Media: Film and Wurlitzer Organ
Title: The Immigrant
Director: Charlie Chaplin
These 4 weeks of Chaplin shorts were my second favorite Silent Movie Monday series since I first discovered them in 2001. (Only the Buster Keaton series was more enjoyable.
This week we saw The Cure, The Immigrant and The Adventurer. Though not the funniest of the group, The Immigrant was the most significant and the most pointedly political of all the Mutual shorts. It explores the ambiguities and paradoxes of America’s relationship with its immigrants and immigrants’ experience in their new country.
One simple cut powerfully captures the essence of the ambiguity. First, after an awful sea voyage the immigrants’ boat is finally pulling into New York Harbor and we get a stirring vision of The Statue of Liberty standing before 1917 New York. It is an emotionally powerful image to us in the audience, even 90 years later, and Chaplin reflects the emotion on his characters’ faces. (I would like someone to explore the use of the statue before this Chaplin moment.) Then cut to the immigration officers who immediately wall off the immigrants from their liberty with a taunt rope. In this moment the rope causes the characters to go from the highest state of humanity – pondering hope, liberty and possibility – to cattle marked with tags whose fate is subject to the whim of a bureaucrat. And America goes from a country beckoning to all who believe in their worth to enter and contribute, to an America who grudgingly condescends to open the door, threatening to slam it shut if it so chooses. Every ideal of liberty and tolerance, and every urge toward the ugliness of prejudice and fear in America’s twofold relationship to immigration is captured in this simple juxtaposition of scenes. It may be the most brilliant moment in all of these 16 short films and is one of the most powerful moments Chaplin has left to us.
(Watch the most recent version of Hairspray and see a rope used in similarly powerful way - to physically separate the white and black teenagers.\ - proving Chaplin is alive 90 years on.)
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Chaplin: Silent Movie Mondays
Media: silent film with live musical accompaniment
Title: The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond (all 1916)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
The first of 4 fantastic weeks of Silent Movie Mondays began at the Paramount this past week. We will see Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpieces from 1916 and 1917 produced by the Mutual Film Company. The Paramount is presenting these 12 films in chronological order.
The first two films, The Floorwalker and The Fireman, are more Mack Sennett (whom Chaplin worked for at Keystone) than Charlie Chaplin. Basically a situation is set up, Charlie works in a fire station for example, and the film explores every slap-stick situation Charlie can get into in a fire house. It is all hilarious frenzy.
Then by film three, The Vagabond, something happens and you get Chaplin’s full genius, perhaps for the first time. Actually it is even more interesting than that, the true Chaplin genius kicks in half way into the film after an initial Sennett-like chaotic chase through a neighborhood with city toughs in pursuit of Charlie. The genius that will mark Chaplin’s best films arrives with Charlie in the country where he has fled. Added to the surface slap-stick is a deep inner core of real emotion, often manifest in the form of that little tramp Charlie, loving a woman who is his social better. In The Vagabond, as in other Chaplin films, it is made clear the love is mutual and would persists if the two were able to remain alone in the world, but crumbles when exposed to society’s eyes. A superior woman cannot be allowed to love a little tramp.
There is a perfect scene in The Vagabond. Charlie who has rescued a young woman from a violent relationship washes the country grime from the woman’s face. On the surface it is pure hilarity as he sticks the washcloth in the pliant woman’s ears and nose to get the wretch clean. Simultaneously it is beautiful, lovely and filled with genuine care, like a mother washing a child. It is as scene as sweet and moving as it is crude and hilarious, and it is that combination of a hilarious surface mixed with deep genuine feeling which will remain Chaplin’s greatest gift for many years to come.
Title: The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond (all 1916)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
The first of 4 fantastic weeks of Silent Movie Mondays began at the Paramount this past week. We will see Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpieces from 1916 and 1917 produced by the Mutual Film Company. The Paramount is presenting these 12 films in chronological order.
The first two films, The Floorwalker and The Fireman, are more Mack Sennett (whom Chaplin worked for at Keystone) than Charlie Chaplin. Basically a situation is set up, Charlie works in a fire station for example, and the film explores every slap-stick situation Charlie can get into in a fire house. It is all hilarious frenzy.
Then by film three, The Vagabond, something happens and you get Chaplin’s full genius, perhaps for the first time. Actually it is even more interesting than that, the true Chaplin genius kicks in half way into the film after an initial Sennett-like chaotic chase through a neighborhood with city toughs in pursuit of Charlie. The genius that will mark Chaplin’s best films arrives with Charlie in the country where he has fled. Added to the surface slap-stick is a deep inner core of real emotion, often manifest in the form of that little tramp Charlie, loving a woman who is his social better. In The Vagabond, as in other Chaplin films, it is made clear the love is mutual and would persists if the two were able to remain alone in the world, but crumbles when exposed to society’s eyes. A superior woman cannot be allowed to love a little tramp.
There is a perfect scene in The Vagabond. Charlie who has rescued a young woman from a violent relationship washes the country grime from the woman’s face. On the surface it is pure hilarity as he sticks the washcloth in the pliant woman’s ears and nose to get the wretch clean. Simultaneously it is beautiful, lovely and filled with genuine care, like a mother washing a child. It is as scene as sweet and moving as it is crude and hilarious, and it is that combination of a hilarious surface mixed with deep genuine feeling which will remain Chaplin’s greatest gift for many years to come.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Let's Get Lost
Title: The Best of Chet Baker Sings: Let's Get Lost
Media: audio CD
I go to this CD again and again as one of my top 10 favorite vocal performances. Chet Baker's vocals are in the same category as Billie Holiday's. Neither Chet nor Billie are going to knock you out with pure talent like Sinatra or Sarah Vaughn, but they possess a haunting quality that enters your gut, your emotional center, your imagination. I want to describe Baker's vocals and trumpet playing as ghostly and sensual, if something can be both immaterial and caressing simultaneously.
Media: audio CD
I go to this CD again and again as one of my top 10 favorite vocal performances. Chet Baker's vocals are in the same category as Billie Holiday's. Neither Chet nor Billie are going to knock you out with pure talent like Sinatra or Sarah Vaughn, but they possess a haunting quality that enters your gut, your emotional center, your imagination. I want to describe Baker's vocals and trumpet playing as ghostly and sensual, if something can be both immaterial and caressing simultaneously.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Alias Mr. Alden
Title: Alias Mr. Alden from The Whistler
Media: CD
I am certain this half hour radio show from 1952 is as good or better than any half hour of television on today. This show could easily be padded and turned into a fine film noir. It is a classic double - double cross with a femme fatal to boot. Both characters are after the safety deposit key of the recently murdered Mr. Alden and neither can be trusted. In the end the woman ends up with the money and kills the man pretending to be Mr. Alden. Finally, in classic Whistler style, a seemingly insignificant act, in this case the man typing the woman's name on a check on a new ribbon, becomes the guilty party's undoing. In this case her name typed on that new ribbon was plain for the policew to see. "I'm sure something in this room will tell us why your name was typed by the murdered Mr. Alden!" (Key whistle, thank you Signal Oil.)
Media: CD
I am certain this half hour radio show from 1952 is as good or better than any half hour of television on today. This show could easily be padded and turned into a fine film noir. It is a classic double - double cross with a femme fatal to boot. Both characters are after the safety deposit key of the recently murdered Mr. Alden and neither can be trusted. In the end the woman ends up with the money and kills the man pretending to be Mr. Alden. Finally, in classic Whistler style, a seemingly insignificant act, in this case the man typing the woman's name on a check on a new ribbon, becomes the guilty party's undoing. In this case her name typed on that new ribbon was plain for the policew to see. "I'm sure something in this room will tell us why your name was typed by the murdered Mr. Alden!" (Key whistle, thank you Signal Oil.)
