Saturday, January 31, 2009
Randomness: A Sock Message & Coded Kitty
How much is that kitty in the window? Why not just scan its UPC bar? I went for coffee a few weeks back at one of my favorite of all small businesses, Marcell’s Hemp and Latte House on 31st and Columbia in Vancouver WA. And her cat let me know it wasn't terribly pleased to be outside on the patio while I was in the fireplace room reading the paper. That fireplace had been uncovered by Marcell and friends when they started to remodel the place, which had fallen on hard times after serving as a convenience market for decades. Marcell's is quickly becoming a neighborhood gathering place. I was poking around on the Internet and see they have applied for a beer and wine license. More good times ahead. I wonder what kitty thinks about all of this.
This was a strange one. This piece of paper was inside a sock I had bought. Sure it is probably an inventory list, but my mind drifted into an entire Asian espionage scenario. I'm thinking about my favorite Mike Nichols and Elaine May stand up piece where they were both cold war era eastern European spies. "Do you have the Fudge-icle?" "Yes. I have the stick."
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:13 PM
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Friday, January 30, 2009
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings with The Ivan Milev Band Crystal Ballroom 1.30.09
Anticipation was growing outside the Crystal for the Sharon Jones show. It had been sold out for a while and there were lots of bottom feeder types out trying to buy and sell tickets as well as a crowd at the curb who appeared to be ticketless. Jones' popularity in Portland has been increasing for a while now due to her shows at the Doug Fir Lounge and, especially, her appearance last year at the Oregon Zoo.
It does my heart good to see so many folks spend an evening of straight ahead soul music.
This is the Ivan Milev band, which on this evening consisted of Bulgarian accordion player Ivan Milev and his violinist Entcho Todorov. I am usually pretty casual on getting to shows on time for the opening act unless I know that the headliner is bringing their own support. One sure would not readily expect to see a Bulgarian accordion player before a hard working R&B singer, but somehow the combination worked.
And watching Ivan work was quite a treat. Bulgarian folk music is intricate, full of odd signatures, lots of changes and breaks. In the midst of some of the tunes, they would break out parts of American folk tunes, the theme to the British arts television program The South Bank show, and at one point ended a tune with some big fat chords from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I'm very glad I cought this set.
Ivan never spoke. Violinist Todorov took the emcee role with a bit of an intro here or there. My favorite is when he told everyone they should go back to the merchandise table to meet a beautiful young lady that was working there and if they wanted to they could buy Ivan's CD.
The most amazing moment of the show came when Milev actually flipped his massive accordion over his head where it resembled a back pack that he hiked off the stage with.
Sharon Jones is a dynamic wonder. She is 51 years old and her show is true vintage soul. Almost all of her material in her show are original tunes that keep the changes, rhythms and templates of sixties soul tunes. Just like James Brown, the model for a lot of her music and stage performance, she is perpetual motion during her performances.
This is one of the only pictures that wasn't more or less an impressionistic blur. She even was moving all over the place when she did one of two covers of the evening "Someday A Change is Gonna Come." It might have been the best version outside of the Sam Cook original I have ever heard.
It is easy to compare her with James Brown, Koko Taylor, Etta James, and early Tina Turner, but Jones is her own soul star rooted in the tradition of those who came before her. The church is never too far away. She looked at the foot of her stage early in the show and said "We have a lot of young people here." And then she fell into a gospel voice singing "I'm gonna have to watch my language tonight."
I know it is classic shtick to bring people from the audience on stage to dance. But, Sharon, seven or eight tunes of this. I had to shut my eyes during some of the tunes. It was like finding a radio program with a fascinating interview and then to hear the announcer say "we are now going to take some questions from our callers." Are you sure this is what people want to hear? Same thing with the Jones show. I really could live without watching a bunch of Portlanders with exhibitionist issues get an opportunity to act out in public by the invitation of the headlining performer. Thank goodness the second hour of her set did not include such needy attention getters such a spotlight.
It would be pretty cool to be a Dap King, i.e. a member of Sharon's eight piece band. They look like a male cross-section of New York City from the canga player to the guy with a handle bar mustachioed bass player looking like one of the Sopranos crew.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:59 PM
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Night James Brown Saved Boston
David Leaf's film The Night James Brown Saved Boston takes us back in time forty years to what still considered one of the most tumultuous years in US history.
On the morning of April 5 1968 Boston mayor Kevin White had a problem that all of his prior experience in government and leadership could not prepare him for. Dr. Martin Luther King had been murdered the day before. As a response there was rioting in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston as there had been in many cities with a large black population. Coincidentally, there was a James Brown concert scheduled across Boston's downtown in the Boston Garden. White's first reaction was to cancel the concert so that travel to the concert would not jeopardize the downtown center of Boston.
Consultation with the only black member of the city council persuaded White to reverse his decision. He also made arrangements with public television station WGBH to broadcast the concert, but this was done without consultation with the James Brown organization. Brown was outraged because lots of folks returned their tickets to the box office because they could see it on television instead. He claimed he would lose up to $60k and threatened to pull out. He relented only after White agreed to find him the money.
In short, James Brown put on the performance of his career. I want to see an uncut version of the concert someday, but Leaf's film is filled with some very outstanding excerpts. One of my favorite parts is when Brown introduced mayor White as being "a swinging cat." To which afterwards, Brown launched into a killer version of "That's Life." The film also shows how the TV broadcast not only created an evening where no problems occurred in Roxbury that night, but took charge of the Garden when things got a little out of hand between audience and police.
The film is filled with all sorts of wonderful recollections and observations from a number of folks, but especially entertaining were those from Rev. Al Sharpton and history professor Cornell West. The film spends about half an hour on the events leading up to the concert, about half an hour on the concert itself, and a twenty minute coda that considered the leadership role that Brown played in the black community in the years immediately after the Boston concert which diminished with the3 ascent of the Black Panther Party and Brown's endorsement of Richard Nixon in 1972.
I still hope to see an uncut version of the 4.5.68 concert broadcast someday. I understand it has been released commercially, but I have also seen it available at music swap meets as a bootleg. Regardless, the meta information about the concert in this film is a fine depiction and analysis of this unique moment in the cultural history of the United States. It is definitely worth checking out.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:24 PM
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Born to the Way of The World
In 1975, Bruce Springsteen released his third record for Columbia Records. Also, in that same year, Earth, Wind, and Fire came out with their sixth album, their fourth for Columbia. Born To Run and That's The Way of World were monster albums. Both yielded big hit singles and stardom.I think white space played a big part in their successes as well.
Both albums featured black and white photos of their artists against a seamless white background. They were not presented as static objects in the way that Richard Avedon used the same setting, most notably in his collection capturing those in government and power with The Family, which Rolling Stone magazine presented a year later. No, these artists were not captured as objects, but as exuberant ebullient verbs, which could not be contained in a twelve by twelve world, they needed to spill over to the backside of the album, the other side of the fold.
When I went to college at that diamond three-quarter mark of the last century, it seemed that for a couple-three years everyone seemed to own one or both of those albums.
The sound on Born To Run to me is big and midwestern as if the hits of Mitch Ryder went to artrock finishing school. It is a big muscle car from the era only slowing down for Meeting By the River and the cinematic scope of the closer, Jungleland. In fact, Thunder Road, one of its best, was inspired in part by Robert Mitchum's moonshine runner movie of the same name.
Speaking of movies, EWF's That's the Way of the World was created as a soundtrack for a movie company's follow up to Superfly. In this case, Maurice White and his funky bunch were pretty much the only black people hanging in the background as "The Group" in the film that starred two very white people, Harvey Keitel and Burt Parks. But nevermind, TTWOTW, the album was just more of what these guys had been doing for at least a half decade prior. And that's creating a revolutionary pop sound of jazz soul funk. I still love this album, especially the first side beginning with Shining Star and letting Maurice talk at you about how you got to make some beauty have mercy on the side's closer, All About Love.
I can find no photo or design credit for the EWF album, but Born to Run is credited with photography by Erc meola and design by John Berg and Andy Engel. I imagine one or all three of these parties played a part of That's the Way Of the World. Regardless the bleed on the fold of Clarence's shoulder and one of the elements (but not long tall bassist Verdine White) who is famous for being lifted from the stage and flipped sideways or upside down) is a common and highly distinguishing factor of these two unique and highly successful pieces of vinyl packaging.
So this is Bruce's big weekend at the Superbowl. And some of the original members of EWF seems to be able to making a pretty good living hitting Las Vegas and summer concert sheds each year. Yet, for me, at least, the real excitement of these bands came when I cracked vinyl and opened double up their covers and started off on a great journey with them, only much later appreciating their work that led them up to these breakthrough moments in their careers.
Here's a couple captures of these artists in the seventies: Earth. Wind and Fire back when they were still only known on the Soul R&B charts. And Springsteen a few years after BTR, but still before he could fill stadiums to capacity for days on end.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:59 AM
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Milk, Frost/Nixon, and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired are three recent films which study unique nexus moments of almost exactly thirty years ago where pop culture, law and/or politics, and media collided in incredibly visible, memorable, and dramatic ways.
I wonder if one reason I find these films compelling is because of my clarity of my memories of the the media coverage of Milk's murder, Nixon's interview, and Polanski's arrest all of which took place during my formidable, early years out of high school. It makes me wonder what's next? A flame-on remake of Richard Pryor's Jo jo Dancer starring Chris Rock, perhaps. A new biopic of Jim Jones complete with Kool Aid tie-ins?
Any sort of sex scandal involving a celebrity or public figure, as we in the Portland, OR of recent weeks can attest has this huge polarizing, larger than life quality to it, particularly if there are any questions or ambiguity involved to it as there was in Polanski's case, as Marina Zenovich's HBO non-fiction film illustrates. Zenovich film does not feature a new interview with Polanski, but contains observations and comments by the arresting officers, prosecutor, defense attorneys, and Samantha Geimer, the woman that Polanski had sex when she was thirteen. (A couple weeks ago Geimer requested the LA County District Attorney to dismiss the case against Polanski.)
Zenovich does not really explore the charges that Polanski made in his autobiography that Geimer and her mother set up Polanski in what his current Wikipedia entry describes as a "casting couch and blackmail scheme against him." Instead, she focuses on the events and, to some degree, the media circus, that surrounded his arrest, legal proceedings, psychiatric observations and flight to Europe.
This film also zeroes in on the judge in the case, Laurence Rittenband. Rittenband apparently loved being a part of cases that involved celebrities: Elvis' divorce, Cary Grant's paternity trial, Brando's child custody case. The turning point in the Polanski case seemed to be when at one point in his release he attended Oktoberfest in Munich and a picture of him hammering down beers and a cigar with some lovely ladies near by, put Rittenband in a kind of state of blind rage and revenge. Later, when Polanski was released early from a 90 day psychiatric observation at Chino, the judge was in process of negating the earlier agreements made with prosecutor and defense and was likely going to sentence Polanski to a prison sentence. Polanski responded by fleeing to Paris.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired is nonfiction documentary but it also strives to be an entertainment for HBO. Sometimes the intercutting of clips of Polanski films gets to be quite distracting. And why do soundtracks of recent non fiction films have to have such loud and strident music tracks to try to get their point across? Zenovich seems transfixed with the beguiling theme from Rosemary's Baby which comes up several times during the film's soundtrack, especially weirdly when it is sampled over the credits in a version with former Polanski star and lover Emanuelle Seigner singing along with (actually making oouuuu oooouuu oooouu sounds) and doing a Madonna Justify My Love-style rap over it. But despite such excess and packaging, this film does a good job of capturing and exploring one of those strange, indelible moments in US and world pop culture and history.
The source of the title comes from a sound bite by Polanski's friend and often producer Andrew Braunsberg where he talks about the paradox of Polanski's world image: "In France he is desired. in America he is wanted."
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:20 PM
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Monday, January 26, 2009
Lamott of Letters
I picked up a copy of Anne Lamott's 1989 novel All New People from the new arrival shelf of the North Portland Branch, my favorite Carnegie building still serving as a library on North Killingsworth Blvd. The library serves its original role still even though other buildings nearby have changed roles. Jefferson High is no longer a general population high school, but one that hosts a number of magnate programs. And more dramatically, the funeral home and chapel next door is now a McMennamin's pub.
I picked up Lamott's book put almost put it down because it was a novel. I blame the Dunnes (John Gregory and Joan Didion) and Tom Wolfe for my hesitation because in all three of these cases their fiction never really resonated with me (exception: Dunne's Dutch Shea Jr and maybe True Confessions) but their nonfiction has uplifted, informed, and engaged me for several decades as the writing to truly aspire to, and it probably played a role in how I see the world. Their non-fiction felt more true and dramatic to me than contemporary many novelists I have read over the years.
So I wondered about All New People. In her books on faith and essays on salon.com as with the in her appearance with Grace Paley at Arts and Lectures a few years back, my reaction has always been somewhere between connecting with her pretty directly and having a crush on the older blond girl at high school who was good in English or maybe played the guitar. I did not want to be let down as I had with Didion Novels or Wolfe's or unsatisfying books by Dunne such as Playland and The Red White and Blue.
But finally, I took a chance and took a plunge on this wet sloppy snowy day reading the prelude at the White Eagle where I stopped by to see a work acquaintance play in a bluegrass band. Within a couple pages one of those unmistakable Lamott images showed up: her "I" voice character, Nanny Goodman described a professional she saw for treatment: "My hypnotist is sixty or so, smiling and kind, John Kenneth Galbarith in LL Bean clothes."
Then and there I was hooked into Anne's world or rather Nanny's world. All New People is set in Lamott's stomping ground still of Marin County. It is an era of the last days of Kerouac's Railroad Earth and the beginnings of mid century western gentrification. Her little town later will feel aftershocks of the counterculture movement, but her family is as liberal as it has many dysfunctional aspects.
Her voice is quite believable. This book really feels more like memoir in pace and structure than a novel. In her narration Nanny circles about topics and repeats aspect of events and detils just like a young person would. She spends most of her time in this a great job deciphering and interpreting the adult condition and situation just like a really smart kid would.
Nanny comes to realize that despite age and postion, adults and children are both struggling and making their way through this thing we call life. This is true in what is maybe the pivotal point of the novel where her drunken uncle, temporarily abandoned by his wife, sort of falls into bed, but not necessarily, a relationship, with Nanny's mother's best friend that results in a pregnancy. This awkward series of events is huge for Nanny and the rest of her family--the eccentric mother, the aspiring writer father stretched thin by simultaneously aspiring to create great art and needing to be a breadwinner for his family.
Anne Lamont is one of our country's finest peoples of letters. This is true throughout her passionate columns for Salon about the election, to her ruminations on faith and, now I know, her work labeled as fiction. And, just as I was relieved to find out there are still Fassbinder and Sirk films I have not seen, I was pleased to find out that there are five other Lamott novels awaiting me someday.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:31 PM
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Farewell to Fathead
David Fathead Newman was known for his work with Ray Charles and rhythm and blues. But in 2003 I saw one of the favorite all all sets by an accomplished jazz musician. He was the headliner closer in the late afternoon of a perfect July afternoon. He was backed by a wonderful local trio of Frank de la Rosa on bass, Mel Brown on drums,and Janice Scroggins on piano. Scroggins has a wonderful gospel feel to her playing, de la Rosa is a well known bassist with some national credits, and Mel Brown is an incomparable hard bop drummer, but he also made his mark as a Motown session drummer for Diana Ross' tours. He was a perfect match for Newman who throughout his career straddled the worlds of jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.
My favorite moment was his reading of "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying." I recall some blues and some flute, but this tune featured his lovely tenor. Fathead like some of the most notable of musicians had a very distinct voice plus when he voiced or improvised there was a distinct economy to his playing. I want to think that comes from playing with Ray. In a band setting like that of Ray Charles, one has a short amount of time to say what you have to, so every breath and note counts.
In the last ten years or so of his life, he produced a substantial series of albums for HighNote records that includes a well-balanced mix of jazz standards, originals and even a tribute to Brother Ray. I played them a lot during that summer of 2003 when he played CPJ and pulled them out again this weekend when I heard about Newman's death. (Thank you emusic)
His sound was deep and soulful. I'm listening to a 1989 live recording where he is working out with "What's New." Each chorus seems to fit together like well crafted paragraphs in a great essay. As are the solos on Diamondhead an album of his that came out last year at the age of 75. (The title apparently to commemorate his birthday, get it?) His turns on tunes like "Skylark" and "Star Eyes" don't feel like workouts with old standards but reunions with longtime friends for musician and listener alike. (It doesn't hurt the set's quality to have pianist Cedar Walton also featured on it, that's for sure.)
I loved him on his tenor that often sounds like an alto. But I'm sorry Fathead Newman could not make me love jazz flute any more than a response that can be gracefully described as barely tolerant. His flute work on Billy Joel's New York State of Mind, also on Diamondhead had my mouse locating a double headed arrow in my ITunes window pretty darned quickly. But if you ever get a chance to check out a jaunty little blues called The Gift, from the same titled 2003 album he was supporting at that summer concert. It is full of beatnik splendor that had me finger popping despite the fact he was playing flute. Go-tees, berets and Daddy-oh Crazy, to be sure.
So what's with the name "Fathead?" My usually on target music trivia mind failed me this time. I thought the origin had to do with Ray Charles saying his baritone sax playing had a fathead of sound. But all of the sources I found after his death last week report that his music teacher in Texas gave him that moniker when he was caught with the music upside down on his stand. Sources said he wished to be known as David, but the unique nickname stuck and just had to have helped his fame and public identity. Check this out. "David Newman" gets 908,000 results but in Advanced Google, "David Newman" without the word fathead only yielded almost exactly half as many hits, 485,000.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:47 PM
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Saturday, January 24, 2009
Rosselini Brings Us into the World of Louis XIV
In the last decade of his life, between his sixtieth and seventy first years, Roberto Rossellini directed 40 hours of historical television films for French television. The first of those, La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (The Taking of Power by Louis XIV) was recently re-released by Criterion Collection, who have also released an Eclipse box set of the films he did during this period that cover the Renaissance.
This is a striking film experience. The first half hour of the film concern the deathbed of the very powerful Cardinal Mazarin. We don't even see Louis XIV until he is awakened in his bed along with his queen by an entire team of courtiers. There is no sound track film music, I don't believe until we see the exceptionally moving deathbed sequence of Mazarin, his chamber filled with light of the painters of Louis time.
The seventeenth century of Louis as told by Rossellini takes some fitting into, but I maintain that that this is not a slow or difficult film. It is history told with a quiet determination. And as the visual essay commented upon by Tag Gallagher on the DVD reveals, there is almost always some kind of movement of the camera or the actors every few seconds. Once you learn how to feel this tempo, the historic tableau he lays out really comes to life.
Mazarin's death awakens Louis XIV need to rule. Gallagher shows that the fear of the king is what motivates most of his actions and that the limited acting abilities of non-professional Jean-Marie Patte who plays Louis helped inform this approach. The hour depicting his radical changes and flamboyant style (appearance and dress mattered very much to Louis XIV) during the time span of the film that began in 1671 and ends in 1682 when his court so well coiffed was moved to his commissioned palace of Versailles.
There is a nice moment in the film, that will resonate for those who slept through their world civ classes. This was the court of the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan. The king summons this now famous security and law enforcement team to arrest Nicolas Fouquet, a corrupt and venal element in his court. The arrest is shown from the king's perspective, from his window. We watch as they are taken away and it is indeed significant to us the viewers that this action is shown its entirety from the King's point of view without music, closeups or cutaways.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:57 AM
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Friday, January 23, 2009
Frost/Nixon
Little Opie Cunningham had lots to work with here. Nixon/Frost is a fascinating historical story, was well tuned as a London and Broadway play, and most of all, had two exceptional actors who had really developed their roles. Frank Langella will never be mentioned first as a guest star of villains for hour long cop films. He is probably the best actor's depiction of Richard Milhaus Nixon ever.
In the meantime, we get to be witness to all kinds of themes, situations and ideas. Frost/Nixon is a full meal deal. We explore one of the important moments in celebrity journalism. We see also that journalism can be equipped to move into realms that those of the courts are not able to go after Ford's pattern. We see the closest thing to a boxing match that you can have with out a gloves or a round card girls flashing their entitlements to all four sides of the ring.
But we do see cornermen. For President Nixon it is Jack Brennan, whose loyalty is portrayed by director Ron Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan as being greater than that of Haldeman, Erichlichman, Mitchell, Colson, or Mitchell all rolled up together. It is a brilliant piercing performance and a great match for Frank Langella's Nixon, and Michael Sheen's David Frost.
For the Frost side, he was surrounded by energy of his assistant John Birt plus journalist/researchers Bob Zelnick and James Reston, Jr played by Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell. I do not like Rockwell's style or acting. It is probably just a matter of taste, but I think he can't help but come off as a clone of Dana Carvey. I think that Choke would have been a far more interesting film without him and he kind of became a distract for me as Reston in this film. Still his part in this story was very important. I believe the lesson of this very strange little episode of history is summarized by Reston in the final speech of the film:
You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, trenches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot...I really understood the reductive power of the close-up, because David had succeeded on that final day, and getting for a fleeting moment what no investigative journalist, no state prosecutor, no judiciary committee or political enemy had managed to get; Richard Nixon's face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing in defeat. The rest of the project and its failings would not only be forgotten, they would totally cease to exist.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:23 PM
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Thursday, January 22, 2009
Welcome to Macintosh: A documentary film
This documentary is by no way definitive when it comes to the story of Apple computer and the Macintosh. It does however show the impact and the culture surrounding the world of Mac what makes it special and different. Filmmakers Robert Baca, and Josh Rizzo. They cris-crossed the country interviewing folks associated with the Mac. It may be that the folks they talked to have are obsessive collectors of Apple and Macintosh products or an originator of a users group or authored a a book about the company. Or they may have a recognizable b-list celebrity in the realm of this technology. It certainly isn't definitive, Jobs or Ivie or Woz or Scully are no where to be found, but somehow, this kind of homegrown documentary has a lot of soul and hits the mark in many ways when it comes to answering the question: "What is so darned special about Apple computer?
The first two thirds of the film takes a timeline approach to the Mac's development. My favorite talking head in the film Andy Hertzfeld original Macintosh development team member. His ebullience when he recounts development stories is especially engaging. I have seen Herzfield give his recollections both in person and in previous films and have felt he is excellent in both a witness and a sort of living history to the enthusiasm that helped create this evolution.
Jim Reekes is another Macintosh engineer/developer who is wry and very entertaining. He served on both the QuickTime and OS teams.
"The People on the outside think like, you know, it is this wonderful world of Oz or Disney going on. And all of are all of these brilliant amazing happy people. And like it's not. It's like a sausage factory. You really don't want to know how this stuff happens. A lot of it is just like bad arguments, politics and working around the rule. And not doing the right thing. And apologizing for it later. Getting fired a few times. That's how things got done...you really don't want to know how this stuff is done.
He goes on to tell a story about how one of the computers had a magnet for the speaker too close to the hard drive so it would crash every time a QuickTime movie was played. And he says their solution was to change the decibel level so it wouldn't crash. To which he concludes; "engineers are retarded."
The film does a pretty good job of commenting on the importance of Steve Jobs to Apple Computer. There is a very oddly topical section showing most of the commentators believing that Jobs leaving Apple again will result in a wholly different company. And the resurrection of the company with his introduction of three major products, IMacs, IPods, and the IPhone have made a huge impact on the world. But we also get to hear from the likes of Film editor Richard Halsey who showed how film editing was transformed by Final Cut Pro.
Guy Kawasaki who has spent his career life pretty much talking all about Macintosh continues that in his interviews with Baca and Rizzo. Mac's former Mac Evangelist is an unapologetic dickhead, but his cattiness is still pretty amusing. And I have to appreciate someone who knows themselves well enough to say "For one thing, I am living proof that if you do one thing right in your career you can coast for a long time. A loonng time."
And I do appreciate that the Hertzfield is given the last word: "We filled the machine with our love and passion for what we were doing and it radiates out on the other side of the screen and infects the user." If you are a true Mac person you have been infected by that romantic notion and you realize there is nothing to negate or debate when you hear such a statement.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:05 PM
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Magnificent Sirk
I'm continuing to work my way through the work of director Doug Sirk, but I want to go slow. Because when these cinematic bonbons of emotion are finished there are no more. Still, I couldn't resist the new Criterion re-release of the 1954Magnificent Obsession. This is the one where Jane Wyman goes blind.
Again, I can't talk about Sirk without talking about the over the top audaciousness of his peak Rock Hudson, Ross Hunter pictures. Quentin Tarantino immediately talks about the bigness of emotions in Sirk films when the subject came up on the Elvis Mitchell Influence show last summer. I love the inevitable coincidences when they meet the swelling music. But there as many moments of genuine surprise in the plot turns in a Sirk film as well.
I watch these because I love my reactions during these films. There are these moments of gargantuan payoff that make me laugh loudly and unvoluntarily. Sometimes I even applaud at an especially satisfying movment. There is definitely something about the level of engagement and involvement the audience can have in a Sirk movie that makes it a special experience.
Another factor is that Sirk movies always seem to have big themes in them. All That Heaven Allows features discussion of Thoreau. Written on the Wind is full of empty lives with lots collision courses. And this one, Magnificent Obsession has been described well of being full of moral didacticism. And I agree. But in Sirk's hands, it can be less a teaching moment than a swell ride.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:42 PM
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Jim Thomas, The Shitones, and the Joy of Progressive Surf Music
Instrumental rock and roll never gets the attention it should. It isn't difficult to hear the likes of Charlie Christian, Django Rhienhart, Les Paul, and Chet Atkins in Duane Eddy, Booker T, and the surf music groups.
Instrumental surf music is a strange Surfin' Bird indeed. It has some of the rebellion of bebop but can be as straight as a combo can be. It requires precision and accuracy, but can get rough or trance-like.
Jim Thomas helped change surf music with his San Francisco band the Mermen. But I have been connecting more with Thomas' other group called the Shitones. The Mermen tend to play originals and can be out there but rigorous. The Mermen are mostly about originals and definitely have an indy rock vibe to them, as Los Lobos, Bodeans and others do. About the only life support for the Shitones is their weekly Thursday night gig in San Francisco, generally at a place called Beach Chalet but also it is referred to as Park Chalet.
From what I can make out the Shitones consist of the lead guitarist for The Mermen, Mr Jim Thomas and awesome bass player Jennifer Burnes who also had been in the group for a good part of the nineties. They also have a drummer by the name of Shigemi "Shig33" Komiyama. And they also have a lot of people sitting in with them. On many of the eighteen shows available for free at archive.org feature Thomas asking a guest "do you know --insert name of tune here--?"
Here I have posted one of their shows from 2002-06-27. There are 37 songs that include just about every surf instrumental chestnut except Pipeline, Wipeout and Hawaii Five-O. Telstar, my favorite is included and there is a rocking Apache that seques into Ghost Riders In The Sky and later The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly make the scene.
The Shitones are tight when they play and loose on the tween space. Jennifer keeps calling out for the Bumblebee (as in Flight Of) Jim reviews chords before they start several tunes. They play songs straight but then Jim Thomas takes the listener and the two members of his band on a little trip. Fantasias.
This has become more than a surf oddity. The Shitones and The Mermen are playing and everyday music kind of role for me. You can do things when you listen to them as you may find out if you listen to the steam or download your own.
Latina, Scrambler, No Matter What, Movin', Hawaii, Deep Ocean Vast Sea, Apache, Ghost Riders In The Sky, Redemption Song, Surf Rider, Trailing, Blue Pepper, Ocean Beach, Surf Party, Shooting Star, Quiet Surf, Cavalier, Caravan, Outer Limits, Falling Up, The Good The Bad & The Ugly, Jet Black, Out Front, Telstar, Jack The Ripper, Lonely Playboy, Bumblebee, Tuning, Harlem Nocturne, The Victor, Lost In The Shadows, Baja, Wild As The Sea, Decoy, TR-6, Crash, Miserlou
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:40 PM
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Monday, January 19, 2009
Appaloosa
Filmmaking is hard as hell anyway. But it seems to me that making a western in our modern times would be an even more difficult task. Actor and director Ed Harris pretty much rode the difficult balance between traditional and contemporary with his film Appaloosa.
Part of the challenge is that because of Clint Eastwood and, definitely, Peckinpah, and all of the dark themes that entered the western in the seventies and beyond. It is hard to do anything new, so what Harris and company did was go back to the old with a slight tip of the hat (and damn, does Ed Harris look good in a custom fit and styled cowboy hat--not all bald men do, consider that dork Garth Brooks) to the new western, but not follow its themes into a world of darkness. And deliver us a good entertainment which maybe owes more to Hawkes, Ford, Bonanza and the Virginian than the post-modern stare down of Eastwood. In other words, it more closely resembles Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid than The Wild Bunch or The Unforgiven.
And like the iconic Redford and Newman romp from forty years ago, it is a buddy movie that moves into romantic triangle territory. Sort of. Harris and his cohort, Vigo Mortenson play characters with great western names, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. They are bad ass gunfighters on the the right side of the law hired by the town to get things in order. But things get sticky when dealing with Randall Bragg, town entrepreneur, (Jeremy Irons) who proves to be a worthy nemesis.
But the real problematic challenges facing Cole and Hitch involve the arrival of an attractive widow, Alison French, played by Renee Zellweger. Allie French plays by her own rules, and that means being the queen bee to whatever alpha male is on top and also to keep one in the hold. It creates an interesting dynamic to the story and to create abrasive agent to rough up the stoicism of Harris portrayal of Cole. The film portrays her sexual politic and independence as something new to the west of the late nineteenth century
Appaloosa looks great. Harris insisted it be filmed in 35mm on Panavision cameras. Dean Semler is the Australian cinematographer who has done loads of location movies and lots of modern westerns including the Young Guns movies films and the remake of Alamo a few years back. It is hard to make New Mexico look bad in a western, I believe. Or give the viewer something both new and familiar to look at, but Semler and Harris achieve this with this solid film, that deserved the steady audience who came out to see it this past autumn.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:35 PM
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Sunday, January 18, 2009
TV Pagaent At the Lincoln Memorial
This was almost a total coincidence. I had not intended to subscribe to HBO to watch We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, but so happened that was the case. The guy at the call center I ordered from asked if I was ordering for that particular special. I told him it was because my wife wanted to watch the second season of Flight of the Conchords. Man are these guys on script or not? He actually then said: "Yes, there is much excellent original programming."
If you really want to see this, it looks like for a registration form you can watch it on your broad band. Or you can just read me mention a few highlights and lowlights.
Star Spangled Banner
The marine who sang this missed the last note by a beat but recovered with one of the finest salutes ever.
Bruce and the Choir
Bruce Springsteen sang a tune with a full woman's gospel choir behind him. It worked pretty well and was actually a good one to have after Denzel Washington being all rather president like in his own way.
Laura Linney and MKL III
The first time I saw this I missed the intro and thought Martin Luther King's son was one of those black weathermen on the morning shows.
Mary J, Blige sings Bill Withers
She did Lean on Me. I didn't hate it. Didn't love it either.
Jamie Foxx and Steve Carrell
The Office guy did his straight. Foxx's impersonation of Obama was terrific but the rest of his delivery was like watching him on the Oscars without the grandma speech. This guy can really annoy me.
Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi
No. No. No. What a weird paring. Bettye is authentic and amazing. Bon Jovi is affected and artificial. Here you can truly say this was half good.
Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait Read by Tom Hanks
Wow! Now this feels authentic. Everyone has always called Hanks the new Henry Fonda an here he is in Fonda's shoes all the way accompanying a piece Fonda was associated with as well as its subject one of his most famous roles.
Marissa Tomei
She comes on and quotes Ronald Reagan. How can I look at her, even if she is at the Lincoln Memorial without thinking of that very provocative opening with Philip Seymour Hoffman in When the Devil Knows Your Dead?
James Taylor, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles and a Couple Uncredited Back Up Singers
You know, I have had this weird sort of appreciation onset for James Taylor ever since I saw him on the Elvis Costello Spectacle Show. I swear the uncredited black guy must be a Winan or something, Better than Mary J by a long shot.
Joe Biden
He only spoke for two and a half minutes.
John Mellencamp
Hate to say it, but Pink Houses seemed pretty appropriate with Obama and Abe looking on. I wonder if J Cougar rubbed out a butt under his foot on the back or side Memorial steps. He had a choir behind him as well.
Queen Latifah, Marian Anderson and the Gates of Hell
Don't mess with my queen. She did the tribute to Marian Anderson. I'm down with that. They showed a clip of her doing My country Tis of thee and then had Josh Groban and some gal come out and finish it back in real time. Yes it was as awful as it sounds, even the ruddy faced glee club behind them couldn't pull it off.
Kumar and George Lopez
Oh Lord. Who comes up with this stuff?
Sheryl Crow, Will I Am, and Herbie Hancock do a Bob Marley Song
Believe me. It isn't as bad as it sounds. But I don't need to see it again. Ever.
Tiger Woods and A Tribute to the Military
No Comment
Renee Fleming Does Rogers and Hamerstein
You'll Never Walk Alone. Why does that song always test the dryness of my eyes and the coldness of my heart?
Jack Black and Rosario Dawson
Tribute to Conservationism. Good Lord
Garth Brooks
Obnoxious with the stress on the noxious. American Pie. Then a really lame version of Shout with a spunky youth choir all dressed in red and blue. And there was a gospelly thing after that.
Ashley Judd and Forrest Whitaker Talk About the Role of the Artist
Dignified enough, I guess.
Usher, Stevie Wonder and Shakira
Usher is pretty charismatic actually and he delivered a couple of chorus's of Higher Ground as well as the keyboard player behind him,
Samuel L. Jackson talking About Civil Rights and Introducing U2
Why would I be reminded of the time he played Shaft in a lame remake?
Bono and U2
Do the King Song. Do the Obama song. Leave the stage, but, no, you had to do a bit about all the dreams including the Palestinian one.
Obama Time
Can he even give a bad speech?
Pete Seeger, his grandson, and Bruce Springsteen
This Land Is Your Land never felt that good. If it hadn't been for this and the Lincoln Portrait it would have been a total waste. I guess I'm getting old.
But the Guthrie song was truly wonderful. All the verses including my favorite about the side of the sign that didn't say nuthin' and that's the one for you and me.
Beyonce sings America the Beautiful
Again, no comment.
George Stevens Jr.put this thing on. It certainly was a pageant with a capital P. P as in Put the DVDR away in a binder and forget about it for a few years.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:55 PM
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Saturday, January 17, 2009
A Sunset and an Eastern German Goya
First, The Sunset
Goya as presented by DEFA Studios, East Germany, 1971
Francesco Goya's life was kind of like living on a powder keg. At least that is how I see his life being portrayed by East Germans in the 1970s in Konrad Wolf's Goya. Any move the artist made was generally the wrong one as far as the women he shacked with, the most intense of aristocracy he painted for, and the high drama of the politicians, malcontents and public folk he circulated with. The first half of the film shows how his naivete as a focused artist and street peasant sensibilities tore all of these components into his life to a kind of Goya taffy pull between the various factions. The inquisition and the weird court of King Karl IV and Queen Maria Luisa were not a good backdrop for the lusty, temperamental, and self-absorbed artist that was Francisco Goya.
I don't believe that DEFA studios did too many of these epic historical flicks and I don't know all of the anecdotes, but this has got to be an anomaly in the history of the big studio in Babelsburg. I noted on the very bold and graphic credits with screen crops, accent colors, and heavy font choices. The content was harsh pilgrimage footage and there was organ music in full hard seizure like it was an animal dying.
A huge assett in this film is the performance of Donatas Banionis as Goya. He is able to emote his troubled soul and play along with the lot he believes, sometimes quite obtusively to live the artist's life. One that got highly internalized with the onset of deafness. His work reminds me of Bruno S. in the Herzog films or Günter Lamprecht as the uber Rodney Dangerfield, Franz Bieberkoph, the protagonist of Herzog's epic Berlin Alexanderplatz.
I don't know if Konrad Wolf's bioepic is a great film, but it would be a wonderful film to teach at the end of a film studies class that emphasized style, technique and influences. But don't get me wrong. I am not dismissing Wolf as filmmaker. I think everyone who likes a good movie about soldier life should see Ich Wer Nuenzehn aka I am Nineteen. It isn't that Wolf is just throwing out a bunch of style choices (deep focus, long takes, cutting the sound out to illustrate Goya's deafness) Instead, what gives this film a really individual dynamic is that there are so many stylistic things happening in it, and most are at good service to the story and presentation as a whole.
Goya contains both montage and mise en scene approaches. There is a lot of David Lean, Welles, and Visconti in the way Wolf approaches his story. The inquisition sequence in which Goya, who was hand picked by the Church to show him what would happen if he didn't mend his ways--incredible reaction shots of this travesty with no touch of civility or emotion is a real accomplishment.
For shure there are some intriguing sequences and very individual sequences in this film. Occasionally they misfire, like in a montage of Goya's editorial cartoons in Caprichio format set to what sounds like an early recording of the Gypsy Kings. But one of the best, a dream sequence that echoes Brecht Beckett, and Hitchcock really leaves the viewer creeped out.
At one point in the second half the film kind of turns into a picaresque western. Wolfe can be also very John Ford-like. His use of broad humor reminds me of similar sequences in Ford. And he also can employee a touch reminiscent of Leone. I even thought of Fellini at one point because there is this semifaux surrealistic midget jester for the king that just kind of appears at one phase of his love affair with a princess.
Wolf and this film also remind me of Pontecorvo but more of Burn! than Battle For Algiers. Right after I made this conclusion, lo, and behold mattie, as they say in the pirate movies, there was this intense zoom out of one of the lead females ultra fast because that was the main effect to show that it was a dream.
I love the movies of the seventies. They so often resemble rock guitar solos of the era. Goya reflects a lot of the flamboyant cinematic zeitgest in the world of the late sixties and seventies. In fact, this film looks like it was rolling and marinade in the wildness of that independent spirit despite its big budget. Despite its government controlled (or contained) studio, that spirit is oddly apparent. And how they got away with the ultimate theme of the preservation of creative freedom and political dissonance which was much of Goya's life, only research of those present at this odd one of a kind film will know.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:36 PM
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Friday, January 16, 2009
The Oilman Taketh and Other Exploits
It was a curious day. It began with my turn to have one of the faculty breakfast sessions with the Clark College President. And then it was home to wait for Rick the oil man to donate the oil we had left in our tank after our conversion to natural gas. Later, I worked with one of my faculty members to solve a mystery of missing computers. And had the last tenure review session for a wonderful and talented instructor. Squeezed in some preparations for a class I'm taking to stage a course in the Fall. Actually cleared major issues in the email inbox and voicemail. And finally took part in an acknowlegement/completion gathering for the aforementioned tenure track faculty. All of these disparate activities added up to a day made up of components that soehow ended up connecting together like beads on a strand.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:56 AM
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Thursday, January 15, 2009
Design, Emotion and Dr. Terence Love
My employer is a partner with what are now known as the Linus Pauling Memorial Lectures sponsored by the Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy. As a part of this partnership or endowment or whatever it is I have the opportunity to receive free tickets to most any of the lectures each year. I have not gone for several years because research science is far from a primary passion of mine and there were a couple of times where in essence it turned out to be a drive to Portland to have a nap in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. I can do that at home in front of the television just as well.
That's not to say there haven't been some interesting and engaging evenings at these lectures over the year. Freeman Dyson was a strange kind of bird but indeed intriguing. Howard Rheingold's appearance at the beginning of public Internet fever was truly kind of influential for me. Howard Gardner's lecture on leadership was excellent.
And probably most memorable was Dr. David Chalmers, an Australian philospher who was made a scientific case for the study and awareness of consciousness. Pam and I still talk about how this wooly headed wildman brought out his consciousness detecting machine, which was in reality a hotel hair dryer as he would almost chant "searching for consciousness, searching for consciousness" And then he would turn on the hair dryer and declare he found consciousness.
The most recent lecture of the series was Dr. Terence Love, also a fellow Australian, but he did not prove to be as dynamic or entertaining as Chalmers was several years prior. Love's topic was listed as Holistic Design: A Philosophical Framework. He was courted to come to the US and give this lecture by Terry Bristol, the head of the ISEP and the major force behind the lecture series. In the Q&A after the lecture, it came out that the the Holstic Design title was even Bristol's idea. In his introduction, it was apparent that he is very passionate about raising awareness of design and engineering and is an advocate for teaching engineering at the high school level.
Love's presentation revealed an individual who was passionate in his life's work, but somehow his talk had a kind of Malcom Gladwell Blink or Tipping Point basic and simple thesis that got lost in the cavernous Schnitzer Hall along with the poor sound level and amplification of the wireless microphone that was attached to him.
Love began his talk with a wide overview of the ubiquity of design and the power and importance of design. His definition for design was quite basic. As a noun it was "a specification or plan for making or doing something. The verb definition was even more simplistic: "to create a design.
He believes that design is what is at the core of why the life expectancy of whites is double of that of aboriginals in Australia. He stressed the ubiquity of design, how it is the core to organizations, services, systems, and nation states. He brought out the old iceberg model which has been used so often to show how the vast majority of design is hidden. The designed interface of your Iphone does not reflect the software, hardware, research, cultural factors, and business infrastructure that created it.
Much of Love's talk referred to the work of António Damásio the theorist and researcher on matters of neurology and the brain. In particular, Love emphasized the aspect of Damasio's work that as Wikipedia puts it "helped to elucidate the neural basis for the emotions and has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making." Love focused on how these findings of Damásio's relate to the emotional aspect of designing and problem solving. As evidence he talked about the way the body seems to relax after a design to a problem is obtained.
Pam bumped into one of her writing colleagues before the lecture. She told her that if she comes away with just one new insight, these evenings are worthwhile. I ammend that to also to their ability to reinforce a belief you may already have. I thought about a late night I spent earlier this week as I was tackling a problem relating to the design of one of my courses. It was slow and a bit agonizing and frustrating because I was closing in on the single digit hours of the new day which I knew would likely be pretty arduous. But when I came across a solution that I knew would work for me and my class, there was indeed a sense of relief and satisfaction. I went to sleep completely and solidly within what seemed just a few minutes.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:26 PM
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Patti Movie: Dream of Life
The recent film about Patti Smith, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is a lot like watching birds in your backyard or at the park. They fly from tree to powerline. They fly from powerline to ground, look around for grubs, and then back to the tree. Over and over again.
Such is the rhythm that Steve Sebring establishes in pulling together footage he had collected over more than ten years of filming Patti on the road, in her apartment, in all kinds of locations and with her family. She is the center, but like the poem says it does not hold. It is filmed mostly in processed, stressed black and white we move with her from ground to tree sometimes connected thematically with her narration and commentary, but even the die hard fan could likely lose patience with this exercise. I get the feeling at times he was working with the concept to have a kind of homage to Pennebaker's Don't Look Back. But Don't Look Back was grounded to the time frame of Dylan's 1965 tour. Dream of Life is stretched across many years and apparently many tours. Again there is no center to hold it together.
Still, if you are the kind of die hard Patti Smith fan and supporter who gets a charge out of most of what she says, it is still kind of important to take a look at this. There are some precious, but sometimes fleeting moments. One of my favorites is when she is sitting in the back of a car and sings along with Nat King Cole's version of Stardust, which she recognizes from nearly the first chord of the introduction. There is also a fine little sequence where she plays guitar and bullshits with early collaborator Sam Shepard. I also love the sequence where she visits her mother and father, the one in the deleted scenes of the extras has her mother talking about how she loves Smith's song Rock and Roll Nigger. "It's my house cleaning music."
Also in the extras is this super cool sequence on a beach Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays the trumpet along with Patti on clarinet. They spend a lot of time talking about how they love the films of Kurosawa. This is great stuff. Michael Stipe shows up in the film proper, but no kind of natural encounter with Smith is included of similar ilk. And images of her visit to Rimbaud's grave, or at the Lincoln Memorial, along with the interminable return from time to time to her playing show and tell with all kinds of artifacts at her apartment all get a little bit tedious.
The title of the film comes from Smith's problematic fifth album, the one she did with husband Detroit rocker Fred Sonic Smith and her long time keyboardist Richard Sohl. Since Smith has experienced so much loss of those close to her in the last couple decades (Robert Mappelthorpe, Sonic Smith, her brother Todd, Sohl, Allen Ginsberg, her parents, and probably more) there is a kind of meaning and irony to the title, Dream of Life. It is too darned unfortunate that the movie feels so tentative and incomplete, as dreams sometime do. There are moments, but they are so fleeting and then are gone, (or Gone Again as in another Smith album title) just like the birds in your backyard.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:01 PM
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Michael Pollan at PAL 1.13.09:
More than A Guy Talking About Food
Michael Pollan arrived on the stage of the Schnitzer Auditorium with a medium sized brown paper bag just as though he had crossed the street from Safeway. It seemed like quite an appropriate entry for the American writer who has made significant contributions to get Americans to think, and act even, about the content of the food we eat and the way we consume it. The concert hall was filled to capacity all to, as Pollan put it "to hear the guy talk about food for an hour."
It proved to be a solid well-ordered presentation that gave the listeners in that hall something to consider and many issues to think about. He said his theme tonight was fitting in the season of the "new you," the time of the first of the year when folks take up new years resolutions with gym memberships and new diets. He described it as that time of year when Taco Bell is marketing the idea of having a fourth meal at the same time that Jenny Craig ads are clammering on the television.
Pollan's presentation was filled with big thought provoking statements like. "You can't have healthy people without healthy diet and you can't have healthy diet without healthy agriculture." America is a country filled with orthorexics, according to Pollan. An orthorexic is defined as a person with a unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. And this is the result of idealizing nutritionism.
Our cultural patterns of this unhealthy set of circumstances was broken down as a four part phenomena by Pollan. First the key to understanding food is nutrients. But, secondly, since nutrients are invisible and mysterious people want an experts to help them navigate through their relationship with food. Thirdly, eating is commonly seen as either health promoting or health ruining (never mind the factors of eating that relate to pleasure, spiritualism, culture, family and community) And, lastly, our times and culture are filled with the perception that there are good nutrients and evil nutrients and their roles of good and evil are changing and cycling at routine intervals.
For most of the next hour he used these four points as a backdrop for the history of nutritionism, beginning with the health crazes of the 1860s by future cereal kings Post and Kellogg, through the FDA regulations and definitions of the seventies, through attempts by our agribusiness to make food at least appear more healthy, such as in the example of the Cocoa Puffs he pulled out of his paper bag promoting their content of being filled with calcium, whole grains, and fiber.
America's obsession with nutritionism parallels the rise of obesity. He sees health as being much different than nutritionism, instead it is a set of relationships we have with exercise, our lifestyle, and also our food. Over the course of the evening, as he does in his writing, Pullan creates images and brings forward facts that are thoughtful and alarming such as the fact that 20% of Americans take their meals in their cars. And the fact that school lunch programs consist of the excess of American agri business and that they are based on a minimum calorie, but not maximum calorie content instead of what might be good for children to eat.
Pollan got much attention lately for his comments in the NY Times about how there could be a change in American Food could begin with the White House was devoting five acres to farming vegetables on the grounds. Pollan says by the end of WWII, 40% of American food came from victory gardens. He closed the evening by commenting that if we want to have change, especially when one considers the incredibly strong and powerful food lobby, we have to make our voices known; we can't expect Obama to read our minds and do it all.
I had read some NY Times pieces, but it was Pam's referral of The Botany of Desire that really introduced me to Pollan's writing, which like his lecture last night, has the ability to engage, instruct, and make one reflect on stories and issues you thought you truly were familiar with, but instead, you are left with new perspective.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:11 PM
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Monday, January 12, 2009
Cohen: The Poet's Transition to Singer-songwriter
I have only seen three of the British Under Review video series on musical artists and their recorded output. The first volume on Leonard Cohen, ninety minutes of assessment of his career by Robert Christgau, Anthony DeCurtis, a bunch of British and Canadian critics and journalists, as well as some folks involved in various album projects. The actual footage and sound clips are limited due to budget and licensing, but nicely augment the discussion.
I remember a fellow back in college who observed how guys would get off in their corner and talk about music the somewhat the same way they do about sports. Under Review DVDs are kind of like that. For me, the results of screening a Under Review DVD is a hyperlinked visit to my record collection to revisit work and, in this case, to bookshelf to his work Ipod to his tunes I may not have considered as closely.
Under Review documents how Cohen's career as a songwriter began twelve years after being a published poet. The commentators discussed how his work was early work was tame by American standards, but somewhat groundbreaking in the tamer waters of Canadian poetry of that era. The 1967 album, Songs of Leonard Cohen with Suzanne and Sisters of Mercy is one of my favorite of records. It is intimate and consistent and has the ability to put one into a unique space. DeCurtis talks about how its "songs and approach come from within."
His next two albums, Songs From a Room and Songs of Love and Hate are also spare, created in Nashville with country music musicians. One of the takeaways from the DVD is the idea that these three create a kind of trilogy. The next album New Skin for the Old Ceremony has a broader sonic dimension, womens voices and strings, although still spare, but the focus was still, of course, on the words. Then there was the crazy 1977 excess of his collaboration with Phil Spector and the album that resulted, Death of A Ladies Man. Most of the critics and commentators in Under Review conclude that this is more of a Phil Spector album that featured Leonard Cohen. In I'm a Man, Cohen talks about how his children and the punks eventually discovered and embraced this record.
There is a second Under Review volume that covers the post Ladies Man era pretty much right up to the present. After I follow up with a visit or two to the first five Cohen albums, I will ask it to report to the top of the red window queue.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:07 PM
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Sunday, January 11, 2009
RiverCity Bluegrass #5 1.11.09
Pam and I have attended the Saturday performances of the past five RiverCity Bluegrass Festivals but never a Sunday until this year. It was truly exceptional day of music, well programmed and well balanced. The marquee was Dr. Ralph Stanley, but the road to sit at his feet and was full of pleasures: gospel, westerns, pure chop progressive, and the arrival of two new forces in bluegrass were all heard prior to the the good doctor and seven piece band of family and monster musicians.
Steep Canyon Rangers
This group from Chapel Hill North Carolina has a style a lot like their onstage garb. They are suits but no ties. There is solid musicianship and showmanship but with a kind of new country edge. They are not as tight as Del McCoury's boys but not nearly as loopy as the Yonder Mountain String Band. Yet I wager they could do just fine sharing the stage or the bill with either. If you are an acoustic music fan they are worth seeking out.
Riders In The Sky
I have not had the pleasure of spending an hour of the Riders on a Sunday afternoon since nearly twenty years ago when they were the musical guests at the Harvest Festivals that used to run annually at the Memorial Coliseum Expo Hall. Ranger Doug is still the idol of American youth. Woody Paul is still the king of the cowboy fiddlers. Accordionist Joey, the CowPolka King plays both ends against the middle. And yes, he's still Too Slim.
I remember a story somewhere I read that said Too Slim was among the crowd that started the Paul is Dead rumor. Somehow I can believe that might be true. Especially with the kind of anarchy of mirth he can stir.
Among the mayhem, we hit a trifecta on this their 5701 appearance in the past thirty one years. (I think those numbers are right) Among the jokes, pokes, and schticks and moments of cowboy code and majesty (Ranger Doug channeling Gene Autry with Back in the Saddle Again) we heard Tall Timber, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, and Cool Water. No one does the songs of The Sons of the Pioneers quite like Riders in the Sky.
Psychograss
Banjo legend Tony Trischka was bowing the legato notes of Jimi Hendrix's Third Stone From the Sun when this picture was taken. Really. When he and his Psychograss friends got to the space and play the tape backwards part, an older man with a baseball hat in front of us gave the most amazing non verbal to his wife. Pam also kind of made a face.
But mostly Psychograss was about pedigree picking. It is kind of like Dawg David Grisman or Thiele and the Watkins' of Nickel Creek. Trischka, Darol Anger's violin, Mike Marshall's mando, bassist Todd Phillips, and a guitar player that other guitarists truly gush about, David Grier create instrumental music that jams and sometimes is maybe a little too pretty, but it felt just right at the midpoint of this day of music.
I mentioned to Pam later that I think I must have seen one or the other or both Mike Marshall and Darol Anger maybe twenty times in the past nine years, ever since a friend of the friend brought the music and fun of the String Cheese Incident into our lives. I don't think I really sought them out. Darol would be playing with Yonder or Mike Marshall would be playing with Thile or they would crop up at a festival in their role as a duo.
Dailey & Vincent
Jamie Dailey, Darrin Vinent and their band reportedly had to change planes four times to make it to festival. They said they came ready to sing their hearts out and they did. I can see why they are racking up the IBMA awards. They have a very appealing mainstream traditional bluegrass act with a solid gospel base.
Gospel bluegrass can make me feel all sticky and thick when it goes on and on. Dailey & Vincent's set was definitely on that border, but they were so energetic, musical, and aiming to please. They came back for a reprise on a couple of tunes One of these when Dailey called for a little more because the bass line singer in a quartet arrangement had to use the banjo mike the first time through because the vocal wasn't coming through hot enough. I love unique concert moments like that.
Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
This image is significant because it shows three generations of Stanleys. Ralph Junior played and sang some fine pure country. And seventeen year old mandolin sensation Nathan gave his grandaddy a fine introduction filled with dates, awards and recognitions as well as later a great vocal foundation like those of his Great Uncle Carter before he died with which again his grandfather can sing those lovely high lonesome harmonies.
Ralph Stanley is a legend of legends. He commands a biblical presence. This is especially true when he is pleading with Death to give him another year. But also when he is truly old and in the way when he strikes the clawhammer on the banjo giving it an eerie loud and even rowdy kind of voice and energy. A favorite moment is when after being formally introduced by his grandson he tore into a ferocious version of Little Maggie. What a pleasure it was to be able to spend a little time with Dr. Stanley, one of the few remaining greats from the early genus of American bluegrass music.
George McKnight & The Finale
George McKnight, the emcee for this and many other festivals led a big jam at the end with the Carter Family's Will the Circle Be Unbroken with several verses sung by Dr. Ralph. It was a great way to end what was as close to a perfect day a single day of music I can recall.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:07 PM
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Saturday, January 10, 2009
A Gorge Legacy
If you live in SW Washington or NW Oregon, you have a special relationship with the Columbia River Gorge. Beacon Rock, Rooster Rock, Crown Point, Multnomah Falls and all of the lesser ones nearby, Cascade Locks, the turn off to Maupin, the Dalles, Stevenson and Bingen and more. You have had countless trips to take folks at least to the Falls on the Oregon side or trips to Beacon Rock with your family, with Boy Scouts and Church groups. Growing up, there were something like five occasions where I was shown a 16mm compiliation of black and white news footage showing the final fish net dips of Celilo Falls. That one bothered me a bit as a kid just as scenes in westerns of hanging or Klu Klux Klan cross burnings or images of liberating Nazi concentration camps did.
