Tonight's movie was "Kuroneko" (1968) from Japanese director Kaneto Shindo, released by Criterion. Wow, SB! You have gotta see this movie, just for the photography alone, even if you don't like Japanese films. Director Shindo is the same guy who made the more famous "Onibaba" in 1964. You could say that the two films are companion pieces. Both are horror films, with "Onibaba" being more overt and action oriented, and "Kuroneko" - a ghost story - being more otherwordly, hypnotic, and downright creepy. The opening 25 minutes are just plain spooky.
Two women, the mother of a soldier and her daughter-in-law, live alone in a small wooden dwelling on the edge of a bamboo grove. The elder woman's son is away at war. The time is unspecified, but it could be in the Middle Ages of Feudal Japan, when men ran the show 100%. Japan, in the old days, was macho to the core. It was the Age Of The Samurai.
Director Shindo, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 100 (!), must be given credit as a pro-female artist. Can I use that term instead of Feminist, which has connotations I don't like? Thanks. I don't like Feminists, Liberals, Right-Wingers, any kind of Strident People Who Want To Pick A Fight, And Who Identify Themselves With A Group Of Whatever Stripe. Screw 'em, says I. And I think Director Shindo would agree, because he takes on the formerly revered Samurai and shows them for what they really were, which was just a bunch of savages.
In the movie, the two women living alone are attacked by a ravenous group of Samurai in the middle of what must have been an ongoing war of great length. I don't need to tell you what the Samurai did to these women, but Director Shindo gets credit for not making it graphic. Their small house is burned down in the process, and they die along with it. That is the opening scene.
The women then become Ghosts. The title "Kuroneko" translates to "Black Cat" (at least that's what the subtitle says), and a beautiful black cat is featured in close up, early on in the proceedings, to demonstrate that the deceased mother and daughter-in-law can now transform into a monstrous feline spirit, a Spirit that is dedicated to killing every last Samurai in the land. Upon dying, the two women made a pact with the Japanese version of The Devil, that they would kill all Samurai if given the supernatural power to do so.
The only trouble is that the elder woman's son - her daughter-in-law's husband - has become a Samurai himself as he was off fighting in war. And now a conflict is entered into the picture, because the women have made a pact with The Devil, and a pact is a pact, especially with that guy.
So you have a Grand Fable in the context of an eerie ghost story. Some scenes are set in the Bamboo Forest, incredibly lit and photographed, with swirling fog, and there is one effect that was used that I found especially weird and effective. One of the women would be shown emerging from the fog, in the forest, in a distant shot. All dressed in white silk, she looks like a ghost. She walks forward, toward the camera, taking those short little teeny tiny pitter patter steps that you see Japanese women walking with, in the Geisha tradition. Subservient steps.
But then the camera would cut to a closer shot, following the woman from just behind her back, at an angle. And the effect was really creepy and ghostly, because all of a sudden she appears to be gliding, like a ghost. First, the pitter patter feet, then the close up on the back and motionless shoulders - the Gliding Effect. And I think they achieved it by having the actress stand on a dolly and pulling her along, with the camera only filming her from the waist up. But it was the quick edit that did the trick, from Tiny Feet to suddenly still Shoulders.
Sorry for the spoilers, but I had to describe the Gliding Effect in this movie, because it was so effective and so genuinely weird.
"Kuroneko" is an artistic masterpiece, and I think I am gonna have to give it the edge over "Onibaba", which I have owned on dvd for a decade, and have considered a classic horror film since I first saw it. But "Kuroneko" is even better. It must be noted that Japanese movies of this period are slow paced, and so you must have patience, especially during the middle third of this 99 minute movie. But if you like ghost stories, the pacing is a small price to pay to see the type of cinematic art that is not only not created anymore, but not even attempted. I wish it was being attempted, but we are living in different times now as far as cinema is concerned.
So see "Kuroneko", which gets a gigantic Two Thumbs Up from me, and then while you're at it, watch "Onibaba" too. That one is more of an action film, but similarly spooky.
That's all I know for tonight. I went to Aliso at 3pm, but nowdays the Sun is already going down in the canyon by that time, so I didn't bring my cam. Photos will resume soon enough, and in just a few weeks the daylight will be back on the upswing, increasing by a minute per day after December 21st.
I am reading my books, working on this week's song (an easy one), and I am thinking that a lot of good things are gonna happen in the New Year.
I bet you agree. :):)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
"On An Island With You" (Esther Williams again) + A Book : "Drugs As Weapons Against Us"
Tonight I watched another Esther Williams movie, "On An Island With You" (1948), done up once again in the Romantic Fantasy style that MGM was so good at, and which they played to the hilt in "Bathing Beauty", Williams' first movie that I saw and reviewed last week. The enticement in these films is the alternate reality that is created. The world is an Island Paradise, with a classy nightclub where Xavier Cugat's orchestra is always playing. This time his little pet chihuahua is part of the act, to add to the Cuteness Factor and thus the draw. Last week in "Bathing Beauty", the fantasy world was an all-female college campus where one man (Red Skelton) is lucky enough to find himself enrolled.
So these films are all about Romantic Fantasy, and the exclusion of the Real World. That's the draw, and it works like a charm. This time, Esther Williams is making a movie on a tropical island. So right there, it's a movie about making a movie. Her leading man is the Handsome Ricardo Montalban, of "Cordoba" fame (can you say "rich Corinthian leather"?), and later, "Fantasy Island"
So right there, you have the same theme! And I didn't even conceive this in advance. "Fantasy Island", a hit TV show in the late 1970s, and an Island Fantasy in 1948, tonight's movie.
In the movie-within-a-movie, Montalban is playing a Navy Lieutenant who is in love with Island Girl Williams. However, he has a rival. The director has called in, for the purpose of accuracy, a real Navy Lieutenant (the ill-fated Peter Lawford) who is acting as a technical advisor to the production. And of course he falls in love with Williams, too. And as it turns out, he had been carrying a torch for a long time, and for a reason.
On the sidelines are the old Schnozzola himself, Jimmy Durante, as an ex-vaudevillian who is the assistant director, and the beautiful Cyd Charisse as another Island Girl, who is secretly in love with Montalban. A lot of story plays out, including Lawford's plot to kidnap Esther Williams by flying her away in his Navy plane to yet another island, where he can confess his reason for becoming attached to her. It's a desperate plan on his part, but it just may work........because Ricardo Montalban is slowly but surely falling for the quiet Charisse, with whom he shares a couple of electric dance numbers.
Just like in last week's "Bathing Beauty", the formula is Non-Stop Extravaganza, and so we are always ready to return to the nightclub, where Xavier Cugat is waiting, dog in hand, to welcome us. Anybody might jump up onstage and break into song and dance : last week it was Red Skelton, this time Durante. And because these movies are vehicles for Esther Williams, you know you are gonna have Swimming Pool Spectaculars at the beginning and more importantly at the end, when there will be a grand finale water ballet.
I mentioned last week that Williams was a huge Cash Cow for MGM. Having now seen two of her films, it is easy to see why, and easy to see why they stuck with this formula and made a bunch of them, I think the number was eleven movies (give or take). A huge part of the films' success is the way they look, from the set design to the costuming to the Technicolor saturation and the candy-coated matching color schemes in every frame.
The Esther Williams movie series are simply for fun, and fun they are, especially if you like movies about romance. I have seen two so far, and I have another two on order from the Libe, to be reviewed as soon as I see 'em.
That was really all the news for the day. It was a Tuesday, so yer basic Golden Agers schedule predominated. I am reading two new books : one is called "Drugs As Weapons Against Us" by John L. Potash, in which he has compiled a lot of evidence to suggest that the change in 1960s student political culture, from activism to Hippie burnout, was a result of the LSD supplied covertly by the CIA, in an effort to disrupt the nationwide anti-war movement. If you recall the heavily reported stories in the 1980s about how the crack cocaine epidemic in the inner cities was fueled by undercover CIA drug shipments, in order to get the impoverished class addicted (as in the Chinese opium wars of the early 1900s), then picture the same thing in this case. Students in the mid-60s were beginning to organise against a war in which they faced a mandatory draft to go and fight. An obvious BS war at that, not like WW2. And so they organised rallies at college campuses, like right here at CSUN.
But then, by 1968 and 1969, the whole movement of the 1960s was all burnt out on hard drugs, heroin and especially LSD. And their anti-war movement was mostly toast after that.
The book by John Potash details how this happened. It is a very important book.
My own research and reading has shown me just how sophisticated the Intelligence apparatus is, in this country and in England, and no doubt around the world in the major powers. They can pull off stuff that you'd never think they could pull off. And they can do it because these guys are incredibly bright people who think so far outside the box that it's hard to keep up with them.
At any rate, don't take drugs. Don't even smoke marijuana. That way you are not playing anybody's game.
My other new book is called "Ratline" by Peter Levenda. I got it from the Libe, and it deals with the possible escape of Adolf Hitler at the end of WW2.
With Martin Bormann, there is some substantial evidence that he escaped. With Hitler, well, I've never heard of any evidence, but Peter Levenda is a great researcher and a hell of a writer, so we'll see.
See you in the morning. :):)
So these films are all about Romantic Fantasy, and the exclusion of the Real World. That's the draw, and it works like a charm. This time, Esther Williams is making a movie on a tropical island. So right there, it's a movie about making a movie. Her leading man is the Handsome Ricardo Montalban, of "Cordoba" fame (can you say "rich Corinthian leather"?), and later, "Fantasy Island"
So right there, you have the same theme! And I didn't even conceive this in advance. "Fantasy Island", a hit TV show in the late 1970s, and an Island Fantasy in 1948, tonight's movie.
In the movie-within-a-movie, Montalban is playing a Navy Lieutenant who is in love with Island Girl Williams. However, he has a rival. The director has called in, for the purpose of accuracy, a real Navy Lieutenant (the ill-fated Peter Lawford) who is acting as a technical advisor to the production. And of course he falls in love with Williams, too. And as it turns out, he had been carrying a torch for a long time, and for a reason.
On the sidelines are the old Schnozzola himself, Jimmy Durante, as an ex-vaudevillian who is the assistant director, and the beautiful Cyd Charisse as another Island Girl, who is secretly in love with Montalban. A lot of story plays out, including Lawford's plot to kidnap Esther Williams by flying her away in his Navy plane to yet another island, where he can confess his reason for becoming attached to her. It's a desperate plan on his part, but it just may work........because Ricardo Montalban is slowly but surely falling for the quiet Charisse, with whom he shares a couple of electric dance numbers.
Just like in last week's "Bathing Beauty", the formula is Non-Stop Extravaganza, and so we are always ready to return to the nightclub, where Xavier Cugat is waiting, dog in hand, to welcome us. Anybody might jump up onstage and break into song and dance : last week it was Red Skelton, this time Durante. And because these movies are vehicles for Esther Williams, you know you are gonna have Swimming Pool Spectaculars at the beginning and more importantly at the end, when there will be a grand finale water ballet.
I mentioned last week that Williams was a huge Cash Cow for MGM. Having now seen two of her films, it is easy to see why, and easy to see why they stuck with this formula and made a bunch of them, I think the number was eleven movies (give or take). A huge part of the films' success is the way they look, from the set design to the costuming to the Technicolor saturation and the candy-coated matching color schemes in every frame.
The Esther Williams movie series are simply for fun, and fun they are, especially if you like movies about romance. I have seen two so far, and I have another two on order from the Libe, to be reviewed as soon as I see 'em.
That was really all the news for the day. It was a Tuesday, so yer basic Golden Agers schedule predominated. I am reading two new books : one is called "Drugs As Weapons Against Us" by John L. Potash, in which he has compiled a lot of evidence to suggest that the change in 1960s student political culture, from activism to Hippie burnout, was a result of the LSD supplied covertly by the CIA, in an effort to disrupt the nationwide anti-war movement. If you recall the heavily reported stories in the 1980s about how the crack cocaine epidemic in the inner cities was fueled by undercover CIA drug shipments, in order to get the impoverished class addicted (as in the Chinese opium wars of the early 1900s), then picture the same thing in this case. Students in the mid-60s were beginning to organise against a war in which they faced a mandatory draft to go and fight. An obvious BS war at that, not like WW2. And so they organised rallies at college campuses, like right here at CSUN.
But then, by 1968 and 1969, the whole movement of the 1960s was all burnt out on hard drugs, heroin and especially LSD. And their anti-war movement was mostly toast after that.
The book by John Potash details how this happened. It is a very important book.
My own research and reading has shown me just how sophisticated the Intelligence apparatus is, in this country and in England, and no doubt around the world in the major powers. They can pull off stuff that you'd never think they could pull off. And they can do it because these guys are incredibly bright people who think so far outside the box that it's hard to keep up with them.
At any rate, don't take drugs. Don't even smoke marijuana. That way you are not playing anybody's game.
My other new book is called "Ratline" by Peter Levenda. I got it from the Libe, and it deals with the possible escape of Adolf Hitler at the end of WW2.
With Martin Bormann, there is some substantial evidence that he escaped. With Hitler, well, I've never heard of any evidence, but Peter Levenda is a great researcher and a hell of a writer, so we'll see.
See you in the morning. :):)
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
A Beautiful Birthday Song + "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" + "UK" Confusion
Wow, Elizabeth - what a great idea to record this beautiful song for your birthday! And to add a section of video from your party as a five year old was the perfect touch, to show that the song has come full circle. I am assuming that you are the one in the 1997 video saying " that's my favorite" when your teacher announces the song, but I can't tell for sure which little girl is you because you all have your backs to the camera and the video snippet is brief. I am guessing you are the one sitting still in the middle, or maybe the one on the right side who is moving around a bit. But yeah : how awesome to have found your music teacher on FB, and to have recorded your '97 birthday song as a duo.
That is just great. :)
Your teacher Casey made a comment on your FB that said "Happy Birthday to a truly gifted artist", and he is right on the money in saying that. Your voice is beautiful, and particularly when you make a jump to a high note, there is an emotional quality that comes through that I won't try to identify with words, but which is very special. You sing with exceptional feeling, in clear tones. Not easy to do, nor common. Just so you know.
I hope your birthday was a good one, and I am sure it was. :)
I had a nice hike up at Aliso this afternoon. I finally had to wear a jacket, lol. Our Summer appears to be over, and tonight it is downright chilly outside (about 55, haha), but as recently as two nights ago I was still in a t-shirt on my nightly CSUN walk. So that was our Summer, 95 degrees on Thanksgiving Day, but over now. Bring on the L.A. Cold. :)
I did watch a movie tonight, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" (2006), about the founding of the Irish Republican Army in 1920, and the war of attrition that ensued with the British occupiers of Ireland for the next several years. I ordered the movie from The Libe because after I watched "'71" a couple weeks ago (reviewed here at the blog), I got an Amazon recommendation about "Barley". I recalled the title, and remembered positive reviews, so I wanted to see it, and.......it's a very good film, but pretty grim. "'71" dealt with the seemingly insoluble Irish politics in the context of a thriller, a chase through city streets which was expertly done. "Barley" is a historical war drama, and so the politics are drawn out, and in your face, and so is the anger, the hatred between English & Irish, the horrible stuff like torture from the English side, and cold blooded killing of teenagers on the Irish side. Watching it, you just think "what is wrong with people"?, and though the Irish were no doubt justified in forming the IRA, by the time a peace treaty was offered in 1922 and they refused it and kept fighting, they succumbed to a revenge or attrition mentality that was just as violent as their oppressors, and by the 1970s, when the time of the Irish "Troubles" began, the IRA was nothing more than a terrorist organisation, killing innocent people in bars and nightclubs with bombs. Thank goodness there now seems to be a fairly well established peace since 1998.
I know you went to Ireland a couple years ago, and so I looked up Giant's Causeway and I saw that it's in Northern Ireland. I had to do a bunch of Googling because the political landscape is very confusing for those of us who have not paid close attention. I had thought that Northern Ireland was the part that remained independent, because Belfast was the city in the center of the Troubles. But no - Northern Ireland is now part of the UK. It is the lower majority of the land mass that is now called "Ireland" and is a separate country, independent of Great Britain. It has been confusing to me for years, because when I was little, there was just "England". You never heard about Britain, or Great Britain, and certainly not the United Kingdom. I knew that "Britain" was a historical name for the whole conglomeration, and more importantly for their Empire, when they ruled India and a ton of other colonies, but I always kind of wondered, "what is the deal here"? Why so many names?
And so, when I'd read in the paper about "The UK" or "Great Britain", I would wonder "what the heck ever happened to England"? And I never understood the problem with Ireland, or Ireland's problem with itself.
This movie, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley", just shoves it in your face, without really explaining the problem beyond your typical political examination from Academia (in this case Oxford, where the director attended school), and you know that I think that liberal academics are just as full of baloney as uneducated right wing reactionaries.
So to recap : a movie that is well worth seeing, especially for fans of history. It is very well made, and acted, but the problem is that there is no redeeming human quality to root for, or hope for. Not even peace. It's just a story of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
That's what these people believed in, and what they fought for. For nothing.
"The Wind That Shakes The Barley" gets Two Thumbs Up from me, but I cannot really recommend it, because it is just too much, too relentlessly grim and depressing.
Watch "'71" instead.
As for me, I am gonna try and watch fewer movies that are unrelentingly negative, and most importantly, that don't tell me anything I don't already know, or that give me a view into something I don't need to know.
For the Christmas season, I am gonna look for more BBC productions of any Charles Dickens stories I have not yet seen. Dickens goes hand in hand with Christmas. And, I've got a few more Esther Williams movies coming from The Libe. So I'll be covered.
