Summer Quiz

Time for the latest quiz from Dennis Cozzalio - Professor Ed Avery's Cortizone-Fueled, Bigger than Life, Super Gulp-sized Summer Movie Quiz. ALways fun, and always a challenge - these things are harder than most class work I've had! This one has taken me an awful long time, thanks to my inherent sloth, the Bruins, the fact that it's summer and, you know - summer and stuff... But it's done, more or less... Here goes:

1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché

I'm not sure - though in general - montage sequences, set to some pop song - are getting old, and are almost self-parody when they start... though when they work - they switch to one of the best. If they substitute for the plot...

2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?

I am sure I have done this, though I don't remember any specific instances. I think I did claim to see Paths of Glory for a while, when all I had seen was a kind of filmstrip version of the film... of course it was worse than that, since the history teacher that showed us the film strip claimed that it was All Quiet on the Western Front. I knew better, having already read the book...

3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?

Horton, easily.

4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie

The Girl Can't Help It

5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no?

I used to love it - now - I guess it’s still a pretty good piece of work. I have been coming back around toward Kubrick, after a long stretch of tending to look down on him. Though I can't really deny the entertainment value. I prefer the book, though, for whatever that is worth.

6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson)

I looked it up, of course - unease with ones gender. Well - this comes to mind:



But in a horror film? blimey... back to the drawing board. Where I feel guilty about just using the obvious - Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, that sort of thing. I could say Antichrist, I suppose...

7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?

Hard to say I have an opinion, though I liked what I've seen of Melanie Laurent.

8) Best movie of 2011 (so far…)

Genuine new movies - Meek’s Cutoff; last year’s movies, released in 2011 - Uncle Boonmee, followed (not too far off) by Certified Copy and Le Quattro Volte

9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity (Peg Aloi)

interesting question, sort of. Does Peter Falk's glass eye count? though I only notice it when I am thinking about it. Let's see - Owen Wilson's nose? W. C. Fields' nose? Belmondo's nose? or maybe Denis Lavant's acne?

10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway)

Are the two incompatible in some way? I didn't find his remarks at Cannes all that offensive, or even unusual. I suppose bad taste to joke about nazis, and probably a bad idea in general to use Hitler as a metaphor for something else (Hitler and Nazis as a matahphor for depression, right?) - but still... he does this all the time, of course - most of his public pronouncements seem calculated to confuse and annoy, and part f a more or less elaborate private joke. And usually in some strange way - funny, clever, worth considering.

11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?

They are both wonderful, but Carey is something else again.

12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences

I should be able to come up with an answer for this, but I can't.

13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming

Theater = Nostalgia for the Light; DVD = You Can't Take it With You; Streaming = The Knack and How to Get It

14) Favorite film noir villain

There are too many choices... I think I'll go neo-noir, and, since I'm thinking about the Bruins and the Stanley Cup - go with Peter Boyle in The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

15) Best thing about streaming movies?

I don’t really like them, but they do let you make a decision on the spot, which can be nice.

16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus)

I don't think I can answer this one. How about Marie-France Pisier instead?

17) Favorite Kirk Douglas that isn’t called Spartacus (Peter Nellhaus)

Ace in the Hole? though this could be the answer to 14 above too. (Out of the Past)

18) Favorite movie about cars

Two Lane Blacktop, probably.

19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?

No idea

20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul

I don't think I care all that much. The ones I've liked, I've liked, and the ones I haven't I don't care about.

21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences

I could probably come up with a lot of people, though this sort of thing usually comes to me after the fact.... But right now, I think I would say, Ira Sachs.

22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross)

I should be able to come up with a good answer for this. I don't know though - there seem to be a few actors I am tired of, but then they make a good film, or a film with someone who understands their talents, and all is forgiving. I don't know. I suppose there are obvious cases - Woody Allen, say... but that's boring, he barely acts anymore. Maybe Ellen Page? who does not seem to be going anywhere. Or even more depressing - Zooey Deschanel? I do not mind them, but they do not seem to progess much. I doubt either of those young women are to blame, though.

23) Best place in the world to see a movie

I don’t know. Anywhere that’s showing Ozu, I guess.

24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?

I always like Hayden

25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film

Late Spring

26) Most memorable horror movie father figure

Has to be Dr. Pretorious in Bride of Frankenstein.

27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround

Another one I might think of over time.... How about Duck Soup?

