Here’s $10,000 in $100 bills.
Page Tutor used Google’s free Sketchup software to visualize the massive amounts of “money” that threaten to sink the world economy… unless we get more of it circulating again.
Here’s a million:
A trillion? See below…
View image Another evolutionary stage.
“I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that’s one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development. I think that religion may be some random by-product of mammalian reproduction. If that’s true, would non-mammalian aliens have a religion?”
— Arthur C. Clarke, in a 1999 interview with Free Inquiry magazine
“I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be interpreted as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”
— Albert Einstein
Edward Rothstein addresses the currently fashionable science vs. religion debate in a New York Times “appraisal” of the late Arthur C. Clarke’s work (“For Clarke, Issues of Faith, but Tackled Scientifically”):
“Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral” were the instructions left by Arthur C. Clarke, who died on Wednesday at the age of 90. This may not have surprised anyone who knew that this science-fiction writer, fabulist, fantasist and deep-sea diver had long seen religion as a symptom of humanity’s “infancy,” something to be outgrown and overcome.
But his fervor is still jarring […]
Stanley Kubrick’s film of Mr. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” for example — a project developed with the author — is haunting not for its sci-fi imaginings of artificial intelligence and space-station engineering but for its evocation of humanity’s origins and its vision of a transcendent future embodied in a human fetus poised in space […], a moment of transcendence in which some destiny is fulfilled, some possibility opened up…. a new evolutionary stage, inspiring as much horror as awe.
You can sense where Rothstein is heading when he detects “fervor” in Clarke’s funeral instructions. “Fervor”? Really? Seems to me that Clarke is simply leaving specific instructions about he wants. And why shouldn’t he want his funeral to accurately reflect his beliefs? Rothstein tries a little too hard to create a dialectic between science and faith, claiming that “religion suffuses Mr. Clarke’s realm.” But I think he confuses mystery with mysticism in “2001.”
I’ll be blogging and reporting from Ebertfest in Champaign-Urbana this week. The fest runs Wednesday through Sunday and the schedule can be found here. Panels, film introductions and post-film discussions will be live-streamed here. And it’s an all-star line-up: Eberts! Bordwell! Cohl! Seitz! Arikan! Morgan! Odienator! Phillips! Britt! Kohn! Barker! Pierson! Rosman! Poland! Voynar! And those are just some of the organizers and attendees. The roster of films and filmmakers is impressive, too. Give it a look.
View image This is not Bresson’s pipe!
I’m always intrigued when critics and academics try to characterize themselves — or the appeal of something they like — primarily in opposition to something else that they don’t like. Or vice-versa. I’m not just talking about contrarianism but, specifically, about attempts to define or justify something not by what it is, but by how it allegedly does not resemble another thing. Like Jonathan Rosenbaum recently did with his pantheon-gate-slamming, anti-Bergman piece (e.g., “His works are seen less often in retrospectives and on DVD than those of Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson…”), or Prof. Ray Carney in his intro/promo for a series of independent films that flew “under the radar” at the Harvard Film Archive. Tell me what you think of Carney’s “Now how much would you pay?” sales pitch:
If we ask why many of these works are still lurking in the shadows or searching for a distributor, the reasons are not that hard to come up with. These films do not push dependable box–office ticket–sales buttons. Their characters are not “cute,” “charming,” or “sweet” in the “Napoleon Dynamite” way. Their stories are not “clever,” “crowd–pleasing,” or “feel–good” in the “Little Miss Sunshine” way. They do not feature big–name actors making “in–joke” cameos. Though most of these films are made by Gen–Y artists about Gen–Y characters, they don’t even fit the pattern of Gen–Y movies. Their male characters are not introverted and narcissistic; their female characters are not whiney or clingy; and their narratives are not reducible to the group–hug ethos that says everything will be OK if only you have friends. The films in this program do not pander to the prejudices or predilections of young viewers or attempt to flatter audience members of any age. They take the pulse of contemporary American life toughly and unsentimentally. They challenge the viewer to look at experience in new and potentially disorienting ways and, at their best, ask the viewer to think freshly about the untapped expressive possibilities of the art.It seems to me that this exclusive hard-sell approach shamelessly panders to the prejudices and predilections of young viewers and attempts to flatter audience members of all ages.
