I don't have much to offer today. An Earl Scruggs video would not be out of order I think:
And - a Friday random ten:
1. Black Sabbath - Hand of Doom [Paranoid really is a record that just keeps on giving...]
2. Tom Waits - Lucky Day
3. Outkast - B.O.B
4. Roxy Music - Whirlwind
5. Franz Ferdinand - Dark of the Matinee [I've mentioned this before - one of the best songs of the millennium] [Finding that link is a rather disturbing reminder of how long I have been doing this blog - though maybe more disturbing is that I had no idea I posted it 5 1/2 years ago.]
6. Pere Ubu - Cry Cry Cry
7. John Cale - Guts
8. The Seeds - Daisy Mae
9. Modest Mouse - Alone Down There
10. Mercury Rev - Secret for a Song
Video? Lots to choose from today... though there are few things more irritating than official videos, with their ads and all the rest - I have to post the Outkast...
And I don't remember posting John Cale in a while, so here you go:
Friday, March 30, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Two New World War II Films
Along with the films for the World War II class I am taking, there have been a couple newer films on the subject out recently. In an ideal world, I might have seen Red Tails - but it came and went almost before the class got started, and before I really thought about making a point of seeing any WWII films that might appear. But since then, a couple other films have come out, and now, I'm looking for them.
In Darkness (12/15) - An excellent film directed by Agnieszka Holland about a Polish sewer working in Lvov, who saves a group of Jews when the Ghetto is liquidated. He starts as an amoral scoundrel of sorts, robbing abandoned houses, skulking around the sewers - he finds some Jews who are looking for a way out of the ghetto, and offers to help them escape, for a price of course. When the Germans close the ghetto, a good many Jews get out through the sewers - he ends up hiding a dozen or so of them in the depths of the system. Meanwhile, the Germans and their Ukrainian allies are looking for Jews - they get a good many of them, but not his. He has a friend, though, a Ukrainian who knew him from prison - this friend has joined the Nazis, is an officer of some sorts - and tries to recruit him in the effort to find the Jews in the sewers. So our hero plays a double game. It is something of a familiar story - he starts as an opportunist, but becomes more and more committed to helping the people he is hiding - he becomes heroic. The film also does a good job of filling in the other characters - the Jews are developed - one is heroic; one is rich; others are faithless, others are weak, several of them emerge as fairly well rounded character. In all aspects of the world of the film, Holland is attentive to the devisions between people, the calculations of class and wealth and ethnicity. It is a very fine film, suspenseful and rich. The hero, Leopold Socha, was a real figure, who did just what the film shows, sheltering a group of Jews in the sewers of Lvov throughout the war...
Free Men (9/15) - A similar story, of Muslims in Paris protecting Jews and working with the French resistance. This too is centered on a real person, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, rector of a mosque in Paris who used his position to help fugitive Jews and others during the occupation. The film concentrates, though, on a fictional character, a young Algerian named Younes. He starts as a spy for the police, but soon discovers that a musician he admires and befriends is Jewish - and so switches sides. Before long he is working with the resistance, and with the mosque to protect Jews (including the musician), as well as resistance members, political refugees and so on. The musician in the film is Salim Halili, another real person, apparently a very great musician. (That link provides a fine example of his music.)
It's a good film - it's a fascinating story, suspenseful and sometimes moving - though a bit disjointed at times, and maybe a bit too willing to go for the cliche. We get 2 big ones - the kid-going-back-for-her-teddy scene that seems to be a requires feature in any films of this sort... and the "bad guy shot from behind by unseen good guy just before he kills one of the heroes", bit... And we get episodes, details that don't go anywhere - the revelation that the singer is a homosexual is - just there. Younes sees him with a man - but - so what? It's a strange moment... But that aside - pecestrian as the film is at times, it is a gripping story, well made, acted (the great Michael Lonsdale plays Benghabrit), with some really fantastic music - a very worthwhile movie...
In Darkness (12/15) - An excellent film directed by Agnieszka Holland about a Polish sewer working in Lvov, who saves a group of Jews when the Ghetto is liquidated. He starts as an amoral scoundrel of sorts, robbing abandoned houses, skulking around the sewers - he finds some Jews who are looking for a way out of the ghetto, and offers to help them escape, for a price of course. When the Germans close the ghetto, a good many Jews get out through the sewers - he ends up hiding a dozen or so of them in the depths of the system. Meanwhile, the Germans and their Ukrainian allies are looking for Jews - they get a good many of them, but not his. He has a friend, though, a Ukrainian who knew him from prison - this friend has joined the Nazis, is an officer of some sorts - and tries to recruit him in the effort to find the Jews in the sewers. So our hero plays a double game. It is something of a familiar story - he starts as an opportunist, but becomes more and more committed to helping the people he is hiding - he becomes heroic. The film also does a good job of filling in the other characters - the Jews are developed - one is heroic; one is rich; others are faithless, others are weak, several of them emerge as fairly well rounded character. In all aspects of the world of the film, Holland is attentive to the devisions between people, the calculations of class and wealth and ethnicity. It is a very fine film, suspenseful and rich. The hero, Leopold Socha, was a real figure, who did just what the film shows, sheltering a group of Jews in the sewers of Lvov throughout the war...
Free Men (9/15) - A similar story, of Muslims in Paris protecting Jews and working with the French resistance. This too is centered on a real person, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, rector of a mosque in Paris who used his position to help fugitive Jews and others during the occupation. The film concentrates, though, on a fictional character, a young Algerian named Younes. He starts as a spy for the police, but soon discovers that a musician he admires and befriends is Jewish - and so switches sides. Before long he is working with the resistance, and with the mosque to protect Jews (including the musician), as well as resistance members, political refugees and so on. The musician in the film is Salim Halili, another real person, apparently a very great musician. (That link provides a fine example of his music.)
It's a good film - it's a fascinating story, suspenseful and sometimes moving - though a bit disjointed at times, and maybe a bit too willing to go for the cliche. We get 2 big ones - the kid-going-back-for-her-teddy scene that seems to be a requires feature in any films of this sort... and the "bad guy shot from behind by unseen good guy just before he kills one of the heroes", bit... And we get episodes, details that don't go anywhere - the revelation that the singer is a homosexual is - just there. Younes sees him with a man - but - so what? It's a strange moment... But that aside - pecestrian as the film is at times, it is a gripping story, well made, acted (the great Michael Lonsdale plays Benghabrit), with some really fantastic music - a very worthwhile movie...
Friday, March 23, 2012
Clinging to the Rituals - Friday Random Ten
Somehow, I have fallen into a terrible writing slump - not just for this blog. I don't know why, it drives me crazy, but there it is. I can't even muster the will to loose the occasional tweet on the world. It's maddening. Anyway - I can hope, these things come and go, and this one will go again - and meanwhile, keep the lights on here any way I can. And so? Random Friday etc!
1. Melt Banana - Lock your Head
2. Gomez - Charlie Patton Songs
3. Sonic Youth - Pipeline/Kill Time
4. Mercury Rev - Opus 40
5. Elastica - Smile
6. Cream - Sitting on Top of the World
7. Madvillain - Rainbows
8. The Who - A Man in a Purple Dress [of that new record, of all things - I have good WHo music on here, why is this coming up?]
9. Built to Spill - Liar
10. Johnny Cash - Send a Picture to Mother
Video? How about a Mercury Rev video?
I can't find an actual video of Madvillain doing Rainbows - but here's Accordion, cause - I should post some Madvillain/MF Doom once in a hwile, shoulnd't I?
