I guess I've been away for a while. I don't know, I guess I haven't really had much to say. Everytime I get something, I seem to lose it between the thought and actually sitting down at the computer. But I feel like now, I've got some thoughts that I just can't shake.
Nate and I just got back from United 93, head over to his blog for some interesting thoughts on the subject. Before I get to the movie, a little history should be provided to preface my thoughts as a whole.
When I first even imagined the idea of a movie about the events of the morning of September 11th, I was against it. I thought they were doomed to fail given the fact that the images most likely to dominate the film were images we all saw happen on tv, and in a lot of cases, with our own eyes. I thought, how could a film, a piece of celluloid or maybe digital video recreate an action we all saw? Special effects cheapen it (see Pearl Harbor) even a real life recreation can't compete with the images of life processed in the human mind. I personally, never thought it would actually happen.
Then I read that Paul Greengrass had a project in the making and suddenly, I did a complete flip flop. For those of you not familiar with Paul Greengrass, he directed a movie back in 2002 called Bloody Sunday (if you haven't seen it, go out and rent it as soon as possible, or if not possible, I have it and I will loan it to you). Bloody Sunday is about the clash between the British Military and unarmed protesters in Derry, Ireland that ended with the deaths of 13 people. It's one of the most stunning recreations of a dramatic event that I have ever seen. Greengrass gives a documentary like immediacy to the action that does more than put you there, it surrounds you. He centers right at the heart of the violence and finds the heart of the wounded, it's the most we can hope for from an artist. So when I heard he was taking on United 93, my fears were assuaged a little. Here was a filmmaker that I trusted to respectfully represent this material. I also trusted him as someone with a non-exploitative agenda, I knew he wanted to make this film as a filmmaker, not as a thoughtless purveyor of an easy sell.
Nothing can prepare you for this film. I need to stress that more than anything, if you even have the slightest inkling of a doubt about seeing this movie, than stay home. I do not feel this is something every american should see as their patriotic duty, I do not think this is a movie every citizen of the world should see as their humanitarian duty. This is a film about a nightmare and I do not urge people to re-live nightmares. If you want to go, than go. I went because I respect the power I see in movies to represent all the things our minds and bodies are capable of. I went because Paul Greengrass is an artist I respect and I want to see his work. I went because this movie is important, good or bad, it is important.
I have never had an experience in a movie theatre (or life in general) comparable to the one I had sitting in that dark room on Second Avenue watching United 93. Visercal doesn't even begin to describe it. This movie squeezes hard and it does not let go. I can't even say it's let go of me yet. There are images in this film that even if you shield your eyes, your mind will recess into the deepest coils of your memory and bring back that same awful feeling you had in the pit of your stomach when you first heard the news. The overwhelming surge of mis-communication that occured as fear and panic took over and you were unable to discern whether the horrific or the truly horrific was actually happening. This movie captures all of that and with a precision and compassion that is undeniably moving and truly heart wrenching. I don't know what else to say, I guess all I can say is that I didn't think a film about 9/11 could move me because I'm still trembling from that day, what more could a film do? Whatever that is, United 93 did it. I'm sure I will write more about this, but I'm still lost as of right now.
More stuff coming soon, new Pearl Jam album on tuesday, graduation, all kinds of stuff. I want to write again, and hopefully I won't forget to.
Remember...
sing loud
sing louder
sing to feel
sing for everyone
please sing loud
sing louder
sing to heal
sing for everyone
sing for life sing for choices
sing for everyone without voices
sing for...
love - laughter - everyone here and after.
fear - hatred - everyone less than sacred.
life - choices - everyone without voices.
you can pray while they all keep sinking away.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
City of justice, city of love.
Oh wait,
That's gotham city. Nevermind
As most of you know, we are venturing off into the deep blue yonder of paris, france for a week.
I know that I probably don't post enough to necessitate something like this but I'm going to get back into the swing of things.
Therefore, I just wanted say au revoir for the week and I will see you all when I return.
Until then...
It's the letter, the letter that never came.
Dearest Children, Since we have been abroad we have missed you all so much. Certain events have compelled us to extend our travels. One day, when you're older, you will learn all about the people we've befriended, and the dangers we have faced. At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may, in-fact be the first steps of a journey. We hope to have you back in our arms soon darlings, but in case this letter arrives before our return, know that we love you. It fills us with pride to know that no matter what happens in this life, that you three will take care of each other with kindness, and bravery, and selflessness as you always have. And remember one thing my darlings and never forget it - that no matter where we are, know that as long as you have each other, you have your family, and you are home. Your loving parents.
That's gotham city. Nevermind
As most of you know, we are venturing off into the deep blue yonder of paris, france for a week.
I know that I probably don't post enough to necessitate something like this but I'm going to get back into the swing of things.
Therefore, I just wanted say au revoir for the week and I will see you all when I return.
Until then...
It's the letter, the letter that never came.
Dearest Children, Since we have been abroad we have missed you all so much. Certain events have compelled us to extend our travels. One day, when you're older, you will learn all about the people we've befriended, and the dangers we have faced. At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may, in-fact be the first steps of a journey. We hope to have you back in our arms soon darlings, but in case this letter arrives before our return, know that we love you. It fills us with pride to know that no matter what happens in this life, that you three will take care of each other with kindness, and bravery, and selflessness as you always have. And remember one thing my darlings and never forget it - that no matter where we are, know that as long as you have each other, you have your family, and you are home. Your loving parents.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Unleash Mr. Beast
To piggy back off of nate's post, the new mogwai cd is really really good. Pitchfork said it was too soft for their tastes, but like I usually say, fuck pitchfork. Mogwai has the ability to make their sound sound new and unique every time they put out an album. And, yes, the cd is soft but it rocks at the same time. I'm really really impressed, and I don't get impressed too easily.
New Pearl Jam single is out, World Wide Suicide, it's starting to get stuck in my head, and it rocks. Thank god pearl jam is coming back to whip us into shape and kick our asses into submission. I'm excited about the new album (i know i'm always excited) but this time it's different. The guys seem more invigorated more enthused than ever about the shit they're putting down. On top of that, Stone Gossard said it's their most accessible album to date, which would make some people cringe, but I'm cool with it. I think it just means they made a rock record, nothing that's going to play on mtv, but a straight ahead rock record still has the ability to rock. People said Takk was Sigur's most accessible album to date, if that's what passses for accessibility these days, I'm down.
Yeah, the oscars sucked, but they always do. I didn't watch them this year, which was kind of weird because I usually make a point to watch them. I'm kinda bummed I missed some of stewart's stuff, it sounded quite quirking. I like the idea of the political ads, especially about dame judi stench. Getting back to the winner, I thought all the actors were deserving but what's with everyone turning on Reese Witherspoon now? Apparently she's too perky, too cute, god forbid somebody is excited about winning an oscar. Now I didn't see her speech so maybe she was noxiously annoying, all I know is she and joaquin made walk the line, without them, the movie sinks. That doesn't mean it's bad, I thought it was a fine flicka show. But something happened between those two, and you can tell because sometimes the movie soars with them at the helm. I just think that if an actor can take lesser quality material and upgrade it, that's a performance. Look at what Denzel did with training day, would that movie had been a tenth of what it was if a lesser actor attempted that part? They would have made alonzo just a psycho-path, Denzel made him something ten times scarier, a psycho path we understand. Sorry to go on the rant but I was just thinking about how awesome Denzel is. Anyway Reese deserved it, she should be happy, I hope she does more good work in the future.
As for the best picture debacle, people are comparing this to back in 98 when Shakespeare in Love won over Saving Private Ryan. First of all, no, Shakespeare in Love is a fantastic movie, just as much deserving of the oscar as SPV was. Crash blows ass and does so on every possible level (except for the acting, which is the only reason it is remotely watchable). If I hear one more person sing its praises about how groundbreaking the movie is, I'm gonna shoot out my own knees. Spike Lee made a a movie back in 1989 about race relations, it was called do the right thing. Shit didn't even get a best picture nomination. The point is Do the Right Thing is a perfect movie on all accounts, script, style, and direction. There's not a false note or a wrong turn anywhere on screen, it's perfect. That and You can count on me are two of the most perfect scripts ever written for the screen, at least that I've counted. I'm sure there are more. Anyway getting back to do the right thing, there's something very fishy about the fact that Spike Lee has been screaming and hollering for almost 20 years about race relations (everyone knows I love spike and I don't mean that in a bad way) and for some reason when a white guy like Paul Haggis makes a movie like Crash, people think its groundbreaking and it wins. To me Crash is one of those pat yourself on the back feel good liberal race movies where you say, oh my god people are awful but thank god I'm not like that. That makes people feel good about themselves, Do the Right Thing makes you say, oh my god, I'm like that and I'm capable of that as well. That doesn't make people feel good, hence, no oscars. It's alll bullshit, but just so people are sure, not only do I disagree with the politics of crash, it was also a lousy movie. I wouldn't be nearly as pissed off as I am if crash had been a well made, well written film, which it is not.
Now, for something positive...
I'm on a roll, this way I won't have to write another post for at least ten years.
We finished Golf The Movie this past weekend, and whatever I say will probably cheapen into some sort of hallmark sentiment. But I was really blown away with everyone's performance, the cast, the crew, the hospitality (mom), I couldn't have even imagined the help I got. There is something so exhilirating about watching a bunch of people busting their ass to make a creative endeavor as good as it possibly can be, and to watch those people get excited about the process, it's a thrill I don't even want to try to describe because I don't think I can. I just want everyone to know that I am forever grateful and that this is one of those things I will never ever forget, for as long as I live. This is for everybody who helped in anyway possible with this movie. I owe so many people favors and whatnot that I will probably never be able to repay them. But, it's good knowing you got people like that in your life backin you up. And on that note, a little kevy dev...
And I have been feeling this good for a reason
my friends and my family
you all are my backbone
you keep me balanced and settled
and I'm in debt to you all endlessly
Yeah I'm in debt to you all endlessly
New Pearl Jam single is out, World Wide Suicide, it's starting to get stuck in my head, and it rocks. Thank god pearl jam is coming back to whip us into shape and kick our asses into submission. I'm excited about the new album (i know i'm always excited) but this time it's different. The guys seem more invigorated more enthused than ever about the shit they're putting down. On top of that, Stone Gossard said it's their most accessible album to date, which would make some people cringe, but I'm cool with it. I think it just means they made a rock record, nothing that's going to play on mtv, but a straight ahead rock record still has the ability to rock. People said Takk was Sigur's most accessible album to date, if that's what passses for accessibility these days, I'm down.
