64th and Broadway, Barcelona

Race Withdrawl, and a movie review

2008-01-28T16:23:00.000-05:00

Man oh man. It's been over 3 weeks now since my last race and i am in total withdrawl. The 15k wasn't gonna happen due to health and injury, and now I am searching like crazy for nearby races. This weekend we have a 5 miler in Milford, about 30 minutes north with a 20 dollar entry fee. And there is the rub. I'm always a bit skint the second paycheck of the month and now the decision to race is tough. Race for $20 and eat cheap Trader Joe's stirfry all next week? Or don't race, put in a long run and eat much better. There is a possibility of looking towards a 4 miler on Feb 16th, but I'd have to take a half day off work for that. We'll see what happens there.

I did get in a nice nine mile training run on Sunday and followed it up with a 6er today, and I am feeling good, even if the quads are tight. But as much as the training runs are useful and helpful it's not a race. A light at the end of the tunnel is a that February is just around the corner, which means we are just one month closer to May when I run the Indy Mini. And now a friend in the DC area has talked about gettin a relay team together for the Baltimore Marathon, and if that doesn't work out just maybe running the Baltimore half. Columbus Day weekend. Yeah, I can live with that. I just need some competition to see if my training is continuing to improve my performance or if I have plateaued.

Over the weekend I watched one of two films on Prefontaine that came out in the 90's, Without Limits. Now being the film snob I am I can't entirely say it was a masterpiece. But that didn't stop me from emailing Spitz 30 minutes in claiming it was the "best movie ever, dude!" Or, "coolest shit, ever!" It was something along those lines. I mean, it takes the trajectory of any sports movie complete with slow motion montages and all. But it's hard not to get fired up watching some of the running scenes.

Possibly my favorite scene though was a 5 second post race snippet. Pre had just won a race, and walks over to an old rival and they talk times. The guy finished well behind Pre, but he tells Pre his time. And Pre responds, "That's a personal best, right?" And congratulates him. To me, that scene was terrific. Possibly cause I will never win a race, but thats another story. Unfortunately, the filmakers attempted to show Pre's death in the car crash, though. In the end, I wish they woulda skipped filming that scene and just shown newspaper clippings instead. Trying to recreate it, somehow, just seemed cheap and unnecessary to me.

As I talked to Spitz a bit about it afterwards I also mentioned how the film showed the probably true, but still unnecessary love story. You need a love story in a film I guess to make it sell. And some of the posters for the film put the love story front and center. But, I found myself just wanting those scenes to end and get back to the training and racing! And I am about the sappiest hopeless romantic out there, or at least I used to be. But, I guess my focus just slipped a bit more to running now.

If I had to use Spitz's patented running rating system, I'd rate Without Limits 7.8 k's outta 10. It's definitely worth watching. It's a better running film than Chariots of Fire at least.

I've also been chewing on Spitz's "No I.D." post over at runrevolt. I hope to write some thoughts on that, if I ever get them formulated.

And congrats to Krys, as she and other members of the Texas chapter of TKWRT completed a their half this weekend!

Cross Training? and a chapter update..

2008-01-23T20:57:00.000-05:00

Last night I had my first soccer ref certification class. I will be certified as a grade 8 ref by February 12, and making far too much money to run around for an hour in the sun on Sundays. Seriously, some leagues are between 30-60 dollars a game. Thats not bad. I mean it's not exactly a long run. May it count as cross training? Not really, and since Sunday is my long run day, we may need to switch that. BUT, I don't see that being a problem.

I've been rethinking my running program. I had been running 5-6 days a week with a base run of 6 miles. But, as I have brought it down a bit the past few weeks to take care of my knee I am feeling totally revived on my runs. I am thinking perhaps to do a 3-4 day a week plan with 8-10 miles a day. Maybe do core work the other days. It's something to think about. I was dreading the treadmill today. Just not feeling it. But a half mile into my run, I realized I could go forever today. I only went 6 miles, but my word, it was the most effortless 6 miles I have had in ages. I was quite pleased.

The Kip Winger Running Team has added another chapter today. Texas, we love you!

Indiana.
Connecticut.
Pennsylvania.
Texas.

You feeling the love? Kip is.

No 15k this weekend, but...fame? fortune? tv tips?

2008-01-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

The Boston Build-Up 15k just wasn't happeneing for me on Sunday. Too little training in the week leading up. Now, I am 90% positive I woulda finished the race if I went out. But at what cost? I wouldn't have been pleased with my time. I had been fighting a cold for most the week leading up, and it was freaking 20 degrees out. Did I read somewhere that optimum running conditions are between 36-50 degrees? I think so. At any rate, coming off the cold I found myself making enough excuses to talk myself out of it. It's not something I'm happy about, but it is what it is. And then, as if to mock me, round 4pm the results were emailed to me. I was looking through them. I ran my 10k 2 weeks back with 7:24 splits. So I was thinking, that perhaps I'd finish this race with somewhere around 8 minute splits. That woulda been well in the back middle of the pack. But looking at the results, there was a new course record, by a Kenyan in 20 degree weather! 49:33!!!! 5:19 splits!!! Unbelieveable! Hats off to a run like that.

I will say however that I am pleased that I have been able to get in some miles the past two days as the cold has started to leave my body. 13 over two days. I'd be thrilled if I am able to get back up to the 30 mile weeks I was at about a month ago, before some knee problems, work, and life in general intruded.

In addition to that, yesterday I actually was interviewed by a freelance writer for Runners World. A story will be in the May issue (hits News stands in April) on new/beginner runners, and yours truly fell into that group. A contact made through the Boston Build-Up 10k put me in contact with the writer, and there you have it. Who knows if anything I said will wind up in the article. It's not too inspiring of a story, "Well I started running after I moved out here to avoid the lonliness of bar happy hours where I knew nobody..." But who knows. Perhaps, some other stuff I said will make the article. She seemed intrigued by Kip Winger Running Team. If I make the issue, I will autograph copies for a minimal fee.

Another thing. A confession, if you will. My favorite tv show used to be The O.C. And why wouldn't it be? Who wouldn't wanna live the life of Ryan Atwood. But after the phenomenal 4th season (the best since season 1!) the OC was off the air. And I needed to find a new favorite show. And I've found it...

Running is a show on YES network out here. In addition to a great title it's just a fantastic show. It's a once a month show put on by New York Road Runners. It of course highlights a lot of the NYRR events, but also other running events from around the whole northeast and the world. Thing is, everytime I watch it I get inspired. I already ran 6 miles today and I wanna get out there and run some more. They covered the New Years Eve Midnight Run (which i MUST do next year, looking for company to go with!) They covered some high school events, and did a whole year in review segment. And I tell yeah, anytime I am seeing any of these elites win there marathons setting new PR's or course records I am gettin choked up. This is honest to god truth. At any rate, try to catch a show if it shows out near ya. 6 months ago I never would imagined stopping on a running event if I saw it on tv, now I search them out. It's all good.

Finally, I added some running links to the side of the page. My bookmarks folder was getting crowded so I figured I'd just jump from this page instead. If your site is over there and you don't want it on my page, let me know!

Run for CJ Results finally up, and a training update

2008-01-18T19:11:00.000-05:00

Good Lord. Just when I'd given up hope of ever seeing my Run for CJ Results, another CT running blogger put up an alert that the results are up!

So I went to check out the results, and boy did I like what I saw.

A new 5k Personal Best. 21:54. 7:03 splits. And amazingly, 25th of over 200 runners! Still, I didn't place in my class. I did finish around 6th though. I can't complain one bit.

So after that race, and my first 10k, both being extremely satisfying results, I am bumming about the past two weeks. Only 21 miles of training this week. Once I finally diagnosed that it was my IT band that was screwing up my knee I was able to remedy it the best I could. I did get in 6.5 on Thursday afternoon, after getting in only 15 in three training runs while having a much needed vacation in Vermont. But, as of today, the cold that I have been fighting off for a week is at it's worse. So, it doesn't look like I'll be doing the 15k this Sunday that I had hoped to do.

However, I have set sites on a 5 miler for Feb 3 in Milford. So, all is not lost. And with that being the case, lets hope that Sunday's training run in lieu of the race is a long and productive one.

Tarazan of the Plains

2008-01-12T11:37:00.000-05:00

Spitz alerted me to this article.

And, it's awesome...

One of several awesome paragraphs through the article...

"Anton typifies the young and new breed of runner," says Buzz Burrell, manager of the La Sportiva Mountain Running Team. "They aren't running to work off their inner angst or pain. They don't have their heads down, grinding out the numbers, substituting mental calculations for movement. They don't think that suffering is noble or pain somehow makes you a better person. They already are good people, they have their heads up, and they run as an expression of joy and freedom. You can actually see the ease in Anton's running form, and you feel good when he goes by you."

Is anyone a knee doctor?

2008-01-12T08:17:00.000-05:00

So remember way back in the last race report how I mentioned that I had some pain in my knee during the warm up to last Sunday's race. That has yet to subside. What it's left me with is my lowest mileage week in several months. Three times this week I was unable to go beyond 3.5 miles due to pain in my knee. This culminated last night while on the treadmill and shortly after passing three miles, the outside of my right knee felt a shooting pain so sharp that i wound up grabbing onto the handles of the treadmill and hopping on one leg until the treadmill came to a stop. As tonight I will not be getting any running done since I am packing for a ski vacation the weekly total Sunday through Saturday looks to be about 23.5 miles.

Now, I've talked to Spitz about this and he's saying the right things. Be careful, take a few days off. You won't lose your fitness after one week off. These are all true. That all said, I very much want to participate in next weeks Boston Build-Up 15k. I haven't registered yet for that, and it looks likely that I will wait till midweek, maybe Thursday or Friday to make my decision on this.

But truthfully it isn't so much worrying about missing a few days here or there. It's just thinking back that this was the same knee that I had a small fracture in about a year ago after a soccer game. It took a month for that to be diagnosed, and I have wondered often if it ever healed correctly. And if it didn't, would that affect my running down the line.

Over the past 2-3 weeks before this, I'd been able to increase my weekly mileage to around the 35 mile mark. Combine that new distance with the times I'd been setting at some races and I suddenly was not only looking to finish the Indianapolis Mini Marathon in May, I was toying with ambitious time goals in my head. Is 1 hour 40 minutes possible? 1 hour 35? Would even a marathon be possible by the end of the year? Definitely in 09, right?

But now there is the knee. And that ridiculous battle between self doubt and all out stubborness that thinks if I just keep running perhaps my body and later my mind will become numb to this.

In the meantime, it looks as though I do have two days off coming up due to travel up to Smugglers Notch, VT for some vacation time. And then possibly some cross country skiing to keep the cardio up, and hopefully by Monday or Tuesday I'll be getting in some 7 or 8 mile training runs in anticipation of the weekends 15k. It all remains to be seen though.

The Weekly 64th and Broadway Screening Room

2008-01-11T19:25:00.000-05:00

In Between Days d. So Yong Kim - I must admit I'm a sucker. You put together a story of a lonely cute little Korean girl, and title it after one of one of my favorite Cure songs, I'll find time to watch it. In the end the film was better than I thought it would be, but still fell short of expectations of what I wanted it to be. It's got some striking visuals that stick with you, and the narrative style gives enough room for the story to be told in silence when need be. It's also got 2 or 3 songs from Asobi Seksu though not in between days by the Cure. It's the film I'd find myself watching again if I saw it on cable, for it's subject matter more than because I really loved the film.

The Warriors - It took me nearly 31 years to see this movie. Unnacceptable. Cyrus calls for unity of all the NY gangs against the police. But this goes horribly wrong, and now all the boppers are out on the run to track down the Warriors. Shirtless vests, street fights, moltov cocktails, several scenes of jumping the turnstiles to get on a train before the rival gangs get ya. All ya wanna do is get back to Coney. "CAN YOU DIG IT?!?!?"

Boston Build Up 10k Official Results

2008-01-06T19:36:00.000-05:00

Official Timing ::

Scot Sedley, 30, Norwalk, CT 45:54 7:23

I can live with that. Other numbers of note.

41st of 70 Males under 40
117 of 230 Males overall
133 of 343 overall finishers

Numbers I can live with for that first 10k.

Result Page Here

Full race report just two posts down on your scroll wheel.

Not That Anyone Asked...

2008-01-06T16:34:00.000-05:00

But, I have been caught up in the Presidential Debates and the Caucuses, Primaries, and what have ya.

I find myself watching last nights debates this afternoon, as the NFL games are boring me to death, and my legs are too tired from the race to go for another run. And a few things stick out.

1. Edwards had a phenomenal debate on the Democratic side. I really only had problems with his phased withdrawl strategy. Richardson was right when he called him out, saying that made the leftover troops targets. Nonetheless, I thought he was sensational throughout. But....

2. Numerous blogs and analysts have pointed out the exchange between Edwards and Hillary as the moment Hillary's campaign failed. They say her 35 years of change comment was Hillary coming unhinged, becoming angry, what have ya. I don't get that. I thought it was an impassioned and impressive response. Part of me thinks if a male made the same response, he would be praised for being strong. Hillary is not my first choice, by any means, but their is an amazing anti-Hillary bias through much of the press right now. Any impartial observer I would think could realize that.

3. Rudy Guiliani scares the shit out of me. I couldn't help but laugh when discussing arrogant foreign policy that Guiliani's answers sounded even more arrogant than Bush.

4. Ron Paul was extremely impressive on the Republican side. I hadn't paid much attention to him up until a week or two ago, and each time I watch/listen I am more impressed.

5. I am in a bit of a dilemma. Connecticut is a closed primary. I have up to 5 days before the primary (Which is February 5) to pick a party if I want to vote. I think much of my decision will play on how Edwards and Paul play in the upcoming weeks. I'd feel just as fine registering Republican and voting for Paul as I would registering Democratic and voting for Edwards.

EDIT: Just heard a comment that Edwards' strong performance in the debate was due to a freshness since he breaked from campaigning in the afternoon, to take a run. Yay! Runners for Edwards!!!

Race Report :: Boston Build-up Series 10k Rowayton

2008-01-06T13:47:00.000-05:00

My first 10k. Now granted I have run much longer in training, and my base training run is around 10k. But still, there are nerves to be had before any race. And, the nerves understandably increase when it is your longest race distance yet.

Now, add on top of that that my evening beforehand wasn't exactly the typical evening before a race. I went to see Rufus Wainwright solo (perhaps a full review of that later). Normally, the night before a race, I make a big pasta dinner, drink tons of water, and am in bed between 10-11. Last night, I had some subpar gnochi at a pizza stand in Tarrytown, hardly any water and listened to Rufus. It made me look forward to the day when Kip Winger Running Team had themed pre-race resturaunts around the country. It's only a matter of time. At any rate, luckily, I was still in bed before midnight.

After waking up at 7, I had coffee, showered, and watched a little of the Presidential debate on DVR. Rudy Guiliani is unbearable. Notre Dame Rudy should sack him and take back his name. But thats for another time. I get to the race check in, as advised at 9am. My bib number is 277. I have 45 minutes still before the race starts. Time for some racing warmup. I run about 3/4 of a mile and am realizing that my right knee feels awful. Twice I pull up lame just looking down at it, thinking, "What the hell?" During my warmup though I am starting to recognize people from previous races, and even cooler they are recognizing me, "Hey, happy new year Indianapolis!" "Alright, Scottie, good to see ya again." That puts me in better spirits, and I try not to think about my knee. I run into that cat that I talked to after the race in Stamford, the one that flew by me about 1/2 mile or mile in. We talk for 5 minutes or so about upcoming races, goals for this race. I tell him I am aiming for 48 (which is 7:43 splits, not 7:30 as I mentioned before) this time around, he says, "Aww, man. You should be able to do that no problem, mate." I'm still unsure.

As we line up for the race, I sort myself about 3-4 rows back and towards the outside. We go off. The course map shows lots of elevation change, including a steady downhill the first mile or so. I feel like I have gone out way too fast. I'm already visualizing that huge uphill around mile 5, and I am thinking to myself don't leave yourself with nothing for that hill. Before I know it, I pass a chalk marker noting 2k done. Not bad, I think to myself, only 4 more of these 2k's to go. It's at this point that runner from last week's Stamford race blows by me again. I know he's aiming for 42, so I don't attempt to keep up.

It's a really good course, and soon enough we are down by the water, by the beaches of Long Island Sound. And there are enough mini hills throughout that it keeps me focused on them, and not too focused on the larger hill at mile 5. But, there are two other problems on my mind. One, why is it that always between 4-5 k in a race I get a horrible side stich? And two, how fuckin long have I been running anyway, why aren't there timers shouting out times? I decide to just try to out run the side stich, which works, and I decide that it's probably good I am not hearing times, just run your own race.

Soon enough, we are at the one water stop. I know this is at 5.8 miles, so I am feeling good at this point, more than halfway though. But, it's also at this point that I am really starting to get passed by quite a few people. The concern is still there with me that I have gone out too fast and that I am fading big time. I try to convince myself that this isn't the case. There is a guy in long blue pants and a red shirt that I have been trading places with all race. And we are still trading, still withing 3-4 seconds of eachother. I use that as encouragement that I haven't screwed up too bad. I have no idea how thats rational. Then almost exactly at 7k, I see bird crap falling out of the corner of my eye. I am sure it's gonna hit my shoulder, but it doesn't. I tell myself I must have been too fast for it, and that I haven't been fading as much as I thought.

I see the 8k chalk marker and soon enough we are on that 1/2 mile or so uphill. Oh, and it has turns. Thanks guys. I think back to when I was looking at the map at the check in, and I said to a guy standing next to me, "nice hill at the end." He shook his head, "Flax Hill Road, those assholes..." and walked away. This made me laugh a bit remembering it as I was running up the hill. But then I realized that laughter isn't good for my breathing rhythm. And then I realize, damn, this hill is really long. I notice blue pants red shirt guy and I are no longer trading places. I think he's behind me. I take comfort that others are breathing as labored as me.

Finally, I see a 9k chalk mark. It's pretty much at the top of the hill, but now I am worried I am gonna throw up. For real. I think to myself, just wait 5 minutes, you only have 1k left. Get to the finish and then throw up. I still have no idea what my time is, but I know I am less than 1k to the finish, so I try to pick up the pace. I get evetually see the high school we started at, and soon after I notice cones leading us back into that lot. Once I hit the cones, I go into my kick, it's probably only .2 miles left at this point. Once I round the corner I am able to see the clock and get an idea of my time for the first time all race. Holy shit. I am gonna finish in under 46?! At this point any thoughts of throwing up and pain go away, and instead, I am just thrilled. My goal was 48. I had no idea whether that was conservative or ambitious. But when I had the knee tightness during warmup, I just was worried about finishing. At the start, I heard two guys talking strategy. One said, "Start slow, taper off, then drop out." They laughed and I did too, but I was afraid that was gonna be me, deep down inside. And here I was, one of over 300 finishers, and I am finishing in around 45:55. I was thrilled. Going by the the 2007 results this woulda put me at 124 outta 280 finishers. I am still waiting to see where this puts me this year. I am hoping they have better luck getting the results up to the webpage than last weeks race.

But here's the really encouraging thing to me. I set my goal at 48:00 cause that would put me in a good seeding position for May's Indianapolis mini, table towards the bottom of this page. And not only have I done that, but I am within striking distance of an even better seeding. Not to shabby for a first 10k.

I will admit, there was a bit of added pressure as this was the first race run under The Kip Winger Running Team name by any of our nationwide members. But, it felt good. And I think it was that pressure that helped me keep down vomit at 9k, and to crush my goal by over 2 minutes. I look forward to another 10k soon, hopefully. It's a pretty great distance for a race as far as strategy (which I certainly haven't figured out yet) and speed. But before that, I gotta decide if I will be doing a 15k on the 20th. We'll see.

Official results will be posted as soon as I find out.

Kip Winger Running Team is go!!!

Boston Build Up Series 10k - Tomorrow

2008-01-05T08:17:00.001-05:00

My longest race yet is tomorrow, a 10k, the first race of the Boston Build Up Series put on by Club CT. It's not that I have a concern about finishing the race. My base training mileage over the past two months has been 6.25 miles, just about a 10k. My long runs have been up to 10 miles. I did 10.25 this Monday, and felt okay. My concern is finishing near a goal that I have set, which may be unreasonable.

I've set out a 48 minute goal. That would put me at 7:30 splits. Even in my best training session, where I tried my damndest to reach a 48, I wound up at 48:22. So this will take some extra push if I'm to hit that 48.

Last night I wound up running a final training run before a day off today before the race. I felt like hell the entire time. Not exactly encourging, but i did get in 6.5 miles. And if there is one thing that is encourging, it's that I have been able to run a decent distance even on days that I have felt awful.

So what have I done the nights before the race to keep myself fired up, you ask? Well last night, I watched Bill Moyers to see interviews with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. And tonight, I am seeing Rufus Wainwright solo in Tarrytown. Believe me, I thought the Rufus show was Friday when I recieved the tickets. Last time I saw Rufus, I drank wine. Quite a bit. Tonight, maybe 1 glass with a carb laden dinner. That's it. I gotta run in the morning.

My first race as an official member of Kip Winger Running Team. Gotta admit, the excitement is palpable.

What is Kip Winger Running Team?

2008-01-04T15:49:00.000-05:00

You may be looking over to the side, under my profile and see that I am El Capitan Supremo of Kip Winger Running Team. You may wonder to yourself how you can become a member of Kip Winger Running Team.

Here is a crossposting, from Spitz's livejournal with details, all words below are written by Spitz, and provided for your inspiration...

Following on the foosteps of yesterday's post, an ad hoc assemblage of The Kip Winger Running Team has been formed. There are no meetings. No organized runs. No uniforms (sort of). No application process. But there is one requirement. Any member of The Kip Winger Running Team must have floppy hair or a do of a length that falls over the ears. This is only a minimum requirement and expectations will be that members grow their hair out to a length that matches Kip Winger's. Extra Extra points for feathering the sides. For specific examples see - these pics - The current El Capitan Supremo of The Kip Winger Running Team is Scot Sedley, who has been given that position based only on his seemingly infinite knowledge of 80's hair metal bands and personalities. His head is an encyclopedia of relatively useless information, which he can now put to use as El Capitan Supremo. (Sidenote - El Capitan Supremo of TKWRT is different from, and on a level below, the actual !El Capitan Supremo! title that I hold...just to clarify).

Instead of cutting my increasingly shaggy and lengthening hair this morning, I decided to go on a TKWRT inaugural run, which consisted of a fast paced 2.5 miles, transitioned into 15 snowy hill sprints, and finished with another 4 or so miles. I'm not sure how many miles that amounted to, but it felt good to get out after 2 days of not running and to have a good strenuous workout. Tomorrow will be a long run (maybe 10 miles?) and Sunday will be either a fartlek run, or some rigid speedwork. Not sure yet.

This cold weather snap has temporarily broken, just in time for The TKWRT to show off their beautiful flowing locks, previously kept in hiding under running beanies. If you feel you can meet our strenuous membership requirements, feel free to start a chapter in your home town.

The Kip Winger Running Team is go!

In honor of TKWRT's first full day as a nationwide, soon to be multinational world conquering team, and being inspired by my teamate's run, I will have my final training run leading up to this Sunday's 10k tonight. The plan is for 7 miles (away, nothing left of what we had!), just to give a little extra than the 10k I will be required to finish this Sunday.

It's a proud day.

Christmas Break Screening Room

2008-01-03T17:35:00.000-05:00

Just a few thoughts on a handful of films I watched over Christmas break. For actual well written capsule reviews check out Not Coming probably one of the best film sites on the web.

It's a Wonderful Life d. Capra
As I do every Christmas eve, I watched this. There is a lot to like. I love the sappiness of good Capra films, and this is definitely a very good, and very sappy film. But, what I like most about this film is Gloria Grahame in a supporting role. In the feel good movie of all time, you have Ms. Grahame, one of the most gorgeous femme fatales in Hollywood history. She who ruined her marriage to Nicholas Ray by sleeping with his son. It always jolts me when I see her in this film. God bless her.

Point Break d. Bigelow
At my old roomate's wedding in Indy in mid December, my friend Tyler and I took to calling each other "brah" a lot. He was wondering who ever said "brah" first, I said it was Keanu in Point Break, he wasn't sure. Regardless of the facts, Johnny Utah said it best. You forgot something brah. Brilliant. I'm sure ten years from now I'll still watch and enjoy this movie. Does that make it timeless?

Pickpocket d. Bresson
Robert Bresson is one of my all time favorite directors. And, nearly without fail you can tell how a Bresson film will end in the first 10-15 minutes. And, that's okay. His directing style is inimitable. Pickpocket is sensational. The theft scenes play like ballet. For those scenes, the thinly drawn 'love story,' and the themes of redemption, it may be Bresson's most accesible film.

Eastern Promises d. Cronenberg
A friend once told me all Cronenberg films are stories of transformation. Taken in that light A History of Violence became my favorite Cronenberg. But, my is Eastern Promises a close second. And I will sit around for days pondering the implications of the ending, which I have shifted my thoughts on a half dozen times already.

Run for CJ 5k - Stamford, CT Dec 30 :: Race Report

2008-01-02T21:38:00.000-05:00

Going into the final race of the year I had many reservations. It's the morning December 30, so it's gonna be freezing cold. It's also coming off probably my most satisfying race yet. Just two Sunday's earlier I had run the Jingle Bell Jog in Greenwich, a rolling 3 miler. I finished that race in 21:51, so 7:17 splits. Not bad especially considering the weather and hills there. That, though had raised my own expectations for the Race for CJ. I figured though the 5k was adding .10 miles it wouldn't be as hilly, and I was aiming for a 21:40. That would be 6:59 splits. It would also place me in a higher seeded queue for the Indianapolis Mini.

I never sleep well before races. I always attempt to get to bed early, and I always toss and turn. If I were to study I would guess that my race times usually are nearly equal to the amount of continuous sleep I get the night before. It seems I wake up nearly every half hour. Dec 29 though, I got sucked into some hockey and football, and didn't get to bed till midnight. The alarm was set for 6, I was making coffee by 5:45, and outta the shower eating some granola by 6:15.

By 8:15, I've found my way down to the Athlete's Foot where we are getting race packet pickup. For the first time, I look the part, and looking the part makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I have a brand new dri-fit long sleeve Nike tech shirt. When I go to check in, the man at the athletes foot says, "Ah, you look like one of those elite runners." I nervously smile and tell him yeah, I am. I am bib number 10. A nice low number. I take that as a good sign. It's still 45 minutes to race time, I am in my car attempting to stay warm when I get a "Run motherfucker, run" text from Spitz. I complain a bit about the temperature. He tells me to get out there and warm up. I realize thats a good idea.

The Race for CJ is a fundraiser for the family of CJ Sweeney, a well loved kid in CT who passed away from cancer in early December/ After some prerace ceremonies, including a proclimation from the Mayor that it's CJ Sweeney day in Stamford, it's time to get ready to start the race. Somehow I find myself way towards the back middle of a good 200-300 people. This won't work. I nudge my way through a bunch of people and wind up finding myself 2-3 rows back on the outside. The Mayor sets off the race. And we go.

Within the first 100 yards I almost trip over a kid. Twice. Eventually I get by him. I then here two guys I am passing talk, "Yeah, let everyone go out quick at the start then we pick them off at the middle and at the end." Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I had the idea of just attacking this race at the start and hoping I was able to keep up a good pace throughout. If I am gonna do this in 21:40, I can't exactly stay back at any point. Not with my previous times at least. I need to push myself the whole time. At about 1/4 mile in on my right a guy just fly's by me. I think of using him as a bit of a pacemaker for a moment, but at the pace he's going, it doesn't seem reasonable.

It isn't until about a mile has passed, that I think I am getting my feet under me and feeling good. I think it's a mile anyway. I can't tell. There are no mile markers. Nobody is yelling out times. I haven't run this race before, and I sure as hell am not familiar enough with the streets of Stamford to really know. I have nothing to do but keep running. I am more or less by myself. I can hear people behind me, but not really close enough to pass me. And i have a group of 5-6 people about 10-15 yards ahead. This goes on for what feels like forever.

Finally a mile split time. 2 miles down 13:56. Shit! That's not bad. But I am definitely gonna need to pick it up. I pick up the pace and start picking off a few in that group of 5-6 in front of me. Then very soon afterwards, "2 miles down 14:58 !" Wait, what the hell? Which mile marker is right? Shit! At any rate, if either were right I need to pick it up, quickly.

