Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Event: Obama's Speech in Flint, and Other Good News.
The Washington Independent: Obama Laces into McCain's "No Change Express"
The Flint Journal: Presidential candidate Barack Obama promises at Flint appearance to help auto industry refashion itself.
I wish I could have been at this. I would've waited for hours and hours...
It's icing on the cake that the Journal actually avoided making one of the innumerable puns that presented themselves. "Obama Ramped Up Flint for Change," or "Candidate Obama Says Flint Auto Change Soon." The Journal can write good articles, and I'm glad when they don't derail them with lame headlines.
Actually, Flint has had several pieces of good news lately:
Flint Journal: We're rolling again: Flint spots get another movie close-up; This time it's 'All's Faire in Love' with Christina Ricci and Bill Engvall.
It seems that puns have been traded off for run-on sentences.
A worthy compromise.
Labels: Barack Obama, economics, elections, EVENT, film, Flint, journalism, labor, politics
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Thursday, September 11, 2008
Concept: Dune, the movie.
For my birthday my parents got me Dune, and it was the first time I'd seen this film in about eight years. I watched this film constantly in 7th grade, and it became one of my favorites of all time. In 8th grade I picked up the book by Frank Herbert, and wasn't as impressed by the book as by the film. Many friends told me that the series went downhill from there, but I am still intrigued by the rumors that have reached me about what happened to Paul Atreides.
Now I realize that I am in the minority here in two ways: that Dune is a good movie and that the movie Dune is better than the book. I won't make the claims that I have about Dead Man's Chest... that this film is underrated because it is supremely crafted in an uncommon medium. But I think it may be underrated nonetheless because we have a bias toward, for example, good acting and plot coherence over lavish setpieces and effective imagery. These things are each neutral on their own... in the case of Dune the latter grant relief to the former. The script might be neither as tight nor as accessible as we would like, but for me, the spectacle of the blue-eyed Fremen, a sand-worm on the attack, or Baron Harkonnen indulging his blood fetish (not present in the book) is enough to make a very dense and difficult experience into something quite enjoyable.
Which brings me to another point. I also like the shorter cut of Dune more than the extended edition and this ties into why I like the film more than the book. In Herbert's novel, Paul Atreides sojourn into the bad trip that is melange gradually dominates more and more of the book, until he is completely overcome with a messianic grandeur so saturated as to seem inhuman. The extended film cut attempts to preserve this plot arc. The shorter cut (while hardly economical) jettisons much of this in favor of the political arc of the story. Which is marginally more human and certainly more accessible.
It might be fairly observed that this is a bit of an artistic cop-out. On the one hand, I don't think that an adaptation can exist independent of its source material; otherwise it wouldn't be an adaptation. That being said, the transposition of an object from one medium to another, and all of the attendant issues, makes it self-evident that these should be considered different works of art. For that reason, it is fair if the film emphasizes what the novel does not. One might say that political themes can be more thoroughly and deeply engaged in a three hour film than an abstract philosophical construct (if you want to pose Star Wars as a counterexample, I have an answer to that). One might argue, though I would disagree, that films being a popular medium (as opposed to books) have a greater obligation to ease and accessibility. However, I definitely believe that this film mitigated the story in a way that was beneficial. It took a novel that had struck me as coldly intellectual and through flesh-and-blood and abridgment brought the story some distance toward the opportunity to access through sense and emotion. Far from depleting its mystical ruminations, it has provided the audience with a point of entry to them.
Dune is a flawed film, but its atmosphere and viscerality continue to inspire me. It is, much like Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho a work whose conspicuous flaws render equally conspicuous the risks it takes and its successful efforts to innovate and engage.
Labels: art, CONCEPT, esotericism, film, literature, science-fiction, syncretism
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Sunday, July 27, 2008
Diary: A Little July
So this blog isn't really near the blow-by-blow archive of my thoughts and opinions that it once was, and while I hope to make strides toward improvement, I don't think things are going to change here quickly. The prevailing theme these days seems to be transience... the scarcity of time, the brevity of passing moment, and there are hints of change in the air, so you better finish up what you're doing before it all gets flipped on its head.
Still, I think it's better to write a little than nothing at all, and this has been an amazing month so far. I don't want to lose that. The last weekend of June, of course, we went to a wedding, and the weekend after that I went to the U.P. for the fourth. A couple weeks following were comparably still... I've been working on Urbantasm nonstop (and succesfully)... studying Number Theory, reading Gravity's Rainbow and now the Mysteries of Udolpho. The weekend of the 12th I saw a movie with Jess and Sam, followed my an amazing rib dinner at Fat Willy's on Diversey, followed by a party to celebrate the release of House and Bird's first EP. The weekend after that I visited with friend and worked on Urbantasm some more. I visited Lisa and Sam among all of this, and spent a lot of time reading on the beach. On Friday, we hosted Gothic Funk Party #13 and yesterday, I saw another movie. I will be returning to these two movies momentarily. Next weekend, I will be at Lollapalooza on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sunday is my 30th birthday; it is also the night when Nine Inch Nails will be performing. In all of this, there is really too much poetry to contemplate.
But back to the movies for a moment...
I want to write more on both of them, but I do not have the time to right now... I can only say that these two movies brought me so much delight and excitement that I really feel came out of nowhere: I've already been looking forward to Lolla, and what did I do to deserve this. In many ways, they are polar opposites.
THE DARK KNIGHT
and
WALL-E
And I can't say anything about either that you don't 1) already know or 2) I can say in less than an hour. So just ignore all of that and go and see them, and when you have, talk to me about this, because seriously, I mean, seriously, they just seemed that good.
Labels: 2008, DIARY, film, Gothic Funk Nation, July
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