Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Go fish
When it comes to the work of animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, I'll admit it: I'm a snob. I first encountered his work many years ago via a Japanese laser disk of "My Neighbor Totoro." At the time, I was watching a lot of anime -- "Ranma 1/2," "Oh My Goddess!," "Maison Ikkoku" -- but the utterly charming, emotionally resonant "Totoro" was obviously in a class by itself. Eventually, thanks in large part to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, I was able to catch up on the rest of the Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli oeuvre. I'd skip "Pom Poko" if I were you, but otherwise, lots of brilliant stuff.

Here's where the "snob" part comes in. Until now, I've been able to find a screening of every Ghibli film in the original Japanese, with English subtitles. The latest Miyazaki film, "Ponyo," however, has been marketed a bit more aggressively than his other works. Disney has the American rights and has beefed up "Ponyo" with an all-star voice cast, including Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson and Tina Fey. However, to me, it just doesn't seem right to see a Ghibli picture with American voice talent. Japanese kid voices are more kawaii (cuter) and the often-bizarre, fable-like nature of the stories just seem to go better with a Japanese soundtrack.

Maybe that's why "Ponyo," a beautifully drawn (of course) story about a five-year-old boy and his love for a girl who's part goldfish/part human (reportedly inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid") didn't make the same impact on me as Miyazaki's other work. I'm such a big "30 Rock" fan that I found Fey's voice a distraction. It was sort of cool hearing Betty White, though; between this movie and "The Proposal," she's gotten a couple of choice roles this summer.

I hope that the DVD of "Ponyo" includes the original Japanese language track. Take a listen to the original theme song in Japanese and then the godawful American version (sung by a Jonas brother and Miley Cyrus' sister) and maybe you'll understand why I look forward to seeing the non-Disney-ized "Ponyo." Still, if the American dub can turn a few more folks onto Miyazaki's work, that would be a net positive. The DVDs in current release do include the Japanese soundtrack; unless you're watching them with a kid who can't read yet, that's the way to go.
posted by 125records @ 11:12 PM   2 comments
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Next to godliness
Occasionally, I have written about my ongoing battle with clutter. My particular problem area is anything involving paper: books, magazines, mail, newspapers, receipts, statements, etc. I have tried various methods to keep things under control, such as e-billing and reading the news online. And yet, I still struggle, with clutter and general housekeeping tasks.

A few years ago, I quoted Sandra Tsing Loh, who once said that she would never hire a cleaning lady for fear that she might turn out to be Barbara Ehrenreich. Articles like this one, which recently appeared in Salon.com, strengthen my resolve. Even though there are obviously people out there who need the money, how could I ever ask anyone else to clean up the long stray hairs I am constantly shedding? ("White surfaces and human hair have become the bane of my existence," writes the author of the Salon piece.) So I do the best I can. A few days ago, Joe complained that I had missed some cobwebs. I tend to have a sort of live-and-let-live attitude to spiders (it's not like we have brown recluses or black widows around here), so I told him that if he sees a cobweb and is bothered by it, he can get rid of it. Much as I'd love to spend my days vacuuming while wearing a string of pearls and a cute house dress, I have my clients to consider.

However, I have finally solved the cleaning dilemma. From now on, my home will be a bastion of tidiness. I will polish the wainscoting and promptly toss old magazines in the recycling bin.

What is my secret? A brand new program on the A&E Network called "Hoarders." A new episode will air every Monday night, and trust me, this show will motivate you to clean like you've never cleaned before.

Each week, "Hoarders" gives you a peek into the lives of two different troubled souls with hardcore clutter problems. On the debut episode, we met Jill, a food hoarder in Milwaukee, and Jennifer and Ron, a Kentucky couple with three kids. The family was pretty much your garden-variety set of slobs -- their "laundry basket" was their hall floor, and they ate all their meals on the bed because the kitchen table was too full of junk -- but Jill was in a league of her own. This woman was so bad that one of the professionals brought in to clean her kitchen had to run outside to hurl. The close-ups of rotting food and dead insects was stomach-churning for the viewers; I can't even imagine what it must have been like to have been inside her home.

Trucks from a junk-hauling service cleared out tons of stuff from Jennifer and Ron's place, but Jill fought tooth and nail to keep her expired chicken broth, convinced that if the container wasn't bulging, it was OK to eat. The fact that she hasn't dropped dead from salmonella or e-coli proves the woman must have a cast iron stomach. She obviously has severe mental problems that can't be solved by a quick fix on a reality show.