See you in the morn. :):)
That is just great. :)
Your teacher Casey made a comment on your FB that said "Happy Birthday to a truly gifted artist", and he is right on the money in saying that. Your voice is beautiful, and particularly when you make a jump to a high note, there is an emotional quality that comes through that I won't try to identify with words, but which is very special. You sing with exceptional feeling, in clear tones. Not easy to do, nor common. Just so you know.
I hope your birthday was a good one, and I am sure it was. :)
I had a nice hike up at Aliso this afternoon. I finally had to wear a jacket, lol. Our Summer appears to be over, and tonight it is downright chilly outside (about 55, haha), but as recently as two nights ago I was still in a t-shirt on my nightly CSUN walk. So that was our Summer, 95 degrees on Thanksgiving Day, but over now. Bring on the L.A. Cold. :)
I did watch a movie tonight, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" (2006), about the founding of the Irish Republican Army in 1920, and the war of attrition that ensued with the British occupiers of Ireland for the next several years. I ordered the movie from The Libe because after I watched "'71" a couple weeks ago (reviewed here at the blog), I got an Amazon recommendation about "Barley". I recalled the title, and remembered positive reviews, so I wanted to see it, and.......it's a very good film, but pretty grim. "'71" dealt with the seemingly insoluble Irish politics in the context of a thriller, a chase through city streets which was expertly done. "Barley" is a historical war drama, and so the politics are drawn out, and in your face, and so is the anger, the hatred between English & Irish, the horrible stuff like torture from the English side, and cold blooded killing of teenagers on the Irish side. Watching it, you just think "what is wrong with people"?, and though the Irish were no doubt justified in forming the IRA, by the time a peace treaty was offered in 1922 and they refused it and kept fighting, they succumbed to a revenge or attrition mentality that was just as violent as their oppressors, and by the 1970s, when the time of the Irish "Troubles" began, the IRA was nothing more than a terrorist organisation, killing innocent people in bars and nightclubs with bombs. Thank goodness there now seems to be a fairly well established peace since 1998.
I know you went to Ireland a couple years ago, and so I looked up Giant's Causeway and I saw that it's in Northern Ireland. I had to do a bunch of Googling because the political landscape is very confusing for those of us who have not paid close attention. I had thought that Northern Ireland was the part that remained independent, because Belfast was the city in the center of the Troubles. But no - Northern Ireland is now part of the UK. It is the lower majority of the land mass that is now called "Ireland" and is a separate country, independent of Great Britain. It has been confusing to me for years, because when I was little, there was just "England". You never heard about Britain, or Great Britain, and certainly not the United Kingdom. I knew that "Britain" was a historical name for the whole conglomeration, and more importantly for their Empire, when they ruled India and a ton of other colonies, but I always kind of wondered, "what is the deal here"? Why so many names?
And so, when I'd read in the paper about "The UK" or "Great Britain", I would wonder "what the heck ever happened to England"? And I never understood the problem with Ireland, or Ireland's problem with itself.
This movie, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley", just shoves it in your face, without really explaining the problem beyond your typical political examination from Academia (in this case Oxford, where the director attended school), and you know that I think that liberal academics are just as full of baloney as uneducated right wing reactionaries.
So to recap : a movie that is well worth seeing, especially for fans of history. It is very well made, and acted, but the problem is that there is no redeeming human quality to root for, or hope for. Not even peace. It's just a story of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
That's what these people believed in, and what they fought for. For nothing.
"The Wind That Shakes The Barley" gets Two Thumbs Up from me, but I cannot really recommend it, because it is just too much, too relentlessly grim and depressing.
Watch "'71" instead.
As for me, I am gonna try and watch fewer movies that are unrelentingly negative, and most importantly, that don't tell me anything I don't already know, or that give me a view into something I don't need to know.
For the Christmas season, I am gonna look for more BBC productions of any Charles Dickens stories I have not yet seen. Dickens goes hand in hand with Christmas. And, I've got a few more Esther Williams movies coming from The Libe. So I'll be covered.
See you in the morn. :):)
Monday, November 27, 2017
Happy Birthday! + "Inspector George Gently"
Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! Wow, 25 already. Man, I can hardly believe it's been almost six years since you created your Alcest video. That was a game-changer for sure - the reason we met - and the rest has been history! I hope you have a great birthday with friends and family, and maybe even have a Genuine Elizabethan Birthday Adventure like flying an airplane or something along those lines. :)
I am of course SuperDuperAliceCooperMegaMondoBigTimeTired. If there was a tug-of-war tonight, between me and a Black Hole, for the ownership of this tiredness, the Hole would've thrown in the towel before there ever was such a thing as energy. Or some such type of Black Hole physical dynamics. I am way too tired to look up exactly what Black Holes do, other than collapse, spin, and suck, and mess with time.
We did have good singing in church this morn, however. That deserves an exclamation point, I think, so here it is : ! , delivered after the fact but no less worthwhile.
I did not watch a movie tonight, but I did see my first ever complete episode of a show called "Inspector George Gently". I first saw bits of the show a few years ago, here at Pearl's on PBS. This was before we switched to watching TCM all the time. But anyway, around 2014 or so, I'd be puttering around the house and I'd see a minute or two of this series, which looked like a hard boiled cop show, but set in England. The actors were great, one older guy, one younger. Two detectives, going after some really bad guys in the mid-60s. The writing appeared to be really good from the few minutes here and there that I'd seen, and the show stuck with me, even though I'd never really seen much of it, and never a full episode. But just a couple of weeks ago, I found a dvd set of the complete first season for just 9 bucks! There are only three episodes included, but each one is 90 minutes long, so each show is like a movie.
The main thing is that it's a great show. Now, for the most part it has television-quality production values, meaning that the lighting is a bit flourescent, the colors too white-balanced. I mean, it still looks good, but it has that "shot on videotape" look that soap operas have. I used to notice that look way back as a teenager, and I couldn't identify it back then except to think to myself that it was flat or smooth.
That is the way soap operas look on television. "George Gently" looks far better than a soap opera, but you can tell it is shot on video, digital or otherwise (it premiered in 2007). Aside from all that, tonight's episode was pretty great. The two leads are the main attraction, the way they play off of one another, the traditional uncorruptible old guy and the brash, rule bending younger man.
It is so good that I will have to eventually buy the whole series. They made 25 of 'em (same as Elizabeth Years), so you get 25 well produced BBC movies, each with a great story and top notch British acting replete with varying accents from different characters. I watched tonight's episode with the subtitles turned on, because some of those guys up in Northern England are hard to understand. They sound almost Scottish.
That's all for tonight. You should know that I finally had to wear a jacket on my walk this eve. A heartier Winterite could have easily withstood a fair wind and temperatures down into the low 50s. But me, I get cold at a certain point, and so I say with regret that today may have been the final day of Summer for Southern California in 2017, a day on which the temps reached 84 degrees here in the Valley. I can't recall it being so warm for so long, so deep into the year.
Gotta get to sleep, so I will wish you a Happy Birthday once again, and then I will see you in the morning! :):)
I am of course SuperDuperAliceCooperMegaMondoBigTimeTired. If there was a tug-of-war tonight, between me and a Black Hole, for the ownership of this tiredness, the Hole would've thrown in the towel before there ever was such a thing as energy. Or some such type of Black Hole physical dynamics. I am way too tired to look up exactly what Black Holes do, other than collapse, spin, and suck, and mess with time.
We did have good singing in church this morn, however. That deserves an exclamation point, I think, so here it is : ! , delivered after the fact but no less worthwhile.
I did not watch a movie tonight, but I did see my first ever complete episode of a show called "Inspector George Gently". I first saw bits of the show a few years ago, here at Pearl's on PBS. This was before we switched to watching TCM all the time. But anyway, around 2014 or so, I'd be puttering around the house and I'd see a minute or two of this series, which looked like a hard boiled cop show, but set in England. The actors were great, one older guy, one younger. Two detectives, going after some really bad guys in the mid-60s. The writing appeared to be really good from the few minutes here and there that I'd seen, and the show stuck with me, even though I'd never really seen much of it, and never a full episode. But just a couple of weeks ago, I found a dvd set of the complete first season for just 9 bucks! There are only three episodes included, but each one is 90 minutes long, so each show is like a movie.
The main thing is that it's a great show. Now, for the most part it has television-quality production values, meaning that the lighting is a bit flourescent, the colors too white-balanced. I mean, it still looks good, but it has that "shot on videotape" look that soap operas have. I used to notice that look way back as a teenager, and I couldn't identify it back then except to think to myself that it was flat or smooth.
That is the way soap operas look on television. "George Gently" looks far better than a soap opera, but you can tell it is shot on video, digital or otherwise (it premiered in 2007). Aside from all that, tonight's episode was pretty great. The two leads are the main attraction, the way they play off of one another, the traditional uncorruptible old guy and the brash, rule bending younger man.
It is so good that I will have to eventually buy the whole series. They made 25 of 'em (same as Elizabeth Years), so you get 25 well produced BBC movies, each with a great story and top notch British acting replete with varying accents from different characters. I watched tonight's episode with the subtitles turned on, because some of those guys up in Northern England are hard to understand. They sound almost Scottish.
That's all for tonight. You should know that I finally had to wear a jacket on my walk this eve. A heartier Winterite could have easily withstood a fair wind and temperatures down into the low 50s. But me, I get cold at a certain point, and so I say with regret that today may have been the final day of Summer for Southern California in 2017, a day on which the temps reached 84 degrees here in the Valley. I can't recall it being so warm for so long, so deep into the year.
Gotta get to sleep, so I will wish you a Happy Birthday once again, and then I will see you in the morning! :):)
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Twice Poured + Counterintuitive + Captain Crane
I am back at Pearl's and writing from my late night office here at the kitchen table. Didn't do much today. Had one final sleep-in, which wasn't very "sleep-inny" because I woke up at 10:15 after getting to bed at 3am last night. That was because the Murnau blog took me a while to write. Anyhow, I just puttered about The Tiny, drinking twice-poured coffee and working on the anthem for church tomorrow.
What is Twice Poured Coffee, you ask?
I know you asked it.
I got it from Ozzy Osbourne of all people. He called it something else, like Rocket Fuel, or maybe he just said "if you want to make a great cup of coffee" try this.....and it's simple : you just pour the hot coffee right back through the grounds a second time. If you are doing it with a coffee maker, don't pour the coffee back into the water slot, just pull out the plastic filter cone instead, and set it on top of a coffee cup. Put your milk or cream in first, then set the filter on top, with the grounds in it, and then pour the already-made coffee through the filter and grounds, and it will fill your cup as Twice Poured Coffee, and it does indeed offer an extra little kick, just as Ozzy says.
So I worked on tomorrow's song, "The Canticle Of Thanksgiving", which we are doing after Thanksgiving, but that's cool because we are still on Thanksgiving weekend. I will be doing my first vocal solo to open the song, just the first three lines but it's still fun, just me and the pianist. It's an easy song to sing except for a few harmonies in the middle section that are counterintuitive to the way your ear thinks they should sound.
In cases like these, you've gotta show Your Ear who is boss, and it's not You - it's the music. The music is The Boss. Sometimes these composers, armed with degrees in musical theory, will throw a harmony at you that seems at odds to what you think or feel it should sound like, and for me, because I am still learning to read music, I am discovering that it is not enough to just read it as "an up-and-down ladder". In harmonies, there are jumps in modulation that can throw you off if you are a newbie like me, and so what I do now is just get a Google image of the Bass Clef, and I sit there with my guitar and I look at it, and I look at the sheet music in my lap, and I play the notes of the harmony-in-question until it is not only situated in my brain, but until it makes some musical sense to me. I listen to the notes until I can understand them. I am used to hearing rock n' roll harmonies, which are almost always intuitive. They sound like you think they should sound, which is why you can harmonise with the lead singer when you are singing along in your car. With rock, it's a piece of cake in most cases. But in choral music, you've gotta know your specific part, and they always give the Tenor section a lot of counterintuitive stuff, which means it is not gonna sound like you think it's supposed to sound.
Sopranos have it easy, because they get to sing the melody every time. All they have to know is how the song goes, haha.
But I'm glad I'm not an Alto. They have to sing the In-Between Stuff all the way through the song, and it's really and truly In Between, non-stop countermelody.
I grew up singing along to the radio, so my brain is programmed to sing along with the melody line, or to harmonize with a simple third, fourth or fifth, which I would have known just by feel, aka intuition.
So I am learning as I go along. "The Canticle Of Thanksgiving" has a High G in it, at the end. That's very high indeed, like Grab Your Abdomen high. You've got to head into a note like that at full bore, or else you will be toast. The only other thing you can do, is to take a step downward, and create your own ending if you do not feel that you are gonna be able to hit the High G. And you will only know as you move through the song, based on how your voice feels. If you can't hit it, you are gonna have to step down, and go down the ladder instead, because you can't stop singing. And if you go downward, you still have to harmonise. At that point you will be relying entirely on your musical intuition in a counterintuitive situation. So I recommend trying for the high note instead.
Thank God I'm not a Bass, either. I have no idea what they are singing. :)
That's all I know for tonight, which admittedly isn't much. I did watch an episode of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" which was pretty cool. An unnamed Middle Eastern country had a Giant Magnetic Ray that could pull American spyplanes down from the sky and cause them to crash, so the Seaview submarine was sent on a mission to locate and destroy the weapon. Captain Crane was sent undercover to the Middle Eastern seaport to infiltrate the enemy base.
Captain Crane was played by the legendary, super handsome (and still alive) David Hedison, who starred in the original version of "The Fly".
Now that was a scary movie.
See you in church in the morn. :):)
What is Twice Poured Coffee, you ask?
I know you asked it.
I got it from Ozzy Osbourne of all people. He called it something else, like Rocket Fuel, or maybe he just said "if you want to make a great cup of coffee" try this.....and it's simple : you just pour the hot coffee right back through the grounds a second time. If you are doing it with a coffee maker, don't pour the coffee back into the water slot, just pull out the plastic filter cone instead, and set it on top of a coffee cup. Put your milk or cream in first, then set the filter on top, with the grounds in it, and then pour the already-made coffee through the filter and grounds, and it will fill your cup as Twice Poured Coffee, and it does indeed offer an extra little kick, just as Ozzy says.
So I worked on tomorrow's song, "The Canticle Of Thanksgiving", which we are doing after Thanksgiving, but that's cool because we are still on Thanksgiving weekend. I will be doing my first vocal solo to open the song, just the first three lines but it's still fun, just me and the pianist. It's an easy song to sing except for a few harmonies in the middle section that are counterintuitive to the way your ear thinks they should sound.
In cases like these, you've gotta show Your Ear who is boss, and it's not You - it's the music. The music is The Boss. Sometimes these composers, armed with degrees in musical theory, will throw a harmony at you that seems at odds to what you think or feel it should sound like, and for me, because I am still learning to read music, I am discovering that it is not enough to just read it as "an up-and-down ladder". In harmonies, there are jumps in modulation that can throw you off if you are a newbie like me, and so what I do now is just get a Google image of the Bass Clef, and I sit there with my guitar and I look at it, and I look at the sheet music in my lap, and I play the notes of the harmony-in-question until it is not only situated in my brain, but until it makes some musical sense to me. I listen to the notes until I can understand them. I am used to hearing rock n' roll harmonies, which are almost always intuitive. They sound like you think they should sound, which is why you can harmonise with the lead singer when you are singing along in your car. With rock, it's a piece of cake in most cases. But in choral music, you've gotta know your specific part, and they always give the Tenor section a lot of counterintuitive stuff, which means it is not gonna sound like you think it's supposed to sound.
Sopranos have it easy, because they get to sing the melody every time. All they have to know is how the song goes, haha.
But I'm glad I'm not an Alto. They have to sing the In-Between Stuff all the way through the song, and it's really and truly In Between, non-stop countermelody.
I grew up singing along to the radio, so my brain is programmed to sing along with the melody line, or to harmonize with a simple third, fourth or fifth, which I would have known just by feel, aka intuition.
So I am learning as I go along. "The Canticle Of Thanksgiving" has a High G in it, at the end. That's very high indeed, like Grab Your Abdomen high. You've got to head into a note like that at full bore, or else you will be toast. The only other thing you can do, is to take a step downward, and create your own ending if you do not feel that you are gonna be able to hit the High G. And you will only know as you move through the song, based on how your voice feels. If you can't hit it, you are gonna have to step down, and go down the ladder instead, because you can't stop singing. And if you go downward, you still have to harmonise. At that point you will be relying entirely on your musical intuition in a counterintuitive situation. So I recommend trying for the high note instead.
Thank God I'm not a Bass, either. I have no idea what they are singing. :)
That's all I know for tonight, which admittedly isn't much. I did watch an episode of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" which was pretty cool. An unnamed Middle Eastern country had a Giant Magnetic Ray that could pull American spyplanes down from the sky and cause them to crash, so the Seaview submarine was sent on a mission to locate and destroy the weapon. Captain Crane was sent undercover to the Middle Eastern seaport to infiltrate the enemy base.
Captain Crane was played by the legendary, super handsome (and still alive) David Hedison, who starred in the original version of "The Fly".
Now that was a scary movie.