Friday, August 24, 2007
Belle De Jour
Media: Film
Title: Belle De Jour (1967)
Director: Luis Bunuel
Belle De Jour is the second masterpiece of French cinema I have seen this year. (Rules of the Game being the other.) Looking as beautiful as any one you have ever seen on film, Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, an emotionless, young, upper class wife suffering through the most intense case of ennui. In a way she is similar to Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate (also 1967). She seemingly has everything (wealth, beautiful doctor husband, ski vacations) and her whole life before her, but she is paralyzed with a feeling of emptiness; and like Hoffman’s Benjamin, she turns to illicit sex to feel something, anything in her barren life. This movie also contains one of the greatest screen thugs in all film. The thug is Severine inversed. He too is young, disillusioned and disconnected from society. But where Severine is inert the thug is perpetually on the knife’s edge of violence. Despite being different in every societal aspect they share at their core a feeling of estrangement from the world, and this draws them to each other.
Belle De Jour deserves multiple viewings and much conversation to fully explore all the themes and ideas saturating this work of art.
Title: Belle De Jour (1967)
Director: Luis Bunuel
Belle De Jour is the second masterpiece of French cinema I have seen this year. (Rules of the Game being the other.) Looking as beautiful as any one you have ever seen on film, Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, an emotionless, young, upper class wife suffering through the most intense case of ennui. In a way she is similar to Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate (also 1967). She seemingly has everything (wealth, beautiful doctor husband, ski vacations) and her whole life before her, but she is paralyzed with a feeling of emptiness; and like Hoffman’s Benjamin, she turns to illicit sex to feel something, anything in her barren life. This movie also contains one of the greatest screen thugs in all film. The thug is Severine inversed. He too is young, disillusioned and disconnected from society. But where Severine is inert the thug is perpetually on the knife’s edge of violence. Despite being different in every societal aspect they share at their core a feeling of estrangement from the world, and this draws them to each other.
Belle De Jour deserves multiple viewings and much conversation to fully explore all the themes and ideas saturating this work of art.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Chet Baker
(Now that I'm getting back into the work routine, let's see if I can get back into the blog routine.)
Media: CD
Title: Chet Baker: Complete 1952 Fantasy and Pacific Jazz Sessions
Tonight I listened to Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan playing on "The Complete 1952 Fantasy and Pacific Jazz Sessions". Loved it, especially 'Lullaby of the Leaves' and 'My Funny Valentine'. Close your eyes and listen to the sections where Baker and Mulligan play together, Mulligan low and out front and Baker with his high ghost-whisper playing behind him. Just beautiful.
Media: CD
Title: Chet Baker: Complete 1952 Fantasy and Pacific Jazz Sessions
Tonight I listened to Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan playing on "The Complete 1952 Fantasy and Pacific Jazz Sessions". Loved it, especially 'Lullaby of the Leaves' and 'My Funny Valentine'. Close your eyes and listen to the sections where Baker and Mulligan play together, Mulligan low and out front and Baker with his high ghost-whisper playing behind him. Just beautiful.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Where the Reading Takes You
Title: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Media: Book
YouThis past autumn I began a reading project I first heard on KUOW public radio. You start with one book. The second book you read will be inspired by some idea, theme, character, etc. in the first. Qualities in this second book inspire a third title, and so on until the project ends or you start again from a new book.
I just finished Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A really amazing biography of MLK that explores only, but in great depth, King’s work as a public figure beginning in 1956 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (inspired by Rosa Park) and ends with his death in 1968 when he had switched his mission to the larger hopes of economic justice and working to the end the Vietnam War. My most clear take away: King hardly slept over these 12 years fighting for justice and was often a reluctant leader bearing the cross of the title, despite moments of doubt he never wavered from his belief in the power of non-violence to bring about justice, this belief was powered by deep faith that he was doing work of a higher calling. I cannot imagine a better written biography of King’s work.
I will now start on Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The MLK book mostly explored the politics and social dimensions of race in the 1960s. I now want to look at the ‘6os through a cultural lens a la the psychedelic drug underground. Here is the run down of where the reading has taken me.1. American Movie Critics: this is an anthology of film criticism.2. The Immediate Experience by Robert Warshaw: I chose this book because Warshaw’s essays on Chaplin and on gangster films were two favorites in American Movie Critics.3. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Warshaw had a surprisingly negative essay of Death of a Salesman in The Immediate Experience.4. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I chose this novel because Rabbit is a character like Biff Loman, a middle class man living in quiet desperation whose best days were in high school on a sports team.5. Rabbit, Redux by John Updike: I was taken with Rabbit and wanted to know what happened next.6. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography of Race: I chose this biography of Du Bois because race relations played a major role in Rabbit, Redux set in the summer of 1969.7. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. – there is a direct line from Du Bois as leader of black America to King.
8. On to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – chosen to stick with the theme of the radical ‘60s culture.
Media: Book
YouThis past autumn I began a reading project I first heard on KUOW public radio. You start with one book. The second book you read will be inspired by some idea, theme, character, etc. in the first. Qualities in this second book inspire a third title, and so on until the project ends or you start again from a new book.
I just finished Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A really amazing biography of MLK that explores only, but in great depth, King’s work as a public figure beginning in 1956 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (inspired by Rosa Park) and ends with his death in 1968 when he had switched his mission to the larger hopes of economic justice and working to the end the Vietnam War. My most clear take away: King hardly slept over these 12 years fighting for justice and was often a reluctant leader bearing the cross of the title, despite moments of doubt he never wavered from his belief in the power of non-violence to bring about justice, this belief was powered by deep faith that he was doing work of a higher calling. I cannot imagine a better written biography of King’s work.
I will now start on Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The MLK book mostly explored the politics and social dimensions of race in the 1960s. I now want to look at the ‘6os through a cultural lens a la the psychedelic drug underground. Here is the run down of where the reading has taken me.1. American Movie Critics: this is an anthology of film criticism.2. The Immediate Experience by Robert Warshaw: I chose this book because Warshaw’s essays on Chaplin and on gangster films were two favorites in American Movie Critics.3. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Warshaw had a surprisingly negative essay of Death of a Salesman in The Immediate Experience.4. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I chose this novel because Rabbit is a character like Biff Loman, a middle class man living in quiet desperation whose best days were in high school on a sports team.5. Rabbit, Redux by John Updike: I was taken with Rabbit and wanted to know what happened next.6. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography of Race: I chose this biography of Du Bois because race relations played a major role in Rabbit, Redux set in the summer of 1969.7. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. – there is a direct line from Du Bois as leader of black America to King.