Yeah, the oscars sucked, but they always do. I didn't watch them this year, which was kind of weird because I usually make a point to watch them. I'm kinda bummed I missed some of stewart's stuff, it sounded quite quirking. I like the idea of the political ads, especially about dame judi stench. Getting back to the winner, I thought all the actors were deserving but what's with everyone turning on Reese Witherspoon now? Apparently she's too perky, too cute, god forbid somebody is excited about winning an oscar. Now I didn't see her speech so maybe she was noxiously annoying, all I know is she and joaquin made walk the line, without them, the movie sinks. That doesn't mean it's bad, I thought it was a fine flicka show. But something happened between those two, and you can tell because sometimes the movie soars with them at the helm. I just think that if an actor can take lesser quality material and upgrade it, that's a performance. Look at what Denzel did with training day, would that movie had been a tenth of what it was if a lesser actor attempted that part? They would have made alonzo just a psycho-path, Denzel made him something ten times scarier, a psycho path we understand. Sorry to go on the rant but I was just thinking about how awesome Denzel is. Anyway Reese deserved it, she should be happy, I hope she does more good work in the future.
As for the best picture debacle, people are comparing this to back in 98 when Shakespeare in Love won over Saving Private Ryan. First of all, no, Shakespeare in Love is a fantastic movie, just as much deserving of the oscar as SPV was. Crash blows ass and does so on every possible level (except for the acting, which is the only reason it is remotely watchable). If I hear one more person sing its praises about how groundbreaking the movie is, I'm gonna shoot out my own knees. Spike Lee made a a movie back in 1989 about race relations, it was called do the right thing. Shit didn't even get a best picture nomination. The point is Do the Right Thing is a perfect movie on all accounts, script, style, and direction. There's not a false note or a wrong turn anywhere on screen, it's perfect. That and You can count on me are two of the most perfect scripts ever written for the screen, at least that I've counted. I'm sure there are more. Anyway getting back to do the right thing, there's something very fishy about the fact that Spike Lee has been screaming and hollering for almost 20 years about race relations (everyone knows I love spike and I don't mean that in a bad way) and for some reason when a white guy like Paul Haggis makes a movie like Crash, people think its groundbreaking and it wins. To me Crash is one of those pat yourself on the back feel good liberal race movies where you say, oh my god people are awful but thank god I'm not like that. That makes people feel good about themselves, Do the Right Thing makes you say, oh my god, I'm like that and I'm capable of that as well. That doesn't make people feel good, hence, no oscars. It's alll bullshit, but just so people are sure, not only do I disagree with the politics of crash, it was also a lousy movie. I wouldn't be nearly as pissed off as I am if crash had been a well made, well written film, which it is not.
Now, for something positive...
I'm on a roll, this way I won't have to write another post for at least ten years.
We finished Golf The Movie this past weekend, and whatever I say will probably cheapen into some sort of hallmark sentiment. But I was really blown away with everyone's performance, the cast, the crew, the hospitality (mom), I couldn't have even imagined the help I got. There is something so exhilirating about watching a bunch of people busting their ass to make a creative endeavor as good as it possibly can be, and to watch those people get excited about the process, it's a thrill I don't even want to try to describe because I don't think I can. I just want everyone to know that I am forever grateful and that this is one of those things I will never ever forget, for as long as I live. This is for everybody who helped in anyway possible with this movie. I owe so many people favors and whatnot that I will probably never be able to repay them. But, it's good knowing you got people like that in your life backin you up. And on that note, a little kevy dev...
And I have been feeling this good for a reason
my friends and my family
you all are my backbone
you keep me balanced and settled
and I'm in debt to you all endlessly
Yeah I'm in debt to you all endlessly
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Happy Valentine's Day
I guess I've given up on writing anything anymore...
As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wonderous thing happened, why not? They vaporized into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets - including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them - Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could've been happier, unless it would've also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!
Happy Valentine's Day.
As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wonderous thing happened, why not? They vaporized into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets - including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them - Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could've been happier, unless it would've also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!
Happy Valentine's Day.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
to: elliott, from: portland
I always do this, I know. A real post is coming soon, I promise.
It's just that, whenever someone writes anything about Elliott Smith, it's usually very touching. The other day I was listening to one of his songs (or a cover) I'm not sure, anyway, I thought to myself: I wish he was still around. That's all.
Here's what the man wrote,
To his fans, Elliott Smith was someone who told your sad story and made you feel like you were not alone. He took your desperation, your toils and torments, and he made them beautiful, and in doing so he made you beautiful.
To those who knew Elliott personally, he was a tortured soul, full of love and grief and an insatiable desire for something more.
For all his odes and allusions and beautiful references, Portland thanks him. For making the darkness of this world gorgeous, we all thank him. May he rest in peace
-Anthony Davis, Expunged Records
P.S. I actually found a decemberists song I can stand listening to. It is an elliott smith song but progress is progress.
It's just that, whenever someone writes anything about Elliott Smith, it's usually very touching. The other day I was listening to one of his songs (or a cover) I'm not sure, anyway, I thought to myself: I wish he was still around. That's all.
Here's what the man wrote,
To his fans, Elliott Smith was someone who told your sad story and made you feel like you were not alone. He took your desperation, your toils and torments, and he made them beautiful, and in doing so he made you beautiful.
To those who knew Elliott personally, he was a tortured soul, full of love and grief and an insatiable desire for something more.
For all his odes and allusions and beautiful references, Portland thanks him. For making the darkness of this world gorgeous, we all thank him. May he rest in peace
-Anthony Davis, Expunged Records
P.S. I actually found a decemberists song I can stand listening to. It is an elliott smith song but progress is progress.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
We have to overcome the idea that everyone is the same.
Hey, it's time
To move away and shine!
You can be all you ever want
In a dream.
You can take time along the way,
Let this music in your head.
You can be all you ever want
Inside a dream.
And if you take this time,
And you will move their minds,
You'll find it's all in a dream.
It's the only way
For you to be...
To move away and shine!
You can be all you ever want
In a dream.
You can take time along the way,
Let this music in your head.
You can be all you ever want
Inside a dream.
And if you take this time,
And you will move their minds,
You'll find it's all in a dream.
It's the only way
For you to be...
Friday, January 27, 2006
And if you see me down at the liquor store, please don't tell my dad. And if you see my dad down at the liquor store, don't tell me anything at all.
A couple of things I wanted to share...
I watched Junebug again tonight, really strong flick. The direction, the performances, and the script are all fantastic. Movies like this have become a joke, newly christened spouses introduced to a backwards-ass family, they've been done to death. This one is so careful with its observations and so natural in its tone that it feels quite outlandish at times. You forget that not every family has a sex crazed barbara streisand as its matriarch. Anyway, I wish I could have put it in my top ten cause it really was one of the best films to come out last year, and a great source of comfort knowing its director was a first-timer. Also if amy adams doesn't get an oscar nomination for either supporting or lead (I'm not sure which she qualifies as) then I will add to list of 999,000 reasons why the oscars should be done away with. Her breakdown scene at the hospital is reason enough to see this movie and it's one of the best performed scenes of the year by any actor.
"God loves you just the way you are but he loves too much to let you stay that way."
Also, I am becoming obsessed with that Antony and the Johnsons CD, I am a bird now. There is something about that guy's voice, it's like nina simone combined with a transexual ghost. Haunting doesn't even begin to describe it. Particularly the first song, Hope There's Someone, but I'll get to that later. The writing is spot-on and the instrumental back up is every bit up to snuff, especially Fistful of Love which begins with a Lou Reed poem of some kind. Also Rufus Wainwright shows up for the song, What Can I Do? Rufus is righteous. Anyway, back to Antony, there's something so hearbreaking about this album because you get the sense that it's about someone wishing to do away with whatever life he or she has now and start over with a completely different one. They're trapped and this is their only solace, I know that makes it sound corny but just listen to the record or sample it whatever you want to do. I think it's one of those things that if you're into it and it gets you then it does, if not, no biggie, it's cool.
Anyway, please watch this This is the first song off of the Antony and the Johnsons record and it's one of those songs you need to listen to over and over again. Especially right before you go to sleep. It will make you feel better, I think. That's all, good night everybody....
Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die, will I go
Hope there's someone
Who'll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I'm tired
There's a ghost on the horizon
When I go to bed
How can I fall asleep at night
How will I rest my head
Oh I'm scared of the middle place
Between light and nowhere
I don't want to be the one
Left in there, left in there
There's a man on the horizon
Wish that I'd go to bed
If I fall to his feet tonight
Will allow rest my head
So here's hoping I will not drown
Or paralyze in light
And godsend I don't want to go
To the seal's watershed
Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die, Will I go
Hope there's someone
Who'll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I'm tired
I watched Junebug again tonight, really strong flick. The direction, the performances, and the script are all fantastic. Movies like this have become a joke, newly christened spouses introduced to a backwards-ass family, they've been done to death. This one is so careful with its observations and so natural in its tone that it feels quite outlandish at times. You forget that not every family has a sex crazed barbara streisand as its matriarch. Anyway, I wish I could have put it in my top ten cause it really was one of the best films to come out last year, and a great source of comfort knowing its director was a first-timer. Also if amy adams doesn't get an oscar nomination for either supporting or lead (I'm not sure which she qualifies as) then I will add to list of 999,000 reasons why the oscars should be done away with. Her breakdown scene at the hospital is reason enough to see this movie and it's one of the best performed scenes of the year by any actor.
"God loves you just the way you are but he loves too much to let you stay that way."
Also, I am becoming obsessed with that Antony and the Johnsons CD, I am a bird now. There is something about that guy's voice, it's like nina simone combined with a transexual ghost. Haunting doesn't even begin to describe it. Particularly the first song, Hope There's Someone, but I'll get to that later. The writing is spot-on and the instrumental back up is every bit up to snuff, especially Fistful of Love which begins with a Lou Reed poem of some kind. Also Rufus Wainwright shows up for the song, What Can I Do? Rufus is righteous. Anyway, back to Antony, there's something so hearbreaking about this album because you get the sense that it's about someone wishing to do away with whatever life he or she has now and start over with a completely different one. They're trapped and this is their only solace, I know that makes it sound corny but just listen to the record or sample it whatever you want to do. I think it's one of those things that if you're into it and it gets you then it does, if not, no biggie, it's cool.
Anyway, please watch this This is the first song off of the Antony and the Johnsons record and it's one of those songs you need to listen to over and over again. Especially right before you go to sleep. It will make you feel better, I think. That's all, good night everybody....
Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die, will I go
Hope there's someone
Who'll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I'm tired
There's a ghost on the horizon
When I go to bed
How can I fall asleep at night
How will I rest my head
Oh I'm scared of the middle place
Between light and nowhere
I don't want to be the one
Left in there, left in there
There's a man on the horizon
Wish that I'd go to bed
If I fall to his feet tonight
Will allow rest my head
So here's hoping I will not drown
Or paralyze in light
And godsend I don't want to go
To the seal's watershed
Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die, Will I go
Hope there's someone
Who'll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I'm tired
Sunday, January 01, 2006
You ain't even in my top ten!
