Film Fest - Pleasantville

What a jewel this film is!

I liked Pleasantville the first time I saw it.  Liked it enough to buy it on DVD and to watch it ever since.  This fantasy about a 1990s teenage boy and his sister who get magically pulled into the vintage '50s black & white television show called Pleasantville - and then create unintended havoc - gets better with every viewing.

For one thing, it stars the then young and little known Tobie Maguire and Reese Withspoon.  Every other role is filled with wonderful actors like Joan Allen, who plays the luminous, heart-breaking pearl-clad Mother, Jeff Daniels, William H. Macy, and even old favorites like Don Knotts, who once worked in Mayberry, spiritual sister-city to Pleasantville.

For another, this film has great affection for the old, innocent TV sitcoms whose unreality it simultaneously spoofs.  (There's a great sight-gag in a toilet stall.)  It's witty.  But it has deeper, philosophical currents under the surface sparkle of wit and humor: musings on reality and fantasy, conformity and freedom, innocence and experience... on the importance of passion.

I have to love a film that can make you laugh at a crack about bowling alleys one minute and in the next, feel genuinely uncomfortable about creeping totalitarianism.  Pleasantville gets unpleasantly more topical every day.

Public domain images messed with.

The film may start out in nostalgia - but it doesn't stay there.  Never has the phrase, "Honey, I'm home!" sounded so... forlorn.  This is a clever "idea" film that's beautifully realized (gorgeous photography), but it is its warmth and charm you most remember.

Pleasantville is a gem.

Deadlines

Aaaargh!

Some days are Rush days.  Yesterday I had to quick-quick-quick rush out sketches for one show.  Today I need to rush out another.

(The consequence of having to take time off.  Vacations?  Just a speed-bump in the March of Progress.)

Quick! To the drawing board!

Public domain image.

On Reviewers

I just found this apt paragraph in (of all places) The Chronicle of Higher Education, from an article by Arthur Krystal called "Should Writers Respond to Reviewers?"

"Kingsley Amis, in a moment of weakness, allowed that a bad review could spoil a writer's breakfast, but not his lunch. Really? Recipients of unfavorable reviews suffer heartburn for months, perhaps years. And why shouldn't they? Reading a stupid review is a little like being mugged. You feel violated and outraged and want nothing less than to see the perp caught and publicly flogged. But what can you do? Everyone knows that disgruntled authors are advised to keep quiet, since any rejoinder can only make them look peevish while at the same time calling even more attention to a harsh critique."


(Read the rest of the lively article HERE.)

This is true in theater too.  The actor, director, designer or other toiler in the vineyards of Dionysis has to try to ignore a bad review.  Well, or go get drunk - no doubt the real reason ol' Dionysis is god of both theater and wine.

Dionysus by Carravaggio, public domain image

Film Fest - My Week With Marilyn

It was just amazing to watch the actress Michelle Williams channel Marilyn Monroe.  My Week with Marilyn is a very well-acted film. Kenneth Branagh, always good, was a wonderfully exasperated Laurence Olivier.  And it was easy to see both how Monroe earned her reputation for being "difficult" ("difficult"? maddening! I'd have fired her), but also how potent her charm was.

Poster for My Week with Marilyn, from Wikipedia

I found the film especially interesting because I had seen the real film that this film shows the making of, The Prince and the Showgirl.  What I hadn't quite expected though was the charm of this movie.  Seen through the naive eyes of a young third assistant director named Colin, the actress, the world of film, and England have a real glow.

An extra treat for the audience is famous characters like Arthur Miller and Viviene Leigh and seeing favorite actors like Judy Dench, wonderful as a film Duchess (I think) and Emma Watson as a wardrobe girl.

Worth watching.

Squidoo Up-Date

Good news on the squid-front: my page Easy Green Yard won a coveted Purple Star!

(That's kinda like getting the ol' kindergarten gold-star-on-your-chart... except, obviously, purple. A very welcome compliment.)

And talking of squidly subjects, I just found this good Squid page on sketchbooks and blogging: Sketchblogs.

Those of you who know me know that I hardly go anywhere without a sketchbook.  (I only buy purses it can fit into - take that! Fashion.)  Anyway, having a handy place to record not just sketches, but notes, research, measurements, or good quotes found while browsing in bookstores... What fun is it to be creative without a friendly sketchbook?

My sketch from the Stickley exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art  POST

Give a sketchbook a try.

As you can see above, the standard of drawing doesn't have to be very high for a sketch to remind you of what you saw (or thought of) and to record the important things.  Pretty sketches are just a nice by-product.

End of an Architectural Era

One architect I know, who started out in the 1980s at the very end of the era of hand-drafting, just yesterday cleared out his office desk drawer: home went the drafting lead holders, the lead pointer, the French curves, the circle and bathroom fixture templates, and all the triangles but one.

He hadn't used them in the last fifteen years.

He needed the drawer space.

Computer drafting is a cool invention with a lot of capabilities that can't be matched by drawing on paper, especially as 3D systems like Revit become the newest standard, but it is nostalgically sad to see the retirement of a hand skill that has existed more or less unchanged since Imhotep sketched up the world's first pyramid.

The architect/doctor/god Imhotep, public domain photo courtesy of Wikipedia

For those Readers in the DFW area, the Kimbell Art Museum has an even more beautiful statue of an almost-as-ancient architect/god, Senmut.  Worth a visit.

Personally, I think it's cool that my profession has actual, official gods.  I mean, shouldn't every job?  Or at least a patron saint, as St. Clare is for television.  (She was sick in bed and had to miss Mass, but saw visions... like wifi TV evangelism, but without the technology.)  But who is the patron saint or god of theater set design?  I'm going to have to mull over that...

Scheduling in Advance

Well, sometimes...

Many theater companies ask set (and other) designers on board just as soon as they decide their seasons and choose their directors.  A few even choose designers before directors(though I think most directors would prefer the chance to at least cast a veto!).  Other theaters wait till late.  The worst-case, of course, is waiting till the last minute or past, as when they have to find a late replacement.

Accordingly - since this is April 2012 - I have just picked up two almost-last-minute shows for June...  and one for February 2013.  Two months away and ten months away.

I'm going to have to buy a new calendar.

Photo courtesy of Photos Public Domain.com

Film Fest - The Hunger Games

I really enjoyed the books - terrific page turners!  - so I was hoping for a good movie version of The Hunger Games too, but that's always a bit of a coin-toss, whether a good book makes a good movie.  You just can't predict.

So I'm pleased to say that I think the movie IS a fair rendering of the story into film and very enjoyable.  As you'd expect, there's been  pruning to fit the story into two hours, with several characters fading out, but on the other hand, I liked the added characterization of the Game Maker and his fate.  The biggest change was the expected one: downplaying the carnage, gore, and suffering.  This had to be a PG-13 rated film so that it's core audience could watch.  So... violence was more suggested than shown.  (Fine by me.)

I liked all the characters and acting, especially Stanley Tucci's Master of Ceremonies. (I'm a big fan of Tucci in any film.) 

Cover illustrations from Wired.com GeekDad's article about books for/about Geek Girls

When I saw the movie Saturday, there was a large audience of teen girls who had obviously seen the film several times already and memorized it well enough to answer back to dialogue here and there.  This is the first film I've seen that happen to in a long time.  Shows a certain enthusiasm I think.

HERE's my earlier post on the Hunger Game books.