All that was watched over the first three months of the year:
3/30 My Flesh and Blood
3/29 Slacker
3/27 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
3/25 Boyfriends and Girlfriends
3/24 Voyage to Italy
The Office 1.1
3/20 Eyes Without a Face
3/19 House of Fools
The Empire Strikes Back
3/14 The Yes Men
3/13 Dekalog #5
3/12 House of Frankenstein
3/11 The Wrong Man
3/10 I Heart Huckabees
3/9 Mean Creek
3/7 Six Feet Under 1.1
3/4 42 Up
3/1 The Village
2/27 Ordet
2/26 Ordet
The Mummy (Karloff)
2/20 Diary of a Country Priest
2/18 35 Up
2/14 Being There
28 Up
2/13 Le Fils
2/12 Le Fils
2/7 Man on Fire
2/6 21 Up
2/5 7 Plus 7
Time Out
2/4 7 Up
2/3 Sideways
1/31 Contact
1/30 Dekalog #1, #2
1/29 Bride of Frankenstein
1/27 Gilmore Girls 2.21, 2.22
1/26 Gilmore Girls 2.18, 2.19, 2.20
1/25 Gilmore Girls 2.17
1/23 The Apostle
Dekalog #2
1/22 The Apostle
1/20 Gilmore Girls 2.16
Open Water
1/19 Gilmore Girls 2.15
1/18 Battle Royale
Gilmore Girls 2.13, 2.14
1/16 O Brother Where Art Thou?
1/14 La Belle et la Bete
1/13 Gilmore Girls 2.12
1/12 Gilmore Girls 2.11
1/11 Gilmore Girls 2.9, 2.10
1/9 Maria Full of Grace
1/7 Gilmore Girls 2.8
1/6 We Don't Live Here Anymore
1/5 Gilmore Girls 2.5, 2.6, 2.7
1/3 I Walked With a Zombie
1/2 Gilmore Girls 2.4
Anchorman
1/1 Gilmore Girls 2.3
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Friday, April 29, 2005
Thursday, April 28, 2005
It's Gotten This Bad:
The last few years we've helped put together a tailgating/Pirate game outing for Ali's ESL students and the college students who attend our church. I'm about to sit down to fill 40 sandwich bags with peanuts. I want to put on a movie to half-watch while I'm doing it. Ali suggests one of the three Netflix rentals sitting on top of the television. I demur because I don't want to watch one of those with half my attention. So I go to look for something we've seen before. Ten minutes later, I still can't decide.
Just put me out of my misery. Really.
And then, of course, I kill another five minutes blabbing about it on the internets.
Then again, the computer was already on because I've been rapidly downloading this trailer for the past hour. Trailers are pretty much worthless non-indicators, but there you go.
Just put me out of my misery. Really.
And then, of course, I kill another five minutes blabbing about it on the internets.
Then again, the computer was already on because I've been rapidly downloading this trailer for the past hour. Trailers are pretty much worthless non-indicators, but there you go.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
No One Else Is Writing About the NHL
Right about now-- maybe last night, maybe tonight-- there would have been a game 7 in one or more of the first round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs. By now, there would have been at least one implausible surprise, like a division champ, a President's Trophy winner or the defending Cup champ bowing out to a plucky eight seed running on speed and guts. There would have been at least a half dozen quality overtime games and a couple of double overtime games, each stretching into the early morning hours. Some previously-unheralded goalie would be burnishing a new reputation for standing on his head. And there would still be three rounds to go.
Hockey will always be a niche sport in America for two primary reasons. First, the sport requires ice and expensive equipment, and despite the best efforts of the sport's proponents, most kids will be warmed out or priced out of participation. Second, the sport requires some fairly advanced physical skills-- namely, the ability to ice skate deftly while controlling or chasing the puck. That makes it unlike the other major sports, all of which a group of young kids or half-drunk adults can play a rough facsimile with just rudimentary skills and limited equipment. Oh, I suppose there is the street hockey version, but once you've taken out the skating element, it's probably more satisfying to play lacrosse instead. So hockey will never threaten baseball, basketball or football.
Still, though, among the cadre of committed hockey fans, all you need to do is mention the superiority of the Stanley Cup playoffs to get nods of agreement. Even among people who follow closely the other major pro and college sports, if they're hockey fans at all, they usually won't disagree that the NHL has the most exciting playoffs. It's a combination of things. Non-fans have ridiculed the league forever for admitting teams that are hovering at .500 into the playoffs and, sure, there's an element of profit consideration driving the playoff structure (just as there is driving the 84-game schedule). The marvelous happenstance is that admitting sixteen teams creates an incredibly entertaining and competitive tournament. The top teams get the highest seeds, but there are no sure outs and sheer volume of talent alone is seldom enough to win four games against any opponent. There's always the chance that a team who underachieved through the regular season can show up with any number of things-- a novel strategy or matchup scheme, a ton of speed, a commitment to defense, a hot goalie-- and shock a more accomplished team. The best part, though, is that when a David topples a Goliath, it isn't a single-game fluke. It's the result of a team outplaying another team four times. It's a pattern, and there's no reason not to have confidence that the better team won.