Okay, okay here I go again hitchin a ride on the blog bandwagon, shoving another top ten list down the throats of my dear readers. Then again, this blog was never built on anything resembling an original thought, idea, or concept. Plus, I used to do these for my highschool newspaper and they were always my favorite things to write at the end of the year. Actually, I always wrote them mid january due to the fact that in delaware, we had to wait several weeks before the limited engagements (whatever the hell that means) releases made their way down to our humble abode. All that aside, here are my top ten films of 2005, actually my ten best films of the year in alphabetical order. They are equal in the eyes of the anti-fanboy.
The Ten Best Films of 2005 (in alphabetical order)
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee's intimately epic western achieves a kind of power that stays with you long after the end credits. Lee has a compassionate gift for understanding a tormented psyche, and his amazing cast pulls off a beautiful and heartbreaking love story. With its mountain vistas stretching on forever into the horizon and its painterly cloud splotched sky lines, Brokeback Mountain reminds us that behind any face there be could be untold reservoirs of sorrow, longing, and regret. Some movies just know how to hit you where it hurts, the is one of them, and it will not be forgotten.
Capote
Phillip Seymour Hoffman has been consistently remarkable for so long that I forgot he has never had a staring role for himself. My memory is now surely intact after his astounding portrayal in this stunning film. It's the best biopic we've had in the past couple of years, because it uses the life of an artist to illuminate a character study of one man's decent into his own personal hell. First time director Bennett Miller also captures the stark, lonely nature of the mid-west, the shockwaves that result from a brutal act if violence, and how the two sometimes go hand in hand. Look out for Clifton Collins shattering confessional to Hoffman in his death row cell. Make sure you remember to breathe.
Good Night, and Good Luck
The passion for this project permeates through every frame and every carefully measured performance. Some accused Clooney and Co. of hero worship, nuts to that. Clooney is making a statement about people who acted heroically during a time when such feats were in short supply. Too bad nothing has changed. No need to despair, Good Night's sure handed intelligence and gracefully entertaining execution is a testament to the power an artists yields to enact change. This movie got people thinking, and we should all be grateful.
Last Days
The caper in Gus Van Sant's fantastically daring "death trilogy" is the best of the bunch. A biopic in the loosest sense of the word, Last Days accounts for the final lonely hours of a Kurt Cobain-like rock star. Never before has this kind of despair been so perfectly captured on film. Always questioning, but still containing a clarity of vision that places the viewer under a hypnotic spell. Van Sant's wandering eye puts us in the place of a disembodied spirit looking for a looking for a body, one that may never be found. It's a testament to Van Sant's talents that he can pull off this kind of spiritual aplomb within the confines of Michael Pitt's solitary march to death.
Millions
Finally, a film for children that lives up to the vivid imagination of a child. Finally, a film for children that doesn't peddle a bunch of easy answers and morals. Finally, a film for children so tender and moving, only the hardest of hearts need not apply. Danny Boyle's vibrant and colorful look at a child hood in transition does what all great children's stories do: sings us to sleep without coddling. Alex Etel gives the best performance by a child actor in many a moon. Watching him in this film, it's easy to remember that there is goodness in this world.
Munich
Screw the box office success! Ever since Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg has hit an artistic stride the likes of which we've never seen. He seems to be getting better and more challenging to himself and his audience with every film. Munich thoughtfully explores a complex subject and Spielberg uses his masterful command of the filmmaking craft to take the Hollywood blockbuster to bold new levels. Spielberg's cast is equally game with Eric Bana's gut wrenchingly subtle performances leading the way. Munich is a globe-trotting thriller suffused with a compelling anti blockbuster brain. The film pleads for peace, not politics and the devastating final shot reminds us just how much is at stake.
The New World
Terrence Malick's historical epic is the most beautiful film of the year. In fact, it is the most beautiful film to grace our screens since Malick's last outing: The Thin Red Line. Malick's films bleed through the confines of cinema: the cuts, the frames, and the words are almost rendered arbitrary. Watching one of his films is a completely immersive experience and no other director in the history of film operates on the same level. The New World reminds us that there is still some pure and untouched wonder in this world waiting to be discovered. Whether or not those places actually exist is up to us. Malick's quest is a masterpiece of one of most important directors in history, passing up the opportunity to see this one on the big screen is insane.
The Squid and The Whale
Noah Baumbach's achingly funny family memoir adds another gem to my favorite genre: the melancholy comedy. Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney and the rest of the cast give career defining performances in a film that never takes a wrong step. Baumbach's screenplay (the best original of the year) allows his characters to embarrass the hell out of us and each other. His fearless representation of an incredibly flawed group of people is reason to cheer. Baumbach is an unflinchingly honest director, and this is personal filmmaking at its best. It reads like great fiction but feels like real life.
Syriana
Stephen Gaghan's head spinning examination of the toxic tentacles of corruption that have infested oil, politics, and business startles us with its wealth of information and rattles us with its passion to fight back. The film gives no easy answers, but its intentions are nowhere near defeatist. The very nature of the film itself immediately begs for further examination, and maybe a greater grasp on what is wrong. Gaghan's script and direction are a marvel of multi-narrative story telling. Each scene ending with the finality of the perfect last line, only to leave us begging for more. The cast is uniformly excellent with Clooney giving the best performance of his career. What's more, the film gets better on repeat viewings.
Winter Solstice
Here is a movie that was unfairly ignored during its initial release and has been pretty much forgotten since then. This movie is a quiet force, one that, if allowed, will rattle you wit its realistic emotional core. The cast here is doing something extraordinary, they are acting to not act. This sounds like a cliche, but this film feels like a carefully observed real life, right down to the most minute details. Josh Sternfeld's assured and understated direction only gets richer with each viewing. It's a thrill to see drama moving like a memory and not like a something out of a screenwriting manual. Perhaps the greatest feat of all that this film accomplishes is that it looks so effortless.
Now that I've gotten the top ten out of the way, here is a list of some other films that I really liked but for the sake of title purposes, could not be crammed into my top ten.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bad News Bears
Breakfast on Pluto
Broken Flowers
The Constant Gardner
Corpse Bride
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Grizzly Man
A History of Violence
Happy Endings
Jarhead
Junebug
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Pride & Prejudice
Sin City
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Transamerica
War of the Worlds
Here's something I saw the onion do and I though it would be a fun idea...
MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF 2005
Crash
This is without a doubt, hands down, the easiest decision to make for this particular subject. Yet for some reason, I see this film popping up on all kinds of top ten lists of critics who I used to think owned brains. How could anybody fall for this nonsense? A film without any kind of resemblance to real life is being touted as a monumental dissection of modern racism. What bugs me the most is that this is a film that says absolutely nothing at all, but it just so happens to do it very loudly. Director Paul Haggis (who was also responsible for one of last years most overrated films, Million Dollar Baby) needs to understand that just because you can exploit melodrama for the sake of manipulating an audience, doesn't mean you should.
MOST UNDERRATED MOVIE OF 2005
Elizabethtown
You might as well put this on my honorable mention list. Cynic critics didn't vibe with Cameron Crowe's optimism as an act of revolution mindset and all I can say to them is that they missed out on the fun. This isn't so much a film as it is an essay set to that perfect soundtrack that only Cameron Crowe seems to know how to assemble. Crowe has the confidence to let his film wander but never meander, like the Dunst character says, every day has a purpose and every scene has one too. Cameron Crowe movies inspire a specific kind of wonder inside of me, perhaps that's way I'm susceptible to them. He loves the characters he writes about, and he loves the places they visit. I walked out of this movie invigorated, hopefully he was too.
And finally...
THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE OF 2005
Star Wars Episode III-Revenge of the Sith
I knew you all were wondering where I was going to put this one on my list. I can see you sweating frantically, worrying that I had given up on the one film that was the purpose for creating this freakin blog. Don't worry, dear friends, I just figured that it wasn't fair to put this film in the top ten because it belongs in an even higher echelon of best film categorization. This film was a summation of everything I love about movies and it was one of the single greatest experiences I have ever had in a theatre. Can anything else really compare to it? No, and it doesn't have to. Star Wars has always been in a category unto itself for me ever since I first layed eyes on the opening crawl. I usually tell people right away whenever they ask me for my favorite films (and that happens almost every hour) that my favorite filmed story of all time is the Star Wars Saga and then I go off from there. Revenge of the Sith was like a childhood memory I experienced at 21, it was the only movie I ever clapped for at its completion and it is the only movie that I could spend nine hours of my ass on the concrete sidewalk waiting for without a single regret. This was the movie of my dreams and it's quite an exhilarating feeling, watching a movie live up to that. Even if this is the last of the series (and I hope it is), I never want to let go of that desire to let a movie simply envelop you to the point where you just surrender all your senses and just say wow. I never want to let go of Star Wars.
There you go, it was a good year but good movies always come out and people will continue to see them. Don't listen to this nonsense about the death of the box office or the death of good cinema (even though I could be accused to doing that sometimes). The movies are out there, and it's a simple matter of getting off your ass and checking them out. I guess that's all I got to say right now.
Oh wait, one more thing...
"One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought where would I be this very moment, if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody… this very moment... if my mom had never met my dad… if she had never died. And what's the man I'll marry gonna look like? What's he doing right this minute? Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn't know me? Does it show on his face? For days afterwards I lived in dread. Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, and this never happened."
The Ten Best Films of 2005 (in alphabetical order)
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee's intimately epic western achieves a kind of power that stays with you long after the end credits. Lee has a compassionate gift for understanding a tormented psyche, and his amazing cast pulls off a beautiful and heartbreaking love story. With its mountain vistas stretching on forever into the horizon and its painterly cloud splotched sky lines, Brokeback Mountain reminds us that behind any face there be could be untold reservoirs of sorrow, longing, and regret. Some movies just know how to hit you where it hurts, the is one of them, and it will not be forgotten.
Capote
Phillip Seymour Hoffman has been consistently remarkable for so long that I forgot he has never had a staring role for himself. My memory is now surely intact after his astounding portrayal in this stunning film. It's the best biopic we've had in the past couple of years, because it uses the life of an artist to illuminate a character study of one man's decent into his own personal hell. First time director Bennett Miller also captures the stark, lonely nature of the mid-west, the shockwaves that result from a brutal act if violence, and how the two sometimes go hand in hand. Look out for Clifton Collins shattering confessional to Hoffman in his death row cell. Make sure you remember to breathe.
Good Night, and Good Luck
The passion for this project permeates through every frame and every carefully measured performance. Some accused Clooney and Co. of hero worship, nuts to that. Clooney is making a statement about people who acted heroically during a time when such feats were in short supply. Too bad nothing has changed. No need to despair, Good Night's sure handed intelligence and gracefully entertaining execution is a testament to the power an artists yields to enact change. This movie got people thinking, and we should all be grateful.
Last Days
The caper in Gus Van Sant's fantastically daring "death trilogy" is the best of the bunch. A biopic in the loosest sense of the word, Last Days accounts for the final lonely hours of a Kurt Cobain-like rock star. Never before has this kind of despair been so perfectly captured on film. Always questioning, but still containing a clarity of vision that places the viewer under a hypnotic spell. Van Sant's wandering eye puts us in the place of a disembodied spirit looking for a looking for a body, one that may never be found. It's a testament to Van Sant's talents that he can pull off this kind of spiritual aplomb within the confines of Michael Pitt's solitary march to death.
Millions
Finally, a film for children that lives up to the vivid imagination of a child. Finally, a film for children that doesn't peddle a bunch of easy answers and morals. Finally, a film for children so tender and moving, only the hardest of hearts need not apply. Danny Boyle's vibrant and colorful look at a child hood in transition does what all great children's stories do: sings us to sleep without coddling. Alex Etel gives the best performance by a child actor in many a moon. Watching him in this film, it's easy to remember that there is goodness in this world.
Munich
Screw the box office success! Ever since Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg has hit an artistic stride the likes of which we've never seen. He seems to be getting better and more challenging to himself and his audience with every film. Munich thoughtfully explores a complex subject and Spielberg uses his masterful command of the filmmaking craft to take the Hollywood blockbuster to bold new levels. Spielberg's cast is equally game with Eric Bana's gut wrenchingly subtle performances leading the way. Munich is a globe-trotting thriller suffused with a compelling anti blockbuster brain. The film pleads for peace, not politics and the devastating final shot reminds us just how much is at stake.
The New World
Terrence Malick's historical epic is the most beautiful film of the year. In fact, it is the most beautiful film to grace our screens since Malick's last outing: The Thin Red Line. Malick's films bleed through the confines of cinema: the cuts, the frames, and the words are almost rendered arbitrary. Watching one of his films is a completely immersive experience and no other director in the history of film operates on the same level. The New World reminds us that there is still some pure and untouched wonder in this world waiting to be discovered. Whether or not those places actually exist is up to us. Malick's quest is a masterpiece of one of most important directors in history, passing up the opportunity to see this one on the big screen is insane.
The Squid and The Whale
Noah Baumbach's achingly funny family memoir adds another gem to my favorite genre: the melancholy comedy. Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney and the rest of the cast give career defining performances in a film that never takes a wrong step. Baumbach's screenplay (the best original of the year) allows his characters to embarrass the hell out of us and each other. His fearless representation of an incredibly flawed group of people is reason to cheer. Baumbach is an unflinchingly honest director, and this is personal filmmaking at its best. It reads like great fiction but feels like real life.
Syriana
Stephen Gaghan's head spinning examination of the toxic tentacles of corruption that have infested oil, politics, and business startles us with its wealth of information and rattles us with its passion to fight back. The film gives no easy answers, but its intentions are nowhere near defeatist. The very nature of the film itself immediately begs for further examination, and maybe a greater grasp on what is wrong. Gaghan's script and direction are a marvel of multi-narrative story telling. Each scene ending with the finality of the perfect last line, only to leave us begging for more. The cast is uniformly excellent with Clooney giving the best performance of his career. What's more, the film gets better on repeat viewings.
Winter Solstice
Here is a movie that was unfairly ignored during its initial release and has been pretty much forgotten since then. This movie is a quiet force, one that, if allowed, will rattle you wit its realistic emotional core. The cast here is doing something extraordinary, they are acting to not act. This sounds like a cliche, but this film feels like a carefully observed real life, right down to the most minute details. Josh Sternfeld's assured and understated direction only gets richer with each viewing. It's a thrill to see drama moving like a memory and not like a something out of a screenwriting manual. Perhaps the greatest feat of all that this film accomplishes is that it looks so effortless.
Now that I've gotten the top ten out of the way, here is a list of some other films that I really liked but for the sake of title purposes, could not be crammed into my top ten.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bad News Bears
Breakfast on Pluto
Broken Flowers
The Constant Gardner
Corpse Bride
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Grizzly Man
A History of Violence
Happy Endings
Jarhead
Junebug
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Pride & Prejudice
Sin City
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Transamerica
War of the Worlds
Here's something I saw the onion do and I though it would be a fun idea...
MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF 2005
Crash
This is without a doubt, hands down, the easiest decision to make for this particular subject. Yet for some reason, I see this film popping up on all kinds of top ten lists of critics who I used to think owned brains. How could anybody fall for this nonsense? A film without any kind of resemblance to real life is being touted as a monumental dissection of modern racism. What bugs me the most is that this is a film that says absolutely nothing at all, but it just so happens to do it very loudly. Director Paul Haggis (who was also responsible for one of last years most overrated films, Million Dollar Baby) needs to understand that just because you can exploit melodrama for the sake of manipulating an audience, doesn't mean you should.
MOST UNDERRATED MOVIE OF 2005
Elizabethtown
You might as well put this on my honorable mention list. Cynic critics didn't vibe with Cameron Crowe's optimism as an act of revolution mindset and all I can say to them is that they missed out on the fun. This isn't so much a film as it is an essay set to that perfect soundtrack that only Cameron Crowe seems to know how to assemble. Crowe has the confidence to let his film wander but never meander, like the Dunst character says, every day has a purpose and every scene has one too. Cameron Crowe movies inspire a specific kind of wonder inside of me, perhaps that's way I'm susceptible to them. He loves the characters he writes about, and he loves the places they visit. I walked out of this movie invigorated, hopefully he was too.
And finally...
THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE OF 2005
Star Wars Episode III-Revenge of the Sith
I knew you all were wondering where I was going to put this one on my list. I can see you sweating frantically, worrying that I had given up on the one film that was the purpose for creating this freakin blog. Don't worry, dear friends, I just figured that it wasn't fair to put this film in the top ten because it belongs in an even higher echelon of best film categorization. This film was a summation of everything I love about movies and it was one of the single greatest experiences I have ever had in a theatre. Can anything else really compare to it? No, and it doesn't have to. Star Wars has always been in a category unto itself for me ever since I first layed eyes on the opening crawl. I usually tell people right away whenever they ask me for my favorite films (and that happens almost every hour) that my favorite filmed story of all time is the Star Wars Saga and then I go off from there. Revenge of the Sith was like a childhood memory I experienced at 21, it was the only movie I ever clapped for at its completion and it is the only movie that I could spend nine hours of my ass on the concrete sidewalk waiting for without a single regret. This was the movie of my dreams and it's quite an exhilarating feeling, watching a movie live up to that. Even if this is the last of the series (and I hope it is), I never want to let go of that desire to let a movie simply envelop you to the point where you just surrender all your senses and just say wow. I never want to let go of Star Wars.
There you go, it was a good year but good movies always come out and people will continue to see them. Don't listen to this nonsense about the death of the box office or the death of good cinema (even though I could be accused to doing that sometimes). The movies are out there, and it's a simple matter of getting off your ass and checking them out. I guess that's all I got to say right now.
Oh wait, one more thing...
"One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought where would I be this very moment, if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody… this very moment... if my mom had never met my dad… if she had never died. And what's the man I'll marry gonna look like? What's he doing right this minute? Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn't know me? Does it show on his face? For days afterwards I lived in dread. Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, and this never happened."
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Christmas.
"There are two kinds of Christmas people, those who like their Christmas lights to stay on solid and those who like them to blink. As a kid, I always had a thing for sitting in the dark and watching the lights blink on and off at random. In the end, what we have are these little, great moments. They come and they go. That's as good as it gets. But, still, isn't that great?"
Thursday, December 15, 2005
It's back.
I just read an article by new york times film critic a.o. scott. He's writing about the criteria one has to make and observe in order to successfully gauge the pick of family films this season. He mentions the reaction his 9 year old son had this past summer...
"After I took my 9-year-old and a friend of his to "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" last spring, for example, they kept coming back to the awful final battle, in which Anakin Skywalker's limbs are severed and his face horribly burned. This was a more intimate kind of violence than they were used to encountering, and they needed to make sense of its place in the movie's narrative. They were disturbed as well as fascinated, and what fascinated me was how seriously they took the scene, which is a grisly confirmation of Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader and a punishment for his allegiance to the dark side. In some ways I wish that George Lucas and I had spared them such a gruesome spectacle, but at the same time their reaction to it confirmed the integrity of Mr. Lucas's story."
Damn right, and that's why it's still the best of the series.
"After I took my 9-year-old and a friend of his to "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" last spring, for example, they kept coming back to the awful final battle, in which Anakin Skywalker's limbs are severed and his face horribly burned. This was a more intimate kind of violence than they were used to encountering, and they needed to make sense of its place in the movie's narrative. They were disturbed as well as fascinated, and what fascinated me was how seriously they took the scene, which is a grisly confirmation of Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader and a punishment for his allegiance to the dark side. In some ways I wish that George Lucas and I had spared them such a gruesome spectacle, but at the same time their reaction to it confirmed the integrity of Mr. Lucas's story."
Damn right, and that's why it's still the best of the series.
Monday, December 12, 2005
'Splosions
I'm on a record pace here, two blog entries in one day.
Real exciting...
Anyway, just got back from the Explosions in the Sky show at the bowery ballroom. One of the best flat out rock shows I've ever seen, it was a short set yet but it was so focused and executed to perfection it's hard to complain about the length. These four guys from Texas don't so much play their instruments as beat them into submission. You get the sense that they own every single guitar string, every inch of the crash cymbal, and every thrash they indulge us with. This music is not created, it is channeled through these four guys and flows through them like electricity. It's this intangible thing that you know is amazing but you can't get a hold on it. It's what I was talking about last week with the images in Malick's Thin Red Line, it's so much about the environment and the place of that exact time and moment. This music isn't about steadfast answers, or knowing every single goddamn thing on the planet. It's about asking the questions, the yearning of that journey. It's about staring up into the sky to see a cloud unfurl, or a star stand alone. It's bliss. So please, if you can listen to some of their music, please do. I think they are one of the best bands on the planet and this show tonight was the reason people go to rock shows. To be reminded that some of the most beautiful music on the planet can come from a place like four guys banging away on their instruments, I think I might just be inspired.