8. On to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – chosen to stick with the theme of the radical ‘60s culture.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Monday March 12
5am-6am Morning Edition: liked the downtown Seattle housing story
6-6:30 - Read in my MLK biography -fascinating to read the accounts of Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' of 1965 after all the talk recently about Obama's and Clinton's anniversary speeches
4-4:30 All Things Considered - no stand out
5-5:30 more MLK biography on Selma aftermath and Johnson's speech where he proclaimed 'we shall over come'
6 - Simpsons DVD - Call of the Simpson from season one - the scenes with the RV salesman is the best
7 - Fresh Air podcast - on the military's use and perhaps abuse of psychotropic meds
7:30 Sherlock Holmes story
6-6:30 - Read in my MLK biography -fascinating to read the accounts of Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' of 1965 after all the talk recently about Obama's and Clinton's anniversary speeches
4-4:30 All Things Considered - no stand out
5-5:30 more MLK biography on Selma aftermath and Johnson's speech where he proclaimed 'we shall over come'
6 - Simpsons DVD - Call of the Simpson from season one - the scenes with the RV salesman is the best
7 - Fresh Air podcast - on the military's use and perhaps abuse of psychotropic meds
7:30 Sherlock Holmes story
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Whistler
Media: Old-Time-Radio on CD
Title: The Whistler
Tonight I listened to another fantastic old-time radio show. The story was called "Whirlpool" first broadcast in 1948 on The Whistler radio program. But I do not want to talk about the fine tale of suspense. What struck tonight me was the advertising – in particular the idea of a single advertiser sponsoring a program. When I hear the title The Whistler I also know that Signal Oil is the advertiser. That’s amazing because I had never heard of Signal Oil before I began listening to The Whistler. The ad may be 20? 30? years too late for me, but I am a fan of Signal Oil. I also know all the advertisers for the other 50 and 60-year-old radio shows I listen to, even though they are produced mostly by companies that no longer exist. For example:
The Whistler – Signal Oil
Sherlock Holmes – Clipper Craft Clothing for Men
Dragnet – Chesterfield Cigarettes
Suspense – Roma Wine
The Great Gildersleve – Kraft Margarine
The Shadow – Blue Coal
And something even more interesting: do you know any company that advertised on any show you saw last week?
So besides being higher quality entertainment, old-time radio had more effective advertising as well.
“The Signal Oil Company brings you . . . The Whistler”.
Title: The Whistler
Tonight I listened to another fantastic old-time radio show. The story was called "Whirlpool" first broadcast in 1948 on The Whistler radio program. But I do not want to talk about the fine tale of suspense. What struck tonight me was the advertising – in particular the idea of a single advertiser sponsoring a program. When I hear the title The Whistler I also know that Signal Oil is the advertiser. That’s amazing because I had never heard of Signal Oil before I began listening to The Whistler. The ad may be 20? 30? years too late for me, but I am a fan of Signal Oil. I also know all the advertisers for the other 50 and 60-year-old radio shows I listen to, even though they are produced mostly by companies that no longer exist. For example:
The Whistler – Signal Oil
Sherlock Holmes – Clipper Craft Clothing for Men
Dragnet – Chesterfield Cigarettes
Suspense – Roma Wine
The Great Gildersleve – Kraft Margarine
The Shadow – Blue Coal
And something even more interesting: do you know any company that advertised on any show you saw last week?
So besides being higher quality entertainment, old-time radio had more effective advertising as well.
“The Signal Oil Company brings you . . . The Whistler”.
Monday, February 5, 2007
The Year in Film
Media: Film
Title: The Year in Film
Updated 2/20
My Best Film of the Year: The Great New Wonderful
Sadly I do not think this subtle, beautiful and significant film was screened outside of New York. I almost avoided it myself given the subject matter: exploring the emotional impact of September 11th on a disparate group of characters through five separate New York storylines. But no, the actual events of September 11th are never seen or spoken of explicitly; rather we explore the inner struggle of each character as they quietly ask themselves: how do I live now that I see and feel everything differently? One character expresses the inner disequilibrium at the film’s core when she confides in Maggie Gyllenhaal. They both make cakes which sell for many thousands of dollars. Distraught she asks, how can we go on doing this frivolous work “after what happened”? The other characters have been denying this acknowledgement of change in their selves, and the film intelligently and powerfully explores their moments of acceptance. It is all so quiet, so well performed, and so significant. (jerromano.blogspot.com under August 2006 for more)
The Most Fun I Had: Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine was the one film of the year where I could have walked right back into the theater and watched it again as soon as it ended. (Last year it was Napoleon Dynamite.) In fact Napoleon Dynamite is an apt comparison. Little Miss Sunshine’s delight is equal to your love of the quirky characters, the ridiculous story-lines (though stealing the body went a bit far) and the stomach-aching laughter from the final dance sequence. I’m sitting her smiling just thinking about it. Not to mention that Olive and her grandfather portrayed the sweetest relationship of any in film this year. And Olive herself is my film hero for 2006.
The Second-Most Fun I Had: Dreamgirls
To quote The Stranger’s review: This is not a good film. That said, if you approach Dreamgirls as a dollop of superficial, spectacular fluff there is an abundance to enjoy. For instance, I enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy more than I have in 25 years. Don’t expect character development, don’t expect real emotion, don’t imagine that there is anything beneath the shiny surface. The best musicals are sweet frosting slathered over an empty hat box, and that’s what you get from Dreamgirls.
Most Visually Beautiful Film: Marie Antoinette
With Marie Antoinette Sofia Coppola made my “Directors Whose Films I Will Not Miss” list. (Woody Allen, Francois Ozon and Robert Altman, who sadly will have nothing more to show us, are also on that list.) Now Marie Antoinette is not a great movie. It goes nowhere and the ending simply lies down and dies. Antoinette, as played by Kirsten Dunst, undergoes no growth, no catharsis – rather she spends the film finding new and different ways to relieve her boredom – first opulence, then sex and then seclusion at a pastoral retreat. Lucky we in the audience are not similarly bored even as we are unsatisfied. It is the stunning beauty captured by Coppola's camera that is worth the price of admission. I will even go as far as to compare Coppola's visual art with Kar Wai Wong’s (In the Mood for Love, 2046). At just about any point you can stop the projector, pull out the frame and be brought to breathlessness by the image’s composition.
Most Intelligent Film of the Year: The History Boys
The History Boys was one of those films that I did not appreciate fully until I started to write about it. Then all the complexity and thoughtfulness that went into the story started to spill out. The plot: this ensemble of lower and middle class prep-school Britons study for their A-Level tests to gain admittance to Oxford. But the heart of the film is a mediation on the purpose and meaning of education. Do we use education to listen for the magnificent voices of the poets and artists whose eloquence describes an understanding of existence parallel to our own? Do we challenge our own artistic gifts to strengthen to their potential? Or do we work to beat the test, reap the reward and stock pile the treasure? It is a rare film where you should turn the questions right around and ask yourself: what have I chosen?
The Long List of Disappoints
These the films either I anticipated would be great based on the directors’ past work (Science of Sleep, The Departed, Little Children) or films that are on the hyped critically acclaimed list (The Departed, Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth, Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima) but which ultimately disappointed. To not prolong the dissatisfaction, I will be brief with each.
Title: The Year in Film
Updated 2/20
My Best Film of the Year: The Great New Wonderful
Sadly I do not think this subtle, beautiful and significant film was screened outside of New York. I almost avoided it myself given the subject matter: exploring the emotional impact of September 11th on a disparate group of characters through five separate New York storylines. But no, the actual events of September 11th are never seen or spoken of explicitly; rather we explore the inner struggle of each character as they quietly ask themselves: how do I live now that I see and feel everything differently? One character expresses the inner disequilibrium at the film’s core when she confides in Maggie Gyllenhaal. They both make cakes which sell for many thousands of dollars. Distraught she asks, how can we go on doing this frivolous work “after what happened”? The other characters have been denying this acknowledgement of change in their selves, and the film intelligently and powerfully explores their moments of acceptance. It is all so quiet, so well performed, and so significant. (jerromano.blogspot.com under August 2006 for more)
The Most Fun I Had: Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine was the one film of the year where I could have walked right back into the theater and watched it again as soon as it ended. (Last year it was Napoleon Dynamite.) In fact Napoleon Dynamite is an apt comparison. Little Miss Sunshine’s delight is equal to your love of the quirky characters, the ridiculous story-lines (though stealing the body went a bit far) and the stomach-aching laughter from the final dance sequence. I’m sitting her smiling just thinking about it. Not to mention that Olive and her grandfather portrayed the sweetest relationship of any in film this year. And Olive herself is my film hero for 2006.
