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Jeff Merkley says letting the payroll tax holiday expire will cost jobs
With all the intense interest on Congress during the debt ceiling debate and with all the nervous tics from people watching the near-death process, there's little surprise that Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley's decision to vote against the final deal drew reaction from his constituents.
The debt agreement passed 74-26, of course, but Merkley was one of only six Democrats voting against a deal that prevented the United States from defaulting on its financial obligations for the first time in history.
In explaining his vote, Merkley offered some general observations about the impact on people, especially the middle class.
"I voted against the deal because, in short, I felt that it would make it harder for middle class Oregonians to get ahead now and in the future," he said in an Aug. 3 letter to a constituent in Hillsboro.
"I have a single, simple measure to evaluate this proposal: is it going to create greater opportunities for prosperity and success for working Americans? Unfortunately, I have concluded that it will not, and so I cannot support it," Merkley said.
Pretty general stuff.
But he also offered a specific complaint - that the deal could slow down federal spending at the same time other government efforts to stimulate the economy are also ending, including the payroll tax holiday. Merkley says that's a recipe for worsening the job picture at the very time when jobs are most needed.
He backs his claim with numbers, which always gets our juices flowing here at PolitiFact Oregon.
Allowing the payroll tax holiday to expire Dec. 31 is a terrible choice, he says in the letter, "costing another estimated 900,000 jobs in 2012."
That tax cut lowers Social Security payroll taxes paid by employees to 4.2 percent of earnings from 6.2 percent.
The economic argument Merkley makes is well known: that the extra $1,000 on average a family will have because of the payroll tax holiday will be spent. That means more money in circulation, which means more products produced and sold, which means more demand and more jobs. But is his claim correct about jobs connected to the payroll tax holiday?
For support, Merkley cites an Aug. 1, 2011, analysis by economist John S. Irons at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
"Extending that tax cut for another year would provide roughly $118 billion in stimulus through increases in employees' take-home pay, which would boost economic activity by an even greater $128 billion, Irons writes. "Allowing this policy to expire would lower GDP by 0.8 percent in 2012, and would lead to roughly 972,000 fewer jobs."
While other economists have come to similar conclusions, absolute truth is impossible to obtain. Many factors affect economic performance -- including such wild-cards as weather and market psychology.
Howard Gleckman, the editor of a tax blog for the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, has this to say about extending the payroll tax holiday:
"Obama wants to extend this year's payroll tax holiday. That may help keep consumer demand afloat. But since we don't know what households have been doing with the extra cash they got this year, it is hard to predict what will happen if the holiday is extended."
The payroll tax is scheduled to go back up Jan. 1, unless Congress renews it.
If it is extended, the payroll tax holiday would mean $400 for the year for workers who make $20,000; $800 for workers who make $40,000; and $2,000 for workers who make $100,000. Social Security taxes only apply to income up to $106,800, so the measure particularly benefits workers below that threshold who, most economists say, are more likely to spend it.
Merkley's analysis conforms with traditional economic thinking and he is supported by actual calculations from economists. But questions of cause and effect in the economy always must be qualified as simply best educated guesses. Merkley adds the proper fudge in his letter, saying the job loss totals are estimates. In a world where absolutes are rare, Merkley's statement passes the sniff test. We rate his claim: Mostly True.


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Friday, 21 April 2017
Flowers fur Dory
21 comments:
That's a gorgeous photo. We love the 'river of life'. We've enjoyed seeing all the flowers around Blogville, for Dory.ReplyDelete
Hari OmReplyDelete
My word Louis - that's just gorgeous! Hugs and wags, YAM-aunty xxx
Oh those colours are just so beautiful. Perfect for Dory.ReplyDelete
How beautiful and serene. Dory will love this♥ReplyDelete
What a loving tribute to your furriend Dory. 💗ReplyDelete
Louis this is lovely just lovely. The waterfall is so peaceful too. I can just see Angel Dory admiring it from OTRBReplyDelete
Hugs madi your bfff
Louis this is lovely just lovely. The waterfall is so peaceful too. I can just see Angel Dory admiring it from OTRBReplyDelete
Hugs madi your bfff
- Anonymous22 April 2017 at 05:08
Oh how beautiful Louis.....I know Dory has a big smile because all her friends have honored her with gorgeous flowers!ReplyDelete
Love, Angel Sam and Ted
Dory would love this waterfall and the flowers. so beautiful, just like she wasReplyDelete
What a stunning beautiful picture, a pawfect tribute to DoryReplyDelete
Loves and licky kisses
Princess Leah xxx
Beautiful tribute to Angel Dory!!ReplyDelete
Molly and my Mom @The Fast and The Furriest
Louis - you are not just a member of Blogville city staff you are a friend to all. I know Dory was proud of that friendship and she would be honored by your post for her. Hugs and wags.ReplyDelete
Abby Lab
That's beautiful!ReplyDelete
Beautiful tribute to our dear friend Louis.ReplyDelete
<3 Beautiful tribute! <3ReplyDelete
Oh, how beautiful, Louis!!!ReplyDelete
Happy Earth Day.
Woos - Lightning and Misty
Miss Dory would love this view! We sure do! Great choice Louis.ReplyDelete
Puppy Growls,
That is so so beautiful Louis!ReplyDelete
Mr bailey Hazel & Mabel
Oh Louis, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful garden with Angel Dory!ReplyDelete
Love and Hugs,
Jakey, Arty & Bilbo(Mama, Daddy and Angel Dory too!)
What pretty flowers! Fanks for participatin in da Flowers for Dory blog hop.ReplyDelete
What a beautiful tribute for Dory!ReplyDelete


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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tomatillo Chicken-Taco Tuesday!
Sometimes this is called Chicken Verde or Chicken stew with Green sauce. For me it's just Chili Verde made with chicken. It's Taco Tuesday so the sauce will be thick to accommodate the corn tortilla.
Tomatillo Chicken
1 pound to 1 1/2 pounds tomatillos (I just grab 12 and call it good)
5 whole garlic cloves unpeeled
2 Anaheim or Poblano chiles (you could leave them out completely but trust me and keep them in-it won't be too spicy)
2 jalapenos chopped (I de-seed them)
4 pounds of bone in chicken thighs (pull as much skin off as possible but leave the bone in since it provides flavor)
1 bunch cilantro (remove the stems-because I am a stem snob)
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil or Canola oil
1 huge yellow onion or 2 small
1 TB dried oregano
3 large garlic cloves finely chopped
1 carton chicken stock (you may not use it all)
Remove the paper husks from the tomatillos.
Rinse them well. They are going to be a little sticky. It's normal. Don't worry about the stickiness. Dry them off with a paper towel. Cut them on half and place them cut side down on a foiled lined cookie sheet.
Broil them for 5 minutes or until the skin is blackened. Let them sit for a couple minutes until they are cool enough to handle.
I like my Chili Verde to a little more spicy. Trust me it wont be too spicy. So I take 2 Anaheim or Poblano chiles and blacken them under the broiler just as you did the tomatillos. Put them into a Ziploc bag (they steam) wait five minutes and then remove the skin, stems and seeds. Give them a rough chop. You could also use a can of Ortega Chilis in place.
Place the tomatillos, Anaheim chilis, and squeeze the garlic out of the skins into the blender or food processor. Add the chopped Jalapenos and cilantro to the blender.
Pulse until mixed.
Resist the urge to grab tortilla chips!
I like to de-fatten or de-skin the chicken as much as I can. It is so cheap to buy skin on chicken thighs. I am sure you can buy them skin-less but you will pay an additional price. That extra five bucks adds up so buy them with the skin (and bone) and take the fatty skin off yourself.
