Logging: The Mars Room (finished)

by Rachel Kushner

Slow burn new fiction from 2018. Tears you up a little. It will last.

Split (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

Not as holyfuckingshit as I was hoping. Treaded water almost the whole time. Then the end came and went quickly.

Shyamalan can definitely direct. Nearly all his films have a tension, strangeness in their existence. He knows where to put the camera.

Happy 99th Fellini

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life."

Tarkovsky (Polaroids)

Talking Boogie Nights

I saw the Valley the way David Lean saw the desert in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
-- Paul Thomas Anderson

Destroyer

Karyn Kusama is badass

Update:
Top 10 films from Criterion

Another Peckinpah Quote

"I'm nothing if not a romantic and I've got this weakness for losers on a grand scale, as well as a kind of sneaky affection for all the misfits and drifters in the world."

Logging : Atlanta

Season 2, Episode 10 "FUBU"

Full of pathos.

(Glover's (90s) version of Louie's (70s) school day remembrances)

VICE (dir. Adam McKay)

Shapeless. Vomit writing. Empty storytelling.

On the nose agenda with an in your face, all on the surface style. No interest at all in exploring behavior, psychology, relationships, and the grays of life.

Who is the audience for this jerk-off fest? Other than McKay and his Hollywood friends who love to pat themselves on the back and believe that this $60 million garbage is a deep revelation for everyone  else.

The Continuing Saga of Louis C.K.

"I like to jerk off, and I don't like being alone."

New Orleans Jazz Fest 50th

Thoughts on ROMA from Guillermo

I love hearing him talk cinema (more than any of his own films). Enthusiasm in contagious.

Bird Box (dir. Susanne Bier)

Took me the course of three nights to get to the end. Probably would've been better served as mini-series, way too long, shot like a tv movie, yet storylines crammed in and unanswered. Watchable (I guess)?? Wish it was truly holyfuckingshit like M. Night Shamylan's The Happening.

Sunday Snow

morning magic music (Halicarnassus by Circles Around the Sound)

One Week Ago (Sunday night) (Post-Game Bears/Eagles)

Michael Mann -- Thief/Chicago/L.A.

Chantix

Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster)

One of the more affecting, dark and unpleasant experiences at the cinema this past year. Can't get rid of it. It remains and doesn't disappear.

"When it came to make feature directorial debut, filmmaker Ari Aster knew that he wanted to make a film that took suffering seriously, to make something that served as a meditation on grief. Specifically, he wanted to examine how that type of trauma can have a corrosive effect on the entire family unit. The problem for Aster was that, while there are plenty of American films about the messy side of loss, in many of those features, characters ultimately end up stronger, their familial bonds tighter, for having navigated their way through adversity.

That's not what he wanted to make, however.

'There's nothing inherently false about that, we need hope to get out of bed in the morning, but there are some people who don't recover from certain blows - sometimes people go down with the people that they are closest to, said Aster.

I wanted to make a film about that, but if I did make that as a bleak drama that ends on something of a hopeless note, first good luck finding the financing - and then if I do find the financing, I'm not going to have the resources that I had for this film - but then good luck finding an audience for it.' "

Atlantis (behind the scenes)

ASC Cinematography of the 20th Century

The King

Soderbergh's Annual Seen/Read 2018 List

http://extension765.com/soderblogh/33-seen-read-2018

Monday

It’s like waking from a bad dream. But realizing it wasn’t a dream at all. It really happened. And there's nothing you can do. I’ve watched the replay of the kick, and each time I think it’s going to hit the post and go in! Fandom is completely irrational. Onwards!

Dinner at Leo's

savannah. early january, 2014.
(a dream)

Day 7

NFC Playoff: Bears/Eagles @ Soldier Field

Parkey.

It was written.

NFL Wildcard Weekend

On the eve of the Bears/Eagles at Soldier Field, I'm reminded of Dec 31st, 1988.
Final score: Bears 20, Eagles 12.

