Lost In Translation

Spokane: Winter Break 2015

It's been years since there was this much snow on the ground while visiting Spokane during Christmas. It's not easy to get around in and requires much shoveling, however, it is rather nice to look at.

I didn't get out much since it was Christmas, but the Saturday after Christmas I visited one of the many craft beer brewery taprooms that have sprung up all over Spokane in recent years: River City Brewing. I had a nice IPA, Riverkeeper nitro.

Eventually we made our way over to The Observatory to see some live music. This two man band was pretty impressive knockin' out punk rock ditties one after another.

I went downtown to the swanky Davenport Hotel with my sister and brother-in-law to visit my niece at work for pre-dinner drinks.

On my niece's day off I took her to lunch at Fire Artisan Pizza downtown near the Davenport Hotel.

They had a great lunch deal: a half sized salad and pizza for $10. I got a meat pizza with fennel sausage, pepperoni, salami, bacon, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and a spinach and Gorgonzola salad with spinach mix, dried cherries, candied pecans, Gorgonzola, and raspberry vinaigrette.

The Big Short

I am a huge fan of the author Michael Lewis, author of the book The Big Short, in which this film version of The Big Short (2105) is based on. There have been a couple of good films made about previosu books (Moneyball and The blind Side), but this one directed by Adam McKay is notable because McKay has cut his teeth on comedies-so you wouldn't think the bursting of the sub prime bubble would be anything to laugh about, but McKay fills it with several great comedic performances (Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Brad Pitt, and a fine ensemble cast) working from a clever script. I also like how there was some breaking down of the fourth wall with Gosling as the narrator of the debacle and cutaways to celebrity cameos (Anthony Bourdrain, Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez) that explained some of the more arcane terms and concepts being discussed in the film. Certainly one of the best of the year.

Best of Enemies

I really enjoyed Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's Best of Enemies (2015), which chronicles the seminal political left-right debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal during the 1968 presidential elections for ABC. The directors did a good job of setting up the importance of these debates on TV and how it invented a new type of journalism: pitting point-counterpoint pundits against one another without hitting the viewer over the head with the significance of this. The rise of the right in American politics has been a subject of interest for me for sometime and this is yet another snapshot of how the nation started veering right in politics-this election would see Nixon land in the whitehouse. The timing of these elections showed America fraught with tensions about personal/civil rights and opposition to the rising influence of America in the Vietnam War. It is a small but important snapshot of a turbulent time. But also a window into a very infamous public political/personal feud between Buckley and Vidal. It seems that Vidal had gotten the upper hand by calling Buckley a "crypto-Nazi" which led Buckley to call Vidal queer and physically threaten him on TV in front of millions. It was something Buckley never lived down.

Tabu

I was really impressed with and enjoyed Miguel Gomes' 2012 film Tabu (apparently a homage to a F.M. Murnau film with similar story structure). The film does an admirable job of presenting a compelling story within a beautiful formalist style defined by the black and white cinematography. The story starts out with a with a mysterious prologue featuring an 18th century explorer who, we learn via the narrator, is haunted by the ghost of his deceased wife. Even though none of the characters from the prologue figure into the main story, it can be said that the scene establishes something of a poetic tone and also one of the themes – the inability of escaping one’s own heart, as well as introducing the idea of colonialism in Africa by the Portuguese. Thus, the viewer is thrown off balance when the first section "Paradise Lost," is revealed to be set in the present in modern day Lisbon. Furthermore, this section is shot in super-sharp, high-contrast 35mm film stock. In this section we met a lonely woman who works for liberal causes, Pilar (Teresa Madruga) living alone. She becomes concerned about her lonely elderly neighbor, Aurora (Laura Soveral) who is being looked after by a servant of African descent, Santa-hence the only African connection to the prologue. I was guessing that there would be some mediation of the legacy of colonialism through this caretaker. But it finally ermerges that Aurora's prior life in Africa will be focus of the second section, "Paradise," of the film when she is dying and refers to her crocodile escaping to her neighbor's house in her confusion. She asks Santa to find that mysterious neighbor, Ventura (Henrique Espirito Santo). Once he arrives and begins to tell their story, which is the second part of the film "Paradise." This part of the film is shot on grainier – and blurrier – 16mm with out dialogue, which also gives it a distinctive look illustrating the idea that the past is more foggy and dreamlike and is coming from some unknown subjective viewpoint. In this section we learn about their pasts in Africa as well as how their doomed relationship blossomed and died there. The war between the Africans and colonists is largely a background to the personal story of forbidden love and tragedy, but exists as a legacy of the Europeans impact nonetheless. The young Aurora (Ana Moreira) and  Ventura (Carlo Cotta) 50 years earlier in colonial Africa are charming characters with interesting traits that distinguishes themselves from their elderly counterparts. Aurora is an expert game hunter and Ventura plays drums in a 60s rock band that does Portuguese covers of the Ronetts "Be My Baby" among other songs. It is fascinating and beautiful films, certainly one of the best I've seen in some time and one of the best from the year it was released. I am looking forward to tracking down his previous two features and catching his recent 6 hour magus opus released in three parts: Arabian Nights.

