Friday, December 03, 2010

partake of the party steak

MidMo party tomorrow starting at 6. Bands. Masullo Pizza. Other stuff. Bring a toy for a girl or boy.

Hub tonight, Mantles. Wet Illustrated. Squidz.

I loved that movie at the Crocker last night. I never thought that a 2 and a half hour reading of an essay by Marsden Hartley about a family he was in love with could have been so engrossing. He lived with a family in Nova Scotia for a time near the end of his life, a simple fishing family as he probably says a few too many times because he totally idealized them, and he loved them all, and obviously lusted after the sons. And then during a storm the two sons drowned. Hartley pretty much fled because he couldn't deal and then for the rest of his life obsessively painted the family and wrote this long essay about the experience. That's a painting of his favorite son, above. The coolest thing was that on the 3rd floor of The Crocker there's a Hartley painting of the whole family!! What a thrill.

Olivia and I joked we'd have dueling posts about this today because the over-the-top theatricality of the director's portrayal of Hartley drove her fucking insane. I can see her point, but it didn't bother me. We definitely had very different experiences during this movie. Don't ever rent it, that's for sure. I would recommend reading the essay if you're interested.

The screening room at the new Crocker is ridiculously swank. Not as nice as our setup at The Verge, but pretty nice.

7 comments:

Liv Moe said...

i bet they didn't loan you a blanket or give you some tasty hobo grade mulled wine.... just sayin'

Anonymous said...

the new screening room is a major treat. i hope they do what LACMA used to and kick off a revival series. prints are very affordable and i'm sure it would be well attended if they stuck with it and did it right.

nick

Anonymous said...

On this day in 1965 - the Stones played two shows at the Memorial Auditorium on their 4th US tour.

-amen

ec

beckler said...

I think OMF was there, right? How was it?

Anonymous said...

That's where he met Stan.

-miller

Anonymous said...

Was that the show where Keef got electrocuted and Stan and I had to drive him to the hospital in the back of our band station wagon?

-omf

olivia and trisha said...

I decided not to make a blog post trashing the film. But damn, I can't figure out why the director/star of the film thought that Marsden Hartley would tell the story that way. I am an avid hater of self-indulgent spoken word poetry reading. I just about died during the movie, because the poem is so beautiful, but it was murdered by the style in which it was told. AAAAGHGHGHGH. Anyhoo, It was nice to get all the background on Marsden Hartley, he is such an amazing poet and painter. Love him!