I’m like the only gentile on the plane. For jews on Xmas, Las Vegas is the new chinese food.
Author: greg
Christmas travel log, via consolidated cell phone posts
7:58PM huh. I am stuck on the new JFK AirTrain, 50 feet away from my terminal. Oh, and the seats are very shabbily upholstered, puckering after just one week. Needed: more Eurostar, less Ikea.
Separated at Birth?
Reunited at the millinery, now seated side by side
on the War-For-Peace bus (in the front, of course)
Funny, now I’m more at risk of getting sued than of getting killed in a German bar.
On Cycling
Over at Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green has solicited Art Top Ten lists from some folks, partly as a rebuttal to the too-hip-for-him lists in Artforum. [He reserves his best Ike Turner for Thelma Golden, who I like very much.] Anyway, my list is up now. Most of it is culled from the site, so fanatic greg.org readers [Mom, I’m talking to you] will probably not be shocked by any of it.
But I did surprise myself with one choice: I felt obliged to put the Guggenheim’s Friday marathon screenings of The Cremaster Cycle on my list. [I mean, I survived it, didn’t I?] But then I actually got choked up reading David Edelstein’s account of Trilogy Tuesday, the marathon screening of Lord of The Rings.
Granted, not everyone is going to thrill to the point of life-defining religious fervor when they see Return of The King (I’m not really much of a fan myself), but by any standard, LOTR must be considered a far more important, influential, and authentic achievement than Cremaster. And that’s before and after adjusting for budgets.
More On Dependent Filmmaking, or Barney Cam II: White House Boogaloo
[via Gothamist] Jimmy Orr, the Choire Sicha to George Bush’s Nick Denton, has posted his new short film, Barney Cam II: Barney Reloaded, on his weblog, whitehouse.gov. Elizabeth Bumiller, the Times‘ specialist on the dependent film industry, gives it a glowing review and talks with Orr, who co-produced Barney II with Bob deServi. DeServi is best known for his work as the key grip on many of Scott Sforza’s productions, which are being shown on TV everywhere, all the time, on every channel.
Magic Hour? Scott Orr demonstrates his handheld video technique in
the making of Barney Cam II. Image: Paul Morse, whitehouse.gov
Like Elephant director Gus Van Sant, Orr prefers working with non-professional actors (although it doesn’t seem like he budgeted much time for rehearsals). He’s got a scrappy, run-and-gun style which constrasts sharply with Sforza’s theatrically staged fictions.
As these behind-the-scenes shots reveal, Orr also scorns the debilitatingly large budgets favored by his White Housemates. His equipment package and crew are strictly barebones: a Sony VX-2000 (good, but not Combat Camera good), with a camera-mounted mic feeding into the XLR adapter (no sound guy) and using only available lighting. Of course, none of this is unexpected; compensating for a small package is a recurring theme on Orr’s site.
Also screening at whitehouse.gov:
Secretary Evans Reads “Cowboy Night Before Christmas” [Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, FYI]
Mrs. Bush Reads “Angelina’s Christmas”
Related:
Ungrateful criticism of diServi and Sforza by their star actor
Bumiller’s first review of Scott Sforza and Bob diServi productions.
Combat Camera
Finally, someone’s asking the right questions in Iraq, like, “how’d they get that shot?” Virginia Heffernan reports in the Times on the ultimate embeds: the soldiers who go into battle armed with digital video cameras (“the camera is our first weapon”) to record US military activity. Like Saddam Hussein’s medical checkup, which includes shots–like the glowing underside of Hussein’s tongue–that Heffernan rates as high art.
what’s the opposite of independent? Film, that is. image: nytimes.com/getty images
These combat camera crews use Sony PD 150’s, just like civilian photojournalists (and the rest of us). In fact, I bought my first camera, a Sony VX-1000, from a war-documenting friend (whose production company, no coincidence, is named Combat Camera), who was supposed to star in Souvenir November 2001 until he got pulled into Tora Bora (ahh, the memories).
Like most documentarians, these filmmakers have a hard time getting distribution; Pentagon suits are even tighter-fisted than Miramax. But if they make a real heartstrings-pulling story –like the Jessica Lynch rescue or the Hussein body cavity search–when it does hit screens, it opens verrry wide.
Millionaires of the world, unite! Throw off your billionaire oppressors!
This was in my mailbox:
From: BushCheney04@GeorgeWBush.com
Subject: Billionaire compares President Bush to Nazis?
…Liberal billionaire George Soros, who has compared President Bush to the Nazis [“When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” said the Hungarian survivor of Nazi and Soviet rule, and Jew] and said that defeating him is “the central focus” of his life, will now spend $25 million in special interest money attacking him! [That’s more than some people’s liquid assets!]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10
Friends of the President [and fellow oppressed millionaire underdogs] like you are all that stand in their [the billionaires’] way. And the President needs your help!
Help us overcome the Democrats’ liberal billionaire by making your contribution and emailing five [millionaire] friends today!
