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May 5, 2005
Things I'm Reading Instead of My Students' Film Final Exams
It's the exam week of my last semester at Georgia Tech, and I'll confess to having more than a mild case of senioritis. That includes rewatching Dazed and Confused the other night and hearing echoes of Alice Cooper's "School's Out Forever." But in my tireless search for distractions, I came across a few new (or new to me) film and media blogs/articles I wanted to mention.
First, Amy Taubin's "Primer: The New Whiz Kid on the Block," part of her Art & Industry series, in which Taubin discusses the film's time-travel plot. Money quote: "Since the device is a crude form of a time machine, and since film itself is a kind of time machine, one can read Primer as a film that mirrors its own DIY production." I'm looking for a good excuse to write a conference paper on Primer, and it will definitely find its way into my book. In her interview with director Shane Carruth, he cites Neil Labute's In the Company of Men as a significant influence (a comparison that makes a lot of sense to me).
Via Green Cine Daily, an interview with some guy named George Lucas who discusses Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and a certain blockbuster film due to come out in a few weeks. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the Star Wars films, in part because my parents prevented me from seeing the originals in the theater and I've never become emotionally invested in them, but Lucas's desire to make "historical" films sounds really interesting to me.
Also via Green Cine, I see that Nick Rombes, editor of New Punk Cinema, now has a blog, Digital Poetics. In one entry, Rombes tackles the notion of Interface as Narrative, in which he discusses the role of the interface in our engagement with a film on video or DVD, specifically noting Memento's playful interface, which "performs the content of the film in sometimes startling ways." Off-hand, I'd also nopte that the menu on the DVD of The Ring has a similar effect, in which the remote control is disabled when the viewer plays the hidden "Easter Egg" of Samara's video.
In other news, I also found Synoptic Cinema, a blog hosted by the film jouranl Synoptique, and the IFC Blog, which will quickly become daily or semi-daily reads, I'd imagine. And, in some desperate attempt to prove that I have a life away from the computer, I'll mention that my team of local bloggers won at bar trivia last night at the Mellow Mushroom on Peachtree.
Posted by chuck at May 5, 2005 9:13 PM
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Comments
I too am having senioritis and cannot find the motivation to study for my exam on Monday. We should all just get A's, then I don't have to study and my professors don't have to grade.
Posted by: Jen at May 5, 2005 10:21 PM
I've just finished grading my exams, but that's actually a pretty tempting idea sometimes....
Posted by: Chuck ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://chutry.wordherders.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 5, 2005 11:36 PM
That's right--and The Ring has a bonus feature (I think maybe it's called "Don't Watch This") that's a short, alternate version of the film with deleted scenes and fast cuts between images. And it is a stand-alone piece: in some ways, it's more haunting than the primary film itself. It seems to combine many elements: part trailer, part short film, part deleted scenes...
Posted by: Nick at May 6, 2005 8:54 AM
Nick, yeah, it's a cool extra. If I remember correctly, there's a title card that implies that the short "explains" additional details about "The Ring." I think you're right that it's more haunting than the primary film, perhaps because of the non-narrative editing.
Posted by: Chuck at May 6, 2005 10:19 AM