Category: Film
Which Russians are getting cancelled?
The Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov has spent the past week distraught at the horror unfolding in Ukraine. Half his family is Ukrainian, he said in a telephone interview, and as a child he spent summers there, staying with his grandparents.
His maternal grandmother was still living in Kyiv, he said, “hiding from bombs in a bunker.”
Since Russia’s invasion began, Mr. Sokolov said he had signed two online petitions calling for an end to the war, an act that carries a risk in Russia, where thousands have been arrested for protesting the conflict, and some have reportedly lost their jobs.
Yet despite his antiwar stance, Mr. Sokolov on Monday learned that the Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland had dropped his latest movie, “No Looking Back.”
Here is more from Alex Marshall at the NYT. Remind me again — why is this better than “simple racism”? The Festival noted that the Russian government earlier had funded his film work. Surely that could be grounds for cancelling anyone who went to public school in Russia?
*Atlantis*
Last night I watched this Ukrainian movie on AppleTV. It was released in 2019 and is set in 2025, in the aftermath of a major war with Russia, which ended the year before. Due to radiation and other post-conflict problems, the eastern half of Ukraine is essentially uninhabitable. Ukraine, however, won the war because Russia underestimated Ukrainian guerrilla warfare, instead preparing for a war that the Ukrainians would fight with tanks (they didn’t). The fundamental Ukrainian activity in this dystopian, apocalyptic postwar order is that of archaeology, uncovering wartime ruins and also corpses of Russian soldiers; I took that to be a stand-in for a broader understanding of Ukrainian history.
Originally this film had been marketed as “science fiction.”
Addendum: I thought the movie was excellent, though not for all tastes. There are of course periodic visual references to Tarkovsky. All the roles in the movie are played by military veterans and volunteers and paramedics, not professional actors. Here is its Wikipedia page. Here is the Variety review.
My Conversation with Chuck Klosterman
Excellent stuff, we had so much fun we kept on going for an extra half hour, as he decided to ask me a bunch of questions about economics and personal finance. Here is the audio and transcript. Here is the CWT summary:
Chuck joined Tyler to discuss the challenges of writing about recent history, the “slow cancellation of the future” that began in the aughts, how the internet widened cultural knowledge but removed its depth, why the context of Seinfeld was in some ways more important than its content, what Jurassic Park illustrates about public feelings around scientific progress in the ’90s, why the ’90s was the last era of physical mass subcultures, why it’s uncommon to be shocked by modern music, how his limited access to art when growing up made him a better critic, why Spin Magazine became irrelevant with the advent of online streaming, what made Grantland so special, what he learned from teaching in East Germany, the impact of politics on the legacies of Eric Clapton and Van Morrison, how sports often rewards obnoxious personalities, why Wilt Chamberlain is still underrated, how the self-awareness of the Portland Trail Blazers undermined them, how the design of the NFL makes sports rivalries nearly impossible, how pro-level compensation prevents sports gambling from corrupting players, why so many people are interested in e-sports, the unteachable element of writing, why he didn’t make a great editor on his school paper, what he’d say to a room filled with ex-lovers, the question he’d most like to ask his parents, his impressions of cryptocurrency, why he’s trying to focus on what he has in the current moment rather than think too much about future plans, the power of charisma, and more.
Whew! Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: I see the world as follows. Every decade, to me, is super weird, but the 1980s and ’90s pretended they weren’t weird. The ’80s pretended to be good versus evil. The ’90s pretended that good won. But when crypto comes and persists, you have to drop all pretense that the age you’re living in isn’t totally weird.
You have internet crypto, and everyone admits, right now, everything’s weird. And that, to me, is the fundamental break with the 1990s because everyone pretended most things were normal and that Seinfeld was your dose of weird, right? Jason Alexander — that’s a very manageable weird.
KLOSTERMAN: Oh, absolutely.
COWEN: Some guy in an apartment in New York City cracking sarcastic jokes — like, whoop-de-do.
