Trappings (Christopher McQuain)

2011-05-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

"AU HASARD ANNE"C’est une très courte autobiographie, mais elle est sensible, très bien écrite, et pleine d’histoires passionantes sur le tournage d’Au Hasard Balthazar, ce qui est le sujet principal du livre. Maintenant je pense regarder à nouveau les films les plus célèbres dans lesquelles Mme. Wiazemsky joue: Balthazar, bien sûr, et puis Week-end, Teorema, et Tout va bien.(En anglais: "

2011-04-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

"PARALLEL LINES"Having recently revisited, in succession, Anton Corbijn's The American (2010) and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Cercle Rouge (1970), I was struck by the literally profound similarities between the two. While quite disparate in terms of plot particulars, they have in common a style, an approach, a worldview--an aura--that transcends narrative specifics to render them metaphysical

2011-01-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

"EVERYBODY'S CLEVER NOWADAYS"When I ran into my former French professor while out shopping several months ago and, during the course of our brief conversation, informed her that I was in the process of reading Victor Hugo's classic 1862 novel Les Misérables in French and unabridged, she replied, "C'est une bonne idée, mais.... C'est énorme!" ("That's a good idea, but.... It's huge!") Now that

2011-01-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

"YOU WERE JUST MY IN-BETWEENER"Hardly a masterpiece, yet in no significant way a failure, the Coen brothers' latest is, in its own way, about as fascinating--and cold--an exercise as Gus Van Sant's undeservedly despised 1998 Psycho remake (from my point of view, that comparison is no insult). Despite Josh Brolin's being in it for about five minutes--leading one to wonder why the top billing

2010-08-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

"THE LEAST OF THESE"A few (delayed) observations on the new Todd Solondz film, Life During Wartime, in which we find most of the characters from his 1998 chef-d'œuvre, Happiness, at a later point in their lives. Each of them is trying desperately in their own way to cope with, struggle against, or erase the past (one character is even literally haunted):--It is apt to characterize the film, as

2009-12-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

"FILMS OF THE DECADE"*1. The Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, 2001) A parable about the terrifying vacuum created behind the former Iron Curtain by the fall of Communism. Also one of the single most gorgeous and moving cinematic experiences of my life, and my film of the decade.2. Le Fils (The Son) (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 20002) The spirit of Robert Bresson is alive and well in this

2009-07-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

"WE HAD FIVE YEARS LEFT TO CRY IN"I have to admit that the point of reference leading me to group together the three "recent"* albums I'll be commenting upon here--Morrissey's Years of Refusal, The Killers' Day & Age, and Franz Ferdinand's Tonight--is mostly personal and thus fairly arbitrary; in any case, a tiny explanation is in order. I remember very well the last time Morrissey, Franz

2009-07-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

"AFTER THIS"The story and themes of Alice McDermott's After This are not new. This brief but very finely wrought novel takes on nothing more or less than the ups and downs of one suburban American family (this one happens to be Irish Catholic) from post-WWII optimism to Vietnam-era confusion. McDermott's grasp of the historical moment is knowledgeable and sensitive, and she sugarcoats nothing,

2009-06-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

"DEUX OU TROIS CHOSES...."The demands of Academe (and the shameful ease with which I can be made to feel overwhelmed) have effectively kept me from blogging for a very long while, but an all-too-short breather between spring and summer quarters affords me a window of opportunity in which to very briefly run down, in bare-bones style, a smattering of the things that have been going on in my life

2008-07-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

"THE RETURN OF INSPIRATION"Bernard Butler is a living sign that the best move for a muso who bravely resists his or her “proficiency”-obsessed leanings is to find a counterbalancing collaborator who can let some air into all their musty old know-how. That Butler is a richly gifted guitarist is beyond any doubt, and that he can write a musical track and engineer a record has been proven many times

2008-07-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

"THE ____ IS DEAD"Philosophically and ideologically speaking, the loss of any human life is not something to celebrate when one is speaking strictly of human rights and what should be the innate value of human life. But some political forces and ideas need and deserve to die. I had the same reaction to the mind-bogglingly rose-colored eulogizing of Reagan, and now.... Jesse Helms is dead. Let's

