Liza, minha querida cocainomana,

Não sei se você lembra, mas há muito tempo atrás você era uma jovem que fedia a sucesso, vencedora de um Oscar de melhor atriz além de dois Tonys.

Dizer que o auge da sua carreira ainda está por vir quando ouvir o seu nome causa uma profunda sensação de compaixão e melancolia é, no mínimo, desconcertante.

O que você está esperando no futuro? Um Nobel de Economia?

Porque bater aquilo que você já foi um dia é muito difícil, ainda mais considerando o que você é hoje.

Sinceramente, eu nunca fui seu fã: sempre tive uma estranha aflição dos seus olhos, que são muito separados um do outro. Se eles fossem um pouquinho mais afastados você não seria um ser humano, e sim uma pomba.

E eu sei o quanto eu estou sendo chato, mas que lhe sirva de incentivo o fato de que eu torço por você, primeiro porque você é fodida da cabeça e teve uma vida completamente esmerdalhada, coisa que ninguém merece. Segundo porque eu amo retornos triunfais, como Burt Reynolds em Boogie Nights, ou David Carradine em Kill Bill, ou Elvis no ano de 1968.

Se tem alguém em quem você deve se inspirar nesse momento é Elvis Presley, só não vá virar uma obesa mórbida e morrer de gorda.

Bom auge de carreira,

Suza.

Jestem rychle po re-obejrzeniu “Boogie Nights” (P.T. Andersona). Świetny film, który z przymrużeniem oka przybliża widzowi branżę filmów porno w latach 70-tych. Ale nie jest to dokument typu “Inside Deep Throat” (który tłumaczy socjologicznie zjawiska popularności “gatunku” w tamtych latach), to zgrabna fabuła z interesującymi kreacjami aktorskimi (Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore) i doskonała dbałość o szczegóły (której brakuje w rodzimej produkcji filmowej, a tak mogłoby być pięknie w filmach typu “Ile waży Koń Trojański?”).

Ale, ale… o czym ja tu! Mark Wahlberg, no właśnie. Pamiętacie jak ten – dziś już uznany i szanowany aktor – jako młodzian biegał po scenie i tworzył “biały hip-hop”, który przez purystów gatunku był odrzucany i raczej sarkastycznie traktowany, ale przez popkulturę wielbiony? Pamiętacie jak Mark Wahlberg zwał się Marky Mark i tworzył na początku lat 90-tych pop-rapowe pogadanki? Sprzedawał dużo, jego duo z panem Prince Ital Joe (mimo wybitnie quasi-reggae-pop-rapowego charakteru) okupowało pierwsze miejsca list przebojów po obu stronach oceanu.

To jeden z jego klipów, który znalazłem w przepastnych archiwach YouTube! Młodsi nie pamiętają, jak Marky Mark tą piosenką stawiał pomnik naszemu(!) pięściarzowi, Dariuszowi Michalczewskiemu (w teledysku, do obejrzenia).

Dzisiaj, kiedy nieśmiało mówi się o spadku popularności rapu/hip-hopu (zgrabnie o tym pisze Mariusz Herma w “Przekroju” nr 46/17.11.09), warto przypomnieć sobie jego korzenie! Na blogu Bartka Chacińskiego (http://chacinski.wordpress.com/) znajdziecie klip Sugarhill Gang z kawałkiem “Raper’s Delight” (uważany za jeden z pierwszych gadanych numerów). Może kończy się pewna epoka w muzyce, która nieśmiało wchodziła do naszej świadomości już od końca lat 70., skradała się i ukrywała w latach 80., by eksplodować w 90., na początku jako domena “niekolorowa” – później jako królestwo czarnych z Eminemem jako wyjątkiem. Oczywiście, w ogóle nie mam zamiaru wchodzić w polemikę typu “co jest prawdziwym rapem”, “kto się sprzedał”, “to przecież hip-hopolo”. Nie mam zamiaru dissować z rodzimymi tuzami sceny, nigdy nie wdziałem szerokich spodni. Jako obserwator “z zewnątrz”, przypominam sobie niemal z sentymentem pewne zjawiska, które dzisiaj zdecydowanie śmieszą!

Pamiętacie MC Hammera z jego samplowanym “U Can’t Touch This”? Nie możecie nie pamiętać! Toż to hit był. A pamiętacie Vanilla Ice z jego samplowanym “Ice Ice Baby”? Ten pierwszy posłużył się motywem z utworu Ricka Jamesa “Super Freak”, ten drugi (do końca zaprzeczał) uszczknął nieco z “Under Pressure” Queen+David Bowie. Wszystkie te nagrania, w dobie internetu, można natychmiast odszukać i cieszyć się nimi. To już archiwalia. Dzisiaj 10 lat w muzyce, to dynamiczna epoka!

W każdym razie Vanilla Ice był białym gniewnym MC, który “za bardzo się starał”! Był takim “one hit wonder“, który po “Ice Ice Baby” nie powtórzył już sukcesu (później nagrał “Hard To Swallow” pod okiem Rossa Robinsona i brzmiał jak Korn!).

Pośród tych wszystkich uroczych panów, był jeszcze niejaki Dee Dee Ramone! Tak, ten z Ramones. On też w pewnym okresie swojej podupadającej kariery, postanowił nagrać rapowy krążek. Jak postanowił – tak i zrobił. Pod koniec lat 80. powstała więc płyta, która przez wielu tytułowana jest dzisiaj “najgorszą płytą świata”. To “Standing In The Spotlight” sygnowane pseudonimem Dee Dee King! Ten niechlubny wyczyn chyba zniechęcił, nieżyjącego już dzisiaj muzyka – do dalszych eksperymentów.

No a potem rozpoczęła się era rapu/hip-hopu, która trwa do dziś, chociaż z tego cut & paste ostatnio widzimy tylko fade out! Warto tym samym przypomnieć sobie pewne marginalne wyczyny – opisanych wyżej panów, z sentymentu, dla zwykłej radochy. A impreza przy tej muzyce, to byłby niezły flow. Zatem zapraszam do obejrzenia/odsłuchania wczesnych ziomali, którzy “za bardzo się starali”. Tacy wcześni “wangster” - wanna be gangster!

A T-Raperzy znad Wisły właśnie przypominają o sobie nową płytą…

Parę linków:

Dee Dee King Ramone –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-QveINMwkQ

Rick James, Super Freak –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-QveINMwkQ

MC Hammer, U Can’t Touch This –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcxsmhzXexA

Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8BxbdQqMRE

Similarly to Trent’s write up on his films that inspired him to direct, I wanted to explore pieces or body’s of work that made an impression on me through my growth as a human being as well as a creative artist. I wanted to approach these films and explore my appreciation for them, not for the stance of informing my opinion on them, but for the personal gain of identifying what makes them beautiful. Film making to me, the act of storytelling and in general creating a film, is compared (in my head) to being a chef, creating these masterpiece dishes that allow the person taking it in to fully be immersed in the flavor, texture, just overall story that the dish presents. Why is that dish so amazing? Is it the flavor combination? Balancing textures? The plating? Or a combination of everything that allows this unparalleled harmony to guide you through its journey. So in the same vein; films are crafted the same way. A perfect synergy of all the elements expressed by the creator’s personal identity. By embracing their own flavor, style, and themselves personally; they can spin these elegant masterpieces that become a fusion of great ideas and techniques, with their own character and intimacy.

