I watched Before Sunset, and I think it was even better than Before Sunrise, but that might just be because it's been a while since I saw the latter. One thing that I don't think was present in the earlier movie was a sort of voyeuristic interest in the lives of the characters. The whole experience was, for me, more like eavesdropping on a conversation between two people I know than watching a sequel to a movie I liked when I watched it several months ago. Either way, I'm glad I've seen both.
I've also seen all of Alexander Payne's films now, since I got Citizen Ruth from the video store. It was a lot funnier that I thought it would be when I read about it in Film Comment or somewhere. It's about abortion and how people tend to consider it more as an ideological issue than as something that really affects real potential mothers, except that it's not as stuffy as that sounds.
It's one of those slightly older movies that the video store still has but probably wants to get rid of. I'm glad they had it, but it was sitting in the 50 cent section where many of the display boxes had signs reading "Buy it for $2.95!" which reminded me of what a limited selection you're really getting when you go the rental store. That's why I'm glad that Netflix and its ilk seem ready to replace the brick-and-mortar video stores as the most viable option for watching movies without buying them.
I think this website is not working right now, but I don't know why.
I do know that I read The Corrections, under monstrous coercion from Lauren. I liked it, for a lot of different reasons, but it stopped just short of me wanting to make friends with Jonathan Franzen.
I'm not sure if that's exactly what I mean, but it's close. I would probably enjoy reading another book by Jonathan Franzen, given the opportunity. But, for example, I know he had a piece in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about something to do with his family, but I don't care quite enough to go back and find it. If, however, Jonathan Lethem or Dave Eggers or Nicholson Baker or Kurt Vonnegut had written something in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago that I'd missed, I'd do whatever it took to find it. I'm not sure if I can say why, but I don't think it's because Franzen is less obviously autobiographical than the others I've listed, at least in some of their books. I don't know if this says something about the book(s) or the author, or just about how I'm feeling at the time when I read them. Maybe I'm being oblique about something that should be really obvious.
Anyway, I finished the book very quickly, which is surprising since it's 570 pages, and it usually takes me a long time before I start reading much of any novel in one sitting. So that's to its credit. I'd give it 9 out of 10, if I were ranking it like that. My favorite parts were the excitement in and relating to Lithuania, and most, but not all, of the sex parts. Those are always fun.
I have read Checkpoint, and it took less time than it did to do a load of laundry. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that some people paid for it. It had all sorts of interesting perspectives on the failings of the Bush administration with respect to the war in Iraq, in the guise of the pre-confessions of a potential assassin, but maybe it should have been serialized in a magazine or something. I didn't really get that feeling after A Box of Matches. I'll choose to blame Nicholson Baker's publisher and not him though, because he is blameless and faultless and just too nice to take people's money that way.
Also, I bought Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space yesterday for cheap, but didn't manage to get what I'd gone to the record store for in the first place, which was a ticket to Magnolia Electric Co.'s show next Monday. This was on the way to Iowa State, where I watched them narrowly beat Virginia in quite a barnburner of a game.
Then tonight I videotaped a local high school game for scouting purposes for IMS. The teams were both bad, but they were of equal talent, so the game was close enough that it lasted to the very end of the second overtime. A basketball-filled winter break is by definition a good winter break.
Also, it appears that winter term will be the antidote to fall term as far as concerts go. The only thing I see on the calendar that I'm really considering going to is Low w/ Pedro the Lion, both of whom I've already seen in 2004. Maybe I'll see more movies next term. Or do comps.
Lately I've been watching a lot of movies. Tomorrow I will be seeing The Triplets of Belleville, but today I saw Love Liza, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and directed by Todd Louiso, whom you may remember as Dick from High Fidelity. It was, in a phrase, soul-crushing. Things start off right after Wilson, played by Hoffman, returns from the funeral for his wife who gassed herself to death in the garage. He becomes disconnected from people around him and develops a gasoline fetish wherein he sniffs fumes a lot and spends most of the movie in a sad daze. He gets into radio-control airplanes as a diversion while his life spirals out of control. At the end he is left with no prospects or future of any sort and ambles away pathetically from his house which he has turned into a funereal pyre for everything that reminds him of his late wife.
Roger Dodger was also a little downbeat, but not as harrowing. It's kind of dark, but not completely dark, comedy about a teenage boy who goes out for a night on the twon in New York with his uncle, who is a jerk and attempts to fit the mold of a "ladies man." I knew it was supposed to be funny and a coming-of-age story of sorts about the kid, but I didn't realize the bleak and disenchanted outlook of the uncle would be such a downer. At first it's funny as the kid tries to emulate the worldly-wise mannerisms and strategies of his elder as they go on the prowl, but the kid's idealism is ruthlessly stripped away until he ultimately burns out, unsuccessful in his quest to lose his virginity, in a garbage-strewn back alley.
I've now seen two Wim Wenders movies, both recently, and both had a lot of quirky humor and strong emotional climaxes. Wings of Desire, which I watched a few months ago, was about two angels who watch over Berlin, but then one becomes human and falls in love. Peter Falk steals every scene he's in and provides most of the comic relief.