28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?

Not sure, though Reynolds is usually watchable.

29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era

Modern - Garret Dillahunt usually makes me take notice... classic: there's nothing unknown about Dwight Frye, but boy, he was good...

30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw

I walked by the Thirsty Scholar today, same as almost every day. Why would a Harvard kid and a BU kid go drinking in Somerville? no one has answered that question yet...

31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie

The Tall T

32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?

I don't know...

33) Favorite Universal-International western

Winchester 73.

34) What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie? (Sal Gomez)


If it counts, probably live music for silent films, including some odd mixes. (A DJ for shows of old Martial arts films - Red Knight Errant and Swordswoman of Huang jiang - which worked better than you might think...)

35) Favorite actress of the silent era

This is difficult - partly because I don't have quite the systematic experience with silent films I should. Lillian Gish has to rank high; or maybe Kinuyo Tanaka, who is in some fine early films, as well as having a big career in sound films.

36) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette)

I'm going to say My Man Godfrey, though there are few more welcome presences in films...

37) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi)

The best, I suppose, is True Grit - the worst - I can't say I've sought out a lot of remakes... Planet of the Apes seemed particularly pointless, and I did see it, though not in a very conscious state...

38) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?

I am not sure. I think - keep projecting film is a big one. Similarly Moviegoers - show up on time? Though I have become more and more guilty of showing up in the middle of the trailers, so I shouldn't complain.

Icy Friday Music

In honor of the local http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/nhl/columns/story?columnist=mcdonald_joe&id=6671740 triumph:

1. Meat Puppets - Ice
2. Joy Division - Ice Age
3. Husker Du - Ice Cold Ice
4. Van Halen - Ice Cream Man
5. Pere Ubu - Ice Cream Truck
6. Ugly Casanova - Ice on the Streets
7. Wiley - Treddin on Thin Ice
8. Yoko Ono - Walking on Thin Ice
9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - In this Home on Ice
10. Cibo Matto - WHite Pepper Ice Cream

Video? Husker Du is always indicated:

June 16

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

Happy Bloomsday!

UPDATE: for one single post to read on Ulysses and the joys of Joyce, I would recommend Sheila O'Malley...

Bruins!

Bruins win the Stanley cup!

That takes me back - I was a hockey fan, back in the day, the Don Cherry years, the Middleton/Pederson/early Bourque years especially - then sort of drifted away. it's nice to see.

Sunday Screen Shots - Space

Posted without comment, today - mostly. A quiet weekend....







...and back to work in the morning:

Mid June Music

There could be a theme here:

1. Little Feat - Old Folk's Boogie
2. Captain Beefheart - Old Fart at Play
3. The Pogues - Old Man Drag
4. Richard and Linda Thompson - Old Man inside a Young Man
5. Neil Young - Old Man
6. The Pretty Things - Old Man Going
7. REM - Old Man Kensey
8. Modern Lovers - Old World
9. Scott Walker - the Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist regime)
10. Volcano Suns - Old Paint

Any excuse to post the Pogues will do:



And I should really post this too - the Pretty Things, with Dave Gilmour:

First in from Cannes

The first two films from this year's Cannes festival have made it to Boston, Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life. They may not seem to have much more than playing at Cannes in common, but to me, they are linked - films by auteurs I don't much like. I've written about my troubles with Woody Allen - I could say more. That I was once a fan; that I still love the early, funny ones; that I truly admire his work ethic - making a film a year is an achievement... I wish more of his films were better - though one of the advantages of knocking them out all the time is that you increase your chances of making something good. And so it happened, that breaking my one-every-seven-year pattern, I saw it, and was almost shocked to be rewarded with a perfectly enjoyable film. You've got Owen Wilson in Paris, with Rachel McAdams as his fiance, and her insufferable rich parents, and Michael Sheen in the person of an appalling pedant, and... so poor Gil (that's Wilson) starts wandering the streets alone and night and before long is pulled off into the 1920s to hobnob with his idols and romance imaginary art groupies. Lessons are learned and such (partly through the expedient of going even further back in time), decisions are made, work might be done... The lessons (You Can't Live in the Past, or some such) aren't particularly convincing - the Allen films I've seen lately all seem to be about some kind of renunciation of some kind of pleasure, and getting on with the life you have - but this time, the whole affair is light and off-hand enough to go down without any sourness... It is funny - the caricatures are great - Hemingway talking in Hemingway sentences about Love, and Death, and Honor, and Boxing; Bunuel looking confused and Dali acting the fool.... The modern parts are almost as good, at least when Paul (the pedant) is on screen - the character is very funny and Michael Sheen nails him... And Wilson is his usual enjoyable presence. It's not a great film, in any sense, but it's perfectly fine - funny, handsome looking, sharply performed across the board, a loose, clever, entertainment... I liked it without reservations.

