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If you missed A Surprise in Texas when it came out in theaters, you can catch up to it on TV tonight. Peter Rosen’s documentary on the 2009 Van Cliburn Piano Competition airs at 7:00 and again at 8:30 on KERA-TV.
While we’re on the subject of the Cliburn, the Foundation just announced their new president and CEO.
Sad news from Japan: Animated film director Satoshi Kon has died of pancreatic cancer at age 47. At first it appeared that the news was some cruel Internet hoax, but his animation studio has confirmed his death.
Many great artists die with their best work decades behind them, but it’s especially sad when a great artist dies in glorious mid-career, the work still vital and innovative and keeping us guessing as to what will come next. I saw three of his films, and two of them made my lists of the best movies of 2003 and 2007. Reportedly he was working on another film called The Dreaming Machine that’s due to be released in Japan later this year. That’s the best I can tell, though perhaps one of our Japanese-proficient readers with a Japanese-language web browser can read the movie’s website and give us more precise news.
What made Satoshi Kon so special? He was one of the few anime directors whose work was recognized by mainstream critics. His movies borrowed some elements from the candy-colored fantasies of Hayao Miyazaki and the convulsive apocalyptic fare of Katsuhiro Ôtomo, but he developed a visually lush style all his own. His films frequently commented on the dreamlike nature of cinema (I wonder whether he got to see Inception), making profound statements about memory and the way movies shape our thought processes. Yet for all the sophistication of their storytelling, his movies had visceral power, too: Check the parade of toys that threatens to consume the world in Paprika. It’s so cute, and yet it’s also terrifying and demented.
Looking for something of his to rent on Netflix? My personal favorite of his movies is Millennium Actress, one of the most meta films ever made. (The film’s website is no longer online, but here’s the trailer.) It’s about a reclusive former movie star who grants a rare interview with a documentary film crew to talk about her life. Not surprisingly, there are flashback sequences as she describes her childhood and her first film roles, but then the documentary director and cameraman find themselves transported into those sequences in her movies, dodging arrows in samurai epics and explosions in World War II flicks. Back in 2004 when I saw Millennium Actress, the complicated structure reminded me a lot of Being John Malkovich’s. The actress’ life and her movies melt into each other, but it’s all surprisingly easy to follow. Her passing encounter with a painter early in her life shapes her life, and though the revelation of his fate is pretty shattering, the film shows her whole life’s work as motivated by this one incident. Life isn’t about getting or not getting what you want, it’s about what happens to you as you chase after your dream. The actress’ death is represented by a scene from a sci-fi movie that she made, with her portraying an astronaut blasting off into the unknown. It’s beautiful and poetic. The movie also has a cheeky cameo appearance by Godzilla.
Kon’s 2004 dramedy Tokyo Godfathers is his most conventional film, and I find it to be his least interesting one as well, but if you’re not feeling adventurous and want to ease your way into his body of work, it might make a good starting place. It’s about three homeless people who find a newborn baby alive and abandoned in a dumpster. They spend Christmas trying to track down the baby’s mother. The story is simple and well told, with a couple of happy coincidences that come off as gentle miracles rather than plot contrivances. If you’re looking for a Christmas movie that’s off the beaten path, it’s a good choice for that as well.
The last film of Kon’s that we’ve seen was Paprika, which I actually did a short write-up for when it played at the Modern three summers ago. It’s about a psychotherapy machine that allows therapists to enter their patients’ dreams, only the tech falls into the wrong hands, with the result that everybody’s dreams threaten to destroy reality. This movie has a crazed vibe that the other two don’t have, but what’s just as interesting as the cuteness apocalypse is one of the heroes of the story, a jaded cop who turns out to know much more about film theory and technique than most police officers do. It turns out he’s haunted by the memory of his best friend in college, an aspiring filmmaker who died prematurely. (Did Kon presage his own fate here? That’s an eerie thought.) The movie’s a frenetic series of close escapes and mind-blowing hallucinations, but the part that sticks with me most is the quiet ending, with the cop finding a new sense of peace by going to a movie theater and buying a ticket.