See you in church in the morn. :):)
Saturday, November 25, 2017
"Faust" + Murnau + German Expressionism + Goethe + Faerie Art
Writing at home on my last night off. Tonight I did watch a movie : F.W. Murnau's Silent classic "Faust", from 1926. I had been wanting to see this movie for ages, simply because it was said to be one of the legendary examples of German Expressionism, and of all the genres of cinema that I have explored over the years, I've probably seen fewer films from the Expressionist genre than any other. Also, I hadn't seen any Murnau except for his vampire classic "Nosferatu", and I saw that probably 30 years ago, give or take. The Libe has never had a copy of "Faust", and in recent years the available dvds on Amazon were priced at the inflated rates that lead you to believe the film is out of print. But I've kept my eye on the situation from time to time, and just a couple weeks ago I found a copy of the Kino restoration print of "Faust"......for just ten bucks. It was from a Goodwill-type outlet, via Amazon, and I was very happy at my good fortune in scoring a copy for so cheap. As an additional bonus, the dvd was listed on Amazon as being in "acceptable" condition, which usually means "semi beat-up". But when it came in the mail I was again happy to see it was practically brand new.
So tonight I finally sat down to watch "Faust", starring the great but somewhat notorious Emil Jannings as Mephisto, aka The Devil, and an actor I had never heard of before - Gosta Ekman - as Faust. I am sure you know the story of Faust, who made a bargain with The Devil. It was written a couple hundred years ago by Goethe, which is pronounced "Goe-thh". You know.....Go as in "Green Light Go", and then - thh, like the "thhhh" sound, only with a couple less "h"s.
So, "Goe-thh" is the correct pronunciation of the author's name, though you will usually hear it pronounced "Gaer-ta" by folks who insist on attempting the German pronunciation instead of simply just saying it the way it looks , as I do. :)
Therefore, as long as we all agree on the correct pronunciation of "Goethe", we can proceed with the movie review.
There is a reason that the early genre of German Expressionism is so revered, and it is because of the look of these films, such as "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari". German Expressionism often dealt with horror or fantasy subjects, and the directors would present them in a nightmarish way. In the Silent era, the theater of the stage was still the prime inspiration as a take-off point, and so the sets in these films look like stage sets, and the actors use big gestures and facial expressions as they would in a play. However, by 1926, movies had been around for over a decade, and the filmmakers and actors were beginning to get a little more adept at adjusting to the more subtle acting requirements of the close-at-hand movie camera. In addition, some of the best directors were experimenting with photographic techniques like double exposure, and also Gothic lighting for dramatic effect, and also the use of miniatures and models to simulate Monumental Happenings, like say, the burning of a town or some such.
I had always read that FW Murnau was a cinematic genius but I'd never had the chance to really see it until tonight. "Faust" has some of the greatest imagery of the Silent era, and I would say in all of cinema. I think an important part of the inventions that came out of the Silent era was that movies were brand new, and so they thought "let's try this kind of lighting", and "hey, let's use this "fire effect" in this scene". "Let's double expose this", etc. They were experimenting, and they were breaking new ground all the time because nobody had made movies before.
And because the early directors and actors mostly came from a theater background - and this part is huge - they were already well-versed in the effective aspects of Stage Production, i.e dramatic makeup, costuming, charismatic physical acting, and simply Projecting To The Audience.
So what you had was these technicians, these cameramen and lighting guys, who wanted to try out all these brand new styles (adapted from the theater) and do them on film, but you also had these great stage actors and actresses who already knew how to Play To The Back Row, but were now learning the subtleties of nuanced facial expression that were required by the camera. And controlling everything was a Director With A Vision, who was exhilarated by being at the forefront of this new artistic medium, The Motion Picture.
And so they Went For it. And in the Silent Era, all of the creative artists from different countries went for it in their own way. Here in America you had the all-out, over the top spectacles of Buster Keaton, for instance. He shot much of his stuff outdoors, with massive stunts and physical special effects that involved buildings falling down or cattle stampedes through city streets.
The German style was different. Their Silent Movies evolved from phantasmagorical stage productions, many of which came from adaptations of great philosophical works, or from old German folklore and fables. The German Silent tradition came out of the theater, and theater lighting and staging, and because the effect was somewhat hallucinatory, so was the German Expressionist movement born.
I will leave the story of "Faust" to you tonight, as I have mentioned that you may already know it, and it is very late and I must get to sleep because I will be back at work in the morning. But I must say that I cannot recommend "Faust" highly enough, in every respect. To watch it is to see how cutting edge it was 90 years ago, and how high the bar was set by these early experimenters in film, and most of all how Theatrical it was, but captured on movie film to create an altogether different reality.
Elizabeth, if you are reading, I hope you had a great day. I saw two posts with some beautiful illustrations of faeries and flowers by artists from the late 19th/early 20th Centuries. These are again an example of phantasmagoria, and they give you, just like the Silent films, an idea of the closer connection that existed a century ago between the acceptance of fantasy in the real world without a barrier in between. As an example, what I mean is that, say, in England or Ireland of a few hundred years ago, the idea of Faeries was accepted out in the open by the common folk, as part of an alternate reality that existed perhaps in the shadows, or at night, or in the woods. In those days, everyone knew Faeries were real, in other words. And so they were depicted by artists as real, from the heart, and even from a Christian belief, as per the one female artist whose work was shown in one of the posts.
I found that very heartening, I must say, because real Christianity is full of magic and the other side of reality, and love and beauty as shown by the artist in her drawings of the faeries and flowers, and in her unstated suggestion of why there is a connection between them in the first place...... :)
Well, that's all I know for tonight. I saw that one of your band guys got to meet Buzz Aldrin, too.
Now that is downright awesome.
See you in the morning. :):)
So tonight I finally sat down to watch "Faust", starring the great but somewhat notorious Emil Jannings as Mephisto, aka The Devil, and an actor I had never heard of before - Gosta Ekman - as Faust. I am sure you know the story of Faust, who made a bargain with The Devil. It was written a couple hundred years ago by Goethe, which is pronounced "Goe-thh". You know.....Go as in "Green Light Go", and then - thh, like the "thhhh" sound, only with a couple less "h"s.
So, "Goe-thh" is the correct pronunciation of the author's name, though you will usually hear it pronounced "Gaer-ta" by folks who insist on attempting the German pronunciation instead of simply just saying it the way it looks , as I do. :)
Therefore, as long as we all agree on the correct pronunciation of "Goethe", we can proceed with the movie review.
There is a reason that the early genre of German Expressionism is so revered, and it is because of the look of these films, such as "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari". German Expressionism often dealt with horror or fantasy subjects, and the directors would present them in a nightmarish way. In the Silent era, the theater of the stage was still the prime inspiration as a take-off point, and so the sets in these films look like stage sets, and the actors use big gestures and facial expressions as they would in a play. However, by 1926, movies had been around for over a decade, and the filmmakers and actors were beginning to get a little more adept at adjusting to the more subtle acting requirements of the close-at-hand movie camera. In addition, some of the best directors were experimenting with photographic techniques like double exposure, and also Gothic lighting for dramatic effect, and also the use of miniatures and models to simulate Monumental Happenings, like say, the burning of a town or some such.
I had always read that FW Murnau was a cinematic genius but I'd never had the chance to really see it until tonight. "Faust" has some of the greatest imagery of the Silent era, and I would say in all of cinema. I think an important part of the inventions that came out of the Silent era was that movies were brand new, and so they thought "let's try this kind of lighting", and "hey, let's use this "fire effect" in this scene". "Let's double expose this", etc. They were experimenting, and they were breaking new ground all the time because nobody had made movies before.
And because the early directors and actors mostly came from a theater background - and this part is huge - they were already well-versed in the effective aspects of Stage Production, i.e dramatic makeup, costuming, charismatic physical acting, and simply Projecting To The Audience.
So what you had was these technicians, these cameramen and lighting guys, who wanted to try out all these brand new styles (adapted from the theater) and do them on film, but you also had these great stage actors and actresses who already knew how to Play To The Back Row, but were now learning the subtleties of nuanced facial expression that were required by the camera. And controlling everything was a Director With A Vision, who was exhilarated by being at the forefront of this new artistic medium, The Motion Picture.
And so they Went For it. And in the Silent Era, all of the creative artists from different countries went for it in their own way. Here in America you had the all-out, over the top spectacles of Buster Keaton, for instance. He shot much of his stuff outdoors, with massive stunts and physical special effects that involved buildings falling down or cattle stampedes through city streets.
The German style was different. Their Silent Movies evolved from phantasmagorical stage productions, many of which came from adaptations of great philosophical works, or from old German folklore and fables. The German Silent tradition came out of the theater, and theater lighting and staging, and because the effect was somewhat hallucinatory, so was the German Expressionist movement born.
I will leave the story of "Faust" to you tonight, as I have mentioned that you may already know it, and it is very late and I must get to sleep because I will be back at work in the morning. But I must say that I cannot recommend "Faust" highly enough, in every respect. To watch it is to see how cutting edge it was 90 years ago, and how high the bar was set by these early experimenters in film, and most of all how Theatrical it was, but captured on movie film to create an altogether different reality.
Elizabeth, if you are reading, I hope you had a great day. I saw two posts with some beautiful illustrations of faeries and flowers by artists from the late 19th/early 20th Centuries. These are again an example of phantasmagoria, and they give you, just like the Silent films, an idea of the closer connection that existed a century ago between the acceptance of fantasy in the real world without a barrier in between. As an example, what I mean is that, say, in England or Ireland of a few hundred years ago, the idea of Faeries was accepted out in the open by the common folk, as part of an alternate reality that existed perhaps in the shadows, or at night, or in the woods. In those days, everyone knew Faeries were real, in other words. And so they were depicted by artists as real, from the heart, and even from a Christian belief, as per the one female artist whose work was shown in one of the posts.
I found that very heartening, I must say, because real Christianity is full of magic and the other side of reality, and love and beauty as shown by the artist in her drawings of the faeries and flowers, and in her unstated suggestion of why there is a connection between them in the first place...... :)
Well, that's all I know for tonight. I saw that one of your band guys got to meet Buzz Aldrin, too.
Now that is downright awesome.
See you in the morning. :):)
Friday, November 24, 2017
Thanksgiving Thanks + Small White Bischon
Happy Thanksgiving once again. Elizabeth, if you are reading I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving with your family. I was at Pearl's, as has been our two-family tradition for many years now. Her daughter Helen always comes down for the holiday, which is why I am off for a few days, and she does all the cooking as well. My sister Vickie came over along with her husband Nico and son Andrew, and everybody had a great time, I think, with a lot of good food and conversation, and wine. :)
And more food and wine, and conversation. And football for the guys. And a few minutes of whatever the Dog Show was, that they were showing. Was it the Westminster Dog Show? I don't know, because I can't keep track of all these things. I only know for sure that the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit always play home games on Thanksgiving, but there was a Dog Show on TV, and we did watch a little bit of it.
And that's a bit of a lead-in to mention that of course I suggested A Toast To The Kobedog. This was our first Thanksgiving without him, and without him sneaking back to the kitchen to swipe a partially eaten turkey leg out of the garbage.
And then, more importantly, Sneaking Away With It, back towards the living room, assuming with confidence that no one has seen him. Walking step by step, verrry slowwly, turkey leg clenched in Dog Jaw, back to the safety of his bed where he can devour the remains in peace, as the Ferocious Beast he is.....or was.
Or still is.
He was a Small White Bischon who was actually, in fact, King Of The Jungle. That was a well known fact about him. He had other incarnations, and other names such as The Doberman Pinscher, as you know. He was a Multifaceted Dog, and he lived to be 120 in Dog Years So, a Thanksgiving Tribute to Kobi was in order, and he was toasted all around.
No movie was watched tonight. A CSUN walk was in order when I got home, and the fact that it could be taken in a t-shirt was yet another thing to be thankful for. We are having a late Summer that didn't really arrive until September and is now finishing up at the end of November.
If I were to list all of the things I am thankful for, it would take me all night, and even then I would forget a thing or two, because - like you no doubt - I love life so much, and every day I look around at everything I can see, and hear, and think about, and I just think : Thank YOU.
And I know you think the same.
That goes for You, and the General You, and the great YOU, too.
Thanks, and Love, Love, Love.
See you in the morn. :):)
And more food and wine, and conversation. And football for the guys. And a few minutes of whatever the Dog Show was, that they were showing. Was it the Westminster Dog Show? I don't know, because I can't keep track of all these things. I only know for sure that the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit always play home games on Thanksgiving, but there was a Dog Show on TV, and we did watch a little bit of it.
And that's a bit of a lead-in to mention that of course I suggested A Toast To The Kobedog. This was our first Thanksgiving without him, and without him sneaking back to the kitchen to swipe a partially eaten turkey leg out of the garbage.
And then, more importantly, Sneaking Away With It, back towards the living room, assuming with confidence that no one has seen him. Walking step by step, verrry slowwly, turkey leg clenched in Dog Jaw, back to the safety of his bed where he can devour the remains in peace, as the Ferocious Beast he is.....or was.
Or still is.
He was a Small White Bischon who was actually, in fact, King Of The Jungle. That was a well known fact about him. He had other incarnations, and other names such as The Doberman Pinscher, as you know. He was a Multifaceted Dog, and he lived to be 120 in Dog Years So, a Thanksgiving Tribute to Kobi was in order, and he was toasted all around.
No movie was watched tonight. A CSUN walk was in order when I got home, and the fact that it could be taken in a t-shirt was yet another thing to be thankful for. We are having a late Summer that didn't really arrive until September and is now finishing up at the end of November.
If I were to list all of the things I am thankful for, it would take me all night, and even then I would forget a thing or two, because - like you no doubt - I love life so much, and every day I look around at everything I can see, and hear, and think about, and I just think : Thank YOU.
And I know you think the same.
That goes for You, and the General You, and the great YOU, too.
Thanks, and Love, Love, Love.
See you in the morn. :):)
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Comedy & Serious
No movie tonight. Instead, Grimsley came over. He wanted to show me a tape he had of David Letterman receiving something called the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, given out every year in Washington D.C. by the Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts. I have mentioned that Grim is Old School. He still tapes everything on VHS. Good thing I still have have a VHS player. :)
I had never heard of the Mark Twain Prize, but apparently it's been around for 20 years. Bill Murray won it last year. To be honest, I don't follow comedy all that much. I mean, I like to laugh as much as the next guy, but comedy in general is not a major interest of mine, in the way that, say, music or history is, or science, or art. Comedy is an art form, but I don't seek it out as I once did in my younger years, when I had a subscription to Mad magazine as a nine year old, or when I bought National Lampoon every month when I was fourteen, the same age that I first saw "Blazing Saddles" and thought it was the funniest movie I'd ever seen, which I still do.
Overall though, I guess since I was a teen, comedy has always been what I would call a "side interest" for me. If something is funny, show it to me or tell me about it, and if it sounds funny I'll check it out. Like Buster Keaton for instance, or Harold Lloyd last week. But I generally do not seek out comedic stuff these days, just because I have so many other things in which I am interested.
Grim however, comedy is his thing. He especially loves the Late Night Talk Show variety of comedy, going back to Johnny Carson. Grim was a huge fan of David Letterman, and now his favorites are Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers. Letterman, though, was an absolute legend for Grim. He was talking about Letterman way back in 1982, when his show first came on the air.
I think comedy is like music, in that both art forms move different people in different ways, and to different extents. For instance, I can watch any episode of "Gilligan's Island" to this day, and even though I have seen every episode at least 25 times by now (and some more like 50 times), I will still find them highly amusing, even if I am not laughing as I did decades ago. The "laugh out loud" factor can fade, but the humor remains on the inside, and the things that are funny to any one individual remain funny, even for a lifetime.
So I've always had Certain Things I Find Funny, as far as TV shows and movies are concerned.
Here are a few, for your consideration :
"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". That show was the "Saturday Night Live" of the late '60s, and a Laugh Riot it was. Everybody talked about an episode the next day, and I never missed it as a kid.
"Saturday Night Live" from the early years to about 1980, and then again from the late '80s to the mid '90s, especially the Mike Myers/Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman era. Now that was some funny stuff, week after week, and I watched it every week in those days.
"Gilligan" and "The Flintstones". Given that I first saw these shows in my formative years, before I was five years old, they have influenced my sense of humor in the same way The Beatles influenced my love of music.
Of course Mel Brooks was a huge comedic influence, and the hard core sarcasm of National Lampoon. "Seinfeld" was a sophisticated version of "dumb" humor that was consistently great.
Over the years, I have watched a lot of half hour sitcoms that have held my interest for varying amounts of time, but not many have stuck with me as what I would call "reference points", meaning something I return to or think about or mention.
For Grim, comedy has been an especially important part of his life, one of his favorite art forms, and especially the Late Night shows as I have mentioned. For me, television and movie comedy was instrumental in establishing my sense of humor from childhood through my twenties, when I saw classics like "The Life Of Brian" or "Being There" or "A Fish Called Wanda".
I only mention all of this to say that I guess my focus is more serious these days. Now, the idea of "Serious" can sound like a big bummer, but it really isn't, because while comedy is a lot of fun - and is certainly a necessary ingredient - "serious" on the other hand can include the deeper subjects....
Like Romance. And Spirituality. And the search for Truth.
And.....Romance. Did I mention romance already? Ah well......I get carried away.
But that's the good thing about Serious, is that it's Not So Serious.
When Romance, Spirituality, et al, are considered, Serious is actually a lot of fun!
So that's the way it is these days for me. Comedy is okay, if it's funny, and if it's really funny and new to me, like Buster Keaton, or if it's something that's already classic for me, like the stuff I mentioned, then it's an important part of my life. I will bet that you have some things that are classics for you as well, as far as comedy is concerned.
But it is not the main thing for me these days, as it is for Grimsley.
I am looking not for easy laughs, per se. Those will always be there, and I have them inside of me in any case and can bring them out when needed.
