Artistic Consumption Log, Nov. 5, 2012 - Nov. 11, 2012: "Consuming Art in Amsterdam" Edition

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Just because I was on vacation in Amsterdam doesn't mean I slowed down my artistic consumption. Heck, if anything, Amsterdam itself could be seen as one giant art museum, with all manner of classic architecture on display!

I'm back in the United States, by the way, as you all could surely tell from the dateline of this blog post. Maybe, sometime this week, I'll get around to doing what I never actually got around to doing on this blog during my trip and posting some impressions, photos and such. Maybe.

Films

Skyfall

Skyfall (2012, Sam Mendes), seen at Pathé De Munt in Amsterdam

A part of me wants to applaud the attempt on the part of director Sam Mendes and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan to imbue the iconic British superspy with something approaching genuine emotional depth. But I already think this was successfully accomplished in the series—in Casino Royale, current Bond Daniel Craig's first outing as 007. Part of the stunning impact of Martin Campbell's 2006 entry wasn't just the novelty of seeing a freshly reimagined James Bond, but in witnessing, for all its thrilling action fireworks, a genuinely affecting drama about the death of a hero's soul. Has this brooding, angst-ridden Bond already worn out its welcome? The half-baked previous installment, Quantum of Solace, certainly didn't help matters, though I still kinda/sorta like that entry more than most critics did. Parental issues, literal and figurative, get a work-out in Skyfall, but it's like trying to impose humanity onto a total void; after a while, the banality of its brand of psychoanalysis becomes crushing. That's why I had trouble taking its third act all that seriously as emotional drama, especially when it eventually hinges on a silly Straw Dogs-like scenario of Bond being forced to protect his turf from his nemesis Silva's (Javier Bardem) cronies.

So overall, I can't really work up nearly the same level of enthusiasm that many of my colleagues have expressed regarding this latest Bond film; maybe, the truth is, beyond Casino Royale, I just don't have much of an investment in this character. But the action scenes are generally well-executed, and sure, Roger Deakins's cinematography is worth the singling out it's been getting among critics (although "best-looking Bond movie ever"? People who are making such an extravagant claim ought to give Claude Renoir's work in The Spy Who Loved Me another look; the Cairo sequence in Lewis Gilbert's 1977 Bond film is about as visually seductive as the high-point Shanghai sequence here). Skyfall shows the Bond series as technically adept as ever; it's when it tries to be something more than it falls fatally short. I never thought I'd say this after Casino Royale and even Quantum of Solace, but I'm looking forward to the next Bond film being just another gimmicky action extravaganza, without the increasingly risible attempts at angst-ridden emotional baggage.

Music

Technique (1989, New Order)
This album finds the British synthpop band more inviting than ever before. It's all rather pleasant to listen to, in fact, and the beats are as infectious as ever. I can't say I find much memorable about it beyond that—except that sure, I've finally gotten used to Bernard Albrecht's tuneless singing.

"Royal Concertgebouw and Lorin Maazel Take the Treasure Fleet," performed live by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel at Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam 
Let's quickly dispense with the performance itself: a reasonably diverting concert piece entitled "Piet Hein Rhapsody" by a Dutch composer named Peter Van Anrooy (you can listen to it here); a vivid rendition of a suite from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet score; and a workmanlike performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was in pretty good form throughout; if only they had had a more inspiring maestro than the chilly Lorin Maazel at the helm.

But wow, the venue! At the very least, the Concertgebouw easily beats Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in sheer visual grandeur. I mean, look at this...

...and this!

It's enough to make me forget how bland the actual concert was.

Theater

My Big Fat American Election (2012, Pep Rosenfeld/Greg Shapiro/Michael Orton-Toliver/Andrew Moskos), performed by members of Boom Chicago at the Chicago Social Club in Amsterdam

Because I was in Amsterdam during Election Day here in the U.S., I decided, on a tip from my Dutch host, to go check out this Amsterdam-based, English-language comedy troupe on Tuesday, Nov. 6, to get my Election-Day fix. I had a good time overall—and while these members of Boom Chicago certainly admit their leftist leanings from the start, some of their best jokes take aim at both candidates as well as at the blatant manipulation that goes into these kinds of political contests in general. That kind of bipartisanship maybe made up about 40% of their shtick, though; much of the rest is mere choir-preaching—but sometimes the choir-preaching was pretty funny as well. I'd recommend checking Boom Chicago out for those of you who venture to Amsterdam in the future; their comedy improvisations are especially worth witnessing.

Art

You can see a bit of Andy Warhol's The Last Supper in the distance of this detail of De Nieuwe Kerk

★ "The Last Supper by Andy Warhol," seen at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam
Amidst the stained-glass windows and lavish architectural marvels of De Nieuwe Kerk, there stood this wholly pink Andy Warhol's canvas from 1986, twice reproducing Leonardo da Vinci's famous late-15th-century depiction of Jesus Christ's final meal with his 12 disciples before his betrayal, turning it all pink and black, and, in Warhol's own inimitable way, daring us to access the spirituality of the original work in a more "commercialized" form. Plus, the dissonance of seeing this very modern work of art in the context of a 15th-century church added an extra frisson to the experience that you might not necessarily get anywhere else (except, I guess, in other churches).

The Potato Eaters (1885), Vincent Van Gogh

★ "Vincent. The Van Gogh Museum in the Hermitage Amsterdam," seen at Hermitage Amsterdam in Amsterdam
Many of my friends had suggested that I should go check out the Van Gogh Museum while I was in Amsterdam. Alas, the museum itself was closed for renovations last week, and will remain so until next year. Until then, though, part of the Van Gogh Museum collection was up at the Hermitage Amsterdam—so I checked that out instead. The main thing I took away from the exhibit was a refreshed awareness of Van Gogh's seemingly endless curiosity, his willingness to constantly tinker and refine his style and try new subjects and approaches. I had no idea, for instance, that, for a certain spell, he was obsessed with Japanese art, to the point of "copying" some Japanese canvases and filtering it through a style that feels distinctly Van Gogh-ian. I guess I'll just have to make another trip to Amsterdam in the future in order to see the full Van Gogh Museum collection. For now, though, I was mostly pretty satisfied with the selection on offer at the Hermitage Amsterdam. 

