Lost In Translation

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea written by Kim Cooper about the critically acclaimed second Neutral Milk Hotel album is fairly new to me. I listened to it for the first time prior to reading the book after hearing so much fanfare about the record. I do think it is a great album, but I found that the book spent too much time discussing the band history and recording session for the album. I would have liked to have seen a longer and a more exploratory analysis of each track since I know the songs better than the band. It was also disappointing that the main songwriter Jeff Magnum refused to participate in interviews for the book. I can see how this album influenced bands like Arcade Fire and The Decemberists.

The Eel

The Eel by iconoclastic director Shohei Imamaura shared the 1997 Cannes Palme D'or with Kiarostani's A Taste Of Cherry. It is an interesting character study, but somewhat flawed in my opinion. A seemingly typical salary man, played by Koji Yakusho (who also starred in the popular Shall We Dance? in 1997) discovers that his wife is cheating on him and kills her in a fit of rage and jealousy. He is released to small town in Chiba and tries to star life over as a barber in the small town. He saves a young woman from an attempted suicide and she becomes his assistant. There are a number of quirky villagers and some comedic scenes that seem out of place in the mostly somber look at atonement, retribution, hope and facing up to the troubles of life. Yakusho is excellent in his role.

I Lost It At The Movies

I Lost It At The Movies is the first book of criticism by iconic film critic Pauline Kael. It has lots of food for thought throughout, and has inspired me to see some classics. many of the films from this era were unfamiliar to me, but several of her essays are thought provoking as well and reflect the tenor of the times. The book is divided into four sections, and the first "Broadsides" had a couple of interesting essays-"The Glamour of Delinquency" (in which she discusses On The Waterfront, East of Eden, and The Blackboard Jungle among others) and an essay on the Paul Newman film Hud.The second section, "Retrospective Reviews: Movies Remembered With Pleasure" includes The Grand Illusion and Seven Samurai among others. The third and largest section is "Broadcasts and reviews 1961-1963." Some notable reviews in this section for me were about the French New Wave and Truffaunt (Shoot The Piano Player and Jules And Jim), Kon Ichikawa (Kagi and Fires On The Plain), Italian films (L'Avventura, LaNotte, 8 1/2, and La Dolce Vita), Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and Satyajit Ray's Devi. The last section is called "polemics" and the essays here look at the larger picture of film criticism and public opinion. Kael is known as one of the leading critics of the 20th century, so it's interesting to see what she thought of certain films and influenced a generation of critics and film makers like Roger Ebert, Paul Schrader, Quentin Tarantino, and Wes Anderson.

And Everything Is Going Fine

And Everything Is Going Fine(2010) is probably one of Steven Soderbergh's finest films and a tribute to the genius of Spalding Gray. It calls to mind the great documentary episode, June 17th, 1994 by Brett Morgan, for the ESPN 30 For 30series. Both films contain only previous filmed footage-there is no narration, no interviews, and no dramatized scenes in either film. There is a story that is there in between the lines of interviews and news coverage Soderbergh has been given access to the video documentaries of his monologues, interviews, family videos, and family pictures to give the story of the life of a gifted, but troubled artist. I was first introduced to Gray through his compelling first feature monologue directed by Jonathan Demme, Swimming to Cambodia (1987). I have subsequently read the monologue and re-watched the film and it resonates more now because of my travels in SE Asia and the stories of actors and the playwright Athol Fugard. From there I read his first monologues Sex and Death To The Age 14 and really enjoyed them. So I was hooked and would eagerly anticipate the films and books as they were released: the films, Monster In A Box (1992) directed by Nick Broomfield and Gray's Anatomy (1996) directed by Steven Soderbergh, Impossible Vacation (1993) was the novel that he speaks of in Monster In A Box, It's A Slippery Slope (1997) and Morning, Noon and Night (1999) are dialogues. There's a couple of dialogues that I missed that I'd like to catch up with as well: Terrors of Pleasure (1992) and Life Interrupted: The Unfinished Monologue (2005). Recently there was an interesting article discussing Gray's journals which have recently been published in The New York Times. All in all, I think this ranks up with Out Of Sight and The Limey as one of the best films directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Throne Of Blood

 

Throne Of Blood (1957) directed by Akira Kurosawa is a film that I first saw about 20 years ago. I was taking a Shakespeare class and one of our assignments was to watch Throne Of Blood and write a paper comparing and contrasting it with a Royal Shakespeare production of Macbeth. I think I had seen a couple of Kurosawa movies before, probably Ran, Rhapsody in August and/or Dreams. But this was the first classic Kurosawa I had seen, and I was quite impressed with several of the scenes: the hand washing scene by Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji Washizu, the moving forest, and the assassination of Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) by the archers. I recently read a glowing review of it in Pauline Kael's book I Lost It At The Movies. I was also impressed with the filming location (it was shot on Mt. Fuji), the attention to period details, the impressive cinematography, and great acting performances all around. The Criterion edition of the film features audio commentary by Japanese film expert Michael Jenck, an essay by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince, two subtitle translations and two notes on subtitling by Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie. It is definitely one of Kuroswa's greatest triumphs-transforming Shakespeare into a new culture and creating something new in the process.

