Me, looking at a website forum: "Some of these people are dumb."
P.C.: "You should tell them that."
Me, to the computer: "You people are dumb."
P.C.: "When was the last time you actually told someone they were dumb?"
Me: "I tell you that all the time."
P.C., trailing off as he replies, to barely audible: "Yeah, but you don't actually mean it...do you..."
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Bratty brat brat brats on TV
Bill Henrickson (Big Love)
Serena VanderWoodson (Gossip Girl)
Lila (Dexter)
Dr. Romano (ER)
Serena VanderWoodson (Gossip Girl)
Lila (Dexter)
Dr. Romano (ER)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
This was silly because I was going 60 mph at the time, and they don't even speak English.
My reaction to seeing a group of adult and juvenile Canada geese on the median divider on Route 9, between the left lane and a left-side on-ramp, as they walked along the divider line:
"Oh! Guys! Get off the highway! [one mile later, on further reflection on how my alarm and genuine loving concern wouldn' t help them at all] ...Crap."
"Oh! Guys! Get off the highway! [one mile later, on further reflection on how my alarm and genuine loving concern wouldn' t help them at all] ...Crap."
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Boring vs. boring movies.
Thanks, friend Jenny, for pointing out this co-written NYT piece on movies and boredom, and soliciting my opinion on them.
My opinion in brief is that there are two kinds of "boring" at work in the movies presented in these generalized reviews of "boring" movies: as Manolha Dargis points out, there are the "slow and boring" ones that a previous NYT article/writer had compared to eating your "cultural vegetables," and there are the "familiar, frenetic and boring" ones that Dargis herself points out, using the apparently re-hashed and overly animated, underly signifying Hangover II.
And between the two kinds of boring, there is a giant chasm of conceptions of what movies are supposed to do and why we are supposed to watch them.
I was ridiculously disappointed with A.O. Scott's essay's beginning, which insisted that movies have been persecuted by those who feel they shouldn't aspire to being "real" art -- disappointed because he didn't even mention TV in those terms, as if while movies should and can be admitted to whatever ivory halls exist in those ivory towers of the people who tell us what "art" is, TV is just something we posers get to watch in the lobby. Seriously, Mr. Scott. TV has way worse of a deal when it comes to being considered art.
But I also think that the question of "what is boring" comes even more into focus when considered in terms of TV. Plus I don't know a whole lot about film, relatively speaking, so I'll just stick with what I've got a master's in.
There has always been the "high" and the "low" when it comes to culture, and cultural constructs such as art or entertainment. "Slow and boring" equals high art, in part because it is difficult to get through; "frenetic and familiar" equals low -- perhaps not even art, but culture -- because it seems "easy."
And it is easy. You know why it's easy? Because at the end of a long day, people want to kick back, relax, and be comforted, not challenged. That's why police procedurals -- which tell us that no matter what happens, the cops can solve the case and keep you safe, over and over again, night after night -- are so popular. Nobody wants to get home from work and be told by scripted fictional narratives that their lives are absurd, meaningless, and about to end.
And that's fine.
As far as "high art" and culture go, the slow and boring stands out as necessitating that exact kind of attention that a workingwoman would rather not come home to. Leisure time is required to adequately digest and "enjoy" -- a different proposition, I feel, than the fat-and-sweets enjoyment of a movie like Hangover II -- the slow and boring films. I mean, heck, one of the movies Scott references is frakking 8 hours long. That's a weekend day, gone. That's mowing the lawn time or buying groceries time right there.
So comparing the slow-and-boring to the frenetic-and-familiar, to me, isn't quite fair. They're doing different things.
Dargis might find frenetic-and-familiar to be boring, because it's familiar: but that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to affirm our values, our safety, and our humor in the face of adversity (because it will all be better by the end of the narrative). That's not just important, it's necessary.
And the slow-and-boring movies that take hours to watch -- or feel like they do -- seem boring to perhaps the masses, and perhaps Dan Kois (who wrote the original article), precisely because they are unfamiliar, and require an investment of thought and effort that the frenetic-and-familiar movies don't (or perhaps require a cultural education not available to particular potential viewers). But that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to challenge our values, improve or reflect upon our actions and intentions, and show us the inadequacy of our efforts in the face of an unlaughing and absurd universe.
The thing I find most frustrating about the reviewers' insistence that the slow-and-boring need to be defended -- in the New York Times, no less, the country's most intellectual newspaper -- is that I think they're getting it precisely wrong. Especially if they want movies to be seen as a medium allowed to the ivory halls of high art, they need to admit and embrace the multitude of functions of film, and begin academically defending the purposes and executions of movies like Hangover II.
I mean, even Kois admitted the slow-and-boring were like "vegetables" -- and everyone with a fifth-grade education knows how good vegetables are for you, even while they're stuffing their faces with Big Macs. Nobody's disputing that. So somebody start studying the Big Macs, too, and show how they relate to the culture and to other foods, and why so many people enjoy stuffing their faces with them. Quit feeling persecuted when none of those Big-Mac eaters don't want anything to do with your vegetables. You haven't bothered to understand them, so why expect anything different in return?
Maybe by understanding the Big Mac, we can make films that give us the vegetables but with a Big Mac taste. I think TV has been doing an excellent job of this lately -- giving us some stellar and daring writing (watch Community, people) while also entertaining the socks off us. That makes it all the more annoying that TV wasn't brought up in these reviews...and all the more annoying that the dichotomies being used in these reviews make me think more of "jocks vs. nerds" rather than a more progressive reflection on "helpful hybrid forms -- let's play with narratives."
If Tree of Life is a psychedelic reflection on life, give us some gateway drugs to ease us in.
