Dual Celebrity Crush

Andrew Garfield and Kat Dennings in the same place at the same time. I hope this wasn't Photoshopped.

Reel Women

Still from "The Ocean Waif"

While in Michigan, I happened to stop in some excellent used bookstores, such as John K. King in Detroit and Dawn Treader in Ann Arbor. However, The Curious Book Shop in East Lansing had the most film-related items, including old movie posters, playbills, and fan magazines like "Photoplay." It was there that I bought a cheap copy of a 1991 book by Ally Acker called REEL WOMEN: Pioneers of the Cinema.

Like most books I own, I've read a third of it and I'll probably stop there, due to my fleeting, hummingbird-size attention span. But what I've read so far has been illuminating! In film school, I took a typical Film History 101 class, (specifically, this one with Hubert I. Cohen) where we learned about the Great Men of Film, like Eiseinstein and Bergman and Godard and Hitchcock. I don't remember learning about Alice Guy Blaché in that class, or in any formal academic setting, and yet, according to this book, she was an instrumental and influential part of film history. As late as 1968, her contributions were being erased and revised. An excerpt from REEL WOMEN:

In The Dictionary of Filmmakers, published in 1968 by Georges Sedoul, the first director in history, Alice Guy Blaché, is listed in this way:

Guy Blaché, Alice... Originally Leon Gaumont's secretary when he was still only making film equipment. She began making short films intended for use as demonstrations for clients. She made her first film, LA FEE AUX CHOUX [1896] some months before Méliès, thus becoming the first woman director in the world.

The entry under "Méliès" in the same book describes him as the first director of "story films." Not the first man director, but the first director. Although Blaché's film was not specifically made as an entertainment vehicle, it was certainly a fictional story film. (LA FEE AUX CHOUX [The Cabbage Fairy], concerned a fairy who "made" children in a cabbage patch). Yet Sedoul chose to invent a subcategory "woman director" for Blaché  presumably in order to reserve the title "first director" for a man. 

From minimal internet searching, it's clear that film buffs and academics alike are now very aware of her work. But if you're like me, and formerly unfamiliar with this remarkable person, here is a lovely, brief introduction to Blaché's life, with University of Nebraska-Lincoln Film Studies professor Wheeler Winston Dixon.

The Future

As I've mentioned before, I have mixed feelings about Miranda July. I surprised myself by really liking this movie.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Last week I took a fun, adventurous, enjoyable trip to Michigan. (Photos coming soon). I came back to New York majorly sleep-deprived and all I could do on Sunday was half-lay on my bed and watch non-challenging things on Netflix Instant.

One film that entertained and infuriated me in my pathetic state was This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which I highly recommend. It's light-hearted and funny and yet still reveals the problematic - and, frankly, misogynistic - aspects of American culture which play out in the ratings system. While it's obvious to most people that violence gets a pass and sexuality gets a disproportionate amount of scrutiny, there is also a pretty hefty bias against sex that isn't strictly heterosexual (or missionary or artificial-seeming.) It was frustrating to see how these archaic, puritanical influences have created real barriers for creative filmmakers, who simply want to release their films in theaters for adult audiences.

Border Patrol

The Museum recently screened the film Dooman River and since it centered on my twin fascinations, China and North Korea, I stuck around after work to watch it. It's 90 minutes long, with very little dialogue, and I found it to be completely mesmerizing.

The film takes place in a small Chinese town, which sits across the border from North Korea, separated by a long stretch of frozen river. The inhabitants of the town are ethnically Korean, but have little in common with their starving brethren across the divide. Given the proximity, North Koreans constantly cross illegally to find food and, with any luck, freedom. With these social and political factors simmering under the surface, two boys from each side strike up an uneasy friendship. While there are one or two unfortunate instances of heavy-handed symbolism, for the most part, it's a beautiful, tough, spare film that left me reeling.

