Wisconsin - 28 to 21

I ran into these Badger fans at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA the day before the Rose Bowl and I asked who was going to win and what the score would be:

Skype Apologizes for Outage With 30 Minute Free Land Line Call

I mentioned last week that Skype wasn't working.  Today they emailed an apology:

To our valued customers:

As 2010 draws to a close, I would like to take a moment to thank each of you for your patience, understanding, and support during Skype’s recent outage.

We know how important your Skype conversations are to you and we take any disruption to our service very seriously. We are pleased to confirm that Skype is back to normal allowing you to connect with friends, co-workers, family and loved ones.

As a valued customer of Skype, we would like to offer you a sincere apology and offer you our gratitude with a credit voucher worth a call of more than 30 minutes to a landline in some of our most popular countries, such as USA, UK, Germany, China, Japan. Or spend it however you like on Skype. . .

30 minutes on Skype to a landline phone wouldn't cost anyone too much, but still it's a nice gesture.  

More Beach, Sun, Snow, Canals, But It's Not Warm

I'm not complaining.  The sun's out, I'm in shorts, but I did wear a fleece jacket for my bike ride this morning.  I'm guessing it's in the 50s (F) with low for tonight around 41˚, but as you can see, it is beautiful.

Here's Santa Monica Bay with the Santa Monica Mountains in the background, Venice in the foreground.  I'm near the Marina Del Ray breakwater.

Here are three pictures glued together crudely with photoshop to show the whole bay and the edge of the breakwater on the far left. 

From the here I could see the mountains to the east of LA over the Marina Del Rey.  I think - but I'm not sure - the biggest one is Mt. Baldy.

And then I biked back past the Venice canals.  This one had pelicans and grebes and an egret.  I must say the grebes' winter plumage is pretty dull.  For the Southern California folks who said they'd never been to the old zoo, I have to admit that I don't remember when I was last at these canals.  I've always known they were here, and I know I've seen them, but they just are a little out of normal range, even though they are close.  And today was a spectacular day. 

Tonight we're off to dinner with our son and his fiancé and to meet her parents for the first time.

Venice Beach, Sun, Snow

Monday, in deference to my still (but not as) sore ribs, I biked instead of jogging to Venice Beach.  It was a clear day by LA standards - you can see Catalina off in the distance.  I know for you Anchorage readers, those vague outlines 26 miles away are a joke.  You see Denali 150 miles away more clearly.  But, this is LA.

I also passed the Kush doctor's place and was surprised to see it was now for lease.  I've been looking online to see what happened to it.  Here's the best I could find from Yelp last June:

Sara A.

Pomona, CA

6/17/2010

October 2009

I am SO GLAD this place got shut down.  I moved to Santa Monica and was looking into investment opportunities when I decided to get a job at one of the places to see how it works from the inside.  They wanted me to hold a sign and SCREAM at tourists to "get legal", except when the cops pass by and then we were to stand back.  What a terrible job!  The two men that run this joint (ran, I should say, I heard Sean was going to jail, where he belongs!) are the BIGGEST DOUCHE-BAGS ON VENICE BEACH!  Sean is the worst.  He screamed at me several times, in front of potential customers and made himself look more like an idiot than a businessman.  Needless to say, I got stiffed my last paycheck and my attempts to collect on a measly $50 (just to make a point) was unsuccessful.  I did manage to make friends there, the staff was really cool and in this economy they figured a job is a job. I got my wages back in medicine so I felt vindicated.  I hope Sean, the ugly tattooed short idiot is really going to jail.  That is where both of them, Andrew AND Sean belong!!

 Most of the other Yelp comments weren't too complimentary either.




I stopped by the skate plaza too.  They seem to have adopted some safety protocols since it opened in October 2009.  At least while I was there, only one person was going in the near run at a time.  Or at least they were trying to.  Note how clear the Santa Monica Mountains are in the background.

By Tuesday when we rode back down to catch some chilly rays, the Santa Monica Mountains were barely visible in the clouds and Catalina had evaporated completely.

















Back to Monday, you could see snow on the top of the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.  They get up to 10,000 feet.

It was raining this morning (Wednesday), but by afternoon it had cleared up.

AIFF 2010: Features - My Favorites

This is Part 2 of a post started here comparing my favorite features at the Anchorage International Film Festival to those that won.