A slight uphill, thats alright, I tell myself I have trained for that. Soon enough I start seeing street signs that I recognize from my drive down. 2rd street. Was it on 6th street that we turned? No it turns out it's on fifth. I can see the shopping center where the finish queue is just a few hundred yards away. And then it comes, that side stich. Are you kidding me? This couldn't happen at the one mile mark. Regardless, I know I just need to run through it. Not as quickly as I would like though, and I get passed by 3-5 people who are having a much more succesful kick than me. When I can read the clock in the distance I can see it at 21:38. Damnit. I am not gonna get in under 21:40. I pass sometime between 21:52 and 21:55 unofficially. Still a personal best, so I shouldn't be too disappointed. Though there are no official results up of the race yet, there is a flicker site up. This is how someone looks when they set there personal best, but are frustrated they didn't reach their goal.

After the race I start feeling better. That cat that passed me around the 1/4 mark? He finished in 19:59. Thats great, I tell him. He asks how I did, and I tell him 21:55. How's that rate for ya? Oh, it's a personal best, but I was gunning for 21:40. Nah, thats great, he says it's not every race you get a personal best. After a few waters, I decide I want a mocha, I hit the starbucks across the street. i see another cat with a race bib, and chat him up. He tells me, "I couldn't keep up with you after that hill, I tried but I just couldn't do it." It turns out he finished 15 seconds behind. And he was in that group ahead of me shortly before 2 miles. I'm not feeling so bad now.

I head home, still a bit disappointed that I didn't hit my goal, but not distraught. My mile splits were around 7:05, and I imagine, if the actual results ever good posted I finished in the top 15-20% or so. Now I just gotta translate that to a 10k this weekend.

Unofficial Results :: 5k 21:55, 7:04 mile splits, still waiting on placement

New Year, New You

2008-01-02T18:58:00.000-05:00

Is this thing on? Is anyone still out there reading this thing? We had up to 125 hits a day at one point, but that faded quickly. A move to Norwalk, CT limited internet access and low motivation kept 64th and Broadway from reaching Drudge Report levels of popularity. But thats okay. We're back now. In a much smaller much more confined form. What does that mean? Well, all this blog ever really served as was a personal journal and screening log of films for me. And, since through the shortsightedness of our national media outlets I was passed over as a film critic, this blog will pay the price. It's not a huge price. It's just that I am really too lazy, and my computer to slow to upload pictures. So it goes.

The new 64th and Broadway, Barcelona will focus still on films. It's one thing that keeps me relatively sane out here in Connecticut. So there still will be a screening log. Just without pictures. So over the next day or two, I plan to have simple one paragraph reactions to After the Wedding and Eastern Promises up here. Yeah, you dig it.

But oddly enough the one other thing that has kept me sane out here since the move in may has been competitive running. It started as a bit of thing just to avoid coming home to my apartment alone and drinking. Then, something else happened. I realized, I was running further, and longer, and quicker. I thought to myself, I'll sign up for the Mini Marathon in Indianapolis in May. That will give me ample reason to continue training. Thoughts kept coming, if you are gonna do a 13.1 mile road race, you may wanna get some other races under your belt. So, thats what I did. And since October I have had 5 races under my belt so far. And I'm addicted. So I may be writing here about training. I will definitely write race reports, if only because my friend Spitz makes it seem fun. And he's quicker than me. By, a lot. Maybe race reports will make me quicker. But, yeah, in the next day or two, there will hopefully also be a race report from the Run for CJ 5k in Stamford this past Sunday, in which yours truly set a personal best. And maybe even a report from my 10k this coming Sunday.

Is this the world's first running and movies blog? I don't know. But to avoid that distinction I am not gonna review Chariots of Fire, since I think it was a good story, but a crap movie (albeit with a wonderful soundtrack).

So yeah, there ya have it. We'll see how long I'm able to keep this internet connection tapped, and how long I am able to keep my muse.

Cheers.

Black Book d. Verhoeven

2007-05-06T10:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I just had one of those experiences that stayed with me all through the day. I was lucky enough to take the 5 minute walk to the Garden Cinemas and catch what may be the best new film that I will see all year. Paul Verhoeven's Black Book is such a wonderful over the top melodramatic film, made about such a serious subject that it's only hours after leaving the theater in awe of what I saw that I was even able to attempt to delve into what I loved so much about the film. Not even my bedroom ceiling falling down last night under the weight of water, in my first weekend in a new apartment in a new state, 2 days before I start a new job (perhaps more on that later), can temper my enthusiasm about this film.

Black Book starts off by telling the story of Rachel (soon to be Ellis) a Jewish girl living in Nazi occupied Holland. Soon enough, after her hiding place is bombed by the Nazis Rachel through rapid succession of circumstances finds herself working as part of the Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation. Having recently been lucky enough to have seen Melville's Army of Shadows in the theater last year parts of the resistance story seemed familiar, even if set in a different country. Verhoeven had numerous tight and tense scenes of resistance fighters attempting to make their way in and out of various Nazi posts on what seemed mostly like suicide missions. And their were more than enough of these action or suspense sequences to keep virtually any viewer entertained I would guess.

However, what stuck with me throughout the film, and what is sticking with me afterwards is the overwhelming moral ambiguity of the characters and their motives throughout the film. The resistance fighters are flawed. A Nazi has a kind heart. Their were so many twists and turns throughout the film that in the end, it was not out of the question to be wondering who exactly am I supposed to be rooting for here? One way Verhoeven achieved this was bringing his characters sometimes unwillingly, sometimes unknowingly into acts of violence. A devout Christian member of the resistance struggles to even pull the trigger as he sees his fellow member of the resistance getting beat near the point of death, that is until he hears the assailaint take the Lords name in vain. Then the bullets come flying. Do members of the resistance sacrifice Jews for their own fellow non Jewish Dutch countrymen? Questions like that arise against such a fast paced kinetic background, that if you stop for a moment to think about it as you are viewing you may miss the next twist, and there are several!

But, what's more? It's only after the Dutch resistance has proven "successful" and Holland is liberated that Verhoeven brings more problems to the core. As, Dutch flags wave in the street and soldiers come down in a parade on side streets women are having their blonde hair shaven, stipped to their underwear holding up signs "Nazi Whore." Is Verhoeven suggesting that the Dutch treatment of their own citizens after the war was no better than the Nazis? One character says as much. But, again, as the viewer, where do we look in the film for definitive answers. More often than not their isn't a definitive answer. The moral ambiguity throughout, and the questions one is left with is the very genius of the film. In a story about the indisputable good cause of the Dutch resistance against Nazi Germany we see the darkest side of human nature in our heroes as well as our villains.

It's been years since I have seen Basic Instinct or Showgirls, two of Verhoeven's more recent efforts. But like in those films sex does play a huge role in this film. Rachel/Ellis is stripped bare often in aid of the resistance, and humiliated often as well. Candice von Houten bravely plays her role. It's the first film I have seen her in, and after seeing this film their is nobody else I could picture in this role. She was wonderful. The rest of the supporting cast at the very least held their own and at times were even magnificent, Thom Hoffman as the resistance fighter Hans especially stood out, as did Sebastian Kock as Muntze, head of the Nazi SS.

More even than wanting to recommend this film to all of my friends I now find myself also wanting to check out earlier Verhoeven as well. I am among many that snickered at Starship Troopers and Showgirls, but after an effort like this, I think its time for me to give his other films another look as well.

The Second Annual BS Movie Draft

2007-05-05T09:07:00.000-04:00

Because I have one more cup of coffee to finish before hitting the bank, post office, and a Tree Festival, I may as well address the Second Annual BS Movie Draft!

Yes this was brought to us by the same people who brought us The Director Draft in March of this year. And before that, Last Years Inaugural Movie Draft. The internet is a strange place, when you find these exercises on a soccer message board. But as I have mentioned before last years Movie Draft was one of the funnest experiences I had, and probably more than anything stirred the direction of this blog to be primarily focused on film. So, howbout that.

At any rate the rules were similar to the first draft...

The aliens are pissed. After opening up the time capsule containing the movies from the first BigSoccer Movie Draft and sitting through dross like the Unusual Suspects and Big Fish, they've demanded a recount.

SO once again, if humanity were destroyed tonight, what movies would you place inside a time capsule to be discovered by either possible survivors, future sentient beings, or aliens?

Movies selected in the first draft are ineligible. See below for alphabetized list.

The draft will be ten rounds. Four hour windows for each pick. PM the next in line when you've made yours. Please proxy picks if you know you'll be ofline for awhile.

The winner will be the one who selects ten movies that best offer the greatness of cinema to future civilizations. "Greatness," of course, will be defined by participants to their individual tastes. Basically, it's a ********ing free for all.

We had 13 participants this time around and a stable of 200 movies chosen in the first draft, which could not be chosen this time around...

African Queen, The (1951 Huston)After Life (1998 Hirokazu)Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972 Herzog)Airplane! (1980 Abrams, Zucker Bros.)Alien (1979 Scott)All About Eve (1950 Mankieweicz)All About My Mother (1999 Almodóvar)Amadeus (1984 Forman)American Graffiti (1973 Lucas)American in Paris, An (1951 Minnelli)Andrei Rublev (1969 Tarkovsky)Animal House (1978 Landis)Apartment, The (1960 Wilder)Apocalypse Now (1979 Coppola)Awful Truth, The (1937 McCrarey)Babe (1995 Noonan)Band of Outsiders (1964 Godard)Battle of Algiers, The (1965 Pontecorvo)Battleship Potemkin (1925 Eisenstein)
Being John Malkovich (1999 Jonze)Belle De Jour (1967 Bunuel)Best Years Of Our Lives, The (1946 Wyler)Bicycle Thief, The (1948 De Sica)Big Fish (2003 Burton)Big Lebowski, The (1998 Coen)Big Sleep, The (1946 Hawks)Birds, The (1963 d. Hitchcock)Birth of a Nation, The (1915 Griffith)Black Rain (1989 Imamura)Blade Runner (1982 Scott)Blood Simple (1984 Coen)Blow-Up (1966 Antonioni)Blue Angel (1930 Von Sternberg)Blue Velvet (1986 Lynch)Breaking the Waves (1996 Von Trier)Brazil (1985 Gilliam)Breathless (1960 Godard)Bridge on the River Kwai (1957 Lean)Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974 Peckinpah)Bringing Up Baby (1938 Hawks)Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969 Hill)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1919 Wiene)Caddyshack (1980 Ramis)Casablanca (1942 Curtiz)Casino (1995 Scorsese)Chariots of Fire (1981 Hudson)Chinatown (1974 Polanski)
Cinema Paradiso (1989 Tornatore)Citizen Kane (1941 Welles)City Lights (1931 Chaplin)
City of God (2002 Meirelles, Lund)Clerks (1994 Smith)Clockwork Orange, A (1971 Kubrick)Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977 Spielberg)Colors trilogy (1993-94 Kieslowski)Cool Hand Luke (1967 Rosenberg)Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000 A. Lee)Das Boot (1981 Petersen)Days of Being Wild (1991 Wong)Days of Heaven (1978 Malick)Dazed and Confused (1993 Linklater)Dead Man (1995 Jarmusch)Dead Poets Society (1989 Weir)Decalogue, The (1989 Kieslowski)Deer Hunter, The (1978 Cimino)Do the Right Thing (1989 S. Lee)Double Indemnity (1944 Wilder)Dr. Strangelove (1964 Kubrick)Duck Soup (1933 McCarey)East of Eden (1955 Kazan)Eat Drink Man Woman (1994 A. Lee)8 1/2 (1963 Fellini)Empire Strikes Back, The (1980 Lucas)Enter the Dragon (1973 Clouse)
Evil Dead trilogy (1981-92 Raimi)Fargo (1996 Coen)Fanny and Alexander (1982 Bergman)Fantasia (1940 various)Floating Weeds (1959 Ozu)Forbidden Games (1951 Clement)Full Metal Jacket (1987 Kubrick)400 Blows, The (1959 Truffaut)Godfather, The (1972 Coppola)Godfather Part II, The (1974 Coppola)Gone with the Wind (1939 Fleming)Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The (1966 Leone)Goodfellas (1990 Scorsese)Graduate, The (1967 Nichols)Grand Illusion, The (1937 Renoir)Great Dictator, The (1940 Chaplin)Great Escape, The (1963 Sturges)Hard Day's Night, A (1964 Lester)
Harold and Maude (1971 Ashby)High Noon (1952 Zinneman)His Girl Friday (1940 Hawks)
Hoosiers (1986 Anspaugh)How Green Was My Valley (1941 Ford)Ikiru (1952 Kurosawa)
In the Mood for Love (2000 Wong)It's a Wonderful Life (1946 Capra)Jaws (1975 Spielberg)Jean de Florette (1986 Berri)Kelly's Heroes (1970 Hutton)Kwaidan (1964 Kobayashi)L'Avventura (1960 Antonioni)La Dolce Vita (1960 Fellini)La Strada (1954 Fellini)Last Waltz, The (1978 Scorsese)Lawrence of Arabia (1962 Lean)Les Diaboliques (1955 Clouzot)Lion King (1994 Allers, Minkoff)Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03 Jackson)Los Olvidados (1950 Buñuel)M (1931 Lang)Mahanagar – aka The Big City (1963 S. Ray)Maltese Falcon, The (1941 Huston)Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short, The (1965 Melvaux)Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (1962 Ford)Manchurian Candidate, The (1962 Frankenheimer)Marriage of Maria Braun, The (1979 Fassbinder)Mary Poppins (1964 Stevenson)Masculin, Feminin (1966 Godard)Menace II Society (1993 Hughes Bros.)
Metropolis (1927 Lang)Monkey Business (1931 McLeod)Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975 Gilliam, Jones)Mulholland Dr. (2001 Lynch)My Fair Lady (1964 Cukor)My Life as a Dog (1985 Hallström)My Man Godfrey (1936 La Cava)Night of the Hunter, The (1955 Laughton)Night of the Living Dead (1968 Romero)Nights of Cabiria (1957 Fellini)Night on Earth (1991 Jarmusch)North By Northwest (1959 Hitchcock)Nosferatu (1922 Murnau)Notorious (1946 Hitchcock)Oklahoma! (1955 Zinneman)Olympia (1938 Riefenstahl)
On the Waterfront (1954 Kazan)Once Upon a Time in the West (1968 Leone)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975 Forman)Outlaw Josey Wales, The (1976 Eastwood)Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928 Dreyer)Pather Panchali (1955 S. Ray)Paths of Glory (1957 Kubrick)Philadelphia Story, The (1940 Cukor)Pierrot le Fou (1965 Godard)Persona (1966 Bergman)Platoon (1986 Stone)Princess Bride, The (1987 Reiner)Psycho (1960 Hitchcock)
Pulp Fiction (1994 Tarantino)Qatsi trilogy (1983-2002 Reggio)Quiet Man, The (1952 Ford)Raging Bull (1980 Scorsese)Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 Spielberg)Raising Arizona (1987 Coen)Ran (1985 Kurosawa)Rashomon (1950 Kurosawa)Rear Window (1954 Hitchcock)Rebecca (1940 Hitchcock)Rififi (1955 Dassin)Right Stuff, The (1983 Kaufman)
Roma, Citta Aperta – aka Open City (1945 Rossellini)Rosemary's Baby (1968 Polanski)Rules of the Game, The (1939 Renoir)Run Lola Run (1998 Tykwer)Samurai trilogy (1954-56 Inagaki)Sansho the Bailiff (1954 Mizoguchi)Scarface (1932 Hawks)Scarlet Street (1945 Lang)Schindler's List (1993 Spielberg)Searchers, The (1956 Ford)Secret of Roan Inish, The (1994 Sayles)Seven Samurai, The (1954 Kurosawa)Seventh Seal, The (1957 Bergman)Shadow of a Doubt (1943 Hitchcock)Shawshank Redemption, The (1994 Darabont)Sherlock, Jr. (1924 Keaton)Shining, The (1980 Kubrick)Silence of the Lambs, The (1991 Demme)Singin’ in the Rain (1952 Donen, Kelly)Sleeper (1973 Allen)
Some Like It Hot (1959 Wilder)Sound of Music, The (1965 Wise)Spinal Tap (1984 Reiner)Spirited Away (2001 Miyazaki)Stagecoach (1939 Ford)Stalag 17 (1953 Wilder)Sting, The (1973 Hill)Star Wars (1977 Lucas)Strictly Ballroom (1992 Lurhman)Sunrise (1927 Murnau)Sunset Boulevard (1950 Wilder)Taxi Driver (1976 Scorsese)Thin Blue Line, The (1988 Morris)Third Man, The (1949 Reed)39 Steps, The (1935 Hitchcock)Throne of Blood (1957 Kurosawa)To Catch a Thief (1955 Hitchcock)To Kill a Mockingbird (1962 Mulligan)Tokyo Story (1953 Ozu)Touch of Evil (1958 Welles)Toy Story (1995 Lasseter)Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948 Huston)12 Angry Men (1957 Lumet)2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 Kubrick)Ugetsu (1953 Mizoguchi)Un Chien Andalou (1929 Buñuel)Usual Suspects, The (1995 Singer)Vertical Ray of the Sun, The (2000 Tran)Vertigo (1958 Hitchcock)West Side Story (1961 Wise, Robbins)Wild Bunch, The (1969 Peckinpah)Wings of Desire (1987 Wenders)Wizard of Oz, The (1939 Fleming)Woman Under the Influence, A (1974 Cassavetes)Yojimbo (1961 Kurosawa)Young Frankenstein (1974 Brooks)

Got all that? Good.

Since I was moving for most of the duration of this draft, I didn't feel as connected as I did with the first draft, or the Directors Draft. But, I look at my stable of films and I'll be damned if they are not magnificent. The roster is below.

1. Contempt (Godard 1963)
2. L'eclisse (Antonioni 1962)

After my first two picks a fellow drafter commented, "Contempt and L'eclisse? You're love life must be sensational right now." Of course, not. It's a greasefire, but these films would stand out for me even if I was happily married. Whereas Band of Outsiders opened up Godard to me, Contempt just floored me and made me realize his genius. After seeing over 150 new to me films since then, Contempt is still my favorite of all time. L'eclisse moved me more than almost any film since Contempt and is the best "new to me" film I have watched in 2007.

3. In a Lonely Place (Ray 1950) - Possibly my favorite noir, though some may debate it's noir status, and definitely my favorite picture of Nicholas Ray's a director I love. Bogart and Grahame are absolutely perfect.

4. Late Spring (Ozu 1949) - To get my favorite Ozu in round 4 was a delight. Moreso than even, Tokyo Story this film is Ozu for me.

5. A Man Escaped (Bresson 1956) - Probably Bresson's most accessible film. He gives away the ending in the title and still creates one of the most suspenseful films I have ever seen.

6. Imitation of Life (Sirk 1959) - I love my mellodramas, and this film never has me less than a crying mess at the end. Beautiful, wonderful, and subversive.

7. A Place in the Sun (Stevens 1951) - A movie I rate higher than anyone else I know. Perfect mellodrama, and the American Dream/Love Story told better than its ever been told. Beyond that, it may be the among the most beautifully photographed black and whites ever.

8. L'enfant (Dardenne 2005)- Among my very favorites of the past decade. The Dardenne's more than anyone have picked up Bresson's torch (though they still have a long way to go to equal Bresson). I find myself replaying the final scene in my head so often. Just heartbreaking.

9. No End (Kieslowski 1985) - The saddest of Kieslowski's and probably also my favorite. Also, it may be the last fil in which politics played even a supporting role in Kieslowski's films. A transition from early to late Kieslowski.

10. Suspiria (Argento 1977) - I won't ever forget the first time I saw Suspiria. The soundtrack, the over the top gore, the colors. It was fantastic, and still is. Among the greatest horror films ever made.

So, it was fun. And the thing is, I can think of another shortlist of 50 for the 3rd annual draft should it occur next year. Lord knows there are enough great films left unpicked.

Norwalk Dispatch part 1

2007-05-05T08:02:00.000-04:00

So, yes. I am less than a week into the largest change of my life. Moving halfway across the country and knowing nobody in my new town. But stuff has gone relatively well so far. The move itself went well enough with help from my father as we loaded up the U-Haul and had two relatively uneventful days of driving before getting to our destination in Norwalk. Before all that, the goodbyes in Indianapolis were just as hard as I had imagined they would be. But at the same time, I know I will see and hear from those people again. So, I can't be too sad. Indianapolis, will be what I consider home still for a long time, but I am adapting to Norwalk alright in the first week.

The apartment has started to come around a bit, with a bit of a film motif in the front room with two Godard film posters (In Praise of Love, and Band of Outsiders), A Virgin Suicides poster, and a Van Gogh print over in the "dining" area. At just over 400 sq feet, there isn't a ton to work with, but I don't have a ton of stuff so thats okay. As I look over towards my kitchen area, I like the exposed brick near my oven and sink, but I do not so much enjoy my oven yet which does not seem to be calibrated to the right temperature. Either that or my freezer is set at mega freeze. I also am getting used to doing dishes in a single basin sink, which is not my favorite thing in the world, but I will get used to that.

The one piece of furniture, an old chair from Indy, that I was gonna bring out turned out to have become moldified on the bottom after sitting in our basement. So, the one chair I have here now is a directors chair. Luckily come mothers day weekend I will be recieving a chair from some friends and possibly a two top table. Then, the apartment will be all in order.

The town itself seems to be great, if a bit expensive. Amenities, etc nearby include...

Work - 0.7 miles or less than a 15 minute walk
My bank - less than a 5 minute walk
Library - right across the street
The Stand - A juicebar/vegan and raw food resturaunt less than a five minute walk
Garden Cinemas - Norwalks local art movie house, less then a five minute walk
Trader Joes - 4 Miles away
South Norwalk - The trendy nightlife place of Norwalk, a twenty minute walk, or a two minute busride.

This isn't to mention the numerous other resturaunts, latino groceries, and numerous other amenities within walking distance.

Now, if only I could find a church to suit my liking to worship on Sundays, all would be complete.

But, this weekend I will visit the large Catholic church across the street for Mass. I will check out the Stand for a vegan Brunch on Sunday, I will visit Garden Cinemas to see Black Book which I have wanted to see for a while. And earlier in the week I think I have found my local for happy hour once or twice a week. I don't forsee myself going for too much nightlife as the bars are expensive. But, thats okay. It's better for me that way anyway.

I'll be living without cable at least through December when I will have my car paid off, and possibly longer as I pay back some loans to my parents who very graciously forwarded money to me for the move. In the meantime, I still am keeping my Netflix account up and running. I hope to get down to NYC (a 55 minute train ride) for some films or New Haven maybe. And hopefully I will get this blog back up and running a bit more regularly as I am getting settled in again. For the meantime, I will be keeping the name as is, since Indy still has my heart and I love that town. But thats all subject to change.

The Islanders? Really?

2007-04-18T14:00:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna step away from film for a moment and probably for the next week or two. I'll be in crazy pre-packing mode before the big move. And my mind will be mostly on that. Beyond that, last night I watched Antonioni's Blow-Up and it was the least impressive Antonioni I've seen yet, so I don't have much to say about it. And, before that, I watched Domino and really liked it. And against all odds I have been preching the virtues of Tony Scott as a director to friends. But it will take a while before I find myselfactually sitting down and putting to paper why I suddenly find myself to be a fan of Tony Scott.

So in the meantime, it's your once-a-year hockey post. Though maybe there will be more after the move. See in Indy, it's nearly impossible to follow the NHL. Bring into that as well, the team of my youth, the Philadelphia Flyers were just abysmal this year. But, when I was out in Norwalk, interviewing I was able to get the New York sportstalk stations on the radio. And it happened to be at a time when the Islanders and Rangers were in a home-and-home series. At this time I decided if I move out there, I'd become an Islanders fan, or at least follow them.

It's the same way that I followed the Pacers out here. I am not going to trash the hometown team just to be different from the locals (Dallas Cowboys, New York Mets, DC United, and Mexican National Soccer Team excluded). I wish good things for them and the town. And yes, I realize New York is not in Connecticut. BUT, Norwalk does border Long Island Sound. And Long Island sound = Islanders? Well maybe not, but thats the rational I used.

So lucky for me, the Islanders make the playoffs. And there first round matchup just happens to be against the best team in the league, the Buffalo Sabres. Conviniently enough, I hate the Sabres already! Game 4 is tonight, and I'll be watching it on tape delay. I've caught the last two games of the series and already find myself really having a strong affinity for the Islanders. I was euphoric when they won game 2 to even the series and I was PISSED when a call went against the Islanders at the end of Game 3, right after the refs missed a tripping and holding call that would've given the Islanders a power play (granted it's been an abysmal power play) in the final 2 minutes. If I was in the crowd I would've thrown shit on the ice as well!

The main thing is that I am remembering how damn fun hockey is to watch, and playoff hockey especially. I am thrilled to be going to an area of the country where there is professional hockey again. I am pulling like crazy for the Islanders to win this series so they will still be in the playoffs when I make it out there. I won't have cable the first several months in town as a financial decision, but I would hopefully find a place nearby to watch them. My new hometown* team. And hell, if they fall out of the playoffs, first, please resign Ryan Smith Islanders. The kid can play. Second, maybe then Icegirl Meredith will have a few more days off and we can meet up somewhere.

Miami Vice

2007-04-16T11:50:00.000-04:00

Two weekends ago I watched Miami Vice. I don't know what I expected going into the film. I just wanted a break from films with subtitles maybe and a way to be entertained on a saturday night without thinking too much. But the film did make me think a lot. So much so, that two days later I sent this email to a friend of mine...

I have been thinking a lot about Miami Vice the past two days. I must
be crazy...

I know I am in the far far minority on this film but I just loved it.

The dialogue was minimal yes. It was choppy yes. But the film was about two guys attempting to stay human in the face of a high pressure job in which they see only the horrible side and despicable side of human nature. They need to be serious the entire time and be completely focused the entire time. It was because of how effectively Colin farrell and Jamie Foxx wore those masks that made the love
scenes and stories come to the forefront in the second half of the movie.

Beyond that Mann uses the architecture and setting of Miami as a wonderful and perfect dark and brilliantly alive backdrop to the whole film. When Foxx and Farrell are on that rooftop in the first 30 minutes of the film after Antonio calls in distress, it looks as if they are on the very edge of teh world, and they may as well be. In the end the use of architecture and setting as backdrop for the themes of the film made me think that the film was somewhere along the lines of a Michaelangelo Antonioni (L'Avennturra) film on crack.

I absolutely loved it.

Granted, the Antonioni on crack comment was a very lazy way to try to describe the film. She said that after reading the first line of the email, she laughed out loud. And maybe it's because I had just recently watched Antonioni's L'eclisse, and still digesting it that I was seeing themes similar to that film in Mann's Miami Vice.

I started looking around on the internet for reviews and to see if anyone else actually liked this movie as much as me. I found many lukewarm reviews. But, over at Criterion Forum there was an 11 page thread with people actively and for the most part, intellegently discussing the film. And then, I was blown away by this fantastic essay on the film at Senses of Cinema. One money quote from there...

Miami Vice is above all a great film on the human condition in a time of flux. Everything progresses at top speed (the meetings, the love affairs, the reversals, the cars) but essentially nothing really moves forward. The general rumour of flux absorbs every modification of this flux, and dismisses events and characters with a noise from deep bottom. A trail of blood on the roadway (the suicide of the snitch, Alonzo (John Hawkes)), an echo on a radar or the noise of fingers snapping, are but nothing more than a short-lived imbalance of the global system. Whence the extraordinary and (paradoxical) inertia produced by a narrative so smitten with rapidity, as well as in the linking of sequences and shots, as in the execution of actions. The points of view become confused, the shots fall like unhooked links, but the general signal finishes by sweeping it along in the events that make it up. It traffics, it pulls, it circulates: Miami Vice is the point of flux against man’s point of view.

I don't know what I was searching for, when I scoured the net for likeminded admiration for Miami Vice. I've yet to figure out, honestly, if it was validation for my feelings of the film easily being one of the 5 best of last year in my mind. Or, maybe it was just hoping that the film somewhere got the recognition, that I am sure in my mind that it deserved.

Thank You, Rabo Karabekian.

2007-04-12T08:43:00.000-04:00

I had an email from a friend earlier this am, letting me know that Kurt Vonnegut had died. Many others will write more eloquently on the subject, than me. I am just sorta speechless right now. Kurt Vonnegut has been one of my favorite authors since college. How it took me so long to get into him I will never know.

A friend, John Ownens, the one kid at my small Christian college who had a Joy Division and Bauhaus t-shirt lent me Breakfast of Champions. From then I was hooked. I mean in that book he showed me what an asshole looked like. I would have no idea if it wasn't for his illustration. And now I know.

After that I read Bluebeard and remember crying. I remember my senior quote in my college yearbook was attributed to Rabo Karabekian.