2008-06-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

"WE UNDERSTAND HOW MUSIC WORKS"The story is old, I know, but it goes on.... I do realize that I’m far from the first to complain about the kind of Orwellian demographics-dependence that evidently informs every business decision of those corporations responsible for bringing us our works of “art” in the age of mechanical reproduction. But, in the midst of the death of the film studios’

2008-04-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

"LOOK AT THE WORLD THROUGH YOUR POLAROID GLASSES/THINGS'LL LOOK A WHOLE LOT BETTER FOR THE WORKING CLASSES"Why are American politics infuriating? Not because of all the disagreements and ideological clashes, made-up "culture wars," etc. No; it's because the level of discourse is so trivial and wasteful when there are way more than enough important, serious, urgent issues to tackle--issues that

2008-04-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

" 'OLDER AND WISER' NEVER APPLIES TO ME."Over the past months of academic insanity, there were a couple of releases—-an album and a film—-from two artists whom I love and whose work I always look forward to, and my thoughts on them have been steeping for a while (in one case for a VERY long while). Although these works are in different media and are by artists who obviously have very different

2008-03-24T13:54:00.001-07:00

FILMS FOR MUSICI’ve taken to keeping a little note card with a running list of anything I’ve seen/read/listened to that’s of any lasting interest to me; that way I can remind myself what I’d like to tackle when I finally get a chance to sit down at my computer and actually try to gather and articulate a few of my scattered thoughts. Yes, my life—full as it has been of work, studying, attending

2008-02-09T13:50:00.001-08:00

"DOESN'T KNOW NO HISTORY, HE THREW THE PAST AWAY"

2008-02-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

"J'AI ENVIE D'AIMER, J'AI ENVIE DE VIVRE"Of course, I fully intended to make a nice, long blog entry during my much-too-short holiday break; however, I can’t claim to feel too guilty, as any potential writing time was spent traveling to and fro for various holiday festivities with family and friends, catching as many movies as I could handle, etc. The stuff of life came first, in other words,

2007-09-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

"RESTE CHEZ TOI, SUNDAY GIRL"Sometimes my friend Jamie Rich makes me feel totally lame. Not purposely, mind you; he can’t help it if he’s moins <> que moi. He’s posted a must-read review of last night’s Imperial Teen show in Portland. Reading it is the closest I’ll get to seeing one of my favorite bands this time around; I was aware of their Seattle show, but I’ve spent my last week of

2007-09-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

"FADE AWAY AND RADIATE"It’s been ages since I’ve written about cinema here, which is not at all to say that I’ve been neglectful when it comes to actually partaking of the medium. Last year, I unexpectedly fell head over heels for the sharp, juicy Notes on a Scandal, in which Judi Dench sets herself well apart from the tiresome Ladies in Lavender clique (though her earlier collaborations with

2007-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

"IT'S A HELL OF A RECORD"My continuing pursuit of Comparative Literature (French minor!), in addition to my obligatory full-time employment and trying to keep a relationship afloat through it all, has necessitated a long, quasi-accidental moratorium on blog posting. It’s been a much, much longer interval than intended (but then, when isn’t it?). Every week I resolve to set aside an hour or two on

2007-07-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

"INGMAR BERGMAN (1918-2007)""MICHAELANGELO ANTONIONI (1912-2007)"After the death of Kubrick not so long ago (the day he died was the first day in my life that I really felt old), and of Edward Yang very recently (not to mention Sven Nykvist, Bergman's close cinematographic compatriot, almost a year ago), the world has lost another inimitably great cinematic artist. Persona, Bergman's 1966

2006-09-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

"SVEN NYKVIST (3 DECEMBER 1922 - 20 SEPTEMBER 2006)"From top: Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972); The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986); The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988); Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989), all with cinematography by the incomparable Sven Nykvist.