On a personal note, being someone who's watched plenty of both kinds of boring stuff, I'd also say that like certain vegetables, slow-and-boring movies are an acquired taste, one that becomes acquired by repeated exposure (and an attentive and adept cook/filmmaker). Scott and Dargis are understandably under the influence of a slow-and-boring-film Stockholm Syndrome -- one we might all aspire to, given a glut of vacation days and unlimited Netflix accounts.
But if your job isn't to watch movies, it should be fine to sit back and laugh at the stupid dudes in Hangover II, too. Permission granted unbegrudgingly.
My opinion in brief is that there are two kinds of "boring" at work in the movies presented in these generalized reviews of "boring" movies: as Manolha Dargis points out, there are the "slow and boring" ones that a previous NYT article/writer had compared to eating your "cultural vegetables," and there are the "familiar, frenetic and boring" ones that Dargis herself points out, using the apparently re-hashed and overly animated, underly signifying Hangover II.
And between the two kinds of boring, there is a giant chasm of conceptions of what movies are supposed to do and why we are supposed to watch them.
I was ridiculously disappointed with A.O. Scott's essay's beginning, which insisted that movies have been persecuted by those who feel they shouldn't aspire to being "real" art -- disappointed because he didn't even mention TV in those terms, as if while movies should and can be admitted to whatever ivory halls exist in those ivory towers of the people who tell us what "art" is, TV is just something we posers get to watch in the lobby. Seriously, Mr. Scott. TV has way worse of a deal when it comes to being considered art.
But I also think that the question of "what is boring" comes even more into focus when considered in terms of TV. Plus I don't know a whole lot about film, relatively speaking, so I'll just stick with what I've got a master's in.
There has always been the "high" and the "low" when it comes to culture, and cultural constructs such as art or entertainment. "Slow and boring" equals high art, in part because it is difficult to get through; "frenetic and familiar" equals low -- perhaps not even art, but culture -- because it seems "easy."
And it is easy. You know why it's easy? Because at the end of a long day, people want to kick back, relax, and be comforted, not challenged. That's why police procedurals -- which tell us that no matter what happens, the cops can solve the case and keep you safe, over and over again, night after night -- are so popular. Nobody wants to get home from work and be told by scripted fictional narratives that their lives are absurd, meaningless, and about to end.
And that's fine.
As far as "high art" and culture go, the slow and boring stands out as necessitating that exact kind of attention that a workingwoman would rather not come home to. Leisure time is required to adequately digest and "enjoy" -- a different proposition, I feel, than the fat-and-sweets enjoyment of a movie like Hangover II -- the slow and boring films. I mean, heck, one of the movies Scott references is frakking 8 hours long. That's a weekend day, gone. That's mowing the lawn time or buying groceries time right there.
So comparing the slow-and-boring to the frenetic-and-familiar, to me, isn't quite fair. They're doing different things.
Dargis might find frenetic-and-familiar to be boring, because it's familiar: but that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to affirm our values, our safety, and our humor in the face of adversity (because it will all be better by the end of the narrative). That's not just important, it's necessary.
And the slow-and-boring movies that take hours to watch -- or feel like they do -- seem boring to perhaps the masses, and perhaps Dan Kois (who wrote the original article), precisely because they are unfamiliar, and require an investment of thought and effort that the frenetic-and-familiar movies don't (or perhaps require a cultural education not available to particular potential viewers). But that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to challenge our values, improve or reflect upon our actions and intentions, and show us the inadequacy of our efforts in the face of an unlaughing and absurd universe.
The thing I find most frustrating about the reviewers' insistence that the slow-and-boring need to be defended -- in the New York Times, no less, the country's most intellectual newspaper -- is that I think they're getting it precisely wrong. Especially if they want movies to be seen as a medium allowed to the ivory halls of high art, they need to admit and embrace the multitude of functions of film, and begin academically defending the purposes and executions of movies like Hangover II.
I mean, even Kois admitted the slow-and-boring were like "vegetables" -- and everyone with a fifth-grade education knows how good vegetables are for you, even while they're stuffing their faces with Big Macs. Nobody's disputing that. So somebody start studying the Big Macs, too, and show how they relate to the culture and to other foods, and why so many people enjoy stuffing their faces with them. Quit feeling persecuted when none of those Big-Mac eaters don't want anything to do with your vegetables. You haven't bothered to understand them, so why expect anything different in return?
Maybe by understanding the Big Mac, we can make films that give us the vegetables but with a Big Mac taste. I think TV has been doing an excellent job of this lately -- giving us some stellar and daring writing (watch Community, people) while also entertaining the socks off us. That makes it all the more annoying that TV wasn't brought up in these reviews...and all the more annoying that the dichotomies being used in these reviews make me think more of "jocks vs. nerds" rather than a more progressive reflection on "helpful hybrid forms -- let's play with narratives."
If Tree of Life is a psychedelic reflection on life, give us some gateway drugs to ease us in.
On a personal note, being someone who's watched plenty of both kinds of boring stuff, I'd also say that like certain vegetables, slow-and-boring movies are an acquired taste, one that becomes acquired by repeated exposure (and an attentive and adept cook/filmmaker). Scott and Dargis are understandably under the influence of a slow-and-boring-film Stockholm Syndrome -- one we might all aspire to, given a glut of vacation days and unlimited Netflix accounts.
But if your job isn't to watch movies, it should be fine to sit back and laugh at the stupid dudes in Hangover II, too. Permission granted unbegrudgingly.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
TDS: May 31, 2011
Today P.C.'s car broke down -- perhaps for the final time -- and he is now the proud new owner of a Gene Cranston.
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