Make a deal with your shine blocker.

by Ryland Walker Knight

A legend
a.
It doesn't hurt me
We block back the dark, moony
Dedicate, hound

b.
All the men she knew
None were fair or true
So she ran away and up
And up past the board blue

c.
Dance and flight and plain naked
alone, one's own property
purposed to light, to home, but not
done with that flipp'd flicker's flapp'n
all wind, wind post'd by you
who will not cannot shall not
sit still
in any calendar.

Convergence for my battle tactics (11/18/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

(1)


(2)

—Rap my soul awake why don't you: 1, 2

Pick yourself up.

Our man said so, so, you know, follow through: pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.

Two Thousand Weight? #5: Pure Joy

by Mikey

Track One: "Suffering Jukebox" - Silver Jews

Live it's a tie: 650 torchbearers Millbrae Bros bringing Seattle to its knees with the help of a whiskey-soaked devil VS. Earth melting the brains of a hundred-plus yuppies at the Bad Seeds concert.

Track Two: "Strange Overtones" - David Byrne and Brian Eno


After requesting "Baby on Board", Lindy being picked to harmonize and become an honorary member of the Dapper Dans.

Track Three: "Old Fools" - the Magnetic Fields


Seeing WALL*E at Pixar (yeah, that's me). It ain't no Ratatouille but that first half hour is the greatest of the year. Strike that, any year. Fuck the haters (see below). WALL*E is optimistic about the future in spite of the evils of mankind taunting it in the face. After seeing this work of art constructed on robots but conceived and shaped entirely by humans, this jaded little misanthropic atheist saw a glimmer of hope too.


Track Four: "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" - Randy Newman

Speaking of hope, remember this?


Track Five: "Nude With Boots" - Melvins

The greatest band in the history of music soldiers on.

Track Six: "The Rip" - Portishead

Overhearing Nellie McKay say she's never heard of Cat Power from the booth next to me at California Vegan in L.A.


Track Seven: "Borrowed Your Gun" - Spiritualized

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is a movie about life and death and love and lust and art and commerce and children and parents and one's purpose or lack thereof on this planet and it made me laugh and cry and gasp and sigh and I couldn't get it out of my head for days. I woke up after dreaming about it with new revelations having come to light and I still don't know if I know what I know because it was all so fast and fleeting and full of wit and vigor and pith and vinegar. It's the most beautiful film about ugliness I have ever seen.


Track Eight: "I'm A Tide" - Broken Strings

Buried treasures: Pennies from Heaven, Zola, A Tree With Roots, The Blue Angel, Bela Bartok, The War of the World by Niall Fergusson, Rio Bravo.

Track Nine: "More News From Nowhere" - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds



Goodbye.

A very plain, very basic view: FUCK Halloween.

by Claire Twisselman

Reaction No. 1:


Reaction No. 2:

Found Facts. September 2008.

by Ryland Walker Knight

It's tough to trim a life into ten minute segments. But, even though this episode (installment? missive?) has less jokes than its predecessors, I hope and trust that this assemblage will make you giggle -- here and there, if not everywhere. And so it goes. Another month and another friend leaves the Bay. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of my good Stevie found facts, which forced me to play with that absence, or that theme, or something. Indeed: September is some weird lacuna for a few of us that seems distant and empty. Perhaps the word I'm searching for is "liminal." Then again, isn't that just life? Everything transition? Is that a developing FF theme? Yes? Yes. Trying to grab ephemera. Trying to find fun here. It's tough, sure, but, as Cam says, "I'm enjoying this." Please: join us by the fire. Burn forward and lick the world like a flame. Also, dance. Please. Yes!
__________
The Juan Maclean - Dance With Me: [zshare] and/or [imeem]

[To whom it may concern: If you'd like me to remove these song files, let me know. I'm gonna trust it's cool for now! To the others it may concern: go buy Less Than Human, like, three years ago.]

Found Facts. June 2008.

by Ryland Walker Knight

[I could probably make this a higher quality file but it's such an abject little thing as it is that, hell, it doesn't need any modicum of sheen. That might be dishonest. So, this is offered with humility and a little embarrassment on behalf of everybody. Although, to be fair, we all know who the star is...]

