Saturday, May 31, 2014
Though its title suggests otherwise, Fritz Lang’s 1937 film You Only Live Once is immortal. Not just the immortality achieved by immeasurably great works of art — a descriptor that suits You Only Live Once — but immortal in the true sense of the word.
Motion pictures, even the old ones, lead pretty interesting lives these days. When this film was made nearly 80 years ago, its studio, United Artists, never envisioned turning a profit on You Only Live Once for any longer than it remained in theaters — perhaps several months. (There was no such thing in the 1930s as a nationwide, “blanket” release, such as the kind unfurled last weekend with the latest X-Men film. Films by the major studios would play for some weeks, maybe months if very successful, in major urban theaters. In subsequent months, they'd make their ways to theaters in smaller cities, suburbs and, lastly, rural areas, by which time the 35mm prints were often pretty beat up.)
Though it was fairly common practice for studios to re-release a profitable film one, two, five or 10 years after its initial release, most works of cinema in those pre-television days effectively expired after their initial theatrical runs. If you missed it when it was in your town, too bad for you.
After their initial wave of “oh-my-God-they’re-going-to-steal-all-our-business” panic, in the early 1950s, most studios realized that their own film vaults represented goldmines in licensing fees. TV stations were hungry for what we now call “content,” and the film studios had tons and tons of it in their archives. This was a golden opportunity for them to profit afresh from it. Stations and studios both won, as did the viewing public, who received more opportunities to see some great films from decades past.
Tags: film , movie , you only live once , fritz lang , henry fonda , netflix , film noir , kinescope , dvd , Image , Web Only
Friday, May 30, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Last December, Uganda’s parliament passed an act that makes “aggravated homosexuality” punishable with life imprisonment. Since then, according to a group called Sexual Minorities Uganda, violence against the gay community has increased tenfold. In April, the Ugandan government raided an AIDS treatment program on the grounds that its real mission was “training youth in homosexuality.”
Being gay has never been easy in Uganda, but where did the recent groundswell of fear and hatred come from? This 2013 documentary from Roger Ross Williams argues that it started with American evangelicals who view this predominantly Christian African nation as the perfect place to put their fundamentalist beliefs in practice.
What You Missed
In Missouri, at the HQ of a Pentecostal mission called the International House of Prayer (yes, IHOP), a group of fresh-faced young people prepare for their upcoming trip to Uganda. They talk about helping orphans and preaching a gospel of love.
Meanwhile, in Uganda, the streets are dotted with signs exhorting citizens to “Stay a Virgin” and pray away the gay. Native missionaries stop cars and hand out leaflets. A popular, well-funded minister preaches against homosexuality, and a member of parliament proposes a law that would make it punishable by death. A tabloid ironically called Rolling Stone prints photos of known or suspected gay people under the words “Hang Them.”
Tags: god loves uganda , call me kuchu , david kato , roger ross williams , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, May 29, 2014
"There's nothing like creativity and drinks," notes Adam Brooks, executive director of the South End Arts and Business Association. That's as good an explanation as any for the runaway success of "Art Under the Influence," a series that SEABA launched last November.
Now held twice-monthly, Art Under the Influence brings in local artists to demonstrate the process of creating a piece of artwork in their medium and style. Twenty to 30 participants gather in a space such as Nectar's, Vin Bar or Citizen Cider for a two-hour workshop taught by the artist. The $35 registration fee covers the cost of all materials, plus a free drink from the event's sponsor (that's Citizen Cider for all upcoming events; past events were sponsored by Switchback).
By the end of the evening, each participant has created their own work of art "under the influence" of the featured artist to take home. Past "influences" have included Katharine Montstream's watercolor landscapes, Jenn Karson's e-textiles and Lyna Lou Nordstrom's prints.
Brooks says the Art Under the Influence series is just SEABA's most recent effort to foster creativity in the Burlington community. "We do notice that a lot of people lose [the impulse to create freely] after college as adults, and we wanted them to get back in touch with that," he says. "And coming to a social, open place to create a masterpiece that they can take home is really kind of a neat way to do it."
Tags: seaba , art under the influence , burlington , Image , Web Only
The Montpelier Fashion Show has been a popular early-summer community event since it was first launched by local clothing store Damsels in 2004. Each year, hordes of people have turned out to watch models of all ages, shapes and sizes strut their stuff on a makeshift catwalk, often showcasing fashions from downtown businesses including The Getup. And each year, the show's proceeds have benefitted a local nonprofit.
But this year's event, held on June 7 at the Montpelier Senior Activity Center on Barre Street, is likely to be the last. Coordinator Anne-Marie Keppel is leaving the stage and, so far, no one else has stepped up to take her place.
Seven years after she took the reins of the fashion show, Keppel is leaving it and other event planning — including Strut!, the fashion show of Burlington's annual South End Art Hop — to focus on her work with the elderly. She's currently a residential care assistant at the Gary Home and Westview Meadows, and coordinates the Meals on Wheels program with JUST BASICS, inc.
Tags: montpelier fashion show , strut , anne-marie keppel , Video , Image , Web Only
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Having grown up in the 1980s, I’ve been watching music videos for pretty much as long as I’ve been watching TV. I even remember when MTV’s programming consisted mainly of a series of what were effectively three- and four-minute avant-garde films. Indeed, many of the first wave of MTV videos (a term I used to distinguish them from their precursors, such as “Soundies”; the music video itself was emphatically NOT invented by MTV) were directed by filmmakers with serious avant-garde cred: No less an artist than Bruce Conner, for instance, directed the terrific video for DEVO’s “Mongoloid.”
Take a look at the terrific mini-documentary, below, on the subject of Conner's creation of that video. The video for that song (which is included in its entirety at the end of the YouTube clip) most assuredly laid the groundwork for "Cirrus," the video that is the subject of this essay.
Part of what was cool about the early days of MTV is that the videos embraced past, present and future all at once.
Tags: what i'm watching , film , movie , video , music video , cirrus , bonobo , cyriak harris , avant garde , devo , rick prelinger , internet archive , Video , Web Only
Friday, May 23, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Call this the Summer of Cheaper Blockbuster Substitutes. Last week I watched Monsters, the cheaper version of Godzilla. This week I check out the under-$10-million version of Gravity. Is a bigger budget always better?
What You Missed
In the near future, a private company sends a spacecraft with six astronauts to Jupiter's moon Europa, which may hide a life-supporting ocean beneath its coating of ice. (This could actually happen, with NASA in charge.)
Six months along on their lonely voyage, the astronauts lose their communication line with Earth. When they try to repair it, disaster ensues. As a result, humanity has been in the dark about the Europa mission's outcome — until now, we're told.
The found-footage film poses as a documentary exposé, presenting footage from the ship (and outside the ship, and the crew's helmets) along with talking-head commentary from the scientists who designed the mission, played by Embeth Davidtz, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and, bizarrely, comedian Dan Fogler. We know early on that one crew member has been killed — but not how, or what happened next, or whether anyone survived.
Tags: Movies you missed , europa report , sebastian cordero , gravity , prometheus , Image , Web Only
Albright has yet to send the record to 7D for our listening pleasure, but here's a live clip of her performing the George and Ira Gershwin standard "Our Love Is Here to Stay."
Tags: Jody Albright , Pine Street Jazz , Tom Cleary , George Voland , Geza Carr , Jake Whitesell , John Rivers , the Fabulous Band , Image , Audio , Web Only
Thursday, May 22, 2014
More essential than whatever crappily written bio or out-of-context quotes were included on the one-sheet, the photo was often the most important and revealing element of a band's press kit. You could tell a lot from those little 8x12s. Was the pic creatively posed or funny? Then the band was probably pretty interesting or at least entertaining. Was it shot against a brick wall with four gangly-looking dudes or dudettes glowering and smoking cigarettes, like 90 percent of all band photos ever? Then there was a good chance the band was equally predictable and dull. A good general rule of thumb: A band that puts thought and effort into their photos probably does the same with their music.
From the 1990s to the present, few if any local photographers have taken more great band photos than Matthew Thorsen, who shot many of them for this very newspaper.
Tags: Big Heavy World , Burlington , 1990s , Club Toast , Matthew Thorsen , Sound Proof , Image , Web Only
Burlington City Arts' cutest exhibition of the year, featuring artwork by 189 kindergarten, first- and second-grade students at the Integrated Arts Academy, opens this afternoon, May 22, at 4 p.m.
Under the supervision of BCA teaching artists Kim Desjardins, George Gonzalez and Gowri Savoor, who had teaching residencies at IAA this year, the kids created artwork in different mediums while exploring academic topics such as the solar system, weather, patterns and shapes using their art projects.
The event also celebrates the completion of the first year of Arts Connect, a partnership of more than 10 arts, education, government and nonprofit organizations that trains Vermont teaching artists — including Desjardins, Gonzalez and Savoor — in arts integration techniques and Universal Design for Learning.
The works on display include a mixed-media cloud mobile hanging from the ceiling, "stained glass" windows, solar system mobiles, clay relief tiles and an outer space-themed tile mural.
Tags: burlington , burlington city arts , integrated arts academy , arts connect , Image , Web Only
Monday, May 19, 2014
Shaftsbury resident Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of the critically acclaimed novel Almost Famous Women and short story collection Birds of a Lesser Paradise, will visit Burlington's Hotel Vermont on Wednesday, May 28, for a reading and signing event.
Bergman, as detailed by Seven Days' Amy Lilly in 2012, grew up in North Carolina and moved to rural Shaftsbury in 2008, where she lives with her family. Mayhew Bergman, who writes short-form fiction and nonfiction alike, is, among other things, a regular columnist for the online magazine Salon. Readers interested in sampling her work online are directed here, to the author's own list of her publications.
The event is sponsored by the Burlington Writers Workshop and is free and open to the public.
Megan Mayhew Bergman reads from her work on Wednesday, May 28, at 7:30 p.m., at Burlington's Hotel Vermont. Free; reservations recommended.
Tags: megan mayhew bergman , writing , author , novel , story , burlington writers workshop , Image , Web Only