Season the your chicken with salt and pepper. In a large pan (I use a extra large sauce pan and not a frying pan because I figure less dishes to wash) heat oil. You want enough oil to coat the pan so the chicken doesn't stick. Brown the chicken on all sides and transfer to a bowl that is lined with paper towels. Browning the meat adds flavor. You could omit and just add to a pan or crock pot but trust me! It adds flavor!
Do not crowd the pan. You will have to brown them in batches.
Pour off most of the fat from the pan. Add the onions and cook till translucent then add the raw chopped garlic. I dont want the garlic to burn so add it last.
Add the chicken and the Green Verde sauce back into the pan.
Pour enough chicken stock in the pan to cover the meat. Don't over do it. I like my sauce to be on the thicker side and I always figure I can always add chicken stock but you cant take it away. (and I did add another cup half way but I like it thick for tacos and thinner to put over rice)
Taste it. Does it need some salt and pepper? Don't over do the salt. The flavor will concentrate as it cooks. Bring the sauce up to a boil and reduce it to simmer. (bring to a bubble and then drop heat so it is barely a bubble) Do not cover it. I know you want to but dont. Cook for 1 hour until chicken is tender. Shred the chicken and remove the bones.
Traditionally this is served with Spanish rice and corn tortillas. I am making tacos out of it since it is Taco Tuesday. (Don't know how to make taco shells..see here!)
This is the most amazing the next day. In fact I think it is really the best on the second day. The Tortured Teenager likes it scrambled with eggs for breakfast. No joke! It is amazing!
This could be made in the crock pot. You could make the sauce the night before and toss it all in the crock pot the next morning. Set on low. Enjoy!
at 8:00 AM
7 comments:
- Catherine said...
Taco Tuesday is my favorite day!
This sounds really good!
Have a wonderful day~
- May 25, 2010 at 10:13 AM
- K∂riиє* Smith. said...
Hi there !
It looks delicious, I will give it a try :)
- May 25, 2010 at 1:50 PM
- Mom-stuff Team said...
This looks wonderful. I will give this recipe to my cook LOL.Tag your it!
- May 25, 2010 at 2:19 PM
- Lily said...
That looks so good!!!!!!!!
You have my mouth drooling!! lol
Tag, you're it!!!
- May 25, 2010 at 4:04 PM
- Me, Myself and Pie said...
Yum. I ate tacos all weekend and somehow now I'm craving them more than ever. The sauce looks great. Although, yes...I would definitely reach for the tortillas!
- May 25, 2010 at 6:51 PM
- LeAnn said...
Those look yummy! I will have to try that. Tagging bag
- May 26, 2010 at 9:27 AM
- Tiffanee said...
We had tacos yesterday and I didn't even think of it being Tuesday. These look really delicious. I am going to have to try them out! Thanks,
- May 26, 2010 at 10:20 AM
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This space was created to help drive and motion control vendors to create a PROFIdrive solution which relies on proven components. This reduces the effort for the implementation and lets to avoid the common pitfalls in the development process.
PROFIdrive Implementation Guide is designed to help the user to implement the PROFIdrive profile. It provides the overview of the required steps and dependencies and is a good point to start with PROFIdrive implementation.
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17-year-old dead after Taser blast
An autopsy will decide whether a Virginia teenager was officially electrocuted by police in his own home on Thursday night.
17-year-old Derrick Jones of Martinsville was pronounced dead at a local hospital following an encounter with a police officer that ended in a Taser blast and immediate attempts to revive him by the officer, and later paramedics.
Jones, 15-year-old Justin Gregory and three others spent the day roughhousing in Jones' duplex apartment, according to Gregory. Alcohol was involved, and altercations between Jones, at one point laying down in the middle of the street, and Gregory, resulted in neighbors calling the police. Officer R. L. Wray found signs of forced entry and blood on a wall said by Gregory to be caused by the teens over the course of the day, and leaned into the living room of the apartment with his Taser drawn. Jones, who had been drinking, was said to have "moved rapidly" towards the officer while making unspecified "not too kind" comments.
Jones was immediately unresponsive after being Tasered halfway into the living room, according to Gregory, who disagreed with the officer's account and said that regardless of the situation, "too much force" was used on the 130-pound teen, who stood at 5'7". He told his mother that Jones "just melted" on the floor. "It was the last time they saw him move."
The officer was "well within the guidelines" of department procedure in using the device on Jones, according to Police Chief Mike Rogers. The department's "Use of Force" policy states that the Taser is only to be used when less drastic methods would facilitate the subject's escape or expose others to physical injury.
Virginia State Police are investigating the incident.
A CBC study has shown that the Taser has killed at least 400 people in the United States and Canada since 2001. The research showed that a person hit with a Taser could face as high as a 50 percent chance of cardiac arrest. Arizona-based Taser International has released studies of its own denying a link between its products and reported deaths, and has even argued against medical examiners in court when a Taser product is found to be a factor in a death.
Police have been accused of misusing or overusing their Tasers in lieu of less electrifying techniques such as physical force or pepper spray in their encounters with such individuals as Robert Dziekanski, Elizabeth Beeland, Inman Morales, Andre Thomas, Mace Hutchinson.
"You have people who are often in custody, and when they are in custody and it's being used repeatedly on them, it's hard to describe it as anything else but torture," Amnesty International USA's executive director Larry Cox told CBS' Early Show in November 2007. The Taser works by injecting electricity directly through metal prongs that have been shot into its target's body. The shocks cause severe pain and temporary paralysis along with a rise in heart rate. Among those benefiting financially from the marketing of Taser International's products to police departments are former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former police commissioner Bernard Kerik.
"The penalty for resisting arrest should not be death," Cox said.


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Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)
- Rating
- Genre
- Drama, Thriller
- Release Date
- November 3, 2017
- Director
- Dan Gilroy
- Written by
- Dan Gilroy
- Cast
- Denzel Washington, Carmen Ejogo, Colin Farrell, Nazneen Contractor
- Latest News
- Synopsis
Denzel Washington stars as Roman Israel, a driven, idealistic defense attorney who, through a tumultuous series of events, finds himself in a crisis that leads to extreme action. Colin Farrell costars as the monied, cutthroat lawyer who recruits Roman to his firm.
This is the second film from director Dan Gilroy, who helmed the critically-acclaimed drama Nightcrawler - the film that earned Jake Gyllenhaal much praise in 2014. Roman J. Israel, Esq. is based on Gilroy's original screenplay (initially titled Inner City) and is hoping to garner similar results to Nightcrawler. The film premiered on the festival circuit before its theatrical premiere, and feedback from those screenings was taking into consideration during substantial re-edits. Gilroy wanted to show the early cut before locking final picture so he knew what to change.
Want to know more about Roman J. Israel, Esq.?


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Anderson, S.C. – Anderson University Athletics is inviting everyone to help Anderson University and Wingate University as they unite to celebrate the kickoff of Black History Month this Saturday when they square off for a South Atlantic Conference matchup at the Abney Athletic Center.
February is designated as Black History Month, honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history, including the civil rights movement and their artistic, cultural, political and athletic achievements.
As part of the celebration, free t-shirts will be given out (as supplies last), a video tribute will be played at halftime and other special guests will be in attendance.
The women's basketball game is slated to tip-off at 2 pm while the men's basketball game will begin approximately at 4 pm.


