Julianna Yau’s blog

I’m already waiting for Synecdoche, New York to be released on DVD, because I suspect it will take another two or three viewings for me to get the full impact.

My summary review after the second viewing is that Charlie Kaufman is absolutely brilliant.

I was right in my suspicion that there was significance to the clocks/time in the movie. The first ten or twenty minutes of the movie was an absolute delight to decipher, and I was relieved that Kaufman kept the same cinematic grammar consistent throughout the movie. The film demands your complete attention, and Kaufman’s use of props is comparable only to the Coen brothers‘ attention to detail.

As much as I’m glad I saw the movie again, I’m also glad I saw it two weeks ago for the first time. That experience was, and probably shall always be, unrivalled to any other I’ve had. The audience I “had” today was mediocre, at best. Two people crunching popcorn on either side of the theatre, three guys infront of me who only got the most obvious of the girlfriend jokes which aren’t even Kafumanesque, and about four other people who barely reacted audibly to the movie.

Oh, and about 10 minutes of the movie was interrupted by someone triggering the fire alarm in the building, the manager coming on the loudspeaker to announce that everything was okay, the alarms being triggered while they were being reset, a pre-recorded announcement informing us that we had to leave, and the manager coming back onto the loudspeaker to announce that everything was still okay.

The 20-minute pre-show from the first viewing seems to be unique to Cineplex Odeon. I saw the movie at AMC theatres today, and merely two or three previews were shown before the movie. The print, however, was of a lower quality than the one Cineplex Odeon had.

I did manage to get the name of the artist who painted the works of Adele Lack–Alex Kanevsky. A search with both their names resulted in many hits, but finding the connection without both names was fruitless (for me, anyway).

At some point, I’d love to have my own little retrospective “film festival”, with all of the Coen brothers’ films, followed by Kaufman’s.

Cinematheque Waterloo has generously given me two tickets which are good for any of their upcoming screenings as a thank-you for supporting them. Because I already have an annual membership, I can get into the screenings for free.

So, I’ve decided to give away the tickets in exchange for a review of a film.

How it will work

1. You decide on an upcoming Cinematheque Waterloo film you want to see.
2. You contact me and we arrange for a time and place for you to get the ticket from me. The ticket is only available to the reviewer; if you want to go with a friend who also wants a free ticket, he/she will need to write their own review!
3. You see the film at the Original Princess Cinema in Waterloo.
4. You write a review of the film. Because Cinematheque Waterloo is also promoting the cinema-going experience, you are strongly encouraged to write about your experience at the film, and not merely the film itself.
5. If you have a blog, post the review to your blog and let me know that it’s been posted. I will link to it from here.
   If you do not have a blog, I will setup an account for you on this blog so you can post the review. I can also post the review here on your behalf, without setting up an account.

I’m still twitching from the painful nauseating lesson I learned today from what shall be my third and last attendance at a Cinematheque Waterloo screening. Although I’m still happy to have supported them with the purchase of an annual membership, they are now well-known enough to be attracting just the type of person I don’t want to have in a cinema with me.

Compared with my near-religious experience while watching Synecdoche, New York, this brought back all my misanthropic feelings and contempt for the inconsiderateness of others. Tonight’s audience had everything but a ringing cell phone—people talking through the live introduction, people arriving late, people [loudly] discussing the film during the film, someone wrestling with a shopping bag for a full minute, someone dropping their keys, and, of course, me hushing whoever was within a 3-seat radius.

The film, Jules et Jim, was passable, but overly long at a mere 105 minutes. After the war sequence, François Truffaut flexed his directoral muscles, then was simply trying too hard to be impressive. I quickly found myself uninterested in the story and unenchanted (sic) by the barrage of perspective shots which had no connection to the narrative. Oh, but wait! French New Wave is not supposed to be about narrative, non? Like with Hitchcock, I’m wholly unimpressed by experimentation for the sake of experimentation (especially when it was laughable or too little, too late).

And, to audiences, I say:

• I paid to see the movie, not to hear your commentary on it.
• You don’t need to remark aloud to your friend that the woman was wearing a watch on her ankle. We all saw it. Because we weren’t trying to have a conversation with our friends during the movie.
• I don’t care that you like the music.
• A movie is not the appropriate time to teach your kid about ships.
• Please don’t try to get that last little drop of soda out of your drink. I can’t hear the machine guns over your slurping.
• If your phone rings, turn it off. Do not simply answer the phone after your friend calls you for the second time.
• A movie with fast cuts, explosions and a sold-out theatre is not an appropriate venue to take your screaming infant.
• Opening a plastic bag of food you smuggled into the theatre is not less conspicuous if you do it slowly.

And, in conclusion, thank God for Zip.ca. Amen.

I saw Syndecoche, New York today, and I don’t even know where to start with the review. To avoid this being a mess of randomness, I’ll attempt to write this chronologically.

Firstly, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the cinema. Before seeing The Dark Knight and the Cinematheque Waterloo screenings in the past few months, I had been boycotting the movie-going experience for over four years—a boycott I only broke to see the X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean movies. After sitting through movies at The Princess Cinema in Waterloo and the Kingston Canadian Film Festival where the movie-goers insisted on discussing the movie while watching the movie, and seeing more mainstream movies like Mystic River, Master and Commander and Tears of the Sun (all of which were horrible, by the way) where people insisted on answering cell phones and slurping their drinks, I badly needed a break from seeing movies with the public.

So, the 20 minute “pre-show” of commercials was a tiresome surprise. With the amount of money they must be making from the sale of ads, I’m upset that ticket prices are still as high as they are. I did, however, get to enjoy a hearty laugh at Stella Artois‘ attempt at making their “beer” seem like something worth drinking.

