1 Dec 2003
I must admit that I got a lot out of watching the commentary on The 400 Blows.
The biggest point made, I think, was that Truffaut here is signaling a
move toward much more intimate, more personal filmmaking. I'd been
thinking recently about that as one of the main differences between
classic Hollywood and contemporary movies. In older films it's rare to
follow a single character around through his daily routine or through
all the parts of his life; that is, the actor plays a role, but not a
whole person. But here, the protagonist, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud),
is seen waking up and getting ready, at school, running around Paris
with his friend day and night, and even in his bed, with the lights
off, listening to his parents fight. Not having seen every movie made
before 1959, I can't state absolutely that this was the first time this
sort of film was made, but it does seem different from many films of
the fifties and before.
Also interesting was the focus on the sea, which Antoine had never
seen, as both he and his mother mention at different points in the
movie. The apartment he shares with his mother and father is very tight
and the views of Paris are usually very vertical. The opening shot, or
sequence of shots, focuses on the Eiffel Tower, as viewed from the
streets of Paris. Whenever he goes outside, his movements are
constricted by the old houses and offices and stores. After he is
caught stealing a typewriter, he is even put in a cage at the police
station. It's obvious that he feels very constricted in his
environment, and perhaps that, along with his strained relationship
with his parents, is a clue to his misbehavior, which fills much of the
film. This narrow quality to most of the scenes makes an even greater
contrast when he is finally sent away to a place in the country where
he will be observed and then sent to an appropriate facility. Even here
he experiences retribution and cruel punishment, so he finally escapes
the guards and, in a sequence that lasts for quite a while, is seen
running, through the forest and along a road until he finally catches a
glimpse of the sea, and the camera slowly pans through the unending
view as Antoine makes his way to splash around in the water, bringing
us to the last shot in the movie, which is a freeze-frame. Truffaut,
once he freezes the shot, then zooms in on it, as if it were a
painting, which seems to remove the audience from the story and life of
the boy in which they've become so entwined.
The presentation was unsentimental, thankfully, and that lent it a
neorealistic feel, a sense that the camera was capturing naturally
occurring events and not creating a story of its own, and reminded me
that the New Wave directors, along with their appreciation for
Hollywood, were also indebted to the Italian neorealists.
2 Dec 2003
I just completed a mammoth transaction on Spun.com
in which I sold 51 CDs for 10 I wanted (including a double album). I
won't bother with all the CDs I got rid of, but here is a list of those
I acquired:
The Pixies: Doolittle
Guided by Voices: Bee Thousand
Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime
Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express
Wire: Pink Flag
Slint: Spiderland
Les Savy Fav: 3/5
The Boredoms: Super Ae
New Order: Best of New Order
Modest Mouse: Lonesome Crowded West
It might have been wiser for me to take the 50% cash offer, since I
am feeling somewhat poor right now, but how could I resist twice the
value in new and used music?
Tomorrow I will see the dentist and the library and a movie and Best Buy.
2 Dec 2003
I think maybe I'll move out of here and relocate here.
2 Dec 2003
In response to one of the most basic and useful letters they've probably ever received Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber answered this question: If
you were to call yourself a follower of "indie" music (barring the
pretention, unclarity, whatever of the term itself) what do you think
would be five bands that you would essentially HAVE to be at least
remotely aware of?
- The Velvet Underground
- Pixies
- Sonic Youth
- My Bloody Valentine
- The Clash
---
- Talking Heads
- The Ramones
- Guided by Voices
- Pavement
There are nine instead of five, but that's just because there are so many important bands out there. And by the way, The Morning News once did a short interview with him (five questions, as they are wont to ask), but it sucks, so I'm not linking to it.
2 Dec 2003
The first thing I have to say about Mystic River is that it's
a punch straight to the gut. A movie hasn't hit me this hard for a very
long time. It's the sort of experience that causes you to walk around
in a daze for a while after leaving the darkness of the theatre. The
second thing I have to say about it is that it's the best movie I've
seen this year. Not far and away the best, because there have been good
movies, About Schmidt, Whale Rider, Chaos, American Splendor, Kill Bill Vol 1 and especially Lost in Translation were all very good, but none had quite the force or the weight of Mystic River.
I was afraid near the beginning that it would turn out to be a
mediocre experience. I'd heard complaints about Sean Penn, from mainly
one source who has been wrong before and had it noted on this website,
and since I could only recall seeing him in Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Dead Man Walking,
I wasn't sure what to expect. I also was a little wary of the
police-at-the-crime-scene-dealing-with-tough-guys-and-unstable-relatives
set-up that's been used by Law & Order and all of its ilk
on television, because that shit gets old fast. I don't care how dry
the wit or how wild and crazy the criminals are, you can only watch so
many formulaic crime dramas before you can't take it any more. Then
there were the old ladies talking because it was a matinee, but
luckily, Mystic River rose above all those things.
You may or may not have seen all the early Oscar nods toward Sean
Penn for this role, but they are all deserved. Especially from the
moment he mourns on the porch with Dave (Tim Robbins), Penn is
riveting. Every once in a while, an emotional storyline or scene might
get to me, but rarely can a single actor doing so little cause so
strong a reaction. And at times it's almost hard to tell whether
Robbins is not only just as good, but possibly even better than Penn,
especially as he struggles with his inner demons as his wife comes home
while he's watching a vampire flick on television. I don't even like
Kevin Bacon, for crying out loud, and he was good here. And Laura
Linney, when soothing her husband in their bedroom near the end, is
bone-chilling.