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Categories » END OF THE YEAR
The end of the academic year is... two days away! As usual, we are all in the midst of an emotional storm: tired, happy, excited, busy. "Exams are over but the grades are not out yet!" - "Do I need three or four trunks to pack all my things?" - "Will (More)
It was a fun week-end for all the boarders who were brave enough to go out and play despite the weather - and there was a good break from the rain! Mr. Diego had organized a wide range of great activities and games outdoors, in Concha and on the n (More)


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Elegant reveries of the long-winded lady in alluring New York
Maeve Brennan was a Dubliner who took on Manhattan - and became one of its fabled chroniclers. Next Friday sees the reissue of a collection of her columns written for The New Yorker. In her introduction to the compilation, Belinda McKeon recalls the reflections and rebellions of this fascinating figure
One night in 1967, Maeve Brennan stood in the snow on West 49th Street and saw the past, present and future of that block spliced together: the ghost of its heyday, the garishness and shabbiness of the present, and the inevitability of some time, years off, when a photograph of the street would induce a dreamy nostalgia in some viewer who would have, in their own version of the city, a new kind of shabbiness or garishness to abhor.
"It will have," Brennan wrote, "to be a very old photograph, deepened by time and by a regret that will have its source in the loss of all of New York as we know it now. Many trial cities, facsimiles of cities, will have been raised and torn down on Manhattan island before anybody begins to regret this version of West 49th Street, and perhaps the photograph will never be taken."
Nostalgia, for Maeve, was like the genetic inheritance of becoming a New Yorker; you felt it for the city you had known, for the city you had arrived too late to know, and even for the city as it would be without you.
Her long-winded lady columns, which appeared in The New Yorker between 1954 and 1981, are a remarkable archive of a city not just as it was during two decades of its life - the 1950s and 1960s, when most of Brennan's "communications", as the magazine framed them, appeared - but as it was to some of the people who inhabited its apartments and its hotels and its boarding houses during that time, as it was towards them, and towards one of them in particular.
Pulsing out of the images and the observations, the caught conversations and the apparently stray thoughts, are the realities of what it was like to be three things in mid-20th century New York - female, alone, and an outsider.
Like the past, present and future of Brennan's 49th Street vision, these three experiences, in a fundamental way, went together in this city, and part of what makes Brennan's columns so valuable is the way they render any nostalgia for that time a very complicated business.
Cocktails in those little West Village restaurants; the new fashions in Saks; breakfast in the Plaza; the hallowed corridors of The New Yorker; the new skyscrapers... the idea of mid-century Manhattan has long operated as a shorthand for glamour. The most famous fictions of that era did little to dismantle this notion, even as they explored lives which were privately miserable or grasping. The stories of John Cheever and Richard Yates may be about men in crisis, but they are always having a damn good time in the city while they're at it.
Meanwhile, in The New Yorker, a writer identified only by a vaguely insulting sobriquet, was telling the story from the perspective of a girl-about-town - who was not a girl but a woman - and it was devastating.
It was not miserable, not self-pitying; it was, in fact, the very opposite of these things. That was how it worked its unnerving magic. It was the story of such ordinary places, such slow-news-day settings that it must have been almost a shock to see them occupy the mahogany-and-brass booths of 'The Talk of the Town', the magazine's famous front section.
Brennan's act of rebellion, as the long-winded lady, was to write New York as the city of a woman with ordinary things to do in the morning and with a love, in the mid-afternoon, of sitting by herself in little restaurants, staring at people, eavesdropping on their conversations while pretending to be absorbed in a book.
She made no apologies for her nosiness, and she made no apologies for the defiantly quotidian detail of her errands, of her routes on foot, of the random thoughts and wonderings and memories which popped into her head and back out again.
"Well, there you are, in case you've paid any attention," the first column ended, in 1954.
"It was the moment of no comment," ended a 1962 piece, about the experience of observing two passing nuns from a restaurant window, and then, in case the strangely unyielding conclusion had not baffled readers sufficiently the first time around, "It was the moment of no comment," again. On a page of The New Yorker - which had always been about charm, a charm possible because it came from a place of easy privilege - Brennan created a persona who was still charming, but also a challenge. She took the reader deep into her experience of their shared city, with a specificity of location and neighbourhood which, 60 years later, still makes a New York reader feel as though they are walking with her through these very streets, past these very buildings, into this very zone with its stubborn personality - but she also makes the reader feel, frequently, as though they have slid into the opposite chair at her one-top and are being stared at in a way that says, go home.
Until they were first collected for publication in 1969, the long-winded lady columns were unsigned, as was the tradition with 'Talk' pieces.
Brennan was in a good spot with The New Yorker when she started out as the lady; she had published seven short stories with the magazine in two years, with another one on the way, and she was also writing book reviews. She had an office, she had colleagues, she had readers. She had her city. By 1954, it had been her home for 12 years. Brennan had been born in Dublin, but had spent her late teens and early 20s in Washington, DC, where her family had moved - due to her father's job as the first Irish envoy to America.
Taking herself to New York, she worked first at the Public Library and then at Harper's Bazaar, writing fashion copy for the Irish editor Carmel Snow. While still there, she published some short pieces in The New Yorker, and editor William Shawn invited her to join the staff in 1949. The long-winded lady does not have an Irish accent. Only once in the 1950s and 1960s columns - in "Lessons and Lessons and Then More Lessons," that piece about seeing the nuns - does she mention her upbringing in Dublin, and that this detail also reveals her Catholicism is actually quite startling to think about, because if anything characterised the lady, it was her refusal to share any personal background which might place her, even momentarily, at a distance from her identity as a New Yorker, as a Manhattanite through and through.
Her voice, her cadence, her colloquialisms, make it seem as though she were not just from the city, but of it, born of its rhythms and its oddnesses, rather than of any inconvenient humans who might have tripped along its way.
The city, she wrote in 1968, "has a real horizon made of buildings but it also has an eternal horizon… created when water and air work together". It was important to her to seem as though she had strolled out of that horizon, watchful from the very first moment, and that when the time came, she would simply slip into that horizon again.
But an horizon cannot be a home. Where the long-winded columns become devastating is in the search for home that they enact almost in spite of themselves. Before she joined The New Yorker, Brennan completed the manuscript of her novella, The Visitor, about a young girl, Anastasia, who is sent to live with her grandmother, but sent away again. Anastasia's anguish fixes with painful clarity on the question of how to belong.
"Home is a place in the mind," the narrator tells us after the child's awkward arrival on the doorstep. "When it is empty, it frets. It is fretful with memory, faces and places and times gone by. Beloved faces rise up in disobedience and make a mirror for emptiness."
When the lady allows herself to countenance the idea of homesickness, she keeps to a similarly poetic register, which offers the safety of abstraction even if it is talking about the travails of living in a very particular place. "New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realise why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why."
Actually, the city seemed hard for Brennan to love, partly because it kept changing, kept dismantling itself and remodelling itself around her, indifferent to her needs, emotional or otherwise. The fact of these changes seems truly impossible for the lady to accept; again and again, she stands in a street and watches what the wrecking ball has done, or is doing, to her city.
"Nobody will care when this street comes down," she writes in 1967, "because nobody really lives here". And yet Maeve Brennan lived there, in one of a series of hotel rooms she rented over the years. The columns are careful to present melancholy as an aesthetic position, as a kind of sweet nostalgia in itself. Brennan herself decided their order in the 1969 collection; they were not presented chronologically, but in a thematic or atmospheric curation that resists easy interpretation.
But the columns' sharpest power arguably lies in the way their actual chronology - they did not appear regularly, sometimes not for years at a stretch - traces their author's difficult reality. In the things the lady notices about her fellow citizens, in the things she notices about her city, we learn a lot about how hard it was, in this city, for a woman who liked being alone, who wanted to be alone - who enjoyed her own company and knew how to write brilliantly out of that company - to feel at home.
In ''The Traveller" (1963), she wishes, sitting in a public place, that she had a suitcase. A suitcase, she writes, "would translate me to everybody's satisfaction and especially to my own satisfaction."
Translation is in itself a form of demolition, or perhaps of remodelling; what the lady reveals in this moment is the pressure she must have felt, so often, to appear as someone other than herself, as other than the wilfully solitary, beadily watchful, book-loving, martini-drinking, single woman (and, eventually divorcee) that she was.