The Ones I Liked and Why



Fanny, Annie, and Danny

I've already written about this one and you can read about it there.  But the longer it's been, the more I think this is an almost perfect little film.   Just really good characters, really good acting, and a story that moves at just the right pace to bring all the characters together to the climax.  I was drawn right in and assumed I knew what happened when the screen went black.  It never occurred to me that the off-camera conclusion could have been different than the one I 'saw' until someone else was sure of a different conclusion.  This is a film whose characters were still in my head the day after I first saw it and wouldn't let go of my brain. 


The Temptation of St. Tony

Other reviewers had suggested the cinematic homages paid to various high brow film directors would be over the heads of most viewers.  While the film bleakly followed the excesses of Estonia's nouveau riche, often juxtaposing their excesses against the plight of the poor, I found it compelling throughout.  The images were stark and sometimes surreal.  The star of the movie, Taavi Eelsma, told me it was basically about whether it is possible today to be a good person.  Knowing that made it all work for me.  


Hello Lonesome

Hello Lonesome was, like Fanny, Annie, and Danny, about people and relationships.  We watched three lonesome people connecting with other people.  The move weaves in and out of each of the three stories - and all three stories are unexpected, yet very believable.  Excellent acting and all the other basics of good film making made this a poignant movie.  All the people, odd as some were, felt real.  This was simply a good movie.


Two more

22:43 - This Twilight Zone-like Austrian mystery had great characters and stories that moved along on several levels so the viewer had to pay close attention to keep track of them all.  It was an ambitious movie that was nicely done.  It isn't a great movie, but certainly better than much of the formula garbage that comes out of Hollywood.  And it's world premier was in Anchorage at the festival.  You can watch premier audience reactions.


The Red Machine - This movie fits into the category of hip outlaw films such as The Sting.  The lead character is one of those smart criminals who has a strong work ethic, a problem with authority, and a lip. He's hired to help steal, not the Japanese secret code machine - which would make knowing the code useless - but how the machine works in the mid 1930s. 

This film was invited to the festival and thus was not in competition for an award. It's Hollywood slick, but better than average Hollywood smart. Good characters and dialogue throughout, though I was left scratching my head over a couple of points in the film. For example, I didn't get the strong animosity over the guy who was brought back to the team to do the heist. His relationship with the Japanese ambassador was made clear, but not with the other Navy guys. They really didn't like him.

In an earlier post I lamented that the film was shown on Dec. 6 and Dec. 8, but would have been much more appropriately shown on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day.  I also called the movie very slick and irreverent.  The directors left a comment that took me a second to catch.

Argy and Boehm said...

Oh...it would have been cool to have The Red Machine play on the Day That Shall Live in Infamy! Thank you for the thought...

Stephanie Argy (slick) and Alec Boehm (irreverent) Co-directors The Red Machine

That gives a hint of their quick wit throughout the film.


OK, I've got two more I want to at least mention.

Ashes  is in the 'infected' genre and I probably wouldn't have seen it at 10pm when it was playing against a well hyped local feature - Beekeepers.  But I'd met film maker Elias Matar  just after he arrived and he kept inviting me to the film.  I'm not a zombie movie fan.  I don't quite get the attraction.  And I learned from Matar that infected movies are NOT zombie movies.  Ashes was filmed in a real hospital and follows a pretty realistic emergency room doctor.  Matar (here's a video of him talking about the film) explained that his sister is an ER doctor and so many of her stories are meshed together in this film.  All this is to say that the film begins as a serious film about an infection in a hospital before people start going strange as they become infected.  It's possible that the film could attract what I would think would be two different audiences - the serious hospital crisis drama  audience and the infection/zombie audience. Or each might be turned off by the joining of these two different genres.  I would note that the film was marred by the fact that the Blue Ray version stopped about 20 minutes in and we had to first wait, then watch much of the beginning over again until the DVD copy caught up to where the first one ended.  This is something the festival has got to do better in the future if it is going to be more than a funky, way-off-in-Alaska festival.  And I don't recall any of the audience leaving during the interruption. 




Ticked Off Trannies With Knives gets my award for best title at the Festival.  The transvestite characters were spectacularly bigger than life, but we also got to see behind the make-up a bit.  And just listening to them and watching them is worth the price of admission.  The sadism and violence in the movie is not something I normally watch, but all the characters were real - which made it even more distressing.  And as I said in a short previous comment on this film, the very ending line asked the same question I was asking, saving the movie, because it was so self-aware. 

LA's Old Zoo Then and Now

Sunday, we were in the area of the old LA zoo in Griffith Park - the zoo I remember as a little kid.  With all its horrible old cages.  Yet it was a place where this little kid could see lions and tigers and bears, up close, live.  And all those creatures fascinated me.  I was lucky my Dad was willing to take me there frequently.