And here I thought millionaires and billionaires got along so well together…
Related: for your, ahem, Christmas shopping enjoyment, my Amazon list, “Books I’ve Read by Tycoons I’ve Known”
Filmmaking Interviews of Note
Bloghdad.com/Timing
What fortuitous timing. Last week’s announcement of an Iraq-based, Iraqi-run tribunal to prosecute crimes against humanity, including “trying Saddam Hussein in absentia,” if necessary, was a convenient pre-emptive strike against too much international meddling. Nice to have those death penalty-friendly ducks in a row just in case, you know, your trail is heating up thanks to intensive intelligence operations and dollar bill serial number-tracking.
Also, it sure is convenient that a former Secretary of State is just leaving on a heavy diplomatic mission when you announce that your current Secretary of State is being operated on for prostate cancer. Bush apparently was informed of the surgery two weeks ago.
Talk about Psycho…
Reading Lyn Gardner’s story in the Guardian about the tyranny of playwrights’ estates over reinterpretations of well-known texts, I’m all the more shocked and awed that Gus Van Sant wanted to do his shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.
The film world has a nearly diametrically opposed view of remakes from the theater, which shows in the different perceptions of The Text. For dead mens’ plays, the text is all, sacrosanct; for studio films, the script–and the writers–are cogs that get replaced as soon as they show signs of wear or sticking. As I prepare to buy the film rights to a novel from the author’s estate, I’m sweating the interpretation/adaptation process. One saving grace: the author’s children now work in the film and TV business.
Here’s my off-the-cuff advice for you playwrights who don’t want their creative legacy snuffed out by visionless accountants: create an advisory panel or artists, playwrights, theater people, creative people, who will decide how and when your works get reinterpreted, sampled, and reformulated after you’re dead. They’ll serve for limited terms, so you can get new blood and new perspectives with each generation. Perhaps such an organization could be created by, like, the Artists Rights Society, and they’ll provide artistic evaluations into the future. You can choose how daring or conservative you want them to be. Just a thought. ‘night.
Artist Books for the Holidays
If you’re still looking for just the right gift for your Jewish (you better hustle) or Christian friend (you have a little more time), try an artist book from Printed Matter. Here are my, ahem, suggestions:
Barnes Storm
Over at Modern Art Notes, Tyler’s on a roll, posting frequently and furiously about the current court proceedings to decide the fate of The Barnes Collection, the greatest assemblage of modern art in the country. Tyler does his gadfly best, providing some very useful context (and a bit of foaming at the mouth) for this big, somewhat under-/mis-reported story.
Barnes was a new moneyed crank with a voracious appetite for once-unpopular art (Cezanne, Matisse, Renoir, Soutine, etc.), which he frequently bought in bulk, out of the artists’ studios. He had an unparalleled–but not unbiased–eye; by cornering the market on cheesy Renoir nudes, for example, he forced generations of Third World dictators to decorate their palaces with much less desirable, generic soft porn. His collection, foundation, and vision were all mercilessly mocked by Philadelphia society the art establishment of his day, and he took great glee in their eventual comeuppance; he knew the world would have to come groveling back to his art someday.
Now, though, after a couple of generations of pathetic mismanagement (“hundreds of items,” including a Matisse and a Renoir gone missing. Did you check the bathroom for the Renoir, your honor?); a feckless board; the inept defensiveness of Lincoln University (the historically black institution Barnes’s will put in charge of his legacy), and an utterly clueless-sounding judge, it looks like that same Philadelphia Establishment’s shameless attempt to take control of the collection may succeed. It’s all pretty ghetto.
I haven’t thought it all the way through yet, but Barnes comes to mind when I see the sometimes clumsy, always entertaining, mega-collecting arms race in Miami right now. I doubt that Marty Margulies or his competitors are the Albert Barnes of the 22nd century, but I know that there are enough snotty art worlders who try to proclaim their own insiderness by mocking them behind their backs.
Gus Van Sant’s Go-to Guy
Gus Van Sant, Elias McConnell, and Dany Wolf
at Cannes 2003, image: festival-cannes.com
There he is, scorched in Death Valley and on the Saltflats of Utah; in a mold-closed school with a barebones crew on scooters; and on the Palais steps of Cannes, where he accepted the Palme D’Or this year for Elephant.
Gus Van Sant? Sure, he’s there, too, but I’m talking about Dany Wolf, the producer. The guy who actually has to figure out how to make the movies Gus sees in his head.
While I’ve been a fan of Van Sant’s since Drugstore Cowboy, I’ve been very interested in his recent bold filmmaking experiments, which coincide with my own entry into the field. I wanted to find out Wolf’s on-set experience and insight on making the films that are remaking film.
Below, read my November 2003 discussion with Wolf, an exclusive feature of greg.org.
[Note: No underage Filipino data entry workers were harmed in the transcription of this 3,000-word piece. Special thanks to Dany Wolf, Jay Hernandez and Jeff Hill, who aren’t doing so bad, either.]
One Reason to see The Last Samurai
not that I’ve seen it yet, mind you, but the cinematographer is John Toll, who also shot Terrence Malick’s Thin Red Line. On second thought, why not just rent or buy Thin Red Line?
Gregger Stalker:
On the (F) train to a private collection visit downtown, I stood next to the straight guy from Queer Eye, the rocker with the skank girlfriend (“the one with the hooker boots?” is how a friend remembered her). Net net: it didn’t stick. He looked as dissheveled and style-free as he did at the beginning of his show.
For some people, it turns out, metrosexuality is nothing more than a phase, something they experiment with in college. Or summer camp.