Day: June 2, 2005

I just watched Elephant and found it both compelling and puzzling. What puzzles me partly is its schizophrenic strategy of following precisely many of the details of the Columbine Harris/Klebold shootings (the attraction to Hitler, the playing of violent videogames, the timeline and strategy of pipe bombs and shootings, the warning to a student outside, the directive to “have fun,” even the realization of the rumor that the spree ended with harris shooting klebold rather than a mutual suicide) while allowing for a very loose improvisational style. Is the film a dramatization, deliberately courting status as a kind of lyrical re-creation of Columbine, or does it mean to suggest itself as a kind of film about Anywhere USA where banality is inexplicably interrupted by violence? What am I missing in the folding together of these two approaches? Why does it deliberately court cliché—the repetition of one of the most well-known pieces of classical music, the repeated images of “storm clouds massing?”
Continue reading Perils of Minimalism?

Hey, does anyone want to post anything about the late Ismail Merchant? I have little if anything interesting to say about the fellow. I did like “Maurice” though I don’t recall much of it.

See?

I don’t like the idea of posting about movies I’ve not seen, and I don’t want to lead this blog down the Ain’t It Cool News road, but considering the recent posts about music documentaries, I thought some here might be interested in some upcoming music related films.

I just picked up the LA Film Festival schedule and there’s a few interesting ones mentioned.
Be Here To Love Me is about Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Townes alway struck me a bit as the Harry Nillson of country. Others had hits with his songs, and he was loved by the best in the biz, but that’s often not enough. Continue reading more music movies