Cenk Uygur, an attorney and political blogger at The Huffington Post, recently published a piece defending "At the Movies" newbie Ben Lyons from the cinephile attack dogs. I have copied his text and responded to his argument in brackets. You can find the original text here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/in-defense-of-ben-lyons_b_155048.html
In Defense of Ben Lyons
by Cenk Uygur
I must make a huge disclaimer here before we get started. I co-hosted The Young Turks with Ben Mankiewicz for five years, he still co-hosts the show with me from time to time and we have been very good friends for many years. Ben Mankiewicz now co-hosts At the Movies with Ben Lyons. Now that I've said all that, this isn't about Ben Mankiewicz, it's about Ben Lyons. Here is my simple message to all the haters - get off Ben Lyons' ass.
Seemingly every other movie critic in the country has made it their life mission to take down Ben Lyons. We are told that he's too young, doesn't know enough about movies and sucks up to celebrities too much. First, I got news for you - the whole entertainment industry is built around sucking up to celebrities. You think Ben Lyons is uniquely responsible for this? Are you mental? Have you watched any entertainment "news" in your life?
[My own disclaimer. I am a first year PhD in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. During my high school and undergraduate college days, I worked as a film critic for both the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Jump Section) and the UWM Post. That said, with the exception of Roger Ebert and Richard Roper, I doubt many film critics would consider themselves as part of the entertainment industry. They may wish to be, so that their tastes were capable of changing what sort of films were being produced and distributed, but the vast majority is not. As for sucking up to celebrities, with the exception of "Entertainment Tonight" and the other "news" programs Uygur seems to be referencing, it isn't nearly as rampant in more legitimate publications like the podcasts of Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott on the New York Times website. These are true critics.]
Second, I don't give a damn how old he is. I just care if he does a good job of reviewing movies on TV. Third, yes he reviews movies - on TV. That means he has to be good on TV - and he is. He's personable, engaging and comfortable. In an ideal world, the best print film critics would make the best movie reviewers on TV. We don't live in that world (just as many of the best political writers and sports writers are disasters on television).
[Ben Lyons does "get" the format of television by providing sound-byte reviews...they just don't happen to be good. Ranking "I Am Legend" along side "Citizen Kane" as one of the best films ever made is a terrible overstatement. Lyons criticism, as many of his critics have pointed out, follows in the footsteps of Larry King, everything is great and every assessment is marketing ready.]
Fourth, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn that he doesn't have Roger Ebert's encyclopedic knowledge of film history. Who does? (Other than Roger Ebert). I just want to know whether I should see Benjamin Button this weekend. The two Bens will give me the information I need and entertain me while they do it. In fact, I think Ben and Ben have made this show watchable for me now in a way that it never was before.
[Film history doesn't matter? How can we properly assess films without putting them in a historical and theoretical context? This assessment of our field is extremely depressing. As an instructor, I've seen many students come into my classroom without knowledge of film history or aesthetics and simply write papers on why they felt a film was good or bad. By the end of the quarter, they had begun to understand that film (or television or digital media for that matter) was a scholarly pursuit like any other and had its own roots and vocabulary and had begun to appreciate it anew. Some have even personally thanked me for this and have said "I'll never look at movies the same way again!"]
Why? Because I couldn't relate to the previous hosts. They have been reviewing movies for centuries (don't get me wrong, this is nothing against them on a personal level - I actually like them and have tremendous respect for Ebert). But for them, the cinematography and shadowy lighting is enormously important. God bless them for it, but I mostly don't care. And I suspect I'm in the vast majority.
[See above.]
How this movie compares with Frank Capra's body of work is a lot less relevant to me than whether my wife is going to be able to sit through it. I trust Mankiewicz because he is about my age, he has my sensibility and roughly my taste in movies. As they say in the business, he is in my demo.
What I have been surprised to find out is how often I agree with Ben Lyons. I'm going to reveal some inside information here, but Mankiewicz doesn't always love costume dramas - and that kept him from liking movies like Braveheart and Star Trek as much as I did. Well, I love those movies. I can't get enough of Gladiator. And Lyons is not above it. Even more, I love the enthusiasm he shows for the movies he likes. And he's not afraid to say he likes movies that regular people like (by the way, regular people is not a euphemism for dumb people; I've got two Ivy League degrees and I still loved Old School). Other critics might be disdainful of that, but the viewers are not.
Look, let's keep it real. Are some of these other critics jealous of Ben Lyons because he has landed such a prestigious and well paying job (and one that makes you famous) whereas they are still working in print? Absolutely. I'm sure most of them love print, but here is a guarantee - none of them would have turned down the TV job.
[I'm far from jealous of Ben Lyons and my disdain stems from his ability to turn both film and film criticism, two things I obviously care deeply about, into an un-contextualized, simplistic, appraisal.
Here is the critical thing that the critics are missing - these guys weren't hired to be the best film critics in the country, they were hired to be the best movie reviewers on television. And they are. They've got me watching the show every week. You know why? Because for 99% of America, watching movies isn't an exercise in showing off your intellectual elitism or waxing nostalgic about comparative cinema history. It's a movie. And Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons provide smart, amusing and relevant opinions about movies that poor schleps like me might consider seeing. That's why we watch the show.
