I never understood Clint Eastwood. He was a Republican, a member of Young Celebrities for Nixon when he was in his 40s. Now he's endorsed Mitt Romney and gave a bizarre, rambling speech at the Republican convention.
But Eastwood has always been incredibly foul-mouthed, and for a long time I noticed that nearly every movie he directed had a rape scene. How many times was his girlfriend, Sandra Locke, raped in his movies? Dirty Harry was initially given an X rating. They had to make cuts to get an R rating.
I don't think the fact that he's 82 had much to do with it. He's not a comedian. He doesn't do improv. When has he ever ad libbed? When has he even appeared on stage? Speeches aren't his thing, and he decided it would be a good idea to do something "creative".
I looked at Google news this morning and Clint Eastwood's appearance was the top story, not Romney's speech where he called for war with Syria and Iran and threatened Russia. He ridiculed global warming and called for the US to be even more servile to Israel.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Rubio's father was an idiot
Marco Rubio is on TV as I write this, introducing Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention.
Rubio is talking a lot about his Cuban parents who, he falsely claimed, fled the revolution there.
His father had polio as a child. He couldn't perform manual labor. So his parents sent him to school. He was the only one in his family who went to school. He was the only one who could read. Then he came to the United States where he had to work two jobs and would come staggering home exhausted each day.
And, therefore, we should hate Castro?
How is this story of his father growing up in abject poverty in capitalist Cuba an attack on Communism? How was he doing anything but making a case for Communism? Is that what Rubio and his ilk want Cuba to go back to---child labor and illiteracy? How is his polio-stricken father working 18 hour days in Florida praise for corporate capitalism?
Rubio is talking a lot about his Cuban parents who, he falsely claimed, fled the revolution there.
His father had polio as a child. He couldn't perform manual labor. So his parents sent him to school. He was the only one in his family who went to school. He was the only one who could read. Then he came to the United States where he had to work two jobs and would come staggering home exhausted each day.
And, therefore, we should hate Castro?
How is this story of his father growing up in abject poverty in capitalist Cuba an attack on Communism? How was he doing anything but making a case for Communism? Is that what Rubio and his ilk want Cuba to go back to---child labor and illiteracy? How is his polio-stricken father working 18 hour days in Florida praise for corporate capitalism?
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Tom Cruise is awful
Tom Cruise is a very bad actor. I can't stand him and don't watch his movies, so I forget how really awful he is. But today I saw him for a minute or so in A Few Good Men where he does his trademark scientologist thing---he throws a tantrum and starts yelling "funny" things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jevG0vhGWU
And according to the comments on the YouTube clip, the rubes think this is fine acting.
He does this crap in all his other movies. Did he do it in his blowing-up-Hitler movie, too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jevG0vhGWU
And according to the comments on the YouTube clip, the rubes think this is fine acting.
He does this crap in all his other movies. Did he do it in his blowing-up-Hitler movie, too?
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Prince Harry
"Prince" Harry was photographed naked in a hotel room in Las Vegas.
Well, it's none of my business.
Well, it's none of my business.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Don't have much sympathy for Pussy Riot
Finally bothered to watch a video of the punk rock "band" Pussy Riot desecrating a Russian Orthodox church. Hooliganism is the right word for it. What a repulsive group. Claiming that they weren't trying to offend anyone is absurd. They went in and filmed this thing for YouTube. Women in the church resisted being filmed while a man was politely asking the "band" to leave the altar. One gets on her knees and crosses herself. And now they've put this out as a single, their one and only CD. How many gigs has this "band" ever played? Not even their apologists refer to them as "musicians".
The Nation magazine defended them on the basis of political statements they made in letters from jail. It's possible that Pussy Riot is made up of brilliant political intellectuals, but that has nothing to do with it. I'd have more sympathy for them if they were dullards.
Defenders of Pussy Riot get mad if you compare them to the Dixie Chicks and the actions taken against them because they spoke out against Bush. It's completely different, they say, because the Dixie Chicks weren't criminally charged. Of course, that was because the Dixie Chicks didn't commit a crime. Pussy Riot did.
I knew two people in Oregon who were on trial, facing 20 years in prison, charged with first degree arson for burning a strip of yellow cloth as part of a political protest. The judge ruled that this constituted arson because the scrap of bedsheet was a "thing of value". In fact, if they had burned it in their fireplace at home, it still would have been "arson". Burning a scrap of cloth was no different from burning down a building.
A Pussy Riot supporter wrote write an article on the Counterpunch website. He wrote in response to an earlier article pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. press defending Pussy Riot when they don't do the same for people in the U.S. The original article was narrowly focused on the US press, but the Pussy Riot supporter took it as an attack on the "band". He said this was "ignorant" and that the history of Russian punk rock was somehow relevant to whether invading and desecrating a church was a crime.
"The band members have been pulling stunts like this since their teens," the guy wrote, "their most infamous previous stunts include filming themselves kissing subway police and a media-invitation public orgy." He didn't mention that these "feminists" also filmed a woman performing a sex act with a frozen chicken in a supermarket.
What clever girls.
As they were being led from the courtroom, one of the girls said "We are happy because we brought the revolution closer!"
"Well done," the cop said.
The Nation magazine defended them on the basis of political statements they made in letters from jail. It's possible that Pussy Riot is made up of brilliant political intellectuals, but that has nothing to do with it. I'd have more sympathy for them if they were dullards.
Defenders of Pussy Riot get mad if you compare them to the Dixie Chicks and the actions taken against them because they spoke out against Bush. It's completely different, they say, because the Dixie Chicks weren't criminally charged. Of course, that was because the Dixie Chicks didn't commit a crime. Pussy Riot did.
I knew two people in Oregon who were on trial, facing 20 years in prison, charged with first degree arson for burning a strip of yellow cloth as part of a political protest. The judge ruled that this constituted arson because the scrap of bedsheet was a "thing of value". In fact, if they had burned it in their fireplace at home, it still would have been "arson". Burning a scrap of cloth was no different from burning down a building.
A Pussy Riot supporter wrote write an article on the Counterpunch website. He wrote in response to an earlier article pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. press defending Pussy Riot when they don't do the same for people in the U.S. The original article was narrowly focused on the US press, but the Pussy Riot supporter took it as an attack on the "band". He said this was "ignorant" and that the history of Russian punk rock was somehow relevant to whether invading and desecrating a church was a crime.
"The band members have been pulling stunts like this since their teens," the guy wrote, "their most infamous previous stunts include filming themselves kissing subway police and a media-invitation public orgy." He didn't mention that these "feminists" also filmed a woman performing a sex act with a frozen chicken in a supermarket.
What clever girls.
As they were being led from the courtroom, one of the girls said "We are happy because we brought the revolution closer!"
"Well done," the cop said.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
All those camera at the Olympics
There was a Richard Pryor concert movie. It started out with a guy walking back and forth in front of the stage with an instamatic camera taking picture after picture of Pryor who was on stage yelling at the idiot to sit down. Pryor told him he'd go to his friends and say, "I got pictures of Richard Pryor!" and they'd say, "So what?"
I started to realize that snapshots didn't make sense. Why take pictures of things like celebrities and landmarks when you can see infinitely better, commercially produced pictures of the same thing?
When my sister and mother dragged me off to see Bill Clinton back when he was running for president, they demanded that I bring a camera and take a picture of him.
"What for? There are thousands of pictures of him. Millions."
But they insisted. I got a picture of his hair. There was a big crowd there and I wasn't going to push my way to the front.
It's a lesson those Olympic athletes should have learned. You watch the opening of the games, most of the athletes and most everyone else involved walked along carrying a cell phone camera or a little video camera. I've never been able to get very good footage while walking. I think they should have designated one athlete as videographer or exchanged cameras. Each athlete would film on another athlete's camera. That way there was a chance that they could get pictures of themselves on their own videos.
The Japanese team defied stereotype---none of them had a camera.
They should have asked people to record it at home, and maybe got some footage of stuff behind the scenes that no one would see otherwise.
Rowan Atkinson made fun of it while doing his bit in the opening, holding a cell phone as he did his bit.
And, really. There were some guys using old standard def Flip camceras. You're at the Olympics! A once-in-a-lifetime thing! At least get a high definition camera!
I started to realize that snapshots didn't make sense. Why take pictures of things like celebrities and landmarks when you can see infinitely better, commercially produced pictures of the same thing?
When my sister and mother dragged me off to see Bill Clinton back when he was running for president, they demanded that I bring a camera and take a picture of him.
"What for? There are thousands of pictures of him. Millions."
But they insisted. I got a picture of his hair. There was a big crowd there and I wasn't going to push my way to the front.
