The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video review)

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981) The BBC video series. Based on clips and previews of the 2005 movie, I think this video is still the best realisation of Douglas Adams’ vision. I’d use the word “definitive” if it hadn’t been used by too many critics before me.
     I’ve seen this video at least half a dozen times, and  each time I enjoy it just as much as when I first saw it on TVO many years ago. The simple computer animations displayed by the Book may seem endearingly old-fashioned, but considering how much information it must include, it represents a brilliant solution to the problem of maximising data and minimising storage. Douglas Adams’ wit sounds fresh despite repetition. As any serious (as opposed to solemn) philosopher knows, comedy and satire can express truth and wisdom more economically than any other mode. That’s why philosophers and preachers hate comedians, and do their best to make us think that gloomy mien and furrowed brow are the only true signs of deep thought.
     By this time “42" as The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is so well known that the number alone serves as a signal. That the Earth is a computer is not merely Douglas Adams’ joke: that the Universe is a computer is a metaphysical theory taken seriously by a surprising number of mathematicians. I prefer to think of the Universe as a hologram, however. ****

Van Gogh Up Close (Art Review)

Van Gogh Up Close (National Art Gallery, 30th August 2012)
     The show did not live up to its hype, but what show ever does? It depicts Van Gogh's time in France, when he was working towards his final artistic vision. Seeing early, mid and (too few) late pieces from this time was interesting in an art-historical way, but few of the pictures moved me. Most of them looked like what they were: experiments. Van Gogh was a very self-conscious artist, who spent his life trying to find out where he wanted to go and how to get there. It took him a long time to develop his visual language. Oddly enough (or maybe not), the earlier paintings I liked were the ones that reminded me of Klimt (eg Trees and Undergrowth 1887) and Monet (eg Undergrowth 1887, Rain 1889). These were all landscapes, most showed forests. The intermediate ones, in which he mostly experimented with Japanese composition and close-up subjects, showed that he was moving towards the astonishing last paintings in composition and content, but he was still trying to minimise the brushwork. A couple of the later paintings, in which he laid on the paint thick and largely unmixed, were worth a second or third look (eg Wheatfield behind St Paul Hospital 1889). The ones I wanted to see, all from his last few months of life, were not available.
     Most pictures looked faded and wan. Reproductions on postcards and posters are generally brighter and more intense. Perhaps a combination of new paint technology and cheap paint (Van Gogh often couldn’t afford the expensive ones) is the cause. It’s known for sure that some of his sunflower paintings turned brown because of a chemical reaction in the white paint that he’d added to the yellow. Or more likely I’ve come to expect originals to be even more brilliant than reproductions. Whatever, I was disappointed in the look of the show. The room of Japanese woodcuts, shown to illuminate Van Gogh’s composition experiments, was a delight. Looking at them, it occurred to me how much these pictures, with their unusual points of view, contrasts between foreground detail and mid- and background subjects, stylised drawing and colouring, resemble comic book art.
   Rating for the show: **½
   Updated 2012-08-06

The War of 1812 (Museum Review)

 The War of 1812 (Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, 31st July 2012)
     The war of 1812 is the strangest one I know of. Nobody won it. After three years of conflict and diplomacy, and some 35,000 dead, the result was pretty well the status quo ante, albeit accepted by all parties, and therefore strengthened. There were no major changes in territory. The general shape of North American political divisions was confirmed. The First Nations, who might have been able to forge the beginnings of a permanent and independent confederation if the British had won, were no further ahead. The main players, the still young and weak USA, and the loosely collaborative Canadian colonies, acknowledged each other’s territorial claims, and made them a basis for future frontier drawing as both expanded westward to the Pacific. Britain, which had already shifted its geo-political focus elsewhere, reestablished friendly terms with its erstwhile colonies.
     The show at the Canadian War Museum sets out the four participants' perspectives on the war. It’s very well done, with enough detailed information mixed into the overview to individualise the participants’ experience of the war, and to suggest what it was like for ordinary people like ourselves. The arrangement was a bit confusing, as viewing all the exhibits required a partial retracing of steps in each room; but that’s my only complaint. That, and the usual limitations of the computer survey, which began by asking which of the four parties you identified with. I identified with all and none. I could understand and empathise with all four perspectives. I have a visceral antipathy towards war, this is no doubt a reason I can’t feel comfortable taking sides.
     Rating for the show: ***½

Online piracy article in NYT.

