Saturday, January 11, 2014

spike jonze

If anyone reads this on Saturdays, there are two excellent art openings tonight, both starting at 6. Tim White has a new painting in a group show at Elliot Fouts and Future Art Notables have a show, "Gal Pals" at Delta Workshop. I really like Delta Workshop so that's a good reason to go, too.

Man, getting more and more bummed on Bows closing. I wish I had gone there a bit more. Sometimes it would fall of my radar a little bit, but everything does that. I had this phase of going to Lowbrau constantly and then not for like two months and now am back to occasionally. Aren't my habits fascinating psych.

There's a No Bunny show in Sac on the 19th. Starts at 5, which is awesome for a sunday show. Although the next day is a holiday so I will be going to soul night for sure. if you haven't been, I'd say that it's the most sac dance night perhaps next to old school lipstick. mixed races, mixed ages, sweaty crowd, it's awesome. speaking of dance nights, an old blogpost post (4 years but it seems like longer) about oh dang surfaced recently. Those ladies (and Rafter) really killed it with that thing. I only went to like 1 or 2 and didn't really cut loose, but it was packed with people having a super good time. Now I know how hard this is to pull off. One thing they did right was only had it a few times a year. I should do that with heckarap but since they want us to do it more and it's fun I have been caving on that. We have one in Feb and March.

Also, quite a few of the people behind making oh dang so rad have moved away. But really wow. The trip to me is how many of these people I didn't really know or barely knew that I know now. Probably mostly through OC.

I saw Her last night. I really liked it. Very thoughtful movie. ScarJo was actually perfect for the role of the disembodied voice. I used to think she was a terrible, stiff actress. She's better now but the fact that I thought this was her best acting ever shows that I think it's more her stiff or artificial physicality that makes her not as good as she could be. Maybe she'll grow into it. Maybe her stunning looks and the fact that people have been staring at her probably since she was a teen contribute to this?

My favorite thing about it was how, because she was a disembodied voice, there romance was much more talking and laughing than just having sex, which is shorthand for love in most movies. Think about how romantic some woody allen movies are and what's his most iconic love scene ever (and not only his most but any group of critics would agree probably one of the top 5 romantic movie moments in film)? Alvy and Annie Hall laughing in the kitchen when the lobster escapes. Those moments are really what a relationship is about. If you can't laugh and talk forever you are screwed. Scott and I just chatting about comic strips can be my favorite part of the day. BTW, Crankshaft is having a really shitty storyline right now where he is joking about using agent orange and napalm on weeds. wow, insensitive. luann it having a gross story line about blueballs. why isn't she having sex with her boyfriend? she's in college.

I can't help but compare Spike Jonze really favorably to Wes Anderson. They both have fussy visual styles but Jonze doesn't let his overwhelm the movie and make it feel precious. And the music doesn't overwhelm either. Anderson tries to use songs as shortcuts to emotion and it's cheap. I loved Rushmore just as much as anyone else, and liked the last one, but his movies are not very affecting.


5 comments:

yolkie said...

Right when Her was affecting me the most, Gabe turns to me and says, "This movie sucks." It totally crushed me. I felt like so much of Joaquin's dialogue was just really honest thoughts and emotions coming straight out of the mouth of Spike Jonze. It felt so honest and sincere and (maybe subconsciously) a response to Lost In Translation and the feelings that Sophia had about their relationship. I'm not sure if I liked the movie but it is really staying with me and making me think about things. Which is all I could hope for.

You are right about Wes Anderson. Everything since Rushmore lacks a lot of feeling. He keeps adding more and more characters and is allowing the look to come first. Also, I could write a whole essay on how poorly he is writing female characters.

Stephen Glass said...

Sometimes I think I'm more a massive fan of "Rushmore" rather than Wes Anderson overall, because in my opinion he's never come too close to equaling that one in 16 years.

DB said...

Strangely enough, ScarJo's voice was actually looped into the role later. Samantha Morton was originally cast, and was the actress present on set:

"Much of Her rests on the believability of Samantha, the incorporeal title character. When I visit the set in Los Angeles, she is being played by the British actress Samantha Morton."

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/spike-jonze-on-making-her.html

Anonymous said...

Man, I have all kinds of feelings during Tenenbaums, the Life Aquatic and Darjeeling. But I think that speaks even more to the fact that Wes Anderson's point of view is so...male. At this point I'm happy to watch his movies for purely aesthetic reasons. He does it so well.

-Cody

beckler said...

I have respect for the fact that it makes people feel stuff and that they love him for sure. I just don't get it. It's not like if everyone I know was like "the transformers series are my favorite movies in the world". I like bottle rocket a lot. second fave after rushmore