Studies of Candelight (Resulting from Hurricane Sandy)

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—So it turns out that it might not have been such a bright idea to escape to New Jersey during the terrorizing reign of Hurricane Sandy—especially on Monday afternoon, when the strong winds helped knock out our power, which has still yet to be restored.

To look on the bright side, however...well, the lack of electricity meant that we were forced to bring out the candles—and thanks to both iPhone and the Instagram app, on each of the nights I stayed in East Brunswick, N.J., without power, I was able to take a series of photographs of candles and candlelight. Consider this my way of accessing my inner John Alcott (he being the cinematographer who did wonders with candlelight in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon):

For now, I'll let those images stand as my way of commemorating this hard-hitting and in some cases tragic event. Thankfully, I at last had hot water and food to subsist on during the past few days without power; I hear a lot of my friends in lower Manhattan weren't so lucky.

As for ways we all can help the victims of Hurricane Sandy...well, my Wall Street Journal colleague Jonnelle Marte has a few tips for us:


Plus, here's a handy American Red Cross link.

Video for the Day: The Sun Setting on Ocean Beach in San Francisco

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—As a result of a couple of leftover writing obligations (one of which I highlighted on this blog yesterday, another which I admittedly have not started yet), I haven't gotten around to sifting through the many photos and videos I took while vacationing in San Francisco last week. So I'm not sure when I'll post something further about the trip here at My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second.

To tide you all over until that happens, though...I posted this video:



Here are two shots I took while a few friends and I were walking along the Ocean Beach shore on Sunday, Oct. 30, as the sun set in the distance.

I don't know if it comes across at all, but I did have in mind Abbas Kiarostami's Five Dedicated to Ozu when I took these shots on my iPhone—particularly its opening shot following a piece of driftwood floating along the shore. To wit:

Screengrab courtesy of DVDBeaver

There are no drifting objects in my shot, though—just waves crashing and water falling back, creating patterns of their own. And, in my recollection (which should be relatively fresh, because I just saw this film recently for the first time—and wrote about it here, by the way), none of Kiarostami's five long takes take place as the sun sets.

So, uh, take that, Abbas Kiarostami! (Your film is still gorgeous, though.)

Video for the Day: Razor the (Super Hyper) Dog

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—There's one more thing I want to post here on my blog before my Bay Area vacation begins for real.

It's this:



Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook already know a little bit about Razor, the Siberian husky that resides in the Brooklyn apartment in which I and three others live. For the rest of you, though...well, here he is, in a particularly excitable mood one evening last week after I came home from work. (I don't consider Razor my dog, by the way; one of my roommates bought him last year and generally takes care of him. But, after some initial resistance, I've come to embrace the big ol' bugger...especially when he acts like that.)

Oh, and Razor was recently featured on Gothamist! See here!

All right, back to packing for San Francisco now.

A Round-up of Tribeca Film Festival Links

CHAMPAIGN, ILL.—Sorry for the lack of posting in the past couple weeks or so on this blog. This time, though, I have two good excuses, I think: Tribeca Film Festival and Ebertfest!

For Tribeca, I contributed to Slant Magazine a few reviews of films playing at this year's edition of the Robert De Niro-founded festival. And when I say Slant Magazine this time around, I mean the actual Slant Magazine, not its side blog The House Next Door. So now I have reviews for that site with star ratings and everything! Despite its reputation as a wildly uneven and inconsistent festival in regards to quality of films shown, the bulk of the handful of films I saw at Tribeca this year were actually pretty good, or at least reasonably interesting. I'm happy that one of the films I reviewed, Rwandan director Kivu Ruhorahoza's uneven but intriguing Grey Matter, picked up a couple of awards at the festival, one for lead actress Shami Bizimana and another for Ruhorahoza himself.

Here is a list of all the Tribeca films I reviewed for Slant:
Black Butterflies
Cairo Exit
Grey Matter
Janie Jones
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
The Journals of Musan

And here is a link for Slant Magazine's full Tribeca Film Festival coverage.

I wasn't able to cover more of Tribeca, however...because, at about the halfway mark, I found myself here in Champaign, Ill., for the 13th year of Roger Ebert's Film Festival, or what is more commonly known as Ebertfest!

Thirteen films hand-picked by the legendary film critic himself, screened in the span of four days at the historic Virginia Theatre in this small Illinois town (his hometown, apparently), plus a couple of panels and one epic night of karaoke—all of this contributed to taking away precious time to blog about the experience. So obviously, I'll have much more to say about Ebertfest in one or two future posts (short version: it was a lot of fun, if oddly more exhausting, in less days, than South by Southwest).

Until then, though...chew on this:

A Literary Interlude in Honor of Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

...Over the years, critics and others have remarked that I'm interested in the judicial system. Of course I am. Some have said my theater roots show because of the number of plays I've done as movies. Of course they do. There have been a bunch of movies involving parents and children. There have been comedies, some done badly, some better, as well as melodramas and a musical. I've also been accused of being all over the place, of lacking an overwhelming theme that applies to all my work. I don't know if that's true or not. The reason I don't know is that when I open to the first page of a script, I'm a willing captive. I have no preconceived notion that I want the body of my work to be about one particular idea. No script has to fit into an overall theme of my life. I don't have one. Sometimes I'll look back on the work over some years and say to myself, "Oh, that's what I was interested in then."

Whatever I am, whatever the work will amount to, has to come out of my subconscious. I can't approach it cerebrally. Obviously, this is right and correct for me. Each person must approach the problem in whatever way works best for him.

I don't know how to choose work that illuminates what my life is about. I don't know what my life is about and don't examine it. My life will define itself as I live it. The movies will define themselves as I make them. As long as the theme is something I care about at that moment, it's enough for me to start work. Maybe work itself is what my life is about.

And don't get me wrong: The body of work Lumet, the legendary Hollywood director who died at the ripe old age of 86 on Saturday, amassed over the course of his long and fruitful career is certainly a considerable one, in many ways. Me, though, I treasure Lumet not so much for his films (though, of the handful I've seen, I'm wholeheartedly on board with the consensus anointing 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon masterpieces; Network not so much), but for his great book Making Movies, from which the above quote is taken, from its first chapter, titled "The Director: The Best Job in the World."