[Thoughts?]
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
TRANSLATING MEDIA
A Graduate Student Conference co-hosted by the Department of Critical Studies and the Media Arts and Practice PhD (iMAP) Program
School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California
April 3-4, 2009
Deadline for submissions: Extended to January 19th, 2009.
Keynote Speaker: Lisa Parks, Chair and Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She is the author of Cultures in Orbit: Satellite and the Televisual, co-editor of Planet TV: A Global Television Reader, and is working on two new books entitled Coverage: Media Spaces and Security after 911 (forthcoming, Routledge) and Mixed Signals: Media Infrastructures and Cultural Geographies. She is also the producer and co-producer of an array of media arts projects such as Experiments in Satellite Media Arts (w/ Ursula Biemann), Loom (w/ Miha Vipotnik), Postwar Footprints and Roaming.
Artist’s Talk by: To Be Announced
The graduate students in the Department of Critical Studies and the Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) PhD program in the School of Cinematic Arts seek conference papers and creative presentations from graduate students addressing the theme of "Translating Media."
“Translation” has gained a renewed valence within the fields of media study and arts practice. As theoretical and creative inquiry shifts toward transmedia, transnational and transdisciplinary approaches and renderings of the current global audiovisual landscape, translation means more than just a linguistic exercise. Rather, the term increasingly lends itself as a productive conceptual lens and metaphor for the interlaced and often contradictory set of transformative processes at work when media objects, policies, and economies traffic across geographic borders, cultural institutions, and technological platforms. The widespread global, regional and local shifts in cultural media practices that arise from these traversals undoubtedly call for transdisciplinary methodologies. To address these issues, Media Studies has sought to exchange and translate critical vocabularies among Cultural Studies, Global Critical Race Feminism/Critical Race Theory, Ethnic Studies, Queer Theory, History, Art History, Mass Communications, American Studies, Post Colonial Theory, and Visual and Performance Studies. And, as many media studies scholars seek to produce more than just textual representations of their research, the translation of theory into audiovisual practice has more frequently become an alternative mode of scholarship. We thus feel that translation is a critical keyword that speaks in diverse ways to media cultures, Media Studies and a growing body of scholar-practitioners who both thematize translation in their media art and seek for new translative possibilities in their creative processes. We have chosen “Translating Media” as the title for the conference to foreground media’s translation as an ongoing process. And we believe the expansive deployment of the term will invite an exciting array of creative interpretations and theoretical positions.
We invite submissions for 20-minute papers, 20-minute creative project presentations, or pre-constituted panels of no more than four presenters that consider the stakes of ‘translating media’ from diverse methodological, disciplinary and creative approaches. Panels that include both critical and creative presentations or that enact a productive dialogue of theory and practice are especially encouraged.
Topics to explore may include, but are not restricted to:
- the various implications of media and cultural convergence
- how media policies translate into labor relations and practices
- the problems that arise when incorporating media theory into media art practice, and translating a media art project into a gallery space, social space, institutional space, etc.
- the rise of transmedia storytelling and media that are experienced on multiple platforms including mobile devices, urban screens, game environments, etc.
- ongoing tensions around the status of narrative in linear vs. interactive media and the problems of translation between games and cinema
- ideological concerns around the rise of runaway productions, co- and omnibus productions, and transnational remakes within global film industries
- the traffic of global television ‘formats’ and/or ‘canned shows’ across national borders and media systems
- issues pertaining to linguistic translations through subtitling and dubbing
- questions pertaining to the archive: how translation between film, analog, digital and textual media affect archival institutions; what kinds of issues do we still face with archival research, especially if that archive is in a different language?
- the translation of programming languages and code into critical theories of media, and vice versa
- the difficulties and possibilities presented when media scholarship travels and converses across the Humanities
Selected papers will be included in a special conference-themed issue of Spectator, the University of Southern California's Journal of Film and Television Criticism, and selected media projects may also be included on the School of Cinematic Arts website.
For individual submissions, please send abstracts or project descriptions of 300 words or less and a brief biographical or artist statement. Links to images or media files are encouraged but not required. For panels, please submit a 300-word panel description and a 300-word abstract for each panelist's paper. Please do not send large media files as e-mail attachments. Presentations requiring special technological setup will be considered on a case-by-case basis; these technological needs should be detailed in the proposal. Send all submissions to usc.translating.media[@]gmail.com
Please feel free to address any questions or comments to Patty Ahn at pah[@]usc.edu.
School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California
April 3-4, 2009
Deadline for submissions: Extended to January 19th, 2009.
Keynote Speaker: Lisa Parks, Chair and Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She is the author of Cultures in Orbit: Satellite and the Televisual, co-editor of Planet TV: A Global Television Reader, and is working on two new books entitled Coverage: Media Spaces and Security after 911 (forthcoming, Routledge) and Mixed Signals: Media Infrastructures and Cultural Geographies. She is also the producer and co-producer of an array of media arts projects such as Experiments in Satellite Media Arts (w/ Ursula Biemann), Loom (w/ Miha Vipotnik), Postwar Footprints and Roaming.