Boogie Nights  | 1997

P.T Anderson’s outstanding picture about the rise and fall of a group of film makers in the (late 70’s early 80’s) porn industry. Now this picture was unique for me, and BN along with Magnolia are almost fused in my mind into one catalyst that in the same way inspired me to go to film school, and once there, inspired me to get out of film school. I felt at the time, that although they were giving their students the foundation necessary to understand making films, they were stifling the creativity by abiding by the curriculum.
So now then… I wanted to talk about Boogie Nights instead of Magnolia (I think they are both stunning pictures) because overall, I think that the energy, the love, the rise of the characters into this place of beauty, happiness and success is an unbelievably ride of unbridled passion. I think its a fascinating feat, to allow the viewer to participate in this journey, growing to love these characters, feeling their pain, in a context of (by today’s standards) derogatory, yet ultimately appreciated world.
The camera work overall is incredibly well executed, there is evidence of influence of other film makers in this work, including Scorsese; and PT really allows the camera to evolve into an entity to guide the story forward and utilizes coverage only when needed. On my first few passes of the film, my immediate appreciation on camera work fell into the opening sequence and other pieces of PT’s use of steadicam to open up characters in one entire sequence; But later my love for his camera work came in the form of more subtle pieces, artistically executed “battles” between characters, or beautiful environment compositions that express the era.
The performances are fantastic; each character is this perfectly designed piece that fits into the world that’s been created. They fill these niche sections of the film that are subtle but allow the entire picture to be as colorful and vibrant as it is. The actors really had a grasp on what they were trying to achieve, and what the overall vibe of the film was. Its beautiful to appreciate the individuality that each actor was given to meld with their character, but also stunning to know that PT understood his vision and was their to guide and love every actor so they could flourish within the environment.
Ultimately, the entire picture is a stunning piece of work; an entree that encourages you to savor every nuance of flavor and passion as you absorb it until the credit sequence. Every facet is well executed, and its obvious why PT continues to work with the same DP and editor on his recent pictures since BN. A stunning form of story telling that pushes itself to be intense and dramatic, but has the confidence to allow us to experience the fun and exuberance that the characters have to offer. Boogie Nights continues to be the film that I throw in while doing errands around the house, and end up sitting down and finishing it through. A brilliant film that has PT’s soul stitched through it, and a film that understands inside and out what it wants to be.

Some thoughts the song “Spill The Wine” by Eric Burdon and War, featured on the album Eric Burdon Declares “War,” which came out the same year as their other collaborative album, The Black-Man’s Burdon.

When I was a kid, this song only seemed to come on when I was deep in the throes of night, or sleep, or perhaps madness.

Some “interesting” facts about “Spill The Wine” via songfacts:

• This song features a harmonica, flute, and conga drums.

• This is widely believed to be about, or at least heavily influenced by drugs. According to Brown, this song celebrates women: “All ladies are beautiful. You’ve got to look at them. God, I believe, put all of us here and made us all different so we could be like the flowers, you know. Like women. I look at them as beautiful flowers. Even when they get older, the flowers and so on, and that’s what it really boils down to, they can be skinny, big, fat, I’ve seen some fine voluptuous women. And then I’ve seen some that are skinny, and if you look at them, they could be beautiful, depending on personality and stuff.”

• Jimi Hendrix‘ former girlfriend sang backup. Hendrix was managed by Animal’s bass player Chas Chandler.

• The lady speaking Spanish in the background was Eric Burdon’s girlfriend. Says Brown: “We went back there and we put up a little tent, candlelight, and some wine back there. They were behind there, and Eric was doing things to her and making her talk.”

• This was used in the movie Boogie Nights as part of a pool party scene with the porn stars.

• The Isley Brothers covered this in 1971 on their album Givin’ It All Back. 

And that sounds a little something like this:

As a kid, I had the radio on a lot. This was when the radio was better, mind you, and I kept it around like a secret lover or some kind of invisible friend. I’d cheat on it a lot with CDs and tapes and vinyl, a lot, but many a night I spent seized in a radio daze, or I’d listen to it while getting ready for school or for work or a dance or a date or something.

One of the many species classified under the larger phylum “alternarock.”

For most of high school it was the “alternative rock” station for me, but I did flirt a year there with the “alternative rock” station that was slightly harder, which basically meant that I had to put up with a lot of bullshit like “mandatory Metallica” and following up a band like Kittie or Jane’s Addiction with AC/DC. How sad is it that I can’t remember the good songs I got in return from that station? I just remember they played “Bound For The Floor” a lot.

Rewinding the tape back to somewhere in my much younger years when I was a stupid little shit who’d read, daydream, ponder, fascinate, and shit along with the radio, you should probably know I kept floating back and forth between classic rock and Motown. Those were my bag back then.

Hence all of my old school music knowledge/anecdotes being about things like Keith Moon’s addiction to horse tranquilizers or waxing nostalgic about Berry Gordy’s sex habits.

The Who’s “Who Are You?” was about Keith’s tendency to pass on street corners during drug binges only to be discovered by police the next day who assumed he was dead.

Anyway. I remember the Animals’ “House Of The Rising Sun” and I knew War’s “Cisco Kid” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” The radio loved those songs. And then I heard this song one night, “Spill The Wine,” and it was late at night as my father were driving around, lost in the Hollywood hills, high above the world. It was a mash up by two artists I liked before I knew what a mash up. I was tired, my eyes were heavy, and this song started dictating images to me as I looked down at the world, and I would get lost in the idylls of walking through the set of a Hollywood movie that was packed with mountain kings and a harem of women and wine spilt all about. And I was easily swept away in the mystical and engimatic nature of the song, which everyone assumes the song refers to drugs, which it does in a way, but you have to remember that the prizely grown native drug of California will always be sex, and the song enthusiastically endorses going after that pearl as many times as you can get it. If I had actually known what a clitoris was back when I was a kid, well…

In the late 1880’s, a lone man held a city in his grasp with fear, torture and murder. The city was London and the man was only known as Jack.

Johnny Depp stars as Insp. Fred Abberline, a reclusive and methodical detective who harbors a tormented past. Abberline ends up in the wrong place at the right time, deep in the heart of London’s White Chapel district. Abberline becomes caught up in the “Jack the Ripper” murders and the plight of London’s women of the night, which include Mary Kelly (Heather Graham). It seems that the “Ripper” is focusing on Mary’s cropping of friends. The mystery deepens and the murders become more intense as Abberline must give up every ounce he has left in his mortal soul to bring in the “Ripper”.

The film’s title is derived from the return address penned on the “Ripper” letters to the police of London. The Hughes Brothers, who directed this film, bring us knee-deep into the hell so that they can tell their story. From the flaming skies of London’s evening skies to the animal lusts of the people in the alleys of White Chapel, hell is definitely evident. The Brothers’ direction is so intense at times that I felt I could smell the decaying corpses of the slain women. But for these directors that wasn’t enough as they showed the killings with oodles and oodles of blood. You never fully see the “Ripper’s” blade pierce his victim’s flesh but it’s what you don’t see and know that makes your stomach upset. This grotesque direction makes the film powerful but will definitely make you think twice about having another handful of popcorn.

Within this macabre fest is a brilliant performance by Johnny Depp who continues to impress me with every film he does. He is one of the best actors of his generation. He has the encompassing power to electrify an audience with a look or expression.

The character of Abberline has a lot of similarities to other characters Depp has played but here he is able to bring a new angle on an old concept. It is flawless.

The saddest thing about the film is the casting of Heather Graham. Graham is way out of her element and proves she has a tough time adapting to challenging roles. Behind the eyes of Graham there is no depth and this is really needed if she is supposed to be the film’s leading lady. I really had a hard time seeing her being able to fall in love Depp’s Abberline.

