Pick up a copy of LensWork!
A close friend of mine, who also happens to be one of my favorite photographers, is getting extraordinary honors this month.
A portfolio of Fritz Liedtke's work is featured in the new issue of LensWork. And one of the images from his exhibit "Welcome to Wonderland," a collection of images exploring the strange and unstable land of adolescence, is on the cover.
LensWork is one of the top fine art photography magazines. Its reproductions are museum-book quality, having won numerous prestigious awards. All this to say: the photographs look great.
Find out more at www.lenswork.com/overviewcurrentissue.htm
Furthermore, their Extended CD, available from their website, contains a full 30 images, an audio interview with the editor, Bruce Jensen, and more.
You can find LensWork at most fine booksellers, such as Barnes and Noble, Powells, Elliot Bay, and more. Or you can order copies online, at www.lenswork.com. I hope you'll pick up a copy and enjoy Fritz's fantastic work.
To see more work from this series, and other endeavors, visit Fritz's website at www.fritzphoto.com/art.
The 2006 Glen Workshop - Registration is underway!
The 2006 Glen Workshop - Registration is underway!
Poetry - Scott Cairns, Jeanine Hathaway
Fiction - Bret Lott
Spiritual Writing - Paula Huston
Playwriting/Screenwriting - Arlene Hutton
Seminar - Fr. David Denny
Drawing from Life - Barry Moser
Mixed Media - Barry Krammes
Mosaic - Ginger Geyer
Songwriting - Over the Rhine
Musician-in-Residence - Pierce Pettis
Here are the details,
the faculty list,
the online registration pages,
and a photo album from last summer's Glen Workshop.
(There's an amusing photo of me trying to look serious, and I'm wearing a shirt that will have special significance to a few of you who attended an entirely different event with me a while back...)
I hope to see you in Santa Fe in August!
My Favorite Films of 2005
I've just published the Looking Closer "Favorite Films of 2005" list.
This list will very likely be revised in the next month, as I catch up to some of those hard-to-reach 2005 releases. But I'll be required to turn in my list to various publications in the coming weeks, so I figured I'd better come up something.
I'm as surprised as anybody to see what has ended up as my #1 film of the year. A few months ago, I would never have guessed. But my love for it just keeps deepening...
Film Viewing Journal - 2006
I will provide a link to this post on the top of the Looking Closer blog soon. (Currently, there's a link to the 2005 journal.) This is the post where I'll catalog every film I see in 2006.
* = indicates first-time viewing
2006
December
The Last King of Scotland* (DVD screener).....B
The Secret of Roan Innish (VHS) ..... A-
Marie Antoinette*......B+
The Holiday*.....C-
Children of Men (second viewing).....A
Letters from Iwo Jima*.....A-
The Devil Wears Prada* (DVD screener).....C+
Joyeux Noel (DVD).....B+
Notes on a Scandal* (DVD screener).....B
Water* (DVD).....B+
49 Up* (DVD).....A-
The Nativity Story*.....C
November
United 93* (DVD screener).....A+
Catch a Fire* (DVD screener).....B+
The Double Life of Veronique (Criterion Collection DVD).....A+
Casino Royale*.....B+
Half Nelson*.....B+
Children of Men*.....A
Thank You for Smoking* (DVD).....B
Stranger than Fiction*.....B+
Pan's Labyrinth*.....A
The Prestige*.....B+
Akeelah and the Bee* (DVD).....B+
The Proposition* (DVD).....B+
October
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang* (DVD).....C
A Prairie Home Companion (second viewing, DVD).....B+
Little Children*.....A-
The Queen*.....A
The Fountain*.....B-
Flags of Our Fathers*......A-
The Departed*.....B+
September
Babel*.....B+
The Science of Sleep*.....B+
The Illusionist*.....B+
High Fidelity (DVD, second viewing).....B+
August
Army of Shadows*.....A-
Lassie (2006)*.....B+
Promises* (DVD)......A
The Gospel According to St. Matthew* (dubbed) (DVD).....B
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.....C+
Brick* (DVD).....B+
Nightwatch* (DVD).....B-
Little Miss Sunshine*.....B
Hawaii, Oslo* (DVD).....B+
July
Miami Vice*.....B
Monster House*.....C
Lady in the Water*.....B-
The Best of Youth, part 2* (DVD).....A-
Touch the Sound* (DVD).....A-
Three Times*.....(still considering... probably an A-)
Mission: Impossible 3*.....B
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (DVD).....C+
2001: A Space Odyssey (DVD).....A+
The King*.....C-
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (second viewing).....A-
The most satisfying large-scale adventure film since The Fellowship of the Ring.