In the later columns especially, her anxiety about what will become of her, and about how she will be treated by the city in which she is dependent, leeches into her portraits of those around her. There are so many shaky or shattered older women in these columns where previously there had been eccentric and intriguing characters of both genders - now it is the shadows she fears becoming who seem to catch her eye.
The saddest thing, of course, is that she did end up desperately vulnerable on the streets of her city. By the 1970s, even as she wrote the last of the columns, she was suffering the ravages of a mental breakdown that saw her become paranoid and lost, even homeless for a time.
But here is her younger self, playing patience impatiently. Here she is stalking Julie Andrews in the Algonquin.
Here she is encountering a tiny and terribly behaved dog, and his Vladimir-and-Estragon-like owners, at a downtown vets. Here she is enjoying the sight of an arrogant man falling out of his restaurant chair in Longchamps, one of her beloved often-empty places.
Here she is watching a busload of tourists, all women, give hell to their unfortunate driver on Sixth Avenue. Here she is observing a Vietnam War protest. Here she is getting new shoes.
Here she is listening to the merciless gossip of two women about a third. Here she is writing out the words of Ludvik Vaculik's manifesto when the Prague Spring was new.
Here she is sipping her drink (there was always a drink, which is also part of the unspoken story) and letting her gaze fasten onto her next story. Here she is shopping for a plain glass orange squeezer and, accidentally, in the same store, spotting a charm of finches in a cage.
Here she is.
'The Long-Winded Lady' by Maeve Brennan is published by The Stinging Fly Press (€12.95). Belinda McKeon is the author of two novels, 'Solace' (2011) and 'Tender' (2015). She is a playwright, teaches at Rutgers University, and lives in New York
Sunday Indo Living


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If you drop a pdf in CWS it honors whatever output profile you set as default for the Fiery. If you print from a mac it doesn't. You have to manually drill in and select the output profile. Every time. It's killing us. If you try to set the default in cups, no luck there either.
Second Level Support is telling me working as intended and I beg to differ.
All jobs are processed by the Fiery.
If the Fiery has a profile you told it to use as default, and you didn't select any output profile in your job ticket, it bloody well should honor the default profile you gave Fiery ... wherever the job comes from.
... right?
None of the options in that dropdown in CUPS worked.
Can someone please help???? This is costing too much time.
Lou Prestia maybe, Mr. St-John? Anyone????
Thank you kindly!!!


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In Oakland and Elsewhere, Health Care Is Investing in Affordable Housing
Marketplace By Raquel Maria Dillon When an apartment building sells in gentrifying parts of Oakland, California, tenants often brace themselves for the worst. Rent hikes, disruptive renovations and evictions can follow. But when one building recently changed hands, city officials and…
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*The film is in two parts accounting for the two videos...part one is on top, followed by part two. All one short film though!*
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Short Films You Must See: Chris Marker and Walerian Borowczyk's "Les Astronautes"
*The film is in two parts accounting for the two videos...part one is on top, followed by part two. All one short film though!*
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Operation: Tom Cruise, #1
We're not gonna start getting all about self promotion here, but I made this little video today and thought I would post it for the enjoyment of everyone. We may keep this gag going for a while so keep looking on YouTube for some more...
Sorry about this size on this being so small. Making videos of my own is still in development. It'll get bigger next time...hopefully.
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Saturday, March 29, 2008
Who's Afraid of the Iraq War?
At a time when the Iraq War films are struggling to get audiences, Kimberly Peirce's new film Stop-Loss probably doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell either, and will most likely disappear into oblivion, only to be kept company by its predecessors. Sadly enough, Stop-Loss stands out in its awareness of the war film genre, and particularly draws on influences from the Vietnam War film; yet where many Vietnam War films are poignant and provocative, Peirce's approach to the Iraq War is vague and indecisive, making the film monumentally unmonumental.
In the late 1970's, films about the Vietnam War slowly started to emerge, with plenty more coming in the 80's and beyond when the war was out of sight and (somewhat) out of mind. During the war, photo-journalists reporting from Vietnam had supplied the world with images never to be forgotten - so many, so haunting, so horrifying - leaving nothing to the imagination, and consequently contributed greatly to the political discourse concerning the war, nurturing the dissatisfaction and numerous war protests all over the world. As a result, Hollywood studios considered the Vietnam War to be a poor choice for film material, simply because the war had already been so over-exposed. Surprisingly then, when films such as The Deer Hunter (Cimino, 1978), Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979), Platoon (Stone, 1986), and Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987) were released, many films were well received and relatively popular amongst audiences and critics. Since then, many of them have made a place for themselves in the film canon. Amongst the things these films have in common, is a confrontational, scrutinizing and dialectical approach to the war they are portraying, and its effects on the soldiers, veterans and landscape in the aftermath.
Today, the situation, at least to me, seems exactly the opposite. Images distributed from Iraq are scarce, when compared to the abundance of images we are left with from the Vietnam War, and the news desks are obeying censorship to a large degree. The camera lenses seem to be interested in capturing and depicting secondary events of the war, and wish to spare us from seeing the actual cruelties and costs of war. Instead, we are shown photos of successful raids, scenes where bombs have gone of after the fact, i.e. devoid of people but full of dust and piles of bricks, making it hard to get a real sense of what is really happening. There are the occasional provocative photos, often taken by the soldiers themselves, depicting aspects of the war we don't usually see or know about. Had it not been for the widespread use of cameras amongst the soldiers in Iraq and their distribution online, many of these larger atrocities would never have come to light. The Iraq War is in this sense a completely different war - visually - from that in Vietnam, as it remains largely invisible and hidden from us and is often drowned in ambiguous political discourse, such as renaming the war as merely a conflict.
Different from the Vietnam War, however, is the making of films about the Iraq War while it is taking place; however, this time, it seems like no one really wants to see them. Two of the more prominent "war films" from last year, Redacted (DePalma) and In the Valley of Elah (Haggis), came from important/popular directors, but both did quite poorly at the box office. While the quality of the films is arguable, audience interest seems curiously lacking, and the same appears to be happening for Stop-Loss. Kimberly Peirce is an important and fearless director in that she once again approaches what is considered very difficult and sensitive subject-matters, making Stop-Loss nearly ten years after her powerful début film Boys Don't Cry (1999). The world Peirce depicts in Stop-Loss is as rough and tough as in Boys Don't Cry. The milieus her characters inhabit are so similar, in fact, that the characters in the different films could probably live across the street from one another. Unfortunately the parallels and similarities between the two films end here.
Peirce is fully aware of the widespread use of digital cameras by the soldiers in Iraq, and starts her film in this home-video mode, portraying a group of soldiers at their base. This opening is both effective and promising concerning its style and storytelling technique, and the behind-the-scenes-look of the Iraq war is immediately captivating. After these first glimpses, the film continues into its battle scenes that are well-made, and congruent in staying with the exhilarating insider point of view we get in the opening. Unfortunately, the film leaves this format quickly as the scenery shifts from Iraq to the US, and moves into a more "traditional" style and use of camera, placing the spectator firmly outside of the diegesis, This decision is disappointing in that the audience is quickly and effectively supplanted deep within the war, then all too quickly taken right back out. The effects created by the home-video style are remarkable in that they place the spectator visually and virtually within the war that is rarely seen in such a insider way. If this affect could have been sustained, Stop-Loss would have been infinitely more successful.