The character of Mary needed an actress who could display sensuality, torment, and an ounce of innocence in her scenes with Abberline. Graham couldn’t do any of them. She was excellent in “Boogie Nights” but I haven’t really seen her in anything since that shows that she can display the detailed emotions needed to flesh out Mary further. It is also hard to take her performance when her accent flickers instead of sticking.

I found the blood and gore very rich and very gratuitous. I know its great to have as much realism when doing a historical film but there is such thing as overkill. I really liked the mystery of the case and the performance of Depp but that is about all. The film displays a very bold, clever and interesting take on the “Ripper” murders even if it’s not the theory I fully believe.

This film will definitely alienate some moviegoers.

3.5 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Tres Dueños en el Teatro Bar en la celebración del 1er aniversario del famoso bar caraqueño

Los Paranoias en el Teatro Bar. 1er aniversario.

Tomates Fritos en el Teatro Bar en la celebración del 1er aniversario del famoso bar caraqueño

Vía Anarquía Musical, las imágenes inéditas de estos conciertos en vivo!

It’s going to be one big party of a fall, judging from the debut summer transplant brunch of the Koch brothers‘ Day & Night in the garden at Revel. Just when you thought you had finally bid adieu to rosé, the big bottles of pink passed among the crowd, flares not far behind. Spitzer call-girl Ashley Dupre Saturday’d it up (did the velvet rope take a cigarette break?), her second recent appearance on the scene, as did Naeem Delbridge, DJ Francesco Civetta, Ariel Moses, Amanda Mitchell, Matt Oliver and many others getting ready to give summer a run for its money.

Click here for the latest Ashley Dupre’s Party Hot pics.

This song has that early 2000’s kanYe production sound written all over it. I’m not sure if he flipped this Janet Jackson before, but this Ski production is real nice and it is a compliment that I think it sounds like a Yeezy production. Another Heist drops tomorrow, and I will definitely be downloading that now that Camp Lo is back.

[Download]

At the gallery – my working present tense journal at this point missing in the process of moving the journal has disappeared the light has burnt out and I do not own enough furniture my bike, in the process of street life, has disappeared, but I now own a new bike.

Can I help that I am a fragment split in two, incomplete, complimentos fresh fresh exciting, so disastrous and tragic ganglia ganglia acne acne ganglia acne acne.

Spiral notebooks more suited to journalizing than notebooks nonspirallybound. I find.

Why? Why am I? Why am I here?

Pure State

Wow! Creepy stream of consciousness.

Not a chance in hell. Got to get out of college quickly. Not a chance in hell. Got to get out of college quickly. Not a chance in hell.

Too many people milling about though none want to see E. Habitual egg-headed sizzling fat state bacon. Breakfast bar breakfast, nothing but food on my mind. Food-head. Digression. I am I I u I Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slut Slutgirl girl girl girl girl girl girl girl girl lily lily lily lily lily lily lily lily lily lily lily lily Prick Prick Prick bastard/ bastard bastard lilac lilac lilac lilith lazy azzhole ass smell! Debase me debase me spit in my shoes when I’m not looking for new ideas. Idiot Stupid Stupid punish punish punish.

I still want to talk about certain things pertaining to this summer. I want to know.

Because of my self destructive bent, alcohol, the combination of events and dynamics. I put myself at risk – had sexual relations )without penetration) but the possibility of disease transmission was present. in the events that transpired. To be absolutely safe I should abstain from all sex for about six months – go through the tests – then I will know. My conception is based on paranoia, hypochondriac fear out of proportion out of scale  – stigma  – as I am not as concerned about chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis. Hepatitis – yes more so. Herpes, – yes, even more so. Symptomless infection – or the possibility of such – frightens me. A person may exhibit no symptoms…

And we’re so far from home, no means of return…

Addiction – deep

in my bowls
in my eyes
in my body
in my daydreams
in my love
in my father

most dry televised

least moist private

small insipid dripping extended field

Words extend streaming from pictures to here from here to pictures descriptions trapped in photographs

As I sit writing I notice that the lists of words at the top of this page above relate, almost seem to be drawn directly from the exhibit now showing in this gallery – I buy five minutes of inspiration with stale ash tray mouth, cigarette remnants. I will not smoke again – I will smoke again I will not smoke again.

Thinking of R – how did I ever get so lost? Why is antagonism a safer form of connection than intimacy?

And then: The summer – up until first, second, third October (Fall) two movies capture/reinforce my state of mind: Last Exit to Brooklyn – the rape scene – where the geek tries to save the bimbo from self destructive rape, debasement, hell, can’t get the right word. Boogie Nights: the character whose wife is always fucking someone else (sometimes plural?)

No, this state of mind has no bearing on actual events, but bears down on the sensation in my stomach…

Don Quixote

Nothing to do with the experience of any woman I’ve talked to…

A male mythos, or mythology. I must somehow put together a five minute spiel about kids, products, t.v., research, documentation. I must shower and shave. I must not waste many more days

I left my coffee down here – went upstairs to talk to B.S. about missing class and etc. and now I worry that someone has spit in my coffee in my absence or slipped me a drug of some sort. How do I know that I’m not on drugs right now?

Marilyn Manson stole my gig.

How am I  constructed
How I am constructed
How constructed am I
I constructed am how
Constructed how I am

Stole David Bowie’s gig.

Okay I’ll admit it – I will watch anything with John C Reilly in.  The guy plays the everyman better than anyone else on the planet and when his character is anything but normal the comedy that comes with this just rocks my world. Yes I loved Walk Hard (anyone with a problem with this should leave quietly now) and anyone that didn’t love Boogie Nights has no place on this planet.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (also featuring a bearded Salma Hayek – rawr) looks to be a young teens movie along the lines of 80s classics such as The Monster Squad or that one with the old grandpa/ ghost and the clock and, because of Reilly, the lack of gratuitous violence, alien attacks and full frontal female nudity will not phase me. Also I back any movie with vampires that don’t ‘glitter’ when they go into sunlight.  You know who I’m talking about.

Anyway I digress the point of this post really has nothing to do with vampires or movies… it’ my chance to get Mr Reilly’s attention as I have some seriously important stuff to discuss with him:

Dear John – I love you… love me too!!!

LINK to Trailer (IMDb)

In the months leading up to the release of “There Will Be Blood” (2007), the online film community was buzzing with controversy. Fans of director Paul Thomas Anderson had major concerns: Would there be blood? How much blood would there be? And what if there wasn’t any? Reputations were on the line.

According to conventional wisdom, P.T. Anderson was a director who delivered the goods. “Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” were evidence of a genius auteur in the making.

But there were clear reasons for concern. Based loosely on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil,” the title of Anderson’s new picture was clearly allegorical. Would he really entice viewers with the promise of blood, only to deliver oil in spades?

The answer is unequivocally, “no.” The film delivers on all fronts. Anderson has made his best film yet, a tale which mixes timeless themes with stylized Americana.

His directing prowess is on display in every shot, but especially in the first twenty minutes of the film. These scenes have no dialogue, but the striking images and musical score let viewers know they are in for a real treat.

The score is courtesy of Johnny Greenwood, guitar player for rock band Radiohead. The compositions are masterful, and a major asset to a film brimming with assets.

Most notable is Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of tycoon Daniel Plainview. It’s a good thing he won the Oscar for Best Actor at the recent Academy Awards ceremony, because anything less would have been downright criminal. This is a towering, epic performance with parallels to Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane. You will not see better acting in any film this year. Fans of director John Huston will also find plenty to enjoy, as Day-Lewis’ vocal inflections are a memorable homage to the late director and his distinctive pattern of speech.

