Hollywood: Requiem for a Dream 1
I’ve been writing a lot about Danish movies and how good they are and though I think that there has been a remarkable confluence of great actors, directors and writers to create possibly the most accomplished national cinema today, I have to admit that some of my attraction to Danish and European cinema in general stems from the abysmal state of American film making. This, the tradition that brought us film noir and fast talking screwball, and Buster Keaton and David Lynch, and still today occasionally astounds as in the work of Todd Solondz but now appears to be degenerating year after year.
I follow a number of film news blogs and if there is one theme it is the development of yet another comic hero. (And the utter poverty of the superhero cliche will follow another day…with of course the exceptions as well…) And if that were not enough of an indication of the lack of imagination on the part of American screen writing (and of course I generalize, there are a few geniuses here and there but they are overwhelmed by the great garbage scow that is the contemporary Hollywood product system), what other conclusion other than endtimes can you draw from making a movie based on the game of Risk?
If there is one thing I detest the most (and I will find something more detestable soon after posting I am sure) is the tendency of American film makers to remake good foreign films. Can you imagine someone taking a Garcia-Marquez novel and rather than translating (which are the point of subtitles) rewriting it with English locations etc.? There is a current release Brothers which is taking a perfectly fine movie directed by Suzanne Bier (who directed the great Open Hearts and wrote After the Wedding) and though there are good enough actors and director attached to the American production, I can only imagine how this moving tale will be both punched up and dumbed down for the domestic audience.
The Turtles of Subversion
Ok, so the video misses the crucial cultural touchstone of the Ed Sullivan introduction and the unforgettable image of a man unable to bend or turn, a man who must have been the inspiration for Supermarionation, the only man on the planet whose demeanor would be unaffected by a baseball bat inserted up his ass.
But I wander from my purpose of extolling the wonders of this performance. Not only do we have an acme of bubble gum pop but purveyed in the spirit of both utter joy and abandon and love of the soaring melody line, the great backup, and yet also the subversiveness of the very existence of singers Flo and Eddie who would end up with great Dada Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention singing the Mudshark Arpeggio among other oddities and certain threats to right thinking folks everywhere.
But this video is such a hoot not only for a really fine clean song but Flo (the guy with the trumpet) just seems so timeless in his geeky appeal. And the one really dated element is that never to be seen again frozen wave type haircut on the guitar player. Is that even possible anymore?
How the boys look now (from sixstringplanet.com)
Mixed blessings with the brown…
This was taken about a week ago and you can see the sparseness of snow. Just a tad of the white stuff. So dominantly a brown and grey landscape. Visually a good snow would improve the vista dramatically but it is nice leaving the heavy winter togs at home. A hoodie, sneakers, jeans and you’re good.
And then today up to 10 degrees and most of the icing melted and though there is ice here and there, its a ground cover of leaves again.
See below.
Line worth the price of the book
“He looked like an elf who’d gone through a bad divorce.”
Music on a Friday
First up, Suns Hanging Low by NQ Arbuckle…kind of reminds me of Ray Materick a few decades on, or a younger Kris Kristofferson, off the wonderfully named cd Last Supper in a Cheap Town. For a real treat, check out My Baby off XOK).
Second, NQ on stage engaging in the fine old Canadian tradition of beer dancing along with the line-up from his latest cd, all performing Luke Doucet’s song Bloods Too Rich (Doucet, Melissa McClelland and Justin Rutledge). Two more great Doucet songs here.
Third up an old favourite, Melissa McLelland’s Passenger 24.
Point and shoot vs manual DSLR
In his latest post, Darwin Wiggett talks about the advantages of keeping a point and shoot around, and displays some good results.
Though I am a recent convert to pure manual shooting, I have to accept that some of my favourite photographs were taken with a point and shoot. For instance, the one above, or this one.
Obviously they have both been manipulated some, the second much more, but using the fairly limited Picasa. The first is a baseball field and the second an inside shot from a Gaudi in Barcelona.
I have to accept that much of the final result was chance interacting with my preset (usually landscape) mode. And my goal is to reproduce these sorts of things in a much more determined fashion. I want to be able to claim more of the result as intentional. And yet, as final works, they are as much mine as my more recent manual shots in the sense that my eye set the frame. (I do however have more of a sense of accomplishment in my current manual phase. In fact, I take it a little further now and try to minimize manipulation; my effort it going almost entirely to creating the perfect in camera shot. This may change; I don’t know.)
But what I liked most about Wiggett’s column was just the pragmatism. The process is important and ultimately perhaps the crowning glory of photography but the resulting images, within the full ranges of planning, are not to be discounted.
Police corruption, internal affairs, cliche.
Just a question for all you out there.
I read many mystery/thriller novels and one of the usual cliches is the police antagonism toward anybody bringing down dirty cops. Now, naive person that I am, I would think that as with most professions, you would welcome people cleaning out the bad apples, the ones that give the profession a bad name.
Is this just a fictional trope or does it describe a reality? Because if it does, what kind of people are we giving power to?
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