I suppose when I look at something long enough the whole recedes and all I see is the parts. I keep looking. The process repeats itself over and over till the machinery not the machine is all I see. I saw Cold Mountain tonight and all I could see was the machinery. Insert T-Bone Burnett song score so we can cash in on the soundtrack like O' Brother. Add a dash of Jack White because some of those White Stripes songs evoke Americana and it brings in the kids. That "other" artsy Civil War movie, Ride With the Devil, had a music star too. (I wonder if Jack's movie career will dead-end the way Jewel's did) I've never seen so many clothing continuity errors in a major motion picture. Is the shirt on or off, torn or whole? The characters all are Oscar movie clich�s. It's got a bad guy, a good guy, the woman they want and comic relief. Does Nicole have to wear that much makeup when hiding out in the woods? Won't Jude Law still love her, she's a movie star after all?

When it first opens with the big battle sequence...now that that was new. I'd never seen the Civil War that brutal before. In so many ways I'm reminded of Saving Private Ryan, great beginning with the story losing momentum as the quest takes over. Thankfully Cold Mountain isn't quite so earnest as Saving Private Ryan.

It's not just Cold Mountain though. This year I've seen three theatrical releases I cared about: City of God, Northfork and All the Real Girls (A much more powerful love story in North Carolina than Cold Mountain will ever be). They're all flawed too. But they took more risks. I'd rather sit through "Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?" than most of the movies I've seen this year. It took chances and told a new story. My ire is not spared from indie releases. They've spawned the same mediocrity this year as well: The Station Agent, Lost in Translation, Shattered Glass, Pieces of April. All fine films, like the major Hollywood fare I've seen, that I care nothing about because they all come from the same machinery. Why don't we have a Takashi Miike making stuff like Visitor Q or Happiness of the Katakuris? How about an Abbas Kiarostami equivalent putting out things like Close-Up and Taste of Cherry? I guess we've got Gus Van Sant who did surprise me with Gerry this year. Tomorrow I see Elephant so maybe he can redeem American cinema.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/01/001gross2.htm&sourceid=opera&num=50&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Why would Jerry B. Jenkins want to be famous? In The Frenzy of Renown: Fame & Its History, Leo Braudy points out that Emperor Augustus made the Roman state "the only place where personal dignity could be conferred." Then Christianity came along "to define an arena for individual nature well beyond the political," and "dignity was conferred not in the service of Rome, but in the service of God." (Render unto Caesar, and so forth.) The empire socialized the desire for personal recognition; the Church spiritualized it. Still, the Church and the Empire each also retained some vestige of the other's power. The Catholic ecclesiastical structure can still slake the human thirst for worldly recognition within a community of the faithful; for Catholics, salvation has always had to do with actual physical interaction among believers.

I found the idea that Christians just want to be famous kinda funny.

From http://www.nytimes.com/ref/readersopinions/questions-scott.html

Dec. 15

Q. I find it's impossible for me to criticize movies I loved when I was child, even the ones I know are bad. Last summer on TV, for example, I watched "Smokey and the Bandit" for the first time in 20 years and I enjoyed it far more than I should have. Do you have movies from your childhood that you know and admit are bad but are unable to criticize because you liked them when you were young? — Antoine Lahaie

A. Recently, I took my son to see "The Haunted Mansion," which was one of the worst things (I hesitate even to call it a movie) that I have ever seen. He thought it was better than "Finding Nemo" and we had a fruitless argument which I'm sure made him acutely aware of the disadvantages of having a film critic for a dad. I gave up when I remembered my own youthful delight in just about every live-action G-rated Disney picture of my own childhood — "Son of Flubber," "The Shaggy D.A.," "Follow Me Boys," "Herbie the Love Bug" — movies I would probably have a hard time sitting through, much less reviewing, today.

When we're young, we take so much delight in the sheer adventure of going to the movies that we don't bother to discriminate much, which is as it should be. The indiscriminate love of movies is the first step in the development of taste. When I was young, "The Great Waldo Pepper" looked as good as "The Sting," and "Midway," the "Pearl Harbor" of its day, looked like an out-and-out masterpiece.

