Italiano Prog

I stumbled upon a Seventies Italian Prog Rock band while perusing the internet recently.

Il Mucchio
They only made one album back in 1970 but it's considered one of the first Italian Prog Rock albums so it has some importance.
It's pretty wild stuff with a lot of organ soaked psychedelic / pop rock sounds accompanied by guitars, drums and, of course, lyrics in Italian. They even do an interesting version of Ave Maria.
There is a My Space page where you can hear some of their music.

Song on YouTube

Lost Island of VHS...

The Dead - John Huston - 1987
One of the best 'last movies' by a master but also a great ensemble work that stands up viewing after viewing. Based on a James Joyce short story it's about a gathering of family and friends for an Epiphany dinner circa 1904.
What starts as a seemingly random series of scenes that resemble a Masterpiece Theater episode slowly evolves into a remarkable warm and rewarding film about the fragility of life. The fidelity of the direction, editing and all around acting [Angelica Huston, Donal McCann, Dan O'Herlihy and many others) make it one of the better films of the 1980's.
I watched this recently through On Demand on The Sundance channel. It was full frame with poor audio quality. This needs to be on DVD in R1.

--------
Update: This is finally getting a DVD release in November 2009 but the first pressing of the DVD is missing the film's first 10 minutes. It apparently was fixed on the second pressing but the first pressing is still on sale out there.

Jane Austin & Zombie attacks

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.

It was inevitable, right?

Toho-ho-ho

The H-Man is a 1958 Japanese sci-fi thriller [of sorts] that pits cops against both Tokyo's underground and mysterious radioactive slime monsters that melt everyone they touch.
Like many Japanese monster films of the period this one deals with the terror that the Atomic age wrought; The film's opening image is a nuclear bomb exploding and the monster [or monsters] are mutants that are believed to have developed due to a Hydrogen bomb test.
The Japanese title translates as "Beauty and the Liquid Men". Beauty in this case is a nightclub singer (Yumi Shirakawa) who is kidnapped by one of the gangsters. And the Liquid Men are, naturally, the slim monsters, which makes you wonder why the film was retitled The H-Man rather than The H-Men. I guess singular is more scary than plural in this case?
On the surface this is a promising film. I mean, you've got your heroin trading gangsters, your scantily clad nightclub dancers and an oozing thing crawling up an down the walls attacking amd melting everyone in its way. And it all marches along to a climax in the Tokyo sewer which the city has decided to firebomb in order to get rid of the menace. Plus, it's directed by Ishiro Honda best known for Godzilla. But The H-Man really doesn't deliver. It's neither scary nor suspenseful nor provocative. Although it is watchable and frequently humorous - especially the English dubbed version Columbia released that shown on TCM the other night.

The DVD for this film is not available through regular commercial channels on R1 but it can be found here.

Lost Island of VHS...

I'm starting a column of films that are not available on DVD in R1 but are available on VHS if you can find them.

Stage of Siege - Costa-Gavras - 1972
State of Siege is political cinema at its most potent and [some would say] heavy handed. It's both dynamic and talky but never less than engaging and is frequently suspenseful. The setting is Uruguay and the time is the 1970's when Leftists were fighting well-funded right wing dictatorships.
A group of underground leftists have create a 'state of siege' whereby they kidnap a few key political figures. One of them is a diplomat played by Yves Montand. While kidnapped he is taken to a dark hideout where he is questioned by hooded guerrillas who know everything there is to know about him. But he holds his own with questions with a right leaning reasoning as to why things are the way they are.
Much like some of the films of Francesco Rosi the film starts with the death of the main character [Montand] and then goes back in time to show us what lead to the death. Stylistically I was struck by the editing choices and use of zoom shots, which were common the in the 70's. But here the zooms serve a narrative function rather than just add an aesthetic mood. Whether zooming in on the action as vans kidnap people or on a pair of eyes that stare at yet another diplomat walking off a plane to try and control the social and economic future of another South American country.
The film's message is that even though the guerrillas may not win they are watching, they are planning and they will not compromise their position. Costa-Gavras empathizes with them. In this regard, the film is not politically correct to the world we live in today. In fact, I don't think a film like this would be made today unless - like Marco Bellochio's Good Morning, Night [on DVD] or Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst [not in R1] - the message was about the folly and mistakes of such far left groups. Still it is hard to find fault with Costa-Gavras' criticisms of the atrocities of Latin American dicatorships.

