tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post7131586850716050209..comments2024-02-27T10:53:43.331-05:00Comments on Big Media Vandalism: Imagery Saturdays: Games People PlaySteven Boonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533736956366847765noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post-81741292784014512292009-10-25T12:00:36.399-04:002009-10-25T12:00:36.399-04:00Jpeace, Lee said he had to teach the kids these ga...Jpeace, Lee said he had to teach the kids these games (much like John Waters' choreographer, Edward Love, had to teach the kids the dances in Hairspray) because they were too young to have ever played them. I love my Playstation, but there's a reason I still drag my little nephews outside to run around with me, and it's not for their benefit!<br /><br />Behind this, School Daze's opening credits are my second favorite Lee movie credits, followed by Do The Right Thing. He sets the tone for his pictures, which is why I didn't get the criticism behind his Clockers credits. The movie is graphically violent, almost overwhelmingly so, and his credits prepare you for it.odienatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post-46831081145287186322009-10-25T01:29:54.563-04:002009-10-25T01:29:54.563-04:00Thank you for even recognizing this! It truly is o...Thank you for even recognizing this! It truly is one of the greatest vignettes in cinema. (my humble opinion.)Jpeacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10746434440566258800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post-92069239366978454232008-02-11T16:12:00.000-05:002008-02-11T16:12:00.000-05:00Oh yeah---Lee's said that was exactly his intent w...Oh yeah---Lee's said that was exactly his intent with the anamorphic bit. And Lee is never one to be restrained when there's a chance for expressionism (as with the cah-razy upside-down camera near the climax of Summer of Sam, or... well, just about any moment of his films). <BR/><BR/>One of the things I really love about Lee as a filmmaker is that he's one of the few mainstream directors who's trying to apply the techniques available to the great Russian and German silent expressionist pictures. Like Guy Maddin (now *that's* an odd pairing), he's reaching for a kind of visual expressiveness that film had before Hollywood realism became the default style. And his enthusiasm for all the medium's visual possibilities lets me forgive a lot of flaws in his writing---which is good, 'cause there's plenty.That Fuzzy Bastardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09586029006083399346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post-47769553245015787652008-02-11T16:03:00.000-05:002008-02-11T16:03:00.000-05:00Despite my complaints, I still think it's a very g...Despite my complaints, I still think it's a very good movie. You give a very good defense, TFB, one that's supported by the entire anamorphic sequence. We're seeing that alien world through the protagonist's eyes. It must have looked that foreign to her.odienatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14169925.post-3019971105232923022008-02-11T15:56:00.000-05:002008-02-11T15:56:00.000-05:00Ah god, I love this movie. And I assure you, havi...Ah god, I love this movie. And I assure you, having grown up a pale Alaskan Jew, there's no particular nostalgia involved---I'm about as far from the protag as possible. But this movie, even with the in-your-face anamorphic scene, is great.<BR/><BR/>But when you say it's "meandering", I say that's the beauty of it. This movie feels more like being a kid than anything else I've ever seen, including The 400 Blows, Murmur of the Heart, or whatever other French flick you'd like to name. And the drifty nature of it is central to that. After all, when you're a kid, things just seem to happen, and you don't have much control over what happens next. Parents and other adults do things, and you sometimes have to react, but mostly you just watch, and then go back to playing whatever game you were playing before---it'll be years of thinking and therapy before you have any idea what it all means. <BR/><BR/>Plus the movie's willingness to ignore plot movement lets it go a lot of places that wouldn't fit in a more focused picture---the eye-popping drag queen sighting, the father's embarrassing jazz concert, and all those wonderful street-game sequences---any of them could have been cut, and the movie would have been much less without them. Again, it's that drifting "this happen and then that happened" vibe (which is how kids tell stories) that makes it feel so authentically childlike, when a more plot-driven experience would feel like yet another adults-talking-about-children movie.That Fuzzy Bastardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09586029006083399346noreply@blogger.com