The title of The Dreaming Machine would seem to indicate that Kon had more to say about our dreams and our movies. Selfishly, I hope the film is in reasonably good shape and that we get to see it in the future. It’d be a good way to remember this artist whose wild imagination and creativity came packaged with humanity and wisdom. Kon knew very well that our movies live on after we’re gone. That’s a comforting thought now.
By now you’ve probably seen the full-page ad, taken in out in various newspapers across Texas yesterday:
Whatever you think of our governor, his tactics, or politics in general, this thing sure is attention-grabbing. That’s what you want when you’re a relatively new PAC. The ad has set not only the state press talking but the national pundits as well.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, the governor needed to be called out for his refusal to debate his Democratic opponent and for his generally high-handed attitude. Some strong language in this instance is probably warranted. On the other hand, there’s been this whole tiresome trend this election season about politicians calling themselves bigger men than their opponents. (Women candidates have been just as guilty of this as men, too.) Our political discourse is already screwed up so much, I don’t see how getting out rulers and measuring everybody’s manhood is going to improve things.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see what Perry does. So far, there hasn’t been any response from the governor.
If you’re looking for a replacement for the recently canceled At the Movies, a possible candidate is making its debut tonight for TV viewers with Time Warner Cable. The Popcorn List is hosted by Rainy Flynn and Devin Pike, who will be discussing not only current movies but classics and independent films as well. It’ll be on the Texas Channel, available all over the state. Let’s see how well it stacks up to other shows with two movie critics debating.
I found something dumber than the outrage over the “Ground Zero Mosque.” It’s the news that American Airlines is now charging for “Express Seats,” the first few rows of seats in coach behind first class. Now you’ll have to pay $19-39 extra if you want to sit there.
What will passengers be getting for that money? Apparently, lots of people request these seats because the flight attendants serve beverages there first, and because the passengers get off the plane first after it lands. Also, Express Seat holders can board the plane along with the first-class passengers, so they get dibs on overhead compartment space for their luggage. Possibly boarding the plane with the first-class people will make them feel more important, too.
None of this seems remotely worth 20 bucks to me. Devoted travel bloggers seem to agree. I suppose if customers want to blow their money this way, it’s nice of AA to give them that option. Then again, this is just one more example of how airlines make their fare structure so complicated that travelers can’t comparison shop for the best value when they buy their airline tickets. Either way, I can just imagine longtime American customer Ryan Bingham (the George Clooney character from Up in the Air, not the country singer) sitting up in first-class comfort laughing at the poor suckers who paid extra for Express Seats.
A bit of TV history dies in a few hours when the last new episode of At the Movies is broadcast at 3:40 a.m. local time. Don’t feel bad if you don’t stay up to watch. I’m not doing it, for one thing. For another, you can catch the episode in the morning on the show’s website.
This is the definitive end of the enterprise started by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert back in 1975, as a local TV show for the Chicago area. Of course, Ebert weighed in back in March when the show’s impending cancellation was announced. So did others.
I don’t think this portends anything about the state of film criticism. I think much of the show’s success depended on the unrepeatable chemistry between Siskel and Ebert. Some of it came from the fact that they looked very different from each other, and some of it was down to them being unpolished Chicago newspaper guys, as opposed to more overtly intellectual New York critics or smoother L.A. types. Mostly, though, it was just the fact that when they disagreed about a movie, they did it in such a vehement and compelling fashion. Yes, sometimes it devolved into shtick. (”You’re fat!” “Oh, yeah? Well, you’re bald!”) But more often it was two intelligent guys who were passionate about their jobs and couldn’t believe it when the other guy hated a movie that he liked. Viewers complained about the lightweights when Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz had the show in 2008-09, but the current critics Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott aren’t lightweights. They’re formidable critics, but when they disagree, they do so in a polite and collegial manner, and it’s just not as compelling as when Siskel and Ebert battled it out. One piece on the web (scroll down further for the link) compared At the Movies to ESPN’s current Pardon the Interruption, and that’s exactly the right comparison. Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon have that same sort of dynamic working for them, and when they stop hosting their show, it won’t be the same. Siskel and Ebert could have been arguing about sports or politics or which flavor of wings to order at the local bar. We would have watched.
