Upcoming Events, Feb 2007

• Old Joy is showing at the Film Forum Feb 2-8.
• Lindstrøm is DJing at Studio B, a dance/rock club in Greenpoint on Saturday, Feb 10
• The "Film Comment Selects" series runs Feb 14-27 at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, including Exiled (Johnnie To), Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa), and Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismäki)
• Matthew Dear is DJing for The Bunker at Subtonic, a tiny basement bar on the Lower East Side, on Friday, Feb 16
• Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola) is showing for free at the Sony Wonder Technology Lab's HD Theater on Saturday, Feb 17
• Optimo is DJing for The Bunker at Subtonic on Friday, Feb 23
• Climates (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) is showing at Museum of the Moving Image, Feb 24-25

First Five Movies, 2007

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Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou) at the Regal 14 on Union Square thanks to Holly, more or less
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Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood) with Charles at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in the East Village
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The Silence (Ingmar Bergman) with Charles at the Museum of Modern Art on a free Friday night
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Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) with Charles at Cobble Hill Cinema, which is the only theater in New York I've found so far that has matinees
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Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk) on video(!) at Clearviews Chelsea, but at least it wasn't full price
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Merge

Kottke just posted about merging his two RSS feeds into one in order to allow his entire audience to view all of the blog all the time. This makes me think that I ought to incorporate the sidebar stuff into actual posts somehow. So I will.

Bulk Movies

Before I got to New York I was thinking of getting memberships at places like Film Forum, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Anthology Film Archives. However, none of these memberships provide free admission to screenings; in Anthology's case, a membership gets you in free to repertory screenings, but nothing new.

Now I'm much more excited about memberships at MoMA and MoMI (Museum of the Moving Image). For $75 and $65, respectively, you get free admission to all regular screenings plus unlimited admission to the museums. I'm not sure what the exhibitions are like at the Museum of the Moving Image, but it'd be pretty cool to just go hang out at the Museum of Modern Art when I'm in Midtown with time on my hands.

I figure seeing six movies at each over the next year would validate the purchases. Here's what I would hope to see over just the next month:

MoMA
• Ray
• "Stan Brakhage Program"
• Once Upon a Time in the West
• Once Upon a Time in America
• They Drive by Night
• Ran
• Anatomy of a Murder

MoMI
• The Century of the Self
• The Power of Nightmares
• - or - F for Fake
• Climates

Favorite Movies by Decade

This is a fleshed-out version of a post from last month. You may notice that I used a single director more than once per decade, though I started out trying not to.

2000-09
Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook, 2000)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, 2000)
Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)
2046 (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch, 2005)
Mutual Appreciation (Andrew Bujalski, 2005)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
L'enfant (Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 2006)

1990-99
Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991)
Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Satantango (Béla Tarr, 1994)
The White Balloon (Jafar Panahi, 1995)
Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998)
Magnolia (P.T. Anderson, 1999)
Belfast, Maine (Frederick Wiseman, 1999)

1980-89
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
Fanny & Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1983)
Stranger than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1986)
Where Is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987)
Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1989)

1970-79
The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
The Ruling Class (Peter Medak, 1972)
The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Animal House (John Landis, 1978)
Being There (Hal Ashby, 1979)
Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)

1960-69
Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960)
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961)
Il Posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961)
Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut, 1961)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1962)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The Odd Couple (Gene Saks, 1968)

1950-59
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Ugetsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955)
Touchez pas au grisbi (Jacques Becker, 1956)
The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)

1940-49
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946)
Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

1930-39
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934)
Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934)
My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936)
Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
Port of Shadows (Marcel Carne, 1938)
Holiday (George Cukor, 1938)
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)

New Stuff

So, I've re-upped my Rock/Pop mix and the second part of Dance (Lite) with the first part coming tomorrow night¹, in case you missed out. As far as I can tell the Dance (Hard) mix is still available at SendSpace.

There are a few new pictures up at Flickr from the past month or so.

There's also a link in the sidebar to Stylus Reviews in the Online Incarnations section. Currently it is populated with exactly one review, but there should be another one this week and roughly two per month added indefinitely.

¹ Done.