OK, my older, more aware self has real issues with zoos - they can be seen as both places where great wild creatures are imprisoned in cages as entertainment for humans OR the place where rare species might be able to survive because their natural habitat has been wiped out by humans.  Either way it doesn't say much for humans.  But this post is about nostalgia.  About visiting the zoo I visited as a child.  I remember walking up the canyon and hearing the roar of the lions and the trumpeting of the elephants. 

The old zoo closed down in 1965 and the new LA zoo opened a couple of miles away.  But somehow some remnants of the old zoo have been preserved.  While this is nice for nostalgia, it also is a bit of history that shows people that zoos today are much nicer prisons than they were in the past. 

We walked up what turned out to be the back way.  I first refound the old zoo with my son about 35 years ago one grey, windy day.  It was a very spooky experience walking through this old zoo ground I'd been to many times as a child.

I found it again sometime in the last ten years with my wife.  So, since we were nearby Sunday, I thought I'd go by once more.

Here's part of a row of prison like cages that housed big cats and possibly some bears.  I remembered being here well, watching these amazing creatures.  So last night I asked my mom about old photo albums and she pointed me to one where I found this picture taken pretty close to this spot in 1951.

There I am (in the white shirt), with some family friends, at these very cages.  In those days there was a fence, then an inside walkway, and then the cage itself.  The outer fence is gone today, and the cage doors are open.

 

Here's the leopard's eye view of the people at the zoo.  This may just look like a picture to you, but to me it is amazing, to be able to get on the other side of the bars and look out.

Here's inside one of the cages.  Again, horribly small for the majestic animals that were imprisoned here.  

These were the more modern cages back then.  I remember bears being in cages like this.  There used to be a low wall on the outside and a moat - some with, some without water - between the people and the animals.  Again, walking back where the bears could hide when they got tired of being watched was an amazing experience.  

One of the not particularly well advertised spots where you can see Los Angeles history - and American zoo history.  I suspect that most places like this were simply torn down and built over.  Through some quirk of historical fate, these cages were preserved.  (I'm sure there is a story first of neglect, and then dedicated folks who worked to make sure these remnants were preserved.)  Probably not well advertised because it's part of a public park you can enter without buying a ticket.  It's in Griffith Park about two miles from the 'new' zoo. 

[UPDATE Dec. 20, 2015 - a somewhat related post on pet shops.]

The Mystery of the Unused Shea Butter Machines

Often things that other people do or say make no sense at all.  Until you see the story from their point of view.  

Maria Karlya is a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Ghana.  In an article in the Fall 2010 Worldview magazine she writes about the problem of the shea butter machines that are locked up in an old factory, while the women keep laboriously whipping the shea nut butter by hand. (I didn't know what shea butter was either so I looked it up.)  They work so much harder than necessary, but the machines go unused.

So Maria contacted Adisa, an Ghanaian woman who works at an NGO that helps women to become self sustaining.  Her encounter with Adisa leads to another long story about Peace Corps and Adisa's life, but for this post I'm just concerned with the shea butter mystery.


After a long conversation with Adisa, Maria asks her about the shea butter machines.  Adisa responds:

"Maria, here is the problem.  Making shea butter is a social event for these women.  All day, they are in the house serving their men and children.  They can't discuss their problems, because the men will hear.  They have no privacy.  But when they are under the trees making shea butter, the men won't mind them.  That's when they can talk.  They give advice to their daughters;  they share ideas and discuss their troubles.  They cherish that time.  Those machines are incredibly loud, and only a few can use them at a time.  The process ceases to be social. . ."

I try to remind myself that most things do make sense if you have all the data.  Especially at home.  But my wife will tell you I forget a lot.  

New Hungarian Law Has Chilling Effect on Media including Blogs

Deutsche Welle says:

Lawmakers in Hungary have given a controversial new body powers to oversee public news production and levy high fines on private media that break rules on political reporting.

The Hungarian parliament passed the law establishing the National Media and Communications Authority (NMHH) on Monday evening, according to the Hungarian national news agency MTI.

Some 1,500 protesters gathered outside the parliament in the hours before the vote, claiming that it would restrict press freedom, after an appeal was made on the social network site Facebook.

The BBC writes

Unbalanced coverage or breaches of the rules on coverage of sex, violence or alcohol are now expected to prompt the imposition of sanctions by the new authority.

The NMHH will be able to impose fines of up to 200m forints (£615,000; $955,000) on TV and radio stations, MTI reported.

Newspapers could face fines of up to 25m forints and news websites 10m forints.
A media freedom representative for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Dunja Mijatovic, said the law "could lead to all broadcasting being subordinated to political decisions".