At what point do critics turn into fashionistas, more concerned with dictating today’s styles or appealing to hipper/holier-than-thou posers than addressing the movies themselves? To me, this seems like such an adolescent approach: “Yeah, man! Disco sucks!” We all do it on occasion, but some rants are more effective than others.
There’s a terrific discussion at The House Next Door about Carney and his complaints about the lack of mainstream media coverage (greatly exaggerated by Carney) for the series he cannily sold as anti-mainstream. (What did the filmmakers themselves think of that approach?) I don’t know how well Carney’s laboriously insular sales pitch actually worked, selling exclusively to a crowd that wants to flatter itself as anti-mainstream and elite (or elitist). But for me Carney’s prose (perhaps especially his patronizing use of the term “Gen-Y,” which in his hands sounds more than ever like a personal lubricant) destroys any credibility he might have as someone capable of understanding what makes an interesting movie. All I know is what he dislikes about commercial and Sundance-indie stuff, which is pretty much the same crap we’re all sick of. But what does that have to do making a series of “under-the-radar” movies sound appealing? Are these films worth seeing just because they’re NOT “Napoleon Dynamite” or “Little Miss Sunshine”? Wow, what a recommendation.
Does Carney’s approach turn you off as much as it does me? Do so-called “mainstream” anti-intellectualism and Carney’s bitter and equally reactionary anti-anti-intellectualism seem like two sides of a coin?
Conserve water. Save the rainforests. A Brazilian public awareness campaign.
In today’s New York Times, Manohla Dargis writes:
For almost as long as it’s been in existence, the Sundance Film Festival has fended off criticism that it has gone Hollywood. […]
But let us not be (entirely) cynical. For all its problems, the festival remains one of the most important in the world and the foremost launching pad for American independents.
Both parts of that last sentence are arguable, but if Sundance is (or has ever been) one of the most important film festivals in the world, I hope it’s because it retains some power to launch American films, “independent” or otherwise, into the media and consumer marketplace — and not just because it’s a big party in an upscale ski resort town.
Ironically (intentionally?) embedded in the above article, however, was this (un-embeddable) Carpetbagger video about the exclusive swagfest — the “gifting suites” to which persons of predetermined celebrity are invited and… “gifted” by corporations and boutique merchants. You may want to throw up (I did), but the shameless decadence is something to see. (Does the festival officially cooperate with these ventures? How do they determine who’s attending and who’s on their lists?)
Meanwhile, Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe says he’s never heard more griping about the actual movies being shown:
View image They could be nuns. Those could be habits. But they’re burkas.
What is that supposedly ancient Chinese curse? “May you live in interesting times”? The proverb may be of dubious origin, but it captures the fate of Marjane, the heroine of “Persepolis,” in a Persian nutshell. The precocious Iranian girl is born during the reign of the Shah (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi), witnesses his overthrow during the Islamic Revolution, becomes enamored of pop music and punk rock (and Bruce Lee) as powerfully disruptive and liberating political forces, and experiences a new world of sexuality and materialism in Europe. “Persepolis,” based on the autobio-graphic novels by Maryjane Satrapi and co-written and co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, is absolutely enchanting — a history lesson, a fairy tale, and a girl’s-eye-view of growing up. It’s a movie that makes you feel glad to be alive.
I wasn’t familiar with Satrapi’s work, but from what I’ve seen since, the (mostly black-and-white animation renders her style beautifully: a mix of charming, early Hanna-Barbera coloring-book simplicity, and more atmospheric watercolors or charcoals that suggest a ’60s and ’70s European sensibility. The delicately modulated tones of “Persepolis” are similarly sophisticated. It veers from hilarious to poignant, sweet to terrifying, abstract to concrete, personal to political, cynical to rhapsodic… and back again.