Christmas In Spokane

My sister's Christmas tree, it has been two years since I was last home for Christmas. Last year I was with friends in Queenstown, New Zealand for Christmas and two years ago I was in Japan and Vietnam for the holidays. Always great to see family at this time of year.

Vivre Sa Vie

I'm still exploring the films and impact of Jean-Luc Godard on cinema and my latest exploration has brought me to Vivre Sa Vie (1962). It is another exceptional film with the alluring Ann Karina, as Nana a woman drawn to prostitution for a number of reason and not lastly because of financial troubles. It has impressive cinematography from Goddard regular Raul Coutard and equally impressive score by Michel Legrand. It has a 12 tableaux structure that is somewhat novelistic and incorporates cinematic homage to films like Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc as well as fellow New Wave film maker Trauffant's Jules and Jim. The films is philosophic as much as it is impressionistic and still feels fresh today. The Criterion treatment includes: a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin, a video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni, conducted by historian Noël Simsolo, a television interview from 1962 with actress Anna Karina, excerpts from a 1961 French television exposé on prostitution, an illustrated essay on La prostitution, the book that served as inspiration for the film, stills gallery, director Jean-Luc Godard’s original theatrical trailer, a new and improved English subtitle translation, and a booklet featuring Godard’s original scenario, a new essay by critic Michael Atkinson, interviews with Godard, and a reprint by critic Jean Collet on the film’s soundtrack.

M Train

Patti Smith's M Train (2015) is a much different book than her National Book Award winning memoir Just Kids. This book is something of a memoir and something of a travel book combined. I find Smith a compelling person with alluring interests that range from modern explorers (Alfred Wegener) to 19th century poets (Rimbaud). We have many similar tastes in literature and films-two things that have informed much of her recent travel. One of her quests was to retrieve stones from the French prison (Papillion's) in French Guina and eventually lay them at Jean Genet's grave in Larache, Morocco. Whielin Morroco for a symposium on the Beat poets and writers, and Paul Bowles in particular. It is during this visit that she delivers her stones. I am also a big fan of Bowles writing and envy the fact that she got to meet him for an interview before his death. In addition, Morocco is high on my "bucket list" destinations. These two trips are bookends for the memoir. The first trip was one that Smith took with her now departed husband Fred "Sonic" Smith-thus it is pregnant with memories and nostalgia that came bubbling forth once she finally laid the stones more than 20 years alter at the grave of one of her beloved authors. Not all of the travel are physical they are the mental travels of time and memory to her days with Smith in Michigan to her recent life in an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York. However, ti also chronicles her journey to buying a place on Rockaway Beach that is destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in which we find her waiting for it to be rebuilt at the end of the book. These journeys and those that take place in her apartment and favorite coffee shops are far less compelling than the artist inspired pilgrimages that she records in these pages. These includes trips to places that I have visited: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's house, Casa Azul, in Mexico City and Tokyo and the grave sites of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Since I live in Tokyo I was especially interested in her obsessions with writers Ryunosuke Akutagwa, Osamu Dasai, Yukio Mishima, and Haruki Murakami. I wanted to ask her why she left out Yasunari Kawabata and Junichiro Tanizaki-two of my favorites that she doesn't mention. I was equally amused with her eating choices and her stay at the ultra cool modernist Hotel Okura, which is slated to be torn down and remodeled in the near future. A couple of her meals were at Mifune-a Kurosawa themed restaurant run by the actor Toshiro Mifune's family in Roppongi that I have been to before. I suspect that if she tried, being a well-known artist and writer, she could have gotten a meeting with Murakami as well. At any rate, several of the other pilgrimages are moving and enlightening. For example she visits the graves of Sylvia Plath, Rimbaud, Dasai, and Akutagwa as well. The Wegener Society meetings seemed interesting and exotic as well-I believe they took place in Berlin, Germany and Iceland. At any rate, it was overall an inspiring collection of travel informed by reading and appreciation of people present and past.

