Americans flunk science

This is discouraging.
These people need to go back to school!

Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.

The test is here.

They were not looking for exact answers - just general answers.
For instance, the earth revolves around the sun in...well one year! 365 days was acceptable and 365.25 days was even better - but the survey didn't ask for these choices - so a year was right.
Obviously, they were not looking for dates on when the dinosaurs disappeared or when humans first existed. Approximately 65 million years passed between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of humans.
And the last question can be tough to get exact but the survey people say anything between 65% to 75% was an acceptable answer. I was taught as a kid that 2/3's of the Earth's surface is covered in water. That would be 66%. The correct answer is really 71%.

Less than 1% know how much of the Earth's water is fresh. The correct answer is 3%.
This is one I did not know. I guessed 4% to 10% So maybe I need some schooling?
The other two questions dealt with evolution and, actually, upwards of 70% surveyed believed in evolution.

Check, mate?

"Hi I'm selling this DVD for $2,000.00 even though it is still in print and can be bought for $20.00 from other sellers."



Are these guys nuts or did one seller mistakenly price this DVD for $2,400.00 and another seller try to undercut him by a penny?
[Now if someone comes along to buy one of these then I guess the seller will be a genius]

Mid East Weddings

Two DVD covers but different movies.

Kluge

'Yesterday Girl' was one of the first important films of the New German cinema. The most well known [and talked about] directors were Wim Wenders, Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. But not mentioned as much is Alexander Kluge. I don't know the exact reason except that it probably has to do with the tepid [and naive] response by the New York Times to his first two films here in the US. But in Europe he was much more appreciated. 'Yesterday Girl' won the Silver Lion in Venice in 1966.

Shot in black and white and edited in a dynamic way that jumps from scene to scene the narrative style of 'Yesterday Girl' is very much like a Jean Luc Godard film from the sixties. And, as Peter Cowie mentions in his book Revolution!: The Explosion of World Cinema in the Sixties, the main actress [Alexandra Kluge] would be right at home in a Godard film from the period.
In the film the woman has moved from East Germany to West Germany but cannot find a way to fit in. She is alert, attractive but confused and cannot get a good job or meet anyone who is friendly. She moves from place to place, job to job, school to school - usually in a skirt and with a suitcase. It's not necessarily a literal film so much as a film with metaphors and impressionistic scenes that give the viewer the feeling of alientation. The film is about 89 minutes in length but has a fresh feel throughout and is over before you know it mainly because there is a terrific energy to the whole thing.

Kluge is still not well known in cinema circles. His first two films 'Yesterday Girl' and 'Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed' aren't even mentioned in this Wikipedia post.
And they are very hard to find on DVD. Facets put out a few of his films last fall and they are already out-of-print. I searched and noticed that 'Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed' is available on Ebay. [But I cannot vouch for their quality since they may actually be copies of Facets DVDs rather than the real thing].

I have yet to see 'Artists...' but from reviews I have read it seems to be even more abstract in its editing style. Which means I cannot wait to see it. But I recommend watching 'Yesterday Girl' if you can find it.

Here's a good write-up on the film from Film Ref.
Here's a cinemascope article on Kluge and here's one from Senses of Cinema.

Norma Rae

I received an email from someone who read a review I wrote on the DVD of Norma Rae a few years ago. They wanted to know the town it was shot in.
The fictionalized town is called Henleyville but [as this cool link of labor movies notes] "it is based on the real-life story of textile union activist Crystal Lee Sutton in her fight against the J.P. Stevens Co. in Roanoke Rapids, N.C."
But the real town they shot the movie in was Opelika, Alabama where they had a real unionized mill.

The Nation has a good article on the film.

Now you know...

New Yorker films...

New Yorker Films is going out of business. This is sad news for anyone who loves foreign language films. Some of the films they released over for the past 40 years were among the most memorable and what one could call essential.
Filmmakers such as Jean Luc-Godard, Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Alain Tanner and Ousmane Senbene had films distributed to the US by New Yorker.
In the 1990's, when VHS was the main home format, they had a lock on some of the best film titles available. Many of these titles never actually made it onto DVD. But some of the titles managed to go over to Rialto Pictures, which puts them on The Criterion Collection.
Over the past ten years New Yorker DVD has released fewer and fewer titles.
But they were good titles. Here is a list of some of the best titles available on DVD from New Yorker. [I guess once stores sell out of New Yorker DVDs they may not be available for a while unless they can be found used].