That certitude applies to the more evenly-matched series as well. Contrast it with the NFL, where a single Earnest Byner fumble or a couple of inexplicable Neil O'Donnell passes can make a final score appear unjust, or with college sports, with their similarly thin margin of error. Sure, an errant clearing pass or a knuckleball from the blue line has just as much chance of determining a single hockey game score as a perfectly-placed slapshot or one-timer, but not four times. By the time there's a handshake line and somebody's offering congratulations, there's heartbreak and elation, but there's also the satisfaction of knowing the better team prevailed.
What's more, the Stanley Cup playoffs constantly redefine just what constitutes the better team. It may or may not be the team with the high-wattage stars. Winning a scoring title is irrelevant once the regular season ends and the goals are harder to come by. (Speaking of goals being hard to come by, while the NHL's apparent ban on goal-scoring during recent seasons has made it tough to justify buying tickets in November, it hasn't affected in the least the superior playoff play, where tight checking and infrequent but earned scoring opportunities are expected.) A playoff team might have the best player in the league and still lose four straight. Playoff hockey success depends on a team's depth-- its ability to throw out three or four quality lines that can exploit or contain the other team's personnel-- and even a team's superstars can find themselves reduced to decoys on a winnning team. The result is ridiculously and blissfully egalitarian: sure, it's possible that the big goal will be scored by Mario Lemieux or Steve Yzerman, but it's just as likely that it will be scored by Darren McCarty or Dave Lowry.
And then there's overtime playoff hockey. Really, there is no other overtime experience in sports comparable either quantitatively or qualitatively. Overtime or extra innings are rare occurrences in other sports, but because goals are hard to come by, it's commonplace to see overtime in playoff hockey. And unlike football, where the possibility of winning on a cheap field goal can sour the competitive fire, to win a playoff hockey game you've got to do the same thing to score that you do during regulation play. Of course, the intensity is turned up to eleven, with every faceoff, penalty or sloppy line change taking on series-changing importance. And then it ends, with either a bang or a whimper. A crowd is instantly either detonated with elation or crumpled with disappointment.
So, yeah, I'm missing the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. I miss tuning in an east coast game early on, then catching a west coast matchup afterwards. I miss the interminable overtime games where the crowd falls asleep at intermission and you can tell how much effort is required for the players just to keep their legs moving. I miss the two-man advantages that are impossibly killed off by the shorthanded team. I miss players being hit with dump passes off a line change who go in on breakaways. I miss the grinders who collect unforgettable goals. I miss the skaters forced to glove pucks away from the net when their goalie's out of position after an incredible save. I miss the unscripted and extemporaneous goal celebrations. I miss the handshake lines that say both "Congratulations" and "I'm sorry" (unless you're Claude Lemieux). I miss the fantastic Stanley Cup presentation ritual, the only one in American sport to actually have any poetry. Yeah, I miss the NHL.
I raise my can of Rolling Rock to you, Esa Tikkanen, wherever you are.
Hockey will always be a niche sport in America for two primary reasons. First, the sport requires ice and expensive equipment, and despite the best efforts of the sport's proponents, most kids will be warmed out or priced out of participation. Second, the sport requires some fairly advanced physical skills-- namely, the ability to ice skate deftly while controlling or chasing the puck. That makes it unlike the other major sports, all of which a group of young kids or half-drunk adults can play a rough facsimile with just rudimentary skills and limited equipment. Oh, I suppose there is the street hockey version, but once you've taken out the skating element, it's probably more satisfying to play lacrosse instead. So hockey will never threaten baseball, basketball or football.
Still, though, among the cadre of committed hockey fans, all you need to do is mention the superiority of the Stanley Cup playoffs to get nods of agreement. Even among people who follow closely the other major pro and college sports, if they're hockey fans at all, they usually won't disagree that the NHL has the most exciting playoffs. It's a combination of things. Non-fans have ridiculed the league forever for admitting teams that are hovering at .500 into the playoffs and, sure, there's an element of profit consideration driving the playoff structure (just as there is driving the 84-game schedule). The marvelous happenstance is that admitting sixteen teams creates an incredibly entertaining and competitive tournament. The top teams get the highest seeds, but there are no sure outs and sheer volume of talent alone is seldom enough to win four games against any opponent. There's always the chance that a team who underachieved through the regular season can show up with any number of things-- a novel strategy or matchup scheme, a ton of speed, a commitment to defense, a hot goalie-- and shock a more accomplished team. The best part, though, is that when a David topples a Goliath, it isn't a single-game fluke. It's the result of a team outplaying another team four times. It's a pattern, and there's no reason not to have confidence that the better team won.
