Folks it’s time for a new video essay series; an Aim Not Devoid of Merit on the films and camera work of Steven Spielberg

Can’t remember why I made this list of my favourite Polish films but uhh here they are

RT @Roderick_Heath: . Vale Michael Madsen. Simply the best. In memoriam, my essays on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. .

RT @DanWilbur: The Company Man has spoken! Good work today, buddy!.

For a long time that story made me laugh but today I'm unspeakably moved by this man, nearly at a loss for words having seen the first decades of his career in a big sizzle reel. Some of us never get even there. Madsen deserved more, imo. When he was great nobody was better.

But it was also worth it to see him get as close to choked up as he allowed himself. This guy just loved movies. He loved putting on costumes, being on set, he loved acting, and he was really thrilled to get this award that was just an excuse to get drinks with Michael Madsen.

Now it's definitely endearing that he was so psyched to see this already forgotten movie that he actually stopped one of only five movies playing that weekend with half a house full. It's also just the perfectly ludicrous button on the event.

. then lights come up, the movie stops, thirty seconds elapse. A voice over the loudspeaker "Mr. Madsen has requested we start the movie over as he's just arrived and wants to see it." The several hundred people inside the theatre are confused but basically polite about it.

The look is courtesy of Pulp Fiction cinematographer Andrzej Sekuła, whom Madsen personally hired when their original photographer bailed. I'm sure it was fun to get the gang back together. Now, here's where it gets goofy. The lights dim, the movie starts, ten minutes elapse. .

. the other is a DTV cop movie called Vice, a sort of proto-Sabotage or Den of Thieves with Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Mark Boone Junior, except that it was made for a few hundred bucks and catering, and it's so dark you cannot see half the movie.

So with little else on the three day scheduled that interested me, me and my girlfriend head to two films: Behind Your Eyes, a torture porn movie by way of the Lifetime Channel starring a young go-getting ingenue named Tom Sandoval. .

But, as with all things at any film festival anywhere, people don't get lifetime achievement awards for achievements or lifetimes. They get them because the festival organizers know a guy, or want to hang out with a guy. No shade to anyone, all's fair in late stage capitalism.

And to add to that atmosphere: Michael Madsen is receiving a lifetime achievement award. Now. as I say I love Michael Madsen, but I was having trouble naming a single thing he'd done in ten years. Still can't really do it from memory. Didn't he basically start in the late 80s?.

It quickly becomes clear that the festival is a mob front. Everyone gets the same award. The opening night film is a pilot program for The Ski Channel. Henry Hill is out of wit sec and doing a panel in conference room B. The opening night party has a pool filled with mermaids.

My Madsen story, though I've told this elsewhere: The year is 2011 and I'm at my very first film festival as a director. I'm extremely thrilled, I've flown to Las Vegas, I feel like my life is about to begin. Then somethings fall into place and my joy turns to confused bemusement.

I love Michael Madsen. In the 90s there was hardly anyone prettier or cooler. RIP.

If you're still hoping to combat the executive branch with memes, stay in line!

RT @dionnewarwick: I don’t know, baby. Just a little green thing doing a good job.

RT @liamcunningham1: The quality of the hasbara has dropped significantly. C’mon boys and girls you need to up your game. The monosyllabic….

RT @DanielGorman20: brutally accurate assessment on the state on the industry right here:.

Someone makes a Mr. Roarke reference in this kids movie.