Nevertheless, once the show had aired, all I wanted to do was get out my stash of Method products and wipe down everything in sight. I set a TiVo season pass for the show, so I can watch it every week. It airs at 7 PM, which means there's a full evening ahead to spend organizing and tidying. After watching "Hoarders," not even the spiderwebs are safe.
posted by 125records @ 4:30 PM   1 comments
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wouldn't it be loverly?
We went to see the Lamplighters' production of "My Fair Lady" today. The company usually does Gilbert & Sullivan, but after seeing several of their shows, I'm at the point now where I'll go see whatever they do, since I know it'll be high quality. "My Fair Lady" was no exception -- the star trio of Sharon Rietkerk (Eliza), Tom Reardon (Higgins) and Geoff Hoyle (Alfred) was fabulous. I kind of had to twist Joe's arm to get him to come along, but he had a good time, and he had a front row seat to look at the beautiful lead actress!

I've seen the film version of "Lady" several times, despite the fact that it always ticks me off that Audrey Hepburn was cast as Eliza instead of Julie Andrews. I mean, I love Audrey -- who doesn't -- but she couldn't sing the vocally demanding role, so Marni Nixon had to dub her voice. Yes, even though the film was released before I was born, I can still work up a righteous anger about it on Andrews' behalf.

There is a rumor that a new version of "Lady," with Keira Knightley in the lead role, will soon be in production. I can't imagine remaking "Lady" in this day and age. Even as a period piece, some of it just seems faintly ridiculous to a modern audience. I must admit that I tittered when the misogynistic Henry Higgins -- who has recently allowed a male friend, Col. Pickering, to move in with him -- declared himself a "confirmed bachelor." One of his big numbers is entitled "A Hymn to Him," with the repeated refrain, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" "Men are so friendly, good natured and kind/A better companion you never will find." If you love men so much, why not marry one? (Provided you live in Massachusetts or Iowa, of course.)

At the end of the show, Eliza -- whose initial goal was to get a job working in a posh flower shop -- only seems to have two options: marry the insufferable Freddy, who has a title but no money, or stay with the downright cruel Higgins, who assures her that he will never change his ways and that he treats everyone poorly. Of course, she returns to Henry, who we are led to believe was heartbroken by her departure but he celebrates her comeback by barking, "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?"

I like to think that Eliza gets some start-up money from Col. Pickering and opens a high end florist shop, specializing in arrangements for upper crust galas. Henry's mom Mrs. Higgins helps her develop a client base. Doolittle's Flowers becomes a massive success, and Eliza is able to employ some of her old flower girl friends to help create the bouquets. She hires Freddy as her deliveryman. Meanwhile, "confirmed bachelors" Pickering and Higgins travel the world together, making recordings of unusual dialects, and Alfred P. Doolittle uses his £4000 a year allowance to open his own pub. They all live happily ever after.
posted by 125records @ 7:24 PM   1 comments
Friday, August 14, 2009
Blogging: The Motion Picture
We went to see "Julie & Julia" last night, wisely going after dinner. To be honest, I was kind of excited to see what I'm pretty sure is the first major motion picture to celebrate blogging. Julie Powell (Amy Adams) was a pretty early adopter -- she started her blog back in 2002 -- but her concerns will resonate with anyone who has ever kept an online journal. The self-absorption! The obsession with followers and comments! The worry that only your mom is reading your blog! And then something I've luckily never had to deal with: marital strife caused by blogging! Julie's husband walks out on her because she becomes overly preoccupied with her project to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, after giving a little speech that reminded me of Aimee Mann's boyfriend in that old "Voices Carry" video: "This little hobby of yours has gone too far!"

I must admit that I relished the fact that aside from their one little marital spat, Julie's husband is the sort of supportive cipher that, in most films, is played by a female -- the typical wife/girlfriend role. The tables, they have been turned!

Much as I love Amy Adams, though, it's obvious to any viewer that "Julie & Julia" is Meryl Streep's star vehicle. She overflows with joie de vivre as Child, who is depicted as an irrepressible force of nature. Nothing can stop her, from a snooty cooking school chief who doesn't want to give her a diploma, to being exiled to Oslo after her diplomat husband's four-year term in Paris comes to an end. The 5'6" Streep is somehow shot in a way to make her look absolutely towering (Child was 6'2"). I'm sure some of it was just camera trickery, but really, Streep is such an amazing actor that I wouldn't put it past her if she grew an extra few inches just for the role -- kind of how she mastered a flawless Polish accent for "Sophie's Choice."

