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June 24, 2005
The Last Days of Chez Decatur
Just a quick post to mention that things should be pretty quiet around the blog for the next week or so. My computer decided to crash in a fit of rebellion, and because I'm moving in less than a week, I won't have time to have it repaired until I move to DC (any suggestions on reliable & hopefully cheap repair folks in/near Hyattsville would be greatly appreciated).
Posted by chuck at 11:46 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 22, 2005
Wednesday Morning Coffee Reads
I've been trying to regain some sense of summer normalcy this week, catching up on blogs and other cool reads before I make the Big Move next week. Here's what I've been reaing this morning, in no particular order:
While reading a Miranda July interview yesterday, I came across her fascinating collaborative web project with Harrell Fletcher, Learning to Love You More, which calls for visitors to complete "assignments" that are then posted on the website. Assignments include re-reading your favorite book from 5th grade, reading Raymond Carver's story, "Cathedral," and then drawing a cathedral, and drawing a scene from a movie that made you cry (thanks to Craig Phillips for the tip).
The LA Times is the latest newspaper to discuss the box office blues. Some executives are blaming the dissemination of negative film reviews on the Internet (mea culpa), but another culprit appears to be those annoying pre-movie advertisement shows. I still agree with executives that it's too early to abandon the good ship Hollywood, but those shows, such as "The Twenty," do make the movie theater experience feel more like watching television.
The New York Times is plugging the documentary Waging a Living (IMDB), which documents the experiences of a small group of working poor living in northern California. The article describes the film as a live-action version of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. The Times also mentions Sally Potter's latest film, Yes, which was written entirely in verse (now I really wish I'd caught this at the Atlanya Film Festival last week).
From the Washington Post (my soon-to-be local newspaper!), an AP article noting that the World Monuments Fund has deemed all of Iraq an endangered site, the first time they've listed an entire country as endangered.
Posted by chuck at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Education of Shelby Knox
The Education of Shelby Knox (IMDB) functions in part as a coming-of-age story, relating the experiences of a Lubbock, Texas, high school student and Southern Baptist who follows her conscience in advocating comprehensive sex education in the city's public high schools despite widespread opposition from her community. And while the documentary sometimes veered into tourist mode, gawking at the locals, the film powerfully conveyed Knox's attempts to reconcile her Christian beliefs with her growing political commitments.
The film begins with a brief overview of life in Lubbock, including the jarring information that 1 in 14 Lubbock teen girls become pregnant every year. The official policy of the city's schools is to promote abstinence-only sex education. We are then introduced the Shelby, who at fifteen, takes a pledge to remain a virgin until marriage at a ceremony in her church. But gradually, Shebly begins to recognize the need for a more thorough sex eductaion program. She becomes involved in a city-supported youth organization where she uses the platform to promote her point of view. She goes to Planned Parenthood and participates in their sex ed program. Through the course of the film, Shelby speaks before the city council, debates her pastor, and eventually, we learn in the epilogue, chooses to pursue a career in politics.
Watching Shelby become a more powerful advocate for sex ed was pretty impressive. Given her community's social and political conservatism (her mom comments at one point that if there any Democrats in Lubbock, she doesn't know any of them), it would have been easy to accept the status quo or to write off any possibility of changing people's minds. I did find myself frustrated by the film's sometimes uncomplicated representation of the pro-abstinence position because the representative for that position, a local pastor who teaches that "true love waits," often spoke in cliches ("God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve") or in condemnation (at one point he proudly proclaims that "Christianity is an intolerant religion"), but Shelby's conversations with the pastor illustrate the degree to which she eventually distances herself from him.
However, I was also completely fascinated by the film's representation of Shelby's family, especially to the degree that it complicated stereotypical images of a Baptist family. It's made clear from the beginning of the film that her father is a conservative Republican, and Shelby's mom generally shares those beliefs. But, even when Shelby's campaigns are met with community disapproval, her parents are remarkably supportive, with her father acknowledging by the end of the film that comprehensive sex ed is important and her mother (somewhat ambivalently) marching in solidarity with a gay-straight alliance group that is trying to become an official, school-sanctioned club.
The storytelling in this documentary is first-rate, but what really made the film work for me was the character of Shelby Knox. I mentioned before that I was interested in the subject matter because I attended a fundamentalist church when I was a teenager, and like Shelby, I found myself struggling with many of these issues, and the film captures that experience very well (speaking of teenage fundamentalism, I'm still planning to write about Brian Flemming's doc, The God Who Wasn't There, at some point in the next few days, but I'm still sorting through that one).
Update: Here's the live chat Natalie mentioned.
Posted by chuck at 12:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Let's Talk About Sex Education
Via the cinetrix comes the news that the PBS show, P.O.V., will be airing the documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox (on Atlanta's PBS Channel 8, it will be airing at midnight on Thursday night, but local times may vary, as they say).
The documentary is about Lubbock, Texas, teenager Shelby Knox, who campaigned for three years to have a more thorough sex education program included as part of the public high school curriculum. According to the New York Times, Knox defies stereotypes for a sex ed champion, who is described as "a conservative Christian teenager and warrior princess for comprehensive -- as opposed to abstinence-only -- sex education." Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times has further details on Knox's story.
As a former teenage fundamentalist, I find these stories fascinating, especially given my frustration at "abstinance only" advocates at my parents' church and at the college I attended (though it's important to note that these institutions are rarely as homogeneous as they might seem from the outside or even from the POV of a disenchanted soul like me), but it sounds like this doc is particularly effective at asking the right questions about sex education. The film has already received quite a bit of acclaim, winning the Emerging Pictures audience award at the Full Frame documentary film festival earlier this year.
Posted by chuck at 7:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Miranda July Interview
Here's a Green Cine interview with Miranda July, writer-director-star of Me and You and Everyone We Know. Now that I've had a few days to reflect on the film, I'm convinced that it's simply an amazing film (link via Wiley Wiggins).
Posted by chuck at 6:18 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Private Warriors
Frontline has a documentary, "Private Warriors," airing tonight on the work being done by miltary contractors, such as Haliburton, in Iraq (times may vary, but it's on at 10 PM on both of Atlanta's PBS stations).
Based on the website overview, it appears that the documentary will cast a fairly critical eye towards the practice, specifically in terms of the place of contractors in the chain of command. Could be an interesting show. I was generally impressed, with some reservations, by their documentary, "A Company of Soldiers," in which a pair of embedded reporters followed the soldiers of Dog Company during November 2004.
Because the Bushies have decided to target PBS for major budget cuts against the will of a vast majority of the American public, it's worth emphasizing the valuable service public media can provide. Media Matters has the full scoop.
Posted by chuck at 5:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Gonna Get Myself Connected (Faster)
Those of you read this blog with any degree of regularity know that I'm currently living my internet life in the slow lane on a 56k modem and in the world of 8 channels (an upgrade of 7 channels from where I lived before). With the big move to our nation's capital (and a job in media studies), I'm planning to get a faster modem and cable TV.
So here's the big question for my DC readers: What do you recommend in terms of internet service and cable TV service? I'd love to be able to watch IFC, the Sundance Channel, and similar movie stations, but I'll have to watch my budget. Suggestions are welcome, either here in the comments or by email (chutry[at]msn[dot]com).
Posted by chuck at 5:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 19, 2005
Movie Meme
It's a lazy Sunday. I don't have to work tomorrow. And I found a movie meme at Long Pauses and CultureSpace, so I've decided to join the fun.
1. Total number of films I own on DVD and video.
56, if I counted correctly. For someone who studies film, I'll admit that my collection is very thin, but living on a post-doc's salary with huge student loans makes buying films seem like too much of an indulgence. Plus, I've usually lived within walking distance of top-notch independent video stores.
When I did buy vidoes, it was often when I was bored and hungover browsing the shelves in a Target or previously mentioned video stores. So the films I do have are pretty random and don't really represent my tastes. Anyone want a slightly used copy of Point Break? Body Double?
2. Last film I bought.
I got a free copy of dirty filthy love at the Atlanta Film Festival, but I haven't had time to watch it. The last one I actually paid for was probably Control Room.
3. Last film I watched.
Miranda July's amazing Me and You and Everyone We Know. Don't miss this film.
4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order).
This is a tough question. Like Darren, I'll sometimes put in a DVD just to watch one or two favorite scenes. And some of the films I watch often aren't necessarily meaningful to me (but instead are selected to help me fall asleep). But here are five that I really like, in no particular order.
