A fantastic article on the pleasures and pains of being a bibliophile!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/garden/15library.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Friday, January 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Films of the Break
In an effort to prove that I did something-
The films I watched this break in reverse chronological order-
To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
The Big Sleep (Hawks)
The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
The Godfather (Coppola)
Rio Bravo (Hawks)
Le Bete Humaine (Renoir)
The Great McGinty (Sturges)
O, Brother, Where Art Thou? (Coen)
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
Dazed and Confused (Linklater)
Oh god, is that all!?????!!!! Ten movies in in 22 days. I've even failed at being a film sl/nob. I should have at least been doing two a day, but, keep in mind, the two Godfathers are quite long- over six hours!!!! And I should special point for focusing on a director.
The films I watched this break in reverse chronological order-
To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
The Big Sleep (Hawks)
The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
The Godfather (Coppola)
Rio Bravo (Hawks)
Le Bete Humaine (Renoir)
The Great McGinty (Sturges)
O, Brother, Where Art Thou? (Coen)
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
Dazed and Confused (Linklater)
Oh god, is that all!?????!!!! Ten movies in in 22 days. I've even failed at being a film sl/nob. I should have at least been doing two a day, but, keep in mind, the two Godfathers are quite long- over six hours!!!! And I should special point for focusing on a director.
A post!?
It feels like so many blog posts begin with an apology, "I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been so busy, what with the multiple surgeries, and that recurring and mysterious taste of sweetness that comes upon me just as I start to work. I stop to think about it, oh, probably just a side effect of the medication, but I leave my blog and start to search for answers online, answers that I've already read a hundred times. But still I search on with the hope that this isn't something serious. By the time I'm done with this fruitless enterprise, I'm spent, my body and mind fatigued by the stress and I fall asleep before even beginning a blog post." Well, fuck that, I don't need to apologize. And I don't even have a good reason! All I've been doing this break is watching movies, I read two hundred pages, and then quit, my attention span to short to maintain the intricacies of modernist literature. Oh, but I can read the shit out of a film blog... yes sir. My one great work of productivity this break was the brilliant transformation of my bedroom, which heretofore, with its mattress on the floor aesthetic, had the vibe of a crack den. Now, with my vintage-y metal bed frame, soft lighting, art deco poster, and red leather chair, it has the delightful vibe of an opium den. Speaking of which.... We had a delightful little concert in our house tonight, I love the idea of our very humble abode being a venue!
Well, it's three in the morning, and the wind howls like a hammer. The whole house literally shakes, right down to the core of its shoddy nineteenth century frame. I am very afraid that my house will literally fall apart, crushing me, and my newly redecorated room. I briefly toyed with the idea of sleeping in jean and tennis shoes, with all my valuables in my pockets, but I figured that if the house fell down I wouldn't have time to get out. While cleaning out my bookcase, I stumbled upon the old senior yearbook, and I am shocked at what a popular fellow I was. I'm currently rather a recluse, not unlike my original sophomore self from four years ago, but if I could get up and running at the full senior year mode that I was at... m god! And how thin I was! But this time around I'll be able to talk about college-y stuff like semiotics and Absalom, Absalom! College has been a fascinating experience, and extremely up and down. Last semester was such a confidence boost, and a real confidence downer, my professional life really strongly manifested itself after hiding for a year. I starred in a hit play! and I got all A's, I didn't even manage that in high school, but of course, I didn't get to take Screwball Comedy back at FHS. My social life almost completely disappeared, and I can barely manage to talk to strangers without breaking into a sweat and cracking my voice. That said, the people I spent most of my time with are great. And of course, I'm thinking specifically of one little lady who I spent most of my time with, who somehow managed to get me to love cats as much as her, even though they are wicked animals. That dear friend is a delight, I use these euphemisms because the internet is so public! I love my Lena so much, and miss her this break, I'm sure she will read this soon enough, but I want her to know that it's not just the wind that keeps me up, but the solitude that seems so much more tangible when she's not here with me.
Goodness, I really hope no one reads this stuff, I should just right myself a personal journal entry.
Well, it's three in the morning, and the wind howls like a hammer. The whole house literally shakes, right down to the core of its shoddy nineteenth century frame. I am very afraid that my house will literally fall apart, crushing me, and my newly redecorated room. I briefly toyed with the idea of sleeping in jean and tennis shoes, with all my valuables in my pockets, but I figured that if the house fell down I wouldn't have time to get out. While cleaning out my bookcase, I stumbled upon the old senior yearbook, and I am shocked at what a popular fellow I was. I'm currently rather a recluse, not unlike my original sophomore self from four years ago, but if I could get up and running at the full senior year mode that I was at... m god! And how thin I was! But this time around I'll be able to talk about college-y stuff like semiotics and Absalom, Absalom! College has been a fascinating experience, and extremely up and down. Last semester was such a confidence boost, and a real confidence downer, my professional life really strongly manifested itself after hiding for a year. I starred in a hit play! and I got all A's, I didn't even manage that in high school, but of course, I didn't get to take Screwball Comedy back at FHS. My social life almost completely disappeared, and I can barely manage to talk to strangers without breaking into a sweat and cracking my voice. That said, the people I spent most of my time with are great. And of course, I'm thinking specifically of one little lady who I spent most of my time with, who somehow managed to get me to love cats as much as her, even though they are wicked animals. That dear friend is a delight, I use these euphemisms because the internet is so public! I love my Lena so much, and miss her this break, I'm sure she will read this soon enough, but I want her to know that it's not just the wind that keeps me up, but the solitude that seems so much more tangible when she's not here with me.
Goodness, I really hope no one reads this stuff, I should just right myself a personal journal entry.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
I hope this makes up for not posting in a while...
Kate Beckinsale recently tried to recreate this scene from the Anna Karina/Serge Gainsbourg film Anna, I don't think she quite succeeded.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Procrastination is the Name of the Game
So, I am procrastinating! I have a paper due on thursday, and then one on the ninth, and one on the tenth. On the bright side, I only have two finals.
So I bought even more films, really randomly, at a strange little store in my hometown. It was ostensibly a music store (instruments) but there were only a handful of cheap guitars, some percussion instruments and the rock band video game. In addition there was a tub of movies (quite a mixed bag) selling for three dollars a film. I went for the Dreamers, Gangs of New York, Dogville, Ghost World, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Gondry/Kauffman collab was quite good, much better than I remembered it when I saw it in 2004. I think it may be Kauffman's best film, and it really whetted my appetite for Synecdoche, New York, which I've been putting off.
I've also been putting off my comp-lit paper. Really, it should be quite simple, 3 pages on the book of Job, 3 on Moby Dick and two pages of summing up. I haven't written a compare/contrast sice middle school. And what can I do- talk about how Biblical narrative is wonderfully compact and Melville is wonderfully discursive. Of course! The book of Job is mighty heavy on the lonnnnnng monologue poems (indeed there was an awfully pretentious Portuguese film I saw that staged it as such) likewise Moby Dick has similar long Shakespearean goings ons.
So perhaps I should write on the spoken words of the character taking precidence over the omniscient narrative voice. (Forgive my spelling but this computer has no spell check.) Of course, Melville's work throws the whole concept of a stable narrator into question, with Ishmael transforming himself from a jocular young intellectual cum semen (sorry, my spellcheck you know) into a philosopher, cetologist, and into other characters. (Oh my, I just put on a forty minute version of Terry Riley's "In C" I'm so excited,) Similarly the book of Job strains the limits of narrative voice by giving its god an extended monologue. Indeed, both works are focused upon a synthesis of the poetic with psychology of an individual. In both texts the individual is subsumed by the awesome and absurd might of reality and nature, in Job it is merely through description, and in Moby Dick it is through the course of the narrative. So there we go- both glorify and elevate the individual voice through poetry, and both quash this elevation by bringing in the stark and unfathomable terror of the world. I would then pursue how this gets done, how they manage to exalt, and then humble.
Forgive the diversity of these mental perambulations, you were warned by the magnificently apt and correct title.
So I bought even more films, really randomly, at a strange little store in my hometown. It was ostensibly a music store (instruments) but there were only a handful of cheap guitars, some percussion instruments and the rock band video game. In addition there was a tub of movies (quite a mixed bag) selling for three dollars a film. I went for the Dreamers, Gangs of New York, Dogville, Ghost World, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Gondry/Kauffman collab was quite good, much better than I remembered it when I saw it in 2004. I think it may be Kauffman's best film, and it really whetted my appetite for Synecdoche, New York, which I've been putting off.
I've also been putting off my comp-lit paper. Really, it should be quite simple, 3 pages on the book of Job, 3 on Moby Dick and two pages of summing up. I haven't written a compare/contrast sice middle school. And what can I do- talk about how Biblical narrative is wonderfully compact and Melville is wonderfully discursive. Of course! The book of Job is mighty heavy on the lonnnnnng monologue poems (indeed there was an awfully pretentious Portuguese film I saw that staged it as such) likewise Moby Dick has similar long Shakespearean goings ons.
So perhaps I should write on the spoken words of the character taking precidence over the omniscient narrative voice. (Forgive my spelling but this computer has no spell check.) Of course, Melville's work throws the whole concept of a stable narrator into question, with Ishmael transforming himself from a jocular young intellectual cum semen (sorry, my spellcheck you know) into a philosopher, cetologist, and into other characters. (Oh my, I just put on a forty minute version of Terry Riley's "In C" I'm so excited,) Similarly the book of Job strains the limits of narrative voice by giving its god an extended monologue. Indeed, both works are focused upon a synthesis of the poetic with psychology of an individual. In both texts the individual is subsumed by the awesome and absurd might of reality and nature, in Job it is merely through description, and in Moby Dick it is through the course of the narrative. So there we go- both glorify and elevate the individual voice through poetry, and both quash this elevation by bringing in the stark and unfathomable terror of the world. I would then pursue how this gets done, how they manage to exalt, and then humble.
