Jason's Blog, page 166

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Buster Keaton is the effete son of a riverboat captain who falls in love with the daughter of a competing steamship captain. It's still a great film. It has the usual love story, but the film is also a father and son story, with Buster wanting recognition from his dad. The lack of sentimentality makes the film less dated than some Chaplin films, and Keaton's stoneface also makes the film strangely modern. There are lots of great scenes: The one where the wall falls on top of Keaton and he is saved by the window, of course, but also the buying the hat with his dad scene and the file in bread in the prison scene.

Pop songs, the 80s

Okay, let's get down to business. Top five pop songs of the eighties. Ah, let's make it top ten:

1. Perfect Skin by Lloyd Cole and The Commotion
2. Come On, Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners
3. Sally MacLennane by The Pogues
4. Centerfold by J. Geils Band
5. Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and The Waves
6. This Charming Man by The Smiths
7. Just Got Lucky by The JoBoxers
8. Roam by B52s
9. Let My People Go Go by The Rainmakers
10. Get Out of Your Lazy Bed by Matt Bianco

It's tough to choose! Where's Take on Me?! And I decided to go for rather poppier songs, so that means no In The Neighborhood by Tom Waits or Tinseltown in The Rain by The Blue Nile.

Buster Keaton

Happy birthday, Buster Keaton! He was born October 4, 1895. Which means that it's a good time to re-watch one of his films. I'll have to search among my dvds, but Steamboat Bill, Jr. is always a good choice.

David Sylvian

Top five David Sylvian / Japan records:
1. Secrets of the Beehive
2. Rain Tree Crow
3. Brilliant Trees
4. Gone to Earth
5. Tin Drum

Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities is also pretty good, at least what was the A side of the record.

Meow, baby!

Here's a page from a monthly Norwegian comic book of Gary Larson cartoons that had some other strips in the back. It's from 2003. I had a page in each issue.

Totem

The wraparound cover for a French fanzine about animal characters in comics, published by the comic book store La Bulle d'Or in Brussels, 2004.

Titanic

Why am I watching Titanic?? I felt like it, allright?! Leave me alone, will ya! I'll watch Titanic if I want to! I don't have to explain myself... I'll watch Last Year in Marienbad tomorrow, okay?! So, anyway... Written and directed by James Cameron

The film is some sort of pop art masterpiece. I wish Cameron had taken out some of the cheesiest lines, but asking for more three dimensional characters is kind of missing the point. I'm not sure if that would make it a better film. Actually, there should have been a scene of Billy Zane twirling his mustache. Well, he would have to grow a mustache for that. Cameron is very good in the way he introduces his female characters: Winslett in this film, Mastrantonio in The Abyss and Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. The film never drags, but they screw it up towards the end, trying hard not to make it too much of a bummer. The scene of old Rose throwing the diamond into the sea is clearly supposed to be a big, emotional moment, but... it's not. It's kind of silly. And really, Cameron, Celine Dion?!

The Exorcist

Linda Blair pees on the carpet, masturbates with a crucifix and is being rude to her mother, Ellen Burstyn. Max Von Sydow comes to the rescue. Directed by William Friedkin.

It's difficult not to notice how slow the film is. Slow seen with modern eyes, that is. The moody Iraq prologue lasts 10 minutes, for chrissake, the first bed shaking sequence comes at 45 minutes. If made today that would probably have been the first ten minutes of the film. It's slow, but we actually get to know the characters before shit starts to happen. One thing that gives the film its power is that Friedkin never shoots it as a horror film. The copy I have is the extended edition, so it also has the spiderwalk sequence. These early scenes of demonic possession are the most creepy ones. When they give Blair the makeup and start doing the different voices it actually gets less scary. I read somewhere that Jack Nicholson auditioned for the part of the young priest but Friedkin didn't want him, and I can't help but imagine how that film would have been.

Manhattan

Woody Allen can't choose between Diane Keaton and Mariel Hemingway. Also starring Meryl Streep, directed by Woody Allen.

The film looks great. There's the black and white cinematography by Gordon Willis, and Allen has found his directorial style here - the long takes and people walking in and out of the picture. But the characters are a bunch of whiny, rich people. It's a bit hard to care about them. If the film is supposed to be a satire of the Me Generation from the 70s, I guess it works a bit better. And it's a bit funny that the film ends with what is now the ultimate romantic comedy cliché: the rush to the airport or whatever for the declaration of love scene. So, in the end I find the more uneven early films more appealing. The fact that they were not perfect is part of what I like about them.

Lettering

Some handlettering for newspaper headlines found in the Bukowski story in Athos in America.