Comedian Mike Birbiglia turned a kind of serious problem — chronic sleepwalking — into one helluva funny story, about relationships, marriage and stand-up comedy. SLEEPWALK WITH ME won the Best of Next! Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Check out the trailer:
Halloween or Williamsburg: Anyone that’s ever set foot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn can attest that outfits seen on the sidewalk can be startlingly strange. One minute, you’re looking at a modern Jimi Hendrix and the next, an NYU student’s take on Annie Hall. If you didn’t live here, you might think these people were en route to a costume party or similarly themed event. A brilliant new blog, “Halloween or Williamsburg,” documents some of the neighborhood’s goofiest get-ups…
If you’re an NPR junkie, you’re going to love this. It’s an 11-minute spoof of a “This American Life” episode featuring a story about host Ira Glass making a celebrity sex tape. All the elements are there: Ira Glass’s go-to phrases, input from Alex Blumberg, the clever mood music, the end credits with a shout out to WBEZ general manager Torey Malatea…
This American Life is not only one of the most listened to radio programs and most downloaded podcasts, but it has managed to bridge the gap between sight and sound with the “This American Life” TV series, which is just as thrilling to watch as the show is to listen to. The staff behind the program isn’t big, and yet every week they bring listeners one hour of original, insightful, often funny and frequently groundbreaking material. Just how do they do it?
Radio came to Park City this festival in a number of ways. Yesterday, in the Panel, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love TV: This American Life Reloaded,” NPR radio star Ira Glass joined Director Chris Wilcha [www.imdb.com] and cinematographer Adam Beckman [www.imdb.com] to discuss the transformation of the This American Life [www.thislife.org] from a radio show to a Showtime television series.