Forgive the diversity of these mental perambulations, you were warned by the magnificently apt and correct title.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
My Favorite Directors
A Dekalog of my favorite auteurs along with the films that did it for me
1. Jean-Luc Godard
A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie, Bande A Parte, Pierrot Le Fou, Week End
2. Wes Anderson
Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited
3. Woody Allen
Bananas, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, Vicky Christina Barcelona
4. Jean Renoir
Bohdu Saved from Drowning, The Rules of the Game
5. Federico Fellini
La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2
6. Orson Welles,
Citizen Kane, The Magnficent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, F for Fake
7. Luis Bunuel
Viridiana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie,
8. Billy Wilder,
Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment,
9. Alfred Hitchcock
Notorious, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo
10. Howard Hawkes
Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday
Honorable mentions: Martin Scorsese, Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Robert Altman, Max Ophuls, Francois Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, Jim Jarmusch, Stanley Kubrick, Alfonso Cuaron, Bernardo Bertolucci
A surprisingly easy list to create, I struggled with Hitchcock, almost replacing him with Scorsese and Fassbinder, rest assured that if the other Ophuls films I see are as good as Lola Montes he'll be on the next list like this.
1. Jean-Luc Godard
A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie, Bande A Parte, Pierrot Le Fou, Week End
2. Wes Anderson
Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited
3. Woody Allen
Bananas, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, Vicky Christina Barcelona
4. Jean Renoir
Bohdu Saved from Drowning, The Rules of the Game
5. Federico Fellini
La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2
6. Orson Welles,
Citizen Kane, The Magnficent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, F for Fake
7. Luis Bunuel
Viridiana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie,
8. Billy Wilder,
Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment,
9. Alfred Hitchcock
Notorious, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo
10. Howard Hawkes
Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday
Honorable mentions: Martin Scorsese, Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Robert Altman, Max Ophuls, Francois Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, Jim Jarmusch, Stanley Kubrick, Alfonso Cuaron, Bernardo Bertolucci
A surprisingly easy list to create, I struggled with Hitchcock, almost replacing him with Scorsese and Fassbinder, rest assured that if the other Ophuls films I see are as good as Lola Montes he'll be on the next list like this.
A Drizzle is Never Insignificant
Currently, my leg sits on my other leg (crossed), my headphones on my head, I on a leather chair, and the chair in the Oakland Airport. I'm early, as always with these sort of things- the product of a hereditary neurosis at least three generations old. Unlike the last time I found myself in this position, Oakland now presents free, albeit heavily corporate sponsored, internet.
I am worried: for the last three days, I've been tracking a package and prostrating myself before the mail goddesses in an act of supplication, an attempt to safeguard my five films purchased at an amazing forty (40) percent (%) off from Criterion. If they don't appear soon, before twelve when my last housemate leaves, they may be left 'pon my stoop!!!!! Criterion's new website is fantastic and fellow cinemaphiles should visit, unfortunately the amazing sale which allowed me to purchase five regularly pricey DVDs for 95 dollars is over. For the curious the films are:
Amarcord (Two discs)
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
La Bete Humaine (Jean Renoir)
Cries and Whispers (Bergman)
The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Bunuel)
Yes, I could have done without Cries and Whispers, but it was the only Bergman film left in stock. It looks like Amarcord will be playing at the Pacific Film Archive (one of my workplaces) in January. Other delights include two (2) nights of unfinished Orson Welles work, a member's only showing with Clint Eastwood, and an evening with JP Gorin, one of Godard's most frequent collaborators.
I am worried: for the last three days, I've been tracking a package and prostrating myself before the mail goddesses in an act of supplication, an attempt to safeguard my five films purchased at an amazing forty (40) percent (%) off from Criterion. If they don't appear soon, before twelve when my last housemate leaves, they may be left 'pon my stoop!!!!! Criterion's new website is fantastic and fellow cinemaphiles should visit, unfortunately the amazing sale which allowed me to purchase five regularly pricey DVDs for 95 dollars is over. For the curious the films are:
Amarcord (Two discs)
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
La Bete Humaine (Jean Renoir)
Cries and Whispers (Bergman)
The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Bunuel)
Yes, I could have done without Cries and Whispers, but it was the only Bergman film left in stock. It looks like Amarcord will be playing at the Pacific Film Archive (one of my workplaces) in January. Other delights include two (2) nights of unfinished Orson Welles work, a member's only showing with Clint Eastwood, and an evening with JP Gorin, one of Godard's most frequent collaborators.
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