I’m going to be traveling in Japan for a couple of weeks, with no computer (^o^) that’s a Japanese shocked emoticon. If they have the “internet” over there, and it doesn’t involve a lot of phone-typing, I’ll keep in touch.
In the mean time, keep reading and re-reading the Gabriel Orozco thing, I guess.
Art, Movies, and The Heisenberg Effect
Last Sunday at the Hirshhorn, I saw a great documentary about one of my favorite artists. Juan Carlos Martin followed Gabriel Orozco around the world for three years, filming and taping the meandering artist’s creative process, his installations, and the art world’s reactions to his work.
To my eyes, apparent slightness is one of the most powerful aspects of Orozco’s work. Martin’s film reveals the intensely sustained effort Orozco’s effortless-looking art requires. Weeks of tedious fabrication in a small Mexican hamlet translates into an unassuming beachscape in a German museum. The objects exhibited in The Penske Project turns out to be the tip of the iceberg of searching, alteration, and driving in the rental truck that gave the show its name. “When I’m enjoying the process, I know the result will be OK,” Gabriel’s voiceover explains.
With palimpsest voiceovers and interviews, raw camera movement and editing, and a marked lack of self-importance, Martin’s film is a standout in the deathly boring artist documentary genre. (Think talking academic heads, the artist walking on cue, and endless tracking shots through an empty museum.) But this light-n-lively touch has its drawbacks, and they still bug.
Hey, So Did I
I first came across Jay Rosenblatt‘s short film in March, as I was surfing across the Silverdocs site, getting ready to submit my own tape.
It wasn’t just the title, but the combination of title and picture. Rosenblatt was holding his daughter up in the air. The one sentence-synopsis read, “Video cameras come with an owner’s manual and babies don’t, so documentary filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt uses the first to understand the second.” The title: I Used to Be A Filmmaker.
In the first few weeks after our own kid was born, when even dubbing a couple of screeners felt like a major accomplishment, I saw my entire life in Rosenblatt’s title alone. I read some reviews (all very good) and thought, the guy spent two years on one short? I am cooked.
Actually, what Rosenblatt did was construct an interface between two worlds: his own as a documentarian and film instructor, and his new daughter’s. Or more precisely, he bridged his own two worlds, his passion/profession and his family. All in about 10 minutes. 10 minutes over the course of two years.
In I Used to be a Filmmaker, Rosenblatt uses scenes from the first 18 months of his daughter’s life to illustrate various film production terms. The still above was from “pickup shot,” for example. A scene where he gets her to stop crying is called MOS. It’s sometimes corny, but usually very funny, and it works. Rosenblatt takes some of the most unrepentantly self-indulgent imagery known to mankind–a smitten new dad’s home movies–and by giving it structure and context, makes it not just watchable by others, but actually entertaining. No small feat.
Unlike most shorts, which directors use as calling cards for the coming feature, I Used to be a Filmmaker is what it is, complete. Which made it stand out on the festival circuit enough for Shiela Nevins to buy it for Cinemax, the Sabrina to HBO’s Samantha. It premiered on Father’s Day, and will have its last scheduled broadcast is tonight, Thurs. 7/29, at 6:35PM east coast, 9:35PM west coast.
Pakistan: ‘If you need me, I’ll be in my trailer’
Steve Martin said it best: it’s all in the ti-MING. ti…MINGming.
It’s always risky shooting with locally cast talent. But after five tense days, the White House screening room erupted in fits of backslapping and high fives as the rushes showed Pakistan nailing its mark like Meryl Streep with a mustache and the bomb.
The interior ministry just announced–at midnight local time, which is 2pm in, say, Boston–the capture of a major Al Qaeda terrorist, his entourage, and his fearsome arsenal of weapons.
True, the guy’s name is “Foopie,” his entourage was his wife and children-with whom he had been living for some time in Pakistan, and his arsenal consisted of “two AK-47 rifles, plastic chemicals [huh? like caulking?], two computers, [and] computer diskettes,” and the arrest actually happened Sunday. But Scott can fix all that in post.
Besides, all they needed was an “Al Qaeda bigwig netted” hed stepping on the “Kerry slams Bush on terror ‘war'” lead this weekend; it could be any one of the terrorists in Pakistan’s Rolodex, really. And if the guy’s story’s really got legs, they can just get the nets to call him the Tanzanian Devil. [Note to self: contact TW/CNN re licensing and permissions.]
