El Aura (The Aura)
El Aura (The Aura). Too bad Fabián Bielinsky is no longer with us. I think he was on to something here. This one meanders ever so slightly, but still pretty solid. I love the rural photography; the pace; the way it doesn’t prepare you for anything, but makes you wait and watch this guy get in over his head. Ricardo Darín is so awesome. I really liked him in El Secreto de Sus Ojos, too.
Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – review | The Guardian
If I may be forgiven a heuristic of my own, it is a very bad sign when authors start to look down on the books that connected them to their audience: it means they are now irredeemably up themselves.
The Keep
The Keep. I’m sure there’s a cult following for it somewhere. Some of the photography and the Tangerine Dream soundtrack are worthwhile. Otherwise, it’s not quite Michael Mann’s best work. That said, if you want to see gothic-scifi-horror with Nazis set in 1940s Romania, it’s your best bet. This is what I get for being a Michael Mann completist. The only ones I haven’t seen yet are Ali and The Insider. Here’s how I rank the rest:
Chuck Close photographed by Bill Jacobson, while Close works on “John, 1992, oil on canvas, 100 x 84”. (via) Featured in Lisa Yuskavage’s interview with Close:
I think of my work as what used to be called women’s work: knitting, quilting. Women were busy cooking, raising children, so they had to have an activity that they could pick up and put down. A quilt may take a year, but if you just keep doing it, you get a quilt. Or if you knit one and pearl two, and you believe in the process, eventually you’ll make a sweater. There’s some aspect of that in me.
Fighting Continues Over World’s Holiest Bombing Sites | The Onion
You win this one, Onion.
Fighting Continues Over World’s Holiest Bombing Sites | The Onion
Every whole person understands his lifetime as an organized, recountable series of events and changes with at least a beginning and a middle. We need narrative like we need space-time; it’s a built-in thing.
David Foster Wallace in Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young [pdf], which was previously uncollected. I just started Both Flesh and Not today.
We’re Not Louis C.K. – Indie Game: The Movie – A Video Game Documentary
Our version of working a small comedy club in Idaho was spending 5 minutes responding to an email about what type of camera we were using or a tweeted questions about the film. Little by little, it added up. We don’t want to push the analogy too hard. We’re not trying to say we’re just like Louis C.K. Not even close. But we do want to make the point that you don’t need throngs of ready-made fans to make this type of distribution effective and worthwhile. You can build towards it.
I really should have watched the movie by now. (via)
We’re Not Louis C.K. – Indie Game: The Movie – A Video Game Documentary
Easy Rider
Easy Rider. Two rebels made their compromise and try to live with it. Nicholson’s square tag-along is a nice addition. The cuts between scenes were so strange at first–I don’t think I’ve scene anything like it. Solid soundtrack, and you can laugh at hippies. A buddy and I are working through some notable road movies we haven’t seen. Previously: Two-Lane Blacktop (my favorite so far) and Thunder Road (second).
Dre likes to work in an environment where you can create. [Where] everybody’s on the creative atmosphere and not about what’s goin’ on in the ‘hood, how many niggas you shot and how much shit you did. He didn’t want that.
Me and Dre both. That’s Snoop, talking about the making of The Chronic. Life was simpler then:
I was just happy to be workin’ with Dre. I had my own apartment. I was getting a thousand dollars a month, had all the best weed I wanted. My girl was lovin’ me, I was lovin’ her. It was all just crackin’.
Lincoln
Lincoln. The best movie about the legislative process released this year! For real, historical biography isn’t my thing (Lawrence of Arabia excepted), so I liked that the condensed timeline here moved it more into political drama with horse-trading and cajoling and backroom negotiation. I have my complaints (over-teaching; soft-focus soap opera lighting; lens flare; tokenism; etc.), but still… DDL is the man. His storytelling, along with the other individual performances, make it worthwhile.
Scott Adams Blog: Sleep Tip 03/21/2011
Here’s a tip for falling asleep. I don’t think you’ll see it anywhere else. It goes like this: Don’t think words.
(via)
I love the South. The mud and the creeks and the moss and the lightning bugs and the oak trees and the pecan trees. Climbing trees and looking for snakes, I really miss all that. That was the best part of my childhood.
Chan Marshall. Hell yeah the South.
The Eastwood Conundrum – Esquire
An anecdote from his work on A Perfect World:
Costner was a big star who had agreed to make an art film while Eastwood was determined to make a Clint Movie, and they were at cross-purposes. Finally, Eastwood called Costner from his trailer for a scene, and Costner told him to wait — that he wasn’t ready.
“Find his extra,” Eastwood said, “and put a shirt on him.”
He wound up shooting the scene with the extra — with the extra walking through a field, and the camera so close to him he became a blur. Then Costner emerged from his trailer and announced that he was ready to work. “Never mind,” Eastwood said, “we’re moving on.”
Get out of the conceptual rut that a good life looks one way and a disappointing one looks another.
Headhunters
Hodejegerne (Headhunters). You can’t help but love an art thief. There’s some solid heist/chase fundamentals in here, as well as some whaaaa? gross-out moments and dark humor. I love how it plays with your assumptions about character and plot. Good stuff.
For foreign-language films, Certified Copy and Point Blank are still my favorites of the movies I’ve seen this year. 13 Assassins and Oldboy are next in the rankings.
Face/Off
Face/Off. It’s a late ‘90s action movie directed by John Woo, full of late ’90s action and Woo-isms. Preposterous and fun and too long.
BWV 849 | Philip Engel | The Hypocrite Reader
Bach was ridiculous.
Last album I was like “I don’t now how I’m finna do this shit again,” but it’s been like that since Southernplayalistic… When in doubt you just gotta go to work.
Mark Larson 