Trailers de Oliveira. Selections from the "Talking Pictures" series.

by Ryland Walker Knight

Organized by BAMcinématek last spring (read Dennis Lim), Pacific Film Archive began its hosting of Manoel de Oliveira: Talking Pictures last Saturday with Voyage to the Beginning of the World, which I was unable to attend because two of my dear friends will be leaving America for an extended period at the end of this week and we had a send off pool party in Sonoma County. It's next in my Netflix queue so I hope to catch up with it this week, maybe offering a few more words and accompanying pictures. I did get to see Aniki Bobo on Sunday, and found it delightful, but I don't know what else to say for it now; I was much more impressed, or taken with, the accompanying short, Hunting, a black comedy allegory full of equal parts fun and terror. But that's all I got right now. For now, in lieu of more words, here's some assorted trailers and clips I found on youtube. I can't understand the Portuguese, but I can tell these are striking images.

Doomed Love, August 24th.


Francisca, which I will miss on August 31, as I will be in Colorado.


Non, or the Vain Glory of Command will be introduced by Randal Johnson, who has written the first English-language book about Oliveira, on September 10th.




Clips from The Divine Comedy, September 17th.



Christopher Columbus: The Enigma, September 21.


Belle Toujours, September 24th. (Yes, I understood this one.)


Abraham's Valley, the closing film on September 28th.

I ain't scared of you motherfuckers!

by Ryland Walker Knight

[October 5, 1957 - August 9, 2008]
I knew Bernie Mac had the odd disease sarcoidosis, a rare autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in tissue, most often in the lungs, since 1983. But I did not know he was hospitalized last week. His sarcoidosis brought on pneumonia and, although he was apparently responding well to treatment, Mac passed away this morning. I can't claim to be his most devoted fan but I always dug his catch phrase and his candor and respected the hell out of him for a marriage that lasted his whole adult life, from age 20 to today. Plus, you know, he was funny as fuck. Finally, while not over the moon, I'm with Armond White when it comes to Mr. 3000, which I saw for the first time on cable television after moving back to Berkeley in January 2007. It surprised me with its warmth, and its curious interest not in glory but decency -- and it's not ham fisted, however slight it may be -- where race is not ignored but handled with intelligence, and comedic smarts. But Bernie Mac didn't get famous for sensitivity. In fact, it's his fearless desire to speak on shit, whatever it is, however he wants -- politeness be damned -- that makes his comedy work. It's not quite crude but it certainly isn't "tasteful" by any stretch. I wish I had a better thesis on comedy and its worth at this point but I do know that there's plenty of value in great comedic satire, as most stand up is, that gets lost when things get "serious" and tend towards the leaden. It's part of why I like those Pirates movies, why I value Wes Anderson. (There's an attention to language, and how we all use it and how it often fails us, that brings out laughter; timing a pause in speech says just as much as a good cuss word.) Hell, that's Armond's argument for Mr 3000 over Before Sunset (but I'd say he's missing out on what else Linklater's film has to offer). However, it need not just be satire. There's love in great comedy. It's what people often call "humanism" (a term I've yet to embrace), I think. Bernie Mac loves those kids he promises he'll whoop. Bernie Mac loves his wife. Bernie Mac loves America. And America, rightly, loves Bernie Mac. Or, it did for a time. (Pop culture shelf life is a bitch.) I hope he keeps getting loved. There's no reason he shouldn't be loved. Here's some reasons why:

Oranges and knives, bread and wine. Sicilia!

Here are the beginning and ending of the only Straub-Huillet film I've seen, Sicilia!. Their subtitles are not in English so watching these are a test of my Romance language background understanding; and yet, at the same time, the way the Straubs direct their actors to speak is like music. It's just as pleasurable to simply let the sound run and look at other things. If you speak Italian, though, I imagine it's a different experience. You can appreciate the conversations for their constative elements as much as their musical rhythms (especially during the list at the end), as well as the subtle psychology of the Straubs' editing. It's all in the grammar. Here's that electrifying compulsion: I have to see more. --RWK

turkey and cheese

by Steven Boone

New Narrative. Excerpt from Harry, Zelda and Antoinette

by Marc Lafia

During the course of working on my Permutations project, I became fascinated with the idea of narration, where it happens and how. I had for some time been thinking about rules-based art, algorithms; a database cinema which I had been using in varied projects. But I wanted to proceed with these ideas in an internalized way, procedurally, not literally. I wanted to engage these strategies as approaches to shape and perform narrative. I had written a film scenario for Harry, Zelda and Antoinette and knew the dramaturgy very well. I wasn't getting any where raising money. So I thought how I can create an event of recording in with the permutations approach which become an event of narration with those things around me, folding them into a narrative, within which I was narrating and orchestrating the recording to such an end. The work consists of six parts each composed of some twelve to twenty multi-screen films. Here's an excerpt.

[Note: we understand that a youtube clip posted on a blog is not as striking as seeing the film/s projected on a white wall or a silver screen but we do hope you indulge our offer. Marc may try to upload this to imeem.com for a better quality image. Until then, here's this. --RWK]

Permutation 13 Permutation 304 Permutation 12

by Marc Lafia

Nina Eats the Soul

by Steven Boone

Shamelessly sentimental mashup of Nina Simone and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The idea is that Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is two films. The first is about two lovers dealing with the terrible, disapproving world. The second is about the two lovers, having conquered the world, dealing with what poison it has left in each other's system. Nina sings a song for each "film."

MILES GODARD NOCTURNE

by Steven Boone

Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville is a gorgeously photographed low-budget science-fiction film with an okay story. What it could use is some Miles Davis. If you've seen Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows, you know what I'm talking about. This Alphaville montage is set to Black Satin, from the Davis album On the Corner.

Three "Fake" Trailers

by Steven Boone

1. Teaser for Chungking Express. A short celebration of Wong Kar-wai's ageless gem, with assist from the Beach Boys.

____________________________

2. Trailer for Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. If I were a trailer editor for United Artists in 1974, um, my promo for Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece might look something like this. The music is Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns.



____________________________

3. Trailer for Bullet in the Head. Arguably action director John Woo's worst film, Bullet in the Head nevertheless makes amazing trailer/montage fodder. Good music helps: Here it's Roland Kirk's cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?"

Poems for the month (visual style): Untitled 1, Lafia Où gît votre sourire enfoui?, Costa

by Marc Lafia

***
by Pedro Costa


[I think these speak to one another. --RWK]

Joker for the day.

As I questioned over at Free Nikes, is this my most anticipated film of 2008? Right now I think it is. How can you resist that tagline? Or that third poster? --RWK

Icons for the evening. UPDATED.

RWK:The PFA begins its new calendar tonight with a screening of Andrei Rublev. Surprisingly, this will be my first Tarkovsky seen on a big screen; I missed Stalker over the summer. Surprisingly, I forgot I got back from Oklahoma in time for Solaris (after missing Stalker) at the PFA at the end of the summer. I still hope they show more and more.

"When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particlar way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life."




UPDATE. This film is one of the great things. The second video doesn't have subtitles, but you can see, rather clearly, how gorgeous he makes a white wall, and a little girl splashing milk on a grown man. I plan on writing a little more and grabbing some images for a follow up post in the AM as a late Contemplative Cinema blogathon post. But now to bed.

Claire Denis and Sonic Youth? Too cool.

RWK says: Daniel Stuyck talks about this dream pairing in the new issue of Film Comment. Read it here. (Via DH's Daily Greencine, of course.) I used to listen to SY a lot; I currently watch Denis movies a lot. How did this happen? Goes to show how out of the loop I am. Or how uncool I am? I've often thought I wasn't cool enough to listen to Sonic Youth. Especially after hanging around backstage during the first stateside All Tomorrow's Parties. It makes sense to feel dwarfed by Thurston Moore's imposing size (dude's a giant), but I felt like I was a foot taller than Kim Gordon and she still intimidated me like crazy. Guess that goes to show how much of a fanboy almost-20-year-old I was. At least Steve Shelley looked like a goofy ex-punk dad in his tweed blazer, nerd glasses and beat up high top Chucks. (Coolest, most down to earth dude that weekend? Nels Cline. Stephen Malkmus was kind enough to grant us a stupid interview, too.) Anyways, I found two of the videos on youtube. They're pretty cool. Maybe too cool. Here they are: