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Saturday, April 10, 2010
Best. Baseball-related. Short. Subject. EVAR
Holy Jesus. Make sure you're sitting down and aren't drinking anything, because you will snork like a motherfucker.
Time magazine on this short
Snopes.com confirms story
Dock Ellis' career stats
Animator James Blagden's website Labels: baseball, films
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
'All that matters' in a film
The novel [The Shining, by Stephen King] is by no means a serious literary work, but the plot is for the most part extremely well worked out, and for a film that is often all that really matters. ... There is no doubt that a good story has always mattered, and the great novelists have generally built their work around strong plots. But I've never been able to decide whether the plot is just a way of keeping people's attention while you do everything else, or whether the plot is really more important than anything else, perhaps communicating with us on an unconscious level which affects us in the way that myths once did. I think, in some ways, the conventions of realistic fiction and drama may impose serious limitations on a story. For one thing, if you play by the rules and respect the preparation and pace required to establish realism, it takes a lot longer to make a point than it does, say, in fantasy. At the same time, it is possible that this very work that contributes to a story's realism may weaken its grip on the unconscious. Realism is probably the best way to dramatize argument and ideas. Fantasy may deal best with themes which lie primarily in the unconscious. I think the unconscious appeal of a ghost story, for instance, lies in its promise of immortality.
--filmmaker Stanley Kubrick in an interview
commenting on adapting the novel to film
technorati: cinema, Kubrick Labels: cinema, films, narrative
Friday, March 05, 2010
The desert 'love lost lawyer'
There is a body of internet practice called search engine optimization or SEO. It is the art and science of engineering a web page, or blog posting, to try to ensure the page floats to the top of the results dellivered by Google and other search engines when certain phrases are the subject of a search.
One look at this page and you'll see what I mean. Titled "Twentynine Palms Wrongful Death Attorney, Lost Love Lawyer and People Search Attorney for Twentynine Palms -- Find Your Lost Love," the page features a 1325-word supposed article about a lawyer in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, Calif., a small town adjacent to both Joshua Tree National Park and the world's largest Marine Corps base. According to the article, a lawyer named Sebastian Gibson will attempt to "find your lost love or obtain compensation for you for the wrongful death of a loved one ... (using) the highest quality legal resources that can be utilized to find the person you are looking for."
In reality, this so-called article consists of repetitions of certain stock phrases, reworded into a variety of different sentences. The idea behind SEO is that you can't just put a bunch of phrases onto a page over and over again; you have to make it look (to the bot, at least) like an actual blog posting. This is where the art comes in: to cram as many key words as possible into something that looks like an actual article.
Such an "article" begs comparisons to the compositions of certain dull-minded high school students with whom I made my acquaintance back when I was an English teacher. In each class I always had a couple of students who couldn't write at all, and who, when assigned to write an essay, would simply string together certain key phrases, usually drawn from the question itself. Asked about the character traits that make Atticus Finch so memorable, such a student might write, "Atticus Finch had very good character traits that made him memorable. These traits showed good character, such as memory and strengh. I thought Atticus Finch was a strong character and had a good trait." (Only they were actually more poorly written than that.)
Clearly the so-called article exists entirely to draw the attention of search engines to the law practice of Mr. Gibson -- and a search on his name reveals he makes something of a hobby of SEO. Or maybe it's someone in his office, or some internet SEO firm he's hired. It looks like he's getting his money's worth.
But what I'm interested in is the mythical qualities embodied in this picture. The lawyer in the remote desert town whose practice is, in part, the search for "lost loved ones." In between working on a few wrongful death cases, he trolls the internet looking for your old high school girlfriend -- or maybe, in the case of Marines returned from their third or fourth deployment in the war on terror, that foxy female tank mechanic they used to drink beer with in Tikrit back in 2005.
This cries out to be a movie, starring perhaps Jim Carrey or Woody Harrelson, as a hard-drinking lawyer with a client played by, I don't know, Ben Affleck. The client is trying to find an ex, played by Charlize Theron (if this were the 80s she would be played by Nastassja Kinski, a la Paris, Texas). The film could be written as a straighforward comedy, but I like it better as a bittersweet film (again, a la Paris, Texas), the real subject being the fact that the lawyer character's life was wrecked when he lost the love of his life (played in the present by Helen Hunt and in flashbacks by, say, January Jones).
Related: The Lonely Brinks 'Stockroom' Man
technorati: SEO, films, 29 Palms Labels: 1980s, desert, films, Knock Yourself Out, marketing, writers ideas
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Netflix, may I kindly say 'Fuck off'?
Mark, based on your interest in "3:10 to Yuma" ...
