Garden State

One of my favorite scenes from the movie.

Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (13 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Nice shot, part 2

Goodfellas
This is the shot that has been copied in a million different films by a million different directors. A great, long Steadicam shot that follows our main characters from the outside of a club to the inside of it.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (12 MB, Windows Media Player required)


Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson borrowed the shot 7 years later for Boogie Nights.
(A huge part of PTA's visual style is from Scorsese, as evidenced by the next two shots below and how they relate...)
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (11 MB, Windows Media Player required)



And, while we're at it:
Scorsese and PTA: Goodfellas/Boogie Nights
An additional example of Scorsese's influence on Anderson.

Click on the pictures below to watch the scenes. (700 KB and 300 KB, Windows Media Player required)
Scorsese used a quick dolly-in on the character snorting coke in Goodfellas.


PTA used this idea - with a slight variation - for the coke-snorting in Boogie Nights.

Nice shot

There's a million beautiful shots from films out there, but I just thought I'd highlight a couple of cool ones that I've had on my mind recently (and from DVDs I have sitting next to me).

Elephant
This is an amazing shot. And a really hard one to pull off... you have a long Steadicam shot (it's about 2 minutes - the clip is only part of it), the actors have to hit their marks, the camera operator has to hit his, and to top it off you have an in-camera speed change at the end, which, while it looks beautiful in the shot, is insanely hard to pull off right; plus, when the speed change happens, the camera operator is walking backwards(!). Anyway, I just always thought this shot was really beautiful, and it was actually this shot, which I had seen in the trailer, that really made me want to see the movie in the first place.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (3 MB, Windows Media Player required)



The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
I always liked this shot, near the end of Return of the King... It's a great moment where Gollum has finally stolen the ring from Frodo, and in this moment hope has drowned out of everything, and the camera pulls up from Gollum's face, up out of the ring, and cranes high above everything, while the music becomes a sad, somber nothing. Boy am I glad Peter Jackson finally got Best Director for this.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (1 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Stolen Kisses

I always liked the scene in Stolen Kisses where Antoine Doinel is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, saying the names of the two women he is torn between, to himself, over and over and over again. He says their names over and over and then throws his own name into the mix, and these names, and these people, become nothing and everything all at the same time. It's one of my favorite scenes of all time. I don't think anyone less than Truffaut could have made this work.

Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (6 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Favorite Freaks and Geeks moments

Here's a couple of my favorite moments from Freaks and Geeks:

Both of these are from the episode Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers, which also happens to be my favorite episode.
(The episode is also entirely set to music from The Who...and only The Who.)

(1) I always liked the part in the beginning of the episode that was set to the song "I'm One" by The Who. Basically the scene goes like this: Bill's parents are divorced, and his mother is a single mother who works a lot to support them. Bill comes home from school one day, while his mother is at work, eats some grill-cheese sandwiches and cake (the only food left in the house) and sits down and watches TV, and even though he's all by himself...he has the time of his life. This was based on the writer/director Judd Apatow's experiences as a kid, and I identify with the scene a lot. (And it's a great example of how the use of music in this show is amazing).
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (6 MB, Windows Media Player required)


(2) This next one is a clear example of music perfectly matching a scene. Bill is now faced with his mom getting seriously involved with a man he doesn't like at all. It's probably my favorite use of music in the whole show. It totally captures Bill's sinking feeling that he has as he sees his mom's boyfriend stay overnight for the first time. The Who's "Love, Reign O'er Me" plays over this scene. (I love the camera push-in onto his face as the song cries out...)
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (4 MB, Windows Media Player required)

My list of movies (of this year) that I really want to see, in order of what I really want to see first:

Tarnation
Sideways
The Life Aquatic
Maria Full of Grace
I Heart Huckabees
Bad Education
Vera Drake
Spanglish
Soldiers Pay
A Very Long Engagement
Finding Neverland
I Am David
Beyond the Sea
The Aviator
The Brown Bunny
Super Size Me
The Yes Men
Control Room
Shaun of the Dead
Born Into Brothels
The Corporation
Undertow
Napolean Dynamite
The Manchurian Candidate
P.S.
Kinsey
Criminal
The Machinist
Friday Night Lights

Ray and The Motorcycle Diaries and Kramer vs. Kramer

Ray
What a wonderful, warm little movie. I was a little uneasy about this from the get-go, considering Taylor Hackford was the director (the biggest things to his credit are An Officer and a Gentleman and The Devil's Advocate... not exactly perfect cinema), but I really wanted to like this, and Hackford brought some strong direction to the project. The movie just picks up momentum and never stops. The direction is particularly strong in the music sequences, especially the ones featuring Charles in the recording studio; they crackle with a fun intensity as if the song was really being recorded for the first time before our eyes. Oh, and not to mention, Jamie Foxx is Ray Charles. Up until this movie, people still thought it may have been Foxx's year, with a possible supporting actor nod for Collateral. Now with the release of this, the actor who could have been the dark horse in the running for a supporting actor nomination is almost certain to be a shoe-in for the leading actor award. He is just simply amazing. He blasts past the level of doing an imitation of the man and truly becomes him. The only big problem the movie has, in my opinion, are the flashback sequences in the script. Not the flashback sequences in which we are filled in on his childhood (in fact, the woman who plays Ray's mother deserves some recognition), but the ones in which Ray basically "hallucinates" in seeing a tragic event from his past. They are horrible. Trite and cliche, they completely took me out of the movie for the moments they appeared on screen. But it's a credit to the performances and the direction that once these were over, I quickly returned back into the narrative.
A couple of things I do want to mention -- For me, some of the most exciting scenes had to do with people "talking" to each other as they were singing. To explain: Ray Charles wrote most of the songs in his career about his wife and/or mistresses. To complicate matters, some of his mistresses happened to be his backup singers. So during times in the recording studio or in concert, Ray Charles would actually be singing to his backup singer, since the lyrics pertained to her, and vice-versa. It's quite compelling to see one of the backup singers, quite in love with Ray, looking at him while screaming/singing "...baby I love you..." and really meaning it. An even better example, although a complete 180 from the previous one, involves his hit song "Hit the road Jack". Ray had written the song about his backup singer/lover Margie Hendricks, who he split with while they were on tour together. So, with her still being a backup singer, they recorded the song together and performed it live. The scene in question shows the two in concert, singing the lyrics, everyone else out of focus except them, and she's screaming these lyrics at him; this great artistic expression of their anger. I just find it interesting that the woman on the recording is the woman the song was about, and these two were musically duking it out when it was recorded/performed.
Another thing I want to mention is a great scene that takes place right after the young Ray, 7 years old, finds out that he's blind. It's a scene that explains that Ray has slowly adapted to his new environment; but what I loved was that it was a very quiet sequence, a sequence that was explained in just visuals...How often nowadays do we get a nice, slow, quiet sequence that knows what it has to do and accomplishes it? The scene is wonderfully directed and has a great sense of rhythmic pace; great editing here. Speaking of editing, in terms of how it feels to view the film, it is one of the quickest 2 1/2 hour films in recent memory. I was truly sorry for it to end. I remember, after it was over, thinking that it could have gone on for another half hour, and it would have been fine. Well, just today, I looked at what was to be included on the DVD and...oh, what's this? A 3-hour director's cut? Thank God. The ending always felt abrupt to me, even more so after seeing it the second time. Hopefully this new footage doesn't disappoint.
The thing that amazed me through and through on this movie was the sound design. If this doesn't get a sound Oscar, it's a true injustice. Basically, the way it works in this movie is, Jamie Foxx actually plays the piano in all of his scenes, although it doesn't really matter to our ears, because the sound that we hear is of Ray Charles playing, which Foxx lip-synchs to. The real kicker is this: although Ray Charles himself got to see a rough-cut of the movie before he died, he didn't get to record any acoustic on-set sound for the scenes in Ray's home, or the hotel, etc. where the scene called for just Ray and his piano to be playing. So what producers did was find old, rare, acoustic versions of the songs in question (most notably "I've got a woman"), mix them with on set sound, and make it seem as it Ray had been playing on set that instant. It's really incredible to hear. And in even more credit to Foxx's performance, for the songs in which this wasn't possible, Foxx himself sang an acoustic version of the song live on set, and it's almost impossible to tell the difference where Charles ends and Foxx starts.
The last thing I want to talk about is of course the cast. There are so many great people and performances here. Aside from Foxx, Kerry Washington and Regina King turn in great performances as his wife and backup singer/mistress, respectively (King particularly has had buzz of a supporting actress nomination). King is almost as good as Foxx in the lip-synching; you really feel like she's belting those words out there. And I already mentioned Sharon Warren, who play's Ray's mother... damn I really hope she gets nominated. Curtis Armstrong (Booger from Revenge of the Nerds) and Richard Schiff have great little character parts as Ray's Atlantic Records producers. I got a kick out of seeing Thomas Jefferson Byrd (he's been in most of Spike Lee's later work), and Larenz Tate (from the 3/4-of-the-film-was-good Dead Presidents) turns up playing a young Qunicy Jones. (Kinda funny...4 of the actors in this film are from Dead Presidents...). And to top that off we have David Krumholtz! I love that guy (and on a side note, I'm excited to see him in the new independent film Max and Grace, where he plays the lead[!] opposite Natasha Lyonne). Wow, I'm getting pretty off-track now. Let's go to the next one.