That's not quite the case for Tree of Life. If Woody Allen is a problem (an established auteur with a certain ongoing reputation in some corners of the cinephilic world, who I find almost unwatchable at times), Malick - is a bigger problem. Allen is a bit past his prime - all those films, so many of them mediocre - a lot of people have given up on him. But Malick, knocking out a film every half decade or so (after taking almost 2 decades off), still seems to be the critics' darling. People I like and respect consider his films among the best of the decade! how does that happen?

I do not share that opinion, you may have guessed. And this film - I have been dreading for a long time. I dread it because of his last couple films, neither of which I find particularly good; but I know what he is capable of - and have no intention of risking missing another Badlands (or Days of Heaven, for that matter) - so I would see it, no matter what. And I dread it because it will inspire gushing reports all around the internet, and I was all too sure they would get under my skin - and maybe poison me against the film, more than it deserves. All that came before the film did - now that the film is out - well - no surprises anywhere. The reception, at least among the blogs and writers I tend to follow, is (mostly) rapturous - there are nay-sayers, though more than one of them seem to be aiming at targets beyond Mr. Malick... And the film itself? kind of a bore, really, though the middle part is quite good....

What I guess nags at me the most is the idea that this is some kind of masterpiece, some kind of experimental film - that's the gist of a lot of the praise and complaints. (It's worth noting just how many of the reviewers and commentators mention that Malick once lectured on philosophy (see? I did it too!), as if proving his intellectual bona fides.) But I don't see it - there's nothing experimental about the film, unless making a feature length movie that looks sounds and feels like a mashup of Levis, Louis Vuitton and Latter Day Saints ads is experimental. (And the sad fact is - the Levi's ad had freaking Walt Whitman himself doing the voiceovers! instead of Malick's banalities... it's an ad that couldn't exist without Terence Malick, and at this point, is - except for the quality of the poetry - almost indistinguishable from him.) That complaint, I will say, applies mostly to the frame story - the opening 20 minutes, the end, etc. - the Creation of the Universe stuff isn't quite so bad (it has its own problems, though, especially the nonsense with the dinosaurs) - and the middle part is quite good. It's nicely set up - after another montage of babies being born and growing up (an insurance ad?), Malick lands us at the dinner table one evening, and the plot kicks in and suddenly, you have something worth watching. Better than that, maybe.

It's still montage heavy, still occasionally marred by voiceover (and always stupid voiceover) - but this part is much more engaged - the people resemble human beings, the dialogue, though on the nose, feels closer to true - it feels like memory. The sequence plays as a kind of memory/dream, and is very effective at it. Does some interesting things - the Pitt character is something of a tyrant - or rather, the kids see him as a tyrant - he is strict, he occasionally gets mean (and he plays Bach on a pipe organ like a monster movie villain) - but it’s still odd; he never quite does anything wrong - he seems more sad than cruel. You wonder if Malick is deliberately undercutting the emotional core of the film - this is Jack’s movie - we see his reactions to his father the monster - but don’t see father quite as a monster. Even if it’s not meant quite to undercut the narrator (the implied POV), it certainly seems aimed at giving us a complicated view of the father. The grown son remembering, doubting himself, his memories, his emotions as a kid, and so on. The father emerges as the richest and most interesting character - I suspect that is intentional. (The flip side of this is that the mother never emerges as anything - she is a wet dream, there’s nothing else. She wafts around with no personality or self, just being ethereal and interacting with nature and such. She is more imaginary than the rest of the family.) Anyway - things happen - fights at home, playing with the brothers and other kids, kids die, kids get hurt... There are some key moments - the father going away and freeing the rest of the family for a day or so... Jack's sexual awakening (breaking into a lady's house to - well - masturbate onto her nightgown, right? Malick makes this look as ethereal as the rest - the kid looking to hide the nightgown, then throwing it into the river - but it shouldn't take too much imagination to figure out why he had to hide it....) Not surprisingly, Jack immediately transfers this business onto his mom... (About the only real complaint I have with this section is that it's basically acting out the monologue from "The End" - which Jim Morrison got through in a minute and a half, and it takes Malick an hour...) And then - Dad loses his job and the family has to move - and somewhere in the future, one of the boys dies, and the others suffer.... And Malick cuts away from this memoir to Sean Penn wandering around in deserts and beaches and salt flats to no good end.

