Oh, no, no. Thank YOUUUU!!

Alright, the stars are off the streets and right where they should be...at home recovering from massive hang-overs and self-congratulatory overdoses.

I've now been asked a couple times "what I think." And this was my VERY snarky (but slightly edited) reply Monday morning, after looking at a list of the winners. Oh! And I've changed the font-color since they went "green." "Hollywood" goes "green." I'll believe it when Vegas goes "green."

As I have no cable and no desire for such, I didn't/couldn't watch it.

I thought the Best Sounding Film of last year was "The Fountain." It looked nice, too. But despite that it was one of the worst movies I saw/heard last year. What won? "Letters from...?" I'd have personally given it to the same guys for "Flags..." but hey...six of one....

The Abigail Breslin nomination is a joke when you think of the kid from "Pan's Labyrinth." Or even Dakota Fanning for "Charlotte's Web." Jennifer Hudson was a fine choice for just stopping the show in "Dreamgirls." Someone should have. Cate Blanchett can't win Best Supporting every year.

I LIKE the fact that Alan Arkin won ("it IS brain surgery!"*)...finally. I mean, how many times can you be the Best Thing in a movie and not get something? I'd have been happier to see Marky-Mark win for what was a really GREAT performance against all odds amongst a group that SHOULD have acted rings around him. He and Alec Baldwin were the best things about "The Departed." And as I said in my review, Scorsese acknowledged the fact by giving a one-on-one between the two of them some fancy-schmancy inspired Scorsese camera moves (The only thing I can compare it to was Darren McGavin's terrific (and uncredited) role in "The Natural"--every actor in the room is making 20-100 times what he's making, but he waltzes in and acts like he owns the place. I'm not a Mark Wahlberg fan, but he was terrific). I'd like to see "Little Children" because I like the director, and want to see Jackie Earle Haley's performance.

"The Departed" is just not that good a film, hands down. It's derivative (doubly so as "Infernal Affairs" was inspired by Scorsese movies), but Scorsese has to get his Lifetime Achievement Award for SOMEthing. I'd have been happy with "The Queen" which is wickedly well-done, or "Letters from..." (except it that should have been "Flags of Our Fathers").

For the script, "Children of Men" should have won over "The Departed" (although it had some zinging good dialogue), for the sheer deconstruction and re-build that Cuaron made of it. "Borat" being nominated was a joke.

The Academy has long exhibited that they are tone-deaf. They did so again last night, giving "Babel" the award for score. Santoalalla (he won last year for writing 15 minutes of guitar music for "Brokeback Mountain") demonstrated that he could ape world music, but that's Composition 101 for any composer. It should have been Alexandre Desplat for "The Queen" or better still Javier (something or other) for "Pan's Labyrinth" which was inspired from opening note to final fade.

Jack went bald as a plea to Britney Spears for a date, I think.

There was no line about "This broadcast's gone on so long Congress wants to withhold funding?" I think Ellen DeGeneres is terrific.

Other than that, I have no opinion at all.

I get to vote on the Emmy's within a couple of months. Isn't that ironic?

* In a recording studio in town there is a big T-shirt where Adam Arkin (Alan's kid-who does some voice-over work there) wrote: "It's not brain surgery." Right below it is Alan's reply: "It IS brain surgery!" And ya know, you can hear exactly how Alan would say that...

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar...

Okay, now read that title the way Tony Randall would (in "The Odd Couple") and you have a close approximation of my attitude towards this year's..."contest." That would be a kind of sad, pitying condescendence. I can take that attitude--this year, I don't have any live television to watch the thing (though I suspect that, like last year with Jon Stewart, the show will be a cut above being hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and all--I hope she doesn't dance to "Proud Mary" with Snow White!), so I'll take the snooty approach and say that "it's not a good year."

It actually is. The nominees for Best Picture are a mixed bag: although I didn't like "The Departed" and didn't think "Little Miss Sunshine" deserved a nomination, there's not a real "dog" in the bunch (I say this not having seen "Babel," just going on Jon's assessment). There's also no clear favorite to win. I'd like to see either "The Queen" or "Letters from Iwo Jima" win, even though I'd have preferred to see Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" be the nominee. It will probably be "Babel." Mirren will take Best Actress. Whitaker will take Best Actor (though I'd love to see O'Toole win--finally). Eddie Murphy will take Best Supporting Actor (although--I know--Mark Wahlberg was the stand-out in a great cast at the top of their games in "The Departed") and Jennifer Hudson will take Best Supporting Actress: both Murphy and Hudson for "Dreamgirls"--haven't seen it, but the awards have something to do with dues-paying. Which brings us to Martin Scorsese, who will win Best Director, even though he wasn't this year. That would be Eastwood, or Greengrass, or any of a number of Spanish directors. It'll be a Compensation Award, like James Stewart winning for "The Philadelphia Story," as opposed to "Mr. Smith..." Scorsese should have won for "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas" or "Taxi Driver" or "Kundun" or "Gangs of New York" or "The Age of Innocence," all very personal masterpieces as opposed to recent showy exercises like "The Aviator" or..."The Departed." Still it's nice that they were able to make room for him this year. He has long deserved it. So has Ennio Morricone, who will get the Lifetime Achievement Award. It doesn't matter what kind of "movie-fan" you are, you've heard a great Morricone score: if you're a snooty film-fan, then he did "Cinema Paradiso" and "The Mission;" action-fans know him for the Leone spaghetti westerns and "The Untouchables;" Sci-Fi fans for "Mission to Mars" and "The Thing;" He does it all, and he does it like no one else. Bravo.