Death From Above (Duvall 88th)

Logging: Atlanta

Season 2, Episode 1 "Alligator Man"

Only Lovers Left Alive (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2014
the cinema of cool/atmosphere

Errant Path w/ Jonathan Fishman (jan 2nd)

Wednesday night listening:
Abner Jay - I'm So Depressed
Bob Marley & the Wailers - Coming in from the Cold
Chet Baker - Everything Happens to Me
B.B. King - See That My Grave is Kept Clean (One Kind Favor Bonus Track Version)
Wes Montgomery - Besame Mucho
Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea
Jimmy Smith - Sagg' Shooting his Arrow (Root Down Jimmy Smith Live)
Chet Baker - It Could Happen to You

Day 1

Unforgiven (New Year's Day)

Woke up in a half-panic and a clear realization that UNFORGIVEN (dir. Eastwood, ‘91) is so much about addiction and the unrelenting struggle to forgive yourself. Wow, it’s 2019. #cinema #rebirth

Heat (1995)

Of note: the bookends of the close-up on Val Kilmer before the first shot fired, and the close-up on Al Pacino after the last shot fired.

Long Read

The Gambler who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code by Kit Chellel

finishing up 2018 like

One More Saturday Silent Night aka (A Tom Waits Xmas)

Charles Schultz (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)

A Charlie Brown Christmas' completing the trilogy of Halloween, Thanksgiving. There's such a simple truth, melancholy with Charles Schultz's work that I've only realized this year.

"What's going on here?!?!

"Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown."

1920s

A Long Strange Trip (Best of the Decade, 2010-19)

At Red Rocks, with my brother. From rainbows to black muddy rivers.

The Hateful Eight (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Georgia (dir. Ulu Grosbard, 1995)

Blaze, Inside Llewyn Davis, A Star is Born

Dark Star/Bertha (Oakland)

On a monday night. or early 1/1/82 around 3am.

The Deuce (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Maggie Gyllenhaal's discovery.

Springsteen on Broadway, Netflix, NPR, etc.

Lady Bird (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Insert the scene where Ladybird aka Christine is picked up on her way to the prom. "Are you really gonna go with them?" "Yes, I think I am."

In the car "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band comes on the radio.

Horace & Pete (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

On a Saturday night, a Sunday night scene about online dating and falling. 

25th anniversary *December 7th release*

Edens Theater. (music: exodus by wojciech kilar)

Crush

 in hibernation. And it's been re-awakened. #YoLaTango #SharonVanEtten #Ramones

 

Roxy 75 (Going Back)

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band."  

Opening with Thunder Road (solo piano) > Tenth-Avenue Freeze Out

Encore: Going Back. Played all 5 nights at the Roxy. And never played again. #Hobo-era #70s #LA

Thunder Road (1958)

Mood (on a friday night in december)

(i slipped on some stairs carrying my dog) bruce played this five straight night in LA 75. never played it again.

In Hiding

Shame, art, and hope in 2018 for my particular age group.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/im-broke-and-friendless-and-ive-wasted-my-whole-life.html?fbclid=IwAR3Eo3rjhV1lwgouxRrOokyYCcu4HdwWRL1KSp-rZ6-0eUvZg9HFt0I1NS8

A Star Is Born (Again)

A Star Is Born

Smoke Break (Mayor & Bozo)

Circumcision (Pollock, 1946)

Exodus (Wojciech Kilar, 1981)

Mara/Phoenix

Roger Ebert (on Tree Of Life)

Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life's experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer "to" anyone or anything, but prayer "about" everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.

Boat Landing, Dinnard (Maurice Prendergast, 1914)

NYC Underground 80s

Lady Bird by Jason Polan

Inspired by Malika Favre

Inspired by Takashi Murakami

PTA's Phantom Thread Pre-Show Playlist (70mm Screenings)

