Star Wars: Uncut
Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.
Observers and filmmakers have talked about the democratization of the medium through digital technologies but these comments very rarely define whether that is a value to cinema and the things that can only now be accomplished. While the potential for lower budgets increases, so does Hollywood’s desire to assert its prominence in the only area it can always beat the little guys: production value. The illusions only money can buy.
What I like most about Star Wars: Uncut is it is the ultimate omnibus project, a giant clash of production values, creativity and ideas. Using whatever means are available, filmmakers and fans can recreate a 15 second clip from Lucas’ film, not with the intention of hiding low budgets, but with the pure intention of having fun (and often reveling in the low-fi resources). Sometimes it is the simple means incorporated that give a viewer enjoyment.
I can sense that some may see a project like this as a travesty, giving the tools of creation to the monkeys, destroying Lucas’ vision. Let me say this: Lucas has already destroyed his vision. He continues to destroy it. If anything, Star Wars: Uncut is putting the soul back into a film that Lucas has been all too content to destroy. After all, was it that long ago that George Lucas had to use his imagination and collaboration to bring something to life on the screen because he didn’t have all the money in the world? And all the monkeys who have held a monopoly on the process (and continues to in many ways) should have their world shaken up a little bit. It’s just a good thing for everybody.
So: where’s your scene? Here’s mine.
The Crying Number
A relic from an era when we used telephones to satisfy our shallow curiosities. Thankfully we got over all that when we invented the internet.
Man in the Mirror
I knew it would happen but I figured it all wrong. I had half-assumed a suicide and I knew it wouldn’t bother me. But when I read the news and the circumstances something inside me hurt.
It did bother me.
Michael Jackson is America. He is the best and worst of what America can be, he is the best and worst of what America means to the rest of the world, he is perhaps America’s greatest export. If I had a flagpole it would be lowered to half-mast for no recent politician, president, religious leader or celebrity comes nearly as close to Michael Jackson in symbolic power and world-wide appeal. He may have been past his prime, but he could sell out a 50,000-seat stadium at the drop of a hat, still make thousands upon thousands of people scream as he walked onto the stage. You can’t buy that kind of fame. No, fame’s not even the right word. Legend. Michael Jackson was America. Maybe America’s different now. Maybe it changed and he could no longer be a part of it. Maybe I’ll go listen to Off the Wall again.
And again.
And again.
After June 25, 2009, there were a lot of people in the world listening to Michael Jackson records again. Some people cried. Others scorned such a messed up individual making such catchy, exciting music. They liked the music, they hated who made it. There were still others who would not go close, would not listen anymore, knowing what they now knew about Neverland Ranch…or what they had decided they knew. In the end the ostentatious showman had been had. Some would never forget and would always remind those who held judgments. Such is the way, I suppose. For what does it mean to be famous if it is not the God-given right of every human who has ever read a news article about you to know exactly who you are, exactly what you do, exactly what you’re capable of. And what right do I have to say otherwise?
After Edmund DVD pre-Order!
Yo! You can now pre-order “Spaceships and Submarines” (more…)
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
Burton envisions
German Expressionism’s
Updated syntax
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985)
My favorite superhero movie is Tim Burton’s debut feature film following the iconic hybrid child-man as he seeks to find his stolen bicycle in the basement of the Alamo. Burton has obviously — throughout his career — adopted some aesthetic tendencies in art direction and costume from the German Expressionist movement but he best evokes the cinema of Murnau and Wiene when he does what the original movement was based upon: the visual expression of a character’s inner thoughts. All aesthetics are grounded in principles, which is why Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is still the only film Burton has made that I think is truly great. Lofty influences aside, Pee-Wee is incredibly funny in a way that could only be funny in cinema. And like all good cinematic comedies, it isn’t afraid to point back at itself and laugh.
This film is available on DVD wherever DVDs are sold.
Cinema Haiku #0008
Peasant on VH1
Yo! Me again… it’s been awhile… BUT LOOK! VH1 has the Peasant video too.
check out the LINK.
Ganglians
Share the sound, share the love!
Oh, ! I’m happy to have paid attention to this band. They’ve been gaining some press recently because
they’ve put out a killer album Monster Head Room.