I will actually refrain from giving away plot details here as I
often don't do, but this movie is so good, that I couldn't bear to
spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it (which I assume is most
everybody). I can reveal what is generally told about the plot, which
is that Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Dave were best
friends growing up in the same Boston neighborhood, when one day Dave
was kidnapped and tortured physically and emotionally for four days
before he returned home, after which their bond was apparently
weakened. They hardly see each other until, 25 years later, a murder
brings them back together. Bacon is an investigating officer, Robbins
is an unwell suspect, and Penn is a very concerned third party.
As has already been noted countless times, this is a violent Clint
Eastwood film, but one in the anti-violence tradition started by The Unforgiven.
Vigilante justice is meted out, as per usual for Eastwood, but it winds
up as the worst possible solution to the problem of solving the crime.
Nowhere does the film take the easy way out, instead it sacrifices main
characters, both morally and otherwise, and confronts the audience with
brutal, though not unnecessary, violence. The ending is a complex and
difficult one: it takes quite a while, but it's obvious as the climax
occurs that it's going to take a lot to resolve what has happened.
On a geekier level, I could give an example of how the film uses
visual images where lesser films would use dialogue, such as the scene
in which Robbins lights a cigarette and then lets it burn unsmoked for
minutes on end as his anxiety becomes apparent through the device. Or
the way Robbins, during the aforementioned "vampire" scene, gets
lighted from above to shadow his eyes and thus make him dangerous to
the viewer. I could also mention the fact that Clint Eastwood
apparently handled the music for the film, which seemed surprising, but
it was certainly handled well. Most notably, the scene in which Laura
Linney's character reassures her husband about his wrongdoings seems
like it could be a frightening political allegory, with Linney as the
Republican party or the neoconservatives reassuring the President, here
Sean Penn, that even though he's caused pain and suffering in his
"neighborhood", since it's for the protection of Americans, here Penn
and Linney's daughters, every measure is justified, no matter how
brutal. It becomes all the more powerful by the scene that immediately
follows in which we see we those directly affected by Penn's violence,
which just makes Laura Linney that much more terrifying. This would be
confusing, given Eastwood's own conservative politics, but it is
certainly an unrelenting and complex view of violence and its relation
to those around it. Go see this as soon as possible.
3 Dec 2003
Apparently Howard Dean is not entirely opposed to Bush as far as his policy on concealing information goes:
Mr Dean insisted he had nothing to hide, and that the sealing of such documents was routine.
His rivals in the primary campaign have pointed to a candid
remark to a Vermont radio station earlier this year, in which the
former doctor said: "We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in
the papers at a critical time in any future endeavour."
What we don't want is to replace George W Bush with someone who's
going to perpetrate the same sort of offenses toward the American
people.
4 Dec 2003
I decided that I would think about school for a few hours of this
winter break. First I checked my grades, shocked to find out that I did
better in Probability than in Structures, and as I expected overall. I
also checked out classes I might take in the spring. I'll be taking a
statistics-related class for the third term in a row. I'll also take
either Italian Neo-Realism or Film Noir, as well as a third class that
could be, in descending order:
- Class, Power & Inequality in America
- International Relations & World Politics
- Latin American Politics
- Econometrics
- Empires of the Steppe
- Roman History
- Southern Literature
And topping it all off will be my final PE class, Advanced Golf,
which finally will fit into my schedule, after many futile attempts to
work around it.
I also sold fifteen discs to Secondspin.com
that Spun.com wouldn't take. Secondspin let me get the total sale price
back in cash (actually a check), and for a moment I considered that
might have been nice to do with my larger cache which I sold last
night, but I would've bought CDs over break anyway, and Spun had a
relatively good selection compared to any stores I might have gone to.
Last night care of Wired I finally figured out how to encode DivX files. Easydivx
tells you how. I haven't decided whether I want to do so or not, since
I don't feel the necessity of this, which would only allow me to keep a
version of any DVD that passes through my hands, as much as the ability
to rip and burn CDs.
And now that I've backed up everything on my hard drive, I might be able to upgrade to 80Gb, which will be exciting.
4 Dec 2003
So I finally backed up everything on my hard drive and installed the
new one. Let me just say what a mess of wires and cables it is inside
my computer. I hope I don't have to put in anything else before I take
something out. Anyway, I decided to put the new drive in another slot
so I got to keep all of my old files as they were, which means I didn't
really need to spend hours backing everything up. On top of that, some
of my CD-Rs have unreadable spots on them where several files can't be
copied back to the hard drive, which is annoying, but nothing necessary
has been lost . . . yet.
And I didn't really do anything else today.
4 Dec 2003
Evil spirits 1, Catholic church 0.
7 Dec 2003
You may have not seen this yet. It is a most intriguing, if somewhat
stomach-turning, case, and one that I'm glad is not being tried in the
United States, as I'm sure it would be chaos. The Australian has the best article I've seen.
I think since this post has gotten so many hits from Google, I
should add some more commentary. The whole story intrigues me,
especially the fact that there seems to be some sort of group of
cannibals out there somewhere, in Germany perhaps. It seems there would
have to be in order for Mr Meiwes to be able to post advertisements
asking for people willing to be eaten. I guess I could conceive of some
sort of desire to taste human flesh, since the spectrum of fetishes or
bizarre desires is nearly infinite, but the really weird part is that
such an activity requires a second party to be subjugated, killed and
eaten. The sense I get from this case is that, if indeed there are
cannibalism enthusiasts out there, they aren't the sort to take their
victims from the general populace, but from the segment that sees some
value in being eaten. I'd take this to be an extremely small portion of
the populace who want someone to help them end their lives, which would
in turn be a small part of those who want to end their lives, who
themselves are already a minority in a society. Granted, given a large
enough population any type of group will swell in numbers, but this is
pretty out there.