And:
KLOSTERMAN: …this guy, Mark Fisher, who’s dead now, had this idea about the slow cancellation of the future. I feel like that’s one of the most profound ideas that I’ve come across in the last 10 years of my life, and it seems so palpable that this is occurring.
An example I will often use is, if you take, say, 10 minutes from an obscure film in 1965 with no major actors, and then you take 10 minutes from an obscure film from 1980 where nobody became famous, and you show anyone these 10-minute clips, they will have no problem whatsoever figuring out which one came first. Even a little kid can look at a movie from 1965 and a movie from 1980 and instantly understand that one predates the other.
But if you do that with a film from 2005 and a film from 2020 — again, an obscure film where you don’t recognize the actors — you’re just looking at it aesthetically and trying to deduce which one came first and which one came second. It’s almost impossible.
This phenomenon just seems to almost be infiltrating every aspect of the culture…
And:
KLOSTERMAN: Before I did this podcast, I listened to your podcast with Žižek.
COWEN: Oh yeah, that was hilarious.
KLOSTERMAN: Are you friends with him? It sure seemed like it. And if you are, what is it like to be with him when he is not in a performative scenario?
Recommended. And again, here is Chuck’s new book The Nineties.
Netflix economics and the future of Netflix
Ted Gioia writes:
Netflix’s market share has been declining steadily, and has now fallen below 50%. One estimate claims that the company’s share of consumers fell more than 30% in a single year. Netflix’s recent quarterly report was a disaster, spurring a share sell-off. You could easily conclude that “Netflix’s long awaited funeral is finally here”—as Bloomberg hinted in its blunt assessment of the results.
Of course the company is still worth quite a bit, so my own view is no more or no less optimistic than what the market indicates. Still, it is worth asking what the equilibrium here looks like. There is also AppleTV, Disney, Showtime, HBOMax, Hulu, AmazonPrime, and more. I don’t think it quite works to argue that we all end up subscribing to all of them, so where are matters headed? I see a few options:
1. Netflix and its competitors keep on producing new shows until all the rents are exhausted and those companies simply earn the going rate of return on capital, with possible ongoing rents on longstanding properties of real value (e.g., older Disney content). These scenarios could involve either additional entry, or more (and better?) shows from the incumbent producers.
2. Due to economies of scale, one or two of those companies will produce the best shows and buy up the best content. We end up with a monopoly or duopoly in the TV streaming market, noting there still would be vigorous competition from other media sources.
3. The companies are allowed to collude in some manner. One option is they form a consortium where you get “all access” for a common fee, divvied out in proper proportion. Would the antitrust authorities allow this? Or might the mere potential for antitrust intervention makes this a collusive solution but one without a strict monopolizing, profit-maximizing price?
4. The companies are allowed to collude in a more partial and less obvious manner. Rather than a complete consortium, some of the smaller companies will evolve into “feeder” services for one or two of the larger companies. Those smaller companies will rely increasingly more on the feeder contracts and increasingly less on subscription revenue. This perhaps resembles the duopoly solution analytically, though a head count would show more than two firms in the market.
It seems to me that only the first scenario is very bad for Netflix. That said, it seems that along all of these paths short-run rent exhaustion is going on, and that short-run rent exhaustion is costly for Netflix. They keep on having to pump out “stuff” to keep viewer attention. It doesn’t matter that new shows are cheap, because as long as the market profits are there the “bar” for retaining customers will continue to grow. Very few of their shows are geared to produce long-term customer loyalty toward that show – in contrast, people are still talking about Columbo!
Putting the law aside, which economic factors determine which solution will hold? My intuition is that there are marketing economies of scale, but production diseconomies of scale, as the media companies grow too large and sclerotic. So maybe that militates in favor of scenario #4? That to me also suggests an “at least OK” future for Netflix. The company would continue its investments and marketing and an easy to use website, while increasingly going elsewhere for superior content.
