Red Right Blog |
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Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates. Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?
Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739
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Wednesday, July 30, 2003
I think it's great that someone wrote a song about Matthew Barney...or about part of him anyway. Scroll down to the mp3 link. Richly deserved. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. But now here's something important to read: Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001....the entire report online, free, in PDF format. (Note: it's big, 858 pages.) It's ours, we paid for it, in all sorts of ways. Tuesday, July 29, 2003
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester: How old was Bob Hope? So old that Vincent Canby, author of his New York Times obituary, has been dead for three years. I'm not the only one having a hard time believing the byline, either. Maybe the Times can still squeeze another Woody Allen review out of the guy, only appropriate considering Allen's movies these days. [ba-dump chish] Hey how bout that Raquel Welch, isn't she something? Grrrrrrrowl.....One look at her and Ho Chi Minh changed his name to Oh Gee Pleeze...Grrrrrrrrowl. But seriously folks, I'm going to apply for a grant, so I can finally film my dream project, the Bob Hope Alternate-History 1966 Christmas Special, where he entertains GIs on Mars, makes jokes about President Philip Dick, and introduces a special guest from the audience, Marine sharpshooter and interplanetary hero Lee Harvey Oswald. Feel free to contact me directly with contributions. Speaking of great American entertainers, okay, here it is: the Cremaster cycle is a load of shit. Just Google on "Matthew Barney" and "pretentious" and see what you get. The five Cremaster movies are so shallow, so self-involved, so annoying, that official explanations actually make them seem worse: an admittedly effective sequence early on in Cremaster 3 (that is, 15-20 minutes out of a three-hour film) involving an animated female corpse is rendered null for me when I learn the corpse is that of Gary Gilmore (played by Barney in Cremaster 2) magically transformed by death into his female self. This makes even less sense than no explanation, and, folks, I sat through the films in numeric sequence. Barney's admirers will tell you that everything he does must be seen in context, the films being only one element in the entire gesamtkunstwerk which must be judged entirely, but when the "context" is little more than superficial observations about gender and the creative urge (i.e., building a skyscraper is like having an erection, creation and destruction are related, boys are biologically different from girls, etc.), I have to say you're full of bullshit. And is the audience supposed to charitably ignore the technical shabbiness of the earliest-made films: the poor photography, discontinuity, sloppy lip-synching and clumsy editing? THESE MOVIES ARE BORING AND THEY REFER TO LITTLE BUT THEMSELVES! Barney never learned why the cutting-room has a floor, and that audiences are not obligated to sit through every image that happened to pass through his mind; six-and-a-half freaking hours; at best, I see these flicks enduring as "moving wallpaper" running on widescreen monitors for those who can afford them in their homes. Remember, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali (two real artists) made Un Chien Andalou in 1928 and it was a half-hour long...in other words, those guys knew how to hit it and quit it, and allowed the viewer to draw such meaning from the surreal images as he or she might; they never pretended to have some vast personal mythology to promote and commodify. (And Bunuel went on to have an extraordinary career as a narrative film director, putting his gift for disturbing pictures to use in unforgettable, and often brilliantly funny, stories of character and society; I can't see Barney ever coming close to this.) Apologies about the ranting, but after three separate trips to the theater and an outlay of $25.50, I never felt enlightened or opened-up by Barney's work in any way, only that I had endured it. Monday, July 28, 2003
I woke up this morning to the gratifying news that last Friday's post is officially Big in Japan. Always happy to promote cross-Pacific relations, especially now that comedy is needed more than ever. I am apparently responsible for a mini-tempest (yeah, right!) at one of my newly favorite blogs. Moorish Girl may have picked up on what I wrote about Michael Moore, but I hadn't really meant to focus on that particular filmmaker...until yesterday, when I found this extraordinary account, from a lefty more-or-less-Moore-sympathisizer no less, about The Big One's proven mendacity. The entire piece is worth a full, close read, and a solid indicator that you shouldn't trust anyone, even if and especially if they seem like "one of us, on your side, representing you, the little guy," ad nauseam. Yeah I survived the Cremaster films. Details to come, I promise; I am at work right now. Friday, July 25, 2003
