0318, apt 1106.

I stumbled across this epic blog jam packed with photos of celebrity actors and actresses and directors from the 1950’s and 1960’s as well as some recent photos of them.  I was initially looking for photos of Truffaut and I ended up spending over an our looking for photos of my favourite directors at work.  It’s an epic feeling finally putting an image to just epic art work.  The blog is called “If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’s Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.“  I know Parker is a jazz artist but I’m not sure about the quote.  It’s a compilation blog and I want to share some of my favourite pictures here because I just had so much fun looking at them.

Alfred Hitchcock on set.

François Truffaut on set.

Frank Sinatra conducting.

Werner Herzog on set.

Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart <3.

FOUR MORE SLEEPS UNTIL FLORIDA! Woo Woo!

0317, apt 1106.

The effect a film can have on a person is nothing less than phenomenal.  I spent half of today reading about the similarities between a film experience and a dream experience and essays like these always astound me, no matter how hard they are to understand and how many time they seemingly talk themselves in circles (oh, film theorists).

I read an article by Jean-Louis Baudry (right) that said the “dream screen” is like the cinematic screen because neither of them adds to the experience of images we perceive.  The dream screen is the place of projection for our dreams, much like film.  In film, we sit in a dark theatre, in a chair, and our movements are limited because we’re watching the film in front of us.  In our dreams, we are still, in bed, and in the dark, as well.  He does discuss the fact that we are able to close our eyes while in the theatre and remove ourselves from the experience but this doesn’t change the circumstances of our experience.  The images we see are all around us and we are enveloped in them.  When we talk about dreams, we’re likely to allude to a movie we saw in order to articulate our experiences to another person.  This all so interesting to me.  This is what we want the cinema to be.  An articulation of our desires.  An easier means to explaining the way we, specifically, experience something.  It’s impossible, though.  None of us interpret and comprehend in the same way.

The amount of interest I’ve accumulated in this subject of film theory in the past year and a half is amazing.  In my first 2.5 years of school I didn’t once consider taking film seriously or as a career option.  Last May something happened, I don’t know what, and now I’m obsessed with it.  The only thing that bothers me is how unsure I am of what I’m reading because of how difficult it is to understand.  I need to start concentrating, thinking, re-reading, and trusting myself.  I depend, probably like most students who don’t realize it, on the teacher’s opinion and explanation of material in order to assure myself that I got the right information from the article.  The fact that my professors sigh and ask, “Am I making any sense at all?” when articulating articles makes me rely on them all the more.  After school is finished I have every intention to continue my reading but a large part of me doubts I’ll understand anything.  Is there a point?

0316, apt 1106.

Quick update!  Just saw From Paris With Love at a Maple Pictures pre-screening.  Big debates with David about the goodness/badness/true-ness of cinema and its purpose.  Will ask for your opinion tomorrow, but for now: do you think that racial discrimination and gender stereotypes are a prominent part of the films we watch today?

0315, apt 1106.

I thought February was the most depressing month but, after some googling, I found January is apparently the most depressing month with January 24th as the most depressing day of the year.  What were you doing on January 24th?

I was at James Street Pub drinking my woes away, as per usual.  Sigh… (This isn’t a bad thing all the time.)

I disagree with this.  I think February has been the most depressing month in my own experiences.  Perhaps this will change after I’m done school because January usually provides a “new” start with the second semester but many people are worn out from 5 months of school come February.  I don’t know how different this is for people who aren’t in school and/or don’t communicate regularly with people who are in school (we are products of our environments).

They say January is the “winner” and January 24th in particular because we’re broke from Christmas, our new years resolutions are probably broken at this point, and the hardest part of winter hits (and if it doesn’t, it feels like the cold has been around for a while).  I say February is more likely to bring you down because, in January, you’re just realizing the way you feel.  You try to think positively (hopefully) but a couple weeks pass, winter is still coming down on you, and you feel no different.  Until March is within reach there’s little potential for the weather to turn nice and a lot of people get lost int he vortex of wind chill and snow, let alone this reflection on our moods and reactions to the way we feel and what’s happening around us.

I don’t know… This is all speculation and mild assumption.

In any case, is anyone having a super bowl party? Because I’m going to need to find somewhere to go.  James Street will be packed.

0314, apt 1106.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

Here’s the poem I did for 100 Poems in 100 Days! I would like to hear your honest opinions.

0313, apt 1106.

Not a good day in the day department. Not a good way to begin February.

0312, apt 1106.

You are you!

House party tonight.  Goodness.  One for the books, I can predict. This one’s for January.

0311, apt 1106.

There is a deep dark green hole that I crawl into when I open a word document. I cringe at its cold, dark, damp walls; almost black but green just before it turns to the colour of the night that only happens in my dreams. Black night. In reality the sky is blue, they say it is, and I see it at 10 pm when the clouds are nice enough to let the stars shine through. But in this hole I can’t see anything.

I think there are rodents and bugs in this hole but they never touch me and I never see them. I imagine they’re there and small, white goose bumps pop up all over the surface of my skin and all at once it feels like someone’s finger is tracing my spine. I find comfort in someone being there even when there’s no one beside me because we all want someone to sit and listen and tend to our tattered souls without actually having to work hard enough thinking up a response back.

People talk back all the time and how often do we listen? I try but the voice in side my head is selfish and sometimes I catch Myself pushing myself into the deep, dark, green hole and laughing. This only happens between me and Myself, though. I’m good with others. But when Myself laughs, the laughter is so strong and healthy that it overtakes my entire body and I’m awake, sinking into the sides of the earth of this hole that I probably dug with the muscles I’ve been building up.