We think you'll enjoy "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" Is this kind of shit supposed to endear Netflix to me? Did they really award somebody one million dollars to improve their recommendations? Can I turn it off somehow?
Does anybody at Netflix know the meaning of the verb "to patronize"?Labels: films, the internets
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Dream of Acker
I had a dream that they were making a biopic about Kathy Acker and she was being played by Mary Woronov.Labels: films, Kathy Acker
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Herzog's film school 'not for the faint-hearted'
It's almost like a satire: Werner Herzog announces a "Rogue Film School .. in guerrilla filmmaking" (courtesy The Rumpus) that will teach rough-and-tumble filmmaking teachniques. His description reads like a manifesto: "The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted," said the film-maker. "It is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favouring their projects.
"In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream." I wonder if he will begin the first day by declaring, "The first rule of Rogue Film School is that you don't talk about Rogue Film School!"
Herzog is clearly among that class of artists who -- perhaps luckily for the citizens of their nations -- might also have become extremely persuasive politicians (Vaclav Havel having been the only one to actually make the leap to head of state). technorati: Herzog Labels: Bad Behavior, fanatics, films
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Comedy reflects dark times -- AP
The recently released comedy "Observe and Report" -- which has sparked extremes of reaction from critics -- reflects the country's dark mood, writes the AP.
You know the good thing about the Great Depression? It was so long that popular culture had time to reflect it instead of just react to it. When we think of films of the 1930s we think mainly of escapist fare -- "The Thin Man" pictures, Busby Berkley and so on, all the way to "Gone with the Wind." The hard times themselves were reflected subtly, in gangster movies and B pictures. Finally, at the end of the decade, a film like "The Grapes of Wrath" (on the dramatic side) or "Sullivan's Travels" (on the comedic side) could directly address the condition of being poor.
Nowadays television reacts more quickly than any other medium. You're already seeing recession-themed stories on prime-time shows. technorati: films, cinema, economy Labels: cinema, films, recession, television, zeitgeist
Monday, March 02, 2009
A recognisable voice by any other name is, for a comic, shtick
To a short article about the premiere of Woody Allen's next film, online editors added a link to a supposed diary Allen kept during the shooting of his recent, Oscar-nominated "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." A typical excerpt: July 15 -- Once again I had to help Javier with the lovemaking scenes. The sequence requires him to grab Penélope Cruz, tear off her clothes and ravish her in the bedroom. Oscar winner that he is, the man still needs me to show him how to play passion. I grabbed Penélope and with one motion tore her clothes off. As fate would have it she had not yet changed into costume, so it was her own expensive dress I mutilated. Undaunted I flung her down before the fireplace and dove on top of her. Minx that she is, she rolled away a split second before I landed causing me to fracture certain key teeth on the tile floor. Fine day's work, and I should be able to eat solids by August. Of course, none of this so-called diary has anything to do with what happened during the shooting of the film. It's merely a promotional device, something you could see Allen sitting down and writing in the space of a few cab rides in Manhattan. Still, it's undeniably his voice, and you can't read it without hearing him -- the same kinds of jokes, phrases and pacing he's been using for nearly 50 years -- in other words, his shtick.
It's not that I don't harbor some admiration for it, it's that I wonder whom it's supposed to impress. Is anyone reading that piece naive enough to say to themselves, "Gosh, it's the same ol' Woody we have known and loved since 'Take the Money and Run.' I'm putting 'Vicky Cristina' on my Netflix queue straight off"? In order to have that reaction, the reader would have to have missed the last 12 years or so of Allen's career, which has been underwater since, at least, "Everyone Says I Love You." technorati: Woody Allen, voice, writing Labels: films, Woody Allen
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Fakin'
A review of the thriller Taken suggests:Neeson looks incredibly young and fit .. and he's obviously relishing the chance to play a cold-blooded action bad ass. If the film does well enough, this could easily turn into a Liam Neeson franchise. Right... the sequels might be called "Makin'," in which he infiltrates the Mafia; "Rakin'," set in Las Vegas; "Shaken," in which he investigates a corrupt construction company which has cut corners on the foundation of a super-skyscraper in an earthquake zone; and the finale of the franchise, "Achin'," in which he plays an aging secret agent who... well, it writes itself.Labels: films
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard promotes HBO doc
 Ted Haggard appeared yesterday before the press to promote the HBO documentary about him, "The Trials of Ted Haggard." (An ironic title, by the way, since Haggard has never been charged with any crime despite admitting to buying and possessing methamphetamine.)