In Making Movies, the veteran filmmaker not only goes into the nooks and crannies of the filmmaking process in a warm, wise and accessible fashion, but also articulates his own philosophies on filmmaking in ways that usefully illuminate his own art. In the book's third chapter, Lumet offers these valuable and somewhat provocative thoughts on "style" in a film:

Making a movie has always been about telling a story. Some movies tell a story and leave you with a feeling. Some tell a story and leave you with a feeling and give you an idea. Some tell a story, leave you with a feeling, give you an idea, and reveal something about yourself and others. And surely the way you tell that story should relate somehow to what that story is.

Because that's what style is: the way you tell a particular story. After the first critical decision ("What's this story about?") comes the second most important decision: "Now that I know what it's about, how shall I tell it?" And this decision will affect every department involved in the movie that is about to be made.

...Critics talk about style as something apart from the movie because they need the style to be obvious. The reason they need it to be obvious is that they don't really see. If the movie looks like a Ford or Coca-Cola commercial, they think that's style. And it is. It's trying to sell you something you don't need and is stylistically geared to that goal....From the huzzahs that greeted [Claude] Lelouch's A Man and a Woman, one would've thought that another Jean Renoir had arrived. A perfectly pleasant bit of romantic fluff was proclaimed "art," because it was so easy to identify as something other than realism. it's not so hard to see the style in Murder on the Orient Express. But almost no critic spotted the stylization in Prince of the City. It's one of the most stylized movies I've ever made. Kurosawa spotted it, though. In one of the most thrilling moments in my professional life, he talked to me about the "beauty" of the camera work as well as of the picture. But he meant beauty in the sense of its organic connection to the material. And this is the connection that, for me, separates true stylists from decorators. The decorators are easy to recognize. That's why critics love them so.

As the quote above suggests, Lumet as a director was all about serving the script as much as possible, adapting one's style to fit the material. Often, he aimed for as invisible a style as possible, as he was always more interested in allowing storytelling and acting, rather than show-offy directorial fireworks, to make the biggest impression. There's a reason why his films are often acclaimed for the high-quality acting and expert storytelling more than for any consistent signatures on Lumet's part. That is not to say he was lacking in vision—though what that vision is, Lumet, as the passage from Making Movies that opened this post suggests, seemed happy to leave to critics to elucidate.

Whether such conscientious craftsmanship is enough for a filmmaker to be considered a great artist is open for debate, and I won't pretend that I value Lumet's work quite the same way I do other filmmakers—I'm thinking of directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, and many others—who managed to carve out arguably more memorable visions within the classical-Hollywood-cinema tradition. Nevertheless, especially these days, with many mainstream Hollywood releases openly flaunting visual incoherence and pandering to the lowest common denominator, Lumet's humble classicism and respect for an audience's intelligence is worth treasuring, especially now that he's gone.

So rest in peace, Mr. Lumet. And if you haven't read his book yet...well, it's a quick and breezy read, but it's also genuinely enlightening, not only about the filmmaking process, but about Lumet himself and where he was coming from as a director. Other than watching some of his films, I can't think of a better way to commemorate his passing.

At least I can say to myself that I did get to see the man in public once before he died, at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal in the summer of 2009 featuring him, his daughter Jenny (fresh off of having her script for Rachel Getting Married filmed by Jonathan Demme) and the Journal's film critic, Joe Morgenstern. In fact, I wrote about the event for the organization's Speakeasy blog here!

Enjoy some videos from the event:

Bookmark This! A New Site For All Your New York Repertory-Cinema Needs

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

I'm sure all of you are well aware of my newfound dedication to repertory cinema: seeking out older films, either well-known (but probably as yet unseen by me) or rare/as-yet-unavailable on DVD. It's seriously come to the point where I've long resigned myself to falling behind on newer releases just to get my repertory-cinema fix. Just a few weeks ago, though, with a friend of mine back in New Jersey, I was talking (or, rather, "talking"; this was conducted through Twitter direct messages) about how overwhelming the sheer amount of choice was for people as tuned into the alternative-cinema scene in New York as I am. So many theaters playing all sorts of these older treasures, some of them offering this kind of programming every single night...how to keep track of them all? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a website that made that task oh-so-easy?

Well, thanks to Paul Brunick, a good friend and bright young film critic in his own right, there is now an easy way for people like me to keep tabs on what films are playing in repertory every night in New York. Yesterday, his site Alt Screen went live, and right off the bat, the site proved its usefulness by alerting me to two screenings of Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 comedy What's Up, Doc? that I hadn't even heard about, playing at a venue—the Clearview's Chelsea Cinemas—that had never really figured into my moviegoing plans in the past. (Not that I could make either one; I was too busy being dazzled by Charles Burnett's rare 1990 film To Sleep With Anger at the Museum of Modern Art, as part of their just-begun retrospective of the director.) Already I have a new venue to check up on and new cinematic revelations to look forward to!

For repertory-cinema fiends like myself, this site is a godsend—and better, it's actually quite a beautifully designed site to boot! And it features Editor's Picks and extra blog commentary/criticism! Hats off to Paul and the rest of his crew for a job well done! And, of course, go explore the site for yourself, because it's very much worth your time, if you're interested in discovering everything New York has to offer film-wise.

One Step Closer to Earl Dittman? Plus, My Tribute to Hailee Steinfeld

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—A couple bits of self-promotion for today.

First, this is the contribution to the ongoing Muriels announcements that I was slated to write from the beginning, a short piece in praise of True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld, who topped the poll for Best Cinematic Breakthrough last year. I think that says everything that needs to be said about Steinfeld, who blazed screens at the end of last year with her astonishing mixture of wise-beyond-her-years poise and childlike vulnerability.

But that's not even the most exciting thing I'm here to self-promote today...because I'm featured in a trailer!

Thanks to Charles Lyons for the screen shot

There's a new trailer for Kelly Reichardt's new film Meek's Cutoff out, and apparently someone behind the scenes of this trailer saw fit to stitch together quotes and adjectives from my House Next Door review into the blurb you see above. You know you've hit the big time when...

The ironic thing about this? It comes from a review that isn't even positive! Read it and you'll see. I'm still not sure how I feel about that, honestly.

Anyway, enjoy the complete trailer:

***

Tomorrow, of course, is the Oscars. And you know what means, right? The Second Annual Fuji Oscars are coming! You all remember my first annual "ceremony," don'tcha? Well, I'm doing it again tomorrow...or at least, I plan to. Time permitting. Anyway, stay tuned...