I watched this on an old VHS tape that was full-frame and dubbed[!]. It was one of those heavy ones and it seemed it would fall apart at any moment. Fortunately, it held up fine.
Z is coming soon and Missing was released by the Criterion Collection recently so let's see if they will put this out too.

WB releases many classics

Warner Bros. have released 150 classic titles from their archive that are only available at WBshop.com.
Each title is 19.95 if you want the actual dvd or 14.95 if you want to download it yourself into your computer.
A partial title list of the pre-1970 titles can be seen here.
Discussions of the whole enterprise can be seen here.

Rare movies that aren't

There are so many good rare films available now on DVD that it can be tough to parse the good from the bad. Back before video you would have had to wait years to see good films come back around. And while there are still a lot of films not on DVD there is plenty to keep any cinefile occupied for a while.

Here are five 'rare' ones that are relatively easy to get on Amazon or for rent at places like Greencine.

Wildcat [Kino] - A very funny, uniquely shot German silent film made in 1921 by Ernst Lubitch. This film has the makings of a landmark film but for some reason it is only mentioned in obscure silent film books. It should be taught in every film school. Once you see it you'll know why. It is also one of Peter Bogdanovich's favorite comedies.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed [Image] - A 1926 animation masterpiece made by Lotte Reiniger using a silhouette cutout technique it tells an enchanting Arabian night tale. This film is rare in the sense that no one made films like this then and no one [or very few] makes films that this now.

Drole de Drame [HVE] - A wonderful 1936 farce by Marcel Carné [written by Jacques Prévert] about a rich man and wife who try to fool a visiting guest but only land themselves in hot water. Odd film that keeps the laughs coming. Look for it to be release at some point again under Criterion's Eclipse box sets.

Moontide [Fox] - This is one of those rare 40's suspense films [not technically a noir] starring Ida Lupino and Jean Gabin - only it's not rare anymore. Directed by Archie Mayo, it is one that people talked about in the past but few had seen. Tense, humorous, well shot by Charles G. Clarke and an interesting pairing of two stars. After seeing it you'll know why it has a cult following.

Gumshoe  [Sony/Columbia] - All but forgotten Albert Finney seventies comedy/noir directed by Stephen Frears. Just released on DVD. When you watch it you will feel like you have really made a find. Don't tell your friends you got it used at Amazon for $5.99.

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.

Telluride Film Festival Trailers IV

Flash of Genius


The Rest is Silence [Romania]


Curious Case of Benjamin Button [They might only play a bit of this at the Fincher tribute]

Telluride Film Festival Trailers III

Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love [Senegal-France]


Hunger [England]


Firaaq [India]


Tulpan [Kazakhstan]

Telluride Film Festival Trailers II

O'Horten [Norway]


Waltz with Bashir


I've Loved You do Long [France]


Revanche [Austria]

Telluride Film Festival Trailers

Gomorrah [Italy]


Flame & Citron [Denmark]


Happy Go Lucky [England / Mike Leigh]


The Good, The Bad, The Weird [Korea]

Telluride Film Festival

35 years of the Telluride Film Festival


This year's line up

Telluride Variety page
Dell Lounge
Daily Camera blog

Obama quote

It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

Obama quote in context.

Best films...

Of the past 25 years?

Entertainment Weekly has just given a really lame list of 'new classics'.
I am not sure what criteria they used but there are a mere six [six!] foreign language films on the list. What the F*&%?
This is a mainstream list to be sure.

Here are the top ten:

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)

Shadows

It is terrifying to see, but it is the movement of shadows, only of shadows ... Suddenly something clicks, everything vanishes and a train appears on the screen. It speeds straight at you—watch out! It seems as though it will plunge into the darkness in which you sit, turning you into a ripped sack full of lacerated flesh and splintered bones, and crushing into dust and into broken fragments this hall and this building, so full of women, wine, music and vice.
- Maxim Gorky 1896

Cycling style

Cyclist Chic

Velo Vogue

Copenhagen

San Francisco

Fable in Forest

Unicorn?

Old HK

Come Drink With Me now on DVD. It's good fun.

Vehicle

Imagine a car that seats eleven passengers, turns on a dime, has excellent fuel efficiency, and cruises happily at 120 miles per hour.
Introducing the Dymaxion.

Oh yeah, it's 75 years old. [related article on Buckminster Fuller]

PR truth

Show me a PR person who is "accurate" and "truthful," and I'll show you a PR person who is unemployed.

