By John Lichman & Vadim Rizov
[Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The House Next Door.]
Hello non-listeners! We've wound down and have enjoyed our new time off. Vadim's taken up sewing, Keith has found new ways to get sick, and I've become oddly fascinated by snake moves on the Sci-Fi Channel. Of course, before all that, we met up with Adam Nayman and Andrew Tracy who were in town for a Reverse Shot shindig.
We took the time to chat about Canadian director Guy Maddin, with both Vadim and Andrew giving us their thoughts on My Winnipeg. We also have a rather lively discussion on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Spielberg Wet Dreams (which goes off on many, many tangents). Plus, our favorite scenes from The Happening!
Our next episode will be the fabled "Season Finale," featuring Mike D'Angelo. So until then, enjoy, listen on (and on and on to our longest podcast ever), and if you see either Vadim or me at a bar, please buy us a drink! Especially at Enid's. That place is hella-spensive. (JL)
Podcast is embedded below. Any problems, it can also be found here as a downloadable mp3 file. (TRT: 1 hour, 6 minutes, 11 seconds)
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John Lichman is a freelance writer who contributes to The Reeler, Primetime A&E [print only] and anyone with cash. He works odd jobs to afford his vices, sleeps on couches and can drink Vadim Rizov under a table.
Vadim Rizov is a New York-based freelance writer. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Onion AV Club and Paste Magazine, among others.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Lichman & Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern: Ep. 17, "Robert Rodriguez=Guy Maddin," with Adam Nayman & Andrew Tracy
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20 comments:
Perhaps posting the exchange that led to the podcast's title would have been a good idea. Otherwise, that equation makes even less sense that it did when it was first explicated.
It's sort of sad to think one being paid couldn't drum up some enthusiasm or some interesting angle on anything. As someone who occasionally gets paid to write, I either only pitch things I like or really don't like. If I was asked to review something I didn't like, I'd either pass on it or think really hard. EVERYTHING is interesting someway, somehow.
Interesting discussion on Maddin. I think, as was stated, its that he's not growing AND that his style is so insular and delicate that there's no rewards other than aesthetic ones. I'm not one for the belief that artists should always reinvent themselves, but Maddin's sort of hedging his bets at this point. He's not say Fassbinder or even Wes Anderson who mine every corner or the same few obsessions, unless that obsession's like, recreating silent movie tricks.
Sad to say Adam that that part of the exchange was not recorded due to the battery going dead (for longer than I realized).
So we remain in the realm of the nonsensical with this one, which - for "Lichman & Rizov" - is just about right anyway.
ah, nuts. that did get left out.
well, suffice to say, if i remember correctly the basic explanation:
both are quaint, decent filmmakers who strive in their local area.
and should never be let outside of it.
andrew, adam, keith, vadim? correct me please?
I can only recall what I was saying (it's been nearly a month since; sorry listeners), but I think Andrew was saying something about how he didn't really object to Guy Maddin, just that he felt that Canadian critics (esp. at TIFF) feel that he can do no wrong, even when it's obvious (to a lot of people anyway) that he's increasingly spinning his wheels, and how that makes him feel a greater skepticism about Maddin as a filmmaker than he might otherwise. And I said I felt the same way about Robert Rodriguez (cuz we'd been talking about Tarantino in some way and Grindhouse got brought up) - who I do basically hate, but who probably got no help from me growing up in a city that always genuflects to him as a filmmaker given how much he's contributed to the local film economy.
Something like that anyway.
vadim-
could you rephrase that using will oldham and your arrogance? you were making too much sense for me to comprehend that.
also--i need you to justify making money at the same time, if you don't mind.
One should see being able to get paid for one's asshole opinions--my opinions too are asshole opinions, drop the marytr complex guys, I didn't even know which of you said the thing about reviews--and so, I find it a little depressing to hear someone say they sort of coast through a review. Sorry. I can applaud the honesty but really dude.
Not that anyone's going to respond reasonably to this anyway but...that should've read:
"One should see being able to get paid for one's asshole opinions as something of a privilege--my opinions too are asshole opinions, drop the marytr complex guys, I didn't even know which of you said the thing about reviews--and so, I find it a little depressing to hear someone say they sort of coast through a review...
Of course it's a privilege. The point — was this part of the thing that didn't get recorded? — is I think it's great that the Voice is covering every single movie that opens in NY in some kind of detail, because if only the New York Times was doing that, that would be kind of sad (esp. given for how many movies this is their one and only port of call). But that also entails a lot of garbage, and once you've seen 10 shitty video documentaries, you've kind of seen them all. Sorry, sometimes there really isn't that much to say.
But martyr complex? Yeah, I don't think that ever came up.
Brandon:
why wouldn't you get a reasonable response?
It's not a matter of "coasting through reviews," but, as Vadim (who is perhaps only accidentally like a martyr) noted sometimes there isn't that much to say. Usually, it's in regards to films that offer little in the first place -- which is, of course, a subjective assessment. So of course one critic's shitty video docuemtnary is another critic's masterpiece (and here I am thinking of Wordplay. Sorry, John).
As far as "interesting angles" go, I resit the idea of tricking out a review of a middling film so that it sounds more exciting than it is. A lot of criticism veers dangerously close to fiction -- or mere, unhelpful autobiography -- in this regard.