The Second-Most Fun I Had: Dreamgirls
To quote The Stranger’s review: This is not a good film. That said, if you approach Dreamgirls as a dollop of superficial, spectacular fluff there is an abundance to enjoy. For instance, I enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy more than I have in 25 years. Don’t expect character development, don’t expect real emotion, don’t imagine that there is anything beneath the shiny surface. The best musicals are sweet frosting slathered over an empty hat box, and that’s what you get from Dreamgirls.
Most Visually Beautiful Film: Marie Antoinette
With Marie Antoinette Sofia Coppola made my “Directors Whose Films I Will Not Miss” list. (Woody Allen, Francois Ozon and Robert Altman, who sadly will have nothing more to show us, are also on that list.) Now Marie Antoinette is not a great movie. It goes nowhere and the ending simply lies down and dies. Antoinette, as played by Kirsten Dunst, undergoes no growth, no catharsis – rather she spends the film finding new and different ways to relieve her boredom – first opulence, then sex and then seclusion at a pastoral retreat. Lucky we in the audience are not similarly bored even as we are unsatisfied. It is the stunning beauty captured by Coppola's camera that is worth the price of admission. I will even go as far as to compare Coppola's visual art with Kar Wai Wong’s (In the Mood for Love, 2046). At just about any point you can stop the projector, pull out the frame and be brought to breathlessness by the image’s composition.
Most Intelligent Film of the Year: The History Boys
The History Boys was one of those films that I did not appreciate fully until I started to write about it. Then all the complexity and thoughtfulness that went into the story started to spill out. The plot: this ensemble of lower and middle class prep-school Britons study for their A-Level tests to gain admittance to Oxford. But the heart of the film is a mediation on the purpose and meaning of education. Do we use education to listen for the magnificent voices of the poets and artists whose eloquence describes an understanding of existence parallel to our own? Do we challenge our own artistic gifts to strengthen to their potential? Or do we work to beat the test, reap the reward and stock pile the treasure? It is a rare film where you should turn the questions right around and ask yourself: what have I chosen?
The Long List of Disappoints
These the films either I anticipated would be great based on the directors’ past work (Science of Sleep, The Departed, Little Children) or films that are on the hyped critically acclaimed list (The Departed, Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth, Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima) but which ultimately disappointed. To not prolong the dissatisfaction, I will be brief with each.
Letters from Iwo Jima: I just don't like war films and this one certainly didn't change my mine.
The Queen: Very fine acting, but I was not interested in the subject matter.
Science of Sleep: Director Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless was near or at the top of my 2004 film list so I hoped for great things from Science of Sleep. Admittedly Science of Sleep offers truly marvelous, even breathtaking visual experiences as the director captures moments of pure imagination on film. Yet ultimately Gondry had the same shortcoming as the film’s main character, he cannot generate the necessary emotional connection to make his playful experiment a satisfying experience.
The Departed: I liken The Departed to The Aviator. Scorsese is able to keep you utterly captivated for over two hours without a moment of let-down. Yet, like The Aviator, once you awaken from the world of the film you realize there is not much there beyond the perfect execution of a riveting plot, which hardly sounds like criticism, but we know Scorsese is capable of providing something more significant.
Beyond that backhanded criticism, there are number of moments when the film feels like a caricature of a Scorsese film rather than the real thing – for example, Nicholson coming out from an ‘interrogation’ all covered in blood, and the trite concluding symbol of the rat on the deck. Come-on Marty!
Babel: OK, after Crash last year and Babel this year I must scream: There is nothing innovative about a film exploring a theme through a number of seemingly unconnected stories and various points of view! D.W. Griffith created this structure in 1916 with Intolerance, and he did it better! So cut it out, Crash and Babel are mediocre and good respectively. Now Babel does has many masterful elements. In particular the editing which often cross-cuts from one story to the next allowing a necessary exhale at moments of unbearable tension. Also, Iñárritu has superbly captured distinct visual signatures for each of the various settings.
Pan’s Labrinth : Pan’s Labyrinth is half fairy tale and half military movie. I loved the fairy tale, told in the pre-Disney understanding that fairy tales are about a child’s psyche confronting death, parental abandonment and impending sexuality. I did not care for the film’s reality, a military story set in fascist Spain. Here del Toro uses his abundant visual talents to makes us squirm anticipating torture and looking at gore (from which I chose to look away). As you may imagine, loving only half a film is ultimately unsatisfying.
Little Children: At about the half way point I thought to myself, yes, this is the best movie of the year. I wasn’t surprised because Todd Field’s In the Bedroom was one of the best films of 2001. Little Children, a film about suburban alienation, depicts the supremely unsatisfying lives of Sarah and Brad. Each was married in their early 20s and they suddenly awaken, with 30 approaching, to the suffocating reality of their suburban lives. The title, Little Children, refers to the suburban ideal that life should center around children, but neither Sarah nor Brad can find meaning taking their children to the park and the pool, so they try an affair imagining love. Little Children is also overflowing with smart literary and film references, the best of which is the homage to Jaws in the ‘child-molester goes for a swim’ scene. So what’s the problem? The ending is so unsatisfying that it taints the brilliance and insightfulness of all that came before it. It is not just that we are left with unresolved storylines, the unforgivable sin is that the final choices Sarah and Brad make are entirely out of character; and the change in tone from drama to horror film is both idiotic and ineffective.
Yes, another disappointment but probably the best disappointment of the bunch.
Notes on a Scandal: I loved the first 20 minutes of Notes on a Scandal. You hear Judi Dench, as the omniscient narrator, providing dry, intellectually superior, hilarious commentary about the students and teachers in the school where she is a history teacher. Soon all the comedy and eventually all the empathy is squeezed from the film. When you have a pedophile on the one hand and a deranged human vampire on the other it is difficult to care what happens to either, and easy to tune out emotionally. Plus- like Cate Blanchett is really going to live with Judi Dench after she has just viciously tried to blackmail her – give me a break!
Best Foreign Film: Time to Leave
This did not surprise me. Director Francois Ozon is on my short list of directors whose film I will not miss. After last year’s awful 5X2 Ozon has created a quiet, contemplative film on death and the psychological role children play in one’s idea of living beyond one’s death. It has one rare, transcendent moment – a quick 5 second close up of a crying baby beginning to nurse. I cannot explain it, but the image was so unexpected, so pure and sweet I actually shed a tear. It was the most perfect moment in film this year.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Asphalt
Media: Film
Title: Asphalt
The reason lovers of film and film history should see Asphalt (1929) is to discover one of the first film noirs. If you were to throw this film up at SAM during the Film Noir Series this autumn it would be accepted as noir with little argument, though many may be unhappy with its silence. So once again Silent Movie Mondays has not only provided another fantastic film with perfect musical accompaniment via Dennis James, it has shown me yet again that most film innovations occurred in the silent era. The talkies merely added, well, talk.
What about Asphalt is prescient of film noir? First the look, Asphalt is set in a teaming city mostly shot at night. The city is large beyond a single human’s comprehension. It is active, loud and uncontrollable. And no one is to be trusted, especially not the gorgeous woman in furs who flirts and then robs you blind. Bringing us to the femme fatal, looking beautiful and played beautifully by Colleen Moore imitator Betty Amann. She tempts the innocent young man (still living with his parents) to accept sex instead of bringing her to jail. He accepts, after a quite well performed inner battle with his sense of duty, and becomes sexually obsessed with and sexually possessed by Amann. This fall into the urban underworld from a position in honest society is yet another noir theme. As the film begins we see the young man directing traffic (in the daylight), naively believing he is in control of the uncontrollable city. By the end he has murdered for Amann, the ultimate sign of love for the femme in the twisted moral code of the noirs. Finally, you will see echoes of much of the cinematography in later noirs. There are the shadows and darkness (perhaps most notably in the scene where the criminals are tunneling into the bank, and for a good 30 seconds the frame is almost entirely black), and the use of camera angles and shots up crooked stairways to convey inner turmoil.