The Only Moment We Were Alone was my First Breath After Coma then With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept. I awoke and I took Your Hand In Mine to Greet Death, I asked it Have You Passed Through This Night? It said I have a A Poor Man's Memory but it appears that The Moon Is Down. I thought that was an An Ugly Fact Of Life and that these were Our Last Days As Children I looked up at The Sky Above, The Field Below and I thought Inside It All Feels The Same. You said Remember Me As A Time Of Day and we had A Slow Dance on this Lonely Train.
Real exciting...
Anyway, just got back from the Explosions in the Sky show at the bowery ballroom. One of the best flat out rock shows I've ever seen, it was a short set yet but it was so focused and executed to perfection it's hard to complain about the length. These four guys from Texas don't so much play their instruments as beat them into submission. You get the sense that they own every single guitar string, every inch of the crash cymbal, and every thrash they indulge us with. This music is not created, it is channeled through these four guys and flows through them like electricity. It's this intangible thing that you know is amazing but you can't get a hold on it. It's what I was talking about last week with the images in Malick's Thin Red Line, it's so much about the environment and the place of that exact time and moment. This music isn't about steadfast answers, or knowing every single goddamn thing on the planet. It's about asking the questions, the yearning of that journey. It's about staring up into the sky to see a cloud unfurl, or a star stand alone. It's bliss. So please, if you can listen to some of their music, please do. I think they are one of the best bands on the planet and this show tonight was the reason people go to rock shows. To be reminded that some of the most beautiful music on the planet can come from a place like four guys banging away on their instruments, I think I might just be inspired.
The Only Moment We Were Alone was my First Breath After Coma then With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept. I awoke and I took Your Hand In Mine to Greet Death, I asked it Have You Passed Through This Night? It said I have a A Poor Man's Memory but it appears that The Moon Is Down. I thought that was an An Ugly Fact Of Life and that these were Our Last Days As Children I looked up at The Sky Above, The Field Below and I thought Inside It All Feels The Same. You said Remember Me As A Time Of Day and we had A Slow Dance on this Lonely Train.
so long, so long...
I know in the past I've avoided "personal" issues in this blog. Although the stuff I've revealed about my unhealthy relationship with star wars is enough fodder for embarrassment.
Things have changed with me recently, I didn't want them to but they did. And there's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry this sounds really cryptic and vague, I guess behind all of this I'm just not comfortable talking about these kinds of issues on an internet blog. I'm not here to piss and moan. I'm sure lots of eyeballs will roll when this post. I do admit i'm being whiney, self-indulgent and just flat out mopey. I don't mean to be, but it's hard to avoid, and everything is sort of fresh. Which then raises the question of why not give it some time and maybe I can sift through the immediate malaise and write something more thoughtful. My answer to that is, if I wait too long, I won't write about it at all. I want to get this down, because it just feels like the right thing to do and it feels good (at least I hope it will).
This is really lame I know (remember the whiney self indulgent defense I gave earlier) But I've been listening to this song a lot and rather than attempt to sort through all of these emotions and splatter them onto this blog, I'll let it speak for me. This has proved far more difficult than I previously expected it to be. I'm not ignoring these emotions, I just can't organize them in any rational way. That's the great thing about songwriters, poets, and all writers in general: they have the ability to speak to and for you. A great song can be personal and universal all at the same time, so I don't feel like this is a cop out.
Anyway, I don't mean to be a bummer. I'm going to try and continue to write about all kinds of things here at bi-mon-sci-fi-con. I'm going to see one of the greatest bands in the world tonight. I'll let you all know about this amazing show later on, although I think nate will do a better job than me. He'll definitely take better pictures, see you guys later...
so long, so long
Hand out the window
Floatin’ on air
Just a flip of the wrist
I’d be wavin’ you goodbye
Drive past the lifeguard stand
Where I sit around waiting for you to remember
Well past the beach hotels
Where the girls are getting’ bronzed on their monogrammed towels
I drive this ocean road
And remember
How the girls could turn to ghosts before your eyes
And the very dreams that led to them are keeping them from dying
And how the grace with which she walked into your life
And stay with you in your steps , pace with you a while
For so long, so long
so long so long
The speaker in this door is blown
So nothing sounds quite right
And I drive this ocean road
And I remember
The small of your back
And the nape of your neck
And the soft way you’d hold me in the night
I remember
How the girls can turn to ghosts before your eyes
And the very dreams that led to them are keeping them from dying
And how the grace with which she walked into your life
Will stay you in your steps, and pace with you a while
So long, so long,
so long, so long
And I will leave under the cover
Of summer’s kiss upon the sky
Like the stone face of your lover
Just before she says goodbye
I was thinkin' that the season could be held between my arms
But just as summer’s hold is fleeting
I was here but now I’m gone
I’m gone
I'm gone, I'm gone
Things have changed with me recently, I didn't want them to but they did. And there's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry this sounds really cryptic and vague, I guess behind all of this I'm just not comfortable talking about these kinds of issues on an internet blog. I'm not here to piss and moan. I'm sure lots of eyeballs will roll when this post. I do admit i'm being whiney, self-indulgent and just flat out mopey. I don't mean to be, but it's hard to avoid, and everything is sort of fresh. Which then raises the question of why not give it some time and maybe I can sift through the immediate malaise and write something more thoughtful. My answer to that is, if I wait too long, I won't write about it at all. I want to get this down, because it just feels like the right thing to do and it feels good (at least I hope it will).
This is really lame I know (remember the whiney self indulgent defense I gave earlier) But I've been listening to this song a lot and rather than attempt to sort through all of these emotions and splatter them onto this blog, I'll let it speak for me. This has proved far more difficult than I previously expected it to be. I'm not ignoring these emotions, I just can't organize them in any rational way. That's the great thing about songwriters, poets, and all writers in general: they have the ability to speak to and for you. A great song can be personal and universal all at the same time, so I don't feel like this is a cop out.
Anyway, I don't mean to be a bummer. I'm going to try and continue to write about all kinds of things here at bi-mon-sci-fi-con. I'm going to see one of the greatest bands in the world tonight. I'll let you all know about this amazing show later on, although I think nate will do a better job than me. He'll definitely take better pictures, see you guys later...
so long, so long
Hand out the window
Floatin’ on air
Just a flip of the wrist
I’d be wavin’ you goodbye
Drive past the lifeguard stand
Where I sit around waiting for you to remember
Well past the beach hotels
Where the girls are getting’ bronzed on their monogrammed towels
I drive this ocean road
And remember
How the girls could turn to ghosts before your eyes
And the very dreams that led to them are keeping them from dying
And how the grace with which she walked into your life
And stay with you in your steps , pace with you a while
For so long, so long
so long so long
The speaker in this door is blown
So nothing sounds quite right
And I drive this ocean road
And I remember
The small of your back
And the nape of your neck
And the soft way you’d hold me in the night
I remember
How the girls can turn to ghosts before your eyes
And the very dreams that led to them are keeping them from dying
And how the grace with which she walked into your life
Will stay you in your steps, and pace with you a while
So long, so long,
so long, so long
And I will leave under the cover
Of summer’s kiss upon the sky
Like the stone face of your lover
Just before she says goodbye
I was thinkin' that the season could be held between my arms
But just as summer’s hold is fleeting
I was here but now I’m gone
I’m gone
I'm gone, I'm gone
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
say nothing...
The people have spoken
I understand their complaints
I will keep this one short and sweet
For I have nothing more to say...
I came to a horrible realization tonight that my dreams for an epic teen romance to end all teen romance movies have been dashed. say anything... was made 16 years ago and it accomplished everything that could be accomplished with the teen romance genre. Where will I turn? Maybe my unfinished wesley snipes script, or maybe a sitcom about a sassy robot.
Only time will tell...
Seems like a long, long time
Since I've been above you seen and loved you so
You pick a place that's where I'll be
Time like your cheek has turned for me
I understand their complaints
I will keep this one short and sweet
For I have nothing more to say...
I came to a horrible realization tonight that my dreams for an epic teen romance to end all teen romance movies have been dashed. say anything... was made 16 years ago and it accomplished everything that could be accomplished with the teen romance genre. Where will I turn? Maybe my unfinished wesley snipes script, or maybe a sitcom about a sassy robot.
Only time will tell...
Seems like a long, long time
Since I've been above you seen and loved you so
You pick a place that's where I'll be
Time like your cheek has turned for me
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Can you still do good with it?
I know, this is going to sound all humanitarian and preachy and what not, but this story really got to me when I first read about it. And I got an email claiming there was something I could do, so instead of clogging all of your email boxes with this message, I will instead post it up here and allow you all to do with it what you may. Just one of the many horrible things going on in Iraq right now, and maybe we can do something about this one...
To those who are holding the Christian Peacemakers Team in Iraq, and to people everywhere of all Traditions of Faith and Peace:
We who write you affirm what all the traditions teach that trace their spiritual origin to Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all teach explicitly that to kill even one human being - even more strongly one who is doing no harm, most especially one who is seeking peace and nurturing human bodies and communities -- is to destroy a world. All other religious traditions agree about the holiness of human lives.
This teaching applies to all innocent Iraqis and foreigners who have been killed or taken away in Iraq out of anger against the US occupation - and it applies with special clarity and strength to the members of the Christian Peacemakers Team who are being held in Iraq. Like us, they too opposed the US attack. They came to serve the Iraqi people. They came not only to urge peace but also to live peace.
We who have opposed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq call on all who live in Iraq to seek the release of these people into safety and freedom. And we call on all people of good will everywhere to join in this call.
No doubt, those who planned and executed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq will cite this action as evidence for the rightness of their action. We utterly reject this logic, and affirm that the war undertaken by the US has multiplied the violence it pretended to oppose.
We hold morally responsible for the lives of these Christian Peacemakers both those in Iraq who have taken them, and those who have brought about the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans by pursuing this war.
Once again, we call for a swift end to the US occupation of Iraq and for peaceful action by the entire human community to assist Iraqis to achieve their own self-government. And we send our loving prayers to those who have become victims of their own loving commitment to peace, justice, and healing.
(Signed by the initial emergency list of signatories below)
Dr Sayeed Sayyid, Secretary General, Islamic Society of North America;
Sheila Musaji, editor of The American Muslim;
Abdul Malik Mujahid, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; that Council as a body;
Anwar N. Haddam, elected Member of Parliament of Algeria (Dec 1991), chairman, board of trustees, Education for Life, Northern Virginia, and member, executive committee, Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations of Greater Washington Area (CCMO);
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of Bethesda, MD; Muhammad Ali-Salaam of Boston; Abdul Cader Asmal, MD, PhD;
Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches;
Rev. Osagefyo Sekou, Director of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq;
Rev. Peter Laarman of Progressive Christians Uniting in California;
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Rabbinic Director of The Shalom Center.
Click here to sign the online petition.