Wild Beauty is the name of a show at the Portland Art Museum that features hundreds of historical photography. The most recent was from 1957, the earliest ninety years earlier. From the moment I read D.K. Holm's review, I new this was a show I had to catch. I'm fairly certain that I would have seen it during the holiday, perhaps with my in-laws if the weather hadn't been so dramatic. Due to these and other circumstances, I ended up not being able to see it until the final weekend. I know what us Procastlanders are like. Lots and lots of us wait until the last minute.
But what saved the day was the elevators. My mother and I got off on the half floor that featured the second half of the exhibit. And it created another special user experience because that means we did it chronologically backwards. And this approach allowed us to avoid the horrendous bottleneck at the beginning of the exhibit proper, especially near where the audio tours were distributed.
We started with the dam and beginnings of the freeway era which meant some cool explosions and the beautiful scenics of Ray Atkeson, the best known brand name in Oregon scenic photography ever. And these included some truly amazing shots of Celilo Fishing in color, not the funky black and white with KGW reporters. Then we visited the amazing story of James Hill and the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. Before that was the trains, and prior to that the riverboats, and we went all the way back in time to to Edward Curtis' images merging documentation and romantic ethno-mythology. It was time travel at its finest.
And along the way, through the 250 or so images, there are at least a handful are truly phenomenal works of art. But there are many more that, if you have been around these parts will kick into gear old history lessons, family trips, and anecdotes. An image can bring up a whole scenario flashback for us folks, at one point I remembered a morning drive to The Dalles many years ago with the intent of trying to get a parking ticket reduced.
My hero artist of the exhibition was pioneering western photographer Carleton Watkins and the photography he did in the Gorge beginning in 1867. His images of railroads, railway workers and steamboats are important documents of showing man augment the pristine gorge. But it is his image of both the lower and upper Multnomah Falls that most gave me pause.
The exhibit was the last major work of Terry Toedtemeier who died a month ago. He was a true giant in the world of Portland photography community dating back to his originating the Blue Sky Gallery in the mid 1970s to his work as Portland Art Museum's photography curator. Fortunately, he and John Larson created a companion volume gorgeously produced by Oregon State University Press. Thanks to some very perceptive and gracious relations, I am looking at it now, thinking of the Gorge's legacy, including this show that gives the viewer an important overview of how photography interpreted and documented the forever changes when that settlement and industry came.
And how the Columbia River Gorge is such a nexus of forest, river, streams and rock from evergreen forests on the other side of Mt Hood to nearly sudden river and plateau stuff you would see in a western movie with a couple hours even when stopping to take pictures along the way.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:02 PM
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Friday, January 9, 2009
Gus Got Milk
For myself, a resident of the Portland metropolitan area, film releases by Gus Van Sant are a source of special interest. He is the son of White Stag, his father was an executive for that firm and many of his formative years were spent here before going to the Rhode Island School for Design an going to school with future Talking Heads, etc. And then he came back and many of his films have such a distinct Portland content and maybe even feel to them.
His latest, Milk is, of course, a film about San Francisco, which I have always kind of looked upon as being an elder, more experienced sister to PDX. But what helps makes this big budget biopic something special are the visual flourishes, particularly when applied to the transitions in the narrative, which are rooted with the kind of experimental sensibility and abandon one gets when they first play with a Super 8 or prosumer HD camera, the kind of approach that is so apparent in Gus' films with Portland settings like Drugstore Cowboy, My Private Idaho and Elephant. And in fact some of that work was coordinated by Portland's Bent Image studios, who specialize in animation and special effects work.
The bottom line is that this is a damned fine film. And I believe a clue to why it is so damned fine is in the final frame where Van Zant gives credit and tribute to another great film, the 1984 Academy Award winning documentary, The Lives of Harvey Milk, which can currently be viewed on hulu for free, not even a registration hassle. Milk stands on its own and it covers Harvey's personal life, territory not covered in the documentary, but it is apparent that the documentary is a source of inspiration and maybe even serves as a kind of template. For instance both films begin with Dianne Feinstein's announcement that Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated. I believe both films will sit side by side in libraries and personal bookshelves as standard references and resources for this man's life and the history of gay rights.
Sean Penn is exceptionally awesome. And this is by far Van Sant's most important work. I hope that Hollywood does the right thing and that this year's Oscars support what an outstanding and important accomplishment this film is. And that they please forget about Clint Eastwood for a while.
A good part of the Milk story is the story of the story of Proposition 6, the Briggs initiative of 1978 banning gays, lesbians and everyone who supports them from the California public schools. One of the elements that has given Milk a level of poignancy is that it was released in the wake the unfortunate, small minded debacle that was the passage of California's Proposition 8, exactly thirty years later. I rant, but I believe Sam Cook said it all, and Pam says it is going to be soon: "It has been a long time coming, but a change is going to come."
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:02 PM
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Widescreen Weirdness
When technology formats or capabilities change, the results may not always be positive. Do you recall the debacle when Ted Turner led the movement for colorizing classic black and white films? Did you ever have a situation where some friend bitch at you because you preferred a letterbox version as opposed to having the square image on your TV screen have black bars on the bottom and you tried to explain that key parts of the frame as it was composed by the director were missing?
Well the rectangle is now the current and accepted format. New LCD televisions and computer screens (laptop and otherwise) Its a a 16:9 world more or less and it has come on surprisingly fast, but like the capability of colorization and the early transition days of full screen to letterbox, sometimes weird things happen.
Strange decisions are made, like it was apparently with the DVD release of the early sixties series, Route 66. I had been having a ball working my way through the episodes from the first season, which I will explore in further postings. The first season consists of two four disc collections (Volume One and Two) When I started the second volume, I noticed something very bizarre, that I had read in a passing note in readers comments, either in Netflix or Amazon, I'm not sure. It seems the folks who digitized and released the series (something called Infinity/Roxbury entertainment) made a ridiculous decision to mask the top and bottom of the screen cutting off part of the original image.
Actually, the crop is not nearly as bad as this, but it felt that way as I tried to watch it.
In other words it seems that someone assumed that the viewers of these DVDs would probably not be watching it on screens of the new 16:9 format of laptop or LCD televisions instead of the 4:3 which is closer to the world of square rounded black and white televisions it was made for.
It was maddening to watch these episodes on my regular television and this wasn't the case with the first volume, I don't believes. So what did I do? After shaking my head about the situation for a while, I decided to go ahead and I'm watching this set of disks on my computer screen where it is much less annoying and am grasping on the hope that this was an error made only for this part of the series' release and someone got wise when it came time for the second season's release this past fall.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:38 PM
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Diesel's Dystopic Road Flick
Babylon AD comes off as a 21st century genetically re-engineered Blade Runner in many ways. But its pacing and intensity is more like Star Wars and video games. Babylon AD's director, French actor Mathieu Kassovitz is forty years old, an age to be likely influenced by both the foundational perspective worlds of future and entertainment that Ridley Scott and George Lucas created decades ago. Babylon is a dark dystopic world, but not one we linger or meditate on very long because this is a film that takes you on all kinds of rides and one where there are surprising, well executed menace along the protagonist's journey.
I like to watch Vin Diesel. He plays the lunkhead with NY origins well. One of my favorite DVD experiences of a year or so ago was his performance in Sidney Lumet's overlooked Find Me Guilty. His delivery of a line like "Ain't that a bitch." may someday become as iconic as "Make My Day" or whatever it was that Schwarzenegger used to say. There is something very endearing about Diesel and I hope he gets the roles and notoriety he deserves throughout his forties.
Diesel plays Toroop, a mercenary living in a blown out building in eastern Europe in a world where survival is pretty much the name of the game. Gérard Depardieu plays despotic Russian gangster who gives Toroop the opportunity to have a passport to return to the US, where he is listed as a terrorist. His job is to transport a virgin and a badass kung fu fighting nun played by Michelle Yeoh to the US. There trip involves old American cars, Russian submarines, and lots of ambushes. And at the end of the film there is lots of strange singularity genetic engineering stuff thrown in. Yes this is pretty much dumbass escapist fare, but it felt right for ninety minutes for the first week of Winter quarter. I see the film received a pretty bad rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but who cares. I was entertained and a tad more than marginally.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:42 PM
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Von Stauffenberg on film before Tom Cruise
An earlier film about Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and the attempts of other German officers has resurfanced and one would think on surface make Valkyrie look better. The Plot to Kill Hitler, is a 1990 TV movie produced by Mark (son of David) Wolper filmed in Zagreb, Yugoslavia.
Brad Davis of Midnight Express and Fassbinder's Querelle played von Stauffenberg. He was an actor with a presence who is maybe now most remembered of being in the closet with AIDS during most of the entire 1980s. There has been speculation that Davis acquired the disease from shooting needles and other reports that he was bisexual. Whatever. I remember what seemed an incredibly honest moment of him singing cutting an apple, I believe with a pocket knife, probably higher than a kite in a documentary on Fassbinder during the filming of Querelle with the translation title of The Wizard of Babylon Was he a better von Stauffenberg than Tom Cruise? Certainly he was not as distracting.