Artist’s Talk by: To Be Announced
The graduate students in the Department of Critical Studies and the Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) PhD program in the School of Cinematic Arts seek conference papers and creative presentations from graduate students addressing the theme of "Translating Media."
“Translation” has gained a renewed valence within the fields of media study and arts practice. As theoretical and creative inquiry shifts toward transmedia, transnational and transdisciplinary approaches and renderings of the current global audiovisual landscape, translation means more than just a linguistic exercise. Rather, the term increasingly lends itself as a productive conceptual lens and metaphor for the interlaced and often contradictory set of transformative processes at work when media objects, policies, and economies traffic across geographic borders, cultural institutions, and technological platforms. The widespread global, regional and local shifts in cultural media practices that arise from these traversals undoubtedly call for transdisciplinary methodologies. To address these issues, Media Studies has sought to exchange and translate critical vocabularies among Cultural Studies, Global Critical Race Feminism/Critical Race Theory, Ethnic Studies, Queer Theory, History, Art History, Mass Communications, American Studies, Post Colonial Theory, and Visual and Performance Studies. And, as many media studies scholars seek to produce more than just textual representations of their research, the translation of theory into audiovisual practice has more frequently become an alternative mode of scholarship. We thus feel that translation is a critical keyword that speaks in diverse ways to media cultures, Media Studies and a growing body of scholar-practitioners who both thematize translation in their media art and seek for new translative possibilities in their creative processes. We have chosen “Translating Media” as the title for the conference to foreground media’s translation as an ongoing process. And we believe the expansive deployment of the term will invite an exciting array of creative interpretations and theoretical positions.
We invite submissions for 20-minute papers, 20-minute creative project presentations, or pre-constituted panels of no more than four presenters that consider the stakes of ‘translating media’ from diverse methodological, disciplinary and creative approaches. Panels that include both critical and creative presentations or that enact a productive dialogue of theory and practice are especially encouraged.
Topics to explore may include, but are not restricted to:
- the various implications of media and cultural convergence
- how media policies translate into labor relations and practices
- the problems that arise when incorporating media theory into media art practice, and translating a media art project into a gallery space, social space, institutional space, etc.
- the rise of transmedia storytelling and media that are experienced on multiple platforms including mobile devices, urban screens, game environments, etc.
- ongoing tensions around the status of narrative in linear vs. interactive media and the problems of translation between games and cinema
- ideological concerns around the rise of runaway productions, co- and omnibus productions, and transnational remakes within global film industries
- the traffic of global television ‘formats’ and/or ‘canned shows’ across national borders and media systems
- issues pertaining to linguistic translations through subtitling and dubbing
- questions pertaining to the archive: how translation between film, analog, digital and textual media affect archival institutions; what kinds of issues do we still face with archival research, especially if that archive is in a different language?
- the translation of programming languages and code into critical theories of media, and vice versa
- the difficulties and possibilities presented when media scholarship travels and converses across the Humanities
Selected papers will be included in a special conference-themed issue of Spectator, the University of Southern California's Journal of Film and Television Criticism, and selected media projects may also be included on the School of Cinematic Arts website.
For individual submissions, please send abstracts or project descriptions of 300 words or less and a brief biographical or artist statement. Links to images or media files are encouraged but not required. For panels, please submit a 300-word panel description and a 300-word abstract for each panelist's paper. Please do not send large media files as e-mail attachments. Presentations requiring special technological setup will be considered on a case-by-case basis; these technological needs should be detailed in the proposal. Send all submissions to usc.translating.media[@]gmail.com
Please feel free to address any questions or comments to Patty Ahn at pah[@]usc.edu.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
The Best DVDs of 2008
The end of the year has come and while my home video capacities have changed slightly in the past year with the addition of a Playstation 3 and thus Blu-Ray technology, this list is still universal to both formats. I have noted Blu-Ray when it was the format that I own and have viewed. So, on to the top ten, in alphabetical order:
Dark City: Director’s Cut [Blu-Ray]
Alex Proyas's hybrid of noir and science fiction has become a cult classic since its home video release in the late 90s. As the film's following gained momentum, fans discovered that Proyas was forced to include Kiefer Sutherland's voice over narration and would often mute the audio for the opening segment. Now, with New Line's release of Proyas's Director's Cut, avid fans no longer have to keep their fingers on the mute button. Featuring the exclusion of Sutherland's narration and the addition of 11 minutes of footage, the Dark City: Director's Cut release follows the example of Blade Runner by providing both the cuts of the film along with the original and expanded commentaries by Proyas, writers David S. Goyer and Lem Dobbs, film critic Roger Ebert, and others involved with the production. The disc also features an array of featurettes covering topics from the film's similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis to the film's production design (featuring UCLA's own Vivian Sobchack) to the original text features found on the 1999 DVD release. To sweeten the package, New Line has also provided the viewer with a re-mastered video and audio transfer that towers above the original transfer.
