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Posts Tagged ‘movie’

Why Book and Film Categories Don’t Work Well

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

It always seems so limiting to put anything in a category. Some WordPress bloggers are good at categorizing their posts, and I’m sure that helps many readers, but my posts are never about one thing only.

Netflix makes movie recommendations based on categories that pigeonhole movies we’ve rated highly. But the approach seems clunky. Just because we have liked a lot of foreign films (Wadjda, Son of Rambow, Princess Mononoke), that doesn’t mean we like all foreign films. Maybe we like the ones we’ve seen for some other reason than being foreign. Maybe they are less glitzy, more honest, or more entertaining.

He are some funny categories Netflix recommended for my husband and me: “emotional, independent films based on books,” “critically acclaimed foreign movies,” “mind bending movies,” “anime,” “musicals,” “social & cultural documentaries,” “critically acclaimed emotional movies,” and “horror movies.” Horror!? Where did they get that?

At the late, lamented Kate’s Mystery Books in Cambridge, you could get pretty sound advice on books from Kate herself. She would ask you to name some mysteries you liked, and you might say you had read all of Tony Hillerman and Arthur Upfield. Then she would say, “Different cultures.”

Well, ye-es. But what kept me coming back to those authors were detectives who were likable and endings that were positive in some way. no matter how small. Kate did give me some authors I loved, like Eliot Pattison (mysteries about Tibet and, more recently, several about 18th century American Indians), but other books about different cultures might be too noir for me or too fluffhead, like mysteries with animal detectives.

I suppose categories help a bit. I just think they are clunky. Where would I file this post, now? Movies? Books? Retail? Misconceptions? Colin Cotterill, Dr. Siri, Laos?

Colin Cotterill writes a series that is both funny and deadly serious about a 70+ coroner in Laos, Dr. Siri, a likable antihero with an offbeat bunch of equally likable cronies.

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Danny Kaye Lullaby

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2014| 2 Comments »

John found a sweet little video clip of the 1955 Danny Kaye film The Court Jester featuring my favorite lullaby.

I often sing “I’ll Take You Dreaming” to my grandchildren, and I sang it to John when he was a baby and to Suzanne. (A pre-verbal Suzanne used to make a squeaking noise when I came to the word “dreaming,” and I finally figured out she thought the word was “screaming.”)

The YouTube video refused to embed, try as I might, and as I poked around the web for another video, I came on some information about Danny Kaye, who was hilarious in that movie. I never saw my mother laugh so hard. The lullaby was one of the few quiet places.

“Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in Straw Hat Revue, but it was the stage production of the musical Lady in the Dark in 1940 that brought him acclaim and notice from agents.”

Oh, boy, I saw a production of Lady in the Dark in the 1980s at the Boston Conservatory. What a show!

“Samuel Goldwyn had been trying to sign Kaye to a movie contract for two years before he eventually agreed. Goldwyn put him in a series of Technicolor musicals, starting with Up in Arms (1944). His debut was successful, and he continued to make hit movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and The Inspector General (1949). In 1954, he appeared with Bing Crosby in White Christmas (1954), which was based on the Irving Berlin song of the same name. In 1955, he made what many consider his best comedy, The Court Jester (1955). …

“He also worked tirelessly for UNICEF.” More at IMDb.

You can find the lullaby scene on YouTube. I thought the sound quality was best here.

Studio publicity photo of actor and comedian Danny Kaye. 

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Vanessa Gould Documentarian

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Greenfusefilms.com

Vanessa Gould, the sister of one of Suzanne’s elementary school buddies, is a documentarian. A while back, she made a Peabody-winning film about makers of advanced origami called Between The Folds. More recently, she was given unheard-of access to the New York Times obituary desk.

Her parents just sent an e-mail about the resulting movie and what Vanessa has been up to in general.

“Vanessa recently worked on Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously, a nine-part series tackling the challenges of climate change. … Vanessa was a producer on several of the stories and did additional cinematography on others. You can see most of her work in episodes three (“Super Storm Sandy”) and nine (“Chilean Andes”). Episode three, “The Rising Tide” with Chris Hayes, airs tonight, Sunday, April 27, at 10 pm on Showtime. … Here are links: http://www.yearsoflivingdangerously.com and https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving. …

“Soon after making Between The Folds, one of the artists in the film passed away. Vanessa alerted the Times of his death, aware that it was unlikely they would run an obituary. And yet – somewhat amazingly – they did, and she assisted them in the unusual process of putting together an editorial obituary. Only three or four such obituaries are written by the NYT staff each day. The whole story of how these obituaries are selected and written, as well as the social history they tell, became her fascination. Hence OBIT will be her next film. Check out these links: http://www.obitdoc.com, http://www.greenfusefilms.com, and www.vanessagould.com.”

I wonder if OBIT will show to what extent the obituaries of famous people are written before they shuffle off this mortal coil. Come to think of it, do any newspapers let people submit their own obit in advance? I recently read a hilarious one that a small paper accepted from the deceased at the insistence of his grandson. It revealed a guy with a terrific sense of humor — not a bad tribute.

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Movie: Fixing the Future

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A guy at the office reads a different blog I write, a blog for work, and knows the types of stories I like. Recently he e-mailed me about a new documentary in which the solutions to our economic problems are tackled by “just folks.” Add this to the growing list of proofs that “one and one and 50 make a million.”

“In Fixing the Future, host David Brancaccio, of public radio’s Marketplace and NOW on PBS, visits people and organizations across America that are attempting a revolution: the reinvention of the American economy. By featuring communities using sustainable and innovative approaches to create jobs and build prosperity, Fixing the Future inspires hope and renewal in a people overwhelmed by economic collapse.

“The film highlights effective, local practices such as: local business alliances, community banking, time banking/hour exchange, worker cooperatives and local currencies.” That’s what the film’s website says anyway. Read more. And if you see the movie, please let me know.

 Photographs: http://fixingthefuture.org

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Automaton in Philadelphia Museum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

Pamela and I went to see the movie Hugo. The theater didn’t have 3-D, and one critic said 3-D is essential for full enjoyment of the film, but we found it delightful anyway.

Before I saw the movie, a NY Times review worked its way into my post on the charm of looking out windows. Indeed, as little Hugo peers out of windows and clock faces in the Paris train station where he works, it’s as if he were watching a theatrical entertainment staged for him alone.

A major “character” in Hugo is an old automaton that the boy had worked to repair with his father before a fire left him an orphan. He desperately wants to finish the work. He fancies that if the automaton were to write something, it would deliver a message from his father.

Automatons were apparently quite popular in the early 20th century. They were ingenious robots that could perform feats like writing and drawing.

There is one that can be seen today at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Thought to have been constructed around 1800, it knows how to make four drawings and write three poems — two in French and one in English. “Henri Maillardet, a Swiss mechanician of the 18th century who worked in London producing clocks and other mechanisms” is the tinkerer behind it. Read more.

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Esperantists in the Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2011| 8 Comments »

When you have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and go to work late, you see a whole different crowd riding the subway. In the summer after rush hour, there are a lot of families on outings. A woman and a boy of about 11 got on and sat near me. The boy began to tell his mother that he had been reading about a made-up language called Esperanto. She said she had heard of it and thought it had been popular a long time ago but hadn’t worked out. An older kid they didn’t know chimed in to confirm the woman’s view. Esperanto was intended to be used as an international language, but nobody spoke it anymore.

That was too much for me. “Well,” I said, “hundreds of thousands of people speak it. I speak it.” If I may say so, the boy and his mother were delighted. Could I speak a few words, they asked?

“Mi parolas Esperanto,” I said. The boy repeated the “I Speak Esperanto” phrase several times. He then wanted to know “hello.” “Saluton,” I said. I told him and his mother why Ludwig Zamenhoff had felt a need for such a language more than 100 years ago in a war-torn part of Eastern Europe.

When the woman and the boy were leaving the train, they asked how to say “good-bye” and told me good-bye in Esperanto.

Now get this. Here is William Shatner, long before “Star Trek,” in a spooky black and white movie called “Incubus” — filmed in Esperanto!

That is so bizarre, I thought at first it must be a hoax. Maybe some Esperantists dubbed it for a joke on YouTube, I thought. But Wikipedia is very careful about such things, and it confirms that William Shatner performed in a movie in Esperanto that was thought to be lost. The recently rediscovered print had subtitles in French, which have now been converted to English. Read Wikipedia here. (Read my previous post on invented languages here.)

And just in case you are now inspired to learn the language, this little clip offers a pretty good lesson.

I hope the boy on the subway finds it. A terrifically curious and open-minded young man.

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Art Opens Up the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2011|

We watched a couple unusual documentaries last night and last weekend. Often by the time films are available on Netflix, all I remember about the review is that someone highly recommended them. I know only that we will get a big surprise.

“Marwencol” and “Waste Land” were amazing surprises. They turned out to have something in common, too — the idea that art can lift people from despair, help them see things in a way that opens up their world. What was different between the movies was that for the troubled guy who created art in “Marwencol,” showing his work in a NYC gallery is quite beside the point of his healing process and probably the last thing he needs.

The movie is beautifully executed, but one has the sense that the young filmmakers who think the protagonist will benefit from the big-time art world don’t understand psychology very well.

The protagonist of “Waste Land,” successful Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, although equally idealistic, understands his subjects better, having experienced a life similar to theirs in his impoverished childhood. He decides to combine an art project with helping “garbage pickers” in the world’s biggest landfill, in Rio. Getting to know a few of the workers really well, he develops tremendous admiration for them and their deep dignity. He pays a few to work with him on giant portraits on themselves, portraits that play on the themes of some famous paintings. They use recyclables to complete the images, which are then photographed and shown in galleries and at auction. The proceeds come back to the people and help them both individually and collectively.

But the biggest transformation is not monetary but rather what Vik anticipated based on his own life experience — that by seeing things in a new way, they would get new ideas about themselves and their possibilities.

 

 

 

 

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