Quotes of the Day, Courtesy of Asian Mothers

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—From "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," an essay by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School professor, that was published on Saturday in The Wall Street Journal's Review section:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

This, to a certain degree, was my mother's reasoning for pushing accounting on me during my first two years at Rutgers: that despite my vocal and emotional resistance to spending my four years of college studying something I had no passion for, eventually I would "learn to like it" (her words) if I kept at it.

Of course, why did my mother think the study of accounting was the best path for me in college? Chua suggests it in the last paragraph of this article:

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

One of the reasons my mother often cited as her justification for foisting accounting on me was that becoming an accountant right out of college would keep me financially secure, in contrast to all those others out there desperately living paycheck to paycheck—a state in which she dearly wished never to see me. In her highly practical mind, this was a "right" major, in contrast to "wrong" majors like, say, English.

In spite of my frustrations, I always tried to give her credit for good intentions. That, I think, is why I struggled for so long—to the point where I became an emotional wreck during the spring of my sophomore year and actually had to see a therapist for a bit—before deciding to pull the plug on my Rutgers Business School accounting studies just before my junior year began.

But you know what? All of that is in the past, and while it has taken years for me shake off all the resentment that built up from not only this accounting-major disagreement, but from plenty of smaller annoyances in my younger years (like not being allowed to watch any movies except during lengthy school breaks, and even then rarely in a movie theater), now that I live away from home and don't have to be reminded of all those resentments on a daily basis, I'm not inclined to dwell too much on all that anymore.

And then comes this rather gloating essay, which managed to bring back back some not-so-fond memories of the kind of "tough love" that I suffered through during my years at school—not to such an extreme as what Chua recounts about herself, but nevertheless, there are aspects of the parenting style she describes that I recognize in my own personal experience. The only thing this essay made me wonder, in the end, is what Chua's own kids really think of her strict parenting style: whether they are swimming in gratitude or secretly hating her guts.

Surprisingly enough, even my own mother found Chua's model to be, well, a bit much. When I forwarded this article to her, this is how she responded via email (I've made only minor edits to this, by the way):

Regarding that article, this is a very extreme case. I do not agree that some mothers have the right to deprive the kids completely of the intrinsic right to pursue happiness.  There is no right or wrong; if the kids are happy and have no complaints being scheduled and manipulated as instrument machine, so be it. This is nobody's business. If the kids enjoy playing, enjoy the ensuing success, why not. The mother is the hard pusher. You know what they said, "Behind the success of a man, there is a successful woman (or women)." Some kids are pushable and can be helped. Most are not. If you try to push, you are looking for trouble. You are fighting against gravity. You have taught me a lesson. I have learned my lesson. I have also learned that the parents should inspire, not manipulate. You know and you witness too many pushy parents. There are pluses and minuses. How to balance is a real challenge to the parents. To be an excellent instrument player is not the only way to measure success. It also does not guarantee happiness. I start to realize the golden rule: to do what please you and be pleased what you are doing and have fun and happiness. Know who you are and maximize your potential. You will be a winner in life.

Mom, after all these years, I think I can honestly say that I agree with you 100%!

And yet...there may be more to Amy Chua's essay than meets the eye! It's apparently an excerpt from a new book of hers that will be published tomorrow. Go take a look at the front cover of the book, on its Amazon page. It says, "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old." Maybe this essay is not telling the whole story about Mrs. Chua's relationship with her children. In which case, then why publish that particular, and perhaps misleading, excerpt from it???

I'm a LAMB!

NEW YORK—If I had any doubts as to whether my blog had been accepted into The Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB)—a site that has, so far, collected and highlighted more than 750 film blogs—after I finally got around to applying in early October, they were erased when I got an email on Sunday that directed me to this link:

Should I consider this "moving up the ranks in the film blogosphere"? (At the very least, it's farther than I've gotten at The Wall Street Journal so far...)

When applying for inclusion into LAMB, I was asked a bunch of questions about my site; it seems that, in the aforementioned post, those questions and my responses were included. I think it offers a fairly good mission statement of sorts for My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second.

Selections below:

What is the main focus of your site?
My personal explorations in cinema and cinephilia, with occasional detours into theater, music, literature and the news events of the day. For me, life and art are always intersecting.

What are your blogging goals, personally and/or professionally? In other words, what, if anything, are you trying to get out your blog?
If nothing else, I see my blog as my way of not only sharing my love for cinema, but also nurturing and furthering dialogue about the arts. Also, I do use it to promote my writing outside of the blog; it is my life, after all.

Do you prefer an interactive community for your blog or are you the teacher and your readers the students?
I am absolutely all about interactivity, and to that extent I always try to continue the conversation after someone leaves a comment in my comments sections.

Name up to three of your favorite movies (and no more).
Playtime, Vertigo, Fallen Angels

Any additional comments, or give yourself an interview question that's not listed above.
I am a strong believer in the idea that all film criticism is at least somewhat personal in nature, however objective a tone a review might try to take. That is why I am unafraid to foreground the personal in some of my film reviews/blog posts—and that is why I think the title of my blog fits the content best. 

Score One for Traditional Projection! Plus, For Colored Girls

NEW YORK—

Last week, a few friends and I went to see For Colored Girls at the Regal Cinemas theater near Union Square Wednesday evening. The screening was scheduled for 8:30, but the show started about half an hour later than expected. One of the theater managers came in and announced that there was a digital-projection issue that was delaying the start of the screening, and that it would be another 10 to 15 minutes before things would hopefully be up and running correctly.

One of the friends in my group was a former employee of that particular Regal theater, and she gave me an illuminating (to me, at least) piece of inside info that I thought was worth sharing with all of you. According to her, the reason that it was going to take 10 to 15 minutes was that the projectionist had to re-download the entire digital file before trying to start the screening again. "It was actually easier before the theater went all-digital," she said. "If there was any problem with the film, we could just take out the messed-up frames and splice it back together. That only took five minutes. It takes longer now to fix those kinds of problems."

Surely many of us have noticed how big theater chains such as Regal and AMC more or less shoved digital projection down our throats overnight over the summer. While I'm far from a staunch Luddite when it comes to film vs. digital—Vadim Rizov did a fine job a few months ago in this piece at GreenCine Daily outlining the virtues of digital projection—in light of my friend's fascinating tidbit, I have to admit, I find it rather ironic, and somewhat poignant, that celluloid film, that longtime "analog" format, turns out to be, in some cases at least, quite possibly superior to the supposedly more up-to-date digital format when it comes to fixing its own issues. Score one for traditional projection!