1. Melt Banana - Lock your Head
2. Gomez - Charlie Patton Songs
3. Sonic Youth - Pipeline/Kill Time
4. Mercury Rev - Opus 40
5. Elastica - Smile
6. Cream - Sitting on Top of the World
7. Madvillain - Rainbows
8. The Who - A Man in a Purple Dress [of that new record, of all things - I have good WHo music on here, why is this coming up?]
9. Built to Spill - Liar
10. Johnny Cash - Send a Picture to Mother
Video? How about a Mercury Rev video?
I can't find an actual video of Madvillain doing Rainbows - but here's Accordion, cause - I should post some Madvillain/MF Doom once in a hwile, shoulnd't I?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Cross of Iron
Another world war 2 film - Sam Peckinpaugh's take. Slow motion ultra-violence, and an approach that empties the war of any meaning except the act of fighting. That may be a good or bad - it's somewhat strange to see an American film do it, Especially set on the Eastern Front - it's a bit less strange when Germany and Japan do it... You don't see a lot of films like that about WWII - WWI is the anti-war film... it tends to make you wonder if maybe Peckinpaugh had others wars in mind...
In any case, it is a fine film, that hits all the notes war movies have to hit - the camaraderie of the unit, the conflicts in any given army, the inevitable trip to the home front (or a hospital), where the hero is more lost than he is in battle - and of course, trial by violence...
In any case, it is a fine film, that hits all the notes war movies have to hit - the camaraderie of the unit, the conflicts in any given army, the inevitable trip to the home front (or a hospital), where the hero is more lost than he is in battle - and of course, trial by violence...
Friday, March 16, 2012
Friday Music Again
Friday - I find myself falling back into bad habits - a postless week? a busy week it must be said, with a weekend away (Vermont and other points north), then way too much to keep me entertained at home - Champions League games to watch, a fantasy baseball draft, and me breaking down and buying a Deadwood set... "one vile fucking task after another" - well... you know what I mean...
Music then - randomly selected from the iTunes Library - for today is Friday:
1. Rocket From the Tombs - Search & Destroy [we were listening to the iPod in the car on the drive and it occurred to me how strange it was to get through half an hour of music without any Pere Ubu, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or the Feelies coming up. Here today, you see, that is not an issue - no time wasted at all before the dulcet tones of Mr. Thomas grace us...]
2. Don Giovanni - Della Sua Pace [I gots some culture you know!]
3. St. Etienne - Hobart Paving
4. Pavement - Baptist Blacktick
5. My Blpody Valentine - Soon
6. Dead Boys - Not Anymore & Ain't Nothin' to Do [Cheetah, take 2!]
7. Ramsey Lewis Trio - Wade in the Water [thanks again to one of those Mojo collections - neat stuff anyway]
8. Melt Banana - Chipped Zoo on the Wall, Wastes in the Sky [8 minutes long? they are branching out in this one a bit...]
9. Bill Frisell - Have a Little Faith in Me
10. Bishop Allen - Choose Again
nice set, have to say... here's some video. Start local, with Bishop Allen - a neat song that departs a bit from their usual template:
And - since Cheetah made it twice - here's the Dead Boys...
Music then - randomly selected from the iTunes Library - for today is Friday:
1. Rocket From the Tombs - Search & Destroy [we were listening to the iPod in the car on the drive and it occurred to me how strange it was to get through half an hour of music without any Pere Ubu, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or the Feelies coming up. Here today, you see, that is not an issue - no time wasted at all before the dulcet tones of Mr. Thomas grace us...]
2. Don Giovanni - Della Sua Pace [I gots some culture you know!]
3. St. Etienne - Hobart Paving
4. Pavement - Baptist Blacktick
5. My Blpody Valentine - Soon
6. Dead Boys - Not Anymore & Ain't Nothin' to Do [Cheetah, take 2!]
7. Ramsey Lewis Trio - Wade in the Water [thanks again to one of those Mojo collections - neat stuff anyway]
8. Melt Banana - Chipped Zoo on the Wall, Wastes in the Sky [8 minutes long? they are branching out in this one a bit...]
9. Bill Frisell - Have a Little Faith in Me
10. Bishop Allen - Choose Again
nice set, have to say... here's some video. Start local, with Bishop Allen - a neat song that departs a bit from their usual template:
And - since Cheetah made it twice - here's the Dead Boys...
Friday, March 09, 2012
Simple Friday Pleasures of Music
I'm in a bit of a scramble this morning, so nothing fancy... Random Friday goodness...
1. Devendra Banhart - Pumpkin Seeds
2. Butthole Surfers - I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
3. White Stripes - I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman Every Day
4. Pavement - Type Slowly
5. Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing [do what you wanna do]
6. Wipers - My Vengeance
7. Stooges - No Fun
8. Revolting Cocks - Red Parrot
9. Matisyahu - Chop em Down
10. Melt Banana - His Name is Mickey
That was, it must be said, a rather lively set. Video? Can't find that Wipers song - but here's another - Over the Edge (which sounds a more than a little like a rewrite of Sonic Reducer, doesn't it? lesson being, of course - if you steal, steal from the best.)
Iggy and company, in their dotage:
And finally, a soothing ditty from the island nation of Japan:
1. Devendra Banhart - Pumpkin Seeds
2. Butthole Surfers - I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
3. White Stripes - I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman Every Day
4. Pavement - Type Slowly
5. Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing [do what you wanna do]
6. Wipers - My Vengeance
7. Stooges - No Fun
8. Revolting Cocks - Red Parrot
9. Matisyahu - Chop em Down
10. Melt Banana - His Name is Mickey
That was, it must be said, a rather lively set. Video? Can't find that Wipers song - but here's another - Over the Edge (which sounds a more than a little like a rewrite of Sonic Reducer, doesn't it? lesson being, of course - if you steal, steal from the best.)
Iggy and company, in their dotage:
And finally, a soothing ditty from the island nation of Japan:
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Fighting Elegy
Continuing with World War II films - this one, not actually featured in the class, and set before the war - is still a fine example. Japan in the 30s, the build up to the war, increasing militarism, through the case of a single student... And, characteristically of Suzuki's work - gorgeous...
Friday, March 02, 2012
Random Friday 10
March comes in like a lion this year, though admittedly, a declawed and rather mangy one. But there was rain and wind and snow yesterday, and today, there is actual snow on the ground! possibly for the first time this winter! This is not normal, and undoubtedly bodes ill for the rest of the year's weather...
That doesn't have much to do with Friday music posts, but I thought I'd mention it. I could also mention Davy Jones' passing - The Monkees were never a central part of my life, but always there - a fun TV show with music, when I was a kid, more than enough reason to watch it. And the songs they sang were, let's face it - top shelf. Pre- or not, they were surely fab.
Anyway - this is still mostly random...
1. Pere Ubu - Stormy Weather [not completely random, maybe...]
2. Pavement - Sue Me Jack
3. MIssion of Burma - Einstein's Day
4. Pere Ubu - I Wanna be Your Dog [live, the Laughner days...]
5. Gram Parsons & Flying Burrito Brothers - Thousand Dollar Wedding
6. Consonant - Love & Affection
7. Bright Eyes - We Are Nowhere and It's Now
8. The Beatles - Mean Mr. Mustard
9. The Open Mind - Magic Potion [another Mojo collection here...]
10. The Polyphonic Spree - Wig in a Box [from the celebrity tribute album version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch...]
And video? Monkees, obviously -
The TV intro...
And - for good measure - Mickey singing, too...
That doesn't have much to do with Friday music posts, but I thought I'd mention it. I could also mention Davy Jones' passing - The Monkees were never a central part of my life, but always there - a fun TV show with music, when I was a kid, more than enough reason to watch it. And the songs they sang were, let's face it - top shelf. Pre- or not, they were surely fab.