I remember reading Mother Night one extremely stormy afternoon in my apartment. I remember for some reason I had Massive Attack's Mezzanine cd playing. I remember I was certain the world was coming to an end, or at least my apartment was getting smaller.

When I moved to Indianapolis, I remember searching out Indianapolis streets and street corners from some of his books. Vonnegut lived in New York at the end of his life, but, I think there are few of those in Indy whom have read his books that don't in a way consider him ours. Not in a selfish sense, but just in a sense of civic pride. And moreso than that, probably gratitude.

I'm not an enormous fan of short stories. But I gobbled up short stories by Vonnegut and J.D Salanger. There is a short story by Vonnegut that to this day remains possibly my favorite short story ever. In my mix tape making days I remember very badly wanting to make a tape for a girl and label one side "through leaves" and the other side "over bridges." I still want to make that tape. I just need to find that girl. I hope she has a cassette player still. She will.

That story was A Long Walk To Forever. Take the time to read it if you haven't already. If you have read it before, read it again.

Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut.

Surprises, a move to Norwalk, CT.

2007-04-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

So, first post here in thtee weeks. That is disciourging. But stuff has just been extremely busy recently and been full of surprises. The main surprise came a few weeks back when I got a call from an old friend who advised me to put in an application at a museum in Norwalk, CT. He mentioned that with my resume, I'd immediately be one of teh top candidates. So I took his advice. Next thing I knew, travel arrangements were being made for a trip out theer for an interview. Shortly afterwards, I recieved and offer. And now after much deliberation and thought, I will be moving to Norwalk, CT on April 30. It's rather crazy.

I was talking to a friend on the phone on Easter. She said, "Kristin told me you were moving to CT. I couldn't believe it. I said, Scot is the most Indianapolis person I know and he's not even from here." That was a strange thing to hear. But flattering at the same time. To friends in this city and friends outside of the city I have been a huge advocate or campaigner for Indianapolis. I love the city. I love the way of life that can be had living in this city. I am not more than 10 minutes from the center of downtown and have cheaper rent than should be legally allowed for the city. I am just 25 steps from my favorite bar ever. But most of all, I just have been really fortunate and really blessed to have met the people that I have met in Indianapolis. Through several different jobs, my church, and numerous connections of friend's friends I have been surrounded by a community that is really hard to leave behind.

At the end of the day however, it came down to the fact that I have an exciting opportunity to move ahead professionally in a way that just wasn't happening for me in Indianapolis. Beyond that, the friends that I have been blessed with here will not change. I know that I am still gonna be in contact with them, even if the dynamic does change a bit due to distance. If things fall completely apart in Norwalk I could always move back to Indianapolis and have very little fear of coming straight back into the community that I am leaving behind here.

So, Norwalk? Where the hell is it? What the hell is it. Norwalk, according to wikipedia, is the 6th largest city in Connecticut. According to the city slogan, it is "The Right Place, The Right Time." It is a "bedroom community" of New York City, just about 45-50 minutes outside the city. Virtually every resturaunt that I walked by was Zagat rated, so I imagine there are good eats to be had. Norwalk is bordered by Long Island Sound, so I will actually see water again. And beyond all that, it is just 2 1/2 hours away from the rest of my family in South Jersey which is also a plus.

Granted the cost of living is of course much higher out there than in Indianapolis. And given the quick nature of the move I will be living my first few months very much on a shoestring budget while attempting to pay back some loans I have taken from my parents for security deposit for the apartment and other moving costs. But once I get beyond that, I am very much excited to be so close to New York City and possibly spend a Sunday afternoon taking the train into catch a show at Film Forum or maybe even go to MOMA and see all 15 1/2 hours of Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz. These are opportunities that I am very excited about. And yes, I know that I will miss Fassbinder at the MOMA, but I also know that other events are sure to come that will be very exciting.

So it's into the last 3-4 weeks in Indianapolis, now. And I must say I am not looking forward to the goodbyes. It's all bittersweet, to be sure. There is excitement, sure, and nervousness as well. But all the same, I just hope to make the best of my last few weeks here, and with help from my friends I don't think that will be too hard of a problem.

A Director Draft

2007-03-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

There are a few things that I am obsessed with. Movies, soccer, and Philadelphia Phillies baseball. That's more or less the list. I visit mesage boards on each of those three a few times a day to read up on rumors, news, and other peoples opinions. In a beautiful twist of fate the soccer message board I visit also has it's fair share of cinephiles. I would say over the past year or so, some of the more interesting suggestions and conversations I have had on film have come from a soccer message board.

Last year around this time on that board we held a "Movie Draft." I posted a little bit about it here, and included my final ten round roster. A year on many of those picks would be different. In part because of the films that were brought to my attention by other posters in the movie draft.

This year, many of the same guys are participating in an arranged directors draft. 16 people, 10 rounds. That would be 160 directors. That's plenty of directors, but that is the point, I guess. I look forward to learning about more directors to check out, to add to a Netflix queue that is already spiraling out of control.

We are into the third round right now. Being the tenth pick, I was unable to pick what would have been my first pick, Jean-Luc Godard. But that's okay. The #1 drafter chose him and in a later post mentioned he had to pick him #1, because he knew I would snatch him up if he didn't. The picks so far have been somewhat predctable, all directors that have been cannonized already. But some have gone higher than expected like Terrence Malick at 6 which I applaud as I was actually considering him as a first round sleeper with my #10 pick. But, even with 160 picks, several of us acknowledge that there will be many great directors left of the list.

Perhaps, I will continue to update this post as I fill out a roster of draftees. So far, I consider myself lucky to have gotten not only two greats, but two of my very favorites at picks 10 and 20.

Round 1. Robert Bresson
Round 2. Yasijuro Ozu
Round 3. Nicholas Ray
Round 4. Robert Wise
Round 5. Wim Wenders
Round 6. Otto Preminger
Round 7. David Gordon Green
Round 8. Jaques Tourneur
Round 9. Edgar G. Ulmer
Round 10. Ed Wood

Laura

2007-03-19T09:51:00.000-04:00

Is it possible that Otto Preminger is one of the more neglected or looked over great directors. Maybe I am just not reading the right texts but i never hear him mentioned in the same breath as other greats from his era. But when you look at a body of work that includes, Anatomy of a Murder, Angel Face, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Laura it's hard to not recognize him as one of the very best.

Last night I watched Laura for the first time and absolutely loved it. In the opening scene you have the voiceover of Clifton Webb playing the despicable Waldo Lydecker. The camera follows Dana Andrews gaze around the apartment as Lydecker makes mention of a clock that will become much more important in the closing scenes of the movie. As I watcehd this opening scene I was already riveted I found myself wondering why the camera paused to focus on specific areas of the apartement and tried to keep it all in my mind for later in the film. Our first meeting with Lydecker is while his in the bathtub and as he reads his alibi for the night in which Laura was murdered. Within 3 minutes I already had a profound dislike for Lydecker and was ready to sit in and hope that he was the guilty one. Both Clifton Webb and Preminger did their job, perfectly.

Dana Andrews is the investigator on the case, Mark McPherson. And while it seems foolish and a bit unbelievable that he allows Lydecker to trail him around as he visits other suspects, it soon becomes evident that McPherson is smarter than this whole lot, even the very arrogent Lydecker. Our first introduction to Laura is in a painting. She is shown, immortalized in a painting above a fireplace. The painting hovers like a spirit, hovers over the apartment and McPherson even begins to fall under its spell, one night passing out on a chair underneath the painting after a few too many scotches.

We eventually get to know Laura more through flashbacks of bothe Lydecker and Shelby Carpenter, played in my opinion to perfection by Vincent Price. But, as McPherson is passed out under the chair Laura shows up. She has not been murdered. She was the intended victim surely, but she is still alive. And now McPherson's investigation has to take a turn.

Gene Tierney is beautiful, seductive, and a bit caniving as Laura. And while its not hard to see why Carpenter, Lydecker, and McPherson all fall in love with her, one can't help but see her as a femme fatale. You see her string along all these men and while you see her as lovely and wonderful, you also know that she will do whatever she needs to take care of herself and little white lies along that way don't matter so much. She allows all three men to maintain their obsession with her, and it will end badly fo someone.

Preminger here didn't make a dark and seedy film noir. But other noir sensibilities are here in spades. In a wonderfully tight 90 minutes, obsession is the main story here. I find myself definitely wanting to view more of Preminger's classics after this.

A different March Madness

2007-03-15T11:43:00.001-04:00

Stuff just ahsn't seemd to slow down for me at all. Too much work. Too much stuff on the periphery of work, possibilities of more or new work. I just haven't had tome to sit back and relax and watch movies, and take them in. In the past week I have watched The Passion of Joan of Arc and Battleship Potemkin. Somehow two silents come up in my netflix queue right after one another. I will say that I enjoyed The Passion of Joan of Arc much more this time than when I first saw it, some 7 years ago, likely a little bit drunk in college. As for Battleship Potemkin some scenes will forever stick in my mind, but the overall impact fell short of what I was hoping for.

And over the next few weeks due to travel I will not get a chance to watch as much as I would like. Though, I will bring my portable DVD player on the plane, no doubt, and maybe watch some extra features from Criterion DVD's that I haven't gotten to yet. But then, there is also sporting events this weekend, that will hold most of my interest. And, while I have entered three seperate NCAA polls, due to Villanova and Indiana's discourging draws, I don't have much hope for my teams succeeding.

This weekend will be more about the beginning of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in Melbourne, Austrailia. I can't wait. Saturday night at 930 I will be at Otto's place taking in the race with him and Frampton as geeked as can be. Here are 6 quick storylines that have me so excited about this season.

1. It's the first season sans Michael Schumacher since I have followed the sport. Schumacher won 7 World Driver Championships. The past two seasons he was beaten by Fernando Alonso. However, there was little to no doubt he was at the very least amongst the top 3 drivers in the world at his time of retitrement. Every season started with Schumacher as a if not THE favorite for the title this season the title race is much more open, in part due to the other storylines here.

2. Fernado Alonso, after winning two straight titles at Renault has bolted to McClaren. This seemed like a good move when it wasannounced before last season that Fernando was spending his final season at Renault. Renault's future in the sport seemed uncertain and McClaren was a major player in the title race in 2005. Then in 2006 Macca failed to win a single race. Renault won the Constructors title (in very large part due to Alonso) and reaffirmed their commitment to stay in Formula 1. Drivers usually take a while to become acclimated to a team. How quickly Alonso acclimates himself to the McClaren team will determine what factor he plays in the championship this year.

3. Ferrari has two championship contenders Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. A year ago to have stated that Massa would be a championship contender in 2007 would have been met with hearty laughter. But, he came on at the end of last season, he has probably the fastest car in the grid under him and a years experience with the team last year. Kimi is arguably the greater talent, but his work ethic is questioned, he needs to acclimate himself with the team like Alonso at McClaren, and some such as myself see his history of engine failures as partly due to Kimi overdriving the car. Kimi was a favorite to win the title last year, and didn't win a single race. One would think he needs to get a jump on Massa at Ferrari or else you could see him become a second priority as the team pushes Massa towards the title.

4. We have 3 rookies in great cars driving for top teams. Lewis Hamilton at McClaren, Heikki Kovalainen at Renualt, and Robert Kubica at the suddenly very quick BMW Sauber team. Any of these guys have the potential to win races. While they might not have the consistency to win the title, they very much may nip some points of their teamates. Kubica and Kovalainen especially may even outscore their teamates by the end of the season. Hamilton has a much tougher order with the champion as his teamate.

5. My team of choice for the past several years, Renault, looks to be in trouble. Giancarlo Fisichella, as much as I wish him to be, is likely not a viable number one driver or champion contender. After two consecutive years of running at the front, with a chance to win every race, they will be fighting for podium spots all season. It's not gonna be pretty, it's gonna take some getting used to. But, as I said before Kovalainen may be the real deal and does have potential to win races.

6. Finally, one of the great names in Grand Prix racing, Williams F1 had an abysmal season last year. The FW29 car has looked faster than some anticipated in preseason testing. I would like to see them at least fight their way back to respectabilty. However, I am less than impressed with their choice of Alex Wurz as a second driver to Nico Rosberg. It's just not a very inspiring choice in my mind. However, for some reason the sport is more fun when a "private" team such as Williams succeeds.

Each driver and each team has multiple storylines, but those are just the ones I look forward to following the most. I can't wait to start racing.

30

2007-03-13T08:39:00.000-04:00

So there has been a ridiculous lack of posts lately. For once this has to do with me being exceptionally busy. The past 10 days have been filled mostly with 12-13 hour days at the museum as we switched to a new ticketing software. Ridiculous. But that should be dying down this week.

In the meantime, I turned 30. Much like New Years Eve a holdiday that is always preceeded for me by an extremely busy week of work I was too tired to plan any real large party of anty sorts. So, it was a very low key weekend. This actually was really nice. Low key weekends are terrific when you are getting old.

I did run about 3 and a half miles sunday morning. That made me wish I got a Segway for my birthday. I did follow that up with a nice breakfast at Three Sisters Cafe As far as gifts go, my parents were very generous as usual. I also got Spirit of the Beehive which I am thrilled about, Nelly Furtado's newest cd which for some reason I love, and fittingly a glorious televised 3-0 triumph by the Columbus Crew. What a fitting scoreline.

To finish up the weekend I watched the wonderful documentary Tell Me Do you Miss Me with friends as we mourned the end of Luna but got excited to see Dean and Britta at the Music Mill next Tuesday, which will be my actual celebration.

Not a bad weekend at all. Now hopefully work and life can go back to normal.

RIP John Vuikovich

2007-03-08T12:38:00.000-05:00

Some guys just transcend sports in a city. For baseball in Philadelphia and for Phillies fans, it was a career .160 something hitter. 31 of his 59 years were spent with the Phillies in some capacity. I don't really know what else to say. RIP John

The Innocence Mission still makes beautiful music.

2007-03-07T12:53:00.000-05:00

My birthday is this Sunday, March 11.

There are very few things I will be getting for myself, because I am not very rich these days. But one thing I will get is the new cd by The Innocence Mission. There are very few bands out there that have the capability to make me so optimistic just by the sound and lyrics of their music. I am a natural cynic, in my faith, in my relationships, in every area. Something about Don Peris' lyrics and wavering guitar meshing with the voice of Karen makes me think that everything will be okay. Even in songs about love or loss, ground where I usually tend to wallow, I find something entirely different when I listen to The Innocence Mission. A favorite album of theirs for me has to be Glow. I've tried, but am unable to do anything other than completely slow down when I here the opening guitar line of That Was Another Country. Everything else just stops.

The new album, We Walked in Song will be released March 13. here is an mp3 of a track of the new album Listen, learn, and love.

L'Eclisse

2007-03-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

It's been lucky days for me. By coincidence shortly after vieweing a Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse in the comfort of my home far too late at night; I stumbled over to The House Next Door and came upon a post on Antonioni by Ryland Walker Knight (yes, you should click on that link and read it). His post struck me for it's candor. It also made me think back to my own into to Antonioni.

He wrote, For a long time I thought I didn’t get Antonioni. I rejected what I saw—a cool, detached intellectualism—as stuffy pretentiousness. I knew something was happening in L’avventura but I couldn’t articulate my anxious distaste. Also, I was bored. So I let it sit, somewhere behind something else in the recesses I don’t dip into every day and went on enjoying Godard, devouring the French director’s 1960s major works to the point that Antonioni wasn’t even a part of my filmic landscape." It's weird. This struck me because if there was a film that turned me entirely onto a world of cinema that I had yet to explore it was Godard's Band of Outsiders. After that I needed to see every Godard. And then anything remotely connected to the French New Wave. During that run I fell in love with Godard's Contempt. To this day, it may reamain my favorite film. I heard references to Antonioni while listening to the commentary, so, L'Avventurra made it's way to the Netflix queue. I was astounded.

Even on a 19 inch televison I was so taken by the images. The pace of the film was slow, I could not relate to the high class nature of the characters, yet I was completely transfixed. A friend called me halfway through it. I told her I was watching a movie but would be glad to start it over of she joined me. So I rewatched from the begging and was still astounded. Close to 5 hours were spent that night watching the film, if you include the parts of the commentary we watched. What was it about these seemingly cold higher class characters that was drawing me in so much? Sure I wished I had the money to sail off to a private island, but if I did so I don't think it would be with them for company. While the madison scene in Band of Outsiders is a scene I would go back to far more often than any of Antonioni's scenes (perhaps for my own sanity?) I couldn't help but be intrigued and try to figure out what it was about Antonioni's films that made me so curious. Yet, at the same time, it's not exactly a film that screams, "Invite over the friends, it's Saturday night! Let's watch a movie!"

Fast forward months later, I come home from working two jobs. It's 1130 at night. I wish I was tired, but I am not. In the Netflix envelope is L'Eclisse I notice the two hour running time, think twice about putting it in, but put it in anyway. I could always finish it tomorrow. But minutes in, I am again hooked. As Knight mentioned, "And how does it open? Monica Vitti, queen of anxious mugging, rejects her life indoors and walks outside, down into town. I was hooked. Still, as a colleague said, we must admit the film is “freakishly boring” in stretches, if brilliant. It’s how we navigate that boredom that defines our experience..."

Beginning to end two hours felt like 30 minutes to me. Even the boring scenes, a scene at the stock market that may drag on too long with no real advance in the story, I was riveted by the visuals. I was taken by the choreagraphy of the stock brokers. I anxiously awaited Vittoria (Monica Vitti's) arrival to the market to see where the story would go from here.

In the second half of the film again, I found myself confused as to why I was spending so much time with these characters. Like in L'Avventurra I found myself thinking that they were cold. There were moments where the characters gave themselves over to happiness or joy. But these moments never seemed to last longer than just moments. I alternated between pity for the characters, and something short of, but not quite disdain. I thought for a long time that the repression of joy for these characters was self imposed. But as the film went on there was a feeling that it wasn't self imposed. These characters would feel joy fleetingly, but in the long run they were likely doomed. This joy would never be longer than just those moments. Even if they gave all their effort (and who's to say they weren't?) there were limitations on them by something larger.

Both L'Avventura and L'Eclisse are grouped together by film scholars, and I believe Antonioni himself, as part of an Ennui Trilogy. I have not seen the other film is this trilogy, La Notte, or any other Antonioni film for that matter. Still after seeing only these two films I find myself in awe of Antonioni and his stories. Yet, I find myself not wanting to love his films. It almost seems to me that to love L'Avventura or L'Eclisse one would need to share that doomed world view of the protaganists, and if not the protoganists, cause sometimes they don't seem to even realize it, then at least that doomed world view of the camera. It's a world view that I don't want to entirely share. While I can look at the last seven minutes or so of L'Eclisse (though to be fair i should maybe say the entire film) as some of the most invigorating and thought provoking film making that I have seen, I find myself not wanting to love it.

A Quick Link

2007-03-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I noticed that their was going to be a Kieslowski blogathon over at Quiet Bubble. I had every intention on writing on my favorite Kieslowski film No End but sadly, times have been hectic and March ahs creeped up on me far quicker than I anticipated.

But, the show does go on, so go visit the Krzysztof Kieslowski Blogathon at Quiet Bubble and read people more well better spoken than I talk about one of my favorite directors.

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

2007-03-01T16:08:00.000-05:00

The poster to Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia shown here is just great. Was one man's life worth one million dollars and the death of 21 men? it lets you know that from the start you are going to get into something that is a bit outlandish, and probably very bloody. But, for me, somehow, this was the first Peckinpah that I have seen I did not know what I was getting into to.

The first scene didn't prepare me for any of this either. A girl is sitting at the edge of the lake. Ducks, swans, and geese are swimming in the water and she is silent. Eventually her silence is broken by a man coming up and saying her father wants to see her immediately. And then another man saying the same. She is forcefully brought to her fathers mansion where she is stripped and then asked by her father numerous times while undergoing pain who the man was that left her pregnant and heartbroken. Through tears she eventually tells him, Alfredo Garcia. Her father then places a one million dollar bounty on Alfredo Garcia's head. From there we see the doors of the mansion close and bodyguards and ruffians go in search of Alfredo Garcia.

The main character here though is Benny played by Warren Oates. He is workingas a piano player in a bar, and some bodyguards for El Jefe eventually pay teh ba a visit. Benny knows of Alfredo Garcia and figures there may be some money in this for him. He figures this job will be even easier once he learns that Alfredo is already dead. He just needs to find the grave and take the head back to these bodyguards. He then can get the cash he has earned and leave the piano playing bar scene.

Benny is not particularly a likeable character. He comes across as almost a misogynist at times. he is travelling with a prostiute, Elita, who last saw Alfredo a few weeks back. There are tender moments between the two of them. At one point where the film really grabbed a hold of me they were having a picnic together, talking marriage. This however was broken up by some ruffians and a rape. Benny was needed to come to the rescue, and even as he did, the moments of tenderness from their picnic were far gone. For every tender moment between Benny and Elita there were several of shouting or violence. They talked, or rather benny talked of how the money would be their escape. Elita talked of how it was aough just to be near Benny. But much like Benny's tender times seemed questionable in their motives, Elita too only seemed to be tender in false hope of calming Benny down. It was hard not to get the feeling that they both knew that they were just playing out teh string and nobody would come out of this okay.

And this was just the stars, or heroes. These were the people we were supposed to be rooting for. These were the least unsavory of the entire cast. Peckipah put together a cast of entirely unbeautiful people, in an unbeautiful place, performing far less than beautiful deeds for nobody other than themselves and said, this is what you will watch.

The night before I watched Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia I watched De Sica's The Bicycle Thieves. These are two entirely different ends of the spectrum. I can see myself looking back years from now on the relationship between the father and son in De Sica's film. It appealed to a sense of justice within me. And people making the wrong choices, for the right reasons. It posed questions within me and those questions will stay with me for a long time. The story lends itself to that. And then ther is Peckinpah's film here. I will remember numerous scenes from this film. The slow motion violence. I will remember my conflicted feelings. I will wonder to myself, just how misogynistic was this film really. And I will definitely remember Benny's decsent into madness. And now I find myself wondering about Benny's choices, and if he had any other real choices. And whether his reasons were right or wrong at all. I find myself on reflection liking the movie a whole lot more than I thought I did while watching it.

Iraq in Fragments Presentation TONIGHT at Key Cinemas

2007-02-28T08:40:00.001-05:00

Before I start anything let me just address the lack of posts. Nothing is more exciting than installing new software at teh job and creating cheat sheets and user manuals for the staff. Alt+Print Screen. Right click. Paste. Text. Repeat. This has been my life for the past two weeks. And will be for the next three. It's less than satisfying. But life goes on.

In the meantime I get to miss what looks to be a fantastic local event down at Key Cinemas this evening. Tonight only following the 7pm showing of Iraq in Fragments, John Clark, local scholar, and Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institue will be leading a discussion on the United States involvement in Iraq.

These are teh kind of events and kind of films that make Key Cinemas such a valuable part of Indianapolis. Granted I have not seen Iraq in Fragments due to my current work schedule. But I regret missing this chance. It was nomininated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, but really never stood a chance against An Inconvienient Truth and Al Gore regardless of how good a film it was.

Hopefully this event tonight gets a decent turnout and if anyone makes it please stop back and tell me how it went.

Denison Witmer tonight @ the Underground

2007-02-21T09:37:00.000-05:00

Life has been exceptionally busy recently. I mean I only have had time to watch one movie in the past 5 days. That doesn't seem fair. And obviously I haven't written much on here in days.

BUT...

I do feel the need to mention, for the cats in Indianapolis tonight, a friend is playing a show at The Underground which is located at 16th and Deleware at the Harrison Center for the Arts. His name is Denison Witmer. His music has been more or less on rotation for me for the past 3 years. The show is only $8 and starts at 8pm.

To hear a good bit of Denison yourself, check out Denison's Birtday celebration website where 30 songs of his were re-recorded and donations for the songs are being put towards charity.

Hopefully, I'll see someone I know out there. I've had a haircut and gotten new glasses since I've seen most you last, so I look fantastic. That's a bonus, above and beyond the music.

Detour

2007-02-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

"He went looking for love, but fate threw him a Detour to revelry...violence...mystery! So reads the tag line on the poster to the right for the film, Detour In Detour I found just about everything I love about the old noir genre. I find myself wishing now that I didn't send back the Netflix envelope this morning, so I could watch it again.

Tom Neal plays Al Roberts a down in the dumps musician who sets out to hitchike across the country to get to his girl, Sue, who left New York to become a celebrity in Los Angeles. Along the way he hitches a ride with Charles Haskell Jr. Shortly after though, Haskell dies and he decides to carry on with his car. He then picks up Vera (Ann Savage) and as luck would have it, she hitched a ride with Haskell earlier, so she uses Haskell's death as a way to use Al for her own ends.

The story is completely over the top unbelievable, yes. Al acts as our narrator from a stool in a diner as he recounts the story up to the point where we finally catch up. He even tells us, "If this was fiction, you'd find this completely unbelievable." But it's real life for Al. And you have the classic noir themes of fate looming large to kick our protaginists ass at any point. Al even alludes to this numerous times throughout the film. "That's life, whatever you do fate sticks out a foot to trip you up."

While shot almost entirely on the road, director Edward Ulmer brings us into a noir midset and setting. Whether it's a cut back to Al on the stool of the diner in the dark his face lit to show despair, or a pouring rain as Al attempts to figure out what to do with Haskell's body. And, then there is Vera. Ann Savage plays Vera so over the top it becomes impossible not to root for Al, even when you know he will be doomed. She's not a femme fatale in the normal noir way. She doesn't exactly oooze sensuality, but she does have the power over Al, and will do what it takes to keep him from getting to his girl.

Detour is only 67 minutes, and it feels even shorter than that. It just flies by. However, the only transfer available, at least through Netflix is terrible. Awful sound, it doesn't look to be a very clean print either. I find myself torn. I'd like to see it restored, and maybe be in a set like the excellently presented Warner Classic Noirs box sets. But, at the same time, the horrible transfer gives this B grade noir from 1945 a certain feel of authenticity.

In the midst of a Blizzard, a glimmer of hope...

2007-02-15T15:39:00.000-05:00

It ought to be documented that pitchers and Catchers for the Philadelphia Phillies had their first workout today, in Clearwater, Florida.

Spring training. Hope and Love, and God and Destiny and Faith Rewarded.

And inspite of 100 years of mostly failure, I sit here believing the Phillies could very well be the team to beat in the National League this year.

Hell, Jimmy Rollins said so.

Man on Fire

2007-02-15T15:11:00.000-05:00

After sitting awestruck and patiently watching two great Ozu films, I completely changed gears while hunkered down in the midst of our one blizzard for the season and watched Tony Scott's Man on Fire. While watching it, not only was I pleasantly suprised that it was not terrible, but I actually found myself moved and on the edge of my seat nearly the whole time.

Denzel Washington plays Creasy. He's an ex-everything; military, bodyguard, undercover operative, and his friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) persuades him to take a job as the bodyguard of a child in Mexico City. Creasy is a heavy drinker who has more or less calloused himself to everything. But, through this new found relationship with the child he will learn to open up again and live and love. It's formulaic as can be, but it's apparently based on a true story. And the movie would surely fall apart as straight to video schlock or a made for Spike TV movie if not so well moved along by Tony Scott, and if not for teh unlikely chemistry between Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington.

The film uses slow motion, subtitles on screen (sometimes even when spoken the dialogue is spoken in English), and many quick cuts to give it a unique look and pace. During the time when Creasy and Pita (Dakota Fanning) are on screen together, there are none of these effects. The camera lingers long enough to see Fanning's reaction, and Washingtons as Creasy's wall's begin to be taken down.

Outside of some flashbacks Creasy has while drinking, it's only after Pita is kidnapped under Creasy's watch that Scott turns up the style and the second half of the film seems almost completely different from the first. It's now become a revenge and action picture, but one where there is a vested interest in the characters.

There are scenes in this second half that I almost felt guilty for liking. In his mission Creasy has no issues with torture. This is not normally my kind of film but I found myself so drawn in by Creasy's character in the first half I found myself rooting and watching through scenes I would normally turn off. Yes, it's your formulaic action movie, but it looks fantastic and Washington's performance elevate it enough to be more enjoyable that just that.

Early Summer

2007-02-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

The main feeling I had taken away after any viewing of Yasijuro Ozu's movies is, I wish there was a way to bottle up his sincerity and give it to today's younger film makers. Before the weekend I had only seen Tokyo Story, Late Spring, and Good Morning. Over the weekend I viewed Early Summer and that feeling was just reinforced.