Freedom House also warned that it would be "a major setback for press freedom in Hungary". The definition of "violations" is "very broad", it added.

The NMHH is dominated by Fidesz appointees, Reuters news agency reports.
The government argues that the new law is long overdue, saying Hungary's legislation needs to catch up with rapid developments in media technology and content.

Reuters adds:

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said it [the new Hungarian law] severely restricted print and online media, which runs counter to OSCE standards.

"Regulating print media can curb media freedom and free public debate, which are indispensable elements of democracies," OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatovic wrote in a report.

"Regulating online media is not only technologically impossible but it exerts a chilling, self-censoring effect on free expression."

From the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe.

Strasbourg, 23.12.2010 – “In a democracy, media must not be treated as enemies of the state. The Media and Communications Authority  to be established in Hungary on 1 January is an alarming sign that Hungary wishes to police the media,” said Markku Laukkanen (Finland, ALDE), the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

“Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects freedom of expression, information and opinion throughout Europe. We see an overly broad Hungarian legislation, which enables state authorities to impose severe sanctions on media for having raised political criticism. This will cause a severe chilling effect on media freedom and would therefore in principle violate Article 10,” Mr Laukkanen said.

“The PACE Sub-Committee on the Media will discuss the state of media freedom in Europe in January 2011. I do hope that the Hungarian government will have clearly set by then the limits on this new Media and Communications Authority, which must not function like the censorship bodies sadly known in Hungary under communist and fascist rule. Media censorship has no place in the democratic Europe of today.”

There is also a video press conference on this bill at the European Commission.

I try to keep loaded words out of my posts.  The basis for saying 'chilling effect' in the title is a message I got from a Hungarian blogger I've been reading for several years who has shut down his blog because of fear he might run afoul of the law.  That, by definition, is what chilling effect means.  And that's what caused me to look into this more.

Roots, Ribs, Sidewalks

Why cut a beautiful, healthy tree growing in the city?

I was taking advantage of the sunshine and warm temps to go for a run Saturday morning from the motel to my mom's place. (Which was full up with our kids.) 

And saw a long row of cut trees.  And there was probably a good reason when I saw what the roots had done to the sidewalk.  But it's not the big buckling that's a problem for me.  It's the part where the next slab sticks up about two inches.

Shortly after taking those pictures, the toe of my shoe caught the edge, and I went airborne, all in slow motion now.  I thought about the dislocated finger caused by just such a flight a year and a half ago, I saw the grass to my left, I pulled in my arms, pulled down my head and landed in beautiful shoulder roll and was back up on my feet all probably in no more than three or four seconds.

But when I started walking I could feel the ribs on my left side.  I had about a mile to go and walking wasn't bad.  I eventually started a slow run and made it ok.  But the ribs were very tender.  I slept on my right side last night and things are a better today. 

AIFF 2010: Features - My Choices v. Festival Choices

 Three films in each category got recognized by the Anchorage International Film Festival juries and by the audiences.

AIFF 2010 Jury Awards - Features

Winner The Wild Hunt Alexandre Franchi (Canada 2009)
Runner-Up The Drummond Will Alan Butterworth (UK 2010)
Honorable Mention Bai Yin Di Guo (Empire of Silver) Christina Shu-hwa Yao (China/Hong Kong/Taiwan 2009)


AIFF 2010 Audience Awards - Features

Winner Bai Yin Di Guo (Empire of Silver) Christina Shu-hwa Yao (China/Hong Kong/Taiwan 2009)
Runner-Up Son Istasyon (Last Station) Ogulcan Kirca (Turkey 2010)
Honorable Mention The Drummond Will Alan Butterworth (UK 2010)

My choices (With a caveat, of course.  It really makes no sense to make films compete for various reasons I'll mention below.  But I've decided to bite the bullet and pick three that make me feel most satisfied looking back at the festival.  And I've added two extras.  The first three are not distinguished in priority. The fourth is a runner up, and the fifth is in a different category as an invited film)

What Do I know?  Most Satisfying/Thought Provoking Features (three way tie)

Fanny, Annie, and Danny,  Chris Brown  USA
Temptation of St. Tony Veiko Õunpuu  Estonia
Hello Lonesome Alan Butterworth UK

Runner Up:  22:44   Markus Hautz   Austria


I'll add one more which was a special feature (meaning it was invited and not in the running for an award)

The Red Machine  Alec Boehm  S. Argy   USA

Below is the list of all the features at the festival.  As I compiled the list, I realized that we saw all but two.  Those two are at the bottom.  