The story of Stop-Loss is reminiscent of that of The Deer Hunter, with the trio of friends returning from war back to their small town, all of them mentally or physically ill to some degree. And as an echo of The Deer Hunter, Brandon (Ryan Philippe) in Stop-Loss finds consolation and help in his best friend Steve's (Channing Tatum) girlfriend Michelle (Abbie Cornish). However, both the psychological and political aspects of The Deer Hunter, that makes it such a great film (along with its outstanding acting) is unfortunately not repeated in Stop-Loss. One of the reasons the film doesn't work nearly as well is its reluctance to deal with the Iraq War in any real or critical sense. Of course, Stop-Loss deals with the hopeless and tragic situation that so many soldiers fighting in Iraq are trapped in, which is openly portrayed as a negative factor, and is main battle of Brandon. However, that Brandon doesn't want to go back to Iraq is in itself not that interesting after the first ten minutes, as there is no real change in him, which cannot be blamed on the rather straightforward performance by Ryan Philippe but the script. Abbie Cornish has been given equally little to work with, as she is the girl who unquestioningly supports the troops, but is afraid of ending up as a war widow.
Since the characters continue to be so patriotic and so afraid of self-examination in their own motivations of going to war in the first place, or even why the war is fought, Stop-Loss never challenges its characters or its audience. Not to say that Stop-Loss needs to convey one specific message or take sides, but it needs to deal with the problems and questions that implicitly exists in its subject-matter if it is to be successful. It is unfortunate that the film instead seems to be saying that if Brandon had been asked nicely, he would definitely have gone back to Iraq one more time, and that he only objects to the bad treatment he feels he is given by the military. Instead, the war is depicted as inevitable and non-questionable, making Stop-Loss just as diffuse in its answers as the current administration when confronted with questions and problems concerning the Iraq War.
by Maria Fosheim Lund
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Lee Let Go
Apparently I am a day late on getting this news, but it is nonetheless shocking and mindnumbing. One, if not my favorite critic out there, Nathan Lee, has been let go by the Village Voice, effective immediately. Jim Emerson, over at Scanners, has a great piece (as always) in regards to Lee and the state of the movie critic that can be found here.
Lee's rhetorical flare and love of film always inspired me as a writer. In a time when bloggy writing (that we at least attempt to mostly get above here) is becoming preeminent, Lee was always able to give his distinct opinions with plenty of "bloggy" personality, but with all the in depth formal insights that so many writers fail to come close to. Lee's redundancy is an absolute travesty, and is another sad display in the dwindling state of film criticism.
by James Hansen
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Not Funny Enough, Zombie Man
With his most recent zombie flick installment, Diary of the Dead, George A. Romero has come incredibly close to diving headfirst into straight-up comedy. Sadly, he didn't quite get to the bottom of the sea of hilarity. Although Diary features ample self-reflexive parody and general genre spoofing, as well as a crazy badass deaf Amish guy whose role in the film I will save for the reader to discover, the film is hampered by its momentary lapses into nearly unendurable pretension and ill-conceived social commentary, which is quite unusual for the typically sharp Romero.
Diary's set-up echoes that of this year's Cloverfield: a group of twentysomethings (this time film students initially making a student film) become hounded by an individual amongst them, Jason (Joshua Close) who is hell-bent on recording the end of the world as it happens. As revealed in the film's introductory voice-over, Jason has died and his surviving girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan), has finished his documentary of the earth's zombiefication, entitled The Death of Death, which she then plays for the audience, making super-serious pseudo-philosophical commentary throughout the film, clashing with the film's generally consistent parodic sensibility.
During Romero's introduction to Diary of the Dead before a special midnight screening at Nashville's treasured Belcourt Theatre, which I attended gleefully, Romero maintained the comic tone that dominates much of the film amidst his humble sincerity. Romero noted that, contrary to Land of the Dead (2005), Diary is "a film from the heart" in which he tried to discover whether or not he had the "chops and stamina to do a little film again" and the legendary writer-director repeatedly expressed his gratitude for the enthusiasm Diary has been received with, noting that he would have made the film "even if it went straight to DVD." When Romero began fielding questions from the audience, shit got hysterical.
One audience member stood up, gesturing toward his amputated arm and asked if he could be an extra in Romero's next film since it would be easy to special effect an arm-ripping scene with him. Everyone got a good chuckle out of the unexpected humor proposed by the man, who laughed quite a bit himself, particularly when Romero retorted "I've shot my last few films in Canada and zombies in Canada are unionized," referring to the regulations on extras, and expressing regret that the "$1 and a cheeseburger" policy of paying extras isn't practical any longer.
The conversation then shifted to talk of Romero's childhood fears, leading him to comment, "I was frightened that when I died, Jesus was going to kick my ass," adding, "He was the first zombie, actually," prompting a roar of laughter from the crowd. The raucous humor was further enlivened when a few audience members shouted, "Then, why do we eat his flesh?" and "Why do we drink his blood?" Romero, smiling from ear to ear, then declared, "This guy's spun this thing right on its head!"
Following Romero's standing ovation as he left the stage, the film began – starting its oft-hilarious journey toward the demystification of the media and of cinema, via a zombie apocalypse. Diary employs many of the well-worn tactics of cinematic derangment, a la Jean-Luc Godard and Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera (1929). The film's opening shot begins with a new cameraman onto his camera – from the camera's perspective – immediately forcing the audience to realize that it is watching through the first-person eye of a camera, which it will throughout the film. In addition to its constant references to the presence of the camera, including a detailed description of the camera used to shoot the film-within-a-film, The Death of Death (and presumably the actual film), much like the description read aloud during the credits of Godard's Contempt (1963). The film's use of absurdly bombastic and stereotypical music also echoes Contempt's melodramatic and overly-sensuous score and is well-manipulated by Romero. Another tool of inciting awareness of the film's fictionality in the audience borrowed from Godard, is the jump-cut, which in Diary has become what may be called the "glitch-cut," in which the first person camera gets scrambled, thrown, or turned off, for dramatic or comedic effect.
Romero's most audacious move is his revelation of the film's editing process, as is masterfully depicted in Vertov's aforementioned silent masterpiece. In one scene during which the group has a chance to rest at the compound of an African-American militarist group, Jason basically sprints to a computer in order to edit and upload some of the footage he has shot to Youtube. He is shown picking his shots and dropping them in their slots, basically creating the film the audience has been watching. Exciting because of its deconstruction of the cinematic product, the scene epitomizes Romero's goal of attacking the media and stripping it of its power. But is it really necessary in the Youtube age? Romero seems to think so, and he iterates this with obnoxious emphasis.
Before attacking Diary's irritating moments of seriousness, due must be given to its lightness. When the audience first meets the film's group of protagonists, they are filming a low-budget horror film about a mummy. Referencing and mocking Romero's penchant for social commentary, as is displayed in his milestones Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978), one of the students sardonically comments that the The Death of Death should have "an underlying thread of social satire." Additionally, Romero inserts humorous statements on zombie movement, as one of the characters comments to the actor playing the mummy that he can't run after the girl, claiming, "You're a corpse; if you run fast, your ankles will snap off." The parallel scene near the film's finale of the first filming scene is exceedingly comical (but shan't be detailed for the sake of preserving the plot!) and the sequence featuring the deaf Amish guy is one of the most knee-slap-inducing bits of cinema I've seen in a long time. Watching Diary of the Dead, I kept wishing that Romero would just make a straight-up comedy. I have a feeling it would be marvelous.
When Romero did stray from his comic tone, eyes rolled all over the theatre. Although Diary does maneuver through some racial and gender commentary during the scenes involving the militarist group, as well as tackling the downside of isolation during the film's finale, when dealing with the role of the camera in society, the film becomes quite hamfisted. Repeatedly, like an ideological bludgeon, the concept of the camera as a weapon (zing!) is bashed into the head of the viewer, such as when a frustrated Debra turns the camera on Jason and asks, "You see how it feels?" The exploitative possibilities of the camera are underlined fifteen times by Romero, particularly during a scene where the group must battle zombies in a hospital and Jason is told, "Don't try to speak, just shoot," leading him to point his camera with precision, rather than use the gun that is the intended object of the command. After the students' cynical professor, Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth) blows some zombies away, he gives the gun to someone else, explaining, "It's too easy to use." Almost immediately afterward, Debra hands the camera back to Jason, also explaining, "It's too easy to use."