I'm now extremely eager to see Zhang Lu's other films. A recent interview with the director can be found here: Elusive Filmmaker Opens Up

Alternate Universe Movie Posters

Through a long and unhealthy chain of Internet events, I arrived at a website run by an artist who creates, in his words, "alternate universe movie posters." Maybe it's the post-midnight surfing, but I think they're great, freaky, weird, hilarious. Below are some of my favorites:

My Glib 15-Word "Tree of Life" Movie Review

When You Try To Make A Movie About Everything, You Make A Movie About Nothing. 

I Regret To Inform You

I love this mock letter from Baroness Schraeder. I always felt she was equal parts conniving and sympathetic. And also a fierce fashionista.

So Bad It's Good

I recently saw two epic films, Troll 2 and The Room, both which have become cult classics due to their overall terribleness. For films like these to achieve a certain type of campy fame, there has to be an earnestness on the part of the director, a sense of megalomania, the notion that their work will stand next to Citizen Kane and The Godfather in the annals of film history.

The backstories to both films are great (Italian crew who can't communicate with the cast? Bizarre director who raised money through imported leather jackets?), but even without a great backstory, the films stand on their own. Two short reviews below.

TROLL 2

I watched this with my friend Matt, with whom I share a love for bad movies. He is the one who introduced me to this scene from Mac and Me, a blatant rip-off of E.T. He is the one who would entertain us in college by reading aloud reviews of Duncan Checks In on IMDB.com. He also just generally makes me laugh, to the point of embarrassment.

So in this grand tradition, we settled in to watch Troll 2, on Matt's recommendation, and it turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I swear, I did not stop laughing for that entire film. It is so utterly ridiculous, with a plot that makes no sense, and awful acting, and monster masks that look as though I painted them. (Like, fifteen years ago. In fifth grade art class.) Without giving anything away, I'll just say that there is a lot of green food, an incredible love scene involving corn, and not a single troll anywhere in the film.

GRADE: A+

THE ROOM

I saw The Room in a completely different environment: a post-midnight screening downtown with a bunch of friends and co-workers. I had never been to the Village East Cinema before and although it's fairly unassuming on the outside, the interior is a gorgeously renovated Yiddish theater.

After waiting in line for quite some time, we all clutched our plastic spoons and piled in with our fellow hipsters at around 12:45. From the moment the film started, people did not stop yelling. I guess if I had seen the film before, I might have appreciated it, but it meant I missed a great deal of the dialogue. To me, terrible dialogue is what makes a terrible movie terrible! Granted, you need no words to understand the softly-lit, disgusting soft-core sex scenes, or the completely unnecessary chroma-keyed San Francisco skyline, or the randomness of a bunch of dudes playing football in their tuxedos. But it would have been nice to at least hear some key lines.

Also, a lot of the yelling was directed towards "Lisa," one of the main characters. While she is supposed to be a manipulative and awful person, there was something disconcerting about being in a darkened room while a faceless mass of guys yelled things like, "Whore! Slut! Bitch!" at the screen. I know she's the worst ("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!") but for me, it took some of the fun out of it. Whereas Troll 2 is just pure, unadulterated silliness, The Room is just a few yards away from some terrible student films I had to sit through. (Including my own.)

GRADE: B

Hail Satan!

A few weeks ago, on a very dark, cold, rainy night, I found an old paperback of Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin at the free book shelf at the Education Alliance. Rosemary's Baby is one of my all-time favorite movies and the novel proved to be no disappointment. It's pretty much an exact blueprint for the film, down to the most minute of details. And so while I think Roman Polanski did an excellent job directing the film, many of the dark and wonderful touches that I formerly attributed to him (Laura-Louise with the magnifying glass, the Japanese photographer, "I won't have an abortion!") were actually Mr. Levin's creation. Polanski barely changed a thing.

It confirmed for me what I heard many years ago at University of Michigan, at a lecture given by Chuck Palahniuk. I had a bunch of friends who read his books religiously and I tagged along for fun. (Personally, I think he's a good writer, but once you've read one Palahniuk book, you've read them all.) That night, he read some revolting stories from Stranger Than Fiction, but the one that I found most compelling was an essay entitled "Dear Mr. Levin."

