Sunday, August 31, 2008
Home For Labor Day Holiday
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:30 PM
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
Don't Touch the White Women
Imagine a world that is anachronistic, surrealist, absurdist, powered by a satiric firehose of imagery, historical reference and excess. This is the cinematic world of Marco Ferreri's Don't Touch the White Women, a French and Italian co-production from 1974. I was hoping for a satiric cousin of William Klein's Mr. Freedom, and actually someone must think there is some kind of relationship because there is a link from the Don't Touch the White Woman! Wikipedia entry to Mr. Freedom's entry.
But in this film the anachronisms and wildness are truly over the top. My only other exposure to Ferreri, I believe, is La Grande Boufee where Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret play gourmands who contest to eat themselves to death that came out a year before this anti-western. White Woman again features all four of these actors, most notably Mastrorianni as strange caricatures George Armstrong Custer and Michel Piccoli as Buffalo Bill riding their horses through Modern Paris. Even the Battle of Little Big Horn takes place in a large excavation site in Central Paris, according to Wikipedia it is the site of the former Les Halles market.
Custer hates Buffalo Bill and the modern technology of war. He continually berates his Indian scout, Mitch played by Ugo Tognazzi that white women and champagne are only for white men. Mitch, makes a deal with the Madman, a bald and shirtless oddball who appears to be the primary advisor to Sitting Bull and his father, who resembles Ma Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. Mitch asks the Madman to make sure Custer is killed in battle for him sitting on the information that the Indians are getting organized for battle. The Madman presses Mitch why he would turn on his employer. Mitch's response: "Because he treats me like an Indian."
This film is a part of a Marco Ferreri box set. I'm intrigued and willing to try another. He certainly had the ability to attract top name actors to his films. The pre EU international film production world creates some intriguing product at times. This one was intriguing because for me it begged discussion about where satiric perimeters may lie.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:00 PM
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Friday, August 29, 2008
Video Time
Stash, the video magazine review originated in Vancouver, Canada is the standard bearer of monitoring achievements in the field of animation and motion graphics has come out with a trio of special editions. I picked up the Animation and Motion Graphics collections when at Siggraph. Here are a couple of lower res versions of items encountered on the first disk I have got to shout to the world about. Let me serve as your Friday night YT-jay. (You Tube disk jockey.)
I. Beck "E-Pro
II.Audio Bullys Shot You Down (aka Nancy Sinatra's original with some clever mosh up chaps)
YTJ out
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:43 PM
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Meet the Animation Pimp
Chris Robinson is not an animator or a journalist. He is a writer and an international animation festival director. He became the latter when the stars lined up for a young man with rock and roll attitude, a well developed artistic aesthetic and a scholarly interest. In his book The Animation Pimp, this triad is evident in his writing and in the administration of his festivals.
He is an outsider. I think I knew I had to buy this book when I saw the last line of his jacket bio:"He's still not sure if he likes animation."
He wrote a monthly column for five years that is a combination insider dispatches on animation festival circles, ruminations on being such an exhibitor. He is a champion of Estonian animation. But as a film festival director in Canada, a country with an animation tradition both independent and state supported, he is often a supporter and rallying point. The Animation Pimp sometimes covers and reflects upon, for instance, the animation and life of Norman MaClaren, (I call him the Frank Lloyd Wright of animation), my new adopted grandfather figure, Frank Bach, among others.
But he also stepped into a very interesting part of this animation history in his home country. The strongest smartest writing in Pimp are the essays regarding Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. Larkin was the filmmaker of Walking and Street Musique. As a film educator in the early eighties, I saw these films a lot, partly because they were good animation, and partly because there were no adult references so we could show them safely in schools. Walking was nominated for an Oscar and it is a simple nearly perfect universe of movement that is its alone. Larkin was hit hard by Cocaine and alcohol abuse. He lived on the street pandhandling and was reluctant to be a part of a Ottowa film festival because of the impact it would have on his income. Larkin's life was also the subject of an Academy Award animation film by Chris Landreth. I am going to put up links soon for Landreth's and Larkin's films in a post.
The writing is really good and Robinson's kind of prose is well suited for a column's length and conventions. He loves words and the opportunity to express both his experience and his very sharp observations. In his prose, he pushes, pulls and punches. There are rants that at first feel like diversions but they come home again masterfully within the structure of his columns. He cites rock critic Richard Metzer and Papa Huter S. Thompson. But he refers to Nick Tosches a lot. Tosches writes biographies where there are passages where the writer is going for a kind of emotional truth, more literary with fiction components than what one would expect of straight biography.
The Animation Pimp is published by a company not known for promoting literay efforts. Cenage Thompson Course Technology are the producer of pretty staid computer texts, which I most often relunctantly adopt sometimes in my classroom.(Window Vista Comprehensive--yuck) I found this book at the Cenage booth at Siggraph. Next to all these polygon masking in C programming books was this funny cover of a guy wih a stylin' cowboy gangster hustler form of hat, faceplate, shoulders and dark glasses. Thumbing through the book I saw more images by Andreas Hykade in a kind of distinctive German woodblock style. And it was evident that this writer was using his column to discuss a wide variey of topics. What the hell is this thing?
It turned out to be one of my favorite reads of the summer. I like and appreciate his strong, vibrant prose and take no prisoners attitude in many of the pieces. Robinson is a passionate guy. This was the perfect book to find and read a big chunk of at Siggraph, My role there was to observe, learn, and be dazzled. I am not a practioner as Robinson is not a maker of animation films. He is a damned fine writer who explores, and expresses himself in a hearty matter with fine writer's toolbox to execute them with. Check out the Pimp for yourself at the Animation archives where I can be found reading the columns that weren't included in the book.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:05 PM
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Dark Knight: Skyscraper and Amusement Ride
From time to time, I try to get away from my red envelopes of obscurity and go see what the rest of the world is looking at. I decided to go see the late afternoon matinee (Up to 7.50 these days--rant, rant) of The Dark Knight because I was tired of being the guy who nodded when folks were talking about how wonderfully scary Heath Ledger's performance was The Joker. His Joker was indeed a little scary and spooky, but Best Actor material? That's just posthumous tribute stuff.