Sans Soleil (dir. Chris Marker, 1982): Probably the film most responsible for my interest in cinema. I'll never forget the experience of watching the opening sequence, a shot of three children walking across a wind-swept hill in Iceland, accompanied by the poetic voice-over describing it as "the image of happiness," and just feeling blown away.
Red (dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994): Some of his Polish films, Blind Chance and the ten-episode The Decalogue, would also fit here, but Red was my belated introduction to Kieslowski. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for films that reflect on questions about chance/fate, but the film is also incredibly beautiful and left me feeling completely exhilirated when I first watched it.
Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater, 1993): This is my official comfort film right now. For some reason, I'm always blown away by the scene in which Mitch, "Pink" Floyd, and Wooderson walk into the pool hall with Dylan's "Hurricane" playing on the soundtrack. Office Space and The Big Lebowski have worked as comfort films in the past, but Linklater's '70s nostalgia trip has been pulling me in lately.
All the Real Girls (dir. David Gordon Green, 2003): Tim Orr's cinematography is breathtaking, and Steven Gonzales and Zene Baker's editing during the opening squence beautifully establishes the film's melancholic mood. The awkwardness between Paul and Noel captures the awkwardness of young love very well.
The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed, 1949): One of the films I most look forward to teaching in my Introduction to Film classes. Love the canted angles and the scenes in post-war Vienna's labyrinthine sewer system. And the final shot, which I won't describe in detail, is just devastating.
5. If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Tough question. Maybe Jesse from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I'd like to be half as witty as Cary Grant's Walter in His Girl Friday. But that's off the top of my head.
Like Scrivener, I have mixed feelings about tagging people for memes, so I'll leave things open. If you want to join the fun, send a link so I can find you.
Posted by chuck at 4:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
[AFF 2005] Me and You and Everyone We Know
The closing night film at the Atlanta Film Festival was Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Like the cinetrix, I was quite impressed by this film and its ability to capture the loneliness and isolation of its central characters. The film is set primarily in rundown neighborhoods in Los Angeles and features a shoe salesman father with two kids going through a divorce, a performance artist who runs a taxi service for senior citizens (played by July who has a blog!), and a contemporary art museum director, among several characters, but what I found so rewarding about the film was its treatment of inter-generational relationships and the isolation and confusion that many children and teenagers feel.
The meticulous narrative, which carefully weaves together several distinct plotlines and characters, emphasizes a notion of community that I found wonderful, a welcome contrast to Crash's portrayal of a Los Angeles characterized only misunderstanding and (often unconscious) racism. In Me and You, characters proceed cautiously, reaching out carefully to others in an attempt to make a connection with someone. July's Christine, hoping to connect with the shoe salesman, Richard, keeps finding excuses to show up at the shoestore. Richard's youngest son finds himself in an Internet romance chat, where his naive comments come across as playfulness. When Richard can't reach his sons at home (they're on the Internet), he panics, reasoning that neighbors should be more prepared to watch after each other, echoing the sentiment that it takes a neighborhood to raise a child. As A.O. Scott notes, "True to her movie's title, Ms. July proposes a delicate, beguiling idea of community and advances it in full awareness of the peculiar obstacles that modern life presents."
As the Internet romance subplot suggests, many of these tentative gestures take on a sexual edge, and there are moments where you feel that the film could have taken a much different, unnecessarily dark direction, but July avoids the heavy-handedness of most Hollywood films that handle similar topics. I very much enjoyed this film. It introduced me to a world of characters that seemed believable and genuine, beautifully capturing that desire for connection.
Posted by chuck at 2:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I'm Back
Mind Numbing Freelance Work Marathon has finally ended, which means I'll have some time to return to blogworld, at least for a few days. Now I'm counting the days until I move to Washington (I get the keys to my new place on June 30). I'm still recovering from the work (my last day was Friday). This particular job has affected my summer routine to a degree that I wouldn't have expected, particularly when it comes to producing any fresh writing, including blog entries.
I'm pretty far behind in reading film headlines, but apparently, Neal Stephenson's New York Times op-ed, commenting on the audience response to the new Star Wars installment has been making the blog rounds. The basic thesis seems to be that US film audiences are less excited about the science and technology in sci-fi films (a process Stephenson calls "geeking out") and instead just want to "veg out," to have a film that provides them with non-stop excitement.