Related: White House Production Notes: Summer Blockbuster Edition
Pakistan: ‘If you need me, I’ll be in my trailer’
Steve Martin said it best: it’s all in the ti-MING. ti…MINGming.
It’s always risky shooting with locally cast talent. But after five tense days, the White House screening room erupted in fits of backslapping and high fives as the rushes showed Pakistan nailing its mark like Meryl Streep with a mustache and the bomb.
The interior ministry just announced–at midnight local time, which is 2pm in, say, Boston–the capture of a major Al Qaeda terrorist, his entourage, and his fearsome arsenal of weapons.
True, the guy’s name is “Foopie,” his entourage was his wife and children-with whom he had been living for some time in Pakistan, and his arsenal consisted of “two AK-47 rifles, plastic chemicals [huh? like caulking?], two computers, [and] computer diskettes,” and the arrest actually happened Sunday. But Scott can fix all that in post.
Besides, all they needed was an “Al Qaeda bigwig netted” hed stepping on the “Kerry slams Bush on terror ‘war'” lead this weekend; it could be any one of the terrorists in Pakistan’s Rolodex, really. And if the guy’s story’s really got legs, they can just get the nets to call him the Tanzanian Devil. [Note to self: contact TW/CNN re licensing and permissions.]
Related: White House Production Notes: Summer Blockbuster Edition
You mean Rem Koolhaas rides a city bus??
At least that’s how I read this anecdote on Defective Yeti.
By the way, the Tall Buildings show at MoMA looks great. Excruciatingly sexy models, tons of other information and context. You could spend 10 minutes or half the day.
You mean Rem Koolhaas rides a city bus??
At least that’s how I read this anecdote on Defective Yeti.
By the way, the Tall Buildings show at MoMA looks great. Excruciatingly sexy models, tons of other information and context. You could spend 10 minutes or half the day.
From the Metropolitan Diary “Yow, did I just hear that?” dept.
To be filed under P for Playah Hatah:
Setting: the downtown 6 train, 59th – 50th street.
Dramatis Personae: a shapely 20-something woman of a certain race with a JPMorganChase totebag, two 30-ish gentlemen of a certain race with knee-length T-shirts, sitting three occupied seats down from the woman. A 30-something white guy standing in front of them all.
The young banker studiously ignores numerous gestures and pleas from the playah: [waving across 2 people] “Miss, Yo, miss!” Playah hatah, meanwhile, pulls on his friend’s arm, trying to get him to stop.
Finally making eye contact, the playah mouths something about a number. “you a model, right?” “No.” “Awww, you should be. Now–”
The train pulls into 50th st and begins to slow. The banker grabs her bag and moves toward the door. She’s decided to walk the last 8 blocks to Grand Central, or wait for the next train. She disappears.
Playah [loudly]: “Yo, why you messin’ with me while I’m workin’?”
Hatah [louder, exasperated]: “Damn, bitch ain’t gonna give any shit up. Why you embarass yourself like that?”
Playah: “You see that ass and don’t even try nothin’? What, you a faggot? Damn.”
Same train, same car 42nd-33rd st.
Dramatis Personae: two seated whitey white white office casual guys behind a 30-something white guy.
WWWG1: “A thousand bucks?? You can’t expense that!”
WWWG2: “But it was client development.”
WWWG1: “There is NO code for a lapdance [pause] Dude, a thousand bucks??”
From the Metropolitan Diary “Yow, did I just hear that?” dept.
To be filed under P for Playah Hatah:
Setting: the downtown 6 train, 59th – 50th street.
Dramatis Personae: a shapely 20-something woman of a certain race with a JPMorganChase totebag, two 30-ish gentlemen of a certain race with knee-length T-shirts, sitting three occupied seats down from the woman. A 30-something white guy standing in front of them all.
The young banker studiously ignores numerous gestures and pleas from the playah: [waving across 2 people] “Miss, Yo, miss!” Playah hatah, meanwhile, pulls on his friend’s arm, trying to get him to stop.
Finally making eye contact, the playah mouths something about a number. “you a model, right?” “No.” “Awww, you should be. Now–”
The train pulls into 50th st and begins to slow. The banker grabs her bag and moves toward the door. She’s decided to walk the last 8 blocks to Grand Central, or wait for the next train. She disappears.