Anyway - this is still mostly random...
1. Pere Ubu - Stormy Weather [not completely random, maybe...]
2. Pavement - Sue Me Jack
3. MIssion of Burma - Einstein's Day
4. Pere Ubu - I Wanna be Your Dog [live, the Laughner days...]
5. Gram Parsons & Flying Burrito Brothers - Thousand Dollar Wedding
6. Consonant - Love & Affection
7. Bright Eyes - We Are Nowhere and It's Now
8. The Beatles - Mean Mr. Mustard
9. The Open Mind - Magic Potion [another Mojo collection here...]
10. The Polyphonic Spree - Wig in a Box [from the celebrity tribute album version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch...]
And video? Monkees, obviously -
The TV intro...
And - for good measure - Mickey singing, too...
Sunday, February 26, 2012
If I Were Picking the Prizes
I am not a fan of the Oscars. They're industry awards, and the movie industry doesn't interest me all that much. As artistic awards, they very seldom intersect with my tastes or interests - so I let them be. The show? I wouldn't watch it even if they were nominating the awards. I watched the year they gave Robert Altman a lifetime achievement award - that should hold me for a while...
On the other hand, they provide as good an excuse as any to post a list. I thought I'd occasionally posted category lists before - my favorite actors, directors, what have you, for the year - but the only one I can find was in 2006! I should have done this in January, but there you go. Works now. So here goes....
Lead Actor - this is one the Academy got this one totally wrong. Shannon and Fassbender are well above anyone else this year. The fact that neither was nominated is inexcusable, and all the excuse I need to ignore the whole affair.
Michael Shannon - Take Shelter
Michael Fassbender - in take your pick; Shame might have been his best performance, but I think he could have been nominated for three different performances last year...
George Clooney - The Descendants
Brendan Gleeson - The Guard
Lead Actress - another one where the award nominations bear no resemblance to my opinions:
Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
Elizabeth Olson - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Mia Wasikowski - Jane Eyre
Michelle Williams - Meeks Cutoff
Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids
Supporting Actor:
John Hawkes - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Kiefer Sutherland - Melancholia
Sasha Baron Cohen - Hugo
Albert Brooks - Drive
Mark Strong - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Supporting Actress:
Charlotte Gainsbourgh - Melancholia
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan - Shame
Keira Knightley - A Dangerous Method (or is this a lead?)
Lucy Punch - Bad Teacher
Director:
Von Trier - Melancholia
Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter
Martin Scorsese - Hugo
Pedro Ammodovar - The Skin That I Live In
David Cronenberg - A Dangerous Method
Cinematography:
Hugo - Robert Richardson
Tree of life - Emmanuel Lubezki
Restless - Harris Savides
The Skin I Live In - Jose Luis Alcaine
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Hoyte van Hoytema
Original Script:
Take Shelter
A Separation
Melancholia
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
Adapted Script:
Descendents
Dangerous Method
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Jane Eyre
Drive
Animated film:
Rango was outstanding, and even nominated! I hope it wins. Though half the regular nominees are as much animated as not - Hugo? did any of that exist anywhere outside a computer?
That's about right.
On the other hand, they provide as good an excuse as any to post a list. I thought I'd occasionally posted category lists before - my favorite actors, directors, what have you, for the year - but the only one I can find was in 2006! I should have done this in January, but there you go. Works now. So here goes....
Lead Actor - this is one the Academy got this one totally wrong. Shannon and Fassbender are well above anyone else this year. The fact that neither was nominated is inexcusable, and all the excuse I need to ignore the whole affair.
Michael Shannon - Take Shelter
Michael Fassbender - in take your pick; Shame might have been his best performance, but I think he could have been nominated for three different performances last year...
George Clooney - The Descendants
Brendan Gleeson - The Guard
Lead Actress - another one where the award nominations bear no resemblance to my opinions:
Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
Elizabeth Olson - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Mia Wasikowski - Jane Eyre
Michelle Williams - Meeks Cutoff
Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids
Supporting Actor:
John Hawkes - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Kiefer Sutherland - Melancholia
Sasha Baron Cohen - Hugo
Albert Brooks - Drive
Mark Strong - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Supporting Actress:
Charlotte Gainsbourgh - Melancholia
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan - Shame
Keira Knightley - A Dangerous Method (or is this a lead?)
Lucy Punch - Bad Teacher
Director:
Von Trier - Melancholia
Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter
Martin Scorsese - Hugo
Pedro Ammodovar - The Skin That I Live In
David Cronenberg - A Dangerous Method
Cinematography:
Hugo - Robert Richardson
Tree of life - Emmanuel Lubezki
Restless - Harris Savides
The Skin I Live In - Jose Luis Alcaine
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Hoyte van Hoytema
Original Script:
Take Shelter
A Separation
Melancholia
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
Adapted Script:
Descendents
Dangerous Method
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Jane Eyre
Drive
Animated film:
Rango was outstanding, and even nominated! I hope it wins. Though half the regular nominees are as much animated as not - Hugo? did any of that exist anywhere outside a computer?
That's about right.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Friday Random Ten
Nothing fancy today - just 10 songs coughed up by iTunes:
1. TV on the Radio - Wear You Out
2. Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home
3. Melt-Banana - Cracked Plaster Cast
4. Isley Brothers - I Wanna Be With You
5. Devandra Banhart - Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artisan Mimicry
6. The 5 Royales - Think [another gem courtesy of Mojo - "James Brown's Funky SUmmer"]
7. Van Morrison - the Big Royalty Check [from "the Bang records contractual obligation sessions" - one of the great kissoffs in rock history, a bunch of improvised abuse for a record company he wanted out of.... you can read about it at WMFU's site... for all the bad history, though - this is a pretty catchy tune...]
8. Spirit - Girl in your Eye [one of the great and mostly forgotten bands of the 60s, Spirit...]
9. The Carpenters - Top of the World [not as good as the Shonen Knife cover, but still a great little song]
10. Modest Mouse - Lounge
I guess that was a rather eclectic playlist, in the end.. Video? TV on the Radio, probably the best band in existence just now, always works:
And - sweet Mary, Joseph and Jesus! here are the Carpenters, faking the country, with Karen on drums and in fine voice - playing at the white house for Tricky Dick and Willy Brandt!
1. TV on the Radio - Wear You Out
2. Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home
3. Melt-Banana - Cracked Plaster Cast
4. Isley Brothers - I Wanna Be With You
5. Devandra Banhart - Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artisan Mimicry
6. The 5 Royales - Think [another gem courtesy of Mojo - "James Brown's Funky SUmmer"]
7. Van Morrison - the Big Royalty Check [from "the Bang records contractual obligation sessions" - one of the great kissoffs in rock history, a bunch of improvised abuse for a record company he wanted out of.... you can read about it at WMFU's site... for all the bad history, though - this is a pretty catchy tune...]
