Monday, August 31, 2009
SANDBOX
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was
Suna no onna / Woman in the Dunes (1964)
There are movies, films and art films.
A movie is probably the rouser you saw this last weekend that won't last more than a day in your mind's eye.
A film is something you linger over in your mind and relish, perhaps figure out after the event. Something you can still "see".
An art film is a poser. It may take days to shake off the images and the emotions that it aroused. You will surely want to see it again just to circle around its puzzles one more time. To relish the experience. You may return to it again and again.
Or, you may not like it very much and never want to see it again but it will stay with you forever one way or another. Even in one's subconscious. It will rattle around and you will be "seeing it" whether you want to or not.
"Woman in the Dunes' is an art film. An oriental Sisyphus story. Somewhat baffling. A lot of symbolism. A template of human experience. Slow. Didactic. Frustrating. Beautiful to watch. Subtle.
What else can I say?
Not a lot happens and yet a lot happens. I enjoyed it but I am not sure I would want to see it again. It is, well, too Japanese!
I liked the music. Modern atonal.
A 3 out of Netflix5 even though all the critics and film buffs consider it a masterpiece.
Hey, I don't much like the Mona Lisa either.
Labels: best films
Sunday, August 30, 2009
KABUKI
As he so often does, Kevin Drum puts my thinking down much more clearly than I could myself.
The Lesson of the Townhalls.There is a burnout factor on this kind of stuff. There is also a growing sense on the part of a majority of people that this is a tactic and not at all based on reality.
Newseek features the lies of health care reform this week. All the lies listed are from the Larouche people and the GOoPer troublemakers.
There is a growing backlash. Many more people in support of health care reform are showing up. And so on.
The fact that the worst and most egregious lies and distortions, to say nothing of dramatics, has had little impact on public support is quite telling.
There must be health care reform.
People know this.
The docs, the nurses, pharma, even the insurers know it. It is a bonanza for these people, actually.
I rely on my chosen leader and his crew of experts. I don't much rely on the Senate. They will have to be dragged into line.
The House is all ready to vote. A bill is on the table.
We are more than half way there.
Labels: republican whack jobs
GOING NUCLEAR
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Peter Watkins'
a documentary showing the immense gap between public knowledge about nuclear war and the actual thing.
It won an American Oscar and many other awards. Ebert thinks it is the best documentary ever.
Using a combination of "official" documents, actual data from Hiroshima and other atomic tests as well as actors used in pre-creating what such an attack would be like in Britain, Watkins puts together a sort of mash up of fact, confusion, horrific scenes of human suffering and official bullshit.
It is very powerful.
His techniques are to put us right in the middle of the action, the attack, the actual consequences including the initial burn, the shock wave, the aftermath firestorm, the loss of oxygen and the long suffering from radiation. The psychological trauma. Insanity.
Lots of closeups. We are in the middle. Handheld cameras. He is clever in his use of absolutely normal Brit faces. Almost stereo typical kids, mums, medical people, coppers, and officials.
He shows the difference between planned events and the more likely actual carnage. Rioting, marshal law, mercy killing ensues.
In a way it is dated and in another way, mostly, it is not. It is quite up to the minute in respect to the probable outcomes. Only the faces and names will be changed.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Saturday, August 29, 2009
PROSPECTS FOR THE CLASS OF 2013
I have my list of prospective applicants to MIT.
You will remember that I am an "Education Counselor" which means that I am a local contact for these prospects. They are strongly suggested to have an interview with me before they get too far in the process.
Last year I had 30 something prospects and interviewed 12. This year I have 51 kids. And I have my first interview request.
Not all these kids will get interviews. Many of them will fall out and never go further with their applications. Still, it is a sizable number.
But I am up for it.
Here we go! The early app kids have to get interviews before October something and the regular kids by December 1st.
Labels: MIT
GOODBYE
I watched Ted Kennedy's funeral and some of the ceremonies on the Senate steps/
I liked how the youngest of the family took up the call for health care passage.
The Republicans had warned that the proceedings should not be politicized.
Where the fuck to they get off with that kind of thing?
And who is it that politicized it then?
John just told me about a remark on Huffington. "To have a Kennedy memorial without talking politics is like having a Michael Jackson memorial without music".
Hear hear.
Labels: Democrats, Republicans
ROCK
Today's movie was a collection of Van Halen videos. Volume One. There was/is not another volume.
I like the drama of the videos and, of course, the music.
The dozen videos on this disc have three with David Lee Roth, eight with Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone on one.
The band has had its ups and downs like all the others (well not all the others but, still it has been a long time. 35 years).
Below: The original David Lee Roth group, Eddy flies, and Roth back today (more or less) with Eddy's son Wolfgang.
Labels: music
APT APPLICATION
How apt that Gail Collins writes about computer updating today.
I am in the middle of this right now.
While Gail's computer is a Dell with Microsoft stuff on it and mine is a Mac, the same thing applies.
I used to not take any updates when they came to me. I had the idea that they would fuck things up.
Then someone advised me that was a stupid idea and that not doing the update could lead to problems. So I did an update which took in all the missed updates for a long time. It was a long download.
The Mac updates are not as dramatic as MS or Dell. They have drama. Intrigue. Viri.
Mac is cool, calm and collected.
I now update whenever it comes up.
Then there are the massive updates. The ones that are sold to reprogram the computer. These are fraught. What if shit is lost in the transfer? What if the computer crashes? What if I got the one disc that doesn't work?
My current fraught is about the new "revision" of the 10X system called, cutely enough, Snow Leopard.
I have read all about it. David Pogue has written a laudatory piece on it.
The one reservation that he has applies to me. I have odd software, not Mac originated. Quicken and a neat calendar called Now-Up-To-Date. The Mac Calendar sucks.
Now these two non-Mac companies usually update quite well with Mac system improvements but there is always the chance that I am going to lose all my financial records and a year of calendar entries in the transition. In fact, I am sure that I would except my son David will be here in October to help me install.
Gail Collins has a nephew with the similar ability to advise her but I am right with her in respect to the nervousness about it.
It is a constantly moving target, this computer stuff.
PATRIOTISM
Maira Kalman becomes a citizen.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door......
She does a piece in the NYTimes about once a month.
I start reading them and think "oh, this isn't worth my time" and then something happens.
I think that it is called "identification" or something like that.
I am not an immigrant but some of my grandparents were and all of my great grandparents. Germans. My dad made the distinction of saying that his people were Westphalians.
They still insist on their national identity!
Modern WestphaliaBut they became Americans. They were farmers who gradually joined the industrial revolution. Well, one did. He was a foreman on the Lackawanna Railroad. Maintenance.