The movie was absolutely amazing. I do wonder whether people who aren’t familiar with Kaufman’s work would get the full effect of it. His world is unique, but entirely consistent, and Synecdoche, New York was an extremely fine presentation of it. I’m both relived that his direction lived up to my expectations (hopes?) and that he has finally been able to direct one of his own screenplays so I can see exactly what he had intended.

Synecdoche, New York had the fuller version of the world we started to see in Being John Malkovich but, more surprisingly, seems to be a refined version of the themes in Michel Gondry‘s video of Bjork‘s Bachellorette. The absurd humour in the movie was in keeping with what Kaufman did in Adaptation, and the actors did a fantastic job with maintaining the understated delivery required for it to be “Kaufmanesque”.

What we saw on the tv, books and magazines of the main character were obviously created by Kaufman, much like what he did in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. And what has been driving me mad is I forgot the name of the artist who painted the work by the character Adele Lack. The artist had been properly credited at the end of the movie, but Kafuman has once again been able to fabricate a character into real life, and the internet has once again failed me for finding what I need.

The casting was perfect. Philip Seymour Hoffman continues to amaze me, and I’m glad Catherine Keener was able to do another Kaufman movie. (IMDB doesn’t give a unique link for joint venture searches, so you’ll have to do it yourself if you’re that curious.)

I will be trying to see the movie again before it disapears from the cinema. Although it was worth the four-year wait, I missed the significance of the clocks/time in the movie (please, don’t tell me what it is—I want to find it for myself) and want to capture the artist’s name. The thought of waiting at least another year for the DVD release is maddening. And although the circumstances are entirely different, a part of me is terrified I’ll relive what happened when I missed the Cremaster Cycle when it was at the Guggenheim.

The internet has been raging with bill C-10, which seems to have become the new media baby now that the government is dragging its feet with releasing the proposed copyright legislation.

Geist is surprisingly brief on his coverage of the activity, with a mere mention and pointing people to one of the anti-C-10 Facebook groups.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts issued a press release on the matter (I’m linking to my own blog because I can’t find it on their website), as did ACTRA and the Directors Guild of Canada.

Trying to read through the entire bill is a nightmare, and I’m grateful to “FF Canuck” for finding the relevant text in the bill. The offending text, in short, is that “public financial support of the production [of a Canadian film or video] would not be contrary to public policy”.

While I agree with some criticisms that this isn’t necessarily or specifically a censorship clause, anyone who reads between the lines (or any of the articles covering the issue) knows its intent is to facilitate censorship. It’s chillingly familiar to the undertones of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and it’s no wonder everyone is aghast.

Just what exactly is “contrary to public policy”? What exactly is “public policy”? Who decides what “public policy” is and whether a work is contrary to it?

Surely the Canadian government shouldn’t be allowing hateful propaganda, but where do we draw the line…and, more importantly, from where do we draw the line? As others have noted, other provisions are in place to ensure that works which violate human rights are not allowed to be distributed. Is it really the place of the governmental branch in charge of tax credits to determine whether a film should be funded?

I was responding to some of the comments on my review of the copyright panel discussion on TVO, and got onto a thought tangent that I decided to develop into a full post instead.

My understanding is that, under current copyright law, when I sell one of my sculptures I am only selling the sculpture–not the right to reproduce it or images of it (unless I have also licenced the buyer to make such reproductions). Naturally, I’m not going to sue my patrons if my sculptures end up in an album of family pictures, but would want to strike a licensing deal if they wanted to use images of the sculpture to help promote their business.

Luckily for me, the distribution of images of my sculptures doesn’t (in my mind) negatively impact the sale of my sculptures, because anyone who wants to own the sculpture will not be satisfied by a picture of it. In fact, the distribution of pictures of my sculptures may possibly increase interest in my work and the chance of a sale.

However, the duplication of the sculpture into another sculpture would be something that I would be concerned about because it would have high potential for decreasing my sales (and also infringes my moral rights… but that’s a whole other topic) and influencing the value of my work (because all my work is unique; I am not in the practise of creating series or limited editions of my sculptures).

How does this translate to creative works which can be faithfully recreated digitally? Not merely music, but literature, software, movies and various forms of visual art (e.g. photography) can be digitally reproduced almost perfectly. We have seen for music that recorded songs can be rethought to be not the product but the advertising, and the live concerts to be the products. We have also seen for software that the software can be rethought to be not the product, and have the product be consulting and support for software.

But what about movies and visual art? Do we saturate movies with product placement? Do we rely solely on governmental and corporate sponsorship for visual art? Do we simply levy the heck out of everything to pay the creators? I’d like to hear any suggestions. Honestly. :)

I recently learned that Purple Violets, an independent movie by Edward Burns, was available exclusively on iTunes. Being a movie fan, I rebooted my computer into Windows, and went to the PV website so I could buy the movie.

Although I watch almost anything (including bad movies out of curiosity or boredom), the synopsis for Purple Violets lost me at: “…relationship comedy about four friends from college ready for change”. That tagline alone was enough to kill my excitement for the movie’s method of availability. Still, because I had already logged out of Linux and into Windows, I thought I would follow through with it and test the process for buying the movie.

After Apple updated my version of iTunes, I infuriatingly discovered that the movie, like Hotel Chevalier in the weeks before it was bundled with the theatrical showing of The Darjeeling Limited, was only available to customers with an American billing address. This was not a big loss, considering I wasn’t looking forwards to having to watch a “…relationship comedy about four friends from college ready for change”. But if this trend continues, I may not be able to see many movies because an online store doesn’t allow customers outside of the US to purchase their digital files.