But, having said all that, there's no real reason to watch, and I can't get too exercised about it. The show is at its best when its at its worst. When somebody decides to get all-political, when Cher's costumer goes on a bender (when anybody goes on a bender), when the claws come out. Now, that's an Oscar show! Lately it's all been a little safe and frozen in gilded amber. So I guess my attitude would be "Meh." For a related article on that word, go here.
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The same story from another part of town. AARP magazine has its version of the Oscars only it's called the "Movies for Grownups" awards (for those 50 and older, and face it, you are heading there). Not a bad list, really. Their lists of nominations are quite excellent. Its top honors:
Best movie-"The Last King of Scotland"
Best Actress-Helen Mirren "The Queen"
Best Actor-Donald Sutherland "Aurora Borealis" (never heard of it!)
Best Director-Clint Eastwood The Iwo Jima movies
Best Screenwriter-William Broyles, Jr./Paul Haggis "Flags of Our Fathers"
Best Comedy "Little Miss Sunshine"
Best Foreign Language Film "The Lives of Others"
Best Documentary "51 Birch Street"
Breakaway Accomplishment-Terry Badshaw "Failure to Launch" (WTF?)
Best Intergenerational Movie "Akeelah and the Bee"
Best Grownup Love Story Tom Wilkinson/Blythe Danner "The Last Kiss"
Best Movie Time Capsule "Hollywoodland" (they liked the production design)
Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Be Grownups "Lassie" (with O'Toole and Pete Dinklage, it's worth a look)
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Okay, Okay. One more "Hollywood" post. One fellow who just recently died (and so won't be part of the "Obituary Montage" at the Oscars) is Peter Ellenshaw. In an industry now dominated by CGI for good or ill, Peter Ellenshaw created special effects in the simplest manner possible--he painted them. The more spectacular effects and panoramas in Disney's films in the late 50's-early 60's were due to Ellenshaw's matte paintings. You'd look at them up close and they'd just be daubs and globs of paint, but on a glass-field, photographed by a camera, they glowed with a magical hyper-reality that warmed the heart and "sold" the scene. He was a film-artist in every sense of the word. To read about Ellenshaw and to see more of his work, you can read tributes here and here, and here stands his official web-site. When you speak of Disney "Magic," he was one of the Walt's grand wizards.
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Man-oh-man, it is stormy out here today. Grey skies. White caps. Birds flying backwards. Even the eagles are a little panicky in their flight-paths. Now for future reference, if you ever visit the cabin and are confronted by the dog, bear this in mind: he was a cringing, shaking little ball of fur during the big wind gusts today. Scared-to-death. Big "mean" ol' dog. Nice act.

I think any love affair I might have had with the Island is over. I was over at Walaka's "Flapjack Friday" last night--I had a late start at the Ranch, I was hungry, I'd driven all damned day and I needed company-- at one point he mentioned that he'd applied to a teaching position on the Island and might move here. My reaction was so sharp it surprised even me "Why in the HELL would you do THAT?" Walaka was sitting casually, but that snapped his head back. "Full-time, tenured position?" "Oh, yeah, well, yeah, but if it was just one class of many..." A solid year of commuting on and off the Island has taken its toll: I now think it was a stupid thing to do, to move out here and work way over there. But it didn't simply occur to me--it lept out of my chest like that thing in "Alien." That's why I'm looking for work closer to home.
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I did have a nice time at Walaka's last night. Big crowd. Good eats. "Meh" movie. Good group of actors, some of whom were VERY into their parts and even little cameos by Tippi Hedren and Shirley Jones. Two women directed it but they apparently didn't have any qualms about exploiting Danica McKellar as a trampolining cheerleader (I guess as long as she's not nude, it's not exploitation, huh?) I suspect that this was a "deal" picture where everybody was represented by the same talent agency. I also suspect the film-makers are Kubrick-obsessed*. Half the dialog in the movie consists of "Open the door, Hal!" and at one point "the Kubrick box-set" is equated with Grandmother's sterling-silver candlesticks. Hmmm. Hmmm-sliding into "meh."

But it was good seeing everybody. Glad to see John, however briefly, and although I didn't meet O o-fficially, she acted like we had, which was gratifying. I've read so much of her, I feel like introductions might just be redundant at this point. Some passing swipes of conversation about Ken Nordine--one of my little pockets of "fun with audio" is his "Word-Jazz" concepts. He's an "aging hipster," to use Dr. Evil's phrase, but he's still fun and young at heart, and filled with good ideas. He is 87, and one has to use the phrase, "years young." May we all age so well and imperceptibly.
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Okay. Smokey just ran in and sat beside me, looking at the door. "You need to go out." I said to him. He looked at me and headed for the door. Has to pee! K was asleep (she's still sick!), but he knew what to do. I take back everything I said about him before. Smart dog. Knows just what to do.
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So, yeah, K's still sick. She overdoes the previous day, and, as a result, gets a little more bronchial the next. Got her more juices, more Nyquil, more Airborn, and made her some homemade soup (Oh, yeah, I'm a "miracle-worker" alright--she told me how to make it, and what she needed). It's worrying. Stay in bed longer next time...don't overdo, it doesn't work like that with this one. But she's eating more. That's a good sign.
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So, okay, that's a wrap. Print it. Let's go eat.



*Like I should talk. I've written about Kubrick here, here and here. And there's another in the works. Sheesh!

So Bad it's Good Friday

There's a guy at the Ranch who likes to share stuff. Like the "Robot Bastard" movie from a few weeks back. "Off"-stuff. Wierd stuff. But stuff I find amusing. Sure, it might have the budget of a week's buying of groceries at the P-X, but there's some spark there that makes it worth it. Some knowledge of "yeah, it looks like crap, but we know what we're doing" that brings a smile to the face.

So here's a British series (comedie) that embraces the cliches of really bad-tv, and the egos that don't have a clue they're producing bad-tv. That's all the set-up I'll give you, other than to warn you this is a retrospective of a (*kaff*)70's horror series (that, according to the show's creators--in their DVD like commentary--was "too much ahead-of-its-time to broadcast,") and so, has some "shocking" amounts of badly-realised violence.

