Author: greg

Colder Mountain

still from Lars von Trier's Dogville, image:dogville.co.uk

Actually, I was going to title this post “Nicole Kidman: Dogville’s bitch,” but that’s not how I was brought up. Besides, it sounded unnecessarily cruel. [Not in comparison to the movie itself, however, or to some of its reviews. David Edelstein’s Slate piece is bitterly well-done; he can make people who liked the movie hate it.]
Lars von Trier’s been called anti-American, which I don’t buy. [Come on, he stuck a “von” in his name; what’s more American than that?] When Grace (Kidman’s character) begs them for sanctuary, the Dogville-age people show her mercy and take her in. In no time, though, they turn on her, brutalizing her mercilessly, flagellate her and jeer after her as they nail her hands to a cross–ahem. Sorry, wrong grace/justice/sadism/mob violence movie. Actually, they town-rape her and chain her neck to a wagon wheel. At least von Trier didn’t make it a Jewish town.
What evil lurks in the hearts of (American) men (and women), von Trier asks. How could they turn so suddenly and heap black-hearted violence on this beautiful, selfless creature who appeared in their midst? Maybe they’d just seen Cold Mountain.

Continue reading “Colder Mountain”

Close Enough, or Introducing greg.org v1.6

Horseshoes and hand grenades? Feh. These days, some people think close counts in WMD’s and the war on terror. Alls I know is, after a week of editing in 15-minute stints (interspersed with crying and diaperchanging and bottlefeeding), close counts on stylesheets, too.
Beyond the cleaner integration of long-form Features and filmmaker interviews, MT brings addition of categories, which will make recurring themes and topics a little easier to follow.
Chief among these: production diaries, development notes, and news for each film project
Whether it pays for yachts for my coke-head grandchildren, gets my ass sued by Conde Nast, or prompts simple UI improvements on the magazine’s website, one feature I’m interested in watching is This Week in The Magazine, aka New Yorker Magazine Database. If you’ve ever wanted to write for the NYMDb, your chance is coming soon.
Anyway, let me know what’s wrong, what’s missing, etc. And if you have particular expertise with 1) archive pagination and 2) category-specific template tweaking, don’t be shy. I’ll be here.

Joywar, What is it good for?

“>Riot, by Joy Garnett, image: firstpulseprojects.com

The artist Joy Garnett just had a show called “Riot” at Debs & Co, lushly painted figures in caught in moments of distress or violence. Then she got threatened with a lawsuit by a Magnum photographer for referencing a 1978 image of a guy throwing a Molotov cocktail. Of course, the irony [?] is that, as Garnett says, “my work is ABOUT the fact that images are uncontrollable entities.
It’s about what happens when you remove context and framing devices.” Which means, of course, it’s about getting sued.
Congratulations, Joy. I hope you get sued again real soon.
Related: The Bomb Project, an archive of “nuclear-related links organized for artists.”

Four New Yorker Writers Online

In addition to Susan Orlean (whose website includes a weblog by Jason Kottke for the film Adaptation) Rebecca Mead, Malcolm Gladwell, and Michael Specter all provide archives of their writing for the New Yorker on their personal websites:
Rebecca Mead breaks out articles, Talk of the Town pieces, and reviews into three pages.
Malcolm Gladwell lists his articles and Talk of the Town pieces on one giant archive page.
Michael Specter does the same thing: one long archive page.
The nearly identical approach to alt tags, the ubiquity of PDF links, and the very similar feel of these three sites, I’d bet they share a single designer. [Or maybe it’s just some Adobe GoLive site wizard. Not my department.]

Kevin Smith and Lars Von Trier, or greg.org reads the papers for you

Both in today’s NY Times:

  • Slate’s Bryan Curtis interviews Kevin Smith in advance of the Jersey Girls release. Jersey Girls makes Kevin Smith sound like the perfect spokesmodel for daddytypes.com, but Smith’s best comments are about Mel Gibson, “fellow Catholic.” [Damn, that’s one big tent.]
  • Tony Scott’s got a very astute read/review of Dogville, Lars “Von” Trier’s new movie. Scott makes some keen references to both Mayberry and South Park, while skewering the reactionary anti-anti-Americanism of reviews like Variety‘s.
  • Jessica Winter interviews LVT’s cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, in the Voice. [Stay tuned for my own Dogville post later this week.]