The piece is a personal letter to Ira Levin and while time has dulled some of the initial wonder I felt while hearing it, the key points are still very resonant. Some excerpts:

Your books take some of the thorniest issues in our culture and charm us into facing the problem. What's creepy is, these are issues the American public is years away from confronting, but in each one - in each book - you ready us for a battle you seem to see coming. And, so far, you're always right.

In Rosemary's Baby, published in 1967, the battle is over a woman's right to control her body. She's controlled by her religion, her husband, by her male best friend, by her male obstetrician. All this you got people to read - to pay money to read - years before the feminist health-care movement. The Boston Women's Health Cooperative. Our Bodies, Ourselves. And consciousness-raising groups where women would sit around with a speculum and flashlight and look at changes in each other's cervix.

Mr. Levin, your skill to tell an important, threatening story through a metaphor, maybe it comes from your experience writing for television's "golden age," shows like Lights Out and The United States Steel Hour. This was television in the 1950s and early '60s, when most issues had to be masked or disguised to avoid offending a conservative audience and the even more conservative sponsors of a program. In a time before "transgressive fiction," such as The Monkey Wrench Gang, American Psycho, and Trainspotting, where a writer could stand on a soap box and shout about a social issue, your writing career started in this era, in the most public form of writing, when the mask, the metaphor, the disguise was everything.

In addition to what Palahniuk touches on, what I find so striking about Levin's work is the mundaneness of evil, right down Minnie Castavet's ill-fitting green toreador pants. And while I can't articulate exactly why, I think it's brilliant.

So if there's a stormy night coming up, I plan on watching Rosemary's Baby for the hundredth time, vodka blushes in hand.

Mr. Castevet came in, holding in both hands a small tray on which four cocktail glasses ran over with clear pink liquid. “Mr. Woodhouse? A Vodka Blush. Have you ever tasted one? They’re very popular in Australia." He took the final glass and raised it to Rosemary and Guy. “To our guests,” he said. “Welcome to our home.”

The Vodka Blushes were tart and very good.

VODKA BLUSH RECIPE

1. Chill a martini glass by filling with ice. Set aside.

2. Fill the cocktail shaker 2/3 full of ice. Add 2 1/2 ounces vodka, 3/4 ounce freshly squeezed and strained lime juice and a dash or two of grenadine.

3. Empty the martini glass and dispose of the ice. Shake the cocktail, and strain into the chilled glass. This will make one serving.

Bros Icing Bros

Last week, my dad and I went to see a Rangers vs. Islanders game at Madison Square Garden. It was the first time I'd ever been to Madison Square Garden, and my first hockey game. It was truly awesome. Hockey is the kind of sport I like. It's fast-moving, beautiful to watch, easy to understand, and violent. The players got into lots of fights and it was all very entertaining.


The fans at the game were extremely devoted, and the experience reminded me of a National Film Board of Canada animated short film, called The Sweater. It's a really nice story, but I think Roche Carrier's voice-over is what does it for me. I love the way he pronounces everything, especially "Maurice Richard." Ah, to be a young Quebecer!

Learning To Love You More

I've always felt torn about Miranda July. On the one hand, when I was in college, I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know and didn't like it. It felt too irony-laden and hipster-ish and generally unreal. Then I saw her short film, Are You The Favorite Person Of Anybody? which was creative and funny and a little sad. Then I read her book of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You. Half of the stories fell flat in that clever, post-modern way that I have trouble relating to. Yet, half of them were really moving and wonderful.

Then I forgot about her for a while, until I recently browsed through Learning to Love You More, a book of assignments she and another artist gave to the general public, via this website. The results are posted on the website, and subsequently, were put into a book.

The assignments are so, so, so great:

1. Recreate a poster you had as a teenager

2. Photograph a scar and write about it.

3. Take a picture of your parents kissing

4. Write the phone call you wish you could have.

5. Make the saddest song.

Tonight I decided to complete Assignment #32: "Draw a scene from a movie that you made you cry."

I drew a scene from an admittedly cheesy movie, Riding in Cars with Boys. Whenever it's on television, I end up watching the whole thing. The last scene of the movie, where Drew Barrymore's father picks her up and they drive home, listening to the Everly Brothers, always makes me cry.