Like you, I loved "Smokey and the Bandit," which I don't think is such a bad movie ("Smokey and the Bandit II" is another matter entirely), and also a lot of other Burt Reynolds good-old-boy pictures from that era ("White Lightning," "WW and the Dixie Dance Kings," "Gator). I saw every Mel Brooks movie, and all of the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor buddy comedies. Some of these — "Smokey," "Young Frankenstein," "Silver Streak"— I'm always happy to watch again, partly to affirm my youthful good taste and partly because they bring me back to a time before I had, or cared about having, any taste at all. Others don't hold up as well, but judging them too harshly would feel like a bit of a betrayal.

My head hurts today. When will this flu season end? Finally saw The Station Agent last night. Nicely done. Typically those "outsider heals group" movies become sentimental but this did not go there. I think it's because Peter Dinklage's performance anchors the film. Whenever I saw Patricia Clarkson on screen I couldn't help but think of her role in this years All the Real Girls. She's having a great year especially once you add Dogville and Pieces of April to the list.

This week it's Shattered Glass.

So what is it? everything gets edited a hundred times before it spills out your mouth. no courage. no guts. you go read something someone else wrote, kathy wrote, to see what that's like. all that time spent with whores and bores looking for parts of her. it's an insult to her doncha know. she was a lot more than that.but she was flawed too. flaws that seemed to put her on some collision course. and where were you again? hiding out that weekend vainly hoping she'd magically show up on your door step. hoping that was the great undiscovered country she sought. so many clues and you were too stupid to get them. as you sow, so shall you reap.and so it goes again you are wallowing in your white bread, middle class life. pretending. posing. some great truth eludes you and really it's probably right there. but whining about love lost is so much easier than doing something. it's easy to fantasize about how great things could be with k now that you've begun to catch up with her greatness, but she'd still be at least three to four years ahead of you if she was still here. but you feel like she's here don't you. more dreams than you've had in 20 years. every week or two there's something new with her in it or around it. if only you were smart enough, good enough, bold enoough you could find her.

feels like your head's going to split open talking like this doesn't it? like someone's really here and talking to you. but you're the only one writing ...i feel more normal now. the environs of work taking on a more solid role. and that pressure to produce is creeping back in. my lightheadness is fading. i'm falling apart. or at least yielding more and more to the plastic urge. plastic smiles. plastic responses. plastic feelings.

you want to post this. like a bulwark against the tides. but it might offend some people. people that are good and don't need your toxic comments washing over them. people that would get praise for their great deeds if you weren't so selfish and busy worshipping fallen idols. (false idols?) whatever. post it or not, you're still the same.

From: Kathy O'Malley
Subject: non gui girl
Date; March 16, 2000 10:55:54 PM CST
To: Matt Midboe

i've given it some thought
see this shit is meaningless cuz alledgedly so much will change
but...
okay so it would be nice for the "plants" to automatically notify if
they need watering or sunlight or what have you. of course, if i was
richer i'd way it's be nice if they automatically were watered and
fed and shit without the nuisance of a maid or hired hand. it would
be nice to be constantly monitored for heart rate, blood pressure,
temp, bowel movements, nutrients consumed, overall metabolic
processing and shit, it will be nice to have access to the net 24/7,
which i don't, and all that stuff about the house and car or
transportation turning on for you, it would be really groovy if
movies and literature and media in general came with a barrage of
tags/flags/links to similar/reference/definition/history/allegory
stuff. tie it all together. tie it all down. use it as a trampoline
and bounce into the ether... ether.... ether... (cool fade/echo there
did you catch it). i would love to have a filter for this world a
better one than what i've got. to constantly record and edit and
deform/transform/generate/degenerate what i consume sensually receive
inputs. like if someone were yelling at me talking above a certain
decibel range it would be heard as a chipmunk or if some filter could
detect cursing or hostility and make it into "bliss" that would be
cool. as long as my awareness didn't extinguish the illusion the
fantasy and blow out the fire in my belly my little burning embers
that charm and woo my men into the night under the moon. how many
moons do i have left? it would be awesome to acurately detect
magnetic fluxes and space weather solar flares and sunspots and el
nino and see how they affect the weather and terrain and my
personality that day to really get it down. the numbers would have to
come up. it's not just pi you know. okay i hope it rocks my world. i
hope i have to take a time out to make sure i'm still breathing. i
don't think it will take place that. slow. churning. events begging
to utilize new technology aching to become commonplace like owning a
car and a dvdplayer and an mp3 player. all this entertainment. touch
screens for food orders when i give blood the separter uses a touch
screen. we are so bound by our physicality. want to hear more see
more touch more. it would be nice if i could eliminate all the stuff
i have and want cuz it's all in the ether and i experience it that
way.i don't know how that works. i associate static focused state
with using media currently. it's hard to live it. it's not mountain
biking. how does it become mountain biking?

