I went and saw The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly last night with Jody at the Paramount Theatre. It was a lot of fun especially since I had never seen it before. It made me want to film a western on my own. The final gunfight between Tuco, Angel Eyes, and “the man” was amazing. I can see why this film was groundbreaking with its attention to visual detail and visual storytelling. Much of the story is captured using the facial expressions of the characters.
Film and motion pictures
27
Jul 04
An interesting deconstruction of “American Beauty”
Courtesy of the ever-informative MaryAnn, who originally posted this in a comment thread here. She makes some fascinating points on the crisis of masculinity:
“Eek, now I feel on the spot. The crisis of masculinity, as I and others perceive it, is the disconnect straight American men feel from the traditional masculine model of their fathers and grandfathers because of the threat posed to it by women’s and gay liberation, and the difficulty of trying to redefine their own masculinity.
Okay. Here’s the short version. Lester feels unable to express his masculinity because his wife Carolyn dominates him financially and emotionally. Because she denies him sex, he seeks out unsuitable love objects (Angela) whom he can, in turn, dominate and who will not question his masculinity. In doing so, he also sublimates his incestuous desires for Jane.
Ricky serves as Lester’s doppelganger, the mysterious double every person supposedly has and who, in folklore, heralds one’s own imminent death when one sees him. To Lester, Ricky represents his own free younger self. Ricky provides Lester with both a conduit to his freedom (by selling him marijuana and introducing the idea of simply quitting one’s job) and a suitable (non-incestuous) sexual partner for Jane of whom Lester can approve. Of course, Ricky also fulfills his folkloric role by introducing Lester to his father the Colonel, who eventually kills him.
The Colonel is the latent homosexual who channels what he perceives as illicit desire and his fear at being discovered into an intense homophobia. His choice of the military as a career both lampoons and reinforces the military as a male charade (a performance of masculinity for a global audience) and haven for closeted gays. His own wife does not work, portraying the traditional homemaker role as a prison which reduces her to a ghost.
There is no happy medium between the roles of the Colonel’s wife, who keeps an immaculate house but has become less than human, and the “bloodless, money-grubbing freak†Carolyn has become.
Lester eventually arrives at a new definition of masculinity, sensitive without being gay, sensual without being sexually threatening, and resolves his incestuous feelings by reminding himself of the vulnerability of Jane and Angela. Of course, in so doing he renders himself abject in the diegesis of the film–he can no longer fit inside the confines of his world, and so must die.
Therefore, the film offers the not-very-comforting idea that to resolve the crisis of masculinity is to become a new sort of person that cannot fit into traditional American life, meaning you must be expelled from the community.
Whew! Hope you don’t think that’s too weird.
My husband maintains that the film is a sort of Zen text, which the filmmakers kind of validate in the DVD commentary. So I guess I did all that thinking for nothing. Ha. “
20
Jul 04
A Passion for Visual Effects
Check out what one young guy has done using Adobe After Effects and Premiere to create incredible special effects.
19
Jul 04
Untitled
Joan Crawford trivia: Each time Joan Crawford married, she changed the name of her Brentwood estate and installed all new toilet seats. From a short biography of Joan Crawford.
02
Jul 04
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando is dead. I found out today. Another legend of the silver screen gone. Who will be tomorrow’s James Dean or Marlon Brando? My favorite Marlon Brando role is still Don Vito Corleone in “The Godfather”, but I also enjoyed him in “On the Waterfront” and “The Wild One”. One thing I always appreciated was his quietness.
01
Jul 04
Spiderman 2: Quickie Review
Spiderman 2 was very enjoyable although I amped myself up so much before I saw it that I couldn’t help but come away the tiniest bit hungry for something more. The best part was Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. He was a lot more likeable, and therefore more tragic, than Dafoe as the Green Goblin. Being in the same theatre with the rest of your coworkers was weird in that you realize when you have to sneak out in the middle of the movie because you have to go to the bathroom really, really bad due to drinking the large Cherry Coke everyone knows exactly who you are. It’s like being a celebrity without all the good parts.
26
Jun 04
Fahrenheit 9-11
You need to see this movie. There are scenes that will grip you, not because of anything said, written, or done by Michael Moore, but because of the unadulterated and undeniable reality of what you are seeing. In one scene an older Iraqi woman walks amidst the rubble of her uncle’s home pleading with God to save them from the Americans, and asking where is He in their moment of need? When she cries out in anguish that “God is great” “Allahu Ackbar!” because she is scared and powerless to do anything else to protect her family and herself, you understand in an instant what the Iraqi people are going through. Exhorting God is the only way to keep your head up and your spirit from collapsing. It is powerful stuff and that’s just one small taste of it. Much of the rest of the film is the typical Moore ambush clueless politicians with a camera stuff, or talking to the average joe. Undeniably, Fahrenheit 9-11 will have a considerable impact on the election, especially if just half the people who see this movie vote in Novemeber.
Continue reading →
24
Jun 04
Seeking Dick Artists
Detour Seeks Dick Artists Dept.:
Flat Black Films (Waking Life) has sent out word that they’re seeking fine artists and illustrators to work on Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Says the press releases: “Applicants need to be highly skilled in fine drawing, particularly of the human face … experience with computer animation such as Flash is a plus but not required.” Send portfolios or examples of artwork to: Scanner Darkly, c/o Sara Johnson, Detour FilmProduction, 3109 N. I-35, Austin, TX 78722. Or, e-mail online portfolio info to bob@@flatblackfilms.com.
On a related noted, here are some photos from the set of A Scanner Darkly.
19
May 04
minutiae
I got a Netflix account recently, and this weekend I watched The Royal Tennenbaums again since I hadn’t seen it since it came out. It really inspired me to want to do more creative endeavors. Mainly during the parts of the movie involving all the little pet projects of the Tennenbaum children: painting, building model stage sets, writing, etc. Although I always seem to have an endless amount of work to do I have really missed my more creative side. Somewhere along the way I stopped devoting as much time to playing with pens and pencils, and I made drawing into something more like a burden or obligation, an activity where the expectation of a potentially dissatisfying outcome was foremost in my mind. But, I have missed drawing and making things. Making something can put you into a zen-like state. There are times when I’m drawing or doing something and I sit back in amazement at how the act of creation takes on a life of its own and how it can induce such a state of wordless wonder. Even if you have a particular vision of how things will turn out, the result is always a surprise. I think it is the talent for working with chance that makes an artist. You have to come to some sort of agreement with the medium that you will try to see things through even if the results deviate from your imagination. You have to be somewhat open and loose, receptive to a wide variety of possibilities. I think the importance of technique is in the expansion of possibility and the flexibility it lends to converting chance and possiblity into something surprising.