It Was Made & Background appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
I’ve been on a James Mangold deep-dive recently and this guy needs to be in any conversation about the greatest directors working today. He’s averaged a new film roughly every two years since his first low-budget indie (Heavy) in 1995, which won a Special Jury Recognition for Directing at Sundance and kind-of jump-started his […]| Brianland
I recently stumbled on a Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) interview about Boogie Nights from 1997 and began revisiting of his work. I’ve now seen all of his nine written-&-directed films, most more than once, and he’s certainly up there with the greatest of the active mid-career contemporary filmmakers. Since Boogie Nights he’s been compared […]| Brianland
Highlights of Golden Nights By the laws of physics, taking a trip while you’re on a trip exponentially amplifies the experience. Here’s some of the peaks in the weeks with the freaks . . . The Black Dot “Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it […]| Brianland
. I’d never given Las Vegas a moment’s thought in my life. I checked in with some cultural colleagues I’ve been jamming the arts with for 40+ years and none of us can remember the city ever coming up for any reason. In fact, it was kind of looked down upon as this superficial wasteland […]| Brianland
This is a scene-by-scene breakdown of the Dylan biopic masterpiece co-written and directed by James Mangold. Besides being one of the best living filmmakers, Mangold was undoubtably tapped because of how well he handled the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line. The movie was in development for a couple years when Covid hit. […]| Brianland
On this weekend 17 years ago — in the heat of the Democratic primary of 2008 between Hillary & Obama — I started BrianHassett.com. Every month since then for 17 years I’ve written at least one new piece for the site. “17” has been a weird number that’s followed me around my whole life from […]| Brianland
The Day I Thanked Arthur Miller One of the nice things about living in Manhattan — you often bump into and sometimes get to talk to really smart people on the sidewalk. When they’re famous, mostly you just nod acknowledgment and smile — like seeing Robin Williams walking and playing with his son on […]| Brianland
A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man Here’s what I riffed to social media after I got home from the advance screening on December 18th . . . Caught the sold-out “A Complete Unknown” IMAX screening in Toronto last night — and boy was it GREAT to see it on a […] The post A Complete Unknown movie review appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
I was just living in Taylor world for the ten days she was in Toronto doing six sold out stadium shows — something no other artist has ever come close to doing here. Six stadium shows … and you couldn’t get a ticket. Well, you could if you wanted to pay $4000 for one on […] The post Taylor Swift in Toronto — from a Deadhead’s Perspective appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
. The ideas didn’t work, the policies didn’t work, the empathy didn’t work, the life story didn’t work, the billion dollars in fundraising didn’t work, the millions of volunteers didn’t work, the field offices didn’t work, the phone banking didn’t work, the door knocking didn’t work, the huge rallies didn’t work, the inspiring speeches didn’t […] The post Didn’t Work appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
Kamala Harris is an Empath — Donald Trump is a Sociopath . One candidate is trying to scare bitter people into voting out of fear and resentment toward the world. The other is appealing to “the better angels of our nature” as Abraham Lincoln so poetically put it 150 years ago. One candidate sees beauty […] The post Kamala Harris is an Empath — Donald Trump is a Sociopath appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
Here’s part of the script I’ll be riffing from when I introduce the movie “Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place” at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac on Sunday October 13th. We might have it streaming live on my YouTube channel if you can’t be there — https://www.youtube.com/@BrianHassettVideos/streams ============================================ This is the original Merry Prankster […] The post Magic Trip movie — Introduction and Background appeared first on Brianland.| Brianland
A reference summary / cheat-sheet on the seven battleground states that'll determine who will win this November.| Brianland
. No matter if you’re in a solid blue or solid red state — let alone a swing state! — every single vote that goes into the national kitty is one more voice — yours! — that history will record as voting against and putting an end to the former racist-in-chief. You want to feel […]| Brianland
The events of Sunday July 21st 2024 into Monday the 22nd then all the days that followed reminded me and most of us politicos of the political ‘birth’ of Barack Obama in early 2008. Whether you experienced that on January 3rd when he won the Iowa caucus, or on the February 3rd Super Bowl weekend […]| Brianland
The world's most technologically advanced entertainment venue welcomes the band that first pioneered visual art set to music.| Brianland
With the success of recent biopics and the flurry of them upcoming, it's a good time to look at their unique power as film.| Brianland
First of all, he’s an Irish leprechaun, and I’m very pro Irish leprechaun. Second — he’s also an empath . . . as opposed to a sociopath. As he likes to say in his Irish way — “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” He’s smart, hard working, Gets Things […]| Brianland
. Why this Deadhead Beatnik Beatlemaniac loves Pop’s Princess I’ve been into Taylor Swift since a New York Times profile in 2008 talked about her confessional songwriting and use of social media — at the time, MySpace. (!) Her second album Fearless was set to come out (and would go on to win Album […]| Brianland
With the recent stacking of the Supreme Court and overturning of Roe vs. Wade and gun protections in New York, I was reminded that these events all happened because just enough people of the left spent the 2016 general election campaign trashing Hillary Clinton and either not voting or voting third party that an amoral […]| Brianland
