Author: greg

Restoring Canada’s WWI Memorial

The Canadian Government has begun restoring the WWI-era Vimy Memorial in northern France:

It was 88 years ago today [apr. 9] 20,000 Canadians stormed out of the trenches and into the history books, but the scene of Canada’s most famous battle still poses a deadly threat for those toiling here to honour their memory…
But workers rehabilitating it and surrounding landscape must exercise extreme caution…
The same armaments and implements of war that left more than 10,000 Canadian dead or wounded at Vimy in 1917 are still exacting a deadly toll…
The surrounding battleground’s “atmosphere of terror and horror” will also be enhanced to contrast with the stark beauty of the monument, says restoration architect Julian Smith.

Project beset by danger [canoe.ca, via archinect]
Official Site – Vimy Memorial
Vimy Ridge – 80 years on [I used this site a lot researching the film]

Bond?, Max Bond?

Since when did architecture Max Bond, of Davis Brody Bond get above-the-line billing on the design of the World Trade Center Memorial?
From the earliest beginnings of the WTC redevelopment and memorial design process, there’s been a dissonant gap between the public theater and the actual, invisible strategizing and decisionmaking. Like Japanese bunraku, where the puppeteers are in full view, but the audience is transfixed by the controlled movements of the marionettes.
Some day–but not yet, because it’s still going on–there’ll be an eye-opening saga on the scale of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker to come out of the WTC.
And Bond Makes Three at the WTC [curbed, and miss representation]

The New Yorker Masthead Database

While I’m lackadaisically culling archival links from the New Yorker’s website (to make up for the fact that they have no search or archive function), the New York Observer has emptied the scribbled-on scraps of paper and cocktail napkins from their pockets to piece together a nearly complete masthead for the magazine (to make up for the fact that they have none).
1) Is there anything else you need done, New Yorker? Can we pick up your cleaning, water your plants, glue in your perfume strips?
2) There’s no one in charge of squelching run-on sentences, either at the New Yorker or (more obviously) here.
3) Is Andrea Scott no longer doing the art section for Goings On About Town? [making hand-as-phone gesture and mouthing ‘call me, Andrea.’]
Our Far-Flung Staff [Observer.com]

FATUOUS WRITING MAKES ART LOVER’S HEAD EXPLODE!!

It’s been a pretty crappy day, already, so don’t make me decide which writing is more annoying, self-reflexive, and wilfully misinformed and misrepresentative about its subject:

  • Lee Siegel’s free-associational riffs in Slate about Cy Twombly’s “doodling,” which, after all these years IS apparently just like your kid could do. Bonus quote: “You cannot fully understand Twombly’s art unless you know that he is gay.” [huh?? I DID pick up “fatuous” from here, though.]
    updated link: archive.org
  • Hilton Kramer’s self-contradictory, dishonest, and obtuse reading and critique of Pace Wildenstein’s amazing show, “Logical Conclusions: 40 Years of Rule-Based Art.” Kramer–why am I even mentioning him??–starts in on Minimalism, too. Oy. And the Communist Threat, blah blah blah. Save it for that big Flavin/Judd/Kramer panel discussion in the sky, Hilly. It’s 2005 already.

If I Ran The Circus, by Nick Denton

Jason Cala-who? Nick’s raising, er, lowering, er, his sights and going after Drudge. His secret weapon: the awesome pithiness of his Choire Sicha-lator, now transformed into an automatic NY Post Headline Generator.
Actually, the first day’s batch of heds sounds like Larry Levy’s first studio meeting in The Player, where he has someone read out a random story from the paper and he turns it into a one-line movie pitch on the spot:

Grossman: How about ‘Mudslide kills 60 in slums of Chile’?
Levy: That’s good. Triumph over tragedy. Sounds like a John Boorman picture. You slap a happy ending on it, the script’ll write itself.
Here, Bonnie, you give it a shot.
Bonnie: Gee, I don’t know, Larry–
Levy: Come on.
Bonnie: OK, ‘Further bond losses push Dow down 7.15.’… I see Connery as Bond…

Sploid [via, dude, where DIDN’T you see this yesterday?]

Apparently, The Selfish Giant Lives on Fifth Avenue

And the only place it’s spring is in the corner of the garden where there was a Whole (Foods), and all the children started drinking Jamba Juices for breakfast.
Google’s satellite image map of Manhattan is stitched together from two passes, taken in different seasons, but at nearly the same time of the morning. The buildings’ shadows are at slightly different angles on the east and west sides, but they’re so damn long, they render the whole map pretty useless.
Google Map of Manhattan [via kottke]
“The Selfish Giant,” by Oscar Wilde [planetmonk.com]

Michelangelo’s Last Judgment?

