for 4.25.07

Goshogaoka...well, considering i fell asleep twice and lost a contact my viewing experience wasn't too awesome. i tried to appreciate what she was doing but i couldnt figure it out. i got the idea from her disucssion that she wanted to show something real in itself. then why have the choregrapher? im not sure if that made it more interesting or not. but then its also interesting that she keeps us asking that same question throughout the entire film which could have also been one of her motives.
i feel as though she chose this basketball team because of their already presesnt chemistry, relationship and structure with one another. i also really liked the space, for instance the squeaking of the shoes, how thier movement and voices echoed and how the curtain moved as they ran by.
im not sure if i would necessarily call this a documentary..just because you are not sure what is choreographed...but at the same time i thought that it might just be about the girls themselves as a group and how they work in their space and not about what they do...
hmm..im not sure if that makes any sense..
*shrugs*

for 4.16.04

before i get onto good ol' hammy and circus can i just say today was totally fabulous? it was def a dairy queen day fo sho. im not sure how much more i can deal with this whole school thing and its only going to get harder with going on bEAUtiful days like today....cha..well anyways..

"Notes on Circus"
i think the best way i can describe how i feel about this film is that it is a good representation of a memory...if that makes any sense..i know that mekas is know for his film diaries and this is apart of it..but i think that this is how memories look in our head, very choppy and all over the place. (and i dig the kazoo jams)

"Hamilton"
so i guess this is suppose to be a comparison to D'est? well, i dont think so at all..i mean i suppose i can see some simliarities just because its pretty much a collection of images and it has the same idea of "looking" but all the footage with D'est had so much depth even though the clips werent very long. the characters chosen for D'est were so much more interesting even without the dialogue. after discussion i appresciated it a little more because of the whole "feeling the passing of time" aspect which is pretty cool looking back.
what confused me a little (a lot) is that carl told us that this film was about "family grouping" first of all i dont even know exactly what that means?(help?)
out of the entire film some of my favorite parts include:
the grandma and the little boy picking flowers, the awkward car ride, joe and the little boy riding their bikes and at the end when joe and lena are sitting in the back of the truck. why these images intrigued me over all others im not exactly sure...other than the fact that the grandma talk about flowers the way my grandma talks about yogurt (and their weird obsession with it) "i love flowers because...when im sad i pick a flower..flowers make people happy.."yadda yadda yadda and my grandma "you know what would fix that? YOGURT...i make my own yogurt...when you take an antibiotic it not only kills the bad bacteria but also the good bacteria so you know how you can replenish those good bacterias? YOGURT" (and this goes on for hours..im not over exaggerating..and shes totally sane too...) so i can level with that scene, along with the awkward car ride between the mother and son...hell....i felt weird just WATCHING it..


grraaaAAAAA my contacts are dry...

woo yyaaa midterrm tomorroooww...

so..midterm tomorrow...
i think its a good time to do some catch up blogging eh?
(bout damn time i know)
allllllrighty then
im dishin' it ouuut and going waayy back


lets start with So Is This
im not going to lie, i zonked out for like 2 minutes..but i couldnt help myself..its not because i wanted to just that i dont think its physically possible to..black screen....dark room..slience..*eyes get droopy* flashing letters...ttireereedd *passes out on keyboard*
but if youll believe me i thought it was pretty interesting and funny. usually when i felt my eyes getting a little heavy something like CUNT would pop on the screen and it would wake me up.
its amazing how words can be so loud without any sound.....


alllright..Variations.
i remember Carl describing Dorsky as a "collector of images" who kept a "diary of the world around him" after reviewing my notes and seeing this i automatically thought of D'est. i think these two films have a lot in common especially because of the "see it as if it were the first time" idea that was brought up in discussion. one of the big differences though is that D'est seemed to get more (up close and) personal with people which made it so much more dramatic and/or intriguing (with a big help from the sound making it so real as if you were there); yet with Variations he made it just as dramatic with leaving these factors out and left us with an image with no distractions. Dorsky shot it at 18fps to open the images up to us even more and allow us to look at these everyday images with new eyes.
here are some images that jotted down..(random thoughts included)
- two dogs: one smaller dog very poise and dainty tied down somewhere in the city. he sees something thats getting him excited. a closeup of an older dog with sad eyes. these images along with one other are the only images that recognize the camera
-plastic bag: its amazing how the camera is able to follow and flow with the bag and its movement
-man staring back at the camera: i had a weird connection with this image. he had really intense, sad eyes
-bug on the water hose while water is flowing: i kept waiting for the bug to be taken away by the water
-children playing at the lake: i like how this was image was shot from their point of view ie we only saw up to the adults knees
-the female foot (red shoe) stepping: this was a very quick shot but i like how he focused on the roll of the foot but doesnt allow it to follow through to a complete step
chachachhhha
NEXT!

Wot the Ancient Sod
did anyone else see faces in the leaves?
*shrugs*

Market Street
this is pretty much amazing. i couldnt help but asking myself "how the hell did he do that?" throughout the entire screening. i especially like the night lights at the end..and
not that it really needs it but i almost feel like i would have enjoyed it even more if he included a crazy of city noises or the noises that were present during the filming (unless he was going for the whole Dorsky thing...)

i think i need some popcorn...

bbaacckk in the saaddlllee aggaaaiiiinn

yyyea i know..this is totally overdue
sorry about that
weeell here gooesss

so d'est...if someone were to ask me whether or not i would think a film with random long clips of people and places would be interesting and/or something i would like to sit through for 110 minutes i would probably give them a thinking scrunchy face look with a "pprroobbablly not". but for some reason d'est intrigued me. the places, sounds and images were so...raw (in lact of a better word). its kind of hard to describe how i felt about this. well, have you ever had a moment when you just sit somewhere, say for instance on a train, and you totally zone out and are observant of everything going on around you? the people... and thinking where they might be going or who they are, the noises of the train and the doors opening and closing, and just paying attention to the landscape and really, really looking at it, as if you don't need to be in work in 5 minutes, but just stop and just look. you know what im talking about? mmaayybbaayy..i don't know i have weird moments like that..and whenever i feel like this i always think. "wow, i kind of wish i could film/take a picture of this"..(im a big cornball)..but since its so simple and its one of those things that are so common that people would overlook it and probably not appreciate it for what it iss..
well, anyways...if Akerman was doing what i think he was doing....i get it.
two of my favorite images were the ones where he jsut focused on one person..for instance the woman with the record player, the two young girls in the bedroom..with one staring out into space and the other applying a ridiculous amount of lipstick, and my favorite one the man sitting in his kitchen table forking up whatever he was eating. the image and the sound of the man sitting there kind of made me smile but kind of sad..(?)..im not sure why exactly, whether he reminded me of my grandpa or just the simplicity of it..from what he was wearing..to the sounds the fork was making on the plate as he was cutting into it. but when you see these people, you just want to know more. WHY is he eating alone, WHY does she feel as though she needs to apply lipstick for 5 mintues? WHO are the girls in relation to one another?
and i think that because these images make us ask these questions...and all the images came with questions..your mind begins to come up with possibilities. so it seems that for that 5min (whatev) clip you rationalize what you think is going on because you have no resolution..to who they are, where are they, what are they doing type thing. so..as wierd as it might seem..i found myself making up scenerios in my head for every clip as if it were its own movie.
hmm examples...
well..the old man- his wife had recently died and this is his first breakfast alone
outside city image with a train stopping at the right side of the screen with people getting on it- a group of friends getting together to go to a play or some tacky love story
the beach image in the begining where the itsy bitsy bottom wearing men are playing frisbee in the distance- for some reason i thought of Jaws...and i was trying to figure out if that mans crack was really hanging out?
anyways you get what im saying
or!
i like the images where the viewer is the character..(in what i was talking about before..)
liiiikke..that one where its dark out and we're looking onto a street with a whole bunch of cars with their lights on, changing lanes and beeping..for that one you feel as though your in the back of a car..probably somewhere new, or that your unfamiliar too...looking back
weird? *shrugs*
i especially like the images at the train station (inside and outside)...i think this one goes back to the whole people watching thing..people are interesting..especially if you know nothing about them and esssppecaiilyy if they are somewhere that you are unfamiliar to whether it be time or location.
...woo d'est.......so yea, interesting...
because i have been MIA from here i also want to make a quick comment on a film we watched on the 12th..the Every Bad Film one? the one with the big white circle and the black dot blinking in and out (on and off?).......that the best i can describe it....but anyways i really liked that one too. it made me feel as though i was being hypnotized by aliens.
later folks
-laura