The main failing of Mr Meiwes, and cannibalism in general, seems to
me to be that it encourages others to end their lives sooner. If there
truly were to be a segment of the population both mentally competent
and prepared to end their lives and, along with any potential related
parties, unconcerned with the ultimate fate of their physical bodies,
then I suppose eating them wouldn't be a relatively harmful act.
However, in this and probably any case, a person would be inclined to
speed their demise to achieve the goal(?) of being eaten. So, if
cannibals could somehow access a cache of consumable human flesh, I
suppose they could go right ahead, but since they can't, since they
must create their own supply, then there must be a part of the process
that can't be justified apart from causing harm, in some sense, to
someone else. Thus if you are a humanist who determines the morality of
an action by its net effect on human lives, I don't think cannibalism
can be justified.
7 Dec 2003
Well, well, well. I have returned from the Iowa State University.
While there I saw approximately three basketball games. I watched Iowa
State handily defeat Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne and Idaho State. I also
watched parts of awful games that pitted Arkansas-Little Rock against
either IPFW or Idaho State.
I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean and The Scorpion King. I'm glad Pirates
was the one I paid for. Johnny Depp was outstanding and overall it was
a lot of fun. I had a hard time watching the part in which Capt. Jack
Sparrow (Depp), wearing handcuffs, manages to loop them around a rope
to slide down from a ship's mast because, since he obviously couldn't
remove the handcuffs, they closed a loop formed with his arms and body
into which the rope could not physically have been inserted since it
was tied to the mast, but otherwise it was great.
The Scorpion King had its moments, and The Rock's sidekick
was funny, but the soundtrack was heavy metal trying to sound like a
cinematic score which irked me and it seemed to mostly be a vehicle for
The Rock to beat people up.
Tomorrow I will get my eyes checked.
9 Dec 2003
Al Gore has just boosted Howard Dean by giving him his formal
endorsement for the 2004 election. I don't know what to think about
this. He doesn't seem like the obvious choice for Gore, as detailed in
the New York Times article.
I can't decide if this makes me feel better about Dean and the fact
that he might be the only way to get George W Bush out of office next
November, or whether this simply tarnishes Gore's previously
intelligent succession of moves after losing the 2000 election.
[By the way, when asked for a password, use the following: Username:
tmn_news; Password: tmn_news. I don't know specifically where The Morning News
has registered this identity, but it works at many news sources, which
is nice if you either haven't registered or forget your password.]
I watched Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera and was pleased.
It stood out to me as an impressive use of montage, of course, and even
more so since it's now nearly 75 years old. Sometimes I fail to "get"
what's so spectacular about silent films (The Birth Of A Nation,
for example), but this movie was exciting enough that I didn't want to
fall asleep. I think what impressed me the most was the way all the
different images and shots fit together to present a coherent, if
that's the word I want to use, vision of a day in the city of Odessa,
even though the material obviously took a long time to film.
I should be getting new lenses for my glasses some time this week, but I'm not sure when.
Tomorrow since I am going to Iowa City again to purchase RAM and to return library materials, I will be seeing a matinee. Since Bad Santa shows earliest at 5:15, I will be seeing Master and Commander, which I have not heard good things about from real people, but Roger Ebert, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, AO Scott of the Times, and Scott Tobias of The Onion AV Club all extol its virtues, so I have to go decide for myself.
9 Dec 2003
David Brooks has finally put my thoughts on paper for me:
Dean is beyond categories like liberal and centrist because
he is beyond coherence. He'll make a string of outspoken comments over
a period of weeks — on "re-regulating" the economy or gay marriage —
but none of them have any relation to the others. When you actually try
to pin him down on a policy, you often find there is nothing there.
I don't feel the need to say much else because Brooks does such a
good job of explaining why some (many?) on the left are uneasy about
Howard Dean. Thanks to Teague for hooking me up with the New York Times
article.
10 Dec 2003
There was a lot of rain today as I drove around.
I saw Master and Commander, and though I wasn't enthralled, I
was impressed. There are few humorous moments and the action doesn't
seem to be meant to entertain the way it is in, say, The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings,
but I'd say it's still a film worth seeing. The director seemed to be
going less for a thrill-ride than a period piece, and I think he
succeeded. The shots of the ships and the sea and especially the
complexity of the ropes and the riggings were fantastic and
awe-inspiring. The battles were short, brutal and frightening, given
the destructiveness of cannons at a short range and the added element
of being helpless on the high seas. Paul Bettany, as the ship's
physician, is a terrific fish-out-of-water and there are a number of
interesting minor characters, not least the haunting Hollom (Lee
Ingleby). But mostly it's the experience of really being on the ocean,
in a ship, two hundred years ago that defines this movie.
Pirates of the Caribbean
was fun, and I've seen a number of movies involving the ocean before,
but never before have the joys and sorrows and fears of naval life been
thrust at me so convincingly. It may not have been the most fun I've
had in a theater, but it was something I'm glad I got to experience.
Also, it's somewhat funny that The Onion AV Club's Least Essential Albums list has links to buy all the albums.
