Essay Day - “Maya Deren in 3D! Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, and Cinematic Visions from the Beyond”

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for ‘Essay Day’ here at Fade to Lack. As explained here, I have written a large number of essays during my time at the University of Colorado as a student in film studies, and I thought it time to share the best of those with my readers, so throughout the summer, I’ll be posting a new essay every Wednesday, all focused on film in one form or another, but often incorporating other research and fields of study.

This week’s selection is a research/analytical paper written for a seminar on “Cinema and the Historical Avant Garde,” in the Spring of 2013. The subject is Maya Deren, my favorite avant-garde filmmaker, and in particular, her two greatest masterpieces – Meshes in the Afternoon and At Land. The rest is fairly self-explanatory, as the essay contains a lot of information on her life and background, and I have embedded the two short films at the end of the article for those who would like to see them. As a brief aside, this essay was submitted under the title “The Illusion of Life: From Eleanora Derenkowskaia to Maya Deren to Cinematic Visions from the Beyond,” which is a really dreadful and pedantic title (I am good at writing essays – naming them, not so much). I had started writing the paper under the title “Maya Deren in 3D!” as a joke, but I liked the silliness of that temporary title so much that I thought I’d bring it back here – expanded a little bit to be more descriptive – because, while utterly nonsensical, it is several magnitudes more entertaining than the actual name of the paper.

Read “Maya Deren in 3D! Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, and Cinematic Visions from the Beyond” after the jump...

UPDATE: The Weekly Stuff Podcast #90 - Destiny 1st-Look Alpha Reactions & E3 Wrap-up

UPDATE: As was brought to my attention by listener Kenneth - Thanks Kenneth! - the file uploaded here and to iTunes was missing the last half-hour of the show. Oops! After 90 episodes, I guess we were due for a technical SNAFU. Don't worry - those 30 minutes DO exist, and I have re-uploaded the episode, on this page, the Podcast Archive, and to iTunes, with the full episode, without any technical errors. Sorry for the inconvenience, and if there is ever a problem like this, please don't hesitate to contact me here, on Twitter, via e-mail, etc. 

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, video gaming, and television. Remember to subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link!

Last week, we broke down all the biggest news from the E3 gaming conference, and this week, we return for some final E3 wrap-up, including discussions of Ubisoft’s gender kerfuffle with Assassin’s Creed Unity and Far Cry 4, more talk of Nintendo and their Wii U struggles, and thoughts on Microsoft’s plans for developers with their uncoupling of the Kinect from Xbox One.

Most importantly, though, we spent all weekend playing the first-look Alpha for Bungie’s Destiny, announced at Sony’s E3 press conference, and we have lots and lots of thoughts on our early experiences with what is undoubtedly our most anticipated game of 2014. As lifelong Halo fans, Bungie is easily one of our favorite developers, and it is an absolute joy to finally see what they have in store for the next generation of gaming.

Also discussed are Warner Bros’ supposed plans for an ambitious (and foolhardy) DC cinematic universe, and some final thoughts on Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs, which we first reviewed two episodes back.

Enjoy!

  

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If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

Essay Day - “Realism and Character Study in Agnes Varda’s 'Cléo From 5 to 7'”

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for ‘Essay Day’ here at Fade to Lack. As explained here, I have written a large number of essays during my time at the University of Colorado as a student in film studies, and I thought it time to share the best of those with my readers, so throughout the summer, I’ll be posting a new essay every Wednesday, all focused on film in one form or another, but often incorporating other research and fields of study.

This week’s selection is a short piece on Agnes Varda’s 1962 film Cléo From 5 to 7, which is readily available on Hulu (via Criterion) and should be viewed by all, as it is a truly wonderful movie. Written for a course on ‘Film Criticism and Theory’ in the Summer of 2013, the assignment here was to provide a brief 1-page viewing response to the film. I went a little overboard, as you can probably tell, exploring issues of structuralism and realism within the film; it is a bit like a review, but with heavier emphasis on cinematic theory. In any case, I thought it turned out well, and am excited to share it as part of Essay Day. Enjoy...

Read “Realism and Character Study in Agnes Varda’s Cléo From 5 to 7” after the jump...

TV Review: FX's "Fargo" wraps up a triumphant, provocative, wildly entertaining series

This has been an insanely good year for television so far – between newcomers like True Detective and Review, returning dramas reaching new creative heights like Hannibal and Game of Thrones, a strong creative resurgence from NBC comedies Community and Parks and Recreation, and the eternal greatness of Mad Men, this has already become one of my favorite years of TV viewing in recent memory (and that list doesn’t include several hugely acclaimed titles I have yet to catch up on) – and yet I am quite sure that no show this year has taken me aback quite as strongly as FX’s Fargo.

Nor has any show debuted in 2014 with such immense creative baggage hanging over its head. Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo is more than just one of the most acclaimed and beloved films of the 1990s – it is one of the great American movies, one that seems to grow in stature and adoration with each passing year, and while it isn’t necessarily my favorite Coen Brothers film (I love much of their work with roughly equal passion), I think it may well be the clearest, most resounding representation of their voice. And as with any voice so intensely singular, theirs is not an easy one to replicate, especially given how much their style has influenced the modern media landscape (in many ways, I think Breaking Bad owes as much to Fargo the movie as Fargo the TV series does, so deftly does it weave humor, violence, and pathos together against a stark American setting). Suffice it to say, making a Fargo TV series seemed, initially, like the height of folly, a fool’s exercise in living up to an impossible standard.

Yet as soon as Fargo the series arrived, it set its own standard, and if anything, I may find myself preferring the TV show to the movie now that all ten episodes have aired. Writer Noah Hawley has taken the thematic and stylistic core of the Coen Brothers film and dived even deeper, probing the depths of human darkness and heights of human decency to degrees the film certainly pointed towards, but could not reach in 90 minutes. The audacity of Hawley’s Fargo is that it chose to use the Coens’ Fargo as a springboard, the first step towards an even richer and more complex discussion of violence, masculinity, the repression of American Midwest society, and the value of goodness and decency in a world marked by darkness, and the brilliance of the series is that it actually had the intelligence, wit, insight, and dramatic sensibilities necessary to pull it off.

Spoiler-filled thoughts on tonight’s series finale, and the series as a whole, coming up after the jump...

Review: "How to Train Your Dragon 2" is a sweeping, stunning fantasy sequel

It’s rare a film comes along as universally adored as the original How to Train Your Dragon, and when a movie inspires such obviously sincere adoration from so many people, it can feel mighty awkward – and a tad bit lonely – to find oneself on the outside. I didn’t dislike the film, but neither did it command much of my attention. As I have tried to explain to bewildered friends and colleagues over the last four years, the characters fell flat for me, the story felt overly formulaic, and the animation, while admittedly gorgeous, didn’t do much to elevate what was, for me, a dry and unemotional experience (even while typing these words, I know I unwillingly sound like a grouch). Sometimes, certain movies just don’t hit us, no matter how hard they might hit other people, and as heartless as I may come across saying it, that’s where I was with the original film.

Not so with How to Train Your Dragon 2. This is a big, beautiful, sweeping, powerful piece of work, one of the great modern triumphs of American animation and a stirring example of what all Hollywood sequels, animated or live-action, should aspire to be. I have a few qualms with the movie here and there, but they feel very minor in light of the film’s myriad strengths, and this time around, I found myself right beside everyone else in singing the movie’s praises. This time, the Dragon franchise hit me, and I couldn’t be happier.

Continue reading after the jump...

Review: "22 Jump Street" does the impossible once again

One of the most amazing things about the comedy work Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are doing these days is that they make it look so easy. The Lego Movie seems positively effortless in the madcap, sweeping way it paces its action and doles out its jokes, but when one starts unpacking the film, and analyzes the many intricate and thoughtful mechanics that go into making the characters pop and the story have weight, there’s clearly a lot of inspiration and intelligence there, and the same can be said of their first 21Jump Street film. It’s easy to single out the film’s biting self-awareness as key to its success, but that’s only a starting point, and it’s the way the film built real, meaty themes about friendship, stereotypes, and the ways in which we define ourselves through socially mandated gauntlets like high school that really made the characters and humor pop as intensely as they did. These films look effortless, but there is a rigorous understanding and development of narrative and ideas at work underneath, and I think that’s more apparent than ever in 22 Jump Street.

The film is so immediately and intensely entertaining, so funny and creative and genuinely surprising, that the level of cinematic achievement on display can be easy to overlook. 22 Jump Street is a truly great comedy sequel, and that in and of itself is no small feat. Sequels are tough no matter the genre, but comedy follow-ups seem nearly impossible most of the time, given how difficult it is to quantify or recreate great comedic energy. Yet 22 Jump Street is every inch as good at its predecessor, if not superior in some ways, and while it would, again, be easy to reduce the creative success to self-awareness, there is so much more at work here.

Continue reading after the jump...

Essay Day - "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Documentary Not?"

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for ‘Essay Day’ here at Fade to Lack. As explained here, I have written a large number of essays during my time at the University of Colorado as a student in film studies, and I thought it time to share the best of those with my readers, so throughout the summer, I’ll be posting a new essay every Wednesday, all focused on film in one form or another, but often incorporating other research and fields of study.

This week’s selection may be familiar to some of you, as this essay has previously appeared on the website, and was published in my 2013 book, Fade to Lack (this version is the text of the original essay as submitted for grading – revisions were made for the book version). Written for a class on Documentary film, the assignment here was to research a topic and form an argument related to documentary filmmaking, so I decided to prove a thesis that I had long held (and had been increasingly strengthened over the course of this class): that Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan should be considered a real documentary. Sort of. The essay is roughly 75% satire, but nobody ever seems to catch that, so perhaps I did something wrong. Either way, I like this essay a lot. It was a fun one to write, and the big minute-by-minute breakdown of the movie at the end will likely be used by a therapist someday to diagnose me as obsessive compulsive if I ever have a nervous breakdown.

Read “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Documentary Not?” after the jump...

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #89 - Talking Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo & More at E3

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, video gaming, and television. Remember to subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link!

The annual video game conference E3 is well underway, and just as we have done every year on the show, we are here to pick apart all the major news, announcements, and developments, and to analyze what this all means to the respective video game consoles, and to the industry as a whole. We follow the pre-conference press conferences in order, breaking down the showings from Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo, sharing our thoughts on what games have us excited, which ones make us skeptical, and which companies seem to be projecting the right or wrong messages. It’s certainly been an interesting E3 so far, and there’s an awful lot to discuss.

Enjoy!

Download and Stream 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #89 as an MP3

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If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #88 - X-Men, Watch Dogs, Mario Kart 8, & More

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, video gaming, and television. Remember to subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link!

I would have to go back through our entire archive to confirm this, but I think it’s entirely possible that Sean and I have never recorded a podcast quite so busy as this one. In addition to catching up on two weeks worth of news – including the saga of Marvel’s Ant-Man following the departure of director Edgar Wright, and the announcement of the hilariously awful title for Warner Bros’ Batman/Superman movie – we also have four major discussion topics on tap this week: A preview of next week’s E3 conference, a quick review of Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, a longer review of Watch Dogs for the PlayStation 4, and an in-depth discussion of Brian Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (which I reviewed in print here).

So yeah. That’s a lot of stuff, and it probably makes for too long an episode. Thankfully, these are all interesting topics – especially X-Men, which made for a much deeper and more substantive conversation than I think either of us could have predicted – and if you can divvy the show up to listen to in chunks, there is hopefully some entertainment to be had.

Enjoy, and come back next week for our coverage of E3!

Download and Stream 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #88 as an MP3

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow 'The Weekly Stuff' RSS Feed Online!

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

Essay Day - "Bond on Bond: Quantum of Solace and the Illusive Case of the Bondian Ideal"

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for ‘Essay Day’ here at Fade to Lack. As explained here, I have written a large number of essays during my time at the University of Colorado as a student in film studies, and I thought it time to share the best of those with my readers, so throughout the summer, I’ll be posting a new essay every Wednesday, all focused on film in one form or another, but often incorporating other research and fields of study.

This week’s piece comes from one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at the University of Colorado – a summer course called “Genre, Theory, History: Lives of 007,” which, as the name implies, explored the cinematic world of James Bond. It was an extremely fun class, as one might imagine, but also an intellectually fascinating one, because exploring the 007 series from serious angles of film theory and history, cultural critique, phenomenological study, etc. proved to be endlessly engaging. The assignment for this final paper was, if memory serves, to create and argue a topic relevant to what had been discussed in class, using readings and films from the course. My topic stemmed from an interest in the genre theory of James Bond, which often leads criticism of the series down what I believe is a self-defeating path of trying to define what is and is not ‘Bondian’ – something that also came up during class quite a few times, particularly when bashing Quantum of Solace, a film I hardly love, but neither revile in the way many do, and which I certainly don’t think is the antithesis of ‘Bondian’ as many insist. That would be Live and Let Die. But more on that in the essay itself. Enjoy...

Read “Bond on Bond: Quantum of Solace and the Illusive Case of the Bondian Ideal” after the jump...