I still haven't seen the new Star Wars film, nor do I have any plans to see it, but Stephenson's comments seem to miss the audience's response, as I've understood it, to the film. Stephenson comments that
In sum, very little of the new film makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What's interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don't understand. What gives?I'll first mention that many viewers seem to be seeing the film out of a sense of obligation to their sense of nostalgia to the original triology, not necessarily out of any enthusiasm for the current film (or even the current trilogy), and the muddled narrative has been the source of many complaints.
But Stephenson's more significant point is that "ancillary media" have led to the "geek out" material being taken out of the film itself, leading to a series of high points, the film as PowerPoint presentation of a larger narrative that exists primarily off the silver screen (in this sense, the new Star Wars trilogy seems comparable to the Matrix films), allowing people to "veg out" and enjoy the narrative ride, essentially rendering audience members passive before the story rather than active partcipants in it. As I've mentioned, I haven't seen the film, but I'd imagine the emphasis on "vegging out" has less to do with an anti-intellectual or anti-science bias in film audiences than it has to do with the desire to provide the film with the widest audience possible, including non-US markets that may be less versed in Star Wars lore. But I'm not sure that it's entirely fair to suggest that what's happening is the complete "vegging out" of film audiences, or even what it might mean if we're (whoever "we" are) submitting passively to Hollywood spectacle.
The famous difficulty of the film's narrative suggests that some audience members have done their homework about the saga. The article privileges the film itself as the central text. Many Star Wars fans are familiar with the basic narrative already from books and fansites, and the film is a realization of that (in fact, Lucas has commented in several places that much of the material in this film was penned as early as the mid-1970s). My main point here is that it's impossible to view the film in isolation from all of the other texts, whether created by Lucas, fans of the films, or by political thinkers looking to use the film as a shorthand for illustrating Republican Party excesses.
So perhaps rather than suggesting that Revenge of the Sith privileges the "veg out" mode over "geeking out," I'd argue that it's possible the film emphasizes (or tries to emphasize) some of the extreme tendencies of both modes.
Posted by chuck at 10:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 13, 2005
[AFF 2005] Pretty Persuasion
The other film I've seen at this year's festival was the disappointing Pretty Persuasion (IMDB), a Heathers-Saved-Mean Girls clone but without even the critical edge found in those films. The film focuses on Kimberly Joyce (Thirteen's talented Evan Rachel Wood), a 15-year-old Catholic school student who dreams of being an actress and, after getting the lead in her school play, eventually charges the drama teacher (Ron Livingston, who deserves better) with sexual harrassment. Kimberly encourages her two friends, Brittany and Randa, to file charges as well, while an enterprising reporter happens to be on campus to cover another story. Naturally, the charges become a major media event, and Kimberly, who seduces the reporter, becomes a media darling. I think the film is supposed to be a satire of our scandal-hungry media and of high schools and parents that will do anything to protect their reputations, but it comes across as mean-spirited, particularly towards high school girls who are either utterly manipulative (Kimberly) or completely naive (Brittany). If the film was doing anything particularly interesting with its media critique or its satire of high school life, I'd be less critical. If it were less predictable, I could have enjoyed the film as a low-rent version of Wild Things, but for some reason, the film left me completely cold. In addition, the film's portrayal of Randa, a Hindu teenage girl unaware of the potential coldness of the American teenager, seemed particualrly mean-spirited.
Scott Weinberg, at eFilmCritic.com, liked the film a lot more than I did, calling it "one of the most brave and adept satires of American teen-dom that I've ever seen." I'm willing to grant the point about the film's discomfort level. As in Thirteen, Evan Rachel Wood plays up teen sexuality to levels rarely seen in Hollywood films, but the film frames her sexuality in such a moralizing fashion that I don't see this portrayal as ultimately thinking about sexuality in any kind of complicated way.
Posted by chuck at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[AFF 2005] Lady from Sockholm
Over the weekend I had a chance to catch two of the films that were playing at the Atlanta Film Festival. The first was Lady from Sockholm (IMDB). Despite my lazy editing around these parts, that's no typo. Writer Lynn Lamousin and co-directors Eddy Von Mueller and Evan Lieberman's highly entertaining movie is a film noir performed entirely by sock puppets. The film features a classic noir plot: gumshoe Terrence M. Cotton is hired by Heelda Brum to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her (wealthy, older) husband, Darnell. Heelda suspects notorious bootlegger, Big Toeny of getting rid of her husband, and Cotton is, of course, charmed by the young widow.