8. Spirit - Girl in your Eye [one of the great and mostly forgotten bands of the 60s, Spirit...]
9. The Carpenters - Top of the World [not as good as the Shonen Knife cover, but still a great little song]
10. Modest Mouse - Lounge
I guess that was a rather eclectic playlist, in the end.. Video? TV on the Radio, probably the best band in existence just now, always works:
And - sweet Mary, Joseph and Jesus! here are the Carpenters, faking the country, with Karen on drums and in fine voice - playing at the white house for Tricky Dick and Willy Brandt!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Cranes Are Flying
For this Sunday's screen shots, another great World War II film - Cranes are Flying, a Russian film from 1957. You can't really do justice to it with screen shots - it's one of the most extreme, and breathtaking, pieces of moving pictures you will find - the name refers to a poem the heroine recites, but it might just as well refer to the camerawork - the camera is flying, swooping, spinning, running, everything.... It's a wonder to behold.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Hugo and The Artist and neo-Silent Movies
Back in the 90s, there was a rash of films about, set in, imitating, what have you, the silent era. They seemed to be oriented toward the centennial of cinema - the trend kind of faded out after a while (other than the true believers, like Guy Maddin.) Last year, though, we got a couple new entries - The Artist and Hugo - pretty good films that are quite highly regarded - The Artist is even the favorite to win the Oscar! This doesn't seem to be a trend this time, just a coincidence of two films - though, you never know. We are, here in 2011 and 2012, in the midst of a technological shift more or less as profound as the coming of sound - we are pretty much at the point of the end of film itself... and this is running parallel to a number of other changes, that may or may not take over the artistic side of cinema - 3D, CGI, digital projection, the replacement of public film viewing with home viewing, shifts from physical home formats (DVD, Blu-ray etc.) to streaming - etc... All these changes create anxiety in the cinema world - and that anxiety tends to find its way into films. So - films about technological changes may well become a trend again.
The films in the 90s were, I say, oriented generally to the anniversary of cinema - many of them explicitly so: Lumiere and Company, A Trick of the Light, etc. , etc. They came in many forms, too. Some were about the early days of cinema: Chaplin, Shadow of the Vampire say; some were in the style of ancient films: Lumiere and Company, Train of Shadows; some were a bit of both: the Wenders film, or Forgotten Silver, or Makhmalbaf's Once Upon a Time, Cinema. However you want to classify Irma Vep, Freaks and Men, Shadow Magic - and that's not to mention filmmakers who adopted early cinema as their own style - Guy Maddin prominently. Hugo and The Artist would have fit in fairly well. They are different in some ways, but the differences would still land them somewhere on the continuum - Hugo as a thoroughly modern fiction film; The Artist as a pastiche of late silent, mainstream style, where the 90s films tended to emulate either primitive styles or art films, or to adopt a more explicitly historical (or mock-historical) tone. They'd have fit.
Still - I think Hugo has more in common with that run of films then the Artist does. Because it was a very explicitly cinephilic, self-conscious trend, films directly concerned with the history of films, the development of films, as art, as culture, as technology, often an explicit reenactment of that development. Experimental film has often worked by retracing the history of films, reclaiming abandoned techniques - and many of the 90s films I named followed the same path - many of the filmmakers (Maddin, Guerin, Makhmalbaf, etc.) work on the edges of experimental film anyway, and this is part of it. Hugo has that spirit. As does Scorsese - though he has not tended to be a particularly experimental filmmaker, most of his career, he has roots in the more adventurous parts of American film. And he is, as much as Assayas or Makhmalbaf or Maddin, a devoted cinephile, a historian of film. He brings all that to this film.
The story is this - Hugo is a boy living in a train station, living in the walls, minding the clocks and watching people. He also is a bit of a thief, especially from the old man who runs the toy shop in the station - but the old man catches him, confiscates his notebook, and sets the plot in motion. Truns out - Hugo has an automaton that his father found and was trying to fix, but his father is dead - but this is linked to the old man. The old man has a goddaughter who reads a lot, but (like Mohsen Makmalbaf or Paul Schrader, though for different reasons) is forbidden to go to the movies. She and Hugo soon are pals, and conspire - this might count as a spoiler, but the movie's been out long enough I don't feel any guilt about it - they soon discover that the old man is Georges Melies, filmmaking pioneer, and they set out to restore him to his art. Everything works out in the end - everyone is fixed, everything in its proper place - it's lovely and generous to all. The story itself is a bit disjointed at times, starting and stopping and switching directions and generally subordinated to the spectacle at every step - but that isn't much of a problem, really.
The spectacle, after all, is most of the point. It is wonderful to look at - I saw it in 2D first (since that was playing closest to home), later in 3D - it's the first real film I've seen in 3D, the first film I've cared about seeing in 3D. Even in 2D, it's lovely, with its eye popping colors and fine use of space. In 3D, it becomes more apparent that the primary subject of the film is smoke. Smoke in three dimensions, twisting in and out of spaces, filling the air. It's amazing, really. Scorsese is on his game here - he makes the 3D seem to matter - activating not just the whole screen, but the illusion of depth. There are some rather aggressive 3D images - things coming at you, dogs and people and the like - but the main use of 3D is to open out the space, away from you. Scorsese has always loved sending his camera into his spaces - all those tracks and steadicam shots people love - and here, he gets to indulge that to a fault, plunging into spaces - in a way that keeps opening out more spaces in front of you. You get the sense of behind things - it's very impressive. Though - to be sure - after a while - the showy way he sticks things in the front of the shot, to create those depth effects get a bit tiresome - and remind you, maybe, that that sort of thing works perfectly well in 2D, and is less distracting. But that's all right.
Meanwhile, Scorsese also gets to wallow in the magic of primitive cinema - reproducing the process of shooting those old films, working the films into his film. And that, I think, is the ultimate point of the film - it appropriates very old, primitive films as a way of championing another technical innovation, 3D. It's an apologia for special effects, and for the value of spectacle, and specifically, imaginative, imaginary spectacle, and technical trickery, over story, plot, etc. It makes that case - it is all those things - it makes a convincing case indeed.
Okay - that's Hugo. The Artist, meanwhile, is something different. As a film - it's enjoyable fluff about a silent film star who can't adjust to sound - he spends all his money making his own film, which bombs, and he sinks intio misery. All this is paralleled by the rise of an actress, who, in the end, saves him. That is, this is another variant on A Star is Born, this time with a happy ending (and the romance starting at the end.) It's charming enough, but it's a pretty thin storyline, and it sags a bit (a lot) in the middle - enough to make the Oscar talk all too understandable. The academy has a nose for mediocrity...
It's problems might not matter more if it had a bit more to say about the history, though. (Or vice versa - if the story were better, the lack of the kind of cinephilia Hugo has wouldn't be a problem.) Because it doesn't really do anything with the style - it's black and white, it's (sort of) silent - and so what? That isn't entirely fair - there are moments. There are the films in the film - most of them invented (though they do steal a bit of The Mark of Zorro at one point) - and, while nothing too spectacular, amusing, and, I have to admit, rather more interesting looking than the film we get to see. And there are a couple moments where the film actually uses sound - there is a dream sequence that is worth the price of admission, and indeed, works in precisely the way the best of those 90s neo-silents did. Exploring the effects of technology, playing with them, bringing the technology of film to the foreground. And - very welcome, because the truth is, the coming of sound was not a big feature in those 90s films - nor in Hugo - Maddin is the only one of the filmmakers I mentioned above who really dwells on that moment of change.... BUt unfortunately, that's about the end - Hazanavicius doesn't really pursue it.
And so - in the end, The Artist is just an imitation of an old style, without a strong critical element. That's part of it. You could also say, it's just less inventive, less surprising, not as good as Hugo. Never mind Tren de Sombras or Forgotten Silver or Heart of the World.
The films in the 90s were, I say, oriented generally to the anniversary of cinema - many of them explicitly so: Lumiere and Company, A Trick of the Light, etc. , etc. They came in many forms, too. Some were about the early days of cinema: Chaplin, Shadow of the Vampire say; some were in the style of ancient films: Lumiere and Company, Train of Shadows; some were a bit of both: the Wenders film, or Forgotten Silver, or Makhmalbaf's Once Upon a Time, Cinema. However you want to classify Irma Vep, Freaks and Men, Shadow Magic - and that's not to mention filmmakers who adopted early cinema as their own style - Guy Maddin prominently. Hugo and The Artist would have fit in fairly well. They are different in some ways, but the differences would still land them somewhere on the continuum - Hugo as a thoroughly modern fiction film; The Artist as a pastiche of late silent, mainstream style, where the 90s films tended to emulate either primitive styles or art films, or to adopt a more explicitly historical (or mock-historical) tone. They'd have fit.
Still - I think Hugo has more in common with that run of films then the Artist does. Because it was a very explicitly cinephilic, self-conscious trend, films directly concerned with the history of films, the development of films, as art, as culture, as technology, often an explicit reenactment of that development. Experimental film has often worked by retracing the history of films, reclaiming abandoned techniques - and many of the 90s films I named followed the same path - many of the filmmakers (Maddin, Guerin, Makhmalbaf, etc.) work on the edges of experimental film anyway, and this is part of it. Hugo has that spirit. As does Scorsese - though he has not tended to be a particularly experimental filmmaker, most of his career, he has roots in the more adventurous parts of American film. And he is, as much as Assayas or Makhmalbaf or Maddin, a devoted cinephile, a historian of film. He brings all that to this film.
The story is this - Hugo is a boy living in a train station, living in the walls, minding the clocks and watching people. He also is a bit of a thief, especially from the old man who runs the toy shop in the station - but the old man catches him, confiscates his notebook, and sets the plot in motion. Truns out - Hugo has an automaton that his father found and was trying to fix, but his father is dead - but this is linked to the old man. The old man has a goddaughter who reads a lot, but (like Mohsen Makmalbaf or Paul Schrader, though for different reasons) is forbidden to go to the movies. She and Hugo soon are pals, and conspire - this might count as a spoiler, but the movie's been out long enough I don't feel any guilt about it - they soon discover that the old man is Georges Melies, filmmaking pioneer, and they set out to restore him to his art. Everything works out in the end - everyone is fixed, everything in its proper place - it's lovely and generous to all. The story itself is a bit disjointed at times, starting and stopping and switching directions and generally subordinated to the spectacle at every step - but that isn't much of a problem, really.
The spectacle, after all, is most of the point. It is wonderful to look at - I saw it in 2D first (since that was playing closest to home), later in 3D - it's the first real film I've seen in 3D, the first film I've cared about seeing in 3D. Even in 2D, it's lovely, with its eye popping colors and fine use of space. In 3D, it becomes more apparent that the primary subject of the film is smoke. Smoke in three dimensions, twisting in and out of spaces, filling the air. It's amazing, really. Scorsese is on his game here - he makes the 3D seem to matter - activating not just the whole screen, but the illusion of depth. There are some rather aggressive 3D images - things coming at you, dogs and people and the like - but the main use of 3D is to open out the space, away from you. Scorsese has always loved sending his camera into his spaces - all those tracks and steadicam shots people love - and here, he gets to indulge that to a fault, plunging into spaces - in a way that keeps opening out more spaces in front of you. You get the sense of behind things - it's very impressive. Though - to be sure - after a while - the showy way he sticks things in the front of the shot, to create those depth effects get a bit tiresome - and remind you, maybe, that that sort of thing works perfectly well in 2D, and is less distracting. But that's all right.
Meanwhile, Scorsese also gets to wallow in the magic of primitive cinema - reproducing the process of shooting those old films, working the films into his film. And that, I think, is the ultimate point of the film - it appropriates very old, primitive films as a way of championing another technical innovation, 3D. It's an apologia for special effects, and for the value of spectacle, and specifically, imaginative, imaginary spectacle, and technical trickery, over story, plot, etc. It makes that case - it is all those things - it makes a convincing case indeed.
Okay - that's Hugo. The Artist, meanwhile, is something different. As a film - it's enjoyable fluff about a silent film star who can't adjust to sound - he spends all his money making his own film, which bombs, and he sinks intio misery. All this is paralleled by the rise of an actress, who, in the end, saves him. That is, this is another variant on A Star is Born, this time with a happy ending (and the romance starting at the end.) It's charming enough, but it's a pretty thin storyline, and it sags a bit (a lot) in the middle - enough to make the Oscar talk all too understandable. The academy has a nose for mediocrity...
It's problems might not matter more if it had a bit more to say about the history, though. (Or vice versa - if the story were better, the lack of the kind of cinephilia Hugo has wouldn't be a problem.) Because it doesn't really do anything with the style - it's black and white, it's (sort of) silent - and so what? That isn't entirely fair - there are moments. There are the films in the film - most of them invented (though they do steal a bit of The Mark of Zorro at one point) - and, while nothing too spectacular, amusing, and, I have to admit, rather more interesting looking than the film we get to see. And there are a couple moments where the film actually uses sound - there is a dream sequence that is worth the price of admission, and indeed, works in precisely the way the best of those 90s neo-silents did. Exploring the effects of technology, playing with them, bringing the technology of film to the foreground. And - very welcome, because the truth is, the coming of sound was not a big feature in those 90s films - nor in Hugo - Maddin is the only one of the filmmakers I mentioned above who really dwells on that moment of change.... BUt unfortunately, that's about the end - Hazanavicius doesn't really pursue it.
And so - in the end, The Artist is just an imitation of an old style, without a strong critical element. That's part of it. You could also say, it's just less inventive, less surprising, not as good as Hugo. Never mind Tren de Sombras or Forgotten Silver or Heart of the World.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Another Lazy Friday
And again... I find myself much lazier than I want to be - so lacking any special inspiration, let's just play around in iTunes and YouTube, shall we?
1. White Stripes - Catch Hell Blues
2. PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
3. Simon Wickham-Smith & Richard Youngs - Lake
4. Interpol - Memory Serves
5. Mnor Threat - Filler
6. Girls at our Best! - Going Nowhere Fast
7. Radiohead - Sit Down, Stand Up (SNakes & Ladders)
8. Paul Revere and the Raiders - Just Like Me
9. Camper von Beethoven - Turqoise Jewelry
10. Saint Etienne - Hobart Pavement
Video? We need PJ:
And some old, rather blurry Camper van Beethoven:
And - a random (and very beautiful) Richard Youngs song:
1. White Stripes - Catch Hell Blues
2. PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
3. Simon Wickham-Smith & Richard Youngs - Lake
4. Interpol - Memory Serves
5. Mnor Threat - Filler
6. Girls at our Best! - Going Nowhere Fast
7. Radiohead - Sit Down, Stand Up (SNakes & Ladders)
8. Paul Revere and the Raiders - Just Like Me
9. Camper von Beethoven - Turqoise Jewelry
10. Saint Etienne - Hobart Pavement
Video? We need PJ:
And some old, rather blurry Camper van Beethoven:
And - a random (and very beautiful) Richard Youngs song:
Sunday, February 12, 2012
World War II In Films
I am taking a class again - at Harvard Extension - this one is called World War II Through Film and Literature - and is roughly what it says it is. The history of the war, covered in the context of films and books. We're three few weeks in - the first three films have been The Mortal Storm, The Winter War and Mrs. Miniver. The Winter War is the outlier there - a film about the war between Finland and the USSR in 1939-40, made for the 50th anniversary. It's an obscure episode in the war, not fitting with the dominant story - the Russians attacked Finland in a dispute over land (the Soviets wanted land, to help defend Liningrad, basically) - since Russia had signed the non-aggression pact with the Germans, the western allies flirted with jumping into the war on Finland's side... they didn't, and a couple years later, Finland rather rashly started this war up again, on the German's side... complicated. Anyway - the Soviets invaded, the Finns fought back, and for three months or so held off the infinitely stronger Soviets, in a gruesome bloodbath. The Russians just kept coming and the Finns mowed them down. It was 1916 all over again. In the end, the Russians punched through a couple places, enough to convince the Finns to take the Soviet offer of peace, though they were still holding most of their land. Anyway - the film is a grunt's eye view of this war, a Finnish unit in the trenches, fighting off the Soviets, day after day after day... It's brutal and unrelenting, and the film keeps you in the middle of it - but for all its harsh realism, it still manages to hit nearly every cliche in the book. Story and style - the training, the banter, the mix of characters, the home front, the girls, the wounded soldier gone home to find himself alienated, etc. - and the style, pulls out music and slow motion and sound design at the places where war movies always do those things.... It's a noble attempt to show war at its ugliest, but it doesn't quite seem to have the chops to do it.
The other two films are a different matter. The Mortal Storm is one of those films made between the start of the war in Europe and Pearl Harbor that started to take sides - while maybe trying to maintain some plausible deniability. It's about the opening period of Hitler's rule in Germany - Frank Morgan plays a college professor who everyone loves - but then Hitler is made chancellor and things go wrong. He is hounded from his job (the people who celebrated him before turn against him - including his own friends and family); Jimmy Stewart is another one - a pacifist, a liberal, and a horse doctor - who before long has to run away to Austria. Margaret Sullavan is in it too - Morgan's daughter, courted by Robert Young (of all people) in the role of a Nazi student... It is a Frank Borzage film - a handsome, rather gloriously overdetermined melodrama that ends as badly as one might expect. It's also a pretty decent account of the early years of the Nazi rule - showing the slow but inexorable logic of their extension of terror and persecution... It doesn't pull a lot of punches in this - though it's interesting which punches it does pull. No one mentions Jews - "non-Aryans" only; the film barely mentions Germany... It's interesting too that even at the end, when the pacifists are chased out of the country, murdered, shot down in cold blood and so on - they don't take up arms. This isn't quite Sergeant York.... I don't know how much of that is from the story and how much from the times - some of it must be from the times, as those American films tended to keep pushing closer to calling for war...
Finally, Mrs. Miniver. Like the Mortal Storm, this is a big, handsome MGM production, directed by one of the high end directors of the time - William Wyler this time. This is about the Miniver family, Clem and Kay, their three kids, especially son Vin, and the aristocratic girl he falls in love with. The film commences in the summer of 1939 - before long, England is at war. Vin joins the RAF, everyone else does whatever their duty happens to be - home guard, air raid wardens and whatnot - the film jumps ahead to the summer of 1940, and things happen. Dunkirk - the Battle of Britain - bombing raids - death from the sky... It was started before the US entered the war, but not finished until early 1942 - this led to certain scenes (especially the one with a German pilot) being amped up a bit. Though the main story would have been pretty straightforward pro-British more or less propaganda from the start. It's an interesting film - it's a handsome, impeccably made work, with a very strong script, and a few moments of truly magnificent filmmaking. The problem is - as consummate a work of art as it is, it is very polite, very MGM - with all the sense of stasis and self-congratulation that can entail. I'm not a fan of the style - it goes against me, even when the filmmaking is as good as this is. Somehow, even though it is made about the same time, at the same studio, in the same style, I much prefer The Mortal Storm - it seems - more at peace with its melodrama. I guess. All this tends to disappear as the film goes on - there are moments - the assembly of the Dunkirk fleet - the bomb shelter - most of the ending - that are filmmaking at its finest, on par with Lang or Hitchcock. Wyler is known for his love of deep spaces - and certainly, he uses space to great effect here.... But what's surprising is how much tension he milks out of the lack of space - the bomb shelter sequence, and the ending, are brilliant - using tight framings, sound, flickers and flashes of light - to make extremely powerful, stressful scenes.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Randomizer - Randomize!
Hello Friday again! Another random day - time's been tight lately - I am taking a class again - I hope to get some material out of it though, so - there may be some real content here in coming days! Could be. Anyway, it is Friday, thank the good lord, and thus time for a post of music.
1. A Ha - Take On Me
2. Preston School of Industry - Take a Stand
3. Bill Callahan - Eid Ma Clack Shaw
4. Mozart - Ah! del padre in periglio [Don Giovanni - hey! I got some cultha here and there!]
5. Come - Sad Eyes
6. Pink Floyd - Corporal Clegg
7. Ryan Adams - Sweet Black Magic
8. Yo la Tengo - If It's True
9. Gomez - Very Strange
10. Audioslave - What you are
Video? You know - in fact, A Ha can never come up on these random lists - it's the very first song that appear in iTunes, and it's where I click to start, to make sure that when the next song is random! fun fact! But today - there are North Koreans playing accordions to post:
And - why not? Here's the Mozart number that came up, from the Joseph Losey film:
And finally, somethign completely different - Pink Floyd in Belgium, in their early, very early, Dave Gilmour days.
1. A Ha - Take On Me
2. Preston School of Industry - Take a Stand
3. Bill Callahan - Eid Ma Clack Shaw
4. Mozart - Ah! del padre in periglio [Don Giovanni - hey! I got some cultha here and there!]
5. Come - Sad Eyes
6. Pink Floyd - Corporal Clegg
7. Ryan Adams - Sweet Black Magic
8. Yo la Tengo - If It's True
9. Gomez - Very Strange
10. Audioslave - What you are
Video? You know - in fact, A Ha can never come up on these random lists - it's the very first song that appear in iTunes, and it's where I click to start, to make sure that when the next song is random! fun fact! But today - there are North Koreans playing accordions to post:
And - why not? Here's the Mozart number that came up, from the Joseph Losey film:
And finally, somethign completely different - Pink Floyd in Belgium, in their early, very early, Dave Gilmour days.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Ben Gazzara
Another of American's great actors has died, Ben Gazzara. Like Peter Falk, he probably got his best movie roles from Cassavetes - though like Falk, he worked for many significant directors, had many juicy roles - and his presence always graced the film. He had a face - looking at The Killing of a Chinese Bookie for this, you notice how much of the film consists of shots of Gazzara listening - waiting - Cassavetes' tight framings and long dialogue scenes require something like that - he cuts between the speakers sometimes, but just as often, maybe more, he just holds on Gazzara, listening, looking around (trying to catch everything, like he's trying to spot where the next disaster is coming from)... That is a great film, and one that is profoundly dependent on the lead...
Friday, February 03, 2012
Musical Friday and Soul Train
Friday again, and another fairly simply random 10, but I want to add a note of goodbye to Don Cornelius - I don't remember Soul Train as clearly as I remember MIdnight Special, but in the 70s, any TV show with music - lots of music - was like manna... So - start with Marvin Gaye, a long segment chatting with Don and the audience, then singing "Let's Get It On" - yes indeed.
And? let's turn the randomizer over to Genius today, and start with Marvin Gaye....
1. Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On
2. James Brown - It's a Man's Man's Man's World
3. The Isley Brothers - That Lady
4. Stevie Wonder - He's Misstra Know It All
5. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears of a Clown
6. The Temptations - Get Ready
7. Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summer Time
8. Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
9. Curtis Mayfield - (Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go
10. Meters - Cissy Strut
And more Soul Train - here are the Isley Brothers:
And - though not the song on the genius list - Stevie Wonder...
And? let's turn the randomizer over to Genius today, and start with Marvin Gaye....
1. Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On
2. James Brown - It's a Man's Man's Man's World
3. The Isley Brothers - That Lady
4. Stevie Wonder - He's Misstra Know It All
5. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears of a Clown
6. The Temptations - Get Ready
7. Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summer Time
8. Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
9. Curtis Mayfield - (Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go
10. Meters - Cissy Strut
And more Soul Train - here are the Isley Brothers:
And - though not the song on the genius list - Stevie Wonder...