Now that’s a deft review. While Michael Atkinson praises Wong Kar Wai’s segment of Eros he largely ignores Soderbergh’s contribution–and he totally pans Antonioni’s in the most deferential possible way: “[Antonioni]…is 20 years into his post-stroke period and whoit must be said, should consider resting on his laurels and, perhaps, supervising the transfers and supplements on his old movies’ DVDs.”
Triple X [vv]

Jim Taylor Jim Taylor Jim Taylor

First Jim Taylor and his writing partner Alexander Payne spoke at MoMA as part of the museum’s Great Collaborations series, then Jim Taylor and his wifing partner Tamara Jenkins spoke at MoMA about their collaborative, parallel screenwriting/moviemaking as part of Leonard Lopate’s 20th Anniversary show for WNYC.
From now until the end of the year, Jim Taylor will be appearing weekdays from 2-5pm at MoMA in the Titus Theatre. Which will now be renamed the Taylor Theater. He will become MoMA’s answer to Celine Dion or Siegfried & Roy. He will read your scripts and give you helpful coverage. He will not, however, introduce you to Amanda Peet, no matter how nicely you ask. His act involves no tigers.
All this is just a rambling excuse for posting about a show I heard repeated on the radio this afternoon, but for which I can’t find an archived audio link. Hope you were duly entertained.
Behind the Screen, The Leonard Lopate Show [wnyc.org]
Previously: Night of a thousand film geeks [greg.org]

No Kidding

[John Patrick] Shanley, whose screenplay for Moonstruck won an Oscar in 1988, received the drama Pulitzer for “Doubt,” his Broadway debut. “I have been trawling around for a long time before they let me come up out of the muck.”

Other credits include: the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Congo; another Frank Marshall film, Alive!; and 1990 writer/director gig he cashed in his Oscar for, Joe Versus the Volcano*.
Shanley, Robinson Win Pulitzers in Writing [yahoo news, via waxy]
* Which is a classic, I’m sure, and would we ever have had Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail if it weren’t for JvtV? I don’t even want to think.

2005-04-11, This Week In The New Yorker

In the magazine header, image: newyorker.com
Issue of 2005-04-11
Posted 2005-04-04
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ JOHN PAUL II/ David Remnick on the life of Karol Wojtyla.
INK / BATTLE OF THE TABS/Ben McGrath on the recent flare up between the Post and the Daily News
LOST TREASURES/ DEEP/ Adam Green finds an early diving chamber in storage at Coney Island.
THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ ALL TOGETHER NOW/ James Surowiecki on Sony and the dangers of going it
alone.
ART AND SCIENCE/ Richard Preston/ Capturing the Unicorn/ Two mathematicians tackle a tapestry.
FICTION/ Mohammed Naseehu Ali/ “Mallam Sile”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS/ John Cassidy/ Always With Us?/ Jeffrey Sachs’s plan to eradicate world poverty.
ON TELEVISION/ Nancy Franklin/ Living Large/ Kirstie Alley fills the screen in “Fat Actress.”
POP MUSIC/ Sasha Frere-Jones/ Slow Fade/ The afterlife of an indie band.
THE THEATRE/ Hilton Als/ Shades of Black/ Race relations in “This Is How It Goes” and “Julius Caesar.”
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Anthony Lane/ Feelings/ “Sin City” and “A Hole in
My Heart.”
FROM THE ARCHIVE
PROFILES/ Richard Preston/ The Mountains of Pi/ Issue of 1992-03-02/ The Chudnovskys, who were then engaged in an exploration of pi, one of the most mysterious numbers in mathematics.
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Blu Dot Films

blu_dot_720.jpgTechnically, The Year of The Dependent Short was 2004, but the people at Blu Dot are usually so far ahead of the curve, I’ll cut them some slack.
In conjunction with Daylight Savings Time, Blu Dot launched the first in a series of sponsored short films. Seven Twenty is directed by Christopher Arcella, and it’s about, well, it’s about the making of a clock.
What, you think you’re gonna hear criticism from a guy who made a short about ironing?
Blu Dot Film(s) [bludot, via mocoloco]
Christopher Arcella

DVD Players: The Making Of The Making Of

I want to say, “Finally!” The NYT reports on the players in the burgeoning medium of DVD extras: directors like Laurent Bouzereau (Spielberg) and producers like Mark Rowen (Shrek 2).
Bouzereau started in the laser disc business and spent time at standard-setting Criterion–which gets short shrift in the article, by the way; The Matrix may have made the DVD business, but Criterion made the DVD extra–before setting up his own shop. He’s the making of documentary and bonus material guy.
Meanwhile, it’s the producer who takes the blame for the pointlessly animated, time-killing interactive menus. And it’s suits like the guy from Lion’s Gate who think no one cares about DVD extras who are to blame for nearly naked DVD’s with little more than a few crappy trailers tacked on.
That said, there are plenty of directors whose fans would surely appreciate some more DVD material who can’t get their distribs to rub more than two dimes together for a 10-min. making of, Gus Van Sant. Now that I think about it, the quintessential DVD extra–director commentaries–get almost no play at all in the article, even though they’re almost a medium in themselves. [Carrot Top’s commentary track on Rules of Attraction is in a category all its own.]
The Powers Behind the Home-Video Throne [nyt]