My Israel-only Conversation with the excellent Russ Roberts
Here is the audio, video, and transcript, here is the CWT summary:
In this special crossover special with EconTalk, Tyler interviews Russ Roberts about his new life in Israel as president of Shalem College. They discuss why there are so few new universities, managing teams in the face of linguistic and cultural barriers, how Israeli society could adapt to the loss of universal military service, why Israeli TV is so good, what American Jews don’t understand about life in Israel, what his next leadership challenge will be, and much more.
We didn’t shy away from the tough stuff, here is one question:
COWEN: Let me ask you another super easy question. Let’s say we think that under current circumstances, a two-state solution would not lead to security either for Israel or for the resulting Palestinian state. Many people believe that. Let’s say also, as I think you believe, that a one-state solution where everyone votes would not lead to security for a current version of Israel or even a modified version of it.
Let’s say also that the current reliance of the Palestinian territories on the state of Israel for protection, security, intelligence, water — many important features of life — prevent those governing bodies from ever attaining sufficient autonomy to be a credible peace partner, guaranteer of its own security, and so on. From that point of view, what do we do? We’re not utilitarians. We’re thinking about what’s right and wrong. What’s the right thing to do?
Do read Russ’s answer! (Too long to excerpt.) And:
COWEN: Now, the United States has about 330 million people, yet there are more Israeli TV shows I want to watch than American TV shows. There’s Srugim, there’s Shtisel, there’s Prisoners of War, there’s In Judgment, there’s Tehran. There’s more. Why is Israeli TV so good?
ROBERTS: I’m glad you mentioned Prisoners of War, which doesn’t get enough — Prisoners of War is in my top five. If I had to list my top five, I’d pick Shtisel, Prisoners of War, The Americans, probably The Wire, and The Crown. Do you have a top five that you could reel off?
COWEN: The Sopranos would be my number one. Srugim and Prisoners of War plausibly would be in my top five.
We then consider the Israeli topic at hand. Interesting throughout, a very good dialogue.
What to Watch
Some things I have watched, some good, some not so good.
Cobra Kai on Netflix: A reliable, feel good show, well plotted. It plays like they mapped each season in advance covering all permutations and combinations of friends turning into enemies and enemies turning into friends. Do I really need five seasons of the same thing? No. But I still watch. Popcorn material.
Maid on Netflix: I appreciated the peek into the difficulties of managing the welfare system and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps when your family is pulling you down. Margaret Qualley (Andie MacDowell’s daughter who plays her mother on the show) has an odd charisma. It’s been noted that she is an impossibly perfect mother. Less noted is that she is a terrible wife, a poor daughter to her father and a bad girlfriend. Everyone deserves a break is the message we get from this show, except men. Still, it was well done.
The Last Duel is one of Ridley’s best. Superb, subtle acting from Jodie Comer–deserving of Oscar. Slightly too long but there are natural breaking points for at home watching. N.B. given the times it can’t be interpreted ala Rashômon as many people suggest but rather the last word is final which reduces long term interest but I still liked it.
Alex Rider on Amazon: It’s in essence a James Bond origin story. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, you will. I am told the books are also good for YA.
14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible: A mountain documentary following Nimsdai Purja as he and his team attempt to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in seven months. In many ways, the backstory–Purja is a Gurka and British special forces solider–is even more interesting. It does say something that most people don’t know his name.
The Eternals on Disney: Terrible. Didn’t finish it. A diverse cast with no actual diversity. Kumail Nanjiani, Dinesh from Silicon Valley, plays his super hero like Dinesh from Silicon Valley. Karun, the Indian sidekick, is the most authentic person in the whole ensemble. Aside from being boring it’s also dark, not emotionally but visually. It doesn’t matter the scene, battle scenes, outdoor scenes, kitchen table scenes–all so dark they are literally hard to see.