Delillo fans take note: this Underworld is not that Underworld. It is instead a thought-provoking summer movie with a totally unique style and design unlike anything you have ever oh god somebody please make it stop. Comments on the Cremaster cycle after I've seen all five films. Teaser: unimpressed by what I've seen so far. Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Sic semper tyrannis. Moving right along, Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle commences unspooling tonight in Philadelphia and through the 27th. Yes, I plan to see it, and no, not all in one sitting. The days when I dutifully viewed Our Hitler in one day, and the entirety of Berlin Alexanderplatz in one weekend, are long passed. On the wordy tip, hurry up and read this remarkable essay by Kathryn Chetkovich while it's still available online...or you could actually buy the issue of Granta in which it appears. No points for deducing the identity of the man "correct"-ly (ha ha); Ms. Chetkovich's gossamer-like circumspection is part of the point, I think. Hmmm, circumspect Chetkovich...that's fun to say. Anyway, I'd really like to hear people's opinions on this: is the article a shamelessly craven bid for attention, or a stunningly honest confession of weakness and failure? Monday, July 21, 2003
For those of you left writhing in suspense by my last remarks, here is your relief, a few words on today's enhanced documentaries. By now, it's no secret that Bowling for Columbine, last year's most successful documentary was a concoction of, uh, fact-based opinion masquering as objective truth. Filmmaker Michael Moore's supporters don't seem to care how much he tweaks and pokes and turkish-taffyizes the facts so long as he aggravates the "right people." That casual attitude appears to have leaked into the approach of other documentarians, not to mention their audiences, and this bothers me. I saw a festival screening of Winged Migration back in April, with director Jacques Perrin Q&A-ing afterward, and he blithely admitted that dramatic scenes of birds in peril had been staged, even though the film contains a notice that no special effects were used. In fact, he said some of the birds had been raised from birth for the explicit purpose of being in the film. Did the sell-out crowd rush the stage? No, though I heard some tsking of tongues. Meanwhile, Stone Reader, which moved me almost to tears, has some rather obviously "re-created" scenes of the director's buddies getting packages from him in the mail...these are perhaps so goofy as to not be worth criticizing. As for Capturing the Friedmans, I am literally at a loss as to where to begin. Director Andrew Jarecki is hailed by some critics for having captured the essence of a "who-do-you-believe" investigation, and accused by others of having "crafted a market strategy based on ambiguity," that is, deliberately omitting exculpatory evidence from the film that would "prove" Arnold and Jesse Friedman completely innocent of all the molestation charges made against them in the 1980s (to many of which charges, however, the father and son pled guilty and received heavy jail sentences). Jarecki's film left me with the strong impression that the police and prosecutors piled on to the Friedmans...but also that the latter were hardly untainted. (And of course, many viewers would likely believe that Arnold, as a proven trafficker in child porn, should have gone to prison anyway, and the molestation charges, true or not, were only poetic justice.) I guess I'm arguing not against the admittance of ambiguity in a fact-based film, but against the cynical manipulation of an audience as per Moore and Perrin. And CtF, if nothing else, proves the volatility of child molestation as a topic; emotions are such that there is no plain objectivity. I'm done. Sunday, July 20, 2003
I'm moving my lazy and red right hand to tell you that while I hate to join voices with a mass-media observation, the fact is that the most affecting films I've seen in recent months have all been documentaries. Capturing the Friedmans, Stone Reader, Cinemania, Stevie, Winged Migration and Spellbound, while varying in quality, all provoke emotions inaccessible to fictional scripts. (Although Lilya 4-Ever comes close.) Add Rivers and Tides to the list: an extraordinary account of Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, of whose work, I am mortally ashamed to admit, I was completely ignorant till last week. Goldsworthy works almost entirely out-of-doors with natural elements such as ice, stones, leaves (at one point he even paints with rain; please discover for yourself how he does this), making work whose inherent degradability is its point. Paraphrasing the man: "The element that brings it to fullest life also brings about its end," commenting on an icicle sculpture fierily illuminated by, before being finally melted by, the sun. The film succeeds perfectly at at least two things: proving that what might seem at first to be childish gimmickry is in fact a deeply respectful observance of natural processes (the twined flowings of water and air, the way stone can be said to move similarly); and the participation of film in Goldsworthy's resume, recording his one-time-only creations before they melt back into the surroundings; in other words, you have to see Rivers and Tides in order to see certain things he's done. (Of course, Goldsworthy's been keeping photographic records of his sculptures before the moviemakers came around, but still, this time you get to see them rise and fall.) Enough for now. I hope to post more later, either today or tomorrow, about the selective presentation of factual truth in these and other documentaries, likely contradicting everything I just wrote in the paragraph above. Thursday, July 10, 2003
After the Gramme: last night's Fall concert was near-excellent, much more enjoyable than Sunday's show, with a bigger and better air-conditioned venue allowing for more concentration on the band and less fear of dehydration. Same basic set list as in New York, with Big New Prinz substituting for I Am Damo Suzuki. (Uhm, you're all following this, right?) Highlight: MES tossing the mike into the first row, as is his wont, during the encore, where I was able to grab it and shout "He!....Is!....Not!....APPRECIATED!" during the appropriate moment in Big New Prinz. I can now die happily. Smith appeared completely off booze for the evening, meaning that instead of crazy and drunk, he was merely crazy, as intensely aloof as I've ever seen him (and if the pictures I snapped come out well, I'll post them for view), actually seeming absorbed in the music generated by his band. He only walked off once (followed by the band; they all came back a moment later; classic Fall stuff). And the band: I'm beginning to relish this new stripped-down, grinding outfit and their ability to create the old Fall magic, whereby a merely adequate riff is brought to transcendental levels by the simple expedient of being played over and over again. "Repetition in the music and we're never gonna lose it...." I had a great time. Wednesday, July 09, 2003
As promised, I was in New York City over the 4th-of-July weekend, and among other things took in the July 6th performance of The Fall at the Knitting Factory. Presently I have neither time nor energy to explain why this band plays such a significant role in the history of Western music, so I'll just skip ahead and tell you that Sunday night's performance was an energetic and satisfying one, superior to the last time I saw them (Nov. 2001, at the very same venue; with the obvious exception of Mark E. Smith, guitarist Ben Pritchard is the only band member from the 2001 show to return for the current tour) and much better than the semi-legendary meltdown shows of April 1998. We got a decent sampling of tracks from the still-unreleased Country on the Click and the last three studio albums, as well as some deathless Mancunian chestnuts, such as Mere Pseud Mag Ed., Mr. Pharmacist (yes, I know it's a cover version) and the classic I Am Damo Suzuki. However, the band's present line-up produces a sort of monolithic garage-vamp sound instead of the spindly dissonant clatter that first attracted me to this most idiosyncratic of music groups way back in the very early 80s, and I miss that sound. MES' latest wife Elanor adds some decent keyboard textures but it's not the same, and yeah I know the point is that MES can do as he pleases (which he certainly did on Sunday, howling into the club's sweltering atmosphere with or w/o a mike, fiddling/MESsing with equipment knobs, even yanking the band offstage after five songs w/o explanation then returning with them less than a minute later still w/o explanation, and does the guy ever eat any food, I mean jeez, look at these pics!) but I have my preferences like anyone else. Did I have a good time? Yeah mate, and I'm seeing them again tonight in Philadelphia, in a venue whose air-conditioning I bloody well hope is more powerful than that of the Knitting Factory. May even try to take some pictures. I hope a certain fellow living in Japan is happy with this posting. Saturday, July 05, 2003
Oh yeah, now I remember: I have a blog. Been absent for a while and perhaps it was the thought of all the R.I.P.s I'd have to type out that kept me from logging on, and son of a gun, the longer I waited, the more prominent deaths there were. There's a mini-essay to be produced on the whole "Dead Pool/obituaries-just-waiting-to-be-defrosted" theme, exemplified by the lengthy articles that immediately appeared upon word that the very old and ailing Katharine Hepburn had just passed. But I'm not going to produce it. Ms. Hepburn, to name one person, had a full life, accomplishing what she wanted, and (for once the cliche is true) we are all richer for her having been here, so let us celebrate her life and not go on about her death. For example, let's point out that Bringing Up Baby, one of the greatest movies ever made, was a big flop with critics and audiences upon initial release, but time passed, and at last the world knew better. If you haven't seen this movie, you need to. But what does shock me is Barry White's death. 58? Fifty-eight? That's terrible. How will future generations learn to make out on the sofa now? If you really want an earful of the man's majestic voice in high dudgeon, try to find a copy of this album; pray that your ad copy never falls into the hands of a wellknown vocalist. Speaking of albums, this one is presently getting some heavy rotation in the Wright-Hand abode. As is the music of The One-Time Greatest Band in the World; The Fall are currently touring North America; I'm planning to catch them on their July 6 date in NYC, and again on the 9th in Philadelphia. Reports to come. Speaking of Philadelphia: nice job, guys. Way to commemorate the Fourth. No, really, I mean it. The mayor, a slimy senator, and a Supreme Court justice nearly all killed at one go on the nation's most preeminent day? Hats off! But next time, wait until Sen. Santorum is there too, okay? Kind of a full-house effect. Ooooh, almost forgot. Found some apparently relevant non-tiresome blogs that don't suck...at least for the time present. I can't believe it. Maybe you won't either: I refer you to Maud Newton and Moorish Girl. |