10 Dec 2003
Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura deals with the
impermanence and fragility of romantic relationships. The first clue to
this is the ambiguous way the main character Anna reacts when she sees
her lover, Sandro, after they've been apart for a month. Apparently
this is not uncommon and it is beginning to get to Anna, so much so
that she can't decide whether she really wants to see him or not. They
go on a boating expedition they'd been planning anyway, and thus we see
even more evidence of failed relationships. Corrado has nothing but
contempt for the much younger Giulia, who will eventually cheat on him
openly with an even younger painter, one who paints only nudes. Anna
disappears and during the search that eventually encompasses numerous
towns along the coast, Claudia, Anna's close friend, and Sandro meet up
with an alchemist and his wife who, only together three months, are
already at each other's throats. Perhaps the most bizarre case of
romantic dysfunction is that of a gadabout "writer", whose claim to
fame seems to be her sex appeal, is apparently touring the surrounding
towns, and when Claudia and Sandro happen upon her, she is being
hounded by fifty thousand men in a sort of gender reversal of
Beatlemania.
The ultimate failed relationship, though, is that of Sandro and
Claudia, who go off together in search of Anna. Even while Anna is
still present on the boat, Sandro begins making advances on Claudia.
After Anna disappears, there is even less in his way. Though Claudia is
distraught and holds him off for a time, she eventually gives in, and
even seems to enjoy it for a moment or two, but it is of course too
good to be true, and after some ups and downs Claudia finally finds
Sandro in the arms of another woman, just days after they had gotten
together. The final shot in the movie, scored with a soundtrack of
doom, shows Claudia, apparently exhausted and defeated, comforting
Sandro, who somehow comes away even more upset than Claudia. As the
screen fades to black, we can see that they, as well as all of us, are
hopelessly chained to "love", that callous and untrustworthy master.
Personally, I can't entirely agree with Antonioni and his views on
the futility of romance, which are expressed in a number of his other
films (I've seen Red Desert). He also thinks that man is
becoming a new creature in relation to the dominance of the machines
he's created, but that isn't quite as obvious here.
Also, the Guardian has two good articles about the US and its "War on Terror" or whatever it's being called these days. The first is about the second botched attack in Afghanistan in the past week and the second is on the US's new policy on contracts for rebuilding Iraq.
13 Dec 2003
It is very cold and today I got new lenses for my glasses and have
gotten used to them completely. I watched the Cavaliers play a good
game and watched a very low-scoring college basketball game. Before
that, I watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Francois Truffaut plays a scientist who seems to specialize in
aliens or alternate means of communication or something. Richard
Dreyfuss plays a guy obsessed with aliens. And the aliens finally meet
the humans at the end of the movie.
Admittedly, 26 years after it was initially released, Close Encounters
isn't all that mind boggling. The whole movie is sort of obvious and if
you are really surprised, it's probably because you haven't been paying
that much attention. In fact, the most annoying part of the movie, for
me, was the portrayal of the women who were either terrified of the
aliens or refused to acknowledge their existence. It's made so obvious
that the aliens are harmless and fun that the terror they seem to
instill in the women is foolish and pathetic.
The real reason to see this movie, though, is to watch Richard
Dreyfuss completely lose his shit after his first encounter with the
UFOs. Initially he is just slightly fascinated with this mound shape
that seems to have some significance to him, but that's before he goes
nuts. One morning, the morning after his wife finds him in the shower
with all his clothes on muttering about how nothing makes sense, he
decides he has to build a full-scale model, or as close as he can get,
inside his house. He begins by tearing up all the plants in the
flowerbeds outside the windows and tosses them directly into the
kitchen by the window, over the dirty dishes. He then proceeds to begin
shoveling dirt in, and even gets his kids to start throwing bricks in.
His wife is almost completely enraged by this time, but when he tears
out the neighbor lady's chicken-wire and tosses that in, too, she
leaves, and he is alone, sitting on the street in his bathrobe, to the
shock of his neighbors. It doesn't really translate all that well into
text, but it's enough to salvage the film from any dated elements it
may have.
I attempted to figure out why, exactly, Spielberg decided to put
Truffaut in this film. Certainly, he knew of the director and had
probably enjoyed his work, but why did he feel the need to insert a
character whose lines would mostly either be subtitled or not
understood. I assumed it lent the whole affair an extra level of
secrecy and mystery. It could also have been a parallel between the
humans difficulty communicating with the space aliens and among
themselves as well. It was just something I pondered.
13 Dec 2003
Last night I watched two things. The first was a basketball game
which was kind of sad. The second was a movie which was also sort of
pathetic.
Cube was a cheap, "experimental" horror film with the
cheapest set design of all time. It consisted of a group of people
trapped inside this cube, all wearing the same cheap clothing. None of
them knew how they'd gotten there, and they didn't know how to get out,
and they all died, except for the autistic guy. In the beginning there
was a black guy, a woman doctor, an old convict, a nondescript guy in
his early thirties and a college math student. The cube consisted of a
26x26x26 block of 14'x14'x14' rooms, some of which had traps. The old
convict got killed by acid eating his face when he stepped into the
wrong cube. (Actually, the opening scene of the movie is some guy
standing in the middle of a cube and then getting sliced by this metal
grid and falling to pieces.) The woman doctor got killed when the
homicidal black guy dropped her out of an entryway at the edge of the
cube. The black guy killed the college math student after an attempt on
his life, and the nondescript thirtysomething locked the black guy in
between two moving cubes to kill him, shortly before curling up to die
next to the college math student as a result of severe head trauma
caused by the black guy. The autistic guy made it out alive.