Wheel of Time: It’s hard to believe they spent a reported $10 million per episode on this clunker. The special effects were weak, the editing was bad, the mood-setting and world building were poor. The actors have no chemistry. Why would anyone be interested in Egwene who shows no spunk, intelligence or charisma? For better in this genre is The Witcher on Netflix.
The French Dispatch (theatres and Amazon): I loved it. Maybe the most Wes Anderson of Wes Anderson movies, so be prepared. Every scene has something interesting going on and there’s a new scene every few minutes. A send-up and a love story to the New Yorker. Lea Seydoux is indeed, shall we say, inspiring.
How to watch movies
Fergus asks:
Having enjoyed your posts on how to read canonical Western literature and how to get started with opera, I’d like the same thing but for film, and perhaps for architecture.
Today let’s do movies! I am hardly an expert, but here are my tips:
1. Yes there are some movies made for the television, but for first-rate movies you really do need the big screen. Do whatever you must, and no your home studio arrangement is not a good substitute. Good cities for seeing movies on a large screen are NYC, LA, Paris, London, and the DC area (Silver Spring, MD in particular, AFI).
2. Choosing with whom to go is very important. And you should see a fair share of movies alone, so you are not swayed by the views and reactions of the other parties.
3. The best prep for watching a particular movie is to have watched a lot of other movies already, and from a wide variety of sources and countries. Knowledge of the Bible can be helpful too.
3b. If you don’t “get” a classic movie with good pedigree, 3/4 of the time the fault is yours.
4. I don’t like to read reviews before seeing a movie. I might read just enough to see the evaluation, but then I stop. I don’t want the movie “explained to me,” and furthermore very few critics have an adequate mix of travel, linguistic facility, knowledge of the classics, etc. Critics can stop you from seeing what is there. That said, after I’ve seen the movie I try to read as many reviews as possible.
5. If a movie is good, you should watch it again. Then a smaller screen might be OK, or at the very least necessary. You should have seen your favorite “deep” movies at least four times.
6. You want to have good peer groups to discuss movies with. And get a movie mentor!
7. The classic movie critics — not always on-line! — are worth reading. Buy a book of Pauline Kael essays, and then keep on buying books of essays by movie critics. Don’t rely too heavily on Google. My favorite movie critic used to be David Denby of The New Yorker. Buy books on the history of movies too.
8. Now go watch more movies.
By the way, here is an interesting review of the best movies of 1931.
What else?
The Jeff Holmes Conversation with Tyler Cowen
Jeff is the CWT producer, and it has become our custom to do a year-end round-up and summary. Here is the transcript and audio and video. Here is one excerpt:
HOLMES: …Okay, let’s go through your 2011 list really quickly.
COWEN: Sure.
HOLMES: All right, number one — in no particular order, I think — but number one was Incendies. Do you remember what that’s about?
COWEN: That is by the same director of Dune.
HOLMES: Oh, is that Denis Villeneuve?
COWEN: Yes, that’s his breakthrough movie. It’s incredible.
HOLMES: I didn’t know that. I’d never heard of it. French Canadian movie, mostly set in Lebanon.
COWEN: Highly recommended, whether or not you like Dune. That was a good pick. It’s held up very well. The director has proven his merits repeatedly, and the market agrees.
HOLMES: I’m a fan of Denis Villeneuve. Obviously, Arrival was great. I can’t think of the Mexican drug movie off the top of my head.
COWEN: Is it Sicario?
HOLMES: Sicario — awesome.
COWEN: It was interesting, yes.
HOLMES: He is one of the only directors today where, when he now makes something, I know I will go and see it.
COWEN: Well, you must see Incendies. So far, I’m on a roll. What’s next?
HOLMES: All right, number two: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
COWEN: Possibly the best movie of the last 20 years. I’m impressed by myself. It’s a Thai movie. It’s very hard to explain. I’ve seen it three times since. A lot of other people have it as either their favorite movie ever or in a top-10 status, but a large screen is a benefit. If you’re seeing the movie, pay very close attention to its sounds and to the sonic world it creates, not just the images.