These days, for me it's all about The Deeper Stuff, the Mysterious Stuff, the study of the Wonders Of Life, and the search for A Romantic Interest to join me in these things, because the Wonders Of Life are most wondrous when shared.
Happy Thanksgiving. See you in the morning. :):)
I had never heard of the Mark Twain Prize, but apparently it's been around for 20 years. Bill Murray won it last year. To be honest, I don't follow comedy all that much. I mean, I like to laugh as much as the next guy, but comedy in general is not a major interest of mine, in the way that, say, music or history is, or science, or art. Comedy is an art form, but I don't seek it out as I once did in my younger years, when I had a subscription to Mad magazine as a nine year old, or when I bought National Lampoon every month when I was fourteen, the same age that I first saw "Blazing Saddles" and thought it was the funniest movie I'd ever seen, which I still do.
Overall though, I guess since I was a teen, comedy has always been what I would call a "side interest" for me. If something is funny, show it to me or tell me about it, and if it sounds funny I'll check it out. Like Buster Keaton for instance, or Harold Lloyd last week. But I generally do not seek out comedic stuff these days, just because I have so many other things in which I am interested.
Grim however, comedy is his thing. He especially loves the Late Night Talk Show variety of comedy, going back to Johnny Carson. Grim was a huge fan of David Letterman, and now his favorites are Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers. Letterman, though, was an absolute legend for Grim. He was talking about Letterman way back in 1982, when his show first came on the air.
I think comedy is like music, in that both art forms move different people in different ways, and to different extents. For instance, I can watch any episode of "Gilligan's Island" to this day, and even though I have seen every episode at least 25 times by now (and some more like 50 times), I will still find them highly amusing, even if I am not laughing as I did decades ago. The "laugh out loud" factor can fade, but the humor remains on the inside, and the things that are funny to any one individual remain funny, even for a lifetime.
So I've always had Certain Things I Find Funny, as far as TV shows and movies are concerned.
Here are a few, for your consideration :
"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". That show was the "Saturday Night Live" of the late '60s, and a Laugh Riot it was. Everybody talked about an episode the next day, and I never missed it as a kid.
"Saturday Night Live" from the early years to about 1980, and then again from the late '80s to the mid '90s, especially the Mike Myers/Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman era. Now that was some funny stuff, week after week, and I watched it every week in those days.
"Gilligan" and "The Flintstones". Given that I first saw these shows in my formative years, before I was five years old, they have influenced my sense of humor in the same way The Beatles influenced my love of music.
Of course Mel Brooks was a huge comedic influence, and the hard core sarcasm of National Lampoon. "Seinfeld" was a sophisticated version of "dumb" humor that was consistently great.
Over the years, I have watched a lot of half hour sitcoms that have held my interest for varying amounts of time, but not many have stuck with me as what I would call "reference points", meaning something I return to or think about or mention.
For Grim, comedy has been an especially important part of his life, one of his favorite art forms, and especially the Late Night shows as I have mentioned. For me, television and movie comedy was instrumental in establishing my sense of humor from childhood through my twenties, when I saw classics like "The Life Of Brian" or "Being There" or "A Fish Called Wanda".
I only mention all of this to say that I guess my focus is more serious these days. Now, the idea of "Serious" can sound like a big bummer, but it really isn't, because while comedy is a lot of fun - and is certainly a necessary ingredient - "serious" on the other hand can include the deeper subjects....
Like Romance. And Spirituality. And the search for Truth.
And.....Romance. Did I mention romance already? Ah well......I get carried away.
But that's the good thing about Serious, is that it's Not So Serious.
When Romance, Spirituality, et al, are considered, Serious is actually a lot of fun!
So that's the way it is these days for me. Comedy is okay, if it's funny, and if it's really funny and new to me, like Buster Keaton, or if it's something that's already classic for me, like the stuff I mentioned, then it's an important part of my life. I will bet that you have some things that are classics for you as well, as far as comedy is concerned.
But it is not the main thing for me these days, as it is for Grimsley.
I am looking not for easy laughs, per se. Those will always be there, and I have them inside of me in any case and can bring them out when needed.
These days, for me it's all about The Deeper Stuff, the Mysterious Stuff, the study of the Wonders Of Life, and the search for A Romantic Interest to join me in these things, because the Wonders Of Life are most wondrous when shared.
Happy Thanksgiving. See you in the morning. :):)
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Spectacular Self Portrait + "Bathing Beauty" w/ Esther Williams
Another Spectacular Self Portrait, Elizabeth. You have lined up the trees and their golden leaves to frame you, and then have chosen a dress and matching lipstick that stand out against that background but also maintain the Autumnal feeling in their darker red tones, with your hair color balancing in the middle. You got some great motion and textural lines in there, with the way your hair is flying back. There is one strand of curls in there in the bottom "row" of the strands blowing away from your back, that just looks perfect, like a rope of curlicues adding a sort of signature I suppose. :)
Somebody has to critique the details of your Self Portraits - i.e. to talk about the fine points - and I have appointed myself the job. :)
It really is a beautiful photograph and you look stunning of course, if it is okay to say that in this day and age.
One thing I know, as a fellow photographer - even though I have not taken those kinds of shots myself - is that a lot of planning and setup goes into such a picture. The main thing for you, after you have framed your background, is that you have gotta hit your mark exactly, and then get the pose you are trying for.
It ain't easy, and that's why I am telling you that you have created an exceptional portfolio of self-portraits so far, with the Red Dress series as a major theme all of it's own. Many photogs, male or female, could try for such shots and not have the success you have had - for real. So you have knack for nailing them, as well as being an excellent photographer in the first place.
I had another relaxing day myself. Didn't venture far, just out for a couple of CSUN walks like yesterday. The only thing for me, and when I am off work I especially notice it nowdays, is that (cue whining by me, and cue violins) I am really really tired of being by myself. And I don't mean that as a plea for The Boys to call me up to come over and hang out. I decidedly do not wanna be One Of The Boys anymore.
Ah, SB.......what am I gonna do? Sigh...
Okay, cut the violins! Stop the whining! But print that take.
I am directing myself in the movie of my life, and I'm determined it will have a Happy Ending. :):)
Tonight's movie, at home at The Tiny Apartment, was "Bathing Beauty" (1944), starring Esther Williams. Esther was a huge box-office star for MGM. From the mid-40s to the late 50s, she was a gold mine for them. When I worked there in the early 80s, a soundstage was pointed out to me by an older co-worker as being the Esther Williams Soundstage, where they had a built in pool back in the old days. The co-worker didn't even ask if I knew who she was, maybe assumed I did because she was such a big star at Metro, at least for a time. And I did know her name, having been a movie biz kid myself. But I had never seen any of her movies.
Back then, I would not have attempted to, but now, as the years have gone by, my sensibilities have gradually changed, and as it is well known about me nowdays, I will watch virtually anything that has some degree of quality, with the mandatory Sandler/Schwarzenegger/DeVito/ disclaimer firmly in place of course.
So today I found "Bathing Beauty" at the Libe, and I decided to watch my first Esther Williams movie. She was a champion swimmer before she became a movie star, so MGM put her in a series of films they called "aqua ballets", in which - no matter the plot - there would always be a sequence or two featuring Williams in a bathing suit, in a pool, with surrounding choreographed female cast supporting her, performing the equivalent of a synchronised swimming routine. Think Busby Berkeley, if you know who he was. The MGM bigwigs certainly knew how to put on a show, and in the case of Esther Williams, they made a huge star out of her by playing to her strengths. She was not a dramatic actress, per se, but she was strikingly beautiful and had onscreen charisma, likely coached by the MGM Talent Squad. So they put her in Aquatic Movies with a host of talented co-stars to carry the weight of the film, and voila! They had hit after hit.
"Bathing Beauty" is a 1940s version of a Rom-Com, and the real star of the movie is Red Skelton, who plays Williams would-be fiancee. I am way too tired (as always) and have written too much already tonight to launch into a major league review of the film, but suffice to say that Esther Williams leaves Skelton to return to her job at an all-girls school in New Jersey. She thinks he has been unfaithful, a ruse perpetrated on him by the Extremely Debonair Basil Rathbone, a musical producer. Skelton is an in demand songwriter and Rathbone does not want him to get married and settle down. But the ruse works, and now Esther Williams has left him. So he does the only thing he can do : he enrolls in the all-girls college to be near her, and from there hijinx ensue, and an MGM Spectacle begins.
If you ever wonder what made Metro Goldwyn Mayer the biggest movie studio in the world during the war years, look no further than "Bathing Beauty". Like me, you would wanna go live in the 1940s after seeing this movie. Every frame is like a candy colored postcard of the era. The movie is energetic and fun, keeping spirits up during wartime, and includes a good many musical numbers from stars of the day such as Harry James, Xavier Cugat and others. Goofy non-threatening Skelton is living a male fantasy, surrounded by 40s cuties at the college, and it was that kind of movie for that time in American history, and do you know what?
Even though it's not a Serious Film, but a lightweight just-for-fun extravaganza - it still holds up, even in this PC day and age. And the reason is because everything about it is Clean Cut.
That was the appeal of 1940s culture, it's wholesomeness. There is romance, comedy and male-female interplay and sexual dynamics, but always done in good taste and with modest intent.
The idea with movies of this type in the 1940s was to make people happy, and no studio did it better than MGM.
I give "Bathing Beauty" two thumbs up, then, even though it's just-for-fun. It's another Motion Picture Time Machine, this time back to 1944, a fantasy of a perfect world during wartime.
That's all I know for tonight! Almost done with my book too.
Just need somebody to do stuff with.
(Hey Ad, we already shot that scene..)
Okay. See you in the morning. :):)
Somebody has to critique the details of your Self Portraits - i.e. to talk about the fine points - and I have appointed myself the job. :)
It really is a beautiful photograph and you look stunning of course, if it is okay to say that in this day and age.
One thing I know, as a fellow photographer - even though I have not taken those kinds of shots myself - is that a lot of planning and setup goes into such a picture. The main thing for you, after you have framed your background, is that you have gotta hit your mark exactly, and then get the pose you are trying for.
It ain't easy, and that's why I am telling you that you have created an exceptional portfolio of self-portraits so far, with the Red Dress series as a major theme all of it's own. Many photogs, male or female, could try for such shots and not have the success you have had - for real. So you have knack for nailing them, as well as being an excellent photographer in the first place.
I had another relaxing day myself. Didn't venture far, just out for a couple of CSUN walks like yesterday. The only thing for me, and when I am off work I especially notice it nowdays, is that (cue whining by me, and cue violins) I am really really tired of being by myself. And I don't mean that as a plea for The Boys to call me up to come over and hang out. I decidedly do not wanna be One Of The Boys anymore.
Ah, SB.......what am I gonna do? Sigh...
Okay, cut the violins! Stop the whining! But print that take.
I am directing myself in the movie of my life, and I'm determined it will have a Happy Ending. :):)
Tonight's movie, at home at The Tiny Apartment, was "Bathing Beauty" (1944), starring Esther Williams. Esther was a huge box-office star for MGM. From the mid-40s to the late 50s, she was a gold mine for them. When I worked there in the early 80s, a soundstage was pointed out to me by an older co-worker as being the Esther Williams Soundstage, where they had a built in pool back in the old days. The co-worker didn't even ask if I knew who she was, maybe assumed I did because she was such a big star at Metro, at least for a time. And I did know her name, having been a movie biz kid myself. But I had never seen any of her movies.
Back then, I would not have attempted to, but now, as the years have gone by, my sensibilities have gradually changed, and as it is well known about me nowdays, I will watch virtually anything that has some degree of quality, with the mandatory Sandler/Schwarzenegger/DeVito/ disclaimer firmly in place of course.
So today I found "Bathing Beauty" at the Libe, and I decided to watch my first Esther Williams movie. She was a champion swimmer before she became a movie star, so MGM put her in a series of films they called "aqua ballets", in which - no matter the plot - there would always be a sequence or two featuring Williams in a bathing suit, in a pool, with surrounding choreographed female cast supporting her, performing the equivalent of a synchronised swimming routine. Think Busby Berkeley, if you know who he was. The MGM bigwigs certainly knew how to put on a show, and in the case of Esther Williams, they made a huge star out of her by playing to her strengths. She was not a dramatic actress, per se, but she was strikingly beautiful and had onscreen charisma, likely coached by the MGM Talent Squad. So they put her in Aquatic Movies with a host of talented co-stars to carry the weight of the film, and voila! They had hit after hit.
"Bathing Beauty" is a 1940s version of a Rom-Com, and the real star of the movie is Red Skelton, who plays Williams would-be fiancee. I am way too tired (as always) and have written too much already tonight to launch into a major league review of the film, but suffice to say that Esther Williams leaves Skelton to return to her job at an all-girls school in New Jersey. She thinks he has been unfaithful, a ruse perpetrated on him by the Extremely Debonair Basil Rathbone, a musical producer. Skelton is an in demand songwriter and Rathbone does not want him to get married and settle down. But the ruse works, and now Esther Williams has left him. So he does the only thing he can do : he enrolls in the all-girls college to be near her, and from there hijinx ensue, and an MGM Spectacle begins.
If you ever wonder what made Metro Goldwyn Mayer the biggest movie studio in the world during the war years, look no further than "Bathing Beauty". Like me, you would wanna go live in the 1940s after seeing this movie. Every frame is like a candy colored postcard of the era. The movie is energetic and fun, keeping spirits up during wartime, and includes a good many musical numbers from stars of the day such as Harry James, Xavier Cugat and others. Goofy non-threatening Skelton is living a male fantasy, surrounded by 40s cuties at the college, and it was that kind of movie for that time in American history, and do you know what?
Even though it's not a Serious Film, but a lightweight just-for-fun extravaganza - it still holds up, even in this PC day and age. And the reason is because everything about it is Clean Cut.
That was the appeal of 1940s culture, it's wholesomeness. There is romance, comedy and male-female interplay and sexual dynamics, but always done in good taste and with modest intent.
The idea with movies of this type in the 1940s was to make people happy, and no studio did it better than MGM.
I give "Bathing Beauty" two thumbs up, then, even though it's just-for-fun. It's another Motion Picture Time Machine, this time back to 1944, a fantasy of a perfect world during wartime.
That's all I know for tonight! Almost done with my book too.
Just need somebody to do stuff with.
(Hey Ad, we already shot that scene..)
Okay. See you in the morning. :):)
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
"Medium Cool" + Chillin' + Warm
Tonight's movie was "Medium Cool" (1969), a Criterion release that I found at Northridge Libe. I remembered the title from way back when I was a kid, so I figured I'd give it a try. "Medium Cool" was written and directed by Haskell Wexler, who you may know was one of the greatest cinematographers in motion picture history, a legend really. I am not sure if he ever wrote or directed any pictures besides this one, and I don't feel like IMDBing it right now (though if you do, have at it) but if "MC" is his only directorial effort, it is an apt one, because the movie is all about how the news media, and thus the camera, both covers the news and more importantly helps to shape it. Wexler as a cameraman wanted to make a point with his movie, and the point not only holds up half a century later but easily applies to our world today. In fact, substitute 2017 for 1968, when the movie takes place, and you would think time had stopped for the past fifty years, because the political and societal atmospheres are very similar and in fact, some of the comparisons are downright eerie in their exactness. Watching this movie, you would think we've gone nowhere in all this time, and in fact, in 1968 we may have been advancing at a faster rate, as we were at least in the process of sending men to the Moon.
"Medium Cool" plays like a documentary for the first 40 minutes or so. Long time star Robert Forster plays a news cameraman in Chicago who, along with his soundman ("Newhart"'s Peter Bonerz), is constantly on the go, filming the tempest of confrontational activity that was taking place in the Windy City in '68, a year like no other. I was a child of the 60s, and the thing about that decade was that so much stuff happened every single year that each year felt like three. 1968, though, was the year everything went off the rails, and that year - with the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in a span of two months, and then the crazy and violent Democratic Convention in Chicago later that Summer - seemed like a neverending tumult. And those were just the Main Events of '68. So much else was happening, and I mean So Much......it was a year that changed the world.
"Medium Cool" is meant to capture the American aspect of that year of revolution, and so it's POV is set in Chicago. Robert Forster is a fearless cameraman, ready to enter into any situation and begin filming, even in ghetto neighborhoods were it is made clear to him that he is not welcome.
Meanwhile, an entire side story is intercut into all the political action. Forster meets and falls in love with an innocent bystander to the proceedings, a young woman from West Virginia who is fairly new to the big city. She lives with her young son in an impoverished section of town; she and Forster meet because of the boy's attempt to break into Forster's car. Thus is developed a contrasting tale of life in West Virginia, which is interspersed with occasional scenes of the rural culture there, reminiscent of an older, simpler American era, with a heartfelt focus on religion. Wexler to his credit depicts this culture in a straightforward manner, just as he shows what is happening in the larger world outside the country. It's all America, from the country folks to the city folks. We are all in this together, and the camera shows us everything. In that way we are definitely united.
"Medium Cool" works best when Something Is Happening, like when Forster and Bonerz go to an apartment in the ghetto to interview a black man who has turned in to the police ten thousand dollars he discovered in the back of his taxicab. The man is a good man, an honest hardworking guy, but he lives in a neighborhood with self-educated black revolutionaries, smart guys who are up against The Man as they see it, and they see the cabdriver as an Uncle Tom who is behaving as a Negro rather than a Black Man. He turned in the money because he felt it was the honest thing to do, but his friends and neighbors see it differently. They think he should have kept it.
Forster the cameraman covers all of this, and is not intimidated (he is also a former amateur boxer), but mainly he feels that it is his job simply to film and let the camera tell the story.
