Calliope
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Disingenuous
dis-in-JEN-yoo-us, adj: lacking in candor, giving a false appearance of simple frankness
ex: I can't stand watching George W. Bush give news conferences because he is so thoroughly disingenuous.
Lord of War
Last night, mom and I watched this Nicholas Cage movie called Lord of War. It kinda looks like it's some stupid, brainless action movie, but it's actually an excellent film. A lot of movies that came out in 2005 had very strong political messages (The Constant Gardener, Munich, The Girl in the Cafe, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, etc), and this is one of them. The story deals with international arms trafficking, but a decent amount of black humor and a flippant protagonist saves the film from becoming a moralizing diatribe against the evils of the world.
Cage's character - unrepentant arms dealer Yuri Orlov - lends an unexpected degree of complexity to the film, and forces you to check the bearings of your own moral compass. Cage is the narrator, so we identify most closely with him, but objectively, he's the bad guy; and his enemy - an Interpol agent played by Ethan Hawke - is on the side of the law. The most important aspect of the film lies in Cage justification of his business. By working every loop-hole, he couches his arms deals in dubious legality. But he uses this legality not only as a tool to keep himself out of jail, but to insulate himself from the inherent immorality of his trade.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Golden Globes 2006: Post Mortem
All in all - not a bad show this year. There were several really gratifying moments. For example, against all odds Rachel Weisz won best supporting actress for the Constant Gardener (there is justice in the world after all), somehow beating out the greatly over-rated Scarlett Johansson AND her skanky red dress...Also, John Williams won best score for Memoirs of a Geisha. At least the Hollywood Foreign Press knows how to respect a master.
Less gratifying moments included Johnny Depp getting snubbed again, Reese Witherspoon beating out Keira Knightley for best actress comedy/musical, Some-chick-no-one-knows beating out Charlize Theron for Best actress drama, and Constant Gardener losing best picture to gay cowboy movie. Also, Goerge Clooney won best supporting actor for Syriana (BAH), but that's just because he's George Clooney.
I don't give a damn about the TV awards, but I was happy to see Geena Davis win for Commander-in-Chief, and also to see Jonathan "I'm an Irish hotty" Rhys-Meyers win for playing Elvis.
Now to the REALLY important stuff. And, of course, I'm talking about the Red Carpet. My highest praise goes to Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman (LOVE the pixie cut!) - both young actresses with an incredible sense of taste and sophistication. I've never seen either of them look trashy - they're class acts, through and through. Scarlett Johansson looked like a hooker in that ridiculous red dress she was falling out of. Then there was Sarah Jessica Parker Who Looks Like A Man. And acts like one. No poise whatsoever: she was chewing GUM on the Red Carpet. Unacceptable. Come back when you've grown up, sweetie.
As for the men, Johnny Depp looked absolutely smashing. You can always count on him to be different - no black tux/black tie for him, and thank God, because I was really getting sick of watching March of the Penguins. I think the phrase, "prickly yet delicious" sums it up nicely. Adrian Brody also looked good, with his very casual, no-tie-collar-open look.
I laughed, I cried, it was beautiful. Oscar noms come out Jan. 31 - watch this space...
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
South Africa: Interesting Stats
I found this webpage that lists interesting stats about South Africa. Among the more interesting are....
- Pretoria (capital of South Africa) has the second largest number of embassies in the world after Washington, D.C.
- South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme.
- South Africa is one of only 12 countries with potable tap water.
- South Africa accounts for almost 45% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy three times the size of the second biggest (Egypt).
- In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.
- The South African Rand was the best performing currency against the US Dollar between 2002 and 2005.
- South Africa's per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world.
- South African media ranks 26th out of 167 countries in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, ahead of the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.
- In the global measure of women in Parliament, South Africa ranks 8th in the world.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Golden Globes
Ahhh, it's truly the most wonderful time of the year: Awards Season. And tomorrow night, we begin with the Golden Globes. My picks are listed below, and anyone who's interested is invited to my house tomorrow night to watch the show.
Best Picture Drama: without a doubt, the hardest category for me this year. Good Night and Good Luck was a great film, though not best picture worthy I think; Match Point was fabulous, particularly because it's such a departure from the usual Woody Allen product. But my heart belongs to the Constant Gardener. I think it's without a doubt, the best, most important film of the year, and I encourage everyone to see it. It's brilliantly and artfully made, meaningful and profound, eloquent, splendidly cast and delivered, and Ralph Fiennes' performance is particularly poignant. This is my pick. (Brokeback Mountain will have a decent shot, because of what it is and what it stands for, and that alone will garner parcticular support from the drama community. Haven't seen it yet, but it's definitly on my list. I also have not yet seen History of Violence, and that one looked great as well.) I really think that Munich should also have been nominated, as it's one of the best, most profound and thoughtful films of the year. What I like about Munich is the fact that it doesn't pretend to have the answers to the most difficult questions surrounding the issue of terrorism. It merely asks the questions. Questions that are just as applicable today as they were in 1972. Yet, for whatever reason, these essential questions are NOT being asked today, and that's why Speilberg raises them here. Because, though it is ostensibly a film about terrorism and counter-terrorism in the 1970's, it is actually a film about today.
Best Actress - Drama: haven't seen any of the ones nominated, but based on past history, I pick Charlize Theron for North Country; also, if she wins, it'll increase the chances that she gets nominated for an Oscar, which in turn will increase the chances that the Oscars will be broadcast in South Africa, so I can watch them while I'm there.
Best Actor - Drama: Hands down, no questions - David Strathairn for Good Night and Good Luck (see an earlier post on this film). He was just incredible - you literally couldn't drag your eyes from him. He has such a commanding presence, so thoroughly captivating, it's truly a brilliant performance.
Best Picture - Musical/Comedy: I pick Pride and Prejudice, but it won't win. I'm almost certain that Walk the Line will win (and Barb, I still don't care. Even if it wins, I'm not going to see it. So there.) I really want to see Mrs. Henderson Presents, but it's not up anywhere around here. Maybe if it wins it will be released to more theaters around the country.
Best Actress - Musical/Comedy: Definitly Keira Knightley for Pride and Prejudice for me. I absolutely love her - she's one of my favorite actresses. I really like Laura Linney, too, though, but I haven't seen The Squid and the Whale. Also, really like DAME Judi Dench, and it makes me happy whenever she wins anything, cuz she's awesome. And British.
Best Actor - Musical/Comedy: I just really really really want them to give it to Johnny Depp for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I don't think they will. Joaquin Phoenix is more likely to get it for Walk the Line, based on the buzz, though Nathan Lane (The Producers) also has a shot.
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz Rachel Weisz Rachel Weisz Rachel Weisz for the Constant Gardener - nobody else even comes CLOSE to deserving this award. PS: I don't understand why everyone thinks Scarlett Johansson is so great. She's barely average, in everthing I've seen her in (that's when I'm not trying to AVOID everything she's touched).
Best Supporting Actor: really couldn't give a rat's ass about this category. I hate Will Ferrell (The Producers), and George Clooney AND Syriana are both OVERRATED (yes, in all caps).
Foreign Film: I'm ashamed. I haven't seen a single film in this category. Though a South African film is nominated, so I hope that one wins.
Best Director: Another really difficult category. I'd like to see Woody Allen win because Match Point is such a departure from what he normally does, and this twist is a most successful one. But then there's Fernando Meirelles for his brilliant, brilliant vision that is the Constant Gardener, and I really hope he wins (he was nominated for best director for the Brazilian film City of God a few years ago). BUT, Munich is one of the wisest films I've ever seen, and much of the credit is owed to Steven Speilberg, so I'd be just as happy to see him win as well. AND THEN there's Ang Lee who has defied convention, taking the quintessential American film genre - the Western - an turning it on its head as a gay love story (Brokeback Mountain), set in a part of the country where this type of relationship is least accepted. This guy's got balls, and part of me wants to see him rewarded. George Clooney (Good Night and Good Luck) is only nominated because he's George Clooney.
Best Screenplay: Gotta go with Woodey Allen for Match Point on this one. Woodey Allen is such a master of dialogue - every word rings true and not a single verb or adjective is misplaced. He's a master of his craft. That being said, Munich is also profoundly well-scripted, though it's an adaptation from a book. I'd be happy with a win for Munich as well. (Though I kinda have the feeling Brokeback Mountain is just gonna clean house in every category.)
Best Score: Always my favorite category. The score for King Kong was OBNOXIOUS. It didn't let up for a second: overdone, melodramatic, sappy, and generally ridiculous. I'll eat a bucket of sand if James Newton Howard wins this award. The scores for Syriana and Narnia were less than memorable. So, as usual, I pick the unparalleled master of the cinematic soundstage: John Williams, for Memoirs of a Geisha. I haven't seen the film yet because of personal objections, but I've heard clips of the score, and it's brilliant. John Williams skillfully incorporates indigenous instruments and motifs (in this case, from Japan) with more traditional scoring techniques to weave rich aural tapestries that enhance the story, as well as stand on its own without the company of its associated images. Also featured on the score are masters such as Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. The fact that John Williams is well acquainted with contemporary Japenese music lends authenticity to the score. I'm sure it displays the essential subtleties that Hans Zimmer's score for the Last Samurai sadly lacked. Honestly, though, I think Williams should have been nominated in this category for Munich, which is a brilliant, inspired piece of work with a heart-wrenching main theme that conveys the conflict and angst that plagues the main charater throughout the film.
Best Song: two words - WHO CARES. But the song from Brokeback Mountain will probably win.
And the same goes for the TV awards - I don't care. So there you have it. My picks. I'll blog my less-than-subtle opinions about the winners after the show tomorrow night. For a list of Golden Globe nominees, check out the Hollywood Foreign Press website.
John Williams
The NYT has a really spectacular piece on my all-time favorite composer: John Williams. He is an absolute genius. A genius, with the most compassionate, artistic soul. If I could give eternal life to anyone in the whole world, I would give it to John Williams.
"WHY STOP AT 43 NOMINATIONS?
A YEAR rarely goes by in which the composer John Williams doesn't write the score for at least one of Hollywood's big popcorn films, or one of its most thoughtful dramas. Last year he scored two of each: the summer blockbusters "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" and "War of the Worlds," and the end-of-year prestige pictures "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Munich." Insiders say at least one ("Geisha") and possibly two ( "Munich") are likely to be nominated on Jan. 31 in the original-score category of this year's Academy Awards.
Mr. Williams, now 73, has been writing movie music for more than 40 years. He has five Oscars and 18 Grammy Awards for classic scores like "Jaws," "Star Wars," "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Schindler's List." He has achieved more name-recognition than any American film composer since Henry Mancini, because of his association with popular film franchises from "Indiana Jones" to "Harry Potter," but also because of his frequently televised appearances as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra in the 1980's and early 90's.
His sophisticated work elicits widespread admiration. "He has an implicit understanding of drama," says the composer Thomas Newman ("Finding Nemo"), "more specifically, what it is that impels drama and absorbs us in it."
The film-music scholar Royal S. Brown adds: "He's capable of writing anything, from neo-Romantic to avant-garde. He also writes a better melody than anybody else writing film scores right now. There is an emotional depth to the thematic content; he doesn't just write good themes, he also comes up with amazingly complex harmonic structures to go with them."
The traditional symphony orchestra is Mr. Williams's primary palette, although he will often augment it with unusual instruments, choral elements and even electronics. "Geisha," for example, is colored with traditional Japanese instruments like the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute; the stringed koto and shamisen; and the taiko drums. The "Munich" score features the Eastern timbres of the ancient oud and of the metallic-sounding cimbalom. Choir figures prominently in "Revenge of the Sith," and synthesizers help pound out the rhythms of "War of the Worlds."
"We found that we had a very similar sensibility about the music," says the director of "Geisha," Rob Marshall, "in that there should be many places in the film where it was purely Japanese instrumentation - but that that wouldn't be enough to hold an entire film, because the emotion comes with the orchestra."
The concept, Mr. Williams explains, was to combine the unique sonorities of Japanese music with the more familiar harmonic and melodic approach of Western music. "The essential thing was to try and broaden out the emotional canvas," he says, "beyond the confines of the traditional music of the geishas."
The atmospheric music of "Geisha" is unlike anything else Mr. Williams wrote. "I've been a great admirer of contemporary Japanese music," he says, citing the work of the composer Toru Takemitsu as a special favorite. In fact, Mr. Williams's 1969 concerto for Western flute incorporated shakuhachi-style effects.
"Geisha" also features prominent solo passages for two famous string players: the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the violinist Itzhak Perlman. Mr. Ma, for whom Mr. Williams composed a concerto in 1994, is the musical voice of Sayuri (played in the film by Ziyi Zhang). Her elusive love interest, the kind and mysterious Chairman (Ken Watanabe), is represented by a valse triste for harps and Mr. Perlman's violin.
"I never fail to wonder how he changes colors," says Mr. Perlman, who also played the solos in "Schindler's List." "He can give you this incredible Asian flavor in 'Geisha,' an Eastern European flavor in 'Schindler's List,' amazing heroic music in 'Superman.' He makes film music into an art."
Kathleen Kennedy, a "Munich" producer, says Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Williams agreed that the film required music that was "never trying to push the movie emotionally." Mr. Williams adds, "The orchestra doesn't directly support the emotional aspects of what you see, or any of the action."
Unlike the Holocaust story "Schindler's List," "Munich" demanded a sound that emanated more from the Middle East than Eastern Europe. "What I've attempted to do is to create music that might be Israeli, or Palestinian," Mr. Williams says. He composed what he calls "a prayer for peace," a lyrical theme associated with the film's Mossad assassin Avner (Eric Bana), and a theme for solo voice and orchestra that is used for the multiple flashbacks to the 1972 murders of the Israeli athletes in Munich.
With an astonishing 43 Oscar nominations already to his credit, Mr. Williams is approaching - and this year, could tie - the record of 45 held by his former boss, the composer Alfred Newman, for whom he played piano back in the 1950's at 20th Century Fox.
Of Newman, who died in 1970, he recalls: "He was a kind of icon to me. I think it's fair to say that of all the conductors we had in Hollywood in those years, he was by far the best. I don't think any of them could come anywhere near him in terms of wedding a performance to a film sequence. So any comparison between what I've done and what he has done gratifies me enormously."
Ms. Kennedy says: "The extraordinary thing about John is that every time you go on the scoring stage with him, there is such a tremendous respect from the musicians. They literally give him a standing ovation at the end of every scoring session. You don't see that very often."
Mr. Marshall adds: "He's not just a master composer in a room by himself but a master of how to work with a director, how to bring a world to life, bring an emotion to life. He's a storyteller." "
Tristan and Isolde
I woke up today just in time to catch the 4:20 showing of Tristan and Isolde with Nana. It was actually a lot better than I expected it to be. The cheezy, cliche lines were kept to a respectable minimum, the love between Tristan and Isolde was genuine, and the supporting cast did their part admirably - and in the case of Rufus Sewell (playing Lord Marke) splendidly. Sewell delivers a multi-layered performance with great emotional depth, and in many ways, he is the film's most compelling character. Definitely worth the viewing. It's a really decent, well-made film, and in parts, surprisingly captivating.
I'm Back!
I know, I know, I've been hearing it from everybody. Yes, I realize it's been weeks since I've blogged, but I've been busy thoroughly enjoying my vacation, and that includes avoiding any form of reading or writing like THE PLAGUE. I'm over it, I'm rested, I'm back. You can expect more frequent posting, as I document my preparation for my semester abroad in South Africa! And, of course, there will be updates posted here covering my adventures in country once I arrive.
After a lovely Christmas holiday, I set off on New Year's Eve for Baltimore for Glee Club's annual domestic concert tour. We started off with a New Year's celebration on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, which was a lot of fun, and not all that cold, thankfully. We had a concert at this enormous, gorgeous cathedral in Baltimore - it was awesome. Then things went south (literally) as we traveled down across the Mason-Dixie Line. What can I say? I'm just a Yankee through and through, and I don't do well in the South. It may as well be another country (hehehe, it almost was...). We stopped in Charlottesville, Virginia, saw the UVA campus and visited Montecello, which was cool, though the weather sucked, so it was less enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. Then - God knows why - we ventured even further south to North Carolina for a concert at Duke. We ran into Dean Brodhead - formerly Dean of Yale College, now President of Duke University - and it was realy good to see him. He's one of my favorite people in the world. So wise and kind, like Gandalf, really. Then by the mercy of God we turned around and headed back up North to my favorite city - Washington DC. It felt like coming home. I love it there SO much - it's such a fabulous place! We had a terrific concert at some church up in NW DC, and the Yale Glee Club Alumni Chorus in DC shared the concert with us, which was a lot of fun. They're even crazier than we are, if that's possible. (hehehe, get this: There are SO many Yale alumni in the DC area that there are enough GLEE CLUB alumni to make an entire chorus. Crazy, huh?) My homestay was with one of our tour managers - Dan. He's such a nice kid and has the most beautiful house! After going out for drinks with some recently-graduated Glee Club alums in Dupont Circle, we headed back to Dan's for a delightful dinner party. For me, the best part about tour was that I got to be a lot closer to other Glee Clubbers in my year ('07). It was really nice to get to know a lot of them better.
While the rest of the Glee Club went on to Philadelphia from DC, I flew out to Dallas Friday morning to be with Nick! He was home for a few weeks between semesters, and I figured since he flew all the way home from China, I could at least fly to Texas. We had a really lovely time together - it was wonderful! I finally got to meet his mom, and we really hit it off. I really like his whole family, and special intelligence reports that they really like me too :) It was really nice to have a chance to see where Nick's from - like seeing a page in the context of a whole book. Then I actually missed my flight on Friday (whoops!), so I ended up staying another day. I had a really great time, even if Texas itself is a little more than I can handle. Everybody and their mother drives hummers and SUVs - complete with "Bush-Cheney '04" stickers on the back....*vomiting noises*....