There are numerous interesting observations in the dialogue, including about some of the guests and episodes.
Self-recommended!
*Don’t Look Up*
You won’t find many accurate reviews of this one, in part because it is so brutal about media, not to mention American politics. The core message, however, is that everything is downstream of culture. And that we are incapable of taking our own decline seriously. Think of it as an update of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. And Trump and Hillary blend into one character, played by Meryl Streep.
At 2.5 hours, the movie is overly long but about 2/3 of it hits the target head on. These days it is rare to see a Hollywood movie of actual social import and insight. Science/politics is but one of the significant themes, another is Bruno M.’s claim that America has become a “virtual society.”
The ending also shows the film has the courage of its convictions.
Elsewhere, it is hard to know what to make of the utterly failed Bergman Island. Under what theory of the world does this cinematic outing make any sense whatsoever? Perhaps it is best interpreted as a self-referential punishment for those who, circa 2021, still think they ought to be watching movies titled Bergman Island. In that regard it succeeds beautifully.
Best movies of 2021
Listed in the order I saw them, noting that foreign releases get classified by their USA release year. And sometimes you will find a review of mine behind the link.
The Dig. Archaeology and British restraint, circa 1939.
Minari, Korean immigrant family in Arkansas.
Promising Young Woman, black comedy, wow, brutal.
Another Round, Danish film about alcohol. Against it.
Sweat, fame, social media, and gender, but insightful rather than the usual b.s.
Old, Shyamalan, plot twists and conceptual thought experiments about the biomedical establishment. Imperfect, but delivers in some significant ways.
Night of the Kings, Ivory Coast prison movie.
Nine Days. If you were choosing who gets to be born and walk on the earth, which interview questions would you ask them and how would you evaluate their answers?
“Ich bin dein Mensch” — should you date a robot?
McCartney 3, 2, 1 (Hulu). Self-recommending and consistently interesting, the best segment is when you get to hear just how much value Paul’s bass line added to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Lamb (Icelandic), one of my favorites for the year.
Get Back, directed by Peter Jackson. Amazing and epic, my pick for best of the year. And the whole world is responding. And read this on the miracle of the production side.
Cinema is not back to where it used to be, but this list is way better than what last year was able to deliver. And as always I will let you know if I see anything notable between now and the end of the year (notable films often cluster in December, though they tent not to be my personal favorites, furthermore the release schedule remains somewhat disrupted).
What else was there?
*Get Back*, I
Everything that gets done runs through Paul. As Adam Minter put it (excellent thread more generally):
Nothing would get done if Paul weren’t there. But it’s a fine line, because he’s irritating. also – Ringo, in my opinion, has deep deep reservoirs of patience. I don’t know how he go through some of those days.
In this “prepping for a no overdubs, pure live performance” setting, the studio doesn’t matter. And control over studio production was how Paul exerted an increasing authority over the Beatles. “Let’s work on this more together” de facto meant “let’s give me, Paul, greater influence over the proceedings.” Yet without his studio expertise as a Williamsonian trump card, Paul has to be more of a pain in the ass to induce effort and focus from the others.
“I’m scared of me being the boss, and I kind of have been for a couple of years,” or something like that, is what Paul says. “I know it’s right, and you know it’s right” comes shortly thereafter (remember this?).
“Whatever it is that will please you, I will do it” responds George. John in turn mutters something about maybe they should improvise the whole thing.
George Martin is rendered irrelevant, due to the studio production being omitted, and mostly he stands around and looks like a guy who used to do ads for bad British cars in the 1960s.
Two highlights are Paul singing a mock version of “Gimme’ Some Truth,” and John singing a mock version of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Doesn’t the film show it was actually George who broke up the Beatles? (Or Ringo in 1968?) Doesn’t the person who leaves first split up the relationship?
What is quiet Yoko thinking the whole time?
And from Dave Bueche:
- It’s surprising to see them digging around for material. You’d think they would have had a lineup of songs before they started the project.