This is how I imagine the thought process behind the scene: "Get it? It's like a metaphor and shit. 'Shoot,' do you get it? Lemme make sure you get it. Hmmm. I'll just use the same damned metaphor over and over and milk it to the point that you want to vomit. Then you'll definitely get it, and you'll think I'm edgy and clever. Fuck subtlety. I'll just punch you in the stomach. You'll be amazed!" Sadly, Romero does just that, harping on the violence-of-the-camera issue with the tact of a 13-year-old. It's a tragic day when I have to call George A. Romero "didactic," but he is that, if nothing else, during the disgustingly clunky portions of Diary.
On the whole, Diary is watchable, but definitely not as rewatchable as Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead. It seems Romero might still be getting his groove back after returning to the zombie genre, but hopefully he will be able to attain the perfection of Dawn once more, striking a balance between horror, comedy, and social satire. Maybe he'll tie his heavy hands a little better next time.
by Brandon Colvin
***Photos of George Romero were taken by Jackie Clarkson***
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Out 1 Feedback Poll
Hello to everyone out there! I am sure you all noticed the new polls that are up right now, but I want to especially encourage all regular visitors to the site (and everyone else) to weigh in on the grading system poll. As we continue to bring you the best analysis possible, we have to consider the best way to deliver it, and part of that is the framework of a ratings system. While many critics use grades or stars to label their feelings alongside their reviews, there is another side that just wants have their pieces and not limit films to a grading scale. Although the opinions of the writers here at Out 1 may differ on the issue, we are set to deliver what all of you want (although we certainly hope you are reading the pieces and not just looking at grades...they take a long time to write!) So I urge you all to PLEASE vote in the poll and let us know whether you like the use of grades or not. Your feedback and support is what will continue to make Out 1 one of the best film sites out there. Help us out by letting us know what you like, and be sure and keep telling your friends!
Thanks so much to everyone for keeping the site going strong!
PS- If you want to have a discussion on the issue, please use the comments section. Any kind of discourse on the subject will really help us out.
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Friday, March 21, 2008
Film of the Century
Although some will disagree, perhaps with vehemence, I feel secure in stating that Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park is the best film that has been produced in the 21st Century thus far. Van Sant's astounding work is a study of textures and juxtaposition – a post-modern masterpiece that combines elements of my favorite filmmaking styles: the amateur acting and elegant precision of Robert Bresson, the melancholy fluidity of Andrei Tarkovsky's existentially inquisitive camera, and the curious experimentation with image and sound that gave the New American Cinema movement a reinvigorated sense of the possibilities of cinema in the 1950s and 60s. In Paranoid Park, Van Sant, who wrote, directed, and edited the film, has crafted a film after my own cinematic heart.
Based on a novel of the same name by Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park follows Alex (brilliantly played by the non-professional actor Gabe Nevins), a wannabe skater punk as he juggles his parents divorce, losing his virginity, trying to fit in, and, most importantly, his manslaughtering of a security guard at a train yard. As the police investigation of the murder begins to target the skater community of "throwaway kids" after a skateboard is found in a river, covered with incriminating evidence, Alex's guilt and anxiety begin to take over his every thought and his life begins to spiral into a state of moral confusion and fear that seems as gray as the ominous cloud that blankets the autumnal Oregon sky in the film's opening shot.
From the aforementioned introductory shot of a Portland bridge being bared upon by the menacing weather, and throughout the entire film, Paranoid Park's exploration of textural dialectics is in full force. The initial shot is in accelerated motion, cars zooming by on the bridge like smudges of light, and a selection from Nino Rota's score for Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965) bops along with a levity that seems to mock the heaviness of the daunting cloud formation. Van Sant throws the somber image against the chipper tunes to elicit a mood that is immediately startling and confusing – and then he never stops experimenting with the unique tones achievable through such unusual juxtapositions.
The following shot finds Alex writing in a journal, in normal motion, the intimate sound of his pencil scratching along a page replacing the bright levity of Rota's composition. After a short shot of Alex in a field, the film shifts to gorgeously fuzzy 8MM slow-motion footage of skateboarders gracefully sliding over the rounded concrete hills of the film's titular skatepark, as ethereal French electronic music haunts the scene. After the ballet-like motion of the skating scenes comes an 8MM handheld tracking shot that quickly pushes in on Alex as he walks through a field, followed by a Tarkovskyesque smooth tracking shot from just behind Alex as he continues to walk, capping a truly astounding sequence of perfectly woven, yet disparate, sensual experiences.
The experimentation with complimentary and contradictory visual and sonic textures in Paranoid Park is incredibly fresh, and is no doubt as much a result of the presence of Wong Kar Wai's (former) ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose experiments with visual mutation and extremity made films like Chunking Express (1994) and Happy Together (1997) unforgettable, as it is of Van Sant's innovative direction. Thematically, the varying textures reflect the malleable nature of teenage personality and the warring facets that define one's identity during highly developmental periods in life – such as just after one has killed another person, lost his virginity, and experienced the beginning of his parents' divorce. Alex is in quite a bit of turmoil (to say the least), and therefore, the film's visual and aural characteristics are as well, approaching an almost Impressionistic mode of film practice.
Van Sant's history as a student of avant-garde film at RISD, particularly Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas, no doubt informs his use of slow-motion, focal manipulation, and mercurial shifts in lighting, even within a single shot – all of which enliven Paranoid Park with a pulsing courage. But equally as important as the influence of the avant-garde on Van Sant's textural probing, is the influence of Robert Bresson on Van Sant's use of amateur actors and his elliptical narrative structure – although its non-linearity certainly doesn't come from Bresson. Paranoid Park carries a brand of Bressonian "realism" that results from Van Sant's use of non-trained actors and his carefully elliptical and non-theatrical construction. Bresson's presence is also felt in the film's use of Alex as an awkwardly inflected narrator as he reads from journals, as is the case of the amateur leads in two of Bresson's masterpieces: Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Pickpocket (1959). It's so relieving to see a filmmaker pursuing the same ends as Bresson, whose style is the most unsuccessfully explored of any of the classic masters.
Even beyond its formal brilliance, Paranoid Park is an immensely powerful film on an emotional and spiritual level. The film's concerns are essentially existential, as expressed by Alex when he says to his friend Macy (Lauren McKinney), obliquely describing his experience with the death of the security guard, "I just feel like there's something outside of normal life . . . There's like different levels of stuff, and something happened to me." The film's poetic visual indulgence certainly establishes and accentuates the transcendental tone of its content, ingraining the film's powerful, ineffable mood into that place that's deeper than memory. I personally haven't been able to get it out of my head, or my hands, or my lungs – it's a very involving and absorbing film. I can't quite describe how incredible Paranoid Park is, whether because of my inability as a writer or as a result of the film's inexplicable power. The film can only speak for itself and every review I've read doesn't quite do the film justice, so here's my conclusion: fuck writing and reading about it, JUST GO SEE IT.
by Brandon Colvin
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
In Heaven?
Given its experimentations and underground mode of production, Frownland is a film that is ripe for either high praise or revolting rejection. However, its sporadic, fragmented, hyper-realist style countered with its incredibly assured, somehow comedic, vision of an out of control world which leads to a stunning cumulative effect makes Frownland a very complex film that is not so easy to accept or reject. The world Frownland creates is one of entrapment of the highest degree on both the characters within the film and the filmic audience. There is no way to ease through the hell that the characters inhabit and that the audience is supplanted deep within. This is the conundrum that Frownland and its director, Ronald Bronstein, create for itself. It may be an inspired vision of forced isolation, but it dwells in a space that neither the characters nor the audience want to be a part of.