The present state of North Rhine-Westphalia was created after World War II from the former Prussian province of Westphalia, the northern half of the former Prussian Rhine Province, and the former Free State of Lippe. For North Rhine-Westphalia is subdivided into five government regions (Regierungsbezirke) one can say that Westphalia is today consisting of the Regierungsbezirke of Münster, Detmold and Arnsberg. People in these areas call themselves Westphalians and call their home area Westphalia even though there is no governmental unit by that name.
The other grandad drove a team of oxen. I have his picture with them.
Friday, August 28, 2009
NEW EVIDENCE
New facts come out all the time about Ted Kennedy. I didn't know that he was so on the outs with the catholic heirarchy.
After Kennedy's Death: Silence from the Pope
Good for him.
The Kennedys have slowly and inevitably de-poped themselves.
And the Popes have done the same with them.
Here is what some vatican johnny said about Kennedy:
"Here in Rome, Ted Kennedy is nobody. He's a legend with his own constituency," says the Vatican official. "If he had influence in the past, it was only with the Archdiocese of Boston, and that eventually disappeared too."
Another quote that throws more light on the situation:
"He is a complicated figure," says the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and the culture editor of the Catholic magazine America. "Catholics on the right are critical because of his stance on abortion. Catholics on the left celebrate his achievements on immigration, fighting poverty and other legislation that is a virtual mirror of the Church's social teaching."There is the rub.
Kennedy represents the "other side", the liberal Catholics in the tradition of Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker. And, he supports abortion. Horrors.
He is the embodiment of the opposition to the present bunch of bastards that run the home office.
Watch what happens. See if the Archbishop of Boston runs the show during the funeral or whether they send in a pinch hitter. Perhaps a more liberal guy was requested. They are already not in the Cathedral in the South End of Boston where we used to live. They will be in the Mission Church in Mission Hill which is a pretty nice place, actually.
This again might have been the wish of the family. It is where he went when he was in town. But it is hard not to draw inferences.
Of course, this is why the church is so fucked up today. Kennedy is as near to embodying the christian ideal, support for the poor, the disenfranchised. Spiritual redemption of his own sins in his own life. Restitution. And he is ostracized by the "true church".
Did I mention that I think that they are a bunch of bastards?
Labels: christist watch
SOAPERAMA
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Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Douglas Sirk's
This film distills months of soap opera into one 100 minute tragidrama.
Every base is touched. Well, most of them. Homoeroticism (suppressed--barely), alcoholism, murder, incest, slander, impotence and miscarriages (they go together, really), adultery, another kind of miscarriage, this time of justice, nymphomania and so on.
It is all rendered in an over the top style which took me right into the center of the mess and catapulted me along with the story so that there was no time to even think through what was happening to the characters or to me.
Robert Stack is the heir of an oil company, the Dad still leads with a benign dictatorship. Stack finds Lauren Bacall in an ad agency and seduces her with his infrequent honesty (not his money god forbid). His best friend and companion Rock Hudson is also in love with Bacall (and probably Robert Stack) and then there is Stack's sister Dorothy Malone, the mean bitch sister, who stirs the pot and keeps things going so that she can have a crack at Rock Hudson.
The film starts with the ending, sort of, and then we go back to see how we got here.
It is really a great movie in that it invites laughs, has a smirk of its own as it tells the story and then somehow made me teary at the end of it.
I missed this when it was around. Too bad. It was a scandal in the 50's. The critics hated it and the people loved it. It was very popular. That is probably why I, wrongly, missed it.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
TALKING THE WALK TO TALK ABOUt THE WALK
Today on CNN they had a segment showing how Ted Kennedy read with little kids, once a week every week, for years in a DC school near his office. One on one.
His first reading partner is now in college.
They said that this demonstrates how Kennedy "walked the walk".
Screeech. Honk! GODAMMIT!
This is a saying so often mis-said that it just drives me nuts.
The phrase is "walk the talk" or "if you are going to talk the talk you need to walk the walk". In other words, practice what you preach.
The first time I heard it was from a couple of guys who were working for the Department of the Navy under Admiral Zumwalt's program to reform personnel policy and practice.
This was reputedly, a Zumwalt meme.
I have always liked it but most people who try to use it mangle the shit out of it.
Most people and teevee talking heads babble on in word streams that are only partially based on proper usage or, for that matter, facts.
I guess that means that they are not "talking the walk". Hah.
Please, for me, use this phrase appropriately.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
OLD STORIES
Booker and I were walking tonight and we met a woman who I sort of know but give a wide berth to. We have history.
A few other neighbors and I interceded with the animal officer about her treatment of her very old golden lab. We had brought it home several times between us. She "didn't know it was out".
Well, I believe that.
Anyway, we have been meeting up a lot lately on the evening walk. She throws balls for her remaining dog up at the top of the hill.
Tonight, somehow, she figured out that Booker is not Franklin who died in April. Booker has been with us since mid May.
It was unavoidable. I went through the whole story again. Franklin's melanoma. Booker's Mom dying, his dad distraught and copeless. All the sad stuff. Then I get to the happy stuff which is Booker with us now.
It is a well practiced routine.
I have done it many many times. So has John. We see and know, casually, a lot of people.
Some, who are close, knew the story from the first days. Now we are down to the way distant people. Even the ones that we "have history with".
It doesn't hurt anymore to tell about Franklin. I do get sad and miss him at times but the sharp pains are gone.
I suppose that it isn't really going to raise emotions by telling someone I feel pretty distant from in the first place.
Anyway, it is a progress.
It is still clear, by the way, that Franklin's memory is not really linked to Booker's presence. They are two different dogs with totally different relations with us.
Franklin's loss is as great as it was the first day but it is now acceptable and the happy times outway the few bad days of losing him.
Soon, the snowbirds will be coming back and I am sure there are a few of them who will need to hear the stories too. They start leaving in May so some of them do not know about Booker. And all.
It is OK. The telling eases the pain over time and it is good to connect with people no matter what the subject. A good spiritual exercise.
I have to admit that I feel a lot more kindly toward the woman tonight than I did before. She was receptive and interested and reactive in a nice way. Very good. Kindness is in short supply these days. I am happy to find it wherever it lurks.
ALL REVVED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO
My "new" glasses started to scratch last week. Just like that.
The coating was wearing through. Or something.
My last pair of glasses lasted three or four years before the coating began to wear.
So I went to the optician I got these from. It was my first time with them.
I was ready for bear.
I had the date I bought them, I took the rag I use to clean them--a special Scotch cloth that does not scratch anything--and a story.
I also had their story and a rebuttal.
In short, I had a full rehearsal of outcomes.
Except for the one that happened.
I went in, gave my name, they found my file (they are still all paper), took me to a little chair and table to wait to be seen and here comes the optician.
She took a look and said "oh the coating has failed". We will have to replace it. Under the warranty.
Duh.
OK. No argument, no rebuttal. I am glad I took my old glasses along to wear as I left the place. They aren't too far off.
The new recoated glasses or new glasses, whatever, will be ready in a week.
