Author: tedmills

More evidence that if the Iraq war starts, it’ll be complete chaos.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Iranian-backed militia moves into northern Iraq Several hundred soldiers belonging to an Iranian-based Iraqi militia have set up a secret military camp deep in northern Iraq, in a move likely to alarm Washington.
The fighters, who include many deserters from Saddam Hussein’s army, slipped into the opposition-controlled north from Iran late last month.
They have now established a series of military camps inside Kurdish-controlled territory, including a major base at the foot of a mountain, near the village of Banibee, decorated with flags proclaiming “Allahu Akbar”, or God is most great.

8 1/2
You should know right here that Fellini’s 8 1/2 is one of my favorite films–I’d like to say it’s my favorite, but I may be forgetting something obvious. But I can’t really think of any film that fills me with such joy every time I see it. It’s a film just bursting at the seams with life, with beautiful women particularly, with wit and love and acceptance. Marcello Mastoianni’s character Guido comes to learn all these things in the end, but in the film itself it’s there from the beginning. (One critic writes how the early scenes in the spa portray the delusional bourgeousie, represented by the old warhorses of Wagner and Rossini on the soundtrack, but Fellini, being a cartoonist before he was a director, gives us all these wonderful faces passing by the screen (as opposed to faceless extras). S’Wonderful.
Anyway, this being the second time I’ve seen it on the big screen, I have to say that the print was dreadful, and not the re-released version that I saw in San Diego a few years ago. The new print had new subtitles–these old ones are awful, and only translate 50% of the soundtrack. You think the fest could have hunted the better one down. (The ones for the Sirk film were also crap). Still, it was a wonderful thing to behold.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COUNT LUCHINO VISCONTI

What was originally a documentary for BBC’s Arena program, gets an airing here on the big screen (digitally projected, but looking very nice in one of S.B.’s biggest theaters. I’ve seen one Visconti film before this–the devastating Death in Venice–and knew of some of the others. But I knew little else of the man. I didn’t know he was a Count, an aristocratic Communist (what a paradox!), the lover of Zefferelli, a championship thoroughbred trainer, and an opera director. It was also slightly long, but maybe because I’m the uninitiated. Makes me want to watch The Damned, though.

In a slight bit of synchronicity, I recently completed an After Effects-based motion graphic in class to use for my Stekki Daiyo! Productions. (You can see the thing here) and for a temp track I used Brian Eno’s “Another Green World.” Only a few days later did I remember that this track was used as the opening theme for BBC2’s Arena. So what should open up the Visconti film, but the Arena logo, using the same music, accompanying that “neon-message-in-a-bottle” graphic.

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
Stephen Frears’ latest was a pleasing diversion, but not as great as everybody at the fest was making it out to be–this was the third added screening. There’s a lot of handwringing over the fate of illegal immigrants in modern-day London, but the characters were very one-dimensional. The immigration officials looked like two sleazeballs, all stubble and greasy hair. The lead actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, was always watchable, as Audrey Tautou did her best to erase the image of Amelie from everybody’s mind, helped in no small way by a script that subjected her to much debasement. It looked good, too, but I have a feeling most everybody else was moved more than me.

Lastly, I passed through Urban Outfitters on my way home and snagged a book I’ve had my eye on for some time. The price was cut in half, and because it was the last in stock, I asked for and got an additional 10% off, total price $24 for the hardback. Supercade is pure eye candy for the videogame generation (I trusted the book immediately when it cut off the date of classic videogames at 1984, which I agree with wholeheartedly).

Film Fest Day Five

MAN WITHOUT A PAST
I haven’t seen too many Aki Kaurismaki films. I saw Hamlet Goes Business a long time ago when I didn’t have the sense of humor about the play (I was in high school, and it was a sacred text). I saw Lenigrad Cowboys Go to America and was bored to tears (but maybe that was in opposition to a friend who went on about it like it was drop down hilarious).
So maybe it’s time that made this film most enjoyable. It’s not the story so much (man is mugged, loses his memory, and creates a new life from the bottom up with the help of friendly, earthy vagrants, and a Salvation Army lady that becomes his lover) as Kaurismaki’s pacing, ridiculous dialog, and deadpan delivery of pretty much everybody. It’s something about the Finnish air, I think. Characters were all memorable, especially the tough-talking security guard with nothing to really back him up–his dog “Hannibal” which he promises will rip off offender’s noses, is a docile, sleepy pet, and very cute. I had a good time, definitely. Sight and Sound said that Kaurismaki’s treading water, but seeings I haven’t seen that much, it was refreshing to me.

Film Fest Day Four

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS
Today I managed one film, which was a special screening of Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor melodrama starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. The print was pretty rough, but what made the night special was that director Todd Haynes, whose Far From Heaven is a palimpsest of Sirk’s film, introduced and talked afterwards about his film and Sirk’s.
The film itself is on the surface a very straightforward “love will find a way” weepie, but you don’t have to search too hard to find all sorts of weird things underneath, and I don’t mean watching Hudson’s performance with what is known now about his sexuality. The sexual wolfishness of the men (apart from Hudson), the awful children–Freud-espousing daughter, asshole son, the bitchy women, the deer that appears at the end. Like many films from the ’50s, it just seems bizarre.
Haynes had some great things to say about Sirk’s film, especially about the use of color. He mentioned how the very complex color schemes in Sirk are a far cry from today. “Now you can see a thriller–every shot is blue. Or a memory sequence. It’s all gold. And that’s it?” He also spoke about Fassbinder’s own take on Sirk in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (coming out next month on DVD, with some commentary by Haynes), his next project (apparently a rhapsody on Bob Dylan that promises at worst to be fascinating), his move to Portland, his student days at Brown University, and much more. A very modest, affable man, and one of the few truly important American filmmakers at the moment.