Trivial Pursuits

Pavlovian shovel.

This morning, I was woken by the sound of a shovel on concrete, which my brain immediately associates with "snow day". It was all I could do not to call my mother and tell her to turn on the TV to see if school was closed.

trepidatiously posted by Martin Marks at 10:09 in the morning // one comment by:

• Tori

 

Films what I need to see soon:

I never go to the movies, but lately there seems to be a lot of good movies out, or maybe I'm just more aware of them. Anyway, I'm making a list mostly for my own reference:

1. Ponyo is at the Landmark Harbor East
2. District 9 is at the Charles until Wednesday (stupid Friday-Wednesday schedule), then at Arundel Mills after that
3. Paper Heart looks like it could be interesting, but it's only at the Charles until Wednesday and then isn't showing anywhere else around here, and it can wait until it's on DVD

Huh. Okay, I guess there were two movies out I need to see. I'd swear it felt like more. Or am I forgetting something? Nothing much at the AFI Silver until Who Framed Roger Rabbit weekend after next (although I missed The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, for which I cannot quite forgive myself). The Senator is reduced to playing Michael Jackson: Live in Bucharest. And I guess that's... pretty much all the theatres I actually enjoy going to.

congenially posted by Martin Marks at 7:08 in the evening // eight comments by:

• Erika
• Martin
• Erika
• Mike
• the old feller
• Sumana Harihareswara
• Martin
• Fafner

 

I suspect this is a question with immense psychological ramifications.

Ignoring all other considerations (rising heat, stairs, street noise, ease of burglary, &c), would you rather live on the top floor of a building, where you wouldn't have to worry about the neighbors above you making too much noise, or on the bottom floor, where you wouldn't have to worry about whether you were making too much noise?

indecorously posted by Martin Marks at 9:57 in the evening // ten comments by:

• Tim
• Fafner
• Moss
• Julia
• Tori
• Katherine
• Mike
• Libby
• Moss
• Liz

 

"They've got, uh, printers in the basement you can use."

Have you guys heard of After Last Season? The trailer evidently caused something of a stir, with some people assuming it was a prank, and possibly even some variety of bizarre viral thing by Spike Jonze to somehow promote Where the Wild Things Are. The Spike Jonze theory makes no sense at all, but it does make slightly more sense than the idea that someone would actually make a movie with that trailer. As it turns out, though, someone did, and even convinced four theatres to run it for a week. The only conclusion the critics were able to come to was that it was an attempt to deconstruct fiction itself.

Welladay. I am not sure what I think of this! On the one hand, I have to give props to the props. (The paper MRI machine is particularly awesome.) As far as the notion of deconstructing the most basic assumptions of fiction... well, it's an interesting challenge. It makes me think of overeager experimental theatre (and in fact the trailer has a certain ineffable community theatrish vibe to it), which, as my own recent experience can attest, is not always a good thing. But after reading this interview, with the director and writer, Mark Region, I'm not at all convinced that was the intent. It looks to me more like a serious attempt to make a serious film that seriously failed—but failure isn't always a bad thing. Maybe if Region wasn't trying for the whole deconstruction thing, that would paradoxically make it more likely to succeed? Hm.

Another theory which jumps to my suspicious mind, though I haven't seen it anywhere else, is that the whole thing is a scam—a Springtime for Hitler-esque con game. Region said in the above-linked interview that the movie cost $5 million to produce—but that it was filmed in five days with a crew of 20 or so. He claimed that most of the money ($4,960,000 by his estimate) went to the "special effects and the computer animation", which is completely absurd. Did he have a deal going with the VFX "studio" (i.e. some guy with a laptop) to bilk his investors? I mean, he seems to have gone out of his way to not publicize the thing, or even to distribute it. (It was a group of his investors who made the deal to get it screened in the four theatres where it was shown. And Region himself didn't even go see it, incidentally.) Was he just trying to keep the movie out of the limelight to prevent scrutiny? Even if it wasn't Region stealing from them, the investors should still be complaining, because seriously, five million for those effects? He's either a con artist or the worst businessman in film history.

Primer, for the record, cost $7,000. And probably made more sense.

Incidentally, I heard about this via John Campbell, author of Pictures for Sad Children and (last I heard) gentleman friend of Kate Beaton, who summed up his feelings on the movie (which he went to see) by saying "i enjoy some things that are unsettling or that may have been made by a dangerously insane person". (Campbell even made a special t-shirt for the occasion. Awesome.)

piquantly posted by Martin Marks at 8:33 in the evening // six comments by:

• Julia
• Martin
• Erika
• Julia
• Mike
• Martin

 

"Very few cartoons are broadcast live. It's a terrible strain on the animators' wrists."

Kseniya Simonova's Ты всегда рядом 1945 ("You are always close, 1945") sand animation is both technically impressive and very moving. To be fair, the war is a pretty easy target for a quick shot of pathos, particularly in Ukraine, but it's done well.

I have to say, on principle I hate these [Name of Country]'s Got Talent things, but every now and then they actually do demonstrate the proposition in the title.

methodically posted by Martin Marks at 12:59 in the afternoon // five comments by:

• Moss
• Martin
• Martin
• Katherine
• Tori

 

I could also have quoted Norton Juster, I suppose.

It is the mood of the beholder which gives the city of Zemrude its form. If you go by whistling, your nose a-tilt behind the whistle, you will know it from below: window sills, flapping curtains, fountains. If you walk along hanging your head, your nails dug into the palms of your hands, your gaze will be held on the ground, in the gutters, the manhole covers, the fish scales, wastepaper. You cannot say that one aspect of the city is truer than the othe, but you hear of the upper Zemrude chiefly from those who remember it, as they sink into the lower Zemrude, following every day the same stretches of street and finding again each morning the ill-humor of the day before, encrusted at the foot of the walls. For everyone, sooner or later, the day comes when we bring our gaze down along the drainpipes and we can no longer detach it from the cobblestones. The reverse is not impossible, but it is more rare: and so we continue walking through Zemrude's streets with eyes now digging into the cellars, the foundations, the wells.

—"Cities & Eyes #2", from Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili (tr. William Weaver)

gamely posted by Martin Marks at 10:09 in the morning // comment? by:

 

Singing "wubba wubba wubba wubba woo woo woo."

I always know when I'm in a good mood because I start spontaneously monologuing in front of the mirror.

precipitously posted by Martin Marks at 10:49 in the evening // one comment by:

• Libby

 

What we do at work.

(8/10/2009 11:05:24 AM) me:
hey [R], do you have any idea why bella has been standing in the sun staring at a manhole cover for at least three hours straight?
(8/10/2009 11:13:25 AM) [R]:
she thinks she's in prison, and she's planning an escape, but she's only smart enough to know she wants a plan of escape, but not smart enough to actually get one together, or realize she can leave anytime she wants

balefully posted by Martin Marks at 11:43 in the morning // one comment by:

• Tanya