After seeing Valkyrie, The Plot to Kill Hitler is like seeing the same events in some kind of transformed dream reality. It even reminds me a little bit of Wes Andersen's Max Fischer players reenacting Serpico. It isn't a bad movie, but let's face it is a television movie, and that means I was able to do some prep work for school tomorrow while it played.
Plot was directed by Larry Schiller, one of the most notorious of media gadflies who has assembled large format photo books with the likes of Norman Mailer, won Emmys for a number of television movies including ones on Peter the Great and Gary Gilmore and more recently was the ghostwriter for the OJ Simpson book project I Want to Tell You that was pulled in the midst of controversy.
Despite the cinematography of Freddie Francis and performances by Davis and Ian Richardson, it is a kind of flat sledgehammer affair. The extras are posed as if in photojournalism of wartime Berlin and it creates a kind of pretentious environment. But, hey this was a TV movie.
The actions and plotting of this bear much resemblance to Valkyrie but Plot features more of Von Stauffenberg's wife Nina and his family. And there is also more stress on the fact that he was a Count, and this difference in class separated him from many of his Nazi colleagues. Ultimately, I couldn't resist when I saw this oddity in the new releases, but now after it and Valkyrie, I don't ever have to see another film about the Wolf's Lair assassination attempt for the rest of my life.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:00 PM
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Monday, January 5, 2009
Cooliris is Indeed Cool
The Education section in this past Sunday's New York Times featured a story about a new computer interface breakthrough developed and created by some Stanford students. Cooliris is a plug in for a web browser that creates a 3D wall of images for the site you are viewing.
There is an immediate geewhiz kind of response when you first play with it because of the dramatic angle of the 3D wall, but I have played with it a little bit now and also received some good feedback from my class found a couple of things that I find especially impressive about it.
I demonstrated it form my interface class with the results of a Google image search with the phrase "Dick Cheney." The results were a little frightening. There were official photos but here was also Dick Cheney clad in a leatherbar outfit, in jail stripes, and in all kinds of permutations as the one who shot the old guy in the face when they were hunting quailtards. Looking at the Cooliris Piclens wall was like getting caught in a void with an infinite number of Dick Cheneys. Would you want to move into this neighborhood?
But a Cooliris display of the results of a Google image search of something more pleasant, like the Columbia River Gorge is pretty impressive. But it also allows you to more quickly analyze and cull the results. It gives you a quicker and more precise idea of how the false hits came up with your image search in what would otherwise take several pages of clicking next page.
Yet another observation by one of my students expressed another factor of how the Cooliris display is impressive and different. With our computer display and outputs we are most accustomed to a up down vertical world. Cooliris and its Piclens technology is a horizontal display and it feels good to move the right or left to reveal these images. The Crunchies Awards database on Cooliris describes this experience as being more cinematic, and perhaps it is. Somehow it feels liberating and my instincts tell me that the display and retrieval features of this plug in will continue to improve. The NY Times article stated there have been 40,000 downloads a day of the product. And I wonder how many more after the story ran.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:13 PM
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Sunday, January 4, 2009
Epicus Gigantus
The Fall Of The Roman Empire was one of the last films directed by Anthony Mann, whose films I have been working through, which is why I was motivated to see it recently. But I think the seeds of interest in it began years ago when I found this massive two record set of the soundtrack of a film I had never seen with quite a formidable cast: Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quayle, and Omar Sharif.
Although Mann is the director, Fall it turns out will probably always be more associated with its colorful producer, Samuel Bronston. Bronston happened Leo Trotsky's cousin. He built a studio in Spain and used it for the handful of big epic films he produced, such as El Cid. Fall of the Roman Empire was intended to be a kind of follow up to El Cid, and although Charlton Heston could not be persuaded to star again with Loren, Mann, the screenwriters and set/costume designers returned for what turned out to be a 20 million (in 1962-3 dollars) production that recreated ancient Rome.
And epic it was. The entire Roman core was constructed in a Spanish field. Thousands of extras were used in the Roman city scenes and in the battlefields. Fifteen hundred horses were used during this production. It actually kind of makes Ben Hur look small. The scenes with thousands of extras which is especially striking when you realize that the crowd consists of Spanish locals, no pixels to be had anywhere!
Speaking of Ben Hur, Fall of the Roman Empire features a chariot sequence which tops the one in the better known epic. It takes place in the German woods and has to be one of Yakima Cannutt's finest achievements as an action section unit director. I watched it at least three times with my chin involuntarily dropping to my chest in disbelief.
Christopher Plummer is outstanding in the film as the crazed emperor Commodus. He kind of comes of as a forerunner of Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons, and he does so with demented delight. Stephen Boyd is wooden. He reminds me of a fifties/sixties Kevin Costner, but as one of the commentators in the DVD extra pointed out, he looks great in his costume. Sophia Loren plays Boyd's love interest with the right notes of torment. But the real acting comes from Alec Guiness as Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher Caesar of whom Commodus is the antithesis. But such are the ways of man and time. As the narrator says at the conclusion of the film: "This was the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire. A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
I have never seen or been motivated to see Ridley Scott's Gladiator from eight or so years ago. My understanding is that many of the characters and historical ground from that film overlaps with The Fall of Roman Empire. I'll probably take a look at it now, and it will be interesting to see if it has anywhere near the pleasures of Fall. But, admittedly, those pleasures are in part linked to the discovery of a whole world of epic celluloid I had not indulged.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:33 AM
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Saturday, January 3, 2009
Oregon ZooLights
I never thought I would be at an exhibition of lights, especially after both Christmas and New Years. But Zoolights, at least tonight until it began to drop to windshield deicing temperatures is actually has this kind of seasonal community vibe that reminds me of when we went to Germany at Christmas. No gluhwein at the zoo, however.
The clouds seem to be working with the witch here. This is a part of a bigger Wizard of Oz display. Maybe special siginificance when one realizes the initials for the zoo is OZ unless you were to do it the evergreen state college style and then you would have TOZ.
No this is not Samudra. He is in doors with his mom. Samudra is the elephant born at the zoo on August 23 whose local popularity must have had an impact on the passage of a $125 million zoo bond measure in the economic turbulence of this past autumn.
The only thing that Zoolights is missing from becoming the ultimate winterworld is an ice rink, but I say only if they give the polar bears their own free skate.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:43 AM
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Friday, January 2, 2009
Charlie Louvin: American Treasure
Charlie Louvin recently released his fourth album since turning 80 about a year and a half ago. There is an okay live album, a couple gospel albums and Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs. Guess which one caught my interest?
I love the line in his current Wikipedia entry that talks about how he and brother Ira decided to diversify from singing gospel exclusively when a sponsor that "you can't sell tobacco with gospel music" Gospel always remained a part of his music. Most weirdly perhaps in "The Great Atomic Power" For the Louvins, the other side of the gospel coin became some really sad vale of tears songs and tales of life's complications as far as fidelity and so forth are concerned. "See the Big Man Cry" where a divorced dad stalks his son who doesn't have a puppy kind of gets to me everytime.
Charlie Louvin is an American treasure, In Fall 2003, I saw a short set he did with the Hackensaw Boys as the opening act on Cake tour that also featured The Detroit Cobras and Cheap Trick. The sensation of hearing Louvin at his best is reminiscent of hearing a really good jazz horn player. He may not be the purdiest soundin' voice you ever heard, but he sure knows how to find a way for sound to become an expressway to the heart.
As in the case of his 2007 memorial tribute to his brother Ira with whom he created some of country music's greatest harmonies. I can almost guarantee that your eyes will get moist as he mourns his brother now gone for 42 years like it was yesterday. This is a lovely little video done with a lot of love and care. And it even features a dancing hippie girl at the 1:15 mark. Ira also features this wonderful set of lines:
Alabama to the Opry was the second hardest road,
The worst was me losing you and singing all alone.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:47 PM
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Thursday, January 1, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire: Why We Go To The Movies
The experience of Slumdog Millionaire was a reassurance and a reconfirmation that movies can still be expressive and fulfilling. It has been a long time since I have seen a film with a character as compelling and unforgettable as Jamal, lower than the lowest cast, a Muslim in a Hindi world. The brilliant construction of Jamal's appearance on the Indian TV version of Who wants to be a Millionaire acts as the platform to tell the story of his life and circumstances in flashback.
This film also has alerted me to Danny Boyle and his level of directorial talent. Sure, I saw and enjoyed Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, but after Slumdog I am inspired to want to check out the other half dozen features he made. In Slumdog, Boyle brings the viewer into the impoverished existence of his protagonists maybe as well as De Sica put one into the postwar experience of Italy, or Fernando Meirelles brought took the viewer into the slums of Rio, or Scorcese or Wong Kar Wai could put you into their mean streets of New York or Hong Kong, respectively.
The script's architecture is a marvel. It kept us guessing and connected us as empathetic with film's protagonist until it ended. To discuss it much here would be to risk spoilers. This is one to try to see without peaking at reviews. It is certainly the best film I have experienced since Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite.)
It may seem a small breakthrough, but I do want to make mention of Boyle's use of having translation titles near each of the characters and not as traditional undertitles. Maybe this has been done before, but it is the first I recall it. The possibilities are intriguing here. Text could find a greater way of being integrated into the compositions themselves when speakers are not using English. I am sometimes shocked in how vehement American viewers are in regards to subtitles. Maybe this approach, making the words more relational to the speaker might loosen this antipathy to the titling convention.