The point of the movie seemed to be put forth somewhere in the
middle when they were all going nuts about how they weren't going to
get out of the cube alive, and the thirtysomething guy said that he'd
been contracted to build the outside of the cube, but that he didn't
know what it was for or what the inside was like. The woman doctor
thought it was a conspiracy controlled by the military-industrial
complex, the black guy thought it was some rich guy's idea of a joke,
but the thirtysomething guy knew that it was a result of people just
doing their jobs without asking questions, and then having something
horrible happen because nobody had thought to not do their part. Thus
the movie implied that we are all in some way responsible for the
atrocities faced by humanity. This was really poorly expressed,
however, and not at all convincing. The violence was irrelevant and the
dialogue wasn't even worth listening to, which was a shame because all
this movie was about was dialogue. Don't see this movie.
13 Dec 2003
The Guardian has this to say about nerds, geeks and The Lord of the Rings.
And you have heard that Peter Jackson wants to film The Hobbit, right?
15 Dec 2003
Dennis Kucinich has more good ideas.
The Guardian has a less-than-giddy opinion piece about the consequences of finding Saddam Hussein.
16 Dec 2003
The American Film Institute has released a top 10 for 2003
which was better than I thought it would, though I don't quite know why
I thought it would be bad. In fact, they share six movies with me on my
upcoming year-end movie which I made because lists are useful tools to
remember things. Also, I didn't realize that there had been a feature
film (Monster) released about the life of Aileen Wuornos, female serial killer, so I think I will have to see that.
Also, I watched Barton Fink today, lengthening the list of
Coen brothers movies I've seen. It was delightfully odd with an
appropriate cast (John's Turturro and Goodman, Steve Buscemi) and
bizarre twists and turns. I don't know that I feel like saying much
about it, because all I really want to do is give away the details, so
I just won't. There were a few things left unresolved. I can't write.
17 Dec 2003
Today I went to Iowa City once again. This time I visited the
library where I picked up movies and books. I also went to The Record
Collector where I purchased Chuck Berry's The Great Twenty-Eight
on vinyl since I believe I will be getting a turntable delivered on
Thursday or so. Also, while I was in the store, I was intrigued by the
music playing which turned out to be Do Make Say Think, specifically
their Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn album, who are affiliated with Silver Mt Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and others.
There was also a feature film involved, that being Bad Santa,
starring the one and only Billy Bob Thornton. I wasn't quite sure what
to think beforehand since the trailer I'd seen wasn't that good. I did
know that the Coen Bros. and Terry Zwigoff were involved, so I thought
that the trailer was probably just dumb.
Billy Bob Thornton was a lowdown, dirty, hard-drinking, swearing,
fornicating Santa Claus and he had a real live elf (sort of) for his
partner in crime. The main plot of the movie revolves around Thornton's
relationship with this unreal doofus of a kid, Thurman Merman, who
lives alone with his decrepit grandmother and who doesn't object when
Thornton decides to move in because he's afraid to go back to his
rented room. It's bizarre to see the scumbag Thornton plays interact
with the sweet and clueless Merman kid, but it works and gives the film
it's Christmastime heartwarming angle. There are a number of
unrealistic developments in the plot, but they all work within the
reality of the world in which the story takes place, and everything
works together wonderfully. It's dark and funny and worthwhile.
And I think there was an homage to Office Space. Near the beginning, Ajay Naidu, who played Samir in Office Space
gives Santa a mean look and then confronts him in the parking lot,
going crazy on him and, most importantly, calling him an "assclown", a
put-down popularized when Michael Bolton called the singer of the same
name a "no-talent assclown" in Office Space.
17 Dec 2003
Also, the New York Film Critics Circle has released their 2003 awards.
It is nice to see Peter Jackson and his gang get recognized for the
monumental achievement that is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's also
nice to see Secret Lives of Dentists get some recognition, it
was a really well-done film. I may have mentioned this after seeing the
second of them, but watching Hope Davis in both American Splendor and Secret Lives of Dentists is impressive considering the difference between the characters.
And, what the heck, I was going to try to make it look all nice or
something, but why bother? I'll applaud my 15 favorite movies from this
year here and now (14 whole entries and two half entries):
1. Mystic River
2. Lost in Translation
3. American Splendor
4. Kill Bill, Vol 1
5. Whale Rider
6. Intolerable Cruelty
7. Chaos
8. The Secret Lives of Dentists
9. The Stone Reader
10. Bad Santa
11. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
12. Finding Nemo
13. Thirteen
14. The School of Rock
---
Notable others:
- The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (I'll see it next Monday, if all goes well)
- Blogumentary (not finished yet but exciting to see a documentary about a phenomenon in which I am involved)
The Observer has its Singles and Albums of 2003 up. The Onion AV Club has produced their Best Albums of 2003.
And I've really been liking Ween lately. And I was delighted when I heard M Ward singing "Helicopter" today on KRUI.
18 Dec 2003
Guess what I did today? I watched another movie! Yes, that's right.
Sure, I also played Nintendo 64 sports games with my dad and ate some
food, I guess, and worked on collecting all my old internet stuff. But
that's not the point.
Today I watched Network, mainly because Netflix kept
pestering me to watch it by way of their Recommendations, so I checked
it out. And it was pretty good. Through the wrinkles I recognized
William Holden, who I saw in numerous films for my class on Billy
Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina). Faye Dunaway just looked anorexic, but provided an interesting reference to Bonnie and Clyde, which IMDb.com
fails to mention. I mean, if Faye Dunaway is watching a woman in a
beret with a big gun hold up a bank, that's pretty blatant. And she
was, so, yeah.