1. “Blue Sands” – The Chico Hamilton Quintet
2. “Portrait of My Love” – Cyril Ornadel & Starlight Symphony
3. “You’re So Vain” – Carly Simon
4. “Dolly Suite, Op. 56: I. Berceuse” – Gabriel Fauré, Katia Labèque
5. “I’ll Always Be in Love with You” – Helen Forrest
6. “I’m Making Believe” – Ella Fitzgerald & The Ink Spots
7. “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” – Roberta Flack
8. “Nobody Does It Better” – Carly Simon
9. “Impression of a Princess” – Danish State Radio Orchestra & Robert Farnon
10. “My Ship” – Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle
11. “Razor Love” – Neil Young
12. “Suspicions” – Bernard Herrmann
13. “Thirteen (Alternate Mix)” – Big Star
14. “Coming Around Again” – Carly Simon
15. “Portrait of Jenny” – Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle
16. “Two Blind Loves” – Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra, Kitty Kallen
17. “I’m On Fire” – Bruce Springsteen
18. “Three Little Words” – Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra
19. “Stay (feat. Mikky Ekko)” – Rihanna
20. “Lord of the Manor” – The Everly Brothers
21. “Come Sunday” – Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle
22. “XO” – Beyoncé
23. “Farewell (from the film The Constant Nymph)” – Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Altman in 2018/1975

I think Altman is, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the great poets of failure. His real attraction is to that secret underside of the American dream: humiliation, embarrassment, loss of status, and the abiding anxiety the fear of these produces. 
-- Molly Haskell on NASHVILLE

David Hockney at Home

Three Musicians (Pablo Picasso)

USA Today Baseball Weekly

Cat Watching a Spider by Ôide Tôkô (Japanese, 1841–1905) (album leaf; ink and colour on silk)

Brawl on Cell Block 99 (Dir. S. Craig Zahler)

God Damn! God Damn!! God Damn!!!

The violence in the film, especially toward the end, is intensely shocking and graphic. Given that “do it on the set” attitude, did you stick with practical effects?

One hundred percent practical effects. There is nothing there that’s not practical. It’s the same thing: make it happen on the day, and figure it out. A couple of moments fell a little short, and we went back and did a little pick-up shoot after the movie was done. But it’s the same idea of how to affect the audience. My feeling is, if it’s a digital effect that doesn’t look entirely real, which is the case in $150 million movies, there’s nothing there, and you can feel it. If it’s a practical effect and it looks pretty good, but not 100 percent right, you can still feel there’s something real there. Maybe all the qualities aren’t completely right, the audience says, “That’s a little rubbery,” but there’s still something to talk about. Whereas when it’s digital and it doesn’t work, your mind goes, “Well, it’s all computers.” It’s a different thing on a subconscious level. It’s the same reason I try to have as few edits as possible in my movies, because every edit is a suspension of disbelief.

Pasiphaë (1945) -- André Masson (b.1896)

Woody Guthrie New Years Rulin's 1943

Hamilton -- November 4th, 1977

Homecoming (Colgate University)

Set 1
Bertha
Good Lovin'
Brown-Eyed Women
Cassidy
It Must Have Been The Roses
Sunrise
New Minglewood Blues
Dupree's Diamond Blues**
Let It Grow

Set 2
James Gang Intro
Samson & Delilah
Cold Rain & Snow
Playing in the Band
Eyes of the World
Estimated Prophet
Other One
Drums
Iko Iko
Stella Blue
Playing in the Band (Reprise)

Encore
Johnny B. Goode

Notes:
a dosed show
band is wearing sunglasses
dupree's has a jingly, jangly fresh good feel. 1st set highlight
super fast too rushed eyes

Madison, WI - February 3rd, 1978 ("Hygge")

...well i married me a wife, she's been trouble all my life...
the good ol' grateful dead at the dane county coliseum
seahawks/lions wildcard (one more) saturday night


Set1
Cold Rain & Snow
They Love Each Other
Looks Like Rain
Brown Eyed Woman
The Music Never Stopped

Set 2
Estimated Prophet
Eyes of the World
Playing in the Band->
The Wheel->
Playing in the Band
Johnny B. Good

Madison Square Garden - December 29th, 2013

It's early January. It's frigid. This set remains hot.

(Wildcard football -- the hapless Texans with Brock Osweiller beating the hapless Raiders with third string Connor Cook)

Set 2

Down With Disease

Carini

Waves

Twist

Golgi Apparatus

David Bowie

Encore:

Possum

Manchester By The Sea/Nocturnal Animals

Friday double feature. Strangely complementary. Each more compelling viewed in tandem.