The co-directors, who teach film at Georgia State University and Emory University, are, of course well-heeled (sorry) in film noir, and Sockholm riffs off of Double Indemnity, Lady from Shanghai (of course), The Maltese Falcon, as well as several of Hitchock's key films (especially Strangers on a Train). As my review implies, the film's heavy use of puns was enjoyable, and for fans of classical Hollywood and noir, it's a lot of fun.
Afterwards, several members of the crew talked about their experience making the film, reminding viewers about the scale of their sets (a cowbell on a door could be no more than one-quarter inch tall to remain in scale with the bodies of the sock puppets). The visuals capture the noir vibe very well. While the film was made in color (the production staff was warned against filming in black-and-white), the cast shadows evoke the atmosphere commonly associated with the genre, and the sets add to the film's playful humor. Lady of Sockholm is a genuinely fun film, one that deserves a much wider audience.
Posted by chuck at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 9, 2005
September Tapes
September Tapes (IMDB), directed by Christian Johnston, is one of the most fascinating and bizarre films I've seen in some time, even if I also regard it as severely flawed. If the film were to be pitched in a Player-style meeting, it could be described as The Blair Witch Project meets Apocalypse Now set in Afghanistan. But as fascinating as I find the film, the making of the film is even more compelling.
The film itself is a mockumentary, opening Blair Witch style, with titles that indicate that we're watching some film footage found by the Northern Allince near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We then see footage of New York-based documentary filmmaker, Don "Lars" Larson (if I were the Yankee ballplayer, I'd sue), who travels to Afghanistan to find out the "real" story about Osama bin Laden. He arrives in Kabul with his translator, Wali, and his camera operator, Sonny, and proceeds to explore the city in search of the famed terrorist. Lars gradually finds himself drawn into the hunt for bin Laden (hence the Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness connection), buying guns from arms dealers and breaking curfew to get interviews that might lead him to bin Laden. Eventually, Lars, disappointed with the slow pace of the search, gets himself arrested and thrown into a Kabul prison in order to find contacts that might lead him to bounty hunters searching for bin Laden. He eventually meets Babak, who leads him and his crew deep into the Afghani contryside right to the border with Pakistan.
What makes this narrative interesting, in part, is the fact that September Tapes was filmed almost entirely on location in Afghanistan, in and around Kabul in late 2002, during a moment when there was still a rumored bounty on the heads of American citizens. Fleeting shots of women show them still wearing burqas out of fear that the Taliban will regain power. Footage of bomb-damaged buildings suggest the destruction of a country that has been at war for most of the last 25 years. Many of the participants in the film were, in fact, members of the Kabul police force and men who had fought against the Taliban.
This material, in itself, is fascinating. The mockumentary genre is clearly an implicit critique of the "embedded reporters" who covered the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lars, who often comes across as a stereotypical cowboy-Rambo American, is sometimes criticized by the film, particulalry when he is dismissive of Wali's assertion that the World Trade Center attacks are in part the response to US foreign policy. These fleeting political references, however, are never really developed, and the film becomes a quest narrative, in which Lars is "inexplicably" drwan deeper into the hunt for Osama bin Laden, to the point that he carries an AK-47, which he shoots into the night sky (the night vision footage adds a surreal quality to Lars' behavior). I use scare quotes here because I felt that Lars' purpose for going into Kabul was telegraphed from the opening scene of the film, in which Lars mentions his wife, Sarah, who is revealed to have died in one of the planes that was hijacked by the terrorists. Including a recorded phone message from her, essentially her dying words, at the end of the film cheapened everything that came before, making the filmmaker's behavior a bit too obvious in motivation.
September Tapes has been widely criticized by film critics, including Jonathan Curiel of the San Francisco Chronicle, who apparently didn't recognize the cues identifying the film as a mockumentary before criticizing the film for exploiting the conditions in Afghanistan for the sake of provocation:
Though the movie contains some sensitive images of Afghan kids and others, and though the film was apparently made with the consent of some Afghans, "September Tapes" never edifies, never humanizes, never entertains and never says anything new or interesting. Afghanistan shouldn't be used as a backdrop for some director's selfish attempt at provocation. Real Americans and real Afghans are still dying in Afghanistan. We don't need to see a fake version of that on the big screen.While I had similar thoughts about September Tapes, I felt that the film's attempts to deconstruct the sobriety of the documentary and news media forms were much needed, even though Lars' behavior often seemed inexplicable or unmotivated (he spoke absolutely no Farsi and assumed that the people of Afghanistan speak "Afghani," to name one example). In addition, the use of non-professional actors and unscripted scenes often led to many important perceptions about the situation in Afghanistan to emerge over the course of the film. The film is most certainly flawed, and can be seen as "trivializing" its subject, but as a representation of the "war on terror," it's certainly a fascinating document.