Our guide is the stubborn, courageous, effervescent Marjane herself, a smart and instinctively rebellious girl who (like most young Westerners) instinctively cobbles together her identity through pop culture and politics. Or make that pop culture as politics. The privately and publicly expressed preference of ABBA over the Bee Gees (or Iron Maiden over both) is just as important — and in many respects equivalent — to favoring the Revolution over the Shah. Marjane isn’t always admirable (who is?), but we unfailingly empathize with her emotional, philosophical and ideological struggles. (And she has the wisest grandma in the world — who also disapproves of her granddaughter’s actions at times, but never offers anything less than unconditional love.)
“Persepolis” streams by in no time, yet manages to convey the sense of an entire childhood into early adulthood. Upon getting back to my room I immediately ordered the books, “Persepolis” and “Persepolis 2.”
(Thanks to Ken Lowery for recommending this movie. It was just the nudge I needed to reshuffle my screening schedule.)
I sure do miss David Lynch movies. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when he appeared as Jack Dall, the CBS late-night talk show producer and relative of his FBI man Gordon Cole, on a couple episodes of “Louie,” and again when I read this piece by Roger Ebert about movies and meanings, featuring the fantastic interview clip (from the Japanese DVD of “Mulholland Dr.”), below. Lynch hasn’t made a movie since his deeply disturbing internal epic “INLAND EMPIRE” in 2006. Lynch works in multiple media, and in 2011 released his “debut solo album” with the delightful title of “Crazy Clown Time,” the title song for which accompanied by a hellish video that would not have been out of place in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (the Road House after-party, perhaps), “Lost Highway” or any number of other Lynchian nightmares.
Ann Powers, the excellent music critic for the LA Times (and once a fellow contributor to Seattle’s semi-legendary The Rocket) posted this link on Facebook, with the following disclaimer:
I hesitate to share this ridiculous dismissal of the field to which I am devoted and about which I am so passionate, but I guess I do so to say, okay, then, perhaps this writer should never approach the subject of music again, because every act of writing about culture involves some kind of critical assessment, and he… is against that process…
She refers to this piece by Steve Almond in the Boston Globe, appearing under the headline “Love music, hold the criticism,” in which Almond recalls securing a paying gig as a know-nothing El Paso newspaper music critic during the “heyday of Hair Metal,” whose “only qualifications… consisted of a willingness to work nights and hit my deadlines”:
My standard template was to start off with a bad pun then proceed to the concert set list, with each song title modified by at least three adjectives. If I was feeling ambitious, I described the lead singer’s hair.
Wretched as I was, I loved being a music critic. I got to feel like a big shot, the one guy whose opinion (no matter how misbegotten) mattered.
But one night, he says, at an MC Hammer show, he had an epiphany:
I dutifully spent the evening scribbling witty insults in my reporter’s notebook. But at a certain point (after I’d fulfilled my quota of witty insults) I turned my attention to the folks all around me. They were enthralled. And what I realized as I gazed at them was this: I was totally missing the point. […]
I’d come up against a concept I’ve since come to think of as the Music Critic Paradox: the simple fact that even the best critics — the ones, unlike me, with actual training and talent — can’t begin to capture what it feels like to listen to music. […]
It was as if my critic credibility depended on my not being fooled into actually enjoying myself.