It’s so fantastic when music makes you feel this
wonderful thing that’s nearly unexplainable. It’s like when you meet someone and you instantly click, when you are just so excited to tell them everything, and your words and thoughts begin to overlap, and you start to cut each other off- not in a snotty way, but in an excited “Oh my god! Me too! I have to tell you this!” sort of way- and it goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and before you know it, you’ve been talking for hours and all your other friends have left you behind, but it doesn’t matter because you are so happy and satisfied in that moment.
Listening to Ganglians is like that. And I’ve only just begun to devour the record.
Ok, here’s the lowdown: they’re signed to Weird Forest Records. They are based out of Sacramento. They played at SXSW this year. Stereogum has done stories (plural) about them. So has Vice Magazine and last.fm. I think “Valient Brave” is a great song, as is “Never Mine.” Listen on their myspace. Buy their record.
Sam Quinn + Japan Ten
Formally the front man of the everybodyfields, here comes Sam Quinn’s solo project Sam Quinn + Japan Ten. Halleluiah! As sad as it may be that the everybodyfields are “taking a permanent break,” Quinn’s new project is completely quenching my thirst for that sweet and sad melancholy folk music.
They’ve only officially been a band since March of this year, so there aren’t very many tunes to check out on their myspace yet, but the few that are make the grade. “Hello” is my favorite. They are, of course, signed to Ramseur Records, as were the everybodyfields, but no word yet about an upcoming album. We can only hope a record will be released within the year. I love hearing Sam Quinn’s beautiful, quavering voice. I hope he never stops making music.
Finding Me
photo from freephotos.net
Finding Me (Click for an Audio of a Reading of this poem)
I wish I wrote my poems with such style
That everyone that heard would be amazed
At how the syllables danced, all the while
Enchanting readers helpless, listening, dazed.
But I don’t do that.
I wish I was a master of spoken word
demanding my message be heard
or I’ll knock you ’side the head with my diction
the prediction in my fiction
forcing you to grab on, hold tight,
spin around,
shaking you,
breaking you,
making you
love the mouse that roared
in my house that soared higher than anybody
ever thought poetry could take them.
I could throw in an “ation”
like syncopation
with the nation
of anticipation.
I wanna curse
and be political,
maybe even Democrat.
But I don’t do that.
All I can do
is stand
on white tile
and bleed
and cry as I try to clean the mess
and hope
that someone who hears me
feels somewhat warmer
knowing that the coldness of the world
is shared.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
photo from freephotos.net
Out of the Mouths of Babes, Into the Mouths of Lions (Click for Audio of a reading of this Poem)
So I’m driving from Town Center to the Square when it hits me [my mind races when I drive, maybe it was too much tea or maybe too much studying for exams,
or maybe it was seeing my pastor flirting with the barista at StarbucksTM].
All of a sudden every turn in the road– every casual, causal, conclusive, concave decision, every left turn right turn choice– feels like a moral dilemma.
And if every choice is a moral one when a tree falls in the forest on
my head which hurts from staying up all night with my books open
and my mind closed [shut tight], won’t nothing get in, and I let all my windows down.
The fifty year old hippie driving the car next to me [doughy men should not wear t-shirts as fashion] seems to make me think of Jason’s father who works out
and has a fauxhawk because he’s scared of being forty-five and who says, “we all have our agendas” as if being seventeen and naive is something we need to set outside for the garbage man like the broken springed sofa with the scratchy fabric. One man’s sophistry is another man’s clever argument even if it‘s up a tree in the forest.
Forgive me if I’m inappropriate, if my flipped tie and skirt plaid pattern is askew, but when I drive along and see the jeep parked at WalmartTM with the door left open [rushed to a sale on flip flops, I guess] should I stop and close it? When I’m outta here are there people to hear the noises in the forest?
I told you my mind races and is all over places.
I saw a cute cartoon on a graduation card with Snoopy and his graduation hat
(I mean what do they call it–something mortar) anyway, he was carrying a suitcase, but I don’t remember the message cause I got distracted by the “Hang in there, Baby” kitty card in the get well section. Funny, the get well section right next to the graduation section. So the stories blur, and if a graduate has an idea and there’s no one there to hear it will it make a noise?
Well, the story ends when I get pulled over by the County cop, and I don’t even appeal for grace cause I’m kinda glad that there are things like the law that stand up and fight for principles. And if there was a speed limit in the forest and no one was there to see it…The red lights and green lights and speed limits
aren’t up for negotiations or relativity. When I speed I can bet on that little slip of yellow paper, and when I sign it, I feel, well, almost spiritual in my guilt, but he says it really doesn’t mean I’m guilty.
