Slacking Off???
I don't know where the past two days went, post-wise. I've been wrestling with my DVD burner and a cracked copy of Nero that wants to stop running when it's time to write the lead-out, and I spent the better part of my pre-work hours today diving through the front closet, which hasn't been cleaned out in at least a year...
Anyway, I finished the Neil Young biography, Shakey yesterday. It was a bit of a slog, as the most interesting stuff is covered in the first half or so. The second half of the book basically becomes "Neil records with so-and-so, then pisses them off by shutting them out until he needs them again" over and over again for about 150 pages or so. Read it for the pre-fame stories of Neil, skip anything post-Rust Never Sleeps. Contrasted with the bio of Nick Drake I also recently finished, Young comes off as the biggest tool in the history of rock(though Young's nothing compared to the stories related in the book about Graham Nash).
I'm now reading The Emperor and The Wolf, a biography of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, which is huge. I've always been fascinated with Kurosawa's films, and he's always been somewhat of an enigma to me. His autobiography, such as it is, ends just before he becomes famous in the 50's(and long before its publishing date of 1982), but this book, by Stuart Galbraith IV, is exhaustive. It explores the lives of Kurosawa and Mifune and how they came together to make some of the greatest films in Japanese(and for that matter, world) history.
Just think about it.
Rashomon. High and Low. The Seven Samurai. The Hidden Fortress. The Bad Sleep Well. Yojimbo. Plus lesser known films such as Scandal, The Quiet Duel, and the just released Stray Dog.
Then think about just a few of the films that were inspired by Kurosawa.
Star Wars. A Fistful of Dollars. The Magnificent Seven. Battle Beyond The Stars. A Bug's Life. The Usual Suspects. Last Man Standing(the Bruce Willis one.)
And I learned one amazing and interesting fact already. The father of kaiju film, Ishiro Honda, was a great friend of Kurosawa's and worked on a few of his films before going on to become the king of rubber-suit movies. Rialto Pictures is currently running a re-release in art houses of the original Godzilla movie, scrubbed of Raymond Burr and with 40 minutes cut for U.S distribution added back in. Go here for a schedule of theatres showing the movie. If you can, go and see it. I will for sure when it hits Hartford at the end of July.
Rialto also has a current re-release going for Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers, the mid-60's psuedo-documentary account of the French's Iraqi-Freedom-styled attempt to quell a guerilla uprising in Algeria. It's fascinating viewing, and more so when you find that the Pentagon screened it in 2003. An interesting NY Times article on the screening can be found here, and hopefully someone will pick the remastered movie up for a deserved DVD release.
More tomorrow or Monday, possibly a rant on DVD re-releases.
-Edit- Subsequent research on Algiers indicates that there will be a Criterion DVD in the fall, with possibly as much as three DVDs. I imagine there's a lot of material to be covered.
Anyway, I finished the Neil Young biography, Shakey yesterday. It was a bit of a slog, as the most interesting stuff is covered in the first half or so. The second half of the book basically becomes "Neil records with so-and-so, then pisses them off by shutting them out until he needs them again" over and over again for about 150 pages or so. Read it for the pre-fame stories of Neil, skip anything post-Rust Never Sleeps. Contrasted with the bio of Nick Drake I also recently finished, Young comes off as the biggest tool in the history of rock(though Young's nothing compared to the stories related in the book about Graham Nash).
I'm now reading The Emperor and The Wolf, a biography of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, which is huge. I've always been fascinated with Kurosawa's films, and he's always been somewhat of an enigma to me. His autobiography, such as it is, ends just before he becomes famous in the 50's(and long before its publishing date of 1982), but this book, by Stuart Galbraith IV, is exhaustive. It explores the lives of Kurosawa and Mifune and how they came together to make some of the greatest films in Japanese(and for that matter, world) history.
Just think about it.
Rashomon. High and Low. The Seven Samurai. The Hidden Fortress. The Bad Sleep Well. Yojimbo. Plus lesser known films such as Scandal, The Quiet Duel, and the just released Stray Dog.
Then think about just a few of the films that were inspired by Kurosawa.
Star Wars. A Fistful of Dollars. The Magnificent Seven. Battle Beyond The Stars. A Bug's Life. The Usual Suspects. Last Man Standing(the Bruce Willis one.)
And I learned one amazing and interesting fact already. The father of kaiju film, Ishiro Honda, was a great friend of Kurosawa's and worked on a few of his films before going on to become the king of rubber-suit movies. Rialto Pictures is currently running a re-release in art houses of the original Godzilla movie, scrubbed of Raymond Burr and with 40 minutes cut for U.S distribution added back in. Go here for a schedule of theatres showing the movie. If you can, go and see it. I will for sure when it hits Hartford at the end of July.
Rialto also has a current re-release going for Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers, the mid-60's psuedo-documentary account of the French's Iraqi-Freedom-styled attempt to quell a guerilla uprising in Algeria. It's fascinating viewing, and more so when you find that the Pentagon screened it in 2003. An interesting NY Times article on the screening can be found here, and hopefully someone will pick the remastered movie up for a deserved DVD release.
More tomorrow or Monday, possibly a rant on DVD re-releases.
-Edit- Subsequent research on Algiers indicates that there will be a Criterion DVD in the fall, with possibly as much as three DVDs. I imagine there's a lot of material to be covered.
posted by Jon M. at
12:57 AM
3 Comments:
Be sure to add the 1954 classic Throne of Blood to that list of Kurosawa/Mifune greatness. I saw it last night and it was awesome. A very atmospheric and sometimes creepy movie. And Mifune does "Scared Shitless" better than anyone I've ever seen.
Oh shi-~!
I thought I had that on there. You are so correct.
And Red Beard as well...although that's a bit on the interminable side. Ikiru and Ran too for Kurosawa alone.
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