About Us
Andrew Hedden
Writer
QUICK STATS
Chinese Zodiac Animal: Pig
Astrological Sign: Scorpio
Sino-Astrological Power Animal: The Scorpig!
Born On: The day President Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada. He can not only be seen as a harbinger of freedom and democracy, but as a symbol of a new American day as well.
The Lost Years: Sometime between 1995 and 2000.
Celebrity look-alikes: Big Pete from the Adventures of Pete and Pete
Expertise: RBI Baseball 3, MST3K
Andrew began attending The Fairhaven College in 2002. Believing it to be a radical hotbed of political activity, he trained under Bookchinites, Marxists, ex-Marxists, hegemony theorists, and others, only to find himself debating costume design majors about the merits of the latest David Lynch movie. Now graduated, he continues that debate here at Lucid Screening as well as his own blog, here and elsewhere.
Ben Lim
Writer, Webmaster
Not unlike the nympho pee pee teens who have mortgaged it all to update their paypal account settings, NYU Film School grad Ben Lim has put himself neck deep in debt for his love of film. Such is the price one pays for a jump-cut as jarring as the one that took Lim from one coast to another - from a blighted, booming 'burb of Seattle to the hip, high-priced hovels of NYC.
A man in South Korea is said to have died playing the World of Warcraft fantasy game on his computer; though born of Korean parents, and not unfamiliar with the World of Warcraft (he's been WoW sober since Feb. 2006), the screen Lim is likely to die in front of is silver. His body will slump in Wong Kar Wai slow-motion, and will not be discovered until weeks later, as he will have been attending the showing of an obscure film in an out-of-the-way one-room movie house (Unfortunately, Tony Leung Chiu Wai will not be present to smoke a cigarette for in New York City such an act is banned within public facilities).
Until that moment, Lim is toiling away on four feature length screenplays while chronicling his life at mynameisben.com. To pay the bills, he's working on food, travel, and wine websites with information on amenities he dearly wishes he could afford. He's also doing freelance web work on sites such as Cineaste, the extra cash helps him to afford the many gadgets that he's so obsessed with. Because he doesn't already spend enough of his time in front of the warm glow of a computer monitor, he also writes here for Lucid Screening.
Greg Ryan
Writer, P.R.
Greg is a blast from the past who had a very good idea. Check out www.myspace.com/lucidscreening to see what he's up to.
Jeffrey Meyer
Writer
Jeff is probably the most confused individual on the planet. His favorite artists are Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, George Herriman, Charles Schulz, Brian Wilson, Erik Satie, etc. His favorite film of the decade is Russian Ark. Visit his website at www.goofbutton.com.
Raphaela Weissman
Writer
Raphaela Weissman graduated from NYU in 2006; feel free to help her decide what to do now. So far, she is making headway on applying to MFA programs in creative writing, and in the meantime, she sees far too many movies. This June she won the L Magazine's Literary Upstart Pocket Fiction competition and was published in the fiction issue, which was very exciting. She has spoken to Philip Glass about Chinese vegetables, to Robert Pinsky about portobello mushrooms, and watched Nathan Lane buy a large popcorn, her favorite food, but didn't get a chance to ask him about it. She grew up in Woodstock, New York and enjoys taking the train upstate to visit, especially when the leaves change.
Rufus de Rham
Writer
Rufus was born in a small town in Connecticut. He lived his young life on his grandparent's couch where he watched movies his parents didn't want him to see. The first film he remembers is Godzilla and he used to argue the finer points of film with the local video store clerk before he was tall enough to even see over the counter (or old enough to rent most of the films he was talking about). His grandfather introduced him to old serials, Seven Samurai, Blade Runner and monster movies. His life would never be the same. He continued on to brave private school as a lowly scholarship-baring day student, but he was (in)famous for his films and his Drawer O'DVDs. Always a fan of Asian film (Japanese New Wave and Chinese Fifth Generation specifically) one day he went to Korea to visit friends. He saw Friend, Shiri, and My Sassy Girl and his interests expanded in a new direction.
He decided to go to NYU where he majored in Cinema Studies and East Asian Studies and talked his way into focusing on Asian film. His Drawer O'DVDs expanded and many more Korean movies were watched when he discovered the wonders of New York video stores. He is now studying at Yonsei University in South Korea trying to learn Korean so he can eventually be the first white Korean filmmaker and from there take over the world. He spends his time watching movies, being hooked intravenously to the Internet, reading comics and books, and playing video games. His lists of favorites change every week but currently he is enjoying books by Haruki Murakami, watching Lost, playing World of Warcraft, and trying really really hard to like Hong Sang-soo.
Tram Ngo
Writer
Tram harbors an unrequited love affair with film. She is currently majoring in Communications at the University of Washington — much to the approval of her parents and fellow siblings. But every so often when her brain starts to crackle in boredom, she impulsively strays from her pragmatic major, and takes a film class or two.
These days, however, Tram is sadly left with only memories of an affair that was never meant to be, as she prepares to fulfill her requisites for senior year. Stacked on her night table are the nostalgia-inducing anthologies of Bordwell, Deleuze, and Benjamin.
When Tram is not viewing all the foreign DVDs her school library has to offer on her laptop, she blogs at Talk to Me Harry Winston and contributes to the website, Cinema Mon Amour. If Tram is outdoors, then you'll likely find her at the nearby supermarket register, where she is snooping around for juicy gossip items in Us Weekly and Star. Her friends find it strangely intriguing that Tram knows all the names of the latest celebrity babies.