The Dark Knight: Two-Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Christopher Nolan's revolutionary approach to the superhero genre was the biggest film of 2008. From enthusiastic critical response to a staggering box office draw of nearly one billion dollars, The Dark Knight, needless to say, set the bar high for its home video release. Unfortunately, the release, even on Blu-Ray format, is far from perfect. In lieu of a commentary by Nolan and company, Warner Brothers has given us "Focus Points," which are small featurettes that highlight key aspects of the film's production (the film's score and Nolan's use of IMAX are some such topics). While the "Points" are not particularly bad, they focus mainly on the film's action segments, leaving those interested in Health Ledger's penultimate performance or the film's approach to the superhero genre disappointed. The second disc features two fluffy documentaries, "Batman Tech" and "Batman Unmasked," which disappoint. The disc also features the "Gotham Tonight" spots that played a key part in the film's viral marketing along with a still gallery and a collection of trailers and TV spots. While the supplemental package here is disappointing, the transfer is what makes this release (particularly in its Blu-Ray incarnation) noteworthy. Simply put, the IMAX footage, particularly the truck chase, stands alongside Baraka as the best HD material I have seen all year.
The Godfather Trilogy: Coppola Restoration [Blu-Ray]
Francis Ford Coppola's crime saga classic was given a rather mediocre treatment when released to DVD nearly ten years ago. Paramount's fault did not lie in putting together a poor assortment of supplementary features (although Coppola's commentaries were a bit dull) but in the fact that the original DVD released looked....well, a lot like the VHS releases did. Armed with a restoration grant, Paramount set about restoring the first two films (the third film's transfer was not particularly bad but, then again, since when do viewers care about the third one anyways?) with the guidance of Coppola, cinematographer Gordon Willis, and restoration expert Robert Harris, for a new DVD edition and for its debut on Blu-Ray. The end results? Controversial. Many fans of the films felt that they had been unnecessarily brightened by the restoration team while home theater aficionados felt betrayed by the HD package's grainy image. My judgment? The film's murkiness is still in tact, it is just more legible. While I can see where fans of the 35mm prints may feel betrayed by a "brightening," as the "Emulsional Rescue" documentary goes to prove, those prints were in a state of disrepair and looked nothing like Coppola and Willis had intended. As for the critique regarding the grain of the transfers, all I can say is that film is shot on film, which has the aesthetic characteristic of being grainy. If you want a transfer to showcase crystal clear HD, the source needs to have been shot on HD. Personally, I find the grain quite beautiful and, having seen both the 35mm and the Blu-Ray projected on a large screen, the Blu-Ray does capture the aesthetic of a film print. Transfers aside, the package features all of the original supplementary features of the 2001 package alongside an hour of new featurettes covering everything from the restoration of the films to the legacy of The Godfather throughout our culture.
L.A. Confidential: Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Lovingly appraised by my classmate and chief New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis in the BFI's Modern Classic Series, L.A. Confidential has become a modern classic of Hollywood cinema since its theatrical release nearly a decade ago. Despite its presence with critics and at the Academy Awards, L.A. Confidential was a film, like Dark City, that cemented its audience and standing on home video and DVD. After a mediocre release with the advent of the DVD format, Warner Brothers has re-visited the film with a new collection of supplementary features and a glorious new transfer. The first highlight of the supplements is the rather cluttered commentary featuring novelist James Ellroy, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, cast members Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, various other crew members (including producers, the editor, and screenwriter amongst others), and film critic and historian Andrew Sarris. As you might guess, this commentary is crowded and I would have preferred to see it separated into a few separate tracks. Moreover, the absence of director Curtis Hanson and Manohla Dargis is disappointing. Rounding out the disc are a collection of featurettes ranging from the differences between the novel and the film to the film's production. The set also features the infamously terrible television pilot from 2003 which starred Keifer Sutherland as Jack Vincennes. The Blu-Ray edition also comes with a CD featuring music from the film.
The Last Emperor: Criterion Collection
2008 was a big year for the folks at Criterion. They've launched a wonderful new website and Blu-Ray line (Bottle Rocket, Chungking Express, and The Third Man are glorious in HD) and have continued providing cinephiles everywhere with superb films that are given the royal treatment (some of my favorites of 2008 included Pierrot Le Fou, Cleo from 5 to 7, and their newest run of Jean-Pierre Melville titles). However, perhaps their biggest achievement of 2008 was their four-disc set of Bernardo Betolucci's The Last Emperor. Also available on a single-disc edition and coming soon to Blu-Ray, The Last Emperor features a pristine transfer of Vitto Storaro's compositions along with two versions of the film: the theatrical and television (which will be excluded from the Blu-Ray) cuts. Also included in the set are a commentary by Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto along with four substantial documentaries (ranging from geography to Bertolucci's creative process) and a collection of interviews. The abundance of special features offered here will probably take the viewer longer to work through than the epic film itself!
Mad Men: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray]
While the clothes, the men, the women, and the cigarette smoke of Mad Men look absolutely stunning on Blu-Ray, the real reason to jump onto the home video treatment of Mad Men are the show itself and the massive amount of supplementary features offered up by Lion's Gate. Highlighting the supplements of the thirteen episode season are the 23 (yes, that's twenty three!) commentary tracks including everyone from actors Jon Hamm, January Jones, Christina Hendricks to creator Matt Weiner and directors Alan Taylor and Tim Hunter. The commentaries range from costume design to story arcs, so there is much to be offered here and, from a personal standpoint, I have barely scratched the surface on the intimidating amount of bonus material. Also included is an hour-long documentary covering the production of the first episode and a number of smaller featurettes.
