Christians and Moretti?

Conservative film reviewers at Christian Spotlight endorse Moretti's 2002 The Son's Room. (while giving it a "somewhat offensive" moral rating.) Ultra-leftist Moretti and ultra-conservative film reviewers finding common ground? Has Moretti lost his edge?

"...it's too bad more believing Christian families don't seek out these kind of "art house" films instead of settling for the usual vulgar timewasters at the cineplex."

Faking it

What should be done about "diving" in football?

It's not that I support diving - it's just that there are far more important things in life to get worked up about than a few footballers rolling around in mock agony. We all know that footballers dive. They've been falling over for years. (more)

Elections in Italy

It's been an exciting few weeks in Italian politics. After two days of voting, it appears that centre-leftist Romano Prodi has beat Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right coalition in a photo-finish election. Although I have a very limited understanding of the complexities of Italian politics, from my seat across the seas I tend to believe that Prodi, a devout Catholic and former President of the European Commission, is better suited to lead Italy toward a new Europe.

Busy summer

Three things to look forward to this summer: the Cannes Film Festival, from May 17 - 28th (this year's program will be announced on the 20th of this month), Wimbledon, June 26th - July 9th, (Agassi one last time?), and of course the 2006 Fifa World Cup. On June 17th, the US team meets Italy. Who am I pulling for, you ask? Do you read my blog much? Does that make me a traitor? (Dream finals match: Italy vs. Brazil)

How my daugther's birthday party helped me enjoy my in-laws...

Let me begin by stating that I absolutely love my in-laws. I could not have asked for better. Yesterday we had my daughter's one-year birthday party over at their home. My in-laws (whom I will refer to as Mom and Pop H.) are notoriously late. Late for meetings, for meals, for...well, everything. Even a funeral once. Yesterday, that no longer mattered to me.

You see, they invest their time in people. And people tend to be a rather messy business. My wife and I and the birthday girl arrived at their home to the usual chaos. Mom H. sweating in the kitchen, cleaning up from the previous occasion. Pop H. moving chairs. Sixty minutes to go until the party begins. Pandemonium.

Usually, I immediately get frustrated, then become quiet. I'm courteous, but that's all.

That's how it started yesterday. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and grumpily started in the living room. Late, late, late. I looked over at Mom H. to see her reading a story to my daughter in the dining room. Forty-five minutes to go.

I started arranging furniture and looked over to see Pop H. playing with another grandaughter. Thirty minutes to go. Now Mom H. is helping her grandson wake up from a nap. Twenty minutes. Pop H. is playing with my daughter, making her giggle.

Ten minutes to go.

You know what, who cares about the time. Mom H. is carrying my daughter around the house, and my daughter is happy. If you spend your lives with people, you're just going to be late. You don't get to clock-in and clock-out of a conversation.

Keep being late, Mom and Pop H. And keep making my daughter laugh.

Something beautiful

I must film what brings me pleasure, not those ugly things. The designers show their collections in a museum of Florence... And because of that I must go film them?

Aprile

Commentary on Il Caimano

The best article on Il Caimano I've read so far; a great overview of the politics in Italy and the role of art. From Swans, an on-line publication.

Documentary group II

A little over a hundred people showed up last night to watch Invisible Children. Afterwards, we opened it up to discussion and questions with the filmmaker via a phone interview from Southern California. He (Bobby) was articulate and enthusiastic about this and future projects. This film has had wide distribution and has the support of some in the Hollywood community. (such as Jon Turteltaub, director of National Treasure)

Many in the mostly college-aged audience seemed genuinely moved by the documentary. I was moved by a few moments in the film, but on the whole, thought it missed the mark. It made the common mistake many social issue films make by being too broad, to scattered. It would have had more impact for me to get to know one person, to follow his or her story. (revised)

The most moving moment in the film occurs when we see the filmmaker try to comfort a grieving boy whose brother was killed. For that moment, the film was worth watching.

Documentary group

Tonight I'm hosting our monthly documentary group; we're watching the video Invisible Children, about children forced to become soldiers in Uganda. Last month about 120 people showed up. I'm also in charge of the blog, but never update it.

Words

Who speaks badly, thinks badly and lives badly. We must do words justice: words are important!
Palombella Rossa

Berlusconi

Here's an interesting article on Silvio Berlusconi. Italy's elections are on Sunday.

Movies that influenced me

When I was ten, I saw La Momia (the Mummy, a Spanish wrestler) on tv. I wrapped myself from head to toe in gauze bandages, and scared the paper boy.

When I was fourteen, living in Kentucky, I saw My Side of the Mountain. I found an old rotting oak tree which I carved out so that two of my friends and I could sit inside. I remember it was dirty and cold.

When I was nineteen, I watched the movie American Flyers, about a bike race in Colorado. That afternoon, I went to Sears and bought a ten-speed and, with a backpack and bottle of water, began peddling through the Kansas countryside. After about 20 miles, one of the pedals broke off. I stayed the night in a small town, and bought another pedal at Walmart. I got a bad rash between my thighs.

When I was twenty-one, I saw the movie The Big Blue. I spent nearly $5000 on scuba diving. I got to ride on the back of a sea turtle.

When I was thirty, I watched Caro Diario. Six months later, I gave my watch as collateral to a moped rental owner on a Greek Island. With Annie holding on for dear life, I raced around blind corners, nearly wiping out more than once.

I think tonight I'll rent The Right Stuff. What's the cutoff age for becoming an astronaut anyway?

You know what I was thinking?

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking how sad it is that I, even in a society more decent than this one, will always find myself in tune with the minority of people. But not in the sense of those films where there is a man and a woman who hate themselves, stranded on a desert island because the director does not believe in people. I believe in people, just not in the majority of people.
Caro Diario

David di Donatello Awards

"The nominations for Italy’s national film prizes, the David di Donatello Awards, were announced yesterday in Rome. Two films eclipsed most others with 13 nominations each: ‘Il Caimano’ (The Cayman) from Nanni Moretti, currently holding the top spot at the local box office, and Michele Placido’s ‘Romanzo Criminale’ (Crime Novel). Both were nominated in most categories, including ‘best film’, ‘best director’, ‘best script’, ‘best actor’ (for Silvio Orlando and Kim Rossi Stuart respectively), ‘best supporting actor’ (Nanni Moretti, Pierfrancesco Favino), ‘best cinematography’, ‘best music’, ‘best production design’, ‘best costume design’ and ‘best producers’."
(more...)

Kick

I got a kick out of this.

Dreams and Diaries II

This excellent review of 1994 Cannes winner, Caro Diario, captures what I had hoped The Cinema of Nanni Moretti: Dreams and Diaries would.

"Moretti's three-part movie-essay is structured as a wry, affectionate and very funny odyssey through the Roman suburbs, the Aeolian Isles, and the Italian health system. Relaxed and leisurely, it's an effortless blend of documentary and fiction, part road movie, part sociological satire, part polemical reminiscence. As Moretti travels around, investigating and commenting, he manages to provoke not only laughter, but the sense that we are seeing Italy anew. Accordingly, just as he includes offbeat gags about, say, movie critics being fed a taste of their own medicine, so when he drives to the site of Pasolini's murder, he forces us simply to look and listen, to take in light, space, shape, movement and music; in other words, to recognise the essence of cinema shorn of story and superfluous stylistic tropes. That's no mean achievement in these days of narrative and technological overkill, though the movie is too modest to insist even on its own quirkiness, let alone its more serious subtextual concerns."

With friends like...

Why

It's come to this.

Moretti the existentialist

My Amazon Review: (read it here or on Amazon.com)

"I've been reading the study of Moretti films, Dreams and Diaries, with some disappointment. The reason I am so attracted to his films is for the quiet "existential" moments: riding his Vespa around Rome, kicking a soccer ball on a deserted field, pausing to watch an old film on a cafe television.

The authors of this book focus on subjects such as a citizen's relationship to the state, the form of autobiography, postmodern politics, etc. Even their study of the crisis of masculinity, where they elicit the work of Robert Bly, seems to miss the mark. I appreciate academic studies, yet they never quite capture the essence of Moretti's work. The apartness, the playfulness, the longing for a new Italy, a new man.

As far as I know, this is the only study of Moretti's films available in English. I think that's a shame. I hope someone writes another book, and remembers the man - not just the ideas - behind the lens."

Politics and Sharon Stone

I was happy to see that Nanni Moretti's Il Caimano beat Basic Instinct 2 in the Italian Box Office over the weekend. (Il Caimano was #1 and Instinct was #2. In the US, Instinct was #10; a flop)

Both films are about power. Il Caimano is a negative portrayal of Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the wealthiest man in the country and a media proprietor. His investment company controls Italy's three largest private television stations; with elections a week away, the airwaves have been flooded with pro-Berlusconi propoganda. (He is still expected to lose.)

Of course, Basic Instinct 2 is about sexual power, the power to possess another with one's body. Politics and sex. In Italy, politics beat out sex this weekend. I think that the power to control ideas will always conquer the power to control the body. Because once you control ideas, the body will follow.

Twenty years

Next month marks twenty years since graduating high school. There are no plans for a reunion. That's right; that makes me thirty-eight.

When my Dad was thirty-eight, I was sixteen. Sorry, Dad.

The Squid and the Whale

My friend Brett recommended The Squid and the Whale. Excellent film. Without giving the end away, the film concludes with one of the central characters confronting a source of his fear, which is also tied to one of his happiest times in life. It is a dramatic moment where this character leaves the old ways behind to run to confront this sacred memory.

After the film, I sat there wondering: What would have happened if this source of fear - and joy - had been moved. What if this character, finding the courage to face the past, had turned the corner to find his memory replaced with a parking lot or a condominium complex.

I suppose he would have continued to run.

What about her?

(Based on actual events.)
Project: Create a promotional video for a university in Minnesota.
The producer and cameraman are standing near the entrance of the university library. A student enters.
"What about him?" asks the cameraman.
"We've already interviewed a white male." says the producer. Another student enters the library.
Producer: "He looks Latino."
Cameraman: "Are you sure? He could be Filipino."
Producer: "Well, we've already got a Korean."
Cameraman fidgets nervously. "Are you sure we should be doing it like this?"
An attractive girl opens the door.
Producer: "Let's interview her."
Cameraman: "But we've already interviewed three white students."
Producer: "But she's cute."

How "soccer" doesn't explain the world

With the World Cup right around the corner, I've be itching to read How Soccer Explains the World. That is, until I read this review in an Aussie newspaper.

Here's an excerpt: "Any book about Association Football with soccer in the title is ultimately written from an outsider's perspective. Aficionados would never refer to the game as soccer, except in circumstances of coercion or necessity. And they would normally do so with measures of hesitancy and guilt."

Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled, How Corporate Video Explains the World. "In the backyards of middle-class pre-fab homes, in the city plazas of Mexico City, on the greens of St. Andrews are lawns that need to be manicured. Toro was there to meet the challenge..."

Something to say

I got my used copy of The Cinema of Nanni Moretti: Dreams and Diaries in the mail yesterday. Very exciting.

Moretti says that he only makes movies when he has something to say. If I ever made a film, I think it would be because I had a question I had to answer.