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Catchup from Last Year
I am trying to catch up on writing about films. I usually go off the grid around the middle of December, and being slow and prone to procrastination, especially when it comes to writing, this creates an awful backlog. I usually get back to film watching quickly enough - backlog!
Some films, I'm still brooding over - Shame, A Dangerous Method, Hugo and the Artist - I want to do them justice. They all raise interesting questions - I keep circling them... I'll get there eventually. They are all associated with awards and the like - so they are still somewhat topical - so I feel less guilt about not getting anything posted about them. I will though. They are films to think about.... The films here - it's not so much that they aren't intriguing or important (I mean, hell - one of them is a bona fide masterpiece!) - but - who knows. The masterpiece at least is 45 years old, so I don't feel too guilty about shorting it. Anyway - I want to put something down about these films, most of which I saw at the end of last year...
Week End - 14/15 - rereleased in a shiny new print, one of the great End of the World and None Too Soon flicks... Two slimy bourgeoisie take a trip, suffer traffic jams and Mozart, and are murdered and eaten by revolutionaries with names like Arizona Jules. Perhaps the darkest dark comedy ever made. Godard at his harshest, but also hilarious. Very strange, but the strangeness funny - a string of surreal incidents, violence and murder, pornographic tales and encounters with madmen - St. Just and Emily Bronte; Joseph Balsamo, son of God and Alexander Dumas, who promises to grant their wishes if they take him to London. It's political points are delivered in the same style - a kind of deadpan surrealism, absurdity played dead seriously, kind of - those garbagemen lecturing them on colonialism... It's kind of an absurdist version of Bergman's Shame (or maybe Shame is Week End played straight. I prefer the Godard - I prefer Godard to Bergman on principal, I suppose, but here, I think the absurdity of Week End saves it from the traps that afflict Shame. But that's neither here nor there - it's a great film, and always thrilling to see it - see any Godard, let's not pretend otherwise - on the big screen.
Tales from the Golden Age - 11/15 - anthology film from Romania, 6 stories from the days of Ceaucescu, all written by Christian Mungiu, directed by various filmmakers. The stories are:
1. The Official visit - just that, a village prepares for a (possible) visit by an official - the visit is cancelled, but the lesser officials are partying, and end up taking a ride on a carousel - because the top official ordered everyone to ride, the operator is on the machine as well - they can't get off...
2. The Party Photograph - Ceaucescu meets D'Estaing at the airport, there is a photo - which is subject to constant negotiation on retouching. The party insists that Ceaucescu should be wearing a hat (he'd taken it off for the photo) - the photo editors do so, but aren't allowed to check the photo before it goes to press - they forget to erase the hat in his hand...
3. The Zealous Activist - this one is about a bureaucrat who goes to a remote village to force everyone to learn to read. It is quite conventional, really - standard comedy with yokels and a city slicker...
4. The Greedy Policeman - a very good little film - alternates between 2 kids and their parents (who are neighbors). One family buys a pig for the holidays, but it is delivered still alive - they don't know how to kill it. They end up gassing it - that works, but then they try to burn the hair off the animal with a blow-torch, with predictable results.
5. The Air Sellers - a boy who goes door to door collecting bottles (pretending to be inspecting the water) meets a girl - she needs money, so she joins him in his scheme. She is more ambitious than he is - she convinces him to scam the super at a building for bottles, but they are caught - she runs, he's arrested, but he doesn't really care - his father works for the party....
6. The Chicken Driver - about a man who drives poultry to port, who always stops at the same inn for supper - one day, one of his tires is stolen and he has to stay over - in the morning, he finds he has hundreds of eggs in the truck - the innkeeper convinces him to let her sell them. He tries it again - but he's caught, and ends in jail...
I should find more to say about this - it is a very fine film. Works in the vein of realistic absurdity that is characteristic of Romanian films (at least most of the ones that get released here), well made, amusing and wryly moving.
The Rum Diary - 9/15 - Hunter S. Thompson novel starring Johnny Depp, written and directed by Bruce Robinson - set in Puerto Rico, 1960, with a Thompsonesque writer turning up on a lousy newspaper, getting tied up in a scheme to build hotels and ruin the natural beauty of places, with an array of mad eccentrics around the poor fellow... It's amusing enough, and a fair story, but tends to bog down, and never really delivers on the madness half-promised. Depp is a Thompson figure in the process of becoming Hunter S. Thompson - and thus a bit bland. Better for the set pieces and occasional flights of rhetoric than for the story...
Gainsbourg (A Heroic Life) - 10/15 - very clever bio of Serge Gainsbourg, using puppets and animation to fill out his personality - his mug as a character... A nice film, maybe nothing more - but thoroughly enjoyable.
The Mill and the Cross - 11/15 - A walk through the Breugel painting The Road to Calvary - the painting is presented as a real world, augmented with painted backdrops - the film is a kind of critical essay on the painting, an explanation, as well as a kind of dramatization of it. Begins with a young couple, who are attacked by Spanish soldiers, the man is beaten and put on a wheel and lifted to the crows - later taken down, just the crows left.... This atrocity is repeated in the staging of the crucifixion - the march to the cross, first, with the painting presented as time stopped in the middle of the procession - then the crucifixion, and the peasants dancing, after the time of the painting itself... The film addresses the politics of it - the Spanish, the Flemish resistance, and so on; some of the background of Breugel himself; and the painting, as work of art - its design, structure - the spider's web, with Jesus in the middle, almost obscured, with the mill above, the miller looking down, grinding the bread of life.... All of this is a fantastic idea for a movie - a very effective and intriguing way to work with art. I thought the film came a bit short - but only a bit... it may have tried to do too much, and couldn't quite get all the pieces (the history, art history, art criticism, as well as direct religious and political ruminations of its own) to cohere - or couldn't quite do justice to all the things it tried to do. But still - a great joy to see.
Weekend - 10/15 - a guy goes to a gay bar after hanging with his friends - picks someone up there - the film picks up in the morning, as they are in bed, talking about it. It turns out the pickup is an artist, who interviews the first guy, and as they talk, they start to become friends. The rest of the film follows them around, this weekend - one of them is off to America Monday morning. Etc. It starts out quite casual, but they bond very quickly - and their parting proves to be traumatic.... ends like Lost in Translation - the two men whispering something to each other we don't hear. All this is nicely done - the characters are interesting, the dialogue and filmmaking is all well out together. It's all a bit stagy, but not bad, overall.
Some films, I'm still brooding over - Shame, A Dangerous Method, Hugo and the Artist - I want to do them justice. They all raise interesting questions - I keep circling them... I'll get there eventually. They are all associated with awards and the like - so they are still somewhat topical - so I feel less guilt about not getting anything posted about them. I will though. They are films to think about.... The films here - it's not so much that they aren't intriguing or important (I mean, hell - one of them is a bona fide masterpiece!) - but - who knows. The masterpiece at least is 45 years old, so I don't feel too guilty about shorting it. Anyway - I want to put something down about these films, most of which I saw at the end of last year...
Week End - 14/15 - rereleased in a shiny new print, one of the great End of the World and None Too Soon flicks... Two slimy bourgeoisie take a trip, suffer traffic jams and Mozart, and are murdered and eaten by revolutionaries with names like Arizona Jules. Perhaps the darkest dark comedy ever made. Godard at his harshest, but also hilarious. Very strange, but the strangeness funny - a string of surreal incidents, violence and murder, pornographic tales and encounters with madmen - St. Just and Emily Bronte; Joseph Balsamo, son of God and Alexander Dumas, who promises to grant their wishes if they take him to London. It's political points are delivered in the same style - a kind of deadpan surrealism, absurdity played dead seriously, kind of - those garbagemen lecturing them on colonialism... It's kind of an absurdist version of Bergman's Shame (or maybe Shame is Week End played straight. I prefer the Godard - I prefer Godard to Bergman on principal, I suppose, but here, I think the absurdity of Week End saves it from the traps that afflict Shame. But that's neither here nor there - it's a great film, and always thrilling to see it - see any Godard, let's not pretend otherwise - on the big screen.