Among the entertaining statements and revelations made by the formerly influential Colorado Springs megachurch pastor: In a separate story from the dozens covering Haggard's HBO press conference, the Colorado Springs Gazette said the current pastor of Haggard's former church has discharged him from the severance agreement, one of the terms of which was that Haggard would not discuss the scandal publicly. The generous severance package hasn't kept Haggard from saying that his firing from and subsequent treatment by New Life was the equivalent of being told "Go to hell," and complaints like that have some former supporters angry. "The fact that he's attacking the church or New Life Church, when they did so much to help him and his family, is below the belt," said H.B. London, one of the Focus on the Family pastors assigned to "rehabilitate Haggard after his firing. technorati: Ted Haggard, HBO, documentary Labels: Colorado Springs, evangelicals, films, Focus on the Fundies, HBO, Ted Haggard
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Focus on the Fundies: Haggard pushes himself back in the spotlight
Ted Haggard, the disgraced megachurch leader whose outing as a meth-snorting Big Gay embarrassed the Christian Right just prior to the 2006 midterm elections, has agreed to promote an HBO documentary about his rise and fall.
The documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard," was shot by Alexandra Pelosi, who earlier made an HBO documentary "Friends of God," which also featured Haggard. The film is scheduled to air on HBO next month.
Haggard startled observers earlier this fall by appearing in the pulpit of a rural Illinois megachurch as a "Christian businessman" talking of his rise an fall as a star of the conservative Christian Evangelical movement, and now he's pushing himself into the spotlight on television. It's not enough for him to appear in a documentary; he's so starved for attention that he also signs on to promote the film, which I suspect will show him as a complete lying douchebag. What a media whore! technorati: Ted Haggard, fundamentalists, Alexandra Pelosi Labels: films, Focus on the Fundies, religious right, Ted Haggard, television
Monday, May 19, 2008
Very white, very clean
The NYT had this strange article on Saturday about an Austin family that wants to get rid of all their extraneous possessions and lead a simpler life. Pretty much standard until you get to this telling quote on the second page: They are exchanging e-mail with a woman who has a remote cabin available in central Vermont... (where) there is no electricity, Mr. Harris said, just propane power and a wood stove.
"We want to be in clean country with like-minded people with access to clean food," Mrs. Harris said. Emphasis mine. In addition to the crypto-fascist quality of this statement, it reminded me of the dialogue in "Five Easy Pieces," where the aggro dyke hitchhiker announces she and her girlfriend are going to Alaska: BOBBY: Where are you going?
PALM: Alaska.
BOBBY: Alaska? Are you on vacation?
TERRY (sullenly): She wants to live there, because she thinks it's cleaner.
BOBBY: Cleaner than what?
PALM (to Terry): You don't have to tell everybody about it. Pretty soon they'll all go there and it won't be so clean.
BOBBY: How do you know it's clean?
PALM: I saw a picture of it. Alaska is very clean. It appeared to look very white to me... Don't you think?
BOBBY: Yeah. That's before the big thaw.
PALM: Before the what? Labels: crypto-fascists, films, zeitgeist
Woody Allen not dead yet, critic laments
An American critic, Joe Queenan, has written an attack on the later films of Woody Allen in which he pleads with European producers to "stop funding this man": Americans can be blamed for many things, but the perpetuation of Allen's zombie-like career is one atrocity for which we refuse to be held accountable. It is Europeans who are providing much of the money for these projects, Europeans who are welcoming the director to their communities, Europeans who are marching through the turnstiles in support of Allen's interchangeably neurasthenic films. I've written before about my despair over Allen and his career. Queenan gets it about right. I couldn't last through Allen's last successful film, Match Point, and I only stayed through several others out of morbid curiosity over how bad they could be. technorati: Woody Allen, cinema, film criticism Labels: film criticism, films, Woody Allen
Friday, May 09, 2008
British band "shoots" video by performing for surveillance cameras
 This is so awesome! Instead of shooting a video the old-fashioned way, a British band performed in front of their city's ubiquitous surveillance cameras, requested the footage from cops and private companies using the British equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request, then edited the footage to produce the finished product. Courtesy BoingBoing.