It's a lesson those Olympic athletes should have learned. You watch the opening of the games, most of the athletes and most everyone else involved walked along carrying a cell phone camera or a little video camera. I've never been able to get very good footage while walking. I think they should have designated one athlete as videographer or exchanged cameras. Each athlete would film on another athlete's camera. That way there was a chance that they could get pictures of themselves on their own videos.
The Japanese team defied stereotype---none of them had a camera.
They should have asked people to record it at home, and maybe got some footage of stuff behind the scenes that no one would see otherwise.
Rowan Atkinson made fun of it while doing his bit in the opening, holding a cell phone as he did his bit.
And, really. There were some guys using old standard def Flip camceras. You're at the Olympics! A once-in-a-lifetime thing! At least get a high definition camera!
Dialog's too hard! Just make silent movies!
One time, there was a message on the DUMPS message board--this was a website that listed the things they didn't like about student films.
A bitter film student wrote that he ran up a huge credit card bill---I believe it was around $40,000---making a film. That was in the days before digital video, but even filming on 16mm it was a lot of money.
He said that he noticed that the problem with acting was the dialog. Actors were much more convincing if they didn't have to say their lines, and he was right. So he made a silent film about a girl preparing to leave home. Okay.
But he gave the impression that it had no sound at all----no music. Nothing. When he submitted it to film festivals, they sent it back with notes saying, "Did you know this doesn't have any sound?"
The poor guy was right to make a silent film, but he should have put some music on it and maybe threw in something in voice over.
Look at Guy Maddin's movie, "The Dead Father", an early short of his. The star of the movie was interviewed. He said that there wasn't any real acting involved----the performances in it were very good, but they weren't difficult for the actors because it was almost entirely silent with a voice over narration. Robert Rodriguez's "Bedhead" was made the same way, silent with voice-over narration.
You also solve the problem of bad writing which reveals itself primarily in the form of bad dialog.
These movies with voice-over narration in lieu of synchronized sound were made, I would guess, because of the difficulty of recording live sound with a noisy cine camera running. Now that everyone's using digital video, recording live sound is easy but filmmakers face the far greater challenge of acting and writing dialog.
Right now, people are complaining that camcorder manufacturers are saving money by getting rid of external mic jacks. You're stuck using the relatively bad built in mic.
Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. You shouldn't be using sound anyway. Put on some music, add an occasional subtitle or intertitle. Your movie will be better for it.
There's Guy Maddin who justifies making silent movies by doing them in the manner of Soviet Experimental Cinema, and we have the recent movie The Artist, a silent movie about a silent film star. But you might look at the silent films of George and Mike Kuchar. Mike Kuchar's Sin of the Fleshapoids was a silent film set "a million years" in the future. Even when they switched to video, the Kuchars still did some silent movies.
A bitter film student wrote that he ran up a huge credit card bill---I believe it was around $40,000---making a film. That was in the days before digital video, but even filming on 16mm it was a lot of money.
He said that he noticed that the problem with acting was the dialog. Actors were much more convincing if they didn't have to say their lines, and he was right. So he made a silent film about a girl preparing to leave home. Okay.
But he gave the impression that it had no sound at all----no music. Nothing. When he submitted it to film festivals, they sent it back with notes saying, "Did you know this doesn't have any sound?"
The poor guy was right to make a silent film, but he should have put some music on it and maybe threw in something in voice over.
Look at Guy Maddin's movie, "The Dead Father", an early short of his. The star of the movie was interviewed. He said that there wasn't any real acting involved----the performances in it were very good, but they weren't difficult for the actors because it was almost entirely silent with a voice over narration. Robert Rodriguez's "Bedhead" was made the same way, silent with voice-over narration.
You also solve the problem of bad writing which reveals itself primarily in the form of bad dialog.
These movies with voice-over narration in lieu of synchronized sound were made, I would guess, because of the difficulty of recording live sound with a noisy cine camera running. Now that everyone's using digital video, recording live sound is easy but filmmakers face the far greater challenge of acting and writing dialog.
Right now, people are complaining that camcorder manufacturers are saving money by getting rid of external mic jacks. You're stuck using the relatively bad built in mic.
Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. You shouldn't be using sound anyway. Put on some music, add an occasional subtitle or intertitle. Your movie will be better for it.
There's Guy Maddin who justifies making silent movies by doing them in the manner of Soviet Experimental Cinema, and we have the recent movie The Artist, a silent movie about a silent film star. But you might look at the silent films of George and Mike Kuchar. Mike Kuchar's Sin of the Fleshapoids was a silent film set "a million years" in the future. Even when they switched to video, the Kuchars still did some silent movies.
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