Plainview’s determination for wealth and hate for humanity are the engine which drive this story forward. His main competition comes in the form of a frontier preacher and false prophet, played with great zeal by the young Paul Dano. Their clash of wills leads to a bizarre and violent confrontation in a bowling alley, the scene in which the film ultimately makes good on its title. While many critics feel that this scene is “over the top” or perhaps a contrived addendum of sorts, it brings a needed resolution to the arcs of both main characters.

See for yourself, and you will not be disappointed. Like “No Country For Old Men,” this is a literate film with the breadth and depth to look meaningfully at greed and evil in America.

“There Will Be Blood” is a film that delivers on its promises. It is surely one of the ten best films of the year.
Grade: A

למי שיצא לראות את הקליפ החדש של uffie לשיר פופ דה גלוק שביימה Nathalie Ganguilhem, גם אם לא אהב את המוסיקה כמוני (די סבלתי האמת) בטח התרשם. הקליפ מלווה בארט מדהים וצילום מבריק שנראה כמו צילום שקופיות בקרוס פרוססינג היישר מעולם הלומו המעט נדוש אך לחלוטין חדשני בהקשר הנוכחי. חוץ מהצילום עצמו, שנראה כמו פרסומות של אמריקן אפרל

אמריקן אפרל

שקמו לתחיה, משולבים בקליפ קטעי אנימציה שמזכירים מאוד את הקליפ של justice לשיר D.A.N.C.E (קליפ שהיה מועמד לקליפ הטוב ביותר של מ.ט.ו ב-2007). האמת, שאת הקליפ גיליתי מפרסום בעמוד הפייסבוק של ג’סטיס מה שגרם לי להגיע להשערה שהקשר הוא לא סתמי (למרות שבאתר של so me, הבמאי של הקליפ של ג’סטיס אין אזכור נכון לעכשיו לקליפ של אפי).

קשה להתעלם ממקורות ההשראה של גנגיים והמקומות אליהם הקליפ שולח את המוח המתרוצץ. השילוב של הארט המוקפד ואווירת המופקרות המינית של נערי הפרברים בסרט מזכירים מאוד את הסרטים של לארי קלארק ואת רוח הכתבות של המגזין vice.

נראה שגנגיים התפתחה מאז הקליפ שעשתה לדייויד גואטה ב-2004 ובהחלט המשיכה לפתח את הסגנון המעניין שלה העמוס בנערים ונערות יפים ויפות, גרנג’יים ומקועקעים כמו שכיף לראות תמיד. מחכה בקוצר רוח לקליפ הבא.

אבל חבל לעצור פה ולהתפעל מהקליפ המעולה לצלילי המוסיקה המבאסת אם אפשר לדבר על הקישורים שהקליפ מעלה. בולטים במיוחד במסגרת האוירה, הצילום והארט הסרטים של לארי קלארק wussup rockers על חבורת הסקייטרים הלטיניים (מרתק, חובה, לראות) והסרט alpha dog – עם ג’סטין טימברלייק המפתיע לטובה – העוסק בסיפור האמיתי על חטיפתו ורציחתו חסרי הטעם של נער על ידי חבורת צעירים נהנתנים וספקי הסמים שלהם, בני גילם±, מפרברי ארצות הברית. שני הסרטים עוסקים בקשר בין ניכור חברתי, הבדלי מעמדות ותרבות השוליים של חברת הפרברים האמריקנית ומשאירים טעם מדכא למדי על החברה בה אנו חיים לצד תחושה עזה שהחיים מרתקים, מדהימים ומלאי אנרגיה (אני יודע שכבר אמרתי שחובה לראות אבל אני אדגיש שוב – אם מישהו מקשיב לי).

בנוגע לחלק של הגרפיקה בקליפ, אותו כבר אמרתי שלא הצלחתי לברר מי עשה בשלב זה (מבטיח לעדכן ברגע שאגלה) אבל שמזכיר מאוד עבודות של so me אשר אחראי לקליפ המאלף של ג’סטיס, D.A.N.C.E – שפשוט תענוג לראות שוב ושוב, ושוב:

עוד קליפ של so me לשיר good life של קנייה ווסט שנראה כאילו נכפה על המוסיקה בכח רק כי קנייה יכל להרשות לעצמו – וחבל. לעומת זאת, הקליפ שלו לשיר  day n’ nite של קיד קדי הרבה יותר מינורי ופחות מלוטש אך עם זאת מלא בניואנסים שריגשו אותי בצפייה ראשונה ושניה וכיף לראות שso me הצליח להישאר מעניין ולא להתמסר לגמרי לצד המסחרי שהגיע אחרי הפריצה שלו עם הקליפ המחתרתי של ג’סטיס.

לסיום, עוד כיוון אחד שהקליפ הזה זרק אותי אליו הוא כמובן הסרט המבריק של פול תומס אנדרסן מ-1997, בוגי נייטס.

]]> http://elteatrobar.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/los-mentas-boogie-nights-y-dj-eastwood-hoy-en-el-teatro-viernes-2-de-octubre-2009/ Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:09:17 +0000 elteatrobar http://elteatrobar.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/los-mentas-boogie-nights-y-dj-eastwood-hoy-en-el-teatro-viernes-2-de-octubre-2009/

Los mentas en el Teatro Viernes 2 de octubre

En una entrevista concedida al canal de televisión Sky TV, el director Quentin Tarantino dio a conocer cuáles eran, a su parecer, las mejores 20 películas realizadas en los últimos 17 años, o sea, exactamente los mismos que él lleva en la profesión.

La lista que os presentamos a continuación sigue un orden cronológico, aunque de entre las cintas enumeradas Tarantino destaca por encima de todas ellas a “Battle Royale”.

¿Qué opináis de sus preferencias?

POLICE STORY 3 Stanley Tong, 1992

El mayor cártel de extorsión y tráfico de drogas del Pacifico opera sin descanso y a sus anchas. Kevin Chan (Jackie Chan) es el unico agente con el coraje y astucia suficientes para infiltrarse en esta organización criminal y acabar con el gran capo de la banda. En esta dura misión no estará solo: le acompañará su nuevo jefe, una mujer tan atractiva como atrevida, y, como él, buena conocedora de las artes marciales.

MOVIDA DEL 76 (Dazed and Confused) Richard Linklater, 1993

Linklater retrata el último día de clase de unos adolescentes de un instituto en 1976. Una fiesta de cerveza, marihuana y novatadas para un día único tanto para los jóvenes que se marcharán para siempre como para los novatos que llegan.

SPEED Jan de Bont, 1994

Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) es un intrépido policía de Los Angeles. La supervivencia en esta ciudad para un agente de la ley no es tarea fácil, pero Jack, además de disfrutar de una reconocida buena suerte, conoce perfectamente los trucos para sortear el peligro. Sin embargo, su buena estrella se va a afrontar a una dura prueba cuando queda atrapado en un autobús urbano que lleva instalada una bomba programada para explotar si el vehículo disminuye su velocidad a menos de 50 millas por hora. Empieza así una loca carrera por la ciudad, con Jack intentando dar confianza a la joven pasajera (Sandra Bullock) que ha sustituido al conductor, herido en el “secuestro”.

TODO EN UN VIERNES (Friday) F. Gary Gray, 1995

A Craig (Ice Cube) le han echado del trabajo, presuntamente por robar, y su único plan para el día del viernes es pasarse las horas en el porche de su casa con su amigo del barrio Smokey (Chris Tucker), cuya única dedicación es fumar marihuana. A lo largo del día se encontrarán con momentos y personajes variopintos como el Pastor Clever (Bernie Mac) o Big Worm, un camello al cual le debe dinero Smokey. Pero el peor de todos es Deebo, un tipo con mucho músculo y poco cerebro que tiene atemorizado al barrio.