Sleeping Beauty: Platinum Edition [Blu-Ray]
Sleeping Beauty is far from my favorite Disney movie (Dumbo takes that honors) but the Blu-Ray transfer showcased here is marvelous. The crispness of the cels makes each hit of the pause button an amazing experience. I was wary of what Blu-Ray could offer hand-drawn animation and Disney's treatment is flawless. On the Blu-Ray set, Disney offers up "Cine-Explore Mode" which is essentially a picture-in-picture video commentary with filmmaker John Lasseter, critic and historian Leonard Maltin, and animation Andreas Deja. Also included in the set are a restoration demo, documentaries and featurettes on the making of the film, and deleted scenes and musical numbers.
Touch of Evil: 50th Anniversary Edition
What a disappointment the restored Touch of Evil disc was when it was released nearly a decade ago! Like several other offerings on this list (Dark City, The Godfather, and L.A. Confidential), Universal took the opportunity to rectify a wrong in the supplementary treatment of a classic film on DVD. Featuring an extraordinary new video transfer that sheds the slightly soft focus of the original, Universal provides lovers of Welles's classic noir with all three versions of the film (the original theatrical cut, the restored cut, and a new preview version). Not only are we given all three versions, but Universal has provided some excellent commentaries here as well. On the preview version, we have Welles scholars James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who were also featured on Criterion's lovely treatment of Mr. Arkadin a few years back, providing yet another stunning analysis full of anecdotes and extensive scholarship. On the restored version, Universal provides two commentaries: one by actors Janet Leigh, Charlton Heston, and restoration producer Rick Schmidlin, and a second one featuring Schmidlin alone. Finally, on the theatrical version, we are offered a loving admiration by film journalist F.X. Feeney, who attempts to make the case that there is much to be found in the often despised theatrical cut. Rounding out the two-disc set are two featurettes which discuss the film's influence ("Bringing Evil to Life") and the film's restoration ("Evil Lost and Found"). "Evil Lost and Found" also ends with a visit to the original filming locations in Venice, CA, which I loved watching as it provided me with an excuse to drive down the street and go see them for myself. Finally, Universal provides a printed version of Welles's infamous 50-page memo, documenting his own editorial preferences that served as a guide to the restoration team.
Wall-E: Three-Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Like The Dark Knight, Wall-E stood amongst the greatest films of the year and its home video treatment (particularly its Blu-Ray release) was hotly awaited. Unlike The Dark Knight however, the deluxe treatment of Wall-E left nothing to be desired. Not only have Pixar and Disney provided viewers with a flawless audio and video transfer but also with two discs of bonus material ranging from the short films "Presto" and "Burn-E" to the feature length documentary The Pixar Story. Also included in the set are an audio commentary with director Andrew Stanton, a second commentary (on the Blu-Ray) with the creative team, deleted scenes, and more. Owners of Blu-Ray players and HD setups would do both themselves and their children well to make this voyage.
Zodiac: Two-Disc Director's Cut
As a "Director's Cut," this package may leave much to be desired. There are only a few minutes of added footage here and the film still climaxes, much to the displeasure of horror and thriller lovers everywhere, with a stare down between Robert Graysmith and Robert Leigh Allen. Regardless of "Director's Cut" subheading, Zodiac stands as one of director David Fincher's greatest accomplishments and the package that Paramount has put together here is incredibly generous. First off, the film features two commentaries: one by Fincher, and another by Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and, as an added bonus, novelist James Ellroy. While the Fincher commentary features anecdotes and some chatter about shooting digitally, his delivery is love it or hate it due to his focus on the nuts and bolts of filmmaking (I love it). The second track, particularly the interactions between Vanderbilt and Ellroy, are incredibly lighthearted and for the more casual viewer. The package also features a wide range of featurettes covering the visual effects and pre-visualization stages of the filmmaking process to the real Zodiac investigations. While the latter documentaries and featurettes are a little oddly put together with regard to editing, they are quite enlightening and, like the package as a whole, highly recommended.
Dark City: Director’s Cut [Blu-Ray]
Alex Proyas's hybrid of noir and science fiction has become a cult classic since its home video release in the late 90s. As the film's following gained momentum, fans discovered that Proyas was forced to include Kiefer Sutherland's voice over narration and would often mute the audio for the opening segment. Now, with New Line's release of Proyas's Director's Cut, avid fans no longer have to keep their fingers on the mute button. Featuring the exclusion of Sutherland's narration and the addition of 11 minutes of footage, the Dark City: Director's Cut release follows the example of Blade Runner by providing both the cuts of the film along with the original and expanded commentaries by Proyas, writers David S. Goyer and Lem Dobbs, film critic Roger Ebert, and others involved with the production. The disc also features an array of featurettes covering topics from the film's similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis to the film's production design (featuring UCLA's own Vivian Sobchack) to the original text features found on the 1999 DVD release. To sweeten the package, New Line has also provided the viewer with a re-mastered video and audio transfer that towers above the original transfer.
