It’s funny how humdrum everyday employment manages to eat up so much mental bandwidth. I’ve had almost no brainwaves worth blogging in months. Dull, dull, dull. But now the becalmed feeling is GONE. The day job finished over a week ago, and since then we’ve shot a music video and I’m about 70% through editing it. Fantastic! It is so good to be master of my own schedule again, even if it’s just for a few weeks.
I love reading well-written arguments from different sides of the global warming polyhedron.
First: Contraception Fights Global Warming from Salon.com
Second: The Population Myth from Monbiot.com
Personally, (and, I confess, as someone who has no plans to procreate) I found the Salon article quite convincing at first, but was wondering how the numbers stacked up. It was reaffirming to read George rightly pointing out that the groups experiencing the largest population growth are normally the ones who contribute the least per capita to carbon emissions.
What happens when you translate the first line of a Dylan song into Japanese and back over and over again until it translates into the same English phrase twice?
Chris Marker’s Junkopia is watchable online. I really love the framing and the rhythm of the cutting in this piece, and the way each shot of an object reveals a different aspect depending on angle and context, both spatially and within the film’s own timeline (”narrative” seems too strong a word). There is something reminiscent of Ozu’s little transitional sequences here.
The film was shot in Emeryville, near the east section of the Bay Bridge, but unless I’m mistaken the co-ordinates in Marker’s intertitles appear to be for somewhere in Redwood City.
David Lynch was thrust into development of Dune too early in his career, it seems. The producers’ idea was to profit on the success of Star Wars by creating another sci-fantasy epic, but a standard length feature film is not a big enough container for Dune, with all its plotting, counter-plotting and Messiah-creation.
I’ve now seen both the original theatrical release, on which Lynch has the director’s credit, and the TV edit, which is attributed to Alan Smithee. It was the Smithee version that I just watched. The producers, showing an absolutely dreadful grasp of the possibilities of film, front-load about three hundred years of exposition using a dull voiceover and a bunch of hastily assembled paintings, some of which recur multiple times. The aim, apparently, was to save time in order to cut to the action quicker, but seeing as it takes about ten minutes to outline everything, it is deathly, deathly boring.
I think most people who are aware of Dune know that Lynch had to struggle to trim his rough cut from about four hours down to about two and a half, and that as a result the story is unclear and under-motivated. It feels as if a missed opportunity flies by every five minutes, but despite this, there is still something interesting buried in the narrative rubble. Much of the time the production design is evocative and hints at a society that exists beyond the screen, and there is something that sticks with you in the dream sequences — which is what you’d expect from Lynch’s direction. Performances from Kyle MacLachlan, Max von Sydow and Patrick Stewart are commendable, and there’s an almost unparalleled moment of male objectification when Sting steps out of a futuristic shower clad only in a large white nappy while his uncle, an evil duke, coos and drools over him.
Probably the best way for Dune to be brought to the big screen is as a trilogy, pitched somewhere between the original Star Wars movies and the Lord of the Rings. One would hope the latest crew to attempt to make it would dig Lynch’s early four-hour rough cut out of the archives as part of their research, because as imperfect as it is, there is something worth salvaging.
The missus is re-reading David Mitchell’s number9dream for the dissertation. Every now and then she reads a bit aloud for me.
I watched for a while longer. Not much happens in Paris Texas.
“Sort of slow, isn’t it?”
Buntaro licks his hand.
“This, lad, is an existentialist classic. Man with no memory meets woman with huge hooters.”
I really enjoy days when I write and she reads.
A River Runs Through It is Robert Redford’s 1992 period feature about three men and their relationship to God, fly fishing and each other. Seeing as God and fishing are two of the subjects most likely to put me to sleep, I was astonished to find that not only did I stay awake throughout, but that I genuinely enjoyed it.
Much of the credit for this film being watchable has to go Redford. His style is relaxed to the point that it appears effortless, but getting this much authenticity into a film takes serious effort. The cast is excellent, Redford allows them time to find their own cadence, and editors Lynzee Klingman and Robert Estrin cut sympathetically with those rhythms. The way that characters continue living outside the boundaries of the frame is reminiscent of Renoir’s French Can-Can; the shots of Montana rivers and mountains are gorgeous without being pretty; the whole thing is so very sensibly restrained and wise that if I were a more religiously informed person, I’d say for certain that it’s designed to evoke the feeling of the Presbytarianism that crops up throughout the film, but as it is, I can only guess.
You know that festival organizers are on the ball when they send each filmmaker an individual email with a link to where to buy tickets for their film’s screening. Thanks, Boston!
Click here to buy tickets for “Julie, Julie” at the Independent Film Festival, Boston.
Warning: spoilers after the jump.
It feels as if Samuel L. Jackson has spent the last few years sliding into self-parody in formulaic big-budget films, so I was keen to see him exercise his craft in Lakeview Terrace, an exploitative little thriller set in the LA suburbs. Likewise with its director, Neil LaBute, who caused a stir fifteen years ago with misanthropic indie movies like In the Company of Men, but whose last credit before this was a nasty-looking remake of The Wicker Man, which I refused to see on principle. The idea of both men reminding us why they’re worth watching by getting back to basics is very appealing.
Lakeview Terrace pushes on the pressure points of race relations. Young bi-racial, college educated, hybrid-driving couple Lisa and Chris Mattson (Kerry Washington and Patrick Wilson) have just moved from Oakland to the LA suburbs and are celebrating their freedom from the supportive but smothering influence of parents. Abel Turner (Samuel Jackson) is their cop neighbour, a friendly and authoritative lawman who works a tough beat in the inner-city and spends his off-duty time policing their suburban neighbourhood for fun. But of course, in films like this suburbia is never what it seems on the surface. The threat to normality is present from the very beginning, as Lisa and Chris check the reports on the summer wildfires to be sure that their new home is safe.
I’ve spent this week up to my armpits in jpegs, pngs, html, css, mp4s and H.264, and this is the result. Please, friends, take a look and send me screenshots and news of how the site works for you. I’m especially keen to find out how it works on Windows computers running Internet Explorer, because as a Mac user, I am sheltered from the vagaries of Microsoft’s browser. For all I know it might display in cyrillic on Windows.
Notice how the “Screenings” page of the website lists two festivals! Hopefully the first two of many.