The Palm Beach Story

Director Preston Sturges has a reputation as one of the better writer-directors of the the studio period in Hollywood. The Palm Beach Story (1942) is the third film of his I have seen (the others were Unfaithfully Yours and Sullivan's Travels). This one is more like a classic screwball comedy and stars Joel McCrea and Claudett Colbert as struggling married couple, Tom and Gerry Jeffers, in New York. Gerry decides to go to Palm Beach to get a divorce and raise money for Tom's futuristic airport plan. Hilarity ensues as Gerry meets up with the Gun and Ale Club on the train down and when she meets a millionaire (Rudy Vallee)  and his sister (Mary Astor). Lots of great back and forth dialogue adn goofy happenings throughout. The Criterion treatment includes:an ew 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, new interview with writer and film historian James Harvey about director Preston Sturges, new interview with actor and comedian Bill Hader about Sturges, Safeguarding Military Information, a 1941 World War II propaganda short written by Sturges, Screen Guild Theater radio adaptation of the film from March 1943, and an essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek.

In Flight Films (Seattle)

The three films I saw on my recent flight home had several things in common in that they were tales of great success that were tempered with tragedy and the first, Amy (2015) a documentary by Asif Kapadia, was the most powerful one for me. It tells the story of an immensely talented singer-songwriter with a very original voice and rise to stardom and eventual downfall due to drug-alcohol abuse coupled with bulimia. The story was told with extensive use of private videos from family, friends, and associates throughout her life. Certain themes began to arise: daddy issues (an absent father who eventually divorced her mother, boundaries issues between her and her mother that started at an early age, bulimia issue that also started at any early age that were ignored by her family, destructive choices in lifestyle and choice of friends while she was getting rich and famous. Her fame had gotten out of hand and there wasn't really anyone in her life to curb her self-destructive activities and stop her from her early death.

The second documentary I saw was also about the music business, Lambert & Stamp (2014) directed by James D. Cooper. This film looked at the influence and impact of a couple would be film makers, Kit Lambert (an upper class son of a modern composer) and  who decided to take over management of a "mod" band, The High Numbers, who would go onto to become the seminal rock band The Who: Pete Townsend, Roger Dalltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon. The beginning and end of the film are happy and reflects much good cheer, but the excess of the rock lifestyle and battles over control of the band destroyed the good will these men built as a unit. There were causalities along the way: first Keith Moon died in 1978, Kit Lambert in 1981, and in 2002 Jon Entwistle-all drug related. In the end the surviving members and Stamp were able to get together to recount their early days and success for the film.

The last film I saw was, The End Of The Tour (2015) directed by James Ponsoldt, a fictional version of a nonfiction book, Although Of Course You End Up Being Yourself, about an interview between author David Lipsky and David Foster Wallace. The two authors are played by actors Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel respectively in a skillful performances in a dialogue heavy film. I am a big fan Of DFW and read the book he was promoting in the film (Infinite Jest), so I was already sold on the film before seeing it-but I wonder how it plays to people who aren't fans of the author. Of course Lipsky book was inspired by the death of Wallace by suicide in 2008. Again this is a film about a phenomenally talented person who succumbed to his own demons, depression, a common thread within the three films. However, all of them have moments of uplift and celebrations of lives lived with passion and purpose.

Top 10 TV Shows of 2015

There is a lot of good TV being made these days, so much that there are more than 10 shows that I have watched regularly. And I feel that the following are all worthwhile shows:

    1. Fargo

    2. Justified

    3. Better Call Saul

    4. Narcos

    5. Mad Men

    6. The Jinx (HBO mini series)

    7. Show Me A Hero (HBO mini series)

    8. The Knick

    9. Game Of Thrones

    10. Veep

Other worthwhile shows: House of Cards, The Walking Dead, Girls, Louie, and Red Oaks.

I think the best TV show I watched was the complete 4 seasons of David Simon's "Treme," which originally ran from 2010-2013.