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
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.
Rescue Dawn
13 May, 2008
I cannot decide if this film is an example of Herzog attempting to appease Hollywood, or Herzog trying to be Hollywood. Bits of classic Herzog abound, but they have been glossed and spit-shined into something Bigger. And cleaner. Whereas Kinski’s Dieter would have crawled from the forest covered in so much filth as to be barely recognizable as human (though, of course, Kinski never was actually human); Bale’s Dieter comes out with artfully placed gashes, his skin still visible through the grime. The film is mystifying in that it seems so very familiar, and yet I cannot seem to grab hold of it. It is slithery and slick in a way that feels so very un-Herzog. I am accustomed to feeling ill after I watch a Herzog film, to being unable to rid myself of it no matter how hard I try. This one won’t stay with me though I want it to.
Bale as Dieter, however, was profoundly distressing. And not simply for the lengths to which he will go, physically, to achieve a role.
Fallen Art
7 May, 2008
I incorrectly stated that the Austrians are insane. It is, in fact, the Polish who are bonkers this time.
Pan with Us
7 May, 2008
I am easily overwhelmed by technical virtuosity. I cannot help it, my heart is weak.
La Jetée
7 May, 2008
One brief incandescent moment when the photographs overcome themselves. One breath, a small smile, the static becomes dynamic.
everything will be ok
7 May, 2008
It is funnier to be dying than to not be dying. It is friendlier and more beautiful, and you will meet more people and have more interesting conversations. If you are dying, people are nice to you. People permit you to see strange things and don’t laugh at you when your teeth fall out or you fall to pieces on the bus. When you aren’t dying anymore, your flowers are taken away.