[thanks to Mefi]

Eno Art

"What do people want from Art? I don't know the full answer, but one thing I'm increasingly sure of is that they want life....It's a misunderstanding to think that the traces of human activity — brushstrokes, tuning drift, arrhythmia — are not part of the work. They are the fundamental texture of the work, the fine grain of it." - Brian Eno

Fellini Drawings

Link

No Country for Little Caeser

From "No Country For Old Men" [2008] to "Little Caesar" [1931] via directors and cinematographers.

No Country for Old Men was shot by Roger Deakins
Roger Deakins shot Sid & Nancy
Sid & Nancy was directed by Alex Cox
Alex Cox directed Repo Man
Repo Man was shot by Robby Muller
Robby Muller shot They All Laughed
They All Laughed was directed by Peter Bogdanovitch
Peter Bogdanovitch directed The Last Picture Show
The Last Picture Show was shot by Robert Surtees
Robert Surtees shot Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy directed Little Caesar

I'm Not There to Cocteau

From "I'm Not There" [2007] to "Beauty and The Beast" [1946] via directors and cinematographers.


I'm Not There was shot by Ed Lachman
Ed Lachman shot Tokyo-Ga
Tokyo-Ga was directed by Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders directed Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire was shot by Henri Alekan
Henri Alekan shot Beauty and The Beast
Beauty and The Beast was directed by Jean Cocteau

Star Wars to Buster Keaton

From "Star Wars" [1977] to Buster Keaton [1920's] via directors and cinematographers.



Star Wars was shot by Gilbert Taylor
Gilbert Taylor shot Circle of Danger
Circle of Danger was directed by Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur directed Cat People
Cat People was shot by Nicholas Musuraca
Nicholas Musuraca shot Cracked Nuts
Cracked Nuts was directed by Edward Kline
Edward Kline co-directed a dozen Buster Keaton shorts including Cops.

Bulb

Livermore's bulb has burned for nearly a million hours.
In 1901, when the tiny bulb was first screwed into place inside a so-called hose cart house, it cast its light on a simpler era.
Even now, in its old age, [they] will stack it against any New Age fluorescent, halogen or high-pressure sodium bulb out there.

Pauline said...

I came across the phrase; 'Pauline Kael Bubble' the other day on a blog.
Knowing who Pauline Kael was I was interested by the phrase and guessed that it had something to do with a critic who is out of touch with real life - or some such thing.
Sure enough, the phrase originates from a quote attributed to Kael after the 1972 landslide that Richard Nixon won over George McGovern. She was reported to have said something like: "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!"
Nice.
Only, she didn't say it just like that.
A little digging revealed very little at first [There are 8 links that come up in Google as of this post].
Then I found a blog comment referring to a 1972 New York Times article. It said this:

"'I live in a rather special world,' Miss Kael said, continuing: 'I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.'"

Now, in context this makes sense. She lived in New York and frequently went to New York City - one of the more liberal cities in America.
But, ultimately, this Republican meme - as it is used - is without merit because she didn't actually say it the way they understand it.
Plus, she was not out of touch. She very well knew where she lived and what her friends and connections thought and politically expressed. The comment: "But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them" is the one that could be problematic since it could be construed as a bit condescending - but she very well could have been joking. So we'll give her that.

------------------

Look, someone was kind enough to put Kael's blurb reviews online.
I always get a laugh out of a line she wrote about Frank Capra's 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington':

No one else can balance the ups and downs of wistful sentiment and corny humor the way Capra can--but if anyone else should learn to, kill him.

Sunglasses

Dick Cheney
Fly fishes
With naked women?!

UPDATE:
Okay, why not keeping mining this field? Here are some of the headlines that grace the net today:

So, what kind of fish you catchin' with THAT bait - Dallas Morning News
Debate Surges: Cheney Sees Broad or Rod? - Wired News
Dick Cheney's X-rated sunglasses reflection? - Rocky Mountain News
What's Dick Cheney smiling about? - Tampa Bay's 10
Who’s rocking Dick’s boat? - First Post UK

Errors will happen...

I bought a used [Korean] DVD of a Hungarian film called The Red and The White by Miklós Jancsó . Or so I thought. But when I popped the DVD into the player I found the movie that was burned onto the disc was not the beautiful 2.35:1 widescreen black and white film from 1967 but instead a full-framed color French film called Le Rouge et le noir made in 1954 by Claude Autant-Lara.
So far as I can tell, via a Google search, no one has reported this issue and yet the DVD is for sale at premiererent.co.kr; There are some copies available on Ebay as well although I am not sure the Ebay copies are the exact same.
Anyway, should you want to buy The Red and The White please note this Korean DVD error and instead buy it from Kino or elsewhere. It's a great movie.