2006-08-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

"WELL, THEY SHOULD KNOW. I DON'T READ THAT MUCH."I read this line in a review of some new Beckett volumes in the Aug. 7 & 14 New Yorker: “Since Beckett got from Schopenhauer what Schopenhauer had found in Buddhism, the connection is not far-fetched.” You’ll have to read the review yourself to know what connection is being referred to, but I mention it because, after taking my Introduction to

2006-04-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

"MY VOYAGE TO ITALY"I’m probably not the first person ever to ask this, but I find myself compelled. Is Morrissey—world-class pop star, self-described “famous international playboy,” and my perennial idol—actually Katharine Hepburn? Let me explain. In David Lean’s glorious film Summertime (1955), Hepburn is Jane Hudson of Akron, Ohio. An inhibited, externally tough but interiorly fragile

2006-04-15T11:21:00.001-07:00

"YOU WERE MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES/IN THE POSTSCRIPT, ANYWAY"There’s a big new post in the works for sometime in the near future. Until then, please enjoy my collaboration with my good friend Jamie S. Rich on his ongoing "Permanent Records" blog project. In the current episode, which guest-stars yours truly, we discuss our impressions and experiences of The Auteurs’ great album After Murder Park.

2006-01-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

"WHO EVER WOULD'VE THOUGHT/THE BOOKS THAT YOU BOUGHT/WERE ALL I LOVED YOU FOR"Part IIInterlude: A trenchant comment on patriotism from Grace Paley's short story (and the collection of the same name), "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute:"She read aloud from the Times about the bombed, burned lepers' colonies in North Vietnam. Her father said, Please, Alexandra, today, no propaganda. Why do you

2005-12-31T00:27:00.000-08:00

"I NEVER SHOULD’VE SAID/THE BOOKS THAT YOU READ/WERE ALL I LOVED YOU FOR"Part IJust in case anyone was wondering, Trappings is not dead. I merely neglected to announce its fall quarter hiatus (probably out of some delusional, falsely optimistic notion that I would find time between my full-time employment and full-time coursework to eke out a blog post or two). Between September 26 and December

2005-09-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

"NO REASON TO TALK ABOUT THE BOOKS I READ, BUT STILL I DO"I had never heard of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas before it was recommended to me by my friendly, typically overqualified neighborhood barista. I sought it out on a somewhat aimless whim, and am I ever glad that I did—it is a masterpiece, a true reward for my venture into the literary unfamiliar.Comprised of five thematically related

2005-08-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

"YOU'VE GOT TO PICK A POCKET OR TWO"Just in case anyone thought that the art of the spectacular marriage of brilliant lyric and complementarily brilliant melody was a dead or forgotten aspect of the starmaking machinery behind the popular song, the very welcome behemoth omnibus Luke Haines is Dead–a collection of salient album tracks/singles, b-sides, rarities, and radio sessions by all Luke

2005-08-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

"MEANING IS NOT IN THINGS BUT IN BETWEEN THEM"I can’t help finding all this somewhat trivial or escapist (even when, objectively speaking, some of it really is not) in light of the Supreme Court/PATRIOT Act, etc., etc. situation here at home, and London’s unspeakably saddening and frightening experience of terrorism. I can only offer as feeble excuses the intermittency of my posts here, and the

2005-07-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

"))<>(("You will have to experience Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know for yourself in order to (I hope) appreciate my subject line, but that’s just the minor motivation: the film is an uneven but worthy expansion of July’s ongoing fascination with and investigation of the transparent oddness of “normal” life. Though the separate stories do intersect, it seems probable to me that they

2005-05-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

"THESE ARE MY GUNS, THESE ARE MY FURS, THIS IS MY LIVING ROOM"Decades ago, a very young me was mightily impressed with what then appeared to be the unassailably cool cassette collection (yes, that’s how many decades ago it was) of a favorite aunt, my mother’s younger sister. Among them was The Eurythmics’ Savage, which we would play loudly on the car stereo of her Jeep Cherokee during road trips

2005-05-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

"DON'T YOU WONDER SOMETIMES/'BOUT SOUND AND VISION?"Two tomes filled with rather divergent types of showbiz lore: John Harris’s The Last Party: Britpop, Blair, and the Demise of English Rock (published Stateside as Britpop! The Spectacular Demise of English Rock, a vulgarly Americanized title despite the nice addition of “spectacular”); and Peter Bogdanovich’s Who the Hell’s In It?. Harris’s book

2005-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

"I WANTED GLAMOUR, NOT TRAGIC ROCK AND ROLL"In my experience of late, pop music-- one of my most beloved, irrationally and unequivocally romanticized pop-culture media-- has been in more need than ever of ruthless curating, filtering: the ratio of what captures the elusive strengths of the best pop music to what comes across as indifferent, lifeless product has come to seem ever smaller.