That certitude applies to the more evenly-matched series as well. Contrast it with the NFL, where a single Earnest Byner fumble or a couple of inexplicable Neil O'Donnell passes can make a final score appear unjust, or with college sports, with their similarly thin margin of error. Sure, an errant clearing pass or a knuckleball from the blue line has just as much chance of determining a single hockey game score as a perfectly-placed slapshot or one-timer, but not four times. By the time there's a handshake line and somebody's offering congratulations, there's heartbreak and elation, but there's also the satisfaction of knowing the better team prevailed.
What's more, the Stanley Cup playoffs constantly redefine just what constitutes the better team. It may or may not be the team with the high-wattage stars. Winning a scoring title is irrelevant once the regular season ends and the goals are harder to come by. (Speaking of goals being hard to come by, while the NHL's apparent ban on goal-scoring during recent seasons has made it tough to justify buying tickets in November, it hasn't affected in the least the superior playoff play, where tight checking and infrequent but earned scoring opportunities are expected.) A playoff team might have the best player in the league and still lose four straight. Playoff hockey success depends on a team's depth-- its ability to throw out three or four quality lines that can exploit or contain the other team's personnel-- and even a team's superstars can find themselves reduced to decoys on a winnning team. The result is ridiculously and blissfully egalitarian: sure, it's possible that the big goal will be scored by Mario Lemieux or Steve Yzerman, but it's just as likely that it will be scored by Darren McCarty or Dave Lowry.
And then there's overtime playoff hockey. Really, there is no other overtime experience in sports comparable either quantitatively or qualitatively. Overtime or extra innings are rare occurrences in other sports, but because goals are hard to come by, it's commonplace to see overtime in playoff hockey. And unlike football, where the possibility of winning on a cheap field goal can sour the competitive fire, to win a playoff hockey game you've got to do the same thing to score that you do during regulation play. Of course, the intensity is turned up to eleven, with every faceoff, penalty or sloppy line change taking on series-changing importance. And then it ends, with either a bang or a whimper. A crowd is instantly either detonated with elation or crumpled with disappointment.
So, yeah, I'm missing the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. I miss tuning in an east coast game early on, then catching a west coast matchup afterwards. I miss the interminable overtime games where the crowd falls asleep at intermission and you can tell how much effort is required for the players just to keep their legs moving. I miss the two-man advantages that are impossibly killed off by the shorthanded team. I miss players being hit with dump passes off a line change who go in on breakaways. I miss the grinders who collect unforgettable goals. I miss the skaters forced to glove pucks away from the net when their goalie's out of position after an incredible save. I miss the unscripted and extemporaneous goal celebrations. I miss the handshake lines that say both "Congratulations" and "I'm sorry" (unless you're Claude Lemieux). I miss the fantastic Stanley Cup presentation ritual, the only one in American sport to actually have any poetry. Yeah, I miss the NHL.
I raise my can of Rolling Rock to you, Esa Tikkanen, wherever you are.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
This explains so much...
Part One
Writing in 1998, Todd Gitlin predicts the rotting quality of network programing thus:
fr. Inside Prime Time
Part Two
Tonight's episode of the The Office remake exposed the David Brent character to be a Pirates fan. Now, with the show's paper company being based in Scranton, it makes significantly more geographic sense for him to be a Phillies fan, but if you want the maximum characterization of his self-delusion and incompetence, then you need... Your...Pittsburgh...Pirates.
Writing in 1998, Todd Gitlin predicts the rotting quality of network programing thus:
At the same time, with cable channels drawing off a significant share of the more educated viewers, the over-the-air channels scrambled to hold onto cableless viewers who were disproportionately less educated. Led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox, the networks went downmarket with "reality" entertainments...
fr. Inside Prime Time
Part Two
Tonight's episode of the The Office remake exposed the David Brent character to be a Pirates fan. Now, with the show's paper company being based in Scranton, it makes significantly more geographic sense for him to be a Phillies fan, but if you want the maximum characterization of his self-delusion and incompetence, then you need... Your...Pittsburgh...Pirates.
Rhetorical Question
Should a thirty-four year-old need to be told that a responsible lunch cannot be fashioned out of two large thumbprint cookies, chocolate milk and ROLO?
Monday, April 25, 2005
THE WOODSMAN
Hey, I have no idea how to make a great film about a pedophile. I've been intrigued by this film and have wanted to see it since I heard last fall that it was coming. I was surprised the film didn't generate more critical buzz or publicity when it was released with the other end-of-year award contenders. I'm not surprised now; it isn't very good.