A Visit From The Goon Squad

A Visit From The Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan has been generating a lot of buzz and winning awards (Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award). It is novel that reads like a short story collection since each of the 13 chapters are from different characters from various time periods including one that takes place 35 years in the future. I sometimes had trouble figuring out where the characters came from in the story-so it felt sort of fragmented at times. I also felt as though I couldn't relate to most of the characters, they weren't people that I wanted to spend time with. The whole music business aspect of it felt contrived and inauthentic, as did many of the characters. One chapter was written as a power point presentation, which felt like a gimmick to me. Another chapter was a sort of post modern riff on the celebrity interview that seemed like some perversion of the Chuck Klosterman classic interview: "Bending Spoons with Britney Spears." The futuristic chapter was a poor imitation of what Gary Shteyngart did in his novel Super Sad True Love Story, especially with the obtrusive hand sets (cell phones) that Shteyngart called apparatti. This novel seems over rate,d not unlike another overly praised novel that I read this year, Jonathan Franzen's latest novel Freedom.

The Gambler

The Gambler (1974) is Kalr Riesz's film from James Toback's autobiographical script. It is the story of a Columbia literature professor's obsession with gambling and risk taking. It stars James Caan as the professor and Lauren Hutton as his girlfriend and Paul Sorvino as the bookie. It hearkens back to those great 70s New York films like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and The French Connection. I found it well made and very entertaining. Reisz also directed a film adaptation of Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers as Who'll Stop The Rain with Nick Nolte that I also want to see.

BUtterfield 8

Last year I read John O'Hara's classic first novel, Appointment in Samarra, and really enjoyed it and vowed to read some of his other work. And in Slate there was a piece on BUtterfield 8 (1938), it was related to how this book can explain the economic depression of current times. I liked this story of a fast young woman, Gloria Wandrous (the literary godmother of Holly Golightly-it seems she is a later incarnation of this party girl), in the midst of the depression. She's a fast living and spoiled young woman living it up in New York in speakeasies. She seems to have a father fixation on older gentlemen due to an early sexual encounter with an older gent as a young girl. There's more of the great period dialogue: "giving me the high hat," and frank descriptions of sexual escapades that weren't really discussed in those days. I think it was a novel that was far ahead of its time.

Dean Wareham Sings Galaxie 500 Songs

Last week I saw Dean Wareham (former front man for Galaxie 500 and Luna) play at the Liquid Room in Ebisu. It was great to finally see one of my favorite rock artists finally perform. I've been a huge Luna fan for years and on their last tour for their final album, Rendezvous, I found out after the fact that they had played just down the street from where  lived in Harajuku a few days after. Since Luna's break up he formed a new band with his wife Birtta Phillips: Dean and Britta, which has put out three excellent records: the latest was 13 Beautiful Songs: For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests. (Which I picked up at the concert as well) They played most of my favorite Galaxie 500 songs: "Blue Thunder," "Tugboat," "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste," "Temperature's Rising," and "The 4th of July." During the encore they did a cover of "I'll Keep It Mine" (a song that was recorded by Nico) and New Order's "Ceremony." I would be happy to see them perform Dean & Britta tunes, and it's not likely that Luna will reunite any time soon unfortunately.

Shoot The Piano Player

Shoot The Piano Player (1960) is one of Francios Truffaut's most well known films and an example of what would become known as a New Wave film. I've read that Tarantino was influenced by Truffant and this can be seen in the verbose and whimsical thugs Vince and Jules who are supposedly modeled on the talkative Plyne and Momo. (Also, see characters named Jules and Jimmy aka Jules et Jim). This film reflects Truffaunts love affair with Ameircan cinema and literature as he adapts David Goodis' novel Down There with his own vision in the film. It is a lean 81 minutes with plenty of action: a robbery double-cross, kidnap, murder, and shoot out. It was ground breaking for its time and still very entertaining today.