After Life - Hirokazu Koreeda
L'Argent - Robert Bresson
Beau Travail - Clair Denis
Chunhyang - Im Kwon-Taek
Cyclo - Tran Ahn Hung
The Eel - Shohei Imamura
Fireworks - Takeshi Kitano
Flamenco - Carlos Saura
Gabbeh - Moshen Malkmalbaf
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchmen - Pereira Dos Santos
Jazz on a Summer's Day - Bert Stern
La Belle Noiseuse - Jacques Rivette
Landscape in the Mist - Theo Angelopolous
Loulou - Marice Pialat
A Man Escaped - Robert Bresson
Moolaade - Ousmane Sembene
My Architect - Nathaniel Kahn
Platform - Jia Zhang-ke
Shoah - Claude Lanzmann
The Son - Dardenne Brothers
Songs From The Second Floor - Roy Andersson
Weekend - Jean Luc Godard
The Wind Will Carry Us - Abbas Kiarostami
Underground - Emir Kusturica

A complete list of New Yorker titles can be found here. Note some of the titles were not announced titles but were in the New Yorker library and are on VHS].

Director list

Entertainment Weekly has a list of the Top 50 Active directors working today.

Please note that - even though they don't say it directly - this list is really a Hollywood 'power list'. These are the directors who define mainstream cinema and bring in the bucks. That's why few really good foreign language directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Alexander Sukorov, Patrice Leconte, Clair Denis or Werner Herzog manage to not even make it into the top 50.

Women are missing, which is in some part because they are still not invited to the table with the big boys. That said, Sofia Coppola makes it but Katherine Bigelow doesn't.

But one should also note that even among this power list Jon Favreau #25 edges past Woody Allen #26. What? A director who has made 2 good films in 6 years is in front of a director who has made a good film [and some great ones] every year for the past 26 years?

James Cameron makes the top ten despite the fact that he hasn't made a film in 13 years. Huh? I guess The Titanic gives him a free ride for a lifetime? May as well throw Francis Coppola or William Freidkin on there too.
I also had to look three times at the overall top 50 because I could scarcely believe Gus Van Sant didn't make the list.

I'll acknowledge that any list they come out with will raise heckles from some quarter. And, after all, they are Entertainment Weekly - not Film Comment or Sight & Sound so anything not aligned with Hollywood mainstream would seem to go against their base. But then again maybe they just make these lists to provoke us? Because if they think we are supposed to take it seriously then they would make a serious list.

Simon says

One of Bunuel's best if for no other reason then that it feels unfinished and therefore more surreal. But, as always, the religious angle is there. Even though he mocks religion he brings up debatable points as well.

Review here.

Inauguration...celebration, liberation, transformation, revelation, standing ovation, respect for nation and hopefully job creation.

Rolex

Is it chic to ride with a Rolex?

From a 1968 issue of The New Yorker.

Electoral predictions

Electoral College predictions compared to reality:

Markos Moulitas, DailyKos / Obama 390 McCain 148
Morton Kondracke, Fox News host / Obama 379 McCain 159
George Will, conservative columnist / Obama 378 McCain 160
Final Electoral College results / Obama 365 McCain 173
Larry Sabato / Obama 364 McCain 174
Alan Abramowitz, Emory University / Obama 361 McCain 177
Sandy Maisel, Colby College / Obama 353 McCain 185
Ed Rollins, Republican strategist / Obama 353 McCain 185
George Stephanopoulos, ABC News / Obama 353 McCain 185
Eleanor Clift, political writer / Obama 349 McCain 189
Mark Halperin, Time editor / Obama 349 McCain 189
Nate Silver, statistician / Obama 347 McCain 191
Donna Brazile, Democratic strategist / Obama 343 McCain 197
Matthew Dowd, former Bush strategist / Obama 338 McCain 200
Karl Rove, Bushie / Obama 338 McCain 200
Chris Matthews, MSNBC host / Obama 338 McCain 200
David Plotz, Slate editor / Obama 336 McCain 202
Tom Doherty, NY Republican consultant / Obama 331 McCain 207
Paul Begala, Democratic strategist / Obama 325 McCain 213
James Carville, Democratic strategist / Obama 330 McCain 208
Dan Gerstein, Dem media consultant / Obama 318 McCain 220
Arianna Huffington / Obama 318 McCain 220
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post / Obama 312 McCain 226
Charles Mahtesian, Politico editor / Obama 311 McCain 227
Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard / McCain 286 Obama 252 [?!]

Info source from here.

F music

Does anyone else confuse the Fiery Furnaces the Friendly Fires and the Fleet Foxes?

Election day in 2 minutes

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Yes, he did

The first chapter from a Newsweek book on how he did it. [some excerpts]
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven

Legend

> "I think what would really be terrible would be to watch a retrospective and see yourself age forty years over a period of forty-five minutes. That'd be traumatic. And maybe one day I'll be able to go back and look at those old films with a charitable eye. The hard part is not to add any ornaments or embellishments to your memory of them. But maybe that's asking the impossible."

>"What you're able to achieve on the screen has nothing to do with you. The only thing sometimes I think is that you pick up certain mannerisms from characters that you play and they become part of the way you present yourself. The only two things that ever stuck to me were, unfortunately, from Rocky Graziano. I never used to spit in the street and I was with Rocky for about nine weeks before the picture began filming, and I spit in the street. It sickens my wife. I never used to swear. I never used any kind of foul language. Now, it's not worth being in the same room with me. And it's funny, of all the attributes that could have stuck to me, that those were the two that stuck the strongest and the longest. But I don't take much of it seriously. I really don't."

>"The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films."

> "Being on President Nixon’s enemies list was the highest single honor I’ve ever received. Who knows who’s listening to me now and what government list I’m on?"

>"I started my career giving a clinic in bad acting in the film ‘The Silver Chalice’ and now I’m playing a crusty old man who’s an animated automobile. That’s a creative arc for you, isn’t it?"

>“We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

>"You say I'm an icon. I don't say it. My grandchild does not think I'm an icon."

RIP

Best films...1958

It is interesting how there are a bunch of 40th anniversaries telling us how great and influential 1968 was. But what about 1958? Surely a 50th anniversary is in order? No doubt the politics of 1968 were big news and still resonate today. But is it also because the films from 1968 seem to have a more modern feel to them than the films from 1958? I mean, who wants a preachy Stanley Kramer movie when you can have a Jean Luc Godard film? Who wants to see a bloated Hollywood picture when you can see something fresh and exciting like Bonnie & Clyde [which in '67 gave new life to Hollywood]?

Nonetheless, a selection from 1958, I think, stands up pretty well today:

Vertigo
Touch of Evil
Paths of Glory
Pather Panchali
The Seventh Seal
The Cranes are Flying
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Look Back in Anger
The Horse's Mouth
Left Handed Gun
Man of the West
Le Beau Serge
Mon Oncle


Here's a longer list.

Fox Wilde

"I could see myself in a relationship with a girl -- Olivia Wilde is so sexy she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hands. She's mesmerizing."
- Megan Fox

Tokyo!

Tokyo! is a mixed bag. Three films by three filmmakers.
The first film; Interior Design by Michel Gondry is original, funny and unexpected. It starts as a film about a young Japanese couple who are staying with a friend while they look for an apartment. Then it takes an wild turn and focuses on the woman as she begins to feel inconsequential. By itself the film is worth a look

The second film is Merde by Leo Carax [who has done much better work] and it is just plain bad. It starts promising as a wicked looking character crawls out of a sewer onto a Tokyo street where he assaults people and eats money. Then it dives off into a very annoying trial after the guy kills of bunch of people. It is just bad.

The third film Shaking Tokyo by Joon Ho Bong is a rather inert short about a dull everyman whose life becomes shaken up when he makes eye contact with a young pizza delivery woman. Oh yeah, and an earthquake hits the area just to add a level of interest to the whole thing. It is a mediocre short that can't save the film after the second short.

Perusing YouTube I came upon the animated work of Piotr Kamler. He was an Eastern European animator [by way of Paris] whose work has nifty surreal elements.
If anyone has seen the work of Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay you will see something similar.

Here is one of his shorts:

Man's Castle

Man's Castle is an excellent and rare 1933 film directed by Frank Borzage. It showed on Turner Classic Movies the other evening. Rare mainly because it's has a 66 minute running time, which doesn't fit our full length feature standard and therefore has yet to get released on DVD; although it was common in the era before television when moviegoers saw double and triple features on a regular basis.
Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young star as a down-on-their-luck couple dealing with their new found love during the depression era. It's funny and sharp-witted but also has a tough edge with Tracy playing a character who feels so frustrated at not being able to be the breadwinner he should be that he doesn't always treat Young with kindness. But, this being a Borzage picture, you know he will come around.
It has many nice touches including a scene with Tracy on stilts. The acting, which has a more natural feel than most films from the early 30's, is also very good. And it moves along quickly [but not rushed] from scene to scene

Here's a link to a couple clips.