- Twickenham [the studio] seems like a drag. You can tell they don’t love it either. It’s big and cavernous and a few colored lights doesn’t change that.
- There’s a certain sad nostalgia in them playing all the old standards they learned in Germany and Liverpool. Like they know this the end and they’re sort of reliving the beginning one last time.
- Paul is clearly more invested than the others. George seems like he’s trying to just learn the songs, do his bit, same with Ringo. John seems like he’s a good sport, but other than Don’t Let Me Down – he seems to be going through the motions.
- It’s fun seeing them cover Dylan and other contemporaries.
The reviews are all “oh, this shows the Beatles loved working together until the very end.” That’s a pretty superficial read of the material. To me, Get Back is much more about “how the main value adders control small groups in a somewhat tyrannical and mostly efficient manner, and why this isn’t always stable.” Mancur Olson remains underrated.
“All Things Must Pass” just wasn’t that good a song, and it would have been worse as a Beatles song.
Ask Angrist!
Team MRU will be filming Josh Angrist’s Nobel Prize lecture and we will also be filming a Q&A with the ‘metrics master’ himself. Have you ever wanted to ask Josh a question? 🤔 Now’s your chance – simply submit your question.
Here’s Josh’s class on Mastering Metrics at MRU.
My Conversation with David Salle
I was honored to visit his home and painting studio, here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is part of the CWT summary:
David joined Tyler to discuss the fifteen (or so) functions of good art, why it’s easier to write about money than art, what’s gone wrong with art criticism today, how to cultivate good taste, the reasons museum curators tend to be risk-averse, the effect of modern artistic training on contemporary art, the evolution of Cézanne, how the centrality of photography is changing fine art, what makes some artists’ retrospectives more compelling than others, the physical challenges of painting on a large scale, how artists view museums differently, how a painting goes wrong, where his paintings end up, what great collectors have in common, how artists collect art differently, why Frank O’Hara was so important to Alex Katz and himself, what he loves about the films of Preston Sturges, why The Sopranos is a model of artistic expression, how we should change intellectual property law for artists, the disappointing puritanism of the avant-garde, and more.
And excerpt:
COWEN: Yes, but just to be very concrete, let’s say someone asks you, “I want to take one actionable step tomorrow to learn more about art.” And they are a smart, highly educated person, but have not spent much time in the art world. What should they actually do other than look at art, on the reading level?
SALLE: On the reading level? Oh God, Tyler, that’s hard. I’ll have to think about it. I’ll have to come back with an answer in a few minutes. I’m not sure there’s anything concretely to do on the reading level. There probably is — just not coming to mind.
There’s Henry Geldzahler, who wrote a book very late in his life, at the end of his life. I can’t remember the title, but he addresses the problem of something which is almost a taboo — how do you acquire taste? — which is, in a sense, what we’re talking about. It’s something one can’t even speak about in polite society among art historians or art critics.
Taste is considered to be something not worth discussing. It’s simply, we’re all above that. Taste is, in a sense, something that has to do with Hallmark greeting cards — but it’s not true. Taste is what we have to work with. It’s a way of describing human experience.
Henry, who was the first curator of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, was a wonderful guy and a wonderful raconteur. Henry basically answers your question: find ways, start collecting. “Okay, but I don’t have any money. How can I collect art?” You don’t have to collect great paintings. Just go to the flea market and buy a vase for 5 bucks. Bring it back to your room, live with it, and look at it.
Pretty soon, you’ll start to make distinctions about it. Eventually, if you’re really paying attention to your own reactions, you’ll use it up. You’ll give that to somebody else, and you’ll go back to the flea market, and you buy another, slightly better vase, and you bring that home and live with that. And so the process goes. That’s very real. It’s very concrete.
And:
COWEN: As you know, the 17th century in European painting is a quite special time. You have Velásquez, you have Rubens, you have Bruegel, much, much more. And there are so many talented painters today. Why can they not paint in that style anymore? Or can they? What stops them?