This is what I think of when I think to write about the things that speed through my mind. The things in there now are on a track and they’re going round and round and round and I haven’t called the race because it’s not one and I don’t want it to stop because I’m having fun. Playing with my feelings trying to figure out which one’s number one. Watching the way my body’s been changing because my heart is rearranging limbs and bones for a feng shui model home. Inside me.

Feng shui to encourage honesty. It must not be complete because I’m not ready to come clean. I will try because the dark green hole is making me.

0310, apt 1106.

I’m excited!  I’m excited!  I’m excited!

And if everything that’s going on in my life right now fails miserably, I’ll be happy to at least have tried.

Today I visited my little, scored an interview for a video production assistant job (part-time leading to full-time the moment I am done school), figured out confusions with HMV, replied way too late but at least I tried to my probable music video project with one of my favourite artists and subsequently received an epic reply that I’m stoked about, found my missing Euro-trip videos (thought they got deleted and I wouldn’t be able to finish ‘Tourist’)… I also worked 5 hours and had a pretty good time.  I watched the first episode of My Pet Monster which was hilarious.  I also vaccuumed while blaring the new Aqua greatest hits CD (with 3 new tracks).

I’m mostly excited about all this film hoo-rah-rah!  I kept adding on other things because they seemed more important than warranted given my good mood.  In any case… It’s starting!  I’m actually attempting to make this work for me. I’m going to eat a salad now.

Just realized I didn’t mention school at all today.  If it’s important for you to know, I did read on the bus between here and my little’s school and back.  40 mins x 2 = 80 mins of homework.  I should probably read some more before I go to bed.  80 minutes in nothing. (Remember?)

0309, apt 1106.

Sarah’s friend Kathy just made us watch this dumb video on youtube where this older man audition for American Idol singing a song called “Pants on the Ground.”  Sarah won’t stop adding “pants on the ground” to every other sentence. Now she’s talking about how Eazy-E has a song called “Give me that nut” and “Nuts on my chin.” Goodness. Add that to the fact that I’m trying to watch Hook.

In any case, here’s the Coles Notes from my weekend.

Friday night I went to Film Society where I was elected AD/cinematographer for our funded short.  It will provide some good experience.  Afterward I met Liz on campus and we headed over to Patterson to catch a presentation by William Chittick, a professor at NY State U who specializes in the translation of mythical Islamic texts like the Qur’an.  It was a tad boring as well as a little over my head.  What I did understand I didn’t necessarily agree with but, low and behold, I got wedged in on the floor pretty much under a desk and couldn’t leave for the entire 2 hours.  The photo above was my view if I stretched my neck up a foot.

I picked up an 8-hour shift Saturday and it felt good. I’m finally at the point where there are enough newbies below me at HMV to make it seem like I’ve been there forever and, thus, am given tasks throughout the day that keep me busy and make my shift go by quickly (this in comparison to being on “customer service” alert for 8 hours).  I sat on the couch and read Christian Metz for hours, until people came home to distract me (willingly).  It was also a good feeling.  I picture myself reading a lot about film and theory once I graduate.  It’s important to me to learn this because I want to.  I’m genuinely interested in this stuff and it only took me 5 years to realize it.  I’m finally ready to try.

Sunday morning was much the same.  Fruit Loops are on sale and my breakfasts have been quite epic.  At 3 a group of us met at James Street pub for cheap food and drinks.  One for the books, let’s just say that.  One for the books.

David, Liz, Jeremy, and I went to Bytowne (somehow) afterward and saw Yes Men Fix the World.  While David’s review is rather fond of it, I think the film represents a large problem of the documentary in today’s age.  The documentary was initially used as propaganda (to enforce a governmental/instituational point of view).  It moved from propaganda to “direct cinema” (a cinema that sought the truth) and, rightly so, critiques of direct cinema came after.  It became self-reflexive, and then feminism and other activist rights emerged.  The subjective documentary took into the consideration oneself/the filmmaker and committed documentaries took on a specific cause or incident and gave voice to the subject that didn’t get a voice in mainstream media.

Then we get to the post-documentary.  Yes Men Fix the World is definitely a post-documentary.  It focuses more on the entertainment value of “non-actors” acting as representatives of larger corporations than it does on the actual issue at hand.  The seriousness of the globalization issues the film attacks is weakened because of this entertainment value.  The film fails to dive into the details of globalization in an effort to “expose” the little good corporations have done for the places that have been victimized.  This focus detracts on the vicitm’s actual experiences and looks at the problem from a vague and (assumed) universal perspective (they only interview 1 or 2 victims because more time in the film is taken up by their shenanigans).

If you didn’t get it already, I didn’t like the film at all.  It’s democratic propaganda.  I uses direct cinema/journalistic approach to present only a few facts but we believe it’s everything because of this technique, but I mostly disliked it because of it’s distraction from the issues at hand.  Documentaries shouldn’t do this.  We’ve become too un-critical.

I think it’s important to think critically before you make a film that will affect people in subconscious ways.  It’s a powerful medium and filmmakers need to understand this.  (Can you tell I’ve been reading Metz?)

Hip Hop tonight was fun (except when we slowed it down to -0.00001th of the speed because some people couldn’t do it normal speed).  Even better than this, Rufio just called Peter a “near-sighted gynecologist.”  Watching films as an adult that I haven’t seen since I was a kid is a strange experience.  The characters are actors to me now.  They have names and lives outside of the narrative.  When you’re a kid there is nothing outside of the spaces and lives of the film.  How strange.

0308, apt 1106.

Why does my blog e-mail me my entry every time I publish?  Does it e-mail you?