The Dark Knight: Two-Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Christopher Nolan's revolutionary approach to the superhero genre was the biggest film of 2008. From enthusiastic critical response to a staggering box office draw of nearly one billion dollars, The Dark Knight, needless to say, set the bar high for its home video release. Unfortunately, the release, even on Blu-Ray format, is far from perfect. In lieu of a commentary by Nolan and company, Warner Brothers has given us "Focus Points," which are small featurettes that highlight key aspects of the film's production (the film's score and Nolan's use of IMAX are some such topics). While the "Points" are not particularly bad, they focus mainly on the film's action segments, leaving those interested in Health Ledger's penultimate performance or the film's approach to the superhero genre disappointed. The second disc features two fluffy documentaries, "Batman Tech" and "Batman Unmasked," which disappoint. The disc also features the "Gotham Tonight" spots that played a key part in the film's viral marketing along with a still gallery and a collection of trailers and TV spots. While the supplemental package here is disappointing, the transfer is what makes this release (particularly in its Blu-Ray incarnation) noteworthy. Simply put, the IMAX footage, particularly the truck chase, stands alongside Baraka as the best HD material I have seen all year.
The Godfather Trilogy: Coppola Restoration [Blu-Ray]
Francis Ford Coppola's crime saga classic was given a rather mediocre treatment when released to DVD nearly ten years ago. Paramount's fault did not lie in putting together a poor assortment of supplementary features (although Coppola's commentaries were a bit dull) but in the fact that the original DVD released looked....well, a lot like the VHS releases did. Armed with a restoration grant, Paramount set about restoring the first two films (the third film's transfer was not particularly bad but, then again, since when do viewers care about the third one anyways?) with the guidance of Coppola, cinematographer Gordon Willis, and restoration expert Robert Harris, for a new DVD edition and for its debut on Blu-Ray. The end results? Controversial. Many fans of the films felt that they had been unnecessarily brightened by the restoration team while home theater aficionados felt betrayed by the HD package's grainy image. My judgment? The film's murkiness is still in tact, it is just more legible. While I can see where fans of the 35mm prints may feel betrayed by a "brightening," as the "Emulsional Rescue" documentary goes to prove, those prints were in a state of disrepair and looked nothing like Coppola and Willis had intended. As for the critique regarding the grain of the transfers, all I can say is that film is shot on film, which has the aesthetic characteristic of being grainy. If you want a transfer to showcase crystal clear HD, the source needs to have been shot on HD. Personally, I find the grain quite beautiful and, having seen both the 35mm and the Blu-Ray projected on a large screen, the Blu-Ray does capture the aesthetic of a film print. Transfers aside, the package features all of the original supplementary features of the 2001 package alongside an hour of new featurettes covering everything from the restoration of the films to the legacy of The Godfather throughout our culture.
L.A. Confidential: Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Lovingly appraised by my classmate and chief New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis in the BFI's Modern Classic Series, L.A. Confidential has become a modern classic of Hollywood cinema since its theatrical release nearly a decade ago. Despite its presence with critics and at the Academy Awards, L.A. Confidential was a film, like Dark City, that cemented its audience and standing on home video and DVD. After a mediocre release with the advent of the DVD format, Warner Brothers has re-visited the film with a new collection of supplementary features and a glorious new transfer. The first highlight of the supplements is the rather cluttered commentary featuring novelist James Ellroy, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, cast members Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, various other crew members (including producers, the editor, and screenwriter amongst others), and film critic and historian Andrew Sarris. As you might guess, this commentary is crowded and I would have preferred to see it separated into a few separate tracks. Moreover, the absence of director Curtis Hanson and Manohla Dargis is disappointing. Rounding out the disc are a collection of featurettes ranging from the differences between the novel and the film to the film's production. The set also features the infamously terrible television pilot from 2003 which starred Keifer Sutherland as Jack Vincennes. The Blu-Ray edition also comes with a CD featuring music from the film.
The Last Emperor: Criterion Collection
2008 was a big year for the folks at Criterion. They've launched a wonderful new website and Blu-Ray line (Bottle Rocket, Chungking Express, and The Third Man are glorious in HD) and have continued providing cinephiles everywhere with superb films that are given the royal treatment (some of my favorites of 2008 included Pierrot Le Fou, Cleo from 5 to 7, and their newest run of Jean-Pierre Melville titles). However, perhaps their biggest achievement of 2008 was their four-disc set of Bernardo Betolucci's The Last Emperor. Also available on a single-disc edition and coming soon to Blu-Ray, The Last Emperor features a pristine transfer of Vitto Storaro's compositions along with two versions of the film: the theatrical and television (which will be excluded from the Blu-Ray) cuts. Also included in the set are a commentary by Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto along with four substantial documentaries (ranging from geography to Bertolucci's creative process) and a collection of interviews. The abundance of special features offered here will probably take the viewer longer to work through than the epic film itself!