Kevin Bacon (Quicksilver) plays Walter, who has just been paroled following a twelve year prison sentence for molesting young girls. Walter takes an apartment across the street from a grade school and a job at a lumber yard and waits for either his proclivities or Megan's Law to catch up with him. His family, apart from his sister's husband, has disowned him, and his other substantial relationships are compelled by law: the therapist who monitors his progress and the cop waiting for his next misstep.
Walter stumbles into a relationship with a hard-edged fellow lumber worker played by Bacon's real-life wife, Kyra Sedgwick. Sedgwick readily adopts the fatalism of someone with her own history of lousy choices, but it takes more than wearing a Norma Rae handkerchief and cursing like a sailor to convince me that a woman who looks like she does would work at a lumberyard and throw herself at the visibly-disturbed Walter. Hitchcock rightly said that the critic who wants to talk plausibility is generally a dull fellow, but the concept of a willing love interest for a convicted pedophile requires an attention to emotional detail that can't be met simply by supplying Sedgwick's character with enough cheap abuse baggage of her own to make codependency believable to an audience of armchair psychologists. The fact that such a pivotal and potentially-implausible role was filled by the star actor's wife gives off the scent of desperation. It's the casting equivalent of taking your sister to the prom. Hey, wait.
There aren't exactly a smorgasboard of plot options when you've chosen a character like Walter for your protagonist, so we watch as he tries to keep his job and fights off angry co-workers. Most of all, of course, we watch to see whether he'll do it again. The movie wrings an admirable amount of tension out of a scene on a park bench, but really, it's not within the realm of possibility that a Hollywood film would feature a star as a pedophile and actually show him giving in to it. There are appropriate hints of redemption and the expected open-ended but positive final scene.
So, with that limited range of options, what would anyone want out of a movie like this? Speaking for myself, all I want is insight. It's clear that the American media-viewing populace can't get enough of going inside the minds and psyches of killers and the physical and emotional wounds they inflict (provided there's a sex-ay forensics team to provide playful banter over the body), but the queue of people who'd walk a quarter mile in a pedophile's shoes is not long. And while I can understand the latter (while making no sense of the former), so much of our collective turmoil concerning criminal behavior is best understood against the backdrop of this crime. What causes this kind of aberrance? Can it be controlled? Do we expect our penal system to punish or rehabilitate? What does forgiveness mean from a society's point of view, or from an individual's? Those are large questions, too messy and uncertain to be resolved in any film, so perhaps I shouldn't fault this film for not raising them to my liking. But I doubt this film will move enough people even to wonder about those concerns.
Kevin Bacon (Quicksilver) plays Walter, who has just been paroled following a twelve year prison sentence for molesting young girls. Walter takes an apartment across the street from a grade school and a job at a lumber yard and waits for either his proclivities or Megan's Law to catch up with him. His family, apart from his sister's husband, has disowned him, and his other substantial relationships are compelled by law: the therapist who monitors his progress and the cop waiting for his next misstep.
Walter stumbles into a relationship with a hard-edged fellow lumber worker played by Bacon's real-life wife, Kyra Sedgwick. Sedgwick readily adopts the fatalism of someone with her own history of lousy choices, but it takes more than wearing a Norma Rae handkerchief and cursing like a sailor to convince me that a woman who looks like she does would work at a lumberyard and throw herself at the visibly-disturbed Walter. Hitchcock rightly said that the critic who wants to talk plausibility is generally a dull fellow, but the concept of a willing love interest for a convicted pedophile requires an attention to emotional detail that can't be met simply by supplying Sedgwick's character with enough cheap abuse baggage of her own to make codependency believable to an audience of armchair psychologists. The fact that such a pivotal and potentially-implausible role was filled by the star actor's wife gives off the scent of desperation. It's the casting equivalent of taking your sister to the prom. Hey, wait.
There aren't exactly a smorgasboard of plot options when you've chosen a character like Walter for your protagonist, so we watch as he tries to keep his job and fights off angry co-workers. Most of all, of course, we watch to see whether he'll do it again. The movie wrings an admirable amount of tension out of a scene on a park bench, but really, it's not within the realm of possibility that a Hollywood film would feature a star as a pedophile and actually show him giving in to it. There are appropriate hints of redemption and the expected open-ended but positive final scene.