Movin' Out

So, it turns out that if you do a Google image search for "dream home" you get a really gruesome-looking Chinese horror film. According to the internet, it's a violent and grisly critique of the high prices of Hong Kong real estate.

Awesome.

The reason I even conducted the search in the first place was to celebrate my new Astoria apartment! I officially got the keys today from the nice-but-frazzled tenant who was moving out, and the friendly super, who speaks very little English. The next step is painting the walls a fun color and getting furniture and attempting some semblance of design. All my design-minded friends, I will be soliciting advice from you in the coming weeks...

Tiny Furniture

Cartoon Modern

The great part of my new-ish job is that I am learning, learning, learning all the time. It's like school minus the homework, plus a paycheck. Recently, I've been researching jobs in animation and visual effects, in an effort to determine what is still relevant and what is obsolete due to new technology. I've found some really interesting sites, my favorite being an old blog run by Amid Amidi, whose specialty is style and design in 1950's animation.

In one entry, he posted some color keys, which are hand-painted sketches created to establish the color and style of the animation elements. While I think the color keys from 101 Dalmations are beautiful, my favorite part of the post might be the comments, because it reveals a subculture I knew nothing about: those who love color keys and artwork by animation color stylists.

This American Life: MOVIE EDITION.

When I was living in China, I only went to the movie theater twice. One time was to see "The Founding of a Republic," which was sort of interesting, and the other time was to see "Alice in Wonderland," which was sort of dreadful. Movies are expensive in China and, more importantly, they serve popcorn sweet. Sweet, sugary popcorn. I hope you understand how terrible that is.

So last night was my first foray back into the world of (American) movie-going. I went to see "Inception" by myself, only to be joined ten minutes later by my parents. #TAGALONGS! Just kidding. They're great. Things were going well so far, as demonstrated below:


Then there were a bunch of previews. Even better! I love previews. What I don't love are trailers that explain the entire movie and/or Zac Efron vehicles that use The National as background music. I don't need to be reminded of his weird face every time I listen to "So Far Around the Bend." Also, I really enjoyed the opening to "The Social Network," but even as an avid Facebook user and a big fan of both Andrew Garfield & Jesse Eisenberg, I think it'll be hard to make the life of Mark Zuckerberg even remotely interesting. So I remain skeptical.

Then the movie started. As expected, my mom walked out after twenty-five minutes. Maybe it was the fact that my dad was mocking it the entire time, but I just couldn't take this movie as seriously as it wanted me to. To paraphrase my brilliant friend Jordan, it's like they gave a first-year film student a $160 million dollar movie budget. Tae asked me what I didn't like about it, but since it was on Twitter, I had to respond in 140 characters or less, which was a good challenge.


To expand (just a bit), when you create a science fiction world, you also create a world of made-up logic. You ask the viewer to suspend their disbelief and join you in this world. But if you keep adding new rules to your creation, i.e. "Well, sure, you wake up when you die in the dream, but not if you're in a dream-within-a-dream!" and "Well, I'll give you a really powerful sedation so you don't wake up, but I've fixed the chemicals so it doesn't disrupt your inner ear balance!" and so on, eventually, the experience is cheapened.

I saw this movie because I heard good things about it and because I really enjoyed "The Dark Knight," which was clever and had some wicked humor in it. "Inception," on the other hand, just took itself Way. Too. Seriously. And lastly, while the hallway fighting sequence was really cool, and I would watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt do just about anything in a tailored suit and a snazzy tie, nothing about this movie actually felt like a dream. So far in my life, I've only encountered one film that accurately captures the feeling of a dream. Or, a nightmare.



(I still love going to the movies)

Last Train Home

I saw "Last Train Home" the other night. Maybe it's the fact that I just returned from China, but I was pretty blown away by this film. It's meticulous and beautiful and honest and painful and just an incredible work of (documentary) art. If you want to see me use more adjectives to describe it, you can read my review at Critic's Notebook. Warning: I get unnecessarily verbose. To make a long story short: if you get a chance to see this film when it's released in September, I recommend it. Then we should all get together and talk about it.