Mad Men: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray]
While the clothes, the men, the women, and the cigarette smoke of Mad Men look absolutely stunning on Blu-Ray, the real reason to jump onto the home video treatment of Mad Men are the show itself and the massive amount of supplementary features offered up by Lion's Gate. Highlighting the supplements of the thirteen episode season are the 23 (yes, that's twenty three!) commentary tracks including everyone from actors Jon Hamm, January Jones, Christina Hendricks to creator Matt Weiner and directors Alan Taylor and Tim Hunter. The commentaries range from costume design to story arcs, so there is much to be offered here and, from a personal standpoint, I have barely scratched the surface on the intimidating amount of bonus material. Also included is an hour-long documentary covering the production of the first episode and a number of smaller featurettes.
Sleeping Beauty: Platinum Edition [Blu-Ray]
Sleeping Beauty is far from my favorite Disney movie (Dumbo takes that honors) but the Blu-Ray transfer showcased here is marvelous. The crispness of the cels makes each hit of the pause button an amazing experience. I was wary of what Blu-Ray could offer hand-drawn animation and Disney's treatment is flawless. On the Blu-Ray set, Disney offers up "Cine-Explore Mode" which is essentially a picture-in-picture video commentary with filmmaker John Lasseter, critic and historian Leonard Maltin, and animation Andreas Deja. Also included in the set are a restoration demo, documentaries and featurettes on the making of the film, and deleted scenes and musical numbers.
Touch of Evil: 50th Anniversary Edition
What a disappointment the restored Touch of Evil disc was when it was released nearly a decade ago! Like several other offerings on this list (Dark City, The Godfather, and L.A. Confidential), Universal took the opportunity to rectify a wrong in the supplementary treatment of a classic film on DVD. Featuring an extraordinary new video transfer that sheds the slightly soft focus of the original, Universal provides lovers of Welles's classic noir with all three versions of the film (the original theatrical cut, the restored cut, and a new preview version). Not only are we given all three versions, but Universal has provided some excellent commentaries here as well. On the preview version, we have Welles scholars James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who were also featured on Criterion's lovely treatment of Mr. Arkadin a few years back, providing yet another stunning analysis full of anecdotes and extensive scholarship. On the restored version, Universal provides two commentaries: one by actors Janet Leigh, Charlton Heston, and restoration producer Rick Schmidlin, and a second one featuring Schmidlin alone. Finally, on the theatrical version, we are offered a loving admiration by film journalist F.X. Feeney, who attempts to make the case that there is much to be found in the often despised theatrical cut. Rounding out the two-disc set are two featurettes which discuss the film's influence ("Bringing Evil to Life") and the film's restoration ("Evil Lost and Found"). "Evil Lost and Found" also ends with a visit to the original filming locations in Venice, CA, which I loved watching as it provided me with an excuse to drive down the street and go see them for myself. Finally, Universal provides a printed version of Welles's infamous 50-page memo, documenting his own editorial preferences that served as a guide to the restoration team.
Wall-E: Three-Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Like The Dark Knight, Wall-E stood amongst the greatest films of the year and its home video treatment (particularly its Blu-Ray release) was hotly awaited. Unlike The Dark Knight however, the deluxe treatment of Wall-E left nothing to be desired. Not only have Pixar and Disney provided viewers with a flawless audio and video transfer but also with two discs of bonus material ranging from the short films "Presto" and "Burn-E" to the feature length documentary The Pixar Story. Also included in the set are an audio commentary with director Andrew Stanton, a second commentary (on the Blu-Ray) with the creative team, deleted scenes, and more. Owners of Blu-Ray players and HD setups would do both themselves and their children well to make this voyage.
Zodiac: Two-Disc Director's Cut
As a "Director's Cut," this package may leave much to be desired. There are only a few minutes of added footage here and the film still climaxes, much to the displeasure of horror and thriller lovers everywhere, with a stare down between Robert Graysmith and Robert Leigh Allen. Regardless of "Director's Cut" subheading, Zodiac stands as one of director David Fincher's greatest accomplishments and the package that Paramount has put together here is incredibly generous. First off, the film features two commentaries: one by Fincher, and another by Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and, as an added bonus, novelist James Ellroy. While the Fincher commentary features anecdotes and some chatter about shooting digitally, his delivery is love it or hate it due to his focus on the nuts and bolts of filmmaking (I love it). The second track, particularly the interactions between Vanderbilt and Ellroy, are incredibly lighthearted and for the more casual viewer. The package also features a wide range of featurettes covering the visual effects and pre-visualization stages of the filmmaking process to the real Zodiac investigations. While the latter documentaries and featurettes are a little oddly put together with regard to editing, they are quite enlightening and, like the package as a whole, highly recommended.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
CFP: Infrastructures Conference
Media Fields 2: INFRASTRUCTURES
a conference hosted by graduate students in the Film and Media Studies dept.,
University of California, Santa Barbara
April 9-10, 2009
Keynote Speaker: Brian Larkin, Associate Professor and Chair of
Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Signal
and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke
University Press, 2008), co-editor of Media Worlds: Anthropology on
New Terrain (University of California Press, 2002)
The 2007 Media Fields conference gathered students and scholars to
reflect upon how their projects related to the idea of the field in
the epistemological and environmental registers of the term. In April
2009, a second Media Fields conference will hone in on the more
specific idea of infrastructures. If a field is an expanse of space,
infrastructures are skeletal and map out interactions, relations, and
orders of elements in such a space.
