At Time Out Chicago today, I have a review of Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake, an astonishing 25-minute video essay that interrogates the role of social media in the making and releasing of Hollywood blockbusters. Released online last year, it has also just screened at the recently concluded Berlin International Film Festival. You can both read my review and watch Kevin’s short in its entirety by clicking on this link: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/blog/chicago-filmmaker-kevin-b-lee-explores-unique-medium-with-transformers-the-premake
In Flickering Empire news, Adam Selzer and I conducted an interview with Transistor Chicago’s Andy Miles for his webcast to promote the official book release party this Saturday night. Out of the four audio interviews we’ve jointly done, this one is by far my favorite; Andy asked good questions and the mood is fun and relaxed. Listen to the 20-minute interview and then come out to our book talk/book signing at Transistor. This free BYOB event will include the screening of four Chicago-shot silent films (An Awful Skate, The Roller Skate Craze, From the Submerged and His New Job), all of which will be live-scored by Chicago saxophonist Labrat: http://www.transistorchicago.com/22115
There’s also a nice story about the book in today’s Chicago Tribune (with a couple quotes from yours truly): http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-flickering-empire-michael-glover-smith-adam-selzer-20150219-story.html
And, finally, here’s a superb review by Chicagoist‘s Joel Wicklund, who says that Flickering Empire “immediately joins the ranks of essential film references”: http://chicagoist.com/2015/02/19/flickering_empire_gives_chicago_its.php
White City Cinema 
February 19th, 2015 at 8:08 pm
I read this paragraph completely regarding the comparison of most up-to-date and previous technologies, it’s emarkable article.
February 19th, 2015 at 8:33 pm
Same here:) I read your article on the site and thought it was fantastic. You Mr. Smith and Kevin B. Lee are fantastic in both your writings and filmmaking even though I have not seen much of the latter from both of you. The Transformers Prequel sounds interesting. Anyway, on my blog, I just gave my predictions, picks and thoughts on the oscars on my site. Here is the link below: 🙂
http://cinematiccoffee.com/2015/02/08/the-academy-awards-2015-nominees-picks-predictions-and-thoughts/