Oh, just pretend there’s a Joe Lieberman head Photoshopped onto the snake or something. Or let the MSM do it for you…
When the conversation turns, as it so often does these days, to blogs (or “the Internets” as Stephen Colbert is fond of calling the online realm), you’ll find an astonishing number of people who, even in 2006, have absolutely no idea of what they’re talking about. Like Bruce Kluger in USA Today, who writes: “If ever America needed a wake-up call about the mythology of blogging, we got it this month…. “
Kluger, who also contributes to Parenting magazine and Huffington Post (god help ’em), proceeds to destroy the “mythology” that, well, didn’t exist until it was created by the mainstream media (like USA Today)… because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Kluger cites the defeat of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary (then increasing Joementum in recent polls) and the disappointing box office receipts for “Snakes on a Plane” as evidence of “the capriciousness of the blog culture”:
Lieberman’s boomerang reminds us that voters represent a meager percentage of the total populace — and that bloggers are an even tinier subset of that group. Consequently, what appears to be a coast-to-coast juggernaut on a 17-inch monitor is, in the real world, simply an elaborate PC-to-PC chain letter — enthusiastic, but not necessarily the national mindset.O, capricious bloggers! How dare you fool the MSM into thinking you were all-knowing and all-powerful! Shame upon thee! This is a great example of what I was writing about the other day — another Straw Man piece that sets out to strike down its own assumptions, none of which apply to the exterior universe. It’s the JonBenet Ramsay “murder suspect” hysteria/drivel all over again.
That’s what I wrote, semi-earnestly, in a June 2006 post about the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” I led up to it with this:
Had GM committed to the electric car, it might be on top of the world today. Instead, GM’s boneheaded short-term business decisions have nearly bankrupted the company. And now, why in the world would anyone want to buy an GM vehicle, when you know they’re passing off inferior, antiquated merchandise? Unless it can compete, and catch up technologically to where it already was ten years ago, GM deserves a quick and merciless death.
Two and a half years later, my feelings are a lot more ambivalent — mainly because I don’t want to see more people out of work in this freezing economic climate, unless they’re the CEOs who steadily ran the American automobile industry into the ground over the last, oh, thirty years. (They learned nothing from the 1970s, when they found themselves making cars Americans didn’t want and handed the market to Toyota, Honda, Mazda…?) As Thomas Friedman put it:
I was just reading David Thomson’s intriguing/perplexing entry on Paul Thomas Anderson in the new edition of his “Biographical Dictionary of Film” (more about that later) and he begins with reports that Anderson had at one point been unhappy with New Line’s print campaign for “Magnolia”:
Yet, truly, how would you do a poster for “Magnolia”? How would you begin to convey the feeling and form of the picture? Would you bother to ask the question why it is called “Magnolia”? Would you let yourself ask, are posters the proper way to offer great movies?
Such awkward questions could accumulate in Hollywood marketing offices, which have so little time or practice with the crosscutting ironies and countervailing doubts that obsess Anderson and are the energy of his films.
Yes, the job of marketing and advertising is to present the movie to the public and (if it’s an honest campaign) entice them with a taste of what they can expect from it. And we all know that sometimes the efforts are woefully inadequate: “It’s Terrific!” (“Citizen Kane”); “The Damndest Thing You Ever Saw!” (“Nashville”). I think the original paintings and drawings done for the Polish movie market — most of which use no images from the movies themselves — often do a stronger job of suggesting the feel of the films, like my favorite posters for “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Phantom of Liberty.”
Over Memorial Day weekend I attended a high school graduation in Albuquerque. One of the graduating senior boys gave a speech in which he used car parts as a metaphor for the components of one’s personality or identity. It was a clever piece he’d co-written with a friend, delivered with wry humor. Afterwards, the head of the school — a man I’d estimate was in his 60s — took the stage and thanked the student, quipping: “Baby, you can drive my car anytime.”
Thud. Thunderous silence mixed with scattered, bewildered titters.
View image Story diagram stolen — er, borrowed — from “Observations on film art and Film Art.”
Kristin Thompson, author of “Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique,” a book I can’t believe I haven’t read and have therefore just ordered, explores her observations and theory of story structure in a blog entry called “Times go by turns,” which gets to the heart of how movie storytelling works by showing how familiar structures involve the use of more than the “three acts” we’re accustomed to thinking about. She was inspired by the Society for the Cognitive Study of the Moving Image conference in June at the University of Wisconsin in Madison — and, boy, does that ever sound like something that would be up my street. (Also: See my post “Tell me a story… or don’t.”)