So - I'm left with a very split opinion of the film. I wish it were all like the middle part; I found the opening and closing sections inane and dull. The creation stuff - nothing NatGeo doesn't go better... But the middle - isn't stylistically that different from the rest. It's elliptical, it's impressionistic, it's as aestheticized as the beginning and end - but hooking into the story, and into the subjectivity of its originating intelligence, and exploring the washes of memory and impression as it does - is fascinating, engaging, the seeds of a good film.

D-Day

This week's Sunday Screen Shots come a day late, to honor the history - D-Day, in one of the best war movies of them all. It's a marvel of low-budget filmmaking, and a marvel of efficiency - capturing the chaos, violence, then the blood-curdling heroism of battle, the matter of fact horror of counting off who gets to risk their life next...

Music Friday

Another simple random ten, this Friday. I have some new records I have to listen to, and maybe get around to writing about - but that is still to come... Right now - Friday 10:

1. You La Tengo - Lost in Bessemer
2. Richard Thompson - Burning Man
3. Pere Ubu - Synth Farm
4. John Hartford - I Am A Man of COnstant Sorrow (Instrumental)
5. Pere Ubu - Heart of Darkness [specifically, a demo from one of their collections, a rehearsal session, working out the pulse... Neu would be proud]
6. Richard & Linda Thompson - Hokey Pokey (live)
7. Rites of Spring - Drink Deep
8. Merle Haggard - Silver WIngs
9. Yoko Ono - Why Not
10. The Doors - Back Door Man

That was interesting. Here then - video? Rites of Spring thrashing in the dark might be a good place to start....



And while the video is just an odd piece of animation - one never goes wrong with Pere Ubu:

John Doe Footnote

(A follow up to the previous post - expanding a bit on some of the remarks about Meet John Doe. This comes from the paper that belongs with the images in this post.)

To quote the last post: "I think Capra tries to take a look at how fascism works. I think this is quite explicit at times - the big John Doe rally in the rain strikes me as a fairly deliberate parody of Triumph of the Will - or at least, of Nazi iconography" - here is what I mean:

The rally has all the trimmings of a big Nazi rally - huge crowds, radio mics and reporters, cameras and lights and hoopla - but all this imagery is undercut. The rally occurs in a torrential downpour - neither the bright daylight of the daytime scenes at Nuremburg, or the dramatic torchlight of the night scenes. John Doe arrives, passing like Hitler through the masses waiting for him, but unlike Hitler, with almost no fanfare. No one recognizes him as he passes through the crowd; Capra shoots his progress from a long distance in one shot, emphasizing his anonymity. Only when he reaches the stage does anyone recognize him. He then stands in front of the crowd, in front of a microphone, expected to speak; Capra frames him alone on the podium, in shots that do recall Riefenstahl’s shots of Hitler, but to opposite effect. Doe is alone, isolated (like Hitler in that, too), but with the opposite of Hitler’s commanding gaze and presence. He looks down, his face is desperate, and of course, he is sopping wet - a dripping, downcast man who doesn’t know what to say. The crowds are not arranged in ornaments, at least not in the lighting Capra provides - they are a sodden mass of people, obscured by umbrellas and hats and newspapers held over their heads, the whole thing swallowed up in mist and rain and darkness. The whole rally is a farce - the whole story a very complex mass of fraud and delusion, cynicism mixed with misapplied idealism, and this its point of collapse. Capra makes superb use of the imagery of Nazi propaganda, and of mass ornaments, undermining them, to expose the sordidness of the rally, not to mention the Nazis.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

This post started out as a Sunday Screen Shot post, but, well, I got a bit carried away... Actually - this comes from Sunday's double bill at the Brattle - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and My Man Godfrey - between shows I scribbled down my thoughts on Mr. Deeds... when I got home, I set about making a post out of them, and - well, kept going...



