I stumbled upon this video on Stereogum today, a remake of "Maximum Capacity," a classic Roboshithead video. It brought back memories of laughter and awkward absurdities...
Roboshithead was a mysterious group of talented weirdos who made the kind of lo-fi comedy I've always wanted to make. Chuck Stern was one of them and I hear a guy named Ian was one of them too. Supposedly the guys at Peking were also down.
I discovered Roboshithead on MNN on a balmy spring night during the vernal equinox of 2009. Or was it 2008. Eh, it could've been 2010. No, it was before that for sure. The first video I saw was Lallypal: The Man, The Beast. My jaw dropped as I watched...
And I was instantly hooked. I saw more and more of their stuff and felt what it must've felt like to watch TVParty back in the day.
Then I saw this...
And this...
And this...
And this...
And this...
And this...
and the infamous Maximum Capacity.
And then they disappeared from MNN. And I was sad. But now they have a channel on YouTube where they've uploaded all their videos. And I am blinking happy.
He wasn't a major actor, choreographer or director of the 70s but he was part of a bygone era and his kind is quickly disappearing. And for that I pay him homage and thank him for his part in influencing my style. RIP Jim Kelly
I grew up in the golden age of ninja movies and throwing stars, so I naturally became a big devotee of Ninjitsu. During this time, Sho Kosugi temporarily replaced Bruce Lee as my idol and I searched high and low for ninja schools in New York. I scoured through the Yellow Pages and found the only New York school at the time... in the Bronx. Unfortunately, it was too far for my mom to take me and I never even got to check it out. Because I couldn't find a school to train in and YouTube didn't exist, my only recourse was to read Ninja magazines. I devoured everything that Stephen K. Hayes and others wrote in these magazines, although I couldn't buy any of their books and videos. So, I was left to my daydreams with the "stealth-attack-disarm-kill" drills I read in Ninja.
Eventually, I moved on before the Ninja phase died down and tried to get into boxing in my teens. Then, in 1998, I started looking for a school that I hoped would offer both kickboxing and grappling (this was before mixed martial arts schools became ubiquitous). During my search and school visits, I encountered a Ninjitsu school in Manhattan and I decided, even if I wasn't going to join, I just had to check it out to see if it was anything like I had imagined.
I stepped into a class warming up with front rolls and back rolls... and didn't stay for long. Maybe I was over the hype and the ninja outfits or maybe I was too influenced by the practical realism of MMA. (It didn't help that Steve Jennum and Scott Morris students of "Robert Bussey's Warrior International" ninja school failed miserably in the UFC back in the early 90s.) But what I saw had none of the mysticism or exotic flair that thrilled me. The ninjas I read about were supposedly the feudal equivalent of Navy SEALs and these students were at best a smattering of WASP and Japanese accountants in karate gi trying to do their best Michael Dudikoff and Sho Kosugi impressions.
Needless to say, I left that school certain I would never return. Soon after, I found a Jeet Kune Do school that offered muay thai AND brazilian jiu-jitsu and a bazillion other arts and that's how I regained my love and appreciation for Bruce Lee.
Still... it's fun watching this vintage and surreal collection of Grandmaster Hatsumi tapes (I'm sure it contains some valuable techniques to learn in there). I remembered seeing the ads for these tapes and wishing... wishing I could get them.
I love movie posters that enhance or comment or go beyond the film it advertises. In doing so, it becomes a work of art. Although I had always admired a good movie poster when I saw one, I hadn't noticed the artistic possibilities of the movie poster until I read this article by Michael Atkinson, "POLISH MOVIE POSTERS: One of the Great Secrets of Twentieth-Century Pop Art" in Believer's 2009 Film issue:
Pulp form, thumbnail allusiveness, hyperbole, uncouth syntax—this
much we all understand about movie posters, truly a public art form only
Papuan tribesmen could claim to be ignorant of. Until we go to Poland.
Outside of its fevered circle of cultists, the authentic phenomenon of
Polish movie posters remains one of the great secrets of
twentieth-century pop art. There are large-format books published here
showcasing Italian movie art, Japanese posters, American exploitation
graphics (no shortage of these), and, remarkably, amateur posters for
Hollywood films made by Ghanaian artists on secondhand flour sacks. But
none of the Polish. Nowhere else but in Poland has the very concept of
movie-poster design gotten such a radical overhaul, and nowhere else has
it so persisted at identifying itself as a freestanding object. The
primary philosophical singularity at work in the tradition of Polish
movie posters going back at least to the ’50s is this: The poster art
need not visually suggest the movie in question in any concrete way
whatsoever. In fact, direct visual reference to anything in the film is
often shunned. The poster should at most semiconsciously evoke the
thematic feeling of the movie (or its title—in many instances, Polish
posters seem to be created with abject ignorance of the cinematic work
itself). The artists chosen are prized for their intensely idiosyncratic
visions, to which the movie-poster form and the marketing exigencies of
a particular film must defer, not vice versa.
Some Polish movie posters here and here. And now here's this fan-made poster on I read about on reddit and the AV Club. Simply dope.
Btw, here's a little message from "the guy who created this poster here."
So asides from watching the film a dozen or so times, for this poster
I actually watched it three times while making it. I wanted to capture
as much detail of every suit as possible, even down to the folds of the
handkerchiefs. It truly was an obsession. You can read more about the process of how I made that poster and the others in my Scorsese series here: http://ibraheemyoussef.com/blog/?p=615 Edit: I'm also participating next month at the Spoke Art, "SCORSESE:
an art show tribute" happening at Bold Hype Gallery in Chelsea, NYC
April 19th, with a lot of other great artists, show will be on for one
week only.
Here is a little more on the show from the Spoke Art FB page: http://on.fb.me/13RCOrm
A talkie script conveyed with such attentive visual camerawork (what else can you expect from Hitchcock?). A movie that reveals how diabolical plans on paper are always perfect until human error factors in when performed in real life. Also, no character in this movie is completely innocent. I truly enjoyed Hitchcock's use of an active narrator to tell this story because he didn't actually need to embellish the action of what was essentially a stage play. The GOD POV to show Tony's plan and the hiding of the key are my favorite moments.
But don't take my word for it... David Bordwell has an eye-opening and insightful analysis of this film which is worth the time of any filmmaker to read in full. Money quote:
No viewer will ever forget the far more hideous death that the
would-be killer suffers onscreen. After flopping over Margot, apparently
dead, he snaps back to life spasmodically, as if jolted by bursts of
electricity. His body yanks itself erect, his arms twisting helplessly
as he tries to withdraw the knife, before he turns over and hits the
floor . The impact drives the knife further into his back. Hitchcock
celebrates the moment with an Eisensteinian overlapping cut to a
close-up of the scissors. He had a special pit dug, he proudly told a
reporter, to make the lens flush with the floor.
So much for just setting up the camera and photographing the people
acting. We could point to other alterations from the play, such as the
strained drawing-room courtesies that frame the whole story. “Let me get
you another drink,” is the film’s first line, as Margot and Mark pull
out of a passionate clinch. At the end, nabbed, Tony offers to pour his
wife and her lover a drink, and then asks the detective: “I suppose
you’re still on duty, Inspector?” There’s also the peculiar mustache
motif. The play text and the film dialogue mock Lesgate/ Swann slightly
for growing one, but the film adds the mini-gag of self-satisfied
Inspector Hubbard calmly combing his own mustache.
Fine as these isolated moments are, Hitchcock’s treatment is more
thoroughgoing. He does, as he tells us, use cinematic means “to narrate a
story taken from a stage play.” But those means are unusual and
instructive.
As a martial artist and a filmmaker, I realize that I express myself in the following ways...
entertaining
engaging
enigmatic
The videos I've directed and the scripts I've written are testament to that. The people I've trained, sparred and fought can also attest that in the ring, street or training floor my fighting style is any or all of the above. And so, I want to make it a point in my blog to point out the entertaining, engaging and enigmatic through symbology.
Why?
Why not? I think it would be fun to filter things I do or find embodying the 3 E's above using symbols. It would make things less literal at times, leave room for the strange and mysterious and allow me to focus my attention on the 3 E's without having to include everything under the sun that falls under the 3 E's.
The symbology I want to use would narrow my focus. Not to say that I couldn't stray out of a particular symbolic realm I've committed myself to because I don't believe in restricting yourself to the point of ideology but I think it's good to narrow your focus and own a particular thing or way of being. And the symbology I want to use is based on an environment rich with personal, literary, artistic and historical meaning. That's why the symbology I want to use is based off of the environment of the ocean, the sea; sublime bodies of water that overwhelm the planet with a surface thrilling to skim and a depth waiting to be plunged. (Cosmic space, although magnificent and varied is too abstract; the jungle, rainforest and swamps, as vibrant and seductive as they may be, are too cliche as dark continent adventure fodder for me; the mountains, truly peaks of wonder, are too rare and dry for my tastes... I can't even breathe up there; the deserts, despite being dangerous and alluring mirages are also mind-numbingly monotonous; the plains, the plains.... I'm sorry, I don't even think about the plains that much except when I think of the Sioux and Cheyenne and maybe the Mongols; and the forests, in all their heavenly angelic morning mist glory were cliche before the jungle.)
So the ocean it is for me... I have had a long attraction to the ocean that goes beyond the fact that I am 90%+ water. But the ocean is vast and I have to narrow my focus further to two animals that dwell in the seas and oceans. Being a filmmaker and martial artist instead of an oceanographer, sailor or diver, I want to restrict my use of the ocean and the sea to two animals that I feel totemic connections with; the #octopus and the #whale.
So in the future, expect me to use imagery and videos of the octopus and whale, at times, to express myself in ways...
I wanted to see itand I finally did. A film more conventional than what you would expect from the New Wave but with political undertones and a woman who suffers terribly for love. I can't imagine this film would be as memorable without the unforgettable improvised score by Miles Davis.
Seen this movie recently and while it lacks visual flair in his direction and has a "more-conventional-than-I-thought" plot, David O'Russell's shines in the acting he squeezes out of EVERYONE in his cast. One could argue that his job is made easy by the talented cast he roped to do this movie which is a good argument and according to Backstage, there could be alot of truth to that:
Although the film stars box office magnets such as Jennifer Lawrence,
Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro, Russell looks for the unexpected in
every actor he casts. “We make sure that they’re not overexposed and
that you haven’t seen them do this one part before,” Vernieu says of the
actors she brings in. Although actors like Jacki Weaver and John Ortiz,
who have supporting parts in the film, are solid working actors, they
were new to Russell. “There’s a lot of times where some people do a
certain thing, so it’s all about trying to kind of reinvent that,”
Vernieu adds.
Russell hosted work sessions with the lead actors before shooting began...
However, I am sure there is alot more to it and, based on his past work, Russell definitely seems to be an "actor's director." Cue the Yahoo! interview with Russell:
What is the key to starting off on the right foot with an actor?
The moment we meet, we begin this relationship that is very personal and has a warmth and humanness to it -- and intention. I'm honest about who I am and what I'm after in terms of a voice and a person. And I welcome their feelings and questions, together with the sense that this is a very special thing we're
doing. There has to be that excitement and passion and desire -- I want
them to feel that from me, and I want to feel that from them. I'm
willing to embrass myself, or to show them my humanness myself, and that
allows them to show their humanness.
I would say the most important thing is feeling that I know what I
want to do. It's very specific, it's very personal, it's very emotional
to me. And I'm very confident in them, even before they are. Even if
there are moments of not knowing what we're doing, I'm comfortable with
those moments. They don't cause anxiety or panic.
Did they used to cause panic?
Well, I know what it's like to go down a road making a movie when you
don't know your target starting out. That's a much harder way to make a
movie, and I don't want to do that. I want to at least know the voice or
the feeling that I love. And I do mean the word love. For me, that's been the great
discovery of the last two movies: I have great passion and love for the
worlds and the characters. And I love each character as I would my own
son, for better or worse. That means you hate them sometimes a little
bit, but I can take the view of any character in the movie and see the
whole movie from their point of view.
When you get on the set, you're known for positioning yourself close to the actors and giving directions as the camera is rolling.
When we first read the scene together, whether it's in a room or on the
set, very often that's when it comes to life. And when we get on the
set to put it on its feet, we may work out the blocking in a very
general sense, and then I'll just start shooting the rehearsal.
There's a looseness that comes with that, because I will talk to them
as I would during a rehearsal. I might say, "Try it like this" or "How
about that?"
And then as we keep going, eventually there are long sections where
I'm not saying a word. If I throw a word in later, it's out of sense of
joy or enjoyment or excitement. So in the flow of it, I might say "Try
it quiet" or "What if you hit that word harder?" or "What if you said
this word instead?"
When I spoke to Jennifer, she talked about the scene between
her and Bradley in the diner. She said at a certain point you asked them
to slow the dialogue way down, and that it felt very strange and wrong
to them at first but ended up being the right choice.
I remember it well. That scene is a very important scene. So much is
happening: They're making a secret pact that is illegal, when she says
she'll get a letter to his wife. And it's also an emotional pact. She's
divulging things about herself. She's opening up and telling him about
who she is and what happened to her.
The secrecy of the collusion, the intimacy of their deal, there was
something hot about it. At the same time they were supposed to be
working on getting the letter to his wife, they were really getting
closer together. So that was the subtext.
So I said, "Let's do it in this more collusive, secretive way, like
when you lean into somebody." And it took on a different feeling. That's
where it took on an intensity and a hot intimacy.
Do you ever find actors who aren't comfortable with your process?
That happened in my first three movies, but that's because I didn't
figure it out before I made the movie the way I do now. Now I want to
have that family feeling that we're all in this together. It's also knowing when an actor doesn't want to work in a certain
way. You need to treat Robert De Niro very differently than you treat
Bradley Cooper or Christian Bale or Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams. Some
actors, I know that I must never speak to that actor about crying,
because it's going to make it hard for them to cry. That's how I got De
Niro to cry in this movie, because I never spoke to him about it, I
never wrote it, and then it happened.
[Pause] I need to know when to back off and shut up; that's a
big part of it. It's probably not that different from being a coach on a
good team. You need to know when to shut up and let the team struggle,
and when to intervene and say, "Hold on, let's redirect what we're doing
here."
Want to see something good but different? Then go see some shorts at the IFC Center. where they are screening the Academy Award-nominated shorts in the following categories: Documentary, Live Action and Animation. Starting today until Feb. 7. 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street | (212) 924-7771
DOCUMENTARY
PROGRAM A KINGS POINT (USA, 39 min.) Director: Sari Gilman
MONDAYS AT RACINE (USA, 39 min.) Director: Cynthia Wade INOCENTE (USA, 39 min.) Directors: Sean Fine & Andrea Nix
MAGGIE SIMPSON IN “THE LONGEST DAYCARE” (USA, 5 min.), Director: David Silverman ADAM AND DOG (USA, 16 min.), Director: Minkyu Lee FRESH GUACAMOLE (USA, 2 min.), Director: Adam Pesapane (PES) HEAD OVER HEELS (UK, 10 min.), Director: Timothy Reckart PAPERMAN (USA, 7 min.), Director: John Kahrs ADDITIONAL FILMS: THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD (27 min.), Director: Uwe Heidschötter & Johannes Weiland DRIPPED (France, 9 min.), Director: Leo Verrier ABIOGENESIS (New Zealand, 5 min.), Director: Richard Mans
NR, 88 Minutes
DEATH OF A SHADOW (Belgium/France, 20 min.), Director: Tom Van Avermaet HENRY (Canada, 21 min.), Director: Yan England CURFEW (USA, 19 min.), Director: Shawn Christensen BUZKASHI BOYS (Afghanistan/USA, 28 min.), Director: Sam French ASAD (South Africa/USA, 18 min.), Director: Bryan Buckley NR, 114 Minutes
Ah savate... Don't let the tight biker shorts and top fool you, Savate fighters are lethal. Although everyone is aware and afear'd of muay thai, and rightly so, savate fighters can hold their own and then some with muay thai fighters. If you think of a muay thai kick as getting hit with a bat then think of a savate kick as getting stabbed with a dagger. I think you don't see alot of pure savate techniques in the octagon or the cage mainly because savate is done with footwear. In fact, "savate" means "old boot" implying the how elemental footwear is to the sport (competition savate) and martial art (savate de rue). Don't get me wrong you can do some techniques barefoot but the true lethality of savate comes from taking advantage of the hard surface of your shoes. That's why savate is such an effective streetfighting art and I think that's what makes savate fall so comfortably within the JKD curriculum (it's how I learned savate). It originated as a street art that became a sport but the effective essence is still there in the sport. And it's what makes it such a dope art. So don't sleep on savate or a fouetté to the temple will have you sleeping for real.