I sure wish I had a chance to use all my ammunition though. But I will retire from the field. I have met the enemy and he is almost me.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME?
This is neat. And I thought all these scenes were the "reel thing".
A PRIDE OF MENTORS
This is a fascinating article.
It basically says the Ted Kennedy was great because of the greatness of the men who he joined in his early years.
A Lion in a Senate Full of Them--Back in '63, That is
When I get into my "good old days" mode, this is what I am talking about.
Here is a list of Senators when Ted Kennedy joined the hallowed hall.
Alabama’s John Sparkman; Arizona’s Barry Goldwater and Carl Hayden; Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright; Connecticut’s Abe Ribicoff and Thomas Dodd; Georgia’s Richard Russell; Idaho’s Frank F. Church; Illinois’ Everett Dirksen; Indiana’s Birch Bayh; Louisiana’s Russell Long; Maine’s Edmund Muskie and Margaret Chase Smith; Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy (and later, Walter Mondale, who filled Humphrey’s seat at the end of that Congress); Mississippi’s John Stennis; Montana’s Michael J. Mansfield; Nebraska’s Roman Hruska; New York’s Jacob Javits; North Carolina’s Sam Ervin; Rhode Island’s Claiborne Pell; South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond; South Dakota’s George McGovern; Tennessee’s Al Gore Sr. and Estes Kefauver; Texas’ Ralph Yarborough and John Tower; Virginia’s Harry Byrd; Washington’s Scoop Jackson; West Virginia’s Robert Byrd; and Wisconsin’s William Proxmire.Now, you may be too young to know some of these names but I am not. As I read the list almost all of these men's faces come to mind. Some with sound and motion. Goldwater. Hayden, Fulbright, Ribicoff, Dodd the elder, Russell, Church. Hell, the whole passel of them. It is easier to mention the few that I can't picture and "hear". Hruska. Pell. Gore Sr.
There is no equivalent today. First, I can't visualize but half of the Senators or put a story to them. Another quarter are mostly the noisy ones you don't want to hear from again. Maybe 25% of the bunch are reasonable facsimiles of the men in the '63 Senate.
This is the official photo from 1963.
Labels: America
THE OTHER BROTHER
There has never been a time that Ted Kennedy has not been on my political scene.
You will read a lot of bullshit about him and the family today. I already saw a lot of it on television.
The liberal lion. The surrogate father. The family tragedies. The rest.
All of it is somewhat true but also overblown hype.
What, to me, is the real story of Ted Kennedy is the story of redemption.
He had a bad start. He made some stupid choices. He was the nearly black sheep among the brothers. He had scandal.
And he endured.
When I was a young man I did not take Ted seriously. I imagine that I did not vote for him. I don't believe in "legacy" seats in congress or anywhere else.
But Massachusetts voted for him forever.
Now, I am surprised to say that I have taken Kennedy very seriously for his later years. He used the powers of his tenure and his voice for great causes. He was truly bi-partisan. That is not non-partisan. Bi-partisan. He believed in his cause and he believed in working with the opposition.
My suprise is that this happened gradually and below my awareness. I recognized that he had become a statesman.
He gained my respect and my vote.
And now, my sadness at his passing. He is a hero.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
EMOTIONAL SADISM
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Mike Nichol's version of Edward Albee's
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)
This is a trial by fire. At times I wanted to retreat to my foxhole.
The play is well known. What is forgotten is the venom and force of the dialogue between the four principles.
There is a tendency to ask oneself what this play is about.
The answer is as plain as the play before us. It is about people gone off the track with grief and disappointment and failed ideals. And more.
This is Edward Albee. His plays are all on this level of multiple meaning. They work realistically on the surface but with the proper direction and acting one is forced to travel into the deep recesses of the work and, it is almost a guarantee, to have emotions which are both familiar and also surprising. Experiencing the play holistically. This is, of course, the difference between low and high art.
As a movie, we have high art meeting low art and with Nichol's direction and the exquisite camera work of Haskell Wexler, the result is quite satisfying.
Nevertheless I would have cut a bit more. It is arduous watching.
One advantage that a contemporary viewer has in watching this film is the distance from the movie star lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton who were living their real lives in the tabloids of the time and were hot film stars on top of it.
Now, we see plain actors doing a very good job. I have never been much of a Taylor fan but I have to hand it to the old girl in this one. And probably most of her films. She was one hell of an actor and quite the equal of her partner Burton.
George Segal and Sandy Dennis are quite good and hold up their end which, for the most part, is in the victim role.
I wouldn't mind seeing this again sometime. A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Monday, August 24, 2009
DOWN AT THE HEEL
I have had a sore heel for the last week and a half. I figured a bruise or something.
But it hurts most when I first get up! What is with that?
Today, on the way to the gym I got a light bulb moment.
Plantar fasciitis. I love to type that.
Plantar fasciitis.
If you are 73 years old, nearly, you have this happen. You ruminate, you worry it, you let it lie and hope to pounce on it.
Somewhere a file drawer opens and out pops an answer.
This is the ailment that my runner friends feared above all others. I never had it. I stretched and worried but it never came.
Now, after not running for fifteen years, I have it. Fuck.
I looked it up and it is precisely the diagnosis.
What to do? Nothing.
Wait.
Stretch the achilles before I get out of bed. Take aspirin.
It says that one cause for "non athletic" people is a high Body Mass Index.
I am not low but I am just on the edge between "normal" and "overweight". Not "obese". "Overweight". Two pounds less and I am normal.
Maybe.
Is there some denial in here?
There is always the possibility that it is bone spurs but it came on pretty fast and there is the morning hurt before you walk thing.
I don't think so.
I have a friend who had bone spurs in his heel and he had to have an operation to remove them. He was on crutches for weeks.
I don't think this is it.
It will take some time for me to work on this and when I have cured it, I will tell my doc about it. My usual approach to illness of anykind unless it is, well, serious.
Labels: health
JUST LIKE REAL LIFE (with makeup)
I didn't mention that I had a new flat panel plasma television in my San Diego hotel room last week.
Believe it or not, this was my introduction to HDTV.
Quite impressive technically.
Two problems. One is that regular video on the wide screen is distorted and looks, somehow, even worse than it would on my own set. I mean this for movies, actually. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at normal broadcasts as I don't ever do that at home.
Second problem. The HD didn't make the programs any better. Actually by heightening the reality it made the CNN talking heads look more over the top and more foolish than they do in the more fuzzy old-timey format. You can see them stoking their energy.
And the content sucks as well.
Television is such a wasteland. Newton Minow had no idea.
And, it is true that the makeup quality is critical. It shows. If there is a naked neck or whatever you can see that it is not covered.
Now that I think about it, the HD thing is quite distracting.
This is not true for sports. I mean the actual game. I found myself watching baseball!
It was so clear. You could see it all.
Grass blades.
Somehow the game I watched was free of all that graphic shit they throw on the screen.