This is a film that calls for multiples viewings because of all that is packed into it, or, perhaps more importantly, once you realize all that has been unpacked from it in film history.
Title: Asphalt
The reason lovers of film and film history should see Asphalt (1929) is to discover one of the first film noirs. If you were to throw this film up at SAM during the Film Noir Series this autumn it would be accepted as noir with little argument, though many may be unhappy with its silence. So once again Silent Movie Mondays has not only provided another fantastic film with perfect musical accompaniment via Dennis James, it has shown me yet again that most film innovations occurred in the silent era. The talkies merely added, well, talk.
What about Asphalt is prescient of film noir? First the look, Asphalt is set in a teaming city mostly shot at night. The city is large beyond a single human’s comprehension. It is active, loud and uncontrollable. And no one is to be trusted, especially not the gorgeous woman in furs who flirts and then robs you blind. Bringing us to the femme fatal, looking beautiful and played beautifully by Colleen Moore imitator Betty Amann. She tempts the innocent young man (still living with his parents) to accept sex instead of bringing her to jail. He accepts, after a quite well performed inner battle with his sense of duty, and becomes sexually obsessed with and sexually possessed by Amann. This fall into the urban underworld from a position in honest society is yet another noir theme. As the film begins we see the young man directing traffic (in the daylight), naively believing he is in control of the uncontrollable city. By the end he has murdered for Amann, the ultimate sign of love for the femme in the twisted moral code of the noirs. Finally, you will see echoes of much of the cinematography in later noirs. There are the shadows and darkness (perhaps most notably in the scene where the criminals are tunneling into the bank, and for a good 30 seconds the frame is almost entirely black), and the use of camera angles and shots up crooked stairways to convey inner turmoil.
This is a film that calls for multiples viewings because of all that is packed into it, or, perhaps more importantly, once you realize all that has been unpacked from it in film history.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Babel
Media: Film
Title: Babel
Oh no, another of this year’s critically acclaimed films turns out to be a disappointment.
OK, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu lost me when Gael Garcia Bernal’s character runs from the boarder patrol officers and drops his aunt and the children out in the desert in the middle of the night. There was nothing in Santiago’s character development to justify these drastic, insane actions. Plus, as the children now wander near death in a desert their mother, who has been accidentally shot from a mountain top, is near dieing in Morocco. Talk about a bad day for a family! It is enough to make you roll your eyes and say “come on!” and “give me a break!” Which I did, and no drama can fully recover from the eye roll.
Despite this terrible, disappointing turn in the storytelling, in all other film making aspects Babel may be the best made movie I’ve seen this year. The stories wove beautifully together to create a complex mediation comparing the ever closer interconnectedness of our globe with people's growing alienation and inability to form meaningful relationships. Also, the editing masterfully allowed for an exhale by cutting from one story to the next just when you could not bare the dramatic tension any longer; and Inarritu skillfully captured the distinct mise-en-scene of each distinct setting. You walk away thinking, that was fantastic film-making.
Ahh, too bad for that eye roll. I could have loved this film.
Title: Babel
Oh no, another of this year’s critically acclaimed films turns out to be a disappointment.
OK, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu lost me when Gael Garcia Bernal’s character runs from the boarder patrol officers and drops his aunt and the children out in the desert in the middle of the night. There was nothing in Santiago’s character development to justify these drastic, insane actions. Plus, as the children now wander near death in a desert their mother, who has been accidentally shot from a mountain top, is near dieing in Morocco. Talk about a bad day for a family! It is enough to make you roll your eyes and say “come on!” and “give me a break!” Which I did, and no drama can fully recover from the eye roll.
Despite this terrible, disappointing turn in the storytelling, in all other film making aspects Babel may be the best made movie I’ve seen this year. The stories wove beautifully together to create a complex mediation comparing the ever closer interconnectedness of our globe with people's growing alienation and inability to form meaningful relationships. Also, the editing masterfully allowed for an exhale by cutting from one story to the next just when you could not bare the dramatic tension any longer; and Inarritu skillfully captured the distinct mise-en-scene of each distinct setting. You walk away thinking, that was fantastic film-making.
Ahh, too bad for that eye roll. I could have loved this film.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Pan's Labyrinth
Media: Film
Title: Pan’s Labyrinth
Pan’s Labyrinth is half fairy tale and half military movie. I loved the fairy tale, told in the pre-Disney understanding that fairy tales are about a child’s psyche confronting death, parental abandonment and impending sexuality. Guillermo del Toro’s visual effects creating the fairy tale world are fascinating, spectacular and a compelling reason in themselves to see this film. This imagined world was so wonderful I kept hoping to get back to it each time our little girl heroine had to step back into the film’s reality. I did not care for the film’s reality, a military story set in fascist Spain. Here del Toro uses his abundant visual talents to makes us squirm anticipating torture and looking at gore (from which I chose to look away).
If del Toro had decide to make the fairy tale alone I may have loved this film. But sadly, it is yet another disappointment in this year of disappointing films. As you may imagine, loving only half a film is ultimately unsatisfying.
Title: Pan’s Labyrinth
Pan’s Labyrinth is half fairy tale and half military movie. I loved the fairy tale, told in the pre-Disney understanding that fairy tales are about a child’s psyche confronting death, parental abandonment and impending sexuality. Guillermo del Toro’s visual effects creating the fairy tale world are fascinating, spectacular and a compelling reason in themselves to see this film. This imagined world was so wonderful I kept hoping to get back to it each time our little girl heroine had to step back into the film’s reality. I did not care for the film’s reality, a military story set in fascist Spain. Here del Toro uses his abundant visual talents to makes us squirm anticipating torture and looking at gore (from which I chose to look away).
If del Toro had decide to make the fairy tale alone I may have loved this film. But sadly, it is yet another disappointment in this year of disappointing films. As you may imagine, loving only half a film is ultimately unsatisfying.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Where the Reading Takes You
Media: Books
Title: Where the Reading Takes You
This past autumn I began a reading project I first heard on KUOW public radio. You start with one book. The second book you read will be inspired by some idea, theme, character, etc. in the first. Qualities in this second book inspire a third title, and so on until the project ends or you start again from a new book. I am now beginning book seven of the project: Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Here is the run down of where the reading has taken me.
1. American Movie Critics: this is an anthology of film criticism.
2. The Immediate Experience by Robert Warshaw: I chose this book because Warshaw’s essays on Chaplin and on gangster films were two favorites in American Movie Critics.
3. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Warshaw had a surprisingly negative essay of Death of a Salesman in The Immediate Experience.
4. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I chose this novel because Rabbit is a character like Biff Loman, a middle class man living in quiet desperation whose best days were in high school on a sports team.
5. Rabbit, Redux by John Updike: I was taken with Rabbit and wanted to know what happened next.
6. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography of Race: I chose this biography of Du Bois because race relations played a major role in Rabbit, Redux set in the summer of 1969.
7. Now I begin Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. – since there is a direct line from Du Bois as leader of black America to King.