Posted by chuck at 9:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Agronomist
I caught Jonathan Demme's labor-of-love doc, The Agronomist (IMDB) the other night on DVD. Demme's film offers a sweeping overview of the life and assassination of Jean Dominique, owner of Radio Haiti, a journalist, and human rights activist. The film celebrates the significance of Dominique's independent radio station in combatting the Duvalier dictatorships, primaily through talking heads interviews with Dominique and his family.
The interviews with Dominique are certainly the most enjoyable scenes in Demme's film (as Ebert notes, Demme recorded several hundred hours of footage over nearly a decade), and the film offers a veiled, but welcome, critique of Reagan's foreign policy, which essentially propped up the Duvalier regime. But in general, I found myself vaguely dissatisfied with the film for reasons I can't quite articulate. To some extent, I felt the film seemed to hold back when it came to critiquing US foreign policy (I certainly wanted more specifics on this history).
It may be that I found the storytelling itself a little frustrating. During one interview, Dominique reveals his passion for avant-garde and French New Wave cinema, celebrating Alain Resnais' Night and Fog and Fellini's La Strada among others. Domnique comments that its not merely the content of these films that is revolutionary, but the "grammar" of the films, the way they tell their stories. Perhaps the chronological approach, with stock footage supported by interviews, didn't adequately represent one of Haiti's most important political activists.
But after reading so many favorable reviews, I'm starting to change my opinion to some degree. In fact, as Cynthia Fuchs' Pop Matters review implies, even doing a documentary about Haiti, one of the poorest nations in Western Hemisphere, is itself a political act.
Posted by chuck at 9:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Personal Jesus
I've just learned that filmmaker and blogger Brian Flemming's God Who Wasn't There will be playing at this week's Atlanta Film Festival at the Eastside Lounge on June 15th. I'm hoping to attend, and if any other Hotlanta readers are interested, do let me know. While you're in the neighborhood, check out Doug Monroe's Creative Loafing review.
I've been so caught up in moving stuff and work stuff (Mind Numbing Freelance job) that I haven't had a chance to look at this year's film schedule. Any suggestions for can't miss films? The four screenings I attended last year were all very satisfying.
Update: God isn't a part of the Atlanta Film Festival, but I'm still eager to see it.
Posted by chuck at 8:19 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 6, 2005
37 Candles?
So the rumored Pretty in Pink sequel was just a hot Internet rumor. And Bender and Andrew missed the MTV Award-inspired and long-anticipated Breakfast Club reunion. The Brat Pack gossip du jour is a sequel to Sixteen Candles. Molly Ringwald has apparently found a script that "works," and one can only assume that Anthony Michael Hall will be happy to join the party.
Posted by chuck at 5:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Transitions
I've been feeling rather lethargic this summer, unable to concentrate on anything for any length of time. To a certain extent, my lack of focus obviously can be attributed to the fact that I'll be moving in less than a month, and as Ryan points out, moving can produce a lot of stress and a lot of mixed emotions. I'm certainly excited about the move. Washington is a cool city, and my teaching gig next year is a great opportunity. So I'm trying not to sound like I'm complaining, at least not too much.
So, yeah, I'm excited about the move, but, like Ryan and Claire, I'm also aware of some of the things I'll miss about the place I'm leaving. In particular, I've grown to enjoy Georgia State's amazing Album 88. I'll also very much miss my favorite bagel shop, Bagel Palace Deli and Bakery (any good bagel suggestions in Hyattsville?), Manuel's Tavern, and other favorite Atlanta haunts. Of course, because my family lives here in Atlanta, I don't feel a sense of permanent loss because I can always revisit these places when I visit. I think it's more of a sense of disruption or disorientation.