Early Spring tells the story of Noriko, a 28 year old girl who still lives with her family. She is getting to the age where her family is starting to become concerned and wants her to marry. Just when it seems that Noriko is to be set up with a man who has nearly her whole family's approval, she choses goes in an entirely different direction and choses to marry a childhood friend without first consulting her family. While the family's wishes for Noriko to be married have been met, there is also a feeling of betrayal as she has now made her decision without her family's knowledge.

In the essay that comes with the Criterion Collection release, David Bordwell talks of Ozu's ensamble casts, and compares them to some of today's films. Amores Perros and Traffic are mentioned and surely one could throw last year's best picture winner, Crash and this years best picture nominee, Babel in there as well. These films seem to go to great length to show how chance and fate interlock us all together. It could be said that another one of my favorite directors, Kieslowski, also was obsessed with this theme. But the most recent of these films seem to fall under the weight of their own self importance, politicking, and grandstanding.

Most the films I have seen of Ozu's are set in post war Japan. And in these films there is a constant theme of conflict between generations. These conflicts are not violent. They are just shifts in thinking though. In the films of Ozu however, there is no pretense whatsoever. When a member of the older generation sighs to another that they should not wish for too much, it isn't a posturing for an Oscar, or a commentary on the disparity of wealth between America and the third world. Instead, it's a reflection on the changing times in the family's life, and it's said with a thankfulness for the joy that the family has already brought. It's honesty and sincerity like this that make a family photo, or a father peeling peeling an apple alone, so much more poignant than the multilayered finales of todays films.

Three observations upon re-watching Birth

2007-02-08T20:35:00.000-05:00

Over the past two weeks I tried to introduce Jonathan Glazer's Birth to a film viewing group. I thought to myself that it would receive mixed reviews. There are people I know who absolutely have loved it. And there are those who I have tried to introduce it to that have hated it. There's been very little in between. But, I could not have expected the almost unanimous harsh reaction from members of the group I have introduced it to. And while some of the criticism was juvenile, "Nicole Kidman looks like an elf." some of the criticism made me more aware when I sat down to re-watch it. There was talk especially of the characters being unlikable, using Kubrick style direction as nothing more than an homage, and the plot being unbelievable at best absurdist at worst.

I remember being moved tremendously the first time I saw this film. I have watched it a few times since and was still moved. When it came time to watch it again I was wary that I might find enormous plot holes, that I would not care for the characters. When I watched it again though last night I was just as moved as I was when I had seen it before. I still have the feeling that this may be one of my favorite American films of the past 5 years, at least.

Here are three things I carried away most after this viewing.

1. The opening scene setting the stage for the entire film. The screen is black as we hear the professor speak. He talks of reincarnation. He says, if a bird showed up on his windowsill claiming to be his dead wife he'd "want to believe it." but he's a man of science and he could not. What follows is a beautiful shot of the professor running through the snow in Central Park. For 3-4 minutes we are either tracking behind and following, or ahead and moving away from the jogger. We never see his face, but we assume he is the man whom we heard speaking. When the man collapses under an overpass of sorts it does bring to mind a womb. We have the title card of Birth and we see a newborn baby.

It's easy to dismiss a film such as this. The idea of reincarnation is often to much for some who consider themselves learned to wrap their head around. A common reaction of viewers after seeing this film has been, "He didn't believe in reincarnation!Why should we believe or care about Sean!" One moment that sticks out to me that gets lost in that was the sincerity with which he mentions, when the screen is black, he'd want to believe the bird. He'd want to, but he's a man of science. To me that is a very key moment and truly gets into the mystery of memory and of the heart that the movie delves into from their on out.

Beyond that moment of course is the fact that we never see Sean clearly in these opening minutes. Much more could be written here on the intersection of memory and identity, but for me as a viewer, that was key to my viewing experience and giving myself over to the film.

2. The performance of Nicole Kidman. I enjoy Nicole Kidman as an actress. Some of her choices in roles puzzle me (Bewitched?) but there hasn't been any film I walked away from thinking she made it worse. And there are some, in my mind she where she was integral to the success of the film (Eyes Wide Shut for instance). I am not sure she has ever been better than she was here. Some find the wealth and the coldness of the film and characters extremely off-putting. During the first 25 minutes of the film, to the opera scene (more on that soon) Kidman is warm and spectacular. She shows to be possibly the warmest member of that family at dinner, and is walking around a party all smiles as Joseph announces the engagement. It is after she sees Sean faint, and at the Opera and afterwards where we see her character take a twist. This performance could have been a disaster, it isn't easy material. But Kidman pulls it off. The coldness that some complain about is nothing but a reserved temperment, necessary to be shown in that social stratus. Beyond that you see her torn. You see the respect she has for Joseph, and you see the love she had/has for Sean. It can be seen and felt. It's tearing her apart, and it tore me apart as a viewer as well. No matter how many Bewitcheds Kidman does, this is the role I will always remember her in.

3. The Kubrick-esque closeups. Were they art for arts sake or did they serve to move the story along? The bouncing ball scene is reminiscent of The Shining. The spanking, Barry Lyndon. The tracking shots throughout some hallways, perhaps reminded some of Eyes Wide Shut. And those closeups on the faces. To me, these all served the story. I will focus on the close up of Anna at the Opera and one of Joseph though as they are key.

It's clear even to me that the seen with Kidman at the opera, was the very start of Anna's transformation, the moment where she begins to believe that Sean may in fact even be who he says he was. And as the camera stays on her face for close to three minutes and her face reacts perfectly to the musical queues, it's only when Joseph touches her a few times in that sequence that she is absolutely shaken out of her thoughts.

Go back, not even 10 minutes in the movie you have Joseph refer to little Shaun as "your husband" after he speaks with him on the phone. This was the first moment Joseph or any of the characters said "your husband" while referring to Sean if I am correct. Then look at the confrontation in the hall way when Anna asks Sean to stop, "I can't." "You're hurting me" she says, he still says he won't stop. As they are leaving Anna, but not Joseph, turns around to see Sean faint or collapse, much in the same fashion her husband did before death in the opening scenes. In the elevator ride down, Joseph says good job, and Anna is silent and shaken. What she has seen has already transformed her and the opera scene is visual manifestation of that.

And then there was the moment we saw Joseph lose his mind and transform. What's interesting about the spanking scene is that moments before you have Joseph in an apartment alone except for the realtor, and embarrassed as he has been stood up. This was already during a full day in which Anna had spent with Sean. An idea that Joseph could not have been to keen on. But out of respect for Anna's wishes he allows this. Now, Anna has stood him up at the house viewing. We go from Anna on the phone at a playground telling Sean's mom that she wants Sean at the rehearsal, that it would be good for him to hear the music. After this we go back to Joseph, the scene is not as long as Anna's in the opera, but it is a similar scene. We are looking in on his face and we zoom in on it through the window, and we see his face change and contort with the music as well. He has been stood up and humiliated by his fiance and it's hitting him that this has gone to far. Joseph's transformation began there and then was fully manifested in the spanking scene.

Both moments used extreme closeups of the characters faces, reminding some viewers of Kubrick, but it was more than a nod to Kubrick. Both moved the story along so well.

There is so much more I can say about this movie, but I will tip a hat to three writings that really enhanced appreciation for this film. First, Jim Emerson at Scanners talking about the Bunel influence on this film. Next we have Dennis at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule giving more justice to the opening minutes than I ever could. And finally, Robert at 24 Lies a Second giving one of the most indepth essays on the film one could hope for.

IMOCA Projected Series to Continue @ Radio Radio

2007-02-08T10:16:00.000-05:00

Here comes more great news from the always good people at Radio Radio and IMOCA.

The Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA) is pleased to present Projected, a series of highly-regarded contemporary films rarely seen in Indianapolis. These cutting-edge movies will be shown at Radio Radio, 1119 Prospect Street in Fountain Square. The series will begin Thursday, February 8, 2007 and take place every other Thursday continuing through May 10, 2007. The cost of admission is $5 per film or $20 for all film screenings. Attendees must be 21 years or older to enter Radio Radio

Here is the web page for Projected showing the schedule of films. It all starts tonight with my very own second favorite Woody Allen film, Everyone Says I Love You at 730pm.

I was able to get down to Radio Radio for about half of the films last series that IMOCA showed down there. Tufty and Roni were cordial hosts as always, the bar was open, and there was good company to be had and good films to be seeen.

Sadly, it doesn't look like I will be able to make the first two films, but hope to get down there for the rest of them. If you have a chance, please go down and support this series. It should prove to be worth your time.

USA 2 - Mexico 0 . Again!

2007-02-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

The United States Soccer Team has once again beaten Mexico 2-0. The latest win was yesterday evening in Glendale, AZ before 63,000 fans. It is a decent estimate that of the 63,000 fans that maybe 65% of them were cheering for Mexico, in the good ole USofA. That's fine with me. If Mexican fans want to pay all this money to see their team lose, it's just more money in US Soccer's bank. Thanks guys!

Three Things I liked about the game

1. Jimmy Conrad. I have liked this guy in MLS for a long time. I remember he had a very poor game in one of the lead up matches to the World Cup, and my ex-girlfriend said, "I never want to see Jimmy Conrad in a US uniform again." I told her to calm down and stated how he'd been the most consistent defender in MLS for a few years now. He played fantastic last night, even if you don't count the goal. It's great to see him play like this. While I am not sure he will be the go to guy in 3 years at the World Cup, he will be very valuable in qualifying.

2. Tim Howard. After some shakiness in the first 10-15 minutes he seemed to own the box. I never got the impression that Mexcico would score.

3. The US resolve and calm over the last 20 minutes. When Sanchez had three out and out forwards on the field for Mexico, and many of the USA players were getting their first taste of this rivalry, the US looked like the calmer veteran team. They patiently waited for the counter attack, and did not get drawn into ths slam dance that Mexican players always invite us to after they go down a goal and frustration takes hold.

And one thing I really did not like about the game

1. The refusal of Mexican players to shake hands again after the defeat. It's become a tradition of sorts where after a defeat the Mexican players will walk of the field defiantly. While, this is something that is common in some fiercer Eastern European rivalries such as Croatia vs Serbia, their has not been any ethnic clensing recently between the USA and Mexico. Only 2 or 3 US players remained on the team from the last time these two teams met. There is two brand new coaches. One would have hoped, or at least imagined that these circumstances would allow for some sportsmanship after the game, but the Mexican team had other ideas. It was a classless move. It's a rivalry, yes, and a very heated one. Still...

Current Read : David Mamet - Bambi vs Godzilla

2007-02-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

While unloading some books at Barnes and Noble a few nights back, a hideous neon cover appeared at the top of the box. I noticed the name David Mamet and decided to look a bit further. Mamet has writetn a more than his fair share of plays and screen plays that have made the silver screen. And while I liked some more than others, I at least have always found the dialogue thoughtful so I decided to pick up a copy of Bambi vs Godzilla

I've only read about 40 pages into the book, but expect to be finished it in rather short time. Mamet tackles his topics in brief 8-10 page chapters or sections, and does not waste any words. He is tackling subjects far and wide throughout Hollywood.

Dark Comedy and Politics - Perhaps the success of Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 is due to its excellence not as a documentary but as a comedy. A comedy is teh form in which the unsayable is said, and that, thus, breaks the corrosive cycle of repression.

Victims and Villains - The film The Sum of All Fears discreetly brings the world to the brink of disaster because the Israelis have thoughtlessly misplaced one of their nuclear bombs...I predict a growth of the Jew as monster in the next few years' films. Well, why not? Bedoya and Huston inagurated a few years of the vicious Mexican...Jeremy Kemp et al made the British accent the tocsin of evil effectively for quite a while. So I shall naively opine that perhaps turnabout is fair play and it is merely the Jews' turn in the barrell.

Mamet, born into a Jewish family himself, has a lot to say about the Jewish role in Hollywood, at least in this first 40 pages. And he pulls no punches making it at times uncomfortable and eye opening. Perhaps, it's only that way for me because it is simply stuff I had not thought about before.

In a brief chapter titled An American Tragedy Mamet discusses the films The Jazz Singer and The Jolson Story. He uses them to discuss a tight little problem in American films where "the whites teach the blacks how to play jazz" and where "Gregory Peck, a Christian, impersonates a Jew (The Gentlemans Agreement 1947) and lectures his Jewish secretary on her lack of racial pride."

There are planty more moments just in the first 40 pages where Mamet makes ya sit back, pause, and think. And really, that's what I would expect from Mamet in my experiences watching his screenplays on film. I'm hoping the rest of the book lives up to the first 40 pages.

Tony Takatani

2007-02-04T08:38:00.000-05:00

This movie shoulda been a slam dunk for me. It had all the elements in place. It's based on a short story by one of my favorite authors. The story itself was intriguing. It's set in modern day Japan. The visuals all look great. Yet I hated it.

Tony Takatani tells the story of a man who had lived an ordinary and lonely life. He was extremely proficient at mechanical drawings, but he never really understood the abstract. It could be said, probably that he was an empirical thinker and thus had never fallen in love either.In the beginning of the film we learn his family situation, and that is supposed to give us a brief background on the man that we meet at age 40 something after the opening credits. To move the story along Tony eventually sees a woman and falls in love. The love affair unfortunately ends tragically after Tony attempts to confront her on her addiction to purhasing clothes, something that was mentioned all the way back at the beginning of the relationship. After the tragic ending Tony deals with his memories in a unique way, and the ending of the story is even interesting. Still, I was gritting my teeth through this.

In the first five minutes of the film, before opening credits, when we are getting background on Tony's childhood there is a voice-over narration. This did not seem out of the ordinary for me. But it did become impossibly grating when the voice-over narration continued throughout the 75 minute film. There were unique storytelling devices like the characters on screen finishing the sentences of the narrator, which only amplified my frustration. It almost felt demeaning to me. As if I, the viewer, needed my hand held and walked through the story to understand what was going on. From what I understand this sort of narration is what turned people off to Little Children when it came out in theaters last year. I have not seen the film, but I can imagine why that would be grating now after watching this last night.

There are numerous literary adaptations of great stories where this sort of device is not used. Haruki Murakami is an author that seems to always throw his characters into an existential crisis of some sort, so maybe it's possible that the screenwriter here felt that the nararator was needed to explain these moments. My biggest frustration was the film was so beautifully shot and paced, that it wasn't needed. The pauses, the city landscapes, the isolation and the mise en scene that Ichikawa created here got the story across without the need of these voice overs. I said to my roomate, it almost could have even worked as a silent film. Though, that was likely overstated due to my frustration.

Should another Murakami story be adapted for the screen I will likely see it, but this first experience didn't hold up to expectations.

Macao

2007-02-02T11:32:00.001-05:00

The story of Howard Hughes and his meddling with films at RKO Pictures is legendary. Many very good films were made though in the time that Hughes was in charge and some stars were born. Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum were two key RKO players and they teamed up in Macao.

Like many of the films made at RKO during that time Macao had an interesting backstory. One that included Robert Mitchum and director Josef von Sternberg butting heads to the point where von Sternberg was removed from the picture, and Nicolas Ray was brought in to finish and re-shoot scenes for the picture. Josef still gets the dirceting credit, and Nicolas Ray's name is nowhere to be seen on the opening credits. Many who are more familiar with the work of both directors will go back to this film and analyze which director shot which scene. Until I see more of both of their works, my efforts at this would be futile.

Macao is an entertaining, if very frustrating film. Much like anither RKO Mitchum/Russell pic, His Kind of Woman it's a noirish film shot almost entirely in a sunny locale. Jane Russell's Julie get's a job singing at a nightclub owned by Vince Halloran (played by Brad Dexter). Halloran is a bigshot criminal in Macao and makes money at his casino and by selling stolen jewels in Hong Kong. Halloran thinks that Nick Cochran (Mitchum) is a undercover cop out to expose him. Halloran and Cochran both have eyes for Julie. Halloran has the money and power, Mitchum is just a loner on the run from a crime he committed in America.

At only 82 minutes the film moves very briskly. Mitchum and Russell have some very snappy dialogue as can be expected. Russell, as in His Kind of Woman is a perfect lady to put aside Mitchum here. In both body proportions and wit she stands up as Mitchum's equal and their chemistry is undeniable. But, my goodness, has Gloria Grahame ever been more unerutilized. Grahame plays Margie, Halloran's mistress and aside from one crack at Mitchum and a scene in the casino has nothing to work with. It's a shame as she is definitely an actress that deserves better. There are solid performances all around in this film, and I have yet to see a performance from Mitchum in this era that did not entertain me, but overall the film never quite reaches the level that other RKO pics from that era did. Though it is watchable and entertaining, it never seems to be a classic.

On the DVD though there is a great commentary track from film noir expert Eddie Muller, and screenwriter Stanley Rubin. For me this was more entertaining even than the movie. Muller's admiration for Runin is evident throughout the commentary, and vice versa. They may even spend more time talking about RKO and other films and actors of the era as they do talking about Macao. It's a highly informative and entertaining gossip session of a past era. I laughed out loud numerous times throughout.

More on Macao can be found here at the always terrific Noir of the Week.

The Spirit of the Beehive

2007-01-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

After sitting in my Netflix queue for several weeks next to the words "long wait" I finaly recieved a copy of The Spirit of the Beehive over the weekend. I had heard very good things about the film, but I couldn't have imagined that by the time I had finished watching, that it would have immediately become on a short list of favorite films ever for me. It's intimidating even to write a few paragraphs about a film that moved me so much.

The film takes place shortly after the Spanish Civil War in a small village and focuses primarily on two young sisters Ana and Isabelle. As the film starts we see a truck pulling into the village with kids dancing around the truck singing and shouting "The movie is here, the movie is here." A copy of Frankenstein has been brought to the village and will eb shown in the town hall building that evening. While watching the film Ana is transfixed by a scene where a child gives a flower to Frankenstein and offers to play with him. Of course in the film the child dies, and Frankenstein is put to death. That evening while going to bed Ana asks Isabelle why Frankenstein killed the child and why later Frankenstein was killed. Isabelle responds that none of this happened, because, "everything in movies is fake," and beyond that she has spoken to Frankenstein's spirit who is near the village. So now, and for the remainder of the film, Ana's focus is on finding and making contact with this spirit.

This film affected me on so many levels. The first 45 minutes of the film I had an awful feeling in my chest, coming from what I would guess was a sense of impending doom. The depth of the images and sound in this film brought this forward more than any of the dialogue. I remember reading numerous times of how Antonioni's L'Avventura created a new cinematic language. After watching this I couldn't help but wonder if this was the same language more fully expressed or something entirely different from even that. The film perfectly captures the imagination and wonder of childhood. And it does so in silent pauses, reaction shots, eye contact and smiles between the two children.

That sense of doom that I mentioned though stayed with me througout the entire film. When watching the children watch Frankenstein I couldn't help but wonder how far their imagine and curiousity would take them afterwards, whether it would put them in a dangerous situation. Of course it didn't help that they were children of seemingly very disengaged parents. And as the movie neared it's conclusioon and I felt myself overcome by what I was seeing I had to remind myself of Isabelle's mention earlier in the film, how "everything in movies is fake." But even then, I was unable to fully disengage myself from the film.

I wonder now to myself, when and if I am lucky enough to have children how this film may affect my own parenting. I wonder how it would affect me trying to share my love of film with them.

51 Birch Street

2007-01-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. Documentaries nearly always leave me cold. I just find myself unable to invest myself in the story. Even supposedly great documentaries like Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA just didn't do it for me. Sure, I understood the plight of the mine workers, and I understood what was at stake. But as the DVD was playing I found myself walking to the kitchen, making a sanwich, while only half paying attention to the film and then coming back to it. Even documentaries of my favorite musicians like Pennebaker's Dylan doc, Don't Look Back strike me as more novelty than something that deserves repeated viewings.

Still, I found myself going down to Key Cinema's Sunday afternoon to see 51 Birch Street on the last day of it's run here in Indianapolis. And in the end I found myself completely invested in the story more so than any documentary I have seen in recent years.

Doug Block is a filmaker. He has been filming family get togethers for many years, for posterity's sake. After 54 years of marraige his mother dies. 3 months later Doug's father marries his secratary of many years ago.

As Doug attempts to come to grips with this, he spends time talking to his mother's best friend. Both of his sisters. His father. A hip young Jewish rabbi. A therapist on father son relationships. And most tellingly he spends lots of time leafing through years of his late mothers journals.

There were times where this could have become a bit uncomfortable for the audience. There is something inherently strange about reading through a dead woman's diary as a son is trying to find out exactly how happy his parents marriage was. But, somehow this doesn't cross over that line for the audience, or at least me. Doug's repect for his mother and for his parents marriage always came across louder than any doubts in my head about what exactly I was seeing. Late in the movie Doug asks his mother's best friend if she would have wanted him to see these journals, he also asks a rabbi what the bible says about looking threough his late mothers journals. The rabbi answers, "What does your heart say?"

There was never any question to me that Doug's heart was curious. If there wasn't a video camera near it is still easy to picture him with the same questions and concerns. None of this seemed exhibitionist or that is was exploiting a strange situation.

What leaves me cold so oten in documentaries was the feeling that I was never getting to know the people who were being shot. I would possibly know more about their political cause. Or their on stage persona, but I never felt I could invest in a cause or persona the way i do with a character in fictional films. In that way they just don't seem as human to me, as much of a paradox as that may sound. In 51 Birch Street Doug Block created a very human documentary, and in so doing made a film that I will remember and revisit again in the future.

Recent Reading

2007-01-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

The past few days I have spent much more time than I would care too in dentist, physical therapy, and eye doctors lobby's. In those hours though, I have had the choice to either read a copy of Newsweek from early November that someone left in the lobby, or some of the books I have been borrowing from Barnes and Noble recently. The borrowing of hardcovers with a promise to return them in decent shape is definitely one of the perks of working at Barnes and Noble, especially when you are on a budget.

One book that I have just dove into yesterday is Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. In this book Rob, a current writer for Rolling Stone among other publications, uses 22 mix tapes to chronicle his time before and with his late wife Renee, as well as his memories of her and deaoling with her unexpected death. Renee died unexpectedly just 5 years into their marraige. In the first entry Rob chronicles a mix tape from March of 1993. Being a rolling stone writer, and being the mid 90's these tapes are filled with some of the breakout alternative acts of the 90's. The first song on the first tape is Shoot the Singer by Pavement. A page before the first chapter is the line from another Pavement song, "I wasted all your precious time, I wasted it all on you" from Texas never Whispers, I think. Leafing through the mix tapes you see tons of Pavement, Morrissey, L7, Sebadoh, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr. It definitely takes one back to that time in 90's which was the last time I was really excited about music myself.

Granted, I'm only 50 or so pages in, but what is making the book work so far is the sincerity and beauty in the way that Rob remembers their time together. Any aging hipster can write a book about the mix tapes they shared with a loved one from the 90's. And anyone can drop in the cool bands and memories of car rides, and dancing, and long nights together. But, not everyone can make it work. Sheffield's self depreciating humor, obvious love for the music that initially served as he and Renee's bond, and obvious love for Renee makes this more than a self serving book. In the first chapter, "The whole world got cheated out of Renee. I got cheated less, because I got more of her than anybody," and by the end of the chapter, only 15 pages, I already agree. I put down the book and am just staring off into space. He's already painted a picture of Renee that makes me wish that I met her as well. Even if she did hate The Smiths. There will be obvious comparisons to Nick Horby's High Fidelity except, this actually happened.

As if I needed more reason to keep reading Rob also delves into old films from time to time...

The country singers understand. It's always the one song that gets you. You can hide, but the song will find you...

Gangsters understand too. In the old Gangster movies you're always running away to a new town, somewhere they won't know your mugshot. You can bury the dirty deeds of your past. Except the song follows you. In detour, it's "I Can't Believe You're in Love with Me." The killer hears it on a truck stop jukebox, and he realizes there is no escape from the girl. In Gilda, it's "Put the Blame on Mame." In Dark Passage, "Too Marvelous for Words." Barbara Stanwyck in Clash by Night, she's so cool tough and unflappable, until she goes to a bar and get's jumped by a song on the jukebox, "I Hear a Rhapsody." She starts to ramble about a husband who died, and a small town where she used to sell sheet music. She's not so tough now. You can't get away from the meanest jukebox in town.

Um, Yes. Yes. Yes. It's all true. As I said I am only about 50 pages in, but so far it's a damn good read, and touching at that. I'd imagine I'd be through this one by the time the weekend is out. That is if upcoming chapters don't have me staring into space too long, heartsick, as the first chapter did.

Also, much to my delight, Paul Auster had a new book released this past week. I devor Paul Auster's novels like lunch at an all you can eat Indian buffet. I love the guy. I find him to have one of the most unique voices that I have read. The way that he weaves a story within a story has pushed some of my friends away from his novels, or to feel they have already seen the trick and stop after one or two. It's part of what keeps me coming back. That and how many times Auster's works are extremely dark, but in that darkness and the lonliness he puts some of his characters through, there is a beauty and somehow an optimism about humanity below it all. His work as a screenwriter on the other hand in films such as Smoke while not entirely terrible, pales in comparison for me, to his novels.

Travels in the Scriptorium is only 152 pages. So it wasn't really any suprise to me that I finished it in only two sittings. I would have likely finished it in one, but I thought to myself, "I want something to look forward to tomorrow at lunch." So I saved the remaining 50 pages for then.

Travels reads more like a novella or short story than some of Auster's other work. And after his last novel The Brooklyn Follies, this seemed very dark in comparison. A man is in a room, he doesn't know where or why. He is only referred to as Mr. Blank. And as he is trying to piece together his memory and find out why he is there, he finds a manuscript at a desk, which seems to be written for him to help him, or maybe to harm him, to drive him even more crazy.

Though in the end the story does work for me, this is far from my favorite Auster. That would be the excellent Book of Illusions. But, this is a quick read and an enjoyable one at that. It's a bit dark, and at times even bleak. And while I found the ending to be typically fantastic as is usually the case for Auster, I am unsure still what to exactly make of it. It is unsettling in a way that some of his other books aren't.

This may not be the best introduction to Auster for some of the reasons I mentioned above. But, readers of Auster's other works will find some special joy in this as numerous characters from his previous works show up in one form or another. At the very least, this will at least tide me over until his next book comes out.

Three Times

2007-01-25T08:49:00.000-05:00

It suprised me to find out after watching Three Times that director Hsiao-hsien Hou has directed over 10 films. He is a director that was completely below my radar and I only recently heard of three times even though it was technically a 2005 release. This is one of many reasons I someday soon hope to purchase a region-free dvd player.

Three Times tells a story of love at three different times in China. The same actor an actress play the lovers in a three seperate stories set in 1911, 1966, and 2005. Unlike The Fountain which used the same actors for three different love stories through time as well, in Three Times the lovers are three distinctly different couples. Hou uses three different stories to show the difficulty of love, or how one can be so close to love and yet not fully embrace it.

The first of the three stories is titled A Time for Love. It is 1966 and a young woman is working at a pool hall where she meets a soldier who is being sent away for duty. When he returns from duty to find her he finds she is no longer working at that pool hall and travels different towns in search of finding her.

The second, A Time for Freedom is set in 1911. Here, a political activist or writer visits a prostitute or geisha. She has clearly fallen for him, and there is a unique closeness between the too. His travels and her hesitancy to make her feelings known keeps love at arms length.

Finally, in the third A Time for Youth, it's 2005. A woman pop singer is loved by her girlfriend but finds herself, at least at times more drawn to a male photographer who is pursuing her.

A common link in all of these three stories seems to be the emotional distance between lovers. And more often than not this distance is brought on by the lovers themselves. In that way it reminds me of some of the films of Wong Kar-Wai. But, unlike most of those films, the action here is hardly kinetic. In each of the three stories any action that is to be had unfolds extremely slowly. In the first story, our first moments of dialogue aren't until 5 minutes in. The second story, set in 1911, is told in the style of a silent film. In the thrird we also have many more moments of the lovers walking sround room to room, or in the streets silently than we have dialogue.

There are moments throughout these three stories though that a song moves the action along. In each of these three stories music plays a key role, and might have been best used in the first story, A Time for Love where "Smoke gets in your Eyes by The Platters is a recurring theme.

Truth told, I put in Three Times two nights ago and watched about twenty minutes of it before realizing that I wouldn't be able to devote it the attention it deserves. Their is an intricate attention to detail in nearly every shot. The shots in various pool rooms are more beautiful than I imagined pool rooms ever being. The pacing of the film allows shots like those and the greyness of the city in A Time for Youth to just wash over you. The film requires an extremely patient viewer, but if viewed patiently Three Times is surely worth the time.