This aspect of the movie is so right on the money that, again, it could apply maybe even more today than in 1968.
The love story does not mix as well into the action as Wexler probably intended it to, and so once again you have the problem of a non-director directing. This time, though, it is a minor problem, as both storylines eventually coincide to bring about a surprise ending, one that has a very ironic twist given the film's premise that The Camera Sees All, and thus results in a dual citizenry of Participants and Voyeurs.
Us Versus Them, or vice versa, or something to that effect.
It's not a classic movie in the story or plot sense, but as a recreation of the Chicago-based events of 1968, it's a virtual Time Capsule, and because Haskell Wexler was also the cinematographer, it feels like you are Right There and In The Moment. Just one great shot after another. 1968 in a nutshell.
I give "Medium Cool" two thumbs up. Though it is not a super-compelling story plotwise, and though it's documentary scenes feel only loosely connected, it still works as a whole movie, and as stated, because it is about 1968, in Chicago, it is a serious and necessary recording of American history at a time of change that resulted in the America we live in today fifty years later. We have changed and gone nowhere in the meantime. ///
Today I just hung out at The Tiny for the most part, except for a couple of CSUN walks, one afternoon and one evening. Chilling has a restorative effect and so I will chill until I am restored, haha. Just hung out, read my book ("Critical Mass"), played some guitar and worked on a drawing.
Elizabeth, I saw your post about "40 Degrees in Wisconsin = Top Down In The Car". Man, you guys are hard core, lol, because I would be A Popsicle in that car haha. Luckily it was t-shirt weather here, unbelievably still in the 80s in late November and supposed to be 90 tomorrow.
My Goodness, SB.
I hope your day was good. See you in the morning. :):)
"Medium Cool" plays like a documentary for the first 40 minutes or so. Long time star Robert Forster plays a news cameraman in Chicago who, along with his soundman ("Newhart"'s Peter Bonerz), is constantly on the go, filming the tempest of confrontational activity that was taking place in the Windy City in '68, a year like no other. I was a child of the 60s, and the thing about that decade was that so much stuff happened every single year that each year felt like three. 1968, though, was the year everything went off the rails, and that year - with the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in a span of two months, and then the crazy and violent Democratic Convention in Chicago later that Summer - seemed like a neverending tumult. And those were just the Main Events of '68. So much else was happening, and I mean So Much......it was a year that changed the world.
"Medium Cool" is meant to capture the American aspect of that year of revolution, and so it's POV is set in Chicago. Robert Forster is a fearless cameraman, ready to enter into any situation and begin filming, even in ghetto neighborhoods were it is made clear to him that he is not welcome.
Meanwhile, an entire side story is intercut into all the political action. Forster meets and falls in love with an innocent bystander to the proceedings, a young woman from West Virginia who is fairly new to the big city. She lives with her young son in an impoverished section of town; she and Forster meet because of the boy's attempt to break into Forster's car. Thus is developed a contrasting tale of life in West Virginia, which is interspersed with occasional scenes of the rural culture there, reminiscent of an older, simpler American era, with a heartfelt focus on religion. Wexler to his credit depicts this culture in a straightforward manner, just as he shows what is happening in the larger world outside the country. It's all America, from the country folks to the city folks. We are all in this together, and the camera shows us everything. In that way we are definitely united.
"Medium Cool" works best when Something Is Happening, like when Forster and Bonerz go to an apartment in the ghetto to interview a black man who has turned in to the police ten thousand dollars he discovered in the back of his taxicab. The man is a good man, an honest hardworking guy, but he lives in a neighborhood with self-educated black revolutionaries, smart guys who are up against The Man as they see it, and they see the cabdriver as an Uncle Tom who is behaving as a Negro rather than a Black Man. He turned in the money because he felt it was the honest thing to do, but his friends and neighbors see it differently. They think he should have kept it.
Forster the cameraman covers all of this, and is not intimidated (he is also a former amateur boxer), but mainly he feels that it is his job simply to film and let the camera tell the story.
This aspect of the movie is so right on the money that, again, it could apply maybe even more today than in 1968.
The love story does not mix as well into the action as Wexler probably intended it to, and so once again you have the problem of a non-director directing. This time, though, it is a minor problem, as both storylines eventually coincide to bring about a surprise ending, one that has a very ironic twist given the film's premise that The Camera Sees All, and thus results in a dual citizenry of Participants and Voyeurs.
Us Versus Them, or vice versa, or something to that effect.
It's not a classic movie in the story or plot sense, but as a recreation of the Chicago-based events of 1968, it's a virtual Time Capsule, and because Haskell Wexler was also the cinematographer, it feels like you are Right There and In The Moment. Just one great shot after another. 1968 in a nutshell.
I give "Medium Cool" two thumbs up. Though it is not a super-compelling story plotwise, and though it's documentary scenes feel only loosely connected, it still works as a whole movie, and as stated, because it is about 1968, in Chicago, it is a serious and necessary recording of American history at a time of change that resulted in the America we live in today fifty years later. We have changed and gone nowhere in the meantime. ///
Today I just hung out at The Tiny for the most part, except for a couple of CSUN walks, one afternoon and one evening. Chilling has a restorative effect and so I will chill until I am restored, haha. Just hung out, read my book ("Critical Mass"), played some guitar and worked on a drawing.
Elizabeth, I saw your post about "40 Degrees in Wisconsin = Top Down In The Car". Man, you guys are hard core, lol, because I would be A Popsicle in that car haha. Luckily it was t-shirt weather here, unbelievably still in the 80s in late November and supposed to be 90 tomorrow.
My Goodness, SB.
I hope your day was good. See you in the morning. :):)
Monday, November 20, 2017
Manson Is Dead + "Wind River"
Writing from home tonight. As you've probably seen or heard by the time you read this, Charles Manson has passed away. Of course, to put it mildly he was not a good person, but he was treated as a celebrity by the press for the past 48 years, as "America's Most (In)Famous Criminal", and whereas even the most heinous murderers fade from the news once their trials are over, Manson stayed with us for a half century because the media trotted him out every so often to do his "Charlie Act" before the tv cameras. I will perhaps write a little more about Manson tomorrow night - and then again I might not - but if I do it will be because I've studied the Manson case and the Manson Family quite a bit myself, since 1976 when I first read the two major books on the case which were available at that time, "The Family" by Ed Sanders and "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi. Since then I've read at least a dozen other books, about Manson himself or the main players in his terrible saga. I am like many for whom the Manson story has held a fascination, though here I must add a disclaimer - unlike some of the more naive or downright anti-social followers of the story, I have never thought Charles Manson was a cool guy, and unfortunately that is what his media-generated image has produced, a whole crop of people who think, "Man, he's weird......but cool". And because he is (or was) treated as a celebrity criminal they find him amusing, or they find some small counterculture issue or ill-stated political point that he ranted about over the years that they can latch onto and agree with. This has been the case with some disaffected "fans" of his, a phenomenon once again created by ongoing news coverage of him since 1969. A lot of people don't stop to think of what he did, and how he influenced those young people who were in his circle, his Family.
But enough about Charles Manson for tonight. May his victims rest in peace with the knowledge he is gone.
Good singin' in church this morning, and a 70 minute in-depth rehearsal for the songs to come in the next several weeks of the Holiday Season. Some tough ones coming up, gotta be ready. :)
I did watch a movie tonight, this time a new release that I got from Redbox. I don't do too much Redbox anymore, simply because most of the movies are of the straight-to-dvd variety, but they sent me a coupon for a free movie and I found a film that sounded promising : "Wind River" (2017) starring Jeremy Renner. It is a murder mystery set in the snowy backcountry of mountainous Wyoming. Remind me never to go there. Though it looks beautiful, and the director does a great job with his use of the landscape, one of the major themes of the film is how the isolation from mainstream society (and even a small town would be a big city in comparison) and the force and majesty of Mother Nature can combine to drive the men who would venture out there to extremes. I am Mega-Tired tonight, and winding down after a three month stint with three days off, and so I am not gonna go into a full length dissertation on "Wind River". Much of it takes place on an Indian reservation, and the story is about the victimisation of Indian women. The point is made near the end of the film that "these people were forced out here a century ago", i.e forced from their homeland and sent to live on reservations where no people should live. Think Siberia. The movie makes a point that, even though all wilderness is beautiful to look at, not all of it is hospitable, and some places are downright deadly. Then there is the human factor. A lot of men who wind up working on roughneck mining jobs in a frozen wasteland are tough men with little education and primitive emotions. Lowbrows, in other words.
An Indian girl is found murdered, and Renner - a local hunter - is hired by a lone white female FBI agent to help track the killer. "Wind River" was written by the same guy who wrote "Sicario", which was nominated for an Oscar, and he also wrote that really good Western crime movie that starred Jeff Bridges about a year ago. But this time he directed, too, and it probably would have been better if he'd let somebody else direct. The story builds a strong plot and well developed characters to begin with, and it sustains those qualities for about 75 minutes. But then it dissolves into a revenge movie, and a violent bloodbath ensues. Sorry for the spoiler, but you probably aren't gonna see this movie anyhow, and I wouldn't want you to see it even if you did want to. Not because it's a bad movie; it's pretty good in many ways - well acted, gorgeous location photography, good writing, but then.....well, there is a reason that there are a truckload of movies at Redbox that you've never before heard of, and that is because many of them never made it to a theater, and if they did not make it to a theater, there is a reason for that.
And the reason is almost always because they Ran Out Of Story or Never Had A Story To Begin With.
You have to have a Story to make a movie. The author of "Wind River" has a pretty good story, most of the way. Had he let someone else direct, he might have gotten more out of what he had. But he didn't, and it devolved into a revenge film with a lot of violence. So don't watch it, even though it's a pretty good movie. I give it half a Thumbs Up for that reason.
Well, that's all for tonight. See you in the morn, after a Major-League Sleep In. :):)
But enough about Charles Manson for tonight. May his victims rest in peace with the knowledge he is gone.
Good singin' in church this morning, and a 70 minute in-depth rehearsal for the songs to come in the next several weeks of the Holiday Season. Some tough ones coming up, gotta be ready. :)
I did watch a movie tonight, this time a new release that I got from Redbox. I don't do too much Redbox anymore, simply because most of the movies are of the straight-to-dvd variety, but they sent me a coupon for a free movie and I found a film that sounded promising : "Wind River" (2017) starring Jeremy Renner. It is a murder mystery set in the snowy backcountry of mountainous Wyoming. Remind me never to go there. Though it looks beautiful, and the director does a great job with his use of the landscape, one of the major themes of the film is how the isolation from mainstream society (and even a small town would be a big city in comparison) and the force and majesty of Mother Nature can combine to drive the men who would venture out there to extremes. I am Mega-Tired tonight, and winding down after a three month stint with three days off, and so I am not gonna go into a full length dissertation on "Wind River". Much of it takes place on an Indian reservation, and the story is about the victimisation of Indian women. The point is made near the end of the film that "these people were forced out here a century ago", i.e forced from their homeland and sent to live on reservations where no people should live. Think Siberia. The movie makes a point that, even though all wilderness is beautiful to look at, not all of it is hospitable, and some places are downright deadly. Then there is the human factor. A lot of men who wind up working on roughneck mining jobs in a frozen wasteland are tough men with little education and primitive emotions. Lowbrows, in other words.
An Indian girl is found murdered, and Renner - a local hunter - is hired by a lone white female FBI agent to help track the killer. "Wind River" was written by the same guy who wrote "Sicario", which was nominated for an Oscar, and he also wrote that really good Western crime movie that starred Jeff Bridges about a year ago. But this time he directed, too, and it probably would have been better if he'd let somebody else direct. The story builds a strong plot and well developed characters to begin with, and it sustains those qualities for about 75 minutes. But then it dissolves into a revenge movie, and a violent bloodbath ensues. Sorry for the spoiler, but you probably aren't gonna see this movie anyhow, and I wouldn't want you to see it even if you did want to. Not because it's a bad movie; it's pretty good in many ways - well acted, gorgeous location photography, good writing, but then.....well, there is a reason that there are a truckload of movies at Redbox that you've never before heard of, and that is because many of them never made it to a theater, and if they did not make it to a theater, there is a reason for that.
And the reason is almost always because they Ran Out Of Story or Never Had A Story To Begin With.
You have to have a Story to make a movie. The author of "Wind River" has a pretty good story, most of the way. Had he let someone else direct, he might have gotten more out of what he had. But he didn't, and it devolved into a revenge film with a lot of violence. So don't watch it, even though it's a pretty good movie. I give it half a Thumbs Up for that reason.
Well, that's all for tonight. See you in the morn, after a Major-League Sleep In. :):)
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Saturday Night Odds & Ends
Happy Late Night. I'm afraid I haven't got much to report once again - no movie review either - but I did have a nice hike out at Santa Susana in gorgeous 75 degree weather. Not too shab for mid-November, and they say it's gonna go back up to 90 next week. That, of course, makes me happy. Just gimme Eternal Summer and be done with it, haha. :)
The sky above the mountains was filling with clouds and contrails (chemtrails?), so that made for some Dramatic Ad-Style Photo Opportunities, the Ad In Question being me. So I took a bunch of pix. I can't resist the Sky As Canvas, even though I am not The Painter.
Elizabeth, I guess you are busy of late, but I saw a photo of a church and wedding on your FB homepage, and I have to say once again that it is a fantastic photograph. You managed to get the top and bottom of the interior in the frame, showing all that detail, and yet the point-of-view still directs the viewer's eye toward the wedding couple at the end of the aisle. It's all in the pointing of the camera, as you know, and when you point it - make little tilting adjustments until You Know You've Got What You Want.
Now why am I telling you that? You, who have become expert at framing a shot, and then setting a mark to place yourself in, and then hitting that mark while your camera is left behind on it's tripod, waiting for your trigger.
My goodness, woman.
So I guess I don't know why I tell you that, except to simply discuss the art of Camera Tilting, as it were. :)
Tomorrow morning we have an easy song in church, "I Will Bless The Lord", sung in Gospel style so you can let loose and belt it. We have more complex stuff coming up, but once in a while it's nice to have a simple one.
Starting tomorrow afternoon at about 2pm, I will be off work until next Saturday, so that will be a nice break. I'm just gonna do a lot of chillin', mostly, and try to re-(Alice) Coop(er) my energy, because I have just finished a 110 day stretch with only three days off. Taking it easy is in order, then, with Big Time Sleep-Ins coming up, and lots of music listening, reading, drawing, guitar playing, and thinkin' about stuff. I am hoping to get a response about my Appeal Letter before Christmas.
I've been watching some Three Dog Night videos on Youtube, so I am gonna post one now and then sign off. Boy can that Chuck Negron sing.
See you in the morn. Go Rams. :):)
The sky above the mountains was filling with clouds and contrails (chemtrails?), so that made for some Dramatic Ad-Style Photo Opportunities, the Ad In Question being me. So I took a bunch of pix. I can't resist the Sky As Canvas, even though I am not The Painter.
Elizabeth, I guess you are busy of late, but I saw a photo of a church and wedding on your FB homepage, and I have to say once again that it is a fantastic photograph. You managed to get the top and bottom of the interior in the frame, showing all that detail, and yet the point-of-view still directs the viewer's eye toward the wedding couple at the end of the aisle. It's all in the pointing of the camera, as you know, and when you point it - make little tilting adjustments until You Know You've Got What You Want.
Now why am I telling you that? You, who have become expert at framing a shot, and then setting a mark to place yourself in, and then hitting that mark while your camera is left behind on it's tripod, waiting for your trigger.
My goodness, woman.
So I guess I don't know why I tell you that, except to simply discuss the art of Camera Tilting, as it were. :)
Tomorrow morning we have an easy song in church, "I Will Bless The Lord", sung in Gospel style so you can let loose and belt it. We have more complex stuff coming up, but once in a while it's nice to have a simple one.
Starting tomorrow afternoon at about 2pm, I will be off work until next Saturday, so that will be a nice break. I'm just gonna do a lot of chillin', mostly, and try to re-(Alice) Coop(er) my energy, because I have just finished a 110 day stretch with only three days off. Taking it easy is in order, then, with Big Time Sleep-Ins coming up, and lots of music listening, reading, drawing, guitar playing, and thinkin' about stuff. I am hoping to get a response about my Appeal Letter before Christmas.
I've been watching some Three Dog Night videos on Youtube, so I am gonna post one now and then sign off. Boy can that Chuck Negron sing.
See you in the morn. Go Rams. :):)
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Keaton From Last Night + "Critical Mass", a New Book
Sorry I didn't write last night. It was a bit of a difficult evening, work-wise (dementia is not easy for everyone involved), but anyhow tonight is better and so I am back. Unfortunately, I don't have much to report. No movie tonight, though last night we did see a funny Buster Keaton movie at CSUN, called "Sidewalks Of New York" (1931). It wasn't the all-out Laugh Riot that last week's "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath" was, but it certainly had it's moments. Keaton is playing his Wealthy Young Man character again, and this time he becomes a philanthropist to a whole gang of poor street kids in Lower East Side Manhattan. This happens - of course - because he is in love with a girl whose little brother is the leader of the children's gang. The little brother is being groomed to become a hoodlum by a local adult crime thug. Buster pays to have a gymnasium built so that the kids will have a place to go besides the streets.