Kristin writes:
Tom Brokaw, NBC News: “It’s unfortunate for Vice President Cheney to have had this accident obviously, because there will be those who don’t like him, who will be writing tomorrow that he had a Dr. Strangelove appearance as he appeared today in his wheelchair.”
Brokaw brought it up. Judge for yourself. Did it occur to Brokaw that that this could have been a wily piece of black-hearted/suited satirical stagecraft on Cheney’s part? Wonder what was in those boxes that he was reportedly moving — himself — when he injured his back. Shreddable secret documents, perhaps? Or could the former CEO of Halliburton not afford to hire movers?
(AP Photo)
UPDATE: Reports that the ex-VP was doing a little recreational waterboarding down by the Potomac when he slipped on the ice have not been confirmed.
View image: Pieter Brueghel, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” c. 1558.
Today, I’ve been writing about “The Bridge” (opening in Chicago next week), a documentary about the stories of people who jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004.
View image: From “The Bridge,” directed by Eric Steel (2005)
I read that the director, Eric Steel (who had cameras on the bridge from dawn to dusk for the entire year) had invoked Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” — and that resonated with me. Then I remembered the poem of the same name by one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams.
View image From “Vertigo,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
For me, as an American, a West Coaster and a cinephile, the Golden Gate Bridge has always loomed large in my consciousness. Today, as I attempt to digest this shattering film, I am moved and awed to offer these images, from Brueghel to the bridge — visions not just of a magnificent structure or landmark, but of a place of mythic stature in the imagination.
“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”by William Carlos Williams
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
(Statistic: Most American suicides take place in the spring.)
View image Paul Dano anoints Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood.”
IndieWIRE has announced the results of its annual critics’ poll, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” dominates (picture, director, screenplay, cinematography, lead performance), followed by David Fincher’s “Zodiac” and Joel & Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men.
For most American viewers, this is going to be a Netflix list: Two of the top ten movies never barely opened theatrically outside of New York (“Syndromes and a Century,” “Colossal Youth”); two never played in more than 20 theaters at once (“Offside,” “Killer of Sheep” — the restoration of Charles Burnett’s 1977 film); two haven’t opened yet, and won’t in most places until 2008 (“There Will Be Blood,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”); and, in these days when wide releases typically launch on 2,000 – 4,000 theaters, two never made it to more than 400 at any given time (“I’m Not There” [149], “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford” [301]). Only two others ever spread beyond 1,000 screens: “No Country for Old Men” and “Zodiac.” Three of the ten best selections — “Killer of Sheep,” “Offside” and “Zodiac” — are currently available on DVD.
Poll administrator Dennis Lim noted that, compared to 2006 when “the relative dearth of truly exciting films” was lamented by many critics, this year’s 106 participants were more enthusiastic about their choices. One eyebrow-raising development was cited in the indieWIRE introduction, though:
If there is a strking hole to be found in this year’s [poll results]… it is the utter lack of American indie films. While last year’s survey celebrated outside-the-system films such as David Lynch’s “Inland Empire,” Kelly Reichart’s “Old Joy,” Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” and Andrew Bujalski’s “Mutual Appreciation,” the acclaimed new films from American filmmakers this year came from directly within the Hollywood and Indiewood system, starring name actors.Other poll-toppers: Best First Film (Sarah Polley, “Away from Her”), Best Documentary (“No End in Sight,” Charles Ferguson), Supporting Performance (Cate Blanchett, “I’m Not There”), The complete results in all the categories can be scrutinized here. And the individual critics’ ballots (including mine) are here.
Cousin Dupree?
