Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime

Guardian article with images from Lewis' latest film, and Lewis' comments on them.  Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime – in pictures.

And everything is going fine

We're just back from the premier of And Everything is Going Fine, @ MoMA, and let me urge you, friends, if you are anywhere near NYC when this film opens there in the coming week, GO SEE IT!  (Shameless promotion!  Amy Hobby!)  It is as though the man is in the room with you, from beginning to end.

What have you done with the Cobra jewels?

Wella. The party, she approaches. Don't know if M. Thatos will be there, but thinking about her this morning I remembered her fondness for Maria Montez.

What have you done with the other one, and why is Stumpster posting? Dunno. He's even stopped journaling at this point. Just making lists, and there's hardly ever more than 4 or 5 things on them.

Can dreams predict the future?

Juju dropped a note from the Berkeley hills to ask if that Gorilla Coffee uprising wasn't in our neighborhood here in the Brooklyn slopes, and I had to smile because (a) Yes, (b) we'd bought the silverbacked correspondent Gorilla gear and coffee before and put it in one of the never-mailed packets to him (later broken into for our own drinking, but I see there is still a double X Ike Turner T-shirt there...), and (c) I was just then brewing a little stovetop pot of coffee, not Gorilla because we'd used the last of it a day or two before and were switching to some very nice Italian gift coffee for a while.  This was all on that fine last Saturday, and I was sitting out back, but near the kitchen door and window and I could hear the coffee finishing, but was surprised not to smell it doing so.  Guess what?  When I went to pour, there was no there there.  Someone (!) forgot to add the coffee to the coffee pot.  Pretty sure I'd never done that before, and I had to wait a bit for the heat and vacuum of the Bialetti ease off before I could start again.  So, back out back where (d) I was finishing this decade's reading of Little Big, where someone (!) who had oft described this book as one of his favorites was in the end-throes of being shocked that he remembered the first 50 pages really well, and the last 25 pretty well, and was deep under water in vaguery about most of the intervening 500 or so.  How does that happen?  Why does it keep happening to moi? 

Anyway, I didn't weep over Smokey's death this decade.  I think maybe I've come to wear my own Smokeyness more comfortably.  We'll take another look in 2020 (and see, nyuk nyuk).  (Nyuk nyuk.  Who's there?)

And here's why I'm posting: to say that one of the films Lori (Lori Cheatle!) produced this past year, Amy Hardie's fab The Edge of Dreaming got itself written about glowingly at the Huffington Post, by Karin Badt: Can Dreams Predict the Future? Amy Hardie's New Documentary.

Watch thy neighbor watch

Nice NYTimes interactive graphics piece showing neighborhoods in large US cities, broken out by zip codes, and the Netflix rentals in each.  Full disclosure: no, we're not a Netflix family (but Netflix does rent movies that one of us makes.  Shouldn't you be renting more documentary films from Netflix?!).

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

OK, yes, everyone else saw it last year.  Sweetest movie I've seen in a long time.  Friendship and obsession and aging and metal on metal.  Anvil! The Story of Anvil.  Put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

like a visit from an old friend...

juju hisowndamnedself was laid up with a bit of a cold this weekend, and when we felt it coming, we dropped into our local video emporium to pick up some DVDs to watch. Lovely to come across recently released Criterion edition of Wim Wenders' marvelous film, Wings of Desire. A.O. Scott makes recent mention of the film at the NYT's Critic's Picks. Oncet upon a time juju's alter ego posted a d'monkey mention of WoD, if ye be interested look for the 6.27 link you'll find at this page...
damn, 1987?
Egads...

Purple rain, purple rain

NPR piece about last evening's Purple Rain screening and sing-along down the block. And, jah betcha, we were there. Most bestest stupidest fun. Wish you were there, too. Go crazy. I woke up today and I was still singing it, and started thinking, Hey, maybe I could play some of these tunes on the uke... (No.)

the esteemed Naomi Klein writes about...

Capitalism, Sarah Palin-style and 'tis worthy of a studied perusal
(as is Ms. Klein herowndarnedself...).
credit to Akkam's Razor for providing that nice chewy, chunky bit of linky goodness, and here be some others from the August 4th post there...

gosh, while we're at it (we = ju ju and his head full of imaginary friends), a review of Katherine Bigelow's The Hurt Locker from Kevin Murphy's Ghost in the Machine.

Back for a moment as we wanted to be sure to point ye to Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire and 10 Steps to Take to Do So, courtesy Tom Dispatch, but credit to the heads up on the linky goodness goes to Gordon Coale.

re that Blogger makes it Bigtime story involving...

movie called Julie and Julia or somesuch...
SO...
some young blogger gets bright idea to do all of Julia's recipes and blogs about it, gets bigtime book then movie deal (or sumptin' like dat), ennyway, now we have film about to hit the theatres featuring Ms. M. Streep as Julia alongside the lovely (and how!) Amy "Yum Yum Yum" Adams as the young blogger Julie.

Okay, so me a WEE tiny bit resentful (HAH!), nobody wants to make movie of aging silverback ape fella anyway, no matter his sexual peculiarities, but, jessferdahalibut, and as tribute to SNL of old, here's a great bit from back in the day featuring Danny Ackroyd as Julia...

quickie post on a wednesday morning...

inspired by the vid o' the moment there alongside, recalling working in the NoNo HQ bookstore and listening to NPR's The World, story about the retirement of bigtime rockstar of the French persuasion, Johnny Hallyday. As our personal homage to the French Elvis, we want to point you to film where we became a little better acquainted with the legend that is J. Hallyday, Man on the Train, and, as an aside, really be happy to recommend anything you might pick up directed by Patrice Leconte. Thanks for the vid, Esteban!

in response to that very recent and timely like a...

mo-fo post from El Stupendo Stumperino, via the New Yorker online, Hendrik Hertzberg's The Glorious Third.

ju ju and asst'd amigo/amigas spent some time in movie theatres this weekend, catching up with some recent releases. Saw Moon, liked it, sort of low key sci-fi non-actioner; Girl from Monaco, which puzzled us to some degree, as there was often some humourous stuff going on, leading us to think "oh, wee lightweight French comedy, and oh-so-very-French" but then events at end of film having us re-evaluate and go "Hmmmm, now what was THAT really about?". Best of three viewed was Kathryn Bigelow's new film, The Hurt Locker, of which we cannot say enough good things about. Meant a trip to the city where we caught early matinee at the Embarcadero theatre which was nearly a full house, as it is the only game in town as far as this release goes presently, and yourstruly not patient enough to wait until the 27th when it opens in the local Berkeley environs. We will try to shake that lazy sluggard Juicy Pernil out of his self-imposed slothfulness so he can tell ya more about what's been happening here in this wee tiny part of the leftest coast. OH!
almos forgot, some trailers that caught ju ju's eyes and have us looking forward to release of these films: In the Loop, and for electric guitar fans especially, It Might Get Loud (and we'll wager it does, too)...

oh, and 'fore we forget-
!!!iroL ot yad-B yppaH

hiya hiya...

summer is fully afoot now.
lovely 'round these parts presently, hope it be nice wherever ye be.

couple of things to share from the online greylady, altho' first we toot el chango tonto's horn (during a non-permalinking period) when he mentioned a bit about his dislike of a particular person by the name of rumsfeld (hie thyselves to the dm page of May '06 and seek out the 5.5 post, and now bring ye up to the present and review of recently published book on D. Rumsfeld. Oh, and don't we wish there was some authority that would bring miscreants like Rumsfeld and Cheney to task for...
nevermind, don't get ju ju started on this.
okay, now this one for those of us given to indulging our various appetites (in this case speaking of those food related lesser impulses)via The Well @NYTimes.com, How the Food Makers Captured our Brains.

ok, almos forgot, back here to pass along film recommendation from the esteemed G. Coale. the embedded vid included below discovered and supplied by Dante O. hisowndarnedself...

Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho - Funy Business, tonight at the Morgan Library

Hey, kids, we're going to see Lyda Ely's film, Funny Business, tonight, at the Morgan Library, where one of the current shows is On the Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker. There's a cocktail doo before the film, and I'm hoping to meet Roz Chast (images), though I can't imagine what I'll say except hummana hummana hummana.

forty year anniversary of Easy Rider...

wow...

caught sight of that news at some blog or another, you can look up your own item regarding this news via this googled link.
Just an aside here, recently viewed a film titled Elegy w/Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper, a long way from his role as Billy in Easy Rider.

manohman, was just an impressionable young buck of sixteen when I saw easy rider, the northgate theatre in ol' EPT...

Later that same day...
two wonderful pieces from two different sources, both worthy of thy studied perusal:
The Things That Carried Him by Chris Jones, courtesy Esquire Magazine online;
How David Beats Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell, via the online New Yorker.

29 to 29: Double-shameless promotion!

Old acquaintance Jon Kalish, who we posted about back in May, reviewed old acquaintance Kevin Rafferty's film Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, on All things considered this afternoon. Lori worked with Kevin's brother Pierce for a bunch of years at Petrified Films (RIP - that's RIP Petrified, not Pierce). Kevin and Pierce and Jane Loader made Atomic Cafe back in the beginning of the 80's.  You remember the 80's.  No?

(NYT article re 29-29.)

Hello, toytowngermany.com

Can't imagine why, but there's been a lot of referals from toytowngermany.com.  Howdy, folks, you are now my #1 favorite German cultural site.  Lota will be interested to know that the lead post when I looked was about the new film, Der Baader-Meinhoff Komplex.

Shameless namedropping and promoting of friends 080825

Having dinner out tonight with friends, including Ted Haimes and Stephen Westphall. Wicked funny fellows. I remember Westphall as the single most - what, entertaining? charming? appreciative? - dinner guest we've ever had at home, maybe 7 or 8 or 9 years ago now. Salt baked shrimp, as I recall, was one of the dishes. 2006 Brooklyn Rail interview of SW by John Yau.

will wager that stumpy, dante, mel & the rest o' the gang...

will take issue with the person responsible for this anti-NYC
(well, maybe more of an anti-New-York-I-Love-You-da-movie) piece...

& dem commen's iz woit da prizuh admishun

Patti Smith...

nyt review of Dream of Life;
mo' 'bout that here...
juju is big admirer of Patti Smith...