I made some posters...

I started out with an idea for an Inception (surprise) poster, then came up with one for Brick also. I will probably make some more of these but currently don't have any great ideas for what to do next. You can see the both of them here, along with any new ones that might arrive in the future.

Inception (again)

Still the best movie ever made, but I think I am calm enough now after a second viewing to write down a few things about it. I am also sort of desperate for something to write about, so the following is somewhat rambly and incomplete.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film, for me, is its reflexivity. This is admittedly a bit boring on the surface. Yes, the dream is like a film, and the architect is like a director, the dreamer is the audience, and so on. Such connections are easy enough to make (though others maybe not so much - what is the analog for the forger? the chemist?), but once they are made, some interesting things crop up.

Key to Inception is the dream within the dream (within the dream). If the film represents a dream, then a film within the film could be a film watched by the characters in the film. However, in Inception, the characters are the same in each nested dream. So for this analog to be carried out, the viewers of the film would be characters in the film, who would also be characters in a film within the film. Clearly this is not possible (unless the audience is composed solely of actors), but a central component of filmmaking involves causing the audience to empathize with the characters in the film. The audience member, in effect, "becomes" a character in the film for the duration of it. In this sense the viewer is in the film, and shares the experience with other audience members.

The compression of time is also central to the mechanics of dreams in the film. A dreamer can experience more in a dream in a certain amount of time than a waking person. Similarly, a film (usually) shows more events than would actually fit in its running time. But the audience does not actually experience this longer amount of time, only parts of it. The film, then, is more like a dream upon waking, when the time compression is removed and only bits and pieces of the dream are remembered.

And, depending on your memory, after leaving the theater, bits of the film are just as hard to remember as a dream. Only the emotions - and whatever conclusions you may have drawn from them - remain.

A few of my favorite things

I decided to do this, if for no other reason than because I was bored and wanted (another) excuse to use Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold. Some of the selections are questionable, and it is entirely possible that I have left out <insert your favorite album here>. If that is the case, I apologize in advance.

Inception

Best. Film. Ever.

Wolf Parade

After taking the wrong exit (hey, it's been a while...) and being directed by a friendly Cleveland hipster buying beer at the local convenience store, we arrived at the Beachland Ballroom seemingly just in time to get tickets to see Wolf Parade. The opening band, whose name escapes me at the moment, was from Japan and played a miscellaneous assortment of songs ranging in genre from post rock to punk to something almost like country. Toward the end of the set the singer started learning English from the crowd, though unfortunately he could not also learn to sing in that short a time.

After a typically long set break, Wolf Parade arrived and played a reasonably good list of songs, though I thought the new ones were not quite as good, and the old ones had lost their "polish," if Wolf Parade has such a feature. Luckily they played "Kissing the Beehive" which probably sounded about as good as it did last time.

Setlist:

You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son
Palm Road
What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)
Soldier's Grin
Dear Sons And Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts
Ghost Pressure
Cloud Shadow on the Mountain
Fine Young Cannibals
Cave-o-Sapien
This Heart's On Fire
I'll Believe In Anything
Pobody's Nerfect
California Dreamer
---
Shine A Light
Two Men In New Tuxedos
Kissing the Beehive

Has it really been a year?

(since I have last blogged)

I plan to start using this again as I move west to Washington.