An Image of Oreo

David Chute asked if my wife had drawn any pictures of our dog Oreo, so here is a picture Jody drew of her not too long ago. Jody drew the picture from memory. Oreo died on August 1, 2002 at the ripe age of 20, she would have been 21 in a couple weeks. We loved her very much and still miss her. Oreo would love Glendale.

My Anniversary Was Magical and So Was The Magic Castle

Last Thursday, as you all know, was my wife and my ninth wedding anniversary. Before I went to work my wife recommended that I wear a suit and tie to work so that I would be ready for our dinner. In years past I have planned the anniversary dinner, but this year Jody "demanded" the privilege. She then asked me if I was "excited" about our dinner. I responded calmly that I was very much looking forward to a romantic evening with my wife.

She scowled and said, "but are you excited about where we are going?"

I told her that I didn't know where we were going and I once again assured her that I was looking forward to a very romantic evening.

Once more the scowl.

So I asked, "okay...where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," she giggled, then she hugged me and skipped off to her car. All of which left me wondering what she had planned. Too be honest, I didn't put much thought into it for most of the day. It wasn't until I was on the road from Glendora to the Paramount Lot (the Marx Building for JC and Wolf) that I began to really attempt to guess at the surprise.

Jody called my cell while I was on the road, "any guesses?"

"Do you really want me to guess or do you want me to be joyously surprised when I get to your office?"

"I want you to be joyously surprised."

"Then I'll wait until I get to your office and react to the news." I can hear the grimmace on the other end of the cell.

All of this has finally caused me to really think about where Jody has planned for us to go to dinner. What could be this important? Think, think, think. We went to Spago for Jody's birthday and it was great, but even that wasn't as big a deal as Jody was making this evening. Hmm...other than Disneyland, for which one evening wouldn't be enough, what place would be special enough to make Jody giggle?

I finally decided that it must be the Magic Castle. I am a big fan of magic and have always wanted to go there. Jody received an invitation from a member over a year ago and we have been unable to use it. It was featured in a Columbo episode (Jody's favorite show ever). I hoped I was right and tried to brace myself for any disappointment.

I arrive at her boss's office and Jody is busy in the phones, but she has time to hand me a hand made anniversary card. She smiles broadly and says, "open it!"

This is what I see.



Well, this and the invitation to the Magic Castle. I had been right and I laugh out loud, "Awesome," I am Gen X after all, "I hoped this is where we were going to go."

"Good thing we are then," she laughed.

Jody's playfulness was fun, but the Magic Castle was better than I expected. We ate dinner at their steakhouse. It's no Spago, but eating there meant we didn't have to pay for the "Palace of Mystery" show.

When you go to the Magic Castle, which requires an invitation and reservations, there are basically four venues where performers baffle and amaze you. At least they try to baffle and amaze you.

There is the Close Up Gallery where magicians give performances every 45 minutes or so for the duration of the evening. This is where you will see card tricks, sponge ball manipulations, and coin tricks. You know what I am talking about, all the slight of hand trick you can imagine might be performed here.

There is the Parlour of Prestidigitation where everything inbetween close up and stage performance is done. In the Parlour you will experience Mentalism and the types of tricks you might imagine experiencing in a Victorian living room.

Then there is the Palace of Mystery where stage magic is performed. This can be everything from "large" slight of hand tricks and animal tricks to large mechanical tricks like the famous sawing the woman in half trick.

Finally, there is the W.C. Fields bar where the bartender does a continuous demonstration of barside magic. As you can probably guess the majority is close up magic, but humor is a big part of this experience as is drinking.

We had a great time. We watched two perfomers in the Close Up Gallery (Paul Green and David Stryker) one "early" performer and one "late" performer. At the Palace of Mystery show we saw Shoot Ogawa and George Saterial. We even hung out at the W.C. Fields bar for a while. Sadly, we weren't able to catch one of the shows at the Parlour, it was a Thursday and there was no midnight performance in the Parlour.

All the magic was excellent, but the magician who most impressed me was David Stryker. He performed a couple of "classic" manipulations, but with awesome fluidity. He was worth the very late stay and was not only a skilled magician, but an approachable and friendly one as well.

Oh...and before I forget. In addition to the magic, Jody and I were able to do some gawking as well. Neal McDonough was there with friends, as was Sam Jones III. If you are a comic book geek, you might appreciate that McDonough was the voice of Firebrand on an episode of Marvel Action Hour: Ironman and was the voice of Bruce Banner on the 90s animated series. Thought I was going to mention Smallville, didn't you.

Sofia Coppola Panned at Cannes

Anyone who has seen Lick the Star will not be surprised to read that her latest film, Antoinette, was booed at Cannes.

I have always wondered why anyone could have liked the Oscar Award Winning film Lost in Translation, which I always thought would be bettered titled Sofia Coppola Thinks Japanese Are Weird. I found it to be an almost intolerably shallow and self-centered film. Some of the "deep thoughts" I was taught by the film include:

1. Look Japanese go to weird strip clubs that make Sofia feel uncomfortable.
2. When in one of the most exciting cities in the world, it is best to stay in your hotel room and mope.
3. Even your Japanese friends are weird.
4. Bill Murray is a good enough actor to make people like a poorly directed film

Bad News Bears Go To Japan showed a more sympathetic and subtle representation of Japanese culture than Lost in Translation. In fact, if you seen Lick the Star you see that the themes of Translation are pretty much the same as those of Star, namely alienation and loneliness. Translation was directed at the same slow, dull, pace as Star and I have never thought that drawn out and boring meant subtle. The Academy obviously disagreed.

When I first saw a preview for Antoinette, I was watching Tristan and Isolde, I burst out laughing at how absurd the film was advertised to be. What I saw was a pretentious couple of minutes of direction in the style of Star that was supposed to be about Marie Antoinette. I guess my imaginings of the film were not far off base, given the reaction at Cannes. I don't know. I'll have to see for myself. The question is whether the "rollicking rock-n-roll" soundtrack is enough to get me to see it in the theater or whether I will wait for Netflix.

Hmm...I wonder if this film will be about a young woman who feels alienated and alone?

British Computer Animation Company Opens Santa Monica Office

Image Metrics (founded in Manchester, England), the leading provider of computer-based facial animation solutions to Hollywood and the digital entertainment industries, announced their arrival in North America on Tuesday with the opening of a new office in Santa Monica, CA. Image Metrics technology has been used in many motion picture and gaming projects including Polar Express and Grand Theft Auto. Company CEO Andy Wood discussed the growth of Image Metrics.

"Over the Past 7 years, Image Metrics has quickly evolved from a company providing image analysis solutions for the medical industry into a specialist in entertainment facial animation technology. The opening of our offices in Santa Monica signifies our commitment and desire to be a part of the future of digital animation and to share our technology and knowledge with those who also seek to push the boundaries of this ever-evolving space," said Wood. "We provide the actor and director the missing tools they need in the animation process to communicate with a strictly non-creative entity such as a computer."

The company was founded in Manchester, England and has developed the only technology that digitally maps a human performance to an animated character. This technology supersedes contemporary motion capture systems because it is not reliant upon traditional techniques such as markers that restrict the performance of an actor and limit the creative control of the director. Image Metrics claims their technology "has simplified a traditionally labor-intensive, time-consuming, and expensive process while enhancing the artistic skills that exist within that process."

Pop, Pop, Pop Culture Community Membership Rules

Cinerati is looking for a few good websites devoted to the discussion of popular culture, in all its beautiful forms. To become a member of our Truth Laid Bear Community all you need to do is apply and meet the following criteria:

1. Your site must focus on some aspect of popular culture. It doesn't matter if you have a site that tries to cover everything, or one that just talks about the Nintendo Wii. All that matters is that your site cover an aspect of popular culture as its primary focus.


2. You must post on a semi-frequent basis. By this I mean that you must post at least once a week.


3. You must link to the other sites in the Community and it would be great if you read them as well.


4. You must be willing to participate in a cross-blog discussion once a month. Each month Community members will nominate and select a topic related to popular culture to discuss and will write a piece related to said topic. If the subject is out of your field, your post can be brief but should direct traffic to other sites in the Community.