kathy

The MoMA is hosting a series on The Hidden God: Film and Faith about hidden spirituality in movies. Of course they are showing Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, Andrei Rublev, Bergman's Winter Light and Carl Dreyer's The Word. However, the movie that gets the focus in a NY Times article is Groundhog Day. Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Wiccans, Falun Gong members and so forth all find meaning in the film.

I bought tickets for Casablanca this morning. I'm looking forward to getting away from all the noise for a little bit while I'm in the Sahara. I'm so lost here.

I'm a few steps closer to getting to Morocco. I asked for February 12th-26th off from work. The plan is week or so of camping in the Sahara desert with a camel and guide, with visits to Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat and maybe Tangier. Tangier seems like it should be mandatory considering it was the home of Paul Bowles. If this visit works out I have this wild dream that I vanish into the desert or follow a group of Sufi.

I went to the birthday/divorce finalization party last night. I had a good time seeing all sorts of new lj people. I'm continually surprised by the variety of people that use lj. performed and sounded really good for being in someone's dining room. , the lead singer, had this great rock with her cock out ferocity especially on their cover of "Angry Inch" from Hedwig.

I'm working on the new mix for December. If anyone wants one just email your postal address to twyl@gnumatt.org. The past two mixes have included Polyphonic Spree, Flying Saucer Attack, Sea Ray, Grails, Do Make Say Think, My Bloody Valentine, Air, Michael Nyman, Yoko Kanno, Can, Death Cab for Cutie, Neutral Milk Hotel, Belle and Sebastian, Pram, Dismemberment Plan, Atmosphere etc. I also grabbed a DVD burner this week so hopefully the mix DVD project of shorts, favorite scenes, my commentary, music videos and so forth will pan out.

I was driving the five minutes it takes to get home and listening to All Things Considered today when this great interview came on. It was about a woman, Liz Yuan, who saw a movie at the Toronto Film Festival that she loved. Sadly it's a small Greek film that did not find a distributor at the film festival. But she loved this movie so much, and wanted others to feel what she felt, that she created a distribution company to get the movie shown in the US. She is a film buff, not someone in the business.

I couldn't stop smiling and crying as I listened to Liz Yuan talk about how much she loved the movie and why people should see it. Her love for the film is immediately evident from the interview. She talks sort of fast at points. You can hear her admiration for the film bursting from inside her. I thought it was cute when she said "When I say 'we' that's my habit. I say 'we' because I don't like to advertise how small my company is...It's like me, myself and I and then some friends." I felt silly because my eyes teared up I was so excited. How many times I've thought "Oh this is so good. How can I get more people to see it." I never decided "Welp I'm gonna distribute this film in the United States and setup Oscar and Golden Globe screenings." I was moved, and for a moment the world seemed like a perfect place.

I immediately went inside and emailed her through the movie's website offering up a few ideas and pledging my support. Even reading her email in response to my queries she has that same unbridled enthusiasm. I made an mp3 [1.04MB] of the interview from the Real Audio of the NPR interview. Listen to it and help get this movie in theaters.