Recent work on media by scholars such as Brian Larkin, Lisa Parks,
Jonathan Sterne, and Zhang Zhen points to the import of
infrastructures in relation to the study of material spaces,
representations, and practices related to filmgoing, piracy, satellite
footprints, globalization, and urbanization. Media Fields:
Infrastructures aims to build upon such work and to consider how the
term infrastructure offers a rubric with which to extend the
conceptual radius of film and media studies in different directions.
How might perspectives from the humanities inform thought about media
and infrastructures? And how might media and cultural studies benefit
from perspectives generated in social sciences and environmental design?
Your might consider the following types of projects and ideas:
--Opening up the metaphoricity of infrastructures. How might media
studies be able to appropriate concepts, languages, and practices
related to infrastructures? What are infrastructures of media
(scripts? shots?), what infrastructures of language do we use to
understand media, and how might these questions lead to new
disciplinary trajectories?
--Media as they serve as infrastructures of the nation (national
monuments, icons, and media spectacles), of global transitions (call
centers, satellite footprints, media industries and regulations), of
developmental paradigms (the IMF, World Expos) of the body (medical
imagery, x-rays), of travel (in-flight entertainment, billboards), and
of security (emergency services, the Patriot Act).
--Examinations of the material infrastructures of media systems such
as wired and wireless networks, routers, DVD cases, archives, or movie
theaters, as well as infrastructures which support media practices.
For example, how might understanding the infrastructures of media
piracy entail considerations of databases, undersea cables, copyright,
code, and/or video stores? How are media infrastructures such as these
represented or visualized?
--In expanding the notion of infrastructure beyond material objects,
one can consider how social and cultural practices might function as
media infrastructure?think for example of film exhibitions, public art
demonstrations, as well as the role of less material infrastructures
(grammar, code). How might one study infrastructures of a text or a
website? How might one define an aesthetics of infrastructures?
The scope of this conference is interdisciplinary. We invite paper
submissions and project proposals (eg., films, models, installations)
from graduate students, scholars and practitioners.
**Please submit abstracts or project proposals of 300 words or less to
ucsb.media.fields@gmail.com by January 30, 2009.**
a conference hosted by graduate students in the Film and Media Studies dept.,
University of California, Santa Barbara
April 9-10, 2009
Keynote Speaker: Brian Larkin, Associate Professor and Chair of
Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Signal
and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke
University Press, 2008), co-editor of Media Worlds: Anthropology on
New Terrain (University of California Press, 2002)
The 2007 Media Fields conference gathered students and scholars to
reflect upon how their projects related to the idea of the field in
the epistemological and environmental registers of the term. In April
2009, a second Media Fields conference will hone in on the more
specific idea of infrastructures. If a field is an expanse of space,
infrastructures are skeletal and map out interactions, relations, and
orders of elements in such a space.
Recent work on media by scholars such as Brian Larkin, Lisa Parks,
Jonathan Sterne, and Zhang Zhen points to the import of
infrastructures in relation to the study of material spaces,
representations, and practices related to filmgoing, piracy, satellite
footprints, globalization, and urbanization. Media Fields:
Infrastructures aims to build upon such work and to consider how the
term infrastructure offers a rubric with which to extend the
conceptual radius of film and media studies in different directions.
How might perspectives from the humanities inform thought about media
and infrastructures? And how might media and cultural studies benefit
from perspectives generated in social sciences and environmental design?
Your might consider the following types of projects and ideas:
--Opening up the metaphoricity of infrastructures. How might media
studies be able to appropriate concepts, languages, and practices
related to infrastructures? What are infrastructures of media
(scripts? shots?), what infrastructures of language do we use to
understand media, and how might these questions lead to new
disciplinary trajectories?
--Media as they serve as infrastructures of the nation (national
monuments, icons, and media spectacles), of global transitions (call
centers, satellite footprints, media industries and regulations), of
developmental paradigms (the IMF, World Expos) of the body (medical
imagery, x-rays), of travel (in-flight entertainment, billboards), and
of security (emergency services, the Patriot Act).
--Examinations of the material infrastructures of media systems such
as wired and wireless networks, routers, DVD cases, archives, or movie
theaters, as well as infrastructures which support media practices.
For example, how might understanding the infrastructures of media
piracy entail considerations of databases, undersea cables, copyright,
code, and/or video stores? How are media infrastructures such as these
represented or visualized?
--In expanding the notion of infrastructure beyond material objects,
one can consider how social and cultural practices might function as
media infrastructure?think for example of film exhibitions, public art
demonstrations, as well as the role of less material infrastructures
(grammar, code). How might one study infrastructures of a text or a
website? How might one define an aesthetics of infrastructures?
The scope of this conference is interdisciplinary. We invite paper
submissions and project proposals (eg., films, models, installations)
from graduate students, scholars and practitioners.
**Please submit abstracts or project proposals of 300 words or less to
ucsb.media.fields@gmail.com by January 30, 2009.**
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