***

Oh, and I suppose some words are in order for For Colored Girls, Tyler Perry's screen adaptation of Ntozake Shange's groundbreaking 1975 "choreopoem" For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Having never read/seen Shange's play (I honestly hadn't even heard of it until this film adaptation was made) nor seen a Tyler Perry film before, I came into it only having faint ideas of what to expect from it based on reviews of previous Perry features as well as this All Things Considered item about the play and people's expectations about its translation from stage to screen.

From what I hear—and correct me if I'm wrong, those of you who do know the stage drama—Shange's play is basically a series of monologues in which various unnamed African-American women recount their struggles, most of them at the hands of men. (A precursor to Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues?) That, on the face of it, sounds like an inspired idea, suggestive of a desire to express emotions of universal import by purposefully subtracting dramatic and character specifics and allowing these women to speak in their own voices. Perry's ungainly approach to the material is to include most of the monologues but also extrapolate dramatic material from them and filter it all through his unabashedly operatic sensibility. Alas, the near-campy melodrama of the situations Perry comes up with here—most of it shot in a mostly flat, functional TV style, with the exception of one risible (no doubt Lee Daniels-inspired) bit of crosscutting between a rape and an opera performance—has the effect of leeching away much of the power of Shange's poetry. Worse, Perry fails to incorporate the monologues into the overall dramatic structure in any convincingly organic way; the whole film ends up feeling mostly unwieldy and draggy.

If the film is affecting at all, it is mostly by virtue of the full commitment his immensely talented cast brings to the material; this mostly female ensemble is pretty excellent across the board, and Perry is at least generous enough toward these actresses—capturing them in luminous close-ups, allowing scenes to play out in long takes—to give them all moments to shine. Exquisite, soulful displays of female emotion seem to be in preciously short supply in mainstream American cinema these days, and Perry, with the help of this ensemble, generates emotions you can practically touch. That's not nothing...but it isn't quite enough to elevate For Colored Girls above the level of well-meaning but misguided.

Link for the Day: A Look Inside My Place of Employment!

NEW YORK—If any of you are curious as to what the interiors of the office at which I work look like...well, look no further!

Photo credit: Albert Vecerka/ESTO

Last week, one of my co-workers showed me this article from a recent issue of the magazine Architectural Record, which evaluated the architectural worth of the design of the Dow Jones offices in the News Corp. building located in midtown Manhattan. I'm not as up on architecture in general as I should be (this despite all the time I spent reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead when I was in high school, LOL), so the article itself is of interest to me personally only insofar as it offers a fresh way of looking at the environment in which I work five days a week.

For the most part, though: Look at the pictures! That's where I work! Isn't it cool (imagine me saying that with John Travolta/Broken Arrow inflections)? Doesn't it remind you, at least in part, of 2001: A Space Odyssey with a pinch of Blade Runner?

(By the way: I posted this last week on my Facebook wall and my Twitter feed, so this is probably old news for those who follow me on both social-media platforms. But I meant to post the link on this blog as well, and am only now getting around to sharing it with the rest of world. 'Cause I'm sure there are some people out there who don't go on either Facebook or Twitter. Wherever they are...well, here you go.)

Clash of the Generations, or First Exit to Brooklyn

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—I was thinking a lot about generation gaps yesterday, and the reason for this has something to do with that second major development in my life that I alluded to in this recent post.

The development (which I announced on Twitter and Facebook during my vacation, but which of course I will repeat here)? In about a week and a half—and after I sign the lease and pay first month's rent—I am officially moving to Brooklyn!

Yes, folks: After all the complaining I've been doing in person and on Twitter and Facebook about my mother, about my increasingly agonizing commute and about just generally feeling too spoiled and sheltered at home, I finally got off my lazy/hesitant ass and did something to, as Michael Jackson famously sang in "Man in the Mirror," "make a change."

Most of the people I interact with either in person or online support my desire to fly my parents' coop and try to make it on my own. And when I told some of my friends and acquaintances about how much I'll be paying a month to live in this four-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights—$700 a month, plus approximately $50 extra for utilities—just about all of them agreed that that was a pretty reasonable monthly sum for living in New York.

The only dissenter (or maybe not the only one, as you'll see below)? My mother, of course.

But I come here not to trash my mother—I've already done that too often this year, and I don't know if I can take any more guilt over it—but to try to understand where she's coming from. And the more I think about her reasons for believing this to be a bad move on my part, the more I'm convinced that this is probably yet another instance of a clash of generations at work.

***

In the mornings, whenever I'm waiting at a nearby bus stop for a NJ Transit bus to take me to New Brunswick, every so often I will be waiting next to a fairly feisty elderly woman, who looks to be in her 60s, if not older. We usually greet each other, and sometimes we even briefly discuss things pertaining to our lives as we wait for the bus to arrive. 

We saw each other again yesterday, and after I mentioned to her that I was moving to Brooklyn in about a week and a half, and that my mother was less than pleased about the decision, she told me right off the bat that she thought my mother was right in this matter. Even bringing up the $700/month rent figure didn't sway her. "That's a lot of money," she said. "At your young age, you should be saving money, not spending it away on rent. Why would you want to leave home and spend all that money away like that? Doesn't make sense to me."

This is more or less the stance my mother has taken on the matter. Unlike this elderly lady, though—who went so far as to say, "The biggest mistake young people make today is leaving their parents' home too early"—my mother takes pains to make clear to me that her disapproval is not about her wanting to keep me at home. Instead, for her, it's mostly about money: how I should be saving as much as I can while I'm young; and how she's worried that, based on how much money I bring home every two weeks from my job, I will end up like one of those people living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling.

Believe me, I grasp the parental concern underlying these reasons, and I would be lying if I didn't share some of them, to a certain extent. And I had always assumed that such concerns could be chalked up more to cultural differences than anything else: Asian people are often known (or is it stereotyped?) for being extremely frugal with their spending, as well as for being submissive to the supposed wisdom of their elders.

But if even this elderly American woman is agreeing with my mother on how youngsters should be approaching money and living...then maybe what we have here isn't just a clash of cultures after all. Maybe this difference of opinion can be explained in part by gaps in time, not just gaps in cultural understanding.

***

Coincidentally, the front page of yesterday's Personal Journal section in The Wall Street Journal featured a "Moving On" column by Jeffrey Zaslow discussing generational differences when it comes to how younger folk these days perceive and process advice offered by their elders. This one spoke to me with an especially powerful personal resonance.

As Zaslow writes:

Older people have always offered advice to younger people, with words of wisdom culled from their memories of youth. And, of course, in every era, young people have found advice from elders to be outdated and ineffectual. These days, however, given how fast the world is changing, there's been a clear widening of the advice gap.

It's rooted in a devaluation of accumulated wisdom, a leveling of the relationships between old and young. On many fronts, people from Generation Y—now ages 16 to 32—assume their peers know best. They doubt those of us who are older can truly understand their needs and concerns.

With my mother (less so my father, by the way, who, despite being born and raised in my mother's generation, seems to have a mindset closer to that of mine in matters of how someone my age ought to live), I sincerely wish I could feel comfortable enough to ask for her advice on matters of life and living. More often than not, though, I end up feeling frustrated by seemingly irreconcilable differences in worldviews. Like most other people I know, I consider living on my own and facing whatever difficulties one might have to face in doing so a natural rite of passage in adulthood; my mother, however, seems to be of the mindset that a parent's job is to provide enough for her children so that they don't have to face the same difficulties she might have had to face growing up. Thus I feel like I can't really talk to her about living on my own because all I'll get is disapproval that I'm even thinking about moving out in the first place. And that disapproval stings; she's my mother, after all.

Zaslow's article even features a quote from someone addressing generational differences regarding the idea of renting versus buying:

Dustin Borg, 28, taught English in Japan for two years and saw a culture in which older people are revered, and their advice remains unquestioned. He admired the respect young people showed their elders there, but wondered about the complacency among Japanese youth.

Now an actuarial analyst in Atlanta, Mr. Borg says he often challenges advice he receives from older people. For instance, they've counseled him to buy a house because prices are low. "Older people think renting is throwing away money," he says. "But I think owning a home is throwing away financial freedom. I couldn't pick up and move to a new city. I couldn't go back to Japan to see my old friends. I'd be tied to the house."

Having been pressured by my mother to co-own a house in Perth Amboy, N.J., with her—and going through with it begrudgingly, with the understanding that I would not actually live there—I sympathize with Borg and applaud him for sticking to his convictions. But, of course, his parents's advice isn't wrong or misguided. It just comes from a different set of values, one that perhaps treasures the permanence of a house over the transience of renting.

***

One of the things my mother seems to value highly is the idea of a family as a kind of warm respite from the outside world, a unit in which one can come home every night, have dinner around a table and talk about things that occurred during each member's respective days. This kind of tightly knit familial closeness is important to her, to the point that she will not only ask us if we will be home for dinner, but will give off a faint but unmistakable sense of disappointment if one of us tells her that he will not be coming home to eat with the rest of the family.

Of course, I myself don't really feel that same sense of disappointment whenever that happens (which, on most weekends, is quite often). This right here could be one classic manifestation of a generation gap: Whereas an older generation might have prized family above many other things in life, Generation Y feels less tied down to family roots. That, by extension, makes the idea of fleeing the family home in early adulthood to live on one's own seem natural to us but possibly naïve and foolish to our elders, as it seems to be with my mother and that elderly lady.

There is no right or wrong here. As frustrating as generational gaps can be...well, they are an inevitable part of life, a part of history. The only thing one can really do when faced with such major generational differences is to try one's best to understand the points of view involved and decide for oneself how to proceed.

Who knows? Sometimes those elders whose advice you pooh-pooh now will turn out to have been right all along.

*** 

Will my mother end up being vindicated in her skepticism over my impending move to Brooklyn? Will I end up struggling like crazy to get by? Will this end up being similar to the mistake I made in living in that overly expensive on-campus apartment-style housing during my third and fourth years at Rutgers—a mistake I'm paying for right now through monthly student-loan payments? All I know right now is, this move feels right for me at this moment in time. If it ends up being a mistake...well, at least it will be my mistake to learn from, whether my mother understands such a mindset or not.

Stay tuned, I guess.

On the Road to Making Amends, or A Family Thing

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—I was supposed to go camping with my mother, my father and one of my younger brothers in Pennsylvania somewhere this weekend, thus making it yet another weekend with minimal exposure to the big screen (and maybe some exposure to the small screen). But earlier in the week, I decided not to go.

Why? For one thing, I've discovered this year that camping outdoors is a pastime that fills me with more dread than excitement. I hate how long it takes to pull down/prop up our RV; I feel no sense of accomplishment in putting up a tent; and while I have nothing against spending time in the great outdoors, I feel no particular pleasure in spending time overnight in it.

Really, though, there is one overriding reason I decided to follow the lead of my youngest brother and back out of this camping trip: I dread the prospect of spending an extended period of time with my mother around. Faithful readers of my blogs over the years will be fully aware of our history, so I won't bother to explain it all here (but if you want a primer, let me know in the comments and I'll try to sum it up). Suffice it to say: Every time I am in her presence, all I feel is tension and buried resentment, and more often than not, I act on it in mostly ugly and detrimental ways—and my awareness of said ugliness just makes me feel all the guiltier afterward. This become so prevalent in recent months that I am only now actively looking to finally move out from under her roof, on the theory that maybe our relationship will improve with distance. Because when I begin to feel a sense of dread even at the thought of spending a mere two full days around her, you know something needs to change...and that change isn't going to come from her end.

On Wednesday night, though, I came across this latest Viewing Log from Vinyl is Heavy, the fascinating and compulsively readable blog of film critic (and friend, though admittedly not a close one) Ryland Walker Knight. In it, among other topics, he discusses his experience watching and discussing Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (2008) with his mother, and also talks eloquently about the subtle aesthetics of home videos, a topic inspired by videos of his own family he recently revisited.

And a funny thing happened as I read this post: I suddenly found myself experiencing a change of heart toward my mother. Not only did I feel ashamed of my recently intensifying (I have to be completely honest here) hatred toward her, but for the first time in a long time, I felt a strong need to at least make sincere gestures toward improving my relationship with her. If nothing else, I crave the familial harmony the post exudes.

Look, my mother will most likely always be, to my mind, stubborn, exasperating, micro-managing and judgmental, and I don't know if I'll ever feel comfortable talking to her about deep personal issues. (When I first voiced my intention a few weeks ago to move, she freaked out, and I haven't really bothered to talk to her all that much about anything since.) But she is my mother; that will certainly never change. And she is a human being, as I am; no human being is perfect (Adam and Eve made sure of that). Does the good she has done for me over the first 24+ years of my life outweigh the bad? When all is said and done, I think the answer is "yes"—and certainly not just because she bore me in the first place. However insufferable she can sometimes be, everything she does comes from a sincere impulse, and I should probably recognize that more often than I do. Besides, it's the good I should try to remember when I'm around her, not the bad...even if sometimes it is very, veeery difficult to put aside the negative feelings.

All of this is just words, of course. But after reading Knight's Vinyl is Heavy post, for once I feel a great need to support that with some sort of action.

I've already made plans for this upcoming weekend, so I won't be able to start that process by going camping with her after all. At the end of next month, however, the whole Fujishima clan is planning to spend 12 days on the road driving all the way to Yellowstone National Park, camping there, and then driving back. I've been dreading it for the past few weeks, and I can't say I'm still all that enthused about spending such a lengthy period of time camping. Suddenly, though, I'm finding myself not dreading it so much. Perhaps I'm even feeling honest-to-God anticipation...?

Rest assured, though: This has not stopped me from looking for a place to live in New York. Not. One. Bit. That is just something my mother is going to have to live with, once it happens.

P.S. Knight's latest Viewing Log also features some commentary on Christopher Nolan's The Prestige—one of his better films, I think, and arguably his most visually distinguished—that is worth reading (as is pretty much everything he writes, really).

***

And on that note of reconciliation: I wish you all a very fine, joyful weekend! Let Jonathan Demme take you there:

Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Hot Sleuthing Action in Cold Weather

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—

Tonight at 9:30 p.m. at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cold Weather (2010), the as-yet-unreleased third feature by independent filmmaker Aaron Katz, is screening for a second time at the ongoing BAMcinemaFEST (sponsored by my place of employment, The Wall Street Journal). I saw it at its first screening during the series, on Saturday evening, and while I can't say that this is my favorite of Katz's three features to date, it shows arguably the most distinctive of the so-called "mumblecore" filmmakers going outside of his comfort zone with an audacity that, at the very least, is quite entertaining.

For those who have seen Katz's previous film Quiet City (2007)—a wonderfully romantic and visually poetic account of the stirrings of love between two wandering twentysomethings in New York, and a movie that pretty much hits every single sweet spot in my moviegoing soul—Cold Weather begins comfortably enough. Though the dominant mood of its opening half hour is more downbeat than in Quiet City, Katz's sympathy for his drifting characters—particularly Doug (Cris Lankenau), a former forensic-science major and Sherlock Holmes-wannabe who has decided to drop out of school and return home to live with his sister in Portland, Oregon, where he finds himself working in an ice factory to pass the time—is recognizable, as are the realistically halting rhythms of their interactions and Katz's penchant for alternating between scenes of fly-on-the-wall observation and expressively framed images of quiet beauty (with cinematographer Andrew Reed once again doing some handsome DV lensing). So far, so evocative.

Halfway through, however, Cold Weather suddenly turns into a full-blown mystery tale, complete with codes, puzzles and revelations—as if tracking down Doug's ex-girlfriend Rachel (Robyn Rikoon) after co-worker/friend Carlos (Raúl Castillo) informs him in a panic that she has mysteriously disappeared from her hotel room finally gives Doug a purpose in his life. And Katz clearly wants us to be aware of the tonal shift: mostly forsaking the patient long takes in the first half, he shoots and edits the second half more or less like a suspense thriller, asking composer Keegan DeWitt to turn up the heat on his score, and just generally exulting in—and playfully mocking—the genre tropes in which he dabbles.

Even in the second half, though, there are moments of warm, low-key repose between the characters, most notably between Doug and his sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn) as they close in the culprit behind Rachel's disappearance. A stake-out, for instance, eventually leads Gail to divulge details of a failed relationship she had concealed from her brother. If anything, Cold Weather is about the quiet evolution of this sibling relationship, from mere acceptance to something like genuine affection. It's fitting, then, the film ends not with any final dramatic twists, but with Doug and Gail sitting in a car, Doug finding an old mixtape he once made for her and rewinding it in the car's tape player.

Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure, even a few days after seeing this film, that Katz's attempt to blend "mumblecore" and detective procedural wholly succeeds; if I have a misgiving about his otherwise refreshing approach, it's that ultimately the film's resonance feels a bit thin compared to the aching romanticism of Quiet City or the sense of a teenager's growing maturation in his promising debut feature Dance Party, USA (2006). In other words, I wonder if Katz would have been better off deciding from the outset to make a genre piece rather than another one of his naturalistic mood pieces, instead of coming up with this rather jarring, schizophrenic film.

Nevertheless, in hindsight I appreciate that Katz is trying to do something different from what he has done before, and I applaud him for doing so. What it lacks in the eloquence of his previous work, it generally makes up for in good-humored chutzpah, while still offering the same generosity of feeling that I treasure from his previous two films. It's also just fun to watch. Really.

P.S. After the film on Saturday, Katz and a bunch of other cast and crew members, as seen in the above photo (Katz is on the farthest right), partook in a Q & A session with the audience, and Katz revealed that, at the time of writing the script, he was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes mysteries and simply decided, one late night, to incorporate that into his script. That's the way it plays onscreen: as if the film itself had simply decided, at one point, to become a detective procedural.

I have some small doubts as to how much the shift pays off in the end. Others seem to have no problem with it. Only one way to find out where you stand...

P.P.S. Katz's first two features are available on DVD in a lovely two-disc set from the very fine independent label Benten Films. If you don't swoon at least a little bit after seeing Quiet City, then I'm not sure I wanna know you...

P.P.P.S. Here's a fun interview Katz did with Simon Abrams over at the New York Press, in which he offers up thoughts on some of his favorite action films of the '80s and '90s. Hey, he likes Renny Harlin as much as I do (though I personally still prefer Die Hard 2 over Cliffhanger)! And he likes Michael Bay's The Rock, too! Hell yeah!

Psycho at 50: My Tribute (Written Four Years Ago)

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—

Today, cinephiles all over the world—or, at least, all over the blogosphere, which has become a major part of my world—celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror classic Psycho.

In the course of reading some of the tributes to the film—among them Gary Susman's for the Inside Movies blog at Moviefone; Ali Arikan's appreciation at Edward Copeland on Film; a reprint of Andrew Sarris's original 1960 review, his first at The Village Voice; and even Kim Morgan's fresh take on Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-by-shot color remake—I suddenly remembered that I myself had written a brief appreciation for this groundbreaking work for a local newspaper, The Home News Tribune, about four years ago when the film played during a series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And then I thought it might be fun to republish it here at My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second, since there's no longer a link to it available.

Here then, complete and unedited, is my tribute to Psycho...written four years ago:

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

That memorable saying is uttered by Norman Bates, one of the major characters of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic Psycho, which will be screened tomorrow over at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of a series entitled “Bad Guys, Badasses, and Other Mean Spirits: Great Villains in Cinema.”

Norman Bates is indeed one of the most fascinatingly morbid of movie characters, but calling him a “villain” doesn’t quite do him justice. To me, the word “villain” suggests a one-note snarling bad guy, one who is easy to hate. Psycho is much richer than that because it understands the villainy lurking inside even the most unassuming of people—and not just in Norman.

Norman Bates, obviously, is the one most people remember from the film, and with good reason. You know how it’s often said about some killers on the news that “he always seemed like a nice person” to neighbors? Norman is one of those people. Sure, he has his quirks: taking up bird-stuffing as a hobby, being a little too attached to his mother. Otherwise, though, Norman—smoothly played by Anthony Perkins in his career role—seems mostly harmless. Listening to him talk so candidly to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), one would probably only conclude that he was a weird and sheltered but basically agreeable fellow…and certainly not one capable of murder.

But murder he does—although Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano do not reveal this until the end of the picture, in which we find out that he, not his mother, killed Marion Crane in the shower (in the film’s most famous setpiece, the so-called “shower scene”).

Psycho isn’t entirely about Norman, however; in fact, he doesn’t even appear until after the first 40 minutes or so. The focus of the first section of the film is on badness of a different, less obviously horrific sort: Marion’s attempt to flee Phoenix, Arizona with a large sum of money that she steals from a rich client of her employer’s. As she basically fumbles about in her attempts to conceal the money, escape the watchful eyes of a cop on her tail, and avoid looking too suspicious in the eyes of a used-car salesman, we hear voiceover dialogues: her ideas about what people must be saying back home about her act of theft. Expressions of her guilt, in other words—a guilt that is uncannily mirrored in the film’s second half, as Norman tries to cover his guilt in a similarly fumbling manner.

In many ways, Psycho is not just a highly effective horror thriller. At heart, it is a disturbing, uncompromising look the madmen in all of us, murderous or not. In film after film, Alfred Hitchcock explored the psychologies of morally compromised characters: people who spy on others out of boredom (Rear Window), people who ruthlessly try to remake others in their own image (Vertigo), or, in Psycho, people who act irrationally out of frustration. Marion steals the money because she’s frustrated that she has to keep her relationship with Sam (John Gavin) a secret; Norman, we eventually discover through the psychologist at the end of the film, kills Marion in the motel shower, dressed as a woman, as a result of an unstated sexual attraction to Marion.

The discomforting power of Psycho comes from the fact that Hitchcock doesn’t turn these characters into evil cardboard cutouts. He doesn’t exactly love them, but he shows a kind of detached sympathy for them and their questionable actions. Maybe that’s what has really creeped us out about Norman Bates through all these years: at times, we can almost feel for this murderer, can almost understand the fear and guilt that leads him to kill. As a fictional character, he’s almost frighteningly plausible. That’s real horror.

A Placeholder, With Two Videos

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—Someday—someday soon, I hope—I will get around to mounting a defense of Martin Scorsese's latest film, Shutter Island, which I genuinely think is a near-great film, quite possibly his best in over a decade. Certainly, it feels to me like his most deeply personal work in quite a while, with thematic and emotional depths—including links to his past films—that connect with its feverishly expressionistic visuals to move beyond its pulpy psychological-puzzle aspects into something more haunting and thought-provoking. In other words, it's more than just a brain teaser with a big twist; alas, that seems to be the only level at which a lot of the film's strongest detractors seem willing to engage. The dismissiveness of some of those dissenting opinions kinda frustrates me, to be honest...but, hey, if you don't feel it, you don't feel it. All I can do is just shrug my shoulders and try to set forth my reasons for liking it—which I aim to do...someday soon.

In the meantime, I'll direct you all (if you have not yet read these pieces) to Glenn Kenny's review of the film at his blog Some Came Running, Ryan Kelly's at Medfly Quarantine, and Richard Brody's series of posts on the film at his New Yorker blog The Front Row for critiques that strike me as the most perceptive on the matter of Shutter Island. And if any of you would like to try to engage me on the film, please feel free to do so in the comments page of this post, or on Twitter (@kenjfuj). I'll try my best to match up to the reviews above in depth and insight.

***

For now...how about a couple more YouTube videos? I got two for you today.

1. A while back, I finally got around to acquainting myself with late '70s/early '80s American new-wave band Devo's first album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! For the most part, I was pretty bowled over by it, but there's one song on it in particular that I connected with: "Mongoloid," a metaphorical song about how even someone with a major disability can go through life seemingly unnoticed in American society. As someone who every so often feels like an intellectual lightweight masquerading as normally functioning adult (yeah, I'm sometimes deeply insecure; what of it?), the tune resonates, in its own geeky-freaky-totally awesome way.

Here's Mark Mothersbaugh & co. performing it on French television in 1978 (though at a tempo much quicker than the one on the album):

2. It must have been because today was such a nice spring-like day, but "翩翩飛起" (roughly, "Handsomely Flying," as implied by Babelfish), a lovely Taiwanese pop tune from 1985, popped into my head and stayed there. The singer of this tune is 王芷蕾 (Jeanette Wang), who quite possibly had the most sheerly beautiful voice in Taiwanese pop during the 1970s and '80s. If you want to know what an angel might sound like, just listen to her. Seriously.

Or watch this video:



Again: I know only I and a select few others really care about this Asian pop music...but I repeat: it's my blog. I do what I want in this joint, beeyotch! Take from it what you will.