Anyway, the point of the movie was all about television (and
globalization I guess) and its dehumanizing effect on the lives of
those who watch it. See, the UBS network nightly news anchor slips in
the ratings, gets fired, goes berserk on the air, gets rehired as a
lunatic who rants about America. It's interesting that one of the first
things the news anchor says when he gets his own personal show is that
TV is full of crap and you shouldn't believe what it tells you. This is
a very good speech, but the irony, of course, is that it's delivered
over that same medium, so how is the audience to discern what he says
from what he says not to believe in?
The news anchor's best friend at the network, Max (Holden),
inexplicably falls in love with the woman whose idea it was to use the
lunatic news anchor, Howard Beale, as the basis for a new show. It's
inexplicable that he falls in love with her because she is utterly
uninteresting and cold, she even says so herself. The point, though, is
to contrast Max, who is a real person, with Diana, who is a fake person
molded by television who can't feel. On a related note, I was delighted
by the scene in which Max tells his wife that he is having an affair;
it was the most sensible depiction I've ever seen, and it didn't
feature the wife freaking out and having a breakdown, which so many
movies do. On another related note, Holden reminded me of Philip Baker
Hall in Magnolia.
Oh yeah, so eventually the corporation that owns UBS is going to
essentially get bought out by Saudi Arabians and Howard Beale gets
really mad about this and tells his TV audience to complain about it
and boss at the first corporations gets mad and forces Beale to tell
everybody that they are going to become "humanoid" beings subservient
to the interests of global business because nations and peoples have
been rendered irrelevant by multinational corporations. Perhaps the
connection was more concrete in the seventies, and admittedly
television is still used as an example of the American cultural
hegemony, but it kind of seemed like the writer was just trying to hit
as many targets as possible.
It was powerful, though, and people complaining about television and
the inhumanity of free-market radicalists are always welcome in my
view. I bet the whole terrifying speech about how the world belongs to
IBM and US Steel and whatever else must have been really great in 1976
when, I'm assuming, globalization was a slightly less popular topic
than it is today. Oh yeah, and everybody was mad about the Saudis
because they were raising oil prices. And there were some nice
juxtapositions of stupid, happy, brightly colored commercials with the
awful realities Beale was trying to portray.
And Pitchfork has started their year-end to-do with the year in review and a number of random lists.
18 Dec 2003
I just learned, while reading today's Canadian news briefs at the Guardian,
that the age of consent in Canada is 14. Not that this means I have any
plans or anything, just that I guess in Canada creepy old men with
young women are legally able to be even creepier than they are here in
the US.
You may weep openly about the loss of the 2003 Top 25 Albums on the
right side of the page. They should reappear soon, perhaps on my
Carleton website. You will be notified.
You may also weep openly about the new design. If you don't think
about vomit, I think you will be all right. Pretend it's the
yellow-green of early spring.
19 Dec 2003
I enjoy Peter Travers on movies just about as much as anybody. Here's his top ten for 2003.
Another note on the design: It is still in progress. I like the
layout and idea of a banner image at the top, but I don't necessarily
love the green color scheme. I decided that I really loved the big
splash of yellow-green at the top of kottke.org,
but it's a bit much for the whole page. The colors will be worked on to
find the most equitable solution for all concerned (mainly me, but you
too, a little bit anyway).
Tonight I ventured out to the Washington Public Library where I heard Dennis Kucinich
talk. He gave, I think, the eight minute speech he gives everywhere, in
addition to answering questions. I saw seven people I know there, which
was quite a few in my opinion. It was invigorating and I'm glad I was
able to get to see him, considering I'm in Iowa and I figured I'd get
the opportunity at some point this break. I found, perusing my
archives, that I'd voiced support for him online as early as late May
of 2003, and have yet to find another candidate who makes as much
sense. I also picked up a sign and a sticker. I already have a t-shirt.
19 Dec 2003
First of all, Pitchfork has released the second installment in their year-end round up.
Second of all, a certain party told me this evening that she found
much, or at least some, of Pitchfork's end-of-year hullaballoo
self-indulgent and/or self-important. I suppose this is as good a
reason as any to expound on my view of criticism and lists, both here
and in general. (Note: This, which turned out to be really long, is all
in response to a number of people I've talked to and gathered opinions
from on the subject, and not any one person in particular. It's just
something I feel strongly enough about to spend a lot of hot air on.)
As far as year end lists go, I find them to be a useful tool for a
number of reasons. For me it is a good way to reflect on the things
I've enjoyed in the past year and to summarize the good parts of the
large amount of time I've spent on things like movies and music. I am
interested in others' lists because they offer a different perspective.
Rather than looking to agree or disagree with their opinions, I find
myself most often looking for things I may have missed, both by choice
and by simple ignorance. For example, it is slightly annoying to see
what appears to be a badly chosen year-end list (Blender would be a
good example this year, given my set of likes and dislikes), but that
list is still valuable, especially in concert with other lists, in
displaying what the music-listening community enjoyed during the 2003
year. Whether or not you really think that British Sea Power or Outkast
or The Shins or anybody else really did make the album of the year, if
you see something pop up repeatedly during your year-ending
list-reading, it might be a sign that it's something of value and
something worth your time and money to pick up. In a sense, it's a
great form of collective criticism, and probably much more helpful than
sales figures. I produce such lists, and I hope others do, because I
want to let people know what I've enjoyed and what has made my life a
little bit better. To do otherwise would be selfish.