So - Deeds strikes me as an odd film - it's right there in the middle of Capra's career, and it seems to wobble a bit. The tone is very uneven, the ideas sort of vague and half finished - the formula is a bit more obvious than in some of the other films. The opening sections are quite fine - but after Jean Arthur shows up, things start to go wrong. Deeds starts acting up, and the film goes a bit sour. Beating up the literati is a kind of turning point - Deeds stops looking like a yokel who happens to be smarter than the sophisticated New Yorkers and starts looking like a bully. The impression never entirely goes away, not until the end...



What’s worse is that in that middle part (and even through some of the end), the film starts to depend a bit too much on Deeds getting dumber when the plot requires it. That’s a problem with a lot of recent comedies - people get smarter or dumber depending on where they are in the plot. That afflicts this film - Deeds starts very smart - but starts to get weird - some of which is harmlessly weird, but a lot of it requires him to really behave - stupidly. (The Coen brothers, remaking this, got around it by letting Norville Barnes be an imbecile from the beginning.) This is, though, a danger Capra often runs up against - he’s responsible for some if it, I’m afraid. He (and Riskin and Swerling and their other writers) were always trying to play on this line - to make characters who are genuinely divided, complex, pulled by multiple forces - smart but naive; innocent but clever, or cynical but good-hearted, etc. - in stories that balance comedy, tragedy, melodrama, politics, farce, and so on - it’s a constant element in their work. And that division puts all their films in danger of doing what this one does - relying on a kind of inconsistency to work...

Mr. Deeds, I think, is less successful than most of their films - they usually pull off the balancing act. Mr. Smith also works the yokel in the big city angle for all it is worth - but it never requires Smith to be an idiot, or to become a different person from scene to scene. Ditto George Bailey - there, Stewart (and the script) always keep the division, the multiple forces pulling at him, always present, in every scene. Some of this, I think, is Jimmy Stewart - who always carries an air of barely suppressed psychosis in his films - he always plays multiple registers. But a lot of it is the script.

The fact is - Dr. Van Haller isn’t far off - Deeds does bounce all over the place. Granted - most of the time, Deeds has a sharp sense of where he is on the cycle - he rides the waves deliberately. That too depends on the actor - Cooper always seems cool and aware, in control of something - he can brood, but he always seems to know where he is. (Unlike Stewart, who can give the impression of barely holding it all back.) Unfortunately, this very quality - Cooper’s calm, his thoughtfulness, the impression of awareness he gives - confuses the meaning of the wilder scenes. When he starts taking swings at people - he comes off as too cool and deliberate to quite believe that he was losing his shit. It makes him a bully...

This is a minority position, I am sure, but I think Meet John Doe is actually a better film. It has more of the edge that Stewart’s films have - Cooper seems too grounded in Mr. Deeds. In John Doe, his character seems to work better - he comes off both as more of an innocent among the wolves, and as a bit of a wolf himself. I don’t ever believe that Mr. Deeds is in danger of cracking - but John Doe - yes, I can see that.

Still - I think Cooper is quite marvelous in Mr. Deeds - he has a way of conveying common sense - looking at things in a way that makes you see that he isn’t fooled. (Though when they need him to be fooled, they have him play dumb.) I think this works a bit better in John Doe, I admit - I think in Mr. Deeds, he’s supposed to be too much a yokel - in Doe, though he’s an innocent of sorts, he’s one who’s been around. His knowingness and his innocence both make more sense. Though as far as Cooper goes, he plays knowing innocence to perfection.



(I should say - though I think Meet John Doe is a more interesting, powerful film, Capra is more in control of Mr. Deeds. The politics in John Doe are a mess - Capra tries to do way too much. He's trying, at the same time, to champion something about America and its political life, while criticizing it - now, that's an important part of what makes Capra's films so powerful. He returns over and over to the ways what is good in true in American politics is co-opted by cynical politicians, newspapermen, businessmen [all professions he rather admires, though], who turn ideals into slogans to cover their own greed and quest for power. Anyone who tries to inject something innocent, pure, good - is soaked up into the system... Okay - and alongside this already dividedlook at American politics, I think Capra tries to take a look at how fascism works. I think this is quite explicit at times - the big John Doe rally in the rain strikes me as a fairly deliberate parody of Triumph of the Will - or at least, of Nazi iconography.... I suppose, if I wanted to write about John Doe, I should have written about John Doe, [UPDATED, with that link] though...)