5. You must post the Community Banner prominently and proudly on your page (when it is available.


6. If you have "non-family friendly" material, a disclaimer would be nice.


7. The Community Administrator reserves the right to add additional criteria.

Pop, Pop, Pop Culture Community Established

I have begun the set up process for the Pop, Pop, Pop Culture Community. We are designated in the Culture category on the Truth Laid Bear Community Page. I have taken the role of community administrator and that means I need to solicit and delegate. So first things first, here is a list of the current community members:

1. Cinerati
2. Hungry Ghost
3. News on the March
4. Perrero
5. The Shelf
6. Shouting Into the Wind
7. The Ziggurat of Doom

I have already made some updates to the community, but the page only updates every few hours so be patient.

With the creation of a new community there are a couple of things that still need to be done.

First we need a "homepage" for the community.

Second we need someone to design the homepage and include links to all the member sites and an RSS feed of all the posts coming from our individual sites, a kind of news hub if you will. We could even add a message board, if we wanted, but I think comments sections are sufficient.

Third, we need to solicit more members. So if you know a site that discusses pop culture get them to shoot me an email and if they meet the criteria (I will post that above) then I will gladly add them.

Fourth, we need a "community banner" to be posted on the TTLB website, our own websites, and the community website.

With that in mind I am asking for volunteers and making the following proposal. We can if everyone wants use http://cinerati.net as our hub page.

Cinerati: The Origin Continue...The Last Samurai and Thomas Hibbs

As I mentioned in the first origin post, I had wanted to create a blog to discuss movies and popular culture, but in order to commit to writing commentary (even inane commentary) on a semi-frequent basis.

March 15, 2004 I re-read an article by Thomas Hibbs, author of Shows About Nothing, which really set my low art loving furnace aflame. I had to respond to Hibbs degredation of the Last Samurai and the films of Quentin Tarantino (whose work I firmly find to be high art, not low). Without further ado, here is that first article.

In the Shadow of Kurosawa

By Christian Johnson

I can still remember the first time I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show. There I was, a “virgin” watching rolls of toilet paper flying and getting wet from squirting water when I realized that I was sitting surrounded by an audience that didn’t “get it.” Here they were talking, mocking, and interacting with a film that was hilarious on its own merits. Somewhere in all the chaos I managed to watch a parody of some of my favorite classic Hollywood horror films. I had a similar, though drier, experience when I watched John Water’s Cecil B. Demented in a theater full of people who didn’t know who William Castle was.

I experienced the same frustration when I read Thomas Hibbs’ recent article regarding Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film Kill Bill vol. 1 and the Tom Cruise blockbuster The Last Samurai ( Kurosawa Kills Bill). In particular, I took issue with his claim that “despite their critical acclaim and their purported desire to be faithful to Japanese sources, these films are but vulgar distortions of Japanese film culture, especially the work of Akira Kurosawa.” I was surprised by my reaction because I have more respect for Professor Hibbs than I do for most of the celebrated “cinerati” who, like me, enjoyed these two films. You see, I think that the Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture is on to something with regards to America’s elites having a disturbing affection for nihilism. So my reaction did not originate from a disagreement about the merits of these films with regard to virtue or an expression of human excellence. To be fair, I don’t know what his opinions are regarding The Last Samurai as a film about virtue, but I have a fair idea regarding Kill Bill. My frustration stemmed from his accusation that these films were “distortions” of a genre “especially” the work of Akira Kurosawa.

This leads me to ask two questions. First, are these films a “distortion of Japanese film culture?” Second, are these films “especially” referencing the work of Akira Kurosawa? I refuse to address any other of the statements made in Hibbs’ article because they provide a wonderful introduction to the works of an inspirational filmmaker. Though I do think that Hibbs was remiss in not mentioning Chushingura by Hiroshi Inagaki as another wonderful film about feudal Japan.