"When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have peace."
To those who are holding the Christian Peacemakers Team in Iraq, and to people everywhere of all Traditions of Faith and Peace:
We who write you affirm what all the traditions teach that trace their spiritual origin to Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all teach explicitly that to kill even one human being - even more strongly one who is doing no harm, most especially one who is seeking peace and nurturing human bodies and communities -- is to destroy a world. All other religious traditions agree about the holiness of human lives.
This teaching applies to all innocent Iraqis and foreigners who have been killed or taken away in Iraq out of anger against the US occupation - and it applies with special clarity and strength to the members of the Christian Peacemakers Team who are being held in Iraq. Like us, they too opposed the US attack. They came to serve the Iraqi people. They came not only to urge peace but also to live peace.
We who have opposed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq call on all who live in Iraq to seek the release of these people into safety and freedom. And we call on all people of good will everywhere to join in this call.
No doubt, those who planned and executed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq will cite this action as evidence for the rightness of their action. We utterly reject this logic, and affirm that the war undertaken by the US has multiplied the violence it pretended to oppose.
We hold morally responsible for the lives of these Christian Peacemakers both those in Iraq who have taken them, and those who have brought about the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans by pursuing this war.
Once again, we call for a swift end to the US occupation of Iraq and for peaceful action by the entire human community to assist Iraqis to achieve their own self-government. And we send our loving prayers to those who have become victims of their own loving commitment to peace, justice, and healing.
(Signed by the initial emergency list of signatories below)
Dr Sayeed Sayyid, Secretary General, Islamic Society of North America;
Sheila Musaji, editor of The American Muslim;
Abdul Malik Mujahid, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; that Council as a body;
Anwar N. Haddam, elected Member of Parliament of Algeria (Dec 1991), chairman, board of trustees, Education for Life, Northern Virginia, and member, executive committee, Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations of Greater Washington Area (CCMO);
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of Bethesda, MD; Muhammad Ali-Salaam of Boston; Abdul Cader Asmal, MD, PhD;
Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches;
Rev. Osagefyo Sekou, Director of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq;
Rev. Peter Laarman of Progressive Christians Uniting in California;
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Rabbinic Director of The Shalom Center.
Click here to sign the online petition.
"When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have peace."
Sunday, December 04, 2005
If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack...
I guess I've kind of given up on this blog in the past couple months or so. I don't know why but for some reason, I get the inspiration to write about something, and then as soon as the physical action of the thing starts up, all my energy gets sapped. It's the damndest thing, I think what I've come to realize is that I need to write as soon as my mind conjures up a thought. That way, I could write like a billion blog entires a day ( I wish, most of the time I'm just doodling or mentally un-dressing the female parishioners...Homer said it). The point being, I found something to write about, and I'm going to do it, that's the way it's gotta be and that's the way I gotta do it.
The Thin Red Line is the most gorgeous movie ever made, it's definitely one of the top ten films of the 90's and maybe even the last half century. It has an absorbency unlike any other movie ever made, on no matter what size screen you watch it, you become enveloped by the images. The jungle swallows you up, and your fate is the same as the soldiers. It's the kind of film you know that if you had half the talent, visual bravado, and confidence as these people do, you still wouldn't be able to come up with a tenth of their achievement, although you still really want to try.
So much has already been written about this film, it feels somewhat futile to try and add anything new. I think it's a shame it was overlooked the way it was back during it's initial release, sure it was overshadowed by Saving Private Ryan ( a film I refuse to bash because it is brilliant in it's own way). But I think even without the burden of Ryan, Line still would have been forgotten because it's a war film where soldiers wander into war rather than fight it. It's a war film where giving another soldier enough morphine to kill himself after a fatal wound is the closest anyone gets to an act of courage. And it's a war film not so much about characters and individuals, but about some kind of collective unconscious that floats through the air and intersects through the entanglements of a mind induced to violence, and a nature that has to watch itself be destroyed. That doesn't mean it takes some kind of scholar to appreciate a film like The Thin Red Line, and as much as I don't want to dissect, analyze, or do any of that other cinema studies stuff, but for me, this film works on every single level of aesthetic, content, and execution. Malick has a method of finding the film while it's being shot, and some critics have complained that Line feels incomplete, (it's original cut was 6 hours long, god I hope they release that on DVD some day). I couldn't disagree more, to me there is not a moment in the film that feels wasted or from some other far away part that was never properly developed. Every emotion is earned, every death is felt, and every image is a perfect representation of not a clear and distinct message, but of a feeling or a state of mind that makes the experience of the film so much more enjoyable because it is yours and yours alone. Very few directors can do that, Malick is one of them and forget about all the mythology around the guy, the mystery and all that other bull shit. Just watch Badlands, Days of Heaven, and (hopefully) The New World, and you'll see an artist who has such control over his craft that it no longer becomes his, it passes through as a kind of transcendence between artist and observer and only the best art in the world is capable of that.
One last thing because there is only so many times I can gush about a film, but The Thin Red Line, as previously stated is the most beautifully shot film ever made (for me). Malick has a such a delicate touch that even a shot like that of a jungle leaf penetrated by gun fire being illuminated by the mid-day sun never feels arty or self-conscious. There is one shot in this film that always confounds me with its simplicity and earth shattering profundity. It's an empty hill side, the hip-high green blades of grass gently swaying with the wind. The frame is empty and all of a sudden, the field becomes illuminated by the sunlight, inch by inch, blade by blade. I have no idea how in the world they planned for that, how they executed it, maybe it's all fake but it sure doesn't look like it. I think it may be one of my favorite shots ever, and I could go on and on for this movie. I have to mention the gliding camera movements tracking the battalion's movement over the insurmountable hillsides, the eloquent encircling of a tree trunk, or the peaceful destruction of Witt. It's so hard to convey the exact feeling these shots extract from me, but I can say it's quite close to a state of bliss.
Okay I've yakked enough, it's sunday and it's snowing outside, get out and enjoy it.
"Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?"
The Thin Red Line is the most gorgeous movie ever made, it's definitely one of the top ten films of the 90's and maybe even the last half century. It has an absorbency unlike any other movie ever made, on no matter what size screen you watch it, you become enveloped by the images. The jungle swallows you up, and your fate is the same as the soldiers. It's the kind of film you know that if you had half the talent, visual bravado, and confidence as these people do, you still wouldn't be able to come up with a tenth of their achievement, although you still really want to try.
So much has already been written about this film, it feels somewhat futile to try and add anything new. I think it's a shame it was overlooked the way it was back during it's initial release, sure it was overshadowed by Saving Private Ryan ( a film I refuse to bash because it is brilliant in it's own way). But I think even without the burden of Ryan, Line still would have been forgotten because it's a war film where soldiers wander into war rather than fight it. It's a war film where giving another soldier enough morphine to kill himself after a fatal wound is the closest anyone gets to an act of courage. And it's a war film not so much about characters and individuals, but about some kind of collective unconscious that floats through the air and intersects through the entanglements of a mind induced to violence, and a nature that has to watch itself be destroyed. That doesn't mean it takes some kind of scholar to appreciate a film like The Thin Red Line, and as much as I don't want to dissect, analyze, or do any of that other cinema studies stuff, but for me, this film works on every single level of aesthetic, content, and execution. Malick has a method of finding the film while it's being shot, and some critics have complained that Line feels incomplete, (it's original cut was 6 hours long, god I hope they release that on DVD some day). I couldn't disagree more, to me there is not a moment in the film that feels wasted or from some other far away part that was never properly developed. Every emotion is earned, every death is felt, and every image is a perfect representation of not a clear and distinct message, but of a feeling or a state of mind that makes the experience of the film so much more enjoyable because it is yours and yours alone. Very few directors can do that, Malick is one of them and forget about all the mythology around the guy, the mystery and all that other bull shit. Just watch Badlands, Days of Heaven, and (hopefully) The New World, and you'll see an artist who has such control over his craft that it no longer becomes his, it passes through as a kind of transcendence between artist and observer and only the best art in the world is capable of that.
One last thing because there is only so many times I can gush about a film, but The Thin Red Line, as previously stated is the most beautifully shot film ever made (for me). Malick has a such a delicate touch that even a shot like that of a jungle leaf penetrated by gun fire being illuminated by the mid-day sun never feels arty or self-conscious. There is one shot in this film that always confounds me with its simplicity and earth shattering profundity. It's an empty hill side, the hip-high green blades of grass gently swaying with the wind. The frame is empty and all of a sudden, the field becomes illuminated by the sunlight, inch by inch, blade by blade. I have no idea how in the world they planned for that, how they executed it, maybe it's all fake but it sure doesn't look like it. I think it may be one of my favorite shots ever, and I could go on and on for this movie. I have to mention the gliding camera movements tracking the battalion's movement over the insurmountable hillsides, the eloquent encircling of a tree trunk, or the peaceful destruction of Witt. It's so hard to convey the exact feeling these shots extract from me, but I can say it's quite close to a state of bliss.
Okay I've yakked enough, it's sunday and it's snowing outside, get out and enjoy it.
"Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?"
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Pray for Michael Sullivan
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and all the usual shit people say to each other.
All I got today is a nice little tune, it's so good not even the famous "Conor" himself could screw it up...
i'm waiting for the train
the subway that only goes one way
the stupid thing that will come to pull us apart
and make everybody late
you spent everything you had
wanted everything to stop that bad
and now i'm a crushed credit card registered to smith
not the name that you call me with
you turned white like a saint
i'm tired of dancing on a pot of gold flake paint
oh we're so very precious, you and i
and everything that you do makes me want to die
oh i just told the biggest lie
i just told the biggest lie
the biggest lie
All I got today is a nice little tune, it's so good not even the famous "Conor" himself could screw it up...
i'm waiting for the train
the subway that only goes one way
the stupid thing that will come to pull us apart
and make everybody late
you spent everything you had
wanted everything to stop that bad
and now i'm a crushed credit card registered to smith
not the name that you call me with
you turned white like a saint
i'm tired of dancing on a pot of gold flake paint
oh we're so very precious, you and i
and everything that you do makes me want to die
oh i just told the biggest lie
i just told the biggest lie
the biggest lie
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
all our fears fall on deaf ears tonight.
I went to see the USS Intrepid, or maybe it's just the intrepid, I'm not sure. It's a retired naval battleship if you couldn't guess from the name that enjoyed a rather notorious run during world war II when it sustained five kamikaze attacks and several torpedos during a battle which was not named specifically at the museum. I went because I had to, before you all start assuming I'm into world war II which would be the worst assumption anybody could possibly make about me. I have to write a paper on it now and turn it in the monday after thanksgiving, shouldn't be too hard and I was looking foward to going until I got there and they had a piece of paper on the window to the main entrance indidcating that the flight deck was closed due to inclement weather.
