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connielane at 09:55am on 14/05/2006
connielane at 09:55am on 14/05/2006First, to all the mothers on my f-list...
Happy Mother's Day!
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Second, I have a new default icon, with text based on something I honest-to-God heard Tyra Banks say with a straight face. I hope those words of wisdom can serve as a guide to each and every one of you. :P
Third, I saw United 93 and Art School Confidential yesterday.
United 93
Wow. When I first heard about this movie, I rolled my eyes a bit, sure that this would be nothing more than a schmaltzy tribute to the passengers on that flight. But it's so different from that. It's a narrative film, but it could almost be a documentary. It treats the events of September 11 very seriously, and there's never an attempt to cheapen it.
What makes the film so great is its lack of sentimentality. We don't need a film to push our buttons and make us sensitive to September 11. This is a purely meat and potatoes movie. No frills. You don't really get to know any of the characters. There are no little vignettes about their personal lives. It's all overheard conversations, as if you're just another passenger on the plane or just another person working in air traffic control. Many of the people in the film are non-actors. Several of them are people who were actually involved in the events of that day and are playing themselves - like Ben Sliney, National Operations Manager for the FAA.
A lot of it was hard to watch, particularly the bits of CNN that people in the control towers were watching, such as when the second plane hit the WTC. But it's a great little capsule of what - to the best of a filmmakers ability to recreate it - actually happened. You see air traffic controllers in various locations slowly discovering what's going on. (I was somewhat amused at initial reactions - "What?! A hijacking? There hasn't been a hijacking in 20 years!" - most of the country, I think had that same sort of stunned disbelief.) You see the hijackers prepare to take over the plane, working up their courage and praying for strength. You see passengers making phone calls to loved ones and finding out from them about the other attacks. And you see the hurried plans to regain control of the plane. It's simple, straightforward and powerful.
I wonder, though, how this movie will play 60-70 years from now, when there's virtually no one who was around to experience that day in America.
Art School Confidential
Very cool, very quirky movie. Terry Zwigoff is known for his off-beat sensibility and wonderfully weird characters. His movies are like surreal fairy tales, with happy endings that are unlike anything you'd imagine. I think the title Art School Confidential is a take-off of Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential. The main plot is about an art student, Jerome, trying to find his voice and "be somebody" in the art world, but there's a murder plot on the fringes of the story.
The murder plot may seem like an ill fit for the movie (Ebert and Roeper thought so, at least) but I think it's brilliant. Jerome learns, over the course of the film, that artists and murderers have a lot in common, and I think there could hardly be a better narrative manifestation of that idea than the "artwork" of a serial killer.
And, as always, there is a great cast of very real-looking characters. John Malkovich as the has-been artist who's more interested in furthering his own career than in teaching his students. Jim Broadbent as the vision of the future for an art school grad. Sophia Myles (a.k.a. David Tennant's lady) as the ultimate muse. And Max Minghella (son of English Patient director Anthony Minghella) as Jerome, who wants to be the greatest artist of the 21st Century and doesn't apoligize for being a Picasso fanboy.
Great stuff, especially if you have a taste for the weird.
Fourth, the last West Wing EVER will be on tonight. I will watch. I will cry. I will miss this show terribly.
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Second, I have a new default icon, with text based on something I honest-to-God heard Tyra Banks say with a straight face. I hope those words of wisdom can serve as a guide to each and every one of you. :P
Third, I saw United 93 and Art School Confidential yesterday.
United 93
Wow. When I first heard about this movie, I rolled my eyes a bit, sure that this would be nothing more than a schmaltzy tribute to the passengers on that flight. But it's so different from that. It's a narrative film, but it could almost be a documentary. It treats the events of September 11 very seriously, and there's never an attempt to cheapen it.
What makes the film so great is its lack of sentimentality. We don't need a film to push our buttons and make us sensitive to September 11. This is a purely meat and potatoes movie. No frills. You don't really get to know any of the characters. There are no little vignettes about their personal lives. It's all overheard conversations, as if you're just another passenger on the plane or just another person working in air traffic control. Many of the people in the film are non-actors. Several of them are people who were actually involved in the events of that day and are playing themselves - like Ben Sliney, National Operations Manager for the FAA.
A lot of it was hard to watch, particularly the bits of CNN that people in the control towers were watching, such as when the second plane hit the WTC. But it's a great little capsule of what - to the best of a filmmakers ability to recreate it - actually happened. You see air traffic controllers in various locations slowly discovering what's going on. (I was somewhat amused at initial reactions - "What?! A hijacking? There hasn't been a hijacking in 20 years!" - most of the country, I think had that same sort of stunned disbelief.) You see the hijackers prepare to take over the plane, working up their courage and praying for strength. You see passengers making phone calls to loved ones and finding out from them about the other attacks. And you see the hurried plans to regain control of the plane. It's simple, straightforward and powerful.
I wonder, though, how this movie will play 60-70 years from now, when there's virtually no one who was around to experience that day in America.
Art School Confidential
Very cool, very quirky movie. Terry Zwigoff is known for his off-beat sensibility and wonderfully weird characters. His movies are like surreal fairy tales, with happy endings that are unlike anything you'd imagine. I think the title Art School Confidential is a take-off of Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential. The main plot is about an art student, Jerome, trying to find his voice and "be somebody" in the art world, but there's a murder plot on the fringes of the story.
The murder plot may seem like an ill fit for the movie (Ebert and Roeper thought so, at least) but I think it's brilliant. Jerome learns, over the course of the film, that artists and murderers have a lot in common, and I think there could hardly be a better narrative manifestation of that idea than the "artwork" of a serial killer.
And, as always, there is a great cast of very real-looking characters. John Malkovich as the has-been artist who's more interested in furthering his own career than in teaching his students. Jim Broadbent as the vision of the future for an art school grad. Sophia Myles (a.k.a. David Tennant's lady) as the ultimate muse. And Max Minghella (son of English Patient director Anthony Minghella) as Jerome, who wants to be the greatest artist of the 21st Century and doesn't apoligize for being a Picasso fanboy.
Great stuff, especially if you have a taste for the weird.
Fourth, the last West Wing EVER will be on tonight. I will watch. I will cry. I will miss this show terribly.
peaceful