IIFF Update

2007-01-24T08:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday good news came into the email inbox from the Indianapolis International Film Festival. yes, we are still 3 months away from the festival, but the submission dealine passed and the festival has recieved a record 526 films from 56 nations. An increase of over 70% from last year.

From the email:

In addition, three former Oscar nominees submitted films along with a Camera d'Or winner from the Cannes Film Festival. We also received more than a dozen films selected for Sundance, and a multitude of films that showed at Berlin, Toronto, and Locarno.

And here is a PDF of a press release.

It's looking more and more likely that I will be purchasing the Passport for this years festival. I am very much looking forward to it.

Gun Crazy

2007-01-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

The Warner Classics Film Noir box sets may have been some of the best gifts I have ever recieved. Granted, I have only gotten through 5 of the 10 films contained in these box sets since Christmas, while watching a ton of other stuff, but each film has been an absolute joy to watch. The last one I watched was Joseph A. Lewis's Gun Crazy.

Truth told the beginning Gun Crazy starts off a bit slow for me. While other great noirs like Out of the Pastslipped right into the action or some snappy dialogue, Gun Crazy finds a young Bart in the court room after stealing a gun. After some akward moments of moralizing and preachiness the movie takes off though.

Bart comes back to town after being sent away to a correctional school and the army and meets up with some friends. They go to the state fair and there is where we meet one of the great femme fatales, Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummings). She is a sharp shooter for the carnival and makes some good money when she takes challengers from the audience and challenges them for money. But, Bart (John Dall) is at the very least her equal and as the conduct their challenge in a very flirtatious way the trouble has just begun.

Of course Bart is gonna fall for her, and of course she is gonna use Bart for her ends. This leads to several robberies and a life on the run as notorious criminals. In between the robberies Bart attempts to come to grips and wants to lead a straight life, but he is always roped back in, by love or just by the power of Annie's personality. At one point in the commentary by film scholar Glenn Erickson, also included on the DVD disc we hear "If there is any doubt she's the villain it is erased here. She is willing to use the baby as a shield. That is wring no matter how you feel about the law, or crazy young lovers." She is the femme fatale and she is the one in control for most of the film.

The film goes almost like a Bonnie and Clyde, but of course it was made before, and in my mind at least is far better. It's stylized as hell, as well. The past year much has been mad eof teh celebrated "long takes" in Children of Men and The Death of Mr. Lazarascu. In Gun Crazy we have an entire bank heist and getaway filmed in one take from the vantage point of a backseat passanger, and it works brilliantly.

I mentioned the commentary already, but if one is to watch this DVD definitely watch it with the commentary as well afterwards. It's one of the better commentary tracks I have heard and is full of facts about more than just Gun Crazy, but noir and crime films in general. It increased my appreciation of what I already thought was a classic film.

A Screening Log

2007-01-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

Because I have seen this done elsewhere, and mainly for selfish reasons, I am gonna link a screening log to my sidebar. I want to have one place where I can look at all the movies that i have watched in 2007. I write capsule revies for probably close to 75% of them, but still, I feel that I should have one quick reference click. All movies I watched will be in the comment field. Obviously, as always, feel free to leave comments on any of the films.

The World

2007-01-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

After reading Jonathan Rosenbaum's review and seeing it at the top of his best of list in 2005, I decided check out Zhang Ke Jia's film, The World. While I am not entirely sure it was a total masterpiece The World is definitely one of the more intersting films I have seen recently.

The setting is The World theme park in Bejing. This theme recreates some of the worlds greatest attractions from 5 of the seven continents. You have the Eiffel Tower (at 1/3 it's actual size, complete with elevator, the Taj Mahal, downtown Manhattan complete with Twin Towers and many other world famous landmarks. "Why leave Bejing, when you can see "The World?" The story focuses on the workers at this themepark who also live there, mainly on two young young lovers Tao and Taisheng.

Barely any of the action in this film takes place outside of the themepark. We see a lot of coversations in the cramped dressing quarters where the dancers at the park perpare for shows. Plenty of time is spent on a tram that takes workers and visitors from Paris, to India, to London. For Tao at least her whole World is inside this themepark. At one point she begs Taisheng not to cheat on her, because he is all she has.

The extravagent re-created settings of London, Paris and New York in the background provide a stark contrast to the day to day existence of the poor museum workers. When a plane flies overhead at one point Tao says she never has known anyone who has flown on a real plane. Her entire world truly is only her immediate surroundings. At times the film shifts to animation, usually brought on by a text message to a cell phone having something to do with love or heartbreak. The animation sequences are like dreams and show the characters flying or gallpoing on a horse. As if love is the only dream that can take them away from their immediate surroundings. For some these animation sequences may serve as distraction, to me they only enhanced the story.

The film is nearly 2 1/2 hours but really did not seem overly long, perhaps in part to a shockingly abrupt ending. It's easy to get drawn into the lives of the characters, specifically the love story. And it is safe to say that the setting of the theme park did provide for some shots that will stick in my memory long after viewing the film. Beyond that the film has one of the better scores that I can remember. This was Zhang Ke Jia's first "big budget" picture, and in my mind it succeeded on many levels. It's definitely a film worth checking out, and for me it leaves me wanting to see some of his earlier smaller budget films.

Welcome Back

2007-01-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

Word on the street, or should I say rumor has it, that Joel is raising Eccentric Southern Gentleman from the dead after a long personal hiatus. I've left the link on my side bar hoping that he would have the time and energy to bring it back as it was a daily read of mine for a long time. For the college football fans amongst us also check out Roll Bama Roll, Joel's page about all things Alabama Crimson Tide sports.

Of course, he knows that I am posting this in hopes off adding extra pressure for ESG to be back on a regular basis. You don't mind though, do ya bro?

Welcome Back.

Saturday's Links and Random Thoughts

2007-01-20T09:34:00.000-05:00

I haven't written anything in reaction to the Eagles loss to the Saints last weekend. It was one of those games that was just so frustrating to watch. In the end I knew that the Eagles would lose, somehow. But the fact they had it close for so long and really could have, and maybe should have, won the game is what's so disheartning about the whole thing. And then, just when I feel like I want to watch some football again, In Bill Simmons article on ESPN.com I am reminded of this....

• I can't believe nobody mentioned the Saints were called for only three penalties last weekend. The conspiracy theory that the NFL wants the Saints to be in Miami for Super Bowl XLI -- starting with the NFL's forcing Houston to take Williams over Bush, forcing the Dolphins to sign Culpepper over Brees and forcing 31 other teams to repeatedly pass on Marques Colston -- just keeps getting stronger and stronger. Now it's just "completely asinine" instead of "criminally far-fetched and absurd."

You know what. Screw the Saints. Go Bears.

Let's start with two links from the always outstanding The House Next Door.

First, I watched Double Indemnity a few weeks back, and of course loved it. There's little not to love about that noir. And Barbara Stanwyck is near the top of the list of what to love about the film. She's a perfect femme fatale. Over at The House Next Door you will find a fiver of her more memorable performances. An excerpt, Stanwyck played roles where you had to believe that no man, even the most devout, upstanding citizen, could resist doing her bidding. She had to be smart enough to get you to surrender body and soul. Once you slept with Monroe, you could carve that notch into your bedpost and move on; Stanwyck was a mindfuck that stayed with you long after the post-coital cigarette. Indeed.

Also, since I just saw Volver, I was happy to read Ryland Walker Knight's review of a film that for some reason is still sticking with me days afterwards.

There is more excellent writing on David Bordwell's site as well. This time a plea to be shot-concious with many excellent screen grabs to illustrate his points.

At Quiet Bubble, a call for a Kieslowski blog-a-thon which should be fantastic reading come March.

Other interesting blog-a-thon's coming up, A contrarian blog-a-thon at Jim Emerson's Scanners February 16-18. And just in time for Valentine's Day, Lovesick blog-a-thon at 100 films

One final late afternoon edit...

Over at Greencine Sara Scheiron interviews Mark Becker. Becker is the director of the documentary, Romantico. Romantico will be playing at Key Cinemas staring February 2, and that interview definitely makes it look like something worth seeing.

Thank you to INtake

2007-01-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

Late Wednesday I got a call from a friend who yelled, "What are we not friends anymore?" I was confused, and then she alerted me that the new issue of INtake was around Broad Ripple and she saw my picture in it and was offended I didn't tell her earlier that would happen. For those who are concerned we have mended our friendship and even watched an episode of the OC together last night. And we even briefly debated whether Jim and Pam from The Office is really true love.

Enough of that. Thanks to Matt Gonzales and Michelle at INtake. Thanks also to Key Cinemas for opening a bit early and letting us photograph there. For those who haven't seen the story, you can find it here. Matt gives a breakdown of many of Indianapolis's better blogs. Please check it out and visit some of the blogs too. There is some very good stuff there. And, truthfully, at the risk of sounding sappy, I feel lucky to be lumped in with them.

And if you are visiting here after reading that article, thanks for stopping by. There is a lot of ramblings on film all through here, and I have labeled some of my sports posts too, which are mostly me moaning about the sad state of my Philadelphia teams or US Soccer. Maybe you'll find something you like.

Volver

2007-01-19T08:35:00.000-05:00

Those who have seen any of Pedro Almodovar's films before would likely know what to expect heading into Volver. Yet as in any Almodovar mellodrama (and lets face it, he does mellodrama better than anyone) all expectations might as well be thrown out the window. In the end Almodovar winds up spinning a story, and gettting better performances out of his actors than could have been imagined. And 100 minutes later I am leaving the theater more touched by the film and story that I anticipated being when I walked in.

To even attempt summarize the plot of Volver is a daunting task. There is Ramiunda, her sister Sole, and Ramiunda's teenage daughter, Paula. These three are close and the bonds of family are explored in depth throughout the movie. There closeness is tried, or pushed closer by the death of their Aunt Paula, a murder of Ramiunda's lover and Paula (not Aunt Paula's) father Paco. Then there is the appearance of Ramiunda and Sole's mother Irene, who is believed to be dead from dying in her husbands arms in a fire. As far as an Almodovar plot goes, none of this seems to out of the ordinary.

Penelope Cruz plays Ramiunda and gives a better performance than I have ever seen her give. Though, it's safe to say she wasn't exactly an actress that had me running towards the ticket counters before but here she was just superb. The rest of the cast is superb as well, especially Carmen Maura, who plays Irene.

In many reviews I have read since last night it is pointed out how all the men in this film are painted as scoundrels, sexual predators, or cheaters. Looking back over the film that is a true and fair assesment. However, while watching the film was so caught up in the story, and so tuned into the lives of these women, I didn't see it as a sweeping generalization of all men. Sure, Paco was a heartless deadbeat. And what we here of Irene's husband, Ramiunda and Sole's father, is not life affirming, to say the least. But, throughout the movie all that paled in comparison to the relationships of these women.

It would be too easy though, to characterize Volver as a chick flick. Elements of dark humor go on throughout the story. And, Almodovar pounds us over the head with one revelatiion or plot twist after another making the film seem to never lose pace. Each of these twists cranks up teh mellodrama one more notch, but at no time does this seem forced or contrived in the way that most chick flicks are characterized as.

Volver, I am told, roughly translates as "to return." The overaching themes of forgiveness, living with the dead, and most of all love of family all require at the least a look back and more likely a return. While, at least for me, this didn't pack the emotional weight and the "wow" factor of my favorite Almodovar film, Talk to Her, it is still one of my favorites of his. And in the end, one that I want to experience again, very soon.

David Denby @ the New Yorker

2007-01-18T08:42:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago in The New Yorker David Denby had a fantastic piece on the future of film and the future of Hollywood. He touched just about every base possible. We're talking Holywood studios gearing up for opening weekends and how that affects what films we see. We are talking about possibly seeing films being distributed digitally and how that will save money. He mentions the demographics of Hollywood target audiences, for the most part 12-25 year olds, which explains a lot of the Crap in theaters right now. And he discusses viewing films on iPods, portable players and the like as opposed to the communal experience of seeing them in a theater. It's a great article, and if you have twenty minutes to kill, it's still on line and can be read here. A few other people have already weighed in on the article including, J.R. Jones, at the Chicago reader here.

I reread the article last night and my goodness, there is so much to react to that 20 page essays could be written in response. Denby starts out the article though talking about viewing a movie on an iPod...

“Pirates” has lots of wide vistas and noisy tumult—a vast ocean under the dazzling sun and nighttime roughhousing in colonial towns, with deep-cleavaged prostitutes and toothless drunks. What I saw, mainly, was a looming ship the size of a twig, patches of sparkling blue, and a face or a skull flashing by. The interiors were as dark as caves. My ears, fed by headphones, were filled with such details as the chafing of hawsers and feet stomping on straw, but there below me Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom were duelling like two angry mosquitoes in a jar.

Denby goes on to say how in the theater, "you submit to a screen; you want to be mastered by it, not struggle to get cozy with it." And later goes on to talk about a bit the communal experience of movie going as opposed to viewing at home or on these smaller devices like iPods.

This generation is bombarded with choice. Between Netflix, downloadable movies online, and 65 movie channels we have so many opportunities to see films in places other than the theater that it's gotta be unprecedented. And while, at times in Denby's article this seems to be a reason for a death march for Hollywood I am not sure that is entirely the case. Now, sure, would I have wanted my first viewing of a current favorite, Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt to be in a theater? Absolutely. However, being as there is no revival theater in Indianapolis, this was not the possible. And how many great prints of Contempt work there way around the United States each year. I would guess less than a handful, though I admittedly have not done the research. But without the abundance of choices, including Netflix, Turner Classic Movies and others I would simply not have seen nearly any of the movies that I found so moving in the past year.

This does not neccessarily spell death and doom for theaters. These other avenues of seeing classics and newer movies can drive a person back to the theaters. For me, it wasn't till recently that I had a love for films rekindled. And if i had to pinpoint when that happened I would say it was probably exactly at the madison scene in Band of Outsiders, which almost as if to illustrate one of Denby's points, can be scene online here. It was after this, that I started devouring as many films from the French New Wave as possible. And then introducing myself to some by Jean-Pierre Melville. And when Army of Shadows a film of Melville's from the 1960's finally saw US release, I made sure to see it when it came to Key Cinemas on the south side. And it turned out to be one of the best filmgoing experiences I have ever had. And it's something that may have just passed under my radar were it not for seeing Bob Le Flambeur a month or so prior, in my own home, on my own only 20 inch tv.

Now, granted most of the films I have mentioned have been foreign, and not the Hollywood that Denby talks of in his article. However, still these drove me back to theaters in general where just this year I have already went to see, Children of Men, Old Joy, and Sweet Land. Towards the end of last year I was blown away by both The Fountain and Marie Antoinette. With any luck, I hope to see Volver today.

Thing is, when you see a great film in the theater, even when going alone it can be a communal experience. I remember a few years back going to see a documentary called Sound and Fury also at Key Cinemas. It was a movie documentary about some in the deaf community and the struggle some have in deciding weather otr not to get cochlear implants. I went to see it myself, but while walking out of the theater, I paused and watched two deaf people in what looked to my eye to be an animated conversation in sign language about the film, and I will never forget that. And if it's not something like that, it's the conversation that I have with a friend while leaving the theater or that I overhear while leaving teh theater yourself that gives me that sense of communal viewing while leaving a theater.

And thats why for as much shit as Hollywood seems to put out, it may be in transition as Denby states, but, it will survive. I mean even Denby himself stated, "And there never was a golden age in which art or great entertainment poured unremittingly from the studio gates. The majority of movies at any time are junk. From 1953, we remember “From Here to Eternity” and “The Band Wagon” and maybe “The Big Heat,” but not “The Redhead from Wyoming” or “Guerrilla Girl.” For most people, memory itself is a kind of revival house in which only the most vivid things survive." It's just a matter of finding the right films, and thankfully some are still being made. It's never as bad as it seems.

Old Joy

2007-01-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

If there were a place for men to be boys again, one could hope that it would be in the woods. It should be that easy. One could think back to games played together in the woods as a child, or the feeling of mischief and accomplishment when making their first fire. Regardless, nature sometimes can serve at the least for an escape from what is told to us as, or what we qualify, as the real world. But, sometimes as life goes on and as men grow to be older, even in surroundings we see meant to set us free from ourselves, it is difficult to get away from the weights of our own lives.

In Kelly Reichardt's film, Old Joy we meet Kurt and Mark. Mark (Daniel London) recieves a phone call from Kurt (Will Oldham), asking him if he wants to take an overnight trip into the woods and check out these hot springs. It's on short notice, but after running it by his wife Mark makes the decision to go. He mentions how he could use some time in the woods. After Mark drives down through town to the soundtrack of Air America talk radio and we finally meet Kurt we gather Kurt is single, and perhaps in a less professional place than Mark. They decide on taking Mark's car, and next Mark, Kurt, and Mark's dog Lucy head on out for their overnight road trip.

In the following hour of the film we learn as much about the story by what is not said, as we do by the actual dialogue. We learn about these characters in the way they pack up a sleeping bag, or enter and exit a car. The dialogue is sparse throghout. The director Reichardt gives us as many scenes looking through the windshield of a car out at the forest as he does with us focused on the characters and their conversation. When we are witnessing Mark and Kurt interact, their unspoken reactions to eachothers comments ring as true as anything spoken. Daniel London especially, it seems, is required to reveal a lot with his eyes. And at once you can see his love and his friend Kurt, and the sadness of a friendship that has grown somewhat apart. When Kurt at one point after getting a little high breaks down for a moment, wishing thier friendship was what it's the unspoken reaction in Kurt's facial expression that sticks with us much longer than the words. And when we see Kurt playing with Mark's dog, or the dog following them with a stick to big for her to carry, it brings a smile to our face as it gives the impression of a closeness taht doesn't need dialogue (even if it is only the impression).

As Kurt and Mark walk through the woods, my empathy switched from one to the other numerous times. As a friend said after leaving the theater, I have been both at some point in my life. It's the one trying to settle down into a serious relationship or family life while still feeling the tug of (nearly?) carefree male adolescence. Or, is it the one where that carefree male adolescence was held on to for too long, and as life moves on I feel a little bit left behind.

With the continual shots of nature Reichardt at once creates a feeling of lonliness and hopefullness. And when Mark and Kurt finally make it to the hot springs it's one of the more lovingly shot scenes of friendship that I can remember. Yet again, I can imagine that it depends on where the viewer is, what they will take away from the film. It's not a film with an gratuitous climax or payoff. Instead, it's one that requires a certain patience and submission from the viewer to follow along with the story. And, for me, as I allowed myself to reflect on the story, it's one of the more beautifully told films of the past year.

Old Joy is playing through next Thursday at Key Cinemas.

The Best Years of Our Lives

2007-01-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

After watching The Best Years of Our Lives I found it a bit humorous to see it mentioned in another films review in this way, "My generation will forever be identified with the American Pie franchise, something that makes me continuously ashamed. Where other generations can pride themselves on The Best Years of Our Lives or Easy Rider, Wall Street or Goodfellas, we have a seemingly endless multi-million-dollar series that protracts the decades-long stereotype of apathetic, over-sexed teens." While I don't think it's neccessarily that bad, I hope that our generation has a better touchstone film than American Pie, I can't help but think of how great it would be to have The Best Years of Our Lives as the film to identify a generation with.

William Wyler directed The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, it is a homecoming film about three World War II veterans. They return to small town America, namely Boone City, and find out that in the time they were gone certain tings have changed that they can't change back. Al's children have grown up to the point where he claims he doesn't recognize them. Fred's wife has moved out of his parents house and may have fallen out of love with him. And then, there is Homer (played by real life war veteran Harold Russell) who has lost his hands in the war, and now goes home to a family and a girlfriend who want only to care for him, even as he wants only to be treated normal. These three veterans meet on their plane trip home to Boone City and share a cab ride while dropping eachother off at their houses. They forge an immediate bond as veterans from the same town and make plans to meet for drinks soon.

The hardship of adjustment comes nearly instantly. Homer doesn't know how or want to hold his girl with his new hands. Al struggles to initially connect with his wife, and is pressured back into work immediately. The best job Fred can find is back at a drugstore working under a guy he used to supervise, oh and he and his wife can't stand eachother. There are struggles at work, talks of divorce and homewrecking, an underlying sentiment that some people don't get the risks the veterans took for their country, yet somehow this remains one of the least cynical films I have ever seen.

The talks of divorce had to be a bit controversial in 1946. And, one would imagine so would have putting so plainly teh struggles of the veterans to get respect at home. Not to mention having a real life war amputee in a lead role. But beyond all this is a true American poulist film that just could not be made in 2007. In on scene a man at a soda fountain tells a veteran he was a sucker for fighting the war, that we fought the wrong people, that all the facts are in the paper and all he has to do is read the facts. The veteran was taken back by this. This is in 1946. Such a scene in 2007 would seem absurd. In our media oversaturated culture everyone already knows there are millions with dissenting viewpoints to every view out there.

The film lasts three hours, and in the end you wind up believing and knowing that something good will happen for these characters and it does. The predictability of the plot does not even for an instant take away from the enjoyment of following these characters and wishing for that good you know that will come. It's hard to imagine that this generation will be identified with a film that matches this in stature.

Saturday's Lunchtime Links

2007-01-13T14:03:00.000-05:00

The past few days have been too full of martinis and gin and tonics to get any movie watching in. Oh, and that MLS SuperDraft. About 75-80 Crew fans showed up, suprisingly outnumbering Chicago's supporters on the day. And, then the Crew shocks us all by trading the number two pick for a player to be named later, effectively taking the air out of the group. Soon enough though, we found the player was Andy Herron from Chicago Fire, which brought some life back to the group. The Dispatch has a good rundown of draft day action, and Sigi's reaction. MLS season can't start soon enough. April 7 for those keeping track at home.

So after two days of drinking and chanting Crew songs in the middle of Indianapolis in January, I spent most of last night running through various blogs, etc.

Jim Emerson's Scanners has been in the in the midst of "Contrarian Week, almost all week. Plenty of good reading to be done there and some especially good conversation brought on by a Cinema-Scope article questioning, "Do We Really Need Scorcese?" Jim's take is here

David Bordwell has an excellent essay on Walt Disney.

Wong Kar-Wai films always get me. I'd been unable to figure out why. They just creep up on me. And as I find myself looking back on them days after seeing them I find myself thinking even more fondly of them than I did while initially viewing them. Possibly the best review or reaction I have read of 2046 is over at not coming. The final paragraph, especially...

I suppose this scenario fits the third category of romance, that is, the great obstacle to love. Here’s a film where the obstacles are the lovers themselves. They want to be together yet, unconsciously, tragically, they want more to have their lover break their hearts thereby completing the cycle of heartbreak which began with a former lover some time in the past.

Oh yeah, that's what hit me so damn hard about that film.

One more, at Unspoken Cinema is a blogathon on Contemplative Cinema, going on through the end of January. Contemplative Cinema meaning: the kind that rejects conventional narration to develop almost essentially through minimalistic visual language and atmosphere, without the help of music, dialogue, melodrama, action-montage, and star system. And there are already more than enough essays there to keep me busy throughout the weekend.

Finally, both Volver and Old Joy finally hit Indy this weekend. And with any luck I will see both next week, Tuesday and Thursday, hopefully.

Le Samourai

2007-01-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

There are more than a few French films from the 1960's that made me wish to be the lead character, Bob Le Flambeur, Breathless, or virtually any guy staring alongside Anna Karina in a Godard film. But few chatracters and few films just oozed the icy cool that Alain Delon does as Jef Costelo in the 1967 Jean-Pierre Melville film Le Samourai.

The film starts out with a long shot on a dark room. On the screen we see a quote about how nobody lifes the life of a loner like the samourai except, perhaps the tiger in the jungle. As the camera stays still on the room we notice that Jef is on the bed lying on his back smoking a ciggerrette. Smoke spirals up towards the ceiling, the room is all different shades of grey, black, and white, all hues that will stay as primary colors in this movie even though it was filmed in color.

Jef is a hitman, or a contract killer. The job we follow him to requires him to kill a nightclub owner. The scenes in the nightclub follow the idea that we have of Paris in the 1960's from some other films. It just looks hip as hell. Well dressed patrons and there is some live jazz being played. Jef tries to gow around unnoticed and though at one point is caught in the bathroom and he pretends to wash his hands while leaving his gloves on, a small slice of humor that Melville gives us. After he commits the murder though Jef is seen leaving the room of the crime and is seen suspiciously leaving the nightclub at an akward pace.

The nightclub owner was clearly an important man because the Paris police decide to bring in 200 suspects for the murder, all matching the description of a young man in a raincoat and a hat. Jef is one of those men brought in, and though he has constructed an airtight alibi the remainder of the movie is a cat and mouse game between him and the cops as they try to break his alibi.

Le Samourai is clearly an homage to American gangster and Film Noir pics of the 40's, 50's, and early 60's. From the raincoats/trenchcoats that many characters wear, to the jazz singer serving almost as a femme fatale, to Melville's use of the black, white, and grey color scheme, to the fact that you can't shake the feeling that somehow Jef is gonna have his ass kicked by fate.

A friend who has seen a lot more Melville films than myself commented that this film was part of an ongoing experiment by Melville to recreate the black and white film in color. If that was indeed, the experiment it should be noted that he suceeded here. The city always looks grey, the raincoats, hats, the apartments, all grey, black and white (with the exception of the woman who loves Jef). Even the black jazz singer whore a white dress. And it all looks fantastic.

But most of all the movie belongs to Alain Delon. He plays the role so perfectly. Any emotion he shows through is just quick and subtle, through his eyes, which show that he is just a kid, and he is definitely on his own. For long portions of the movie he doesn't even speak but instead we are forced to gather his emotions and thoughts through his eyes, or even his walk. There's a reason why the sleeve calls it a "career defining performance."

After watching Le Samourai I immediately wanted to by a raincoat, a hat...and a gun. But since that seemed unfeasable after midnight, I just settled for starting it over from the beginning.

Update: Beckham to MLS - Official

2007-01-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

It's on the front page of CNN. It's made the front page of ESPN. Hell it even made the front page of Drudge Report. Look's like Becks and Posh stole the thunder from Bush's Iraq speech last night.

Sources are now saying the deal is worth 5 years and 250 Million Dollars. If that seems absurd to you for a league that averages about 15k fans a game and has next to no tv revenue, you are not alone. I gotta believe the playing salary is somewhere between 10-15 million and the remaining 35 million dollars a year will be through sponsorships closely tied with MLS. Such as Addidas perhaps. Adidas already is the official uniform supplier for all MLS teams. And though Nike has the national team jerseys lined up, you gotta imagine that Adidas will be bringing Becks into your living room quite a bit this summer. I mean the salary cap for MLS teams is around 2.5 million. Per Team!!!! So Beck's has gotta be getting tons of sponsorship money which is what is being reported as the actual deal.

If that is the case this is still a great deal for MLS. The initial publicity already this morning is absolutely mega. It's now up to MLS to somehow sustain this. There lies the larger challenge.

Beckham, McBride, and MLS

2007-01-10T11:14:00.000-05:00

The MLS rumor mill is in full swing this morning. It is just days before the SuperDraft (yes, it's really called that) held here in of all places Indianapolis (more on that later). And now, apparently Fox and Friends reports that David Beckham is set to sign for the Los Angeles Galaxy in the near future. Soccernet is reporting that David beckham is on his way out at Real Madrid, but thats been known for some time. And it's been known for some time that MLS desperately wants him. In fact the designated player rule that MLS has put into place this offseason which allows teams to go over the salary cap is known far and wide as the Beckham Rule. So, with this Beckham Rule, who do my Columbus Crew propose to bring in? Brian McBride.

Let's talk Beckham first. Unconfirmed reports are that MLS will pay Beckham 36 million over 4 years. I am entirely on board with this. I understand many the arguments against this. MLS should be spending this money on player development. Doesn't MLS understand that these kind of contracts are exactly what sunk the last great professional soccer league in this country. Beckham will just be old here and collecting a paycheck and not give his all. I'll adress those one by one.

First, this 36 million to Beckham can go to player development, but what the hell does that actually mean? How would that be spent? A common argument is that MLS should have given higher dollar amounts to kids like Lee Ngyuen and Michael Bradley, or give dollars to Gooch Onweyu to return to MLS. Maybe, but look at the money MLS gave Eddie Johnson after a string of good World Cup qualifiers against never has beens. When you bring in a Beckham to this league it gives it intanst credibility and star power. Now you may have collegiate players deciding to stay and play in MLS with the added media attention it will recieve as well as the opportunity of playing alongside a legend. This is, in an extremely roundabout way an investment in player development. And yes, he still is a legend. The guy can still play. 36 million is not gonna sink this league. With the actual revenue coming into the league now through stadiums and what is still an absurdly small salary cap the league will not go boom under the weight of one contract. Finally, if Beckham were to decide to play in America, this is purely an ego move. Let's face it, the guy can still play for any number of teams playing in high levels of European competetion. But what does Beckham have to gain by playing for West Ham or Blackburn? What can he prove taht he hasn't already proven? But coming to America, and making soccer an actual topic of conversation, and more than a niche sport? That would be an accomplishment, and to just think of it takes an enormous ego. So come on over here Beckham, I'll purchase tickets for your first visit to Columbus and look forward to seeing you lose.

Speaking of Columbus, the Columbus Dispatch reports the Crew are looking a less than creative use of their designated player spot by eyeing Brian McBride. Once again I am completely for this move. Brian McBride was the face of the Crew for much of MLS's first decade. He is the greatest striker this country has produced. And he is showing at Fulham in the English Premier League that he can still play by leading the team in goals. If Columbus were to land McBride there would be moans that Columbus isn't looking towards the future that McBride is too old, and numerous other knee jerk reactions. Consider though, McBride has retired from international play and from all indications is on top of his game at Fulham. So, McBride would miss no more games for World Cup Qualifiers and would instantly give the Crew a scoring threat that they lacked last year. Instantly Brian McBride makes the Crew a better team, and his work ethic again serves as an example to the younger strikers on the team and brings their development forward. McBride won't get near Beckham money, but again, it's an investment in player development to bring in McBride to lead by example for the younger players. I would be thrilled if this would happen.

Finally, the MLS SuperDraft is Friday here in Indianapolis at the Convention Center. Yes, it's true that Indianapolis has no MLS team, but we do host conventions! And since the SuperDraft is held in conjunction with the NSCAA Convention and we hold that we get the SuperDraft as well. Awesome. I for one will be there with a sizeable number of Crew fans who will have made the trip out from Columbus. One would imagine Chicago will have a fair share of fans show up as well. As far as I know admission is free. And no, I don't know much at all about any players or prospects the Crew or any other team hopes to draft, but I look forward to making a day of it anyway and supporting my dearly beloved Columbus Crew. Perhaps I will see some of ya out there. Jim? Mike?

That's enough soccer for now, I guess.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

2007-01-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I am unsure exactly how films are marketed the way they are. I wind up questioning the marketing of the film, wondering why they chose to market it as such. And then I wind up questioning myself too, wondering if there was something I just missed along the way. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was just one of those films for me, and I am still wrestling with it.

First, it should be noted that while I particularly did not enjoy this film, it has been on countless year end top ten lists and is praised by nearly everyone. The film runs at just under two and a half hours and teh enitire time focuses on the travels of Dante Remus Lazarescu in hopes of getting care in a hospital for ailments ranging from pain in his temples, to a sore stomach, to constant vomiting. This normally would not be the kind of movie to sit down with a bucket of popcorn to watch, but all over the dvd box there was mentions of dark comedy and how this was done with a "devil's sense of humor." So that is more or less what I went into the movie expecting.

Outside of the first 15 minutes, I don't think I laughed once, and it's not that I expect belly laughs. I can live with and do appreciate subtle humor. I just didn't find much humor, subtle or otherwise in the film. And while the performances in the film were convincing, it just was a chore to watch, and that was the bigger problem. Cristi Puiu directed this using a series of long takes with a hand held camera. Though that sounded interesting to me at the start, there was nearly no time where the camera was still. It was almost moving or at least shaking the entire time. This did give the film a feeling of immediency and almost a documentary feel, but it also was the first time that constant movement of the camera made me naseous. In fact the constant shaking of the camera only served to make me more aware of the camera and less in tune with the story that it was filming, which is unfortunate.

I'm not entirely sure what I expected coming into this film. When I saw dark comedy and hospital my mind immediately turned to Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom, though I guess I hoped that it would be done with a bit more heart than Von Trier shows his characters. Or maybe I was hoping for something minimalist like the films of the Dardenne brothers. Instead I wound up watching a film that was maybe 35 minutes too long, and with a directorial style that unfortunately to the focus away from what could have been a more interesting story.

That Obscure Object of Desire

2007-01-06T10:04:00.000-05:00

Going in a completely different direction than Sweet Land last night I threw in That Obscure Object of Desire by Luis Bunel. This was the first full length film by Bunel that I sat down to watch and actually the final film that Bunel had made. From what I had heard of Bunel I had expected this to be a lot more nonsensical than it was. It was a rather straightforward if dark and and at times insanely frustrating story.

Mathieu walks into a travel agent and and puchases a train ticket to get back to Paris from Seville. After stopping home he tells his butler to burn a bloody pillowcase and some articles of womens clothing Mathieu goes to the train. He is friendly with those in his train car and eventually goes out to smoke a ciggerrette. Then he spots a woman and talks to a worker on the train. The worker on the train returns with a bucket of water, and when the woman comes to speak to him he dumps the bucket of water on her. Why did he do that, because drenching someone is better than killing them. Those sitting near Mathieu are puzzled why he did this. He explains to them that this woman is the dregs of the earth and goes on to explain why he did this. Matheiu narrates the story on the train and we watch most of the story in flashback.

Truth told there were a few times I was tempted to turn this movie off. I thought towards the beginning it was just more European misoginy posing as art. Conchita is the object of Matheiu's desire and nearly the entirety of the movie is Matheiu's point of view of what has happened leading up to the dumping of the bucket of water. So yes, of course despite Matheiu's best intentions and attempting to care for Cinchita finacially and in in other ways Conchita will not have sex with him, and Matheiu is slowly going crazy.

Conchita here is played by two different actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) one French and one Spanish and easily identifiable from one another. On my first viewing I am entirely unsutre why the use of two different actresses to play one woman were neccessary. The Spanish Conchita more often than not was the more sensual one, the more flirtatious one. The French Conchita was warmer, and friendlier perhaps without being sensual, but also was definitely icier than the Spanish conchita as well. I found myself through the a good portion of the movie trying to identify which one was colder, before a sudden shift happened.

I can't place my finger on exactly when, but I found myself at least as disgusted with Matheiu as I did with the women in this film. And as Matheiu is telling the story to his travelling partners on the train, they too take for granted that this woman who was drenched was the "dregs of the earth." But as the movie progresses we see mainly more than anything else Matheiu attempting to buy Conchita's affection. Money, houses, "I'll give you whatever you want he says." And while Conchita continually makes promises to give herself to him at various times throughout the movie Matheiu's sense of entitlement that he feels he has over her seems to always push Conchita away. This is not to say she is entirely innocent. By the end, Conchita and Matheiu are both dispicable characters.

Throughout the film there is also an undercurrent of violence. The emotional violence is always there, and at times this explodes to sexual violence, physical violence, muggings, and terrorist attacks. The film is uncomfortable as it is, with it's starts and stops of affection between the characters and the growing dislike that you manifests itself for each of the characters, and by the end when two absurd moments of violence happen I was confronted with how I felt about these moments if I cared how they affected each character.

On initial viewing the film last night, I really didn't like it. Reading up some essays this morning and other poiints of view and trying to understand where Bunel was coming from I found myself appreciating it more and thinking I may actually have misunderstood it and liked it. While writing this, now I find myself though unable to say I really liked the film. Yes, there is plenty to think about, and it's an exceptionally well done film. And even though at the moment I find myself to be pretty cynical of romantic relations, this was even a bit too much of that vein for my liking. Of course I know I will be discussing this film in the upcoming weeks with some others who have seen it, so perhaps my impression will change.

Sweet Land

2007-01-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I had preview passes to see Sweet Land but was unable to see it due to other obligations. I had seen the movie compared to some of Terrence Malick's earlier films and noticed that it was shot in 35mm which made me vow to catch it in the theater on the big screen while I still could.

The movie starts off with blurry images of workers and trains across the plains with the quotation written on the screen, "Let us hope, that we are all preceeded by a love story." The first ten minutes of the film are powerful as you see a son bedside watching his mother die, spliced with flashbacks, and a beautiful photo of her in her youth. We also see a real estate businessperson attempting to convince the son to sell his mothers land where she can put thousands of houses, and offers him $2.2 million. What follows is a story told almost entirely in flashback of his mothers life and the love story of her and her husband.

Inge (Elizabeth Reaser) is a German immigrant who comes to america almost as a mail order bride. Olaf's (Tim Guinee) parents (who are Norweigan?) have arranged for the marraige. When we first see her on the train she is holding an old grammaphone, which was shown at Inge's bedside as she died earlier in the film. She looks beautiful, stubborn, and entirely unsure of what she is getting into. When she finally greets the community she is about to join, she speaks very little english which provides a problem. "Only English in the Church," says the minister at the ceremony. Inge compounds this by speaking her native German. This is World War II America, this is the church going heartland, these are common farmers, but most of all these are Americans who know they are at war with Germany and are uncomfortable with a german in their mist. "She has beautiful eyes, but they are devious. That's what gives her away."

Inge and Olaf spend the entirety of the film coming into and out of the graces of the community around them and Inge attempts to fit in. The romance is a slow build between Inge and Olaf. You immediately can tell that Inge has taken more of a liking to Olaf than his friend Franzen. But Olaf doesn't want to run astray of the community and the church, in this town it seems the Church is the community. So when Inge makes a bold move to be with Olaf, and the preacher (the almost always magnificent Ned Beatty) sees them waltzing, not dancing, on the porch he decides he's seen enough that they need to be made an example of. Still, Olaf and Inge remain true to eachother and make attempts to remain true to the community.

Filming in 35mm did at times give this film the feel of one of Malick's mini epics. A few scenes especially brought Days of Heaven to mind. Though I do doubt that Malick would have spent as much time in small houses and churches as director Ari Selim did. that is not to take anything away from Selim. This is a beautifully shot and constructed film, and obviously one close to Selim's heart. Selim is the son of first generation Egyptian imigrants who came here only in 1953. And with World War II ominously looming over this film and it's German protaginist, comparisons can easily be drawn to our never ending war on terror or even war on culture. "She's in America now, you think she'd take time to learn the language," one character muttered. Still, Inge speaks as much in broken German, unsubtitled at that, as she does in English throughout the film.

Maybe thats one reason that the film just worked. Selim relied as much on imagery, facial expressions, scenery and at times silence as he did on spoken word. It didn't matter at times that we could not understand what Inge was saying and feeling. Through her performance, and the performance of the whole cast we felt what she was feeling. The script and this film could have easily been forgotten, or just tossed aside into the made for tv movie pile. But the performances and direction rose above that.

Sweetland is playing at Landmark Theaters in Castleton for at least 1 more week.

The rise and fall and rise of Ryan Atwood

2007-01-04T10:06:00.000-05:00

Let's take a break for a moment and move to the small screen for an appreciation/not-so-guilty pleasure of sorts. About 11 months ago, I wrote about my frustration with the OC. It was one of only a handful of shows that I set aside time to watch. There was Baseball Tonight, Scrubs (before it became terrible), Rescue Me and the OC. Last season of the OC was dreadful though. one of those that made me wonder why I even watched. 3 years back it was one of those cultural phenomenon shows. Two years back it was still very good, even if it lost some of it's audience. Last season it was terrible and lost a large portion of it's audience, and after this season it's cancelled.

I've recieved a few emails from friends ribbing me. "This must be a terrible day for you!" with a press release from Fox attached announcing the OC has only eight more shows. They have seen me defend the show to no end, including my somewhat embarssing defense of still watching it last season. But something strange happened, after the total shipwreck that was season 3, this season has been absolutely spectacular. Maybe even better than season one. Granted only a few of us are still watching. But the few that I know all had the same reservations. "Okay, I'll watch the beginning of this season, but if it's crap, I am done." A few weeks later that is followed up with, "Oh my gosh, this is fantastic."

And yes, it's soap opera. And yes, it's predominately spoliled white rich kids in lush surroundings (though this week a black character actually has a speaking part!). Check and check. Fair enough. But get beyond that and amazingly enough these spoiled kids (and adults) are handling their relationships with more maturity than say, um, the doctors on Grey's Anatomy. Let's not get it twisted, this isn't groundbreaking, earth shattering world changing televison. It's just a damn good show with a fine script, and actors with great chemistry, and great comdic timing.

It's a simple formula really and it has been followed from the first episode (for the most part). Ryan Atwood is picked up from the wrong side of the tracks, taken in by a rich family, lives in their poolhouse, attends tons of parties, gets in some trouble, but his coolness somehow rubs of on the son, which alltogether enhances the life of the family. Oh, and he gets to stick around and maybe fall in love. Simple right. A succession of really good and positive things happening for a kid who was not having any luck before. Throw in some seedy side characters, parental marital issues, typiacl sterotyped California rich people gossip weirdness, a villain here and there, a half decent soundtrack, and voila!

But in season three the succession of good things for Atwood turned to a succession of ridiculous bad things. His love interest from the first episode turned out to be a n alcoholic, self destructive freak. His best freind and I guess adopted brother blows the college admission of his dreams while smoking weed, and the father figure who was great for 2 and a half years suddenly becomes a business bottom line obsessed bufoon. No wonder viewers tuned out, who wants to see that?

I don't even know why I stuck around, to be honest but this season it's back to the absurdist formual from the first two seasons. New love interest for Ryan Atwood, and she's phenomenal. The Cohen's marraige is a rock, thus cementing Sandy in the TV Dad Hall of Fame, Seth is somehow engaged to Summer, and the self destructive alcoholic's younger sister came into the show and is a much better character than she ever was. And it's all phenomenal and a laugh a minute.

So yeah, like anyone else I like to see people end things at the top of their game. Like John Elway and Michael Jordan (the first time), we can now add another to the pantheon.

Ryan Atwood. Farewell, Kid Chino.

A look back at 2006

2007-01-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

Everyone else is doing lists so what the hell. A few things that I loved about 2006, and some that I didn't.

Things we liked...

1. The Paria Canyon. My goodness. I had never done anything like this before 5 days, 4 nights of backpacking in the beautiful Paria Canyon. 3 other guys. Great conversation. Great dinners, scenery that pictures don't do justice to. All in all it was just phenomenal. I hope to get back this summer.

2. The growth of the Indianapolis International Film Festival. This gets bigger and better every year and work looks like it's already begun in earnest for 2007. Even though I can't stand those Maysles brothers films I am already arranging to take off about a week round the time of the festival in 2007 and seeing as much as I can of the other films. For that matter, lets throw The Midwest Music Summit here as well. That was a whirlwind few nights and will be hard to top in 2007.

3. Finally getting a Netflix subscription. Truthfully I think that the state of video rental places can be summed up in what transpired this halloween. My roomate walked across the street, unable to find Halloween he asked at the counter if they carry it. "Not, the first one," said the clerk. Um, fair enough. Howbout, the Shining. "We have the made for tv version, but not Kubrick." Fantastic. In a city with no film revival theater, Netflix is a must. But please, let's also support the fine people at Mass Ave Video something I admittedly need to do more often.

4. The World Cup at Radio Radio. Just awesome. Magnificent. Fun as could be. Well until the actual games brought nothing but misery. Tufty and Roni were magnificent hosts, and the crowds were fantastic. Credit also to Brugge in Broad Ripple for doing their part as well.

5. Key Cinemas. That not as far out of the way as you may think little theater brought the best movie to come to American shores this year, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 release Army of Shadows to Indy. The theater continues to bring films that aren't even hitting our other arts theater up in Castleton since they sometimes show Davinci Code on two screens.

Other films that made 2006 happy L'Enfant, Cache A Scanner Darkly, United 93, and the unfairly maligned Marie Antoinette and The Fountain. The last two of course were overly ambitious, and flawed but fantastic films nonetheless. L'Enfant merely showed that the Dardenne brothers are the best and most consistent filmakers in the world right now. And, Cache's success has allowed Michael Haneke to apparently remake one of his earlier films, Funny Games, with new big name actors, which is puzzling.

6.Formula 1 staying in Indianapolis for at least 1 more year.

7. Finally, The Red Key Tavern and Luxor. The Red Key, just because. And Luxor, because it's some of the best food and nicest people in this city. Fantastic.

Things we didn't like in 2006.

1. Fracturing my damn knee cap in December. Just when I am getting in shape. Running longer and better than I have in years. Playing indoor soccer, weekly. Having designs on running the mini in my head, I fracture my kneecap and am on crutches for 6 weeks.
Bogus.

2. The World Cup as an event. Croatia and the USA go out on the same day in awful uninspiring fashion. Zidanne headbuts in the final. Italy wins the whole damn thing. Then the USA follows up their showing with a 6 month courtship of Jurgen Klinsman for coach only to fail and get Bob Bradley in instead. What the hell. For that matter, the Columbus Crew was even more disappointing than usual.

3. 38th Street construction. It's never gonna end.

4. Since the good always outweighs the bad, we will leave it at that.

The Set-Up

2007-01-02T10:35:00.000-05:00

For Christmas I got two dvd box sets, as I mentioned before. Warner's Film Noir Classics Collection's Volume 1 and Volume 3. Ten films between the two boxes of which I have seen only four so far. But with each film I feel like am learning something new or seeing something entirely different. In the Volume 3 box there is Nicholas Ray's film On Dangerous Ground. Robert Ryan stands out in this film, which is different from most noirs in that much of it takes place way outside the dark streets of the city. In fact at least half of the film is in snow covered rural farmland. After seeing Ryan's performance in that I definitely wanted to catch more of his films.

In the first Warner Film Noir Classics box is a great Robert Ryan film, The Set-Up. Directed by Robert Wise this film is an absolute gem. It's only 72 minutes long and flies along at that. Robert Ryan's performance is once again as good as you would hope and the boxing scenes have to be the most realistic set to film.

The story is simple 35 year old Bill "Stoker" Thompson is getting ready for a fight. His wife (the beautiful Audrey Totter) has become weary of the fight game. She is sick of seeing her husband beat up night after night and recalls an earlier fight when he didn't remember her name for two hours. But Stoker still has to fight, and he is convinced he is just one punch away from the big time. Problem is that his manager wants him to take a dive this night. He has money against Stoker and is working with Gangster Little Boy having assured his people that Stoker will lose tonight.

The 72 minutes go along in real time. You see clock at the beginning in the first shot and one at the end in the last shot that show exactly those 72 minutes have gone by. In that time you meet a myriad of characters. The woman outside who claims that she watches the fight with her eyes covered, though later you see her screaming for blood. You meet other fighters in the locker room all at different stages in the career or life, all hoping for something different out of the evening. The managers, the gangsters, and of course Stoker's wife Julie walking round teh city trying to decide whether or not she will go to the fight. Since it's a noir you could guess the ending won't be exactly a feel good ending, but it isn't entirely devistating either. Fate once again does deliver a good asskicking, but doesn't leave everybody entirely down and out.

Martin Scorcese joined Robert Wise on the commentary track for this dvd. He talks about how he screened this for his cast and crew during the filming of The Aviator and how the next morning people came up and asked him, "Do you realize thats a masterpiece?" He answered laughingly, "Yes, of course!"

The Post Christmas Post

2006-12-30T09:39:00.000-05:00

Life has been insanely busy. The home computer is acting strange and only turning on when it wants to. Working at a Childrens Museum allows for next to no Christmas vacation since all the kids are out of school and visiting the museum. But I'm getting by. Barely. I guess I'll just make a list of the Christmas haul here before hopefully having more time to write in teh upcoming weeks.

1. A fractured kneecap. This actually happened pre-christmas. It's actually a fractured kneecap and top of my tibia. Another indoor soccer injury. The bad thing is it seems to be getting worse over the past week as opposed to better. I am sure being at work at the museum, where it is impossible to get around 9000 people on crutches isn't helping matters. But supposedly I am on crutches till January 25. Needless to say I am frustrated and less than pleased to not be able to run or play soccer. But, considering I thought it was ligament damage initially, I am counting my blessings.

2. A sudden revival for yours and my Philadelphia Eagles. And what a great game on Christmas Day. Seeing the local Philadelphia broadcats after the game was ridiculous. The news anchors themselves could not contain their joy. They realized how much it meant to so much of the city for the Eagles to beat the Cowboys on Christmas day. Just sensational. And to think, a win vs Atlanta will give them teh division title on New Years Eve. How ridiculous. And at this rate, they have as good a chance as anyone in the NFC to make the Super Bowl. What a year. My Eagles Stadium blanket that I recieved will keep my warm at night as I dream of flying back to Philly for the superbowl.

3. A Toshiba Portable DVD Player I can't tell you how handy this came in when I was stuck at teh airport waiting out the traditional US Airways holiday delays. It will also come in contact for me at home and when I am travelling for work. I am just following my parents advice and not bringing it into work, so I don't get fired.

4. Two DVD Box Sets Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 1 and Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 3. The first of which I got with a gift card to Barnes and Noble. These will provide days and days of watching. Great films, great commentaries. I have two copies now of Out of the Past but i can give one to a friend if they are nice enough to me.

5. Giftcards for clothes, tons of food and drink at home, a Philly Sports book of Lists, a painting of the Queen II album cover by the guy who did the cover art to Pavement's Wowee Zowee album (I'm really not making that up!!), another Godard bio (this one not coming out till august, but it's preordered!) and much more.

Yeah, I got much more than I deserved for someone who has behaved poorly. Perhaps fractured kneecaps are the new coal.

I suppose I should get to work for the final time in 2006.

In a Lonely Place

2006-12-19T10:38:00.000-05:00

After recently watching In a Lonely Place I have made the decision to watch as many Nicholas Ray films as I can find. At only 90 minutes In a Lonely Place is a quick view, and seems even quicker that that. You have brilliant, snappy dialogue. You have great performances from Bogart and a sensational turn by Gloria Grahame. Good lord, where are Hollywood women like Gloria Grahame these days?

There is so much to love and appreciate in this movie. It starts out with Bogart almost getting in a fight at a traffic light and shortly thereafter punching out another gentleman at the bar. This is supposed to be our hero in the film, Dixon Steele. But when he is questioned as a suspect in a murder the scipt is written just well enough that we aren't entirely sure if he has done it. As a love affair grows between him and Laura (Grahame) we are seeing Steele's violent side at the same time she does. Of course, somehow you wind up rooting for Dixon and Laura to be together, but there is that overwhelming sense of doubt in the back of the mind too, or at least mine that made me wonder if that really is a good idea.

This is often classified as a film noir, but maybe not in the classic sense of a noir. For one, Grahame for as sexy, witty, and wonderful as she is, she just isn't the femme fatale in the classic sense. The film is all about Dixon attempting to beat his own ghosts. If anything she brings out the best in him. She doesn't lead him to his own darker side, he gets there well enough on his own. She's there to save him, not to destroy him. Beyond that, at moments this os just a terribly sad film. The kind that leaves you staring at the screen speechless and wishing for a different set of circumstances.

Lamar Hunt

2006-12-15T10:11:00.000-05:00

Someday soon, I will post about something other than death.

I heard the news yesterday that Lamar Hunt passed away. Earlier in teh week it was known that he was fighting on his death bed, and that the Hunt family was hoping for a miracle.

As a soccer fan it's hard to measure just what Lamar Hunt meant to the sport in this country. He was a true believer in the game and lost millions of his own dollars helping to get MLS off the ground. The fact that the league even exists right now just shows that we owe Lamar everything.

As a Columbus Crew fan, Hunt's influence is even greater. Hunt poured millions more of his own dollars to get Crew Stadium built. I remember watching the first game at Crew stadium on a TV on ESPN or ESPN2. It was tape delayed if I remember correctly, but I remember seeing a soccer stadium sold out, and IO couldn't believe my eyes. There was actually a stadium built specifically for a professional soccer team in this country. Since then, more stadiums have popped up for more teams all around teh country, but after attending over 50 games in Crew Stadium I can tell you it's still the best stadium and most important stadium in this country.

I was fortunate enough to meet Lamar very briefly many years back. I was at Crew Stadium, which was my home away from home those days and walking around before the game, proud as hell to be a Crew fan and proud as hell to be in that stadium. This was around the time when Oklahoma City was the rumored expansion team/target of MLS. Lamar was walkingbehind the North end of the stadium with two suits from Oklahoma. They walked for another view and lamar was just standing behind 137 looking out onto the field. I took the opportunity to just walk up to him and thank him for his stadium and muttered some other things. He smiled and we carried on conversation for a few minutes. Soon after, the Oklahoma suits came back over and Lamar says, "Hey, I want to introduce you to my friend Scot. He's travelled out here from indy for every home game this season and has gone to NY, DC, Chicago, and LA to follow this team as well." At the same time being friendly as hell and trying hard as he coudl to sell the game and the passion of teh fans that followed the game.

For years, many of us have refferred to Crew Stadium as Hunt Park. It's been as official an unofficial moniker as there is. When initial votes failed to fund teh stadium and when rumors swirled of teh Crew moving to Chicago Lamar put up his own money and got the stadium done in Columbus. It really is the house that Lamar built. We have Toyota Park in Chicago, the Home Depot Center in LA, Pizza Hut Park in Dallas, but somehow the naming rights to Crew Stadium were never sold. Maybe, it's beacuse it was already named in most of the supporters minds. Hopefully this season the Crew and MLS will make the name official and officially change the name over to Hunt Park. It's fitting, and it's the least that we can do.

United 93

2006-12-13T10:06:00.000-05:00

I gotta admit, I had no desire whatsoever to see United 93 when it came out. I really am unsure I even want to be writing about it now cause what can you say about those events that the film attempts to show. Last night, however, I did finally watch it.

I don't know what changed in my mind from the time the film hit theaters to a few weeks ago when I decided that I would take the two hours (though it turned out to be longer) to watch the film. Part of it had to be hearing admiration for the film, if that's even the right word, from people whose tastes I respect. Another part of it probably had to do with it being directed by Paul Greengrass who I thought did a fantastic job with Bloody Sunday a few years back.

I am glad that I watched it at home, on my own. I don't imagine I would have taken well to seeing it in the theater, beside some stranger chomping on popcorn or goobers. Or talking through the film, or giving political commentary through the film. Watching it at home also allowed me to pause the film 3 or 4 times as I was just gathering myself. I do think that Greengrass again did a great job, despite some websites calling hsi effort "a very special episode of 24." The images that were shown did not seem in anyway an attempt at shock or jingoism as I worried about and many of my friends worried about.

Whether or not the film is a cathartic experience as some reviews have said I guess would depend entirely on the viewer. I don't know if it was entirely cathartic for me, and I don't know whether thats what I wou;d have wanted it to be or what I was searching for either. In the end though, I didn't find the film distasteful as I initially feared it would be and it is a film I will never forget seeing. And at the same time one I would likely not watch again, and wonder if I would even reccomend it.

US Soccer hires Bob Bradley

2006-12-08T14:54:00.000-05:00

Huh. I had a whole 6 paragraphs expressing my confusion and disappointment over this hire. But shockingly, I seem to have lost it all except for the title.

I know it's only on an interim basis, still, I wish someone would tell me this was a joke. What a discourging hire.

The LA Times sums it us such...

"This is yet another grand opportunity missed by U.S.Soccer, and you just wonder how many blows it can keep taking."

It isn't all that mellodramatic. US Soccer will continue to exist, it's just very unlikely to move forward under Bradley.

Claude Jade

2006-12-05T16:06:00.000-05:00

Claude Jade died today.

Over the summer and the fall I watched all the Antoine Doinel movies. Like nearly any guy who had an affinity for these movies I completely fell in love with Claude Jade. She was Christine. She was the love of Antoine Doinel's life. And she was the girl that he pushed away. Through his cheating, and foolishness she was the girl he lost. Still after that it was clear that she still loved him, though she knew it couldn't be. I remember shaking my had at Antoine and at the situation when post-divorce in Love on the Run after a conversation waiting for a cab she asks Antoine to a movie. And Antoine says no. And I think to myself what an idiot. And then I realize in the same situation I may have done the same thing.

When I read of this death it hit me a little harder than I thought it would. In the Antoine Doinel films, especially those after the 400 blows, I think a lot of guys saw bits of themselves in Antoine, and sometimes especially in the way he made his relationships harder on himself than they needed to be. And I think that a lot of those same guys saw in in Christine, the girl that they wanted. Innevitably she was a little bit smarter than us, a little bit more pulled together, and of course her family was as wonderful as could be. And beyond all that, she was as patient as cold be. Whatever follies Antoine was going through on his own, or putting the two of them through she was always patient and always there. I, and I suspect many others, hesitate to say she was too good for Antoine. I've already projected myself onto Antoine, so then whoever the girl is would be too good for me. And thats not meant to sound melancholy as much as a whimsical smile appreciation for how much those characters came into and became a part of life.

From the Guardian obituary

The director's love shines through his alter-ego Doinel in Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970) and Love on the Run (1978), as Christine puts up with Antoine's foibles and affairs, patiently waiting for him to face up to the adult consequences of being a husband and father. Memorable scenes pass through the mind like a montage: her teaching Antoine the best way to butter toast in the morning, their writing each other little notes, his calling her "my little mother, my little sister, my little daughter" in a taxi, and she replying she would rather be his wife; her attempts to guess Antoine's latest job, amusingly suggesting cab driver or water taster, her reaction when Antoine hangs a scissors on her ring finger, his affectionate response to her wearing glasses in bed, the medium tracking shot of her legs as she stops at a shop for tangerines then heads up the stairs, as one of the neighbourhood men longingly admires them.

Truth told I haven't seen any other films she had been in besides Truffaut's Doinel films. Even if I had, I'd likely still remember her as Christine. I think I'll watch Bed and Board tonight.

Feeling a bit Noirish

2006-12-01T15:58:00.000-05:00

I recently viewed and then purchased Jaques Tourneur's Out of the Past. Actually I have viewed it about three times in the past week. I can't get enough of it. Robert Mitchum is outstanding. Jane Greer is a knockout. The dialogue is quick, snappy, and poetic as hell.It's one of those films where it's got that dark atmosphere and you know it's gonna end badly but you sit through 90% of it with a smile on your face because you wish you could come up with quick retorts like they do in the film. It's a whole different world.

Of course after watching that, I want to watch more Film Noir. I wasn't entirely sure that I would know where to start. I still don't know. Thankfully the fine people over at They Shoot Pictures suddenly have up a whole Noir primer, They Shoot Dark Pictures, Dont They? so now I have 250 more films to clutter up my Netflix queue with. But still I don't know where to start, if anyone has suggestions, let me know.

A bit more on The Fountain

2006-11-30T16:11:00.000-05:00

First off though, has blogger beta been a fuckin nightmare for anyone else, or is it just me? Goodness gracious. I can only ever log into this crap half the time and even then it takes me back to an old blog from 2004 sometimes. Thanks guys!

At any rate the fine people over at Not Coming had one of the better and fairer reviews of The Fountain I have read as of yet. Some money quotes....

Indeed, The Fountain is genuinely concerned with displaying the conflict between religion and science, with the present-day plot serving has Aronofsky’s most direct display of modern scientific practice, while the segments from other eras appear to be his musing on theological politics and spiritual tranquility. However, Aronofsky isn’t really interested in merely restating the simplified version of the argument and choosing sides. In fact, much like Aronofsky’s work on Pi, the director seems to view science as a means to achieve a greater understanding of our spirituality, but he also seems to believe our obsession with knowledge may cause us great torment and misery at our inability to comprehend the unknown divinity of life.

I find myself drawn towards stories with these sorts of themes. Was it too much studying of Philosophy at school? Is it that I find myself believing in the divinity of a life? I don't know. There are certain aspects of my own life that I find myself unable to fully comprehend or explain adequetely. For one, I'd love to give empirical evidence that my faith in a God is not misplaced. But I can not do so. That doesn't stop me from attempting to understand the most that I can of my faith and my relation to God. For me, I think there needed to be a point of letting go in my questioning of my faith for it to finally nourish itself completely. That isn't to entirely discard questions, as much as it is to not be obsessed by them. I don't think that wrestling for knowledge or doubting is the the opposite of faith. And I don't think science needs to be the opposite of religion either.

The one aspect that remains clear throughout all of Aronofsky’s filmmaking bravado is that he is convinced of the enduring nature of love within our infinite universe. Indeed it feels as if Aronofsky wholeheartedly believes love to be the only constant aspect within eternity and that his faith in that concept cannot be shaken. It’s the viewer’s reaction to this particular facet of the film and Aronofsky’s resolve that probably makes or breaks evaluation of Aronofsky’s efforts. Even if it’s disguised as a sci-fi film spanning centuries, at its emotional core The Fountain remains an earnest melodrama regarding a couple’s enduring love. Such sincere sentiment and genuine passion may be blissful for some, but I’m certain most will find such overtly emotional, almost maudlin, material to be downright awkward, if not embarrassing, within its sci-fi surroundings.

I've been thinking about this film far too much since I saw it on Sunday. But clearly one reason that it affected me so much is that I did not find the love story to be maudlin or akward in the overall story The Fountain was telling. As I said earlier and has been noted by this reviewer it is at the very core of the story.

So maybe that makes me a hopeless romantic. Those who know me well might just chuckle at that. So it goes.

2006-11-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, since my knee is still a disaster and I was unable to run around outside in the beautiful weather I went and saw The Fountain. I saw both of director Darren Aronofsky's previous films in the theater and liked them both well enough, though I wouldn't have considered either phenomenal he at least has been an intresting director to watch. I went into see The Fountain skeptical as can be, I really didn't expect to like it. But I came out thinking it may have been one of the best films of the year.

This film will divide audiences and critics into love it or hate it camps. It was apparently alternately booed and cheered at film festivals (much like Marie Antoinette). Green Cine Daily has a good summary of some of the reviews ranging from praise of the film to outright trashing of it. Some of those who have trashed the film have shown no quarter. Some have said while they didn't like it they certainly respected at least the effort. And even those that loved iit (like myself) can't say that the film is without some flaws.

For all the gnashing of teeth over what the film is supposed to mean, at it's core The Fountain is two rather simple formulas. A science fiction tale, and more importantly a love story. Hugh Jackman plays Tommy a Doctor who knows that his wife is dying of cancer. And in him trying to show how valiantly he loves her, by attempting to find the cure for her disease, he loses sight of his actual love for her. But, now add into this simple story another story which Tom's wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) is writing as she dies. The story starts in Spain a few centuries before and ends somewhere in a Nebula somewhere in the future. These stories all intermingle, hopping back and forth between past, present, future. There is talk of Mayan faith, obvious allusions to the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as Eastern Religion. Now maybe it becomes clearer why some see this film as entirely overwrought, ridiculous, and pretentious. And yes, it is all of these things. That may be the price that it pays for it's ambition, but as I said at it's base it's a simple love story. And also it runs only 90 minutes, which saves it from becoming to caught up in its own web. Another half hour may have made this film unbearable.

The story is at times hard to follow, and it requires a lot of the viewer. But, if the viewer just sits back and allows the film to wash over them, I think they will be rewarded. It seems to be the case that more often than not anymore people go to movies to solve the riddle instead of to actually experience the movie. In The Fountain if you are trying to solve the riddle it's too easy to lose sight of what is actually going on.

I could talk for hours about this film and really haven't stopped thinking about it since Sunday. The allusions to all different kinds of world faith can and will rub some people the wrong way. And while I am not entirely on the same page as the director on his view of life and afterlife (at least that I can tell from interviews I have read), I found it to be an extremely moving picture discussing the simplest and most important of themes, love and death, in a way that I haven't seen any film do in a very long time.

Friendly Persuasion, d. Wyler 1956

2006-11-24T11:17:00.000-05:00

After being intrigued by a review by Tim over at Xanadu I moved Friendly Persuasion a bit further up into my Netflix Queue. It finally came to the top, I watched it last week and I loved it. It's a film that will stick with me for a long time.

Like Tim, I was taken back by the first scence of the film. A goose prances around to lighthearted music while a young Amish child gives a voiceover about how much he hates the goose. Soon, the goose bites the child in the back of the leg and of course the child seeks out revenge on the goose. I was taken back by the tone of the scene and the music that accompinied it, but figured I may as well stick with the film. Two hours later I was looking back at the movie and questioning if one had trouble living a pacifistic lifestyle even back in civil war times, how can one try to go about living such a lifestyle now?

Friendly Persuasion tells the story of a Amish family in Southern Indiana at the time of the civil war. The family is devout in their faith and then is faced with challenges to their beliefs in pacifism when the Civil War reaches close to their farm, and then even more so when their son decides that he must fight on the side of the North.

The scene with the goose I mentioned earlier along with many others throoughout the first hour of the film point towards the more violent conflict of the civil war ahead. Whether it be a buggy race on the way to meeting, the chasing of the goose, a wrestling match at a state fair, or the purchase of an organ for a house who does not even believe in music in their religious meetings, the scenes seem incidental or inconsequential at the time. But when viewed as part of the larger whole of the movie it seems obvious that Wyler was showing us each different conflict, and their subsequent effect on the family as small act of violence. When the mother (Dorothy Maguire) reads the Bible to her son and prays asks him to pray about his decision the morning before he sets off to fight, it is the clearly the harshest confict and challenge to their faith the family had to deal with. But, it can also in hinsight be seen coming.

Gary Cooper plays the father, Jess, and has an extremely powerful scene when he is searching for his son and faced with teh opportunity to kill a confederate soldier. The Mother is faced with teh rebel yell of Confederate soldiers while her husband is gone and faces a greater challenge than she could have imagined, which also puts the first scene of the film in better perspective. And let's not forget the daughter who has fallen madly in love with a soldier fighting for the North from their community of faith.

In the end, the family is not ever going to be the same after all these events. And at once their is the feeling that Wyler is presenting the neccesisity of a pacifistic life and the impossibility of one and 50 years after it's initial release and in our current political climate, the film truly remains timeless. Not only are the questions posed pertinent today, the performances (by Cooper and Maguire especially) and comic moments still work well and do not feel dated at all.

Work, a lost Eagles season, a lost indoor soccer season? a lost blog?

2006-11-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week. The lack of posts sort of bear that out, but it really has been a busy week. Work is getting busy preparing for the holidays and my personal life has had me more or less running around in circles the past week or so.

Sadly, one thing I am not doing right now in this cool beautiful Indianapolis afternoon is actual physical running. This is in large part because I am unable to run, or even walk at a decent pace. About 15 minutes into our indoor soccer game Sunday evening I was chasing a much quicker player from behind. Through sheer determination and will, I wound up equal with him, but as I planted my left leg for an akward challenge that would have surely resulted in a foul anyway, I collapsed. My knee just entirely gave out. I lay on the ground for a good 3-4 minutes before being helped off the field. I swallowed some field turf after screaming into the ground, which was about as disgusting as it sounds. I have since been to IU Med Group. They could not do anything to really help me and the refferal process apparently takes a week from them. With the holidays, it will really be two weeks. So, next week, if my limp, which has only gotten slightly better, doesn't improve I may be building my own MRI machine to see what damage I may or may not have done. At any rate it's a foregone conclusion that I will not be able to play this Sunday outside of a miracle which is depressing as can be to me. I hate being injured, I hate feeling old. I hate typing this while housitting right next to a treadmill at a house I am houseitting and knowing I won't even be able to take advantage of that. Bullshit, says I.

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Earlier that very Sunday I was at Moe and Johnny's to watch the Philadelphia Eagles. I was feeling pretty confident about the situation. They were coming off a 27-3 victory and playing at home against a Titans team they should beat. But, then it all inexplicably came crashing down, like almost every season in Eagles memory as long as I can remember being a fan of this team. Donovan McNabb went down to a torn ACL and is gone for the season. The play didn't even look like anything significant. Less than one minute after McNabb was carted off the field I recieved a text from another long suffering Eagles fan that simply said, "We're done." He also gave me a ring Monday evening and we talked for 30 minutes about how this team has been on the precipice for half a decade and now just seem ready to fall into another decade of mediocrity. I don't want to sound like a Red Sox or a Cubs fan, cause I find them much more obnoxious and ridiculous than Philadelphia fans, and because they had other teams in their city win numerous championships during the Eagles drought, blunting the pain a bit. But, my word, the shit that happens to this team is ridiculous.

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As if to underscore the point about ridiculousness that same Monday that my friend and I were talking on the phone word came that ex Eagles safety Andre Waters had committed suicide. Andre Waters was the one of the mostr memorable players of the most memorable Eagles teams in history. Buddy Ryan's Eagles teams were always built on defense and an in your face attitude. And Andre "Dirty" Waters played and hit harder than nearly any of them. I look back at those teams now. I remember coming up from a canoe trip in the Pine Barens to see Reggie White speak at the Billy Graham crusade at the Vet one summer day, but only seeing him sob as he told the thousands there about his teamate Jerome Brown's death. I remember hearing that Reggie White died, and now Andre Waters. And I can't help but think, what the hell? And I can't be any more eloquent than that either. It's awful, its strange, and thats it.

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This is the first post I have had with the new Blogger beta. Actually this would have came two days ago, but I was unable to log in after upgrading. Thanks, blogger! But they have it fixed now, so now posts will be labeled at the bottom, even if I don't really understand what the labels do.

The Devil's Backbone

2006-11-16T13:46:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of films I am excited to see that are coming out towards the end of this year. But the one which excites me the most is Pan's Labrynth. But before seeing that movie I wanted to go back to another film by Guillermo Del Toro that I had remembered seeing a few years back and remembered really enjoying and that was The Devil's Backbone.

The Devil's Backbone is a ghost story told in an orphanage against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. As viewers we don't aren't given much of an insight into the Spanish Civil War, and a knowledge of Spanish politics isn't neccessary to actually enjoy this movie. This is because the film takes place almost entirely inside a orphanage where children are left after their fathers have either died or gone off to fight for the cause.

The film starts with a voiceover , "What is a ghost? a tragedy condemned to repeat itself..." among other responses. Soon after, we see a twelve year old boy, Carlos, being taken across landscapes that look straight out of a John Ford movie to the orphanage. When we get there if the ominous tone hasn't already been set by the ghost questions it is set when in the middle of the schoolyard we see an enormous bomb. Earlier we saw the bomb drop and not explode in a sequence that took place quite a while before, but now we see it is still in the schoolyard. Even though it's supposedly been switched off some children claim to hear it's heartbeat.

For the most part the film follows Carlos as he quickly learns who his friends and enemies are at this new place. He also learns quickly about "the one who sighs." Besides the wonderful visualswhat makes The Devil's Backbone so effective is that the ghost isn't just a ghost, it isn't their just for scares and thrills. Some thrills and scares are there, but mostly Carlos is attempting to find out who the ghost is, why he's a ghost, and what he needs or wants. carlos's curiousity and willingness to find out puts himself and friends in danger before leading up to one of my favorite movie endings of all time, and including another John Ford-esque closing shot.

The initial reviews of Pan's Labrynth such as this one at Not Coming have said it is a fairy for grown ups and a film that takes some of the themes and styles in Devil's Backbone and expanded them even more. That couldn't thrill me more. The Devil's Backbone may be one of my favorite ghost stories ever and if Pan's can top that, I can't wait.

Marie Antoinette

2006-11-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to seeing Marie Antoinette over the weekend. This film has so harshly divided critics and audiences that it supposedly got booed and also a standing ovation at Cannes. As far as the critics on Rotten Tomatoes it has recieved favorable reviews from just over half of the critics while the other half seemed to have loathed it. This was all coming off the almost universally acclaimed Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides which had me thinking that Sofia Coppola was suddenly a critics darling. I guess that faded away.

As for me, I loved this film. I think it is the best American movie of the year. I also think it's Sofia Coppola's best film.

A few days removed from seeing the film, I am struggling to see what some critics would find so offensive in this movie to attack it with the vitrol that some critics have. Yes, it's about a figure that is more or less reviled in France. But Coppola does not go directly at the politics of the era, instead she handles those issues subtely. Instead of showing a beheading or a peasant throwing a potato at her carraige we are primarily shown life inside of Versailles. And it is in this way that Coppola shows the politics of that time. We see the ridiculousness of protocall within Versailles. We hear the gossip within the walls. We see how the whole of the Versailles existed to watch the Queen and serve her, but this doesn't mean they neccessarily did this with a kind heart. Antoinnette was a synbol of an agreement with Austria handed over for France to make a Queen and proviode an heir to the throne. Coppola attempts to show in the film that she never was ready for this lifestyle and never had the chance to grow up. The themes of young women being made to grow up before they are ready is a theme Coppola touched on in her previous two films, and seems to have found different tones to tell these stories with.

Here for long parts, it looks like a fluff piece and may even be one, if you want it to be. The subtelty of the politics within Versailles is often taken over with extended scenes of Antoinette partying, shopping, eating, and partying again. I wondered before the film how Coppola's over stylized way of direction would work in a period piece, and it was during those scenes where this all could have gone wrong. At times this is all covered with a soundtrack of 80's new wave rock, but it worked suprisingly well in many of the scenes. Part of the reason was despite the music video feel of the trailer it was not an 80's new wave musical. There was some use of romantic era classical music as well.

And yes, those scenes did show ridiculous amount of excess which was enough to give you an idea of why such a queen would be despised by the French people. At the same time though, Coppola painted Antoinette sympathetically. This was especially shown to be the case in the way she chose to handle the matter of Antoinette's death.

I don't believe you need any familiarity with the history to enjoy this film. If you want you can gather rather broad political storylines from it. If you would rather sit back and just watch a beautifully filmed and paced story you can see that as well. When I look at the vitrol from some critics I can't help but think it's become part of teh build them up and then tear them down sort of criticism that has been prevalent in music and film recently. In the end though a few years from now, I do think this film will be looked back on as a rather remarkable achievement and likely the best of Coppola's early career.

An eventful weekend

2006-11-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

Let's see....

My roomate turned 30. We went duckpin bowling, and ate Egyptian food. Indy cats, check out Luxor for an awesome dining experience.

The Cougars fell to 1-2 after a crushing 12-0 defeat against a team of androids. A deflating loss, perhaps if we weren't playing against androids. Oh, and one of our best players broke and dislocated a toe. Solid.

I saw two great movies Marie Antoinette (more on that later) and My Darling Clementine. And one dissapointing movie, Tout Va Bien

And oh yeah, the strangest damn concert I have ever seen.

Friday night I headed down to Cincinnatti to one of my favorite venues to see one of my favorite bands, Twilight Singers do a show. Now, the last time that Twilight Singers played Southgate their was a mini Afghan Whigs reunion during the encore. This of course pleased the crowd tremendously, soince Greg Dulli was from Cinci at one point, and the Afghan Whigs has a very loyal following, many who have stuck with Dulli's new band the Twilight Singers.

So, the Twilight's initial set was great. Fanstastic. Superlative. Even better than when I saw them at teh Vogue a few months back. They exit the stage for the encore break. I go get myself and some friends a drink, figuring we'd be there another 25-30 minutes at least. When I am walking back, I think to myself, "Wow the crowd isn't as boisterous as I would have imagined. Given Dulli's reputation, I could see him not coming out for the encore." My friend Bruce was thinking the same. Shortly after I get back. House lights go up. Crowd gets unruly. Gear starts being taken down. Beer can flies on stage. And people start shouting at Greg Dulli's mom, who is in the balcony to get her son and the band back on stage. The house lights go up and down three more times before suddenly Dulli comes back out in sweats, and sits at the piano (the only isturment save one other mic not taken down by the crew so far) and tells the crowd, that they waited back there for five minutes and didn't hear shut so they didn't come back out. But Dulli then launces into a two or three song encore at the piano before calling it a night. It was a tense and ridiculous atmosphere. My friend Bruce called it, "the strangest concert I have ever been to that didn't end in tear gas."

This actually all happened. The guitarust Scott wrote on the Twilight's website...

So tonight, the exceptionally vocal and excited crowd suddenly became nonchalant and apathetic during the encore break. Honestly, we were surprised as we waited backstage taking the well-deserved five minute break that we rely upon before coming back out and tearing it up. So, we figured that the crowd was done and nobody (including you dear reader) likes to witness anyone else's sense of self-entitlement. So we went back to the bus. Show over, done deal.

So Jeff heads back into the venue fifteen minutes later and comes back on the bus to tell us that nobody has left and it looks like a riot is going down. I gotta tell you, we were a little shocked because it certainly didn't feel that way as we left the stage. So, after debating whether or not to head back onstage we decided that if the crowd felt that strongly about an encore, that we'd oblige. Due to the fact that our crew had torn the stage down and the only thing left was a piano and two microphones, we improvised.

Greg took to the stage, seated behind the piano and explained in only the way that he can why we'd not returned previously and then launched into what has become known as the 'Killogy'. At the end the rest of the band got on stage and provided vocal harmonies for 'Wolk Like Me'. All in all it turned into a remarkable musical moment and something I felt really proud of.

A unique night for sure and one I hope those of you that stuck around until the end will never forget, I sure won't.

Also now, Greg Dulli has an open letter on the Twilight's front page.

It appears that Scott's explanation of encore etiquette regarding the show in Newport, Ky on November 3 has drawn a divided response. Let me first thank those who wrote supportive words and expressed their grand enjoyment of that evening's performance. It means a lot and we all appreciated reading your observations of the chain of events that transpired. I too, thought it was a great show and the eventual encore had a unique and spontaneous magic to it that i truly enjoyed.

To those who expressed anger, confusion and/or feelings of betrayal, I offer my most sincere apologies for your having experienced these emotions. It seems that audience and band were on two different wavelengths in regards to how this particular show should come to a close. As Scott explained earlier, we waited in the back changing clothes and re hydrating in preparation for an encore. When we heard crickets, we believed that the evening was concluded and gave the signal that the show was over. This decision was not made with malice or disrespect, it was based on the five minutes of relative calm we heard from backstage. It was our mistake, perhaps, that we did not look out into the room to see that it was still full and I will take responsibility for that. And while I stand behind Scott's eloquent philosophy of the encore, I am humble enough to empathize with and respect those with a differing viewpoint. For those of you who traveled great distance and felt your evening incomplete, again, my deepest apologies. You mean a lot to me and the fellas and the last thing we want are bad feelings or unexplained unexplained decisions. We will somehow find a way to make it up to you in the future.

As for the full blown haters, I wish you the best and thank you for the love you once had for me. Based on a couple of you, it's probably best we end our relationship anyway. That wasn't a rock and roll concert for you, it was the Holocaust. Nasty, nasty and no quarter given. Ain't no good coming out of that and it's best we all move on.

As for me, I alternated between initial anger from the moment wishing to see the Afghan Whigs mini reunion that I had hoped for, since I never saw them live before. But the further removed from the situation I just laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. In the end, I fail to think of 5 concerts that were more memorable. The encore did have a spontaneous magic to it as was mentioned, even if it wasn't what I had initially hoped for. And as I said before, they are one of my favorite bands, and the set did not dissapoint.

So yeah, long live rock and roll. Or something.

Eyes Wide Shut

2006-11-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

I threw in Eyes Wide Shut earlier in the week for the first time in a few years. Amazingly enough, this is still the only Kubrick film I have seen on the big screen. I remember it being released soon after I moved to Indianapolis. I remember being thrilled to see it, and I remember walking out and having loved it. Earlier this week when I watched it again, for only the second time since that day in the theater, I came away feeling even more strongly about it than I had before. This has been my favorite Kubrick film for a while. But I truly wonder if it will ever get the recognition it deserves.

First, when it hit theaters, it was shortly after Kubrick's death and three storylines dominated all talk about the film, Kubrick's death, the Kidman/Cruise were married in real life and playing a married couple, and finally the talk of the mask party sex scenes seemed to dominate even the previous two topics. Watching it years after it's release one can drop the Kidman/Cruise side story if they wanted, we are a bit further removed from the shock of Kubrick's death, but the mask party sex scenes still remain and seem to be what people remember most about the film. To me, that seems a bit unfortunate.

When I watch Eyes Wide Shut I am completely taken in from the very beginning. The connection between Dr. Bill and his wife Alice is fragile at the get go. Dr. Bill seems so secure in their marital happiness. She asks how she looks before they go to the initial party, he says great, but without looking at her. She is visably bothered by this and Bill gives her an almost demeaning kiss while telling her she always looks beautiful. At the party Alice is drunk dancing with a Hungarian, and Bill thinks nothing of it as he is off walking with two women who want to lead him to the "end of the rainbow." Is Bill this naive about moves other men will make on his wife, or is he overly confident in how secure she feels in their love. Why would she leave him? After all, he is a Doctor, something we are comically reminded up numerous times throughout the film.

When Alice then mentions to Tom, there are other men she has imagined being with, that she would have been with if only... Tom is then visably shaken, and from there the film either takes off or annoys the hell out of people. I love it from here on out.

The Doctor walks the streets wondering how his woman could imagine being with anyone else. And then, it is as if cosmic forces align and every single person the Doctor comes in contact with is sexually attracted to him or has sexual interaction. After the doctor gives the speech to Alice in the bedroom about the differences between males and females, she turns the table on him entirely and seemingly has the power while stripping him of any feelings of masculinity, or protector, or maybe worst of all sexual provider. So as Dr. Bill goes place to place haunted by his imagination running amok of pictures with Alice and another man, the woman with a dead father in the room comes on to him, then the prostitute, a bell boy at a hotel, the daughter of the costume shop, and of course the Mask party/orgy where the Doctor is asked to strip naked in fron of the crowd. All of these opportunities for the Doctor to either regain some feeling of sexual dominance or manhood, or possibly even get back at his wife.

It'd be ridiculous to not mention the party here as well. The party, to me was not meant to be sexy. The party is in a way a nightmare. There have been few films which have left me with the feeling in my chest that the party left me with. It's an ominous, all together uncomfortable and horrifying event. Those who have walked away wanting that part, or the overall film in general to be sexier may have been missing the point.

And as to the casting of Cruise and Kidman. Kidman, as usual is excellent, complex, and wonderful. Cruise may be punching above his weight with this script but that is in part what makes it work! When Cruise is walking the streets confused as hell, unable to tell if he is living a dream or reality, the fact that it is Tom Cruise helps it to make more sense. I mentioned to a friend yesterday, that I wished at some point down the line people would be able to seperate the persona of Cruise and Kidman from the roles they play in this film and just enjoy it, but that may truly be impossible. And if that is impossible, than the sheer absurdity of Cruise walking around in the enviroments and situations he has walked around in may in fact actually be an advantage to the already intriguing story.

Some critics have mentioned they see a false note with the ending, and the reconcilliation between the Doctor and Alice at the end. Some of these people (like Mr. Ebert) are the same that love a scene just prior when Ziegler (played by Sydney Pollack) gives the most ambiguous explination of the Doctors last 48 hours? Was the prostitute really killed, what about the piano player. Ziegler says they were not, but can we trust him? Likewise when we see the Doctor and Alice shopping with the child and they agree to attempt to stay together and work things out, and make mention that they must "fuck" as soon as possible, are we to believe that will remedy everything. That maybe the act of sex alone will bring back the obviously more fragile than he outwardly shows Doctor to a feeling of security in his relations with his wife, personal and sexual? I am not sure what to believe. I am not sure the reconcilliation is anything more than ambiguious as well, which to me is a fine way to end the movie.

Sight and Sound's Critics and Directors Top 10's and 64th and Broadway's Top Ten

2006-11-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Four years have passed since the last top 10 from the BFI and Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll. But over at Greencine Daily yesterday they made note of it, and more specifically about Rules of the Game which I have inexplicably yet to see. About rules of the game, they said...

The Rules of the Game. There it sits at #3 in the most recent Sight & Sound Critics' Poll, #9 for the Directors'. And now that it's been restored from a master print, it's seeing a rerelease. J Hoberman: "It is required viewing, if only to understand the ideal that filmmakers from Robert Altman to Woody Allen have been after. And even if you think you know it, see it again for its newly rediscovered depth of field, and even more, for its infinite wellsprings of character and empathy."

That's then been bumped up a bit in the Netflix queue.

But the looking through Sight and Sound's top ten, and another gentleman's ambitious top 300 Movies list got me creating my own top ten list. One of favorite movies, which is slightly different than best movies. They are presented below...

1. Contempt - d. Jean-Luc Godard, France 1963 - Godard is my favorite director and this is his best. It's commentary on film, it's Homer's Oddesey, and marraige or at least the dificulty of marraige or love. On top of that it's beautiful to look at. And it has the most wonderful haunting score of all time. One that Scocese even borrowed for Casino. It's not for everyone. It may be viewed as cynical, but I love it and watch it at least once a month.

2. Band of Outsiders - d. jean-Luc Godard, France 1964. - Jean-Luc Godard once said all you need to make a movie is a woman and a gun. Here is a simple tale. An english class, a house by the river, a bundle of money, a romantic girl. It also contains my favorite film scene ever. You will know it when you see it. It oozes cool. This movie actually made me love film again after being lukewarm on it for years. And, Anna Karina is the most beautiful woman ever, and shines in this film.

3. Late Spring - d. Yasijuro Ozu, Japan, 1949 - Ozu is one of our greatest directors. His films move s-l-o-w-l-y. Some say at the pace of life. Here a father wants to marry off his daughter. She wants to stay and take care of her father. All Ozu films focus on generational conflict in Japan. This is the best and most affecting.

4. Au hasard Balthazar - d. Robert Bresson France, 1966 - - Yes its a film about a girl and her donkey and the hardships both go through. No it isn't just that. I was more affected by the life of this donkey than nearly any person in any film. Beautiful.