So, with that limited range of options, what would anyone want out of a movie like this? Speaking for myself, all I want is insight. It's clear that the American media-viewing populace can't get enough of going inside the minds and psyches of killers and the physical and emotional wounds they inflict (provided there's a sex-ay forensics team to provide playful banter over the body), but the queue of people who'd walk a quarter mile in a pedophile's shoes is not long. And while I can understand the latter (while making no sense of the former), so much of our collective turmoil concerning criminal behavior is best understood against the backdrop of this crime. What causes this kind of aberrance? Can it be controlled? Do we expect our penal system to punish or rehabilitate? What does forgiveness mean from a society's point of view, or from an individual's? Those are large questions, too messy and uncertain to be resolved in any film, so perhaps I shouldn't fault this film for not raising them to my liking. But I doubt this film will move enough people even to wonder about those concerns.
Friday, April 22, 2005
One other hilarious thing from the Pirates/Cubs game...
I've been trying to remind myself to write about this to try to keep the tone from getting too stiff.
So we were at the Pirates game last Friday. When the prime attraction is the "stadium experience," you notice the little things. Like the way the buildings in downtown have changed their facades and lights to be seen by the fans through the centerfield wall. Like the way the main scoreboard has a different graphic for the players each time through the batting order-- this year, the big addition is that on the third time through the order, each player is accompanied by a rebus spelling out his name. They're rebuses for dummies (well, and it's not like you don't know what they spell out), so the only fun is in trying to guess what they'd use before you see it. I'm pretty positive they haven't spent the money for graphics for the fifth time through the batting order, and that's money well unspent.
The best attraction, though, is the players' self-selected music for walking to the plate. There's no better juxtaposition of absurdity and arrogance than the utility infielder hitting .217 who thinks he should walk to the plate with "Start Me Up" as the wind beneath his wings.
This year, the Pirates scrambled and paid the Dodgers U.S.$75,000 for a backup catcher right before the season started. David Ross is a seemingly good pickup, and he shares a name with a great guy I used to work with. The problem is, his career average is just above .200. That doesn't rein in his music choice, though. He tells the Bucco PR dept. he wants Fitty's "Candy Shop." Keep in mind that "Candy Shop" is (1) intoxicatingly entrancing, but (2) the sort of expression of throbbing, undulating libido that really should be reserved for .300, 35 HRs, 125 RBIs and (3) even in its edited form, pretty much the dirtiest song to get wide airplay since "Tonight She Comes" by The Cars.
The Pirates' media department said, "Sure, why not."
And for the guy's first two ABs against Carlos Zambrano, it seemed to work. As he launched those two uncharacteristic home runs, it was almost as if the song had given him a newfound prowess with the bat. Late in the game, he came to the plate again with the score knotted. Buhm-banna-bah. Buhm-banna-bah. The entire crowd is seemingly transformed into a writhing clump. Buhm-banna-bah.
Wait--no. Dusty Baker has decided that Zambrano has licked his lollipop enough that night, and he starts the walk to the mound. But---but--there's only enough of Fifty to last the time it takes Ross to walk to the plate. You can't possibly play any of the vocals. And the safe instrumental part has pretty much run out before Zambrano surrenders the ball. For reasons of aesthetics, sound quality and general decency you can't just jump from "Candy Shop" to one of the usual suspects for a pitching change (e.g., The Beatles' "Help"). The music guy is stunned. So he kills the Fifty Cent and just waits. It's like anathema in the modern ballpark: total silence. 30,000 people just listening to each other.
So we were at the Pirates game last Friday. When the prime attraction is the "stadium experience," you notice the little things. Like the way the buildings in downtown have changed their facades and lights to be seen by the fans through the centerfield wall. Like the way the main scoreboard has a different graphic for the players each time through the batting order-- this year, the big addition is that on the third time through the order, each player is accompanied by a rebus spelling out his name. They're rebuses for dummies (well, and it's not like you don't know what they spell out), so the only fun is in trying to guess what they'd use before you see it. I'm pretty positive they haven't spent the money for graphics for the fifth time through the batting order, and that's money well unspent.
The best attraction, though, is the players' self-selected music for walking to the plate. There's no better juxtaposition of absurdity and arrogance than the utility infielder hitting .217 who thinks he should walk to the plate with "Start Me Up" as the wind beneath his wings.
This year, the Pirates scrambled and paid the Dodgers U.S.$75,000 for a backup catcher right before the season started. David Ross is a seemingly good pickup, and he shares a name with a great guy I used to work with. The problem is, his career average is just above .200. That doesn't rein in his music choice, though. He tells the Bucco PR dept. he wants Fitty's "Candy Shop." Keep in mind that "Candy Shop" is (1) intoxicatingly entrancing, but (2) the sort of expression of throbbing, undulating libido that really should be reserved for .300, 35 HRs, 125 RBIs and (3) even in its edited form, pretty much the dirtiest song to get wide airplay since "Tonight She Comes" by The Cars.
The Pirates' media department said, "Sure, why not."