Playah [loudly]: “Yo, why you messin’ with me while I’m workin’?”
Hatah [louder, exasperated]: “Damn, bitch ain’t gonna give any shit up. Why you embarass yourself like that?”
Playah: “You see that ass and don’t even try nothin’? What, you a faggot? Damn.”
Same train, same car 42nd-33rd st.
Dramatis Personae: two seated whitey white white office casual guys behind a 30-something white guy.
WWWG1: “A thousand bucks?? You can’t expense that!”
WWWG2: “But it was client development.”
WWWG1: “There is NO code for a lapdance [pause] Dude, a thousand bucks??”
Spike Jonze, scion of my BUTT
Oy. If I see one more mention of Spike Jonze being the “heir” to “the Spiegel catalogue fortune…” This title is nothing but an artifact of lazy-ass entertainment journalism.[not you, Gawker. I know you’re not journalism.]
1. Spike’s, aka Adam Spiegel’s father is Arthur Spiegel III, a healthcare consultant in New York. [So he’s an heir to the APM/CSC fortune?] Trip, we can assume, is descended from Arthur Spiegel, one of the sons of one of the founders of the Spiegel mail order furniture business.
Trouble is, that Arthur way back then left the mailorder business for Hollywood. David Selznick convinced him to invest in World Picture Company, a pre-Gone With The Wind flop. Arthur died early and rather unattractively in a New York hotel room. Drugs? Suicide? Something. But was he an heir to anything? And did he have any descendants to be heirs to anything?
And heir to what? The Spiegel fortune itself, such as it is/was, had more than its share of ups and downs. The company nearly went bust more than once because it had overextended credit to indigent rural shoppers to finance their purchases. It’s certainly no Marshall Fields fortune, which actually exists and continues to underpin socialite lifestyles and hippy chic communes to this day.
And anyway, the Spiegel that almost anyone alive now knows was the work of the German conglomerate which bought the catalogue in the mid-70’s, and which has been bleeding red ink for years, both on Spiegel and on the “only the Ford Explorer’s worth a damn” brand, Eddie Bauer.
The only family member to have been involved with the company in ages is Ted Spiegel–a fourth cousin?? I don’t know–who was also a marketing professor at Northwestern.
How the Spiegel cousins four generations ago divvied up their stock is a mystery to me, and frankly I don’t care. And why should I? By Spike-profile standards, I’d be scion to the Ethan Allen furniture fortune.
If you’re an “All the research I need comes from Entertainment Weekly” journalist looking for a meaningless tidbit for yet another piece on Spike, why not try something more interesting than “heir to the Spiegel catalog fortune”? How about “abandoned by parents and raised in a skateboard shop,”? Or, if you are some genetic determinist, how about “Spike Jonze, son of the guy who replaced rent control with rent stabilization” or “Spike Jonze, whose great grandfather didn’t invest in Gone With The Wind?” At least that one’s got something to do with films.
As for Sofia Coppola, in addition to being the heir to a Central American shack-n-hammock resort fortune, she IS the scion of a middlebrow wine fortune. But now that it comes in cans, it’s not just for tables anymore.
Spike Jonze, scion of my BUTT
Oy. If I see one more mention of Spike Jonze being the “heir” to “the Spiegel catalogue fortune…” This title is nothing but an artifact of lazy-ass entertainment journalism.[not you, Gawker. I know you’re not journalism.]
1. Spike’s, aka Adam Spiegel’s father is Arthur Spiegel III, a healthcare consultant in New York. [So he’s an heir to the APM/CSC fortune?] Trip, we can assume, is descended from Arthur Spiegel, one of the sons of one of the founders of the Spiegel mail order furniture business.
Trouble is, that Arthur way back then left the mailorder business for Hollywood. David Selznick convinced him to invest in World Picture Company, a pre-Gone With The Wind flop. Arthur died early and rather unattractively in a New York hotel room. Drugs? Suicide? Something. But was he an heir to anything? And did he have any descendants to be heirs to anything?
And heir to what? The Spiegel fortune itself, such as it is/was, had more than its share of ups and downs. The company nearly went bust more than once because it had overextended credit to indigent rural shoppers to finance their purchases. It’s certainly no Marshall Fields fortune, which actually exists and continues to underpin socialite lifestyles and hippy chic communes to this day.
