Tuesday, August 02, 2005
The Format
Francis Ford Coppola. Gus Van Sant. Spike Lee. These are the men I wanted to be. As a kid, I looked up to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. As I got older, I wanted to be Martin Scorcese. I learned the elements of writing and photography. I listened to U2 and R.E.M. wonder where I could put "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Radio Free Europe" into the script. I watched documentaries and listened intently to the way adults talked about film. I acted. I shot video. And I read like a muthafucka.Movies, as a kid, are the culmination of our imagination. The making of movies movies are a complicated matter. But as a kid, you don't get wrapped up in the production, you get wrapped up in the results. And when you start to think about what it might have taken to make a movie like that, nothing in your mind seems to prevent you from thinking it would be worth the effort.
As I've aged I realized that any art worth telling your peers about is worth the effort. Though I may not now be an artist, I can certainly hearken back to the old days when I used to see a movie like "Aliens" and then run home to tell my family what a masterpiece it was. That actually happened. In college, I wrote a column for a zine called "Denizine" which sadly is no longer online. The column was a weekly number featuring my reviews of new releases of feature films. And now, from time to time, I'll write a review here, in my blog, if for no other reason than to not forget. As defeatist as that sounds, I know none will read these words who I do not personally direct here. And I lack the energy to personally direct much of anything anymore.
So I'm wondering what it would take to write a weekly segment on the art that I adore. Better than that, why just write it? Why not sample it, cut it, mix in my ideas on top and republish? Not so much a mash up for the sake of mashing up, but a critique. I'm thinking Roger Ebert in the age of podcasting; less passive and more digital.
Just thinking.
Comments:
...any art worth telling your peers about is worth the effort.
So get you tochis over to the San Diego Musum of Art and see Sanford Birk's Leading Causes of Death in America. Really. You only have until Saturday.
Post a Comment
So get you tochis over to the San Diego Musum of Art and see Sanford Birk's Leading Causes of Death in America. Really. You only have until Saturday.
Warning: main() [function.main]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /var/www/great-jones-street.com/htdocs/channels/daily/2005/08/format.php on line 67
Warning: main(http://www.great-jones-street.com/inc/footer.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /var/www/great-jones-street.com/htdocs/channels/daily/2005/08/format.php on line 67
Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.great-jones-street.com/inc/footer.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php') in /var/www/great-jones-street.com/htdocs/channels/daily/2005/08/format.php on line 67