I give you "Garth Marenghi's 'DarkPlace.'" *


Oh man, where do I start? Of course, there's a bit of "Ray Bradbury Theater" in there, and "Orson Welles' Great Mysteries," throw in a dash of Stephen King and Clive Barker and amp the ego to "11." "DarkPlace" Hospital looks like one of those cardboard settings in Gerry Anderson's puppet series. Lots of nice little jokes about bad dubbing and out-of-sync dialog...and just BAD BAD BAD writing. Wow. In one of the "interview" segments of the show, they try to compare Garth's "acting style" to that of Emmy Award winner William Shatner, but I see a lot more of Patrick McGoohan there (much as I love "Secret Agent" (or "DangerMan") and "The Prisoner."

This is good stuff. A lot of knowledge went into this. And it's bad. But enjoyably bad. I've seen some of the films of Ed Wood. And I'd watch them fully expecting to be entertained, but I'd always end up feeling annoyed. Even a little angry. Wood didn't make films so bad they were good (as Michael Medved** would have you believe). He made films so bad, they were just...BAD. I've never found incompetence entertaining (which is why I guess I'm not a fan of "American Idol"), so, I've never found Wood's films entertaining in the slightest. The best thing you could say about Ed was...he didn't not know how to use a camera. Is that faint praise enough?

But...I have this sense of...loss. Of...(pause) some-thing left un...done. But....(long interminable pause...is that long enough, yeah, I think so) whatcoulditbee?
Oh! Yeah! I let William Shatner off the hook. Here's Bill doing "Rocket-Man" from the 1978 Sci-Fi Awards Show.*** They broadcast it, unfortunately.

The memory...still haunts.

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K is still sick, so 1) I'm not taking her to "DarkPlace Hospital" and 2) I won't show her the Shatner video. No need making her sicker in either case!

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Crude Oil prices continue to rise--it's at $60.95 a barrel today. Expect a gas-hike in the near-term.

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Song in me head: Still blessedly free of what the Germans call (roughly translated)"ear-worms." Believe me, you don't want to know what the last one was....

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* What you're seeing is Part 1 of Episode 1. If you go to your local YouTube constabulary there are Parts 2 and 3 of Episode 1, a complete Episode 2, a Garth Marenghi movie "War of the Wasps," and a spin-off interview series "Man to Man with Dean Lerner." It's a franchise, people!

**Medved can be co-credited for the re-appreciation of Wood in his book "The Golden Turkey Awards." Thanks for that, Michael.

*** The thing I like about Shatner? He is self-aware. But he charges right over that thar' cliff, anyway, bless him.

How To Succeed in Busyness

K's sick.

That's the most important thing.

K's sick, and she's not getting better.

It started with bronchitis on Thursday, settled on Friday and on Saturday she and niece Kayla walked (nearly) ten miles, got a healthy massage (that turned them Gumby-like) and at that point I met them for dinner at a restaurant that we'd had some good luck with in the past. They had salad and a seafood pasta dish. I opted (adamantly, for some reason) for some french onion soup (which was quite good, actually). Good choice, that.

Saturday evening, the girls conked out about 7:30pm, while I sat and wrote about "Sweet Land." But, both of them began suffering from powerful stomach-cramps and nausea. Kayla left early Sunday to avoid Sunday ferry traffic. Poor K stayed in bed and suffered. Wouldn't eat for fear of feeling worse and her bronchitis came back. Dr. Yojimbo was on call and kept her hydrated, and hovered like a mother-hen ("Do you want..?" "You asked five minutes ago!") Monday seemed better (I stayed home from work and took care of her. President's Day, after all, and I was waiting for marching orders from a different sector). Tuesday, better still. Tuesday night was a night of wrenching coughs that sounded like they were do some mighty lung-rattling. Not good. We cancelled her Wednesday plans and she stayed in bed. I just fixed her some tea and soup. She's spent most of the day in bed. Poor baby.

I hope I don't get it (he said sympathetically). And I've been pounding "Emergen-C" and "Airborne" to avoid it. I don't think I will.

I'm moving too fast for it. The reasons: read on.
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Job-wise things are picking up:

1) The ol' 1's and 0's Ranch: Nearly the end of my contract. Got another "Outstanding" rating from my supervisor and rewarded him by letting him know that my last day would be at the end of March, and (sorry, them's the rules) I couldn't come back until a 3 month hiatus. Neither could the guy whose contract ended the day before mine. Or the guy who was up in May...and that's the entire department. They hadn't looked into hiring new folks to take over our jobs and we'd done a good one of making ourselves indispensible (or at least look like it!). Oops. Anyway, they know now. Started to use the term "Short-Timers" around the office. Few get it. What will I be doing after? Well....

2) There's the "Special Project" that I'm working on, though I'm not working on it as soon as I thought, owing to some political bumps and grinds, me coming on at the eleventh hour. Hey, they asked. I'm happy to help. How and where--that's to be determined.

3) Went to a screening last night at the U-Dub of Honest Abe and Geez Louise's work-in-progress "Searching for No-No Boy"--the story of author James Okada and his non-fiction/fiction book "No-No Boy" which told the story of a Japanese-American draft resister, just returnd from prison, post-WWII in Seattle. It has become a "classic" over the years and Abe has been waltzing around this particular subject for years, first as a feature, and now as a "full-story" documentary. It's at the half-hour phase for school-study, but the plan is to turn into a full-hour for PBS. That should be easy as there's a lot of ground to cover. I'll be doing the sound here at home over the next couple of months in dribs and drabs. If you want to see more of his reportage of Japanese-American history, there's his web-site www.resisters.com which can also tell you about his earlier film (and it's a doozy!) "Conscience and the Constitution." I've gone to a few screenings and each time the audience comes back with amazed questions and outrage that this story is never told. It is now.

4) Had lunch with Malott & Associates and a client about editing for a Math tutorial program that has done so well here that they're now "localizing" it for Britain and India. Lots of recording and lots of editing. I'll be doing a bunch of the latter.

