tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64238597922172624722024-03-14T05:10:57.469-04:00The Found Generation<br><br>"A portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom." <br> — <b>Mikhail Lermontov</b> <br><br>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-65149639637209111452018-12-18T15:51:00.001-05:002018-12-18T18:06:26.473-05:00The Sail / Парус by Mikhail Lermontov / Михаил Лермонтов (1832)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqs6SAoZLYDPuIiEqDPVQplx5vFRJ_m4OEtiqHdabkKcdadGiPf70d4ALuirRagAUWKJHOelK-2hEdGS4plfMpC0YO__-OI9jAIbFDseRHS7zf-aFBZLKIb0tmBwIxp75FKVmLSBWjFo/s1600/Sail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1297" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqs6SAoZLYDPuIiEqDPVQplx5vFRJ_m4OEtiqHdabkKcdadGiPf70d4ALuirRagAUWKJHOelK-2hEdGS4plfMpC0YO__-OI9jAIbFDseRHS7zf-aFBZLKIb0tmBwIxp75FKVmLSBWjFo/s640/Sail.jpg" width="518" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A solitary sail whitens</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The blue fog of the sea!..</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What does it seek in distant countries?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is forsaken in native territory?..</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The waves swell and the wind screeches</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While the mast lurches with a wheeze</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alas! it does not seek out happiness</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And from happiness it does not flee </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beneath it, gleams a ray of bright azure</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Above, a sunbeam made of gold...</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the sail<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: normal;">—</span>restless<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: normal;">—</span>entreats a storm,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As if in tempests peace is sold!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="background-color: white;">© </b><span style="background-color: white;">2018, </span>Translated from original Russian by Valentin Katz</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 19.2px;">❃</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8dO7g5l1ZTam9Mp0YqNn5bXek4iItSBCfYE5QR6AfR2_mmX2h26qis8BL7TBqkM8WpPIvp7rI2XvWlvksRM5BOsrJd_0aJju76uFDhrDqr-L2JNwoq_eRmKDNRgPMBlqPnAjFK4xsyIs/s1600/lermontov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="529" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8dO7g5l1ZTam9Mp0YqNn5bXek4iItSBCfYE5QR6AfR2_mmX2h26qis8BL7TBqkM8WpPIvp7rI2XvWlvksRM5BOsrJd_0aJju76uFDhrDqr-L2JNwoq_eRmKDNRgPMBlqPnAjFK4xsyIs/s320/lermontov.jpg" width="281" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Белеет парус одинокой</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />В тумане моря голубом!..
Что ищет он в стране далекой?
Что кинул он в краю родном?..
Играют волны - ветер свищет,
И мачта гнется и скрыпит...
Увы! он счастия не ищет
И не от счастия бежит!
Под ним струя светлей лазури,
Над ним луч солнца золотой...
А он, мятежный, просит бури,
Как будто в бурях есть покой!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(1832)</span></span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-89881314920878945752018-09-08T13:10:00.000-04:002018-09-08T14:04:14.921-04:00Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Hands off the loot!); Top 10 French Gangster films<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVxz-rcThpWlZ0BMR-R-lMG6ahkiaL6oWr4b-vWGZgNqTDFPv13x4dWxgulEa2r8PrKzx0ovr7m9_GMnBtDCkDr5oJH0jPniBeGfmv8d6Usx2ed-jPwPOuxdCxged1YAlUclcU0UyFcg/s1600/alaindelon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1444" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVxz-rcThpWlZ0BMR-R-lMG6ahkiaL6oWr4b-vWGZgNqTDFPv13x4dWxgulEa2r8PrKzx0ovr7m9_GMnBtDCkDr5oJH0jPniBeGfmv8d6Usx2ed-jPwPOuxdCxged1YAlUclcU0UyFcg/s640/alaindelon.jpg" width="576" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">French cinema has contributed some of the most audacious and groundbreaking submissions to the gangster film genre. In France, any discussion about gangster flicks starts with Jean-Pierre Melville. Obsessed with gangster movies from the golden age of Hollywood, Melville fetishized the belted trenchcoat, the fedora hat, and most importantly, the ever-present cigarette being puffed away by a laconic loner. Any film fanatic will readily tell you (even without prompting): pay attention to the details.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's always been fascinating to me how artistic cultures look to each other for inspiration. Melville was obsessed with American culture going so far as having a custom Ford imported to France and never being seen without a Stetson hat and aviator sunglasses. His vision of American gangster movies from the '30s and '40s led him to the movingly haunting and brutally violent films he made in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. These films in turn would inspire scores of American filmmakers like Scorsese, De Palma, and Tarantino. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-ODYH7dO7BOptnK3M-asu_YA03eQVL-OSBIsW8BMkKEcOKH9sIq1MNGbj45Q-hxDtD7VDM38FNDsVQXjxC7ZtnZV1JT_F7w87MggqCs_9irQgH4yojXemCmNRrpEUX-7Ub_KeaMHYi0/s1600/melville.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="800" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-ODYH7dO7BOptnK3M-asu_YA03eQVL-OSBIsW8BMkKEcOKH9sIq1MNGbj45Q-hxDtD7VDM38FNDsVQXjxC7ZtnZV1JT_F7w87MggqCs_9irQgH4yojXemCmNRrpEUX-7Ub_KeaMHYi0/s320/melville.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Jean-Pierre Melville</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10. <b>Le Doulos</b>/<i>The Finger Man</i> (Jean-Pierre Melville), 1963</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This labyrinthian thriller has more twists and turns than fusilli pasta. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Silien, whose ability to navigate the den of thieves that is the Paris underworld is only exceeded by his ability to look really cool smoking and talking to women. If you can follow the plot, you're better than I, but the story isn't really the point. It's the shot composition, the grimy details, and the sordid performances.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">9. <b>Le deuxi</b><b>ème souffle</b>/<i>Second Wind or Second Breath</i> (Jean-Pierre Melville), 1966</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lino Ventura stars as Gu, a legend in the French underworld known for his cunning and loyalty. When Gu escapes from prison and heads back to Paris, it sends his rival Jo Ricci (Raymond Pellegrin) and police commissioner Blot (Paul Meurisse of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Diaboliques_(film)" target="_blank">Les Diaboliques</a> fame) on a mission to hunt him down. The battle of wits is masterfully presented by Melville, who doesn't rush the story and lets the characters reveal themselves gradually.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8. <b>Mesrine</b> (Jean-François Richet), 2008</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vincent Cassel plays notorious gangster, Jacques Mesrine, who gained a modicum of celebrity in the 1970s despite being implicated in numerous violent crimes, including murder. Mesrine became a romantic figure due to his propensity to repeatedly elude capture, each time with a new glamorous woman by his side. Originally released in two parts, the film follows Mesrine's violent journey to being named France's Public Enemy No. 1. Cassel's self-possession and effortless sexuality makes him convincing as a man adored by beautiful women despite being a bank robber perpetually on the run from the law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">7. <b>Le Samoura</b><b>ï</b>/<i>The Godson</i> (Jean-Pierre Melville), 1967</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Having this film this low on the list will raise eyebrows, as </span><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Le Samoura</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ï</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> is generally considered Melville's greatest film, and by extension, the definitive French gangster film. Alain Delon stars as the title character, Jef Costello, a taciturn hitman living by a strict ascetic code. The film opens with a long take of Delon lying on the bed of his minimalist single room Paris apartment with the following made-up quote overlaid on the screen: "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is no greater
solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the
jungle... Perhaps..." </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A brilliant film that transcends the gangster genre and approaches something closer to Zen. The long takes for Delon's face, the howling wind, the bizarre twist ending</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">—Melville is vibrating on another frequency here. However, on a pure enjoyment scale, it doesn't rate. Like Jef's extreme self-discipline, this is an exercise in self-neglecting. "Why Jef?" "I was paid to."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">6. <b>Dheepan</b> (Jacques Audiard), 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This darkly exciting film tells the story of a Tamil Tiger, whose side just lost the Sri Lankan Civil War, escaping retribution by posing with two female refugees as his wife and daughter to secure asylum in France. Dheepan, the name of the dead man whose passport the Tamil Tiger assumed, becomes the caretaker of a rundown housing project beset by rival drug gangs. Dheepan gets drawn in to the conflict and bloody brilliance ensues. Winner of the 2015 Palme d'Or Prize at Cannes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5. <b>Tirez sur le pianiste</b> /<i>Shoot the Piano Player or Shoot the Pianist</i> (François Truffaut), 1960</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Charles Aznavour's sad eyes play perfectly for the melancholy title piano player punishing himself after his wife's suicide. As the film unfolds, it turns out the piano player isn't exactly who he says he is. Truffaut's follow-up to his seminal <i>Les Quartes Cents Coup</i> (<i>The 400 Blows</i>), this is his gift to hardcore cinephiles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4. <b>Pierrot le Fou</b>/<i>Pierrot the madman</i> (Jean-Luc Godard), 1966</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jean-Luc Godard needs no introduction and this film is certainly one of the best from his golden period. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina are a pair of lovers on the run from the law, from gangsters, from their boring lives. Pierrot is a nickname Anna gives Jean-Paul meaning "sad clown." Breaking the fourth wall, philosophical diversions, and absurdism reign supreme. Godard gives no quarter. Also, look for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fuller" target="_blank">Samuel Fuller</a>(!) cameo in the first act.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. <b>Le Cercle Rouge</b>/<i>The Red Circle</i> (Jean-Pierre Melville), 1970</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Shit's getting serious now. Melville reaches new heights with this heist picture. A truly all-star cast includes Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Gian Maria Volont</span>è<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, and Andr</span>é<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Bourvil. The aforementioned heist is presented in a half hour sequence devoid of any dialogue. This one will have you on the edge of your seat with sweaty palms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. <b>Touchez Pas au Grisbi</b>/<i>Grisbi or Honour Among Thieves</i> (Jacques Becker), 1954</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I really love this movie. The title translates literally to "Hands off the loot!" This film introduced me to the French gangster genre when I first saw it at Charles Theater in Baltimore with my brother in 2005. Director Jacques Becker manages to successfully pull off a touching and sweet violent gangster action movie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jean Gabin and Ren</span>é<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Dary star as Max and Riton, two Parisian gangsters with an honorable reputation, who hijack a cache of gold bars. The problem is how to fence it without getting caught by the cops or, worse, being exposed by rival <i>dishonorable</i> gangsters. Jeanne Moreau co-stars as a Riton's cheating moll. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1422&bih=684&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=y_STW-PoGKu-gge0vKDgDg&q=Dora+Doll+actress&oq=Dora+Doll+actress&gs_l=img.3...3382.5807..5911...4.0..0.91.595.10......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0j0i30j0i5i30.UtJYVMc2Ft4" target="_blank">Dora Doll</a> plays Max's girl. Lino Ventura stars as Max's scheming rival.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. <b>Bob le flambeur</b>/<i>Bob the Gambler or Bob the High Roller</i> (Jean-Pierre Melville), 1955</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have a confession to make to you, my loyal readers. This entire post was really just an excuse to talk about this movie, which is most assuredly one of my all-time favourites. This movie is so easy it practically floats. Roger Duchesne plays the titular Bob, a sauve former bank robber who now supports himself as a high-stakes gambler. His joie de vivre is only matched by his dignity and compassion. When Bob hits a bad luck streak, he must come out of retirement for one last big score. I really shouldn't say anymore. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't watch this as soon as you can. This movie will lift you up above the milieu, guaranteed. Like the trailer correctly claims, a great film with atmosphere, and the Montmarte lifestyle. It was remade in 2002 by Neil Jordan as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Thief_(film)" target="_blank">The Good Thief</a> starring Nick Nolte and Emir Kusturica. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Le Professionnel</b> / The Professional (Georges Lautner), 1981</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not really a gangster flick but still sort of lives in that world as Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a French secret government assassin who is betrayed by nefarious forces in his country. He ends imprisoned in a fictional African country. Upon escape, he returns to France lusting for revenge. Some really strange sexual scenes remind you this is a completely French production, as if you could forget. Ennio Morricone on the score. </span></span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-85628902298389532152018-05-23T20:35:00.002-04:002018-05-24T08:30:54.792-04:00My Life with Philip Roth<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6FrJybtKO9HCcTZdNoehGFEtjH4AJG7I11z8wqKRLTnZ0NCnF870WUQb5vIEuzDYg_La4JAgA2cWRwzRv4pMP9WDBnTywiUaekZEDXNsao9pXmbRGpbqw8jro8ldq7lQxTwxb_LXUSI/s1600/philiproth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="748" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6FrJybtKO9HCcTZdNoehGFEtjH4AJG7I11z8wqKRLTnZ0NCnF870WUQb5vIEuzDYg_La4JAgA2cWRwzRv4pMP9WDBnTywiUaekZEDXNsao9pXmbRGpbqw8jro8ldq7lQxTwxb_LXUSI/s400/philiproth.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My introduction to the incomparable world of Philip Roth came as a primal nineteen year old at the University of Maryland in the fall of 2002. A junior, I along with the entire region had endured a month-long siege due to the Beltway Sniper. To boot, we were hearing loud whispers out of Washington that Bush wanted to invade Iraq. Times were tense. I refer to this period as primal for a few reasons. The first in reference to my incipience in life, at the cusp of infinite learning and knowledge. The second being that I matched a long unkempt hairstyle with a permanent bowler hat, an explicit homage to my favourite director and my favourite film at the time <i>A Clockwork Orange, </i>and to cap it off, I did not own any clothes that fit me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My roommate and childhood friend Scott burst home one day in an electrified state, "Have you read Portnoy's Complaint?" Scott had signed up for a Jewish Literature course which I inexplicably hadn't known existed. With excited haste, I heard such phrases as "fucking awesome" and "by Philip Roth" that, as an English major taking almost exclusively literature courses, and, as a Jew who beyond foolishly had convinced myself that I <i>knew </i>all the great Jewish writers, I began to feel a great resentment and embarrassment over such a blatant blind spot.