All this is useful for me as I know that our video monitor will not last forever. Where we watch the movies. When the time comes, this set is just about right for us.
I don't know how big it was but it was just about too big for the hotel room.
That is my consumer report for the week.
Labels: television
NO CONNECTION
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Nicholas Roeg's
This is a film with a hard, hard message and the message is delivered with great beauty and grace. In a way it is a "people are no damn good" tract but underneath there is a different kinder message albeit pessimistic.
What a paradox, huh?
On the surface we see a couple of kids abandoned by their crazed dad in the desert way outside Adelaide, Australia. A full Volkswagen tank of gas far out.
The kids wander aimlessly until they connect with an aboriginal walkabout. A young man who is earning his adulthood by wandering alone for months across the wilderness.
The beauty of the desert, the grace of the young man, the story of their attempts to breach a vast cultural and spiritual gap are explored. This is not a noble savage kind of thing where the walkabout transforms the white kids. He fails quite miserably.
Civilization is spotted from time to time in this context and found wanting. There are many levels of meaning in this fine film. You are left to make your own conclusions.
I did not like the killing of animals which was not faked. I know. I should take visual and visceral responsibility for my fellow human animals. Sorry.
Roeg directed another film which has stayed with me forever, Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. It will make you jump right out of your seat.
There are others. I will have a Roeg Fest in a few months.
For now, mark this down as a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Sunday, August 23, 2009
HOME ALONE
We used today's movie trip as an opportunity to leave Booker at home by himself. Not for the first time, actually. John left him for 20 minute or so earlier this week when I was away.
But this was more like two and a half hours! I was worried about it but John was optimistic. Optimism won.
He came through it like a trouper.
We saw no evidence of lying on the beds (his one "old habit" that returns under stress).
No evidence that he was using either computer.
We got a royal greeting when we came home. He missed us.
It was also dinner time.
So he can do it. Meaning we can do it.
Now I have to look for another excuse not to "go out". Booker isn't going to stand up for me.
Labels: Booker
THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE
I went to a real movie theater for the first time in, well, a long, long time. 6 years?
Ever since we got a dog. He was my excuse.
I think that I made an exception to see the last of the Lord of the Rings which wasn't that great and was way too long.
Today, it was OK. They had a few ads but we walked in a bit late and mostly missed them.
They did, of course, have trailers.
I hate trailers. I don't even want to see a movie that I want to see in a trailer. They showed two films I have in my queue. The trailers really, really sucked. It is all I can do not to go remove the DVDs from the queue, but I won't.
We went to the "local" theater where we first went when we moved here. It was the only one in Palm Springs at the time. The only one in the West Valley for that matter. You had to go all the way to Palm Desert for another movie house.
This old familiar place has cleaned up its act. The stink of popcorn is not quite as bad as in the old one and the mildew smell is gone. The toilets evidently do not back up anymore.
They did a complete renovation. Then went bankrupt and another company got it all on the cheap.
They have these HUGE chairs. The arms are so wide that you can't really hold hands with your mate especially if there would be drinks in the cup hole.
I was surprised that people kept quiet. The last times I went to the movies there was always talk and noise and babies and christ knows what else to contend with. None of that today. But it wasn't that kind of movie.
There are other annoying things about going out to a movie. I still had to build the whole day around the event. Rearrange my schedule. John says that it is good for me. I am not so sure. I figure it takes an extra hour what with travel, trailers, bullshit with buying tickets.
And then there is the peeing problem. Planning that. Getting it all done so I can sit still for the whole film. This movie was only 90 minutes. Not bad. I made it.
The senior ticket is now seven bucks. Shit. That was the full price when I quit going.
I know. I am going on about it.
I shouldn't complain. It was a nice afternoon out with my husband and it didn't cost me anything. He drove and paid my way.
The movie was great and I got to see it before it comes out on DVD.
LOVE STORY SORT OF
Today's film was the acclaimed Marc Webb film
with Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Zooey Deschanel.
It is a great film. It has an IMDb of 8.6. Pretty high for IMDb.
It has had legs. It is still running and made its nut a long time ago.
This is because it has human interest. It is beautifully rendered with very creative bits and pieces.
It fractures the relationship into pieces that are as you might remember any event. Not chronologically.
The supporting cast is great. Very funny.
It is original in concept and execution.
It takes it's audience seriously and injects architecture and art as part of the scene without making a big deal out of it. It does not talk down.
I have been interested in Gordon-Leavitt for a long time. He was a child star who was determined not to be pulled under by it. He took a career break to attend Columbia University.
He has been very careful about his career development. He has been in 24 films!
It seems to me that he comes into his mature acting self in this film. And he can dance!
Ms. Deschanel is new to me but I would go see her in another film regardless of how the rest of that film was rated. She stands out.
We saw this in a theater but if I had it on Netflix, which I will, I would give it a 5 out of Netflix5. It has to be one of the best new movies that I have seen in a long while.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
ENDURING WISDOM
Ben Stiller hangs out with Mickey Rooney who is one year shy of being a 90-hero.
He has some sage advice for us and the whole video reveals the inanity of the Tweet. Put it up against someone who really has a life going on and you see the vacuity of it all.
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Films was Walter Hill's
This is a cult classic.
It is one of my favorite movies so it was no hardship to see it again as a "best film".
Based on a Greek legend, the story unwinds in comic panel style and has a futurist twist. The gang is caught behind enemy lines and must return to its turf in Coney Island.
New York City is presented in a way that would prompt you to look behind you as you walked its streets. The subway is a main character. Really great stuff in this.
The Netflix disc is the new directors cut which is not at all radically different than the original film. Hill has tweaked up the connection to the legend, the comic book aspect by using the very same motion-capture technique I saw yesterday in Waking Life(I know. Whatta coincidence, huh? Happens all the time with these Best Film films).
There is also a brief intro by Hill himself.
This film is still popular after 30 years. It sure is with me.
It is exciting, smart, funny and does not involve a lot of special effects or a gore-fest to make it work.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
PLUMPING
Plumping.com
I got me some chicken yesterday and it had a sticker that told me to go to
so I did and found a mesmerizing video. Or, actually, site design. What do you call it if it is produced with flash or something like that? Not a video, right? But it is shot as a video.
I am not easily mesmerized. Two chickens. Many ideas. Great photography and a script that tells while it amuses.
I have never seen a "plumped" chicken as far as I know.
Now there is one more thing to worry about.
Friday, August 21, 2009
SHORE LEAVE
There is no question that recent weeks have been tough sailing for the Obamas.
As usual, he is working at the troubles with grace and dignity.
I like that he is taking time off and that he has insisted that his aides do the same.
This is essential.
I don't suppose he is the kind of guy to take a nap every afternoon, as LBJ was, but he does need to get on the beach for awhile.
I am not worried about him. He has my full support. I have been called an "apologist" for the Obama administration. A badge of honor as far as I am concerned.
