Back when the Berkeley Public Library was the hub of my social universe, I spent a lot of time in its video room -- in the mid-90's, it occupied a little corner of the basement -- working my way through its extensive collection of foreign VHS movies. I had plenty of time on my hands, (also, no money), and I quickly exhausted the canon -- Metropolis, The Seven Sumarai, Jules & Jim, Breathless and a lot of Godard. At some desperate point, I explored what were to me, at the time, the margins -- Fassbinder, Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, all of which were astounding, like gold, but Tarkovsky was the most revelatory. The library had Solaris, Nostalghia and Stalker, all of which twisted my noodle with their bizzare, dream-like, surreal sequences.
I just discovered that Thames & Hudson has published a stunning collection of Tarkovsky's polaroids, taken of his family and travels. The Guardian displays of number of them here.
Lots more at this blog. In Russian, too. Nice.
04 May 08 · filed under: cinema, lit, visual · 
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If you're 35-ish and you've followed basketball, you probably recall the virtues of the pre-David Stern NBA, the simpler times when corporate logos were incidental, local heroes more accessible, and the entire sport more truly fan-friendly. Stern always talks about fan-friendliness, but his NBA is a Product and the "friendliness" seems as produced as two-for-one chalupa night. Back in the day, a young Kansas City Kings fan could attend Kings practices at a local high school (for free), and afterward mingle with players like Ernie Grunfeld, Phil Ford, and Otis Birdsong. It goes without saying that most fans would take that over a free chalupa any night.
Red Hot and Rollin recaptures the simplicity and beauty of those times. Edited by Matt Love, it compiles a variety of recollections of the Rip-City-era Portland Trailblazers, and includes a DVD of a truly amazing document of the time -- Don Zavin's Fast Break. Zavin's film is astounding in many regards. Primarily, it's a bittersweet meditation on a lost NBA -- the League before each player became a corporation unto himself, and before ...
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08 Jul 07 · filed under: basketball, cinema · (0) ·
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Thanks to a tip from fellow Simpsons fanatic and Cooper colleague Chris Noessel, I discovered that I could generate a Simpsons character with my likeness on the Simpsons Movie site. Holy crap. Truly, a dream come true. Now the only thing left is to have my likeness drawn in the Wall Street Journal "hedcut" style [a PDF on the Dow Jones site about how pictures become WSJ-ready].
And it's me, right? Except there were no options for beards, which is strange considering that there are quite a few bearded Simpsons characters. Homer's got a perpetual five o'clock shadow; God has a flowing white beard; Hyman Krustofski has the impressive ZZ Top-style beard befitting a cartoon rabbi; Dr. Marvin Monroe has a beard that is more like mine. So there's got to be lots of existing styles to choose from.
When I did a Google search for "simpsons beard," I discovered that Simpsons creator Matt Groening is a self-described beardo, as revealed in this email chat from 1993: "I've been mistaken more than once for Stephen King, Leonard Maltin has been mistaken for me, but I ...
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27 Jun 07 · filed under: cinema, web · (0) ·
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A moment from a beautiful, riveting scene in Killer of Sheep. Photo: Milestone Films.
Killer of Sheep is director Charles Burnett's account of life in the LA neighborhood of Watts in the early 1970's. It began life as his senior thesis at UCLA film school and until recently it was never seen outside art houses and museums. Despite all of that, it was among the first 50 films to declared national treasures by the Library of Congress. I saw it earlier this week at the Castro, and it lived up the hype.
Burnett's account of his motivations in making the film seems like a good place to start unpacking the stuff that makes it so unique:
I wanted to tell a story about a man who was trying to hold on to some values that were constantly being eroded by other forces, by his plight in the community, and the quality of the job that he had. At the same time he wanted to do right by his family. I didn't want to impose my ...
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23 May 07 · filed under: cinema, inside art, tip, visual · (0) ·
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"Why would I put on a hat if my best friend just got blown up in front of me?" An excellent question posed by Jason Schwartzman's character in Wes Anderson's excellent Amex ad. In just under two minutes, the ad encapsulates the brilliance of Anderson's vision: it's filled with snappy dialogue, exquisite production design, and perfectly pitched non sequitors. It begins with a car explosion. Anderson shouts "Cut!", acknowledges that it's an ad ("Anyway, American Express ad"), and poses the question, "Making movies. How do you do it?" He then strides through a series of vignettes while attempting to give directions: "First, think up a good story," but he's then interrupted by a PA who wants to introduce him to the daughter of a man who loaned the a sportscar to the production. "Two, how do you tell it?" he says and then directs a propmaster to put a bayonette on a .357 magnum. "Next, there's your collaborators," while a PA is telling him that the producers won't pay $15000 for a helicopter rental. As he prepares for the next shot, he concludes: "You mix it all together and that's more or less ...
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16 May 06 · filed under: cinema, visual · (0) ·
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Of course Crash won Best Picture. Why wouldn't Academy members -- I'm assuming they're mostly white and Angeleno -- rally around a film that momentarily relieved them of guilt they feel for living in such a racially segregated city? (I have to admit that I love Ludacris's rant about the racial implications of riding city buses. That, and Don Cheadle's opening, were the only moments in the entire movie that weren't heavy-handed, cheesy, or gag-inducing).
The Morning News has a great list of quotes from other reviewers who disliked the movie as much as I did. A sample: "Contrived, obvious and overstated, Crash is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on."
07 Mar 06 · filed under: cinema, reviews · (0) ·
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