Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave"

I am failing miserably at my New Year's resolution of seeing one movie a month in the theater (in an attempt to have a life outside of school and art). Not only is it a luxurious form of escape, but highly influential in my creative process. I will try to complete the unlikely task/dream/goal of viewing twelve this year by packing in six in the next few weeks (providing that they come to a theater near the hinterland though I have been known to drive three hours in one direction to see a film). Last weekend, I met Amelia in Indy to see one of the most challenging movies, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave.

There are many scenes that will remain with me for a very long time: 1) Chitwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northrup hanging from a noose for hours with his feet barely touching the slick, muddy ground; 2) the most authentic and brutal beatings, a constant reminder of how difficult this movie was to watch (let alone make), and 3) the men, women and children bathing in the gray morning light before they are shipped to Louisiana from Washington DC, not yet knowing their fate.

One of the most memorable scenes is also the most subtle. It is one of complete stillness: Solomon staring past the viewer, pausing in the middle of activity, while the swampland behind him slowly shifts in the breeze. All the humiliation, the hopelessness, the fear and the pain is visible in his face. It is a profound moment, where seemingly nothing happens, but everything is about to change. We know then that twelve years of hell are about to end but we do not yet know how.

As hard as this was to watch (it was not only a tearjerker but a near sobbing experience), it was well worth it. Thank you, Steve McQueen, for 12 Years a Slave. Thank you, Chitwetel Ejiofor, for bringing such life to Solomon Northrup. I love the fact that an English video artist with a cast of predominantly English actors made one of the memorable films on American slavery.

Screen Capture

One moment ago, two disparate actions (scanning an image from Ron Jude's Lick Creek Line and simultaneously watching the documentary Beautiful Losers) aligned to create this:

Another Day in LA

Oh the photographs one can take at a 826 store!


The very hard to capture without a glare entry window at the Time Travel 826LA in Silver Lake.


JR and the dinosaur eggs behind sliding glass doors


Just in case I ever decide to open one of my McSweeney's subscriptions, this is what the inside of the head box contains.


Beer bellies in the terrarium.


No one can beat these doughnuts - one year old or 26 years of age, they are the winners of this vacation's search.


Moving on down the street... if it wasn't a 99 cent store, it might as well be.


The pigs may have had help in the arranging of this photograph.


The nearby bookstore also on Sunset that featured this lovely zine cover introducing...


... the LA River near Adam's house. Egrets, herons, and...


... clever graffiti.


Jack Nicholson in Chinatown at Silver Lake in 1974.


Silver Lake 37 years later.


Cats on a "No Parking" sign and...


... DIY handicapped parking stencil (?).

San Diego: The Quick Recap

I haven't uploaded the photographs from the Canon yet so these are quick i-Phone snaps of somewhat art related activities.



Recreating The Shining at the Hotel del Coronado.





... then The Great Gatsby.



In 1959, Some Like It Hot was released. Here is a photograph of Marilyn standing in front of the Hotel del Coronado and an image of the display case dedicated to the event:





One of several swimming pools photographed this week at the Poway Ramada.



I also saw some animals at the San Diego Zoo.



Now it's off to LA.

Four Quick Thoughts on Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life"

The still from this brief scene above may very well be one of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen filmed. Incidentally, the trailer is embedded below so two different versions of this image are in this post = I really loved that scene!


Dinosaurs did not have to make an appearance (and paraphrasing Amelia: except in Jurassic Park, do they ever need to make an appearance?).


Doppelgangers: If ever there is a bio-pic made of Ed Ruscha, Sean Penn should get the part.



It's worth seeing. Thankfully beautiful cinematography (Hamilton Pool and Barton Springs = hello last year's cake floats!) overrides some fundamental problems with the movie itself. A review of the film can be found here.

"The Cave of Forgotten Dreams"

Caves, caves, caves... in Columbus, Ohio with Amelia, Drew, and Maura.


Olafur Eliasson, The Caves Series: Looking Out, 1998


Olafur Eliasson, The Caves Series: Looking In, 1998

There are three movies I have been looking forward to this summer (so much so that I drove to Columbus, Ohio yesterday to see one of them). Werner Herzog's The Cave of Forgotten Dreams was first on the list (next up Terrence Malick's Tree of Life and Miranda July's The Future):



I have been enamored by these caves since I first read this article in the New Yorker in 2008. "...the End Chamber, a spectacular vaulted space that contains more than a third of the cave’s etchings and paintings—a few in ochre, most in charcoal, and all meticulously composed. A great frieze covers the back left wall: a pride of lions with Pointillist whiskers seems to be hunting a herd of bison, which appear to have stampeded a troop of rhinos, one of which looks as if it had fallen into, or is climbing out of, a cavity in the rock. As at many sites, the scratches made by a standing bear have been overlaid with a palimpsest of signs or drawings, and one has to wonder if cave art didn’t begin with a recognition that bear claws were an expressive tool for engraving a record—poignant and indelible—of a stressed creature’s passage through the dark."

From the New York Times movie review: "The cave was discovered in December 1994 by three French cavers, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire. Following an air current coming from the cliff, they dug and crawled their way into the cave, which had been sealed tight for some 20,000 years. After finally making their way to an enormous chamber, Ms. Deschamps held up her lamp and, seeing an image of a mammoth, cried out, “They were here,” a glorious moment of discovery that closed the distance between our lost human past and our present."

It was my first experience with 3-D and there were parts of it I really enjoyed but many I didn't. Hand held cameras, especially used while walking, are enough to make me motion sick for days and in 3-D, it was a very difficult experience. I would close my eyes for a little bit as I couldn't look away due to the the glasses and open them ten minutes later realizing I had fallen asleep.

3-D was at its best when the camera moved slowly over the drawings in the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc - truly some of the most magnificent artwork I've ever seen filmed. It is great to see this technology used with something artistic and I hope this is the beginning of many more serious 3-D movies to come.

Highlights of Herzog's film include: evidence of cave bears and the calcite deposits covering their vertebrae; the characters Herzog always manages to find - a circus juggler turned archaeologist, an "experimental archaeologist" dressed in a reindeer outfit on a seemingly warm day who plays a flute made of a vulture bone, a master perfumer who sniffs the earth looking for cave openings; and the couple holding the photograph in the cave after Herzog orders everyone to be silent.

Afterward, there was pizza (shockingly a piece still exists in my fridge over 24 hours later!) and the best ice cream ever and the long drive home. I did manage to work one hour today too. Thursday was indeed my weekend.