November 2011
20 posts
Romanian Film Festival Opens at Lincoln Center Tomorrow!
Our School
The 6th Annual Romanian Film Festival starts tomorrow (November 30th) at Lincoln Center, and I highly highly recommend checking out some films. First up for me is Friday’s screening of Our School, a verite documentary about 3 Roma children in Transylvania from Brooklyn filmmaker Mona Nicoara.
“Vernacchio explained that sex as baseball implies that it’s a game; that one party is the aggressor (almost always the boy), while the other is defending herself; that there is a strict order of play, and you can’t stop until you finish. “If you’re playing baseball,” he elaborated, “you can’t just say, ‘I’m really happy at second base.’ ”
— New York Times Magazine article, “Teaching Good Sex” about sex positive, non-abistence only sex education.
“The notion that law enforcement is there to protect a wealthy elite from the rest of the population is not news to those protesters from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds, many of whom have been subject to intimidation in their communities for years, but for those from more privileged backgrounds, the first spurt of pepper spray to the face is an important education in the nature of the relationship between state and citizen in the west. “Who do you guys work for?” Shouts one Manhattan protester, as police load arrestees into a van. ‘You work for JP Morgan Bank!’”
—Laurie Pennie in The Guardian
“
Meanwhile, as Mr. Sandler cavorts in loud dresses, Katie Holmes (playing his wife) is on hand to remind the insecure guys in the audience how women in this kind of comedy are supposed to be: skinny, silent and blandly supportive of their cranky baby-men, with no discernible desires and ambitions of their own…
As for Mr. Sandler, I have always been interested in what he would do next, and I suppose I still am, especially if what he does next is retire.
” —A.O. Scott reviewing Jack and Jill for The New York Times. One of the best reviews I’ve read in years.
Cubic Zirconia x Hudson Mohawke - Follow Your Heart Megamix
Hudson Mohawk Cubic Zirconia Megamix
After Cubic Zirconia, I went down to The Cove for Hudson Mohawk, who somehow seemed to get the place into an even sweatier, dance party hot mess (in the best sense of the term) than it usually is, so it seems more than appropriate to post this awesome mix of tracks he did from Cubic Zirconia’s Follow Your Heart,
“Answering questions written in by students, he explains the meaning of life, ‘We should be kind to each other, be civil, and appreciate the good moments in life by saying, if this isn’t nice, what is?’”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. In his last speech, delivered at Ohio State. Today would have been Mr. Vonnegut’s 89th birthday. Sagan and Vonnegut are the closest I come to having a religion.
“Boys aren’t better at DJing than girls. We don’t DJ with our vaginas. But the fact is, in my experience, they clearly think they are and do make it more difficult for us. I’ve had male DJs reach over as I mixed two tracks and start twiddling with the knobs. Or come and stand behind me and instruct me on what to do.”
—
Hanna Hanra in the snarky “Why are There No Female DJ’s Mag’s Top 100 List” in The Guardian.
I think Hanra raises a good (and hilarious) point; there really aren’t inherent differences in capability based on gender, but as someone that works in a technical field, filmmaking, I see this too (a lack of female filmmakers). I think it’s a complex issue, but I’ve often wondered whether the idea that cisgendered men are more technical (or musical) is so ingrained, that they are nurtured or encouraged to follow those fields from a young age. And of course sexism is still rampant, so the female (and non-cis male DJs) that do exist are most likely being treated in the same manner that Hanra faces and encounter all the obstacles that come with battling sexism in any workplace. I guess my mini thesis would have to be, that perhaps problem stems from outmoded assumptions about gender coupled with misogyny and sexism. The real question is, how do you solve that? I think Hanra provides one answer by getting people talking and or writing about this issue, as one thing that bugged me in the comments section of The Guardian was how people dismissed the article’s relevance based on who was on the list (ie, if Skrillex is on, we can’t take it seriously). However, it’s naive to not see such a list as indicative of the music industry, and a women’s place in it (as pop stars mostly), on a whole. I think it’s high time we take sexism in all it’s forms damn seriously, even if you don’t take the rankings seriously.
NYFF Review: "Goodbye First Love"
(Goodbye First Love played the main slate at the 2011 New York Film Festival and opens at BAM next month)
I wanted to fall in love with Goodbye First Love (and I liked the film, I even adored many of its parts), but my ultimate relationship is filled with more respect than amour. Directed by aptly named Mia Hansen-Love, the film begins with a passionate if quietly volatile teenage romance between the serious and intense fifteen-year-old Camille and the college aged livelier Sullivan. We meet the lovers in the first scene of the film; they are having a romp is Sullivan’s studio apartment, but Sullivan is already planning a trip of unknown duration back to South America.