5) The local radio station called. I talk to them Friday about "where I could fit in." I haven't "done" radio for twenty years, but I've been tangentially a part of it the whole time, so I don't think it's much of a stretch. I see it as an opportunity to give to the community. It's such a local radio station (one of the few independently owned left!) and with a little community out-reach and some boosterism it could be quite an asset on the Island. Plus, I can expand on the writing-side. I'm getting the "itch" to write commercials and bits again.

6) Then if any of the resumes and applications "hit," I'm sunk. My dance-card has the potential of getting a little raggedy, but that's fine. Bring it on. I'll take a flood over a drought any day.
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There may be frost on the ground out here in the mornings, but you can tell Spring is coming...earlier than expected.

The black-birds are singing.
The sea-lions are barking at night.
The owls are hoo-hooing, as well.
Haven't seen the hummingbirds in awhile, but I think it's just a matter of time.
And the eagles and crows are a constant all season.
Haven't seen a deer since the night I passed three of them on my way home (last Wednesday). They may be getting more discreet.
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After going up 10¢ last week, the gas prices have settled to stay at $2.49 a regular gallon at my "bench-mark" distributors (which are usually 10-20¢ lower than the rest of the market). The price of a barrel of sweet crude is at $60.07, ten bucks higher than the low point at the beginning of the month of just over $50 a barrel. Gas prices never reflected the large dip in oil prices, and I doubt they ever will. Rigged game. Always was.

On the other hand, there's word that the first bio-diesel fuel pump has gone in at a grocery chain. Supply-and-demand should do some wonders there.
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Song in me head: Nothing comes to mind right now.
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I need to look in on K now.

Movie Review - "Sweet Land"

Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.
Don L. Snyder "Of Time and Memory"

This was Valentine's week and the requisite rom-com, "Music and Lyrics," opened on the day to generally luke-warm reviews. I was looking at Roger Ebert's web-site, and reading Jim Emerson's half-hearted 3-star review of "The Fountain" that ends with him saying "but I'd much rather watch somebody shoot for the moon when the stakes are sky-high than sit back while they play it safe" and I thought only a film-reviewer who'd seen too many half-hearted, limp romantic comedies could say that. Myself, I'd rather see a film that succeeds, however humble its aspirations.

So to find a film like Ali Selim's feature debut "Sweet Land" is something of a miracle. It is simple to the point of artlessness and has the genuine tone of a film where the camera is simply turned on and happy accidents allowed to fill the screen. Of course, it was meticulously planned to appear that way (14 years, in fact) but never once does this multi-generational love story tell its oft-told tale of love and struggle in the heartland in a way that feels less than fresh and improvised. Even a descent into Capraland is greeted with something of relief.

There's more to it than this simple outline, but "Sweet Land" tells the story of a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer who sends for a war-bride in the days following World War I. Trouble is, she's German, speaks but a smidgen of English ("Hello" and one useful exclamation of hunger) and has no "papers." Without them, their arranged marriage can't be performed and the two must get along under the watchful eyes of their neighbors, the suspicions of the church and the post-war fear of all things German (One could say it's a film for the times, but given its long gestation period one has to conclude, sheepishly, that its a film of any time). There are the inevitable complications, but ones born of the awkwardness of the situation, vagaries of the time and the realities of the harvest. One comes away with the entirely appropriate feeling that love isn't "star-crossed" and superficial, but very hard work. A refreshingly truthful idea, that. One wants these kids to work it out, despite the odds. Most rom-com's have me wanting them to get it over with.

A good chunk of the film is spoken in scandinavian and german, never needing to stoop to sub-titles, and that is due to the lived-in performances of its two leads, Tim Guinee--explosively self-contained and reticent as the NBF--and the gifted Elizabeth Reaser, so transparent and natural an actress that she could have done the entire movie in german and still communicated every emotion economically and fascinatingly. They say that for a movie to succeed takes a lot of work and some form of miracle and Reaser is this film's miracle. They are supported by many marquee names, John Heard, Ned Beatty, Lois Smith and Alan Cumming, who also produced. Audiences should be grateful to him for championing this powerful little movie of the heart, with its discreet camera work, extraordinary performances and story that transcends time and celebrates place. Released in 2005, but making it to Seattle at the end of 2006, it would have been a shame to see this exquisite movie die on the vine.

"Sweet Land" is a full-price ticket

Altogether Ooky

(This was almost my Valentine's Day post)

I've been watching a lot of "The Addams Family" lately. When I was a kid it was one of my favorite shows, but I have less memory of it, than, say, "The Soupy Sales Show" or "Supercar" or "Batman" or others from the era. So, watching it now is like watching it for the first time. The individual episodes have all the story development of a typical "Gilligan's Island" but there's such a geunine "warped-ness" that pervades the series that one can overlook it, and one might even have illusions that it was ahead of its time.

After decades of Cleavers, Nelsons and Andersons, what was it about that year that spawned two "household" sit-coms to feature monstrous families (the other being "The Munsters," Universal's attempt to cash in on their horror titles) that put the "normal" on its ear? Could it have been a reaction to the Kennedy assassination the year before? It was the same year as "Beatle-mania," so perhaps it was part of the nation's bi-polar reaction to Dallas.

I was introduced to Charles Addams' warped sensibilities by my "Dutch" Uncle Rob on my Mom's side. He had a sick, twisted sense of humor. At Thanksgiving dinner, he couldn't resist a mention of the Donner Party in a joking way ("Are we waiting for the Donner Party? It might get cold" "Donner? Party of one?" "Did we invite the Donners this year? They always bring something nice!") and he collected Chas. Addams' books of drawings for the New Yorker (which, due to legal restrictions I can't provide, but you should check out the Official web-site). My favorite featured two men in a high-rise Patent office--one man, hat in hand and the other pointing a very elaborate high-tech rifle out the window--with the caption "Death-ray, my eye! It doesn't even slow them up!" Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Still cracks me up. And The Addams Family was never an established family, it was just a set of recurring ghouls who bedeviled the normal world. For the series they were formalized and given names: "Gomez", "Morticia" "Uncle Fester" (nice one, that one) and esconced in a too-bright set full of exhibits from the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop from Hell. They were a nuclear family (and would have loved that term, in fact), but their relatives--the ones who were still living (well, maybe that didn't necessarily apply)--were all living under one roof--and getting along.

