He wakes up. He fell asleep to the sound of a woman telling him that he was flying up into space as whale song danced in his ears. He is refreshed but confused. He cannot remember if he dreamed it. He cannot remember if he is happy that a meditation tape is helping him to sleep. Did it help him sleep or did he just go to sleep anyway. He does not know. He eats a biscuit with an egg and chorizo…
Tag: movies
Another Day.
He wakes up. He fell asleep to the sound of a woman telling him that he was flying up into space as whale song danced in his ears. He is refreshed but confused. He cannot remember if he dreamed it. He cannot remember if he is happy that a meditation tape is helping him to sleep. Did it help him sleep or did he just go to sleep anyway. He does not know. He eats a biscuit with an egg and chorizo…
Another Day.
He wakes up. He fell asleep to the sound of a woman telling him that he was flying up into space as whale song danced in his ears. He is refreshed but confused. He cannot remember if he dreamed it. He cannot remember if he is happy that a meditation tape is helping him to sleep. Did it help him sleep or did he just go to sleep anyway. He does not know. He eats a biscuit with an egg and chorizo sausage and he reads the news and the news is not happy it is sad and full of fear and anger. He reads a book about the 100 years war and it is full of human error and misunderstandings. He watches some movies all of which deal with flawed humanity. Humanity. Floored Humanity. Flouride Humility. Brush your teeth. Brush your teeth. If they fall out you will die. The tooth fairy will make a castle out of them and become the Tooth Queen.He draws some things. He takes some photographs. He lies down and falls asleep and then wakes up. It is still sunlight out. Ted Cruz is getting ready to announce his candidacy for President. The internet is preparing it’s jokes. He eats sushi. He writes more of his great American Novel. He goes to sleep.
Culture of Illusion – Bad Movie Idea #413
Summer Camp Cops
Al Pacino is a washed up cop who has to protect Zak Galifianakis, an idiot-savant, who is close to solving the biggest serial killing spree of the last 25 years.
They hide out at a Summer Camp and go undercover as counsellors. Al Pacino’s estranged son is the Summer Camp gardener. Pacino, through his relationship with Galifianakis, learns to be a Father again. The serial killer turns out to be both the Police Chief and the Camp Leader working together. It ends with a big musical number.
1970s movie aesthetic and the phosphorescent tube.
I was talking with a friend about how much we love the way that American movies from the 1970s look. We rattled off a few of the macho gritty films that we loved; The French Connection, Black Sunday, Klute,Prime Cut; as much to show off our knowledge as to make our point about a particular film aesthetic. The washed out colours, the use in genre pictures of the new wave hand held camera that would become so derigeur, the location shooting outside on the cold streets of whatever city they happened to be in at the time; Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. This is how I came to know and love America before I moved here. The overwhelming of the senses through big architecture, big emotion, big human interaction. All of this, as it turns out, artificial and created for the films that I watched – but I was not to know this at the time. I had not yet experienced the boredom of America, it’s long empty roads of meaninglessness. I had not experienced it’s tired citizens and it’s angry indecision. I was ignorant of the simmering cauldron of anger that boiled below the surface; acting as threat and fuel to all the fine people of this nation. Recollecting the manner in which I watched these films I realised that I had seen most of these works, not at the cinema, with pristine new prints, but late night on British television with the volume down so as not to wake the rest of the house on a tiny set with poor colour correction, little contrast and the glow from the tubes that gave any hope of showing the directors vision short shrift. My understanding of the aesthetic had been totally false, filtered, by chance and the limitations of 1980s technology, into washed out pastels that had never been the intention of the filmmakers. It was not an America that had ever supposed to exist or an America that, now with the advent of Blu-ray and online movie stores, would ever exist again. Yet, even now, I recall with nostalgia, the hunched shoulders of Popeye Doyle as he swaggers down the street to save America from Europe’s heroine barons, the relentless stride of Lee Marvin as he tries to save Sissy Spacek from Gene Hackman, the obsessional drive of Robert Shaw to stop a terrorist attack on a football stadium. It just makes me realise that what we want others to see is not necessarily the thing that they will see and what we ourselves observe can be filtered through any manner of myriad devices, experiences, dreams and nightmares. Will anyone say the same of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I suspect not. Then my mind wanders to a deeper problem, beyond aesthetics and something that still exists, albeit in a more subtle way today. I was watching films where white men get things done, white men strive and fail; everyone else is a backdrop to their drama, their hopes and dreams. It is not the America I live in. It is not really an America that has ever existed. The America I live in is a kaleidoscope, shifting, pulsing and alive; archetype free with a story constantly in flux pushing relentlessly on into a future it knows, deep down, it has no control over. That is why I love America.
1970s movie aesthetic and the phosphorescent tube.
I was talking with a friend about how much we love the way that American movies from the 1970s look. We rattled off a few of the macho gritty films that we loved; The French Connection, Black Sunday, Klute,Prime Cut; as much to show off our knowledge as to make our point about a particular film aesthetic. The washed out colours, the use in genre pictures of the new wave hand held camera that would become so derigeur, the location shooting outside on the cold streets of whatever city they happened to be in at the time; Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. This is how I came to know and love America before I moved here. The overwhelming of the senses through big architecture, big emotion, big human interaction. All of this, as it turns out, artificial and created for the films that I watched – but I was not to know this at the time. I had not yet experienced the boredom of America, it’s long empty roads of meaninglessness. I had not experienced it’s tired citizens and it’s angry indecision. I was ignorant of the simmering cauldron of anger that boiled below the surface; acting as threat and fuel to all the fine people of this nation. Recollecting the manner in which I watched these films I realised that I had seen most of these works, not at the cinema, with pristine new prints, but late night on British television with the volume down so as not to wake the rest of the house on a tiny set with poor colour correction, little contrast and the glow from the tubes that gave any hope of showing the directors vision short shrift. My understanding of the aesthetic had been totally false, filtered, by chance and the limitations of 1980s technology, into washed out pastels that had never been the intention of the filmmakers. It was not an America that had ever supposed to exist or an America that, now with the advent of Blu-ray and online movie stores, would ever exist again. Yet, even now, I recall with nostalgia, the hunched shoulders of Popeye Doyle as he swaggers down the street to save America from Europe’s heroine barons, the relentless stride of Lee Marvin as he tries to save Sissy Spacek from Gene Hackman, the obsessional drive of Robert Shaw to stop a terrorist attack on a football stadium. It just makes me realise that what we want others to see is not necessarily the thing that they will see and what we ourselves observe can be filtered through any manner of myriad devices, experiences, dreams and nightmares. Will anyone say the same of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I suspect not. Then my mind wanders to a deeper problem, beyond aesthetics and something that still exists, albeit in a more subtle way today. I was watching films where white men get things done, white men strive and fail; everyone else is a backdrop to their drama, their hopes and dreams. It is not the America I live in. It is not really an America that has ever existed. The America I live in is a kaleidoscope, shifting, pulsing and alive; archetype free with a story constantly in flux pushing relentlessly on into a future it knows, deep down, it has no control over. That is why I love America.
Bad Movie Idea #413 – Camp Cops
Al Pacino is a washed up cop who has to protect Zak Galifianakis, an idiot-savant, who is close to solving the biggest serial killing spree of the last 25 years.
They hide out at a Summer Camp and go undercover as counsellors. Al Pacino’s estranged son is there and through his relationship with Galifianakis he learns to be a Father again. The serial killer turns out to be the police chief… or something.
Bad Movie Idea #413 – Camp Cops
Al Pacino is a washed up cop who has to protect Zak Galifianakis, an idiot-savant, who is close to solving the biggest serial killing spree of the last 25 years.
They hide out at a Summer Camp and go undercover as counsellors. Al Pacino’s estranged son is there and through his relationship with Galifianakis he learns to be a Father again. The serial killer turns out to be the police chief… or something.
The SleepCoat League Presents: 