5. No End - d. Krysztzof Kieslowski Poland, 1985 - A woman widowed by her husband attempts to find solace by contiuing on his work in the Solidarity movement through legal trials, at least for a bit. Kieslowski is only behind Godard on my list of favorites. This may be the saddest of his works though.

6. Birth - d. Jonathan Glazer USA, 2004 - Yes, there is Nicole Kidman and a 12 year old boy she is convinced is her husband reincarnated. It's more than that, though. This film is all about memory though. And it's nearly perfect.

7. Before Sunset - d. Richard Linklater USA, 2004 - Before Sunrise should probably be counted in this too as one film. But this is the better of the two. As two people get older, they deal with memory, love, regrets, life, dreams. As romantic as it gets, and as perfect an ending as possible.

8. Ugetsu - d. Kenji Mizoguchi Japan 1953 - 16th Century Japan, two peasants try to get rich against their wifes wishes during war time. A timeless moral fable, and visually the most beautiful black and white film ever, save #10 on this list.

9.The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - d. John Ford USA, 1962 - The western is such an underappreciated genre. John Wayne may actually be an underappreciated actor. James Stewart is one of the all time greats.

10. A Place in the Sun - d. George Stevens USA, 1951 - The most beautiful black and white film ever made. Poor boy moves to LA to get job with rich uncle. Wants a place in the sun. falls in love with elizabeth taylor who was actually 18 and beautiful once, and then....Montgomery Clift is amazing in his lead role.

And just for good measure 20 which just missed the list...

11. Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders Germany 1987
12. Decalogue d. Krysztof Kieslowski Poland 1989
13. Small Change d. Francois Truffaut France 1976
14. Bob Le Flambeur d. Jean-Pierre Melville France 1955
15. Young Mr. Lincoln d. John Ford USA 1939
16. In the Mood for Love d. Wong Kar-Wai Japan 2000
17. Kwaidan d. Masaki Koboyashi Japan 1964
18. Do the Right Thing d.Spike Lee USA 1989
19. the Deer Hunter d. Michael Cimino USA 1978
20. Rear Window d. Alfred Hitchcock USA/England 1954
21. Crimes and Misdemeanors d. Woody Allen USA 1989
22. Three Colors d. Krysztzof Kieslowski Poland 1993-4
23. L'Aventura d.Michaelangelo Antonioni Italy 1960
24. The Searchers d. John Ford USA 1956
25. Beautiful Girls d. Ted Demme USA 1996
26. All the Real Girls d. David Gordon Green USA 2003
27. Solaris d. Andrei Tarkovsky Russia 1972
28. A Woman is a Woman d. Jean-Luc Godard France 1961
29. Le Petit Soldat d. Jean-Luc Godard France 1963
30. Eyes Wide Shut d. Stanley Kubrick England 1999

Army of Shadows

2006-10-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

Sunday night I made the trek down to Key Cinema's to see the restored print of Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows

The film is only in Indianpolis through Thursday, but it really is a must see. The story is pretty simple. We follow a group of French Resistance fighters over a 4 month period on Nazi occupied France. This isn't a shoot them up thriller by any means though. The tension is definitely present throughout the film, but there are very rarely any moments of release. Any victories are small, nearly even unoticeable, any losses are tragic.

There are maybe 4-5 primary characters that we follow throughout and they operate under alias's. They don't have a glamorous life by any means. They operate against a bleak grey landscape. They are in hiding most the time. They can't tell even their loved ones of teh work they are doing. If they are caught they are tortured, if they die, they will die an anonymous death. If one of their comrades or friends turns, they need to kill them. This isn't a James Bond espionage thriller.

History tells that Melville was actually a fighter in the resistance, which gives this film an extra whiff of authenticity. The story itself is chracter driven but the most memorable scenes are scenes of silence when the actors convey more with their eyes than any dialogue Melville could have wrote. Some of those scenes I'd like to talk about but I think hold the most power if you don't know they are coming.

As I said this is only here in Indy for a few more days. And Key Cinema's isn't really that far out of anyone's way, just off I-65. If you have a chance to see it, definitely take the opportunity.

A Woman is a Woman

2006-10-28T10:39:00.000-04:00

It may be true that I fell in deep film love with Anna Karina during Band of Outsiders, but if anyone really wants to see a film that Anna Karina just takes over entirely it must be A Woman is a Woman.

Truthfully, I had an awful week, and I just wanted to smile a lot and laugh, so I decided that last night at the end of my shift at Barnes and Noble that I would go ahead and purchase A Woman is a Woman and watch it after the end of the strangest, but higly entertaining World Series.

It's really impossible to catch the essence of A Woman is a Woman in just a few paragraphs. It was Godard's 3rd film. His first shot in color. His second with soon to be wife Anna Karina. It's a musical. It's a neo-realist musical. It's breaks all the rules of musicals. It pays homage to musicals. It's a tragedy. Or a Comedy. It's a masterpiece.

Angela (Karina) wants very badly to get pregnant. Her man at the time Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy) will have not have any of it. he's a bicycle racer. Champion cyclists are slower after their wives pay visits. So, she, on Claude's urging turns to their friend Alfred played perfectly by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Alfred has been in the film since the beginning and makes no secret of his affection for Angela. It is because Angela and Emile love eachother that everything will go wrong.

The musical aspect of this film comes and goes. Godard uses the template of a musical to play with sound throughout the film. Random bursts of song out of nowhere, seemingly having no real dramatic meaning. The actors wink, bow, and talk to the camera. Godard and his actors have all reached the level of celebrity by this point, so the actors reference Godard's previous films, films of Truffaut, and their own celebrity throughout. It's incredibly self concious, and fun as can be all the way through.

And yet, as strong as Brialy and Belmondo are the film belongs to Karina. She became pregnant during the production of the film, and eac shot Godard and cinematographer Raoul Coutard frame of her seem to be handled with the greatest care. She dances around the apartment. She cries, she laughs, she recites poetry, she sings, she stripteastes, she holds two men in her grasp. She's perfect throughout and never hits a false note.

A Woman is a Woman is incredibly romantic yet cynical as can be. Some could see it as painting women as unsure, simple minded, and maybe even dishonest. Some could see it as a total homage to woman, and specifically even maybe a valentine from Godard to Karina. I don't know that they have to be mutually exclusive. It's romantic and cynical. Optimistic and pessimistic. A comedy and a tragedy. It's a masterpiece. It's about as fun as film gets.

Army of Shadows coming to Indy

2006-10-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

To say I am excited about Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows coming to Indy would be an understatement. I have been jealous of friends in other cities who have had a chance to see this for months now. I checked the website weekly to see if there was any addition for an Indy showing, but nothing. It's not even noted on there now!

But, I check Key Cinema's website and there it is. Coming this Friday! Outstanding.

This film was made in 1969 and was not seen in America till this year. Some of Melville's work predated the the French New Wave, though this was made at the end of the 1960's as Godard was going off his rocker into Marxism and the FNW was sort of dying out. Yet, Melville is cited as an influence on the New Wave and is likely one of the most revered directors of the last 50-60 years for good reason.

At any rate, here is a description from Rialto Picture Website...

(1969) France, The Resistance:an escape from the Gestapo, so sudden and hairsbreadth as to leave the toughest of tough guys gasping with the icy sweat of terror and relief; two brothers remain unaware, to the end, of each other’s clandestine activities; patriots who, in relentless pursuit of traitors, must steel themselves to the most brutal of face-to-face violence. Lino Ventura (Elevator to the Gallows, Classe Tous Risques, etc.), aided by compatriots including maitresse of disguise Simone Signoret, goes underground in face of the German Occupation – but the price of heroism can be truly horrific.

Precursor of the New Wave and legend of the French gangster film Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samourai) realized the dream of a quarter century when he adapted “the book of the Resistance,” written by Joseph Kessel (Belle de Jour) in the white heat of immediacy. Melville turned the detached, unblinking gaze of his film noir classics on these memories of his youth – he himself served for years underground – adding a jarring finale of his own, so stoically uncompromising as to reduce Kessel himself to sobs on his first viewing. But Army of Shadows shared in the general U.S. indifference to Melville's now-acclaimed-as-classic oeuvre and was never released here – until now. Original cinematographer PierreLhomme personally supervised this superb new 35mm color restoration.

Cougars Update

2006-10-24T13:38:00.000-04:00

It's been a while and you may be wondering what happened to the premier indoor soccer outfit in all of Indianapolis, the Eagles. Well, truth told, we finished 7th out of 8 teams last season. Have no fear though.

The Eagles, much like Voltron, have morphed into a new outfit and are now the Cougars. There are a 4 or 5 holdovers from last sessions fan favorites, and plenty of new faces. The season started off last Sunday at 11pm with a 6-2 defeat. A bit unlucky of a result if I say so myself, we'll blame it on the start time and maybe the new faces needing to get adjusted to one another.

So, move on to this past Sunday when the Cougars had to play none other than Barcelona (can you believe it?). Luckily the Cougars seemed to have got it together and pleased the 10 or so fans that showed up and came out with a 3-2 victory. The game could have easily ended 9-3 or so, but finishing still seems to be a bit of a problem for the Cougars. Luckily there is a bye week this week before we resume play the following week.

We are working on t-shirts for our lady fans that say Cougars Meow. Maybe. But if so, they will definitely be hot!

Yi-Yi

2006-10-24T10:48:00.000-04:00

I had Yi-Yi at home for almost a week from Netflix. Such things happen when you are working 70 hours a week and you only have late evening hours to watch a movie and the movie happens to be 3 hours long. I actually started it two seperate times and got about 30 minutes in and realized I was not ready for the commitment of watching a 3 hour film at midnight. When I finally got around to watching it yesterday morning, uninterrupted and in it's entirety it took me a while to figure out how I actually felt about it.

Yi-Yi is set in present day Taiwan and follows one family over the coure of what seems to be a month or a few weeks. The film starts out with a wedding. Before the wedding a grandmother falls ill and needs to be taken home. Shortly after we find out she has had a stroke, and falls into a coma, which sets strange things in motion for nearly every member of the family. The mother (and daughter of the grandmother) feels her life is empty after she feels she has nothing to say to her mother as she lies in a coma. She goes on a religuous retreat. NJ, the father of this family ran into his first love Shelly by chance at the wedding. As his wife is at the religious retreat he needs to go to Japan for business and takes that opportunity to meet up with Shelly again to examine the "what if?" Ting-Ting, the daughter can not sleep as she feels Grandma's stroke is her fault since she did not take out the trash. She takes Grandma's stay in a coma as a sign that Grandma has not forgiven her. Meanwhile, she has her first experience with love, or something close to it. Finally, Yang-Yang the 8 year old son gets in and out of trouble at school and somehow becomes the most endearing kid I've seen in many years of film.

At first glimpse at a story like this, I think "I have seen this movie before, family overcomes tragedy hardship through the collective human spirit and everything is terrific. Hurrah!" But this film didn't work like that. In fact there was a ridgidity or lack of closeness that seemed to penatrate all of this families dealings with one another. You almost never saw them together in the same place except for the large gathering of the wedding and two other points in the movie. There were not any moments where you had teh Hollywood father daughter/son heart to heart talk. Yet at the end of the movie, after a very well written and emotional final few words I felt deeply moved. And because of the apparent lack of closeness in the family I could not initially tell if I had been duped by an terrufic finale, or if teh film itself actually had that hold on me the entire time.

Truth told, the first two hours of the film I found myself wondering why I should care about members of this family, or there stories. It wasn't till the final hour that the stories connected in a way to make this family seem like, well, a family. And while it may have been maipulative "we are all connected, by certain moments" storytelling, it worked. Also, as has been pointed out in some other reviews the lack of closeness i tended to observe may not have actually been what I thought, but instead a commentary on the compartmentilization of city and family life in Taiwan. And, truthfully, I don't think that feeling is limited to just taiwan, I get the feeling it is very much present in modern city life in America. It's been present for ages, and was even explored in the Jaques Tati film Playtime while talking about 1960's Paris.

In the end, while I think Yi-Yi could probably have used a bit more editing and cut away maybe 30 minutes or so from the run time, I did find it to be a much better film than I had anticipated, even if it doesn't live up to the "modern masterpiece" title that some have given it. It's a film that is beautiful to look at, deliberately paced, and leaves you with quite a bit to think about even days after seeing the film, which is an achievement in and of itself.

Notre Musique, d. Godard

2006-10-19T15:17:00.000-04:00

I was nervous then getting ready to watch, Notre Musique. The last Godard film I watched, In Praise of Love may have been the most visually beautiful film I have seen of his, but parts of it just did not click for me. I have such high expectations for Godard that I wish to love every film of his. I am happy to say that I found Notre Musique much more to my liking as a whole. In fact afterwards, I felt as if I'd been hit by a train.

Later Godard films don't seem to be about plot, they seem to be more about ideas or just a vessel for Godard to talk about film, quote literature, and discuss the world. In fact even in the 60's half of his films were that way, but the dramitic swing for him may have come with Weekend. Notre Musique is told in three parts; Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Godard calls these three parts Kingdoms.

The first is Hell. Hell goes on for ten minutes and is footage of war with a piano soundtack. The editing is remarkable. Some of it is real war footage, some of it is film footage, but no distinction is made. Ther are sparse moments of narration over this. But mostly we are just watching war footage. It very effectively gets across the idea of hell.

The next Kingdom is purgatory and here we have the bulk of the film and the bulk of the ideas. Here we also have Godard playing himself. At one point he holds up a photo and asks where and when the photo was taken to a gathered crowd at a conference. They guess Sarajevo, where most of the film is taking place. But it is a photo of a charred building in Richmond, Virginia in 1855. He's telling those in sarajevo that teh war is nothing new. It's been going on forever. We are given the usual Godard quotations and moments of dialogue. Questions like, "Is it okay for one to invade another over inferior poetry?" Or, "Why aren't revolutions started by the most humane people." We witness an Israeli and a Palestinian journalist go into dialogue. We have the Palestinian mention how they are fortunate to have Israel as their enemy, because everyone cares about Israel. An Israeli journalist visits Sarajevo because she wants to see a place where change is possible. Throughout the Purgatory section, people just contemplate their place in a world that is constantly at war. By themselves the questions look trite, vague, and maybe pretentious. Throughout the film they come together to create a much greater and emotionally resonant whole.

Last is paradise, paradise is only the last 10 minutes of the film, like Hell was the first 10 minutes. In Paradise we see a woman who we met in Purgatory. Though the voice over of that is of a woman whom we believed to be dead. Paradise though is a strange place. We see a woman walking arou walking around a densely vegitated forest. We see it's fenced off. Some people are playing games. One person shares an apple with Olga under a tree looking at the river. Two kids sit by a fence with guns. It's a strange and confusing ending to the film, but yet one that somehow fits. The whole movie is about war, and our relation to it, and in paradise we see kids with guns at the fence. And afterwards, and especially with the world as it is now I couldn't help but wonder, will it ever end?

Days of Heaven, d. Malick

2006-10-17T11:43:00.000-04:00

It's a shame that I haven't seen any Terrence Malick films until the past few months. Just a few months back I saw Badlands for the first time and though I didn't so much care for the story itself, I found myself likeing the way it was presented and definitely enjoyed the direction. Days of Heaven was Malick's second film and in my opinion a wholly more enjoyable film than Badlands.

The story is simple enough. Early 1900's America. It's a love triangle that goes horribly wrong. Bill (played by Richard Gere) needs to leave Chiacgo after assaulting his foreman in a mill. He and his little sister and his lover leave and find work on a farm. Bill and his much younger sister refer to Bill's lover as his sister, because as teh narration tells us it's easier that way since people talk. The farmer develops a love for Bill's lover/sister Abby and Bill, knowing that the farmer will soon die, convinces Abby to marry him in hopes that they will inherit his money. Simple story, and obvioulsy, anything like that is bound to end tragically, and 93 minutes later it does.

But, somehow this film became much bigger tha the sum of its parts. First may be Malick's direction. Scenes never seemed to last longer than 2 minutes or so and semlessly disolved into the next. Most of these scenes were set against a wide expanse of the plains and were just soaked with beauty. Then, there was the narration. The naration was done by Bill's younger sister, seemingly years after the fact and seemingly far removed from the events. In the narration she doesn't even seem to fully gather the wieght of the evnts weare seeing, or maybe it is her distance from the events. In any case, it provides an odd and stark contrast to the story we are seeing on screen. The end result for em after 90 minutes was a thought that I had seen something far greater than the sum of it's parts. After only 90 minutes I felt as if I had seen a far longer, far more epic story.

There was a discussion started at Criterionforum on the film just last week where someone started off by mentioning the characters as detestable. Perhaps it's just my state of mind but, I found them far from detestable. I did not condone the actions of Bill, and if I really loved someone, I would not let them go for thoughts of future riches, but I understood the motivation. It's a risky proposition to be sure, but it's not one I saw as entirely selfish. Also in that discussion at Criterion Forum was a link to a very good piece on the film, which goes into great detail on the social and political norms at the time the film was set. In the end, even though I have only seen two of his films now, this film is enough to catapult Malick iup to a list of favorite directors for me.

The Weekend Ahead, good times in Indy

2006-10-12T14:31:00.000-04:00

It's a good weekend to be in Indy. Better yet if you are in Fountain Square, where most of the action is. Or if you live at my house, which is 20 yards away from a secondary hot spot.

Starting Friday night at the Luna Music at 52nd and College the consistently excellent Mojave 3 will be performing an in-store at 6pm. Their latest album Puzzles Like You is this guy's second favorite album of the year. The new album finds Mojave 3 in a much poppier more upbeat place than some of their earlier work. Not that their early work wasn't poppy and wonderful, cause it most certainly was. It just did not get the booty shaking like many of the songs on the new record do. That instore is just a warm up for their show Friday evening at Radio Radio which I will definitely be at. From looking at last night's setlist in Chicago, it looks like it will be a fantastic show, with Tim O'Regan (formerly of the Jayhawks) and locals Svetlana opening. I will be there for sure.

Before that show though, why not stop by Big Car Gallery. At Big Car there will be an opening for Local artist Kyle Ragsdale and his new show Unbeknownst, which sounds pretty awesome.

In this show, artist, Kyle Ragsdale and historian, John Beeler have collaborated to shed light on several long-forgotten events in Indianapolis’ history. Ragsdale’s paintings beautifully capture the mystery of these often overlooked stories. Beeler’s accompanying text provides the fascinating details of the people and places buried in the city’s past. As Beeler explains, “We are not just trying to dig up new information, but rather recast some of these places in a different light. We have made every attempt to shimmy up to the "truth" of each place, but all of us are well aware that truth is an elusive beast. After all, "history," wrote historian Carl Becker, "is an imaginative creation."

Saturday may be a day of rest. Actually I will be working from about 8am-11pm. I just don't want to think about it.

Sunday is gonna be interesting.

The cats who have made my favorite album of the year Asobi Seksu are playing at Radio Radio as well. My #1 and #2 shows I would want to see here in one weekend! Ridiculous, right? Too good to be true, correct? Actually, yes.

A new indoor soccer session kicks off Sunday night at the Sportzone up on 66 and Coffman (a ways from the wonderful smoke free environs of Radio Radio and yours truly has kickoff at 11pm Sunday evening. Obviously, I can not miss the first game of the season. But, obviously I am meant to see Asobi Seksu.

Thank you Luna Music. Thank you for opening a store within spitting distance and giving Asobi Seksu an instore so I can see them at 430, even though I will miss them later that day. If you like walls of sound, or songs sung in Japanese, or just well constructed songs, you can't miss this. I saw these guys a few years ago on my birthday, and it was one of the best concerts I had ever seen. It still is.

A great art opening, two great in-stores, a two great and affordable shows at Radio Radio ($20 will get you into both!), and the start of a new indoor soccer season. Fantastic.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, d. Weir

2006-10-11T18:54:00.000-04:00

1900 Austrailia. A group of girls from an all girl prepatort school go out for a picnic. 4 girls disappear. 1 is later found but doesn't remember a thing.

It may sound ridiculous to say, but Picnic at Hanging Rock is about everything that I wish a suspense movie to be. From the opening shot straight through the end of the movie there is an air of suspense that does not let up.

If the viewer actually allows their mind to wander, there are about 1000 explinations for what could have happened, and where these girls could have disappeared too. The thing is through the storytelling, and through the search for the girls, almost none of these thoughts is discounted or eliminated. It could be what you think, it could be something different alltogether.

Each time the camera comes back to Hangin Rock I was watching closely looking for a sign, looking for some sort of clue, but really, there is none. There are no scary monsters, no goblins, no gratuitous shots of blood. Yet, through the ridiculously haunting score, or maybe the way the light catches the rocks, or maybe the rigidity of the characters in their 1900 way of communicating there are more than a few uncomfortable moments.

There are many articles written on this movie, some of which talk about how supressed sexuality which to this viewer was very clearly apparent and gave the film a further eeriness. But, in the month of October, when it seems in vogue to watch some good thrillers or horror movies, this is one that I know I will find myself coming back to again and again. It's the air of mystery, the lack of closure that will have this film stand up to repeated viewings.

Playtime d. Jaques Tati

2006-10-10T10:12:00.000-04:00

Our motto is slam your doors in golden silence... We were the first to study silence It's strange that the first two scenes or moments that come to mind after viewing Jacques Tati's Playtime were actually few of the moments where dialogue played a role. Playtime as the sleeve suggests is a largely silent film. This however really only speaks to the relative lack of dialogue. Throughout the film sound does play a major role. Whether it is the infectious theme that pops up and plays throughout, the bustling sound of the city streets of Paris, or the band playing at the end.

I had a vague idea of what I was getting into when I threw in Playtime. I knew that it was going to be a man, attempting to run an errand in Paris, but he would continually be engulfed by the city, or by tourists, or by a combination of the two. What I didn't expect is that I would have a smirk on my face the entire movie through. There were a few laugh out loud moments, but overall, the film was just warm and kept me smiling the whole way through. The sets and streets of Paris are so modern looking that I almost felt like I was watching a film set in the future. For some reason it made me think of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville but there the streets with no additional effects were made cold. In Playtime through Tati's interaction with his surroundings what I thought of as initially cold in the end left me smiling the whole way through.

I'd highly reccomend this film, if for no other reason than you just don't see anything like this made today. As Johnathon Rosenbaum stated in his essay the sharing of space that we see in this film simply doesn't happen anymore thanks to technology. But beyond that it's just a very engaging and thoughtful film, and though at times the characters look like complete buffoons, at the end I couldn't help but walk away optimistic, even if I didn't know what exactly I was optimistic about.

2006-10-09T12:23:00.000-04:00

I never could have scripted that. Best Eagles game in 2 years. My voice is entirely gone. Speechless. It will take a day or two to get back to normalcy.

Focus, Focus, Focus

2006-10-06T11:46:00.000-04:00

Is anyone else finding it impossible to focus this week? I mean we are just two days away from the renewal of the greatest rivalry in all of worldwide sports. The soon to be Super Bowl 42 Champion Philadelphia Eagles vs the Dallas Cowboys.

Bounty Bowl. Bounty Bowl 2. 4th and 1 James Willis to Troy Vincent

The Pickle Juice Game.

Lito Sheppard's 101 yard INT return in 04.

Michael Irvin's last game ever.

I get chills thinking about these games.

I have not been able to focus all week.

I haven't mentioned TO yet. These games mattered before him. They will matter after him.

Sunday can't come soon enough.

Fly Eagles Fly

Philip Glass and the Photographer

2006-10-04T14:54:00.000-04:00

I'm a sucker for Philip Glass. I like the guys soundtracks. I love his operas. It's true that numerous rainy winter afternoons I have just laid down and listened over and over to all three discs Einstein on the Beach. Some people can't stand his music. I love it.

I was lucky enough to see the Indianapolis Symphony do his Symphony No. 5 a few years back and was incredibly moved. I found myself lucky enough to see the Philip Glass Ensamble do a performance of Koyanaquatsi in front of a screen projecting the film down in Bloomington a few years ago as well, which may have been the most special thing I have seen to date.

Now this month, we here in Indianapolis get a performance of The Photographer.

Nuvo tells the story here

Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs documenting the movements of animals and humans helped make the development of motion pictures possible. The story of his life, though, is better suited for theater.

A story told by using what Butler Theatre Department Chairman John Green calls “the theater of images,” The Photographer focuses on Muybridge’s killing of his wife’s lover, a military officer named Larkyns, on Oct. 17, 1874, after he found their love letters. Muybridge greeted the man with these words: “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here is the answer to the letter you sent my wife.”

Muybridge then shot Larkyns. A court ruled the killing a “justifiable homicide.”

Glass’ telling of Muybridge’s story segues from language to abstract movement. Part one uses words from court transcripts, letters Muybridge wrote his wife from jail, letters she wrote to her lover, letters her lover wrote to her and things Muybridge said in court, all pieced together with poems by Walt Whitman and Thomas Hardy in a sort of language collage. Music written by Glass accompanies the material.

Part two is what Glass calls a concert: It’s a 14-minute orchestral piece with violin solos, during which slides of Muybridge photos of human and animal locomotion are projected, plus some other video.

Yes, I am excited. Very, very excited.

Don't Come Knocking, d. Wim Wenders

2006-10-03T08:34:00.000-04:00

It's a bit difficult to watch when an artist either musically or in film has obviously lost the ability to create anything as powerful or meaningful as his earlier work. This isn't meant to come across as snobbery, this isn't about when someone has a crossover hit and someone outside the cool indie crowd starts singing their praises. This is more about when, in this case, you finish watching a film and you are unsure what the point even was.

I love two of Wim Wenders films. Wings of Desire is just about the most thought provoking and beaiutiful film I have ever seen. And in college, Paris, Texas was different from anything I had seen up until then. So, I was naturally excited to find out that the latest Wim Wenders film Don't Come Knocking reunited Wenders with playwrite and screenwriter Sam Shepard for the first time since Paris, Texas. It seemed to have the same quirky pseudo western feel about it too. But, for me the film just failed.

In the end the script just wasn't there. You have a washed up movie star returning to the town where he filmed one of his earlier films after his mother (whom he hasn't seen in 30 years) gives him news that inspires him to change the course of his life. Before all this, the film star (Sheppard)went AWOL from a films set and is being tracked down so he can go finish the film and honor his contract. The cast did as well as they could with this. Tim Roth, Sam Sheppard, Jessica Lange, and the always strangely intriguing Sarah Polley especially, were all at least competent in their roles. But, in the end it was difficult to connect with any of the characters.

Wenders has made a very good career of using the setting of his films to his advantage in storytelling. Wings of Desire would not have been nearly as bautiful outside of Berlin, or without Wenders overhead shots of the city. Paris, Texas had it's ridiculously beautiful landscapes that almost seemed to come straight out of a John Ford film. And in Don't Come Knocking Wenders has the town of Butte, Montana. And, there are numerous wonderful shots, and a decent eeriness and something special about the place to be sure. But, in the end it still just seems like a town without a decent story to tell, or maybe Wenders and Shepard just picked the wrong story to tell.

Back From South Bemd

2006-10-02T12:18:00.000-04:00

It will be back to work starting today for a crazy month after my last real excusrion of the summer, even though I guess it's technically fall. My dad came out last Thursday evening and we went up and visited his alma matter, Notre Dame and caught the Notre Dame vs Purdue football game.

As expected Notre Dame had their less than impressive victory against an inferior opponent. They only beat Purdue 35-21 after being ahead 28-7 with a minute left in the first half. In addition we got absolutely drenched for most of the third quarter. But that added some character to the game, truth told. And I have viewed too many soccer games in the pouring rain to be too bothered by it.

Regardless of the actual outcome of the game there is something special about being on Notre Dame's campus for a football weekend. Especially when my father graduated from the school. And when you live 700 some miles from home and the football weekend is one of two times a year you actually get to see family. As for the campus itself, it's one of those places where even if the football team was absolute crap, something would still be special about a football weekend up there and keeps me hoping that these trips remain a tradition each year.

At any rate, hopefully this week I will get back to some regular writing. It's scary movie month, and I finally got around to watching Wim Wenders Don't Come Knocking so yeah.

A Busy Week

2006-09-28T09:03:00.000-04:00

A total lack of updates.

But, Netflix is taking 4 days to send me movies anymore.

I am in my 16th day in a row at work. Seriously.

It is my last day though this week, thank god.

Tomorrow I head up to South Bend with Dad to see Notre Dame vs Purdue.

And cross my fingers that the Phillies can make up this game in the wild card.

Did anyone watch that game last night? My. God.

Come on Phils, Come on Irish, and stop slacking, Netflix.