SALLE: Artists are trained in such a vastly different way than in the 17th, 18th, or even the 19th century. We didn’t have the training. We’re not trained in an apprentice guild situation where the apprenticeship starts very early in life, and people who exhibit talent in drawing or painting are moved on to the next level.
Today painters are trained in professional art schools. People reach school at the normal age — 18, 20, 22, something in grad school, and then they’re in a big hurry. If it’s something you can’t master or show proficiency in quickly, let’s just drop it and move on.
There are other reasons as well, cultural reasons. For many years or decades, painting in, let’s say, the style of Velásquez or even the style of Manet — what would have been the reason for it? What would have been the motivation for it, even assuming that one could do it? Modernism, from whenever we date it, from 1900 to 1990, was such a persuasive argument. It was such an inclusive and exciting and dynamic argument that what possibly could have been the reason to want to take a step back 200 years in history and paint like an earlier painter?
It is a bit slow at the very beginning, otherwise excellent throughout.
My favorite things Idaho
I used to blog “My Favorite Things…” all the time, but I ran out of new places to go for a while. Now there is Idaho! Boise in particular. Today, I can think of a few “favorite things” from Idaho, here goes and potatoes don’t count:
Artist: Matthew Barney. Filmmaker and artist, prominent in the avant-garde but much of his work is quite accessible if you don’t mind the near total absence of dialogue. Is the nine-hour Cremaster cycle his masterpiece? (I’ve only seen parts). According to the internet “Cremaster is a paired muscle of the pelvis and perineum that is fully developed only in the external genitalia of males. Being located between the internal and external layers of spermatic fascia, cremaster covers the testes and spermatic cord.” Many scenes from the movies have been turned into photos and artworks as well.
Do people in Idaho look like that?
Composer: LaMonte Young. Is he the most underrated twentieth century avant-garde composer? The Well-Tuned Piano is one of my favorite works, though it is a tough slog for many, being about five hours in length, here is a YouTube version. He was even born in a log cabin in Idaho, and grew up LDS. His career blossomed in New York, but he attributed his interest in drone sounds to the Idaho wind and other sounds from his boyhood.
Other music: Built to Spill.
Author: Jerry Kramer, who grew up in Idaho and later played football for the Green Bay Packers. I loved Instant Replay as a kid. But is there a “real author” from Idaho? Is it better or worse to be a “real author”? Marilynne Robinson has never clicked with me.
Poet: Ezra Pound, born in Idaho. A fascist and anti-Semite, and not a true favorite of mine, but he was talented and it seems odd not to list him. Can I name a better poet from Idaho?
Explorer: Sacagewea. I hope she is cancel-proof.
Drum Battle: Idaho. Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. For some reason, it reminded me of Benny Goodman’s Clarinade (not from Idaho).
Film, set in: My Own Private Idaho and Napoleon Dynamite might be the best known. But perhaps I will go with Smoke Signals, Superman II (the one with Gene Hackman), and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Superman II, if I had to say.
Here is more Matt Barney:
I’ll be sure to report on my visit.
*Dune*, the movie (no real spoilers)
Score and soundtrack: A+, Hans Zimmer
Visual intelligence and sophistication: A+
Beauty: A+
Drama: I thought the first half was weak here, though the movie became progressively more gripping. But too many of the proceedings felt stagey rather than organic or evoking of real interest.
Memorable characters: I give this award to the sandworms and the blue-eyed Fremen warrior chick. The others were “good enough” but didn’t click for me in a huge way.
Fidelity to the original novel: Good enough, without being too slavish in its homage.
Unusual element: Huge dose of French imperialist “Orientalism.”
Straussian reading: It is trying to make both jihad and Islam intelligible and sympathetic to non-Muslim viewers.
Bottom line: I am looking forward to the sequel, and very much hope Villaneuve is on tap to direct. It was wonderful seeing this one surrounded by the sands of Arizona.