2005-03-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

"WORK IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD"“A tracking shot is a moral decision,” Jean-Luc Godard once said, and the famous, fluid, interminable tracking shot of an endless traffic jam (Godard’s view of capitalism and the bourgeoisie taking to the road for an outing) in 1967’s Weekend would seem to have exemplified this concept with a certain finality. But Godard wasn’t done. Not long after Weekend, he seemed

2004-12-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

"NOVEMBER SPAWNED A MONSTER" Given the sudden but thorough onset of my annual winter sluggishness and the (literally) exponential increase in the difficulty of my pointless algebra studies, it’s unsurprising that I haven’t posted here since the bitterly disappointing November elections. Oh, yes, there’s also the impending four-year depression that’s sure to be brought on by said election...

2004-10-31T10:26:00.000-08:00

"LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL IF YOU SING" -In the Nothing New Under the Sun Department: I’ve only just begun J. Hoberman’s The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism, and already the author- who I’m more a fan of as I read on through his various cinema studies- has presented a very resonant, relevant cultural/historical episode. In 1963, the destined-to-be-famous Czech filmmaker

2004-10-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

"I MADE AN AMERICAN SQUIRM, AND IT FELT SO RIGHT" Statement From Morrissey "With all my heart I urge people to vote against George Bush. Jon Stewart would be ideal, but John Kerry is the logical and sane move. It does not need to be said yet again, but Bush has single-handedly turned the United States into the most neurotic and terror-obsessed country on the planet. For non-Americans, the

2004-10-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

"HOW THE CURSE OF COMFORT HAS PLAGUED YOUR ARTISTIC LIFE" The (down)time between August 20, my last day of class (Elementary Algebra) and today, September 27, the first day of class (Intermediate Algebra) was spent frantically trying to attain as much relaxation and enjoyment as possible. Anyone who knows me knows how definitive this apparent paradox is: I must relax as much as possible- right

2004-07-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

"THE PRINTED WORD MIGHT KILL YOU"It wasn't long ago that I eagerly looked forward to the arrival of each week's New Yorker in my mailbox. Now that I've been a subscriber for a little over a year, I experience a sinking feeling every week as I lug yet another installment of intellectualism upstairs, where it's doomed to join its neglected brethren in a backlog the size of which induces in me a

2004-06-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

REPRISE: "I REPLY WITH IMPRESSIONS CHOSEN FROM ANOTHER TIME" -Nancy Mitford’s thinly veiled fictional autobiographical fictions, Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate are decidedly quick and light as both written and read, but so smart and observant that they easily escape the “guilty pleasure” category. Mitford, who sets her novel during her own pre- and post-World War II

2004-06-17T21:08:00.001-07:00

"I REPLY WITH IMPRESSIONS CHOSEN FROM ANOTHER TIME" A few scattered thoughts on some memorable bits of culture I’ve taken in over the past couple of months: -A Fassbinder double feature: The new to DVD Martha, from 1974, and In a Year with 13 Moons, from '78. The former is from the same early-seventies Fassbinder period as, and shares the sensibility of, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

2004-06-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

YVES From my harried embroilment in a schedule that prohibits me from writing anything without without the motivation of a strict deadline, I offer my (pre-copy edited) Just Out review of a very good documentary now playing at Portland's Hollywood Theatre: David Teboul’s Yves St. Laurent - His Life and Times, is a surprisingly accessible, down-to-earth study of the renowned designer, who is

2004-06-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

KIDNAPPING AN HEIRESS Last Sunday marked the quantitative halfway point of my Seattle International Film Festival adventure. It took me quite a long time walking around in the rain on Capitol Hill to realize that the "Broadway Performance Hall" is located on the campus of Seattle Central Community College; it wasn't until I saw the line of early-bird pass-holders that I realized I'd been

2004-05-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

”I’M NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS, YOU CAN’T STRAIGHTEN MY CURLS" My Saturday night was much more eventful than I’ve become used to over the past month and a half of work, school, and intermittently revisiting my usual film/book/music pastimes/obsessions. As it happens, this was only half a good thing. A friend of Jason’s, a fellow UW DMA student named Clint Kraus, was giving an organ recital at St.