Would love to buy John and Vadim a drink! Heck, The Futurist! would gladly buy several bottles of wine to entice John and Vadim to talk more, instead of hearing Uhlich dominate the Tavern Talk defending, with his intensely serious importance of being Uhlich, some Spielbergian Soviets and their mysterious appearance at the bottom of a canyon. ("THEY RAPPELLED!!! THINK ABOUT IT!") In fact, John and Vadim, after we empty those bottles, The Futurist! knows what to do with one of the numerous corks, if Mr. Uhlich is present.
adam:
i need to find better docs, i know.
futurist!:
play nice.
keith is entitled to his opinions. and you haven't heard ranting until you've heard me rant about that crazy anime/japan stuff.
Of course, Uhlich is entitled to his opinions. However, he seems to think they are more than his opinions ... more like etched in stone facts. And we'd love to hear you rant about ANYTHING. It just seems you are not heard from as much as the man who's name does not appear in the [title of show]. ... And THE FUTURIST! always plays nice. More wine?
Well here's a promise from me, then, Futurist, to stick more of a cork in it going forward. I speak confidently about my opinions and beliefs (that's what they are, unique to me), and I try not to hog, but my lips do get loosened by drink and revelry. Would hate to become the Charlie Rose of this series, speaking over everyone.
Isn't Vadim, though, the self-professed "silent partner"? Well hey, I'm up for the challenge of gettin' him more verbal.
I got tired of trying to talk over people; my voice sucks recorded and it sounded pushy. I'll try harder.
Sorry, Uhlich. The alcohol factor was not considered when THE FUTURIST! listened to your CRYSTAL SKULL-duggery. At one point, THE FUTURIST! attempted to pay more attention to the tavern background sounds of The Talking Heads 'This Must Be the Place' then to your cocktail criticism. Apologies. The Devil's Water can be so alluring and quite an un-inhibitor. THE FUTURIST! will buy you a vodka martini if he sees you, but refuses to discuss INDIANA JONES AND THE SHIA LABEOUF. Oh, let's hope you don't become The Charlie Rose of the show or look like him, either.
Vadim, your voice is fine. And if you try harder, you'll have to sound pushy. It happens.
hey THE FUTURIST!,
do you happen to want to buy me drinks later? or at least spot me a bottle of wine outside BQE Liquors?
Sorry, John Lichman, of the soft voice and graceful writing, THE FUTURIST! will be otherwise occupied with mixology AND bad filmology later this evening when he, his aide de camp haiku and 2 others, will be indulging in Elliot Silverstein's cult automotive JAWS rip-off THE CAR (1977) starring a robust James Brolin. We will, however, raise a glass to you and Vadim between guffaws and re-fills. If you do scrounge up change for a bottle, try a Diseno Malbec Red from the Mendoza region of Argentina.
Vadim-
I'm joking about the martyr thing--most of the time here, I'm being sort of funny or trying to--but it seems your friend Lichman has a habit of reading my comments/questions as some sort of constant attack/critique when it's more out of curiosity.
Lookit-my main job right now is sorting books. I download these podcasts and some others and listen as I pull books from boxes and put them in shelves from 6pm-3am. If what's being said on your podcast wasn't engaging I wouldn't listen or comment.
However (and maybe there's just nowhere to go), I have to disagree with not finding anything to say. Your repeating that point or emphasizing it once more doesn't prove or disprove my point. Maybe I'm some goofy idealist but your tone is cynical and again, to be able to write one's asshole opinions somewhere and get paid anything is awesome.
Most of the editors I've spoken to have made the point that it's 2008, there's information all over the internet, so don't see an album or book or movie as something you need to sell or not sell to readers, but just drop an interesting perspective on it and if its interesting enough, it will get people to read it and look into or see the movie. Simply be there being a review, it informs readers that the movie's out and exists.
Not that I'm implying your reviews on video docs aren't interesting, but your lack of enthusiasm for them--although again, it's cool you admitted it--does I guess, offend me just a bit. Maybe my brain works differently or something, but I think I could write on just about anything and drum up some enthusiasm.
In many ways, it maybe feels like you're blaming the film and not the writing format. 250 or 500 or whatever word-limit reviews are silly and that, compounded with a maybe meh film would make it hard to drum up enthusiasm.
Brandon:
"I'm joking about the martyr thing--most of the time here, I'm being sort of funny or trying to--but it seems your friend Lichman has a habit of reading my comments/questions as some sort of constant attack/critique when it's more out of curiosity."
Dude. It's cuz you bait me on your blog. Don't be that naive. But you seem to like the podcast more than the music column, so let's see...
The tiny word count (I write a lot of 200-word capsules) is a mixed blessing, I guess. Almost every film could benefit from at least 500 words (and I got spoiled when I wrote for The Reeler — 1,000 words is a luxury I wish I had again). E.g., I recently reviewed The Order Of Myths, which is simply terrific, but about which I have one major reservation. It's a spoiler and really irrelevant to my point; point is, I had 200 words to figure out what was more important, voicing that niggling doubt (which, in 200 words, assumes outsized importance) or making a mostly unqualified endorsement. The latter seemed more important.
So the format is a problem, but I take it you don't go out of your way to watch mediocre video docs? That's really the problem here: a bad narrative nearly always poses its own special problems, but bad video documentaries have all the same problems generally (unearned indifference to formal properties, lousy editing that can't figure out what's important, an underwhelming subject). Not falling into a template review for those is a real challenge; I've pretty much stopped complaining about the aforementioned.
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