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Killington, 2003</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: justify;">My literary oversight was rectified later that week, or more accurately, within the next 48 hours, because I was reading it at every free moment I had, at work, at school, walking to class, <i>in </i>class. People often talk about the thunderbolt they feel when first listening to The Beatles, or first reading </span><i style="text-align: justify;">The Great Gatsby </i><span style="text-align: justify;">or </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Slaughterhouse-Five</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, which I have all experienced, but reading Roth for the first time was different. It superseded thunderbolts, it was a full body paroxysm. I simply could not believe my eyes the words I was reading on the page. The transfixation began from the opening sentence, "She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise." The outrageous frankness and hilarious vulgarity with which Roth explores Jewish and Jewish-American identity and giddy subversion of parental and cultural influence while unbridled sexuality oozes from every pore befuddled me. How can genius this monumental truly exist?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With life's progression came my gradual embracement of the master's oeuvre. At first I gravitated towards his shorter novels and novellas, telling myself that Roth packed a more powerful punch in concentrated doses. <i>The Breast</i>, <i>The Dying Animal</i>, and <i>The Ghost Writer, </i>were an intense glimpse into the life of a renowned and virile public intellectual. But the deeper truth is that his longer novels are such monumentally challenging and intellectually ambitious works that I didn't have the reserve of mental fortitude to tackle them head on. Only in recent years<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">—with a certain world weariness and wisdom that I suspect only age can provide</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">—have I unearthed the treasures of magnum opuses such as <i>Sabbath's Theater</i> and <i>American Pastoral.</i> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What Philip Roth unleashed upon the world with shocking efficacy and humour is through passionate intellectualization of perversion between consenting adults, he showed us that it can be a glorious part of the human experience. My literary friends came up with a nickname for him: The Beast. His writing is that uncompromisingly urgent. For Roth, sexuality is not just a part of our lives, it is fundamental, both a generator and extension of our joys, fears, anxieties, and triumphs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Years ago, a close friend unironically remarked, "You're like a walking Philip Roth novel." I took it as a great compliment even though I'm fairly certain Ilya didn't necessarily mean it as one. In a 1974 essay for the New York Review of Books, Roth wrote, "Going wild in public is the last thing a Jew is expected to do." Even today, after all these years, Philip Roth still striking me like a thunderbolt: I only now finally understand all my mother's admonishments.</span></span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-79966116148342446992018-05-14T21:52:00.003-04:002018-05-15T10:38:04.439-04:00Death of Stalin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Years after the Good Doctor of Gonzo Journalism Hunter S. Thompson famously covered George McGovern's doomed 1972 Presidential campaign, Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign manager quipped that Thompson's exhaustive book, <i>Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72</i>, was the "least factual, most accurate account" of the election.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Armando Iannucci's <i>Death Of Stalin</i> is a devastating satire replete with the Good Doctor's defiant spirit. When reality is too brutal to grasp head on, we turn to comedy to tell the story with veracity. The film's banishment in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, attests to both Iannuci's success and to the film's unmistakable quality. Russians aren't known for their lack of sense of humour, unless it's about themselves. Despite Stalin's unprecedented death tally, the Russian authorities still consider him above outright reproach and certainly far above ridicule.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Luckily for us, Armando Iannucci has no such qualms. Iannucci masterfully pits Stalin's inner circle as a claque of incompetent vultures angling to inherit Stalin's infinite power. Imagine a Marx Brothers comedy set in Stalinist Russia, complete with an outrageous running gag involving firing squads. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Deputy Secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) is Stalin's favourite to succeed him, although no one knows why considering he can't avoid mentioning former party members Stalin has long since executed ("How am I supposed to remember who's alive and who's dead?"). Moscow Party Head Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) is full of uproariously vulgar war stories that keep the Boss jolly, but when a joke about farmers meets with a lukewarm reception, his wife admonishes him, "No more farmer jokes!" Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov's (Michael Palin) devotion to Stalin is unyielding, and only increases after Stalin sends his wife to the gulag. But the most vicious satire is reserved for none other than NKVD Head Lavrenty Beria (Simon Russell Beale), who undoubtedly distinguishes himself as one of the most repulsive psychopaths in history, and has an ignominious end to match.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The incendiary script burns so hot half the jokes fly by at sputnik speed, but its farcical mania captures the incomprehensible absurdity of the depths of Stalinism and its pernicious effect on the psychology of an entire country and its long suffering people. Condemned men and women shouting "Long Live Stalin!" just as they get a bullet in the skull. It would be a lot funnier if it weren't grounded in truth.</span></div>
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-73104474913456658782018-03-31T11:55:00.003-04:002018-03-31T14:26:39.157-04:00Top 10 British Gangster Movies<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuq5MqQxQJTmBT5_PhZ3oh8avsGE3DX8S8ndJE7Dky0OERlsMkJhI7z31hnCc4lf6YZ1mNT9Nwmt877Pr5AgPT8lgLESrWj2SdRE0Pn8THNrjWDbZxeQpWWYzqR4qfC-HV67eFFgt8nBk/s1600/carter-main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="736" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuq5MqQxQJTmBT5_PhZ3oh8avsGE3DX8S8ndJE7Dky0OERlsMkJhI7z31hnCc4lf6YZ1mNT9Nwmt877Pr5AgPT8lgLESrWj2SdRE0Pn8THNrjWDbZxeQpWWYzqR4qfC-HV67eFFgt8nBk/s640/carter-main.jpg" width="512" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">From the cockney accents to the sleazily inventive insults, and of course using <i>cunt</i> to describe just about everyone and every thing, British Gangster Movies stand in a class all of their own. As a passionate devotee I've put together my Top 10 plus a few bonus ones. To be considered for the list, a movie's plot had to deal with the British underworld and fulfill one of the following two requirements: it must have been at least a partly British production or be directed by a British director. Let me know what you think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>10. Performance</b> (Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg), 1970</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">An experimental and provocative film that really is more nonsensical than it would like to admit, this psychedelic foray is notable for starring Mick Jagger at his self-indulgent, libertine best. The Memo From Turner sequence is a memorable example of an early music video.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Colin Farrell can play the hell out of a gangster role, so it's not surprising that films he's starred in appear twice on this list. With a rock soundtrack full of urgency and surprisingly edgy, by the end you'll find yourself more invested in the story than you probably ought to be. Credit that to great direction by American William Monahan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Daniel Craig's audition tape for <b>Casino Royale</b>. The movie that put him on the proverbial map and launched a renewed James Bond franchise. Dark supporting roles from Michael Gambon and Jamie Foreman (son of real-life London gangster, Freddie Foreman) give this movie a harshness that is crucial to a great British gangster flick. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>7. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels </b>(Guy Ritchie), 1998 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This uproariously funny late '90s flick is probably the British gangster movie with the most mainstream success and exposure, particularly in the US. Clever wordplay, cheeky cinematography, and, again, a soundtrack grounded in heavy classic/punk rock, make this undoubtedly the most accessible of all the British gangster movies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>6. Gangster No. 1 </b>(Paul McGuigan), 2000</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Although I have it at six, this could easily be number one for a very simple reason. This features by far the most psychotic and outrageously dark anti-hero, played throughout the decades by Paul Bettany and the legendary Malcolm McDowell. Director Paul McGuigan took the gangster ethos to the extreme and the result is a British gangster movie purist's nightmarish dream. This should probably be ranked higher.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>5. In Bruges</b> (Martin McDonagh), 2008</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Full of twists and turns and the kind of macabre laughs that McDonagh has become known for, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason play two hitmen who flee to the quaint Belgian town after a bungled job. Ralph Fiennes as their unhinged boss is pure cinema magic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Eastern Promises</b> (David Cronenberg), 2007</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">EP slips in on this list as a case can be made that this is more a <i>Russian</i> gangster movie, but it takes place exclusively in London, which by default makes it part of the London/British underworld. It's a co-British production and if that weren't enough, Director David Cronenberg is Canadian, which is part of the British Commonwealth. Finally, the disturbing nature of the material clearly puts it squarely in the British gangster movie lineage. Viggo Mortensen probably should have won an Oscar for this part.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Long Good Friday</b> (John Mackenzie), 1980</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bob Hoskins stars as the head of the London underworld who is about embark on the deal of his life with his American mafia counterparts, when his entire world starts going sideways. Viciousness ensues. Notable for making the IRA and Britain's potential joining of the EEC a major part of the plot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Get Carter</b> (Mike Hodges), 1971</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The <b>Citizen Kane </b>of British Gangster movies. The only reason this isn't number one is because the titleholder is a personal favourite of mine. The best opening credit sequence of any picture on this list. Michael Caine is a force to be reckoned with as Jack Carter, who sniffs out something's awry when his clean-cut brother turns up dead and there's something wrong with his niece. Seedy, sooty, tawdry, you'll need a delousing after. She was only fifteen years old! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Sexy Beast</b> (Jonathan Glazer), 2000</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ben Kingsley plays the unhappiest and meanest gangster in the world as he collides with Ray Winstone, a blissfully retired ex-gangster sunbathing his days away in the Spanish desert. The verbal assault Kingsley unleashes has made this movie illegal to show publicly within a mile of schools and hospitals. Ian McShane plays Teddy Fucking Bass, Mr. Black Magic himself. <b>Sexy Beast</b> takes British gangster filmmaking to high art. The perfect British gangster movie. Gentlemen, you're all cunts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>* The Limey </b>(Steven Soderbergh), 1999</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not eligible to be part of this list but notable due to Terence Stamp playing a fish out of water British gangster in '90s LA. Quite funny and touching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>** The Third Man </b>(Carol Reed), 1949</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of the greatest films of all time but technically a film noir, not a gangster movie. Plus, the two main characters are American. Still, a true classic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">***<b>A Clockwork Orange</b> (Stanley Kubrick), 1971</span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-69635567048375658132017-02-28T20:57:00.000-05:002017-02-28T20:57:43.485-05:00When Facts Don't Matter, Make Them Laugh<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCGJrs89itvx0BJ5haJ_W3foB3lBOtZKu7WjGXciuKbSZ87wL2yrTgw6A_qvsdTVXGLFdUEpiCR7-4pUUitcR_0TIfaRJxG3LlK9hr1BbCwStTDVZOohHsAku3K0z1B0cDGkUlf9XHoU/s1600/melissa-mccarthy-sean-spicer-snl-saturday-night-live.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCGJrs89itvx0BJ5haJ_W3foB3lBOtZKu7WjGXciuKbSZ87wL2yrTgw6A_qvsdTVXGLFdUEpiCR7-4pUUitcR_0TIfaRJxG3LlK9hr1BbCwStTDVZOohHsAku3K0z1B0cDGkUlf9XHoU/s400/melissa-mccarthy-sean-spicer-snl-saturday-night-live.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Debates by their very nature are contentious. Political debates probably more so than most. Just tune in to a UK House of Commons debate sometime. But the current political climate in the US has devolved to a particularly low point. Families gatherings have turned into lugubrious affairs. Facebook purging, defriending those on the opposite side of the political spectrum en masse, has become the new form of sociopolitical snubbery. Our entire culture has veered sharply adversarial. You're either with us or against us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Especially frustrating is the apparent inconsequence of facts. It's difficult enough to persuade someone to your point of view, it's practically impossible when you can't even agree on the foundation of the topic. Debating, for instance, which smartphone is superior with someone who repudiates their very existence would be pointless. No line of argument is stirring enough to sway one way or another. So how is it that we find ourselves in this current historical moment, the era of alternative facts. How did opinion become lord over fact? How did facts become so irrelevant?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Yorker contributor Elizabeth Kolbert recently <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds" target="_blank">reviewed</a> a book, <i>The Enigma of Reason</i>, by two cognitive scientists who try to explain the phenomenon. Human minds, you see, are very tricky things. Once we make a decision, usually formed by an oftentimes erroneous initial impression, we selectively gravitate to those groups whose views align with ours, amplifying the rectitude of those views while increasingly marginalizing opposing ones. It's evolutionarily advantageous. But here lies the danger of silencing opposing views. The more you're exposed to that which only supports your way of seeing things, the more hostile you become to those who don't. You're either with us or against us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Consider our current President, who like a feudal lord, demands absolute support of his every word, action, impulse. Anything less than fawning approval is perceived as a traitorous attack. Suddenly the debate isn't a debate anymore. It's two sides speaking completely different languages. When adversaries can't even agree on basic facts (ie. whether it's raining or not), there is nothing to debate. All that's left is the hurling insults and epithets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Logically speaking, how to combat the repudiation of basic facts? Restating the facts won't work, that has become glaringly obvious. Name-calling won't either. The only viable tool against willful ignorance is laughter. Laughter and empathy. Laughter is the ultimate truth serum. Empathy to understand. Consider the recent Saturday Night Live skit of Melissa McCarthy impersonating White House spokesman Sean Spicer conducting a White House briefing. The genius of it: only slightly exaggerating what a typical session looks like. No restating of facts or figures. No name-calling or accusations of channeling fascist dictators. Just pure laughter. Laughter doesn't lie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Comedy, satire, mockery. Not in bad taste or demeaning, but shining a bright risible light onto hypocrisy, narrow-mindedness, and insanity. Laughter is involuntary. We can't control what we find funny. Some things just make us laugh. And laughter cuts through bullshit like a sword through tallow. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-54515455132555777012016-09-12T20:51:00.000-04:002016-09-12T21:33:16.900-04:00Resisting Interpellation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeytzZ4GNIgn31-TGKHyeV0i9a9Z_X-mr90J77eB8FbR6pz_TqnO8zxmM4KSQxBJzhvGTKfcJ76HVuIaRODwCdvPo4qtn0BEayRC8VVSXgN0nBx9z57_A-By4THtr8gj-UCa4V_UqIeo/s1600/indignation-fb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeytzZ4GNIgn31-TGKHyeV0i9a9Z_X-mr90J77eB8FbR6pz_TqnO8zxmM4KSQxBJzhvGTKfcJ76HVuIaRODwCdvPo4qtn0BEayRC8VVSXgN0nBx9z57_A-By4THtr8gj-UCa4V_UqIeo/s400/indignation-fb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Since </span>Philip Roth's sudden retirement announcement <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">a few years ago</span>, there has been a flurry of activity to film his literary work. Besides <i>Indignation</i>, the anticipated adaptation of Roth's classic <i>American Pastoral,</i> directed and starring Ewan McGregor, is opening next month. <i>Indignation, </i>like past Roth adaptations, elides over much of the source material <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">avoiding</span> the pratfalls of overcomplexity. A</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">n enthralling </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> complexity on the page, but shambolic when crammed into a two hour cinematic window. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Philosopher Louis Althusser described the method that a society subsumes its subjects into its ideology, or the mainstream, through social interactions, institutions, and traditions, calling it interpellation. It's a language<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, and set</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">gestures and rituals that signals to individuals that they are all part of <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the same society, a<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> method of collective conformity</span>.</span></span></span> Capturing Roth's distinctive intensity, director James Schamus thoughtfully crafts a study of the consequences of resistance against being interpellated in early '50s America.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> S<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hot slowly and metho<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">dically, the film peers in<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to the past with a comically grim lens.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Logan Lerman plays Marcus Messner, an auspiciously gifted high school scholar in postwar Newark, New Jersey. His talents win him a scholarship to a college in rural Ohio, and in a reminder of parlous times, it gets Marcus off the hook of being drafted and sent to Korea. A growing list of war dead in the close-knit Jewish community<span class="_Tgc">—</span>including Marcus' cousin<span class="_Tgc">—</span>has left his parents both unnerved and grateful their boy has seemingly been saved from a similar fate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In spite of Marcus' prodigious talents and the praise heaped upon him, everyone in Marcus<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'</span> life pushes him to belong somewhere. His father and roommates are bewildered that a young Jewish man of such potential and promise balks at joining the campus' sole Jewish fraternity. The self-possessed dean of the college insists Marcus attend weekly chapel
service, even in the face of Marcus' citations of Bertrand Russell in his sp<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">irited</span> affirmation of
atheism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The thing is, Marcus doesn't want to join any fraternity and mandatory attendance at a religious service goes against his entire being. In fact, Marcus is not interested in much unrelated to his literary studies and one Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon), whose bare ankles and WASPy countenance Marcus first notices at the library. But even the companionship of a confidante is precarious in this world. The relationship is besieged by biting social judgements with lasting consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Indignation</i> shares many of the same themes as the Coen Brothers' <i>A Serious Man</i>. Both main characters are beset by forces way beyond their control, both insist they've done nothing wrong nor harmed anyone. But where <i>Serious Man</i>'s Larry Gopnik is fully interpellated, belonging to the synagogue and respected in the community, Marcus Messner wants nothing to do with any of it. Marcus wants to forge his own ideology, to master his own destiny. Something '50s America was not quite ready to accept. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-24681829913108145232016-04-18T19:48:00.000-04:002016-04-19T08:34:57.135-04:00Iggy's Night at the Opera<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are rock 'n roll acts. There are legends. There are rock legends. And then there's Iggy Pop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Forget what you may think about aging rockers from the '60s & '70s riding a nostalgia wave to a golden parachute. Iggy self-financed the new album, Post Pop Depression, with Josh Homme. The resulting tour has two legs with thirty nine stops in <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">North America <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and Europe.</span></span> Iggy doesn't half-ass anything, and definitely not something as important and vital as a rock concert. Iggy and his band brought everything they had in Philadelphia April 15, and the crowd, we couldn't get enough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Academy of Music is a peculiar choice for an Iggy Pop concert, the first man to conjure up the stage-dive playing a Vienna opera house. The accommodations were quite luxurious, resulting in a lot of fish-out-of-water visuals as Iggy's longtime punk fans filed in. The show began with five minutes of afrobeat tribal drumming that crescendoed into the ostentatiously adorned velvet curtains opening to four-man band dressed in matching red and black tuxes blasting the unmistakable beat of <i>Lust For Life</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pushing sixty-nine years old, Iggy came out skipping wildly -- adorned in suit pants and jacket but no shirt -- immediately taking complete control of the crowd. By the time he hit <i>Sixteen</i> the jacket was off and Iggy was in his classic shirtless form. At no other musical concert, save for perhaps saxophone virtuoso Sonny Rollins, did I experience an artist have everyone in the crowd hypnotized, fully in awe of his raw power and artistic prowess. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Iggy was a total maniac. He leapt upon a large man during <i>Some Weird Sin</i> knocking the guy off his feet. Iggy quickly jumped up <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">roaring</span>, "Rock & Roll!" During <i>Nightclubbing</i>, he sauntered over to a stack of speakers, looked them over for a moment, and started in on humping them with sincere seduction. Watching Iggy I sensed a total freedom, a rock 'n roll euphoria that <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">might </span>have originat<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ed </span>decades ago,<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> but </span>its power and affectation is timeless and eternal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Josh Homme, Dean Fertita, Matt Helders, Matt Sweeney, and Troy Van Leeuwen, were tight, raw, and loud. Watching them have a ball playing behind Iggy made the festivities that much more raucous. They played practically the entire catalogue from <b><i>Lust For Life </i></b>and <i><b>The Idiot</b></i>, notable exceptions being <i>Dum Dum Boys</i> and <i>Tiny Girls</i>. Interestingly, Iggy stayed away completely from his Stooges oeuvre, out of respect for the deceased members? Perhaps, but he didn't touch <i><b>Kill City</b></i> either, and James Williamson is still alive and well. The playing was fresh and urgent, the volume loud and guitars set on dirty. Iggy crooned, shrieked, chanted, and cursed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Iggy unleashed his tornado of sex, rock 'n roll, and the unbridled joy of perfect freedom: he spent entire songs in the crowd, touching people, letting them touch him. He commanded, "Turn that fucking spotlight off of me, turn the fucking house lights on. I wanna see everybody! Because I fucking said so!" He danced, he twirled, he spit, he flung the microphone around, he led everyone in a manic "Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck" chant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Before closing with a rousing version of <i>Success</i>, Iggy sneered, "It's my fucking night at the opera, baby!" It certainly was; I'll never look at opera with the same eyes again.</span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-17617829455212526602016-02-14T11:22:00.000-05:002016-02-14T19:18:59.416-05:00Being Valentin on Valentine's Day<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is no shortage of strange and hilarious stories revolving around Valentine's Day. The day of love merits such distinction. But the Feast of St. Valentine of Rome presents an entirely peculiar set of circumstances for someone named Valentin. In commemoration of the day, I'd like to share some of my favourite anecdotes I've experienced over the years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Preface</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="_Tgc">—</span>I indirectly use VD on a regular basis as a pronunciation reference when introducing myself. "Valentine without the 'e' at the end." During one introduction recently, before I had a chance to utter my usual epigram, someone suggested I use the line. <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Quickly </span>she <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">i</span>nquired</span>, "That never occurred to you?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Between 2006-2010 I was single and would invariably find myself at Club Charles every Valentine's Day. It didn't matter who I ended up speaking to, upon introductions there would be a demand to examine my driver's license. Of all days, nobody believes a random stranger they meet on VD will be named Valentin<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">,</span> it seems too absurd even for coincidence. Without exaggerating, the examination of my license during these episodes is as scrutinous as a TSA agent's. I get requests to see my license on VD </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t</span>o this day</span>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The most common question I get every day of the year, not just VD, is <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">was </span>I born on VD? Nowhere did this most risibly play out than one year on my actual birthday, which is in late March. A good friend, Ben, invited me to Rocket To Venus for a drink to celebrate. Walking up to the entrance, we see two young women whom Ben knows. Ben introduces me, "This is Valentin. It's his birthday today!" One of the ladies responds with genuine interest, "Oh cool! Were you born on Valentine's Day?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The peculiarities do not relegate themselves to my bachelorhood. On the VDs during which I am involved, the waiter<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s and wa<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">itresses</span></span> have always greeted me with a huge smile and wink upon returning my credit card after dinner. <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A</span>s if the very concept of a person named Valentin out with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day was just too dippily perfect not to smile <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">over</span>. That's the best deduction I can conjure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Without a doubt, the loveliest part of being named Valentin on VD is every year I get a call or text from my Mother expressing her love and affection. I'd get the same from my Grandmother before she lost her wits. When I was younger they'd even get me gifts. It made me feel undeservedly special, but I welcomed and enjoyed it all the same. Valentine's Day is a day that elicits rueful laughter for some and romantic yearning for others, but any reason for love is the best one. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-77281107118637643872016-01-02T12:46:00.001-05:002016-01-03T11:37:42.702-05:00The Merciless West<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For Pike Bishop, the hardened leader of a gang of outlaws in Sam Peckinpah's 1969 epic <i>The Wild Bunch</i>, even criminals must adhere to some set of ethics. When a double-cross is suggested, William Holden snarls, "When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can't do that, you're like some animal - you're finished! We're finished! All of us!" Without some semblance of honor, all hell will break loose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hell breaking loose is precisely what happens in Quentin Tarantino's masterful <i>The Hateful Eight</i>. Easily his best picture since <i>Kill Bill</i>, <i>Hateful</i> distinguishes itself from his previous two revenge fantasies in that the good and the bad are not nearly so viscerally defined. Nazis and slavedrivers are just about the two most reviled archetypes in the American imagination. But in <i>Hateful</i>, the "good" guys are only identified as such because their atrocities are only slightly less odious than those of the <i>really </i>bad guys. The result is a supremely taut Western mystery that's hilariously clever in only the way Tarantino films can be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The eight in the title refers to the eight characters stuck in a mountain inn riding out a blizzard in postbellum Wyoming. Kurt Russell plays John "Hangman" Ruth, a bounty hunter determined to bring uncouth Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to nearby Red Rock to hang. John Ruth is filled with paranoia that he's walking into some kind of trap to free his prisoner, but it slowly becomes clear that a conspiracy is clearly in play. Samuel L. Jackson plays a fellow bounty hunter and former Civil War hero with an extreme "proficiency at killing Johnny Reb." Tim Roth, Demián Bichir, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern round up the superb cast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Filmed in ultra Panavision 70mm, <i>Hateful</i> produces some of the best cinematography of Tarantino's oeuvre. Shots of a stagecoach ambling through the high Rockies while White Stripes' "Apple Blossom" plays is a particular delight. The wide 70mm format gives the actors room to really stretch their legs with their facial expressions, nuanced glances, and subtle mannerisms. A suspenseful Western wouldn't be worth its salt without a cavalcade of suspicious glares and piercing gazes. Coupled with a tense score from Ennio Morricone, <i>Hateful </i>firmly places itself within the Western film tradition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The three hour running time passes quickly as the usual chatty Tarantino script drives the narrative rather than digresses as we find out about the characters' backstories, which are equal parts disturbing, hilarious, and bizarre. Although others may lazily call this a Tarantino fantasy, that assertion would be mistaken. The old West was a harsh and unsparing place. Peckinpah understood this, and so does Tarantino. During a massacre scene, a dying beautiful young woman reaches up to grab the hem of the coat of the man who just shot her in a seeming plea for terminal comfort. The man gives her a warm look and then shoots her in the face to finish the job, her hand stuck gripping the bottom of his coat. This was the old West. Raw, merciless, and inexplicably brutal. The film makes reference to this when Samuel L. Jackson's character is outed for an indiscretion he incredulously asks the aggrieved John Ruth in only the way Samuel L. can, "What, did I hurt your feelings, John Ruth?" As if anyone can spare the luxury of feelings in such a morally bankrupt world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But Tarantino's most consummate stroke is his exploration of American race relations. On one side you have Samuel L. Jackson's Major Marquis Warren who supposedly has a personal letter from Abraham Lincoln and John Ruth. On the other is Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a former Lost Causer. The animosity between the two sides is explosive and deadly, but they soon find themselves facing a common lethal foe, and inadvertently find each other somewhere neither thought possible: on the same side. The parallels to today's racial strife cannot be ignored. Don't worry, Tarantino hasn't gone political, he's just gone societal. White America and Black America has a chance to come together if their common goal is truth and justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Tarantino touches upon something in <i>Hateful</i> that sets it apart from some of his earlier work. The concluding scene, which follows a truly howl-worthy climax, is the most profound of his venerated career,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> devoid of any hints of irony or cheekiness, but</span> full of hopefulness and regret.</span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-24118008597943763202015-08-23T19:25:00.002-04:002015-08-23T19:43:06.425-04:00Crime and Punishment <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Woody Allen's late career has been marked by incongruity. Not only in the quality of his films but within the films themselves. There are highs (<i>Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) </i>and lows (<i>Whatever Works), </i>and the films themselves are airy and shot beautifully while thematically being quite dark and cynical. In his latest reimagining of a classic philosophical narrative, <i>Irrational Man</i> stars Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a drunken philosophy professor whose aimless nihilism is confronted with a<i> </i>Dostoyevskian dilemma. Emma Stone plays Jill Pollard, a diaphanous and idealistic student who becomes dangerously enamoured with Lucas' fatalistic apathy, misinterpreting it for romantic suffering. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Phoenix goes against tradition of other Allen's leading men by avoiding mimicry of Alvy Singer, the protagonist of <i>Annie Hall</i>. Instead, Phoenix's brooding grunts and naturally slurred speech reflect a character that has crumpled under the weight of life and its harsh realities. Suddenly, Lucas (Phoenix) sees a chance at redemption and more crucially, revitalization. Overhearing a sad, although unrealistic, tale of a single mother and cruel judge, the aimless, depressed philosophy professor channels his inner Raskolnikov and convinces himself he must murder the judge, saving the poor woman from a terrible fate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The film's initial lightheartedness disabuses the audience into thinking this is all just a fantasy, something naughty to awaken the curiosity of the disaffected and moribund professor. But quickly the tone turns very dark. What seemed like a trifle is made urgently real. Echoing his '80s Bergman influenced period, particularly his masterpiece <i>Crimes and Misdemeanors</i>, Allen again challenges the traditional notions of guilt and redemption, and how they are subverted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Irrational Man </i>is not a masterpiece and probably not even one of his better later works, due mainly to problems with execution. It's quite clumsy in its climax and denouement, as if Allen thought after creating the characters and coming up with the initial conceit that the rest would work itself out on its own. But it does leave the viewer contemplating how our concepts of the "greater good" seem to conveniently align with our selfish motives.</span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-46175798718056419622015-04-19T13:46:00.002-04:002015-04-23T15:38:09.559-04:00One Season and Better Call Saul Is Already Superior to Breaking Bad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">How's that for a click-bait headline? But it's true. I've made it <a href="http://wearefound.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-few-thoughts-on-breaking-bad.html" target="_blank">no secret</a> that I am not head-over-heels enamoured with <i>Breaking Bad</i> as everyone else seems to be. But it's also true that after one season of the fascinating <i>Better Call Saul</i> my appreciation of <i>Bad </i>has increased, as without it<i> Saul </i>would not exist. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I admit to what is probably an unfairly harsh bias towards <i>Bad</i>. But I maintain that <i>Saul </i>is the show that more deeply explores the human condition, shining a spotlight on the inherent moral quandaries and choices that face us all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jimmy McGill -- Saul Goodman's predecessor self -- is a small-time hustler out of Chicago who inadvertently gets himself into some trouble with the law that only his powerful attorney older brother, Chuck (Michael McKean in a strong dramatic turn), can make go away. In exchange, Jimmy swears to go straight and accepts a job as a mailboy in his brother's large law firm in Albuquerque. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jimmy may be a little crooked, but he also has a strong moral center, tenacious work ethic, and he indeed stays clean. Bob Odenkirk plays him as the kind of guy you'd instantly like if you met him at a bar but of whom your wife would instantly disapprove when you invite him over to watch the game. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, the show's creators, deftly portray a man who straddles the unspoken morality line, sometimes leaning good, sometimes leaning bad. It is this ambivalence that connects him to the audience. When Jimmy is good, we applaud his, and ostensibly our own, moral righteousness. When he does something bad or morally questionable, we're co-conspirators, sharing in Jimmy's post-scam high. In the worldview of Vince Gilligan, everyone is guilty of something. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Beyond its darkly comedic take on moral relativism, <i>Saul </i>surprisingly delivers moments of profound tenderness. The show smartly brought back Jonathan Banks' henchman extraordinaire, Mike Ehrmantraut. His backstory is both predictable and tragic; a riveting scene with his daughter-in-law about his son's -- and her husband -- death is powerfully affecting. Another scene with Jimmy matter-of-factly explaining, "My brother thinks I'm a scumbag, and there's nothing I can do to change his mind," elicits tremendous sympathy and clearly plants the seed that leads to his metamorphosis into the unctuously corrupt Saul Goodman. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Where <i>Bad </i>brought horror and loathing, <i>Saul </i>brings subtlety and doubt. And that probably, finally, explains why I prefer the latter so much. I've never been much of a </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">horror </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">fan. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-42264181322511292472014-12-05T10:11:00.001-05:002014-12-05T10:54:14.399-05:00What is the role of Police in Society?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Let's take race out of it for a minute. Let's reduce it to its most foundational level. What is the role of police in our society? I have always been under the impression it is to protect and serve, and to promote peaceful order. Recent events, however, have made it seem like "kill and destroy" have creeped into the job description to undermine and in fact pervert the very things the police are supposed to stand for and preserve. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When did we as a society accede to using deadly force as a cop's first
option, rather than his absolute last? If we don't begin with the
premise that a trained police officer should be able to defuse a
situation -- and subdue an unarmed subject without killing him -- then we're recklessly signing off on a police state. A place where <i>all </i>citizens, regardless of race or class, are equally
threatened by an unaccountable and unchecked police force. No one wants a police state, liberals and conservatives alike</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What these recent cases have in common is that a man (or boy) is behaving suspiciously, but not altogether dangerously or life-threateningly. There is a confrontation with police or security. The man (or boy) winds up dead. There's also another thing the cases have in common. The victims were all unarmed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Being a police officer is a difficult, thankless, and dangerous job. Officers put their lives on the line every day and should be commended for it. But surely the rules of engagement must include basic limitations on when to resort to deadly force. As a bare minimum, lack of a firearm or deadly weapon on an assailant should automatically preclude a lethal response. Cans of soda and skittles don't count as deadly weapons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If we accept that the role of police in our society is to protect and preserve life then we must accept that the tragic cases in Missouri, New York, and way too many towns and cities across our country have not met that standard. One death is too many. One death is unacceptable. <i>That</i> should be the baseline standard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">At first, it was heartbreaking. Now it's become enraging. We <i>have</i> to change because this is not justice. This is not America. </span></div>
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<br />Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-91298781891900605902014-08-25T09:05:00.001-04:002014-08-25T09:10:39.272-04:00Moonlighting in the South of France<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After nearly fifty years of filmmaking, it's safe to say that we pretty much know Woody Allen's attitude towards all things supernatural. Religion, God, afterlife, are all concepts that have borne the brunt of Allen's obtuse scorn over the decades. And yet, as the writer-director pushes 80, it seems he has begun to deconstruct if not incrementally rollback his notoriously rational outlook.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Allen's latest film, <i>Magic in the Moonlight</i>, stars Colin Firth doing what Colin Firth does best: playing Mr. Darcy. Firth plays Stanley Crawford, a magician in 1920s Europe, whose sneering arrogance is eclipsed only by his vicious contempt for all things that can't be unmitigatedly proven by the cold calculations of science. When word reaches him of a rich American family who has fallen under the spell of a psychic, he quickly travels to the south of France -- where they're summering at their waterfront chateau -- to expose the fraud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hoping to inflict as much humiliation as possible, Crawford begins jabbing Sophie Baker (Emma Stone) with sarcastic barbs immediately. But regardless of his iterations of the impossibility of anything existing outside of empirical proof, Baker's effortless charm and uncanny clairvoyance slowly begins to win over the master skeptic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is not one of Allen's classics, but the Côte d'Azur setting and the classical score, including Stravinsky and Beethoven, make for a lovely diversion on a Sunday evening. Allen became a legend filming in the confines of Manhattan, but his latest European period has proven he is equally adept at filming the radiance and splendour of the Mediterranean. I also appreciated the supporting characters of Caroline (Erica Leerhsen) and George (Jeremy Shamos), who seemed to be taken directly out of Fitzgerald's <i>Tender Is The Night</i>. This and other Lost Generation literary allusions worked much better than the crudely amateurish caricatures of<i> </i>Allen's recent megahit, <i>Midnight in Paris</i>, which in many ways felt like Woody Allen had taken over the <i>Back to the Future</i> franchise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Crawford/Darcy/Firth's intense rationality sets him up for a comeuppance, even as he continues to spew on about the cold bleakness of life, and death. Much like his main character, it seems like the great director is softening in his dotage. Yes, everything Crawford says is true, he's not debating that, but rather he's advocating for a kind of selective amnesia. Maybe in the face of unimaginable dark nothingness, the key to survival and indeed happiness is to try placing existentialism on the back burner for a while and permit some magic into our lives. Who knows, if we're lucky perhaps we'll get to experience the greatest magic of all: love.</span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-20709504170000085242014-04-24T13:40:00.001-04:002014-04-24T14:15:35.831-04:00Bibliomania, Jacques Bonnet, and Norwegian Wood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Recently I was gifted a wonderful little book for my birthday, Jacques Bonnet's <i>Phantoms On The Bookshelves</i>. A diaphanous read, it's packed with anecdotes and factoids on the irrepressible subject of bibliomania. As any reader of this space knows, I am a great lover of books. I love the way they feel in my hands, I love the way they smell, I love flipping through their pages, underlining my favourite lines and writing little notes in the margins. But after reading Bonnet's treatise on the subject, I am convinced and must somewhat ashamedly admit that bibliomaniac I am not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Don't let me disabuse, I can be quite manic about books. My most prized literary possession is the massive Yale Shakespeare which not only features every single work ever attributed to the Bard, but is also typeset based on the authoritative First Folio and features modernized spelling. I am proud of my book collection. I call it a collection rather than a library because according to Bonnet, a private library must consist of 20,000 volumes, at a minimum. Yes, 20,000. I cannot in good conscience refer to myself as a bibliomaniac. Contrastingly, Bonnet boasts a private library of over 40,000 volumes!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Phantoms On The Bookshelves </i>is peppered with tangents and asides on the peculiarities and necessities of book devotees. Storage becomes a major issue, not to mention the horror of moving. Bonnet gleefully describes how the walls of his apartment are covered with books from floor to ceiling, including his bathroom. Of course, it means he has to keep his bathroom window open at all times so as not to ruin books housed there by the steam from his hot showers. The one place Bonnet eschews storing books is directly above his bed. You see, there is a legend involving Charles-Valentin Alkan (no relation), a French composer from the 19th century who was called by Hans von Bülow as the "Berlioz of the piano". The legend goes Mssr. Alkan too was a bibliomaniac who was tragically killed when a bookshelf collapsed on his head whilst, one version has it, he slept. Another version claims he was reaching for the Talmud. The veracity of this tale is suspect at best but its tenor was enough to spook Bonnet from avoiding a similar fate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I reveled in reading <i>Phantoms,</i> comparing my idiosyncrasies to others' who share my worship of books (the author and I share a preference for reading lying down). Bonnet likes to retain the price of the book on the inside cover to always remind him how much he spent. I too like to retain such tidbits but I also write my name and acquisition date on the inside cover. It's both a mark of ownership and a vain attempt to prevent theft. The thinking goes that a borrower will be less likely to steal a book if he has to be confronted with the reminder of his crime every time he opens it. Naturally, this method has been resoundingly unsuccessful (Bonnet himself mentions that it's unreasonable to expect the return of loaned book). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I wish I had been privy to Bonnet's assertion a long time ago because I am one of those who <i>did</i> expect a loaned book to be returned and would find myself quite annoyed when, in my excitement to share a newfound literary gem, I'd strongly encourage my close friends to read it immediately only to never see that edition again. This was the case about six years ago when something extraordinary occurred. I finally got around to reading Haruki Murakami's <i>Norwegian Wood</i> and was completely overcome by its haunting brilliance. Just thinking about the novel even now gives me chills. Andrew, a close friend of mine whose expansive breadth of literary knowledge is a source of some insecurity for me, paid a visit and insisted that I let him borrow Murakami's masterpiece. Although hesitant, I relented after repeated assurances that he'd return it to me promptly upon finishing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I haven't seen it since but I am neither annoyed nor resentful. <i>Norwegian Wood</i> is a novel of such heart-wrenching beauty and masterful elegance that Andrew's possession of it has in a certain sense further cemented our great friendship. He loves the novel as I do, a devotion that transcends physical ownership. Andrew has a twin brother, Scott, who counts <i>Anna Karenina </i>as his favourite novel. He too noticed <i>Norwegian Wood</i> on Andrew's bookshelf and borrowed it. Andrew hasn't seen it since. A novel such as this almost demands to be passed from one reader to another, and its journey from Baltimore, MD to Columbus, MS is one that I'm convinced Murakami would be touched by, and that Bonnet would surely approve. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Recently Andrew came to visit again and noticed a Richard Yates novel, <i>Young Hearts Crying</i>, that he wanted to borrow. I agreed, but with a catch. Andrew left his edition of Evelyn Waugh short stories as collateral. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-16395895984147103662014-03-11T16:08:00.000-04:002014-03-11T16:12:55.090-04:00A Few Thoughts on Breaking Bad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have two admissions about <i>Breaking Bad</i>. The first admission: I like <i>Breaking Bad, </i>but I place in the level of a really great crime procedural, rather than an all-time great show that fully explores the human condition. Sure it's absorbing and disturbing but it is not in the same category as <i>The Sopranos, Mad Men, </i>or even, <i>House Of Cards</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a show revolving around an anti-hero to be truly effective, the anti-hero has to be part hero. In other words, he must have certain qualities which make him lovable. We loved Tony Soprano because he possessed infinite charm, a ribald sense of humour, and couldn't help but reveal his own insecurities and vulnerabilities. We love Don Draper because he's smooth, charismatic, and downright brilliant. We certainly love Frank Underwood because of his Machiavellian genius, political wile, and seemingly magical ability to relate -- however falsely -- to others. These traits don't excuse or soften their dark sides, but they paint a more nuanced picture of a character, and ostensibly, make for more captivating television because we find ourselves empathizing with someone who we know does not deserve our empathy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Walter White is different from those other anti-heroes because he's not a hero at all. He's just anti. Sure, he's a genius at cooking meth and a seeming wizard at extricating himself from completely untenable positions but that's not something that I find all that laudable. There doesn't seem to be any kind of great struggle going on inside of him. He cooks meth. He makes lots of money. He destroys his life and that of his family's. He pretends to care, but it's obvious he doesn't. Over the course of five seasons of the show, Walter White goes from a mild-mannered and unlucky Everyman who decides to spurn an ignominious fate to a greedy, selfish, drug kingpin with a healthy sadistic side. Where is his humanity? Where is his softness or vulnerability? His sole motivation seems to involve outfoxing those around him, be it his competitors, his "colleagues", or his family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've arrived at admission number two. Perhaps my overall criticism of <i>Breaking Bad</i> stems from my prejudicial disdain for Bryan Cranston. It probably stems from his Seinfeld days, when he played Whatley, the dentist who converted to Judaism for the jokes. Unfairly, I'll always associate him with that unctuous character. On a purely aesthetically superficial level, I find his mannerisms and demeanor aggravating and unpleasant. His physicality is overbearing and feels forced, meanwhile his facial expressions range from grizzled scorn to grizzled horror to grizzled derision. I get it, he's pissed off, determined, and hates everyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One thing I do love about <i>Breaking Bad</i> is its attention to detail. There is a sense that Vince Gilligan, the show's creator, wants to convey a banality of evil that pervades the high-level drug trade. It's not glamourous, it's not exciting. It is desolate, horrifying, and often repulsive.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, Walt's misanthropy infected the show as a whole. </span></span>Before the final eight episodes aired, a friend of mine asked me what I thought was going to happen. I told him I knew exactly what would happen. Think of the most fucked up, disturbing scenario, preferably with as much murder, mayhem, and horror as possible and that's what we'll see. Part of the show's charm is the voyeuristic opportunities it affords to law-abiding, non-drug kingpin viewers everywhere. We get to inhabit that dark and perverted world without any repercussions. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said all that, I acknowledge that the final eight episodes finally allowed Walt to embrace his humanity and instantly he became a more interesting character. The scene where he pathetically offers Robert Forster's extractor character $10,000 to stay with him an extra hour during one of his monthly visits is a sublime spark of humanity and vulnerability. His anguish over Hank's murder (Hank, by the way, is my favourite character from the show because he's everything Walt isn't: funny, vulnerable, nuanced, empathetic) is also revealing. It took Hank being murdered in cold blood for Walt to finally come to terms with the consequences of his actions. Finally, his scheme to siphon his ill-gotten gains to Walt Jr. via the Schwartzes and admission to Skylar that he in fact built an entire criminal enterprise to satiate his own ego made him someone that is relatable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Any effective work of art makes the audience care. We care about Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Frank Underwood even though we know we shouldn't but we can't help it. They're just too likable. But what about Walter White is likable? By the time he assumed the role of Heisenberg I found myself so disgusted by him I kept on hoping he would die or get caught or lose everything. He's just too damn unpleasant. With a pure villain as an anti-hero, the audience loses that tension between judgement and acceptance, empathy and disgust. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-63872876099363535182013-11-12T10:09:00.000-05:002013-11-14T09:09:58.282-05:00246 Years, Millions of Slaves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZxCAhF_96A-B87hD9oS-SEYBgdBiIGMNJWZ7VFrCZIOL-1mosnirufjCYUv-omR5dOhYUXKeflazOLzjwTGTmFnzosfwEgASJMnITodu10CPBj6tbkcVNu8XE4EBQt63QB-FxzvK940U/s1600/12-years-a-slave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZxCAhF_96A-B87hD9oS-SEYBgdBiIGMNJWZ7VFrCZIOL-1mosnirufjCYUv-omR5dOhYUXKeflazOLzjwTGTmFnzosfwEgASJMnITodu10CPBj6tbkcVNu8XE4EBQt63QB-FxzvK940U/s1600/12-years-a-slave.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>12 Years A Slave</i> is the most important film of the 21st century. The most important since <i>Schindler's List</i>, and probably, one of the best and most vital films ever made. To say Steve McQueen's film is essential viewing is a comic understatement. Although there is absolutely nothing funny about anything going on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If <i>The Diary of Anne Frank </i>is required reading in high schools across the country, then Solomon Northup's memoir, and the corresponding film should not only be required reading and viewing, it should be <i>enforced</i> reading and viewing. There is simply no conceivable way to grasp the history of the United States -- nor the present, for that matter -- without the human catastrophe that is slavery shoved in your face. Otherwise, we're doing ourselves, those who suffered through it, but most importantly the generations to come, a massive disservice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Don't misunderstand me. This isn't just about reengineering white guilt. In a world where a white guy on the Miami Dolphins can slur his fellow teammate as a "half-n----- piece of shit" and then have his Black teammates back him up as an "honorary Black guy" while ostracizing the African-American victim as soft, proves that as much progress as we've made, we still have far to go. Or rather, to be more precise, once we've achieved great social progress, the work doesn't end there because newer generations are going to plead ignorance of the fight of their forefathers. None of the Dolphins ever marched on Washington or personally witnessed Martin Luther King speak. They never had to experience the indignity of being refused service at a restaurant or being forced to use segregated facilities. If they had, there is no way they would condone, let alone support(!) that kind of behavior. This isn't a race issue, this is a <i>human</i> issue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span dir="auto">Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a <span style="font-size: small;">prospe<span style="font-size: small;">rous f<span style="font-size: small;">reeman living in Saratoga Springs, NY <span style="font-size: small;">with his wife and children. It<span style="font-size: small;"> is 1841, and Solomon<span style="font-size: small;"> lives a life of m<span style="font-size: small;">usic and punctiliousness. One day, he <span style="font-size: small;">is lured to Washington DC <span style="font-size: small;">by two men who invite <span style="font-size: small;">him to perform <span style="font-size: small;">with his violin and promise exorbitant pay. They take him out to dinner and <span style="font-size: small;">their kind<span style="font-size: small;">ness overwhelms hi<span style="font-size: small;">m. <span style="font-size: small;">Turns out the men poison him and when he comes to he's <span style="font-size: small;">chained to a<span style="font-size: small;"> wall in a building not far from the still unfi<span style="font-size: small;">nished</span> <span style="font-size: small;">Capitol.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">He<span style="font-size: small;">'s not Solomon anymore, he's now Platt, and if he <span style="font-size: small;">tries to c<span style="font-size: small;">laim that he<span style="font-size: small;"> is anything but a run<span style="font-size: small;">away slave from Georgia he rec<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">eives </span>a whipping. And so his fate dr<span style="font-size: small;">ags </span>him from <span style="font-size: small;">a <span style="font-size: small;">slave ship, to a <span style="font-size: small;">New Orle<span style="font-size: small;">ans slave market, and to one master t<span style="font-size: small;">hen</span> another. <span style="font-size: small;">A<span style="font-size: small;">t each stop<span style="font-size: small;">, the dehumanization is ra<span style="font-size: small;">tcheted up<span style="font-size: small;"> to increm<span style="font-size: small;">entally </span>extreme levels. <span style="font-size: small;">But nothing<span style="font-size: small;"> -- and no<span style="font-size: small;">body -- is worse than Michael F<span style="font-size: small;">assbender's Master Epps. Here is the most vicious an<span style="font-size: small;">d vile chara<span style="font-size: small;">cter in film since Ralph Fi<span style="font-size: small;">ennes' Amon <span style="font-size: small;">G<span style="font-size: small;">oe<span style="font-size: small;">th. Fassbender full<span style="font-size: small;">y embraces<span style="font-size: small;"> his worst pr<span style="font-size: small;">imordial instincts to cr<span style="font-size: small;">eate a character <span style="font-size: small;">for whom there are<span style="font-size: small;"> no<span style="font-size: small;"> words sufficient to describe his utter depravity. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shot in Lou<span style="font-size: small;">isana, the sweeping <span style="font-size: small;">cinemota<span style="font-size: small;">graphy and the hauntingly bea<span style="font-size: small;">utiful shots of nature cont<span style="font-size: small;">rast grotesquely with <span style="font-size: small;">the events happening on<span style="font-size: small;">screen. <span style="font-size: small;">Th<span style="font-size: small;">is</span> <span style="font-size: small;">aesthetic</span> s<span style="font-size: small;">tyle <span style="font-size: small;">hark<span style="font-size: small;">ens back to Franci<span style="font-size: small;">sco </span>Goya<span style="font-size: small;">'s <span style="font-size: small;">striking </span></span>pai<span style="font-size: small;">ntings of the horrors occur<span style="font-size: small;">ring in<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>Spain during the Napol<span style="font-size: small;">eonic o<span style="font-size: small;">ccupation. <span style="font-size: small;">And unlike <span style="font-size: small;">Quentin Tarantino's <i>Django Uncha</i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>ined</i> there <span style="font-size: small;">are no laughs or gags t<span style="font-size: small;">hat make the slavers look dumb or incompetent. <span style="font-size: small;">No, in <i><span style="font-size: small;">12 Yea<span style="font-size: small;">rs A Slave</span></span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">, the vill<span style="font-size: small;">ains </span>all know <span style="font-size: small;">prec<span style="font-size: small;">isely what they're doing. They don't make mistakes and even the slightest unusual movement of their victims is ca<span style="font-size: small;">use for suspicio<span style="font-size: small;">n and violent ret<span style="font-size: small;">aliation</span>. When told by another <span style="font-size: small;">ki<span style="font-size: small;">dnapped man that the <span style="font-size: small;">only way to survive is to keep your head down<span style="font-size: small;"> and tell no one <span style="font-size: small;">he's educated <span style="font-size: small;">nor <span style="font-size: small;">free, Solomon responds, "I don't want<span style="font-size: small;"> to sur<span style="font-size: small;">vive<span style="font-size: small;">. <span style="font-size: small;">I want t<span style="font-size: small;">o live."</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The t<span style="font-size: small;">ruly f<span style="font-size: small;">righten<span style="font-size: small;">ing thing to ponder is that So<span style="font-size: small;">lo<span style="font-size: small;">mon's story follows one man who faced this nightmare for twelve years before being rescued<span style="font-size: small;">. This is a human travest<span style="font-size: small;">y on a scale that is simply unfathomable. <span style="font-size: small;">What about all the other slaves, who <span style="font-size: small;">weren't literat<span style="font-size: small;">e, who <span style="font-size: small;">didn't have connections in the <span style="font-size: small;">North, <span style="font-size: small;">who were born slaves and died slaves<span style="font-size: small;">?</span> Whose parents and grandparent<span style="font-size: small;">s were slaves and whose <span style="font-size: small;">children would be slav<span style="font-size: small;">es? <span style="font-size: small;">T<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">his wasn't an isolated incident, but a recurring crime against humanity that went on for centuries and affect<span style="font-size: small;">ed</span> millions of inn<span style="font-size: small;">ocent people.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">History ha<span style="font-size: small;">s a way of softening reality. <span style="font-size: small;">Tragi<span style="font-size: small;">c events d<span style="font-size: small;">rift <span style="font-size: small;">further away into the dista<span style="font-size: small;">nce and be<span style="font-size: small;">come theoretical <span style="font-size: small;">events read about in textbooks and <span style="font-size: small;">spoken of in genera<span style="font-size: small;">lit<span style="font-size: small;">ies. <span style="font-size: small;">First hand accounts are truly the only way to preserve the fu<span style="font-size: small;">nk<span style="font-size: small;">, the realness, the truth, of what happened. Obviously<span style="font-size: small;"> there will never be any video footage of <span style="font-size: small;">the horrors of slavery, but at lea<span style="font-size: small;">st, with a film lik<span style="font-size: small;"><i>e</i></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>12 <span style="font-size: small;">Years A Slave</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"> there wi<span style="font-size: small;">ll be a <span style="font-size: small;">motion picture record <span style="font-size: small;">that will l<span style="font-size: small;">ive on in perpetuity for all ge<span style="font-size: small;">nerations hence</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>,<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> so that<span style="font-size: small;"> we can look ourselves in the mirror and say, "Human beings treated each<span style="font-size: small;"> other like this in the not-to-distant past, but <i>we <span style="font-size: small;">will </span><span style="font-size: small;">never</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><i> let this happen again</i>."</span></span></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-63091318445107668332013-09-03T09:05:00.001-04:002013-09-04T09:34:49.244-04:00A Streetcar Named Retribution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of Ingmar Bergman's most overlooked and theatrical films is <i>The Devil's Eye.</i> Released in 1960 and sandwiched between classics like <i>Wild Strawberries<b> </b></i>and his Trilogy of Faith (<i>Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence</i>), it's easy to see how <i>The Devil's Eye</i> has become lost in modern film circles. But it's one of Bergman's most inspired works. The film opens with Don Juan seducing a young maiden only to have his conquest fizzle into nothingness at the moment of consummation. You see, Don Juan is in hell, and his eternal punishment is to replay this Sisyphean game of seduction, without respite. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jasmine, played to neurotic snobby brilliance by Cate Blanchett in a likely Oscar nominated role, shares a similar fate. The titular character in Woody Allen's <i>Blue Jasmine</i>, Blanchett is a cold, condescending gold-digger whose sole talent in life is to attract and gracefully seduce obnoxiously wealthy men. This is in extreme contrast to her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a simple woman drawn to salt of the earth types. Their paths intersect when Jasmine's husband, Hal (Alec Baldwin), a not-so-thinly veiled version of Bernie Madoff, loses everything and hangs himself in his jail cell, leaving his estranged wife with no choice but to move from Park Avenue to live with her blue collar sister in San Francisco.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yes, in Woody Allen's world, San Francisco is representative of a rough-talking, pizza-loving, grease-monkey working class because, obviously, his conception of the City by the Bay is stuck on Sam Spade and <i>The Maltese Falcon.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jasmine, destitute, is forced, horror of horrors, to work as a dental assistant, and worse, share an apartment with her sister and two kids. And yet, by the grace of the 1%, wealthy men find her irresistible. Blanchett's best moment comes when she's dragged to a</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Marin County</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">fête whose regal vacuousness quickly reminds her of own glorious Hamptons past. When wealthy widower Dwight Westlake (Peter Sarsgaard) begins cooing to her of a home by the bay, a diplomatic mission in Vienna, and a potential future in politics, Jasmine realizes she unwittingly has got a live one. The universe is restoring her innate place at the top of the social order. The light in her face is reilluminated as she instantaneously spurns her unbalanced self-pity for a confident, alluring, and completely fraudulent air. Jasmine's transmutation alone is worth the price of admission. Dwight falls for her immediately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Somewhat clumsily (Allen loves churning out these films with such frequency that sometimes details aren't given the attention they deserve), it all falls apart for Jasmine, via Andrew Dice Clay in an understated performance as Ginger's ex-husband Augie who was burned personally and professionally by Jasmine and her criminal husband, and her dreams are once again fizzled into nothingness just at the moment of material consummation. It's a classic morality tale of the pitfalls of greed, pride, and selfishness. Maybe in some seventh circle, Don Juan and Jasmine will find each other. </span></div>
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-85857103789729840662013-02-07T10:36:00.000-05:002013-02-07T16:24:28.824-05:00Super Sunday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It was around 5pm on a Tuesday when I got the call from my brother. His voice sounded sheepish, like when we were kids and he was up to mischief. He embarked on a winding tale of NFL referees, personal connections, unlikely raffles, and other miscellany, all revolving around his desperate attempts at procuring Super Bowl tickets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Our Baltimore Ravens were making their second appearance -- the first in 12 years -- in the biggest sporting event in American culture. I now realize the true reason why the NFL corporate heads schedule two weeks between the conference championship games and the big game. A week had gone by after we'd defeated the dainty New England Patriots before the reality of our triumph had fully sunk in. Not until then, the beginning of the second week -- when were we absolutely certain it wasn't an amazing, yet transient dream -- did it even occur to us that we should inquire as to how to make it to New Orleans to be there in person. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Back to my brother's sheepish voice. I had my suspicions, but dared not indulge them. To me, this call was simply an elder brother regaling his younger brother with the convoluted account of how he secured himself a ticket to the Super Bowl. And then came the climax, there wasn't much more to tell, but there was a revelation followed by a question: there was an extra ticket; would I like to go (aka could I afford it)?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is the Super Bowl. Any way you break it down, it ain't affordable. But our arrangements had some incredibly fortuitous breaks in it and I thought to myself, "Years from now, what am I going to say? I had a chance to go to watch the Ravens in the Super Bowl but I was too cheap?" No. I would not go gently into that impecunious night. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I repeat, our arrangements included incredibly fortuitous breaks. First, the tickets my brother secured were face value. Still wildly expensive but hardly unreasonable (again, the key point here is that <i>our</i> team was playing). Second, my brother's brother-in-law had secured his own ticket through other channels and some of his close friends were also going. One of these guys knows a guy who works at a resort management company. One of their properties, a condo complex in Gulfport, Mississippi, had a three-bedroom condo that hadn't been sold yet. This friend of a friend of a brother's brother-in-law offered to let us stay there for free. That left us with the face-value ticket and the flight as being the only major expenses. Suddenly, I knew: I'm going to the Super Bowl to watch my hometown team play for the Vince Lombardi trophy. (Another serendipitous twist was that I was going with <i>my</i> brother to watch the Harbaugh brothers do battle.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">All the flights to New Orleans were booked solid, but there were available flights to Mobile, Alabama, an hour and a half drive from Gulfport, which itself was an hour and a half drive from New Orleans. So, if counting the layover in Atlanta, we'd be trekking over half the old South to get to this game. A Sherman March all of our own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The convenience of the free condo was critical, but it came with some quirks. The place was large and furnished but lacked the normal amenities travelers take for granted. There were no sheets on the beds, no towels, not even shower curtains. We had to bring all this ourselves. The first night two of the three toilets didn't work. It had TVs in every room but no cable boxes or antennas. There were seven adult men in a three-bedroom condo which meant my brother and I (both of us 6'6, remember this as this will be important later) had to share a full (indeed it was) bed. Anchovies are better accommodated than we were those two sleepless nights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Restlessness aside, we awoke on Super Sunday ready for the wonderful bounty we were about to receive. We had rented a large SUV to transport the seven road warriors. Like magic, my brother unveils a large Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl flag (where or when he had the opportunity to buy this I have no idea) that he proceeded to attach to back of the roof, turning our ride into a Baltimore Ravens Supermanesque caravan. (I also used this as an opportunity to enlighten my thirty-something, married-with-children suburban companions of the meaning of Soulja Boy's "Crank That.")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Our first stop was to gas up. At the local Gulfport gas station, an Infiniti pulls in beside us. An incendiary black woman with fake eyelashes, a southern drawl, and supertight capri sweats accentuating her outrageously rotund bottom gets out and asks to have a picture taken with our Ravens caravan. As if on cue, an old RV rumbles out from behind the vastness rhythmically honking its horn while Ravens clad fans hang out from the windows and White Stripes' <i>Seven Nation Army</i> (Ravens' unofficial anthem) blasting over the PA. High fives and chest bumps ensue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We arrive in New Orleans bathed in warm sunlight. The city is ignited with anticipation. I had heard earlier in the week that Ravens fans were outnumbering 49er fans two or even three to one. This rumor held true. The locals, all die-hard Saints fans, were also strongly in the Ravens' corner as the 49ers used to play in their division years ago and were still vociferously despised. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What happens on Bourbon Street requires no explication, and although the city had delayed Mardi Gras a week to accommodate the Super Bowl, they couldn't delay the carnival atmosphere. One of the bars was blasting Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense and Peppermints" into the street and it fit the scene perfectly.<i> Good sense, innocence, crippled and kind / dead kings and many things I can't define.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We had heard a Baltimore radio personality was organizing a seventeen block Ravens march from Bourbon Street to the Superdome in honor of Ray Lewis' seventeen year career. Around four o'clock local time we made our way to the parade. The sea of purple was forever. The locals lined the streets sharing in our exuberance. It was Ravens heaven.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We arrive at the Superdome and make our way to our seats, which are incredible. We're twenty-six rows behind the Ravens end-zone. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">From this view we were graced with Anquan Boldin pulling in the first Ravens touchdown right in front of us. As I mentioned earlier, my brother and I are both 6'6 and I'm not hyperbolizing when I say that every time the Ravens had a big play we would literally leap, and then fall, into each other's arms. How we didn't topple over into the rows in front of us, I can't explain. I don't think anyone in our section was as hype as we were and even our fellow Ravens fans were taken aback and then energized by our ecstasy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Beside me sat a couple in referee garb (signalling their neutrality) from San Diego who were Buffalo Bills fans. (Chew on that one for a while). I guess there will always be people ready to drop thousands of dollars to what essentially to them is a meaningless game. My effusion for my Ravens demanded that my San Diego Bill neighbor root for Baltimore (although he would not shut up about the unsuccessful fake field goal we ran in the first half leaving three points on the table). Beside my brother sat two demure early middle-aged women 49er fans who were clearly overwhelmed by my brother's and my histrionics. They bought us beers as a plea for mercy. Almost immediately, the Niners began to score points in droves and we cursed our acceptance of her token offering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To those who watched the game, I need not repeat the play-by-play. I do however want to point out that as Jacoby Jones caught the second half kick-off, we could see his unobstructed lane unfurl directly in front of our eyes. Like fiends we simultaneously pointed and screamed, "There it is! There it is!" Sure enough, Jacoby must have heard us and cut through the 49er coverage like a flyswatter through a cobweb. We were ahead 28-6 and immortality was less than thirty minutes away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Days later, watching the replays on TV made it seem like the entire Superdome went black, which was not the case. In fact, the field remained mostly illuminated and everyone assumed the game should resume within a few minutes. The delay sobered our enthusiasm and allowed the 49ers to pick themselves up and dust themselves off. During their furious comeback, it suddenly felt like there were a lot more 49er fans than I had thought. Each time the 49ers made a first down, the PA announcer excitedly bellowed, "First down 49ers!" angering us into apoplexy as we swore he hadn't expressed the same courtesy to the Ravens. (As a side note, our father -- a good-luck charm all year when watching games -- was overseas on business and I feverishly began texting him imploring him to wake up and turn the game on because we needed him.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Then came the goal-line stand. It was on the other end of the field so our vantage point was minimal but when that 4th down Kaepernick pass sailed long I crumpled into my seat, overwhelmed. My eyes welled up. There were still some formalities but I knew this meant we had just won the Super Bowl. We were champions. I figured we'd just run out the clock and the game would be over. Little did I realize an intentional safety and last second mad scramble on a free kick coverage would ensue. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The emotions of it all were ineffable. My brother and I hugged and jumped and yelled and exulted and whistled and shrieked until we were croaked. The Baltimore Ravens were Super Bowl Champions. Joe Flacco was named MVP and our little city in Maryland, whom the rest of the country and national media looks upon as a grease spot on the map, a hapless place that doesn't deserve anything good to happen to it (and if something good does happen it's because we must have cheated or got supremely lucky), triumphantly ascended to the center of the sports universe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-42968420794465467302013-01-28T11:08:00.002-05:002013-01-29T08:43:06.571-05:00Tarantino Unrestrained<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I confess I had to see <i>Django Unchained</i>, Tarantino's latest historical revenge fantasy, twice before I was able to fully grasped my reaction to it. <i>Django</i> pulls the viewer in multiple and diametrically opposed directions. At once it is an epic, a love story, a revenge fantasy, and an historical reimagining, while maintaining wickedly funny -- and gruesome -- overtones. It is disturbing and heavy while also being witty and light. Only Tarantino. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For those who are even semi-regular readers of this space are aware of my strong affinity towards Quentin Tarantino, whom I have aptly dubbed the Patron Saint of Cinema. There is no other filmmaker in the world who makes the kinds of films that Tarantino does. The combination of vision, audacity, technical prowess, film history proficiency, and general auteurship, is something that Tarantino alone possesses.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">From sadistic villains to anachronistically hip protagonists, <i>Django</i> is a classic Tarantino film, replete with all the hallmarks we've come to expect from a QT production. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, a loathsome plantation owner whose idea of leisure is participating in cockfighting, except with human slaves fighting to the death instead of roosters. Even more abject is Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen, a complexly hideous Uncle Tom</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span>. Stephen's nauseating subservience to his master </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">is the driving force in thwarting Django's heroic bid to abscond with his enslaved wife, whom Candie owns, and </span>arguably makes him the most problematic character in cinema's history. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Django</i> is an important film in ways Tarantino's previous films were not. Never before has Tarantino -- or any other filmmaker I'm aware of -- so brazenly and unabashedly confronted America's shameful slave past in such an unsolemn and untactful way. In the Antebellum South, slaves were considered subhuman, and Tarantino misses not one opportunity to depict that debasement on screen. Could you ever imagine seeing a film that spews the n-word with such frequency and unrepentance that after a half an hour the phenomenon is barely noticeable?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Recently, DiCaprio admitted that during filming he began to have serious reservations regarding the content matter and even confronted Tarantino asking, "Are we going to far with this? Are we crossing a line we should not cross?" Apparently, Tarantino was joined by Jackson in adamantly defending their unrelenting approach. If there is going to be a movie made about slavery, and Tarantino is behind it, then it <i>has</i> to go this far. It has to be done right. To borrow a phrase Cornel West used to defend <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> from modern editing: "The funk must remain." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Christoph Waltz's cognoscenti Dr. King Schultz and Jamie Foxx's muted Django may be the protoganists, but slavery is the main character in this film, as every second of screen time, every characterization, every word of dialogue, is weighed down by its albatross. And still the film is wildly fun and entertaining.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of the things Tarantino does best, and for which we love him for, is he takes a general setting, say, a heist, an underworld double-cross, World War II, antebellum South, whatever, and then he creates an environment in which the most horrific occurrences -- specific to that particular moment in time -- are allowed to come to fruition. Of course he plays with the facts, but it's solely to maximize the effect. Tarantino doesn't bother with pedagoguery, instead, what he is concerned with is eliciting the greatest possible audience reaction, preferably visceral, and followed quickly by a loudly audible, "Ohhh!!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The scenes of slavery at its worst are an absolute nightmare. And yet what might be even more frightening is that no matter how exaggerated Tarantino makes them, we know through the lens of history that nothing that is shown can ever go far enough. Slavery, by default, is an unspeakable human catastrophe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now, of course QT's last film dealt with another unimaginably terrible event, World War II and the Holocaust. But what makes <i>Django </i>even more affecting than <i>Inglourious Basterds </i>is that the latter wholly avoids the ultimate mechanism of the Holocaust, the death camp. Surely there are terrifying scenes as Landa, the Jew Hunter, stalks his prey, but Tarantino elides the crematoria. In the Antebellum South, there is nothing to elide. Slavery is chains, whips, rape, commodification, and just about every other possible dehumanizing act one can and can't imagine. Skip over even just one of those and it is no longer slavery, not in the way we know it truly to be. In short, don't expect to exit this film psychologically unscathed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Mental scarring aside, the film looks marvelous and the cinematography is exquisite. And of course, there are the usual sight/sound gags, none better than when the freed slave Django and his bounty hunter and abolitionist partner, King Schultz, ride off into the wilderness to Jim Croce crooning "I Got A Name." Ironically, as much as I enjoyed that scene, it is precisely here that my adulation of Tarantino recedes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Tarantino has reached such cinematic heights, is imbued with such supreme confidence, and has had his sense of cheekiness emboldened to such an extent, that he has over-indulged the part of his creative mind that fetishizes the minutia, at the expense of the bigger picture. The devil is indeed in the details and I fear Tarantino is well on his way down the river Styx. He exerts a tremendous amount of effort in developing over-elaborately fascinating backstories, inside jokes, set-pieces, and constructing a cinematic kaleidoscope, that he inevitably runs out of room (literally and figuratively) when the climax comes due. If the film is like a jigsaw puzzle, then he's got all these magnificent pieces but they can't all possibly fit onto one board. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Like <i>Basterds</i>, Tarantino again finds himself in an untenable position once he hits the 150 minute mark and must rely on a bit of <i>deux ex machina</i> to right the ship. Probably, Tarantino's past virtuosity is his own undoing as there are only so many ways to revolutionize (Tarantino-ize?) a final shoot-out scene, and he's already done them all. The finale, the main confrontation, suddenly becomes an afterthought, an incongruently consequential tangent, rather than a properly organic culmination, to everything else that has already happened. Although, I must admit, I did find the Antonioniesque fulmination of Candyland a nice touch, a symbolic blowing up of the institution of slavery and everything it stood for. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As I've declared many times before, I love Tarantino's films, and I love his uncompromising vision, how he gleefully manipulates our expectations, and even challenges our sense of history and values. And this film was by no means a disappointment. As I mentioned, it is quite an important film, in fact. But if I had a few moments with the man, I'd entreat him to return to the days when he firstly crafted a magnificently deranged, fully-fleshed out story, and then went to town on the details of how to get there, instead of the other way around. </span><br />
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Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-43407023750949651272012-12-19T10:03:00.001-05:002012-12-19T10:15:32.290-05:00The Founding Fathers Were Wrong...So They Changed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Founding Fathers, the saintly cabal of 18th century colonial thinkers who first established this nation, were wrong once. Very wrong. So wrong that this country almost collapsed before George Washington even became our first President. In keeping with their lionized status, these wise men acted in the only manner they saw fit: they changed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was 1776 and while Thomas Jefferson and cohorts were off composing the immortal <i>Declaration of Independence</i>, an absolute brilliant treatise on the inherent rights of man for self-determination, there was a separate committee of thirteen that set forth to draft a less heralded document that would be absolutely vital to the future of the incipient state: a constitution. What they came up with turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The Articles of Confederation, </i>drafted by John Dickinson, and ratified by all thirteen states by 1781, served as the first de facto system of government used by Congress. Their aim was noble and true, but the drafters got just about everything wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wary of all things monarchic, the Articles established a central government that in essence had no influence. Power was tilted heavily towards the States, and although the government could make decisions, it held no authority to enforce any of those decisions. The fledgling country quickly fell into bankruptcy because the central government could not collect taxes. It had to request funds from individual states. The <i>Treaty of Paris</i>, the agreement that ended the Revolutionary War and called for the expulsion of British troops from American lands, remained maddeningly symbolic as the Army was too ill-funded to force the stalling British from American lands. The new government was completely paralyzed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By 1786, the country was on the verge of collapse and the Founding Fathers knew it. So what did they do? Did they stubbornly refute all criticisms and bore down to stay the course? Did they tinker with the Articles, making cosmetic changes that in effect only maintained the status quo? Or did they take the more difficult path and reconvene to hammer out a new and improved document that would pave the way for a more perfect union? By 1790, the <i>Constitution of the United States of America</i> had replaced the <i>Articles of Confederation</i> as the supreme law of this country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The venerated, the deified, the worshiped, the beloved Founding Fathers had made a mistake. A big one. But they were not afraid to admit it and to change, to adapt. Yes, they were great men who forged this country, but they were men all the same. Men who make mistakes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, by the way, they <i>continued</i> making mistakes. Thomas Jefferson triumphantly wrote, "...all men are created equal." Yet nowhere, not in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution, not in the Bill of Rights, is there even a mention of slavery, or civil rights, or women's rights. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, slave-owners all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To suggest that the Founding Fathers were perfect and the <i>Constitution </i>utterly<i> </i>unassailable spits in the face of logic. The very men who constructed it knew they weren't and it wasn't. They were not of afraid to change, especially in the face of disaster. It is incumbent upon us -- for our sake, for posterity's sake -- to follow their lead.</span><br />
<br />Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-47052039260615838812012-08-01T12:00:00.001-04:002012-08-03T18:52:51.500-04:00Impressions of Belgium<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Grand Place</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Prior to my visit to Belgium, my knowledge of the small lowland country was limited to a few unwrought facts. Their greatest export, as everyone knows, is their superior beer. So superior, in fact, that the only other country deserving of mention in a similar vein is neighboring Germany. Second, at the turn of the 20th century, Belgium was ruled by the wildly decadent King Leopold II, who established a colony in the Congo delta of central Africa which essentially became his private possession -- noteworthy mainly because it would famously become the haunting setting for Joseph Conrad's <i>Heart of Darkness</i>. Finally, I knew that, historically, Belgium was the German army's preferred route when visiting France.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Upon arrival to Brussels, which should be noted is not only the capital of Belgium but also of the EU, I was struck by its bustled diversity. Whereas Germany is primarily a homogeneous country with a small Turkish minority, downtown Brussels teams with Africans, Arabs, Indians, and Asians. Surprisingly, a quarter of Brussels adheres to the Muslim faith. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The streets are chaotic and messy. Traffic laws are mere suggestions, meant to be made up as you go along. A taxi ride will leave even the most hearty of passengers white-knuckled and short of breath. Once on foot, the culture of Belgium comes alive. Taking a seat at a restaurant near the Grand Place, Brussels' cultural and historical center, is the ideal method of fully absorbing the intricate Baroque architecture, the mass of people, and the many buskers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As is true of most of Western Europe, Belgium has a strong service-oriented economy. Waiters and waitresses approach their work not as jobs but as careers. They're on point, multilingual, efficient, and irrepressibly charming. An energetic whirligig of a waiter in Brussels insisted on addressing me as "My Lord" while clearing used dishes and placing new ones all in one illusory motion. What's more, each waiter carries a satchel filled with cash, so that when paying the check, he can easily accommodate his customer on the spot. Tips are an informal business. If a bill comes to </span><span class="st">€</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">65, you hand the man </span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">€70 and call it a day. No percentages, no calculations, just round up for convenience and everyone goes away happy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Walking through Brussels can be
exhausting, and nothing revitalizes the spirit more than an
authentic Belgian waffle. Made fresh-to-order at kiosks throughout the
city, the sweet, thick batter crusts on the outside while remaining soft and
gelatinous on the inside. Topped with your choice of fresh fruits or
spreads such as chocolate or caramel, the taste is nothing short of
heavenly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Want to bring home something memorable to share with friends and family? A box of chocolates may seem </span><span class="hw" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">blasé</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, but not when it comes from Belgium. Instead of focusing on sweetness, the Belgian confectioner concentrates on texture, richness, and balance. I'm not an avid consumer of chocolates and sweets in general, yet I was floored by the symphonic perfection happening in my mouth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brussels, unfortunately, does have the ignominy of "Brusselization." In the '60s and '70s, a lack of zoning laws and a <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">laissez-fair</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">e</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> attitude towards development allowed massive unchecked construction of high-rises in quaint historical areas. The result became the poster-child for disastrous urban planning. Many of these high-rises are now abandoned sores in an otherwise prosperous city.</span><br />
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<tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brusselization</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My visit would not be complete without a visit to Bruges, the crown jewel of Belgium. A city near the coast of the North Sea, it went largely untouched during the war, leaving its medieval architecture virtually intact. The cobblestone streets are about as wide as a parking space and cars are scant. We happened to visit during the Feast of the Ascension, a repudiated holiday in America but hugely important in parts of Europe. We were treated to a medieval procession of knights, monks, farmers, and merchants (and Jesus) through the city center, all whilst dining on Flemish style rabbit, the local specialty. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In Bruges</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Belgium is a happy and friendly place. Many of the locals speak English and do not exhibit a hint of a superiority (or inferiority) complex. Unlike other European capitals, most of the tourists were not Americans, but rather foreigners from the Far East and India, as well as Europe. My sense is in the minds of American travelers, between France, Spain, Italy, England, and Germany, Belgium often gets overlooked in the milieu. Perhaps unfortunate for Belgians, but wonderful for exploring Americans. When traveling off the beaten American path, Belgium is a place that will stimulate and surprise.</span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-41439959135461793752012-07-09T09:33:00.001-04:002012-07-09T10:58:13.124-04:00Rome, The Absurd City<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>To Rome With Love </i>is easily Woody Allen's most uproarious film since <i>Deconstructing Harry</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Introduced by a working traffic cop/raconteur, four interspersed -- but not intersecting -- sketches provide a peek into the wild possibilities of the "Eternal City." The farce that ensues is equal parts Shakespeare and Fellini, tied together by Allen's weightless style. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Each vignette is imbued with an element of the supernatural or absurd. Jerry (Woody Allen) is a retired avant-garde opera manager who comes to Rome to meet his daughter's Italian fianc</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">é and his family. When the future groom's undertaker father begins singing magnificently in the shower, Jerry pounces on his chance to get back in the opera game. The only catch is, the father (renowned tenor </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Fabio Armiliato</span>)<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">can </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><i>only</i> sing in the shower. The gag avoids getting stale, and, in fact, culminates in a most hysterical staging of <i>Pagliacci.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Equally outrageous is the </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">phantasmal </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">story of Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), a young architecture student living in Rome with his girlfriend (Greta Gerwig), who happens upon the renowned architect, reduced to designing shopping malls, John (Alec Baldwin). John becomes Jack's ghostlike confidante and guide, longingly walking him through the tumult that results when Sally (Ellen Page), the girlfriend's best friend, crashes into their lives with her histrionic, failed actress, pseudo-intellectual, sexual energy. Baldwin's Jack is an<i> </i>apparition savvy to all the seductress' moves, yet clearly still eager to be vicariously victimized. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Two Italian language vignettes perpetuate the farce, as Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) is an average family man and bureaucratic clerk who suddenly, and most nonsensically, becomes the object of the media's lust. The scenes of paparazzi obsession ("Leopoldo, when your head itches, which hand do you use to scratch it?") are like watching Fellini direct from beyond the grave. As always, Benigni crafts the most mundane tasks, like waking up and turning off an alarm clock, into inexplicable hilarity. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Finally, Anna, a prostitute, as stunning as she is uncouth, is played by Pen</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">é</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">lope Cruz, whose comedic talents flourish under Allen's lens as brilliantly as her dramatic ones do under Almod</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">ó</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">var's. Anna inadvertently gets sucked into a role of posing as the young wife for a newlywed, Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi), who must impress his big-city industrious uncles in order to secure his financial future. When the party visits the Sistine Chapel, someone remarks on the breathtaking ceiling art, and rhetorically asks, "Can you imagine working all day on your back?" the response from Anna isn't hard to imagine.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Allen's strongest comedic work actualizes when he unleashes his inhibitions and indulges his farcical roots. In <i>To Rome With Love</i>, Allen expertly combines the zaniness of his early work like <i>Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask, </i>with the smooth professionalism of his later work. The product is a hysterical, fast-paced, outlandish gem of a comedy. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now back to that production of <i>Pagliacci</i>...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-40029144605490666172012-06-07T09:12:00.000-04:002012-06-07T10:24:38.848-04:00My Evening with Ray Bradbury<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It was an exceptionally cold February that winter, and as most 12 year olds are wont to do, I became exceptionally ill. I had to miss an entire week of school, which in theory sounds very cool. But in actuality, particularly after the third day, is quite a drag. Not only did I stay home from school, I stayed home whilst my friends gallivanted outside, playing football, sneaking through the woods, and otherwise finding various neighbourhood adventures. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And then, I received a surprise. There was a famous author coming to our town and my parents were insistent on taking me to hear him speak, sickness be damned. I was intrigued by their prioritizing. The author was Ray Bradbury.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The name Ray Bradbury wasn't completely foreign to me. I had heard vague whispers of him as the author of <i>Fahrenheit 451</i> (a very cool sounding title to a preadolescent boy) and a girl in my English class had just done a book report on <i>The Martian Chronicles. </i>Everything about him seemed otherworldly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">During his talk, typically titled "One Thousand and One Ways to Solve the Future," I remember scanning the cavernous Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins campus and feeling immense pride that I was unmistakably the youngest audience member present.<i> </i>Bradbury was engaging, humourous, and insightful. He spoke of his experiences establishing the Epcot Center in Florida and the upside and downside of fame. He peppered his talk with predictions of the future (particularly with what the internet would be able to do) and gave us a prescient glimpse as to what a Mars colony would look like.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But the thing I'll remember most of his talk was his undeniable and unabashed humanist message. He warned against over-reliance on technology at the expense of interpersonal interaction -- pointing out that we can program machines to do everything except love. Looking back, that speech must have been my orientation into my humanistic worldview. In spite of all the luxuries and gadgets the modern world provides us, the most important is something we've had all along, each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I had an aisle seat that evening, and when Bradbury completed his talk, he walked up my aisle on his way to the lobby. As he passed, his arm momentarily came down gently on my shoulder like he was happy to see me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6423859792217262472.post-29885265005467297342012-05-31T09:44:00.000-04:002012-05-31T15:58:09.355-04:00Impressions of Germany<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I recently had a chance to spend some time in Germany. I found the place and people to be fascinating. What follows are some observations I made during my 10 days on the Rhine.</div>
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This was to be my first trip to Germany and naturally I had developed varied expectations due to the prevalence of stories I'd heard about the dominant European power. As an American, I suppose the best place to start is with the <i>autobahn</i>, the German highway system. Yes, all those "rumors" are true, their highways <i>really</i> do not have an official speed limit, but that's only part of the story. First of all, as to be expected, the driver must always be in full control of the car. Driving recklessly is looked upon as a major transgression and can land you in jail. Also, there are points, such as in construction zones, where speed cameras force everyone to slow down. Otherwise, the onus is on the driver to make prudent decisions on the road. German highways have either two or three lanes. The left-most lane is exclusively for the purpose of passing other cars. Meanwhile, trucks and semis are restricted to the right-most lane. This system creates a vehicle hierarchy on the road. </div>
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Now, it may seem like this lack of speed limit opens the floodgates for everyone to drive 100mph. In fairness, some do. However, gasoline is very expensive in Germany, and Europe in general. When tallied up, it comes to something like $10/gallon. To avoid high fuel costs, most commuters end up traveling somewhere between 75 - 90 mph. The lack of speed limit isn't as crucial to their efficient highway system as the aforementioned lane hierarchy. All vehicles know their place, and everyone honors his obligations. Traffic jams certainly are prevalent, but they're not as debilitating as in many US cities.</div>
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I can't have a discussion on Germany without mentioning beer. Beer is an integral part of daily living. Glasses and steins are served up at lunch, in the afternoon, after work, and, of course, in the evening. Every city/region has a dedicated brew that serves as the official local beverage. In Düsseldorf, Altbier, or literally 'Old Beer,' is the local staple. It is a dark, easy-to-drink, pre-lager that is smoother than British pale ales. In Germany, ordering beer by name brands is relatively uncommon. Instead, thirsty customers order the beer style, and the bartender brings you the bar's sole selection of that style. Instead of offering a massive selection of every name-brand of beer, bars distinguish themselves from each other by having a single special selection of Weisbier (Wheat Beer) or Pils. So next time you're in Germany and are sitting in a bar, don't ask for a Beck's, instead, ask for a Pils.</div>
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Business brought me to Germany, specifically, the manufacturing industry. German efficiency in manufacturing is legendary. Indeed, the entire country pulsates with palpable efficiency and community. For instance, a purchased ticket for any sporting event, concert, or other major civic event automatically grants you free access to all public transportation for that day. It's a way of encouraging safety and easy-access, while simultaneously promoting a sense of community. Getting back to manufacturing, I had a chance to tour a major manufacturing facility and saw firsthand the meaning of efficiency. It seemed like every square inch of the facility was in use. Machinery extended to every nook and cranny, into every corner, so that the only open spaces in the entire plant belonged to the walk-ways where the employees scurried back and forth. Germany has perfected the adage: "Don't work harder, work smarter."</div>
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Finally, a word on the German people, themselves. Germans are certainly a prideful bunch but are keenly sensitive to the limits of that pride, due to their awful history. For the most part, they are reserved, serious, polite, and businesslike. Almost everyone under the age of 40 speaks English with deliberate Oxford tones. They exhibit none of the snobbishness or air of superiority that is sometimes seen in France, and they respect Americans. The country is extraordinarily clean and orderly. For my entire ten day stay, I think I may have seen one or two pieces of litter. All the taxicabs are Mercedes-Benzes and although expensive to get into one, the fares become relatively cheap after that. What surprised me was the amount of graffiti. It seemed like every structure that was publicly owned was covered in spray-painted scribble. This was the singular example of disorderliness I saw on my trip.</div>
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Overall, Germany is a country populated by a highly educated and cultivated society who value order, cleanliness, respect, and community. In music, art, and fashion, they clearly look to the United States while remaining proudly independent as the economic leader of Europe. </div>
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<br /></div>Valentin Katzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00713883368708437334noreply@blogger.com2