Category Archives: film

film

There’s a hole in the world like a big black pit

Saw SWEENEY TODD last night with some of the actors from LYDIA. It was decadent and lovely, and it made me want to slit someone’s throat. I do like how Tim Burton makes the camera move like a rollercoaster, or a video game.

My favorite performance was Anthony’s, (Jamie Campbell Bower) which surprised me, cause I’ve seen a lot of insipid Anthonys – but this one was nicely blood-spattered and tormented. Joanna drove him mad.

For what’s the sound of the world out there?
(What, Mr. Todd? What, Mr. Todd? What is that sound?)
Those crunching noises pervading the air!
(Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, all around!)
It’s man devouring man, my dear!
And who are we to deny it in here?

Here’s a video of Angela and George tearing up that number, “A Little Priest.”

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directing, film

The Ladies’ Choice

“Hey little girl looking for a sale,
Test drive this American male…”

I was watching HAIRSPRAY again to get inspiration for the Convergence chorus project. I want the final mash-up of the Wasps and Persians choruses to be a full-out musical chorus number, at least before it all goes terribly wrong.

“Hey little girl on a spending spree,
I don’t come cheap but the kisses come free…”

Wikipedia on director Adam Shankman: “Prior to directing Hairspray, Shankman was known in Hollywood primarily as a fixer of lowbrow films—a director who could take charge of lackluster productions that were expected to flop and turn them into box-office hits. “I’ve done so many things I’m not super-proud of,” he admitted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

I think it is something to be proud of – one of the marks of a great director is being able to make good theater, or film, out of almost any script imaginable. But I’m glad he finally got material this good.

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directing, film

The Golden Compass movie

is greatly condensed from the book: but it has one great shot of the hull of a boat going through water, from the point of view of the hull, with the water slapping at it.

I would like to be able to do that theatrically. To shift point of view to the eyes of an object, especially a moving object. It must be possible. Not just through language – to speak in the object’s voice – but also through some kind of movement arrangement.

I have been wanting to make a short film with chairs as the only characters for quite some time now – anthropomorphized stop-motion chairs. I think chairs are such social creatures. And they really like each other. It would be a love story gone wrong.

Lately, and more lazily, I was thinking it wouldn’t be stop motion at all, but would be more Muppetesque – humans manipulating the chairs like puppets. (My daemon is a folding chair.)

But this makes me think about a different film, from the point of view of the chairs. Now that would be a very sad movie.

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animation, film, Golda, humor rhymes with tumor, israel, Judaism, travel

South Texas and South Israel Park

Sari and I drove out to Poteet today, south of San Antonio, so we could see the area she covers for the paper. It’s very spread out, sunny, open and hot. We wore tank tops and shorts. The land is a beautiful place, with big overhanging trees and wide streets. I can see why people love Texas so much. It has a grandeur to it, even in a small town, and the sky really does seem large. It’s open.

But there’s a lot of poverty. The paint on the buildings is old, and the homes look patched together. We went by a mobile home with “Keep Away” spray-painted in red on one of the windows. We also went by rows of glistening, brand-new tractors, next to houses with crumbling wood. The juxtaposition between Poteet and the prosperity in San Antonio – and even more so in Austin – is extreme.

It was a drive that makes you think, a drive of extreme class contrasts, extreme poverty. Naturally, I got into talking about Golda and TJT and Jewish politics. I gave Sari my 10-minute history of Zionism and the state of Israel. We talked about politics in Palestine on the drive both there and back. We talked about institutionalized racism versus gun-in-your-face, bomb-on-the-bus racism. Texas. Mexico. Israel. The US. Palestine. Europe.

She’s helped me to remember some of the animation I used to do (Sari did the voice for this little film called “Misfortunes Of An Arrogant Child” that was at the Stanford film festival, when I was a junior) and we talked about the possibilities of making short films, short animated Internet segments a la Muffinfilms, which would have Jewish content – which would create something of an Internet comedy/theatrical voice for intelligent criticism of the Israel/Palestine conflict. (Now that’s a tall order.) Something like the South Park of the Jews. Something like a more meaningful Quarterlife. American Jews, or short animated kids, trying to make sense of it all.

It wouldn’t even have to be criticism. It could just be comedy-reportage. I’m really into this idea, but it feels like way too much responsibility – making sharp comedy about this issue is so hard, and so charged, and I’d probably end up with a real bomb on my hands, to use an inappropriate metaphor. Anyway, I don’t need another project.

Maybe I can start by making short animated films about something else with Jewish subject matter. Like I really need another project, right? Especially one that’s going to make everybody angry? But this is what I would want to watch. I guess that means it’s what I have to make.

Then we went to the zoo, came back and made chili. We’re going to see her roommate Monica play at an open mic tonight.

We also discussed, yesterday, what in modern entertainment today is the real child of Beckett.

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a propos of nothing, film

Master Lock :(

I bought a new backpack on the way home from Menlo Park today, for better bike commuting, and when I went to unlock my bike at the rack it wouldn’t unlock. (It’s not my lock..my bike..It’s Brian’s…Vickie C’s…I have no possessions…) Vickie C thinks I reset the lock by spinning the wheels when the latch was open.

So I hung out at the Starbucks and wrote my SSDC observership essay and I compared my artistic development to an overgrown teenager.

Then I watched SAVING FACE with Shiyan and Belinda.

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books, film, Uncategorized

In the realm of amazing:

1) BECOMING JANE. So good. I will never say anything bad about Anne Hathaway again. I may say bad things about her previous career choices, her previous directors, her previous makeup artists, but either the woman has the soul of an actress in her or they replaced her with a body-snatcher who does. She kicks ass. It’s an amazing movie. I knew it wasn’t going to be happy for her, knowing her biography already, but the damn thing convinced me into hoping past hope, ot once, but twice. Going to have to see it again, and cry some more.

I walked out of it and told Meredith that we women, that is, we twenty-five-year-old folks, have a responsibility to enjoy ourselves in proportion to the degree in which women of the past were unable to. In other words, have another drink for the Victorians, girls.

2) THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. Mother of God. Finished it, and…
yeah. I have nothing to say except that it manages to be a completely inspiring fusion of formal innovation and devastating content. If I was still in school I’d tear it to shreds just to watch how pretty it was on the dissecting table. The man is bristling with talent. And it is so young, and so self-assured, and so good despite its occasional awkwardnesses. Here’s another quote:

“Afterward, he feels as if his education is completed. He has known for a long time that there is no man you can trust, but women have not concerned him. Now he is positive that women too are as unreliable as the altering sands of mutual advantage.”

That’s right, sucker! In all seriousness, I think this is the new book that I’m going to be pawning off on everyone. Did I already use the “Mailer? I hardly even…” joke? It bears repeating.

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a propos of nothing, employment, F&F, film, interviews

Sffffffff

Back in Menlo from a whirlwind, exhausting SF trip: saw Ellen, Gabe, Morgan, Mary, Nelle & Mia, and Mere all up here. PHEW. Plus interviewed with Octavio Solis and Aaron Davidman: two of the best I’ve had so far. And James Still on the phone. Such great stories. It must mean something, perhaps about my self-satisfaction, that the more theater people I meet the more I love theater. But there are amazing folks in this business, in this basket-weaving, early-music-making, hybrid of the extreme past and the unrealized future. Nothing “present” about it. Dreamers.

The last time I was on Florida Street, where I met Aaron at the TJT offices, was years ago when I took the CASSANDRA SPEAKS crew up to a show there, and thought it would be a good idea to get off at the 22nd Street caltrain station and WALK from there to Florida Street. We arrived, halfway through the second act of a dance performance at Theater Artaud, absolutely exhausted, having trudged lost through the streets of SF for nearly two hours. I thought this would be a good “bonding experience” for the cast. This is, without question, the worst thing I have ever done to a group of actors.

So I must have grown some since then – at least now I’d know to get off at 4th & King…Perhaps if the Millbrae BART connection had been up then, I wouldn’t have so completely traumatized all of us. Blame your bad directing on the public transporation system. What would Darin Nichols do?