But the one thing that I remember distinctly from my childhood and why I still love "The Addams Family" is that of every TV family of the era, it was abundantly clear that, though they were strange and maybe a bit anti-positive thinking, Gomez and Morticia really loved each other. And much more than loved, they were ga-ga over each other. There was real passion there. Maybe it was Carolyn Jones' cool portrayal and John Astin's bug-eyed, over-the-top extrovert, but the two of them were instantly likable...and far-preferable to the tweed-suited normalcy in the other black and white kitchens. "'Tish! You spoke French!" would send Gomez into an arm-nuzzling frenzy. And when she called him "Bubbele" (which I've since learned is not some Slavic endearment, but is Yiddish for "Little boy") it would send him into vibrating paroxysms and send his eyes wheeling upstairs to the bedroom. I guess "The Addams Family" is the only TV-couple that I thought actually had sex.

Woof. They really were dangerous...

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As I said, this was nearly my valentine post, but I'm glad I saved it because there are enough stories on the wires (even leaving Britney and Anna Nicole--no links, you've seen enough--out of it) to make me think we've slipped into Charles Addams' world. Maybe because it's the deep, dark pit of February--the mercifully short month--with the promise of Spring a'bornin' (the Addams-like sign: the dandelions are in bloom!), but things are wierd out there.

Take, for example, this story on something we all needed desperately--talking urinal-cakes.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003574771_urinals16.html

I liked Dave Ross' comment the other day: "Rather than 'big boy,' shouldn't they be saying something like '....are you kidding me?'"
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Then there was this little aberration with its moments of horror:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003574720_dogear16m.html

The dog's ear fell off!! Oh man! And the groomer skips town, no doubt, running with scissors to another town to establish another clip-joint.
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Then there was this...The Times didn't go into the entertaining details...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003574773_wdig16.html

But the P-I did...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Spain_Hijacking.html

All of which proves three things a) criminals, even terrorists, are stupid. b) that the war on terror was won with United 93 foiling that hi-jacking attempt and upping the awareness of every single cranky airline passenger in the future c) that most pilots (this one and the guy who threatened to drop the slides on that interminably-tarmaced Jetblue airliner a few days ago) are damned resourceful people. The guy wanted to go to France and he couldn't speak french...plus he didn't notice that instead of France they were landing in the Canary Islands.
As they used to say in the old Dick Tracy Sunday features--"non compos mentis"

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This week, I'm taking a week off from the Ranch for a New and Exciting Project that literally fell from the sky a week ago. It's the beginning of something, which is always "a dangerous time" but I was asked, and the potential is great. But it will be dangerous. So depending on the vagaries of the schedule there may be a lack of activity here. There is, however, a review in the works.

In the meantime...a bit of audio fun. Yes. It's the guy doing all of it.

It's the Same Old Song II

I like to do this once in a while: tell the story behind a song's lyrics which then colors the song in a different way. Like the song says "It's the same old song/But with a different meaning..."

Sometimes I consider posting a week of great song lyrics by lyricists I consider geniuses, because a great song lyric is indistinguishable from poetry. Lorenz Hart is one of the people I'd feature. He had great success with his writing partner Richard Rodgers, but his life was a tortured one, struggling with alcoholism and the shame of his homosexuality in those primitive days in the early 20th century when gay's felt the need to hide. He died, alone, of pnumonia in 1943 at the age of 48. In 1937, he wrote a love song in the voice of a clear-eyed cynic hopelessly resigned to his affection. It is one of the most pointedly unromantic yet passionate love songs ever written. The lyrics haunt.

It has always been seen as part of a woman's repetoire, but the words don't seem to fit the attitude of a woman's. It's the sad despairing love song of one man for another, but its author could never use it as such.


My Funny Valentine
Music-R. Rodgers Lyrics-L. Hart From "Babes in Arms," 1937

Behold the way
our fine-feathered friend
His virtue doth parade.
Thou knowest not, my dim-witted friend
The picture thou hast made.
Thy vacant brow and thy tousled hair
Conseal thy good intent.
Thou noble, upright, truthful, sincere
And slightly dopey gent,

You're my funny valentine.
Sweet comic valentine.
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Unphotographable
Yet, you're my fav'rite work of art.
Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak,
Are you smart?
But don't change a hair for me,
Not if you care for me.
Stay little valentine, stay.
Each day is Valentine's Day.

K.'s home! Happy Yalentine's Day.
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Addendum: 02-25-07:
More thoughts--One more thing to love about the song-the author hides his emotions behind a superior intellectualism in the opening then expresses them openly. It's here that Rodgers shines. Those opening bars are baroque-sprightly, then the music dips like a high-dive to "My Funny Valentine" in a minor key. The music builds to emotional confessions in "You make me smile with my heart" "Are you smart" and the crescendo of "Stay, little valentine, stay" (all lines end with a sustained note). The other lines are musical stepping stones to those heartfelt expressions, and makes the singing of the song a bit like climbing Everest. A truly amazing song.

Additional Rattling

Remember this post?

Well, Walaka then did one of his own, and it generated the most traffic to my site I've ever seen.

The results are in and you can read about them here.

My comments? Action Comics #1 was one of my picks, but it was a shoo-in. The Crisis cover (by Mr. Detail, George Perez) is mindful of other work. The "Flash" cover is more influential for the story it illustrates than for the cover itself. Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" cover is sublimely simple, and owes as much to wife LynnVarley's color work than anything Miller did on it (sorta like what he does these days as a matter of course), but I think its the same situation as the "Flash of Two Worlds" situation-it's the story inside that garnered the votes. And I think the "Killing Joke" cover by Brian Bolland is a classic, no doubt about it.

