Lost In Translation

Yakuza and Pushing Their Buttons

Here's a great anecdote about that Yakuza that is very telling of Japanese society's vertical social structure from Jake Adelstein 

L'Avventura

Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura has a lot in common with Jean Renoir’s Rules Of The Game in that both films were stylistic breakthroughs that weren’t initially well received. L’Aventura premiered at Cannes and audiences booed and walked out, however, the critics championed it. Furthermore, like Rules Of The Game like L’Avventura is an attack on the idle rich and their meaningless exploits that results in a sense of alienation. It is a simple tales of a woman who disappears and how her best friend and boyfriend fall in love while they are trying to track her down. The film was groundbreaking in the way that Antonioni used landscapes, long takes, and deep focus cinematography to express the psychological feelings of characters and the mood of the film. The well presented Criterion edition is a two disc set with audio commentary by film historian Gene Youngblood, Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials, a documentary, Writings by Antonioni read by Jack Nicholson, as well as a new essay by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009

It has become a yearly tradition to read The Best American Nonrequired Reading for the variety of comics, magazine pieces, and unheralded short stories. I recently finished the 2009 edition with a introduction by cartoonist Marjare Satrapi and found a lot to like. There were several good nonfiction pieces like “Boomtown, Iraq” by Denis Johnson, “A Product of This Town” (a story about the Jena 6) by J. Malcolm Garcia, Jonathan Franzen’s tribute to David Foster Wallace, “Relations” (a piece on race) by Eula Bliss, “The Ticking Is The Bomb” (a piece on Iraq) and “Your Exhausted heart” (about the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans) by Anne Gileson. There were also a number of entertaining short stories like “Tripletes” by Susan Breen, “Wild Berry Juice” by Rivlsa Galchen, “Monster” by Rebekah Frumkin, “The Temp” by Amelia Kachary, and “The Good Word” by Yannick Murphy.

Justified

There's an entertaining new drama produced by Elmore Leonard, based on one of his characters from his novels and short stories, Raylan Givens, played with panache by Timothy Olyphant: 

It was adapted for television by Graham Yost, the creator of the series “Boomtown” and a writer on “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” who also developed the series as a whole, which, after the first episode, consists of new material. Leonard, along with Yost, is one of “Justified” ’s executive producers, and is reportedly so pleased with the enterprise that he’s going to write another Raylan Givens story. Leonard’s work has been adapted before, with mixed success—the Steven Soderbergh movie “Out of Sight,” starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, ranks high on fans’ lists, as does Barry Sonnenfeld’s “Get Shorty”—and many writers revere him. This is actually something that Leonard is famous for: being worshipped by other writers. Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” is based on a Leonard story, and Tarantino’s career in general is an homage to the Master. Accompanying the publicity material for the series was a blue rubber bracelet, the kind that people wear to show their support for good causes, with the letters “WWED” on it. They stand for “What Would Elmore Do?,” the question that the show’s shepherds said they repeatedly asked themselves. So far, their answers to that question have been more sharply Leonardesque than their effort to replicate What Elmore Did Do in the short story. It perhaps doesn’t help that the first two episodes weren’t shot in Kentucky; something seems a little off. And the two female characters in the first episode are weak: the ex-wife, Winona (Natalie Zea), doesn’t have much of a part, and Ava, the husband killer, eludes Carter’s efforts to inhabit her with conviction.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2010/04/05/100405crte_television_franklin#ixzz0kvHHIUh2

The Pillowman

I think Martin McDonagh is probably the most interesting playwright in contemporary theater. He is now most primarily known for his excellent film In Bruges. I previously read The Beauty Queen of Leenane And Other Plays. The Pilowman gained a lot of attention in 2005 when it opened on Broadway. I finally got a copy of it and read it. I think two defining traits of McDonagh are his excellent dialogue and violence. It is a black comedy, like much of his work that focuses on life and art, fact and illusion, as well as politics, society and creativity. I am equally interesting in seeing/reading A Behanding In Spokane.