And for the guy's first two ABs against Carlos Zambrano, it seemed to work. As he launched those two uncharacteristic home runs, it was almost as if the song had given him a newfound prowess with the bat. Late in the game, he came to the plate again with the score knotted. Buhm-banna-bah. Buhm-banna-bah. The entire crowd is seemingly transformed into a writhing clump. Buhm-banna-bah.
Wait--no. Dusty Baker has decided that Zambrano has licked his lollipop enough that night, and he starts the walk to the mound. But---but--there's only enough of Fifty to last the time it takes Ross to walk to the plate. You can't possibly play any of the vocals. And the safe instrumental part has pretty much run out before Zambrano surrenders the ball. For reasons of aesthetics, sound quality and general decency you can't just jump from "Candy Shop" to one of the usual suspects for a pitching change (e.g., The Beatles' "Help"). The music guy is stunned. So he kills the Fifty Cent and just waits. It's like anathema in the modern ballpark: total silence. 30,000 people just listening to each other.
IUP Film Studies
This is great news.
Ali and I attended IUP in the early nineties and both of us took Dr. Slater's Intro to Film Art class, a fantastic course offered at that time through the English department. Thirteen years later, I can still rattle off big chunks of the syllabus. Bordwell and Thompson's intro book, which I still have and love. Man with a Movie Camera. Meet Me in St. Louis. Mr. Hulot's Holiday. Breathless.
It also gave us a pretty good story. IUP held a literature conference in the spring of 1993, and Ali and I agreed to participate in a panel discussion on film. We talked about films concerned with the effect of tyranny on individual identity. She discussed Abuladze's awesome and underappreciated Repentance (someday, Doug!) and I talked about Europa, Europa. The guy who went after us was a Dario Argento fan who described in precise detail the differences between the various Euro and American cuts of Suspiria, complete with clips of spraying arteries and delicate descriptions of blood trails and denunciations of the less-forgiving American censors. Believe me-- I have no illusions and know full well that our contribution was amateurish and jargon-packed. Still, if you could have seen the quietly respectful but thoroughly puzzled reaction of the audience-- mostly a distinguished tweed-jacket crowd in their forties and fifties-- well, good times. Good times.
Congratulations, Dr. Slater
Ali and I attended IUP in the early nineties and both of us took Dr. Slater's Intro to Film Art class, a fantastic course offered at that time through the English department. Thirteen years later, I can still rattle off big chunks of the syllabus. Bordwell and Thompson's intro book, which I still have and love. Man with a Movie Camera. Meet Me in St. Louis. Mr. Hulot's Holiday. Breathless.
It also gave us a pretty good story. IUP held a literature conference in the spring of 1993, and Ali and I agreed to participate in a panel discussion on film. We talked about films concerned with the effect of tyranny on individual identity. She discussed Abuladze's awesome and underappreciated Repentance (someday, Doug!) and I talked about Europa, Europa. The guy who went after us was a Dario Argento fan who described in precise detail the differences between the various Euro and American cuts of Suspiria, complete with clips of spraying arteries and delicate descriptions of blood trails and denunciations of the less-forgiving American censors. Believe me-- I have no illusions and know full well that our contribution was amateurish and jargon-packed. Still, if you could have seen the quietly respectful but thoroughly puzzled reaction of the audience-- mostly a distinguished tweed-jacket crowd in their forties and fifties-- well, good times. Good times.
Congratulations, Dr. Slater
Cannes 2005/ The Dardennes
The lineup for next month's Cannes Film Festival was announced this week, and while there are plenty of films to be excited about, the one that I'm most anticipating is a new film by the Dardenne brothers, L'Enfant. The always-authoritative imdb doesn't even have a reference to the film yet. I've just got to hope it shows up in North America sometime in the next year.
I've yet to see Rosetta, but both La Promesse and Le Fils were spellbinding meditations on the decision of a person to perform a morally good and humanly impossible act. When I last watched Le Fils twice in two nights a couple of months ago, I couldn't believe that the film's effect on me was steadily increasing in intensity, especially given what comprises the movie. The plot is simple: a lonely teacher of carpenters is given a new apprentice with whom he has a prior history. The technique is deceptively unadorned: a great number of the film's shots are by handheld camera taken over the protagonist's shoulder as he drives or works.
If you took out all the driving, measuring, hammering and staring, the movie could be cut down to about ten minutes of conventional narrative action. From that description, it sounds profoundly boring. Simply, the film convinces us that all of that which normally passes as filler in film or life is the stuff of real life. As much as anything else, and moreso than the typically "dramatic" moments we anticipate, the things we do out of routine, habit and duty give rise to who we are and how we approach our existence. Who among us makes difficult decisions in a moment of intercut montage, with knitted brow and musical accompaniment by Bernard Hermann? No, they come in the midst of a silent and ponderous five-minute drive, or while washing the dishes. That's the best way for me to explain the way in which the film creates an almost unbearable tension, in which the uncertainty of outcome creates an edge-of-your-seat effect to rival the best thrillers. What's more, I'm inclined to say that what comes out of all that narrative simplicity and repetition is something that, four viewings later, looks like perfection.
And I haven't even mentioned the film's accomplished and mature illustration of forgiveness. It may be one of the best and fullest Christian parables. Hell, Jim Hoberman says so. But despite its masterful incorporation of imagery and vocabulary that are historically and culturally identifiable as Christian, the film makes the most subtle and marginal use of those elements. The moment an allegory or parable folds into artless propaganda is the moment its characters become less than human and assume the form of simple cars moving along a narrative track. That's never been a temptation for the Dardennes; whether by virtue of their documentary roots or as a byproduct of their style or both, their characters are, if anything, too human. They stutter and pause and react unpredictably and erratically. In this world, God exists, but only in the details. Not in the literal character of the protagonist or the verbal professions of any of the characters. Instead, He shows up in the heart of a man who has no idea what he's doing, but can't find any other way to heal his broken heart.
So, yeah, bring on the next Dardenne film.
Hyperbole Self-Awareness Check: I'm aware that my last two entries have identified my two most-anticipated movies of the year as (1) a gorefest social commentary about beings who eat brains and (2) an austere, minimalist film likely to have no more than four characters and no nondiegetic music. That's not inconsistency. It's breadth.
I've yet to see Rosetta, but both La Promesse and Le Fils were spellbinding meditations on the decision of a person to perform a morally good and humanly impossible act. When I last watched Le Fils twice in two nights a couple of months ago, I couldn't believe that the film's effect on me was steadily increasing in intensity, especially given what comprises the movie. The plot is simple: a lonely teacher of carpenters is given a new apprentice with whom he has a prior history. The technique is deceptively unadorned: a great number of the film's shots are by handheld camera taken over the protagonist's shoulder as he drives or works.
If you took out all the driving, measuring, hammering and staring, the movie could be cut down to about ten minutes of conventional narrative action. From that description, it sounds profoundly boring. Simply, the film convinces us that all of that which normally passes as filler in film or life is the stuff of real life. As much as anything else, and moreso than the typically "dramatic" moments we anticipate, the things we do out of routine, habit and duty give rise to who we are and how we approach our existence. Who among us makes difficult decisions in a moment of intercut montage, with knitted brow and musical accompaniment by Bernard Hermann? No, they come in the midst of a silent and ponderous five-minute drive, or while washing the dishes. That's the best way for me to explain the way in which the film creates an almost unbearable tension, in which the uncertainty of outcome creates an edge-of-your-seat effect to rival the best thrillers. What's more, I'm inclined to say that what comes out of all that narrative simplicity and repetition is something that, four viewings later, looks like perfection.
And I haven't even mentioned the film's accomplished and mature illustration of forgiveness. It may be one of the best and fullest Christian parables. Hell, Jim Hoberman says so. But despite its masterful incorporation of imagery and vocabulary that are historically and culturally identifiable as Christian, the film makes the most subtle and marginal use of those elements. The moment an allegory or parable folds into artless propaganda is the moment its characters become less than human and assume the form of simple cars moving along a narrative track. That's never been a temptation for the Dardennes; whether by virtue of their documentary roots or as a byproduct of their style or both, their characters are, if anything, too human. They stutter and pause and react unpredictably and erratically. In this world, God exists, but only in the details. Not in the literal character of the protagonist or the verbal professions of any of the characters. Instead, He shows up in the heart of a man who has no idea what he's doing, but can't find any other way to heal his broken heart.
So, yeah, bring on the next Dardenne film.
Hyperbole Self-Awareness Check: I'm aware that my last two entries have identified my two most-anticipated movies of the year as (1) a gorefest social commentary about beings who eat brains and (2) an austere, minimalist film likely to have no more than four characters and no nondiegetic music. That's not inconsistency. It's breadth.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
It Should Have Been Me
Do not mock me. I only found this link five minutes ago.
It should have been me.
Damn you, Canada. Damn you and your cost-advantageous tax incentives.
I also just found out that this film-- probably my most-anticipated Hollywood film of the year-- has been bumped up from an October release to late June.
There is joy in Monroeville.
It should have been me.
Damn you, Canada. Damn you and your cost-advantageous tax incentives.
I also just found out that this film-- probably my most-anticipated Hollywood film of the year-- has been bumped up from an October release to late June.
There is joy in Monroeville.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Poseur
I'm schizophrenic; part-ironic and part-earnest. Really, it's as much a struggle for me as anything else.