If we are going to make our support contingent then it is not support.
People are pissed that he hasn't delivered on promises. OK. Take a look at the
They have cut into a hundred "promises" and that is about 25%.
I know that a lot of people's priorities for him do not match the action that has been taken but, shit, there is sort of a problem out there with the economy and all. The health care reform is part of solving that problem. Can you imagine the rough seas if he was also trying to navigate DODT right now, for example? Or DOMA? My own special cases. Or the myriad other special interest cases, all important, many crucial, that are waiting for attention?
Do you have any idea of what that fucking political maelstrom is like? Amid the storm, there are pirates trying to take the ship.
Take a look at the town meetings and you get a clue. The enemy is right out there ready to climb aboard. Duplicitous bastards and that is just some of the Democrats.
These are parlous times. I will keep my attention on the captain that I elected to run the ship. So far so good as far as I am concerned.
And with that, I will retire the sailing metaphor.
Labels: Administration Obama
DRAWING ROOM
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Richard Linklater's
This is the one that first used "motion-capture" animation. The process immeasurably aids the dream process which is under examination. The invention and creativeness of this venture are extraordinary.
At first, I felt as if "this is where I came in". I remember seeing Linklater's first film Slackers and being blown away with its concept of events strung together by individuals walking from one situation to another and then another. Each situation breeding a new narrator and story.
This has one narrator or point of view person but is similar in that it is episodic and involves a set of scenes and situations generally linked with the problem posed by the film. What is reality in a dream world? Are we in a waking dream or awake dreaming?
Some of it is funny. Some seriously reflective. Some both.
I liked it a lot. It defies explanation but if you want a good try at it go to Ebert at the link.
Linklater has turned out to be our most innovative director. From tiny slacking seeds.
I will give this a 4 out of Netflix5. Maybe 5 if I keep thinking about it. I will see it again.
Labels: best films
SWEET SIXTEEN
We have read the comic Zits for a very long time.
For that entire time, the main character, Jeremy, has been 15 years old.
That is a long time.
I don't even remember being 15.
But today, in a wonderful moment for the strip, Jeremy passes his driver's test. He is 16.
It is a great moment.
It helps if you have seen the doofus side of this kid all this time.
DON'T COUNT ME OUT
Yet. But I gotta tell you as I look around I don't want any of those "cures" that they have for cancer or anything else.
I know. That is a sweeping statement. But 6 months to get my affairs in order and say my goodbyes are a lot more preferable than two or three years of radiation, chemotherapy, tubes and bags and all the rest.
I like the new approaches to "palliative care". Here is a long article in the NYTimes about a program at Montefiore Medical Center.
At the End, Offering Not a Cure but Comfort
It is long on stuff about training docs to be better at delivering bad news but it has a lot of meat around the issue of quality of life choices and help from the docs with that.
My experience is with people who get talked into heroic measures by the surgeons who will cut and dice as well as the radiologists, oncologists and the rest who have new science to peddle and to use particularly on old people.
I bet, incidentally, that this is where some of that "death panel" stuff comes from.
I am all for it.
I am not afraid of dying as much as suffering and protracted "procedures" to ward off the inevitable.
Now the trick is knowing whether what they want you to do has a hight probablity of success. And there, I am on my own with the help of my friends. Unless I have a good doc to talk to like ours. Or one of these folks who are putting some perspective on life extension.
I did make that choice once and I did it willingly knowing that there was an extremely high probability of recovery. 99%. The radiation for my prostate cancer was arduous for a 60 year old man. Now? It would be even harder and that was a relatively benign treatment. In a fairly good place in the body to have that kind of thing done if you have to have it done.
I had a consultant, a hired old surgeon. I had my primary care doc. I had other people who had been through it. I would do no less due diligence today.
I hope my kids are reading this. If I get one of those things where I am speechless then you know which way I want the wind to blow. You won't need a weatherman. You got it right here.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
OK. ONE MORE
I usually try to ration these but there was a good run of them while I was gone.
\Labels: life
OLD CAMPAIGN PHOTOS
I know the campaign is over and Lieberman is pretty much as big a memory as McCain but this was still a LOL moment.
Labels: McCain, republican whack jobs
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
I am always worried, when I go away, that I will miss something.
As usual, it turns out that I have not missed anything. Everything is boiling about the same as it was the last day I looked which was Sunday.
Of course, it is August and everyone was where I was. Not making news. Even Obama is going away next week.
Labels: life
KNOWING THE ENEMY
Many of us assume that the "soldiers" showing up to disrupt congressional town halls are right wing conservatives of the usual stripe.
The right part is right but the affiliation of many of these people are to
who has not been on the scene in a visible way for a long time.
His outfit are the ones working the "nazi" theme.
I know. They are all nutty. But these guys have been nutty for a long time and disruptive. They used to sit in airports and buttonhole/recruit people. Shout outs. I used to enjoy throwing them the finger or shouting back at them. You could get into some heavy duty tussles. All verbal as far as I was concerned.
They really got under my skin.
They are still a pain in the ass but, the last time I looked, we still have the First Ammendment in place.
The interesting thing is that the LaRouche people are non-partisan, actually. LaRouche has tried to run in the Democratic primary. His people were after Bush and Cheney when they were in office and they are after Obama now.
They are "aginners". They are agin' this and agin' that and they are strident in their approach.
I think that they are dangerous because they have not been taken seriously for a long time and, obviously, they are taken seriously by enough people to show up and cause a shout down and intimidation. They are very tough on their feet. Just watch the woman who takes on Barney Frank. A LaRouche case.
Labels: republican whack jobs
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
I came back from San Diego this morning. Over the mountains. Early enough to see the sun rise. Very nice.
I had a good time. Everything went according to plan. I stayed at the same place that I have gone, off and on, for over 15 years. I stay in the same kind of room but, somehow, through the laws of chance, I get a different view every time. Well, in a cycle of four as their are only four views.
This time was the upper bay. The Navy base. The big ship channel. Very nice.
I go nowhere when I am there. I eat in the excellent restaurant, all three meals.
I read, I go across the street to see the boat ramp and its drama, I walk twice the length of the island each day (75 minutes) and I sit. I do not think while I am sitting. I mostly breathe.
It is a pretty good regimen. I can see what kind of shit that I might be carrying in my daily life. It comes up with all that sitting and non-active activity.
I love the air. The pelicans. The seals that play in the boat ramp area waiting for handouts of fish guts. There are hundreds of birds. Thousands?
Then there are the people. The people on the boats and how they get the boats in and out with their friends and family. Big drama yesterday with a guy who couldn't land his boat onto the trailer bed to save his ass and his two friends hollering at him, seriously angry, from the beach. It was almost unwatchable. I counted ten attempts. Finally I couldn't take any more and left. They were gone the next time I went out.
