Monday, July 31, 2006
Housekeeping is Marilynne Robinson’s powerful, moving, magical novel from 1980 that I only learned about recently, thanks to a best-of list posted to a book forum I sometimes hang out on. A book I’m very happy to have read. A book that reminds me of Stoner in the sense that it was a book that I’d never heard talked about, but after reading, feel like it’s one of the great / lost ones, that everybody should know about (maybe they already do? and I was last?). The story centers around two teenaged sisters living with their eccentric aunt in an unnamed, small-town America, in a run down house, off to the side of a railroad crossed lake. The book moves through time, through their grandfather, grandmother, mother, aunt, to their generation. The prose is thoughtful, often beautiful, although just occasionally a little too writers’ workshop for my plain spoken tastes. Those dictionary grabbing gaffs are easy enough to overlook however, considering the rewards of this rich, deeply eccentric novel. Housekeeping, though brief, provides a read I will well savor. Highly recommended.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Zazie dans le Métro is probably the most absurd, endlessly ridiculous movie I’ve ever seen. Even the Three Stooges take themselves more seriously than this film takes itself. Directed in 1960 by Louis Malle, it’s about as different from the other movies he directed in the same era as it’s possible to be. It’s a somewhat refreshing change. Light and funny and filled with endless camera tricks and slapstick, >Zazie dans le Métro tells the story of a young girl who comes to Paris for a couple days to stay with her uncle and the adventures (dreams?) she has. It’s a completely frivolous picture, I mean, it even ends with a massive food fight, and at times, its speedy, zany energy does tend to grind on one’s nerves a bit - but just a bit.Included on the R2 DVD is Louis Malle’s 1962 short film, Vive Le Tour - a fascinating, beautiful, seventeen minute long documentary on the physical effort and strain involved with competing in the grueling Tour de France. Still timely - with its talk of the problems of doping in the sport - but also charming in its slightly quaint aspects (drivers hoping off their bikes to grab a drink in a local bar or to take a piss along the side of the road). A good way to wind down after watching Zazie.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Une Vie is Guy de Maupassant’s strange, depressing novel from 1883, that reads as if it is a lot longer than it is. The theme appears to be along the lines of, life isn’t very much fun. It’s always a little annoying to read a book with the premise - rich people got problems too. Fortunately the book works through more than just that, and I actually got a lot out of it and pretty much enjoyed it - since I can’t help but appreciate a book so willing to embrace such a particularly bleak world-view. Essentially the story of the life of a spoiled / sheltered rich woman, whose dreams seem to come true, but whose dreams were all empty, false, stupid hopes. She’s betrayed multiple times by her husband, and when she puts all her faith into her son, he steps all over it. Her mother dies, her father dies, her aunt dies, her husband dies and her second child is still-born. Hey, that’s a life!
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Shamefully, I’ve had Austin English’s graphic novel, Christina and Charles, sitting on my to-be-read pile for over a year! I think I was a little put off and skeptical because of the art - which at first glance appears to have been drawn by a four year old - and since I knew it wasn’t, that faux-naive (think Beat Happening at their most cloying) approach turned me off a bit. On closer examination, one can discern that there’s a certain amount of creativity / inventiveness in the artistic approach Austin takes - however, I don’t think he quite pulls it off. Over the course of the book a sameness to the art sets in that grows a bit tiring - and in particular, some of the lettering, done with a purplish colored pencil is too small, cramped and difficult / unpleasant to read (at times). I especially didn’t like the endless use of octopus arms on his people!The stories that make up the book hardly rely on the artwork, and in fact, I sometimes found myself thinking they would be more effective without it. They’re rambling and somewhat difficult to follow - sort of like a dream monologue from various perspectives. I guess focusing on two (approximately) dreamy/misfit teenagers who never meet, just wander around. The writing reminds me a bit of some of Kenneth Patchen’s less coherent ramblings. But in that Kenneth Patchen sense, there’s a bit of magic shining through there. A glimmer of something unique - which is probably the books most attractive quality - it’s not trying to be like any other comic - it’s just trying to be it’s own thing. Unfortunately that thing is a little less compelling than one would have hoped.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
L'évadé (The Escaped Prisoner), is another great Georges Simenon novel from the mid-1930s (love that cover too). What can I say - I'm really attracted to books about a seemingly normal person, leading a seemingly normal life, who suddenly freaks the fuck out and realizes / remembers he is living a lie and that pretty much nothing he has been doing is important to him (draw whatever conclusions from that you want). In this case the novel focuses on a man who was serving a ten year prison sentence, but who managed to escape and lead a normal life under a false name in a small town as a teacher, married and with two kids, for the last eighteen years. But one day on his way to work he spots his old girl from Paris, from the old days, and a spring comes loose.I think it's the fairly calm way that Simenon manages to describe crazy things that's one of the most attractive things about his simple, pretty straight forward prose. I think I've read about ten of his books now and I've enjoyed them all - still got a few hundred to go, I guess. Weirdly, I've yet to read any of the Maigrets, the works he's best known for. That will be changing shortly as the first (of seventy-five plus), Pietr le letton, is supposedly on its way to my apartment.