2004-05-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

"SEX IS COMEDY and ANATOMY OF HELL" My second helping of the Seattle International Film Festival consisted of a double feature by Catherine Breillat at Capitol Hill’s Egyptian Theater, which is usually home to all sorts of interesting second runs and revivals and, as a bonus, offers a unique “Egyptian” decor. As a minus- especially when you consider the torrential weather of yesterday evening-

2004-05-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

"YOU'RE A WASTED FACE, YOU'RE A SAD-EYED LIE, YOU'RE A HOLOCAUST" My varied and surprisingly extensive recent home viewing has included two out-of-the-way Holocaust-themed English-language dramas from famed European directors: -Luchino Visconti's The Damned. I've never seen a Visconti film before, and it seems doubtful that this is the one to start with (the prime candidate for that being The

2004-05-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS My first screening of the Seattle International Film Festival was Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth’s collaborative/confrontational experiment, The Five Obstructions. Von Trier evidently worships Leth’s 1967 short, The Perfect Human, and in a perverse move (the word “perversion” is thrown around a lot between the two directors, all of it relating to von Trier’s purposely

2004-05-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

"A CHILD IN A CURIOUS PHASE, A MAN WITH SULLEN WAYS" My gorgeously sunny Sunday afternoon of May 9th was spent in line at the Pacific Place Mall here in Seattle at the Seattle International Film Festival's storefront (yes, film festival is apparently much bigger business here than in little Portland) purchasing advance tickets to my chosen festival selections. It was the first day tickets

2004-04-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

DIFFERENT CLASS My dutiful participation in an embarrassingly remedial math class at North Seattle Community College, with one hour of class time and hours of homework each day (as my first baby step in attaining a degree of some sort), goes a long way toward explaining: a) My neglect of this blog. b) The escapist bent of my weekend movie imbibement. Last night, feeling bored and dazed

2004-04-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN --I've been spending my recent weekday evenings in the University of Washington's Suzzallo Graduate Library Reading Room, as I've been feeling guilty of late for being a more desultory reader than I'd like to be. Much of this is due to a change in lifestyle from my glory days of reading five books a week; I wasn't employed full-time when I was a teenager spending literally

2004-03-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

"NOTHING HURTS AND NOTHING SHOCKS" --In Seattle’s silver-screen topography, there’s a sort of holy cinema-screen triad on or near 45th street about a mile up from my house: The Metro 16 (yes, 16 screens, an art-house multiplex resembling Portland’s Fox Tower, at least in scope), the Neptune, and the Varsity. The Neptune has the mixed blessing of being Seattle’s only screen designated for

2004-03-11T22:54:00.001-08:00

LABYRINTHS, MIRRORS, INFINITE LIBRARIES "All our lives we postpone everything that can be postponed; perhaps we all have the certainty, deep inside, that we are immortal and that sooner or later every man will do everything, know all there is to know." - Borges, "Funes, His Memory"

2004-03-05T12:37:00.000-08:00

"I HAVE BEEN A FOOL FOR YOU"Typical me, typical me, typical me- I’ve waited much too long between full-fledged posts again, so the following is a mere scattered sampling, the portion of what’s going on out there that I’ve been able to apprehend and its effects upon my fragile little mind: --Gay marriage. The reports and footage from S.F. and my reliably liberal hometown of Portland (and,

2004-03-02T22:32:00.000-08:00

"POP MUSIC IS RUBBISH THESE DAYS"The big fish- gay marriage, etc.- along with my usual round of externalized popcult intake are currently being fried and will shortly make their appearance here. Until then, some random melodic (or not) debris floats by, frivolous enough given the times...--In the Bad Gay Music Department, I was given a promo copy of Ari Gold’s Space Under Sun to review for Just

2004-02-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

"I WOULD HAPPILY LOSE BOTH OF MY LEGS IF IT MEANT YOU COULD BE FREE"Two things are primarily responsible for inspiring my return to the geek-infested catacombs of the Internet:First and foremost, the Democratic caucus in Washington State was held yesterday, and as the Precinct Committee Officer for my precinct, I was responsible for getting out the vote, which meant a lot of knocking on doors and