In that way, it's part Message Picture. But once the hijinx begin, it becomes a decent if not classic Buster MGM Comedy. Actually, it works better just as a movie, because the story is well developed, the actors are all good, and the script is always moving forward. Included is another classic Buster Boxing Match (as in "Battling Butler"), and a riotous finale that has every kid in the neighborhood helping to chase down the Head Hoodlum and his gang who are trying to get rid of Keaton. The film excels in the final twenty minutes, with choreographed stunts and pratfalls galore. Overall, it gets a single thumbs up from me instead of two, but once again it is nowhere near the bad rap given to it simply because it's a Buster MGM Talkie. It's funny because Buster Keaton personally hated this movie, and you feel like telling him, "Aww, c'mon Buster - it's not that bad". :)
Elizabeth, if you are reading I hope you had a nice day. I have seen a few posts recently about a collapsible bookcase - an "artistic bookcase" - that has gotten some attention for it's designer. I am wondering if maybe you were the photographer for that project, and if so - congratulations as always, and good work. :)
No hikes of late, but just began a new book, "Critical Mass" by Carter Hydrick. Did I already mention that? Well anyway, it's the true story about the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Yeah, I know.......more grim historical stuff, Ad. But it's all just to get the truth out, so that we don't have to be like the Soviet Union and live under a bunch of propaganda and lies.
Because if we continue to live that way - under deception - we will wind up like the Soviet Union.
Defunct.
And so, we need to Tell The Truth about things, and we need to uncover Major Secrets.
And the truth about WW2 is that, near the end of it, there was a lot of US collaboration with Nazi Germany. It is fairly well known now that we imported hundreds of Nazi scientists at the end of the war. One of them, Werner Von Braun, wound up as one of the heads of NASA. He was the main reason we landed men on the Moon. So let's tell the truth; a former Nazi helped us to create the Apollo program. And without him, we might not have put a man on the Moon.
Please note that I am not endorsing a Nazi, or Nazis, but simply suggesting that the truth about collaboration be put into history books and school books. The truth is complex, because the Nazis were horrible people, but not all were as horrible as others. Those that were not as horrible may have been still complicit though, like some of the scientists we imported.
And we got the uranium for our atomic bomb, the one we dropped on Hiroshima, from Nazi Germany.
It's a long story, but it's a fact, detailed in Carter Hydrick's "Critical Mass".
I want my life to have some meaning, and If there is one thing I want my life to be about, at this point, it is the Uncovering Of Secrets, because secrecy is a Destroyer. Secrecy allows Secret Keepers to retain certain knowledge that keeps them in power and subjugates everyone else to a position of ignorance.
"Osama Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11". "Oswald Killed Kennedy". "McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City".
Those three stories are a bunch of baloney. Dedicated researchers have proven them so. If you don't believe me, then pull up a chair, start your IQ, and read the books for yourself.
Here's a couple more :
"The United States developed the atomic bomb", and "The United States was the first to put men on the Moon".
Those stories are half-truths. Yes, we were the first to do both, "in the name of the United States", and there is no doubt that the USA had genius programs in both cases, in the Manhattan Project and in the NASA Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs to ultimately put a man on the Moon.
But what is left out of both of those stories, in American history books and school books, is that we used Nazi scientists to help us achieve both ends, and not only that, but without those Nazis, we would neither have had an atomic bomb to drop on Japan, nor would we have landed a man on the Moon as soon as 1969.
Again, I am in no way championing Nazis. Just pointing out the collaboration in the name of the truth.
That is all for tonight. See you in the morn. :):)
In that way, it's part Message Picture. But once the hijinx begin, it becomes a decent if not classic Buster MGM Comedy. Actually, it works better just as a movie, because the story is well developed, the actors are all good, and the script is always moving forward. Included is another classic Buster Boxing Match (as in "Battling Butler"), and a riotous finale that has every kid in the neighborhood helping to chase down the Head Hoodlum and his gang who are trying to get rid of Keaton. The film excels in the final twenty minutes, with choreographed stunts and pratfalls galore. Overall, it gets a single thumbs up from me instead of two, but once again it is nowhere near the bad rap given to it simply because it's a Buster MGM Talkie. It's funny because Buster Keaton personally hated this movie, and you feel like telling him, "Aww, c'mon Buster - it's not that bad". :)
Elizabeth, if you are reading I hope you had a nice day. I have seen a few posts recently about a collapsible bookcase - an "artistic bookcase" - that has gotten some attention for it's designer. I am wondering if maybe you were the photographer for that project, and if so - congratulations as always, and good work. :)
No hikes of late, but just began a new book, "Critical Mass" by Carter Hydrick. Did I already mention that? Well anyway, it's the true story about the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Yeah, I know.......more grim historical stuff, Ad. But it's all just to get the truth out, so that we don't have to be like the Soviet Union and live under a bunch of propaganda and lies.
Because if we continue to live that way - under deception - we will wind up like the Soviet Union.
Defunct.
And so, we need to Tell The Truth about things, and we need to uncover Major Secrets.
And the truth about WW2 is that, near the end of it, there was a lot of US collaboration with Nazi Germany. It is fairly well known now that we imported hundreds of Nazi scientists at the end of the war. One of them, Werner Von Braun, wound up as one of the heads of NASA. He was the main reason we landed men on the Moon. So let's tell the truth; a former Nazi helped us to create the Apollo program. And without him, we might not have put a man on the Moon.
Please note that I am not endorsing a Nazi, or Nazis, but simply suggesting that the truth about collaboration be put into history books and school books. The truth is complex, because the Nazis were horrible people, but not all were as horrible as others. Those that were not as horrible may have been still complicit though, like some of the scientists we imported.
And we got the uranium for our atomic bomb, the one we dropped on Hiroshima, from Nazi Germany.
It's a long story, but it's a fact, detailed in Carter Hydrick's "Critical Mass".
I want my life to have some meaning, and If there is one thing I want my life to be about, at this point, it is the Uncovering Of Secrets, because secrecy is a Destroyer. Secrecy allows Secret Keepers to retain certain knowledge that keeps them in power and subjugates everyone else to a position of ignorance.
"Osama Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11". "Oswald Killed Kennedy". "McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City".
Those three stories are a bunch of baloney. Dedicated researchers have proven them so. If you don't believe me, then pull up a chair, start your IQ, and read the books for yourself.
Here's a couple more :
"The United States developed the atomic bomb", and "The United States was the first to put men on the Moon".
Those stories are half-truths. Yes, we were the first to do both, "in the name of the United States", and there is no doubt that the USA had genius programs in both cases, in the Manhattan Project and in the NASA Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs to ultimately put a man on the Moon.
But what is left out of both of those stories, in American history books and school books, is that we used Nazi scientists to help us achieve both ends, and not only that, but without those Nazis, we would neither have had an atomic bomb to drop on Japan, nor would we have landed a man on the Moon as soon as 1969.
Again, I am in no way championing Nazis. Just pointing out the collaboration in the name of the truth.
That is all for tonight. See you in the morn. :):)
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Amazing Red Dress Photo + Wrote My Appeal Letter + Hess + " '71"
Okay, Elizabeth - that is one of your best ever Red Dress shots. The turbulence in the water can be felt, and the way in which you are positioned with your arms swept back, it is like you are the River Goddess, commanding the flow, or maybe standing against it, standing in it's way in defiance. :)
I am the official Interpreter of The Red Dress Photographic Series! Because there is more than meets the eye in these spectacular pictures. This particular photo from Presque Isle shares a color scheme with your Red Dress Photo inside the black volcanic cave in Iceland. The Red and The Black! In both instances, the Black is broken up in texture (chipped cave walls, turbulent water) but the Red always flows smoothly and with grace.
I am telling you, Elizabeth, you have really got something here. To have captured yourself in the Iconic Dress in so many different environments, and in a country halfway around the world, well.......it may take a little while for what you have accomplished to settle in. But as an observer I can tell you that it is quite an accomplishment, not only because of the environments and locations, but Because The Photos Are Truly Spectacular.
So, even though you already know that, I just wanted you to know that I know it, too. :):)
The old saying applies : "Goodbye, Mr. Spalding". You can Google it for confirmation, but it means a Home Run, in this case knocked clean out of the park. :)
I accomplished something of my own this morn. Here at Pearl's, I sat down at the kitchen table just before Noon and wrote my appeal letter to the CIA. It took me just short of three hours. I wanted to be very precise with my message, and most importantly I wanted to write in complete thoughts and sentences, something that - believe it or not - I am actually capable of, haha. Here at the blog, written late at night and usually with lighthearted intent, I can tend to wander and I know I sometimes leave a thought or paragraph unfulfilled or unclarified, while I jump to the next thought.
For my appeal, I knew I had to knuckle down and present a brief, cohesive and clearly stated argument, which I believe I did, given the high level of strangeness of a situation (1989) that it took me 800 pages of text to fully describe on Myspace in 2006-2007. My letter was five and a half pages. I made a copy of it at Northrige Libe and then mailed the original handwritten letter at the Northridge Post Office this evening. It takes a lot of effort for me to write a lengthy letter because I print every word. I write in capital letters. I have done so probably since high school, because my cursive is only so-so but my printing is, if I may say so, superb. It is highly legible, and so I have always printed my written words, in all caps, ever since I can remember, or at least since high school. And writing in printed caps takes a while......especially when one is carefully considering one's words and sentences.
But now that my appeal letter has been mailed, I feel a Great Weight has been lifted from me. I put down on paper what I wanted to say, got it out of my system (and I was very polite and precise), and now I will await the Agency's response with faith, hope and crossed fingers.
Hey SB! - Here's something to consider : How many ladies do I know who go around the world taking amazing iconic photos?, and how many guys do you know who write letters to the CIA?
Pretty cool, unique and weird, all in one!
My letter took up most of my day, so no hike. I did finish Dr. Farrell's book "Hess And The Penguins", however - I pounded the book in seven days - and what a mindboggling and ultimately tragic story it is. I haven't the time tonight to go into detail, but if the story is true, and the evidence suggests that it is, Rudolf Hess, Nazi though he was, made his famous flight to England in 1941 in order to carry out a plot to overthrow Hitler and thus prevent the Holocaust. On the British side, there was a quid-pro-quo to overthrow Churchill, who was a warmonger himself. There is evidence to further suggest that the Holocaust was planned as far back as 1911, thirty years in advance.
My own experience in life has lead me to read about the horrors of this world, and in reading about them for the past thirty or so years, I have discovered that in most cases the official truth is not the truth, as I have mentioned many times. People in power have gone to lengths the public would never suspect to maintain their power, and they have been able to do so because - truth be told - they are generally much more sophisticated than the general public, and have methods and techniques that most citizens might not be able to comprehend, much less imagine.
But I can imagine and comprehend anything, and I though I was once naive, I cannot be fooled anymore, by anyone, which is why I read what I read, study what I study, and do what I do. The truth is important; it's as simple as that.
Finally, I watched a tremendous movie this evening, called " '71", as in "1971", a year in which the so-called "Troubles" in Northern Ireland were at their peak. In the movie, a British production, English soldiers are dispatched to Belfast in order to quell tensions between neighboring Catholics and Protestants in an impoverished district. As the soldiers take to the streets, a public riot ensues and all Hell breaks loose in short order. A soldier is murdered by young members of the IRA, and his partner has to run for his life. This is the story of the film : the English soldier's escape through the nighttime streets of Befast, with dangers around every corner.
The movie plays as a thriller, but with political overtones. I was an adolescent when the Irish Troubles took place, and only recall news articles about IRA bombings and other altercations. As a child of the 60s, I had an awareness of politics, war and terrorism from early on, but being a music fan I never paid attention to the details of those things. As a young adult I absorbed more, but I never understood what the problem was in Ireland, which was prominent in the news in the 70s and 80s.
This movie shows what it must have been like, in a war zone with citizen terrorists fighting one another, in which the innocent cannot be discerned from the participants.
As a pure thriller, " '71" is a 10. They don't get any better than this, for this type of style. The movie just starts, from the get go, and then you are in the thick of it, in terror-stricken Belfast. I don't know much about it as I said, but I can't believe it was really about Protestants against Catholics. Not in the modern era. I believe, with what little I know, that the fighting was likely about economics, and the Irish wanting England out of Ireland. At first, though, the fighting began between Irish factions alone - Catholics vs. Protestants, like street gangs - and the English soldiers were brought in to maintain peace.
So go figure. All I know is that " '71" was one heck of a movie, and I give it my very highest recommendation. It's a Ten Plus on every level.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. :):)
I am the official Interpreter of The Red Dress Photographic Series! Because there is more than meets the eye in these spectacular pictures. This particular photo from Presque Isle shares a color scheme with your Red Dress Photo inside the black volcanic cave in Iceland. The Red and The Black! In both instances, the Black is broken up in texture (chipped cave walls, turbulent water) but the Red always flows smoothly and with grace.
I am telling you, Elizabeth, you have really got something here. To have captured yourself in the Iconic Dress in so many different environments, and in a country halfway around the world, well.......it may take a little while for what you have accomplished to settle in. But as an observer I can tell you that it is quite an accomplishment, not only because of the environments and locations, but Because The Photos Are Truly Spectacular.
So, even though you already know that, I just wanted you to know that I know it, too. :):)
The old saying applies : "Goodbye, Mr. Spalding". You can Google it for confirmation, but it means a Home Run, in this case knocked clean out of the park. :)
I accomplished something of my own this morn. Here at Pearl's, I sat down at the kitchen table just before Noon and wrote my appeal letter to the CIA. It took me just short of three hours. I wanted to be very precise with my message, and most importantly I wanted to write in complete thoughts and sentences, something that - believe it or not - I am actually capable of, haha. Here at the blog, written late at night and usually with lighthearted intent, I can tend to wander and I know I sometimes leave a thought or paragraph unfulfilled or unclarified, while I jump to the next thought.
For my appeal, I knew I had to knuckle down and present a brief, cohesive and clearly stated argument, which I believe I did, given the high level of strangeness of a situation (1989) that it took me 800 pages of text to fully describe on Myspace in 2006-2007. My letter was five and a half pages. I made a copy of it at Northrige Libe and then mailed the original handwritten letter at the Northridge Post Office this evening. It takes a lot of effort for me to write a lengthy letter because I print every word. I write in capital letters. I have done so probably since high school, because my cursive is only so-so but my printing is, if I may say so, superb. It is highly legible, and so I have always printed my written words, in all caps, ever since I can remember, or at least since high school. And writing in printed caps takes a while......especially when one is carefully considering one's words and sentences.
But now that my appeal letter has been mailed, I feel a Great Weight has been lifted from me. I put down on paper what I wanted to say, got it out of my system (and I was very polite and precise), and now I will await the Agency's response with faith, hope and crossed fingers.
Hey SB! - Here's something to consider : How many ladies do I know who go around the world taking amazing iconic photos?, and how many guys do you know who write letters to the CIA?
Pretty cool, unique and weird, all in one!
My letter took up most of my day, so no hike. I did finish Dr. Farrell's book "Hess And The Penguins", however - I pounded the book in seven days - and what a mindboggling and ultimately tragic story it is. I haven't the time tonight to go into detail, but if the story is true, and the evidence suggests that it is, Rudolf Hess, Nazi though he was, made his famous flight to England in 1941 in order to carry out a plot to overthrow Hitler and thus prevent the Holocaust. On the British side, there was a quid-pro-quo to overthrow Churchill, who was a warmonger himself. There is evidence to further suggest that the Holocaust was planned as far back as 1911, thirty years in advance.
My own experience in life has lead me to read about the horrors of this world, and in reading about them for the past thirty or so years, I have discovered that in most cases the official truth is not the truth, as I have mentioned many times. People in power have gone to lengths the public would never suspect to maintain their power, and they have been able to do so because - truth be told - they are generally much more sophisticated than the general public, and have methods and techniques that most citizens might not be able to comprehend, much less imagine.
But I can imagine and comprehend anything, and I though I was once naive, I cannot be fooled anymore, by anyone, which is why I read what I read, study what I study, and do what I do. The truth is important; it's as simple as that.
Finally, I watched a tremendous movie this evening, called " '71", as in "1971", a year in which the so-called "Troubles" in Northern Ireland were at their peak. In the movie, a British production, English soldiers are dispatched to Belfast in order to quell tensions between neighboring Catholics and Protestants in an impoverished district. As the soldiers take to the streets, a public riot ensues and all Hell breaks loose in short order. A soldier is murdered by young members of the IRA, and his partner has to run for his life. This is the story of the film : the English soldier's escape through the nighttime streets of Befast, with dangers around every corner.
The movie plays as a thriller, but with political overtones. I was an adolescent when the Irish Troubles took place, and only recall news articles about IRA bombings and other altercations. As a child of the 60s, I had an awareness of politics, war and terrorism from early on, but being a music fan I never paid attention to the details of those things. As a young adult I absorbed more, but I never understood what the problem was in Ireland, which was prominent in the news in the 70s and 80s.
This movie shows what it must have been like, in a war zone with citizen terrorists fighting one another, in which the innocent cannot be discerned from the participants.
As a pure thriller, " '71" is a 10. They don't get any better than this, for this type of style. The movie just starts, from the get go, and then you are in the thick of it, in terror-stricken Belfast. I don't know much about it as I said, but I can't believe it was really about Protestants against Catholics. Not in the modern era. I believe, with what little I know, that the fighting was likely about economics, and the Irish wanting England out of Ireland. At first, though, the fighting began between Irish factions alone - Catholics vs. Protestants, like street gangs - and the English soldiers were brought in to maintain peace.
So go figure. All I know is that " '71" was one heck of a movie, and I give it my very highest recommendation. It's a Ten Plus on every level.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. :):)
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Happy To See The Photo + "Midnight Run"
That was a good photo from the Slowdive concert, Elizabeth. I am super glad you went to the show and had a blast. You know, I forgot to mention it, but I have seen a few Slowdive posts since they began their US tour, and one post was from a stop in the Midwest. It wasn't Madison.......maybe Detroit or somewhere like that. Anyway, they posted a picture of the theater marquee, and it showed "Slowdive" in big letters, and then under their name it had some upcoming concerts with other bands, and one of them was I Prevail.