A couple days ago we published an Opening Shot contribution for Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” in which Allen cited an old joke to illustrate a point about his view of life:
Two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ’em says: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know, and such small portions.”I couldn’t help but think of that when I saw the open letter Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker posted on their web site (“Open Letter to the Great Comic Actor, Luke Wilson”). Be sure to check out the groovy Residential Suites at Longworth stationery: “Where Value is King… And So Are You!”
Fagen and Becker address their open letter to Luke to complain about his brother Owen’s movie, “You, Me and Dupree,” which they say is a bad movie that they think Owen should have thanked them for, because they think the story (and title) resemble their song “Cousin Dupree,” off the “Two Against Nature” album. “Cousin Dupree” is about a guy who… well, let them put it in their own words:
Well I’ve kicked around a lot since high school
I’ve worked a lot of nowhere gigs
From keyboard man in a rock’n ska band
To haulin’ boss crude in the big rigs
Now I’ve come back home to plan my next move
From the comfort of my Aunt Faye’s couch
When I see my little cousin Janine walk in
All I could say was ow ow ouch
Honey how you’ve grown
Like a rose
Well we used to play
When we were three
How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree
Write Fagen and Becker:Anyway, they got your little brother on the hook for this summer stinkbomb — I mean, check the reviews — and he’s using all his heaviest Owen C. licks to try to get this pathetic way-unfunny debacle off the ground and, in the end, no matter what he does or what happens at the box office, in the short run, he’s gonna go down hard for trashing the work of some pretty heavy artists like us in the process. … I mean, we’re like totally out in the cold on this one — no ASCAP, no soundtrack, no consultant gig (like we got from the Farrelly Bros. when they used a bunch of songs in their movie, “You, Me and Irene” or whatever). No phone call, no muffin basket, no flowes, nothing….
But, hey, luke, man — there is one petite solid you could do for us at this time — do you think you could persuade your bro to do the right thing and come down to our Concert at Irvine and apologize to our fans for this travesty?
OK, I can see some similarities between one Dupree and the other — especially the ramblin’ nature of the character, the sleeping on the couch, and all that.
But, frankly, I think Owen Wilson’s Dupree is even more like the out-of-place “special friend,” the unwelcome guest who will not leave, who is the title character of the Dan masterpiece “Gaucho”:
Can’t you see they’re laughing at me
Get rid of him
I don’t care what you do at home
Would you care to explain…
Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome…
No he can’t sleep on the floor
What do you think I’m yelling for
I’ll drop him near the freeway
Doesn’t he have a home…
UPDATE: Discussion of various interpretations of “Gaucho” (any or all of which work) here. Best of all: ” It’s obvious that the singer is berating an acquaintance (a roommate or other such cohabitant?) for his association with some poseur, a lightweight, freeloading hipster fraud who’s long overstayed his welcome. Beyond that, though, we know nothing. Who are these characters? What are the circumstances of their involvement? What is the Custerdome? In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter, because we’re hearing a snippet of a diatribe from one character to another, and that’s all we’re supposed to be hearing.”
If there’s any doubt in your mind (and I can’t imagine why there would be) that “Pineapple Express” is a head trip movie about stoners imagining themselves the heroes of a movie they’d like to see, the final morning-after breakfast-and-bonding scene (not to mention the Robert Palmer “Woke up laughing” snippet followed by the Huey Lewis song over the end credits) drives it home like Bubby. The “Extended Version” now on DVD and Blu-ray goes even further. The guys re-live their movie, summing up what they’ve shared, and what they’ve learned.
Check out the clip above (WARNING — spoilers and R-rated language), and then continue below for the Huey Lewis plot-synopsis lyrics. Director David Gordon Green reportedly asked just three things: 1) that it sound like his ’80s stuff; 2) that it contain repeated mentions of the movie title; and 3) that it contain something like a plot synopsis. I smell Oscar! (In a good way…)
P.S. Hey, man, have you ever played “Dark Side of the Moon” at the same time as “The Wizard of Oz”… ?