I'm caught up in the sense that I'm waiting for something to happen, that everything is on hold until The Move takes place. I've also found it difficult to get into any kind of routine so far this summer. Because I'm already deep enough in debt that a self-financed summer sabbatical is a bad idea, I've also been doing some very tedious freelance-type work. The work isn't difficult, but it requires enough concentration that, at the end of the day (one that starts insanely early), my brain is completely fried, and the last thing I want to do is read or even look at a screen (after a day of this kind of work, even watching TV is unpleasant). And my breaks from that work have consisted of either looking for an apartment or waiting to go back to work.
This sense of being on hold is partially exacerbated by the fact that my '89 Mazda has been having all sorts of electrical problems, leaving me stranded for pretty much every weekend this summer (other than seeing a re-release of Major Dundee this weekend, I can't remember the last time I was in a movie theater). So, long story short, the entire summer, so far, has been characterized by waiting and immobility.
I've been trying to follow KF's suggestion that some meandering can be productive, but right now, the enforced waiting, the inconsistent reading, and the infrequent writing have only left me feeling impatient and edgy. I think that when I arrive in DC, I'll regain a sense of direction, that I won't feel quite as placeless as I do right now.
Posted by chuck at 1:44 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
I caught Vikram Jayanti's 2003 documentary, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine tonight on video. The film documents Kasparov's notorious 1997 chess rematch against the IBM-designed Deep Blue. Previously, Kasparov had defeated an earlier version of the Deep Blue computer, but during the second game of the 1997 match, Kasparov became flustered when the computer began "playing like a human." After the second match, the normally charming Kasparov begins making accusations that there was "human involvement" that allowed IBM to win. The result is, of course, a profundly ambivalent victory for the computer's designers: they'd managed to design a computer that could defeat the world's greatest living chess player, quite an accomplishment but also a potential sign of human limitations against a powerful machine.
Vikram Jayanti's film seems to embrace Kasparov's accusations of conspiracy. Voice-over whispers imply that IBM stood to gain considerably from a victory of the golden boy of chess (their stock apparently increased by 15% the day after Deep Blue's victory). They remind us that Kasparov's request to see Deep Blue's game logs initially was accepted, but the logs were never provided. Kasparov also speculates about "corporate responsibility." Would we be as willing to trust corporations now, after the fall of Enron? I think the whispers of conspiracy are relevant to the narrative, to our perception of the relationship between increasingly powerful computers and the increasingly powerful corporations who build them, but because of the lack of compelling evidence of wrongdoing, the conspiracy narrative remains inelegant and unconvincing.
The film relates Kasparov's match to the legendary Baron von Kempelen's 18th-century chess player automaton, "The Turk," that mysteriously beat all competition, including Napoleon (it was later revealed that a man squatting behind the figure was directing it), both through staged scenes of an automaton playing and, through clips from Raymond Bernard's 1927 silent film, The Chess Player (as Dennis Lim notes). Both Lim and New York Times critic Ned Martel comment that these "hokey" paranoid trappings undermine the conspiarcy argument, which seems about right to me, though the film clips could have been designed to undermine subtly Kasparov's credibility.
That being said, for me, the inclusion of Baron von Kempelen's story only emphasized the film's lack of attnetion to the larger implications of the Kasparov-Deep Blue competition. During an early sequence, philosopher John Searle illustrates the mathematical difficulty of programming a computer to play chess under tournament conditions against a grandmaster (though processing speeds have changed this fact to some extent). Because a player can make one of eight moves, with each of those moves potentially countered by eight moves, and so on, you're talking millions of possible moves very quickly. But the film only briefly explores these philosophical questions, considering only tangentially how Deep Blue's victory raised questions about definitions of humanity. Further playing up the emotional aspect of chess (computers don't get psyched out by their opponents; they're not distratced by the smell of cigar smoke) might also have helped.
The film also seemed to struggle with how to make filming chess visually interesting, especially chess against an inert box. Many of the matches themselves were compelling, if only because of Kasparov's animated reactions, which stand in stark contrast both to the machine itself and the human interpreter (I can't think of a better term) who physically moved the pieces. Game Over had all of the material for a compelling documentary, but the conspiracy narrative seemed to work against what I found most interesting about this story.
Posted by chuck at 12:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 3, 2005
"Change is in the Air"
Via indieWIRE Insider, a Hollywood Reporter/Reuters article on the ways in which indie film players are reshaping entertainment business practices. The article focuses on IFC Films (blog) and Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. The article is a pretty good overview of the changes in film distribution that many independent producers are considering, and I think it reflects some of the more recent concerns about Hollywood's box office slump.
