Dave J

Snack pack

In the past week I have had the honor and joy of seeing/experiencing two things: Godard's complete Histoire(s) du Cinema uploaded on YouTube, which gives the whole project--already nearly impossible to completely translate--the grainy, crappy look of a fan-subbed bootleg, which I guess technically it was. Sometime I'll have to rewatch it with Jeff and he can explain all the French jokes. The second thing I experienced was Immemory by Chris Marker, because I had recently watched La Jetee and Sans Soleil, (freshly available on DVD) and remembered that as a person with a Mac I am one of the few people capable of enjoying the copy of Immemory we have at work.

What is Immemory? It's a trip through Marker's "memory," in that it is a interconnected series of pathways that explore facts, photographs, stories, etc. from his random thoughts that when observed on a whole scale should resemble some kind of pattern. MORE IMPORTANTLY IT IS A GIANT HYPERSTUDIO STACK.

YES. One of the geniuses of cinema has expressed himself with what we were forced to dick around with in middle school. I would love to compare Immemory to my masterpiece stacks about Jackson Pollack or the civil rights movement, but I got to admit Marker's got a better understanding of all those funky tricks like ghostwriters, hidden buttons etc. than I did.

This past weekend I also re-upped my Film Forum membership so that Monica and I might catch Melville's Le Doulos, which while not the best of his films by a long shot, certainly brings the woman-hating jokes with full gusto. At some point I am going to write a review for it on my new ILNT sub-space/portfolio wasteland.

Finally, yesterday Monica and I saw the new Harry Potter movie, which was amusing in that the bad guys all seemed to come straight out of the orgy in Eyes Wide Shut. If you don't know the costume I refer to, I'm sure "Eyes Wide Shut orgy scene" in Google Images will help you just fine. It was pretty good for a movie done by a dude who only did TV miniseries' previously, and reminded me how dark the series can get. Also I think the people of the world need to come together and firmly decide on a FAIR practice for seat saving at movie theaters. 'Cause honestly, one dude holding down a whole row for non-existent friends is retarded.

My thoughts are that either you get to save one seat for every one person of your party already in attendance, OR you can save however many seats you think you are capable of fighting for (i.e. if you are big and scary you can probably get away with it). But it seems like a social custom that is tolerated because everyone does it, and yet univerally reviled--we need some guidelines!

Now off to Creative Writing class, where we will workshop my amusing story of a man who discovers he has a superpower: abnormally sticky skin.

Posted by dave at July 12, 2007 12:00 PM