Arrival/Allied

Double Feature at the AMC Castletown 14. $10 matinee ticket. $6 fountain soda. Reserved lazy boy seats.

Left the theater with a headache.

Why the Band's 'The Last Waltz' Is the Greatest Concert Movie of All Time

THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD!

And then we begin at the end, with the weary members of the Band shuffling onstage to hoarse cheers. "You're still here, huh?" asks guitarist Robbie Robertson. "We're gonna do one more song, and that's it." Drummer Levon Helm stretches; bassist Rick Danko smokes a cigarette and wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. They've been at this five or more hours now, poring through their back catalog and backing every celebrity guest along for the ride. Along with pianist Richard Manuel and multi-instrumental mastermind Garth Hudson, they tear into a funky "Don't Do It," their customized cover of Marvin Gaye's "Baby Don't You Do It." After the last note, Robertson says, "Good night. Goodbye." Exit, stage left.

Graham often said that Scorsese and company "missed it," because the lack of attention paid to the people who paid their $25 to dig Bob Dylan looking like, per Roberston, "a Christ in a white hat." There was no sense of community, he griped. But there's an incredible sense of the community onstage that gets captured by making this a performance film first and foremost, and that was exactly what Scorsese was after. The director wasn't interested, he said, in showing two girls giggling and then cutting to Rick Danko looking like a Tiger Beat pin-up; he wanted to see Helm shooting Danko a glance as they lock into the beat and go into the bridge of "Ophelia." It's as cinematic a rendering of the alchemy that musicians – and especially those five Band members – produce when they're caught in that spotlight. 

Even if you don't know that The Last Waltz actually begins with the show's final number, you sense the one-more-for-the-road vibe. It's the film's very last musical interlude, however, that reminds you that you've watched both an extraordinary concert movie and something more than that. As the group plucks out the instrumental "Last Waltz Suite," the movie pulls back from Robertson's guitar to include Danko on an upright bass; we rotate and Manuel, playing a lap-steel guitar, comes in to the frame, as does Helm on mandolin and Hudson behind a bank of organs. They're playing together. The film is still playing it loud. The movie and the music are fused now. The camera pulls back farther and farther, until the shadows of these men loom larger, very large over the musicians themselves. Right before the credits roll, the Band have become dwarfed by the darkness around them, but they still keep playing. Until they don't. Good night. Goodbye.

'The Last Waltz' Is The Best Thanksgiving Movie Ever Made

"They are weary men who find the wherewithal to transcend their weariness and approach grace.

This is what keeps me coming back to The Last Waltz every Thanksgiving. It affirms the faith in the power of ritual to heal."

Grateful Dead -- Fillmore East 5.15.70 (Early Show)

a cold, november evening. a warm, acoustic set (around the fireplace).  

setlist
don't ease me in
i know you rider
ain't it crazy (the rub)
friend of the devil
long black limousine
candyman
cumberland blues
new speedway boogie
cold jordan (w/ new riders)

Horace & Pete: Episode 10

louis ck just laid down the gauntlet
cue "america"
"that's a wrap on horace & pete, everybody."

---------------------------------------------------------

Several days later from the finale, still upsetting.
Completely of it's time. America in 2016. Angry, sad, confused. Broken. Yet full of a beating heart.
Summoning the subversive, messy spirit of Robert Altman. (Now if only we could have a voice from my generation step up.)

Look Out Cleveland!

A storm is coming in july.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Act of Love/Fuckin* Up (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

1995 w/ Pearl Jam

The Limey (Soderbergh, 1998)

Grateful Dead - Ripple (Radio City Music Hall, 10.30.80)

"If I Knew the Way I Would Take You Home"

Phish - Amsterdam (Paradiso 7.2.97)

Set 2
Stash->
Llama>
(Wormtown Jam>)
Wading In The Velevet Sea

Encore
Free
David Bowie

Notes:
Stash (from 15:00 onwards...) canon of phish sets.

Golden State -- East Troy, Wisconsin (9.4.11)

I miss Los Angeles.

Make America Great Again (Illma Gore)

Morning Dew (covered by The National)

(pastiche of sonic youth/velvet underground with leonard cohen. i dig it. no i don't. it's flacid.)