Films I saw:
22:44   Markus Hautz   Austria
Ashes  Elias Matar  USA
Bai Yin Di Guo [Empire of Silver]*   Christina Shu-hwa Yao  China
The Drummond Will*  Alan Butterworth  UK
Fannie, Annie & Danny  Chris Brown   USA
Hello Lonesome*   Adam Reid   USA
Karma Calling*  Sarba Das  USA
The Red Machine  Alec Boehm  S. Argy   USA

The Silent Accomplice  Erik Knudsen  UK
Son Istasyon [Last Station]*  Ogulcan Kirca  Turkey
Temptation of St. Tony*  Veiko Õunpuu  Estonia
Ticked Off Trannies With Knives  Israel Luna  USA
The Wild Hunt*  Alexandre Franchi   Canada

Films I didn't see:  
Rocksteady   Mustapha Khan  USA
The Violent Kind   The Butcher Brothers   Phil Flores  Mitchell Altieri USA

* means in competition

My Problem with Choosing "Best"

In the Olympics, in sports like diving and gymnastics, they give people more points if they do a more difficult dive or routine. If you make a mistake in a harder routine, you could still beat a perfect, but less challenging one.

How can you compare a multi-million dollar movie with one that cost a half-million, or one that cost $50,000? How do you compare a movie that does a good job in a fairly familiar genre from one that takes risks by trying something different? I could do several lengthy posts on this topic, but you get the point. 


Why my choices compared to the Jury and Audience choices.

The Festival winners:

Empire of Silver was an epic historical drama full of magnificent photography and interesting characters. I must admit some bias against the film at first, because the reviews I read from Hong Kong and Taiwan weren't very good. From screen daily review

[Empire of Silver] will have some purchase in Asia. But elsewhere, this will face the distribution dilemma of decent but unexceptional Chinese costumers like The Banquet: there’s little beyond one relatively flatline swordfight here to keep the action fans happy, and not enough dramatic substance for more highbrow audiences. 

And this Twitch review:

Down but not completely out, then, Empire of Silver is far more than a curio. Its weaknesses may condemn it to relative obscurity outside mainland China or the main Asian markets but for anyone willing to look the other way every so often it is still very much worth watching. Gorgeously presented, with enough star power to keep the viewer engaged, while undeniably incomplete what's left here comes recommended nonetheless.

So when I finally got to see Empire of Silver I was pleasantly surprised.  The cinematography is beautiful.  The movie comes from a trilogy by Cheng Yi, so condensing three novels into a two hour movie already sets the viewer up for some confusion.  Plus viewers who know nothing about Chinese history have no context.  I was even more frustrated because two nights before I finally saw the film in Best of the Fest, I had driven director Christina Yao back to her B&B and wasn't ready to ask the questions I wanted to ask after the film.

Clearly the Anchorage audience wasn't too upset about following all the details, because they chose it the Audience Award winner.  And its coverage of a banking crisis 100 years ago certainly gives it more relevance to US viewers today.  The website - which I avoided before the movie - gives extensive explanation that I would recommend to read before the movie to help viewers appreciate it at a richer level.

I'd also like to know more about the role of Chinese women directors and what I thought was a lot more focus on women's rights than I recall from other Chinese movies.

This was clearly a well financed movie that tells an interesting story reasonably well and I don't quibble with the the jury or audience awarding this film.  I just was more stirred by other movies.

The Drummond Will

I also enjoyed this - in Best of the Fest - but didn't move me particularly.  It was a British murder comedy and I didn't think it did anything particularly new or inventive.


The Wild Hunt

I've written about this one already.  It had lots of potential as it explored notions of reality and fantasy but I found the main female character particularly empty.  While she may reflect lots of young women, we didn't learn much about her except that she dumped her boyfriend in a way that kept him dangling just in case and went off to explore some bizarre options. 



The Last Station

This one was mainly interesting to me because of its glimpse of modern Turkey.  It had the feel of a soap opera, but was an engaging movie. The discussion  after the film with the film maker and his father - the lead actor - added some context I could only guess at.  The film addressed similar issues (conflicts between old and new values as capitalism creates new winners and losers** and ethical challenges) that were addressed in the Temptation of St. Tony in a more accessible film style and with less depth.  But while the film gave us an in-depth understanding of the older generation's perspective, it wasn't clear to me how all the children went so astray.  Especially since the best friend's son did not go astray. 

Let me end here and discuss the ones I chose in part 2. 

**St. Tony's creators would probably say only losers, the winners only are materially better off.