Next....
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Along with seeing "Children of Men" with FarmerScott and Bolt' and "Pan's Labyrinth" on my lonesome, I rented three movies "49Up," The Illusionist" and "Little Miss Sunshine," all of which are worth looks.

"49Up" is Michael Apted's seven-year cycle of films examining (although some of the participants would say "intruding") the lives of a handful of British citizens that were first introduced in the television program "7Up." A "reality show" in every sense, every seven years they are interviewed, filmed and their current situation in life presented. For those who've been following the films, it's a bit like catching up with old friends and it's particularly interesting to see how they've changed in the last seven--some have grandchildren, some are starting new families, some have had their dreams dashed and are rebuilding new lives. And short answer for those who've seen the series--Neil is alive...and doing well. There is also a good interview between Apted and Roger Ebert where Ebert asks the hard questions --"What will you do when one of them is about to die?":"Who'll take over this project when you die?" Fascinating stuff. Highly recommended.*

"The Illusionist" was last year's other "magic" movie (the other being "The Prestige"), and although a much simpler story has a much more artful time in presenting its story. Filmed in the half-light sepia tone of a daguerrotype, it boasts fine performances by Edward Norton (probably the best actor of his generation, although he still rarely generates sympathy) and Paul Giamatti (whose purring formal police captain is far removed from the usual schlubs he plays--the guy has great range). Jessica Biel trades up from her role in the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, and Rufus Sewell makes a terrifically evil Prince Leopold. Worth seeing.

"Little Miss Sunshine" fulfills all the traditions of the indie film (Eccentrice characters, check. Road trip, check. Pervasive streak of dark humor, check), and has a terrific cast (Alan Arkin is always worth seeing, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, and utility player Steve Carell), there is some terrifically off-hand writing which is the only reason the various outcomes of the story aren't immediately telegraphed once each character is introduced. But it's a fine diversion, but one has to ask--"Best Picture nominee? Really? Really?"
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Saw a nice quote in somebody's office today, attributed to Brigid Brophy:

"Whenever someone says 'we mustn't' be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel.

And if they add 'we must be realistic' they mean they are going to make money out of it."
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Finally, while I was out moving large pieces of wood in my yard in the rain, I was treated to a spectacular sight. I climbed half-way up the enbankment behind the cabin to give you this view of a double-rainbow.


Twice the luck.


Have a good week.


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* Lovely joke in "49 Up:" How can you tell an engineer is an extrovert? He looks at your shoes when he talks.

Song in my Head: "Living Years" Mike and the Mechanics

Whistling: "Women of Ireland" (Barry Lyndon soundtrack)

Random Brain-Rattlers...And a Moment of Silence

And now, a collection of brain-rattlers and head-scratchers to be followed by an emotional kick in the teeth:
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1. Initiative 597. FarmerScott told me about this one and the way he said it, it sounded like some "Focus on the Family" off-shoot was trying to make the State enforce a "Go Ye Forth and Multiply" mandate.

Which I thought was stupid. No, make that "stoopid."

Then I find out it's actually some gay-rights group that, annoyed with a local court's ruling that struck down a gay-marriage statute because "the State has an interest in unions that result in procreation," (which sounds creepy to me...), decided to see if they could get a resolution passed that says in order to marry you have to prove you can reproduce (at will, I suppose) and if you don't produce progeny within three years, then your marriage will be annulled.

Such an initiative is, of course, absurd. And probably unenforceable.

And...more than a little stupid.

But after thinking about it for 24 hours...I'd sign it if offered.

Why? Because if The State is so damned interested in procreation where is The State's incentive for having children? The nation has a tax-credit for successful cross-pollinization, but The State does not. No, The State has no interest in whether you have kids or not, so what is their REAL reason for banning gay-marriage? Really. I'd like to see this initiative passed, the inevitable challenge in the Courts, and arguments con and pro, but especially pro. The State can't justify this "interest in progeny" bull-roar. So what's the reason? I'd like to know. And I'll bet I don't like the answer. But I'd be willing to pass this stupid challenge to find out. Goodness knows, I'm already paying heightened ferry-rates due to stupid initiatives, and I'd really like to hear The State squirm out of this one. Because if it's not for the kids, who is it for? Because they don't like collecting fees for marriage licenses (ho, ho)? I'd like to know the real truth.

Because there's "Truth." And then there's "Belief." And the two are separate, I believe.
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2. I've been hearing this word a lot lately: "incentivize"

And it irritates me. Yes, it's in the dictionary! Yes, it has been used by politicians as well, I'm sure, in polite conversation. But ye gods, it sounds like a cheap bastardization of a word. And as the word has the term or origin "Americanism" it very well may be.

Nothing could provide incentive enough for me to use it.

A story from my first day working at Microsoft: I got into an argument with another temper who said he was going to "evangelize" his project. I gave him a look. "Are you sure you want to use that word?" I asked. "There's nothing evangelical about software." He hit the roof. "I've been using that word for years!!!" was his reasoning. Mine would have been "Then you've been WRONG for years!!, Mr. Stupid!" but, as I said, it was my first day.

The guy was an ass. And a "Master of the Universe." Which is a fine segue to...

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3. It's nice working at "The Ranch." If anybody wants to see harmony across ethnic lines and faiths, that's the place to see it. Everyone gets along, united in Our Common Goal--the Great Task of providing more and more complicated software to screw up everybody's lives.

But there's the occasional "Master of the Universe." No, not the He-man version, the Tom Wolfe version. Those with the sense of self-importance and entitlement that is just a couple steps from The Big Let-Down, or a trip to the booby-hatch.

Example: I parked next to a van the other day, and was startled to see a baby bundled up in a car-seat in the otherwise-empty van. I looked closer. Baby didn't move. That's because Baby was plastic.

So, someone went to the expense of buying a car-seat, baby-clothes and an all-too-real baby-doll to do what, do you suppose?

My answer: In order to use the " at least two people" HOV lanes without being pulled over. All that expense to avoid a ticket that is what...how much? And something that can be avoided just by, oh...not using the HOV lanes illegally?.

How "nuts" is that? But evidently it's important enough to allow a MOTU to cruise the HOV's at his/her leisure.

Barmy, you ask me.

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4. "Purity Ball." Concept's a bit creepy. And at my first wicked thought, a contradiction in terms. Couldn't someone have come up with a better title?

Yeesh!

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5. They're raising funds for a statue of every (old) Seattle kid's favorite TV-clown J.P.Patches to be erected in Fremont, land of the other odd art-projects (see below). Now, if only they were to place it in front of what passes for the City Dump (The Fremont Waste-Station) I would be moved to contribute. J.P. was the Mayor of the City-Dump, after all. And I spent a great deal of my youth watching him and his eccentric (and anarchic) in-studio pals--part of the inspiration for the sound-work I did on "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

Hey, he could floor-direct the construction....

J.P will soon be joining Lenin, "Waiting for the Interurban" and "The Troll" in statue-happy Fremont

Which reminds me of a story of when I worked at KIRO. The lobby was decorated with very large color photos of the KIRO personalities...except for J.P. J.P.'s picture (not too dissimilar from the one above) hung just inside the entrance way once you got past the security door. Guess J.P. didn't rate as highly as the "Eyewitness News" Team. One day, one of my "radio heroes," Robert O. Smith stopped by to do a voice-over. I escorted him from the lobby into the building. He stopped at the J.P. picture, leaned over and yelled into its open mouth "Yeah, I'll take a Moby-Jack to GO!"

Laugh? Thought I'd die.

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6. "The Bug"

Walaka noticed it immediately, last time I visited, but then everybody notices--they just don't mention it. For a while I fooled myself into thinking that women were looking at me, but no, what had their attention was "The Bug" perched atop my Cinerama hat. "The Bug" was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, Jane-Marie and has come in very handy out on the Island where electric lights don't shine too much by the Cabin, and in the dark wire troughs of computer-bays when switching out wires and cables.

But I forget I'm wearing it. I was in Office Depot the other day getting tax-forms and the counter-gal was looking at me funny. Finally, she said, "LED?" "Huh?" I smartly replied. "Oh! Yeah! An LED light" just to be doubly redundant (and to repeat myself) "Yeah," she said. "I thought that was kind of an odd-looking garage-door opener."
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7. And finally, this story broke my heart. Best of luck to the most liberal regular at the Two Bells.

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But that's not it. More tomorrow--a couple mini-reviews of rentals and an update on a past subject.

Movie Review - "Pan's Labyrinth"

Childhood's End

There are some films about childhood and children that should never be seen by them. "To Kill a Mockingbird." "Night of the Hunter." "Lord of the Flies."

And this one.

"Pan's Labyrinth" is in the grand traditon of "fantasy worlds within worlds" stories ala Oz and Narnia and the others that have been dusted off and are in various stages of film-production since "The Lord of the Rings" hit the big time.

But "Pan's Labyrinth" is an original story by its director Guillermo Del Toro and is deeply rooted in his dark-gothic sensibilities.

It is Spain in 1944 and Ofelia and her very pregnant mother are going to live with Spain's version of an evil step-parent--an autocratic fascist captain smoking out a small cadre of rebels in the hills. Though his wife is frail and sick, Capitán Vidal has demanded she give birth to their son at his command post, owing to some generational obsession. Little Ofelia hates him, hates moving and is forthright about her feelings, that is when she isn't retreating to her fairy-tale stories. Along the way in a road alive with floating seed-fluff she finds a piece of masonry that is the eye of a weathered totem. When she replaces it, she releases...a creature, a shape-shifter, a familiar that follows her to the dank, depressing castle of her evil step-father and plunges her into the dark underworld where she is welcomed as a prodigal banished princess who must complete three tasks to return home.

Sound familiar? Of course it is. It's a fairy-tale. And Del Toro excavates deep into our collective subconscious to present the episodes in the two worlds and decorates them in his distinctive chiaroscuro designs that are gross and horrifying but also startlingly beautiful.

Would that children could see this film without fear and that, as in the film, reality could be transposed with fantasy and disbelief in one could be interchanged with the other. For in the deep recesses of Del Toro's darkness is a damned good story with a denoument that is earned in triumph even while it tears at your heart.

Del Toro has always dredged through the creepy shoals of fantasy and horror, scoring hits with "Blade II" and "Hellboy," but those films, like so much of the horror genre, depended on an audience's perverse charity to overlook lapses in logic as well as taste, and he's often taken advantage of that to achieve his effects. This film is not so lax. It earns its shocks with a discipline of story-logic and makes his fantasy elements an integral part of its real-world story. For fantasy to reflect reality has long been a staple of this genre of film. Here, Del Toro has gathered his elements of horror and fantasy and made them reflect a world-view where it is justified.

It is his first perfect film.*

It may well be his masterpiece.**

But it's not for the faint of heart. It's not for the innocent.

"Pan's Labyrinth" is a full-price ticket.

* Well, almost perfect. The sound design is too much (especially in the squishy squinchy sounds of the Captain), too obvious and mixed far too loudly, but I'll give that a pass.

** Also, you should be warned--do NOT walk in late to this movie. The first shot is a crucial and haunting one. It provides a context that resonates and expands the film.

The Future as It Was

The Holy Grail of film-music appeared in my mail-box this week. The "lost" chord. The "score" that got away. It was just another mystery in a film that is full of them.

But now, all is revealed.

It's Alex North's unused score for "2001: A Space Odyssey." Stanley Kubrick commissioned it, probably to keep some worried MGM execs off his back. By North's telling, the director was already well on his way to using classical pieces for his cobbled-together "score." But North really enjoyed the results of his collaboration with Kubrick on "Spartacus" (it's one of his best scores in a career full of great ones), and felt he could write something that would top Stanley's record collection.