    • 2004-03-29, This Week in The New Yorker

    In the magazine header, image: newyorker.com
    Issue of 2004-03-29
    Posted 2004-03-22
    THE TALK OF THE TOWN
    COMMENT/ AFTER MADRID/ David Remnick on what the train bombings in Spain and the election that followed mean for the world.
    ON THE CLOCK/ JAM OFF/ Nick Paumgarten on the backstage scene at the jam-band awards.
    POSTCARD FROM BAGHDAD/ STREET CRIME/ Jon Lee Anderson on how the city is now a much more dangerous place.
    THE WIRED WORLD/ THE REAL ORKUT/ Jesse Lichtenstein on the eponymous member of a new networking Web site.
    ON THE ROOF/ PEPSI GENERATION/ Blake Eskin on making art out of an East River soda sign.
    SHOUTS & MURMURS/ Bruce McCall/ Liberal Radio Network Employment Application
    LIFE & LETTERS/ David Remnick/ Reporting It All/ A hundred years of A. J. Liebling.
    A LETTER FROM SOUTH TEXAS/ Katherine Boo/ The Churn/ When the jobs go abroad, what happens to the people who are left behind?
    FICTION/ Jim Harrison/ “Father Daughter”
    THE CRITICS
    BOOKS/ Folk Hero/ David Hajdu/ A new biography of Woody Guthrie.
    POP MUSIC/ Slow Burn/ Sasha Frere-Jones/ Norah Jones’s eternal afternoon.
    THE THEATRE/ Stuck/ Hilton Als/ “Frozen” and “Embedded.”
    THE CURRENT CINEMA/ The Quick and the Dead/ David Denby/ “Bon Voyage” and “Dogville.”
    FROM THE ARCHIVE
    A REPORTER AT LARGE/ Ahab and Nemesis/A. J. Liebling/ A classic Liebling boxing piece, Issue of 1951-10-08

    The Atomic Revolution: Now the Truth Can Be Told

    Last year I was blown away by the beautiful artistry that went into the eerily slick corporate propagandotainment comic book, The Atomic Revolution.
    I’m using the cool, Golden Age comic style as a major visual reference point for my As Yet Unannounced Animated Musical, which has more than a little good, old-fashioned apocalyptic flavor to it.
    The cool animation artist Ethan Persoff rediscovered it, scanned it in, and hosted the entire book on his site (and now accepts donations to pay for the significant bandwidth the increasingly popular book consumes. Why not drop some change in the jar?)
    Now, finally, after getting smoked on a couple of previous auctions, I can announce that I’ve finally received my own copy of the book this week from an Austin ebay-er. It wasn’t expensive, just rare. Henceforth, you all have my permission to search for your own issue. Good luck.

    Sun Set

    Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project closes this weekend, image: guardian.co.uk

    This is the last weekend to see Olafur Eliasson’s installation, The Weather Project in the Tate’s turbine hall. The museum’s keeping the hall open until 1AM on Friday and Saturday, apparently because they’re unsatisfied with only 2 million visitors.
    For added enjoyment, the Guardian published a diary from the Tate’s manager, the one who had to deal with troupes of Santas, didgeridoo players, a man in a canoe, and people hooking up under the mirrored ceiling.
    [3/20 update: Michael Kimmelman interviews Olafur in his Berlin studio about TWP. Re the headline, the Arts & Leisure section closes on Tuesday night. Great minds, etc., etc. “The Sun Sets at the Tate Modern]

    Como se dice, “Sore Losers”?

    The deceptive losers of last weekend’s national elections in Spain are now threatening to sue Pedro freakin’ Almodovar for “slander and calumny.” Apparently, Almodovar told a movie audience that, yes, he’d heard the rumors flying around the country’s mobile phones that Pres. Aznar might stage a coup if he lost.
    Related: Deceptive loser Richard Perle finally backs down from his threat to sue Sy Hersh for slander, climbs back into his spiderhole even though it might generate publicity for his book. [look it up yourself. I’m not going to link to it. Psycho.]

    Move over, Mel, there’s a new Passion in town

    Finally, a conflation of religion and commerce I can believe in: St. Eric of Blacktable’s The Cult of Diet Coke.
    A glorious bit of Good News, indeed, but it’s an incomplete testament. Sure, they mention those voices crying in the Diet Coke-ist wilderness, the “fine folks at AspartameKills.com.” But Blacktable insidiously omits any mention of the Great Satan of Aspartame, the CEO of pharma-giant Searle who lobbied for FDA approval of the WMD we now worship as Nutrasweet, Donald Rumsfeld. All hail our new Aspartame overlords.
    On a more personal note, Diet Coke (in the less patriotic, French form known as Coca Lite) played the role of comic relief in my first film, Souvenir (November 2001). [pause that refreshes] The protagonist’s search for a WWI memorial runs parallel to his search for Coca Light in the countryside of northern France.