There are people walking. Fun to see. Some lookers. People on the beach, mostly families. It is a huge multi-use park. Something for everyone.
I like to walk the half of the island which is devoted to yachting businesses. This is way alien to me. A different world.
There are a few big yards where you can see work being done. Over two days, a medium size sailboat got a newly finished bottom. Four guys, two sprayers, two wipers. Amazing.
There are small businesses. A sailmaker. A little shop that does embroidery and paints names on boats. Micro businesses.
It all seemed quite prosperous still. These businesses have been there since I have been going to the island. Several buildings were vacant. One, a loan outfit. Not surprising.
It is good to be home. I start to be "finished" after about three days, in the afternoon. I can feel my attention turn.
I am ready to take off when I get up the next morning. No hanging around. I was off at 3:30AM and saw the Coachella Valley sunrise from the mountains at 6AM as I came down the switchback. Red to orange to pink to blue.
The welcome home was spectacular. This is the first time that I have gone away while we had Booker here. He came home from his walk and I was in the house. He sniffed, looked around and found me. Pandemonium. It is worth going out there again somewhere for a few days just to get the welcome home.
He has been here three months now and has joined up. We are very important to him and he is very important to us. He needs two dads around for the system to work right. He is OK when one of us is gone but it is not the same. He will stay close for awhile to make sure I don't escape again.
While I was away, John left Booker alone in the house for the first time. I know that some people do this from the get-go because they have to. But we did not have to so we didn't. Now it is time to start letting him have the space on his own. He did well and didn't even do his little whining thing when John left. The house was not "redecorated" when John returned.
A yawn, a welcome and back to his nap.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
VACATION
Yes. When you retire you definitely still need a vacation.
No chores.
No talking. Much.
In my case, cooler weather.
Different scenes. Pelicans, seals, boats, boaters.
This will be me for four days and three nights beginning tomorrow.
Oh.
I forgot. No email, no blogging, no news on the internet, no nothing that involves electronics of any kind.
Here is where I am going. Shelter Island, San Diego. I've gone there for years. I will be staying down there at the elbow.
Lots of walking. Lots of sitting watching the boat ramp coming and going.
Reading.
Doing nothing.
I will be back Thursday.
This is the view that I will have from the place I am staying.
Labels: life
HEALTH INSURANCE
As usual, Nate Silver puts up a great summary of where the health debate stands.
Life After the Death of the Public Option
He includes both the material and political consequences of trying to get the public option through and also points out the "incrementalist" approach which would be to take what we can get now and do the next step later.
I am an incrementalist.
I favor several priorities. No caps on insurance. No preexisting conditions. Some form of mandatory insurance for universal coverage. Business coverage for employees or use of the co-op system.
These can all make it through the first time.
I read the liberal blogs. They are all doggedly for the public option or bust. Well, they could bust it but Silver thinks that they won't. There is nothing in it for them.
It is a tough fight but I do believe there is going to be a successful bill and that Obama will, as Bill Clinton predicts, get a healthy bounce from the passage of it. A lot of the slippage he is getting is from people who want health care reform now.
Labels: Administration Obama
GIRRRLS
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was George Roy Hill's
with Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury, Tom Bosley, Bibi Osterwald and Al Lewis.
This was billed as a Peter Seller's film but he is neither the star nor the focus of the story.
He is the target of a stalking operation by two Haley Mills type girls, Mary Spaeth and Tippy Walker, who never made but a few other films and teevee shows before sliding into obscurity.
The story is pretty good though as the girls concoct a romantic fiction about this piano artist Henry Orient. Idealizing him, they do not know that he is a sleaze ball and low life. A fake. A pianist born in Brooklyn trying to hold a career together while Don Juaning his way around New York. Improbable you would say. I would say too.
The film is amusing and at its best when the girls are stalking.
Otherwise it is an overblown situation comedy not worth the time or trouble.
Peter Sellers fans (which I am not very much) will be disappointed in the few scenes that he has and the schtick that he uses for over the top laughs. Not all that funny.
I watched it all but I didn't like it too much. I will give it a 2 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Saturday, August 15, 2009
RIGHT NOW
I just realized that the Van Halen video (below) anticipates Twitter by about eight or nine years.
I am not interested in Twitter at all. But there it is in the video.
Maybe the T-guys stole the idea from VH.
DOING THE RIGHT THING
This web site is very interesting.
There is a lot going on here.
At the center are a series of short films that present moral conundrums. Not too complicated.
There is a discussion page.
I found it intriguing and quite heartening.
Yeh. I know. Cynicism about corporate America and all but still. This is pretty nice to see.
The film that I watched was by the director Michael Apted. Party Guest. Other top directors are represented.
There are many films available here
Give one or more a try. Think about it.
Well, come on. What would you do?
I think that I would have called the cops. I don't think that I would have stood right there holding a pink box. But maybe.
What would I say? Notice there are all women in the bus. Just us two guys. And so on.
Or maybe this one suits better.
Labels: life, responsibility
VAN HALEN REVEALED
Today's movie wasn't really a movie but a cheesy documentary about the band's "early years".
Once into it there is the realization that this is not an authorized version, that the guys talking are all ex-Van Halen people including Jamie Lee Roth and that you could get the "story" in Wikipedia.
But I stayed with it and it was OK in a way. They kept showing the same stills over and over and they were pretty good. One guy had acne bad when he was a kid. One was thrown out of the band way back at the beginning. Watched his eyes.
There was not one live or video clip of the music. A few obviously pirated pieces that one or two of the guys may have held on to.
I have ordered some more DVD's with real music on them. Two concerts and some MTV videos.
I have gotten interested in the group from watching them on the Gold's Gym television. Notably "Jump" and "Hot for Teacher" but, occasionally, they play one or two others like "Dreams" which is all Air Force Flying Angels footage with the sound track.
I like the band. They seem so happy to be playing and the sound is great. David Lee Roth is fun to watch. The videos are big ass productions. I have not seen their videos with Sammy Hagar, who replaced Roth for awhile. He will be in a new batch which I have strung out in the queue over a few months.
Why Van Halen? Why now? Who knows.
I just like them. I think that it may have to do with the wit with which they present themselves.
Oh.
The documentary?
It was a piece of shit.
I didn't skip though. I will give it a 2 out of Netflix5>
NOT ME
I was not at Woodstock.
If all the people who say they were there were there, there wouldn't be any room for me.
I knew kids that went.
Well, kids that were ten years younger than me.
They took off, spur of the moment and didn't get back for a week.
Going wasn't bad but getting home was horrendous. And it was only from Boston to upper New York state. I don't think they heard much music.
I did go see the movie. I took my kids. The guy at the theater told me that it wasn't good for kids to see because there were "bad words" in it.
We all went in and saw it anyway.
There wasn't anything about Woodstock that I could see, from the movie, that would make me want to be there. I do not even regret not wishing I was there, let alone lie about it.