This leads us, me, whoever, to a discussion of self-indulgence
and/or -importance. Admittedly, the self is indulged in any
opinion-based writing. This is a vital part of the experience of
writing and of reading. When I read I am looking for what someone else
thinks or feels so, in other words, I am looking for someone else to
indulge themselves. The extent to which you indulge yourself is
probably important in determining whether your writing is truly selfish
or not. I think your intended audience is probably a factor as well.
For example, a person writing something to be read only by himself is
allowed to write anything at all. There is no room for complaint from
anyone else because the writing is not intended for them. A writer with
a small, select audience must consider the needs and wants of those
involved, but still probably has a lot of leeway in what he can write.
At the far end of the spectrum, we have something like the New York
Times, which as a national paper of record (of sorts) is responsible to
a LOT of people and thus must consider heavily anything they choose to
publish. As far as music goes, Rolling Stone is probably as good a
choice as any to play the role of the publication of note and
reputation. (Yes, they've done some awful things lately, but they've
been around forever.) Thus, they have an obligation to the popular
musically inclined community to provide sensible reviews and relevant
news, interviews and information. With so many accumulated years and
readers and accolades, they are now (or should be) duty-bound to their
constituency, as it were, to provide a level of coverage commensurate
with their status. (Though they often don't meet these standards, their
not the target here.)
Pitchfork, then, must recognize its readership in order to decide
what is and isn't fit to print. I have read, or at least glanced at,
awful proto-reviews filled with garbage, sometimes intentionally left
in unreadably rough form, that really did nothing to increase my
knowledge about the quality of a given album. I have also been
entertained and informed many times over. In my view, it should be
Pitchfork's responsibility, as a relatively major player in the
independent music world, to do what they can to increase the
appreciation of popular music, in most cases related to the independent
realm. If this means trashing albums they don't find to be worth their
weight in plastic, then so be it. If this means glorifying unheard of
and hard-to-find material, then that's what they must do. Essentially,
the site is there to tell the world about music that the staff enjoys,
hence their recent foray into hip-hop and more mainstream pop music
they deem worthy of note. Were they not to do this, it would be a
failing. As long as it doesn't mean sacrificing their commitment to
lesser known artists, it is a perfectly respectable extension of their
original focus on indie rock.
So, is their year-end wrap up self-indulgent or self-important? By
what I've already said, self-indulgence would be anything contrary to
their mission to increase the appreciation of independent and other pop
music. So, publishing a list of the hottest women on their block would
be self-indulgent. Publishing a list of their favorite brands of socks
would be self-indulgent. Publishing a list of the best dancehall
singles, box set liner notes, or extreme noise albums would not be
self-indulgent, since all would, theoretically, be connected to their
"prime directive".
Self-important? That would be to overstate their own importance.
That would be to overstep their bounds and discuss matters outside
their scope. Essentially, self-importance is a self-determining sort of
thing. If you can get people to call you self-important, doesn't that
make you important by other people's standards? If someone takes the
time to ridicule your opinions, yet comes back for more, that would
imply that they consider you important. That, I suppose, is the problem
I have with complaints of self-importance and self-indulgence. If you
truly find someone self-indulgent, if they seem to you to be irrelevant
or never on topic, don't read them! If you find someone to overstate
their own importance, and to weigh in on matters not in their grasp,
don't give them more credence by reading them. If Pitchfork weighs in
on matters related to pop music, that's great, and the more
far-reaching and authoritative they are, the better; that only makes
for more interesting and ultimately more satisfying reading, whether
it's right or not.
Understandably, if you know people who read some uninformed idiot's
weblog, and they talk about it, you can't ignore it, but if it relates
to their stated purpose and doesn't claim to have authority on matters
it doesn't, it is neither self-indulgent or self-important, probably
just incorrect. There is nothing wrong with being "incorrect" in
criticism. (This brings up the question of taste which I don't feel
like tagging on here.) The only sin in criticism is being dishonest. As
I said near the top, lists and criticism should be useful tools not for
telling what you can't listen to or read or view, but in helping you
discover what may or may not be worth your time. If you really think
that next Linkin Park album's gonna be the shit, save your $20 up and
go buy it when it comes out. If you enjoy it, great! If that's what
gets you your kicks, go right ahead. Criticism would warn you against
the lack of greater purpose behind the record, or lack of musical
innovation, or lack of interesting material, but it ultimately couldn't
stop you from buying it.
Criticism must be forceful in order to be relevant, but you can't
let it stop you from pursuing your own desires. I find criticism a
great help in discovering things that really make my time on this earth
more enjoyable, and that's pretty important, given that life is short,
so that's why uppity and negative and demeaning critics, as long as
they have a love for whatever it is they criticize, are vital. The
writers at Pitchfork every once in a while make it obvious that they
love music and spend a lot of time with it, so they are entitled to
praising and defaming albums as they see fit. This is not the same as
hitting your significant other, whom you love, but rather similar to
being honest with them about either important positive or negative
traits they exhibit. When enlisting the help of critics in looking for
things to spend my time and money on, all I can ask for is
well-informed, brutal honesty, whether it's agreed with or not.
19 Dec 2003
Sometimes, science bores me. Yeah, it's important, but as the Onion
reported last year in a groundbreaking story, science is really hard.
But sometimes it's just so fascinating that it's worth any jargon that
could possibly ensue. I personally think that discovering dark energy is one of those very topics.
