We flew to Mendoza yesterday. More on this wine country city later. Here are some more shots from Iguazú.
The first is at a hummingbird ‘park’. It’s really the backyard of an Iguazú family and has been operating for 40 years. There are lots of feeders and birds besides hummingbirds show up. We went there at the end of our birdwatching Tuesday morning. More on this later, but I wanted to share this picture that has the hummingbird’s tongue.
At first.I thought it was the sugar water coming out, but Fernando said it was the tong ue.
The local indigenous people are the Guarani. I can’t find anything in English on Guarani in Iguazú so here is something in Spanish (use Google Translate if you need to). I’m not sure how sensitive this account is, so read with cutural alerts turned on.
This says (very loosely) it’s a community for growing small gardens for women who want to be entrepreneurial.
This sign, I’m told, is an advertising for ca rds and tarot readings and other ‘black magic’ to help find jobs, mates, and anything you need.
My wife noted that she hadn’t seen any statues of women and then I saw this bust of Dr. Marta Teodora Schwartz, “the angel of the forest.” Again, it’s in Spanish, but I don’t have time to get a translation for you. Google translate is very easy to use, just cut and paste, and it’s really pretty good translations.
And here’s a church nearby named after Señora [I’ll add this in when I get more time].
And at this point you can see Brazil across the river to the right, Paraguay across the other river to the left, and a bit of Argentina from where I’m taking the picture - Tres Fronteras.
Super Shorts are under ten minutes. Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards. Super Shorts are shown in programs so they can be hard to find in the program. Below is
a list of the super shorts in competition
list of the programs where they appear and when
description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order
I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best. I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.
Super Shorts in Competition
Director
Country
Length
20 Matches
Mark Tapio Kines
USA
10 min
Death$ in a $mall Town
Mark Jones
USA
7 min
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps
Benjamin Berman
USA
7 min
A Magician
Max Blustin
UK
3 min
On Time
Xavier Neal-Burgin
USA
8 min
A Reasonable Request
Andrew Laurich
USA
9 min
Program (right)
Film (below)
HARD KNOCKS Saturday - 1st
Dec 3, 2016
11:30am -1 pm -
AK Exper Small Thursday -2nd
Dec. 8 5:30-7:30pm AK EX Large
MARTINI MATINEE Friday. Dec 9
2-4 PM
BEAR TOOTH
LOVE AND PAIN Wed. 1st Dec. 7
5:30-7 pm
BEAR TOOTH Sat 2nd
Dec. 10
5:45-7:15pm AK Ex Small
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Sunday, DEC. 13
1PM-2:45PM
AK Exper Large
20 Matches
√ √
Death$ in a $mall Town
√
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps
√ √
A Magician
√
On Time
√ √
A Reasonable Request
√
As you can see, three of these films are only showing once, so you're going to have to work hard to see them. In the past they've occasionally shown super shorts before features, so maybe they'll do that, though A Reasonable Request will need to be with a mature audience feature. Fortunately you can see the whole film below.
202020202020202020202020202020202020202020202020
20 Matches
Mark Tapio Kines
USA
0:10:00
"A young woman (Nina Rausch) sits alone in a pitch black room and lights twenty matches, one at a time.
Her face illuminated only by the flame from each match, the woman tells the story of a Viennese serial killer who kidnapped and murdered twenty immigrant women – one per year."
“'How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps' is a short film is based on a true story from my life: I went through a bad breakup, then hit the gym as a way to get over the heartbreak - and ended up losing 90 lbs in the process. Then I did what anyone else in this glorious age of the Internet we live in would do:
I wrote a blog post about it.
Published on my small personal Tumblr as just a cathartic way to somehow make sense of my heartbreak and what I had gone through, The Little Blog Post That Could surprisingly went massively viral and struck a chord around the world with millions of people: It turns out (unfortunately) that there are a lot of people out there who have gotten their hearts broken, and almost all of those people turned to the gym to get over it. I wasn’t alone.