Piracy like Whack-a-Mole

That's what the article in te New York Times says, plus a lot more. Worth reading IMO.

About Looking (Book Review)

 

     John Berger About Looking (1980) Berger’ style is his own, which makes reading him like learning a foreign language. He is most concerned with the meaning of art, less so with style, composition, technique, palette – the stuff of conventional criticism. He believes, passionately, that art matters because it can express the artist’s view of life. His question is always, What meanings does the artist express in his painting? And are these meanings socially valid or not? In his discussion of individual artists (Courbet, for example) he ignores art-historical ideas almost completely. He implies that valuing Courbet for his stylistic innovations misses the point.
     He’s in good company. Most people want to know what an art work “means”, especially if it’s not obviously a genre painting, a pleasant landscape, or a recognisable portrait. This desire to understand art at some level that can be verbalised explains the popularity of Sister Wendy’s TV programs and books, for example. Anyone who takes art seriously sooner or later comes to some version of Berger’s and Sister Wendy’s belief in the significance of art. For myself, when I look at a painting, I want to see some evidence that the painter was compelled to make it, that he or she made the picture because not making it would have left a gap in the artist’s life. This is the difference between painting as a pastime and making art: the Sunday painter could just as well have spent time reading a book or playing golf.
     Berger’s book is not an easy read. But he made me want to know more about some artists, to see more of their work, which is I think the best justification for art criticism. Recommended. ***
      More at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger

Rick Mercer Report: The Book (Book Review)

Rick Mercer The Rick Mercer Report:  The Book (2007) Rick’s Rants, some complete, some excerpted, along with a few photos and snippets of dialogue. How little has changed, and yet how soon we forget! Politics is still a mix of farce and tragedy, and we, the electorate, still forget the scandals, corruption, and foolishness within weeks or months. If people had the contents of this book top-of-mind during the last election, Harper would not, I think, have garnered a majority.
     Mercer on the page doesn’t have the impact he has on the screen, but that’s a good thing: we can see both his tricks and shticks, as well as the substance of his complaints. A lot of the time, Mercer’s comedic, satiric style assists us in coping with the appalling contempt for democracy evinced by our leaders. But we rarely laugh out loud. Someone once said that war is too serious to leave to the generals. I wish more of my fellow Canadians realised that politics is too serious to leave to the politicians. ***

In the Frame (book review)

Helen Mirren In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures (2007) I don’t often read biographies, auto- or otherwise, but when I do, I’m  pleased to see how people’s lives are all the same mix of the ordinary and the surprising. That’s the impression, anyhow, but reflection shows that what’s surprising to me is ordinary to others, and vice versa. Mirren’s background is Russian: her family were what in England would be called “gentry”. Her parents, like many others, ended up on  England because of the Bolshevik Revolution. Many years later, Mirren was able to reconnect with the extant Russian branch of the family, an event that meant a lot to her. She is deeply committed to her family, and very proud of them all.
     She decided quite early on that she wanted to be an actor, and has worked hard at her profession. She’s generous with praise for the help and teaching she got along the way from many different people, and equally generous with praise for her fellow actors, for directors, cinematographers, costume designers – all the people that make a show work. It looks like she simply omitted mention of the jerks and doofuses that must have crossed her path. She does say she’s still angry at a couple of men who took advantage of her naivete when she was a student, but on the whole she has had a satisfactory love life, and is obviously deeply in love with her latest (and last) partner, Taylor Hackford. They married after 11 years together. Although she claims not to take weddings too seriously, she clearly enjoyed hers.
     Someone has pointed out that an autobiography by definition is false, since the author decides what persona to present to the world; and we all are more than and different from our personas. True; but truth is always incomplete. As with any history, the question is, Does this, incomplete though it is, have the ring of truth? For this book, the answer is Yes. I’ve liked Mirren ever since I saw her in Prime Suspect. If anything, this book made me like her more. Recommended. ***
More at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_mirren

Byzantine Churches of Alberta (Book Review)

Orest Shemchishen. Byzantine Churches of Alberta (1976) Edited by Hubert Hohn. Shemchishen was commissioned to record country churches serving Orthodox congregations before they dwindled away and the churches were pulled down. He succeeds admirably. Hubert Hohn, at the time curator of the Edmonton Art Gallery,  contributes an Introduction of several pages and many words, which can be summarised as “Documentary photography succeeds when we see that the subject of the photograph mattered to the photographer.” This happens to be true for Shemchishen’s work: the pictures both record the fact of the buildings’ existence, the details of their architecture and settings, and also the sense that economic and social changes have made them superfluous. They stand on the prairie, isolated. The light clarifies their substance. The interiors, silent and empty, allude to the performance of the sacred rites for which they were built.
     There are no people in any of the photos. One is surrounded by cars and trucks that indicate a liturgy is in progress in the church: it stands out as an anomaly. Most of the churches, although well-kept, already seem like relics of a past that few recall, and fewer will narrate.
     This collection of photographs is more than a source book. Hohn is right: Shemchishen’s work shows that these buildings meant something to him. Worth looking at more than once. ***

The Nephew (Movie review)

The Nephew (1998) [D: Eugene Brady. Niall Tobin, Sinead Cusack, Luke Griffin, Pierce Brosnan] Chad Egan-Washington, the biracial American son of Karin Egan, a wayward Irish girl who emigrated to the US, goes to his mother’s home village in Ireland to spread her ashes. His arrival stirs up old memories and forces people to confront their wrongful past actions. His Uncle Tony has had a grudge against the pub owner Joe Brady ever since Karin left. Brady’s daughter Aislin and Chad develop a relationship, which pleases neither of the older men. Peter O’Boyce, who has a crush on Aislin, complicates the plot. Of course everything turns out OK in the end, with confessions and secrets shared leading to understanding and redemptive self-insight.
     That’s the story, a farrago of cliches, so the question is how well the film riffs on them. Very well, I’d say. It’s low key, does a lovely job of developing the characters’ slowly accumulating awareness, and even though we figure out what the revelations will be, they are done well enough that we care. On-line ratings are barely above average, which was my initial reaction, too. I think the rather thick lathering of Irish charm has something to do with some viewers’ negative responses.
     But this is one of those movies whose images stick in your mind, and which make you angry at the harm done by hiding shameful secrets and making respectability a prime value. So I’d say the movie is successful. ***

Bullitt (Movie Review)

Bullitt (1968) [D: Peter Yates. Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bissett] This is a noir film in colour. The situation is simple: protect a mobster who will give evidence at a grand jury hearing. An ambitious D.A. wants to ensure he gets credit for bringing down “the organisation”. But the man is killed, and Bullitt knows something is seriously wrong. The dead man was not in fact the mobster, so Bullitt has two tasks: to find the killers, and to find the real witness. He must also fend off both the ambitions politician (played creepily by Robert Vaughn) but also the mob (who want to ensure the victim is truly dead.

     Bullitt’s an honest cop who doesn’t like being pushed around by VIPs. He goes his own way to find his quarry, but knows how to work with his team. At the turning point, he sees he’s being followed, so he dekes up a side street and begins to follow the car that pursued him. It turns into a deadly chase, one that film makers have studied and borrowed from ever since. I recall seeing it on a large screen. It looks pretty good on the smaller TV screen, too. It really is one of the best ever filmed. Many of its tricks have become standard, so anyone seeing this movie for the first time would probably be somewhat blase about the car chase.
     The plot is intricate but clearly delineated, step by procedural step. Steve McQueen’s Bullitt is laconic, unwilling to show his deeper feelings (there’s a perfunctory love subplot), and he’s finally worn down by the violence he must perforce witness and commit. The final act shows us another classic sequence, a chase across the runways of the airport at night.
     A good movie, well worth seeing again, or for the first time. ***