I loved the sets, the CGI. Batman's raid on the Hong Kong investment crook was one of the coolest action sequences I have ever seen. Maggie Gyllenhaal made a great Rachel Dawes, with the sense that there really were emotions regarding her conflict between Wayne/Batman and Harvey Dent. I didn't pay attention to the first Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman movie when it came out so can't give any comparisons.
But, regardless, this film is too big, too full of itself, and too darned dark. I was there until the Aaron Eckhart Harvey Dent character got his face half burned off with acid and went on a vengeful tear. I think we had gone past the two hour mark which for a film that is essentially visceral emotion for pumping adrenalin is about the limit. But Batman is about being bigger than big. I don't want to hammer too hard here. The filmmakers and marketers did something right for this thing to be such a money machine, but when the ride is over, there is little impact for me. I recall this same feeling after Spiderman 2 and one of the Mission Impossible movies, but that doesn't mean I won't try one of these big films again sometime.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:39 AM
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Convention Unadorned
According to Priscilla, 47 years ago, I was transfixed by the 1960 Democratic National Convention when I was three years old. She recounts that I made a sign for Kennedy and marched around the living room of our small house in Lacy, Wa. I asked her if I made one up for Nixon when the Republican convention was telecast. "Oh, we didn't watch that one," said Priscilla.
So here I am years later and I am watching the uninterrupted CSPAN coverage. I discovered how entertaining the CSPAN linkup can be several years ago for the conventions. No pundits, no commercials, no ridiculous voice over commentary. Almost like being there? Maybe, or at least almost like being in the control booth of CSPAN.
Best News of the Week
Joseph Biden's wife is a community college instructor. Horray for our side! She is now the highest profile teacher in the country. You got to love this!
Best Music at Any Political Convention?
A hour or so before the network coverage kicked in and the delegates and other attendees came in, John Legend came onstage and sang a ballad. Very nice, but better yet was the better than lounge Demo cover band kicking in to a Earth, Wind, and Fire medley. And later a Living Color cover. Of course, first major African American candidate is going to bring the world a little bit of soul.
Jimmy Carter
Carter didn't speak before the convention directly. Instead they programmed into the video on Katrena. It is Teddy's night so they could not steal his thunder.
Caroline and Teddy
Likewise, the Democrats snuck snuck Kerry in on the video piece. Both Kennedy's looked great on this piece. If you think you have a liberal bone in your body and you didn't tear up a little bit, then you don't have a liberal bone in your body.
Spike Lee on the Convention Floor
As Mars Blackman said in She's Gotta Have it: "I likes. I likes."
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:22 PM
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Monday, August 25, 2008
Orson Welles' Don Quixote
I watched the construction of Orson Welles' incomplete film of Don Quixote without going in and reviewing what others have thought of the recent Image DVD release or reviewing the time and circumstances in which it was reproduced. I had expected that it would be this would be a kind of muddy undersea kind of cinematic experience that one encounters in Welles' Macbeth, Mr Arkadian, Othello, Chimes at Midnight, The Trial, or the reconstruction of It's All True. I don't mean that descriptor as an altogether negative thing. I love the cinema of Orson Welles, but to love it is to admit that his work is best appreciated as a series of moments brilliant burning bright among a lot of excess, residue of bad finances, technical imperfections, often the result of a kind of internationalism and compromise that needed to take place because a low budget is the only one we was going to have.
So I am willing to try to appreciate and enjoy what Patxi Irigoyen and Jesus Franco could cobble together in his 1992 reconstruction of Welles' circa 1955 footage when he endeavored to put Don Quixote on the screen. There were no supplements on the Image release and the only Welles biography I had handy was the first volume of Simon Callow so I could not even be tempted to do a historical review before watching.
So what was this like? First of all forget about the soundtrack dubbing even coming close to synching up. I you had problems watching post-8 & 1/2 Fellini like Satyricon or later films of Pasolini, this one is guaranteed to leave you screaming. The good news is that much of it has Welles doing voices for most of the characters at times including Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. At times, It is almost like watching newsreel footage with a radio dramatization soundtrack. But this should not detract from the fact that many of the images are very lovely. Low angle shots of our protagonists with an amazing Spanish cloud and sky behind them. Welles apparently was going to intercut the story of Don Quixote between its 17th century telling with the film's contemporary time of creation in 1955. Sometimes that was very effective, like one of my favorite scenes in the reconstruction where Quixote and Sancho encounter a woman on a Vespa scooter. But who knows what Irigoyen and Franco had in mind with resurfacing interminable scenes near the end of the film where Sancho is badgering contemporary Spaniards if they have seen his master or the little brown box (television) that he saw a missile destroy a dummy aircraft. There are also some scenes where Sancho pursues Welles riding around in a big Mercedes and acting in his film, presumably as Sancho in Quixote.
Okay, by now you realize this is for hardcore completists and curiosity seekers. I'm thinking for anyone else viewing the reconstruction of Welles' Quixote is going to be a struggle. These are the years of Welles post filmmaker auteur and continental celebrity. Check out Around theWorld with Orson Welles his British television show film essays also from 1955, to get an idea of the kind of space that Welles was at circa Quixote. I am glad to have had the opportunity to see what might have come out of this abandoned film project, but feel more like I had spent time with dusty old work and answer print on a Movieola than watching a completed film.
Some links I found later regarding this project after screening it
Recent review of the Image Release. Be sure to check out the very weird YouTube link to a scene not on the DVD that someone put a Nico soundtrack to. Very strange.
Los Angeles Times Article from 1992 about the reconstruction.
A fairly harsh appraisal of the Image DVD on the Turner Classic Movies Web blog.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:58 PM
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Sunday, August 24, 2008
Misty River, Take My Mind
Today I got my grades done early drove into deep SE Portland to the Lents Summer Concert Series in Lents, Oregon. Lents is now a neighborhood, the home of the fabulous New Copper Penny, which is a bar that reminds me of Tonya Harding and Marlboro red packs. Actually, according to God Wikipedia, Lents was even its own incorporated Town for 20 years until behemoth PDX swallowed it up in 1912.
So what motivated me to take the trek to 92nd and Holgate to Lents Park on a Sunday afternoon? It was the recent news that this was going to be one of the final performances of Misty River before they took a one year leave from performing. Misty River is a mom, a daughter, and two accomplished musician friends who have been making the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the world with synthesis of their personalities, musicianship, and harmonies.
PDR and I have seen them perform at Wintergrass and the River City Bluegrass festival. They are always entertaining and engaging and each individual talent shines as well as a collective. They are noted for their vocal harmonies, which to my ear, are never cloying and overly clever. They also have a unique convergence of instrumental styles when they play. The combination of the accordian of Dana Abel, Chris Kokesh's fiddle and songwriting skills, the bass of Laura Quigley, and the fret work of her mom, Carol Harley combine to make an individual sound. It is has that special kind uniqueness that makes certain groups stand a part, whether it be Booker T and the MGs, String Cheese Incident or Nickel Creek.
Carol's has battled Leukemia in recent years, but it is somewhat reassuring that the
recent item in the Columbian gave no mention of health issues and that Corol clearly states that the band is only going to be away for a year.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:58 PM
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Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Ceremonial Opening of the Vancouver Land Bridge 8.23.08
Pam and I joined several hundred other folks to take park in the opening ceremonial Ft Vancouver Confluence Project Even on the crowded crossing filled with dignataries, bagpipes, drummers, etc., I can tell this work of public art created by public consortium, Maya Lin, architect John Paul Jones and other is one of exploratory experience, deep consideration, and lots of nuanced touches. A walk from the Historic reserve to the Columbia River lets one experience, a replica of Ft Vancouver, an historic airfield, a Burlington Northern train line, a state highway, Vancouver's historic Apple tree, and, finally, the Columbia River.
Michael Curry's Giant puppets were also on hand for the opening
It appears that Pam isn't too excited about these settlers moving in.
You know it is not an ordinary public function when the dais includes artist Lillian Pitt, genius artist/architect Maya Lin, and Washington State Poet Laureate Samuel Green. The ceremony was a bit too self-congratulatory, and Confluence director Jane Jacobson should have brought in someone to direct and organize the ceremony IMHO--Having everyone sing all verses of America the Beautiful, give me a break) but extra wind and backpatting does not overwhelm the fact that this is more than a pedestrian overpass over Highway 14. It is in fact an extraordinary nexus of public space, history, art, and architecture, that will help define my home town for decades, and maybe even generations, to come.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:01 PM
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Friday, August 22, 2008
Vancouver Wine & Jazz 8.22.08
Joe Powers on harmonica is a wonder. Besides seeing Trombone Shorty at the Blues Cruise on July 3, this was the finest surprise musical encounter I had this past summer. This is one gifted musician. His set merged his love of tango interspersed a tasteful set of standards Girl from Impanema, Georgia on My Mind (which the worldly annd world music savy Powers dedicated to the Georgia currently--or should be currently--on our minds) and the concert's finale of Summertime.
I definitely have more to say about Powers and will do so in a future post. This picture is interesting because he has jumped off stage and the sound tech on the side isn't sure what to do, it seems, with the wedgie volumes
If you see this guy vending at an event, check out his cashews. I tried some of his exotic flavored ones, but settled on salted ones
The weather was perfect. It had rained all week, but was over 80 today. You can't help but feel a little fresh and green.
This was a Bob and Priscilla evening out to go see Judy Collins perform. Collins did a autobiographical show with a cabaret lilt taking us through the nearly 50 years of her career. It was a great show to see with my Mom. Collins records were among the most played by my folks. Wildflowers and that one with the whale noises, and, of course, the one with Send in The Clowns with that cover where her eyes were doing that weird Judy Collins thing.
But don't get me wrong, I liked the show. Some of the numbers were very impressive. When she went into a straight reading of Woody Guthrie's Deportee or Steve Goodman's City of New Orleans. I would have liked to have heard some Leonard Cohen. Her folk stuff, like a great version of Barbara Allen she dedicated to Jo Stafford always meant more to me than some of her pop diva stuff.
I like her voice especially when she lets it glow a bit darkly, but Judy Collins fans need to have those quasi operatic trappings. Some of it worked, some moments were pretty challenging for her. Her sound engineer is very busy with reverb and other effects maybe striving to get her to sound more like her records. Some of that stuff got pretty strange at times especially when it was used for dramatic effect with excerpts she would sing in meandering intros that might be more at home for a brunch at the Carlyle show.
Yet Come'on now. She is Judy Collins, nearly seventy. A classically trained folkie from the west who is comfortable and legendary with her interpretation of pop songs, show tunes, and art songs, as well as death ballads. It was perfect weather with an attentive crowd under big trees. I'll always be thankful to her because she was my in road into Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. And it was a pleasure to spend an evening hearing her sing her songs and tell her stories.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:00 PM
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
Looking Back On The Cool School
Documentary films on artists, art collectors, curators and galleries can be stolid affairs. The content may be of interest but the form and delivery are a snore. Director Morgan Neville is associated with music documentaries such as the excellent Respect Yourself: The Stax Record Story which appeared on American Masters last year. Perhaps it is this skill set, interest and support that gives his documentary The Cool School such vibrancy.
