The Frame

R.I.P. Michelangelo Antonioni

On August 1, 2007

And the groundbreaking Italian director Antonioni dies on the same day as the groundbreaking Swedish director Bergman. Wow. If deaths really come in threes, as the old wives’ tale dictates, who’s next?

I have really only seen one Antonioni film, 1966’s Blow-Up (also, I believe, his first English-language film), but it was pretty incredible. It’s been many years since I saw it, though–it was one of the first really arty films I ever saw. I’ve also seen most of L’Avventura, but still need to finish it. I can’t explain why I stopped watching it–it wasn’t that I didn’t like it, or I was bored or anything. It was more like, it was too late at night to finish it, and I intended to finish it the next day, but I own it and since I own it I put it off to watch the films from Netflix that came in the mail the next day. Something like that. Anyway. He’s pretty cerebral. As if I weren’t already totally entrenched in French art films, these two deaths have renewed my interest in Swedish and Italian films, too. (Actually, they were all making films around the same time, so there are connections between them–certainly Godard got a lot out of Antonioni. Now I want to rewatch Contempt, which I’ve heard owes a good bit to the Italian director, but it would probably be more helpful to wait until I’ve seen more Antonioni first.)

Karina Longworth has a set of four clips and commentary from Antonioni’s work (they’re all closing scenes from films I haven’t seen, so I didn’t watch them, but I bookmarked the post to come back to later); Coffee Coffee and More Coffee has some thoughts on him, and GreenCine has a roundup of posts and articles.

R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman

By Jandy

On July 30, 2007

In Film

Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers ever, died yesterday. I haven’t seen a lot of Bergman films, and those I have tend to strand me between a sense that I may be watching something incredible and my realization that I’m not understanding half of it. Reading around the film blogosphere a little this morning, though, is increasing my desire to try to become better acquainted with Bergman.

I think Persona was the first film of his I saw, and the only thing I remember was how fascinating it was when the two women, isolated on an island, started merging or even exchanging personalities almost, and how much I liked the way he juxtaposed their faces onto each other to depict that merging visually. Those shots have been imitated to the point of cliche now, but then I hadn’t seen them before. My favorite Bergman film right now is probably the lighthearted romantic romp Smiles of a Summer Night, largely, I think, because it remains one of his more accessible ones. ;) I recently saw the second part of his “Faith” trilogy, Winter Light (I gave my reaction to the first of the trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly, here), and was suitably impressed by it, especially as compared to Bresson‘s Diary of a Country Priest, which I should have liked but didn’t. I have also seen The Seventh Seal, probably Bergman’s most famous film (featuring a chess game between a medieval knight and Death), but need a rewatch on it, because I don’t remember much except liking the visuals and being sort of bored by the slow, philosophic pacing (hey, I was young).

The Guardian has links to several Bergman clips, and the New York Times has reprinted part of a review/essay on Bergman by Woody Allen, who was very influenced by him as a filmmaker. (I watched a bit of Manhattan the other day, and it wasn’t ten minutes before Allen and Keaton were arguing over whether Bergman was the greatest of all filmmakers or overrated.)

So You Think You Can Dance Top Ten

By Jandy

On July 25, 2007

In Television

Top ten! No more judges saving people! All up to America! Which actually kinda sucks, because America has not been what I’d call intelligent about who should be in the Bottom Three. And I even voted last week, so yes, I get to say that. Lauren, you better be stepping it up, girl. We lost Anya over you, and while I get that from a solo point of view, you’ve got a long way to go to match her as a partner. Are they drawing partners this week? Yes, they are. :( I miss my couples once they’re gone.

Mia’s the guest judge, so no esoteric contemporary routine from her, but hopefully we can have a totally awesome weird-ass Wade Robson routine. Ooh, there’s Wade now! Yay Wade! Ooh, is he choreographing their solos? That’ll be good–take the pressure off the dancers from having to choreograph their solos and let them focus on the, you know, dancing.

edit – Now with video and results talk.

May 2007 Reading/Watching Recap

By Jandy

On July 24, 2007

In Books and Reading, Film, Reviews

In May I was home for a few weeks, and took advantage of the amazing St. Louis library system to knock several films off my 2007 Goal list. Then I got burned out on that and just watched some random old stuff. After the jump, reactions to Spider-Man 3, The Great Dictator, They Were Expendable, Taxi Driver, Unforgiven, The New World, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and more.

I have a Music post in the works, but I was focusing on getting this thing finished. Tomorrow.

Allison and Ivan – The Umbrella Dance

By Jandy

On July 20, 2007

In Television

I just started using a new (to me) statistics tracker (Pmetrics from Performancing, which I highly recommend based on the week I’ve been using it), and I’ve noticed several hits from people looking for Allison and Ivan’s umbrella dance from last year, which Nigel mentioned a week or two ago on SYTYCD, and which I have also mentioned a time or two as being one my absolute favorites from Season Two. So, I thought I’d oblige and share it. Here’s Allison and Ivan dancing Shane Sparks’ hip hop routine from SYTYCD S2, the one with the umbrella. :)

And looking at that episode, I discovered that it’s also the one in which Heidi and Benji danced their incredible Black Mambo number, so I ripped that as well. It may still stand as the best dance on the show. Although, considering that they are both trained Latin dancers who are also cousins and have danced together competitively and they’re dancing a Latin dance, that’s perhaps not terribly surprising.

(I also updated my earlier SYTYCD recap post with videos; I don’t know how various people’s RSS readers deal with edited posts, so I’m not sure if people can tell when I update the post.)