Tales from the Golden Age - 11/15 - anthology film from Romania, 6 stories from the days of Ceaucescu, all written by Christian Mungiu, directed by various filmmakers. The stories are:
1. The Official visit - just that, a village prepares for a (possible) visit by an official - the visit is cancelled, but the lesser officials are partying, and end up taking a ride on a carousel - because the top official ordered everyone to ride, the operator is on the machine as well - they can't get off...
2. The Party Photograph - Ceaucescu meets D'Estaing at the airport, there is a photo - which is subject to constant negotiation on retouching. The party insists that Ceaucescu should be wearing a hat (he'd taken it off for the photo) - the photo editors do so, but aren't allowed to check the photo before it goes to press - they forget to erase the hat in his hand...
3. The Zealous Activist - this one is about a bureaucrat who goes to a remote village to force everyone to learn to read. It is quite conventional, really - standard comedy with yokels and a city slicker...
4. The Greedy Policeman - a very good little film - alternates between 2 kids and their parents (who are neighbors). One family buys a pig for the holidays, but it is delivered still alive - they don't know how to kill it. They end up gassing it - that works, but then they try to burn the hair off the animal with a blow-torch, with predictable results.
5. The Air Sellers - a boy who goes door to door collecting bottles (pretending to be inspecting the water) meets a girl - she needs money, so she joins him in his scheme. She is more ambitious than he is - she convinces him to scam the super at a building for bottles, but they are caught - she runs, he's arrested, but he doesn't really care - his father works for the party....
6. The Chicken Driver - about a man who drives poultry to port, who always stops at the same inn for supper - one day, one of his tires is stolen and he has to stay over - in the morning, he finds he has hundreds of eggs in the truck - the innkeeper convinces him to let her sell them. He tries it again - but he's caught, and ends in jail...
I should find more to say about this - it is a very fine film. Works in the vein of realistic absurdity that is characteristic of Romanian films (at least most of the ones that get released here), well made, amusing and wryly moving.
The Rum Diary - 9/15 - Hunter S. Thompson novel starring Johnny Depp, written and directed by Bruce Robinson - set in Puerto Rico, 1960, with a Thompsonesque writer turning up on a lousy newspaper, getting tied up in a scheme to build hotels and ruin the natural beauty of places, with an array of mad eccentrics around the poor fellow... It's amusing enough, and a fair story, but tends to bog down, and never really delivers on the madness half-promised. Depp is a Thompson figure in the process of becoming Hunter S. Thompson - and thus a bit bland. Better for the set pieces and occasional flights of rhetoric than for the story...
Gainsbourg (A Heroic Life) - 10/15 - very clever bio of Serge Gainsbourg, using puppets and animation to fill out his personality - his mug as a character... A nice film, maybe nothing more - but thoroughly enjoyable.
The Mill and the Cross - 11/15 - A walk through the Breugel painting The Road to Calvary - the painting is presented as a real world, augmented with painted backdrops - the film is a kind of critical essay on the painting, an explanation, as well as a kind of dramatization of it. Begins with a young couple, who are attacked by Spanish soldiers, the man is beaten and put on a wheel and lifted to the crows - later taken down, just the crows left.... This atrocity is repeated in the staging of the crucifixion - the march to the cross, first, with the painting presented as time stopped in the middle of the procession - then the crucifixion, and the peasants dancing, after the time of the painting itself... The film addresses the politics of it - the Spanish, the Flemish resistance, and so on; some of the background of Breugel himself; and the painting, as work of art - its design, structure - the spider's web, with Jesus in the middle, almost obscured, with the mill above, the miller looking down, grinding the bread of life.... All of this is a fantastic idea for a movie - a very effective and intriguing way to work with art. I thought the film came a bit short - but only a bit... it may have tried to do too much, and couldn't quite get all the pieces (the history, art history, art criticism, as well as direct religious and political ruminations of its own) to cohere - or couldn't quite do justice to all the things it tried to do. But still - a great joy to see.
Weekend - 10/15 - a guy goes to a gay bar after hanging with his friends - picks someone up there - the film picks up in the morning, as they are in bed, talking about it. It turns out the pickup is an artist, who interviews the first guy, and as they talk, they start to become friends. The rest of the film follows them around, this weekend - one of them is off to America Monday morning. Etc. It starts out quite casual, but they bond very quickly - and their parting proves to be traumatic.... ends like Lost in Translation - the two men whispering something to each other we don't hear. All this is nicely done - the characters are interesting, the dialogue and filmmaking is all well out together. It's all a bit stagy, but not bad, overall.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Random Musical Friday
Another random list, I'm afraid - I'm running late again. May iTunes reward....
1. Melvins - Dies Iraea
2. Elvis Costello - Big Boys
3. System of a Down - Soldier Side (intro)
4. Bootsy Collins - Psychoticbumpschool (live)
5. Neil Young - Harvest
6. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
7. Pere Ubu - Monday Morning
8. The Clash - Inoculated City
9. John Zorn - Chinatown
10. The Seeds - Satisfy You
That was a nice set, if you ask me... so video? Bootsy is indicated, for sure:
And - this song didn't come up, but - the Seeds on network TV? plopped down in someone's living room? I have to post this! Gassy!
1. Melvins - Dies Iraea
2. Elvis Costello - Big Boys
3. System of a Down - Soldier Side (intro)
4. Bootsy Collins - Psychoticbumpschool (live)
5. Neil Young - Harvest
6. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
7. Pere Ubu - Monday Morning
8. The Clash - Inoculated City
9. John Zorn - Chinatown
10. The Seeds - Satisfy You
That was a nice set, if you ask me... so video? Bootsy is indicated, for sure:
And - this song didn't come up, but - the Seeds on network TV? plopped down in someone's living room? I have to post this! Gassy!
Friday, January 20, 2012
Very Random Friday Music Post Here
Now I'm starting to worry about this Not Listening to Music thing. Yesterday, I was on a long train ride - and still didn't put on the iPod. That's what those things were invented for! As has been the patter for the last year or so - I read a book instead. I suppose you take what you get....
Anyway - once again, I end up going completely random - nothing wrong with that, I suppose.... Here goes:
1. Dave Van Ronk - DId You Hear John Hurt
2. Love - Everlasting First - this is Love with Hendrix
3. The Stooges - Passing Cloud
4. Black Mountain - Don't Run Our Hearts Around
5. Johnny Cash - Thirteen
6. Dream Syndicate - Cinnamon Girl
7. Pink Floyd - The Happiest Days of Our Lives
8. Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers - One Track Mind
9. Television - Venus
10. Melt Banana - One Drop, One Life
Video? bit a retro, hippy vibe up there - Black Mountain sounds good....
Anyway - once again, I end up going completely random - nothing wrong with that, I suppose.... Here goes:
1. Dave Van Ronk - DId You Hear John Hurt
2. Love - Everlasting First - this is Love with Hendrix
3. The Stooges - Passing Cloud
4. Black Mountain - Don't Run Our Hearts Around
5. Johnny Cash - Thirteen
6. Dream Syndicate - Cinnamon Girl
7. Pink Floyd - The Happiest Days of Our Lives
8. Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers - One Track Mind
9. Television - Venus
10. Melt Banana - One Drop, One Life
Video? bit a retro, hippy vibe up there - Black Mountain sounds good....
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