Monday, July 17, 2006
I'd seen it before, ten years ago, but didn't remember anything too much about it - seemed like just another movie, but watching it again recently, Louis Malle's 1963 film, The Fire Within (Le Feu Follet), struck me at last as one of the great ones. I really enjoyed this story of an alcoholic who has just finished taking a cure in a clinic, only to decide he'd prefer to be dead, splits back to Paris to see all his old friends one last time and to tell them his plans, say goodbye, etc. It's a dark film! And it never really blinks - I can appreciate that. The soundtrack is all Satie and it works great at keeping things kind of calm & mysterious. Beautiful film, available now with English subtitles, as part of a relatively inexpensive UK Loius Malle boxset. The other films included are Elevator to the Gallows, The Lovers and Zazie in the Metro.
Just a quick note - my new comic, Watching Days Become Years 3, is now available directly from the Sparkplug Comic Books webstore.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
No doubt the most surprising feature of Wim Wenders’s latest film, Don’t Come Knocking, is that it isn’t completely awful. After a long string of mostly embarrassingly bad films (almost all the ones directed by Wenders over the last twenty years - a particularly painful streak considering how brilliant many of his earlier, first two decades worth of films mostly were), I didn’t think Wenders would ever find his footage again and make a fiction film that was worthwhile. And while Don’t Come Knocking certainly doesn’t measure up to his earlier, visionary successes, it does have some genuinely good scenes (not just good scenery), and good / moving moments.The story follows a washed up, exhausted cowboy picture star after he splits a set for no particular reason and rides off into the wilderness - ending up back at his mom’s house, who he hasn’t seen in thirty years. After she informs him he supposedly has a grown child he never knew about, he sets off in search of reconciliation, or who knows what exactly.
While certain aspects of the film don’t really work, particularly the scenes involving an insurance agent who has been sent to track down the disappearing actor, and one could hardly call the movie “great,” one could certainly call it “not bad,” which is a lot more than one might have hoped for. There are definitely some weird, magic moments and some beautiful scenery that keeps the film from drowning. As much as Wenders obviously loves shooting in America, it seems like he really got off track making picture after picture of his American dream / American nightmare - and would have been much better off if he’d just kept struggling in Europe. Maybe it’s wrong for me to feel like that. Paris, Texas, for instance, remains awesome. Don’t Come Knocking seems to indicate there’s still hope for Wenders. I still don’t really believe he has more great films in him, but a couple more that are just good, could go a long way towards erasing the memories of all the awful ones.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
In Wish You Were Here #1, The Innocents, one first has to take notice of the artwork, because it’s this comic book’s most superior quality. Gipi is an excellent cartoonist, working in a highly developed European style that’s easy to appreciate. Semi-realistic, semi-cartooned, sometimes delightfully loose, lively - usually using lots of beautiful wash work, but occasionally (in flash back) going to a straight inky, almost minimal, line style that makes for a nice contrast with the more lush pages. His figure work is unique - and each character is easy to tell apart from the others (something many cartoonists seem to have a problem with). The story itself centers an a boy and his uncle - who is supposed to be driving him to a funfair, but instead makes a detour to visit with an old friend (just out of prison) who he hasn’t seen in a decade. The previous mentioned flashbacks focus on the uncle and his old friend’s teenage years when they got in some “trouble” with the law. The writing, particularly when working with the somewhat contentious relationship between uncle and nephew is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the plot doesn’t really go anywhere we haven’t been a hundred times before - that same old story - although it does go to those same places well. Perhaps if it had run on for twice as long, Gipi, might have covered a little more unique ground, but since the comic is actually really short (maybe a ten minute read at thirty pages / expensive eight dollar cover price too) there’s just not enough space for much to happen. Perhaps the story will be picked up further in future issues (making for a nice graphic novel sized collection someday)? As a stand alone comic it seems to be just lacking that little something extra to really make it stand out, but it is very well done for what it is, and it’s a pleasure to see those Gipi pages.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
So much fun, so great. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen is finally out on DVD - with more extras than movie (91 min. movie / 222 min. bonus footage!). It's also, at times, really funny - and the funny is important. Also - this is an American story that can make one feel less ashamed to be an American - in the sense that, a band as weird as this, and people like Mike Watt and D Boon could only have come from this odd, stupid place.