Speaking of legends, I want to say a word in tribute to the great Les Paul, who died at the age of 94. We saw him in New York a few years ago at his Monday night residency at Iridium Jazz Club, and were amazed at his energy and high spirits -- after the show, he stuck around to sign autographs and speak to everyone who wanted to meet him. Anyone who loves rock and roll owes Paul a debt of gratitude.

In an era when actresses often have a hard time finding meaningful work after they turn 40, it delights me that the un-lifted, un-Botoxed Streep gets juicy parts to play every year. I sincerely hope that Streep, like Paul, is able to stay active well into her 90s.
posted by 125records @ 8:20 PM   3 comments
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Summer of Spike: "Bamboozled"
#2 in a 17-part series

Like most people, I missed Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" during its brief theatrical run in 2000, but I was interested in seeing it because it was a true Passion Project -- a blatantly uncommercial film about the portrayal of African-Americans in the media, a story Lee believed needed to be told.

Comedian Damon Wayans ("My Wife and Kids," "In Living Color") stars as Harvard-educated TV writer Pierre Delacroix, and his overly mannered performance is instantly offputting -- it's like he's channeling Eddie Murphy playing "Mr. White" in that old "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The film begins with Delacroix reading the dictionary definition of "satire." Very subtle, Spike!

Delacroix's boss at the network, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport), is a white guy whose office is filled with African art and giant portraits of black sports stars. "I have a black wife and two biracial kids. Brother man, I'm blacker than you," he tells Pierre. When Delacroix proposes a new TV show starring two homeless street performers (Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson) he passes every day on the way to work, Dunwitty loves the idea, despite the outrageous premise -- the men will be rechristened Mantan and Sleep 'n Eat, and their "New Millennium Minstrel Show" will be set in a watermelon patch on an Alabama plantation. All of the performers on the show will be African-American, and they must all wear blackface.

At the first taping, the audience is confused and disgusted, but the program soon becomes a hit. (I suspect a lot of the comedy routines shown in the film were taken directly from old vaudeville sketches.) It's controversial -- Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran picket the network headquarters. Despite his success, Pierre seems to be slowly going mad, surrounding himself with Mammy and pickaninny dolls and images of blacks with huge red lips.

A subplot in the film features Pierre's assistant, Sloan (Jada Pinkett-Smith), whose brother is a gangsta rapper named Big Blak Afrika; no "c"s, because "they don't even pronounce that shit!" Lee is obviously trying to show the parallels between gold-chain-wearing rappers -- many of whom appeal to an audience consisting primarily of suburban white teenagers -- and the minstrel show performers of old. A couple of fake commercials, one for malt liquor and one for oversized streetwear, are pointed and funny, obviously benefiting from Lee's years of experience shooting TV commercials.

With a two hour and 15 minute running time, "Bamboozled" is at least half an hour too long, and Lee seems to take the easy way out for the ending. In my opinion, a better take on the same themes is 2004's "CSA (Confederate States of America)," a faux documentary that imagines a United States where the North lost the Civil War and slavery became the law of the land. "CSA" also features fake TV ads and forces viewers to confront racist images -- both films depict Abraham Lincoln in blackface -- but it's not as over-the-top and obvious as "Bamboozled."

The making-of documentary on the DVD reveals that because of the low budget, Lee shot his film on digital video using home movie-quality cameras, and even on TV, it looks pretty crummy. It's by far the least interesting looking Spike Lee movie I've seen to date.

My rating: ** (out of 4)

Spikiest Moments: Spike gets self-referential! A brief clip from his "Malcolm X" is shown (the film's title is taken from a Malcolm X quote: "You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You've been bamboozled"), and early in the movie, Dunwitty tells Delacroix, "I don’t give a goddamn what that prick Spike Lee says, Tarantino was right: Nigger is just a word."