    Art Club for Men and Women

    Paige West, a diehard collector and longtime champion of emerging artists has a weblog named, accurately enough, Art Addict.
    Of course, Paige’s other site, Mixed Greens, has “we sell art” as its subtitle.
    I guess she wants to reassure readers that she’s not just a pusher but a user, too. So find a vein and jack right in. [via MAN]

    Video replaces Paintings !?

    Souvenirs from the earth for Mix, image: souvenirsfromtheearth.com


    Don’t tell the Whitney Biennial folks. That trademarked slogan comes from a series of video loops designed for your giant flatscreen TV that are “100% narrative free with strong visual aesthetics” called Souvenirs from the earth [Ahem. A series called Souvenir? I hope you kept the number of that trademark lawyer…]
    You can buy their DVD for $50 from Dynomighty, on east 10th st, or, like Alain Ducasse did for Mix, you can commission a custom version. They’re also planning “complete never seen night programmes to TV stations, financed by sponsors from the luxury industry.”
    Goodlooking execution? Yes. Growth market? Definitely. But new idea? Not at all. The duo’s dsytopian main mission sounds familiar: “Our main mission is to collect pictures of life on earth today, in case humans would need them later…” It’s the glass-half-full, luxury industry-chasing version of “Life out of balance,” the subtitle/translation of Godfrey Reggio’s 100% narrative free classic Koyaanisqatsi.
    [Coincidentally, the last time I saw Koyaanisqatsi, it was wall candy on a flatscreen for a party in a bigtime art collector’s Central Park West apartment. It had a bigger audience than anything else, and at $25, it was easily the cheapest work there, by a factor of several thousand.]

    Morgan Stanley architecture signage video, image:insidemint.com

    And on the custom corporate front, I’m reminded of the wraparound montage for the LED facade of 745 Seventh Avenue, produced in 2001 by branding consultancy The Mint Group for Morgan Stanley. This Times Square video “took brand-building…to the next level,” and communicated Morgan Stanley’s unique ability in the financial services industry to “connect investors, ideas and capital.” Of course, in one weekend after Sept. 11, before ever occupying it, MS sold the building to Lehman Brothers, who stepped right into this unique, branded video skin without batting an eye.
    Another wall candy video option: “Want to throw a great party? Put this on!”FunviewTV‘s 20-scene DVD includes a fish tank, a fireplace, falling snow, falling leaves, disco lights, and a microwaving pizza.
    And just to loop the Whitney back in: there’s new-to-you Biennial star Eve Sussman’s debut video show in 1997. The artist labored for nearly a month to construct a 3-story scaffold/ramp in an airshaft, and then trained video cameras on the pigeon nests hidden within. Wall sized projections of oblivious pigeons filled the gallery. Congratulations, Eve, on your overnight success.

    Bloghdad.com/ERF-ing

    Five British citizens were transferred from Guantanamo–where they were held for around two years without charge or judicial review for being “the hardest of the hard core,” in Donald Rumsfeld’s words–to the custody of the British government–who promptly released them without charge. They tell their stories at length in the UK Observer:

    After about a week the prisoners were allowed to speak to detainees in adjacent cells, and a few weeks later still were given copies of the Koran, a prayer mat, blankets and towels. Yet all witnessed or experienced brutality, especially from Guantanamo’s own riot squad, the Extreme Reaction Force. Its acronym has led to a new verb peculiar to Guantanamo detainees: ‘ERF-ing.’ To be ERFed, says Rasul, means to be slammed on the floor by a soldier wielding a riot shield, pinned to the ground and assaulted.

    [via TMN, cross-posted to Bloghdad.com]

    Chad’s Dads

    Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Abouna, image:sundancechannel.comChadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun talks to David Kehr about Abouna, his second feature and only the third film to be made in his native country. There is no commercial cinema in Chad, yet films–and particularly US films–have a powerful influence on the imaginations of young people living in impoverished isolation.
    An ardent admirer and student of foreign directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Hou-Hsiao Hsien, Kitano Takeshi, and Clint Eastwood, Haroun is an uncommon internationalist in the nascent African filmmaking industry. He’s undaunted by such bright lights, however: “Our films are a little like candles, no? They illuminate only a small space, small groups of particular people. But those people can be everywhere, all over the planet.”
    In an interview with Neil Young at the Edinburgh Festival, Haroun spoke at more length about his process and working with non-professional actors. When asked about autobiographical influences on his film, Haroun readily agreed, “Creation sometimes is just a question of memory.”
    Abouna screened last year in New Directors/New Films, and will be on Sundance Channel starting Sunday night as part of the Voices from Africa program. One African film, Apolline Traore’s Koundani, from Burkina Faso is in this year’s New Directors/New Films.