So, to try to get to the end of this - what? I do think Mr. Deeds is a great film - just a bit squishy. There's so much right - funny lines and bits of business and people, a nice (complicated) love story, all those wonderful bit players Capra always featured - and - don't get me wrong, some real sting in the tail. The scene when the man breaks in on Deeds with a gun and a tale of woe is great stuff - Capra does desperation as well as anyone....



But it's not up with his best (before or after) - because - too much of the plot requires Deeds (and other people) to get smarter or dumber between scenes... Because Capra and his collaborators (Riskin etc.) were urban sophisticates playing up the small town yokel salt of the earth hokum. Capra can never quite lose his real abiding love for fast talking newspaper men and women - he’s never particularly convincing here. Jean Arthur too has to change for somewhat arbitrary plot reasons. (Unlike in Mr. Smith, where her evolution seems much more organic.) So - something of a lesser film from one of the giants of American cinema.... There are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

A Requiem for those We Love

Memorial Day, like Veteran's Day, has changed focus over the years- it began as Decoration Day, a memorial for the Union dead after the Civil War, and only later was extended to the more general remembrance it has today. I am, I suppose, a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to holidays, and always like to go back to the source - though the broader remembrance is also a good thing.

In that spirit - both of going to the source and extending it - here is a link to Paul Hindemith's setting of Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Courtyard Bloom'd" - the poem written to commemorate Lincoln's death; the musical piece commissioned on the occasion of Roosevelt's death - both, of course, dating from the end of long wars.

Here is the opening - and the playlist, containing videos of the whole piece.

Simple Musical Post

AS we head into what I hope is a happy Memorial Day weekend for everyone, let's fire up the iPod and see what we can find...

1. Bob Dylan - You're Gonna Make me Lonesome When You Go - happy Birthday, Bob!
2. Naked CIty - Igneous Ejaculation [another data point against Jonah Weiner.]
3. Minutemen - This Road
4. The Strokes - Evening Sun
5. Decembrists - The Gymnast, High Above the Ground
6. Pere Ubu - Indiangiver
7. Muddy Waters - The Same Thing [I love Pete Cosey...]
8. John Lennon - Cold Turkey
9. Scott Walker - Such a Small Love
10. Fairport Convention - Staines Morris

And for video - let's try some live Naked City - John Zorn, Bill Frisell...



And their Batman theme:

Syberberg Screen Shots

Well - for this week's installment of Sunday Screen Shots - let's follow up on Lars von Trier's (self-induced) misfortunes, with some shots from one of the more extraordinary attempts to address the legacy of Hitler and the Nazis, Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's Hitler: A Film From Germany.



I suspect von Trier has drawn an idea or two from Syberberg - the extreme stylization of his early films, especially, seems reminiscent of this film. And I suppose his willingness to dig into evil - and into his own possible sympathy for evil - is consonant with Syberberg's exploration of evil.



And I suspect, in his awkward and ill-advisedly flippant way, von Trier's larger point is that we can't simply expel Hitler and the Nazis from the human race. He didn't act alone, after all... how he got Germany to follow him, etc., remains a question, and how not to do it again remains a problem... I'm not sure declaring him off limits is the best answer to that problem. Mockery has great value.

Friday Movie Follies

I think I will keep it simple today - straight up random... though first - a film link - a Woody Allen Blogathon, starting, I think, today.... there's another Woody Allen film coming out, that, like most of his films, seems to be getting good notices before it's actually released - who knows, maybe this one really isn't all that bad. Glenn Kenny liked it! I don't know; the previews filled me with dread. The descriptions seem to indicate that it is against nostalgia - the reviews, on the other hand, like most of Allen's recent reviews, seem driven mainly by nostalgia - a desperate hope that this time he will give us what he gave us back when we loved Woody Allen. Still - I might break my once every 7 years Woody Allen film attendance record...

But now - music:

1. Danielson - Olympic Portions
2. Tool - Forty six & 2
3. Sunny Day Real Estate - Shadows
4. Loren Connors - Airs No. 7
5. Neutral Milk Hotel - Untitled
6. Billy Bragg & Wilco - Eisler On the Go
7. Decembrists - of Angels and Angles
8. MIA - Born Free
9. Kali Bahlu - A Game Called Who Am I [are you a leprechaun?]
10. Melt Banana - Slide Down

Nothing there demands a video - so in honor of the possibility of getting rid of a whole bunch of the more obnoxious Christians this weekend - here's Blondie:

Film Festival Follies

I haven't been following the news from Cannes too closely this year - I was on vacation last week, up in the Northeast Kingdom and Upstate NY, with better things to use my spotty network reception for than reading about new Terence Malick films... But it's good to see that some auteurs can be counted on to deliver the goods. I mean of course, Lars von Trier - who made a fool of himself at a press conference (I like Emerson's post - he has video and some context) - though from a man who once cast himself as the "Schmuck of Ages", making a fool of himself seems pretty much standard operating procedure. Unfortunately, the Festival organizers proceeded to top him, making complete asses of themselves by banning him - my, my.