That's just great. The whole reason I wanted to go was to see that stupid flight deck, to stand on its mighty surface and take in the majestic view of the city would have been something nice right? Instead I got gray skies, lots of rain, and a museum with dummy soldiers that really freaked me out (more on that later). Or maybe I'll talk about right now, as soon as I stepped into the museum (which is sort of located in the vital organs section of the ship itself) I felt like I was walking into a graveyard. I got the eerie feeling that this was a ship of ghosts, everything felt very much lived in, even though no one has seen the inside of this ship during battle for well over two decades. The replica/original air craft they stowed inside the museum had these dummy soldiers re-enacting bomb loading procedures, and while they were by no means life like they had a supernatural quality to them that could only be described as someone being turned into a statue by a spell. The memorial inside the ship with all the names of the men who died while serving on it, did not feel like it was honoring the end of their lives, but rather honoring the lives they had on the ship. The warm yet distant nostalgic memory photos of the men living their routine lives on board were so heartbreaking because you forget sometimes that these men lived with each other and not just the enemy for years at a time.
I swear it felt like their voices still echoed through the engine rooms, then I looked up and saw that it was just chatter coming from the mess hall sponsored by McDonalds. Yes, those brave souls certainly fought and died protecting our freedom, our freedom to eat toxic chemical sludge. I'm sorry that's very simplistic and general, but I can't help myself, couldn't they have hired some mom and pop store to be their lunch supplier, did it have to be mcdonalds? It's just a little hard to swallow when you're walking around this historic and epic battleship only to see a sign suggesting that I "Eat chow just like the soldiers did in the McDonalds mess hall." It really took me out of the whole experience, and it cheapened the museum a little bit. Besides aren't there like ten mickey d's in times square alone? DId they really need to spread the seed of their evil empire all the way out to the west side highway? I guess they did and they must have known that history buffs get extra hungry when visiting naval landmarks.
Something else that I found really interesting about the musuem, was the small but nicely ogranized section examining the lives of the Japanese soldiers (no Germans were profiled but I guess that's because Americans did most of the naval battling with Japan). It didn't really examine their lives actually, more like what they were like when they were bombing the American ships. They talked about the Kamikaze pilots and how the idea behind it was not only complete and utter anihilation of enemy combatants, but also that coupled with the glory of self sacrifice for the Nation of people you were defending. It's an interesting paradox to consider, on one hand there's the idea of a shared sacrifice, that your death will be felt by every single person living in the nation you have sworn to protect for the rest of their lives. On the other, your sole desire is to kill and destroy every living thing that is unfortunate enough to be in the closest shade of existance of your enemy soldiers. It's like you have your noble purpose and your kill crazy psychotic purpose and which was the motivating one? And when I say noble I just want to clarify that while I think there is some nobility in sacrificing one's life for the lives of others, that nobility (in the case of the kamikaze) is earned as a battle sacrifice. I don't revel in battle or war of any kind, but if you are engaged in one and you act heroically it should be recognized. The point of all this was that its hard to make the distinction between a noble sacrifice and a senseless slaughter even if it is in the name of protecting the freedom of a nation. How do you justify it to yourself? Do you even have a choice in the matter?
Something else about the Japanese portion of the exhibit that troubled me a little bit: There were two items housed on display, one was a mock business card that read "Official Jap Hunter" with a sub head line that read "Open for Business" or something along those lines. In the little description panel next to the item the words read something like "This card represents the dehumanizing effects of war and the animosity that existed on both sides in the fight for the pacific." Those weren't the exact words but you get the idea, then I walk over a few feet to see a japanese flag, completely unfurled and six different stains each with a hole through them adorning the permiter of the flag. The inscription next to it read that it belonged to a japanese soldier who met his end during the battle for Iwo Jima, the flag had the stains on it because the bullet pierced through it on the way to the Japanese soldier's heart. The flag must have been folded up several times, which is why the stain repeats itself over and over again. I hope that makes sense because it was a really haunting image, this piece of cloth was the last thing that bullet past through on its way to a human body of a Japanese soldier. Anyway, an American took it off the body and wrote with a pen "stolen from a dead jap" and put the date. I was struck by this only because on the inscription next to it, after explaining where the flag came from, it read once again This flag represents the dehumanizing effects of war and the animosity that excisted on both sides in the fight for the pacific." It just made me think to myself that if they have this standard boilerplate response to two completely different representations of war time racism. Then do they think those feelings of hatred are not only natural but expected of a soldier during war time, that it's just this blanket phenomenon that happens whether you want it to or not? During world war II I definitely believed that kind of thing happened to a lot of soldiers, but it is troulbing to me that this musuem dealt with it in a slogan rather than any kind of real insight. They didnt' bother to explore the roots and causes of this problem, they just wrote it off as part of the dehumanization of war. You rarely read about men who fought in the war who were real bastards, everyone sort of becomes these saintly do gooders when they strap on those boots.
There is plenty more to talk about, I have some pictures but my flickr account is full and I don't know how to put pictures just on blogspot by itself. And I don't feel like learning either. It's getting dark now, and I'm reallly gonna try...
"The rungs torn from the ladder can't reach the tumour
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer
Just a quiet peaceful dance!
Just a quiet peaceful dance for the things we'll never have."
That's just great. The whole reason I wanted to go was to see that stupid flight deck, to stand on its mighty surface and take in the majestic view of the city would have been something nice right? Instead I got gray skies, lots of rain, and a museum with dummy soldiers that really freaked me out (more on that later). Or maybe I'll talk about right now, as soon as I stepped into the museum (which is sort of located in the vital organs section of the ship itself) I felt like I was walking into a graveyard. I got the eerie feeling that this was a ship of ghosts, everything felt very much lived in, even though no one has seen the inside of this ship during battle for well over two decades. The replica/original air craft they stowed inside the museum had these dummy soldiers re-enacting bomb loading procedures, and while they were by no means life like they had a supernatural quality to them that could only be described as someone being turned into a statue by a spell. The memorial inside the ship with all the names of the men who died while serving on it, did not feel like it was honoring the end of their lives, but rather honoring the lives they had on the ship. The warm yet distant nostalgic memory photos of the men living their routine lives on board were so heartbreaking because you forget sometimes that these men lived with each other and not just the enemy for years at a time.
I swear it felt like their voices still echoed through the engine rooms, then I looked up and saw that it was just chatter coming from the mess hall sponsored by McDonalds. Yes, those brave souls certainly fought and died protecting our freedom, our freedom to eat toxic chemical sludge. I'm sorry that's very simplistic and general, but I can't help myself, couldn't they have hired some mom and pop store to be their lunch supplier, did it have to be mcdonalds? It's just a little hard to swallow when you're walking around this historic and epic battleship only to see a sign suggesting that I "Eat chow just like the soldiers did in the McDonalds mess hall." It really took me out of the whole experience, and it cheapened the museum a little bit. Besides aren't there like ten mickey d's in times square alone? DId they really need to spread the seed of their evil empire all the way out to the west side highway? I guess they did and they must have known that history buffs get extra hungry when visiting naval landmarks.
Something else that I found really interesting about the musuem, was the small but nicely ogranized section examining the lives of the Japanese soldiers (no Germans were profiled but I guess that's because Americans did most of the naval battling with Japan). It didn't really examine their lives actually, more like what they were like when they were bombing the American ships. They talked about the Kamikaze pilots and how the idea behind it was not only complete and utter anihilation of enemy combatants, but also that coupled with the glory of self sacrifice for the Nation of people you were defending. It's an interesting paradox to consider, on one hand there's the idea of a shared sacrifice, that your death will be felt by every single person living in the nation you have sworn to protect for the rest of their lives. On the other, your sole desire is to kill and destroy every living thing that is unfortunate enough to be in the closest shade of existance of your enemy soldiers. It's like you have your noble purpose and your kill crazy psychotic purpose and which was the motivating one? And when I say noble I just want to clarify that while I think there is some nobility in sacrificing one's life for the lives of others, that nobility (in the case of the kamikaze) is earned as a battle sacrifice. I don't revel in battle or war of any kind, but if you are engaged in one and you act heroically it should be recognized. The point of all this was that its hard to make the distinction between a noble sacrifice and a senseless slaughter even if it is in the name of protecting the freedom of a nation. How do you justify it to yourself? Do you even have a choice in the matter?
Something else about the Japanese portion of the exhibit that troubled me a little bit: There were two items housed on display, one was a mock business card that read "Official Jap Hunter" with a sub head line that read "Open for Business" or something along those lines. In the little description panel next to the item the words read something like "This card represents the dehumanizing effects of war and the animosity that existed on both sides in the fight for the pacific." Those weren't the exact words but you get the idea, then I walk over a few feet to see a japanese flag, completely unfurled and six different stains each with a hole through them adorning the permiter of the flag. The inscription next to it read that it belonged to a japanese soldier who met his end during the battle for Iwo Jima, the flag had the stains on it because the bullet pierced through it on the way to the Japanese soldier's heart. The flag must have been folded up several times, which is why the stain repeats itself over and over again. I hope that makes sense because it was a really haunting image, this piece of cloth was the last thing that bullet past through on its way to a human body of a Japanese soldier. Anyway, an American took it off the body and wrote with a pen "stolen from a dead jap" and put the date. I was struck by this only because on the inscription next to it, after explaining where the flag came from, it read once again This flag represents the dehumanizing effects of war and the animosity that excisted on both sides in the fight for the pacific." It just made me think to myself that if they have this standard boilerplate response to two completely different representations of war time racism. Then do they think those feelings of hatred are not only natural but expected of a soldier during war time, that it's just this blanket phenomenon that happens whether you want it to or not? During world war II I definitely believed that kind of thing happened to a lot of soldiers, but it is troulbing to me that this musuem dealt with it in a slogan rather than any kind of real insight. They didnt' bother to explore the roots and causes of this problem, they just wrote it off as part of the dehumanization of war. You rarely read about men who fought in the war who were real bastards, everyone sort of becomes these saintly do gooders when they strap on those boots.
There is plenty more to talk about, I have some pictures but my flickr account is full and I don't know how to put pictures just on blogspot by itself. And I don't feel like learning either. It's getting dark now, and I'm reallly gonna try...
"The rungs torn from the ladder can't reach the tumour
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer
Just a quiet peaceful dance!
Just a quiet peaceful dance for the things we'll never have."
Monday, November 21, 2005
Corruption is why we win.
Getting back to the matter of things, this being the anti fanboy blogspot, I feel should report on the latest Harry Potter release. Now, before I continue with this critical in depth analysis I should warn you all of something very plain and simple: I don't care much for Harry Potter and the rest of Rowling's crap, in fact I don't care for it at all. It's rubbish mate, and I know, I haven't read a single word of the text so how am I able to make such a critical assessement.