Posted by chuck at 4:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"The Petty Cash of History"
French filmmaker Chris Marker has a new exhibit playing at New York's Museum of Modern Art through June 13. OWLS AT NOON Prelude: The Hollow Men is the first element of a work in progress that, as Marker describes it, serves as "a subjective journey through the 20th century." The exhibit, taking its cue from TS Eliot's poem starts with World War I as a "founding moment" of the century and uses found images (graffiti, postcards, stamps, found photographs) to produce this history.
Exhibit organizer Colin MacCabe compares Marker's filmmaking technique to that of a "beachcomber," and the exhibit emphasizes the possibility of new connections via digital technologies, which seems like an apt metaphor based on my experience with Marker's work. Robert Davis has a full review of the exhibit, which will run through June 13 (thanks to Green Cine for the tip).
Posted by chuck at 3:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 2, 2005
Stars Fell on Atlanta
Speaking of screening experiences, TCM is sponsoring Screen on the Green, a series of films in Atlanta's Piedmont Park. The cinetrix has all the details, including the most important detail of all: admission is free.
Posted by chuck at 3:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My Own Private Screening Room
Nick at Digital Poetics explains that he is "left cold" by watching movies on the web, adding that the experience is often solitary, quite unlike "public" theater screenings associated with going to the movies. Nick wonders about the "pleasures of web cinema," and implies that much is lost without the theatrical experience (and given how often I go to see movies on the big screen, I must have some affinity with Nick on this point). I also spent a fair amount of time thinking about these issues a few months ago when I was writing my media horror article (still in publication limbo), which seeks to trace out how these horror films narrativize the move towards home screenings. I think it's well worth asking how our viewing habits might be changing (although I still think it's too easy to blame computers for declining movie attendance).
Like Nick, I'm aware of the qualifications here. Moviegoing has changed considerably over teh last one hundred years. Plus, as Isabel Cristina Pinedo observes, darkened movie theaters are only "semipublic" spaces, with audience interaction often constrained by the spatial arrangement of seats as well as pre-movie requests for silence. I'd also note that watching movies distributed online doesn't preclude the possibility of watching them with an audience, as the grassroots distribution of Robert Greenwald's films implies, but of course, that's the exception, not the rule, but it does illustrate what I believe is a desire for some form of public participation or dialogue that isn't fulfilled by wtaching the same movies at home. Ernest Miller suggests that we "have to get video content on the internet off the computer screen and onto the big screen in the living room," but moving the screen from one room to another in the same house (or apartment) won't, by itself, sustain the public quality of moviegoing that I find so valuable.
There are other pleasures associated with web cinema. Nick observes that "watching a movie on the web lays bare its tricks," adding that a viewer can "easily click to another web page if I'm bored, or it loads too slowly, or the sound is bad." But in my experience, this is potentially one of the more interesting pleasures of web cinema (maybe not the slow download time). For me, there's still a certain amount of pleasure in watching a film online that exposes these glitches, in part because it makes me more aware of the craft that went into the making of the film, the fact that it was made, whereas most Hollywood films do their best to hide that very fact, at least in the initial theatrical experience. Encountering these "glitches" still gives me the sense of discovery, that I've found something that others haven't.
I do think that Nick is right to imply that certain aspects of the moviegoing experience as we know it now will soon appear to be historically contingent (let's hope that's the case for The Twenty), but of course, a blog entry is too small a space for me to speculate on this topic any further (plus I need to run to the post office before it closes).
Posted by chuck at 2:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Walmart: The Movie
Via Brian Flemming: Robert Greenwald, of Outfoxed and Uncovered fame, is currently working on a documentary about the retail giant. As you might imagine, Wal-Mart isn't very happy about it. Greenwald has the full scoop at an entry on The Huffington Post and on his personal blog.
Like many of Greenwald's projects, the Wal-Mart movie is a grassroots effort, with Greenwald calling on people to submit photographs and video to tell their stories about how the company has affected their community. And, as usual, Greenwald has been criticized for not allowing Wal-Mart executives to tell their side of the story. Greenwald counters by noting that the company spends millions in public relations already, which is certainly true. Still, I'd love to see some of these executives forced to address some of the difficult questions (about Wal-Mart's low wages, their lack of affordable health care, despite ten billion in annual profits).
Posted by chuck at 1:28 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack