All posts by Carl V. Anderson

Film

On a Clear Day

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To A Child Dancing in the Wind

Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?

~W. B. Yeats

Thus begins the small, unassuming film On a Clear Day from writer Alex Rose and director Gaby Dellal. On a Clear Day is the antithesis of the summer blockbuster. No explosions, car chases, aliens or costumed do-gooders and was exactly what Mary and I wanted to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary (Saturday, the 13th). On a Clear Day is a quiet, touching film about relationships and change and being the hero of your own life.

The movie stars Peter Mullan (of My Name is Joe and Session 9 fame) as Frank, a 55 year old shipbuilder who is unceremoniously let go from his job. Having no clear direction as to what to do with the rest of his life he spends his time with what is seemingly his only passion, swimming. When one of his fellow unemployed friends makes a comment about swimming the English channel, a spark is lit in Frank’s imagination. With the help of his rag-tag mates he begins training while trying to keep his plans secret from his wife and family. What you soon learn, however, is that On a Clear Day is not just about Frank. Each character has some secret or regret or lack of direction of their own and their interaction with Frank in pursuit of his new dream ignites change in their own lives.

Peter Mullan is great. He plays Frank as a very stoic, lost man and brings him to the screen in a very real way. Frank’s wife is played lovingly by the very beautiful Brenda Blethyn (Pride and Prejudice). Their performances are very subtle and it gives their film relationship a very palpable reality. I enjoyed On a Clear Day for the same reason I enjoy films like Return to Me and I.Q., iti s the banter between the group of fellas that makes this film. Frank’s friends are all stock characters but they are played so well that it gives each character dimension. Sean McGinley (Braveheart), Ron Cook (Chocolat), Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings) and Benedict Wong make up Frank’s gang of accomplices. They each have humorous lines and aspects to their characters but Billy Boyd is the true comic relief of the movie and he is hilarious. He did such a great job and it was so good to see him in a film post Lord of the Rings. I hope he makes many more.

Ultimately On a Clear Day could be accused of being a feel good film with a predictable outcome. What transforms it into a remarkable film is a combination of a wonderful screenplay, lovingly crafted performances, and terrific water cinematography. There is more than I have revealed going on under the surface of this film as to do so would spoil the experience. If you have a chance to see it in theatres or when it comes out on DVD I predict you will enjoy it. Our friend Pat met us at the theatre Saturday night to watch this film. As the credits rolled she turned to me and said, “What a delightful film”. Those four words are all the review that you really need.

Art/Photography, Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites: Jeff Soto

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(The Protector. All pictures copyright Jeff Soto)

A little over a year ago I picked up my first copy of Juxtapoz magazine and was fascinated by the many and varied examples of underground, urban art. I occasionally pick up a copy depending on my interest in the featured artist and I can always count on coming across at least one work by Jeff Soto.


(November Beehive)

There is so much going on in a Jeff Soto painting and that amalgam of images and symbols along with the warm, vibrant colors are what immediately caught my eye and is part of what keeps me coming back for more. There is a wackiness to Jeff Soto’s work that is very attractive. That and the fact that there are robots! (Do you sense an ongoing theme here?)


(Savechildren)

It is always interesting to read interviews with artists whose work you connect to. Sometimes the differences between you and the artist is a chasm and other times there is an instant kinship that illuminates a reason for your attachment to their work. The connection in the case of Jeff Soto is due to childhood interests.


(Film Monster)

Born in 1975 Jeff grew up fascinated with Star Wars, Robotech and Transformers. Those things, and nostalgia for his childhood in general, are reflected in his creations. Jeff Soto is a man after my own heart: he continues to collect toys, build models, and embraces his childhood through his work.


(Butterfly Swarm)

Jeff Soto’s art is filled with the things that interest him: the aforementioned robots, cacti, retro science fiction, the skateboard scene, graphitti. I also see a 70’s sensibility given a modern twist. In an interview here he expresses that he likes to juxtapose images of nature with man-made things like weapons. He states, “I like to combine beauty with destruction”.


(The Duel)

Despite some obvious state-of-the-world reflections in his art Soto’s desire is to convey hope with his paintings. That hope can be seen in the flowers and plants and other things of nature in his work.

Jeff Soto’s works are often a combination of layers of painting, collage, drawing…he builds on each piece until he feels it is finished. Jeff’s more recent works show a trend towards painting only though these continue to exhibit depth. I also enjoy the fact that Jeff Soto often paints on old pieces of wood, etc. that lend an interesting texture to his work.


(Box Jellyfish: an example of collage can be seen in the naked lady in the lower right-hand corner and the writing up above)

As I mentioned before, one of the things that struck me right away was the colors Jeff employs. There is a unity in the color scheme and the warm tones blend together so well. I especially love the pinks and greens. The images themselves are often so outlandish and bold that I appreciate Soto’s use of a more delicate palette that enhances rather than detracts from the images. There appears to me to be an Asian influence in Jeff Soto’s work as well. Not traditional Asian, but the kind of influence reflected in the vinyl toy craze that is sweeping Japan and making its way over here. Jeff Soto is actually on the forefront of blending these two mediums as one of his characters has been made into a toy and a really cool vinyl toy is in the works (prototype viewable here. It has to be really cool to see one of your two dimensional creations being made into a 3 dimensional product, especially when it is being done so well, and I am really excited for him.


(Halifax)

In addition to his painted work Jeff Soto has done alot of what is termed “installations”. An example can be seen here. These art installations include paintings and other 2 and 3 dimensional items and the results look so cool that it has to be amazing to see one of his gallery shows.


(Snowmaker Octopi)

The art of Jeff Soto and a few of his contemporaries (who I may feature in the future) is really enjoyable and I remember being so floored by it the first time I saw it. Week after week it can be hard to describe a person’s artwork in such a way that is different from what I said about the last work I featured and that is why I am so glad that I can post pictures. That way I can just say “Look! Enjoy!!!”.


(American Dream)

And the works of Jeff Soto can be looked and and enjoyed over and over. The amount of detail going on encourages repeated viewings and while the work can seem somewhat abstract there is a concreteness to the subject matter that ties it all together.

Some weeks I know way ahead of time what I am going to post on for Friday Favorites…next week for example is all planned out and it will make perfect sense when you read it. This week, however, I really poured through my favorites files to find something that would jump start me. I always want to do justice to the artists whose creations I bring to you. I was feeling so uninspired until I got down to Jeff Soto and it was almost like I could here Emeril’s “Bam!” in my head and I knew this was the week for Soto.


(Flying Projectors)

I have really enjoyed sharing Jeff Soto’s work with you and want to point you to some more sites to take in more of his fascinating paintings. You can see a picture of Jeff Soto here. Much more of Jeff Soto’s work can be found at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. You can find even more examples of Jeff’s work here and here. Jeff Soto also has a book out with some of his artwork entitled Potato Stamp Dreams (limited edition and regular edition can be seen here).


(Falling)

Have a creative, inspiring Friday and rest of the weekend everyone!

Home

Robot Love and Movies to boot.

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Saw a link to this over on Bolt City today and couldn’t resist posting it. Can the Millenium Falcon chess set from Star Wars be far behind??? Watch it here. Great stuff!
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We kicked off the summer movie season by hitting opening night of Mission Impossible: III and that combined with Jenn See’s recent posting of the new Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest trailer led to tons of internet trailer watching and so I’m posting links below.

If you haven’t seen the new Pirates trailer it is phenomenal and is by far the movie I am looking most forward to this summer based on this trailer alone. On the main site click on the ‘view trailer’ icon on the right side to open up a window to pick larger sized versions of the trailer. I have not been excited about Superman Returns at all but thanks to Tom pointing out this new trailer over the weekend my interest level is going up, up, and away…sorry. There is also a new X-Men III trailer out that shows a little more of the storyline and if the movie is as good as the trailer it looks like the X-Men franchise has another winner.

I have liked Sandra Bullock from the moment I first saw her in Speed and am interested in her upcoming re-teaming with Keanu Reeves in the time-shift romance The Lake House (click on link and the trailer will start). It may end up being a stinker but the trailer at least has me hopeful. I know I will get the inevitable arguments about Keanu Reeves being an airhead but I have to say for the record that I’m a fan. Loved him in A Walk in the Clouds, Matrix, etc. and I enjoy these “chick flicks”.

Another film I am excited about is On a Clear Day. I first saw this previewed on the front of the Pride and Prejudice DVD. It has evidently had its theatrical release and DVD release overseas and is finally making its way here. My recent Fine Arts email indicates that it is coming to the screen soon and Mary and I will definitely be going to this one. It will be fun to see Billy Boyd again.

Like all good M. Night Shyamalan fans I am also anxiously awaiting his newest film, Lady in the Water which is scheduled for a late July release. Having Bryce Dallas Howard and Paul Giamatti leads me to have high hopes for this film. There is a new trailer that can be viewed here.
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Watch some trailers and robot fights, dream of the weekend, and soldier on people, its Wednesday…we’re half way there!

Science Fiction

Homunculus by James Blaylock

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Picture this: The year is 1875, the setting London. A dirigible on a pre-set course helmed by a skeleton sails the night sky and a city full of would-be heroes and thieving scoundrals watch for its inevitable crash landing in the hopes of retrieving the homunculus…the little man in the little box rumored to hold the key to eternal life. Sound bizarre? You haven’t heard the half of it. Enter the world of James P. Blaylock’s Homunculus and you will see this and more.

Scientist Langdon St. Ives and the rest of the amatuer scientists and philosphers of the Trismegistus Club have their work cut out for them as they are slowly but surely drawn into the plot of the homunculus. If they are to keep this powerful being from falling into the wrong hands they will have to out think and outwit a cast of nefarious villians including an insane street evangelist who believes he is the new Messiah, his congregation of corpses reanimated by the hunchback vivisectionist Ignacio Narbando, the alchemist Will Pule who sports a bad complexion and is hell-bent on stealing the heart of an innocent young girl, and many more too numerous to mention. Everyone wants to possess the box, made by a craftsman named Keeble, to use the homunculus’ powers to their own ends. To add to the confusion there isn’t just one Keeble box, and no one knows exactly which box he is in.

Homunculus belongs to the genre of stories known as steampunk. A simplistic definition is that steampunk “concerns works set in the past, or a world resembling the past, in which modern technological advances occurred earlier in history, but were accomplished via the science already present in that time period”. A more detailed dissertation on steampunk can be found on the Wikipedia site here (It is worth reading simply for all the marvelous books, comics, games, etc. that the article references).

Homunculus is a modern treasure of a story in that is an amalgam of plots and settings and characters reflected in the classic works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe and P.G. Wodehouse. It also calls to mind the graphic novel work of Alan Moore in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes. It is a tale that is by turns dark and menancing, and at times absurd and humorous. The heroes are noble and upstanding though some have skeletons in their own closets whose revelation adds to the intricacy of Blaylock’s twisting and turning plot. Homunculus boasts bad guys who are insane, bad guys who are sinister, and bad guys with the vaudevillian traits of Snidley Whiplash and similar villians from the classic melodramas. James P. Blaylock’s writing style in this novel is very reminiscient of Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and the plot is every bit as deliciously convoluted as that work.

Any book that contains perpetual motion dirigibles, alien space craft, zombies, carp bladders, hunchbacked mad scientists, toy-makers, giant emeralds, kidnappings, suspense, mystery, wild inventions, diabolical schemes, drunken slow-witted philosophers, wet cigars, pea-pots, misdirection, explosions, disguises and the rich atmosphere of 19th century London cannot be anything but enjoyable and I wish I could convey the sheer pleasure I received from reading this book. Its style rewards the careful reader and there is a large enough cast of characters that you do have to pay attention at times to keep everything straight. Reading this novel one can envision how much fun it would be to do as a movie or television show similar to the classic Wild, Wild, West or the more recent Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

James P. Blaylock has written a sequel of sorts with the same cast of characters entitled Lord Kelvin’s Machine: A Novel that I have ordered from the library and cannot wait to read. I had to utilize the library for Homunculus as well because it has been out long enough to not be readily available in the bookstores. The same characters can also be found in two short stories in the book Thirteen Phantasms and Other Stories which I reviewed back in January.

My only real complaint about the novel is the terrible packaging. As bad as the mass market paperback cover is, the trade paperback is even worse. Lord Kevin’s Machine has a really fun hardback version with a cover that reminds me of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I hope someday someone with some clout falls in love with this story and republishes it in a worthy format.

If you are in the mood for something outlandishly fun, dripping with atmosphere, somewhat challenging and a reflection of some work of the masters of classic adventure/science fiction and if lines like “Does the night seem uncommonly full of dead men and severed heads to you?” tickle your fancy then I highly recommend that you scour up a copy of Homunculus and give it a good read. It is a wacky, whimsical, farcical science fiction historical mystery that is simply too good to pass up.

Film

Mission Impossible: III

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No Spoiler Review

The success of your mission, should you choose to accept it, hinges on your response to the following questions: Did you like the first two incarnations of this franchise? Can you separate Tom Cruise the actor from Tom Cruise the freak? If you answered both questions in the affirmative, you will enjoy Mission Impossible: III.

I have to admit that I did not see the first Mission Impossible film. I saw the second one, thoroughly enjoyed it, became an instant fan of Thandie Newton, and have never felt the need to see the first one. You may feel the same way about this third film in the franchise and if so I wouldn’t blame you. It is not different. It is not new. But it is the first big blockbuster of the summer movie season and it is a really fun movie.

I’ll steer clear of the plot beyond what you may have seen in the trailers. To reveal any of the major plot points would ruin the story. Suffice it to say that Ethan Hunt has once again been called up by the IMF to assist with an ‘impossible mission’, he reluctantly accepts, and action ensues. Despite the fact that the story is one we have all seen before there are several reasons I really enjoyed this film. First off, the cast.

I’ve never been a huge Tom Cruise fan, nor am I a Tom Cruise hater. I don’t go to or stay away from a film because of him. I think he does a terrific job in this type of role, however. Once the opening scene was over I was able to lay aside my visions of couch-jumping and Scientology-selling and enjoy his performance. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding. I haven’t seen Capote other than in trailers, so my exposure to Hoffman has only been with his smaller, more comedic roles. He was a fantastic villian. Cold, cruel, calculating. He makes the film. Ving Rhames is back and is his usually cocky self. In addition to Rhames, Cruise’s team is made up of Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q. Laurence Fishburn and Billy Crudup turn in adequate performances as suits in the IMF and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) turns in a really fun performance as a tech-geek reminiscient of Kevin Weisman’s role in the television show Alias. And of course there is the role of the love interest, this time turned in by a relative newcomer to film, Michelle Monaghan. Monaghan turned in a refreshingly down to earth performance that only enhanced her girl-next-door looks. She was a very good choice.

The second thing I really like about Mission Impossible:III was this: The very first scene of the movie shows something that actually happens much closer to the end of the film. Despite knowing that the movie would eventually end up at this point the suspenseful moments of the film were still suspenseful. That fact alone made the film enjoyable to me.

And of course the special effects were well done. There were fewer explosions than I generally expect from an action film but that’s not to say that it is devoid of these moments. There are plenty of the requisite incidents of violence, explosions, gun-fire, chases, fights, and stunts that you expect from this franchise. I felt these were handled well and that there was less of the jump-cut edits that one expects from action films. Yes there were several implausible moments but that is true for not only these films but most of the slate of summer blockbusters to come. It is a credit to MI:III that implausibility doesn’t detract from the entertaiment value of the film.

Should you see this on the big screen? Well, that all depends on the limitations you have in getting out to the movies. As with all action/adventure films they impress more on the big screen. However this movie will be much more watchable on the television than will other upcoming movies like X-Men III, Superman Returns, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. If you are limited with your time and budget this summer, wait for those movies. If you are in the mood for an interesting, fun, popcorn movie now then I recommend checking out MI:III.