He scored half of the movie. But few have heard it. North attended a screening before the world premiere and was shocked to hear that none of his work made it in. It was a bitter experience for him. He worked hard on those pieces for the strange science fiction film, and nothing came of it. North kept one cassette of the music, and lost it. And there has been endless speculation about the work and what sort of difference it would have made in the film. Jerry Goldsmith recorded a CD of it, immediately after North's death, in tribute. But now, the original session tracks (in mono) have been released on CD thanks to the Kubrick and North Estates, and it is a revelation (and you can listen to selections of it here or here).

So, last night I pulled my DVD of "2001" out of storage and synced the music up to the film (using timings supplied in the booklet) and watched the film for the first time with North's score.

And it sucked.

Not the music. The music is superb; brutal and isolating in "The Dawn of Man" sequences: fluttering and keening in the "Heywood Floyd" sections. Beautiful. Jarring. Triumphant in places...especially in the piece accompanying man's first use of a thigh bone as a weapon--North's ballsy attempt to supplant "Thus Sprach Zarathustra." The music is exotic and daring apart from the film.

But it's an education to see the music with the film it was composed for. Never has so much fine music been so wrong-headed.

The Dawn of Man: filled with despair and quick-silver drums

First off, the "Dawn of Man" sequence is scored "wall-to-wall" (with the exception of a space for the music accompanying the apes dawn-discovery of the monolith) which makes the experience relentless and oppressive. The music "matches" well here (it was an early sequence shot and edited with no special effects) and communicates a sense of despair and foreboding.

And that's the problem with it. North's music is constantly telling you what you "should" feel whereas in the film as it stands the only accompaniment is a sparse sound effects track. You get the same sense of space and isolation from this, but without the theatrics of the score. And again, the music is non-stop. There is no "breathing room" for the sequence and no respite from the dramatics.

One becomes aware watching both "versions" that the non-scored film requires input (and attention) from the audience to tell its story. There is no dialog (sorry, the ape grunts don't count) and no narration (though in the screenplay there was), and so the audience has to meet the film more than half-way in order to get anything out of it. With North's score emotional information is provided, allowing less attention from the audience and I'd speculate less involvement. Plus, the music brings a very real sense of artificiality to the scene. For that reason, the ape costumes seem less real, the action more rehearsed, and for this sequence, at the very start of the film, that's like taking any semblance of verisimilitude and clubbing it with a tibia.

The Waltz of Technology: whispy flutters and keening strings

The section of the transit to the Moon is where it gets really messy.

The music is less of a perfect match (in "The Dawn of Man" North actually accentuates every little nuance) owing to the late arrival of special effects and Kubrick tinkering with the film after a disasterous preview. But you can get the direction North was going in.

For the space-docking sequence, his music is fluttery and high-flying--a valid evocation of grace and flight. But when the scene shifts to the ship's interior--and Floyd's floating pen--North's music turns atonal and strange--dissonant and other-worldly.

And that is so wrong.

Much criticism was leveled at Kubrick for the use of waltz-king Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube" for these sequences ("banal" and "kitsch" were the terms most used by the pigeon-holing critics). But faced with North's alternative the choice seems obvious. Kubrick is using this traditional all-too-familiar waltz to show the orbital mechanics of space flight as a form of dance, a pretty sophisticated concept, especially in comparison to North's high-flying "music of the spheres." The use of the waltz implies a contained circular movement while also covering a distance of ground and that is a perfect analogy to the careful approaches that objects encircling the Earth must take to "rendezvous." But it is the carrying over of the music into the passenger-area and cabin-scenes that is the master-stroke. Where North makes these scenes of passenger-space-travel exotic and unnatural, Kubrick's use of the waltz conveys a sense of common-place--an every-day occurence as familiar to the people of "2001" as a trans-continental flight would be to its contemporary audiences (and doesn't the use of Pan-Am as the shuttle-carrier make that stunningly obvious?) The comforting waltz of "The Blue Danube" conveys complacency with humor making the complications of zero-gravity not bizarre/strange, but an amusing inconvenience while travelling in space.

And one further observation. "2001" is a film built without the under-pinnings of melodrama. It is as un-theatrical as it could be. North's music, unfortunately, is very much a part of those traditions, and adding its histrionics to Kubrick's work is a bit like taking a subtle dessert and covering it in Hershey's syrup. His music, though sophisticated and lovely, tamps down the uniqueness and experimental nature of "2001" and turns it into "just another" Hollywood sci-fi epic, making it less an experience and more of a roadshow.

Film-music fans do a lot of breast-beating about the "slight" to North, and where Kubrick might have made a phone-call informing him of it, he also didn't let Martin Balsam know that he wasn't using him as the voice of "Hal" or all the participants in the planned "talking-heads" prolog that it had been axed. Why?Probably because Kubrick was feeling his way on "2001," eliminating things in the eleventh hour--like the initially-planned narration--that he might have wanted the option of using, after all ("never say never"), or maybe he just didn't want to justify a decision he wasn't too sure of in the first place. Whatever. The fact of the matter is, North took his "2001" music (with its pay-check) and re-used some of it for his score of "The Shoes of the Fisherman," and then again in the score for "Dragonslayer." Three on a match. And a separate salary was generated for each. Nice work if you can get it. Plus, North's reputation never suffered. He was always working as one can see by looking at the eclectic list of films on his imdb listing. He is, after all, the man who wrote "Unchained Melody" and introduced jazz to film-scores with his music for "A Streetcar Named Desire."

He'll always be remembered for that.

Alex North won a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1986.*

*This year, composer Ennio Morricone will receive the Lifetime Oscar. Morricone has written over 500 film-scores (many of which, it's safe to say, you know) and been nominated several times, but never won. Bravo to Maestro Morricone, and to the Academy. There couldn't have been a more perfect choice.