The finished video, viewable at that link, shows the band performing in crosswalks, taxicabs, public plazas, and the entrance ramp to a parking garage. technorati: surveillance, music Labels: films, rock and roll, surveillance, zeitgeist
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Movie night: Morituri
I'll imitate my friend Marilyn and report on a video we watched: Morituri, with Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner, a completely forgotten war thriller in which Brando plays a sort of double agent, a pacifist masquerading as an SS officer aboard a cargo ship, with Yul Brynner as the sullen "good German" captain who has no use for the Nazi political officer on board. It's long and convoluted, but the direction has moments of real brilliance, and the performances are terrific. technorati: films,Marlon Brando,Yul Brynner Labels: films
Monday, January 28, 2008
Out-of-work screenwriters prepare to flood market with that novel they've been meaning to write
Sunday's LA Times had this story: idled by the protracted screenwriters strike, Hollywood scribes are using the downtime to "write in the morning and picket in the afternoon." It quotes them as saying: - "The process (of screenwriting) is less than satisfying... You get tired and burned out, and I always wanted to write novels anyway."
and - "Scripts are all about economy and forward momentum, whereas novels can be big, baggy receptacles for a story. When I go back to screenwriting, I feel like I've been put back in my cage."
and - "The Writers Guild is gonna kill me for saying this, but a script is nothing more than a blueprint for a film... It's a road map and can't stand on its own; it needs others to make it a movie. Books are more holistic. They're less about plot and more about character, emotions, nuance. It's refreshing to just write about people for a change."
As someone who's been trying to get a literary novel published for years, I cringe at the notion that the market is about to be flooded with tight, competent, professional dreck by people who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to think up the next big thing. Just what I needed.Labels: films, novel writing, publishing
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Coppola enters his sage period
From an interview with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola in the December-January Bookforum:One of the most wonderful things about being a filmmaker is doing the research. When I made The Godfather I got a number of books about the Five Families and how they came about and about the families before that. Knowledge is a string that keeps going back and back. ... I've always felt that when you're making a movie, you're essentially asking a question. And when you're done, the film you have is the answer. technorati: narrative, Francis Ford Coppola, filmmaking Labels: film criticism, films, narrative, novel writing
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Another obscure figure of the 60s
I was researching yet another obscure point for my current novel project today when I ran across this fun fact. Eva Green, a 27-year-old actress who appears in the new film "The Golden Compass," is the daughter of a French actress whose name will not ring a bell with many Americans -- Marlène Jobert. But perhaps this picture from the film I was researching, Godard's Masculin Feminin, will ring a bell: (She is in the center in this picture, the only one I could find from the film. Note: The picture I put up earlier today was of the wrong actress. Oops.)
Here, by the way, is the bit of monologue I wanted from the Godard film: We often went to the movies. The screen lit up, and we trembled... but more often than not, Madeline and I were disappointed. The pictures were dated, they flickered. And Marilyn Monroe had aged terribly. It made us sad.
This wasn't the film we'd dreamed of. This wasn't the total film that each of us had carried within himself... The film that we wanted to make -- or more secretly, no doubt -- that we wanted to live. technorati: Godard, Eva Green, cinema Labels: films, Godard
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Spreading American values abroad
I was amused by this story from the Sydney Morning Herald about "an American chastity evangelist" whose show includes plenty of stories of bad behavior that his tearful listeners soak up before pledging not to imitate them. This is a classic American approach, letting its audience revel in that which it purports to warn against, as seen in hundreds of Hollywood "anti-war" movies. The preacher, one Denny Pattyn, says he thinks Australia is ripe for his message. It would be depressing if it weren't so stupid and obviously doomed to fail.
In Japan, a filmmaker has made a Japanese version of a spaghetti western, called Sukiyaki Western Django. The actors speak in "ornately colloquial dialogue that rolls out of monolingual mouths like someone reciting the Gettysburg Address while gargling water." technorati: evangelicals, chastity, evangelists, Christians, missionaries, TOTHER Labels: evangelicals, films, Focus on the Fundies, sex
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The only Xmas movie I'll mention
Gawker says Woody Allen's movie "Match Point," which will be put in "limited release" on Xmas*, is "good, really good." The film was shown in Cannes in May; here's Roger Ebert's positive appraisal.
Allen better hope it's as good as people are saying it is. He ran out of last chances a long time ago.
* This means it will probably be shown only in New York and LA -- if a film is released in NY and LA for at least one week during a calendar year it's eligible for the Academy Awards for that year.
Previously: Melinda and Melinda: so bad I wanted to be sickLabels: films, Woody Allen
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Woody Allen: the French love him
A few films ago, in "Hollywood Ending," Woody Allen told the story of a director who makes one last American film that is an utter disaster -- but the French think it's a sign of genius, so he moves there. Now his life may be imitating his art as with his last unappetizing work Melinda and Melinda he seems to have finally worn out his welcome in the U.S., he is going to start making films in the U.K. and premiere them at Cannes. Good riddance. Woody Allen,Melinda and Melinda Labels: films, Woody Allen
Saturday, April 23, 2005
And don't forget, I majored in film criticism
I saw Melinda and Melinda, the latest Woody Allen film. It was so bad I wanted to be sick.Labels: film criticism, films, Woody Allen
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