There are six basic kinds of kicks, and four kinds of punches for savate de rue (street defense):
Kicks
fouetté (literally "whip", roundhouse kick making contact with the toe):
high (figure),
medium (median) or
low (bas)
chassé (side or front piston-action kick):
high (figure),
medium (median) or
low (bas)
chassé italien (aimed at the opponent's inner thigh, with the
toe pointed at the opponent's groin. Contrast the chassé bas lateral,
which targets the front of the thigh.) NOT ALLOWED IN THE RING
revers (frontal or lateral "reverse" or hooking kick making
contact with the sole of the shoe):
high (figure),
medium (median), or
low (bas)
coup de pied bas ("low kick", a front or sweep kick to the
shin making contact with the inner edge of the shoe, performed with a
characteristic backwards lean):
low only, designed to break the shin
bone.
coup de pied bas de frappe (coup de pied bas which is used to strike the opponent's lead leg). NOT ALLOWED IN THE RING
Punches
direct bras avant (jab, lead hand)
direct bras arrière (cross, rear hand)
crochet (hook, bent arm with either hand)
uppercut (either hand).
In addition to kicks and punches, training in savate de rue (savate defense) includes knee and elbow strikes along with locks, sweeps, throws, headbutts, and takedown. And it flows very with Panantukan, Trapping and other JKD techniques. It even has a weapons component known as La Canne.
DURING THESE LAST decades
the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. It used to
pay very well to stage such great performances under one’s own
management, but today that is quite impossible. We live in a different
world now. At one time the whole town took a lively interest in the
hunger artist; from day to day of his fast the excitement mounted;
everybody wanted to see him at least once a day; there were people who
bought season tickets for the last few days and sat from morning till
night in front of his small barred cage; even in the nighttime there
were visiting hours, when the whole effect was heightened by torch
flares; on fine days the cage was set out in the open air, and then it
was the children’s special treat to see the hunger artist; for their
elders he was often just a joke that happened to be in fashion, but the
children stood openmouthed, holding each other’s hands for greater
security, marveling at him as he sat there pallid in black tights, with
his ribs sticking out so prominently, not even on a seat but down among
straw on the ground, sometimes giving a courteous nod, answering
questions with a constrained smile, or perhaps stretching an arm through
the bars so that one might feel how thin it was, and then again
withdrawing deep into himself, paying no attention to anyone or
anything, not even to the all-important striking of the clock that was
the only piece of furniture in his cage, but merely staring into vacancy
with half-shut eyes, now and then taking a sip from a tiny glass of
water to moisten his lips.
It's interesting that I chose this story for Storytime because I was only spurred to reread A Hunger Artist after reading Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener when one of the characters, who also happens to suffer starvation and imprisonment by their own choosing, reminded me of Kafka's classic tale.
The main reason I chose A Hunger Artist over Bartleby for Storytime is because I thought it offered the better lesson for a visual storyteller in how to make a simple story yield rich symbolic and allegorical visuals in a minimalist (albeit absurdist) way. Read them both, anyway, since they are enjoyable reads and are also relevant for insights into our celebrity culture and our capacity to be inhumane to ourselves and to others for selfish or even unexplainable motives.
Although, I can't front... Bartleby was frustrating at times because the narrator drove me crazy with all the shit he put up with... was his compassion real? was he just scared? was Bartleby more a story about the narrator then about Bartleby? I'll have to revisit that one another time.
