Tag Archives: Movies

Apr 27 2014
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Lost & Found

Finding Vivian Maier

Yesterday I saw the film, Finding Vivian Maier. It is the previously untold story of a street and portrait photographer. Ms. Maier’s portraits were not staged or styled. Her subjects were often captured surreptitiously as she marched out into to the streets of Chicago with the children in her care. Vivian was a nanny to some of Chicago’s upper middle-class and wealthy families who lived along the North Shore of Lake Michigan. She left her job as a seamstress in New York to become a nanny so she could find ways to be outdoors, to be out in the world yet still hide in plain sight. Vivian was an undercover artist. Continue reading →

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Apr 20 2014
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Posts

Journal/Journey

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” ― Gabriel García Márquez

Years before I started writing for others, I wrote poetry and journaled for myself. Sometimes I would share a poem with the person who inspired it yet seldom a journal entry. Journaling by its very nature is a private act, a conversation with oneself, often a daily record of happenings, experiences and observations. Sometimes our loved ones or curious friends or colleagues surreptitiously read our journals. Much is written about the consequences of reading someone’s journal without the author’s permission.

Continue reading →

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Apr 12 2014
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Posts

Wisconsin Film Festival Fandom

A Filmgoer’s Guide to the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival

Each year at the end of March or early April, I take a week’s vacation. Let me clarify. I still show up at work each day, I don’t leave the city, yet I’m transported to places all over the world; I time travel, and meet unforgettable people both on the screen and the filmgoers in line waiting to see the movies and sitting next to me inside the sold-out theaters. I’m an old-school movie fan. I still enjoy being in the audience of a movie theater sharing the experience with companions and anonymous others. One of the fandom features of the film festival is that people actually talk to each other while waiting in the queues to buy tickets, or to see the movie. Festival filmgoers chat each other up inside the theater too, before and after the films. The Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF) is one of the annual rituals for which I’m grateful I live in Madison. Continue reading →

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Mar 29 2014
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Posts

Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend: Episode 5

Note: This is the fifth in a series of imaginary conversations with my next girlfriend.

Dear Next Girlfriend,

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked with you. There’s something about winter that makes some of us isolate and retreat to our homes. I count myself in that group this year. It has been a particularly challenging season and like so many others this winter I found comfort and solace in my home, snuggled up on the couch like an ole’ hibernating bear. Now that the first real hints of spring have arrived, I’m awakened again and so are many of my desires. For many creatures, including us, spring is mating season. Continue reading →

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Jan 19 2014
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Posts

Beach Boys, Beatles, Bob Dylan & the Byrds

Growing Up in the Early 1960s

“Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now”   Lyrics from My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

A number of recent events and anniversaries coalesced this month, prompting me to reminisce. My birthday is in January and like the month’s namesake Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, I’ve been looking back at mine. Fifty years ago, as a baby boomer growing up in the early 1960’s, my life was about to change in ways I couldn’t imagine. Continue reading →

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Jan 14 2014
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Posts

Because Love

be·cause 

biˈkz,-ˈkəz/ conjunction 1. for the reason that; since.

love

ˈləv\  noun 1. a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person

Language, its etymology and meanings, evolves and reflects the times. And, so does love. Recent events illustrate both these points. The first is the word “because” which was named the 2013 Word of the Year by the American Dialectic Society. The selection recognized that because is now being used in new ways to introduce a noun, adjective, or other part of speech.  Continue reading →

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Jan 05 2014
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Posts

Things Left Unsaid

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”   ― Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”  ― Benjamin Franklin

The New Year held lessons and reminders for me from the very beginning. First, I must acknowledge my gratitude for the outcome, it has given me an opportunity to practice what I’ve learned this week, which is to say the things left unsaid, and to quiet my voice when what I’m tempted to say is hurtful, unnecessary, or gossip. Continue reading →

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Dec 27 2013
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Posts

A Filmgoer’s Guide to the Best Films of 2013

“I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.” Francis Ford Coppola

“Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.” Martin Scorsese

First, I’m a cinephile not a film critic. Yet, like a critic, I’m able to talk about films pretty intelligently; I see a lot of movies, I often write about them, make recommendations to friends and family and followers of my blog. I’m informed and I’ve studied the art of film-making, not from behind the camera or in the classroom, but in the audience where I believe it counts the most. Continue reading →

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Nov 24 2013
Posts

Am I Blue?

“Am I blue, am I blue, ain’t these tears telling you, am I blue, you’d be too” —Billie Holiday

Blue Is the Warmest Color is the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or winning story of a young woman’s first love and loss. In an unusual move, the film’s French director, Abdellatif Kechiche, accepted the award alongside it’s two female leads, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos. This was more surprising given the controversy surrounding the film and the working conditions for the actors who described the experience as “horrible.” Seydoux went even further when she said that Kechiche made her feel “like a prostitute.” Continue reading →

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Nov 10 2013
Posts

Signs of the Times

Friday night, I had the pleasure to attend Madison Central Library’s new Night Light free monthly event, this month’s program the film Sign Painters, produced, written and directed by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon.  Doors opened at 8:00 on the library’s third floor, home to a lobby gallery space and the community room, transformed into a 250 seat theater. Madison’s culinary star, Forequarter, served refreshments while the filmmakers signed copies of their book with the same title. The film was shown at 8:00, and the filmmakers and authors remained for a Q & A afterwards. In the audience were Madison’s own sign painters, commenting during the film in call and response form. Continue reading →

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