Glass

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Philip
Glass

Brooks & Tynan

Aroused by the film, he set out to find her. He recounts, in the article how he met his idol, a recluse in her seventies, in a tiny apartment [that few others would visit] in Rochester, New York. They drank, smoked and talked, and she declared she was in love with him. Years late his widow wrote a play about it, which is still performed.

Worst movie ever...

To qualify as one of the worst films of all time, several strict requirements must be met.
1) A truly awful movie must have started out with some expectation of not being awful.
2) An authentically bad movie has to be famous; it can't simply be an obscure student film about a boy who eats live rodents to impress dead girls.
3) The film cannot be a deliberate attempt to make the worst movie ever, as this is cheating.
4) The film must feature real movie stars, not jocks, bozos, has-beens or fleetingly famous media fabrications like [Paris] Hilton.
5) The film must generate a negative buzz long before it reaches cinemas; like the Black Plague or the Mongol invasions.
a] It must be an impending disaster of which there has been abundant advance warning.
b] It cannot simply appear out of nowhere.
c] It must, upon release, answer the question: could it possibly be as bad as everyone says it is?
6) To qualify as one of the worst movies ever made, a motion picture must induce a sense of dread in those who have seen it, a fear that they may one day be forced to watch the film again - and again - and again.

Obama's Grandmother

Here are two guys who get what Obama meant when he mentioned his grandmother in the same breath as Jeremiah Wright.
Nice to hear a sane position.

Tap water taste funny?

Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?

Stop Bleeding

What to use to stop the bleeding after you cut yourself shaving. [According to comments on ehow.com].

Salt
Alum
Sugar
Tobacco
Vaseline
Eye Drops
Shaving Cream
Styptic Pencil
Aloe Vera and Vitamin E
Hydgrogen peroxide
Coffee Grinds
Spider Webs
Nasal Spray
Deodorant
Cinnamon
Urine
Ice

Diva

Diva has come back for a short run. I found a review by Richard Corliss in Time Magazine [not online] from 1982. Here is the first paragraph and the first sentence of the second paragraph.

"Ten ways to tell the difference between style and flair in moviemaking; style reveals; flair displays. Style insinuates; flair asserts. Style is witty; flair is clever. Style seems simple; flair looks facile. Style is a bolt of lightening; flair is a ripple of Mylar. Style advances the story; flair replaces the story. Style connects images, scenes, moods, morals; flair offers a series of showy epiphanies. Style is a cloak for character; flair is a designer-jeans commercial. Style finds the right thing; flair uses everything. Style is the expression of the born moviemaker; flair is the product of the compulsive movie watcher.
Diva, a first feature by Jean-Jacques Beineix, 35, has flair to spare...."

Dylan pic

I found I'm Not There to be a good film. One that overreaches a bit and so full of arcane data on Dylan as well as allusions, illusions and narrative arches that it is not fully engaging. Still an interesting film; and the music is great.
Below I have gathered a few choice lines from reviews by critics around the country.

- I’m Not There is a palimpsest – earlier language transformed by newer variation, a text of scribble-scrabble atop fever dream and solipsistic acting out, a kind of pop-cult graphomania, hyper-texting, evocative and pungent moments suggested by the lyrics and words of Dylan... It’s a weave of Dylan–not Dylan, a conflagration of surrealist provocations, a blasted secular religiosity. The final image is furiously apt, suggesting a Dylan who needs not breathe to motor onward.
Ray Pride Orlando Weekly

- Anyone can make a bad movie, but it takes a good filmmaker to make one as bad as "I'm Not There." Todd Haynes, who directed and co-wrote it, takes a misbegotten idea and pursues it with the kind of zeal and imagination not available to mediocre filmmakers.
Mick LaSalle San Francisco Chronicle

- Among its many achievements, Mr. Haynes’s film hurls a Molotov cocktail through the facade of the Hollywood biopic factory, exploding the literal-minded, anti-intellectual assumptions that guide even the most admiring cinematic explorations of artists’ lives. Rather than turn out yet another dutiful, linear chronicle of childhood trauma and grown-up substance abuse, Mr. Haynes has produced a dizzying palimpsest of images and styles, in which his subject appears in the form of six different people.
A.O. Scott New York Times