So thank you, my brothas,
my artistic mothas who taught me of disposable BicTM morality
the fatality of fertility,
the futility of purity,
the expiration of fidelity to God in whom we trust.
Give me stability over this poetry
any day.
Cows in the Field
…from the film Burden of Dreams (Les Blank, 1982)
Learning How to See
Water Fall in the Catskills (James H. White, 1897)
The Library of Congress now has a YouTube page where they are uploading (among other things) some of the early Thomas Edison kinetoscope films. These are the earliest known American motion pictures.
To me, these are fascinating artifacts of a time when people were just learning how to see for the first time through a new medium, a medium that was captivating for its movement and realism. But some of these kinetoscopes are also moving documentary captures in themselves. Simple, unobtrusive, committed to basic compositional form and dynamic movement. It wasn’t certain whether motion pictures were going to develop beyond a penny arcade novelty, but Edison, ever the capitalist, made sure he had what he needed to ride the wave while it lasted.
Is New Release Your Favorite Genre Too?
I swore off Blockbuster Video in summer of 2003. It wasn’t anything personal. The store ceased to offer anything that I wanted by way of non-New Release titles. Not to mention their wacky return policy for New Releases at the time (Oh, I can only keep this for three days? And tonight counts as the first day? And it’s due back at 12 noon the day after tomorrow?).
In an interview with Rafat Ali for paidcontent.org (Aug 18, 2008), Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes tries to make it sound like Blockbuster is going to be around for a long, long time. My favorite part was when he uses his personal film taste to describe his market strategy.
I don’t care how many movies are available to me. As my personal taste as a customer, I want to watch the new stuff so whether we have 10,000 movies or 200 movies it doesn’t matter if I don’t want to see any of the movies that we have. So, our assortment is heavily weighted toward newer releases and mainstream staple titles.
To be fair, Keyes is not nearly as aloof as Wired Magazine would have one believe, but he certainly believes that technology is the savior of Blockbuster Video in a way good customer service, clean facilities, a well-maintained catalogue of diverse movies and reasonable rental fees could never do. Of course, these are several of the reasons that I have heard ex-Blockbuster-customers state as things they no longer found. What I don’t think Keyes understands is that when people leave the brick-and-mortar store with a bad taste in their mouth, they are not real quick to hop online and fill up an online queue with the same company.
As Blockbuster’s shares dwindle down to roughly 70¢ a share (it was closer to $2.50 in August of 2008) and their lawyers “evaluate restructuring options, including a possible pre-packaged bankruptcy”, all the technology in the world may not be able to save it. Corporate branding works both ways, you know.
California GIRLS
Earnest and sincere, GIRLS bring a new brand of dreamy shoegaze for the late 2000’s. It is true and honest pop music. There is no sign of irony. There is no laughably overwritten chorus. There is only their obvious love of Ariel Pink, simplicity, and their ability to be seriously playful.
GIRLS have hometown popularity, having been named one of the city’s Bands to Watch in SF Weekly. They are gaining acclaim among indie music reviewers having made it into Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks of 2008, and into Gorilla vs. Bear’s Most Likely to Succeed 2K9.
So people are talking. And this time, it’s worth listening. GIRLS are signed to Bay Area label True Panther Sounds and are said to be releasing their debut album sometime this year. In the meantime, here is their myspace. The choice track so far among music snobs seems to be “Hellhole Ratrace”, so why don’t you give that one a try first. You know, we music snobs are always right…
The Beautiful You
Few items speak more potently and immediately to a superficial culture’s obsession with some undefined notion of beauty. This is a consumer culture’s gasping breath for self-importance and self-acceptance. Give your face life by putting on a lifeless mask and stare dully into the future of the beautiful you.
Sad, beautiful, painful, funny, maybe a little creepy.
Vagabond Opera
Having been compared to the likes of Beirut, Gogol Bordello, and Devotchka says something of this little Portland ensemble. Just released earlier this month, their newest album The Zeitgeist Beckons is sure to make heads turn. In fact, it already has.