BOOGIE NIGHTS Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997

Eddie (Mark Wahlberg) es un joven que sueña con ser actor cuando le descubre Jaca Hormer (Burt Reynolds), un director de cine porno que considera su trabajo como una forma de arte. Eddie se cambia el nombre por el de Dirk Diggier y se sumerge por completo en el estilo de vida y las relaciones de la industria del porno de los últimos años 70.

DAO (THE BLADE) Tsui Hark, 1995

Después de la dimisión del jefe de la fábrica de sables Sharp Manufacturer, se decide nombrar sucesor a On, un trabajador poco popular e incapaz de imponerse sobre sus colegas. Entonces comienza una aventura llena de venganza que tiene como objetivo acabar con el malvado maestro del kung fu que mató a su padre.

AUDITION Takashi Miike, 1999

Un cuarentón viudo, a propuesta de un amigo, convoca un casting para una inexistente película con la intención de encontrar una nueva esposa, pero se embarcará en una relación donde las torturas y el dolor físico formarán parte de su vida.

EL CLUB DE LA LUCHA (Fight Club) David Fincher, 1999

Jack (Edward Norton) es un personaje insomne y desesperado por escapar de su fatal y aburrida vida. En un viaje en avión conoce a Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), un carismático vendedor de jabón con una filosofía muy particular; Tyler cree que el perfeccionismo es para los débiles y que es la destrucción de uno mismo lo que realmente hace que la vida merezca la pena. Jack y Tyler forman un club de lucha secreto que se convierte en un éxito arrollador.

EL DILEMA (The Insider) Michael Mann, 1999

Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), científico y directivo de la famosa tabacalera norteamericana Brown & Williamson, descubre el secreto celosamente guardado por la industria tabacalera sobre las sustancias que crean adicción en los fumadores. El productor del programa 60 minutes, Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), arriesga su carrera para poner frente a las cámaras a Wigand, que ve como su vida entera se viene abajo al revelar la verdad a la opinión pública. Nadie saldrá indemne en esta enfurecida batalla de la lucha contra la industria del tabaco. Nada volverá a ser como antes.

MATRIX (The Matrix) Andy y Larry Wachowski, 1999

Un programador pirata (Keanu Reeves) recibe un día una misteriosa visita… Nada más se debe contar de la sinopsis de Matrix. Es más, si todavía no la ha visto, no deje que nadie le cuente qué es Matrix. Porque gran parte del éxito mundial de esta fascinante y entretenidísima película se basa en su original guión, asombrosa idea producto de la era tecnológica en la que vivimos. Si a ello le unimos su revolucionaria estética -con espectaculares y trepidantes escenas de acción nunca vistas en el género-, tendremos el porqué de la consagración de esta deslumbrante cinta fantástica como el mayor film de culto de final de siglo.

JOINT SECURITY AREA Park Chan-wook, 2000

Los cadáveres de dos soldados norcoreanos son hallados en el “Área de Seguridad Compartida” que separa las dos Coreas, aparentemente asesinados por un soldado surcoreano. Corea del Norte lanza la acusación de que el suceso se debe a un flagrante ataque por parte de Corea del Sur, mientras que Corea del Sur mantiene la acusación del secuestro con final trágico por parte de sus vecinos del norte. Para investigar el caso se destina a la zona a una oficial del Departamento de Inteligencia Militar suizo que es de origen coreano. La oficial comienza a investigar y el caso se convierte en un misterio, ya que hay 16 balas en los cuerpos, y del arma del soldado sólo pueden haber salido 15.

BATTLE ROYALE Kinji Fukasabu, 2000

En el amanecer de un nuevo milenio, el país está al borde del colapso. Millones de personas vagan sin empleo. La violencia en la escuela está descontrolada y adolescentes rebeldes protagonizan boicots masivos. El gobierno contrataca con “Battle Royale”. Cada año, una clase es escogida al azar para que se enfrente, en una isla abandonada, a un cruel juego de supervivencia.

EL PROTEGIDO (Unbreakable) M. Night Shyamalan, 2000

El impacto se produjo a las 15:15 horas. El primer vagón quedó partido en dos y salió volando en direcciones opuestas. El segundo resultó aplastado y arrastrado durante más de un kilómetro. Se encontraron restos en un perímetro de kilómetro y medio. Seis miembros de la tripulación iban en el vagón de mercancías. Ciento dieciocho personas y siete tripulantes viajaban en el tren de pasajeros. Sólo se ha hallado un superviviente: David Dunn (Bruce Willis). Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), un misterioso desconocido tiene una explicación, bastante extraña, que justifica por qué David ha salido sin un solo rasguño del accidente.

TODO LO DEMÁS (Anything Else) Woody Allen, 2003

Woody Allen es un artista neoyorkino que no encuentra la forma de tener éxito. Su protegido, Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs), es un aspirante a escritor incapaz de dejar atrás todo lo que le atormenta: un agente (Danny de Vitto) que sólo le tiene a él de cliente pese a lo cual no le hace ni caso; una suegra con la que convive, metidos en un apartamento de 40 metros (Stockard Channing). Jerry se enamora perdidamente de una joven de espíritu libre llamada Amanda (Christina Ricci), pero pronto aprenderá que estar enamorado de la impredecible Amanda le traerá más quebraderos de cabeza que otra cosa.

DOGVILLE Lars von Trier, 2003

La hermosa fugitiva Grace llega a la aislada localidad de Dogville huyendo de una banda de «gangsters». Persuadidos por las palabras de Tom, que se ha erigido en portavoz de la pequeña comunidad, sus integrantes se avienen a ocultarla, mientras Grace, en justa correspondencia, acepta trabajar para ellos. Sin embargo, cuando Dogville sea sometido a una intensa vigilancia policial para dar con la fugitiva, sus habitantes exigirán un acuerdo más favorable, que les compense del peligro que corren al darle cobijo. Grace aprenderá, de un modo brutal, que en este lugar la bondad es algo muy relativo. Pero ella guarda un secreto que no quiere desvelar.

LOST IN TRANSLATION Sofia Coppola, 2003

Bob Harris (Bill Murray)  es un conocido actor norteamericano cuya carrera ha decaído últimamente. A cambio de una generosa remuneración, acepta participar en un anuncio de whisky japonés que se va a rodar en Tokio. En su visita a Japón, experimenta un considerable choque cultural, por lo que pasa la mayor parte del tiempo libre en su hotel. Precisamente en el bar del hotel conoce a Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), una mujer de veintitantos años que está casada con un joven fotógrafo de renombre. Éste se encuentra en Tokio cumpliendo un encargo profesional y, mientras trabaja, su mujer distrae el tiempo como puede. Además del común aturdimiento ante las imágenes y los sonidos de la inmensa ciudad, Bob y Charlotte comparten el descontento con sus vidas. Poco a poco se hacen muy amigos y a medida que exploran la urbe juntos empiezan a preguntarse si su amistad se transformará en algo más.

MEMORIES OF MURDER (CRÓNICA DE UN ASESINO EN SERIE) Bong Joon-ho, 2003

Provincia de Gyunggi, Corea del Sur, 1986: aparece el cuerpo de una joven brutalmente violada y asesinada. Dos meses después, se produjeron una serie de violaciones y asesinatos en circunstancias similares. Y en un país que nunca antes ha conocido semejantes atrocidades comienza a tomar cuerpo la idea de un asesino en serie. Se organiza un destacamento especial para la zona, encabezado por el detective de policía local Park Doo-man y un detective de policía procedente de Seúl, Seo Tae-yoon, que ha solicitado ser asignado al caso. Sin embargo, la resolución de los asesinatos parece cada vez más lejana, sumiendo a los detectives en un estado de creciente desesperación. La película está basada en una historia real.

TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE Trey Parker y Matt Stone, 2004

Team America, una policía mundial encargada de mantener el orden y la estabilidad en el mundo, se entera de que un ambicioso dictador está repartiendo armas de destrucción masiva a los terroristas. De los creadores de “South Park”.

ZOMBIES PARTY (Shaun of the Dead) Edgar Wright, 2004

Una comedia romántica… con zombies. Llega un momento en la vida de todo hombre en el que ha de levantarse del sillón y matar unos zombies. La vida de Shaun (Simon Pegg) es un callejón sin salida. Se pasa la vida en la taberna local, “The Winchester”, con su íntimo amigo Ed (Nick Frost), discute con su madre y descuida a su novia, Liz (Kate Ashfield). Cuando Liz le deja plantado, Shaun decide, finalmente, poner su vida en orden. Tiene que reconquistar el corazón de su novia, enmendar las relaciones con su madre y enfrentarse a las responsabilidades de un adulto. Pero, por desgracia, los muertos están volviendo a la vida, y tratan de devorar a los vivos. Para Shaun y su nuevo entusiasmo, esto es simplemente un obstáculo más. Enfrentándose sin cuartel a una epidemia de zombies, armado con un palo de cricket y una pala, Shaun, llevando a Ed a remolque, emprende el rescate de su madre y, a regañadientes, el de su padrastro, el de su novia y, todavía de peor gana, el de los amigos de ella; David (Dylan Moran) y Dianne (Lucy Davies), y los lleva a todos al lugar más seguro y protegido que conoce: “The Winchester”.

THE HOST Bong Joon-ho, 2006

Los habitantes de Seúl observan sorprendidos un extraño objeto que cuelga de un puente sobre el río Han. El objeto es, en realidad, una monstruosa criatura mutante que al despertar devora a todo aquel que se cruza en su camino. Entre tanta destrucción, la criatura mutante rapta a la hija del dueño de un quisco que vive felizmente a la orilla del río. Mientras el ejército fracasa una y otra vez en la destrucción del monstruo, este hombrecillo anónimo y su familia intentan recuperar a su hija.

Briony 

I love PT Anderson. He hasn’t made a movie yet that I don’t enjoy; Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, and especially There Will Be Blood are all fantastic films which contain hidden fruits rewarding repeated viewing and discussion. Yet each of these masterpieces (yes, all of his films are masterpieces!) has a hard outer surface, a lattice of desperation and obfuscation which make them slightly inaccessible, at least initially. On the other hand, Boogie Nights, Anderson’s first well-known film (ok, Hard Eight isn’t quite a masterpiece), starts out with a bang, and never lets go, pulling you in from the first notes of the intro until the final money shot.

For me, what stands out in memory about Boogie Nights is not any of the award-nominated acting (Julianne Moore), incredible direction (coaxing a masterful performance out of Mark Wahlberg), set / production design (Jack Warner’s house might be one of the best sets ever created), cinematography (the two major scenes at the Warner compound, both the initial pool party scene welcoming Dirk into the porn family, and the mesmerizing single-take, murder-suicide scene set at the New Year’s Eve party, are visual gourmet), or screenwriting, but the sound and music design. Integrating 70’s classics or disco and pop into the soundtrack is certainly not a surprising technique, but the synergies between screen and sound are often startling. Anderson encourages consumers of the 2-disc DVD set to “turn the volume up, loud” – and the carefully tailored soundtrack certainly rewards blasting. It embeds a poppy, bright exuberance which remains undiminished even when the shit goes down and the characters’ lives take a dark turn in the aftermath of the decade’s changeover. In fact, many of the match-cut-audio sequences, such as the one that almost won Julianne Moore an Oscar, set the stage for Darren Aronofsky to coin the term “hip-hop montage” after his film Requiem for a Dream.

Everything about Boogie Nights is oversized; the colors of California have never been brighter, the sounds bouncier, the plot lines more over-the-top, nor the money shots more revealing. The characters are just so damn likeable, and innocent, you can’t help but fall in love with them. Even at his narcissistic stupidest, Dirk never loses the charm that makes him so deliciously appealing to everyone at the start of the film; even in Rollergirl’s most undignified and pathetic, she maintains the aura of a 20s starlet; even when Amber leads Dirk by the nose into his fall from grace, her confused mothering always grounds the cadre with a genuine warmth that creates the unshakeable feeling of family. Even at its most dysfunctional, Anderson creates the most authentic adopted family unit in the history of cinema. Well, what fraction of it I’ve seen anyways. Despite shocking cocaine overdoses, debilitating addiction, hard-times prostitution, disgustingly obvious prosthetic cocks, and the requisite long-term rifts, what Boogie Nights gives us is an extremely watchable porn family that envelops me in love every time I watch it. With the music turned up… way up.

[This is the space where I will talk about The Matrix! but I just got off a coast to coast flight after reading Black Hole and my brain is busted, yo. Check back here later]

OK, if you haven’t seen The Matrix yet you should check yourself out – you’re probably attached to a giant mechanical cord plugged into the back of an electrochemical pod floating in space, in the barren wasteland of a destroyed continent below you, mired in your own piped-in fantasy.

Chances are you’ve seen it. And, why? Not because of fantastic reviews, that’s for sure. It’s because The Matrix enjoyed not just one of the most expensive, wide-reaching media campaigns of the era when it debuted in 1999, but because of its amazing word-of-mouth buzzes, possibly the most talked about of any commercial film in the last few decades. Within days of its release, literally everyone I talked to had seen it; it managed to transcend its shoot-em-up-and-overwhelm-em-with-effects marketting and attain a true position as must-see scifi film. While it obviously plays well to the 18-24 male target audience, it managed to quickly, and easily, permeate all our various social and cultural strata, leading to the kind of reunion of stereotypes I rarely saw in high-school: brutish, MTV-watching jocks; tall, leggy cheerleader bunnies; dark, femme fatale goths; normally quiet, chess-club nerds; literate, chalk-wielding professors, all joined the video club geeks in the near-universal, average-moviegoer praise that surrounded The Matrix following its weekend debut.

A huge audience makes a film great right? OK, not so much. But what the film did accomplish, despite some typically cardboard-like acting from Sir Reeves and dialog that often feels like it were bred in a vat, was tapping into an important cultural moment, the mix of fear and excitement that surrounded the quickly-approaching Year 2000. It evokes a world at once soul-crushingly dark and evil, and simultaneously a breathtaking vision of our own magnificent, self-made destruction. The Matrix was certainly not the first to create a dystopian world in which machines of our own making rise up to take us out of the equation (Terminator probably being the first blockbuster of the decade) nor was it the last (I, Robot, anyone?) but god damn The Wachowski brothers got it right.

While the idea of AI has, in the following decade, became far less frightening, as we realize just how complex the task of recreating true intelligence is, we should never forget quite how real everyone thought it was that by midway into the first decade of the new century, we would create some kind of cobbled-together mechanical conscience. The film reaches deep into the imagination, and fear, of that shared cultural hope and pulls out possibly the scariest nightmare of all: not that humans would be hunted down and killed by our technological masters, but that we would become the victims of a far more subtle torture: to be bred and cultivated purely for subsistence, our own marvellous minds turned against us as a means to ensure our docility and complicity. The parasitic relationship envisioned by the movie is so frighteningly plausible (except, you know, the idea that our bodies produce energy rather than consume it, which is fundamental to the plot – but quickly and effectively glossed-over) it still gives me shivers every time I see it. The film also tapped into the scientific realization that our brains are essentially vastly complex computers, based in electrochemicals as opposed to transistors, but that what differentiates reality from the perception of reality is far, far less than what we choose to believe in everyday life — this leads to the film’s greatest highs, the sequences of downloading entire volumes of human knowledge into the brain faster than eating a Snickers bar, the man vs. machine Yuen Woo Ping-flying fights, and the question of ignorance vs. bliss that still survives in the cultural groupthink today as the “red pill or blue pill?” meme. The mid ’90s cultivated a renaissance of the 70’s notion that we were, in fact, on a train heading to hell, piloted by our own destructive greed and capitalistic narcissism, and The Matrix managed to scare everyone into the wondering if it hadn’t happened already.