Frownland features snippets from the life of Keith (Dore Mann), a door to door coupon salesman, who either has to have some form of mental illness or severe social anxiety leading to his constant stuttering and forehead scratching. His difficult life is the thread that keeps the film in tact, despite its seemingly aimless narrative attitude. Keith encounters people who he clearly has connection to, but it seems a stretch to call any of them his "friend." There is a depressed, suicidal girl named Sandy (presumably Keith's girlfriend) who Keith rushes to cheer up when he is called. Keith has such a hard time expressing his feelings to her that he forces his eyelids open so they well up with tears. This reaction and response may be a comic break from the film's relentlessness, but it displays Keith's inability to show real emotion. As much as he may want to, forcing emotion is the only way Keith can show much of anything to a member of the opposite sex. His speech patterns tell his inner story of struggling to find the right thing to say and do, whether it be with Sandy, fighting with his starving-musician asshole roomate, or encountering his unfair boss.
All of this is anchored by Dore Mann's razor sharp, fully embodied performance as Keith. Frownland is essentially a one man show, save one completely unnecessary scene where Keith's roomate takes a test to become and LSAT tutor. These heavily scripted scenes are overwhelmingly overwritten put next to Keith's incomprehensible, seemingly improvisation, and completely convincing mutterings. This improvisational flow that Frownland builds is trampled by the moments of ineptness within the screenplay, most of which are in the long, test taking scene. These missteps are few and far between although there are enough of them to keep Frownland from being as convincing. Nevertheless, it is in Mann's portrait of Keith that gives Frownland an immediate and mesmerizing jolt. The performance signals Frownland's wish to be a monster movie. It is up for us to decide who, or what, that monster is.
Director Ronald Bronstein is a New York City projectionist who is self distributing Frownland, which has already completed its New York run. The self distribution may make Frownland a difficult film to see, but given its many positive reviews from major news sources, it would be surprising if it does not make it around the country on some limited scale. Bronstein and Mann have created a diegetic world in Frownland that few will want to enter. This is certainly a major factor in making the film a difficult, if not impossible, box office sell. Keith, and the audience, are forced into an all too real world that everyone is unwillingly cemented within. What is most impressive about Frownland that leads to its finality is Bronstein's keen cinematic mind. No matter what attempts are made, there is no escape from the cruel world Frownland displays until the end credits.
by James Hansen
Frownland [trailer]
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Short Films You Must See: Guy Maddin's "The Heart of the World"
I don't know if this will become a regular series here or not, but it seems to me (and likely everyone else who has ever made them) that short films go wildly under appreciated. This is a feature to highlight some great short films that would certainly be part of the short films canon, if there were one. (Is there? Debate in comments...)
So here is the first selection. We'll let the films speak for themselves.
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
Forgotten VHS #8- Abel Gance's "Napoleon"
Not only is Abel Gance's 1927 historical epic, Napoleon, a forgotten VHS – it may very well be the most unjustly forgotten film in the history of cinema. The hallucinatory masterpiece is the pinnacle of French Impressionism and is certainly Gance's magnum opus. Using a dazzling array of inventive visual techniques, Napoleon anticipates the work of the cinematic surrealists and the American Avant-Garde of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, all while maintaining an involving and clear narrative.
Gance's visual innovation in Napoleon is astonishing. The writer, director, and editor combines lightning fast editing (predating Brakhage by many years), beautifully orchestrated montage sequences (yep, better than Eisenstein), jarringly effective superimpositions (at one point there are 40 in a single shot), multiple aspect ratios (including 4:1, having three cameras shoot footage side-by-side with the intention of having the three film reels projected on three screens), split screens (by having discontinuous shots juxtaposed in the three screen format), and beautiful tinting (particularly during the film's final scenes where the three screens are split and tinted to appear in the pattern of the French flag). In addition to these impressive aspects, the film features breathtaking camera work, including brilliant use of tracking shots, handheld shots, and once scene where the camera is attached to a swing and looms back and forth over a crowd.
Napoleon is an incredible film, but it is noticeably absent from the Sight & Sound polls and many canonical lists, even though it blows most films completely out of the water. Most appallingly, Gance's genius film is absent in the DVD format. Hopefully, once the film is given a proper DVD treatment (please, Criterion, please!), it will be rediscovered and given its proper due. Currently, the film can be acquired on VHS for around $40 from Amazon Marketplace. It may seem pricey, but trust me, it's worth it – unless you want to wait around for Turner Classic Movies to show it again.
by Brandon Colvin
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Friday, March 14, 2008
Great Period...period.
Admittedly, the spell that Jacques Rivette casts in the course of his best films is one I am constantly under. Sometimes meandering, constantly conspiratorial and infinitely obsessive, Rivette is one of the directors that I am most obsessed with having flown to New York to see his 13-hour masterpiece Out 1 after having seen only of his films (Celine and Julie Go Boating, for the record). Rivette's early films have a manic sense of style, story and improvisation that go to the extreme end of the French New Wave making Rivette, in my mind, even more iconic if equally inaccessible. To call Rivette's latest film, The Duchess of Langeais, a change of pace from the previous Rivette films I have seen is an understatement. All the same, this playful period piece exudes the sprightliness of of a teenage sex comedy while foregrounding the tonal differentiation in character that leads The Duchess of Langeais to its unexpected clarity and profundity.
Adapted from a novella by Balzac (one of Rivette's obsessions that has equal prominence within the "narrative" of Out 1), The Duchess of Langeais follows the romantic entanglement between Marquis de Montriveau, a war hero who has recently returned to Paris from Africa, and the Duchess of Langeais, a vicious coquette who is not afraid to gamble to see how far love will go. Starting in a Spanish monastery where the Marquis has found his lovely "Antoinette" (posing as Sister Theresa), the Marquis forces a confrontation that the other Sisters find none to pleasant, literally pulling a curtain between the Marquis and the Duchess, and providing one hell of an act break for the filmic audience.
Flashing back 5 years, the elongated courtship of the Duchess is followed in great detail, highlighted by Rivette's use of intertitles of text from the novella. Although it is easy to jump at the literariness of the intertitles, Rivette and the character's mode of communicating allows the film to gloss over the intertitles without breaking up the film's drama. In using this disjunctive sense of time, Rivette's adaptation makes time something that may be a factor, but is ineffective in stopping the fates of the characters. When the Marquis vows that the Duchess will be his mistress, neither he, nor the film, take into consideration the amount of time this may take, especially without understanding how strong the mind games of the Duchess are. Is this just a playful attitude on her part? Is there something more vicious behind it? And maybe more importantly, does the Duchess really care?
Rivette's narrative, of course, complicates matters to the nth degree making The Duchess of Langeais on the brink of the theatric at all moments. Not theatric in the sense of melodramatic, although it certainly is that, but theatric in the sense that this could be theater. Rivette continually miffs the line between theater and film plus the real and the unreal throughout his features. Though these obsessions are a constant in Rivette's work, they never feel rehashed or tired in The Duchess of Langeais. Rivette's ability to keep material fresh and alive no matter the datedness of the material (whether it be a period costume drama, an 1818 novella, or his obsessions) is an incredibly remarkable quality that many may overlook. However, when a 135 minute (long in general, short for Rivette) period piece can feel this fresh and (hey!) fun, there is really some feat behind the scenes that must be recognized.