The Motorcycle Diaries
Wow, was I disappointed by this one... I really wanted to like this. I've always liked Gael García Bernal, ever since Y tu mamá también, and from what I'd heard the film has been quite inspiring to people on the festival circuit. But it's never compelling enough to engage. Whatever you may actually think of Che, the point of the film was to show how this extraordinary journey influenced their lives. The problem of the film is its lack of making you feel the gravity of the situations at hand. This should feel momentous. It just ends up feeling like any other road movie.

Kramer vs. Kramer
Oh and I'm watching this now. I forgot how good this was.

Fun facts about the cost of Iraq

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower
___________________________________________________________________________________

Cost of Iraq war:
$200 billion dollars +
$400 billion military budget that the U.S. Congress appropriated for fiscal year 2004.
=Approx. $600 billion budget for war in Iraq

****A non-profit group called the Borgen Project (http://borgenproject.org) has estimated what it would cost to end certain global problems. They estimate for example:

Top Global Issues and the Annual Amount Needed to Solve the Problem:
Provide Shelter ($21 billion)
Remove Landmines ($4 billion)
Eliminate Nuclear Weapons ($7 billion)
Provide Refugee Relief ($5 billion)
Eliminate Illiteracy ($5 billion)
Provide Clean, Safe Water ($10 billion)
Provide Health Care and AIDS Control ($21 billion)
Stop Deforestation ($7 billion)
Pay off the Debt of Poor Nations ($30 billion)
=$110 billion

$600 billion - $110 billion = $490 billion more spent on killing poor people than the amount it would take to end all of the above.

(Quite alarming, isn't it?)

There was a decorated General with a heart of gold
That likened him to all the stories he told
Of past battles won and lost
And legends of old
A seasoned veteran in his own time.
On the battlefield he gained respectful fame
With many medals of bravery and stripes to his name
He grew a beard as soon as he could
To cover the scars on his face
And always urged his men on

But on the eve of great battle with the infantry in dream
The old general tossed in his sleep
And wrestled with its meaning
He awoke from the night to tell what he had seen
And walked slowly out of his tent.
All the men held tall with their chests in the air
With a courage in their blood
And a fire in their stare
It was a grey morning and they all wondered how they would fare
'Til the old general told them to go home.

