A note on Brakhage
30 May, 2008
The two most recent films are pieces by the inimitable Stan Brakhage. It is possible to see them, on this collection. However, I use the DVD versions as a reference point, a form of recall to the screenings of the physical film I have seen. This is not to say that the DVD version is bad, it is simply diminished. Which, by the way, is how I feel about the DVD version of anything that is not mass-produced popcorn shlock.
That is all.
Stellar
30 May, 2008
I needed to be reminded that I will die, and then I needed to remember that I am well and truly alive. Sublimate the base lizard brain that endlessly feels and reacts.
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes
29 May, 2008
It is easy to forget that this suit is made of meat, and it is easy to mistake this meat as foreign. We rarely are confronted with our status as meat-bags; rarely are we confronted even with the very real fact of our own demise. One must see, one must touch, one must stick the hand into the wounds like Thomas and take nothing on faith. Such beauty even in death, the human body has. Such hideousness and such beauty that can be brought out in tandem- no, that exist always in tandem.
It is easy to forget for a moment; watching the scalpels arc gracefully and the glistening reds and whites, watching red liquid that must be blood drip slowly or gush in cascading torrents, that these are people. Were alive, once, not long before the camera caught their bouncing photons. And then a hand, a breast, a nose. These fine lines so easily crossed.
It is strange to think that even the living on film are likely dead, have likely passed through the hands of someone else quite similar to themselves.
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
28 May, 2008
I expected bad. I went in expecting the thing to be utter shit. I went in expecting the thing to make me shout at the screen, even. But I didn’t expect THIS bad. I kept wanting someone, maybe Indy himself, to look at the camera and say ‘I cannot believe you are watching this shit’. Unfortunately, instead, all I got was a bunch of poorly CGI’ed monkeys, some anthropomorphized prairie dogs, Shia the beef dressed up as Marlon Brando without the talent, swagger, or soul; and a reasonably good nap. John Hurt was, as always, emminently watchable; and Karen Allen has aged well. Harrison Ford, however, was airbrushed so much that every shot of his face is overexposed and his presence makes the lighting inconsistent from shot to countershot. And Cate Blanchett is the least believable Soviet ever, which is dismaying considering how lovely she is and my fetish for all things Russky.
I just don’t know what to think. It’s hardly even worth getting mad about, it’s so awful.
There Will Be Blood
27 May, 2008
this is a placeholder. the actual entry will be long. but i did watch the film the other night.
How to Conduct a Love Affair
26 May, 2008
I have changed the image at the top of the page. It has been changed because I cannot stop thinking about the film from whence it comes. It is titled How to Conduct a Love Affair, and was crafted by David Gatten. I saw it last fall in New York City, at the Avant Garde weekend of the New York Film Festival. It is, simply put, one of the most perfect pieces of cinema I have ever experienced. I cannot speak of it except plainly. It left me physically and mentally drained, I sat in the darkened hallway for twenty-odd minutes sobbing and dry-heaving, wracked with horrible tremors and painfully aware of my own fragile humanity.
I am writing this because I realize that very few of you will ever have the opportunity to see the things I have seen, which makes me quite sad. I am writing this because perhaps, by chance, you will take a moment and reconsider film. I am writing this because while I know I can have no expectations of your interest in these things, for me this is deadly serious. I do not hold any illusions as to the rest of the world. But neither do I hold any illusions with regards to myself. I have reached a turning point, and I cannot not write these things, anymore than I could not watch these things.
I am indebted to those of you who consume my brainspray, and I thank you.
The Visitor
26 May, 2008
Be trained into docility, by yourself or by others. Your brain so accustomed to nothingness, to blankness, to mediocrity and blandness. You will never have the proper shock to bring you into humanity. You do not need to live your life because you have reached the point where all of your living is done. You are, in fact, American. You will not be questioned, not when you do nothing for your paycheck and not when you spend your evenings alone and not when you seem to utterly lack a soul. You Belong. You do not need to do aught for your belonging.
I do not understand what it is, not to Belong. Not really. But I will not idle simply because I can. I will not take my belonging as a given. I cannot take my belonging as a given. Belonging is not enough, and I am not convinced that it will not go away.
Muto
22 May, 2008
I love animation, and even more than animation, I love exceptionally challenging animation. Hand drawn 1:1, large-scale claymation, etc. This, though, may take the cake. Because I love graffiti almost as much as I love animation, and this is both. And it is exceptionally well done. All of the technical flaws are turned into virtues, and even the 4:1 (I think it’s 4:1, it might be more) looks good instead of jumpy. I am awed.
Muto
Zodiac
21 May, 2008
I didn’t watch all of Zodiac tonight. In fact, I hardly watched half of it. But I’ve seen it before, and that’s enough to click my brain into gear. There is something happening in David Fincher’s brain, in David Fincher’s style, his effortless telling of story, that I enjoy utterly. The temporal breaks are flawless because they are unacknowledged, the editing is seamless because it is choppy, the digital effects are effective because they are not flashy. Fincher does everything with a certain level of grit and grime and he does not waste time showing off. He is already on to the next thing when you realize that this current thing is absolutely and without question a small bit of brilliance. And all of his characters walk around with no light in their eyes. There is never a conclusion, there is never a summing up of the parts, there is always just more, things continue, however they may.
White Mane
17 May, 2008
At the end of the world there is a film playing. When that film ends your chest will ache with bittersweet longing for a time when you could turn any ending into a happy one, when you could believe it when the narrator says that they will be okay.
