1. "Remember 2004?": Brandon Soderberg revisits Dave Chappelle's Block Party.
["Dave Chappelle's 'Block Party' is a purposefully inclusive, near-utopian concert movie, intended to invoke the thematic qualities of earlier concert movies like 'Wattstax' and to some extent, the 1970 documentary of 'Woodstock'. The movie's heavy on 70s cinema signifiers like grainy-as fuck hand-held cinematography, 'Easy Rider'-like lens flares, and shaky manual zooms, but the movie's hardly a throwback, it just shows proper respect for the past. Erykah Badu playfully pays respect with an over-the-top afro wig, the appearance of Fred Hampton Jr. rightfully reminds concert-goers (and viewers) of the importance of late 60s/early 70s institutions like the Black Panthers, and the use of buses for transport subtly invokes the Civil Rights era, but 'Block Party's main theme is inclusion. Chappelle's trots through the Ohio town he lives in, looking for a proper mix of people that do and don't give a shit about rap and get them to come to his "block party"; All- even some pretty batshit crazy white people- are given the proper dose of respect."]
2. "New DVDs: Georges Méliès": Dave Kehr's latest column for The New York Times.
["There are moments these days when a filmgoer may pine for at least a touch of Lumière-style realism in the increasingly insular, abstract world of popular entertainment: a touch of the actual to offset the imagined. But for the moment, we are living in the movie world created by Georges Méliès more than a century ago, smug in the illusion that we are experiencing the very latest thing."]
3. "Rev. Wright's Not That Wrong": By Dennis Perrin for The Huffington Post. More political news: "Democrats In Florida Say No To Revote" (by Shailagh Murray for The Washington Post) and "New N.Y. governor admits to extramarital affair" (by Mike Carney for USA Today).
["I've been pretty hard on the Obama campaign, and still am; but if anything would soften my view, it's this bullshit furor over Jeremiah Wright. If you are white and don't listen to black talk radio, now would be a good time to start. Wright's opinions are not deemed crazy there, and you'll hear much stronger denunciations of imperialism and racism than you ever will on a white liberal's show. Sure, some dementia is present: this is America, after all. But contrast the opinions exchanged between African-Americans to those expressed on the corporate kabuki programs, or worse, white reactionary broadcasts. Which do you think is closer to what's actually going on?"]
4. "Does This Latte Have a Funny Mainstream Taste to You?": By Jeff Leeds for The New York Times.
["The ardor for Starbucks has gone the way of yesterday morning’s grounds. Critics in the music industry say the company squandered its cachet by mismanaging the effort to broaden its music mix. The choices that reflect its early taste for the offbeat — like an album from Lizz Wright, a torchy pop singer — are now squeezed in with offerings not unlike those at Wal-Mart, including the latest releases from Alicia Keys and James Blunt. The shift has not been lost on some customers. The music offering “is more popular now,” said Hazel Delgado, 33, a social worker and Starbucks regular from San Bernardino, Calif., who attended a recent concert presented in front of one of its coffee shops by another act on the company’s label, the singer Sia. “I want to come in and be surprised,” she said. “If they do get more mainstream, why bother?”"]
5. "An attack on Tupac Shakur launched a hip-hop war": By Chuck Philips for The Los Angeles Times. Related: Diddy denies.
["The ambush at the Quad remains a source of fascination and frustration to music fans and law enforcement officials alike. No one has ever been charged in the attack. Now, newly discovered information, including interviews with people who were at the studio that night, lends credence to Shakur's insistence that associates of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs were behind the assault. Their alleged motives: to punish Shakur for disrespecting them and rejecting their business overtures and, not incidentally, to curry favor with Combs. The information focuses on two New York hip-hop figures -- talent manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino, who is now in prison for unrelated crimes."]
Quote of the Day: John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Mamma Mia, Meryl! Watch out for those glass partitions!
Clip of the Day: A ode to the glories of potato
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Links for the Day (March 18th, 2008)
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12 comments:
Other news: Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour (and film editor Pat Wiedenkeller) accept buyouts from Newsday.
Wow. The New York Film Critics Circle is turning to the crew of the Nostromo from "Alien." Absolutely incredible. The era of the professional critic may be coming to a close sooner than anybody in this line of work would care to admit. The freelance film writers' pool is getting more crowded by the week -- and the denizens more qualified by the week. Guys and gals that once fronted film sections are cold-calling to pitch stories to editors that have already had five similar pitches that week, most likely. Brutal!
What's left? Nonprofessional status -- i.e., doing it for the love of it. That sounds great in theory unless you have bills to pay and stuff.
Major, major changes afoot.
In other news: Brandon's column is terrific, and I'm not just saying that because I loved the movie.
Re #3: Wear acid-proof goggles when you read Dennis Perrin's piece on Obama.
Re #5: I don't know who to believe.
And Anthony Minghella is dead...
