the primrose path

Some nice animation, especially if you like dogs, but the ending packs a punch. Oscar nominated this year.



Genesis 3:11

This year will see not only a film adaptation of On the Road, but also one about Big Sur my favorite Kerouac title:



Also, Bowie isn't the only one with a new album out, after 14 years, Dead Can Dance's new offering can be streamed from their website. Haven't listened to it, yet:

http://www.deadcandance.com/main/

I told Brother about visiting the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit and he switched almost immediately to one of my favorite designers John Paul Gautier. "He's been doing some really weird stuff lately," he said.

"He always does weird stuff," I said, but realized I hadn't checked in on the latest collections.

( Clips behind the cut... )

At The Independent

The question remains when Mrs. Gaskell will get her due... not only for creating the Brontë legend, but brilliantly bridging the divide between Austen's sense and the Brontë's sensibility. A somewhat hyperbolic and nicely written article, complete with blurbs on Brontës from contemporary authors. Also, this new film adaptation of Wuthering looks brilliant and brutal.



A thought, inspired by the Twilight references, is the possibility of Wuthering Heights functioning as a working text on love as a curse. To an extent all the Brontë's work could be read this way.

I am an enormous fan of The Archers, the team of mid-20C filmmakers who have made some of my all time favorite films. Among them, The Red Shoes about a ballet dancer torn between love and her art slowly losing her mind, and I Know Where I'm Going about a woman traveling to the outer islands of Scotland to get married, only to become stymied by the weather. LIfe, it seems, has other plans for her. I've seen several of there other films, including Black Narcissus about British nuns in India who slowly go mad as they come to the realization that there are forces --- including the possibility of cultural or supernatural ones --- far greater than the faith of their cold island, and The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp an unusual piece of war propaganda following the career of a military officer from the Boer War through WWII. He befriends a German officer early in the film, only to have to fight against him in WWI and to have to protect him during WWII. This is so far my least favorite of their films, but it's still an interesting meditation on lives and loves far grander than the latest conflict. Among other things it has an unusual love triangle. The woman both men love is far less interesting than their deep bond of brotherhood, which stays with them beyond nearly 50 years of their countries in conflict.

Last night I saw their film A Matter of Life & Death (released as Stairway to Heaven in the US, since the studios refused to release anything with the word 'death' in it immediately after the war.) This is a psychodrama, in addition to a piece of post-war propaganda about Anglo-American relations, and memorial for the dead. It was made just after the war, but the action takes place in the last days of the war, with characters uncertain of the future and not knowing the outcome of their sacrifices.

( Read more... )

In which Salon's film critic Andrew O'hehir interviews Lars von Trier and compares his latest film Melancholia, to Tove Jansson's Comet in Moominland:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/lars_von_trier/index.html?story=/ent/movies/feature/2011/05/21/lars_von_trier_interview

Speaking of which, when are Americans ever going to get a crack at the 3D Moomin movie?

Also, interesting apocrypha on Tarkovsky's Solaris:

I was just told by some Russian that the first time Tarkovsky saw "Solaris," he said, "It's far too beautiful." Then he cut all the beautiful scenes out, and there was the film. That's an honorable man.

I went to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night with Brother, in lieu of Early Music rehearsal, which I'm still missing, if not acutely, than with a dull ache and a sense of vague discomfort. I want to tell you this is the best movie I've seen this year and if you see one 3D movie this year, make it this one.... But as gorgeous and must-see as I found this, I expect some of you would get a headache or become bored or uncomfortable. It's okay. Herzog is not for everyone... however, if you're not going to see this film, I would encourage you to find whatever floats your boat and go do it. Creation demands nothing less.

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Cary Fukunaga's adaptation finally came to town. I went to see it Friday, not expecting it to throw me sideways. This word for the film is 'haunted.' Not just 'haunting' --- though it is that, too --- but haunted by people, places, and experiences that refuse to lay quiet in the past. It seems appropriate that the film be haunted, after all, this is hardly the first adaptation of Charlotte Brontes much beloved book. Fukunaga knows that it is probably not the first encounter the audience will have with the tale. We are haunted by the story, and even though it pains us, like Jane we keep coming back for more.

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Yesterday I went to Norihiro Kato's lecture From Godzilla to Hello Kitty with gelid_cognition and dr_tectonic. The lecture was good, the basic thesis of which addressed two questions: 1. why does godzilla always head for Japan? 2. Why are we sad when the monster dies? Prof. Kato (yes, I couldn't tell if they had arranged the names Western or Japanese style) talks about Godzilla in terms of Japanese War Dead. He said that the loss of face incurred after WWII made grieving impossible, "Soldiers had died not only in vain, but in error." Godzilla, he says, is the Japanese war dead, which returns to the Japan when the war dead cannot, both haunting Japan, and wreaking destruction on it. Nevertheless, we grieve when the monster is destroyed, because, in essence, it is a part of us.

( Read more... )

So... I saw Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn a few weeks ago. It is the story of the German-born American pilot Dieter Dengler who was shot down in Laos during the opening volleys of the Vietnam war. He was one of the only POWs to escape from a prison camp and survive. This is significant as one of the challenges facing Dengler is the fact that it is unlikely that the gov't will trade for him as Laos is officially not part of the conflict and the presence of Americans in Laos is a violation of the terms of the conflict.

( Rescue Dawn & Little Dieter Needs to Fly )