Pretty cool, eh?
Guess who I thought of when I saw that name?
If your answer was "The SB" then you got it right. :):)
I hope you will go to more shows asap and keep taking pictures! I love it when that happens. :)
I saw one other post that said "finished a project today". The project in question was a "collapsible bookcase" in Chicago, but because the post was via someone I had not seen before, I thought that maybe you were using it to mean that You Yourself had finished a project. If you have, then that is great. I imagine it has been a period of adjustment for you since your move to the city, but as I have said, things are gonna pay off, and then everything will take off for you. I've been right so far, and I've got my money on me to be right again. Watch and see. :)
Today was a Golden Agers Tuesday, so no hike. At this time of year it is a little tougher anyway, because the Sun starts going down at 4pm and it is pitch black by 5:15. But I will get some photos myself, and in just a few weeks (December 21st) the Sun will start going back the other way and the days will get longer. Meanwhile we will enjoy the Holiday Season and try to avoid freezing when the inevitable L.A. Cold sets in.
There was a movie tonight : "Midnight Run" (1988) starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin. Grimsley had a VHS tape of it. Luckily, I am one of the few remaining humans who own a VHS tape machine, and so he came over and we watched it. I had seen "Midnight Run" in the theater, back when it was released in 1988. It was a big hit at the time, and it holds up pretty well nearly 30 years later. 1980s style filmmaking of this kind of movie - i.e. the Action Crime Comedy - was very over the top, with exaggerated conflict - cops galore, really stupid crooks, humorless Feds, shrieking foulmouthed bailbondsmen, and in that respect I suppose it is a crude continuation of the same kind of farce that was seen in the 20s and 30s, with criminals making the coppers look like fools. The difference here is the Buddy Element, and the updated 1980s touchy-feely subtheme. DeNiro is a bounty hunter tasked with bringing Mafia accountant Grodin (on the lam in New York) back to his bailbondsman in Los Angeles, so that the latter will not lose his bond money and go out of business. The majority of the film then centers around the developing relationship of the sensitive, inquisitive and overbearing Grodin character on the exasperated, worn out and "only in it for the money" character of DeNiro the bounty hunter.
It's a classic 1980s style Buddy Movie, and in that respect it holds up due to the chemistry between the two leads. Grodin and DeNiro play perfectly off one another. Throw in some great character actors like John Ashton and Dennis Farina, and you have an entertaining box office fare. Think "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" except with the lower key DeNiro/Grodin buddies instead of the insane Steve Martin/Jon Candy duo.
Not a classic, but fun nevertheless.
Almost done with Dr. Farrell's Rudolf Hess book. I pounded it in one week, and it is such a mindboggling story - and one that I was entirely unaware of - that I ordered another more comprehensive book on the subject, which I think I already mentioned.
Tomorrow I will write my letter for certain, and I will tell you about it.
See you in the morn. :):)
Pretty cool, eh?
Guess who I thought of when I saw that name?
If your answer was "The SB" then you got it right. :):)
I hope you will go to more shows asap and keep taking pictures! I love it when that happens. :)
I saw one other post that said "finished a project today". The project in question was a "collapsible bookcase" in Chicago, but because the post was via someone I had not seen before, I thought that maybe you were using it to mean that You Yourself had finished a project. If you have, then that is great. I imagine it has been a period of adjustment for you since your move to the city, but as I have said, things are gonna pay off, and then everything will take off for you. I've been right so far, and I've got my money on me to be right again. Watch and see. :)
Today was a Golden Agers Tuesday, so no hike. At this time of year it is a little tougher anyway, because the Sun starts going down at 4pm and it is pitch black by 5:15. But I will get some photos myself, and in just a few weeks (December 21st) the Sun will start going back the other way and the days will get longer. Meanwhile we will enjoy the Holiday Season and try to avoid freezing when the inevitable L.A. Cold sets in.
There was a movie tonight : "Midnight Run" (1988) starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin. Grimsley had a VHS tape of it. Luckily, I am one of the few remaining humans who own a VHS tape machine, and so he came over and we watched it. I had seen "Midnight Run" in the theater, back when it was released in 1988. It was a big hit at the time, and it holds up pretty well nearly 30 years later. 1980s style filmmaking of this kind of movie - i.e. the Action Crime Comedy - was very over the top, with exaggerated conflict - cops galore, really stupid crooks, humorless Feds, shrieking foulmouthed bailbondsmen, and in that respect I suppose it is a crude continuation of the same kind of farce that was seen in the 20s and 30s, with criminals making the coppers look like fools. The difference here is the Buddy Element, and the updated 1980s touchy-feely subtheme. DeNiro is a bounty hunter tasked with bringing Mafia accountant Grodin (on the lam in New York) back to his bailbondsman in Los Angeles, so that the latter will not lose his bond money and go out of business. The majority of the film then centers around the developing relationship of the sensitive, inquisitive and overbearing Grodin character on the exasperated, worn out and "only in it for the money" character of DeNiro the bounty hunter.
It's a classic 1980s style Buddy Movie, and in that respect it holds up due to the chemistry between the two leads. Grodin and DeNiro play perfectly off one another. Throw in some great character actors like John Ashton and Dennis Farina, and you have an entertaining box office fare. Think "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" except with the lower key DeNiro/Grodin buddies instead of the insane Steve Martin/Jon Candy duo.
Not a classic, but fun nevertheless.
Almost done with Dr. Farrell's Rudolf Hess book. I pounded it in one week, and it is such a mindboggling story - and one that I was entirely unaware of - that I ordered another more comprehensive book on the subject, which I think I already mentioned.
Tomorrow I will write my letter for certain, and I will tell you about it.
See you in the morn. :):)
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
"Testament Of Youth"
Tonight I watched a very good film, "Testament Of Youth" (2014) starring Alicia Vikander. I found it at Northridge Libe, whilst browsing the dvds. Had never heard of it before, but the premise sounded promising : a story of love and tragedy set against World War One. "Testament.." is a British production, sponsored in part by the BBC, so you know right off the bat that the acting is impeccable. The story plays out a tad slowly, or more than a tad to be honest. This is a 2 hour movie that feels like 3 hours, but it never drags or bores. Very simply, it is an extremely sad story with an element of redeeming heroism, in this case a female heroine well played by actress Vikander. The movie is based on a book of the same name that - unbeknownst to me prior to tonight - has been a very important and famous literary work about the author's experience during The Great War (as it was known in England). Her name was Vera Britanny, and she became a well-known Pacifist after the war's end.
As the movie begins, she is a headstrong young woman who is intent on taking the entrance exams for Oxford University, at a time (1917) when women were rarely accepted there, and were not awarded degrees even if they did gain acceptance. Vera Brittany succeeds in getting into Oxford at the same time as her younger brother and his best friend, who she is in love with. She wants to become a writer, as does her boyfriend. But in November, the War intervenes, and everyone's life plans are dashed.
"Testament Of Youth" is the story of the horror of war from a woman's point of view. Vera Brittany (Vikander) gives up her chance at Oxford to become a war nurse. She feels it is her duty, given that her brother, her fiance and their friends are all fighting. And one by one, she begins to suffer loss after loss after loss. It is a true story and is heartbreaking to watch, though with the slow and deliberate pace of the direction, you have a pretty good idea of what is gonna happen next at every turn. The pacing, and the director's overuse of the "pullback" shot, where the camera retreats from Vikander whenever anything awful is being presaged, and in conjunction with a "sad" musical cue, is what keeps the movie from being tremendous and gives it more of a documentary feel, like "she did this, and then she suffered that, and then she did this". The viewer is always "cued" to what is gonna happen next, but that is a minor complaint.
The deal is this : It's a very British Production. The pace is slow, the production values are great (the English countryside looks like Heaven), the actors nail the "noblesse oblige" values of the period and the story plays out in linear fashion without any trickery. It's not a movie with plot or suspense.
But it will rip your heart out in other ways, simply by the conflicting aspects of beauty, female aspiration, love and tragic loss - needless loss. It's a slow movie that rewards the viewer's patience, but bring your hankies.
That was all the news for today, except for a quickie walk at Aliso this afternoon. I was not able to begin writing my appeal letter just yet, because of work factors, but I am gonna get to it asap, and I guarantee it will be In The Mail by the end of the week.
SB, I hope your day was good. Post if you can and if you want to. :):)
As the movie begins, she is a headstrong young woman who is intent on taking the entrance exams for Oxford University, at a time (1917) when women were rarely accepted there, and were not awarded degrees even if they did gain acceptance. Vera Brittany succeeds in getting into Oxford at the same time as her younger brother and his best friend, who she is in love with. She wants to become a writer, as does her boyfriend. But in November, the War intervenes, and everyone's life plans are dashed.
"Testament Of Youth" is the story of the horror of war from a woman's point of view. Vera Brittany (Vikander) gives up her chance at Oxford to become a war nurse. She feels it is her duty, given that her brother, her fiance and their friends are all fighting. And one by one, she begins to suffer loss after loss after loss. It is a true story and is heartbreaking to watch, though with the slow and deliberate pace of the direction, you have a pretty good idea of what is gonna happen next at every turn. The pacing, and the director's overuse of the "pullback" shot, where the camera retreats from Vikander whenever anything awful is being presaged, and in conjunction with a "sad" musical cue, is what keeps the movie from being tremendous and gives it more of a documentary feel, like "she did this, and then she suffered that, and then she did this". The viewer is always "cued" to what is gonna happen next, but that is a minor complaint.
The deal is this : It's a very British Production. The pace is slow, the production values are great (the English countryside looks like Heaven), the actors nail the "noblesse oblige" values of the period and the story plays out in linear fashion without any trickery. It's not a movie with plot or suspense.
But it will rip your heart out in other ways, simply by the conflicting aspects of beauty, female aspiration, love and tragic loss - needless loss. It's a slow movie that rewards the viewer's patience, but bring your hankies.
That was all the news for today, except for a quickie walk at Aliso this afternoon. I was not able to begin writing my appeal letter just yet, because of work factors, but I am gonna get to it asap, and I guarantee it will be In The Mail by the end of the week.
SB, I hope your day was good. Post if you can and if you want to. :):)
Monday, November 13, 2017
Gold Medal & Other Stuff
Won the Gold Medal a little while ago in the Tiredness Competition, a new Olympic Event. It's not very exciting, everybody fell asleep watching it. It's one of those events that they show at 4am. :)
At least I came up with a new Tiredness Metaphor. You will agree that the Shabularity must be considered Negligible for that effort, am I right?
Okay, good. Then we can proceed.
Good singin' in church this morn. It's fun to sing a straight-up harmony line in an old-fashioned 19th century style song. Think "Sweet Adeline". Our song, which was called "That Will Be Glory" was that style of singing - Barbershop Quartet as I said yesterday - just four lines of harmony that blend, with no juxtapositioning of notes or tempo changes or anything like that.
I wanna form a singing group that just does a lot of a capella type stuff. Not necessarily 19th century sounding, but just songs where the vocals are harmony based, with maybe three or four parts. Could be any style. Man, that would be awesome to try. So who's with me?
Elizabeth? Do I get a "yes" on the Soprano voice? :):)
Okay, now to look for an Alto and Bass.........
SB, I hope all is well and that you are looking forward to the holidays, and your birthday. I haven't seen many posts of late, but I am hoping that things are good in Chicago. Even though I've been writing a lot about certain things in my life, and my own perspective on different things (and movie reviews), it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you because of course I am. And you know that when you post, I always respond, and not only that, but I also support everything you do 100% just like I always have.
So even when I am writing about movies or other stuff - even Weird Stuff - just think of me as some utensil that is right there at arm's length, and anytime you need me, all you have to do is reach out and pick me up, so to speak.
I know I just compared myself to a fork or spoon, but then I also know you know what I mean.
And, I am still celebrating my Tiredness Victory, hard won over some Seriously Exhausted Competitors from Poland, Chad and Equador. I went the extra mile to win the Gold, by driving out to Burbank to take my sister Sophie shopping directly after choir practice, and then almost straight back to Pearl's...but with a brief stop at home to read some more of my unputdownable Rudolf Hess book.
Tonight I will get a good night's sleep, and then tomorrow I am gonna write my appeal letter to the Information and Privacy Coordinator at the CIA, vis-a-vis their denial of my FOIA and Privacy Act Request for any information about me in their files.
I have 90 days to appeal (from October 23), and I was gonna wait until the New Year and write it in early January. But the thoughts of what I want to say are rattling around in my brain, and I wanna get them out of there, get them on paper and in the mail. So I will do that tomorrow and things will continue to proceed.
No movie tonight, but I did watch a "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" episode.
Rams won in another blowout, just to get a little bit of sports in.
See you in the morn. Post if you can. :):)
At least I came up with a new Tiredness Metaphor. You will agree that the Shabularity must be considered Negligible for that effort, am I right?
Okay, good. Then we can proceed.
Good singin' in church this morn. It's fun to sing a straight-up harmony line in an old-fashioned 19th century style song. Think "Sweet Adeline". Our song, which was called "That Will Be Glory" was that style of singing - Barbershop Quartet as I said yesterday - just four lines of harmony that blend, with no juxtapositioning of notes or tempo changes or anything like that.
I wanna form a singing group that just does a lot of a capella type stuff. Not necessarily 19th century sounding, but just songs where the vocals are harmony based, with maybe three or four parts. Could be any style. Man, that would be awesome to try. So who's with me?
Elizabeth? Do I get a "yes" on the Soprano voice? :):)
Okay, now to look for an Alto and Bass.........
SB, I hope all is well and that you are looking forward to the holidays, and your birthday. I haven't seen many posts of late, but I am hoping that things are good in Chicago. Even though I've been writing a lot about certain things in my life, and my own perspective on different things (and movie reviews), it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you because of course I am. And you know that when you post, I always respond, and not only that, but I also support everything you do 100% just like I always have.
So even when I am writing about movies or other stuff - even Weird Stuff - just think of me as some utensil that is right there at arm's length, and anytime you need me, all you have to do is reach out and pick me up, so to speak.
I know I just compared myself to a fork or spoon, but then I also know you know what I mean.
And, I am still celebrating my Tiredness Victory, hard won over some Seriously Exhausted Competitors from Poland, Chad and Equador. I went the extra mile to win the Gold, by driving out to Burbank to take my sister Sophie shopping directly after choir practice, and then almost straight back to Pearl's...but with a brief stop at home to read some more of my unputdownable Rudolf Hess book.
Tonight I will get a good night's sleep, and then tomorrow I am gonna write my appeal letter to the Information and Privacy Coordinator at the CIA, vis-a-vis their denial of my FOIA and Privacy Act Request for any information about me in their files.
I have 90 days to appeal (from October 23), and I was gonna wait until the New Year and write it in early January. But the thoughts of what I want to say are rattling around in my brain, and I wanna get them out of there, get them on paper and in the mail. So I will do that tomorrow and things will continue to proceed.
No movie tonight, but I did watch a "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" episode.
Rams won in another blowout, just to get a little bit of sports in.
See you in the morn. Post if you can. :):)
Sunday, November 12, 2017
"Hess & The Penguins", Secret Agencies and So-Called History
Not much to report tonight. No movie. I did have a nice hike at Limekiln this afternoon, but it was just a quickie. This evening, my friend David F. came over for a CSUN walk. That was pretty much it for the day, except for reading Dr. Farrell's latest book "Hess and The Penguins", about Hitler's famous (or infamous) Deputy who flew to England in 1941, supposedly on a "peace mission", and then who was tried at Nuremberg after the war and sentenced to life in prison, which he spent in a facility called Spandau. For many years he was the only remaining prisoner in the building. It was big news when he died in 1987, at the age of 93. The "official story" was that he committed suicide by hanging himself with an electrical cord, but we all know how accurate "official stories" are. Dr. Joe's book points out the testimony of his prison doctor, who mentions something that I, as a caregiver, find to be very telling. The doctor says that it would have been next to impossible for Rudolf Hess to hang himself, as he was so elderly and so crippled with arthritis that he could not stand up on his own, nor raise his arms over his head. As a person with experience in caring for the elderly, I find this to be an accurate statement.
So of course Hess was murdered. The question is why. The answer lies somewhere in the midst of the secrets of WW2. Hess knew secrets about something that the British Home Office had him killed for, even though he was 93 years old. I don't care what the guy was guilty of - which in Hess' case was a lot - I think it takes a special kind of coward to strangle a 93 year old man. At 93, leave him to God to deal with.
Sorry to be so grim, but I didn't have a movie to write about tonight, and you know that when I am not watching movies, I am reading books about Uncovering The Truth about recent historical events (recent meaning in the last hundred years or so), because we are finding that in many instances, the "official versions" of events in a given situation are A Bunch Of Baloney.
We are learning about Secret Agencies, and Secret Agents who "get things done" behind the scenes.
Much happens Behind The Scenes when an event of historical importance takes place. The public is then Given The News of What Has Happened, but there are two factors that must be weighed when considering the value (or worthlessness) of official "news media" news. Factor #1 is that, in most cases, in events of historical importance - i.e wars, assassinations, genocides, horrific acts of terrorism ala 9/11 or Oklahoma City - the news media must rely on Officialdom, i.e. the very agencies in question, to tell them what has happened. When something like 9/11 happens, it is not the police who investigate. It is the FBI, CIA and other Federal agencies that have their own way of doing things, and these ways of doing things are not known to the general public.
