Review on Kyle Anderson

NAU Donates $30K to Spike Lee's Checking Account

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:55:30 -0700

Promo poster for NAU’s Spike Lee event.

Who was this Spike Lee guy, anyway?

I had no idea who this famous black film director was until NAU decided to hire him to speak on January 27th. The university was aflutter, and everyone was waiting in anticipation for his appearance, one the university reportedly spent $30 thousand to make happen. A Spike Lee film festival was scheduled for the weekend before his Wednesday night talk, but excessive snow on the library’s roof canceled the screenings. One of my classes required me to view at least two of those screenings, so instead of watching “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986), I was forced into watching both parts (four acts) of “When the Levees Broke,” (2006) the only Spike Lee film that was screened before his talk.

Ellen Spiro at NAU - Review

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:39:04 -0600

Documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro spoke at NAU’s Cline Library last week on Thursday, succeeding two screenings of her latest film, Body of War, a story about an Iraq veteran who returned home just one week after deployment with a bullet in his back that paralyzed him from the chest down.

Spiro spent the two hour talk letting clips of her other documentaries speak for themselves. The clips and her answers during the Q and A session revealed a lot about her as a person and a documentarian.

Life Changing Music

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:16:40 -0700

This last month has had the tallest loops steepest drops ever recorded. Emotionally speaking, my world has never been shaken around so much. Can I sue for whiplash?

Music. It sets moods. I find that when I’m depressed, I’ll listen to something like Sarah McLachlan’s Afterglow or Delirium’s song “Just a Dream.” Maybe I want to rage… I have heavy dance beats mixed together by PJ Produkt called “Release.” Nostalgic trip? Give me any Newsboys album or Intuition by DJ Encore. All of these push specific emotions through me. But no album has ever pulled emotions out like this one.