2004-01-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

"CELLULOID HEROES" - THE KINKS"Everybody's a dreamer And everybody's a star And everybody's in movies It doesn't matter who you are There are stars in every city In every house and on every street And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard Their names are written in concrete Don't step on Greta Garbo As you walk down the boulevard She looks so weak and fragile That's why she tried to be

2004-01-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

A DIFFERENT KIND OF TENSIONKrysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue is a curious piece of work. Impressively subtle, moving, and tender- not to mention a small marvel in ambition and scope- yes, but how much, exactly, does it have to do with those always-controversial Commandments? Created for Polish television in 1988 and set in the present (with Poland still behind the Iron Curtain, which makes the

2004-01-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

"MATTERS OF RECEIVED WISDOM, GOOD TASTE, AND LOVE"Summer of 2001 found me poring over the fascinating sleeve notes to Luke Haines’s shot heard ‘round the world (in my head), The Oliver Twist Manifesto. The album itself was a gauntlet-slamming catalog of trenchant observations from Mr. Haines’s always deliciously poisonous pen, this time directed at those strange and not always so wonderful

2004-01-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

"IN HEAVEN/EVERYTHING IS FINE/YOU'VE GOT YOUR GOOD THING/AND I'VE GOT MINE"It’s been a long, long time. Long before the year turned over, many films were viewed, many passages read, with much rumination ensuing, but not a peaceful moment in the eye of an unusually windy holiday-season storm to gather them out and share them with my legion of eager devotees. Until now. This is just for starters.

2003-11-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

GRAVITY, TRANSCENDENCE, AND THRILLS-Now is probably as good a time as any to rave about the very-shortly-to-be-released 21 Grams. My capsule review for Just Out: “Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros) has set up this wrenching drama of loss, despair, serendipitous coincidence and cruel fate in a shaky-handheld, grainy, hyper-realist style, so that the whole thing hangs on the

2003-11-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (THEY'RE GONE, AND IT FEELS LIKE THE WORDS TO A SONG)-A great many Fassbinders: From the earlier phase in his career- just as he was letting the Douglas Sirk influence seep in- The Merchant of Four Seasons. A struggling fruit vendor (he has a street cart) returns from the horrors of the Foreign Legion into the seemingly more pleasant but equally imprisoning arms of his

2003-11-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

"IT'S ALL DISCOMANIA"What is it about shitty, astonishingly overvalued celebrities when they go horribly, horribly wrong? I’m speaking, of course, of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, two magazine-and-MTV-baked souffles that have had the oven door slammed open on them hard over the past decade. I’ve always found both of them (along with Celine Dion, perhaps) to be the dullest of the prefab,

2003-10-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

CODA-My lazy Sunday continued with Orson Welles directing and starring in his 1958 blackhearted noir, Touch of Evil. Quentin Tarantino is lucky Welles didn't take the Pulp Fiction title for this one; its internal logic comes even closer, in its way, than did that of Tarantino's film to cinematically capturing the essense of a yellowed, cigarette-reeking paperback with a garish, sexually charged

2003-10-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

"HAS THE WORLD CHANGED, OR HAVE I CHANGED?"-I spent a rainy, cozy Sunday morning under the covers with The Leather Boys. Oh, don’t let your imagination run away with you, you randies; it’s Sidney J. Furie’s 1964 kitchen-sinker about a troubled young married couple (Rita Tushingham, also of A Taste of Honey, and the dashing Colin Campbell), motorcycles, and the sexually inscrutable, deceptively

2003-10-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

THE ONE ABOUT BOOKS (AND MORE)-Who ever knew Al Franken was such a biting comedic genius? Though he’s doubtlessly always had his following, I’ve really started to sit up and pay attention after reading his hysterically right-on smash hit Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. The only drawback is that these right-wingers are such transparently duplicitious, disingenuous fools (or, alternatively,

2003-10-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

The reason for my long and regrettable absence here: ...plenty of exhausting but much-needed overtime at my day job for Seattle's beautiful Harborview Medical Center. Hope to post within the next week or so. Patience, children.

