Sunday, April 30, 2006
Cinematic Fever Puzzle
Long before Mulholland Drive, there was The Lady From Shanghai, Orson Welles' masterful descent into a maelstrom of shadowy depravity and duplicity, visually brilliant (see below), thematically complex, and endlessly inventive and clever. That's all I'm going to say. See it sometime if you haven't....
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Saturday, April 29, 2006
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Friday, April 28, 2006
Question: “Lt. Col. Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian astronaut, is due to return from his brief mission tomorrow. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " I'm all for a Brazilian being sent into space, but that spacesuit left little to the imagination."
Answer 2: " I understand this is part of their greater plan to have a lunar favela by 2028. "
Answer 3: " I wonder how they decided who got to escape Brazil. "
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Thursday, April 27, 2006
Stand In The Place Where You Are
Now face West, and wonder why you haven't before. My eyebrow-raiser of the week is an airline-industry project to create 'standing seats' to save room and money on airplanes - passengers would simply be strapped against a perpendicular board. Have a lovely flight. Here's the Pasadena Star's a suitably skeptical editorial on this topic.
Pleasant surprise of the week: lovely dance remixes of the 'Brokeback Mountain' instrumental theme that will induce joy rather than cringing. Their biggest raison d'etre: 'The Wings,' clocking in at two minutes, goes by way too fast and isn't getting any other airplay. Interestingly, composer Gustavo Santaolalla, one of the leading producers and mixers in Latin rock and pop, was not even consulted on the project..
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Question: Scientists have cloned pigs that are engineered to contain omega-3 fatty acids, which produce healthier pork. What do you think?
Answer 1: “"Can't they put some of that omega stuff in cigarettes."
Answer 2: " I don't eats 'em, I just rassles 'em." Answer 3: " "I'll only be interested when they finally make pig-human hybrids. I could marry one and say, 'Woman! Make me some bacon!' Then she'd dutifully harvest my succulent breakfast."
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
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Monday, April 24, 2006
Forty Nights and Forty Days?
Rain's been coming down pretty hard since Saturday. I did buy an umbrella.. But should I be building an ark?
From The Onion, my favorite feature, “What Do YOU Think?
Question: “Donald Rumsfeld is under pressure to resign, first by a cadre of retired generals, now by Senior Democrats for his handling of the war. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " As a daycare provider, I sympathize with Rumsfeld. 2,500 kids die on your watch and suddenly you're not qualified to do your job? " 
Answer 2: " Strange thing is, internal records say he was fired three years ago." Answer 3: " It's unfair. You don't go to war with the Secretary of Defense you want, you go to war the Secretary of Defense you have . "
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Sunday, April 23, 2006
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Saturday, April 22, 2006
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Friday, April 21, 2006
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Thursday, April 20, 2006
Slippin' Away
House guests, mega-projects, dental snafus... I'm rife with excuses for my skimpy postings... Maybe carrying around my flat cybershot camera will provide some inspiration... I can be a photoblogger, like Thomas, who, btw, just arrived last night on his way back from Brazil... Last night I saw 'Apollo 13,' the excellent dramatization of the three moon-bound astronauts we almost lost in space when I was 10... The previous week, I had seen 'The Right Stuff,' an even better film about the dawn of the space program, leading to the first men orbiting the Earth through the Mercury program when I was a toddler. In between, during my Nursery School and Kindergarten years, there was the 'Gemini' program, 10 two-man expeditions in 1965 and 1966 aimed at teaching us to dock and maneouver in space, in preparation for the Apollo moon landings. At age 6, after I had my tonsils out, I was able to stay home, eat sorbet, and have a 'double Gemini' experience - Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 (pictured) were sent up together so we could learn how to rendez-vous in outer space...
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Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Monday, April 17, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Happy Birthday In Four Movements
We took Mom out to a lovely seafood meal in Scotsdale last night and presented her with a heart-shaped necklace. That was Part 4 of the suprise, for which Parts 1-3 were Roses, Bagels, and My Surprise Visit...
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
Give Up Barking
I'm unlikely to : - ) It's a nice family weekend out here in Arizona - last night we had a scrumptious meal at 'Sauteé,' a new eatery with excellent food, but which is still working on logistics. Ah well, better late than never. My film festival continues. I should do four-word reviews:
Waiting to Exhale - Soapy Ebony Star Vehicle
Nashville - Colorful 70s Country Collage
In and Out - Clichés, Farce, Good Performances
And so on...
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Friday, April 14, 2006
It Worked
Mom was very surprised! We had a very happy reunion. My nephew is even taller and his hair is longer. My sister is walking again, at least for short distances, and driving beautifully (better than I ever will!). Tomorrow night we're taking Mom out for dinner in upscale Scotsdale. So I'll be here until Sunday - I got yesterday and today off, since all Latin America is shut down for Holy Week.
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Happiness Is A Warm Gun : -)
Over the weekend I saw "Red River," Howard Hawks' 1948 classic Western about a 'father-son' type struggle and a plan to lead 20,000 head of cattle over 1,000 from Texas, where they're worth almost nothing, to the beef-hungry Midwest. This is an interesting film to view for a gay man. While not exactly homo-erotic, the film's core is the love and sometimes hate bewteen a tough, autocratic loner (John Wayne) and his ward and quasi-on, a taciturn but softhearted young man who was orphaned as a boy in a horrific Indian raid on a wagon train (which thankfully happens offscreen - the raid, not the adoption). The young man is played by the brilliant Montgomery Clift, who was privately gay and led a tortured life, in his screen debut. Gay men will appreciate the notorious scene in which Clift and fellow sharpshooter John Ireland check out each other's guns with much wonder and admiration : - ).
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Monday, April 10, 2006
Soweto Shantytown Serenade
The blogger has been AWOL of late, recovering from the ups and downs of a rollercoaster deal that miraculously concluded on Friday.. It's springtime here in New York. April showers drenched my Saturday, but I did get to see "Tsotsi" with Christi at the Angelika Film Center on Houston & Mercer. This South African film, which promises and intense, sometimes painful, but ultimately enirching experience, walked away with the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last month, and with good reason. This very personal and unusual story is based on Athol Fugard's prize-winning novel about a hardened thug whose heart begins to thaw - but it's a story told without sentimentality - it feels organic, with good story and character development, but no predictability. Set in the million-strong shantytown of Soweto, in the shadow of Johannesburg's skyscrapers (an African Rio de Janeiro, with no beach), and briefly in the home of an upper-middle-class black couple that wouldn't look out of place in the San Fernando Valley. The film's languages are Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans, but it's impressive how many English expressions have seeped into the spoken lexicon of these characters. Finally, the soundtrack, a blend of traditional Xhosa & Zulu music and hip-hop, is a delight.
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Sunday, April 09, 2006
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Friday, April 07, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
What Once Were Foreign Trips...
Now are movies! Meaning that I've been seeing - and counting - more movies than trips this year. With my pal Bart, I just saw my 99th movie of 2006, at Clearview Chelsea's Classics Night, hosted by drag queen Hedda Lettuce - We saw the delightful Capra escapist screwball comedy, "You Can't Take It With You," which won best picture and best director in 1938. Pure joy - it washed a rollercoaster work week and its myriad strong emotions right out of my system. You read correctly, I've seen more than one movie per day so far this year, since there have only been 95 days. I actually saw 93 movies in all of 2005 - I'm on a rampant kick to see every movie I'd want to have seen if this were my last year on earth. It's a little obsessive-compulsive, yes, but nearly all the movies have been pure joy. They stay with me, they add to me and enrich my life - they make me feel painful, uncomfortable things sometimes, but the bring together truth and beauty like no other medium. Music is purer emotion - and I'm going to share some of it with my good friend in April - it's mix CD time again...
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Happy Birthday, Thomas. Better Late Than Never...
My dear friend Thomas, travel maven and photoblogger extraordinaire, celebrated his birthday on March 31 in the tropical metropolis (metropicalis?) of São Paolo, Brasil, as they spell it. Surrounded by brutalist architecture (a term he did not, it turns out, invent), but also by love. Here's to you, Thomas, the free-est spirit I know you. May your days have many a lua de mel... At left: a quintessential Thomas food shot.
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
And Introducing Warren Beatty...
Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and I'm pleased to report that Warren Beatty is both talented and stunningly beautiful in the 1961 date movie 'Splendor In The Grass, (see photo below with the equally impressive Natalie Wood)' directed by the genius (and McCarthy era rat) Elia Kazan. Oddly, although it takes place in 1928, I would have thought it was 1961 if they hadn't splashed '1928: Southeastern Kansas' on the screen. This year, plus references to a buoyant stock mark, eluded my attention, so I was fairly shocked by the Black Friday scene in which a character loses all his money and jumps out a window (New York's other jumpers)
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Monday, April 03, 2006
Clang Clang Clang Went The Trolley...
"Meet Me In St Louis" was a gap in my American pop culture eductation that I studiously filled yesterday. Laden with classic songs and a light touch, as opposed to drama, catharsis, or character development, the film nonetheless evokes a 1903 St Louis family with two marriagable daugthers in loving Norman Rockwell Technicolor©®.
Judy Garland is a delight, playing a love-struck 17 year old not far from Dorothy Gale, with a girlish enthusiasm and a strong adult voice. Boy eye candy abounds. As a gay man, I definitely feel connection to Garland. Her shy romantic scenes, in which she and the boy are too flustered to kiss, is charged with what we see as sexuality and hormones but which that era glossed over as 'true love'... I still have 25 minutes left before I return this film tonight, with 5 others viewed over the weekend. Tomorrow: Brazil. But more on that later....
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Sunday, April 02, 2006
Inherit the Window...
Today we saw the Darwin Exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, which included live animals in those taxidermic halls, a rarity indeed. Surprisingly bereft of corporate sponsorship due to red-state sensitivity on bible-unfriendly science, private money came to the rescue to bring this excellent exhibit to New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, among other places. The visit was a delight, challenging to the brain, stimulating to the eyes, and walks you through the mindset and thought processes of Darwin over his life while providing historical context in a suitably multi-media format. One excellent video clip showed several scientist explaining what a theory really is - the basis of science - what scientists do - a rational framework for facts - and that evoluation is the only theory that begins to explain diversity. This clip should be run on all media several times a day as a public service announcement. In the gift shop: snack packets of flash-fried worms (with Mexican spices) and crickets (salt and vinegar flavored, a tad salty for my pallette. Also: refrigerator magnets galore, and postcards. Highly worthwhile visit, which I recommend to those of you fortunate enough to be here anytime from now until mid-May.
Afterwards: a long amble through the park with friends on a sunshine-drenched day...
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Saturday, April 01, 2006