The Cool School is about the Los Angeles modern art scene of the mid fifties through the late sixties. Its primary focus revolves around the Ferus Gallery, its owners and represented artist. Neville is able to establish a pace and intensity equivalent to a motorcycle ride on Highway One, especially if one is not terribly familiar with Ferus curators and Walter Hoops and Irving Blum or their artists John Altoon, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, Ed Kienholz, Allen Lynch, and Ed Moses. We also see interviews with Frank Gehry, Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell giving their reminiscences of what the art scene was like. "A heart pounding romantic scene." is how artist Ed Ruscha described that time. "Art was clearly an alternative. We were young and the world was dangerous. Art is romantic. If you don't think you are going to live past thirty or you like the drama of pretending you want to believe that but it allows you to live with a certain amount of freedom and do thing you would otherwise not consider." is how Photographer Charles Brittan describes the time.
The film starts with the story of how immigrant Simon Ruiz built the Watts Towers from trash and fund objects and then disappeared. The narrative begins with how dismal the modern art scene was in the late forties and early fifties. Abstract Expressionism did not make a contemporary impact in Los Angeles as it did in San Francisco. The film shows how Walter Hopps with his button down CIA demeanor and the charismatic Cary Grant charisma of his gallery partner Irving Blum and their creation of the Ferus Gallery were the central to the edgy assemblage artists and painters like Ed Kienholz who created thought provoking pieces from things he purchased from swap meets and junkyards.
The film provides and interesting perspective of the journey from the beats (the first Ferus show opened the week I was born) into the sixties and finally to the era where modern art became a commodity and big money. It is an intriguing view of not just the art scene of the second part of the 20th century, but an intriguing view with interesting sidebars like the story of Wallace Berman an intense, influential figure of the fifties who drifted away after an obscenity bust for an image by a fellow artist that was included in one of his assemblages. Screening The Cool School was a bit like when I encountered the Velvet Underground for the first time. I thought I understood and knew about rock of the sixties, but found an amazing contrast to the SF and LA scenes. After the Cool School, I see that the NY abstractionists and pop artists were only part of the story.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:45 AM
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Celebrating Summer 08's CTEC 102 Class
One of the reassuring things about teaching is that every few years you will get a special class where chemistry and level of interest are at a kind of peak or high. My CTEC 102 Intro to Windows Vista class was primarily made of returning workforce students, veterans, and other adult learners. Many had not been to college, at least for many years. The majority were quite enthusiastic about beginning their professional training to become a network administrator or support technician. The woman in pink next to me is a Kindergarten teacher who was taking the class to get her in-service training, so she was well-equipped to deal with us--a bunch of technogeek Peter Pans.
Anyway, it was one of those classes where you could take chances, do group learning, and have the luxury to coach and inform a group of interested students about the opportunities that going back to college offered them. Thanks, folks. You were a highlight of the sumnmer
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:15 PM
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Frank And Ollie
One of the most delightful sessions I attended at Siggrah was a panel discussion on the life and work of Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. Not really giving a shit about Disney since I was in seventh grade, I wasn't aware of the story of the life long friendship of two Disney animators who were responsible for most of the the best and most memorable sequences in Disney animated films, especially in the forties through the sixties.
Tom Sito, the moderator with many latter day Disney credits in his resume talked about how Frank and Ollie are to animation what Yakima Canutt is to stunts, or Tidyman and Goldman are to screenwriting, etc. Essentially, they were the quintessential character animators.
They were creative individuals with notable avocations outside animation. Frank Thomas was an accomplished piano player, who played ragtime both in and out of Disneyland and Ollie created both a nearly full sized and a 10% scaled railroads in his back yard. Their styles and approach to art contrasted as well. Frank had the approach of sculpting a character in multiple drawings and multiple lines. Ollie's style did fewer drawings and approached the drawings with a lighter touch.
The six animators and Thomas' filmmaker son (his biographical documentary Frank and Ollie, highly recommended.) all emphasized that Frank and Ollie were essentially great actors and that the key to their success was the vibrancy of their characters. There was someone in either the panel or the movie that was the equivalent of "Let Walt contribute the story, we'll provide the characters." The panel almost synonymously used the term acting with animating when they discussed the work of Frank and Ollie. One of the most entertaining parts of the Frank and Ollie movie are the recreations where they act out scenes they had created for Disney shorts and features.
One of the most interesting tangents of the discussion was a comparison of animation film quality between the golden years of Frank and Ollie's animation and the current CG world. Their conclusion was that CG is getting better when it comes to creating characters that live, but it is a young medium. Consider that Toy Story is only 14 years old. The panel believed that this would change over time and one got a sense that they were doing their part to show what made that animation so great with this panel.
One of Frank Thomas' sketches of what later became the Italian restaurant scene in Lady and the Tramp.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:04 PM
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Monday, August 18, 2008
The Nokia Theater
The ten month old Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, directly across the street just off Figueroa, next to the Staples Center and the Convention Center is a pretty impressive facility. It is said to seat 7000 folks, but feels much more intimate than that with its wide layout, and well-executed sight lines. You even have a drink holder for each seat and can bring wine and beer inside! Most of the world knows about the Nokia because it was the location of this year's American Idol finals. For Siggraph 2008, it was the site of the Siggraph Animation Festival. The recessed display case showing a kind of stations of the cross presentation of the evolution of the Nokia phone was a bit much, but I was impressed by the ever changing lobby walls and wanted to share them here. The plaza where the Nokia stands is going to be gateway to two large Convention Center hotels now under construction.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:40 AM
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Sunday, August 17, 2008
Quick check in at Mt Hood Jazz Festival 8.17.08
Twenty years ago the Mt Hood Festival of Jazz was staged in their stadium and featured legendary performers like Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, and Sonny Rollins. There were a few years where it was produced at city parks a large field set for the construction of a performing arts center. This year it returned to campus with two evening admission shows in their theater and two days of free sets by regional performers in a concrete plaza.
The Quadraphonnes are kind of Portland's version of Seattlite Amy Denio's unit The Tiptons, an all female saxaphone group. Be sure to check out their myspace page where they list their influences as "This wonderful world we live in, Rascher Saxophone Quartet, The Tipton Sax Quartet, Erick Dolphy, Art Pepper, Cannonball Adderley, Frank Zappa, Sigurd Rascher, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Joshua Redman, Karl Denson, Miles Davis, Brad Mehldau, Phil Woods, John Coltrane and Mark Turner, Prince, Bjork, Fareed Haque, Ani DiFranco, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, and Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell, Scott Franklin." These women both great musical taste and sound great too.
Cana Son is the other band I checked out in the Plaza. They play traditional Cuban music. Here vocalist Milko Vigil-Escalera is shown with Qudraphonnes' baritone sax player Mieke Bruggeman, who sat in for a number.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:41 PM
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Saturday, August 16, 2008
A By-Product Result of Siggraph 2008: More Appreciation For Disney & Pixar
Disney and Pixar were both major presence at this year's Siggraph 2008. The past two years have seen the purchase of Pixar (the new Disney) by Disney and this summer both studios are riding high with the artistic and economic success of Wall-E. One of the first sessions I attended at this year's SIGGRAPH was a talk about how non-digital cinematography techniques were employed in Wal-E's unique look and feel. It was very impressive. They showed how they were able to emulate hand held camera, use aspects of anamorphic photography like lens flare to get a more realistic image. They also pushed limits and expectations of a look and feel of a CG created film by not overstaging or overpolishing the images and letting much of the film, especially in the first act have a darker look. "Dark is the New Light" was a motto stated during Wall-E's production and planning.
Prior to Siggraph, I have appreciated and somewhat admired Pixar for their accomplishments and success in family entertainment, but I am not a Pixar fan boy, and feature animation is not where I am likely to spend my time in either movie theater or in front of television and computer with DVD. Siggraph sessions this year with Ed Catmull and John Lasseter's introduction of the studio's sponsored documentary on their history and accomplishments, The Pixar Story de-thawed my ambivalence for Lasseter, Catmull and their 3D animations.
As for Disney, let's just say, its not my thing. The last Disney animation feature I saw in a theater was the Aristocats. I've never made it through Lion King, Pochantes, or The Little Mermaid. I have a hard time with cute, with sentimental, and the crafty saturaation marketing that Disney employees.
But my feelings about Pixar and Disney were most transformed by two shorts that have recently been created by the studio(s). And maybe not coincidentally, the studio name on each of the shorts seems reversed. Glagos Guest and Presto! were both featured in a standing room only session.
I saw Disney's Glagos Ghost three times at Siggraph, the first screening was in 3D. It reminded me more of a Pixar short like Luxor Junior than any Disney film I can recall. Its stark, minimalist staging and subtlety in a tale of a 1924 Russian soldier on patrol in Siberia who has a "close encounter" felt more like an independent or school based animation short that would be running in competition rather than the North American premiere of the major animation studio in the world's new short subject. Here's a short excerpt:
The look of the film was modeled on Dr. Zhivago and Reds. The color palette and attention to historical detail were painstakingly planned out in advance. I understand from a fellow who works at Disney that the short may be distributed with their Thanksgiving 3D animation feature, Bolt, where John Travolta voices a talking dog. That seems like a strange combination to me.
Presto! was featured before audiences viewed Wall-E this summer. It is presented as a Pixar short, but its manic rabbit vs. magician humor seems more a throwback to Disney. The production session showed how the story of it evolved. The early versions did not have the rabbit's main motivator as hunger for a carrot. They were just outdoing each other with magic hats. The session also showed underscored how the Pixar production model worked. Revisions and stages of the production are subject to a brain trust critique where any kind of note is given to the director who finally decides to utilize or reject the comments. One also got a sense of how integral John Lasseter's taste and leadership are to these studios.
Both Glagos Guest and Presto! are well-executed, perhaps state of the art short subjects. I'm thinking they also served as kinds of test runs to bring the two animation teams together. Certainly, the identity of what one considered Disney to be and Pixar are not readily seen by the content of these two short films.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:54 PM
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Friday, August 15, 2008
A Few More Images from Siggraph
Somebody should find these cops and tell them that Jack Black is doing a Godzilla to the Holiday Inn
Samantha and Kristen said wearing their look a like outfits on the same day was purely coincidental. Yet this is LA, afterall. Set, art, and costume design are probably in the water and all we breath.
I love Sushi take out bags
I watched this non-CG bird for about a quarter hour. It wasn't clear to me if the interior of the convention center was more or less his home, or if there was a desire to get out of the place.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:52 PM
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
Siggraph goes to the Dodgers
On Thursday night, folks had the choice of seeing the new Star Wars animation feature or going to see the Dodgers, in the heat of Manny Ramirez fever play the Phillies. They supplied bleacher seat and lots of goodies.
This guy was distributing free cotton candy to the Siggraph Conference attendees. He practically got mugged.
There was a wait of over an hour after the game for enough busses to be dispatched to the stadium to return us to our hotels. I was spreading the rumor that we were going to be taken to graphics internment camps instead to do slave labor for the Matrix-like projects of the US government.
The wait wasn't that bad really, partly because the Dodger stadium and nearly full moon gave nice ambience to wandering around in a field wih strangers on a warm summer night.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:54 PM
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
More of the SIGGRAPH Experience
AutoDesk's presentation booth and the crowd around it were all you would see when you came in the door. On Weds.afternoon,shortly before floor closing time, I came and to see a large female nude on the demo screen and the demo was being given in Japanese .
These fish are said to be 4D fish. I don't know if that means they are post rendered in a special hatchery or what.
The projected Siggraph logo reminded me of when bat wings were projected over Gotham city. Calling all geeks. Calling all animation heads.
This is actually what being at Siggraph feels like after a couple days.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:25 PM
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Siggraph Day 2
The Siggraph trade show opened today to its usual craziness. Digital artists and animators jockied for space to glimpse latest products and releases. The major population of this conference look to be job seekers trying to break into the world of digital animation. Lines quickly queued up for folks to turn in their reels and resumes to the likes of Blue Sky, Lucasfilm, Disney and Pixar.
Today's big presentations were very inspiring. Catherine Owens Catherine Owens is a visual artist that is also a homegirl with Bono and the U2 boys. She has created the visuals for the last four U2 tours and directed the U23D movie. She is an accomplished artist on her own and has collaborated with Kronos Quartet and other musical groups besides U2.
This was an artist talk and her message was filled with a salute to those who have been an influence in developing her own art. These included Bruce Nauman, "an American artist of physicality and expression utilizing concept and the power of perfomance." Whe also gave tribute to Nigel Roth, Irish performance artist Allistar McLellan, feminist artist Eva Hess, an Iranian filmmaker by the name of Sharon Numshak(sic?), projection artists Douglas Gordon and Tony Owsler and high-profile video artist Bill Viola. What was significant here is that Owens was able to show how they influenced what they contributed to both her personal work and her collaborations with U2.
The talk was basically intended as a message to the young creatives of the SIGGRAPH audience to take the time to develop their own sense of taste and cultivate their influences. It was a solid presentation from an artist well-grounded with a clear style and vision. Excellent
John Lasseter is a superstar at this conference. The creative head of Pixar/Disney used Siggraph as an opportunity to introduce his accolytes and admirers to a French Canadian artist Frederic Back (pronounced bach) who creates lovely poetic color pencil-drawn films with philosophical and ecological themes. The Man that Planted Trees is among one of the most moving animated films I have ever seen. The world indeed should know about this man and his art. Back is a charming man who seemed a bit startled and overwhelmed by the response he received.
After the conversation with Back, Lasseter brought out the grand daughter of Walt Disney's partner UB IWerks, Leslie. She recently completed The Story of Pixar, a full-length Pixar commissioned film focusing on Lasseter, Ed Cantwell, and Steve Jobs and their success. It will stand as the film of record on this fascinating technological, commercial, and artistic story of our times. Good Geeky Stuff.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:18 PM
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Monday, August 11, 2008
Siggraph Day One
The first day of Siggraph was a success for our group. I have many thoughts and observations to relay, but for now, I submit this informal photo essay.
Siggraph is filled with lots of new technology wonders. This one gives new meaning to the Austin Powers' line. "Talk to the hand."
I saw several robots today. Interesting that several look like the love child of the maid from the Jetsons, Wall E, and/or R2D2. In the lower image, Adam is programming the haptic robot by touching various hotspots on it. Basically, if you pat its head and rub its belly, it will do a little dance for you.
I was impressed with these fine art pieces that are the result of a rapid prototyping machine. There is some other significant background to these, but I didn't get a demonstration. When I find out more, I'll post the facts about them.
The Pantry Cafe on 6th and Figueroa is a Los Angeles tradition and landmark. When you are seated you get a plate of coleslaw and nearly a full loaf of sourdough. The menu is printed on the wall with items that change daily on a blackboard.
These are my Jean Luc Godard clones. No, actually I am posing in my hotel mirror with the latest 3D polarizing glasses. I saw hours of 3D clips and short films today. I have fascinated with it ever since spending about a third of my childhood with a Sawyer's Viewmaster. After two hours of viewing clips and short films yesterday, I am convinced that 3D for sports and concerts will become more popular. The glasses are vastly improved from the old red eye green eye days. During the big showcase presentation they showed a 3D hysterectomy. It was an experience I didn't really need to have.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:10 AM
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Sunday, August 10, 2008
Hello, LA. Goodbye, Black Moses.
Today was a travel day to Los Angeles accompanied by five graphic communications students for the ACM SIGGRAPH conference. This conference is one of the best places to go to get a perspective on what role digital graphics has in our culture, our entertatinment, and basically our lives in general. This is because it is part academic conference, part artistic showcase, and part industry trade show. In the next few days I will be sharing experiences and perspectives on Siggraph. It has been seven years since I last indulged in this digital graphics overload
This is this year's crew. They have already had their first star sighting on the airplane. Danny Glover sat in the row in front of us, the first row in coach. He moved to Beaverton several years ago and was likely taking the trip down south for some business. I was impressed because he kept his seat in an upright position and did not put his seat back and hammer on my legs. Something that happens too often on flight I am on
The sign painters on the north side of the Hotel Figuerora were pretty cool to watch on our way back from a fine Mexican meal of halibut fajitas and other delights
I'm not sure why the flags were at half mast officially, perhaps for the 500th casuality in Afgahnistan. In my funkasphere, they certainly would be flying low for Isaac.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:59 PM
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Saturday, August 9, 2008
Post postie alert and General Ramble
Summer is definitely winding down. This post was not in actuality created on August 9, but it is now here to represent that day which was a day of preparation for the Siggraph trip and an evening of pleasant dining with PDR.
There are other "post-posties" created under the dates of this week as well. Sometimes a draft never quite got completed, other times there is a bit of reconstruction that needs to take place.
During the six weeks that PDR was away, I probably watched more television than usual, but it was DVRd and premediatated viewing mainly. I had hoped to dig into more books. I think watching documentaries, seventies films, and a lot of Colbert and Stewart turned out to be more of a past time because it was nice to have noise in an empty house. It was a somewhat surreal time overall, and the first time experience of having a drawn out construction project in our house certainly brought a new level of experience to late June and all of July as well.
I promised a ramble on the heading and ramble I will ramble. The Well-Executed Buffet will be having a year anniversary in a few months and I see no end in sight. The Lumix camera I received for my birthday has been a wonderful contributor to it as well. Cheers to you all who stop by and see what's been going on in this mortal's world.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:39 PM
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Friday, August 8, 2008
Is our Chimney a Squirrel Hotel?
This squirrel sat on the chimney for some time as if he was some sort of rodent gargoyle. After realizing I was trying to take his picture, he disappeared. Down the chimney? Hard to tell. We have a sweep coming out in a couple of weeks and we shall find out if our chminey is being used as a residence.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:24 PM
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Thursday, August 7, 2008
Un Flic aka A Cop aka Dirty Money
The periodic viewing of a good French cop and robber movie should be considered one of life's pleasures. Un Flic aka A Cop aka Dirty Money was the last film directed by Jean Pierre-Melville. I saw Bob le flambeur a couple years back. This film won't change your life, but it is great to see Alain Delon in a kind of Dirty Harry, Popeye Doyle role. And Richard Crenna, a quintessential American TV actor seems much at home as the stylish crook, with lots of tricks up his sleeve (literally)
The set pieces and highlights of the film are the robberies. The opening shots coastal France with the four robbers (with their hats and raincoats) riding around in a black Plymouth through a driving storm is intercut to black credits creating tension and anticipation for the somewhat botched robbery to come.
Delon and Crenna both are involved with Catherine Deneuve as Cathy, one of those archetypal female characters in detective movies who seems to be there only as a link between the two adversaries while wearing custom quality designer gowns, of course. There is also this strange kind of subplot link between Delon and a transvestite dancer who works in Crenna's club, but she seems to be there mainly so he can hit her at one point in the script.
But the best sequence of the film is the improbable second robbery on a train. There are some cheesy miniatures and stuff that would be purely laughable except that it is apparent that Melville knows how to make these kinds of sequences develop and move in a way that makes you glad that the movies were invented.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:39 PM
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Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song is a documentary film that first appeared on PBS American Masters series last winter. Filmmaker Jim Brown has created the biographical documentary of record about Seeger that comprehensively covers both the activist and artistic aspects of his career. This is an exquisite documentary film crafted to serve as a time capsule of how this man moved through the 20th Century.
"Some people make musical history, Pete Seeger made history with his music." Bill Clinton said this about Seeger at his Kennedy Center Honors induction. And this documentary underscores Clinton's statement throughout, but probably most natably as a kind of godfather for the folk boom of the sixties.
Power of Song has no great stress on Seeger as recording artist. The story of Seeger reaching for a fire ax during the Dylan's 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival where he "went electric." And many of the specific event highlights (March on Washington, Carnegie Hall concert, etc.) of the civil rights era are not covered. But the film feels unified and complete. Early years discovering folk music under the encouragement of his father, his days with Woody Guthrie, the surprise hit status of Goodnight, Irene by the Weavers, and his efforts to clean up the Hudson river are all covered.
Bob Dylan has a sound bite early on where he talks about the miraculous power of Seeger's to get a crowd singing in harmony and make them sound good. I remember a cassette tape I made of a Seeger broadcast live at Portland State University on KINK in the early seventies. This tape was played often on family ski trips, we all loved the story songs and group singalongs. I remember liking the version of Guantanamera so much better than the slick one that was on the radio. I still remember the chorus of Woody Guthrie's Deportee from that tape. ("Goodbye my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, Goodbye My Amigos, Jesus y Maria...") In he concert, Seeger promised the sold out crowd at PSU, he would return in the Summer and have an outside concert.
The whole family went to Washington Park amphitheater that summer in anticipation of an event alike the concert we had played so often. But it was kind of a mess. Every petition gatherer and cause of the time seemed to have a representative. I got freaked out when this guy tried to get me to commit to stop eating grapes and lettuce. Come'on guy, I was maybe 14. I also recall Seeger being a little surly that day. When he recited the Declaration of Independence, it was with a kind of bile. When he soundchecked Turn, Turn, Turn, a favorite of mine because I loved the Byrds, he quit after "A Time to Die" because he kind off handed said mmmm, it is too nice a day to talk about death.
That summer concert kind of ended my romance with Seeger's music and those magical PSU tapes. It was easy to kind of see him as an anachronistic, throw back, a little pink man with his banjo being romantic about radicals. I liked the Seeger/Guthrie albums that came out in the seventies, but again, they kind of felt like living museum pieces indulged in the body of American folk song.
Filmmaker Jim Brown in an interview on the American Masters website stated that he actually had a limited number of choices of performance footage of Seeger because of the 17 year broadcast blacklist that the Smothers Brothers were finally able to get lifted (which also became a huge controversy because of his Vietnam protest song, Big Muddy) Brown says" "Selecting the concerts was actually not that hard because there weren't that many of them. Thank God there was Canadian television where most of them are from, because even though he was blacklisted in the United States he was able to perform in Canada."
The blacklist was the result of Seeger's standing up to HUAC, one of the many moments in his life and career where he stood up for principles and maintained his dignity.
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song is worth seeking out as history and musical profile. A good biographical documentary, in my experience, has the ability to make the outside world feel like it is standing still and gives me the feeling that I wish it would not end any time soon. I'm not sure why films like this one and the recent American Masters film about Les Paul elicit this kind of response from me. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these kinds of films with the well-crafted, biographical perspective, have a way of connecting intimately with the history of the century where most of years of my life were spent.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:35 AM
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Jack Webb With Cornet Instead Of His Badge
About half way through Pete Kelly's Blues, I wondered if the film's star/director, Jack "Sgt Friday" Webb had some kind of obsession with Orson Welles or if Welles had served as some kind of role model for him. There certainly were some parallels in their careers with their reputations being made from being radio show auteurs. Plus all kinds of Wellesian shots appear in Pete Kelly. The famous shot in Citizen Kane that begins with the cockatoo on the porch is repeated similarly in Pete Kelly's Blues, which is also filled with lots of low angle mise en scene compositions similar to Kane.
There is an entire song in a notable full two minute shot, all low angle with Martin Milner sopped out of his mind drinking beer instead of playing drums and Lee Marvin with his legs crossed playing the clarinet that ends with plot point conflict between the coronet wielding Sgt Friday, oops, excuse me Pete Kelly. Jack Webb is one of the most wooden of actors. His love scenes with Janet Leigh are particularly stagnant. You almost expect him to ask for "just the facts maa'm."