Nightwatch* (DVD) B
Shopgirl* (DVD).....B
June
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest*.....A-
Superman Returns*.....C+
Extremely disappointing. It recycles so many elements from the first film, it's like a re-make... but without actors that make me care or believe, and with a supervillain so foolish that he never inspires even a flicker of fear.
The Best of Youth, part 1 (DVD)....A-
A River Runs Through It (DVD)......A
A Scanner Darkly.....B
Cars*.....B+
May
X-Men: The Last Stand*.....C
Duma* (DVD).....B
Ikiru (VHS).....A+
The New World (fourth theatrical viewing).....A+
Taxi Driver (DVD).....A
Saved (DVD).....B
Three Colors: Blue (DVD).....A+
The Miracle Maker* (VHS).....A-
April
A Prairie Home Companion*.....B
A Man for All Seasons (DVD).....A+
One of the greatest scripts ever written, with profound, and profoundly quotable, dialogue.
Babette's Feast (DVD) ..... A+
My feelings for this film only grow stronger over time. It's one of the most beautiful and moving films I know.
March
L'Enfant*.....A
The Five Obstructions (DVD, second viewing)....B+
The Motorcycle Diaries (second viewing).....A
I admire this film more all the time.
V for Vendetta*.....C+
Junebug (DVD) (second viewing).....A
Man, I love this movie. It brought me to tears last night. I think it'd edging its way up toward the top spot on my Best of 2005.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (DVD) (umpteenth viewing).....A+
Don't Come Knocking*.....B+/A-
Mirrormask* (DVD).....B+
February
T
ristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story*.....B
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (DVD, second viewing).....B+
The New World (third viewing)....A+
Yes* (DVD).....B+
The New World (second viewing).....A+
Even better the second time. I believe this is one of the most profound works of art for the screen I've ever seen. Easily the best film of the last few years... perhaps my favorite since Three Colors: Blue. What a fantastic month at the movies I'm enjoying.
Elizabethtown* (DVD).....C+
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days*....A-
Junebug* (DVD)....A
The 2005 film I most regret misisng during its theatrical run. It would have been in the Top 10 lists I submitted to various magazines, but alas, too late.
January
Mystery Men (DVD)....B-
It's a guilty pleasure, but it sure is a lot of fun thanks to the enthusiasm of the actors. Geoffrey Rush alone is reason enough to see it.
Tsotsi*.....B+
The New World*.....A+
Another Malick masterpiece... perhaps my favorite of his films.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin* (DVD) (2005).....D
Steve Carrell has proven in Anchorman and TV's The Office that he's one of America's funniest actors. But here, the material is so relentlessly crass and adolescent, so dependent on cheap locker room antics, that it prevents him from doing the things he does best. I couldn't make it past the 40-minute mark, I found the company of his neanderthal co-workers so overbearingly unpleasant. I've heard it has "a good message" in the end. But it doesn't matter. It's disingenuous to praise a film for the good message it has at the end when it spends almost two hours playing to our baser appetites. That's like giving us a vitamin after shoving a bunch of trash down our throats. The movie will delight the sex-obsessed frat boys it tries to lampoon, and I doubt it will really engage their conscience at all.
Millions (DVD) (third viewing) ..... A
Watching this film again and introducing it to some friends, I was moved even more deeply, and further impressed by the script, the editing, the music, and the performances. I stand by my decision -- this is now, unquestionably, my favorite film of 2005.
Hoodwinked!* (2005) .....B+
The year's first animated feature is fun, fast-paced, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, with another great voice performance by Patrick Warburton as the wolf. An impressive debut for writer/director Cory Edwards. Review coming soon.
Strings* (DVD) (2005).....B
Phenomenal puppetry, among the best ever filmed... but it's oppressively humorless and parades out a whole library of stale myth-cliches. See it for the astounding imagery.
The Beat My Heart Skipped* (DVD) (2005)..... B+
A great lead performance and a nerve-wracking sense of impending doom make this a memorable thriller, full of unconventionally thoughtful tangents, and elevated by an inventive use of classical music in its soundtrack.
New NBC Show Stars a Buddy Christ, Written by "Recovering Catholic."
If a show about Muslims were written by sarcastic evangelicals who liked to poke fun at Islam, can you imagine the cultural outcry across America? That show would be shot down so fast, you wouldn't have time to say "politically incorrect!"