Title: Where the Reading Takes You
This past autumn I began a reading project I first heard on KUOW public radio. You start with one book. The second book you read will be inspired by some idea, theme, character, etc. in the first. Qualities in this second book inspire a third title, and so on until the project ends or you start again from a new book. I am now beginning book seven of the project: Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Here is the run down of where the reading has taken me.
1. American Movie Critics: this is an anthology of film criticism.
2. The Immediate Experience by Robert Warshaw: I chose this book because Warshaw’s essays on Chaplin and on gangster films were two favorites in American Movie Critics.
3. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: Warshaw had a surprisingly negative essay of Death of a Salesman in The Immediate Experience.
4. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I chose this novel because Rabbit is a character like Biff Loman, a middle class man living in quiet desperation whose best days were in high school on a sports team.
5. Rabbit, Redux by John Updike: I was taken with Rabbit and wanted to know what happened next.
6. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography of Race: I chose this biography of Du Bois because race relations played a major role in Rabbit, Redux set in the summer of 1969.
7. Now I begin Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. – since there is a direct line from Du Bois as leader of black America to King.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Charlie Chaplin
Media: Lecture
Title: The Fool in the Frame: Film Comedy and 20th Century America
Professor Bean is teaching this 5 session course and she began this week with a quick history of the beginning of film and then focused on its first big star Charlie Chaplin. I’ve done a good deal of my own reading on the subject but this class is helping cement my understanding of early film. A few facts I enjoyed:
The first exhibition of film for an audience was in France 1895. (Edison had motion picture machines first but they were one person arcades.)
The first fictionalized film was slap stick comedy (most early documented real events like a train arriving). Its subject, a kid tricking a man to look into a hose and getting a face filled with water.
Chaplin entered film via Max Sennett at Keystone studios, the gold standard of early film comedy, just as film was about to explode in popularity. Chaplin rode atop that explosion for a good 15 years becoming the first international film star, and the richest. There is no real comparison for his fame until Mickey Mouse.
Chaplin started with Sennett 1914-15, worked with Mutual 1916-17, worked with First National 1918, and started United Artists in 1919 which he was involved with until his death.
I'm anxious to get to the next class, I wish I didn't have to wait two weeks.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Silent Movie Mondays
Media: Film
Title: Diary of a Lost Girl
Yesterday was a Silent Movie Monday at the Paramount theater, perhaps my favorite on-going Seattle film event. Now, Diary of a Lost Girl was one of my least favorite of the many silent films I have seen. The story was tedious melodrama, and it seemed to end three different times and each time you wished it would. Nevertheless the experience is wonderful. Silent Movie Mondays are time travel. You enter a fully restored silent movie palace (The Paramount’s original function); you listen to archival music played on the theater's original organ; and you watch film prints restored to look as good as they would have 80 years ago. Give all the men hats, put all the women in skirts and you have the 1920s. I urge everyone who will listen, when given the opportunity to experience the magic of time travel it is always worth taking it, even when the film is as lackluster as Diary of a Lost Girl. (By the way, Lousie Brooks is adorable.)
Title: Diary of a Lost Girl
Yesterday was a Silent Movie Monday at the Paramount theater, perhaps my favorite on-going Seattle film event. Now, Diary of a Lost Girl was one of my least favorite of the many silent films I have seen. The story was tedious melodrama, and it seemed to end three different times and each time you wished it would. Nevertheless the experience is wonderful. Silent Movie Mondays are time travel. You enter a fully restored silent movie palace (The Paramount’s original function); you listen to archival music played on the theater's original organ; and you watch film prints restored to look as good as they would have 80 years ago. Give all the men hats, put all the women in skirts and you have the 1920s. I urge everyone who will listen, when given the opportunity to experience the magic of time travel it is always worth taking it, even when the film is as lackluster as Diary of a Lost Girl. (By the way, Lousie Brooks is adorable.)
Monday, January 15, 2007
The Immigrant (1917)
Media: VHS tape
Title: The Immigrant
I am taking a film study class which starts in two days and one of my preparatory assignments is to watch a number of Charlie Chaplin shorts. The Immigrant is the one that most struck me (even as One O’clock was probably the laugh-out-loud funniest.) I guess I passively knew that Chaplin mixed social commentary with his pratfalls, and in The Immigrant I finally experienced this mixture first hand. The scene that best encapsulates Chaplin’s commentary in this film occurs in a startling juxtaposition of two images. Image one, immigrants aboard ship see the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. Chaplin captures the initial moment of pure hope and pride in the immigrants’ faces. Image two, cut to the immigration workers literally cutting off the immigrants from their dream with a rope, roughly herding them like cattle. (In 2007 we also bring to the film the knowledge of the dehumanizing inspections to come.) The paradox for us to consider is powerfully set in these images. Hopes of liberty, wealthy and freedom juxtaposed with the immigrants’ current reality of poverty, bigotry and cold indifference. Throughout this short Chaplin plays with the twin reality of opportunity and hardship in America, which you may or may not want to ponder in-between the laughs.
Title: The Immigrant
I am taking a film study class which starts in two days and one of my preparatory assignments is to watch a number of Charlie Chaplin shorts. The Immigrant is the one that most struck me (even as One O’clock was probably the laugh-out-loud funniest.) I guess I passively knew that Chaplin mixed social commentary with his pratfalls, and in The Immigrant I finally experienced this mixture first hand. The scene that best encapsulates Chaplin’s commentary in this film occurs in a startling juxtaposition of two images. Image one, immigrants aboard ship see the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. Chaplin captures the initial moment of pure hope and pride in the immigrants’ faces. Image two, cut to the immigration workers literally cutting off the immigrants from their dream with a rope, roughly herding them like cattle. (In 2007 we also bring to the film the knowledge of the dehumanizing inspections to come.) The paradox for us to consider is powerfully set in these images. Hopes of liberty, wealthy and freedom juxtaposed with the immigrants’ current reality of poverty, bigotry and cold indifference. Throughout this short Chaplin plays with the twin reality of opportunity and hardship in America, which you may or may not want to ponder in-between the laughs.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Dreamgirls (2006)
Media: Film
Title: Dreamgirls
To quote The Stranger, this is not a good film. That said, if you approach Dreamgirls as a dollop of superficial, spectacular fluff there is an abundance to enjoy. In enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy, for instance, more than I have in 25 years. Murphy gives a terrifically exciting performance in his half Little Richard, half James Brown persona. He may even be a little too good, making Beyonce’s and Jamie Fox’s uninspiring acting feel even more flat. But they, along with everyone else, is surrounded by so much noise and color, so much fashion and hair flux that you hardly care. Actual acting is negligible to the overall effect of the spectacular. So what it’s hollow; Dreamgirls is the most fun I’ve had in the theater since Little Miss Sunshine. Don’t expect character development, don’t expect real emotion, don’t imagine that there is anything beneath the shiny surface. The best musicals are sweet frosting slathered over an empty hat box, and that’s what you get from Dreamgirls.
Title: Dreamgirls
To quote The Stranger, this is not a good film. That said, if you approach Dreamgirls as a dollop of superficial, spectacular fluff there is an abundance to enjoy. In enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy, for instance, more than I have in 25 years. Murphy gives a terrifically exciting performance in his half Little Richard, half James Brown persona. He may even be a little too good, making Beyonce’s and Jamie Fox’s uninspiring acting feel even more flat. But they, along with everyone else, is surrounded by so much noise and color, so much fashion and hair flux that you hardly care. Actual acting is negligible to the overall effect of the spectacular. So what it’s hollow; Dreamgirls is the most fun I’ve had in the theater since Little Miss Sunshine. Don’t expect character development, don’t expect real emotion, don’t imagine that there is anything beneath the shiny surface. The best musicals are sweet frosting slathered over an empty hat box, and that’s what you get from Dreamgirls.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Du Bois and Women's Suffrage
Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
The quote that started me thinking (from a Du Bois speech):
“Every argument for woman suffrage is an argument for Negro suffrage.”
