![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Image of the Day
Aug. 14th, 2010 09:58 am
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.
Frigid air
Dec. 15th, 2008 08:30 amTemperatures have dropped below freezing in Seattle and are expected to stay there for the rest of the week. Mind you, it got up to 30 F yesterday, so it's not exactly arctic weather. Still, I put on my longjohns for the walk to work this morning. The sky was an amazing deep, clear periwinkle -- a perfect backdrop for the sharp silver gibbous moon still hanging in the heavens at that hour.
Had too much fun at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daveon's housewarming party on Saturday. I think I may have had a little too much to drink. Certainly I felt like death warmed over yesterday, so since Denys and I decided we didn't want to risk icy roads to see Milk on Capitol Hill, I hiked up to the Guild 45th to see Australia again. Felt much the same way I had about it the first time: I really enjoyed it up until the point where she and the drover separate, and after that it gets a bit mechanical and tiresome. Somewhere on the internets I stumbled upon a story that Luhrmann had originally shot an ending where the drover dies, but the studio asked him to change it to a happy ending. I hope that other ending pops up on home video at some point.
After I got home I watched The Italian (1915) on the Perils of the New Land set from Flicker Alley. This is the story of an Italian gondolier who comes to America to make enough money so he can marry the girl he loves. There's an almost documentary quality to the narrative, which delves into big city ward politics, and then moves surprisingly into tragic and melodramatic territory. The other surprise was how much camera movement there was. There was one shot where the camera moved slowly in on the protagonist that had a very modern feeling of growing intimacy. It seemed shocking in a film of that era, but the more films from the Teens I see, the more I realize that experiments with camera movement were already pretty widespread.
Had too much fun at
daveon's housewarming party on Saturday. I think I may have had a little too much to drink. Certainly I felt like death warmed over yesterday, so since Denys and I decided we didn't want to risk icy roads to see Milk on Capitol Hill, I hiked up to the Guild 45th to see Australia again. Felt much the same way I had about it the first time: I really enjoyed it up until the point where she and the drover separate, and after that it gets a bit mechanical and tiresome. Somewhere on the internets I stumbled upon a story that Luhrmann had originally shot an ending where the drover dies, but the studio asked him to change it to a happy ending. I hope that other ending pops up on home video at some point.After I got home I watched The Italian (1915) on the Perils of the New Land set from Flicker Alley. This is the story of an Italian gondolier who comes to America to make enough money so he can marry the girl he loves. There's an almost documentary quality to the narrative, which delves into big city ward politics, and then moves surprisingly into tragic and melodramatic territory. The other surprise was how much camera movement there was. There was one shot where the camera moved slowly in on the protagonist that had a very modern feeling of growing intimacy. It seemed shocking in a film of that era, but the more films from the Teens I see, the more I realize that experiments with camera movement were already pretty widespread.
The Aussie Oz
Dec. 1st, 2008 05:20 pmSo I made it home today. Better late than never, eh? Of all things, another day at my parents' place gave me the chance to string Xmas lights with my dad, of all people. Even my Xmas-hatred wasn't up for hating that.
A good Thanksgiving. My cousin didn't get drunk on Thanksgiving this year, but my brother did. Much interesting conversation with everybody about the changing of the guard in this country, including with my cousin's husband -- the CEO of a logging company and a long time Republican -- who readily agreed that universal health care was an economic necessity at this point. ("I don't mind Obama," he said. "It's Pelosi and Reid I can't stand." "You're in for a painful era," I said somewhat gleefully.)
The football game was pure sugar. The Ducks scored 65 points, the most ever given up by the Beavers in any game, not just the Civil War. It was pretty much a perfect performance by the Duckies; one of the best I've ever seen. Like sugar, however, it ended up being a downer, because my brother was so disappointed that the Beavers wouldn't be going to the Rose Bowl, which he had been planning to take his family to. Dinner after the game was pretty quiet, and my dad and I couldn't really do sports porn until today, when nobody was around to resent it.
Australia was a lot of fun, although I liked the first part better than the second. The drover's soliloquy about living with nothing but what you could carry with you reminded me of a certain gypsy friend Down Under. The clash and copulation of English and Australian and aboriginal cultures was fascinating, and the Outback scenery was fantastic. In the second half, the bombing of Darwin seemed a strange climax, because I'm unclear what part this episode plays in the national epic, and this film is most certainly an attempt at national epic. It seems to me, as an ignorant foreigner, that Gallipoli is a more defining military moment than the bombing of Darwin in the national consciousness. Is that true? In any event, I'll want to see it again on the big screen just because it is so beautiful and luscious visually, whatever its narrative and nationalist flaws. As a big Wizard of Oz fan, I was delighted by the aborgine boy's interpretation of "Over the Rainbow" as a song about dreamtime and the rainbow serpent.
I think that's it for now. Thanksgiving is always such a powerful blast of primal family interaction that I'm left a bit stunned with all the news and implications. If I were an actual writer, maybe I'd try to capture some of it. As it is, it's good to be home. There's no place like it, as Hugh Jackman says in Australia.
Oh, and some of you should have the sekrit Torchwood West projekt by now.
A good Thanksgiving. My cousin didn't get drunk on Thanksgiving this year, but my brother did. Much interesting conversation with everybody about the changing of the guard in this country, including with my cousin's husband -- the CEO of a logging company and a long time Republican -- who readily agreed that universal health care was an economic necessity at this point. ("I don't mind Obama," he said. "It's Pelosi and Reid I can't stand." "You're in for a painful era," I said somewhat gleefully.)
The football game was pure sugar. The Ducks scored 65 points, the most ever given up by the Beavers in any game, not just the Civil War. It was pretty much a perfect performance by the Duckies; one of the best I've ever seen. Like sugar, however, it ended up being a downer, because my brother was so disappointed that the Beavers wouldn't be going to the Rose Bowl, which he had been planning to take his family to. Dinner after the game was pretty quiet, and my dad and I couldn't really do sports porn until today, when nobody was around to resent it.
Australia was a lot of fun, although I liked the first part better than the second. The drover's soliloquy about living with nothing but what you could carry with you reminded me of a certain gypsy friend Down Under. The clash and copulation of English and Australian and aboriginal cultures was fascinating, and the Outback scenery was fantastic. In the second half, the bombing of Darwin seemed a strange climax, because I'm unclear what part this episode plays in the national epic, and this film is most certainly an attempt at national epic. It seems to me, as an ignorant foreigner, that Gallipoli is a more defining military moment than the bombing of Darwin in the national consciousness. Is that true? In any event, I'll want to see it again on the big screen just because it is so beautiful and luscious visually, whatever its narrative and nationalist flaws. As a big Wizard of Oz fan, I was delighted by the aborgine boy's interpretation of "Over the Rainbow" as a song about dreamtime and the rainbow serpent.
I think that's it for now. Thanksgiving is always such a powerful blast of primal family interaction that I'm left a bit stunned with all the news and implications. If I were an actual writer, maybe I'd try to capture some of it. As it is, it's good to be home. There's no place like it, as Hugh Jackman says in Australia.
Oh, and some of you should have the sekrit Torchwood West projekt by now.
Thanksgiving plans
Nov. 26th, 2008 08:04 amLater today I'll be flying down to Central Oregon for Thanksgiving weekend. Aside from the Thanksgiving pig-out itself, plans include seeing Baz Luhrmann's Australia with the women in the family (I'm also bringing the DVD of Strictly Ballroom, because my sister hasn't seen it), and watching the UO-OSU Civil War game. We are a divided family on the UO-OSU front, and my nephew has already sent a "joke" calling UO fans idiots and morons. If OSU wins, they go to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 43 years; if they lose, I'll be a happy man.
I'll be returning to Seattle Sunday evening.
Update: Here's Manohla Dargis in the NYTimes on Australia: "A pastiche of genres and references wrapped up — though, more often than not, whipped up — into one demented and generally diverting horse-galloping, cattle-stampeding, camera-swooping, music-swelling, mood-altering widescreen package, this creation story about modern Australia is a testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion."
Sounds like a blast!
Update 2: Regarding my comparison of Strictly Ballroom to Warner Bros cartoons in the comments, here's Moira MacDonald on Australia in the Seattle Times: 'The film is an old-school epic, starring a pair of insanely beautiful movie stars and drawing on our memories of the likes of "The Wizard of Oz" ("Over the Rainbow" permeates this film), "Gone with the Wind" and "Out of Africa." And while "Australia" isn't remotely as good as any of those — there's an odd cartooniness to it that keeps getting in the way — it nonetheless satisfies, in a lean-back, munch -popcorn- and-watch- Hugh-Jackman-emerge-from-the-mist sort of way.'
The cartooninness is part of what I love about Luhrmann's films. He has called it "intensified artificiality."
I'll be returning to Seattle Sunday evening.
Update: Here's Manohla Dargis in the NYTimes on Australia: "A pastiche of genres and references wrapped up — though, more often than not, whipped up — into one demented and generally diverting horse-galloping, cattle-stampeding, camera-swooping, music-swelling, mood-altering widescreen package, this creation story about modern Australia is a testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion."
Sounds like a blast!
Update 2: Regarding my comparison of Strictly Ballroom to Warner Bros cartoons in the comments, here's Moira MacDonald on Australia in the Seattle Times: 'The film is an old-school epic, starring a pair of insanely beautiful movie stars and drawing on our memories of the likes of "The Wizard of Oz" ("Over the Rainbow" permeates this film), "Gone with the Wind" and "Out of Africa." And while "Australia" isn't remotely as good as any of those — there's an odd cartooniness to it that keeps getting in the way — it nonetheless satisfies, in a lean-back, munch -popcorn- and-watch- Hugh-Jackman-emerge-from-the-mist sort of way.'
The cartooninness is part of what I love about Luhrmann's films. He has called it "intensified artificiality."