Now, imagine a show in which Jesus himself is a regular character who pals around with a priest. Imagine it's written by "a recovering Catholic" who is apparently very interested in the idea of reincarnation, and who thinks a lot of the "myth" surrounding Christ may be untrue...
Does that show get shot down?
No. It's gets a prime time spot on NBC, and any Christians who cry foul are just "of little faith," apparently. I mean, why get all riled up about prime-time blasphemy and network-broadcast disrespect?
Here's Media Girl's mainstream take on "The Book of Daniel."
If ever a show needed some Act One graduates to enact a hostile takeover, this sounds like the one.
The Chicago Film Critics Nominations
As these critical nominations roll out this year, there's far more love for King Kong than I ever expected. Here are the nominations by the Chicago Film Critics... one of the groups that don't seem to be hasty, waiting until most of the 2005 films have arrived and had time to sink in.
Rod Dreher on "Brokeback Mountain"
Rod Dreher on "Brokeback Mountain"
True, the men begin their doomed affair in a time and place where homosexuality was viciously suppressed, and so they suffer from social constrictions that make it difficult to master their own fates. But it is also true that both men are overgrown boys who waste their lives searching for something they've lost, and which might be irrecoverable. They are boys who refuse to become men, or to be more precise, do not, for various reasons, have the wherewithal to understand how to become men in their bleak situation.
It is impossible to watch this movie and think that all would be well with Jack and Ennis if only we'd legalize gay marriage. It is also impossible to watch this movie and not grieve for them in their suffering, even while raging over the suffering that these poor country kids who grew up unloved cause for their families. As the film grapples with Ennis' pain, confusion and cruelty, different levels of meaning unspool – social, moral, spiritual and erotic. In the end, Brokeback Mountain is not about the need to normalize homosexuality, or "about" anything other than the tragic human condition.Ms. O'Connor once wrote that you don't have to have an educated mind to understand good fiction, but you do have to have "at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery." The mystery of the humanpersonality can never be fully plumbed, only explored. To the frustration of ideologues, artists like Annie Proulx and Ang Lee undertake a journey to those depths and return to tell the truth about what they've seen – which is not necessarily what any of us wants to hear.
As Ms. O'Connor taught, "Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction."
Or read it. Or watch it.
Yes. I agree completely. Nicely done, Mr. Dreher.
After seeing it twice, I've posted my full review of "Brokeback Mountain."
I finally got tired of reading the debates and the diatribes. I sat myself down and watched the film twice in one week. And I wrote a review that was ten pages long.
Then, deciding that I wanted at least one person to read it, I did a severe edit.
Here's my in-depth... but hopefully not insufferable... review of Brokeback Mountain.
Thoughts on future Narnia films
I'm engrossed in editing Auralia's Colors this weekend, and working on my Top 25 of 2005.
But in the meantime...
Jeffrey,
I think it has been proved that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has enough legs that a sequel will be made and since you have already posed the question of who might direct future films, I think an interesting question to pose to your readers would be which of the remaining books should or will actually be made into movies. At least I would find that discussion interesting. I may do a post on my blog about what I think, which is still being fomulated.
Briefly, though, I think The Horse and His Boy will not be made and perhaps should not to avoid controversy. Prince Caspian is a logical next step, but I do not know if the story will translate well to film and it would be hard to explain the Telmarines which are pretty central to the story. Dawn Treader is episodic and has no clear, film-long conflict to resolve, but is such a good tale. If you left Caspian out though it would be hard to explain the friendship with Caspian and the absence of Peter and Susan. The Silver Chair is one of the stories that I think absolutely should be made into a movie as it is a pretty straightforward adventure story/quest, plus Jill Pole, with an appropriate actress with pluck (kind of like Emma Watson), would be very enjoyable to watch. The Magician's Nephew would be nice to explain things, but the creation of Narnia I think would be incredibly challenging, and with how the unstoning of statues and the coming of spring were handled in LWW, I don't know if I would want to subject this chapter to a film treatment. The Last Battle, to be done well, would need to be PG-13. That book is so heavy (until the the glorious end) that it weighs me down. Perhaps, though, the making of the latter Harry Potter movies will have paved the way for an appropriately heavy adaptation of a childrens books.
Mind you, not that your blog needs suggestions for entries or discussion...
Neil
Should Neil be hired as a consultant for future Narnia projects?
Steven Spielberg to re-make "Mary Poppins"?!
The Independent has the scoop.
Time will tell if it's a... um... quality scoop.Read more