Dirt, no food, traffic jams, doped out people.
Not my kind of thing.
I am one of the few people I know who has never been to any kind of rock or other big venue concert.
I have gone to see a few performers in a smaller setting.
So that is it. No nostalgia here. I missed it and I am not sorry about that at all.
Take one look. Would you regret missing this?
Friday, August 14, 2009
CINDERELLA
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Mike Nichol's
with Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford.
No question who the prince and princess are. The wicked stepmother is Sigourney Weaver.
Updated to a merger and acquisitions department of a large Wall Street firm, it is a nice story with good acting and a nice clip along directorial style.
The support here is important. Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Philip Bosco, Olympia Dukakis.
I didn't want to like it but I did. A lot of the enjoyment of it is not knowing/remembering how it turns out. I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Thursday, August 13, 2009
GOODBYE LES
We said goodbye to Mary in 1977. She and Les busted up in 1964.
FROM THE MARGARET AND HELEN BLOG
If you want to read more from this blog here they are. 
Margaret is it just me or did combing your hair become optional when going out in public? I’ve been watching news clips of these town hall free-for-alls and we have definitely become a nation of tired, poor, and huddled masses clearly tempest-tossed, but without access to a good beauty salon. Universal Hygiene – now that is something I could get behind. And all of them are asking for their America back. I wonder which America that would be?
Would that be the America where the Supreme Court picks your president instead of counting all the votes? Would that be the America where rights to privacy are ignored? Would that be the America where the Vice President shoots his best friend in the face? Or would that be the America where an idiot from Alaska and a college drop-out with a radio show could become the torchbearers for the now illiterate Republican party?
I fear that would not be the America they want back. I fear that the America they want back is the one where black men don’t become President.
I remember that America. In that America people screaming at public gatherings were called out for what they were – an angry mob. Of course, they wore sheets to cover up their bad hair. Let’s be clear about something: if you show up to a town hall meeting with a gun strapped to your leg, the point you are trying to make isn’t a good one. Fear never produced anything worthwhile.
And what’s all this crap about killing your grandmother? Are you people honestly that stupid? This has become less an argument about healthcare reform and more a statement about our failed education system. Margaret, I don’t know what plans you’ve made up there with Howard, but down here with Harold, we have living wills to determine how we will leave this world when the time comes. Mine states that unless the feeding tube is large enough for a piece of pie, I don’t want to be hooked up to it. Harold, of course, says his can only be connected to him if the other end is connected to a bottle of single malt scotch.
Now shame on me for making a joke about a serious subject, but if these morons are going to show up and scream at their elected officials, they need to educate themselves about the subject at hand. No one is planning on killing you or your grandmother with rationed healthcare or death squads. By the looks of the American citizenry turning out for these town hall meetings, we’re doing a fine job of killing ourselves with fast food, cigarettes and an overindulgence of ignorance.
The Founding Fathers couldn’t have seen this coming. If they had, the right to free speech would have been conditional upon one’s ability to read. But the Founding Fathers didn’t plan on the likes of Palin, Cheney and Limbaugh.
I too long for the America I remember as a child, Margaret. The one where men used guns to hunt quail and women visited a beauty salon at least once a week. Oh, those were the days. I wish we had them back. I mean it. Really.
Mostly, though, it's Helen.
Labels: republican whack jobs
MULTILAYERED
Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94
Les Paul has been around all my life.
I first remember his overdubbing with his singer wife Mary Ford.
The World is Waiting for the Sunrise
Some sunrise.
It played everywhere. It was a breakthrough innovation. Not because it was a technical triumph but because it was a good song, skillfully presented. Then, came the thought that this was a new thing. Mary singing with herself and Les playing "all the parts".
He had already invented the solid body guitar. And so on.
He is a hero. He lived beyond 90 and died quietly of the "old man's friend" pneumonia.
There are some audio tracks on the obit. Try them. A little ricky ticky but at the time it was all ricky ticky. AM and 78 rpm records.
HE'S BAAAACK!!
On the way out the door to go to the gym. 430 AM PST. I look up at the eastern sky and there is Orion rising. He has returned.
It is always a kick. He is the only constellation that I know beyond the Big and Little Dippers which I don't count because everyone knows those.
In Orion's case, only almost everyone knows about it. A slightly smaller universe so to speak.
I learned this when I joined the Astronomy Club at Barrett Township Consolidated School. Actually I was a charter member. The science teacher put it together and took all of the members to the a hilly field next to the school which was also behind our house. We had bought star maps for the occasion.
We found Orion.
Actually, there were only two kids. Me and another nerdy teacher's pet.
I don't remember that we had any meetings after the first one. At least none that I attended.
The prospect of searching the skies for stars and seeing pictures that weren't there didn't appeal. Besides, there was television to consider.
I think that the teach probably found other priorities as well. He liked the girls and could be running around rather than spending his time on a hill, in the dark with a couple of kids who didn't give a shit but thought they would get a better grade if they hung out with him.
A few years later, the teacher got into trouble chasing a girl who was still in high school. But that is another story. It was the end of his teaching career in the US. He was last seen heading toward the Sudan to teach in some United Nations school there. Something. Far away from the scandal. A refuge for disgraced teachers. A boon for the natives.
Me? I remembered Orion for the rest of my life and have been saying hello and goodbye to him for over 60 years.
I don't know why I keep this affair with Orion going. It is in my bones by now. Maybe it is for the long lost teacher who I really did like a lot and still want to please.
Labels: life
SONG AND DANCE
I haven't seen 500 Days of Summer yet but I have it in my queue. I might even go to a theater to see it. But I don't want to over react.
There are several things about this film that are interesting.
The first is that it takes place in LA and, based on the architectural love of the director, Marc Webb, has many scenes in and around LA landmarks. Here is an article about it.
LA As Filtered by Love. They even shot the film to remove and buildings built after 1950!
Well, maybe that isn't the first thing about the movie that I am excited about. But it was one of the first things that I knew about it.
The first thing should be that the film has Zooey Deschanel and, a great favorite, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is finally in a film that shows his broad talent as an actor.
What is new to me is that Ms. Zooey is also an accomplished composer and musician and has a group. Of two. Called She and Him.
She wrote and they sing in this video which was made by movie director Webb to complement the film.
Now, for the biggest thing about it. This video has DANCING in it. Not jerking around and gyrating. Fucking DANCING! And moves. Real moves. Not automaton crap. Boy I love this video. I can't wait to see the movie.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
IT ALL STARTED FROM NOWHERE
If you have been feeling important or unimportant today then this should give you some perspective. I know that it put me in my place. Which is right where I am supposed to be at this instant of time.
I also know that wherever it is, I am going there soon. Well, not soon for it but soon for me.
I love this kind of shit.
Labels: life
WRESTLING WITH LOVE
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Ken Russell's
Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden star.
A foursome.
Adapted from D. H. Lawrence's huge book of the same name.