He said,
"I have seen the others
And I have discovered
that this fight is not worth fighting
And I've seen their mothers
And I will no other
to follow me where I'm going.
So take a shower and shine your shoes
You've got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living.
Take a shower and shine your shoes
You've got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living.
Go now you are forgiven."

But the men stood fast with their guns on their shoulders
Not knowing what to do with the contradicting orders
The General said he would do his own duty
But he would extend it no further
The men could go as they pleased
But not a man moved
their eyes gazed straight ahead
'Til one by one they stepped back and not a word was said
The old General was left with his own words
Echoing in his head
He then prepared to fight

He said,
"I have seen the others
And I have discovered
that this fight is not worth fighting
No, and I've seen their mothers
And I will no other to follow me where I'm going
So take a shower and shine your shoes
You've got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living.
Take a shower and shine your shoes
You've got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living.
Go now you are forgiven."

I am ashamed to be an American today

Green Day Concert

Thursday night was amazing... I'll go more into it when I have time...

Dogville

Wow. What an amazing film. I bought it as a blind buy, based on the strength of Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark, Lars von Trier's previous films, and it was cheap (3 DVDs for $20 at Hollywood Video) so I figured what the hell.
It's a great triumph of minimalist style: there is almost no "set" to speak of whatsoever -- the entire film is filmed with people walking amidst chalk lines written on the ground that form the outlines of streets and houses and everything else in the town. This almost forces you to concentrate soley on the acting (which is amazing: Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Jeremy Davies, Philip Baker Hall, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård... and, a person I've seen in a few things but never really took notice with until now: Paul Bettany... his performance is amazing here, as is Kidman's), and eventually the chalk lines fade away from consciousness, becoming just what they are, a simple expression of sense of place and surroundings, in aide to tell a simple story.
Oh, and the ending's horrifying. I truely did not know where the story was going to go at the end. I was actually quite concerned that the ending was going to be pretty lame... There's the point of the film where it is 10 minutes left, and then all of a sudden Kidman's character starts this long conversation with someone, this seemingly meaningless conversation that doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything else... but this is just Lars von Trier fucking with the audience, because at that exact point, the punch line is given to this long starting point, and the only reaction is holy shit...
This is a great film, and while I still agree with the Cannes jury choosing Elephant over this for the Palme d'Or and best director prizes, it definately is amazing.

Michael Moore (almost) comes to Portland

He was unable to attend because of a family emergency, but they still had a great program set up: one of the founders of Moveon.org, the family of a soldier killed in Iraq, and a soldier that just came back from there. Michael did call in though, and here's his phone conversation to us, projected over the speakers to the crowd: Moore.wma (windows media audio, 4 MB, 20 mins long)

Some pictures from that day:


The first of the protesters...


And the first of the people...


The sound crew setting up speakers...


Channel 8 News arrives...


People watching from an apartment window, high above the square...


More people start to arrive...


...until the square is packed with people...


A mother with a son in Iraq...


(continued)

(continued)





A guy giving the peace sign to people driving by...


(continued)

(continued)

The square is quite packed by now...


The Bush-Cheney bus kept driving by, honking its horn...


And again...

Just read this in an article on Rolling Stone Online. The article, about the new wave of movie piracy, goes on to talk about how some soliders are watching Fahrenheit 9/11 on bootleg DVDs smuggled into the country (the film is offically banned in Iraq). The article keeps going, but here's the gist of it:

"Bootleg copies of the Moore film have been circulated in Iraq and are said to be having a "devastating" impact on U.S. morale, with some soldiers saying they are ashamed of their military service on behalf of "a lie." Moore is now trying to get his film shown at U.S. military bases."

Bravo.

Green Day

Green Day. October 28. Worcester, MA. My favorite band since I was a kid and I finally get to see them. Katherine's going with me... It's gonna be awesome.