These agencies, especially the CIA, deal almost entirely in secrecy, for two reasons. One is that they don't want the bad guys to know what they are doing. And the other reason is that they don't want the public to freak out.
So to continue what I was writing about in the paragraph just above the previous brief one, there is a Second Factor involved in why the "news" from the General News Media may not be trustworthy.
And that relates to Factor #1, above. The news media can only get their stories nowdays from "officialdom", and yet "officialdom" works in secret, which they would say is out of necessity.
So when Dick Cheney comes on TV, just a few days after 9/11, and tells you that Al Queda did it, you have two choices if you are a member of the American Public. You can either say, "He is right. He knows. I trust him. End of story", and then you can watch and listen to all the side stories and follow up stories on corporate controlled CNN (or Fox, MSNBC, et al), or you can say, "hmmmm.....we have had so many questions about so many events in the last century that I am not sure I believe what he is saying, especially when I factor in a, b, c, and d. Examples of evidence that I saw with my own eyes on television".
And so much more, because if you are a person like me, and you read tons of books on the subject(s), you are left with Zero Doubt about the way things work, and the way the truth about major events is disseminated to the General Public.
Here's the deal : The Truth is held onto as a Holy Grail by the people who actually Know The Truth, in any given situation of major importance in the last century. They hold it and do not want to let it go. This has been especially true since the advent of electronic media (telephone, radio, TV, computer, et al). Before electronic media, it was a lot easier for Secret Agencies and Secret Societies to keep their secrets. Nowdays, and for the last century, they have to do it through media manipulation.
So when Something Happens, like 9/11, or even going back to the death of Rudolf Hess (who knew all the Nazi secrets) the News Media tells you what has happened. And they, in turn, are told what has happened by the agencies who investigate the major events of world history. You and I weren't there, and so how can we know for sure?
Intuition, trust or distrust, and our own research become important tools.
Otherwise, so-called "History" - the stuff that is actually a Bunch Of Baloney made up by Secret Agencies, in some cases, or perhaps in many cases, becomes "Official History", just because someone like Dick Cheney or the British Home Office said it happened that way.
Screw that.
Right? :)
Well anyhow, that's why I do my reading and research, on nights when I am not watching movies.
See you in church in the morning. We've got an easy song, four part harmony like a Barbershop Quartet.
Elizabeth, I hope you had a nice day. :):)
So of course Hess was murdered. The question is why. The answer lies somewhere in the midst of the secrets of WW2. Hess knew secrets about something that the British Home Office had him killed for, even though he was 93 years old. I don't care what the guy was guilty of - which in Hess' case was a lot - I think it takes a special kind of coward to strangle a 93 year old man. At 93, leave him to God to deal with.
Sorry to be so grim, but I didn't have a movie to write about tonight, and you know that when I am not watching movies, I am reading books about Uncovering The Truth about recent historical events (recent meaning in the last hundred years or so), because we are finding that in many instances, the "official versions" of events in a given situation are A Bunch Of Baloney.
We are learning about Secret Agencies, and Secret Agents who "get things done" behind the scenes.
Much happens Behind The Scenes when an event of historical importance takes place. The public is then Given The News of What Has Happened, but there are two factors that must be weighed when considering the value (or worthlessness) of official "news media" news. Factor #1 is that, in most cases, in events of historical importance - i.e wars, assassinations, genocides, horrific acts of terrorism ala 9/11 or Oklahoma City - the news media must rely on Officialdom, i.e. the very agencies in question, to tell them what has happened. When something like 9/11 happens, it is not the police who investigate. It is the FBI, CIA and other Federal agencies that have their own way of doing things, and these ways of doing things are not known to the general public.
These agencies, especially the CIA, deal almost entirely in secrecy, for two reasons. One is that they don't want the bad guys to know what they are doing. And the other reason is that they don't want the public to freak out.
So to continue what I was writing about in the paragraph just above the previous brief one, there is a Second Factor involved in why the "news" from the General News Media may not be trustworthy.
And that relates to Factor #1, above. The news media can only get their stories nowdays from "officialdom", and yet "officialdom" works in secret, which they would say is out of necessity.
So when Dick Cheney comes on TV, just a few days after 9/11, and tells you that Al Queda did it, you have two choices if you are a member of the American Public. You can either say, "He is right. He knows. I trust him. End of story", and then you can watch and listen to all the side stories and follow up stories on corporate controlled CNN (or Fox, MSNBC, et al), or you can say, "hmmmm.....we have had so many questions about so many events in the last century that I am not sure I believe what he is saying, especially when I factor in a, b, c, and d. Examples of evidence that I saw with my own eyes on television".
And so much more, because if you are a person like me, and you read tons of books on the subject(s), you are left with Zero Doubt about the way things work, and the way the truth about major events is disseminated to the General Public.
Here's the deal : The Truth is held onto as a Holy Grail by the people who actually Know The Truth, in any given situation of major importance in the last century. They hold it and do not want to let it go. This has been especially true since the advent of electronic media (telephone, radio, TV, computer, et al). Before electronic media, it was a lot easier for Secret Agencies and Secret Societies to keep their secrets. Nowdays, and for the last century, they have to do it through media manipulation.
So when Something Happens, like 9/11, or even going back to the death of Rudolf Hess (who knew all the Nazi secrets) the News Media tells you what has happened. And they, in turn, are told what has happened by the agencies who investigate the major events of world history. You and I weren't there, and so how can we know for sure?
Intuition, trust or distrust, and our own research become important tools.
Otherwise, so-called "History" - the stuff that is actually a Bunch Of Baloney made up by Secret Agencies, in some cases, or perhaps in many cases, becomes "Official History", just because someone like Dick Cheney or the British Home Office said it happened that way.
Screw that.
Right? :)
Well anyhow, that's why I do my reading and research, on nights when I am not watching movies.
See you in church in the morning. We've got an easy song, four part harmony like a Barbershop Quartet.
Elizabeth, I hope you had a nice day. :):)
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Harold Lloyd in "Speedy" & There Is No Turning Back Now
Tonight's movie was the silent film "Speedy" (1928), my first Harold Lloyd movie. Lloyd was the third great comedian of the Silent Era, along with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and though Lloyd may be somewhat lesser known nowdays than the other two, in his time he was actually the Box Office Champ. His films outgrossed even Chaplin's over the course of his career. As with Buster, before we began his retrospective at CSUN, I knew little about Harold Lloyd other than that he was the guy who hung off the face of that clock tower, many stories in the air, in that famous old movie. He was the handsome-but-goofy guy with the round black glasses from old Hollywood.
But seeing Buster Keaton's movies for the first time really opened my eyes to the genius of these early film stars, and not only for their comedic skills but for their filmmaking skills in an era when all the filmmakers were still learning - how to move a camera, how to edit an action scene, how to maintain continuity of motion. All that stuff and more.
By the late 20s, feature length motion pictures had only been around for 15 years or so, and when you go back to the short films of Buster and Lloyd, and before them Fatty Arbuckle, we are talking pre-1920, and so there was nothing to copy from, no "bar" to reach for or jump over. Filmmakers had to learn editing, camera movement, continuity and mise-en-scene from scratch. This makes it even more impressive when you see an elaborate action and stunt scene in a Keaton film, and now tonight in a Harold Lloyd film too.
Grimsley came over to watch it with me; I got the movie from the Libe as usual. The Criterion restoration print was very clean. And Harold Lloyd? Well, he is outstanding. An entirely different onscreen presence than Buster Keaton. Buster always begins his films somewhat downcast, always dignified, and then rising to whatever challenge presents itself.
Harold Lloyd, at least from the one film I've seen him in, is presented almost as a rebel. He is handsome (as was Buster in an unconventional way) and he looks like a college preppie from the era. But he is out to do things his own way from the get go, undermining anyone who tries to stop him, especially cops. Cops were always the foil in silent movies. You know how Hijinx Usually Ensue? Well, in "Speedy", Mayhem Ensues. Lloyd is a guy who can't keep a job and doesn't care to. First he is a Soda Jerk, then a Taxi Driver, both with disastrous results. He says "screw it" and takes his girlfriend to Coney Island for a fun time. It is very cool to see that legendary amusement park from almost 100 years ago in a clean black and white print. Once again we see how modern the early 20th century was, and then I remind myself that it really wasn't that long ago. 1928 was only 32 years before I was born, and here I am (as we all are) in the Most Modern Of All Eras.
Harold Lloyd finally has to Man Up in "Speedy" in order to save his girfriend's grandfather from financial ruin. The old man owns a horse-drawn trolley line that is in jeopardy from brand new railway companies who want to put him out of business. It falls on the energetic Lloyd to keep the horse trolley running and thus to stave off the scheming railroad magnates.
With the help of a hyperactive dog, he does just that. The last half hour of this film is an action packed series of conflicts and chase scenes that are truly spectacular even by today's standards, and are simply amazing considering they were created 89 years ago.
To even the most ardent modern movie fan, the prospect of watching Silent films can seem daunting. You think, "yeah, I'm sure they're good films......but they're Silent, and really old". That was my feeling exactly before I dipped my toes in the water for my first Silent movies. I began with horror (of course, haha), watching stuff like "Nosferatu" and "Vampyr", and then moving on to Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler". That one was four hours long, so I watched it over two nights, but it was so good that it cemented in me the knowledge that I could "do" Silent Movies.
We live in the Sound Era, at a time when movies are more technically sophisticated than ever, so for us, Silent Movies are always gonna be an acquired taste. But if you give them a chance, if you even try watching one, you might find that they are easier to watch then you thought. That's what happened with me. I still didn't watch a lot of them, but then we had this Buster Keaton retrospective at CSUN, and that has opened the floodgates, at least partway.
Most movies I will watch will always be sound films because that is how films have been made since 1929. But now, I am not only no longer averse to watching Silent Films, but in the case of the early comedians, I want to watch them all. We are seeing most of Buster's films at CSUN, and now - after seeing "Speedy" at home tonight - I'm gonna have to see all of Harold Lloyd's as well.
He is a riot, just like Buster Keaton. These guys were the truly off-the-wall comedians who started it all, and their work not only holds up 100 years later but is still strikingly original. ////
So that's my take on Lloyd, after one film, and on Silents in general. :):)
Elizabeth, I hope you had a good day, if you are still reading. I mean, I know you are still reading - I just don't know if you read every day, or just once in a while. Some days I don't see any FB posts, but of course I know you are not only busy but still setting up your life in a new city.
But the main point is that I hope you had a good day. :):)
Hope things are going well, too.
I have been re-energized a bit by the letter I got from the CIA, and it's hard to understand unless you are me, but I feel like "finally"! the door is open......just a crack.....towards an answer, in my 20 year quest for answers, about what happened to me in September 1989.
One day, maybe even a hundred years from now, it might be known worldwide, and if not "common knowledge" then at least known to people who are interested in such things (i.e the Secrets of The World), and accessible to anyone who cares to look.
I have lived almost half of my life not knowing why something happened to me.
Something extreme, and very far off the radar of anything normal.
The friends in my life who were part of the experience have always denied it, to me and to themselves. They have chosen to live in the Dreamland in which they believe or disbelieve it happened.
I have known, for certain since 1993, that What Happened In Northridge actually did happen.
There is no Dreamland. There is only Real Life. And in Real Life, there are only two possibilities for things that are said to occur.
Either they happened, or they didn't happen. There is no in between, there is no foggy Dreamland, except in sleep. But not in real life.
I know this.
The CIA knows this.
I hope my friends know it, the ones who were there in 1989.
I feel as if something is Turning, like a giant that has been buried in the Earth. I feel that it is up to me now, more than ever, to be persistent, and to not drop the ball.
Just to be steady, and to keep writing letters, thinking them out in advance, what I want to ask, what I want to say, using precise language to respond with, in concordance with the ultra-legalistic way in which the CIA (and FBI, et al) words their replies to requests for information.
The main thing is that there is no turning back from this point. No more letting years pass by between lacadaisical, half-hoping request letters.
Now I have got to go forward and keep at it, and I will.
See you in the morning.
SB, post if you can. :):)
But seeing Buster Keaton's movies for the first time really opened my eyes to the genius of these early film stars, and not only for their comedic skills but for their filmmaking skills in an era when all the filmmakers were still learning - how to move a camera, how to edit an action scene, how to maintain continuity of motion. All that stuff and more.
By the late 20s, feature length motion pictures had only been around for 15 years or so, and when you go back to the short films of Buster and Lloyd, and before them Fatty Arbuckle, we are talking pre-1920, and so there was nothing to copy from, no "bar" to reach for or jump over. Filmmakers had to learn editing, camera movement, continuity and mise-en-scene from scratch. This makes it even more impressive when you see an elaborate action and stunt scene in a Keaton film, and now tonight in a Harold Lloyd film too.
Grimsley came over to watch it with me; I got the movie from the Libe as usual. The Criterion restoration print was very clean. And Harold Lloyd? Well, he is outstanding. An entirely different onscreen presence than Buster Keaton. Buster always begins his films somewhat downcast, always dignified, and then rising to whatever challenge presents itself.
Harold Lloyd, at least from the one film I've seen him in, is presented almost as a rebel. He is handsome (as was Buster in an unconventional way) and he looks like a college preppie from the era. But he is out to do things his own way from the get go, undermining anyone who tries to stop him, especially cops. Cops were always the foil in silent movies. You know how Hijinx Usually Ensue? Well, in "Speedy", Mayhem Ensues. Lloyd is a guy who can't keep a job and doesn't care to. First he is a Soda Jerk, then a Taxi Driver, both with disastrous results. He says "screw it" and takes his girlfriend to Coney Island for a fun time. It is very cool to see that legendary amusement park from almost 100 years ago in a clean black and white print. Once again we see how modern the early 20th century was, and then I remind myself that it really wasn't that long ago. 1928 was only 32 years before I was born, and here I am (as we all are) in the Most Modern Of All Eras.
Harold Lloyd finally has to Man Up in "Speedy" in order to save his girfriend's grandfather from financial ruin. The old man owns a horse-drawn trolley line that is in jeopardy from brand new railway companies who want to put him out of business. It falls on the energetic Lloyd to keep the horse trolley running and thus to stave off the scheming railroad magnates.
With the help of a hyperactive dog, he does just that. The last half hour of this film is an action packed series of conflicts and chase scenes that are truly spectacular even by today's standards, and are simply amazing considering they were created 89 years ago.
To even the most ardent modern movie fan, the prospect of watching Silent films can seem daunting. You think, "yeah, I'm sure they're good films......but they're Silent, and really old". That was my feeling exactly before I dipped my toes in the water for my first Silent movies. I began with horror (of course, haha), watching stuff like "Nosferatu" and "Vampyr", and then moving on to Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler". That one was four hours long, so I watched it over two nights, but it was so good that it cemented in me the knowledge that I could "do" Silent Movies.
We live in the Sound Era, at a time when movies are more technically sophisticated than ever, so for us, Silent Movies are always gonna be an acquired taste. But if you give them a chance, if you even try watching one, you might find that they are easier to watch then you thought. That's what happened with me. I still didn't watch a lot of them, but then we had this Buster Keaton retrospective at CSUN, and that has opened the floodgates, at least partway.
Most movies I will watch will always be sound films because that is how films have been made since 1929. But now, I am not only no longer averse to watching Silent Films, but in the case of the early comedians, I want to watch them all. We are seeing most of Buster's films at CSUN, and now - after seeing "Speedy" at home tonight - I'm gonna have to see all of Harold Lloyd's as well.
He is a riot, just like Buster Keaton. These guys were the truly off-the-wall comedians who started it all, and their work not only holds up 100 years later but is still strikingly original. ////
So that's my take on Lloyd, after one film, and on Silents in general. :):)
Elizabeth, I hope you had a good day, if you are still reading. I mean, I know you are still reading - I just don't know if you read every day, or just once in a while. Some days I don't see any FB posts, but of course I know you are not only busy but still setting up your life in a new city.
But the main point is that I hope you had a good day. :):)
Hope things are going well, too.
I have been re-energized a bit by the letter I got from the CIA, and it's hard to understand unless you are me, but I feel like "finally"! the door is open......just a crack.....towards an answer, in my 20 year quest for answers, about what happened to me in September 1989.
One day, maybe even a hundred years from now, it might be known worldwide, and if not "common knowledge" then at least known to people who are interested in such things (i.e the Secrets of The World), and accessible to anyone who cares to look.
I have lived almost half of my life not knowing why something happened to me.
Something extreme, and very far off the radar of anything normal.
The friends in my life who were part of the experience have always denied it, to me and to themselves. They have chosen to live in the Dreamland in which they believe or disbelieve it happened.
I have known, for certain since 1993, that What Happened In Northridge actually did happen.
There is no Dreamland. There is only Real Life. And in Real Life, there are only two possibilities for things that are said to occur.
Either they happened, or they didn't happen. There is no in between, there is no foggy Dreamland, except in sleep. But not in real life.
I know this.
The CIA knows this.
I hope my friends know it, the ones who were there in 1989.
I feel as if something is Turning, like a giant that has been buried in the Earth. I feel that it is up to me now, more than ever, to be persistent, and to not drop the ball.
Just to be steady, and to keep writing letters, thinking them out in advance, what I want to ask, what I want to say, using precise language to respond with, in concordance with the ultra-legalistic way in which the CIA (and FBI, et al) words their replies to requests for information.
The main thing is that there is no turning back from this point. No more letting years pass by between lacadaisical, half-hoping request letters.
Now I have got to go forward and keep at it, and I will.
See you in the morning.
SB, post if you can. :):)
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