Watching movies at the DMV

I've been spending more and more time (and money) at the movie theater lately. From the Hitchcock series at my local Riverview Theater, to another Jamie Foxx biopic (sort of), to a really enjoyable indie film , the cinema has been good to me. Okay, so The Soloist wasn't my first choice for movies that night, and it was a little bit predictable, but it wasn't bad either. Watching an auteur like Hitchcock week after week, I've begun to remember why it's so remarkable to see a movie in the theater: the things I enjoy are amplified there.

The camera movements in Hitchcock, from the pronounced visual tricks of Vertigo to the subtle mastery of Rope (more on that in a minute), are so crucial to the experience of watching his films. And watching an original print on the big screen of the movie theater, a viewer gets to see all of these touches amplified to a degree that you just can't grasp on a 24 inch television. (I'm speaking for those of us with standard definition, crappy television sets, here). The curator of this festival has astutely included one of Hitchcock's lesser-known gems: Rope. This film, starring Jimmy Stewart, has a great visual trick of its own: the entire movie takes place inside one apartment, and there are very few individual shots. The claustrophobic feeling created by the closed space and long, drawn-out scenes adds weight to the growing paranoia of the film's protagonist. It was fun to re-live this movie (which I've seen several times) in the setting of a movie theater with my brother, who had never seen it. Likewise, last week's showing of To Catch a Thief made me appreciate the breathtaking camerawork on the rooftop cat burglar scenes at the movies beginning and end. I'm coming to appreciate that these movies were made for the theater, and to see them in their original setting is to see them with fresh eyes.

I must confess that my renewed interest in moviegoing coincides with a project I have been involved with since February: two of my very good friends are making a movie right now. Each weekend, they assemble the cast, rent the equipment, and scout locations in which to make their feature-length effort. These guys have poured their lives into this project, and I'm proud to say that I've been involved as both a production assistant and actor. The end result is going to be great, in part because I've watched this thing from its genesis, but also because these young men care very deeply about what they're doing. Both of them are very studied in cinematography and editing, and more than that, they both have a good eye for what potential the medium of narrative film holds.

I'll end with a confession and a realization that sums up the lasting power of film. Yesterday, I was at the DMV getting my license replaced. In the center of the room was a muted TV playing a black and white film. Embarrassingly, I've never seen the movie Casablanca. Regardless, it took me no more than five seconds to realize that this was the movie I was watching (and mind you, Bogart wasn't even on the screen). The long tracking shot of a black piano player in a smoky club, inhabited by people from around the world, past tables of gamblers, through the coatroom and around several conversant socialites--this one shot, so beautifully executed and so instantly evocative--told me that I was watching Casablanca. The aura of that movie is so potent that some kid at the DMV (sixty-seven years after its release) could know that movie without having seen it.

One of those 'life is good' posts

Throw open the windows! Spring is here and I have the day off!

Things are starting to green up around the neighborhood, and I find that with every passing day I have more energy to do the things I care about: catch up on correspondence with friends, ride my bike and explore the city, and build connections with my surroundings and with God. In addition to having more energy, I also have more time--classes ended last week. After what felt like a marathon of paper-writing and presentation-giving, I have arrived at that after-finals place where I come home from work and say, "Now what?"

Well, the answer is now I can rejoin my fabulous book club. Now I can sit in the hammock on a week night and have a beer. Now I can watch the Twins play the Mariners (just don't talk to me about the games we dropped to the Tigers and the Orioles this week).

I'm not ashamed to say that this is one of those "life is good" posts. Spring makes things feel less complicated, and I am happy to embrace it. Sure, there are still bills to pay and plans for the future to consider. There are still major issues to wrestle with and serious realities to face. Working at a bank right now gives me an unusually close position from which to view our current economic situation. Moreover, my position as a student with loans out and a better-than-average credit score leaves me feeling frustrated.

In any event, this is just one of many issues I think about on a near-daily basis. For every Paul Krugman column I read, I'm also trying to grasp the sacrifices made by Bobby Sands. For every Martin Luther thesis I consider, I'm also trying to stay caught up on the NYT Bestsellers list. For every Op-Ed I see on Iran or Pakistan, I'm also scouring a music blog for details on the new Wilco album. Oftentimes, I'm jumping from issue-to-issue without fully processing anything.

I have trouble sometimes separating what's going on with me and what's happening in the broader world. Things alternately seem too personal or too removed with little rationale. And yet, everything seems more manageable in spring than it did in winter.

Uncovering latent ageism

I read a review of Clint Eastwood’s new movie, Gran Torino, in the New York Times today, and the critic, Manohla Dargis, praised Eastwood as a director for consistently engaging with “bigger questions of American life.” I generally like the Dargis’ insights, and this review crystallized why: She not only focuses on the stakes of an individual movie, but (and this is especially true where an established person like Eastwood is concerned) she also places the film in the context of the larger culture or a person’s career. I read this review not because I was interested in Gran Torino, but because I was interested to hear what she had to say about Eastwood as a director.

She discusses the director’s grappling with and celebration of American life in a really serious way. When we hear about a celebration of American values or traditions, it’s usually meant in some sort of Jingoistic, standard-bearing sense. This review suggests, on the contrary, that Eastwood’s role has been that of careful observer of our culture. She advocates the kind of American movies that Clint Eastwood makes, and speculated that part of the reason probably lies in the fact that he got his start in the old studio system (I won’t attempt to do justice to her logic on this point).

This reference to Eastwood’s longevity highlighted something for me that I might have otherwise taken for granted: Clint Eastwood is old. I mean, when you see the guy acting in a movie, it’s hard to forget that he’s pretty old and that he’s been doing this seemingly forever. But it’s also true that when I think about the director, the person behind the camera, I never picture someone as old as Clint Eastwood making meaningful, relevant films. This is a big problem of mine.

I seem to attribute the source of passion for something like acting or directing to youthful exuberance—a boundless creativity and energy that must be reserved for the young. But how many great directors make some of their best films later in life? And how much wisdom must accrue in that time? As much as I like Taxi Driver, I have to admit that The Departed is a much better movie. Hell, The Departed is probably better than Goodfellas.

Then again, especially in the world of American cinema, I tend to think that the older and more accomplished a director is, the more entrenched they are in a soul-sucking studio system that doesn’t seem to value creativity or innovation. I can’t shake this feeling, even as I write these words. But what can we say about someone like Clint Eastwood, who continues to create movies at an impressive pace, but also continues to rack up recognitions for these films?

I am left to ponder some latent ageism lurking in my aesthetics. I turn once again to the New York Times art section: Elliott Carter is 100 years old. His output since he turned 90 has been staggering and on par with (if not surpassing) his work as a younger man.

Towards a better understanding of the internet

While eating pizza with a good friend last night, I was reminded that I have left this blog idling for quite some time. However, during my absence from actually blogging, I’ve been hearing a lot about blogs. In October and November, I heard a lot about blogs as a component of the new ways in which the world receives its information— part rumor mill, part regurgitator of more traditional news sources, and part opinion forum, blogs have come to play a large role in American discussion of public issues (read: elections).

I’ve also heard a lot of theoretical talk about blogs as a component of Web2.0, the exciting concept that the web is becoming more user-generated and democratic. The Internet, it is thought, is springing more naturally from its users. Blogs and wikis and social networking sites allow people not only to generate content, but to organize it as they see fit. The ability to tag Flickr photos or Del.icio.us bookmarks and blog entries has pushed to the fore the idea of “folksonomies.” People are creating natural language system of classification, adding user-generated metadata that helps them create connections between content that they feel is related.

“Metadata” is the information that describes a piece of information. In terms of the internet, this would be things like a unique URL, a line of xml code, or more visibly, a tag on a blog. If I tagged this entry “Web 2.0,” then anybody that’s browsing blogspot.com for posts on Web 2.0 has the ability to find my blog. I’ve made a meaningful connection with other, related posts by people far, far away. Then again, I could tag this anything. Looking at my first sentence, I could tag this blog “pizza,” which might be disingenuous to a person browsing pizza blogs, since other than that first sentence, I haven’t mentioned pizza!

So a user-generated classification system is only as good as its users. You may have noticed that I haven’t tagged any of my blog posts, and thus, I have failed to participate in this semantic web to the full extent—I have yet to make the most of my internet connections. But obviously this stuff is working. Go to the above mentioned sites—Flickr, del.icio.us, etc. People are out there making previously unthinkable links via metadata. They’re not only posting photos and bookmarks, they’re making connections with people who are posting seemingly-related photos and bookmarks! With little interference from the people who create and host these sites!

Its enough to make a person’s head spin! For someone like me, someone who closely guards his privacy, it’s also quite scary. Every social networking site you join, every service you sign up for brings you lets out more of your personal information. You see what other people are reading, thinking, seeing, and doing, but you can also be seen yourself. There are heavy costs and benefits to be weighed in web participation.

Anyway, this post is a lot longer than I thought it would be. Like I said, I’ve been exposed to a lot of thoughts on blogs over the past several months, and it has really opened my eyes to the existence of the Internet as a user-driven web. These thoughts have gestated, and I may be ready to submerge back in the blogosphere.

Sandwiches and local music

The best sandwiches on Lake St. come from Manny's Tortas, no contest. I just finished eating a chicken sandwich from Manny's, topped with the customary tomatoes, grilled onions, avocado, jalapenos, etc. I sort of have a ritual surrounding their sandwiches: I order my food to go and take the little white lunch bag, almost clear from the stains of the greasy wax-wrapped torta, and eat it in my living room. Every time, I'm by myself, and it's almost always an odd time of day (as in, not exactly meal time). The shades are drawn and no one's home; it's almost as if the torta is some sort of fix for me. I'd call myself a junkie for Manny's but this is actually only my third sandwich.

So here I am, the remnants of a torta in front of me at 4:00 in the afternoon, on a Saturday with almost nothing to do. There's a new CD in the stereo (Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth) and comfort food in my bellly. And while my sandwich eating is absolutely routine, the CD is a little bit of a departure for me, fulfilling my earlier vow to add some musical diversity. I saw Brother Ali one time, but the Rhymesayers aesthetic has never been my favorite. This CD, however, is really well produced - the beats stand out, for sure. On top of those beats, Ali's rhymes are
well-crafted, and move far enough away from the typical Slug 'heart-on-my-sleeve' message to keep me listening.

Like I said, I have very little to do today (though that's probably obvious by now). Earlier, I read about 65 pages of Sarah Vowell's gripping and hilarious Assassination Vacation, and after I post this, I'll probably try and close in on the ending of Moby Dick. Tonight I have a going away party to attend. And that's it: writing a blog about sandwiches, trying to embrace local hip-hop, and reading two books before going to a friend's Seward digs for wine and barbecue. Did I mention it's 84 degrees out and I'm going to go sit and read in the hammock? I've got to keep enjoying these Saturdays before school starts back up.

I seem to be creating lists latey,

particularly lists of music, so here goes with one more:

List of CDs lent to two friends going on a road trip to Arkansas, at their request that I lend them music for the drive (in no particular order)

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cold Roses (disc 2)
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Wilco - Summerteeth
Chris Koza - Patterns
Townes Van Zandt - Homemade comp.
Golden Smog - Down by the Old Mainstream
Various Motown artists - Homemade comp.
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Andrew Bird - ...and the Mysterious Production of Eggs

My thoughts behind the CDs chosen:

First of all, it as imperative that the music somehow give off the feel of summer. This meant a lot of upbeat, poppy music, but also - considering that some of the driving will be in the morning and/or evening - that there are songs with a certain contemplative quality.

Furthermore, the CD list was all about reasonable exposure. I wanted to give these travelers some stuff that they wouldn't know, but also make sure that it was - by the average person's standards - accessible.

Finally, there had to be some killer first tracks. Crane Wife, Twin Cinema, and Gimme Fiction have especially catchy first tracks.

A note about the Townes and Motown comps: Townes Van Zandt has an enormous output, and no single album was going to be a good starting place for two unfamiliar listeners. Motown, of course, has a massive output, too, and making my own mixtape seemed to be the best way around sending them with every Hitsville CD I own.

Less than diverse music selection

Based on songs and styles I've listened to recently, these are the 'randomly' chosen songs my media player came up with for me. I could stand to diversify a bit:

1. Tumbling Dice - Rolling Stones
2. Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
3. Lonesome Suzie - the Band
4. You Got Lucky - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. Poor Places - Wilco
6. Walken - Wilco
7. The Late Greats - Wilco
8. California [Part II] - Mason Jennings
9. House by the Sea - Iron & Wine
10. Stick in the Mud - The Jayhawks
11. I Want to Sing that Rock and Roll - Gillian Welch
12. The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine - Spoon
13. I Just Want to See His Face - Rolling Stones