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Filmmaker Jesse Peretz was originally the bass player for the Lemonheads in the late '80s, and he directed the music video for "It's a Shame about Ray." As the son of the publisher of The New Republic, he stayed around the Boston area directing music videos, commercials, and the "Jimmy the Cabdriver" segments for MTV, which featured the actor Donal Logue dressed as a greasy cab driver who assaulted his passengers with commentary about MTV programming. Peretz also has photography credits on Juliana Hatfield records and most of his own band's releases. Some of Peretz's more notable videos include "Big Me" by the Foo Fighters and "Popular" by Nada Surf. In 1998, he teamed up with former bandmate David Ryan to adapt a short story by British author Ian McEwan that became his feature debut, First Love, Last Rites. The atmospheric love story starred Giovanni Ribisi and Natasha Gregson Wagner and featured a powerful soundtrack by Shudder to Think. In 2001 Peretz went to France to film his second feature, The Château, a comedy starring Sylvie Testud and Paul Rudd, shot on digital video.