Author Archives: Emilie Black

An Interview with Staci Layne Wilson [WiHM 2017]

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Staci Layne Wilson is well known for her film reviews, interviews (on camera and in writing), her writing, and now producing and directing.  Her interests are varied, but she clearly has a preference for horror as seen in her films such as the trippy triptych The Key to Annabel Lee, the sexy Fetish Factory, etc.  Her knowledge of the genre and Hollywood’s inner workings is wide and she uses it well in her creations.

Her trivia on IMDB is rather telling: “Has worn Freddy Krueger’s hero claw, George Romero’s glasses, and the original Hannibal Lecter mask.”

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Working Class (2011) [San Diego Film Week 2017]

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Using A Tale of Two Cities, this documentary tells the story of Mike Giant in San Francisco and Mike Maxwell in San Diego who are both artists and friends who connected through tattoos the first put on the second.  Throughout the film, their lives are paralleled and compared until it eventually brings them together.

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Country: Portraits of an American Sound (2015)

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This documentary made in 2015 and released in early 2017 explores how the image of country singer is developed through photography and has been since the very start of the music genre.  Through interviews with photographers, artists, singers, and musicians, the history of country music is explored and the emphasis on how image can help make or break an artist’s popularity are explained as well as the process behind some memorable photographs done by various photographers, some specializing in country portraits and other specialized in portraits.

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An Interview with Tara Price [WiHM 2017]

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Tara Price hails from New England and has her toes in a few different waters.  She acts, produces, writes, and directs.  For her directorial debut, Earworm, she dips in comedy and horror.  She also wrote the horror short Another Grace and Johnny Adventure: Zombie Island in which she stars as Grace.

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Drifter (2016)

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Two brothers on the run come afoul of one group after the other until they reach a seemingly abandoned desert village.  There they meet a young woman who helps them and meet with a family of crazy cannibals. Written by Chris von Hoffman and Aria Emory, based on a story by von Hoffman who also directed, Drifter is a film about survival in the desert post apocalypse that shows every character but one as bad people.  The “bad guys”, the cannibalistic family unit, are truly bad, while the brothers come off as being bad people out of necessity and desperation.  Only one character seems mostly good but also a victim of some weird form of Standahl Syndrome.  She’s the one who attempts to help the brothers before things really go to shit for them.

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Art as a Weapon (2012) [San Diego Film Week 2017]

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Made in 2012, Art as a Weapon is a documentary about using street art to publicly send a message, may it be of peace, hope, a political one, or any other messages sent to the mass public by way of graffiti, paintings, etc.  The film follows an art class in Burma learning to use art with the most effectiveness and contrasts this with American street artist Shepard Fairey.  Directed by San Diego documentarian Jeffrey Durkin, the film mixes the Burmese school students’ scenes with scenes shot in San Diego while artist Shepard Fairey was in town painting a Buddhist monk on the side of a building.

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