I didn’t become a film critic because of Siskel and Ebert, but their show was regular viewing for me. I won’t miss it, but when some TV producer finds two critics who are as contentious with each other and as professional about what they do, I’ll be watching.
Here’s that piece I alluded to earlier, an appreciation of At the Movies illustrated with YouTube clips. Here’s footage from Siskel and Ebert’s 1994 guest appearance on The Critic, an animated TV spinoff of The Simpsons that never found the audience it deserved. This is Ebert’s tribute to Siskel after his death. Robert Townsend’s 1987 comedy film Hollywood Shuffle had an embedded parody of At the Movies, in which the critics not only give movies “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” but also “high five” and “the finger.”
The headline just doesn’t have the same ring as the one on my review of Kick-Ass, does it? I wanted to get my leftover thoughts about the movie closer to its DVD release last Tuesday, but more pressing matters intervened. Just as well, since I got the chance to see it once again on disc.
Matthew Vaughn’s ode to comic books underperformed at the box-office, but it’s useful to remember that certain films are wrongly labeled flops because of expectations. The studio thought this would be a huge hit in America because it was a huge hit in Britain, where it was released about a month before it came here. Perhaps the movie will find the American audience it deserves on home video. A sequel has already been announced; it would be nice if this scenario played out like the Harold and Kumar films, where the second movie got big crowds after the first one got smaller ones. However, it would be even nicer if the sequel turned out awesomer than Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.
A disproportionate amount of the criticism here focused on Hit Girl and her use of the word “cunt” just before she kills a bunch of gangsters. I wasn’t offended by the usage, nor did I find it hilarious. But here’s the point that everybody missed: This is a British film. Granted, that’s easy to lose track of because the movie’s set in America and all the actors are either Americans or Brits with American accents, but Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman are British, and as we know, British people are much freer in their use of the c-word than we are. In fact, they usually apply the word to men, as Hit Girl does. Nina Shen Rastogi usefully pointed out that critics here were much more offended by an 11-year-old white girl using profanity in this movie than they were by a similarly aged African-American boy using similar language in Role Models. Still, the usage is an error, not just because it’s an out-of-place Britishism in an American story, but also because it makes no sense from a character standpoint. Since nobody around Hit Girl — including her dad — uses profanity on a regular basis, where would she learn such language from? Then again, Mark Millar said the use of the word was one thing that convinced Vaughn to sign onto the project, so there’s that.
(To address Shen Rastogi’s point about the movie’s racial politics: The African-American gangstas aren’t killed because one of them has been harassing Katie, a white girl. The harassment is why Kick-Ass is there, but they’re killed by Hit Girl and Big Daddy solely because they work for the D’Amico mob.)
Another Britishism in the script comes out better: The superhero name Red Mist refers to British slang — when a person becomes insane with anger and does something stupid or crazy, he or she is said to be seeing red mist, or having the red mist descend on them. Co-writer Jane Goldman is married to someone famous, though her husband Jonathan Ross is far less known to Americans than he is to British crowds as an all-around TV personality. Goldman caused a stir at the UK premiere of Kick-Ass by wearing this outfit.
If you’re unfamiliar with some of the actors, Chloë Grace Moretz stars in Let Me In, the upcoming Hollywood remake of Let the Right One In that apparently impressed lots of people at Comic-Con. Mark Strong already played the heavies in Sunshine and Sherlock Holmes, and will play the villain Sinestro in the Green Lantern movie. He’s probably ready to portray a nice guy by now. As for Nicolas Cage, here’s a thoughtful recent appraisal of his strange, strange career. Aaron Johnson auditioned with an American accent, and it was apparently so good that it fooled Vaughn. The 20-year-old actor just became a father along with the 42-year-old woman who directed him in the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy that’s out later this year. So many male directors fall for their hot young leading ladies, it’s nice to see the reverse happen once in a while. There’s a cameo appearance by former Witchblade star Yancy Butler as Frank’s wife. Elizabeth McGovern pops up as Dave’s mom, only to drop dead without a single line of dialogue. Wonder what the story was there.
Miscellaneous notes: When Dave asks Katie about which comic books she’s read, she names Scott Pilgrim as one of her favorites. We can take that as a promo for the upcoming movie, which I can’t wait to see. Matthew Vaughn is married to Claudia Schiffer, so we see Hit Girl and Big Daddy framed dramatically against a giant billboard depicting Mrs. Vaughn. If you’re fascinated by the look of the film, there’s a coffee table book out. There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it in-joke on a movie theater’s marquee, advertising The Spirit 3, which would presumably be the second sequel to this disaster. As a film critic, I’m glad I don’t live in the Kick-Ass universe. Speaking of kick-ass, here’s the song that plays over the movie’s end credits, by The Pretty Reckless, the group fronted by Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen. Nice as the song is, the lyrics seem better suited to the soundtrack to one of the Twilight movies.
One day after a watershed moment for religious tolerance comes encouraging news from the other coast, as U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker rules California’s ban on gay marriages unconstitutional. The openly gay Bush appointee’s 138-page ruling is full of quotable lines. Most news outlets are running with “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis for singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license” and “Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights.” My personal favorite is this one: “Race restrictions on marital partners were once common in most states, but are now considered archaic, shameful, or even bizarre.” So it will be with these anti-gay marriage laws.
The law blogs are lighting up over the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Where other gay-oriented legal groups like Lambda Legal were advising caution, David Boies and Ted Olson, two heterosexual lawyers with minimal experience in LGBT law (and who were on opposing sides in the Bush v. Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election) went for the big victory and got it. There was a flap back in January when the Supreme Court prevented Judge Walker from streaming the trial live on YouTube, but the plaintiffs looked headed for the win when the defense couldn’t find any credible expert witnesses to say that gay marriage was a bad thing. They were reduced to citing fear as the reason for their lack of witnesses. Fear of deserved ridicule from their professional colleagues, perhaps.
Of course, this ruling isn’t the end by a long shot — a lengthy appeals process beckons. It feels like the beginning of the end, though, and Walker seems to have anticipated a Supreme Court challenge by heavily citing swing justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinions in his decision. This comes less than a month after Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro struck down a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, so these are heady days for gay rights.
If you’re interested in a blow-by-blow account of this landmark case, Margaret Talbot followed the trial daily for The New Yorker, as did Howard Mintz for the San Jose Mercury News. Arnold Schwarzenegger is listed as the defendant in the case by virtue of his position as governor of California, but the Governator himself seems pretty happy to be on the losing side here.
If you’re in a celebratory mood, you can read our cover story this week or go out and watch The Kids Are All Right. Only last week I mused on the fictitious couple’s marital status on this blog.
Just for kicks, here’s another look at Prop. 8 — The Musical, which hit the web in November 2008 and stars John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, and tons of other funny actors. I can’t wait for the sequel now.
The news that Dallas Stars fans have been expecting is now official: Mike Modano has decided against retirement and signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings. When it comes to athletes changing teams, the sight of Modano in a Wings jersey won’t be nearly as traumatic as this sight or this spectacle. The parting of ways seems to have been amicable enough that Stars fans can wish the Livonia, Mich. native well as he goes back to his hometown. Given the way the Wings got Chris Chelios to play until he was 105 years old, Modano might be there for the next five years.
I picked this tribute video to Number 9, but there are any number of other clips that showcase how easily the game and the goals just seemed to come to this silky operator. Dallas fans will miss him.
It’s always nice when religious tolerance wins the day. Yesterday a New York City historical commission removed the last legal hurdle for the construction of the Córdoba Initiative, dubbed by the mainstream press as the Ground Zero Mosque because it will go up two blocks away from where the World Trade Center Towers used to stand. Of course, some people aren’t happy. To them, Mayor Michael Bloomberg affirmed the place as a victory for the religious freedom that America stands for. I’ve never been the biggest Bloomberg fan, but this is a magnificent speech. If the Republicans had any sense, they’d try to get him to run against President Obama in 2012. Naturally, that won’t happen.
Logically speaking, Ground Zero is probably the best place in the world for a mosque, because it’s the one place where “death to America” Islamic rhetoric isn’t going to fly. Everything that’s said there is going to be carefully scrutinized by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. With all the public pressure, the Córdoba House will be as rah-rah about America as a NASCAR rally. Osama bin Laden is probably seething with rage over the prospect of our country’s most famous place of Islamic worship promoting a peace-loving brand of Islam that he despises. If some idiot were to sabotage the Córdoba House, it’d warm the cockles of his cold, black heart.
That is a legitimate concern about the mosque. It’s going to be a target for violent religious nuts of all persuasions, and there’ll have to be some special security measures in place. Every other objection to the mosque has been based on ignorance and prejudice, and they’ve been raised mostly by people who don’t actually live in New York. (They’re all Caucasians, too, whereas the Muslims running the mosque are not. I’m sure you noticed that, too.) It’s been a field day for right-wing demagogues who make a good living catering to such base impulses. Sarah Palin infamously asked peaceful Muslims to “refudiate” the center. Her vocabulary aside, she’s ignoring the fact that these are exactly who’s running the place, the sort of Muslims who’ll make a Qu’ranically based case for Western civilization, and who’ll tell the extremists in no uncertain terms that killing in the name of Islam is wrong. The armchair pundits have been calling for Muslims like this for decades to come forward. Now that they’ve shown up, it’s amazing that some of those same pundits are calling them terrorists.
It’s particularly regrettable that Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has lent his organization’s good name to the anti-Islam crowd. He protests that while the ADL defends Muslims, the center should be moved elsewhere in deference to the 9/11 victims’ families. It’s a cheap way of pawning off his own anxieties onto other people, reminiscent of that segment of history’s white Americans who said that while they personally favored equality for African-Americans, the rest of the country wasn’t ready for it. Don’t take my word for it; Alan Dershowitz says that Foxman is wrong, though not in strong enough terms. He leaves that to Ha’aretz, where Bradley Burston calls Foxman’s words “refreshing and destructive.” That sounds like a turn of phrase I would use.
Some minor points: I like the center’s name, which comes from the Spanish city that the Muslims made into a world-renowned place of learning while Christian Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. The plans for the center include more than just the mosque — there’s also going to be a performing arts stage, an art museum, a swimming pool, and a restaurant. Something tells me this is going to be the place to get Middle Eastern food in the Big Apple. Here’s a profile of Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the center. Interestingly enough, the Twin Towers were built on a neighborhood that was once so heavily Arab that it was called Little Syria. You might say history has come full circle.
From
9 p.m. to 4 a.m.
on
Friday
at
the Where House
(2510 Hemphill St. on the South Side), the
Funkytown Fall Festival
will take place, featuring (in order of appearance)
Goodwin
,
Sally Majestic
,
KatsüK
,
Spoonfed Tribe
, and
Pablo and the Hemphill 7
, with
DJ Apogee
s...
"I reported illegal conduct to the district, and the district transferred me and cut my pay,” Joe Palazzolo said. “Now they are bringing baseless allegations ag...
Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya started the
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
’s preseason Music Festival some years back to provide summer employment for the musicians while at the same time exploring offbeat programming. Beginning with four-day surveys of ...
OPENING:
Going the Distance
(R) Drew Barrymore and Justin Long star in this comedy as a New York couple who hook up with each other six weeks before she moves permanently to San Francisco to finish grad school. The script is surprisingly serious in its...