I'm not going to go into much depth on this, but - I'm not sure what of von Trier's remarks could be fairly called "unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity" (as the festival's statement put it.) He used inflammatory words and images - you're always on thin ice cracking wise about Nazis and the holocaust [unless you're making shitty, anti-historical movies about it - fucking Life is Beautiful won a prize!] - but the actual content of what he said doesn't seem all that offensive. Something about discovering that his ancestors were Germans instead of Jews, and referring to Germans as Nazis... something about understanding what Hitler must have felt like in the bunker (related, I imagine, to the fact Von Trier's Melancholia is about the end of the world) - hardly offensive, a bit banal even - we all know Hitler loved dogs and kids!... By that time, (going by the video you can find at Scanners) he seems to have realized he was digging himself in a hole - you get some generalities about the evils of the holocaust, his support for Jews (though not for Israel), an aside on Albert Speer, and finally - well - probably the dumbest punch line you can come up with - "OK, I'm a Nazi." But still - it's a punch line, and bad taste, I'm afraid, isn't quite what I'd call "unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity"....

It's not like he's alone in playing around with Nazi imagery - is there a punk rocker alive who didn't? There's just nothing there in what he said - provocation and posturing at most.... And on that note, I'll leave you with these nice American boys, doing a happy ditty about- something... about as seriously fascist as von Trier, to tell the truth...

Mother's Day Nihon no Eiga Style

If I were going to start posting something like a Sunday Screen Shot, this would be the place to start - Happy Mother's Day! and if there's a richer source of mother's on film than Japanese film, I'm not sure what it is... there is no limit, I think, to the number of pictures I could fine here.

Another Musical Friday

Back to the randomizer today... I am rather amazed that I have managed this very modest goal of putting up a music post every Friday - and even managed to work in a few variations... I may have to look for some other ways to trick myself into a couple posts a week - maybe a Sunday Screen Shot, or something like that...

But now? Music - what will iTunes offer us today?

1. Pere Ubu - Kathleen
2. NIck Cave & Bad Seeds - Darker With the Day
3. Fire Theft - Summertime
4. Xela - Afraid of Monsters
5. Mark Stewart - Rise Again
6. Six Organs of Admittance - Close to the Sky
7. PJ Harvey - Down By the Water
8. Tool - WIngs for Marie (Part 1)
9. Foals - Tron
10. Pavement - Conduit for Sale

Well - that came out well... and video? a very familiar collection of groups, I fear - don't I get Nick Cave or Pere Ubuon here every couple weeks? Well - here's another favorite who've probably had their day a few times - Pavement, live in 1999...

Osama Bin Laden

I should probably note the end of Mr. Bin Laden. I can't say I have anything too profound to say about it. I will say that the best response to it I've seen is from low-tech cyclist at the Cogitamus blog. Not surprising that it's a Hammett quote (though straight from the movie - though the movie takes the speech almost straight from the novel.) I've long associated September 11th with the story of Flitcraft in the Maltese Falcon - the man who adjusted himself to beams falling, then adjusted himself to beams not falling - sometimes to explain how we can go back to our lives after something like that, sometimes to marvel about how some of us refuse to adjust to beams falling... But as for Bin Laden, and why getting him matters - this says it just about perfectly:

When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.

That is just about how I feel about this. It has been too long to take an awful lot of satisfaction out of it - but given the enormity of his deeds, and the importance of being able to protect yourself, your citizens - it's very important that this be brought to a conclusion. I don't feel much like celebrating (it's not like this is the end of the war - VE or VJ days - those are days for parties in the streets), but I can't deny taking a powerful satisfaction in the end of a very bad man.

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day! And in the interests of ecumenicalism - I will offer a choice of celebrations this year.

Chinese heavy metal?



Liars, celebrating Walpurgis night?



Morris dancers?



Whatever your preference - enjoy the day. Sunny enough to pass for spring here in Boston...