It seems to me that there are two types of ironic poses. The first is the sort of persistent irony which undercuts and ridicules any assertion of meaning in practically any context. It's a smirking nihilism. That's not me, obviously. [ironic understatement] I'm inclined to think nihilism is incompatible with the Cross. But that's just me. [/ironic understatement] The second form is more situational, more directed to particular instances in which something is held up as laudable or worthy of cultural devotion, but the object of praise strikes me as empty or useless or insipid (or, believe it or not, incompatible with the Cross). When I'm being ironic, I reassure myself, it's because I'm rejecting something that's being mistakenly praised, and the most efficacious way to subvert it is by mocking it. Mockery, Lewis said, awakens the reason. (Or did he say"argument"? I am getting old and can't remember these things.)
And so these distinctions form the cognitive rationale for why I'll sometimes have-- at certain intervals-- some song playing in my head that either the artist or I intend to be an ironic subversion of a misplaced value. Being resolutely unhip, the song has lately either been "Sabotage" or Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (lots of laughs there). And so as I'm walking out the marble lobby toward the revolving door where the rest of the bright and shining world awaits, one of these anthems is playing and I am walking in time to it. I'm animated by it. I'm the one person too detached to take any of this seriously.
Then I go through the lobby doors and with geometric precision my path intersects with that of a woman around forty. She might work in a store or an office, and she might be on her lunch break. She's crying as she's walking. A long stream falls from her eye to her jaw and she's making no effort to wipe it away or hide her unhappiness. She's past me in the time it takes for me to gape at her. She's not asking for help, and it doesn't register to me to ask her if I can do anything to help her. I'm too stunned simply in the act of waking from my ironic stupor to fashion a response to this. The soundtrack, of course, has stopped. Now I just feel childish, and my cleverness is so inadequate.
It seems to me that there are two types of ironic poses. The first is the sort of persistent irony which undercuts and ridicules any assertion of meaning in practically any context. It's a smirking nihilism. That's not me, obviously. [ironic understatement] I'm inclined to think nihilism is incompatible with the Cross. But that's just me. [/ironic understatement] The second form is more situational, more directed to particular instances in which something is held up as laudable or worthy of cultural devotion, but the object of praise strikes me as empty or useless or insipid (or, believe it or not, incompatible with the Cross). When I'm being ironic, I reassure myself, it's because I'm rejecting something that's being mistakenly praised, and the most efficacious way to subvert it is by mocking it. Mockery, Lewis said, awakens the reason. (Or did he say"argument"? I am getting old and can't remember these things.)
And so these distinctions form the cognitive rationale for why I'll sometimes have-- at certain intervals-- some song playing in my head that either the artist or I intend to be an ironic subversion of a misplaced value. Being resolutely unhip, the song has lately either been "Sabotage" or Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (lots of laughs there). And so as I'm walking out the marble lobby toward the revolving door where the rest of the bright and shining world awaits, one of these anthems is playing and I am walking in time to it. I'm animated by it. I'm the one person too detached to take any of this seriously.
Then I go through the lobby doors and with geometric precision my path intersects with that of a woman around forty. She might work in a store or an office, and she might be on her lunch break. She's crying as she's walking. A long stream falls from her eye to her jaw and she's making no effort to wipe it away or hide her unhappiness. She's past me in the time it takes for me to gape at her. She's not asking for help, and it doesn't register to me to ask her if I can do anything to help her. I'm too stunned simply in the act of waking from my ironic stupor to fashion a response to this. The soundtrack, of course, has stopped. Now I just feel childish, and my cleverness is so inadequate.
And Who Knew Julie Delpy Writes Songs?
Watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in succession tonight. It's an impressive achievement. Of course, the films underscore why so many modern romantic films are so comparatively unaffecting. How often does a relationship film create characters complex enough that they could fill a second film? (Or even one film, for that matter.) And how many of them realize that while there's beautiful magic in the beginnnings of a relationship, there's so much largely-unexplored drama in looking beyond the pursuit of love to the way that our choices become the summation of our lives? Yes, I enjoy the well-written and meaningful dialogue, the long takes which intensify the encounters, the round characters and the fantastic use of locations, but what I really value-- because I see it so infrequently-- is a love story that's consequential.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
he beat me he banged me he swore he would hang me
(Sitting at red light reading instructions on tube of asphalt patch, not paying attention to the CD player)
Leah: Did she marry two mean men in a row?
Me: Yeah. I guess she made some bad decisions.
Ruby: Was one of them the Devil?
Me: Well, she thought he was like the Devil.
(Hits seekbutton)
Leah: Did she marry two mean men in a row?
Me: Yeah. I guess she made some bad decisions.
Ruby: Was one of them the Devil?
Me: Well, she thought he was like the Devil.
(Hits seek
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