Russell is either loved or hated. I am on the love side. He basically does an impressionistic rendering of the complex Lawrence story. Oddly, as he does it, it becomes more about men in love than women.
Reed is uptight. Bates is a free spirit. Everyone has an opposite of the other. Complicated but not too much. One need not look for a literal story line here. Things do progress and nicely so but there is an element of sitting back and letting the film happen to you for it to succeed.
This is actually true of most Russell films.
This is the first film to have an actor win an Oscar where there was nudity involved. I know this is hardly newsworthy today but this is typical Russell envelope pushing. He pushed and won. He had the goods. You can't break rules successfully unless you do it with great skill and panache.
It is a beautiful film to watch. The nude wrestling scene lit by candlelight and then lit electrically. Small point but it is the hint of modernization wrecking sensuality and natural desires. Very Lawrentian. It really requires a second viewing just to take everything in. Rich and generous.
There are lots of loose ends. Good. That allows the viewer to make his or her own conclusions and, above all, to let it marinate. To sink in. To provoke thought and reflection.
One more thing. I love Alan Bates. We will have an Alan Bates fest. We once sat in a small theater with him watching his films. A PS Film Festival event. The kind they don't do anymore. He was great.
I will give this a 5 out of Netflix5 and think about a Ken Russell film fest.
Labels: best films
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
FIFTH COLUMN
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was
an adaptation of the Lillian Hellman play by Dashiel Hammett and starring Betty Davis and Paul Lukas.
This is a very good film depicting the pre-WWII atmosphere around Washington DC.
The situation in Europe has worsened but America is still a bit asleep on the subject.
Davis comes home to her family with her husband and children. The husband as been in the underground and is recovering from torture and the grind of his anti-fascist activities.
There is a would-be spy in the household. The plot is not too complicated.
The writing here and the acting is first rate. It is good to remember that this film was made before anyone knew how the War would turn out.
There is no heavy handed melodrama here. It is all realistic and, somehow, calm. Parts of the film are very moving.
I would not mind seeing this film again. I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
KNOWING FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND
I was here.
Inside Barringer Meteor Crater
I love the beam of sun on the impact zone.
The photo shown on the site does not do the hole justice. It is huge.
It is a fascinating experience to stand there and take it all in.
There aren't many of these around. Most meteroites are too small and the big ones, well, the really big ones did their job so that there was nothing much left.
This is a nice, neat hole without a cataclysmic result and we can all go look at it.
Here is what it looks like from far above.
Labels: APOD
Monday, August 10, 2009
GOING AWAY PRESENTUPDATED
I know. Two movies in one day. But this one is really good. Don't bail. Stay to the end. It is real life soap.
Well, maybe it is not real life. Perhaps it is a fake.
I hate to be taken in.
But if it is fake it is extremely well written. There is so much here about what happens when communication stops. Paranoia, anger. It is like the five stages of grieving.
No matter what else, the music is great.
I like the little pictures of him having a good time on his trip while she is stewing.
DRUGS ARE NOT FUNNY
I should know.
But then, without a sense of humor what would we do?
We'd use drugs!
I have some experience to validate the accuracy of at least 6 of these situations.
Labels: alcohol
RADIO IS NOT OVER
The LATimes Business section reported the end of an era today. The company RadioShack will now be known only as The Shack.
RadioShack updates its name and image
WTF!
But I see the point.
It won't be long before all radio is on the net or by satellite or cable and the air turned over to other shit. I won't mourn the end of talk-radio.
Of course, the end of radio has been predicted forever and it is still there.
Yet, we must admit that a retailer with the name "radio" in its title is probably showing a little age and creakiness.
When I was a kid (here it comes), there was only radio. It was the entertainment, the news, the sports. All of it.
Our first radio was a Majestic. It was a big fucker. Heavy. I have a photo of my dad sitting and listening to it.
Yes. We would stop stuff and sit and listen. this is exactly the model.
I tried it in its last years and it still worked pretty well and the sound quality was very good.
A little later there was a "portable" radio. It was pretty big about the size of, well, bigger than a breadbox but not too much. My dad built a box to sit it in that would hold the batteries. Big boxy ones.
I remember the first radio I got for myself. It was a little Zenith portable. AM of course. That is all there was.
And then the big breakthroughs began. We had FM. I got another Zenith AM/FM. I took it to school with me and a friend of mine hooked it up so I could use it to play a turntable through. MIT. Somehow he cheated the preamp requirements.
Now, back to RadioShack. They were the pre-emninent place to look at Hi Fi systems. Components. The place in Washington Street in Downtown Boston would be jammed with people on Saturdays feeling up all the equipment.
It was mostly parts. Pieces. On open counters. In bins. Geeks crawling over the displays. Demonstrations. A mad house. Wonderful.
Hi-fi was not stereo although that was in the background. Hi-fi was High Fidelity and as much of it as you could get.
I remember a show that was held at the old Touraine Hotel in Boston. A bunch of us went and nearly fainted at the sound which came from the huge huge speakers. Size was all. That changed fast but in the beginning bigger was very better.
My first Hi Fi was a Heathkit amplifier that my best friend made for me and gave us for our wedding. By this time, radio was not enough. You had to have a turntable. And then you had to have tape. This was the beginning of the end for radio as the sole source of sound.
Stereo killed it dead. I first heard stereo at my roommate's Dad's house. It was a record of an auto race and shit. Yes. Maybe a tape but I think a record. Amazing. We did just what my Dad did. We sat down and listened to the racing cars. And locomotives.
There was not stereo on the radio for quite awhile and the other modes leapt ahead.
Little things meant a lot. Incremental growth. The intolerable feeling of not having the latest shit.
I remember the first time I heard high quality stereo headphones. Sly and the Family Stone.
This came just at the juncture of the 60s and marijuana. Perfect.
By this time I am over the heathkit and into the heavy duty stuff mostly Sony. There was a time when they were preeminent.
But this is about radio.
I never really gave it up. It was always in the background.
Classical music stations emerged on FM. Jazz. Rock. We made our own tapes. A blur of change.
Today, we have a Bose radio. One of those wave things you buy through the mail. It has a CD player that holds five discs. That is it.
We have returned to the original situation. Almost. Radio. That is what we listen to more than anything else.
Why?
I reached a point where I realized I wasn't hearing the highs and the lows that I used to. The big systems were a waste of money. We left them behind in Boston.
So. Full circle.
Now I am picking up on internet radio. I watch Daryl Hall's monthly very high quality video hours with young rock musicians. I have headphones for movies.
We play the Bose a lot less. Just at dinner time.
Finally, it would seem, I am going to end up like my Dad. Sitting next to the radio on my computer and listening. And watching. In stereo. But it isn't too far from where I came in, is it?
Goodbye RadioShack.
I will still come in for the occasional battery. But no radios.
Labels: internet, life, nostalgia