Broken Embraces

I think Broken Embraces is one of Pedro Almodovar’s better films of the last few years. It seems that he has a sort of revival with Penelope Cruz at the center of his last two films (the previous being Volver). Cruz was spectacular in both films and looks gorgeous on the screen. I think the film requires some leaps of faith in relation to the believability of the story and plot, but there are some beautifully filmed scenes and some great combinations of music and images with music from Can and Cat Power among others.  There are also some great locations used throughout the film as well.

The Nezu Museum

The Nezu Museum in Minami Aoyama recently got a facelift by Kengo Kuma. It is a private museum that started with a bequest from a rich industrialist with a collection of of more than 7,000 Japanese and East Asian items. I finally managed to visit the impressive space, after two failed attempts (once when it was closed on a national holiday and later then when it was closed preparing for this installation). I had no idea that it also houses a massive Japanese garden covering more than 20,000 square meters. The picture above is of the approach from the main gate.

 

Interior of the museum, 1st floor.

This is the new cafe near the museum with a fine view of the garden.

 

View of the garden from inside the museum.

 
A bridge over the pond to one of the tea houses within the garden.

 

Statues of boys in the garden.

One of the several buddhas in the garden.
 

 Here are gates leading to a shrine.

Links Of The Day: 04/06/10

"Your masterpiece sucks," user ratings at Amazon in Salon.

A New book is discussed in Road Trip With David Foster Wallace in Salon.

There's an interesting sounding new documentary coming out from visionary director Michel Gondry via Salon.

Treme, David Simon's new series about New Orleans for HBO gets a rave review from The New Yorker's Nancy Franklin.

I'm really enjoy Season 3 of Breaking Bad so far, my second favorite TV show after Mad Men.

The ESPN series "30 for 30" sounds really interesting, the latest installment, "The Guru of Go," is about basketball coach Paul Westhead-best known for his fast breaking Loyola Marymount teams

Bronson / Tyson

It seems fitting that I saw Bronson and Tyson in the same day. Both films are about real people who are violent public figures and legends in the their respective countries-England and America.

Perhaps, the true pairing for Bronson would be Chopper-another film about a infamous violent criminal in Australia. I would say right off that Bronson is an art film and wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it visually arresting and interesting in the way that it told the story of England’s most famous criminal. I don’t know much about the actual public figure but I imagine he has a flair for self-promotion or self-mythologization. Tom Hardy pulls off a topnotch performance. I’d be curious to research and find out more about this intriguing character, because the film almost seems like a performance piece.

Tyson is a documentary that is totally narrated by Tyson, himself. I grew up watching his fights and it is very clear that he has lived his amazing and tragic life in the public eye. It is just an amazing story of success against all odds, as well as talent and money squandered. It was almost like watching a train wreck and it reveals how much elite sports are about attitude and having the right mental state to succeed at a high level. It is a fascinating story.

Reading Tim O'Brien In Hanoi

There's an interesting article about Vietnamese translations of American Vietnam war novels in the NY Times:

It shouldn’t have been so hard to find Vietnamese who could talk about O’Brien. He is, after all, a seminal Ameri­can novelist of the Vietnam War, and one would think his books — including “If I Die in a Combat Zone” (1973) and “Going After Cacciato” (1978) — would be reasonably well known to Vietnamese readers. They are not. In fact, almost none of the major American novels about the war are known to Vietnamese readers; they have not been translated and published here. You can buy photocopied English-language editions of Robert Stone’s “Dog Soldiers,”Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke” or many classic American works of nonfiction from wandering book sellers who ply the tourist neighborhoods in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but like most people around the world, few Vietnamese read in foreign languages for pleasure. A small group of the literary elite read unofficial translations of some American works on Vietnamese-language émigré literary Web sites, like Talawas. But for the most part, Vietnamese are simply unfamiliar with American fiction about the war.