I must admit, I am a victim of the general American historic-amnesia. In my general life I forget, but was just reminded in Lewis’s book, that we were two decades into the twentieth century before the federal government accepted the fact that our founding principles include women’s right to vote. This provides such a clear example of the gulf between a beautiful ideal and the ugliness in human reality. Most of us would agree the ideal the United States was founded upon is beautiful: just, equal treatment for all individuals regardless of factors of race, gender, age etc. Yet just below the mythic, white-wigged surface is the history of those not white, male and well-off demanding the justice and equality promised yet withheld. Demands all too frequently met with ignorance, hate and violence. It makes you appreciate the Platonic duality: one, there is an Ideal realm where truth resides permanent and incorruptible vs. two, mundane reality of flesh and body, an imperfect corrupt version of that Ideal. I suppose as citizens we need to hold in mind the beautiful ideal, uncover the ugly reality, and make decisions to bring all that potential beauty closer to us all.
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
The quote that started me thinking (from a Du Bois speech):
“Every argument for woman suffrage is an argument for Negro suffrage.”
I must admit, I am a victim of the general American historic-amnesia. In my general life I forget, but was just reminded in Lewis’s book, that we were two decades into the twentieth century before the federal government accepted the fact that our founding principles include women’s right to vote. This provides such a clear example of the gulf between a beautiful ideal and the ugliness in human reality. Most of us would agree the ideal the United States was founded upon is beautiful: just, equal treatment for all individuals regardless of factors of race, gender, age etc. Yet just below the mythic, white-wigged surface is the history of those not white, male and well-off demanding the justice and equality promised yet withheld. Demands all too frequently met with ignorance, hate and violence. It makes you appreciate the Platonic duality: one, there is an Ideal realm where truth resides permanent and incorruptible vs. two, mundane reality of flesh and body, an imperfect corrupt version of that Ideal. I suppose as citizens we need to hold in mind the beautiful ideal, uncover the ugly reality, and make decisions to bring all that potential beauty closer to us all.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The Daily Show
Media: Video Stream
Title: The Daily Show
Link: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
I am new to streaming video. Just two weeks ago I discovered you can stream a large segment of The Daily Show on Comedy Central’s web site. (The one reason I sometimes wished I had cable is no longer a concern.) The best segment on today’s show was fake-correspondent Assif Mandvi’s piece on Barak Obama’s name. It was a hilarious discussion on why it is unsafe to vote for Obama because his name is one consonant away from being Osama. Not to mention his middle name is Hussein.
Mandvi: “Obama is be-laden with a name that causes al-ki-da problems.”
Title: The Daily Show
Link: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
I am new to streaming video. Just two weeks ago I discovered you can stream a large segment of The Daily Show on Comedy Central’s web site. (The one reason I sometimes wished I had cable is no longer a concern.) The best segment on today’s show was fake-correspondent Assif Mandvi’s piece on Barak Obama’s name. It was a hilarious discussion on why it is unsafe to vote for Obama because his name is one consonant away from being Osama. Not to mention his middle name is Hussein.
Mandvi: “Obama is be-laden with a name that causes al-ki-da problems.”
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Du Bois Again
Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
I'm not sure why the descriptions of southern racism are hitting me so profoundly as I continue to read Lewis's biography. I have encountered descriptions of these actrosities before. Perhaps it is because in the context of this book I have come to know Du Bois and his family, therefore the victims are literary friends. Yet it is dissimliar from such descriptions in fictions having the added bite of being real. Whatever it may be here is bit of what captured my mind and emotions with indignation today:
"Walking the two mile stretch to downtown Atlanta becuase she (Du Bois's wife) ... refused to patronize the segregated transit system. It galled her to have to wait until every white customer had been served before a drawling department-store clerk deigned to wait on her. Along her route there was not a single water-fountain or park bench lawfull permitted to Negroes. "
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
I'm not sure why the descriptions of southern racism are hitting me so profoundly as I continue to read Lewis's biography. I have encountered descriptions of these actrosities before. Perhaps it is because in the context of this book I have come to know Du Bois and his family, therefore the victims are literary friends. Yet it is dissimliar from such descriptions in fictions having the added bite of being real. Whatever it may be here is bit of what captured my mind and emotions with indignation today:
"Walking the two mile stretch to downtown Atlanta becuase she (Du Bois's wife) ... refused to patronize the segregated transit system. It galled her to have to wait until every white customer had been served before a drawling department-store clerk deigned to wait on her. Along her route there was not a single water-fountain or park bench lawfull permitted to Negroes. "
Monday, January 8, 2007
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe
Media: Book
Title: The Silent Speaker
(I need to choose another media type don’t I, books four times running.) Well I really did want to document my finishing another Nero Wolfe novel and tell you about my Rex Stout project. I first came across Rex Stout’s character Nero Wolfe in old time radio broadcasts. Then I saw his name mentioned in Nancy Pearle’s Book Lust as a Too Good to Miss author, so I checked out one of his mysteries from the library. I was hooked immediately and had been reading the Nero Wolfe collection haphazardly, whatever was available at the library. About two months ago I decided to start from the beginning and read the entire series in order, all 48 novels. The Silent Speaker is novel 11, but two of those 11 was composed of 2 short novellas, so The Silent Speaker is mystery number 13. I will simply conclude by highly recommending picking up a Nero Wolfe mystery. (And make sure it is a Rex Stout, other authors wrote using Nero Wolfe.) He one of the most vivid characters in literature. I place him second only to Sherlock Holmes as a detective/private investigator, and Archie Goodwin outshines Dr. Watson as a companion and scribe of the great man’s tales.
Title: The Silent Speaker
(I need to choose another media type don’t I, books four times running.) Well I really did want to document my finishing another Nero Wolfe novel and tell you about my Rex Stout project. I first came across Rex Stout’s character Nero Wolfe in old time radio broadcasts. Then I saw his name mentioned in Nancy Pearle’s Book Lust as a Too Good to Miss author, so I checked out one of his mysteries from the library. I was hooked immediately and had been reading the Nero Wolfe collection haphazardly, whatever was available at the library. About two months ago I decided to start from the beginning and read the entire series in order, all 48 novels. The Silent Speaker is novel 11, but two of those 11 was composed of 2 short novellas, so The Silent Speaker is mystery number 13. I will simply conclude by highly recommending picking up a Nero Wolfe mystery. (And make sure it is a Rex Stout, other authors wrote using Nero Wolfe.) He one of the most vivid characters in literature. I place him second only to Sherlock Holmes as a detective/private investigator, and Archie Goodwin outshines Dr. Watson as a companion and scribe of the great man’s tales.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Du Bois, 3
Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
Well, I remain fascinated with this book for the 3rd consecutive entry.
I feel a bit naïve at my level of shocked indignation toward the discrimination of and racist beliefs about African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, revealed by Lewis in his biography. I supposed since I came of consciousness after the 1960s civil rights struggles it seems impossible that certain assumption which seem unquestionable, such as African-Americans should have “full citizenship rights”, were in fact radical ideas within the African-American leadership in 1905, not the mention the contempt and disgust many whites felt toward this idea. Lewis makes this point in the section on the 1905 Niagara Conference where Du Bois finally and dramatically broke from the leadership of Booker T. Washington (who did little to push for equal social and political rights for African-Americans).
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
Well, I remain fascinated with this book for the 3rd consecutive entry.