Pete Kelly's Blues strives to be a big 1955 wide screen experience to compete with television has gorgeous color cinematography by Harold Rosen, a couple of nice tunes by Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. But Edmond O'Brien, at least to my mind, is never a a very imposing gangster. And Jack Webb playing the cornet in a roaring twenties outfit during the height of hard swing and bop of the fifites makes him about as out of touch as when he was trying to bust hippies in the sixties in the third or fourth generation of Dragnet.
Still there is a kind of audacious campy pleasure to this film. It begins with an elaborately staged New Orleans funeral where the cornet of a greatly admired horn player ends up in the mud and then is won in a WWI era poker game by Webb. (for real, I'm not making that up) and Peggy Lee has a strange mad scene in a mental hospital that earned her an Oscar nomination. Don't expect much. Instead just sit back and enjoy the Rebel without a Cause Warner fifties colors and Jack Webb's walk, one of most self conscious in Hollywood history among other goofy delights.
One thing links to another. One of the great finds after looking up Jack Webb on the net after viewing Pete Kelly's was the Acid Logic Ezine. These guys definitely could dine at my buffet.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:05 AM
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Monday, August 4, 2008
Clark County Fair & Queensrÿche 8.5.8
I have to respect any group of musicians who have found a way to share their vision and art with tens of thousands of people over decades. I hear where Queensryche, unlike many of their contemporaries, fused the world of progressive rock with long form songs and intricate changes with the mood, dynamics, and adornments of heavy metal. Yet I'm not sure I get it. This band has their roots with bands like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, which I never connected with. But one can't dismiss a large fan base and long term success. "Queensrÿche has sold over 20 million albums worldwide including over 11 million albums and videos in the United States," according to Wikipedia.
You don't want to mess with Security
Perhaps some come to the Clark County Fair for the pleasures of fried dough, but my mecca is the Dairy Women's barn for the best milkshake of the year. I had chocolate blueberry and Pam had a peach one.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:37 AM
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Sunday, August 3, 2008
Siggraph Prelude: Haagen Dazs Honey Bee Opera
I was viewing one of the recent editions of the Stash video magazine and became impressed with this short spot from Haagen Dazs. My trip with five students to Siggraph is on the horizon. And the guarantee that each day will see scores of similarly impressive digital work
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:25 AM
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Saturday, August 2, 2008
I Was Under the Influence on Mondays in July
Another highlight of summer television was the series of four interviews Elvis Mitchell had in a short season of a new series called Under the Influence.
The first show was with Sidney Pollock in his last interview. Those conditions could not help but to create a bittersweet. It also was hard at first to see understand the intent of the interview until it became clear that the focus of these interviews were not going to be on the artist and their works but --duh-- as the series title says, their influences. So Pollock talked about how Gene Kelly was his idol as a moviegoer in Indiana, even down to buying the black loafers like Kelly wore in An American in Paris.
The next show with Bill Murray turned out to be my favorite. He focused in on comediennes he admired. He was most effusive about Margaret Sullavan, particularly with Henry Fonda in a film called The Moon's Our Home My favorite section of the discussion with Murray came at the end when he reminisced about living in Paris and having exposure to French screenings of the whole of cinematic history and how that was influential for himand he talked about how hard it is to make films, even bad ones.
I have mixed feelings about the third installment with Laurence Fishburne. It was intriguing to hear him talk about his admiration for Clark Gable. And I appreciate his almost ebullient response for the likes of Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success among others as well as his list of actors and roles that are examples of when an actor is really "swinging." But Fishburne's ego and sense of self-worth also made me shake my head and not want to listen closely at times. Still, good acting is going to be a lot about self-consciousness, so as with James Lipton's Inside the Actor Studio, one should expet that these sorts of interviews are going to move into that kind of territory.
The last program with Quentin Tarrentino didn't make a great impression with me. It was typical hyperactive Q. But where are you going to see a half hour interview that covers both The Last House on the Left and the screwball comedies of Preston Sturges?
The show isn't coming back until November. Web sources state those guests will be Joan Allen, Edward Norton, John Leguizamo and Richard Gere. But in the mean time, time with Under the Influence lead me to the discovery that there are 12 years of similar Mitchell interviews for streaming or in recent years, podcast downloads, from the radio show that the TCM program emulates, The Treatment. What an archive to explore!
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:15 PM
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Friday, August 1, 2008
Niall Ferguson and the War of the World
One of the highlights for me this summer was viewing the three parts of Scottish historian's film Niall Ferguson. Apparently, it has been highly edited from its six part format that was broadcast in 2006. PBS more or less buried the film at 10 pm or later in late June and early July. The film has caused some controversy, partly because it asks questions about atrocities on the Allied side during WWII.
A basic premise of the film is that the 20th century has been basically one big war. And he asks why is the 20th Century so violent. He considers both west and east as a part of this concept. He looks at the 20th century as a time where the Western hegemony is in decline. Ethnic related conflict is another track he follows. And he talks about the tectonic plates of shifting empires as being the impetuous of leading to some of the most violent periods of last century.
This is dense, text based nonfiction filmmaking, probably made more dense by it being an edited version. Historical images are often projected on historical objects. And Ferguson is front and center in the tradition of Sir Kenneth Clark or Alistar Cooke in their landmark public television documentaries of the seventies. But the content of War of the World is in contrast to the objective and generally accepted view of history of Civilization or America. Those series and the World of War opened up history for me in a way that text alone did not. Ferguson's documentary is filled with a currency of ideas. It has made and impact on me to first wish to view his series again with the hope the long form version will be released someday soon. But more so, it returned me to the notion that history matters, it should always be a forum for reevaluation and pattern seeking. And it is a fine and rewarding place to spend some time.
Some links: Some interviews with Ferguson in 2006 when the book the documentary was released and
An interesting essay that considers Ferguson's approach.
And this intro of the film found on You Tube: