Monday, September 27, 2004
Watched Martin Scorsese’s Who’s That Knocking At My Door last night - and it was the first time ever for one of the last Scorsese full lengths I’ve yet to see. In fact, I now think I’ve seen ‘em all except for Boxcar Bertha and New York, New York. Who’s That Knocking At My Door is his first feature. It evolved out of a film he started on as a student, and it definitely shows. It’s uneven, arty-farty, and not particularly engaging. But it was also interesting to finally see the beginnings of one of the great American filmmakers. The early influence of Godard and the French new-wave is obvious, as is Shadows by Cassavetes. But already here, the early Scorsese’s use of music and camera motion is true to even his most recent films. The seemingly semi-autobiographical plot (at least more-so than any of his other features), with a film-obsessed main character who rambles on at length about the Searchers, John Wayne and Lee Marvin, is a nice bonus. The lengthy scenes of him hanging around with his shiftless pals are less exciting. The scenes with “the girl,” carry the most interest, just hanging around getting to know each other, however their later plot difficulties don’t date well, and honestly, don’t quite work (and probably never did). Yet, the ending is a nice touch, and so are the street scenes of a dark, black and white, New York City.
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Browsing in the bookstore last night after work, I continue to be overwhelmed by all the books I want to read, and how little time I manage to make for reading every day. It’s harder and harder to decide what book I want to spend my time with next (because there are too many). But I love being in the store and thinking about all those damn books too, looking at the covers and dreaming about having more time. I’m wishing I had a book related day job, so I could be around books 24-7.
Meanwhile, since picking up the first season of Star Trek DVDs, I’ve watched ten episodes, and have been very surprised how few of them I’ve seen before (less than half, I’d guess). I’d always figured I’d seen most of the original Star Treks in re-runs as I was growing up, even though I was rarely allowed to watch TV until after I was 14. It’s weird then, finally getting around to watching all the shows I’d missed, or can barely remember, having definitely not watched any of them since at least the very early 90s. Anyway, I’m enjoying them all - although the quality of the first ten I‘ve seen certainly varies widely, probably because each is written and directed by a different person. I really dig the DVD format for accessing these classics - it’s nice to have 50 minute chunks of things to watch at the end of the night - when a full movie would be too long - when my eyes are too tired to read the print on a page, but not tired enough to go to sleep - and when I don’t want to end up watching crappy news or whatever. I will definitely pick up seasons two and three when they come out - and then may even consider expanding into some of the later series (which I’ve barely seen any of after the first season or three of TNG).
I’ve also watched the recently released in R1 DVD of Kinji Fukasaku’s Graveyard of Honor and was slightly disappointed by the quality of the transfer - usually so good from HVE, and while the print was clean, there was enough low-res digital ghosting to slightly annoy me. The movie itself was great, definitely one of the darkest yakuza movies to make it into R1 yet. Hopefully in the next year somebody will release Miike’s 2002 remake, which I’d love to see again.
Meanwhile, since picking up the first season of Star Trek DVDs, I’ve watched ten episodes, and have been very surprised how few of them I’ve seen before (less than half, I’d guess). I’d always figured I’d seen most of the original Star Treks in re-runs as I was growing up, even though I was rarely allowed to watch TV until after I was 14. It’s weird then, finally getting around to watching all the shows I’d missed, or can barely remember, having definitely not watched any of them since at least the very early 90s. Anyway, I’m enjoying them all - although the quality of the first ten I‘ve seen certainly varies widely, probably because each is written and directed by a different person. I really dig the DVD format for accessing these classics - it’s nice to have 50 minute chunks of things to watch at the end of the night - when a full movie would be too long - when my eyes are too tired to read the print on a page, but not tired enough to go to sleep - and when I don’t want to end up watching crappy news or whatever. I will definitely pick up seasons two and three when they come out - and then may even consider expanding into some of the later series (which I’ve barely seen any of after the first season or three of TNG).
I’ve also watched the recently released in R1 DVD of Kinji Fukasaku’s Graveyard of Honor and was slightly disappointed by the quality of the transfer - usually so good from HVE, and while the print was clean, there was enough low-res digital ghosting to slightly annoy me. The movie itself was great, definitely one of the darkest yakuza movies to make it into R1 yet. Hopefully in the next year somebody will release Miike’s 2002 remake, which I’d love to see again.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
This weekend I’ve been reading Craig Thompson’s wonderful Carnet De Voyage. I’m only a little over halfway through, but so far I’m extremely impressed. It’s a thick, 224 page collection of diary-like sketches and comics drawn between March 5th and May 14th of this year as he traveled through Europe and Morocco. That’s a lot of drawing for only a little over two months, but what’s important is that it’s a lot of beautifully observed, written and drawn pages, with a free, loose feeling, that truly manages to hold one’s interest. It’s definitely my favorite comic of the year that I’ve seen so far - and I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the book over this next week. The format is wonderful too, very easy to dip in and out of, and as the inside says it’s volume one, I’m extremely hopeful of seeing more work like this from Thompson in the future.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
It seems like I’m in the middle of one of those weird phases where my range of interests is expanding out of control. So much more music I want to hear (after cooling off a bit on the music for the last few months), and especially books I want to read. So I’ve been buying a lot of CDs again, all of sudden, which isn’t really good, since I’m already surrounded by far more music than anybody could ever listen to. Reading of course goes slower, but I’ve recently read and enjoyed Haruki Murakkami’s Norwegian Wood, which I thought for a long time I’d already read, but was happy to discover I was wrong (when all his books were re-issued with similar covers a few years back I guess I got confused). I was less into Thomas Disch’s 334, which I found tough going - the first book of his I’ve read, it mixed together so many stories and characters, it was hard to get interested in any of them - despite the books slightly depressing view of the not so future urban environment, which is usually a field that appeals to my fucked up head. This morning I finished up Steve Erickson’s Arc d’X, which had somewhat the same effect on me, even though I like his prose and tangled, romantic world views much better - perhaps in this one his crazy ambition went a little too far. The first Erickson book I read was Amnesiascope, and it still remains my favorite.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Received the new RedCat schedule in the mail this afternoon, and there’s some exciting events upcoming if you live in the LA area, and some very exciting events that may even be worth traveling to, even if you don’t live down here...
September 18th - concert with Harold Budd
September 19th - William T. Vollmann reading
October 14-16 - Vijay Iyer / Mike Ladd concerts
November 11th - James Tenney concert
January 28-29 - CEAIT Festival
February 4th - String Quartets by Yusef Lateef, John Zorn and George Crumb
February 5th - John Zorn, solo and chamber works (first Los Angeles appearance in 20 years!)
September 18th - concert with Harold Budd
September 19th - William T. Vollmann reading
October 14-16 - Vijay Iyer / Mike Ladd concerts
November 11th - James Tenney concert
January 28-29 - CEAIT Festival
February 4th - String Quartets by Yusef Lateef, John Zorn and George Crumb
February 5th - John Zorn, solo and chamber works (first Los Angeles appearance in 20 years!)
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
As always, quite frustrated with the lack of time to do the things I’d like to be doing - days broken down into little pieces only. Three day weekend was good, but I feel like I’d need a three year weekend just to catch up to where I feel like I should be, considering the years. Considering everything I want to do, but can’t seem to find the time to do.