And it seems like there’s always more of SF to find. Ellen and I got totally windblown in this park at 19th and Yukon. Mary and I walked all around Union Square looking for something that wasn’t a glorified sandwich. North Point and the Marina with Gabe. (Again, more wind.) Mere and I went to the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero. Lots of good solid tourist stuff. And I explored Oakland with Morgan a bit – saw her house, and Mike’s enormous fish triptych. But my heart still belongs to 16th & Valencia. To the Mission district. Morgan and I hit Club Baobab and I watched people who know how to salsa.

I’ve been driving Shiyan’s hybrid Toyota Camry for a day now. Delightful. Pushes a button to turn on. She had to drive from Syracuse to NYC after trouble with a Chicago connection dropping her brother off at Cornell…and then a big-rig overturned on the freeway south from Syracuse, and she had to sit in traffic for hours on end.

Mere has been helping me set up my bookcase encampment too. And we watched the end of Sabrina 2 and most of Avenue Montaigne. Is it just me, or do French directors find naivete more attractive than anyone else does? Americans like our ingenues jaded.

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books, film, interviews

Santa Cruz Ave

Yesterday I interviewed Michael Dixon, Juliette Carrillo, Peter Van Norden & Claire Peeps, with a piano tuner working on Shiyan’s piano in the living room all the while, and got answers back from Anne Bogart. I also talked to Jenelle a bit about a possible pitch of these interviews to BSW.

Today: James Bundy & Joann Breuer.

Yesterday Mere drove me down to Santa Cruz Ave and I bought photo boxes to organize my many, many photographs. It feels good to get them out of those dusty albums – and also to be able to say, I know exactly where the pictures are for Vast Wreck, for Lysistrata, for MOH&H, etc. I’m finally on the point of putting together a portfolio. Imagine that.

Then I went to Kepler’s and Borrone’s. I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s NEVER LET ME GO. It’s fantastic. Sad and moving. I started reading it right over again the moment I’d finished.

Then Mere and I watched the old SABRINA and about half of the new SABRINA before getting bored with the remake.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you could only really call this a “vacation” if you were “insane” or a “workaholic” like “me.”

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books, film

Beware Of Fainting Fits (And American Girl Dolls)

I finally saw Canadian director Patricia Rozema’s MANSFIELD PARK last week. I enjoyed it – she’s a really good director – but Fanny was too pretty for my taste, looking directly at the camera doesn’t work for me – and as much as I’m usually a fan of interpolating other lost or lesser-known material from an author’s work into adaptations for performance, in this case, I thought it made Fanny far too confident too early to have her quoting Austen’s “History Of England.” It did elaborate her relationship with Susie, though.

Fanny, at least the Fanny of the novel, never struck me as being independent-minded enough to do anything like write satiric history. But this was one fly in an otherwise great ointment. I admire Rozema for adapting Austen so well – and I’m sure if I live long enough, I’ll eventually create a less than faithful adaptation of an adored novel which will drive people wild but satisfy me.

Austen.com has a fantastic list of all the times in the book that Fanny is actually crying – fourteen times.

Has Patricia really not made a full-length film since 2000? She’s way too good for that! And is her next project, as IMDB claims, honest-to-god-really “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery??” Although with Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine playing Kit, I just might have to go see it.

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film

A brain like yours, Rotwang, should be able to forget

Saw Fritz Lang’s brilliant film METROPOLIS at SOU on Saturday night, in a heated auditorium with a crowd of film geeks. It felt like we were being consumed by Molog.

Much of the film is lost from an early and brutal re-edit, but this 2001 restoration preserves as much of the original as exists – and includes intertitling to account for the missing portions of the plot. It’s also bundled with a recording of the original score.

It was curated by a professor who showed clips from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, BLADE RUNNER, and a film that has thankfully been lost to the ages named INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, all with obvious borrowings from and tributes to the original.

THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN
HEAD AND HANDS
MUST BE THE HEART!

The actress who played both the saintly Maria and her evil Machine-Man self, Brigitte Helm, made me really believe in the possible returned success of theatrical, physical acting on film. She had a snakelike, Chaplinesque bendiness and sense of contortion. It was so stylized, and so far from realistic. Lovely.

The lighting was so gorgeous, too – everything would be dark except one spot of light, and the image would become its photo-negative, all light except one spot of dark.

I understood, after watching this on a large screen, what would possess someone to re-create a film shot by shot.

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