- For all its narrative doubling and loop-de-loops, however, the film is ultimately a rather mundane, literal piece of inventive hodgepodgery.
Nick Schager Slant Magazine

- Rabid Dylanistas may appreciate it somewhat more than the great unwashed, but even those who recognize every stray reference will likely experience the film as little more than a vaguely playful blur.... I’m Not There is so relentlessly academic that it comes more into focus the further away from it you get. At which point it inevitably looks quite small.
Mike D'Angelo Las Vegas Weekly

- All right, I confess. I was bored and confused most of the time, but I plead ignorance as a critic to the many nuances of Mr. Haynes’s pop cavalcade of Mr. Dylan’s golden oldies, enmeshed as these are in Mr. Haynes’s hopelessly and interminably cluttered mise-en-scène.
Andrew Sarris New York Observer

AFI Festival 2007

I only saw ten films at The AFI Los Angeles Film Festival. Here the are in order of preference

Alexandra
[Alexander Sokurov] - An elderly woman goes to visit her son who is stationed in an Army outpost out by the Chechnian border. Forget the plot it's the subtle editing, intricate and faded sound design and the original reverence and sacredness shown for everything and everybody that makes this film a masterpiece. In any one else's hands it would be a bad comedy or a sentimental mess. In Sokurov's hands it's amazing cinema.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days [Cristian Mungiu]
- A young woman assists her friend in getting an illegal abortion in Communist era Romania. Tense, affecting, beautifully acted and well paced it's an understated but fine film.

Mr Warmth: The Don Rickles Project [John Landis] - An excellent documentary on the great comedian. Managers to let us see the man closer as well as get an understanding of Vegas in the 50's and 60's. Also plenty of good [politically incorrect] comedy.

Flight of the Red Balloon [Hou-Hsiao Hsien] - This is one of those nothing-much-happens-but-everything is happening type of films that Hsien is very good at. Juliet Binoche plays a frazzeled single mom with a young son. She has just hired a Taiwanese nanny who is a student filmmaker. The camera captures everything as though it were really unfolding in real time. And a lonely red balloon bops around every so often. Much better than it sounds.

Terrorizer [Edward Yang] - Edward Yang's 1980's feature about the terrorizers in urban living. Good taut film at once funny, sad and wise.


Operation Filmmaker [Nina Davenport] - What happens when an Iraqi film student is invited to the Czech Republic as a guest worker on a Hollywood film set? More importanly what happens when the shoot is all over? Is anyone responsible in taking care of him after the shoot? The documentarian thinks so and gets deeper and deeper into trouble.

Munyurangabo [Lee Isaac Chung]
The first ever full-length feature film shot in Rwanda was made by a Korean American attending school in Utah. Good film about two young men who head off to do a deed and are headed off for a while where they learn the value of life. The film won the Competetion prize for best feature.

Heckler [Michael Addis]
The idea is a good one; How comedians deal with Hecklers. However, the film is really about Jamie Kennedy's attitude toward critics who don't like two of his movies. True, some critics could be nasty.

Prince of the Himalayas [Sherwood Hu]
Costume action flic that stunk.

Searchers 2.0 [Alex Cox]
Just bad.

Grindhouse

What is a grindhouse movie? Here's my best definition: it's a movie that makes you want to run, not walk, to the nearest shower, but leaves you unable to decide whether the shower should be hot or cold. - Tim Lucas

Snort

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow."
Keith Richards [joking?] about his father's ashes.

DVD - Film Print Error

According to Buñuel, this particular repetition was even misunderstood by his chief cameraman while the film was being edited, believing it to be a technical error despite the fact that he had shot both versions of the scene himself. But through an absurd technical error on the DVD, attributable to someone having arrived at the same erroneous conclusion as the cameraman, the scene’s repetition has been deleted.
-Buñuel's 'Exterminating Angel' has an entrance scene repeated twice.

Curious Minds

"Most people choose movies that provide exactly what they expect, and tell them things they already know. Others are more curious. We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds."
- Roger Ebert

Lance runs marathon

"For the level of conditioning I have now, that was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I ever did, from triathlons to cycling. Even the worst days on the Tours (de France), nothing was as hard as that and nothing left me feeling like that in terms of fatigue and soreness."
- Lance Armstrong

Baboons...

"They break windows to get into houses. They even know how to open doors. And once inside, they make a mess. They empty the fridge, ruin furniture, and defecate all over."

Politics...

"The Simple Answer Is He Thinks Murder's Wrong"...
- Tony Snow On Bush's Promised Stem Cell Veto.

------

Hmmmm.

Starts a war in Iraq...which has resulted in the deaths of 14,000.

Refuses to intervene in the current Israel Lebanon situation....

Life with Dogs

"I had a babysitter once...I think it was in second grade. I spent a good deal of the time alone with dogs. I'd sing and talk to the dogs and draw pictures.... My parents had strange ideas about parenting." - Neko Case

Obscene Sistine?

"If you look closely at the angels who attend the scary prophetess on the Sistine ceiling known as the Cumaean Sibyl, you will see that one of them has stuck his thumb between his fingers in that mysteriously obscene gesture that visiting fans are still treated to today at Italian football matches. It means something along the lines of: how would you like this inserted into your rectum, ragazzo?" - From the Sunday Times Online

Shared Experience

"We all now live in a more insular, distanced society. And though our communication capability has never been faster or more inclusive, it does not have the ability to let us experience the silent interrelating that happens in a live theater, at church or at a movie house." - Peter Bogdanovich

Scientific Principles

"Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I'll show you a hypocrite. Airplanes are built according to scientific principles and they work. They stay aloft and they get you to a chosen destination. Airplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications such as the dummy planes of the Cargo cults in jungle clearings or the bees-waxed wings of Icarus don't." - Richard Dawkins

Media bias?

"Of course, the media focuses on bad news, on death and violence. First of all, [the Iraqi war] is a war which has been hugely expensive in terms of blood and treasure. And secondly, that's the way life is. It's not a bias of the media. If it was a bias, then why has cable news talked about murders? Why don't they have whole shows that talk about childbirth?.... So it's incredibly naive, it's partisan, and it's ironic for people who claim to be rooting out bias to start saying we should be biased in how we report the war." - Richard Wolffe

Uphold which?

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." - Jamie Raskin.

Poached Eyes?

"He thought they looked like two soft-boiled eggs, others preferred to call them poached. Either way, any attempt to describe the appearance of Peter Lorre must deal with those eyes. What teeth are to Julia Roberts and lips to Angelina Jolie, his bulging eyes were to Peter Lorre, his unavoidable calling card and a feature quite out of proportion with the norm." - Bee Wilson

North vs. South

"In a very subterranean way, I wanted to talk about how northern people always have this dream of the perfect South — this perfect island that is paradise.... But for many people without irony, who consider themselves civilized people, these dream islands are a sort of paradise for them. At the same time, they are completely afraid of this nightmare of being invaded by hordes of people from the South who are trying to intrude upon this beautiful occidental northern economy." - Clair Denis on her new film "The Intruder".

Film Snobbery?

"[F]ilm snobbery isn't about having even a primitive critical sensibility; it is about possessing arcane information, holding it close and using it to exercise a pathetic sense of superiority over less obsessively informed but possibly more intellectually and emotionally balanced moviegoers. It is also, of course, a way of setting oneself in opposition to the smug bourgeoisie. By defending the indefensible splatter pic through incomprehensible exegesis, you become the Nietzsche of the niche market." - Richard Schickel

Test

Date and Time are what?

Kearsarge Pass Hike

I went for a long day hike Saturday up in the John Muir Wilderness on a trail that leads up to Kearsarge Pass. Along the 4-and-a-half mile trail are five lakes on the way up and two lakes on the other side of the pass. Below are a few photos.

Just a few minutes after the hike starts there is a beautiful waterfall/stream.


After 40 minutes of hiking comes the second lake along the route which is Gilbert Lake.


Past 10,000 feet Heart Lake appears around a steep switchback.


One of the pleasures of hiking in the summertime above 10,000 is the ability to find snow and make a snowball.


After an hour and 40 minutes of hiking and running I get to the pass.


Coming down the other side of the pass looking deep into the John Muir Wilderness I see some packers with horses.


Two hours of hiking yields this spectacular lake called Kearsarge Lake.


Just a couple minutes from Kearsarge Lake is this lake.


I headed back to the car and along the way encountered sleet, mosquitos and a lot of people. I also notice this fine old tree.

Beach

I went to the beach in Malibu on July 4th.

The Malibu Marsh looked calm and inviting.


After hanging out and reading my book a bit I wandered around and found some driftwood, which I decided to use to make a natural fence around the marsh.


As I left the beach I saw a sign that told me cry baby kids should not play with fireworks.