| La rabbia di Pasolini (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1963/2008) |
[Nov. 19th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
I was really only attending these films to see Gorin speak. These films were presented as part of the Cinematheque’s series on the so-called “Essay Film” (works which hardly resemble the essay form at all apart from having no protagonist and often dealing with non-fiction). I think movies like Sans Soliel and Letter to Jane would be better termed as meditation films, since they tend to meditate on a theme but put forth no thesis to defend. Though why call them anything at all?
Gorin had some interesting thoughts on narration, especially where found or reappropriated footage is concerned. He said, “narration must always hit an image from an angle, but never straight on and never parallel.” He made frequent references to “the ghost behind the image” and how the filmmaker goes about bringing it out. He said that today you could not construct a meaningful film out of news images as Pasolini did in 1963. It was possible in the 60s because back then even news photographers had a keen sense of framing, distance, and proportion. That news images today suffer from the tyranny of centrality of the subject and digital rather than chemical properties which make them look crappy.
He also sais some mean things about Herzog, who, according to the Eye Weekly has a film out now starring Nicholas Cage?? Am I on crack or is this true? |
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| Away We Go (Sam Medes, 2009) |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|11:19 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | blueburd -band on the run | ] |
Oh garbage!
I remember seeing ads for this in Dufferin Station back when I would get up super early to go to work at the TTC. I started at 7:00am, so I woke up at 6:30. I had a pretty good system worked out for dealing with such harsh hours. The coffee would be made beforehand and all my clothes would be chosen and laid out the night before. So, when my alarm screamed the sounds of JazzFM I might have even smugly hit the snooze button on occasion because I knew, no matter what, that system I worked out would get me to work on time. Here’s how it worked:
I turn off the alarm. It’s 6:30am so I have to confront not only extreme fatigue, but also the emotional strain of no-human-being-should-be-up-at-this-hour-ever. It’s hard to tell which is worse but the physical pain of forcing your body into an unnatural situation has an unpleasantness factor of about 10. But a few stumbles away I flick the coffee machine on and then schlep over to the sink to brush my teeth. It helped that at the time I lived in an apartment the size of a shoebox. Once I get dressed, I flip on the CBC. I love the CBC, but at this hour it’s kind of useless. I always seemed tojust be catching a strangly detailed, fringe sports update. And as irrelevant as sports updates are to 99.9% of the population, this broadcast happens to include high school sports. It seems absolutely insane. What’s next? Are they going to have DIY punk show listings on the national public broadcaster? Maybe updates on some other vain hobby? Who cares? Stick to public affairs and real civic issues, traffic, culture, and – I don’t know – things that apply to normal people? Sorry not everyone knows someone in some house league sport thing, and if we do, we can get the freaking scores from them!
Anyhow, if I could withstand the pain of the normally excellent CBC feeding sports blather, I put my helmet on, clip on my pass (which also gets me on transit for free), and gulp down as much coffee as I can without scalding my insides. Once I walk down Bloor at this hour it looks weird. Really weird. There’s nothing but blowing newspapers, the weird banner ad for some out-of-touch looking Portuguese play, and the construction workers hoarding the Tim Hortons. In order to insulate myself from this scene I synch my iPod with the greatest podcasts in the world. If I’m blessed then I will have a new Best Show Gems podcast cued up, or – even better – a Best Show podcast proper. If not I could always rely on – before he forsaked us through his retirement - Politics with Don Newman. Probably the last public affairs radio program made for grownups still on the air, except maybe The House, which, thankfully, is still with us.
So when I get to the subway station there it is. The last thing before I’m in motion: The movie posters. There was some Seth Rogan poster up for awhile but then, or possibly at the same time, there was this poster for the film Away We Go. It had not only a stylish design, and a SNL cast member, but also Dave Eggers on it. I was intrigued. In truth, of Dave Eggers, I’ve only ever read his interview with Bob Dylan, which was okay I guess. But I thought he must be pretty good. I figured, he’s this smart, rich, New York intellectual that all my smart friends like, so what I mean to say is that his name, and these other beforementioned factors, made me pretty sure that this was a film I should probably see.
Well it’s not surprising that a guy that reports to work everyday (temporarily, of course) does not get out to any movies very much. So I didn’t see it. But down the road I eventually acquired a copy of it on video. One night before bed I turned it on. I think I was about 10 minutes in total and listened to a patchwork of about 30 additional minutes in total. The reason for this is that I was more tired than I thought. But It’s also because Away We Go is the type of cliché, bullshit, gen-x inanity that I thought had gone the way of shows like Friends or something. This film was the stuff of bad television.
Oh, and I took exception to the sad, rich, Montreal couple who have trouble having kids. “Our generation is selfish,” the would-be father says, “we wait until we’re 30 and then wonder why when we try to have a baby it doesn’t work.” And for the first time I felt like engaging with the film. How dare you?, I thought, with the cost of student loans combined with stagnated wages and off-the-wall housing costs, compared with that of our parent’s time, many in our generation can’t even afford to start a family until our 30s. How insulting!
Utter rot, I say! |
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| Routine Pleasures (Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1986) |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|11:05 pm] |
At the risk of badly paraphrasing...
Gorin’s film was an interesting proposition. He is following subjects that he has no personal interest in – model train enthusiests – as a means of discovering something about the nature of pleasure in art and work but also an understanding of his place as a French ex-Marxist making a life in California. Much of the latter revolves around the critic and artist Manny Farber, an elusive figure in the film who, despite his absesnce, is probably the most illustrative component of the work. I think that if I was the type to ask questions at Q&As I would probably ask the function of the length of time he allowed the dull train scenes to go on for. The endless information and factual minutae relating to trains becomes suffocating in this film. Why include as much as he did?
Gorin spoke of American archetypes and his upbringing in France in relation to the US. A big concern for both himself and Manny was 1930s Hollywood film. It had something to do with being raised by Trotskyists and getting a sense of labour and work in early American movies. He talked about the workers in these films having a modesty and anonymity that he found touching (!?). He spoke of imperfect films that don’t go rushing to a central point but instead meander, sometimes fail, but nonetheless deliver the most memorable images. He discussed what makes a memorable image. “Godard taught me,” he said, “that a good film puts you to sleep. Then you wake up and it’s the same.”
At this point he spoke of film structure and the importance of not falling into the patterns of Hollywood clichés. He said, “you don’t do like Wim Wenders and just throw some characters on the road, do a classical style road movie with some music by the Kinks in the background, and think you’re doing anything new.” |
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| Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
Weary with no (inhabitable) apartment of my own to go to and after a rather alarming talk with the Super, I decided to go to the movies. I picked up my freshly dry cleaned coat, hopped on my bike, and made out into the night. Approaching Koreatown the cold wind blowing across Christie Pits Park froze me to the bone. As I pressed on through the Annex I passed a "bomb diffusing" truck. Was that a joke?
I got to the Cumberland Cinema and to my dismay read a note on the wall about their "new Tuesday night pricing". What this means is that movies are still $10+ but they give you a concession voucher for a drink and a snack. Ok, I thought. "So" I said nervously anticipating the inevitable, "I don't suppose I can get a coffee with this?"
"No only these fountain drinks." Sugary cola drinks. Not my cup of tea. So as I made my way to the escalator I see all these Yorkville types going through the same spiel:
"Coffee?"
"No, just these drinks."
"Coffee's a drink!"
"I'm sorry, sir."
They were still going on about it as I took my seat.
How nice it was to be out, I thought, even if I was at the movies alone. I took out my phone and texted Amy about the bomb diffusing truck I saw before I shut off the ringer.
"You know" one of the other patrons said to the woman beside him, "I bet that the coffee costs the theatre LESS than the cola."
"I know, dear."
I tasted the coffee that cost me $2.50 cents. Worth every penny. This is some precious Chris escape time. Can't put a price on that.
Then I noticed my phone ring. Not by the sound but by the glowing screen and the words, "Incoming call."
"Hello?"
"Hello? is this Chris?"
"Yes."
"This is David calling, I wanted to speak with you about something."
Strange. Why was my landlord calling at 7pm on a Tuesday night? "Oh, well you'll have to call me back in the morning. I'm in the cinema right now."
"Humph, and why is it that you can't speak with me right now?"
I didn't like his insinuating tone, and inability to listen. It seems that often landlords only ever comprehend 40% of what you say to them. "Because, as I said, I'm AT THE MOVIES. a FILM is about to START. Can we talk later?"
"Well," he said in a huff, "What I have to say won't take long. I have a letter with your signature that states the reason you are moving out. This letter is dated three months ago. So I don't very much appreciate you going around to the other tenants and spreading falsehoods. I think we've been very good to you."
"I'm sorry," I said, breaking in, "Could you repeat the bit about other tenants?"
"Hanoke [the Super) explained to me today that you're going around to the tenants and saying that you're leaving because of an infestation."
"Really?" I said, "Because that's the first I've heard of it. If you want to know what happened I'll tell you. I asked him if he's told the other people on our floor about the infestation, he said that he won't. I asked him what he's going to do about it, and he said nothing, that there's no use in trying to resolve the problem.I don't know what your problem is, but I don't have time to talk about it right now-"
"WE HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD TO YOU" he said, interrupting, "So you better be careful who you talk to-"
"I beg your pardon!!" I said, not realizing that people in the theatre were starting to take notice.
"No!" he answered back, in his shitty, illiterate Canadian accent, "There is no pardon to beg, I'm a lawyer, you better be careful!"
And with that, my creepy landlord, who makes threatening phone calls in the evening hours, hung up on me.
I was so upset that I couldn't follow the details of how the US economy was set up to fail. And yet, I did hope that this would be the best Michael Moore film yet. SiCKO, was really promising, I thought this would be the coup de grace. But it wasn't quite. |
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| Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg, 1980) |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|08:31 pm] |
Dysfunctional relationship, voyeurism, and a crime are the three pillars this film stands on. Stylish editing, a young Harvey Keitel, and a hip, Euro-setting are one thing, but Art Garfunkle's suits are probably the most exciting thing here.
"They ring you, the telephone me!" |
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| Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009) |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|10:20 pm] |
After the movie we got hot chocolate. We debated whether to continue down Richmond or go up to Queen. The latter was more promising for hot chocolate but also, according to Amy, promising for "hipster d-bags". It was a nice night and we passed the Rivoli and noticed a fairly long line. Normally I wouldn't think much of that but then it hit me:
"Paul F. Tompkins is in town!"
So we asked if there were tickets at the door and sure enough there were. We lined up and started scouring the scene for FOTs. We made a positive ID on a casual Best Show podcast listener standing in front of us.
Jokes! A real date!
If I go out and it's not a show or a film it's basically the most novel thing ever. |
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| Ziemia obiecana / Land of Promise (Andrzej Wajda, 1975) |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|10:20 am] |
I have liked everything by Wajda that I have seen. Everything.
This one is no exception. This shows the industrial revolution in Lodz where capitalists scramble over each other to turn a buck, workers get maimed and abused, and everyone can fall into disaster at any moment. Lodz seems pretty exciting here. Wajda's camera is alive, not simply portraying a storybook drama about days gone by, but instead a camera that moves with purpose, frames elegantly, and flares in the sun as horse drawn carriages bounce by.
The images of the Catholic priest blessing the factory is the perfect image. There is no moral center in the modern world and there is no one externally to step in to stop the madness. The strike at the end, barely alluded to and ending in a massacre leaves you unsettled. And it should. This is some heavy Polish.
When great, modernists like Wajda are gone I feel that there will be no one left to take their place. |
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| A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009) |
[Oct. 22nd, 2009|06:40 am] |
I can't shake this movie. It's been almost a week now. At about the half way point I was thinking to myself, is this a repudiation of their religion? Or something else entirely? They're definitely working at being provocative yet funny at the same time. And they provoke reactions as severe as this. What does it mean? There's some wiggle room for interpretation. Two things jump out at me, though. First, we are alone in the universe. That much is certain. Second, I like to think that Joel and Ethan are having fun 'playing god' on the character of Larry Gopnik. In an interview at TIFF they said something to the effect that the most amusing part of making the film was thinking of more horrible things to happen to Larry. Tradition is one thing but the closest thing to god that we'll ever know are writers. And the Coens write like a cruel god who puts his subjects through the harshest of trials.
Good satire seldom leaves me feeling this strange. Part of me is wondering why they couldn't just get all Richard Dawkins on us?? I know I can just go see Capitalism: A Love Story if I want to see a film with a clearly defined point of view. But still, it just seems like they're too smart for their own good. It's like they're making us laugh, but also making fun of us. |
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| Reel Injun (Neil Diamond & Catherine Bainbridge, 2009) |
[Oct. 21st, 2009|09:45 pm] |
I got there twently minutes before the inaugural film of the ImagiNative Film Festival. I got in line which wrapped around the block down Albany Avenue. I love that feeling of not know if I'm gonna get into the film or not. That feeling of not knowing if people I know will meet me in time and the feeling of being caught in the energy of strangers' expectations. We got in and sat on the second balcony.
The movie was a documentary with a tame, made-for-TV feel which I imagine has a lot to do with its backing. Still, it's a good topic of discussion. I also thought it was funny and enjoyable that Nick Drake was on the soundtrack. |
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| Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen, 1997) |
[Oct. 18th, 2009|02:30 am] |
I saw this in highschool. Not in the highschool, that would probably be forbidden, but when I was highschool aged, and when this was relatively current. This seemed to be a really great period for Allen, apart from the whole personal life meltdown that was happeneding, the films he made in this period were neat, daring, and fun. I only realized halfway through the re-watch that the film is a much more irreverent version of Bergman's Wild Strawberries but with some Dickens' A Christmas Carol thrown in there.
I love the boozy hedonism of the Allen character that always seems on the verge of meltdown. A terminal jerk. The play on depraved het-male sexuality. And the idea of characters going "out of focus". Amazing!
It's not as mindblowing as when I first saw it, but still holds up pretty darn good. Yup. |
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| Baadasssss Cinema (Isaac Julien, 2002) |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|01:03 pm] |
I have never seen bell hooks before. I've only ever read her. Her contribution was that academics and nostalgic film buffs project a lot of revolutionary meaning onto Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) after the fact, but that it was really just about money plain and simple. Someone once told me that what was brilliant and revolutionary about blaxploitation movies was the way they used stereotypes. That they were a put on. That Foxy Brown getting into a brawl in a lesbian bar is such a perfect image that ideologically deconstructing it would be useless. That some shitty, stereotypical images are just so great that to argue against them is a great constraint on oneself that should be avoided at all costs.
And what's with Tarantino? Can he calm the hell down? He gestures so frantically when he talks it's like he's flagging down a helicopter. Makes me nervous. Is it the coke? |
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| The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) |
[Oct. 7th, 2009|11:10 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | new mountain goats, on glorious vinyl! | ] |
Well, this film is as good as any instance to tell you this: I've decided to give up alcohol for the month of October. I got the idea when I was in a waiting room and flipping through a copy of GQ Magazine. In it, some New York contributor described his experience not drinking for a similar amount of time. He reported on how his social circle reacted, how his day to day routine changed, how he physically felt different, how his mental state was affected, and lastly the dough he saved. He recommended that readers give it a shot, if for nothing else to examine the role it plays in your life.
Yes, Ray Milland's character is hallucinating bats in this still. Anyway, it’s been a week now and it's been fairly interesting. I've only had two occasions where alcohol was really a part of what was going on, but on neither occasion was it a big deal. Also, in both instances, it seemed that my temperance may have altered the course of the night no matter how much I insist that those around me carry on as they would otherwise. I feel that more and more this is not going to be the case.
Another thing: I find that I stay up so much later now, which is a habit that I had gotten over in the last year or so. It seems that coming home completely lucid and sober means that I start getting flashes of inspiration in the middle of the night and all of a sudden have to mix down that four track recording, or work on a song I was thinking of, or make lists of random things: band names, vegetables, chores, rather than sleep.
I was hoping it would mean that I would read more but, sadly this isn't the case. The internet still reigns as the Queen of Distractions and I simply end up blogging more. And watching absurd amounts of movies.
On the whole it's not really that hard, and it's nice to save some money. But we're still pretty early on, and there's bound to be several more occasions for intrigue. |
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| Port Huron Project (Mark Tribe, 2008) |
[Oct. 6th, 2009|09:38 pm] |
From the website:
The Port Huron Project was a series of reenactments of protest speeches from the New Left movements of the Vietnam era. Each speech took place at the site of the original event, and was delivered by an actor or performance artist to an audience of invited guests and passers-by. Videos of these performances have been screened on campuses, exhibited in art spaces, and distributed online as open-source media.
We saw the Stokely Carmichael, Cesar Chavez, and the Angela Davis one. There seemed to be uncertainty regarding the worthiness of the project. What's the point? Why is this art?
I didn't mind though. I think one of the things I liked the most was the parallel temporality of the speech text and the present moment that the film was made. You look a the crowd and you see a guy with a blue tooth, woman with a misfits t-shirt - basically people dressed like they dress now - which sort of forces you to assess what the success and outcomes of the New Left's efforts were. The film confronts you with the question: if revolutionary culture did not break out, what did?
I liked what the Angela Davis said about the inevitability of American defeat in Vietnam, which instantly recalls that America (and Canada et al) is currently being defeated in Afghanistan. So you can, in a sense, easily link American imperialistic intervention in Vietnam to its vicious attacks on the civil rights movement, labour movement, and ghettos. But this model doesn't quite fit Afghanistan, does it? |
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| Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002) |
[Oct. 5th, 2009|10:35 pm] |
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I thought it was weird that with all the neat historical detail in this Scorsese basically ignored the labour movement. That aside, this was pretty enjoyable. It's like a melodrama with blood. In the best possible sense. |
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| The Lawnmower Man (Brett Leonard, 1992) |
[Oct. 4th, 2009|10:13 pm] |
Last night was Nuit Blanche. I missed it last year and made sure to check it out this time around. But first I went to see Tyvek who were pretty cool. They play a unique kind of stripped down music that made a basic power trio a bit more dynamic in a way that's hard to describe in words.
We set out for the Toronto Reference Library which was supposed to be having an all-night dance thing. I basically pictured a dance party. But i was actually large scale dance lessons. Each hour two pro dancers would teach a dance and then everyone would grab a partner and do it. We arrived at around 2am during Salsa hour. It was crowded and I didn't have a date so we left disappointed. Still, although I'm loathe to admit it, I'd never been to the Toronto Reference Library. "Look, Chris, look above you! This is a library!!" Indeed. I shall return.
Next stop was Massey Hall. So we headed down Yonge. Dundas Square was crowded as hell. We locked up our bikes. It was getting to be 2:30 and I felt like a coffee. There was only a Starbucks but it has a lineup out of the door. But that was nothing compared to the linup around Massey Hall which snaked around the whole block. Total bust.
"Let's go to 401 Richmond." (401 Richmond is a historic factory in the heart of the downtown that has been converted into a artsy office space and gallery/studio space). The bars are open later during Nuit Blance and the subway runs all night. To get to 401 Richmond we had to go through "The Entertainment District" also known as "Club Land". They were spilling into streets already and cabs were clogging the streets. We arrived at 401 just before 3 and still hadn't seen any of this free art. There was a real coffee place that I could go to which was great. We got into the building but only saw a screening outside of what looked like 50s surf movies on 16mm, an interactive installation that was wrapping up, and Trinity Square Video where we saw a video piece that I'm going to write about later in this blog.
We left after about 40 minutes and headed for Trinity Bellwoods park. There were more drunks than art. However there was a gigantic lightbright board set up in which multi colour-tinted empty water bottles served as light brights. Dudes crowded that thing pulling lightbrights out and putting them back in. The overall picture was a mess of colour.
At that point my companions headed home. I soldiered on.
I headed down to Liberty Village. The drummer of my band works for the city and was ushering a piece that was installed in an all-night grocery store. The installation was Invade by a Taiwanese artist named KUO I-Chen. The problem is they set up $10,000 worth of sound gear and a giant projector, but they couldn't turn off the lights in the aisle because the lights were set up horizontally but the aisles run vertically. So when we were supposed to have the effect of the plane flying overhead it was actually pretty lame sincel you could barely see it. It was 4:30am and there were security guards sleeping in staked cases of orange crush. I said good night to Alex and went looking for this bike exhibit that was supposed to resemble these transient makeshift homes in Japan. But All I saw was this giant, glowing membrane in the middle of Liberty Street entirely constructed of pylons. It was gettin close to 5am and the streets were still quite full of people wearing blankets, drinking, laughing, and carrying giant letters.
I took Gladstone north, all the way home. As I locked up my bike I thought it was a drag that the art wasn't super exciting, but I still felt pretty happy to live in a place that even puts things like this on.
When I got home I couldn't sleep, so I started mixing down my band's demo and that kept me up until 7am. The end.
Oh, and Lawnmower Man wasn't nearly as cool as when I saw it in 1993. Then, it seemed to be the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Now, it resembles a made-for-TV movie in comparison. But I still like when all those telephones go off at the end. And the idea of consciousness being downloaded into a network. That seemed like a really fresh and original idea. In that sense it shares something in common with Videodrome in which the O'blivion character's body is dead but he lives on in the form of video broadcasts. In this case the lawnmower dude's body dies, but he lives on through network connections. LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!! |
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| Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) |
[Oct. 1st, 2009|01:27 am] |
I love Toronto in this movie. It looked so lonely and simple. Even when the streets were full they had this lovely emptiness to them.
It's funny to think about magnetic tape and broadcasting as a medium for rearranging our minds. I guess pirate & UHF stations were a thing of that moment in history, but it seems sort of mild compared to what was coming.