That’s what I really love about The Matrix; it doesn’t just exist as a fantasy story up on the projector. It forced us to contend with the idea that we aren’t so unique: that our creations could overtake us, that our bodies could be perverted against us, that our minds could be so easily corrupted, and all by our blind devotion to scientific progress. It jumps right off the screen and implants its ideas in your head, like a virus, or maybe even… an agent…

That’s rights folks, I am back on the short bus going straight to Hardee’s, er, Hades with a front row seat reserved. I guess it is just a perfect end to an amazingly shitty-ass week. I mean, this week was a humdinger. Let’s recount this for posterity sake, shall we?

I have been having tire trouble with my right front for a while. Every so often it loses pressure and though I have had it checked, there was no indication that a hole was in it. So, I concluded that gremlins sneak air out of it in transit because any other explanation could only lead to ridicule from the Les Shwab tire dolts.

Well, I came back from a trip to find it completely flat in the parking lot. Mother fucker. At that point I knew I had to call it quits with the mystery tire and just change it. So I proceeded to get to work. The only issue was that I had a hell of a time trying to get the jack off (haha) the tire mount resulting in a great gash up the wrist. No biggie, I have had worse.

Long story short I managed to get the car jacked up and took the flat tire off. But before I could put the spare on I noticed a strange creaking sound. While I was trying to pinpoint the odd sound there was a terrific POW and the car came crashing down on an empty wheel rotor-thing, nearly severing my flip flopped wearing foot. The jack completely buckled and busted.

Holy shit I nearly shit a shoe! I kid you not that was more nerve racking than getting into a moving accident. Not only did I almost cut/crush my foot in half but now my car was crippled on pavement with a bent brake and tire mount. I have never heard of a jack completely failing like that. Have you? It’s nice to know that 28K car has a $5 jack in it. Someone is getting a letter!

So, yay for triple A. Car is in recovery and I am in credit card debt.

I like to say that I am a professional firefighter but in the spring, hours and shifts became hard to get so I was forced back into corporate America as an office solution consultant. This week the “said” boss from Vegas took off for his cabin and left me with the glorious responsibility of firing two people. And anyone who knows me, knows that if I, so much as bump into your shopping buggy at the grocery store, I feel like I should load your car, so one can imagine how much I have been looking forward to canning people who look at me as the “wiffleball tony” of the office. (wiffleball Tony is the guy at the picnic that everyone loves and is the one to start the wiffleball game)

One of the guys I really didn’t mind letting go because, to be honest, he sucked. I have about as much use for him as I do a 4 foot novelty monkey wrench and while that sounds harsh, it really is not. He told a client her breasts didn’t look real while fixing her copier. I fired him with extreme prejudice.

The other, it was difficult and when ever I am in a position of awkward difficulty, I get the giggles. Yup. It’s awful and I am definitley bus-bound to the 7th circle. But even though I handled that like a roller skating party for the Nealy School of the Mentally Challenged, I managed to find him possible employment from a competitor. Don’t ask. People owe me favors I suppose.

To cap it all off, yesterday sealed it for me that this week ranks high on the one out of 52 to forget.  I was walking downtown and past a large window front of a small office space. On the window were pictures and at first glance I thought they were employees showing off how much fun it is to work there. I then stopped and focused in on a particularly funny photo that look much like this one:

I couldn’t help myself. I let out a thunderous laugh that scared birds from trees. It was one of those contagious laughs you see and while you don’t know what is funny, you find yourself laughing to share their joy. But soon my joy was replaced with a cold sweat of embarrassment and shame as I browsed the other photos and looked past the pictures to see people staring back at me with a look of disgust.

Remember how I mentioned earlier about the Nealy School for the Mentally Challenged? Yeah, I was standing infront of their school. When the realization hit me of what I looked like laughing at these pictures I would have rather been in these ten other places at that particular time.

1. Driving a Baptist Bus around Baghdad
2. Having a “meet in the middle” banana eating party with 62 year old Russian prostitute.
3. Farting in a yoga class full of girls
4. Setting up a PETA booth at the Idaho State Fair
5. Having a moped accident on live TV
6. Watching Boogie Nights with my Mom
7. Getting a job as a stage hand for the Hannah Montana Tour
8. Cursed with permanent sand grain in mouth
9. Teaching T Pain grammar lessons
10. Eating this laptop

I swear on all that is holy I did not know they were retarded. I really thought the guy was just caught in a bad picture. That didn’t seem to matter and any other week I would apologize and make amends but this week proved to be too much. So I ran. I ran hard and fast with tie flapping in the wind. I think karma owes me an IOU for this week.

Think less of me?

A pesar de las apariencias siento que Boogie Nights de Paul Thomas Anderson no es la historia de Dirk Diggler, metáfora usada por Anderson para contar una verisón de la verdadera historia de John Holmes, siento que para ese fin se puede uno referir a su primera peli, The Dirk Diggler Story de 1988 o acudir a la muy mal referida Wonderland de James Cox de 2003 donde Holmes es encarnado por Val Kilmer. No, siento que otra vez Paul Thomas Anderson nos habla de perfiles humanos degradados, maltratados y su bello renacer. Incluso siento que en algún momento es una crítica a la evolución del cine que por factores financieros potenció la producción en masa de videos para entrenimiento en el hogar y alejó la atención de la producción del celuloide. Puede que sea sólo yo, es cierto, pero es una versión bastante romántica de la peli que me quedó de la última vez que la ví.

Las pelis de Paul Thomas Anderson tienden a ser dramas muy fuertes con una rúbrica de su autoría muy marcada, una de las primeras características es la decadencia de sus personajes, creaciones completas en las cuales  él es el responsable como escritor de todas sus pelis. Para esta recibió una nominación de La Academia y los Bafta Awards por su guión (aunque el gran beneficiado por esta peli fue Burt Reynolds por su actuación como Jack Horner director de las pelis de Dirk Diggler y que le mereció numerosos premios y nominaciones en festivales independientes).

En esta peli me encanta el gran esfuerzo y trabajo del director así como de Robert Elswit responsable de la cinematografía ya que la peli abunda en secuencias de una sóla toma atravesando toda clase de recintos e iluminanciones, siendo un gran trabajo ostentoso se ve compensado con la consecución de una ambientación muy adecuada para la época.

Además de estas secuencias, de los acercamientos de cámara y los bruscos paneos, otra característica de la cinematografía que me parece realmente atractivo de la peli es el uso de conceptos errados de fotografía. Tengo un grupo en flickr que se llama Wrong Photography (http://www.flickr.com/groups/wrong_photo/) allí enumeramos este tipo de conceptos y descubrimos como de esa forma las imágenes son mucho más interesantes. En esta peli la mayoría de los encuadres están mal hechos, los focos no están centrados, las luces no son las correctas y los centros de atención están dispuestos de una forma poco ortodoxa.

