DVDS: Let's Keep This Short
The author Dave Eggers and his pal Brent Hoff, an editor for Eggers's humor journal McSweeney's, are big fans of short films. Alas, says Hoff, "they're too short to show on TV, and they don't play in theaters because they'd rather show some great trivia about Adam Sandler." The two men had an idea: what if they launched a DVD "magazine," in which each new "issue" was a disc of short films? The concept became a new quarterly called Wholphin. That's "whale" crossed with "dolphin." Don't ask why. Focus instead on the first issue, which features a potent Iraq-war documentary by David O. Russell ("Three Kings") and a hilarious short starring John C. Reilly, plus goofy stuff like "a dude singing 'Stairway to Heaven' backwards. It's awesome," says Hoff. He's right. It is. But the jewel is a 1999 documentary about Al Gore by director Spike Jonze. Screened publicly only once--on a lazy afternoon at the 2000 Democratic convention--the film shows a hidden side of Gore: funny, warm and relaxed. "I don't know if the film would've changed anything, but he was clearly misunderstood," Jonze says. "I wish more people saw it." They can now.
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Devin Gordon is the editor of Newsweek Digital, the umbrella company encompassing Newsweek's various web properties, including Newsweek.com and Newsweek Mobile. Previously, from June 2007 to June 2009, he was senior editor of the magazine's Periscope section, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award for "best section" in 2008. Previously, he was a senior writer, writing about film, television, sports and popular culture for the Arts and Entertainment and Society sections. He was part of the Newsweek reporting team for the past three Olympic games, including the Salt Lake City winter games in 2002, the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where he covered swimmer Michael Phelps, and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, for which he wrote Newsweek's cover story about skier Bode Miller.
During his tenure at the magazine, Gordon has written about everything from HBO's "The Wire" to rock band Coldplay to Oscar-winner film directors Ang Lee and Peter Jackson. He profiled "Curb Your Enthusiasm" creator Larry David on the eve of the series' fourth season debut, and "The Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan just prior to the film's record breaking release. For Newsweek's year-end double-issue of 2002, he wrote "The Matrix Makers," (Jan. 6, 2003), a cover story about the two upcoming "Matrix" sequels—the first behind-the-scenes look at the new films by any publication.
Gordon joined Newsweek in 1998, after graduating from Duke University. His first cover story was "The Dominator" (June 18, 2001), an examination of what makes Tiger Woods tick. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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