I honestly can't even begin to express how, in a world with severe environmental problems and in need of a new source of energy and in a country with a long, ongoing, expensive war that looks to stretch on into at least the near future, an economy on the brink of what looks to be a huge recession and national security concerns as hard to fix as any in our history, THE most important stories to cable news networks have been an ever escalating series of he-said she-said "gotcha" pieces, damaging both sides of the Democratic race, while McCain skates away mostly free after associating himself with John friggin' Hagee and Rod Parsley. I mean, I think this "politics of your supporters" thing is mostly meaningless, but the way we're playing it right now is not terribly fair as it is.
I guess, as a media professional, I find it disspiriting that fear (seemingly, of serious discussion about the roles of race, gender and religion in America -- not exactly easy questions to break down) still drives the ratings war. I'd like to think that the electorate is more keenly aware of the issues of the day than the pontificators (feeling them acutely as we do), but I'm not holding my breath.
To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the pointless "gotcha" game in 2000 when I was 19 and readying to vote in my first election, but there seem to be 15-20 things of far greater importance at this point in time.
I'm at least grateful that newspapers (the side of the industry I work in) seem rather dedicated to mostly ignoring this sort of nonsense (or consigning it to inside A pages), but the removal of the Newsday film critics just drives my point home even more somehow.
What's left? Nonprofessional status -- i.e., doing it for the love of it. That sounds great in theory unless you have bills to pay and stuff.
wait, people get paid in the journalism business?
for writing?
that is crazy talk.
Re: Dennis Perrin...(you were right about the goggles Matt)
Even if I give Rev. Wright the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that the context of his remarks can only be appreciated by watching his ENTIRE sermon and not the snippets that we've been seeing (ad nauseum), most of his most controversial positions still sound nutty (in a reactionary kind of way).
Also, I'm sure that Wright's dramatic preaching style, foreign to many White Americans, contributes to how they react.
For instance, I'm reminded of the preposterous (and by that I mean "full of shit") documentary Loose Change which calmly postulated that 9/11 was an "inside job." It's all crap, but, for some people, the manner in which the material is presented seems to add weight to its ridiculous thesis.
Perrin asks us to view Rev. Wright's views through the prism of the African American experience.
But I'm sorry, bullshit is bullshit.
For instance, for Wright to use The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a horrid chapter in American history, to back up the ludicrous claim that AIDS was created by the U.S government to infect African Americans is misguided idiocy (at best) or a deliberate and mischievous bait and switch (at worst).
Considering how Romney was badgered over his Mormonism (and that religion's racist history), it's not unfair now for Obama to have to address his relationship with REv. Wright.
The Farrakhan thing is another matter. As Obama himself said, he can't stop someone from saying nice things about him.
The real damage to Obama has been his uncharacteristically Clintonian responses to queries on Wright's remarks. He wasn't "in the pews" on the days when the SPECIFIC remarks in question were made.
Again, bullshit is bullshit. I wasn't around my grandfather everytime he uttered a racist remark. But I sure as hell knew what his opinions were.
Sad news about Minghella. While my favourite film of his is his least seen (Truly, Madly, Deeply) and he got all his awards for a film that is a bit of a bloated mess (The English Patient) he was nonetheless a talented filmmaker, and he died WAY, WAY too young (sez someone near the same age.)
Dan, Truly, Madly, Deeply is my favorite Minghella too, though I quite like Mr. Ripley as well.
I have little to no time for Dennis Perrin and the wrath of the thwarted-social-democratic-hopes crowd, having grown up around far too many people with the same resentments, but as for the shallow daily back-and-forth of the campaign generally, I am inclined to say that this is one of the places where faith in democracy either (e.g., in Bill Clinton's old remark about the American people, sooner or later, "getting it right") rises to the occasion or (in my case) descends into cynicism.
Obama's need to appear "down" with a pro-black program way back in the day, thus helping his work in the hood during his activist period, may be his undoing. I don't buy his "I wasn't in the pew" defense either, but I will say, his speech earlier today was something remarkable which I never thought I'd see on a nationwide broadcast. I don't know if it's enough to save his ass now.
During all this rancor on the subject of Rev. Wright, I am reminded of Shelby Steel's comments concerning his notion of masks blacks must wear. One is either a "challenger", or a "borrower". Obama became a borrower, one who says "don't hold my blackness against me and I will not remind you of your racist legacy."
What was it like for Dick Parsons, or Kenneth Chernault? They rose to the very pinnacle of the corporate food chain. They didn't get there by being challengers. America loves itself some Oprah, and Tiger, and Michael Jordan, and none are challengers. Interesting, eh?
Obama may have flirted with black radicalism in the past, but he's no more of a challenger than Tiger Woods, of whom we no nothing really but that he kills on the links. Sad, but Obama's past flirtation may be the very thing that is his undoing. By reminding America of his blackness and of its own racialist legacy, he has broken the borrower's pact, and that may be the deal-breaker.
Pardon the interruption: Arthur C. Clarke, R.I.P.
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out...
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