And anyway, the Spiegel that almost anyone alive now knows was the work of the German conglomerate which bought the catalogue in the mid-70’s, and which has been bleeding red ink for years, both on Spiegel and on the “only the Ford Explorer’s worth a damn” brand, Eddie Bauer.
The only family member to have been involved with the company in ages is Ted Spiegel–a fourth cousin?? I don’t know–who was also a marketing professor at Northwestern.
How the Spiegel cousins four generations ago divvied up their stock is a mystery to me, and frankly I don’t care. And why should I? By Spike-profile standards, I’d be scion to the Ethan Allen furniture fortune.
If you’re an “All the research I need comes from Entertainment Weekly” journalist looking for a meaningless tidbit for yet another piece on Spike, why not try something more interesting than “heir to the Spiegel catalog fortune”? How about “abandoned by parents and raised in a skateboard shop,”? Or, if you are some genetic determinist, how about “Spike Jonze, son of the guy who replaced rent control with rent stabilization” or “Spike Jonze, whose great grandfather didn’t invest in Gone With The Wind?” At least that one’s got something to do with films.
As for Sofia Coppola, in addition to being the heir to a Central American shack-n-hammock resort fortune, she IS the scion of a middlebrow wine fortune. But now that it comes in cans, it’s not just for tables anymore.
Meta
“[Altman] then asked a reporter if he wanted to be an extra in the scene with Redford. The reporter thought for a moment about La Dolce Vita, in which an entertainment journalist ends up orchestrating a drunken orgy in the Italian countryside. ‘O.K.,’ he replied.”
— Michael Agger reporting from several sets at once for The New Yorker
Classically awful Showgirls now available in self-mocking DVD version, complete with drinking game and joke commentary. For which you pony up an extra $15?? Not funny. [AP via NYT]
Included on the Wonderland DVD (Val Kilmer as John Holmes? Gets caught up in a murder? Doesn’t sound familiar? Probably because no one saw it.) is the actual LAPD crime scene footage of the actual murders. There’s a feisty discussion about it on IMDb’s message board. [Viewing hint: Rent, don’t buy.] [via Scrubbles]
Meta
“[Altman] then asked a reporter if he wanted to be an extra in the scene with Redford. The reporter thought for a moment about La Dolce Vita, in which an entertainment journalist ends up orchestrating a drunken orgy in the Italian countryside. ‘O.K.,’ he replied.”
— Michael Agger reporting from several sets at once for The New Yorker
Classically awful Showgirls now available in self-mocking DVD version, complete with drinking game and joke commentary. For which you pony up an extra $15?? Not funny. [AP via NYT]
Included on the Wonderland DVD (Val Kilmer as John Holmes? Gets caught up in a murder? Doesn’t sound familiar? Probably because no one saw it.) is the actual LAPD crime scene footage of the actual murders. There’s a feisty discussion about it on IMDb’s message board. [Viewing hint: Rent, don’t buy.] [via Scrubbles]
Naturalist Bourne Killer
Slate’s David Edelstein hitting for the fences on The Bourne Supremacy: “a virtuoso demonstration” of “the effect of cutting-edge video and documentary techniques on ho-hum movie material…”
“…simply a tour-de-force of thriller filmmaking…”
“The film has hand-to-hand battles so close and blurry and tumultuous that they summon up your primitive fight-or-flight instincts. It’s as if the filmmaker (and the camera operator) are thinking on their feet alongside the hero, moving instinctively to keep up with their subjects for fear that said subjects will fly out of the frame. And the audience is just as wired-in: I could barely look down at my popcorn.”
Hawking on Hacking, or How Utah is the Center of the Mediaverse
So I get out of the city for a couple of days, take the kid to Grammy’s house (not to be confused with Latin Grammy’s, whose calls we don’t return), take a break from the hubbub.
Little did I know that Stephen Hawking would pick the day I arrive to alter the laws of physics and dump me into the middle of just about every slow-summer, lame-ass media story in existence. It turns out the new elemental particle in physics is the ‘ward,’ the Mormon term for a parish or congregation, and I’m getting bombarded by them.
With highly tawdry, slow-summer news approaching morning-of-Sept-11th levels (Remember the headlines that day? Lizzie Grubman.), the end of the world is coming up fast, or as they say here, “It sure is the Latter Days.” So start repenting: