Epstein Reading

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you know that he Epstein reading, "Americanizing the World," that I mentioned during our last class meeting will be available in hard copy in Bryan Hall 219 starting on Monday. You can always simply look through the reserve book in Clemons, though there will be hard copies of the chapter in my cubbyhole outside Bryan 219. Please read this before our class on Wednesday and come with something interesting to say about it. It's very short, and, in my mind, very interesting!

The Flower of My Secret

I just finished watching one of Almodovar's earlier movies (from the mid-1990s), _The Flower of My Secret_. I enjoyed it quite a bit, largely because it had started to sketch out some of the major themes and motifs from his later movie, and my favorite of his, _All About My Mother_. The film dealt with a romance novelist named Leo who breaks off a relationship with her husband, Paco, will experiencing a crisis about the kinds of books that she writes. She wants to stop writing romance novels and focus on more dramatic (and darker) books that depict "reality." Also involved are her friend who works with doctors (informing them how to give bad news to patients), a maid who moonlights as an amazing flamenco dancer, and editor who loves romance novels, and a nasty publisher whose son is a junky. It was more frenetic than some of Almodovar's more recent films, which made it more enjoyable for me. In many ways, it also seemed the most stylized of his movies, with more intricate shots, some of them bordering on the painterly.

Some other good questions for Guy Maddin

We've not yet watched _The Saddest Music in the World_, but I'm already finding that I have some questions about the film. First, I noticed on the back of the DVD case that this is a black comedy. While it seems very hard to define the term black comedy, I do think that the word "comedy" gets at the fact that there is some kind of humor, and maybe even laughter in the film. Where, I wonder, do we laugh in this movie?

Credits

Before we watched _Bad Education_, I remember commenting that the credits of the movie were intriguing and worth considering. Has anyone thought at all about them? Did people see the connections with the credits and a specific episode in the film? With the plot perhaps? Think about this for awhile, and post any thoughts you may have!

Schedule

Short Course Schedule

1. January 25, 7-7:30 pm
Introduction to the Course (at Runk)

2. Ladies in a Coma
February 1, 7-9: 30 pm
Almodovar, Talk to Her
Reading: Epstein, “The Once and Future Hollywood” and Monaco, “The Language of Film: Signs and Syntax” (skim it and make a note of any interesting observations)

3. Dracula as Ballet
February 8, 7-9 pm
Maddin, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
Reading: Monaco, “The Silent Feature: Realism vs. Expressionism”

4. Music, Romance, and a Noodle Bar
February 15, 7-9 pm
Kar-Wai, In the Mood for Love
Reading: excerpt from Tao, Wong Kar-Wai: Auteur of Time
Short reading response to a film journal due

5. Filming your Passion
February 22, 7-9 pm
Almodovar, Bad Education
Reading: Denby, “In and Out of Love: The Films of Pedro Almodovar” and possibly Munoz, “Performing Disidentification”

6. The Legless Beer Baroness
March 1, 7-9:30 pm
Maddin, The Saddest Music in the World
Reading: Epstein, “Americanizing the World” and additional sections on expressionism from Monaco

Spring Break: March 4 through March 12

7. The Hole in the Wall
March 15, 7-9:30 pm
Kar-Wai, 2046
Reading: Rayns, “The Long Goodbye”
Review due.

8. Conclusion of the Course
March 22, 7-9:30 pm
After reaching group consensus in our previous session, we’ll meet tonight to have some food and record our own audio commentary to one of the films from the class.

A list of sorts

I really can't manage top ten lists...I don't know how newspapers do. So I'm simply listing out a bunch of good movies that I've seen in the past year here, in no particular order.

The Constant Gardener
Batman Begins
Happy Endings
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2046
Rent
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Nine Lives
Syriana
A History of Violence
Broken Flowers
Cache
Mysterious Skin
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night and Good Luck
Capote
Match Point
Transamerica (not such a hot script, but Felicity did well and the ending was fascinating)

I've also seen a few things on video that I found provocative, including:
The Beat My Heart Skipped
Queen Christina
Theatre of Blood
My Own Private Idaho

Begin!

This is the first post of Neil's blog for INST 262. I'll not only be commenting on movies for our course, but I'll also be mentioning good ones that I've seen. I may even mention bad ones I've seen, though, since I've had pretty good luck of late, those are few and far between.