I feel a bit naïve at my level of shocked indignation toward the discrimination of and racist beliefs about African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, revealed by Lewis in his biography. I supposed since I came of consciousness after the 1960s civil rights struggles it seems impossible that certain assumption which seem unquestionable, such as African-Americans should have “full citizenship rights”, were in fact radical ideas within the African-American leadership in 1905, not the mention the contempt and disgust many whites felt toward this idea. Lewis makes this point in the section on the 1905 Niagara Conference where Du Bois finally and dramatically broke from the leadership of Booker T. Washington (who did little to push for equal social and political rights for African-Americans).
Thursday, January 4, 2007
The Souls of Black Folk
Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois
Another quick note as I read more of Lewis's W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race in the chapter on publication of The Soul's of Black Folk. It is outstanding how clearly Du Bois takes the reins of the African-American civil rights movements with the publication of this book. Du Bois's thoughts on the African-American veil (that is their skin color), the concept of the two souls (one American, one black), the prescient pronouncement that the color line will be the problem of the 20th century, the confession of what it feels like to be labeled 'a problem' by society, and the way forward for African-Americans lead by the 'talented tenth' are all themes that remained vitally important and relevant throughout the 20th century.
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois
Another quick note as I read more of Lewis's W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race in the chapter on publication of The Soul's of Black Folk. It is outstanding how clearly Du Bois takes the reins of the African-American civil rights movements with the publication of this book. Du Bois's thoughts on the African-American veil (that is their skin color), the concept of the two souls (one American, one black), the prescient pronouncement that the color line will be the problem of the 20th century, the confession of what it feels like to be labeled 'a problem' by society, and the way forward for African-Americans lead by the 'talented tenth' are all themes that remained vitally important and relevant throughout the 20th century.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Du Bois
Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
I am right at the mid-point of author David Levering Lewis’s biography of Du Bois and he has just begun to clearly illuminate Du Bois as the founder of the 20th century African-American civil rights movement. He is just beginning to reveal Du Bois thinking on how America needs to accept African-Americans as full members of America in all their ‘African-ness.” Lewis has already revealed 2 previous strains of thought from African-American leaders on their place in America – to assimilate completely or to leave the U.S. entirely. In the first years of the 20th century Du Bois says no to both these options offering his new way: “He simply wishes to make it possible for man to be both a Negro and an American”. The book is startling in its descriptions of the United States’, and in particular, the South’s slide from the relative opportunity offered to African-Americans during Reconstruction into the rapid, ugly, disgraceful slide back toward a form of near-slavery and view of African-American’s as sub-human beginning in the late 1870s on into the 20th century.
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race
I am right at the mid-point of author David Levering Lewis’s biography of Du Bois and he has just begun to clearly illuminate Du Bois as the founder of the 20th century African-American civil rights movement. He is just beginning to reveal Du Bois thinking on how America needs to accept African-Americans as full members of America in all their ‘African-ness.” Lewis has already revealed 2 previous strains of thought from African-American leaders on their place in America – to assimilate completely or to leave the U.S. entirely. In the first years of the 20th century Du Bois says no to both these options offering his new way: “He simply wishes to make it possible for man to be both a Negro and an American”. The book is startling in its descriptions of the United States’, and in particular, the South’s slide from the relative opportunity offered to African-Americans during Reconstruction into the rapid, ugly, disgraceful slide back toward a form of near-slavery and view of African-American’s as sub-human beginning in the late 1870s on into the 20th century.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
The Business
Media: Podcast
Title: The Business
Link: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tb
First the confession. I have the most un-hip, the nerdiest i-pod in the U.S., perhaps the world. Well, to confess before the confession, it is a budget Sandisk mp3-player, not a sleek, cool i-pod. But worst than that, I use my player exclusively for listening to Public Radio podcasts. Not one song has ever found its way onto my player. (Although I have ripped the occasional radio show from my collection of ‘30s and ‘40s radio programs and put it onto my player; yet that hardly bumps me up in the cool category does it?)
Ok, today’s media morsel from KCRW Public Radio out of Santa Monica. The Business, a program about the all the folks who make film (from the key grips to the moguls), had a great interview with composer Danny Elfman (Simpson’s theme). Listen to it for his story about how the main theme for Batman spontaneously came to him on an airplane and how he frantically kept going back and forth to the bathroom to try and capture it on his tape recorder before the music escaped from his mind. (I’m luke-warm on the film. I love the score.)
Title: The Business
Link: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tb
First the confession. I have the most un-hip, the nerdiest i-pod in the U.S., perhaps the world. Well, to confess before the confession, it is a budget Sandisk mp3-player, not a sleek, cool i-pod. But worst than that, I use my player exclusively for listening to Public Radio podcasts. Not one song has ever found its way onto my player. (Although I have ripped the occasional radio show from my collection of ‘30s and ‘40s radio programs and put it onto my player; yet that hardly bumps me up in the cool category does it?)
Ok, today’s media morsel from KCRW Public Radio out of Santa Monica. The Business, a program about the all the folks who make film (from the key grips to the moguls), had a great interview with composer Danny Elfman (Simpson’s theme). Listen to it for his story about how the main theme for Batman spontaneously came to him on an airplane and how he frantically kept going back and forth to the bathroom to try and capture it on his tape recorder before the music escaped from his mind. (I’m luke-warm on the film. I love the score.)
Monday, January 1, 2007
How's Your Drink?
Media: Newspaper
Title: Wall Street Journal
The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal is near the top of my weekly media experiences, for two reasons in particular. One, Joe Morgenstern’s essays on film and two, Eric Felten’s cocktail article. I keep a scrap book of the most useful cocktail articles from Felten’s How’s Your Drink? column. His column provides interesting drink history, point to books, films and other media where the drink plays a prominent role, and most importantly he tells you how to make the cocktail. For me it is a near perfect column, providing the exact right mix of intellectual curiosity and alcoholic usefulness – call in nerdy debauchery. This week’s article discusses how to create your own cocktail:
“Pick a distilled spirit you like and add 1½ ounces of it. . . Add a half ounce of an aromatic or fortified wine . . . Finish it off with a quarter ounce of a liqueur of your choice.” (Felten)
I took this advice and I am drinking my liquor-ish creation as I write. Ahhh!
Title: Wall Street Journal
The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal is near the top of my weekly media experiences, for two reasons in particular. One, Joe Morgenstern’s essays on film and two, Eric Felten’s cocktail article. I keep a scrap book of the most useful cocktail articles from Felten’s How’s Your Drink? column. His column provides interesting drink history, point to books, films and other media where the drink plays a prominent role, and most importantly he tells you how to make the cocktail. For me it is a near perfect column, providing the exact right mix of intellectual curiosity and alcoholic usefulness – call in nerdy debauchery. This week’s article discusses how to create your own cocktail:
“Pick a distilled spirit you like and add 1½ ounces of it. . . Add a half ounce of an aromatic or fortified wine . . . Finish it off with a quarter ounce of a liqueur of your choice.” (Felten)
I took this advice and I am drinking my liquor-ish creation as I write. Ahhh!
The Idea
My film blog (Big Screen Seattle) is not working. It was a good experiment, but I now realize a blog is not a good format for film reviews. It grates against the blog format. A blog is a quick, daily musing, where as my film blog is occasional, lengthy and demands the organization of a web site to be useful. My new blog idea is to spend 20 minutes each night writing a paragraph on the bit of media (books, TV shows, films, radio, music, newspapers, or podcasts) that struck my mind as most worthy of comment that day.
I’m glad this idea came to me on January 1st – such a clean marker for a beginning.
I’m glad this idea came to me on January 1st – such a clean marker for a beginning.
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