Oh, and take time to read the mammoth post on criticism below, as
well as the Kucinich post below it, as they're all new this "evening".
20 Dec 2003
Last night I watched a successful basketball and saw a number of
people whom I know. After that we retired to the Rumsey household where
we watched Die Hard and the best TechTV blooper video ever.
I've also recently received a turntable and CDs from Spun.com, which
means I've boxed up CDs to send to Spun and to Secondspin.com.
I have been staying up later and later, and getting up later and
later. Tomorrow morning will be a rough return to schedule when we go
early to church to get a family picture taken for the directory.
I've been once again attempting to gather up all web content I've
previously created and am closer than I've ever been. I've condensed
all text-based updates to a single file, which is fairly large: 322 kb
currently, not including images. I have some more work to do, but I
think it will show up on my Carleton account soon enough. Unless we
leave for Ohio first, which will happen on Tuesday. I think this year I
will see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, among other
things.
And Monday I hope to see the noon showing of Return of the King.
22 Dec 2003
The Nation has an article by Paul Krugman in their latest issue on decreasing class mobility in America.
A classic 1978 survey found that among adult men whose
fathers were in the bottom 25 percent of the population as ranked by
social and economic status, 23 percent had made it into the top 25
percent. In other words, during the first thirty years or so after
World War II, the American dream of upward mobility was a real
experience for many people...[There has recently been] a new survey of
today's adult men, which finds that this number has dropped to only 10
percent. That is, over the past generation upward mobility has fallen
drastically.
I'm not sure exactly how old I was before I heard that the issue of
class was even a possibility in the United States, but I'll bet I
wasn't very young. This isn't something that's widely taught or
discussed, at least not critically, other than spreading propaganda
about the American dream. That could be because people who fear it
might be a real issue would rather not think about it. It could also be
because most simply don't consider it; after all, this is the land of
opportunity, right? And if immigrants are still showing up at our door,
that means upward mobility must still be unlimited, no?
It's tough to look at the numbers Krugman, and every other "class
warrior", cites and deny the possibility of a class problem offhand.
Perhaps those who would deny a discrepancy between expected and real
opportunities consider their position in the status quo too precarious
to look squarely at it. Or maybe they'd rather not have those on a
lower rung complaining. There is, for example, this letter
[under "Wal-Mart mission: make lots of money"] printed in the Des
Moines Register to apparently absolve Wal-Mart of their treatment and
undercompensation of employees since they are a corporation. Whether
the author believes there should be but simply aren't rules against
such practices or whether he just thinks it's great that Wal-Mart
employees get the shaft and he's not one of them, his tone is
disconcerting. If the nation's economy is to be built on the backs of
the working poor, how can we be sure that those of us fortunate enough
to currently benefit from the class structure will continue to share in
the spoils and not get trodden underfoot sooner or later as well? The
corporation as a social entity guarantees nothing to the middle-class,
except perhaps to the investor, and even he is not safe as we've seen
with Enron, et al. This is an issue that seems to me will continue to
ignored and denied by most until it's too late and they've already been
ruined.
23 Dec 2003
The theater was full today for the 12:00 showing of Return of the King,
and looked to be much fuller for the next one, with a sizable line out
the door waiting to come in as we left. I sat in the front for the
first time in a while and it was OK. My neck and back survived and I
enjoyed watching the prehistoric giant animals and orcs and trolls and
the volcano at such a close range. There was a strange popping on the
sound which was weird. I assume there was some kind of warping on the
audio portion of the film, but I certainly can't say for sure.
All I know is that I'm glad the Lord of the Rings trilogy is now on
film in a beautiful, entertaining, and definitive version. There are detractors,
yes, but considering that at 9.5 hours the films are chock full of
storyline and basic necessities, I don't know if anyone would have been
able to handle much more, at least not outside the extended versions.
Admittedly, the movies concentrated more heavily on some aspects than
others, but you can't complain about an apple for not tasting like an
orange, if you really hate apples, then just don't eat them, but don't
complain when apple-lovers praise their favorite variety of apple. I
understand the argument against excessive special effects in most
films, because they tend to get substituted for character, story and
complexity, but here I never got the impression that the effects were
abused. Instead, I'd say that it's great that such massive computing
power was available to make the incredible imagery from the book come
alive more vividly.
Also, the Guardian today has two articles on the Middle East and the Bush administration's involvement therein. The first discusses wider implications of the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq and the second questions selective debt relief. There are also items on excessive use of Christmas carols in Czechoslovakia and gas mileage restrictions on large SUVs, or the lack thereof.
AND, I'm leaving tomorrow for Ohio with my family, so we may see
updates periodically over the next week or we may not. You'll just have
to check back and see.
29 Dec 2003
I will admit to only having seen two episodes of Samurai Jack.
It is already, though, one of the few programs I'd immediately turn to
if I saw that it was on. It's kind of weird that such an interesting
and quirky animated show is even on television. The pacing is
wonderfully slow and smooth, the art is stylized and beautiful to look
at. There is precious little in the way of dialogue, but there aren't a
lot Bang! Zap! Pow! moments either. Jack is, of course, a samurai, and
he does defeat his share of foes, but it always seems weightier than
the average cartoon slaying. Best of all, the creators seem to just put
their imaginations directly to the screen without trying to think up
goofy gags to crowd the show. TV is full of shows so formulaic I find
it difficult to watch after a few times through, but thankfully this is
not one of them. It achieves some effect beyond what most would expect,
and that's always welcome. Hooray for Cartoon Network!