They have a sound that I’m relatively unfamiliar with, and I am drawn to the exciting mystery that surrounds Vagabond Opera. Comprised of multi-lingual trained opera singers armed with an array of interesting music makers (including strings, brass, an accordion and musical saw), they are creators of a strange and fantastic world. After reading several posts about them, I have come to the conclusion that their live show is a force to be reckoned with. Portland is not too far from my home. Maybe it’s time for a little road trip.
Here they are, on myspace. I’ve been listening to “Ganef.” It’s sultry, slow and nails the whole old-world gypsy, theatrical burlesque feel Vagabond Opera is starting to be known for.
An Active Audience
If the film is active, the spectator becomes passive; that’s a very general rule. Hollywood films try to persuade the audience to give up their own experience and follow the more organized experience of the film. In my opinion, the opposite is right.
– Alexander Kluge
For more insights into the work and ideologies of a leading New German filmmaker, read the whole Film Comment Interview (from Nov/Dec 1974).
Top Image: A still from Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (Alexander Kluge, 1968).
Blast That Solid Christian Rock
Ever wish you could be a worship leader at a megachurch? Well now you can!
Lead a thousand happy faces in handclaps over the head! Power-chord bridges! ”Jesus is My Boyfriend” lyrics!
Feeling down? Don’t worry: Onscreen lyrics reflect positive Christian messages!
Faces
Discontentment works
On suburban souls needing
Words and affection
Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)
The films of John Cassavetes are some of the most brilliant, observant and complex portraits of adult relationships in all of world cinema. There are no stereotypes, no clichés, no simple motives. These are the stories of Americans struggling to communicate, seeking some sort of resolution or emotional connection. The emotional squalor of late-60’s suburbia is being tapped here, the offhand camera finding bits and pieces of people as they circle each other like predators or hide behind their verbal assaults. Few film experiences leave me as devastated as Faces, but even then, the devastation seems cathartic as the morning seeping through the curtains, down the stairs into the kitchen as the night ends and the silent walk up the stairs to bed.
This film is available on DVD from the Criterion Collection.
Cinema Haiku #0007
VANCAR on Fuse
FUSE TV
Check it out! The Peasant video was picked up by The Worm on Fuse tv. (more…)
AUTOPASSION
Post-future music mania
? It doesn’t get any better than this.
This is one of my absolutely, hands down, one of my favorite bands. In fact, it may be my favorite band. A lofty statement, and I stand by it 100%. Every time I hear their music, I smile, my heart breaks a little. Every time I see them play, I’m thrown into a whirlwind of awe, love, joy… I adore these guys. Fortunately for you, their myspace features a multitude of perfectly crafted rock songs to indulge in anytime, all the time.
Based out of Brooklyn, by way of “Camel City”, these boys do not disappoint. Any song you choose is going to blow you away. I am confident of that. But if you really need me to hold your hand, start with “Count Every Grain.”
Amazing musicians, cool dudes- I truly love Autopassion. You will too.
That Boy is trouble for America
The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939)
This is one of my favorite videos on archive.org. (more…)
VANCAR on Much Music
You can find the Peasant “We’re Good” video on muchmusic.com Depending on your region, you may not be able to see the video. Muchmusic.com is a Canadian thing.
Here’s the LINK <—
Magical Maestro
Equality found
Under the spell of magic
Stereotyping
Magical Maestro (Tex Avery, 1952)
Tex Avery’s films are under attack. It is not a planned assault, but the powers that be have decided what is decent and what is not decent for a supposedly intelligent, enlightened and tolerant society to see. Among those things not allowed are old cartoons that make any play on ethnic physicality or cultural costume. Magical Maestro falls squarely into this category, a film where no ethnic group, no cultural expression is left unspoofed, least of all the dominant cultural and ethnic paradigm (the presumably “white and cultured” opera singer is, of course, Poochini — a dog). But forget all that and remember this: Tex Avery was a madcap genius, filling a short film with a ratatat barrage of gags that build and build into a crescendo of chaos. Often, there is at least one self-reflexive moment where the characters acknowledge the existence of the audience or the fact that they are in a film. The self-reflexive moment in Magical Maestro is one of the most brilliant gags in any comedic film of any era.
This short film is unavailable on DVD from the rights holders (MGM/Warner Brothers). However, if you click quickly there may still be a valid link to a version made available by some noble outlaw.
Cinema Haiku #0006