2003-09-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have a few little things to post soon, but in the meantime, one of the few causes consistently worth supporting:

2003-09-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

MEMORIES OF AUGUST (OR, THE BACKLOG CONTINUES)-The aforementioned Gahan concert (as mentioned in my last summing-up) was preceded by a foray to Painted Visions from India and Pakistan, Past and Present The Seattle Art Museum’s exhibition of Indian and Pakistani art, earlier in the day. What struck me about most of the pieces (at least the centuries-old ones that were the main attraction of the

2003-09-07T16:08:00.000-07:00

I'll soon be putting up the continued backlog of movie, book music, etc. experiences/observations. Until then, a couple more Just Out reviews... the usual qualification applies (i.e., don't be surprised if the print version has alterations or deletions). As usual, I'm not entirely certain of the date they'll be published (the film review is, I believe, due for a "sooner" publication). Ibiza

2003-09-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

It's Labor Day, and I'm feeling fairly useless letting Bumbershoot entirely pass me by. To alleviate the guilt I feel for my indoorsiness on a day when most people are outdoors en masse, I've decided to slap up the private-culture-chronicle post that's been building in my word processor for weeks. This only catches us up to a couple of weeks ago, but... THE BACKLOG ERUPTS, SECTION II hope this

2003-08-31T14:11:00.000-07:00

Still too occupied by the assignments to dive into the deep river of movies viewed, but here's another review written for Just Out (probably to be published some time in September). Maria's Wedding and Too Much Hopeless SavagesIf, like me, your approach to the world of comics and graphic novels is that of a curious dilettante, the obsessive, feverish relationship many diehard comics fans appear

2003-08-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

My oh-so-limited writing time has been consumed for the past little while by reviewing for Just Out. I'll be posting my always scintillating pop-culture contemplations here once again very soon, but until then, here are a couple of the new Just Out pieces to tide my ever-growing audience by. (NOTE: These pieces are as submitted, not as published, so it's quite possible that they'll read quite

2003-07-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

Days of Heaven. This is the third time I’ve seen this, and it still comes across as very strange, very... elliptical. It’s the creation of Terence Malick, whose debut film, Badlands, from 1973, is one of my favorites of the seventies (it does have the edge over Days). Days is much less plot-oriented. The dialogue, while very “right” for the presentation, is almost wholly incidental; other than

2003-07-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

Today’s movie: Leonard Kastle’s The Honeymoon Killers. Just as lurid, cheap, exploitative, and funny as it sounds. An overweight bully of an Alabaman nurse reaches out through a lonely-hearts pen pal club and meets the man of her dreams. Even when he turns out to be nothing more than a Eurotrash gigolo con man, she hangs onto those dreams and follows him around on his morbid “business” travels

2003-07-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

John Schlesinger, R.I.P. Over the last couple of days, the McQuain Home Cinematheque featured: Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View and Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D.. I’d seen the Pakula film before, but it’s still startlingly good. Not quite up to Klute, which I cherish and is definitely the best Pakula film I’ve seen. There are a few questionable spots (there’s a so-so car chase that’s

2003-07-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

I hope I haven't succumbed to nostalgia; there must be a better, more imaginative reason the past days’ movies have been, in order: Joseph L. Mankiewicsz’s All About Eve, Alexander Mackendricks's The Sweet Smell of Success, and William Wyler's The Collector. It’s very interesting to look back on these cozy “old” movies and think about the obvious contempt most of today’s audience has for them (

2003-07-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Some recent imbibing of the nonstop viewing habit: I am Curious Yellow and I Am Curious Blue. Blue and yellow are the colors of the Swedish flag, and these are Swedish director Vilgot Sjoman’s very controversial 1967 film (and almost completely ignored “parallel” 1968 follow-up). Yellow was very nearly banned in the USA and caused a huge stir upon its release. I’d heard that the film itself

2003-07-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

I pulled the curtains open Saturday morning to be greeted by a brightly-shining sun and a near-cloudless sky(this being Seattle, that little situation changed in no time, but I digress), which inspired me to tread lightly down the stairs, open the door a crack, carefully survey the world outside the apartment, and then make a MAD DASH to my local movie theatres lest I miss two cinematic arrivals

2003-07-10T18:16:00.000-07:00

New cause for excitement these days (counting down to the release date of 07/21): ...which does look remarkably like some sort of tribute to: It’ll include three new tunes: “Satan Wants Me,” “Michael Powell,” and “Bugger Bognor.” “Michael Powell” doesn’t seem to have much to do with the great English film director it’s named after. In fact, initial report had its title as “The Mitford

2003-07-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

Some beautiful words from director Ermanno Olmi in his director’s statement for Il Posto: “This is a harsh film, I am the first to admit; it was not meant to be light, but neither was it meant to point an accusing finger. My purpose was to portray the courage it takes to live through the colorless, gray days which are, in anyone’s life, the majority; the rare opportunities, too precious to be

2003-07-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

PART I OF II The last post seems lost forever, but life goes on... Two things heavy on my mind recently: Politics and overstimulation. I’m nearly through Sidney Blumenthal’s The Clinton Wars (Blumenthal was, of course, Clinton’s senior aide and a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal). It’s very partisan, naturally, but having been born and braised in a very right-wing household, I

2003-07-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

PART II OF II On a somewhat lighter note, the Maysles brothers’ Grey Gardens, from 1976. This could have come off very expose-like, with the cameras detailing for us the squalor of a couple of once-beautiful, once-prominent American aristocrats (Edith Bouvier Beale and “Little Edie” Beale, her daughter and cousin of Jackie Kennedy, who famously rescued their home from condemnation with some

2003-06-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

Fuck. Well, today's post got lost somehow, so hopefully the Blogger people will be on it and I can get it back up here soon...

2003-06-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

It's come time, mid-weekend movie orgy, to pause for breath and take a bit of film stock: Almodovar's Talk to Her was nice. It was fairly colorful, somewhat touching, and had a pretty sheen to it. I still prefer the earlier, funnier, not-nice Almodovar, however. Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone: A study in contrasts. The Pianist had a lot going for it, and it

2003-06-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them. They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience." - Flannery O'Connor.

2003-06-08T22:54:00.001-07:00

I didn't consume Atonement; it consumed me (and just in time- real life has seemed so drear lately). I thought it was going to be just a plain, sort of retro well-told story, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But the last twenty pages throws the whole entertaining, intelligent thing into the best kind of question. To elaborate further would be to spoil the fun. Also of interest is McEwan

2003-05-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

I jammed as many movies as possible into my Memorial Day weekend. I've found I can just about manage three a day without going completely batty. I revisited some old friends- Ozu's Good Morning and Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits among them- and had some amazing (or at least eye-opening) new experiences, including Ronald Neame's smashingly good The Horse's Mouth, with Alec Guiness, and Seijun

2003-05-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

I've put my newly acquired long-distance vision eyewear (for watching TV from across the room, night driving, inclement weather driving, not for reading or computer work... yet) to good use watching a small smorgasbord of films. Started off with Kurosawa's Rashomon- its fractured, modernist, self-cancelling narrative making it my favorite Kurosawa after High and Low- then moved on to a rather

2003-05-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

"I mean, I guess we all have that Barton Fink feeling, but since you're Barton Fink, I'm assuming you have it in spades." I'm watching the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink, which has become, over time, my favorite Coen Brothers film. I think it's gone up through the ranks in direct proportion to my own timeline of vocational discovery (I'm a writer, too. Just like Barton Fink!). I think it really

2003-05-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Good god, I've let this thing slide... it's literally been weeks since I posted. Oh, well... I've found a new posting obession over at Xixax.com, a forum for cinephiles. There have been a few heated spats about some of the time-wasting that goes on there, particularly of the misogynistic and homophobic sorts. And I don't use those words lightly; I have an excellent sense of humor and consider

2003-04-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

A little flurry over at the Luke Haines Resource over the brilliant, sharp, funny Black Box Recorder tune, "The New Diana." I tried to remain rational, but I'm afraid my shock at finding such an easily offended soul lurking in a virtual place devoted to someone who cares not whom he offends shows through too readily. I personally believe Mr. Haines to be a pop genius combining the best elements

2003-04-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

"He fills his head with culture, he gives himself an ulcer." - Gang of Four, "At Home He's a Tourist." ...and it's precisely this home-tourism that I'll be sharing with you in fragments, bits, and pieces here on trappings. It could be an indirect route to some scintillating personal confessions 'n musings, too, so always, always stay tuned, kids! My breathless, pressured addiction to pop