There are some things man was not meant to know.
But I have seen the movies and after checking out the third and fourth installments by two real directors, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to the first two movies, I've seen better film on teeth. The first two harry potters had no imagination, no visual energy they were almost like re-enactments of the book. Which I guess is all well and good if you love the book, but for the rest of us, I already used up my film on teeth line so I'll let you guys figure this one out. Things improved a little bit with the third film, at least it looked good but I remember being totally disconnected from the story. Nothing about it held my attention for more than three minutes, plus they did this thing at the end with time travel that was utterly ludicrous and amounted to nothing more than showing the same ending twice. Alfonso Cauron didn't just ape off of Rowling's world, he created his own and it resulted in a really gorgeous if emotionally distant film. I feel like he set a precedent with that film and Mike Newell's latest interpretation is pretty much more of the same. That being said, this time I am surprised to report that there were sections, sections mind you, of the story where I was actually involved and I cared about what happened to the characters. That's how the film was for me, it worked in spurts, for about twenty minutes, the film focuses on the jealousy, puberty, adolescent love triangle involving harry, hermonie, and ron, that shit was reallly really good. Steeped in embarassment and mis-understandings, it was like a good angsty drama being played out. Then that part would go away and oh look harry gets chased by a giant dragon, whoopeee, now I'm really back into it. Then at the end harry enters a horrific maze, at the end of which he must confront his mortal enemy and the man who killed his parents: the nazi from Schindler's List. That scene has fear, tragedy, and the kind of mythic scope that makes the story seem more important than it actually is, plus it's accompanied by a really powerful death of a fellow student scene, really potent shit. Then it goes back to this nonsense about magical biting candy and the tri-wizard tournament and I am bored to tears. So I realized what it is I don't like about these movies, the magic. I feel like (and I wonder if rowling's shit is like this too) the makers are too wrapped up in the glory of their own imaginations and they operate entirely on hyper drive when it comes to the whimsical litlte touches displayed in each movie. It gets to the point where I just want to shout, okay I get it paintings come to life, candy can bite you, everything is something in this castle, move the fuck on. I'm not sayinig these movies should be flat and boring (we already saw what that can do when Columbus sailed the ocean blue) but they need to get off the self-satisfied magical nonsense. There should be magic, don't get me wrong but they don't need to underline hightlight or spotlight it whenever it happens. To wrap up, the same issues I had with the first three films were still prevalent here, lame story, bland lead performance by Radcliffe, and the fact that I just don't give a damn about this stuff. But at the same time there were moments and it's a well made film so I guess I'm in the realm of I'll see the rest just to see what happens, but I still don't want to touch a page of Potter. That may sound harsh but look at this way, I didn't even make it all the way to the third lord of the rings movie, I gave up at two. And I don't plan on going back, ever.
In other news, there's a really interesting article up on Rollingstone.com, check it out here
I heard the guy who wrote it on Democracy Now! today, he was pretty interesting, I didn't get to hear all of him because I was working at the time, that's right, I'm in a wheelchair! The article is basically about the lengths to which the Bush administration went in organizing a specific group to spread misinformation and discredit sources who opposed them in the build up to the iraq war. I know it probably sounds like old news but the writer knows what he's talking about and he's not just a muckraker, the detail he goes into and specifics of the article are quite terrifying, but judge for yourself. It's surprising to see such a facist magazine like Rolling Stone print something as damaging as this, but sometimes they surprise you.
That's about enough for now...
"And when they tell you that they think they've got you figured out
And when they tell you that they think they know what makes you tick
And when they step with their 12-point program for being like them
And when they tell you that you're blowing every chance you get
And when they tell you that you're setting up a life of regret
And when they tell you that you just can't get a single thing straight
Well, it's too late
But this is the life
No matter what they say, you know that
This is the life
For better or worse, it'll stay that way"
There are some things man was not meant to know.
But I have seen the movies and after checking out the third and fourth installments by two real directors, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to the first two movies, I've seen better film on teeth. The first two harry potters had no imagination, no visual energy they were almost like re-enactments of the book. Which I guess is all well and good if you love the book, but for the rest of us, I already used up my film on teeth line so I'll let you guys figure this one out. Things improved a little bit with the third film, at least it looked good but I remember being totally disconnected from the story. Nothing about it held my attention for more than three minutes, plus they did this thing at the end with time travel that was utterly ludicrous and amounted to nothing more than showing the same ending twice. Alfonso Cauron didn't just ape off of Rowling's world, he created his own and it resulted in a really gorgeous if emotionally distant film. I feel like he set a precedent with that film and Mike Newell's latest interpretation is pretty much more of the same. That being said, this time I am surprised to report that there were sections, sections mind you, of the story where I was actually involved and I cared about what happened to the characters. That's how the film was for me, it worked in spurts, for about twenty minutes, the film focuses on the jealousy, puberty, adolescent love triangle involving harry, hermonie, and ron, that shit was reallly really good. Steeped in embarassment and mis-understandings, it was like a good angsty drama being played out. Then that part would go away and oh look harry gets chased by a giant dragon, whoopeee, now I'm really back into it. Then at the end harry enters a horrific maze, at the end of which he must confront his mortal enemy and the man who killed his parents: the nazi from Schindler's List. That scene has fear, tragedy, and the kind of mythic scope that makes the story seem more important than it actually is, plus it's accompanied by a really powerful death of a fellow student scene, really potent shit. Then it goes back to this nonsense about magical biting candy and the tri-wizard tournament and I am bored to tears. So I realized what it is I don't like about these movies, the magic. I feel like (and I wonder if rowling's shit is like this too) the makers are too wrapped up in the glory of their own imaginations and they operate entirely on hyper drive when it comes to the whimsical litlte touches displayed in each movie. It gets to the point where I just want to shout, okay I get it paintings come to life, candy can bite you, everything is something in this castle, move the fuck on. I'm not sayinig these movies should be flat and boring (we already saw what that can do when Columbus sailed the ocean blue) but they need to get off the self-satisfied magical nonsense. There should be magic, don't get me wrong but they don't need to underline hightlight or spotlight it whenever it happens. To wrap up, the same issues I had with the first three films were still prevalent here, lame story, bland lead performance by Radcliffe, and the fact that I just don't give a damn about this stuff. But at the same time there were moments and it's a well made film so I guess I'm in the realm of I'll see the rest just to see what happens, but I still don't want to touch a page of Potter. That may sound harsh but look at this way, I didn't even make it all the way to the third lord of the rings movie, I gave up at two. And I don't plan on going back, ever.
In other news, there's a really interesting article up on Rollingstone.com, check it out here
I heard the guy who wrote it on Democracy Now! today, he was pretty interesting, I didn't get to hear all of him because I was working at the time, that's right, I'm in a wheelchair! The article is basically about the lengths to which the Bush administration went in organizing a specific group to spread misinformation and discredit sources who opposed them in the build up to the iraq war. I know it probably sounds like old news but the writer knows what he's talking about and he's not just a muckraker, the detail he goes into and specifics of the article are quite terrifying, but judge for yourself. It's surprising to see such a facist magazine like Rolling Stone print something as damaging as this, but sometimes they surprise you.
That's about enough for now...
"And when they tell you that they think they've got you figured out
And when they tell you that they think they know what makes you tick
And when they step with their 12-point program for being like them
And when they tell you that you're blowing every chance you get
And when they tell you that you're setting up a life of regret
And when they tell you that you just can't get a single thing straight
Well, it's too late
But this is the life
No matter what they say, you know that
This is the life
For better or worse, it'll stay that way"
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Thank god for John Cusack...
Seriously this guy deserves a a full blooded ceremony in his honor where people sit around and talk about how great he is.
Not only is this man responsible for Lloyd Dobler, Martin Blank, Vince Larkin, Captain John Gaff, Nelson Rockefeller, Craig Schwartz, Rob Gordon, and the list goes on and on. He so good I will sit through the most arbitrary boring trash imaginable just hoping I'll get one of those john cusack moments that can brighten the dreariest of fucking days.
Anyway the reason for all this Cuasck love is not only does he make interesting, off the beaten course movies that do not reflect a desire to cash in at a moment's notice (well maybe some of them do, but he hasn't done anything as reprehensible as yours, mine, and ours) but he also wrote this piece for the huffington post, and it's about as dead on as you can be. Read it for yourself and let me know what you think, throughout the piece he makes several mentions of his heroes Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Moyers, and Dr. Martin Luther King and frequently thanks god for their ideas, presence, and words. Which is why I say in response, thank god for you john cusack.
"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."
Not only is this man responsible for Lloyd Dobler, Martin Blank, Vince Larkin, Captain John Gaff, Nelson Rockefeller, Craig Schwartz, Rob Gordon, and the list goes on and on. He so good I will sit through the most arbitrary boring trash imaginable just hoping I'll get one of those john cusack moments that can brighten the dreariest of fucking days.
Anyway the reason for all this Cuasck love is not only does he make interesting, off the beaten course movies that do not reflect a desire to cash in at a moment's notice (well maybe some of them do, but he hasn't done anything as reprehensible as yours, mine, and ours) but he also wrote this piece for the huffington post, and it's about as dead on as you can be. Read it for yourself and let me know what you think, throughout the piece he makes several mentions of his heroes Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Moyers, and Dr. Martin Luther King and frequently thanks god for their ideas, presence, and words. Which is why I say in response, thank god for you john cusack.
"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."
Monday, November 14, 2005
Insert obvious comment about length of elapsed time between blog entries.
Ah the years, where do they go?
It seems like years since I've been back on this thing, thirty two years to be exact. I know my adoring public has been clamoring away for some of my sharp insights and biting commentary, ah hell who am I kidding? I kinda forgot about this thing and everytime I was motivated to write something, the idea of writing it and knowing it won't come out the way I wanedt to always halted my process. And by process I mean the act of sitting down in a chair and typing. I'll get back in the groove of things in a little bit, but for now enjoy some picatures. I'll see ya...
"Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"
"Someday my dream will come. One night you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn't happened and it never will, 'cause you were never going to do it anyway. "
It seems like years since I've been back on this thing, thirty two years to be exact. I know my adoring public has been clamoring away for some of my sharp insights and biting commentary, ah hell who am I kidding? I kinda forgot about this thing and everytime I was motivated to write something, the idea of writing it and knowing it won't come out the way I wanedt to always halted my process. And by process I mean the act of sitting down in a chair and typing. I'll get back in the groove of things in a little bit, but for now enjoy some picatures. I'll see ya...
"Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"
"Someday my dream will come. One night you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn't happened and it never will, 'cause you were never going to do it anyway. "
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