Paris, Texas, which I'd gotten along with Citizen Ruth and Before Sunset, was about this mysterious guy, Travis, who appears in a mostly deserted town somewhere in south Texas. He's been wandering for four years, apparently, and his brother picks him up to take to Los Angeles, where he and his wife, Anne, have been taking care of Travis' kid, Hunter. When Travis disappeared, so did his wife, after she left Hunter on the doorstep of their relatives. Travis and Hunter take off to Houston to find the wife, which they do, but their search winds up to be a little less than satisfying to the viewer, since it doesn't wrap up as nicely as it might in the end, probably to avoid seeming trite. Back in the day it won the Palme d'Or. The music is by Ry Cooder, which is all terrific, and the scene where Travis and his estranged wife are reunited is just amazing, not only in the delivery, but also in the set-up and the way Travis develops from a seemingly mentally incompetent mute into a much more complex, but still sympathetic, character, maximizing the impact of the reunion.
I hope to see House of Flying Daggers before 2005 and maybe I'll even head up to Iowa City to meet fellow Film Society director, Eric Smith, and see either the new Bukowski documentary or Goodbye, Dragon Inn, both of which are currently playing at the U of I's Bijou Theater.
On the non-movie front, I listened to Wolf Eyes' Burned Mind last night. It's a sort of industrial, experimental (mostly) electronic noise album. I thought I was the one coming up with that description, but as I check All Music Guide, those are the exact four descriptors they use. Pitchfork's Sam Ubl says he likes "Stabbed in the Face" best, but I agree with AMG's Heather Phares that the best part is the end, which consists of the title track, "Ancient Delay," "Black Vomit," and the untitled track 13. I find it easiest to enjoy the bits that sound like things on Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, but I hope that I will also grow to love the other, more abrasive and brutal sounds as well.
I hope you catch the visual reference with the new images at the top and bottom of the page. But if I have to tell you, you probably won't care that much anyway.
I rented Todd Haynes' Safe from the video store and I liked some things about it, but didn't feel it quite added up to a feature-length film. His static shots centered symmetrically on the huge rooms in the suburban offices and houses where Julianne Moore's character spends most of her time were great and gave the impression that the people were subservient to their surroundings, which is also implied by the themes of the movie. But the movie wasn't much except themes. There really wasn't much in the way of a satisfying storyline, and the characters weren't very strong. It was, in fact, very reminiscent of Antonioni's Red Desert, but not as well made, I didn't think. Red Desert's protagonist, played by Monica Vitti, at least thrashes around and gets frustrated at her failure to thrive in the modern environment. Moore's character just coughs timidly and passes out because she is "allergic to the twentieth century." Janet Maslin in the New York Times said she is "more a specimen than a heroine." I thought it was great how certain things stayed unresolved in Before Sunset, but here so little happens that an ending seems necessary to provide any interest at all in the characters. I have Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, Godard's Les Carabiniers, and A Brief Encounter here, and hopefully they will all provide more enjoyment than Safe.
Tonight I saw and heard Magnolia Electric Co. (aka Songs: Ohia, Jason Molina). They played a relatively short set, but did two covers. Bob Seger's "Still the Same" was good and Willie Nelson's "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" was great with plenty of guitar pyrotechnics thrown in and a singalong-heavy final chorus. They played a couple of songs from their now self-titled album, the only one of theirs I own, but the rest was all enjoyable. Winter Blanket, who covered Neil Young's "Roll Another Number (For the Road)," actually suited my mood a little better. They played a lot of slowcore and had a female vocalist (as well as a male vocalist), so I heard a lot of Galaxie 500 and Cat Power in their music. All their stuff was good, although I think I prefer their more sedate songs, which sounded like they are on their first record, more than the louder ones. They have a website with MP3s. They're from Minnesota, so maybe someday they'll play the Cave.
I watched those movies. I tried to get Dancer in the Dark when I returned Breaking the Waves, but no luck. I suppose I could just listen to Selmasongs, but that wouldn't really do the trick. So I don't have any more movies to watch until John Cassavetes' Five Films box set arrives (hooray, Christmas!), but that will probably be while I am gone: 22 Dec-29 Dec.
I've watched more high school basketball recently, and will probably get to see one more game before I go back to Carleton and forget about organized sports for another ten weeks. I've got The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem for the remainder of the break. I've been collecting ever more top ten lists for myself to pore over to see what I missed in 2004. I will probably make a list of the things I especially appreciated from 2004 for myself, and maybe as a result it will constitute a post to this website. Along with highlights, if there are any, from the aforementioned upcoming trip, that should be the next update to this space, so do yourself a favor and don't check for anything new until at least early December 30.
Although this list has been dwindling, there is a lot of music from 2004 that I've hoarded but not yet gotten around to listening to. If I had an iPod, a lot of this would get heard in the next week, but I don't, so it will wait for winter term.
Arto Lindsay: Salt
Beastie Boys: To the 5 Boroughs
Books on Tape: The Business End
Camera Obscura: Underachievers Please Try Harder
Castanets: Cathedral
The Cure: s/t
Death from Above 1979: You're a Woman, I'm a Robot
Destroyer: Your Blues
DJ Shadow: Live Album
Friends of Dean Martinez: Random Harvest
The Icarus Line: Penance Soiree
Jim White: Drill a Hole in That Substrate...
K-Os: Joyful Rebellion
Kid Dakota: The West Is the Future
Les Savy Fav: Inches
Liars: They Were Wrong So We Drowned
Luna: Rendezvous
Mouse on Mars: Radical Connector
The New Year: The End Is Near
Richard Buckner: Dents and Shells
RJD2: Since We Last Spoke
Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow
Sonic Youth: Sonic Nurse
Tom Carter: Monument
Troy Gregory: Laura
Two Lone Swordsmen: From the Double Gone Chapel
Wilco: A Ghost Is Born
Will Johnson: Vultures Await