I liked the part with O'blivion's daughter showing Max the videotapes that she uses to keep her father alive 'as best she can'. It was neat to think of how he was dead, but neatly archived on these tapes which can be recycled and reused to spread this message.
The intersection between sex and violence was weird in this film. When you think it's going to be offensive or terrible, it's more cerebral and un dude-like. I feel like in Cronenberg movies it's the absence of violence in his films that are freaky.
I wonder how this film would seem compared to something like, They Live (1988), and if that still holds up. I haven't seen it in awhile. |
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| The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008) |
[Sep. 30th, 2009|12:09 pm] |
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The Wrestler makes me wonder if the notion of the "real" is something that's sorely lacking in American filmmaking. A good story or good acting is one thing, but cinema has a lot of trouble working its magic with CGI and green screens micromanaging the frame at every step. There's a shot in The Wrestler where Mickey Rourke's character is sleeping in a van. He's locked out of his house, which is more of a narrow cabin or trailer. When neighbourhood children wake him up and he comes out, tired and beat, he plays with them and jokes around for a minute. It's impossible to describe what makes the scene stick, but when I was watching it I felt like I was seeing something I'd see in a European, a Middle Eastern, or an Asian film. A certain, slowed down, literary sensibility. And I think it has something to do with indexical nature of the film being shot in a "real" location that somehow bridges the gap in our mind between the spectacle and a sense of the "real". You don't see it a lot anymore, but the use of available light in films, the use of real locations, and non-actors has a really satisfying feel to it when it's handled well. |
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| Pumping Iron (George Butler & Robert Fiore, 1977) |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|11:18 am] |
16mm film documentaries have a certain something that hasn't been recreated since the 50s when they were introduced. There's something sneaky and magical about the format that I can't quite put my finger on. It may be visual cues that I pick up from the vérité movement's *style* but there's also something in the constant focusing, lens flares, and movement. There's a warmth present in films like Les Raquetteurs (1958) or Don’t Look Back (1967) that I do not feel is present in something like An Inconvenient Truth (2006) or Up the Yangtze (2007). I think that warmth is a part of the format.
Pumping Iron points to a subdued kind of childhoood trauma, highlighting how phsychologically damaged many of them must be. Consider the eerie and troubling relationship between Lou Ferrigno and his overbearing, mono-maniacal father; or the fact that a lot of their fathers come from figures of authority - both Lou and Arnold's Dad's were police chiefs, one from Brooklyn (yike!) and one from fascist Austria (double yike!!).
I couldn't help but read the bodybuilding as a form of male rebellion. They highlight that many of them were indeed wimps as children and subject to teasing. This bodybuilding could be an outward way to combat the despair they feel living in a world that they cannot excert authority over otherwise. This rebellion makes me think of a not-so-obvious, but perhaps all-too obvious comparison: the punx!
Think about it: Pumping Iron is to bodybuilding what a film like The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) is to the punks. Butler and Fiore's masterpiece behooves us to compare them.
Here we go:
(1) Bodybuilders undergo intensive body modification such as muscular weight gain, tanning, and use of drugs to build body mass.
Punks also practice body modification in the form of piercing, tattooing, and use drugs - in their case to get fucked up.
(2) Body builders take pride in the ritual self-inflicting of pain, such as the multiple reps of heavy weights to build muscles.
Punks also romanticize pain and suffering. Take Henry Rollins who would brag about getting kicked in the head at shows, getting beat up by cops, or the fact that Black Flag even have a song called "Life of Pain".
(3) Both bodybuilders and punks experienced a golden age in California. |
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| Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009) |
[Sep. 28th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | some french music on the ceeb | ] |
I don't get it. All I heard about when this came out was all about how good it was. How in exceeded expectations. But to me it was like the Star Wars prequels or that last Indiana Jones movie. It was almost not a movie at all but like...really expensive fan fiction.
Though it's nice to see Wynona in a movie again.
So much for my sci-fi excursion. |
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| District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) |
[Sep. 27th, 2009|12:49 am] |
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If anything this demonstrates that we've now reached total saturation point on all mockumentary/faux-reality perspective from films from Blair Witch to Cloverfield. At some point it no longer makes the giant fish-aliens look more legit if the whole thing looks like bad TV. Luckily it doesn't stay with that format for too long and eventually plays out like a more conventional mainstream sci-fi film. The allegory isn't subtle but it's nice anyway. I like that they made a point of making the cops a private defence contractor. This way we zing apartheid AND the Bush administration all in one. Zing zing! |
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