True Greatness

I just experienced what I feel may be the greatest Tecmo Super Bowl play of all time. After a rough, scoreless first quarter of Jets vs. Giants, I am ignominiously forced to punt from about my own 20-yard line. It's a pretty good punt, but as I'm the Jets my guys can't block or tackle and the Giants return it about thirty yards to their 35-yard line. Stunningly, the Jets force a fumble, and some absolute no-name, who is neither an offensive skill player nor quick on defense, picks up the ball and, breaking three tackles while actually avoiding others, lumbers his way the full thirty five yards into the end zone for the first score of the game as the quarter expires.

By comparison, I think my 87-yard touchdown on a Marion Butts running play the other day was at least four or five times as likely, if not more.

Online Listening

I think I've sort of known this for a while, somehow, but I just realized that you can listen to full tracks at a pretty decent bitrate at both Bleep and Kompakt MP3--you just need to initiate each 30 second section of the track. Hence, here are links to some of my favorite tracks from last year that didn't get linked originally.

Alex Smoke "Snider" [Soma]
Booka Shade "In White Rooms (Elektrochemie Remix)" [Get Physical]
The Field "Over the Ice" [Kompakt]
The Gossip "Standing in the Way of Control (Playgroup Remix)" [Back Yard]
Kode 9 and the Spaceape "Glass" [Hyperdub]
Lindstrøm "Another Station (Todd Terje Remix)" [Eskimo]
Thomas Melchior & Luciano "Solomon's Prayer/Father" [Cadenza]
Mobius Band "The Loving Sounds of Static (Junior Boys Remix)" [Ghostly]
SCSI-9 "When She Said Goodbye" [Kompakt]
Skatebaard "Data Italia" [Digitalo]

Mix Playlists

So we're three mixes down with something yet to come. I still have some tracks I really would like to put to use like Audion's "Mouth to Mouth," Carl Craig's "Relevee" remix, "Glass" by Kode 9 and the Spaceape, and more ambient or at least beatless stuff. It might just be a big conceptual glob.

Dance (Hard)
SIDE 1
01 Martin Landsky "1000 Miles"
02 John Lord Fonda "So Far Away (Alan Braxe Remix)"
03 Simian Mobile Disco "Hustler"
04 X-Press "Kill 100 (Carl Craig Remix)"
05 Candidate "Anticipation"
06 Outputmessage "Glintz"
SIDE 2
01 John Tejada "The End of It All"
02 Booka Shade "In White Rooms (Elektrochemie Remix)"
03 Fedde Le Grand "Put Your Hands Up For Detroit"
04 Mariah Carey "Emotions (DJ Copy Edit)"
05 Justin Timberlake ft. T.I. "My Love"
06 Hot Chip "Boy From School (Erol Alkan's Extended Re-Work)"

Dance (Lite)
SIDE 1
01 Peter Bjorn and John ft. Victoria Bergman "Young Folks"
02 Escort "Starlight"
03 Spank Rock "Sweet Talk"
04 The Gossip "Listen Up! (MSTRKRFT Remix)"
05 Shit Robot "Triumph"
06 Tiga "Far from Home (DFA Remix)"
SIDE 2
01 Mobius Band "The Loving Sounds of Static (Junior Boys Remix)"
02 Skatebård "Data Italia"
03 Thomas/Mayer "Sweet Harmony"
04 Lindstrøm "Another Station (Todd Terje Remix)"
05 SCSI-9 "When She Said Goodbye"
06 Kalabrese "Skamel"

Rock/Pop
SIDE 1
01 Susanna & The Magical Orchestra "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
02 Dave Alvin "Surfer Girl"
03 The Pipettes "Pull Shapes"
04 Camera Obscura "Let's Get Out of This Country"
05 Band of Horses "The Funeral"
06 Grizzly Bear "Knife"
07 Sunset Rubdown "Stadiums and Shrines II"
SIDE 2
01 The Thermals "Here's Your Future"
02 TV on the Radio "Wolf Like Me"
03 The Coup ft. Black Thought & Talib Kweli "My Favorite Mutiny"
04 The Rapture "Get Myself Into It"
05 Fujiya & Miyagi "Collarbone"
06 Nelly Furtado ft. Timbaland "Promiscuous"
07 Yo La Tengo "The Story of Yo La Tengo"

Dazed and Confused

Here's a full review I did a while back of Dazed & Confused, unpublished elsewhere. It's a version of this post from last February

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My first experience with Dazed and Confused came in high school, where it constituted a key part of the recommended video diet for males aged 14-18 at the time along with Half Baked, Austin Powers, and Billy Madison. Several years later that juxtaposition seems both odd and wholly appropriate. Richard Linklater's paean to innocently troublemaking youth is a much more down-to-earth, humane, and emotional movie than what seemed to me its cinematic peers, but at the same time what more enthusiastic audience could exist than exactly those depicted in the film?

Certainly Dazed & Confused is an anarchically hilarious teen/stoner comedy with an impressive ensemble cast of future studio stars. Upon closer viewing, though, it's also clear that Linklater betrays directorial traits more readily recognizable over a decade later, but also evident in Slacker, his landmark indie portrait of Austin bohemia released two years prior. As made clear by the narrow time frame in which the narrative takes place (24 hours, give or take, much like Before Sunrise/Sunset, Waking Life, and Slacker) character and setting are privileged over plot. Not that gags and surprises don't abound, but our interest is held much more by personality than by adventure, romance, or betrayal.

The writer/director's talent for witty and caustic yet poignant dialogue is strong enough that he's able to spend much more screen time on talk than action without allowing the pace to sag. While a similar emphasis on digressive dialogue might be expected in the arty examples given above, it's also apparent in recent fare like the more traditional Bad News Bears. Indeed, Linklater portrays athletes very similarly in both Dazed & Confused and that unjustly panned Billy Bob Thornton vehicle. A former athlete himself, the director doesn't go in for any overt jock-bashing, but both films make clear that personal relationships and life experience are to be prized far more than victory or even commitment on the playing field.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the characters Linklater presents us with, and what may ultimately give the film its wide appeal, is that he has very little interest in judging or punishing any of them. Certainly Dazed & Confused has its heroes: Mitch, gaining social acceptance by his elders; Pink, attempting to form an identity beyond what others expect of him; Mike and Cynthia, shedding their geek status and mixing it up at the beer bust. On the other hand, except for O'Bannion who has violated the social code by attempting to beat on the incoming freshmen two years in a row, even the sleazeballs make out pretty well in the end. Consider Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson, the mustachioed, quasi-pedophilic creep whose main passion seems to be cruising for jailbait ("That's what I love about these high school girls, man..."). His entrance into the Emporium pool hall at the head of his posse with Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" blaring on the soundtrack is as glorious as a coronation.

Of course, that's not to suggest that Linklater omits the cruel banalities of the milieu. There are plenty of authority figures providing harassment, parents throwing wrenches into party plans, and painful whacks on the backside handed out by the older kids, but as the film progresses we understand that these experiences are a sort Manichean counterpart to the scenes of late night/early morning bliss to come. Ah, if only real adolescence felt so fair and reasonable as we experienced it.

Named For The Dutch City "Breukelen"

Yes, I watched the BCS Championship, and no, I don't have anything to say.

I have moved to New York. Charles found us a sublet for January in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. We will be moving at the end of the month, but this is nice for now. We are looking for jobs.

Note on the right side beneath "2006 Movies" that the old "Upcoming" list has returned, this time populated both with music and film events. I haven't found any shows outside Studio B yet, but with the DJs they have scheduled for the first three months of the year, I might not need to bother going anywhere else. On the cinematic side of things, supposedly MoMA films are free on Fridays, given that admission is free and film tickets are included in the price of admission. It seems too good to be true, but I suppose the truth will be revealed soon enough.

Football Saves New Orleans

It's a truism that those who spend most of their lives within a subculture attempt to attach some inflated importance to it, but I find it appalling that every time a sporting event occurs in New Orleans, or can in some way be related to it, prognosticators suggest that a victory would be a really big boost for the city. I mean, I can understand a reluctance on the part of the networks to bring up governmental incompetence and hypocrisy during the pre-game, but is such boneheaded obliviousness really necessary? Only after all neighborhoods have been restored and the levees built to scientifically accurate specifications ought we to attach any relevance to sports and athletes.