Finalmente, un buen elenco hace que la historia y el guión sobresalga, esta peli se caracteriza por dos cosas, un gran reparto, con una ejecución de sus actuaciones y la conjunción de una serie de actores de muy alto nivel que después se volvió un reparto inseparable para su siguiente peli Magnolia de 1999 y algunos hasta Puch-Drunk Love de 2002. Me refiero a Luis Guzman, Julianne Moore, John C. Reily, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters y Philip Baker Hall (a quien reconozco como Bookman de Seinfeld). El resto de las actuaciones también son muy sobresalientes: Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, Mark Wahlberg y Robert Ridgely como el Coronel James.

Note: The following post is about a scene in season three of Mad Men. I know that some readers have not gotten this far in the series, or have begun watching it. As a result, I’ve tried not to include spoilers in my analysis of a scene in last Sunday’s episode. However, the scene involves the film version of Bye Bye Birdie, which does indicate where the show is in terms of its historical time line.

As you may have been able to glean from a previous post about Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, I follow Mad Men, AMC’s original series about advertisers who work at Sterling Cooper, a Manhattan-based agency, and the people who try to love them in the 1960s.

I’m not a super-fan, but the show does make for chewy television. The 1960s is one of my favorite periods in American history and they plum its depths and margins. Thus, I keep waiting for a phone call at work from some beleaguered production assistant to the LBJ Library. The acting is great, the visual style is sumptuous, the writing is sharp and often surprisingly funny, and the writing staff (despite creator-show runner Matthew Weiner’s authorial presence) has a considerable female personnel. And though sometimes Mad Men can be heavy-handed, it tends to balance these moments with subtle, at times shocking period details or character developments. Also, I really appreciate that I can empathize with almost any character.

One character who I whole-heartedly empathize with is Peggy Olson, a young steno turned copy writer who, unlike many of the women at Sterling Cooper so far, seems more interested in a corner office than an engagement ring. Actress Elisabeth Moss has mentioned that she thinks Olson is a feminist, and I concur. I love her refreshing lack of sentimentality, her toughness, and her persistence in sticking up for herself, which is hard to do when your male co-workers are looking for dollies when you think of women and girls as real people.

I always root for Peggy Olson; image courtesy of examiner.com

This brings us to last week’s episode, wherein Olson is trying to create a campaign for Patio, Pepsi’s prototypical diet soda. The folks at Pepsi want to latch on to the popularity of the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie, which stars the exhuberant sex-bomb-in-the-making Ann-Margret. Basically, Pepsi envisions ripping off the movie’s opening sequence (which you can watch below, along with the reprise).

This campaign is something the boys are all too happy to help cast. Her boss, Don Draper, thinks it’s a no-brainer because men want her so women want to be her (I suspect Draper is phoning it in here because he doesn’t like the product, its ridiculous name, and doubts the future of a company he helped build, but I will refrain from commenting further).

Peggy objects to this direction, decrying the planned campaign (and Ann-Margret’s performance) as phony. Peggy wants to tap into why women and girls would like this product, while most of her male contemporaries seem to want to project how they feel about women onto female consumers.

And then things get interesting. At home, Peggy launches into her own impromptu performance in front of her mirror while getting ready for bed. It’s a TV moment so delicious, awkward, and fraught with ideological tension that it makes me impatient for the day I can play the clip in a lecture or a conference presentation. Slate’s TV Club has evaluated the scene with many other journalists and bloggers, along with some problematic character developments that I won’t comment on at this time (though, if you know what I’m talking about, I like Amy Benfer’s read on it). Here’s my take about why I love this particular scene.

1. Yes, there is an element of aspiration to Peggy’s performance. While others have commented on this, I don’t think Peggy necessarily wants to be Ann-Margret so much as figure out the mechanics of her performance and why men seem to want women and girls to be like Ann-Margret. She wants to work through it. And while she’s not a convincing Ann-Margret (in fact, she’s a terrible Ann-Margret), I don’t think she wants to be.

2. This disassociation with Ann-Margret seems further evident in the sarcasm in Peggy’s performance. While at times she tries to genuinely play Ann-Margret, much of her performance seems to mock the original. Once again, I think Peggy’s saying that she doesn’t want to be Ann-Margret and commenting on the performance’s artificiality. In others words, she seems to be taking the piss.

3. Yet, she’s also a little sad that she can’t be Ann-Margret. There have been other moments in the show where her colleagues have made fun of her for seeming harsh and mannish and, therefore, not sexy. Sometimes, she swallows their barbs. Other times, she spars. Sometimes, at other women’s urgings, she dresses or behaves in a more conventionally feminine manner. But I think her inability to channel Ann-Margret doesn’t suggest that she’s not sexy so much as comment on the limitations of this notion of female sexiness, as well as its unattainability (possibly even for the actresses who seem to possess it). Because, to me, Peggy is sexy, especially when she takes control, makes a trangression, declines a compromised offer, or bucks the established order of things. Thus, she suggests sexiness is elastic (something Ann-Margret herself would do at the end of the decade with a beguiling, damaged performance in Carnal Knowledge).

4. I love how arrhythmic and unnatural this scene is. I love that we see Olson stop mid-song, forget the words, re-remember dance moves, squint to study her performance, and then finish the song abruptly so she can finish brushing her hair.

5. Finally, Moss’s performance adds an additional layer of delightful inquiry. I’m always fascinated by scenes where great actors play characters who are bad actors (for an terrific example, see Julianne Moore’s performance as Amber Waves acting with Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights). It may look easy for actors to deliberately act badly, but assuredly it isn’t. It seems even more difficult to convince an audience that the character is doing the bad acting and not the actor. That it’s a woman playing a character she inhabits fully playing a character she can’t inhabit fully because she recognizes that it’s a deceitful, potentially damaging construct makes for very chewy television indeed.

So, I started reading Pop Fiction: The Song in Cinema. It’s a slim collection of essays edited by Matthew Caley and Steve Lannin that focus on individual movie scenes and song selection. The argument seems to be that the scenes in question and the songs that accompany them define or transform the movie (i.e., the movie would not be the same without these cinematic and musical moments).

In its way, this exercise reminds me of “Scenic Routes,” a new series Mike D’Angelo is doing for The Onion that focuses on a particular scene in a movie (I especially liked his first entry on the Rahad Jackson scene in Boogie Nights).

Of course, I think about this with an awareness of how music videos might factor into this discussion. There’s the necessity to acknowledge the traditional film score scholar perspective that using popular music to narrate a scene creates hollow “MTV moments,” a concept loaded with class-based derisiveness that Miguel Mera rejects in his excellent analysis of the overdose scene in Trainspotting, which employs Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” 

And then there’s also consideration that must paid to instances when songs that are used in movies have their own accompanying music videos. This is something I wish David Toop brought into his discussion of Massive Attack’s “Karmacoma” and how Wong Kar-Wai used a different version of the song for Fallen Angels. I haven’t seen Fallen Angels, but Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling music video for the single left an indelible impression on me. For that matter, Wong Kar-Wai left his mark on me as a music video director well before I was aware of his film work, thanks to his clip for DJ Shadow’s “Six Days.”

So, much like I do with music videos, I thought I’d post a key scene(s) in a movie that I believe aligns with the intent of this blog. Tonight, I present the “Magic Man” scene and the “Crazy On You” scene in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, both accompanied by Heart. To borrow from Robynn Stilwell’s essay “Vinyl Communion: The Record as Ritual Object in Girls’ Rites-of-Passage Films,” these scenes consider female objectification of the male form and female sexual autonomy and subjectivity.

Discuss, discuss! Also, feel free to contribute other scene suggestions for future posts (especially if they come from movies I haven’t seen).