One of those people who had gotten their heart broken and stumbled across the “4 Easy Steps” blog post was director Ben Berman, who contacted me through a friend. He said “let’s make a film!”. So we did. "
It continues, including how the actor suggested that he actually lose weight during the filming.
There's also an SNL connection.
Here's the whole movie. It's got over 4 million hits already on Youtube. Who needs film festivals anymore? If a film was in every festival in the US, it wouldn't get 4 million viewers.
"'On Time' is a short form adaption of the feature length script 'Rough Around the Edges' written by Xavier and Tiara Marshall. The script made it to the first round of the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. We can't wait to see this story unfold into a feature length film."
NOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOT
A Reasonable Request
Andrew Laurich
USA
0:09:00
If you let your child watch this, you might have some explaining to do. I'd suggest you watch this on your own first. Below is the whole movie.
These are all made up issues that distract from the important, consequential issues. They're what used to be called wedge issues designed to stoke fear by tickling the amygdala. Emotions take charge, reason doesn't come to play here. So the target audience gets aroused and angry. No debate here, no discussion, no analysis. Just fear based anger.
If you notice these are all tangible, concrete concepts we can visualize and easily understand. They create all too easily imaginable images of someone shooting someone on campus. Or of a six foot something, former NFL football player like John Irving's Roberta Muldoon, leeringly entering the women's restroom in a dress. Visions of tortured fetuses and hordes of Mexicans streaming across the Rio Grande to take away American jobs.
And they don't have to think about how to balance the budget, how to curb global warming, the tens of thousands of civilians who have died because of the United States' attempts to avenge the World Trade Center deaths and destruction. They won't have time to think about how 1% of Americans came to hold 40% of our wealth and how to change that.
The main issues - guns, sexuality, abortion, and immigrants - aren't made up. But the legislation being debated and passed these days is so outrageous and mean-spirited I'm convinced it's a form of political sleight of hand to keep us from seeing and dealing with the truly important issues.
It's the only theory that explains for me all the nasty and divisive legislation that Republicans have been introducing and even passing in many states in the last year or so. It's to keep us distracted over guns, abortion, bathrooms, and walls, so we don't focus on inequality, voting rights, and how the law is rigged in favor of the 1%.
RB, a high school buddy, took me to brunch this (Sunday) morning at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. I'd heard of this place, but had never been there. It's a big, old house in
Hollywood that looks like a small castle. Once inside, it has the feel of the school in Harry Potter movies - though on a smaller scale. You go from the reception room into the castle through a book case that slides to one side to let you in.
From the Magic Castle website:
"The
Magic Castle is the showplace for some of the greatest magicians from
around the globe. We also take great pride in showcasing the magnificent
building that houses the Magic Castle. Built in 1908, this storied
mansion has watched Hollywood grow and change for over 100 years while
never losing its original charm."
Of course, it's a lot more than that. It's a club house for the best magicians in the world and they come and perform. After our shows, magicians were showing up for a lecture on magic. In this case it was going to be a film of an old magician. They also teach magic there. The theaters are small so you are very close to the performers.
I have to get up early in the morning to catch a plane to Seattle where I will get to see my wife and son and daughter and granddaughter, plus a few other very important folks. So I'm going to cut this short.
You aren't allowed to do any photography inside the castle, but I did find You Tube videos of the three performers we saw. Of the three, Christopher Hart was the most magician. The other two were more comedians with a bit of magic, but they were all funny and Sundays is when kids can come so it was neat watching them all enjoy themselves.
These are short videos and a good way to start a new week.
"Christopher Hart is known as “The man with the movie star hand”, after
his right hand was featured as THING the loveable disembodied hand
featured in three ADDAMS FAMILY Films."
The video shows a couple of acts that we saw Sunday.
Dana Daniels. And his parrot Luigi. This is a part right out of the act we saw today.