Kill Bill is exactly what it purports to be, a celebration of Japan’s b-movies in the Chambara genre (and to some extent the Wuxia and Kung Fu films of Hong Kong). While Akira Kurosawa’s films (among them Sanjuro, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran) are great films about Samurai culture, they do not stand alone nor are they in the b-list of this genre. Tarantino’s film is closer in tone to the Lone Wolf and Cub and Zatoichi films, but he adds the bloodiness of the films of Kinji Fukasaku whose recent film Battle Royale (based on the book of the same name) is a brutal combination of Lord of the Flies and the Survivor television show. One need only watch a few Sonny Chiba (who stars in Kill Bill and is referenced in True Romance) films to understand that Japan, like America, has an appetite for graphic violence. You cannot claim that a film is a vulgar distortion of a culture based on a case study, a more random sample is needed. I think that if Professor Hibbs takes a random sample of Japanese cinema post 1970, he will find more Hanzo the Blade than Throne of Blood.

Typical of Tarantino, any celebration requires examples of a genre’s influence on Western film. So we have a perverted “Charlies Angels,” called the DiVAs, based on the Five Deadly Venoms by the Shaw Brothers. We have the exaggerated camera use of Sergio Leone used in the fight scene between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu (the snow covered ground of which directly references the final fight in Chushingura). Tarantino gives us the Tokyo of Black Rain and Godzilla visually reminiscent of the Los Angeles of Blade Runner. We hear the theme song to The Green Hornet and Uma Thurman dressed like Bruce Lee in Game of Death. Through his director’s eye the audience sees the way Western movies, largely b-movies, have influenced Japanese b-movies, which have in turn influenced Western b-movies. We are presented with a dialogue, not a distortion, between two arguably vulgar cultural representations of the action genre.

The Last Samurai is more difficult to defend from Professor Hibbs’ criticism. While the film is infinitely less vulgar than Kill Bill, Edward Zwick appears to be imitating rather than celebrating what he thinks a film about feudal Japan should look like. The palette is reminiscent of Ran as is the tragic nature of its Japanese protagonist. The Last Samurai isn’t a film about feudal Japan, rather it is a film about how an American reacts and views feudal Japan. The framing device makes it apparent that we are watching the memories of an American Civil War veteran struggling to understand Japanese culture. The director has the difficult task of combining genre and cultural messages. How do you balance the need to show both Western and Eastern concepts of military virtue? How do you do this through the eyes of a character who has forgotten Classical virtue and is a product of Machiavellian prudential virtue?

The conflicts for Cruise’s character prevent the director from fully utilizing the Japanese cultural setting and so he abbreviates it. There are moments in the film when Cruise’s character is given advice from the Book of Five Rings a classic samurai text. The advice given him to him regarding sword fighting mirror advice from the 2nd chapter of the Hagakure (published in 1716 at a time when Japan’s Samurai class had experienced 100 years of relative peace), “There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.” The Last Samurai converts the advice into a physical representation during one particular duel between Cruise and a number of ruffians. The camera’s eye captures a perfect combination of single-minded concentration and void.

In the end though, these arguments regarding the merits of Kill Bill and The Last Samurai as examples of Western art encountering Japanese art may be unconvincing to the viewer who might believe that these films represent how we have come to “prefer sorrow over pain, suffering over peace.” To that viewer I can only offer the following.

My first example is one of hope. It is the moment in The Last Samurai when Katsumoto tells Nathan Algren that one could do worse than to spend one’s life looking for the perfect blossom. In this moment, we are told that the pursuit of beauty is a better profession than the pursuit of war.

The second example is one of caution, for it shows that man’s love of pain and suffering over peace isn’t a new one. It is a quote from the 10th chapter of the Hagakure, “If you cut a face lengthwise, urinate on it, and trample on it with straw sandals, it is said that the skin will come off. This was heard by the priest Gyojaku when he was in Kyoto. It is information to be treasured.”

If the first moment is merely a pretentious effort to seem profound, maybe we truly have abandoned the pursuit of a summum bonum. I dread a world in which it is “not the natural sweetness of living but the terrors of death [that] make us cling to life.”

I didn't mention in the article, because I didn't think of it at the time, while Hibbs is right that Kurosawa influenced American Film, let us not forget that Yojimbo was a Samurai version of Dashiell Hammett's story Red Harvest.