Double Dolly Effect: Wayans, in the first two minutes of the movie. It made me think of how Alfred Hitchcock started putting his cameo appearances early in his films, so that viewers wouldn't be distracted because they were trying to spot him.
posted by 125records @ 9:46 AM   0 comments
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Big Visa is watching you
Oh, the sad, neglected blog! As some of my pals know, I am in the middle of a 2-week-long job which is taking up most of my time (it ends on Friday). During the past week, I have managed to get out to a mystery salon with author Stanley Trollip (one half of the writing duo Michael Stanley, authors of the Detective Kubu novels); a Stephen Sondheim musical revue, "Putting It Together"; a couple of dinners out with friends; and a movie that I swear isn't as dirty as it sounds. So far, the only crises have occurred on Saturday around 4 PM and Sunday morning around 11 AM, and both times I was right there at the computer to troubleshoot. There's a little bit of luck and skill involved in creating the illusion that you are monitoring the situation 24/7.

A few days ago, I was looking for something on the Marketplace Radio web site when I noticed a link in their list of the most popular stories. As of this writing, it's still in the top five, even though it was originally published on July 8, so it's obviously captured the public imagination. The article is titled "10 purchases not to put on credit cards." "Certain types of purchases can be red flags to credit-card companies watching for signs of consumers with questionable finances. Here are 10 compiled with the help of Robert Manning, author of Credit Card Nation."

The verboten items include pornography and strip clubs, which could be "seen as escapism by card companies. And guess what they're thinking you're trying to escape from? Financial worries." Spas and massages are also no-nos: "It may look like you're trying to relax because you're worried about -- what else -- money. Or, that you're trying to reduce stress from a job loss, or pretty up for a job search." And keep your credit card in your wallet when you're going out for a cocktail; that bar tab "may be a sign of job stress, financial stress, or relationship stress." (Note to self: hit ATM before going to Forbidden Island.)

If the credit card companies notice that you're suddenly putting booze or porn on your plastic, or that you're retreading your tires ("You'd be surprised how many people do this. Why? Usually, because they can't afford new tires"), your credit limit could plummet, or your card could even wind up being canceled.

My credit card limit is pretty high, and I seldom use more than a fraction of it -- I could use my Visa to charge a reasonably priced new car, but the bank would probably assume I was buying a new auto because financial stress is causing me to have a midlife crisis, and poof, my card would disappear. In fact, now that I'm aware of this monitoring, I'm going to be extra careful before I say, "Charge it!" As a public service, here are eight more places where you should never pay with plastic:

Scott's Shoes: Why would I need new shoes? Obviously, I'm going to be pounding the pavement soon to look for a new job.

Christianbook.com: There's only one reason to stock up on new Bibles: because of all the praying you're going to be doing soon. "Dear God, please help me pay my bills on time this month." Also, be sure not to order titles like Financial Armageddon: What You Must Do to Survive the Devastation of an Economic Collapse, Surviving Financial Meltdown and Digging Out of the Money Pit: 30 Biblical Solutions to Your Financial Headaches.

Fastrak: Sure, it allows you to get across the bridges more quickly, but there's only one way to pay for it: with plastic! More trips to San Francisco obviously mean you're going on job interviews, because you're afraid the axe is going to fall on you at any moment in your current job.

Kohl's: Who buys clothing at the discount department store? People who can't afford anything better. "Shopping at places that attract financially pinched shoppers... makes it look like you're worried about your finances or about your job," writes Manning. "American Express has been accused of cutting people's credit because they shopped at Wal-Mart." Little did I know when I bought that cute Vera Wang top a couple weeks ago that I was putting my plastic at risk.

Nordstrom: This upscale retailer, on the other hand, is also verboten. A sudden spree could only mean one thing: you need new "interview suits." The hiring manager isn't going to be impressed by your unfashionably long jacket or your scuffed old loafers. (You could get them resoled, but use cash, or it'll be tire retreading syndrome all over again.)

The ice cream parlor: For some, it's the booze; for others, it's the butterfat. The super-premium stuff at Tucker's or Fenton's is so pricey that you'll be tempted to whip out your MasterCard, but don't do it -- your bank knows that "emotional eating" is a sign of financial stress.

The movie theater: If porn is seen as "escapism," then what is "Transformers 2"? Megan Fox is basically Sasha Grey with tattoos.

Chuck E. Cheese: Sure, you thought you were charging a birthday party for your child, but Visa knows better. That animatronic rat's deliciously cheesy pizza is comfort food for your poor youngster, who hasn't been able to sleep at night because "Daddy's job is going away."
posted by 125records @ 9:53 PM   2 comments
About Me
Name: Sue
Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
About Me: Email me: talk at interbridge dot com
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