New Speedway Boogie (covered by Courtney Barnett)

Touch of Grey (covered by War On Drugs)

Horace & Pete: Episode 9

Ann:
Well, how am I supposed to make that happen?

Tom:
You can't. Not by looking for it. That's why they call it 'falling in love.' See, you can't fall on purpose. See I, I used to be an actor and I, uh, took a class on falling...trying to make it look like I fell...and [uh] still trying... I must've fallen over about a thousand times. Tryin' to make it look like an accident. And I couldn't do it. So...um...I quit being an actor.

Ann:
Well, that's not any help. I mean...I mean what is a person supposed to do?

Tom:
Well,  you just accept. Just accept the fact that, that love is rare, and it probably won't happen to you. Ever.

Ann:
Is that what you do? You just accept it?

Tom:
No. (laughs to himself) No I, uh, walk around brokenhearted. (Pause) and I, I get drunk. I mean I hate being alone. (Beat) Some day it'll kill me.

Garry Shandling

"The world is too noisy and distracted to probably ultimately survive. Everyone needs to shut the fuck up. The answers are in the silence. Monks set themselves on fire to protest and to make this point. Just consider it."

A Note From Louis C.K. On A Saturday Morning (on the media)

A lot of shitty things happened in the world this week. Or, I suppose, to be more accurate, the news is full of shitty things. (That sentence had too many commas in it. In fact it still does.)

Shitty things happen all over the world every day. But which ones I'm aware of is a combination of what web sites make I seek out, based on a combination of who I choose to trust and where I get the most potent "hit" of satisfaction or whatever the part of me that I'm feeding craves.

Whenever a terrible thing happens in the world and you go to a news site to read about it, and they have a video of the terrible thing, there's this strange experience when (if) you click on the video, which is that before you watch the awful thing, they show you a little advertisement. Just for that little awful video. Sometimes it's very cheerful.

When the news used to be a single broadcast that you would watch on television, with commercial breaks. There was a sense that these companies bought advertising to pay for the news to be brought to you.

But now with sponsorship of individual moments of suffering, presented to comfortable gawking consumers, it feels like someone died in a far away place (so you don't have to!) and now you get to watch. And it's brought to you by Geico! 
The thing that's hard to avoid is that where there is money to be made, money will be made there. When the news is juicy, we buy more Snapple.

The truth is that the news, if you're really paying attention, is complex and boring. I often set a goal for myself that I'm only going to read the news in the news paper and to stay away from Internet news. Because the stuff that goes up on the sites is immediate, brash and badly reported. They just scoop it and slop it and chuck it. The news paper has limited space. And they have until morning to get it to you. So there's more thought put into it. Internet news is heroin. Newspaper news is nutrition. That's MY view. Don't get all mad. I'm just sharing.  I'm sure there are other avenues to the truth that are web based. When I walk into the coffee places where they are literally using lab equipment and glass beakers to make the perfect coffee, I get the sense that the young people sitting at the tables are reading blogs and sites that are quiet and thoughtful. My daughter reads a cocktail of blogs on her favorite subjects, knowing they each have a bias, and averages them out to find her truth.

But I'm 48. I actually remember Walter Cronkite reporting that Apollo Soyuz was orbiting and if you live in the north east you could look up and see white and red blinking lights together and that was them. And I ran out into my front yard in Newton Massachusetts and I saw. Wow. Now of course that was probably an airplane and maybe it was Dan Rather. And also I'm a liar.

Anyway I guess the more and more we share the day's news, the more we still have each our own personal way to see it. And to decide what's important. And what you think and feel about it.

I really hope that I didn't irritate anyone with this email.

Please watch episode 9 of Horace and Pete.
Louis

Songs from Georgia, KCRW (12.27.95)

Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Doe, & Smokey Hormel on KCRW and special guest Barbara Turner.

Setlist:
Buckets of Rain
There She Goes Again
I'll Be Your Mirror
Almost Blue
Yosel, Yosel

Georgia - Take Me Back (Ulu Grosbard, 1995)

Jennifer Jason Leigh & Mare Winningham.
(note: this full version will be taken down at some point)