Byvshyj CCCP

[ Tuesday, March 30, 2004 ]

 
Yesterday was an emotionally draining day at work. I spoke a lot of Russian.

I made it to Arabic class last night, after missing or skipping over two weeks of classes. One of my coworkers may be interested in signing up for the class when the next session starts, so I brought him a course catalog.
S [9:50 PM]

[ Friday, March 19, 2004 ]

 
There was a light fluffy snow falling after I made my bread purchases at Zingerman's, it made for a pretty walk through town. I met Jeannie and her husband Matt in front of the Michigan Theater and we decided to have dinner at the Earthen Jar, which they hadn't tried. For $3.99/lb you can load your paper plate with delicious, vegetarian Indian food. I picked the spicier offerings. I also ordered a piece of naan and a smooth mango lassi drink.

Jeannie and Matt only went to the 7p showing, but here's the list with my comments in italics:

Thursday 18 March 7pm

CARELESS REEF: MARSA ABU GALAWA
Gerard Holthuis, The Hague, Netherlands. 35mm, 12 min. 2003
Experimental. A deep dive under the surface of the sea, searching for the places where man normally does not go. Under water everything looks the same- Egypt, Florida, Mexico, Asia, The Maldives. Coral is coral and a Lionfish looks the same. Everywhere. Psychedelic flashes of red filter against fish in the blue sea, of schools of fish and coral, timed to a spirited performance of Arab popular music.

WORST CASE SCENARIO
John Smith, London, England. BetaSP, 18 min. 2003
Experimental. "Worst Case Scenario" starts out as a series of still photographs depicting daily life on a Viennese street corner. But as Sigmund Freud casts his long shadow across the city, the static world slowly and subtly comes to life and an increasingly improbable chain of events and relationships starts to emerge. Black & white. Slowly the stills become animated, some with funny results. The soundtrack includes the British filmmaker creaking in his wooden chair, taking a call on his cell phone, and shuffling papers. Near the end there are shots of him filming from his 3rd storey apartment and people on the ground taking note.

FORTRESS
Potter-Belmar Labs, Ann Arbor, MI. 5 min. 2003
Experimental. The establishment condemns the visionary. Boring, overlays scenes from an old Joan of Arc movie.

BLUE LIKE A GUNSHOT
Masoud Raouf, New York, NY. 35mm, 5.5 min. 2003
Experimental animation. The visual transposition of a powerful poem about the barbarity of our world. Very nice. Paint swirls on glass to tell the story of a poem shown in French, Arabic, and English.

GLASS CROW
Steven Subotnick, Providence, RI. BetaSP, 6 min. 2004
Experimental animation. In 1618, some Protestant nobles angrily broke into a meeting in Prague Castle two Catholic ministers out a window. But the men were saved when they landed in a pile of waste in the castle moat. This was know as the Defenestration of Prague. Nice. Paint or water color on paper. The silhouette of one of the crows has b&w film of woods and other settings playing in it.

RESORT
Anna Abrahams, Netherlands. 16mm, 14.5 min. 2002
Documentary. A precise film about housing of asylum seekers in the Friesian towns of Joure and Drachten. Opens with aerial shot of a compound showing rows of identical, new, trailer-sized housing units. Then shots of people getting their passes stamped, doing laundry, sitting around, eating, kids playing. There's no narration and the people seem aimless.

THE GEOSOPHIST'S TEARS
Peter Rose, Philadelphia, PA. BetaSP, 8 min. 2002
Experimental. Shot during a seven-week cross-country road trip in the aftermath of the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, 2001, this video offers unstable metaphors for the state of the union and a respectful homage to the traditions of painting. That this may have been filmed after September 11th is irrelevant. It's a bunch of Southwest landscape shots broken up into two, three, four, bars on the screen.

JOURNEYS
Vinayan Kodoth, Ahmedabad, India. 35mm, 37 min. 2003
Documentary. What does it mean to be part of a desperate crowd of seven million commuters to whom the suburban train journey between home and work place has become the survival of the fittest? Using sound and visual juxtapositions the film builds up a surreal picture in the city of Mumbai (Bombay). The trains are miserably overcrowded. If you thought Japan was bad, look at this. They bolt inside as the train slows down. Men climb on the roof and hand off the sides (where are the women?). The narrator says there have been plans to improve things but they just get forgotten. Even car traffic is overburdened. How does anyone plan to get anywhere on time? A dozen people die daily from train accidents--we do see a bloody sheet covering a body--whether from falling off or getting hit on the track is not clear. Both are shown to be possible.
Thursday 18 March 9:30pm

RED THINGS
Max Porter, Port Washington, NY. BetaSP, 9.5 min. 2003
Animation. A mysterious phenomenon overtakes a small town, wreaking havoc with all things red. Funny. This one should win an award, or at least be one of the films to go on tour.

NOCTURNAL ADMISSIONS
Kara Blake, Montreal, Canada. 3 min. 2003
Experimental. A 153-year-old house collects and reveals the traces its inhabitants have left behind. Set to a Connie Francis (?) song, interior shots of a house have moving images projected on them, without any notable tie to the room shown.

DOWN ON THE FARM
Alfonso Alvarez, Berkeley, CA. 16mm, 6.5 min. 2003
Experimental. Amid the rolling flatlands, west of Toronto, there is a place they call the Film Farm. It is an ancient Mennonite farmhouse and barn, and it is here that loyal pilgrims journey every summer to make hand-crafted films. This short work is my story of a week's worth of exploration and inspiration. B&W. I liked the soundtrack with a beat.

MOUNTAIN STATE
Bill Brown, Lubbock, TX. 16mm, 19 min. 2003
Experimental documentary. A brief history of the westward expansion of the United States as told by 25 roadside historical markers in West Virginia. The filmmaker injects incidental humor into the tale of the violent, westward expansion.

WAR
Jake Mahaffy, Roanoke, VA. 35mm, 86 min. 2003
Experimental narrative. This film reveals the internal struggles of three isolated characters amid the rural ruins of a disappearing America. B&W. After 20 minutes of boredom, I left. It was after eleven o'clock and I had a hour's drive home.

S [1:34 PM]

[ Tuesday, March 09, 2004 ]

 
For something I did a few days ago, I was personally thanked by a manager two levels higher than my supervisor. Notice of my commendable action will be placed in my permanent record. W00t!
S [1:25 AM]

[ Saturday, March 06, 2004 ]

 
Martha now. Martha always. Viva Martha!
S [1:38 AM]