First new post in forever

Wow, I never do write in this thing anymore, do I? Well, I'm gonna try to put more in this more often now... I'll make myself put like one thing in it before I go to bed each night or something.

Well, I guess there's not much to say for today... Tomorrow I'm gonna show Katherine Magnolia, which is cool - I'm really excited for her to see it. She'll finally get to see the movie that I keep talking to her about all the time. I'm purposely keeping the ending a secret to her though...that's the best way to watch it, and that's the way I watched it the first time I saw it, and I'm grateful I did.

Movie frame of the day: Buffalo '66

Bought The Big One and Eternal Sunshine today... this was basically my goal of the day.

I was thinking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind today. Just about how great a film it is, and how wonderfully it projects the feeling of being in a relationship, particularly a new relationship. I thought it was funny how Katherine had connected with it in the same way, but that she'd seen the outcome as more negative, in which she believed the same thing would just happen over and over again to the couple, but where I had actually seen it as more hopeful, with just a hint of a poetic sadness... It's a great new outlook on the ending, though. I had never actually seen it that way before. But I thought about the movie again today, and how great it was, and I watched the trailer again today, and I can't wait when it comes out on DVD later this month. One of my favorite parts is when, in a last-ditch effort to save her in his memory, he retreats to his childhood memories, to place her in them. There's no one certain thing about this scene that gets me, but I guess it's just the general idea of it that touches me. I really hope it gets a screenplay nomination. It at least deserves that. It would be great if it got nominated for other things too, but screenplay would be wonderful -- just the fact of how original the idea is and how wonderfully it pulls it off, it's worthy of it just for that. I'd love Garden State to get a nomination also. If it gets anything it would be for screenplay. It's sort of a long shot, but it might. Both of the movies made a profit, and were both critically acclaimed somewhat, with Eternal getting almost across-the-board praise. Just hopefully it gets remembered come Oscar time. On a final note, one of my favorite parts in Eternal Sunshine is the entire opening sequence, 20 minutes, before the credits even kick in, where he meets her and their relationship starts. Then, when it cuts forward in time and they've just broken up, he's driving in his car at night, crying, listening to sad music, with no sort of effort whatsoever to light the inside of the car in a "professional" way, and the credits then start, 20 mins into the movie. It's a hard thing to explain, but the pacing and feeling that you get as a result of this pacing is amazing.

i'm sitting here and i'm watching the sun come up, because I can't sleep. introduced Katherine to The 400 Blows and Annie Hall the past few days. I think Blows made more of an impression. And now I've seen Garden State 3 times. It's still great. I think Katherine really enjoyed it. We keep quoting from it all the time.

there's beauty in the breakdown

I actually wrote this for somebody else a long time ago for their english class lol..I just felt like pasting something.

Notes of the chorus like a whirlwind of frown,
Piercing the hearts and minds of the town.
His sounds draw praise, shouts, and taunts,
Riches to spare, and the life that he wants.
A stranger to the world, in his own war
Deep inside his spirit lies, waiting for
The day it arrives. And the time will forbid.
He plays his stringed instrument like a kid,
Never weary or prone to nervous freeze,
If only life could flow with such ease.
For nothing seems to go right on this quest,
Always in the middle, and never the best.
Steadily floundering like a fish on land,
Never quite sure if the tide will expand.
The strings that tremble at the fingers’ blows
Releasing a melody that no one knows.
Time has come today, and change has occurred.
Who will accept, and who won’t? It’s absurd.
It’s all so trivial anyway, it seems -
The new melody that divides the new dreams.

The 400 Blows

Wow it's been awhile since I wrote something. Let's just say the movie of the moment is The 400 Blows... See it. Now.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Wow. Something came over me. I was (almost) the only one in the theater. I just broke down and started sobbing at the end. It's so honest. For all its plot, it's so simple and honest. I'm going again on Friday.