At the same time, even more compelling is the film's ability to sway from the typical theatrical melodrama into Rivette's full on conspiratorial assault. Without giving away too much of the darkly comedic drama in the second half of the film, when the major shifts in story occur, there is never a sense of confusion or displacement. This not only signals that this may be Rivette's most traditional work, but that the subtle intricacies of the story all lead to its most dramatic, and tragic, moments. Beyond splurging all credit on Rivette, the performances by Guillaume Depardieu (as the Marquis) and Jeanne Balibar (as the Duchess) are beyond phenomenal. Given Rivette's highly improvisation style, Depardieu and Balibar match a level of intensity in their battles with the other even with the enormous differences in wit, presentation, and mood. Depardieu is at times a weak man crippled by love, but can quickly become a thundering herd that will not be denied. Depardieu is crippled in real life, having lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, but that weakness becomes a forceful attribute of the Marquis. Balibar matches this with a constant face of innocence, while not shying away from her inner devil when the time is right. The scheming, devilish tactic all lead to a surprising, if inevitable, conclusion that is executed with a stylishly calm grace, perfectly fitting given the film's other unexpected variations.
More appropriately titled Don't Touch The Axe (its literal title from Balzac, and also the film's name in every other country but the United States), The Duchess of Langeais seems too formal a title put in place to sway older viewers into seeing another film about royalty of some sort. However, if this is the only major misstep for the film and its release, so be it. The Duchess of Langeais is as much a tease of a movie as the title is. Rivette, at age 80, has made a uniquely complex period dramedy that, if it does not transcend it, certainly is a play on a genre that the younger readers may not be drawn to. Do not let yourself be fooled. In the midst of what has been a winter film drought, The Duchess of Langeais is a intricate, timeless, beautiful poem.
by James Hansen
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
EMPHASIS ON THE CLOSE UP: Reygadas' Diegetics
Abundant with striking provocation, Carlos Reygadas' 2005 film Battle In Heaven has numerous close ups that work on varying levels that could be theorized, but none is more striking, and highly debatable, than a close up that appears in the first scene of the film. Starting with a close up the face of Marcos, a large, older man, the camera tracks down his naked body where Ana, a young woman, is performing felatio on him. The camera continues to track around their bodies, and slowly moves on Ana's eyes as she is performing this sexual act. Or is she?
Mary Ann Doane's artice "The Close Up: Scale and Detail in the Cinema" calls into question the existence of space within the world of the close up and how the close up works within the diegetics of the film. Doane explains, "the space of the narrative, the diegesis, is constructed by a multiplicity of shots that vary in terms of both size and angle- hence this space exists nowhere; there is no totality of which the close up could be a part." (Doane, 108) While this explanation comes from Balazs, Doane goes on to break down narrative spacialization into diegesis (the space of the narrative) and the space of the spectator. Doane argues, against Balazs, that the close up will always constitute a detail or a part, but admits that in the space of the spectator "the close up will, even if only momentarily, constitute itself as the totality, the only entity there to be seen." (Doane, 108) It is in the opening close up of Ana's eyes in Battle In Heaven that these two worlds that Doane analyzes come into collision.
There becomes diegetic confusion when Ana opens her eyes and stares into the camera and sheds a tear. In taking away the temporality of what Ana is doing and where she is, the look that Ana gives in close up becomes an implication to the audience and becomes totally isolated from the sexual act that is initially displayed. The image of her eyes has become the totality for the audience, but the same transference happens within the diegesis of the film. Although without spatio-temporality it is impossible to say what the rest of Ana's body is actively engaged in, the previous shots seen of her performing felatio have her eyes shut tight. It is only when the camera is focusing on her that she is able to break from the diegesis and enter a no man's land where diegetics no longer exist. She is alone in the world and is the totality of the cinematic moment. The isolation of her within the frame grants her a breaking from the diegetic world of the film and, literally, opens her eyes into the spectatorial cinematic space where Ana is now having a direct confrontation with the audience.
This diegetic battle posed in Battle In Heaven signals a new kind of diegetic autonomy that can be taken out of Balazs and Doane. The space between diegesis and spectatorial space is problematized in this close up. The diegetic autonomy is taken away in limiting to frame to only the eye's of Ana, however, it opens up a new kind of spectatorial diegesis where the character is able to interact with the spectator outside of diegetics. More than just a simple breaking of the fourth wall, as could be suggested, there is something more radical at work in Reygadas' film. When Ana looks into the camera and sheds two tears, it is certainly some kind of break, but there is no self reflexive recognition in this cinematic isolation. Without any kind of recognition, yet with the moment being so thoroughly non-diegetic in terms of the narrative, there is a certainly a new kind of cinematic space that is yet to be theorized by Doane. Battle In Heaven is able to take a diegetic moment, remove the diegetic autonomy of the narrative, but maintain some sort of diegesis within the realm of the spectator. This radical space may not be completely new to cinema, but is something that needs to examined further in understanding the diegetics (and radical make up) of the close up.
by James Hansen
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Sunday, March 2, 2008
"Atmosphere" and "Isolation"
Music video director and photographer Anton Corbijn's feature film directorial debut, Control, is a pleasure to me both as a film critic and an avid Joy Division fan. Based on the autobiography, "Touching From a Distance" (1995), by troubled Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis' wife, Deborah, Control is a measured, disciplined biopic of Ian's stunning rise and subsequent downward spiral, which eventually led to his suicide in 1980, at the tragic age of 23, ending Joy Division's meteoric leap to fame after only two albums and a handful of singles. Resisting the temptation to glorify or romanticize Curtis as an artistic figure, Corbijn's film maintains a sober tone in depicting Curtis' physical and emotional struggles, including his debilitating epilepsy, his dissolving marriage and failing fatherhood, his anxiety about the band's popularity, and his increasingly self-conscious and paranoid attitude – all of which contributed to his shocking demise at the height of his musical career.
Control's strength germinates from the incredible performance of its lead actor, Sam Riley, who plays Ian Curtis with a perfect blend of rambunctious energy and dour subtlety. The spitting image of the late singer, Riley carries the film with his soulful and spot-on representations of Curtis' facial expressions, gestures, and, dance moves, injecting his performance with a vigor that enables him to transcend the confines of mere imitation that usually cripples biopics, including Ray (2004) and Walk the Line (2005). Riley is saved quite a bit of potential embarrassment by first-time feature writer Matt Greenhalgh's tasteful and sparse script. Control never indulges in the "look at so-and-so's genius" scenes or the cheesy "that's how they wrote the song" recreations. Greenhalgh's screenplay is wisely elliptical skipping over many cliché elements and leaving only the necessary and truly essential aspects of songwriting and performing on screen – those that further character development and contribute to propelling the narrative forward.
Not only does the film's perfectly selective script eliminate trite sequences, it also reflects the psychological and mental perspective of the strained and encumbered Curtis. The film lacks the romantic glamour of standard rock 'n' roll films because, to Curtis, the trappings of fame and excess were overlooked due to the tremendous about of pressure he felt weighing down upon himself constantly. His heart and soul were constantly elsewhere, detached, leading Curtis to comment in the film that he often felt as if someone else were inhabiting his skin and merely acting as if they were him. The film's choice to, like Curtis, attach itself to the grungier, more negative facets of life links it to the "kitchen-sink realism" of classic British films such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963), establishing an apt connection between the film's Manchester setting and harsh thematic content, and the film's inherited British formal design.
Although Riley's performance is certainly the core of the film, nearly all of Control's characters are adequately fleshed-out and rounded, including Ian's band mates, Peter Hook (Joe Anderson), Bernard Sumner (James Anthony Pearson), Stephen Morris (Harry Treadaway), Ian's Belgian mistress, Annik (Alexandra Marie Lara), and Joy Division's manager, Rob Gretton (Tony Kebbell), who provides refreshing comedic relief. The cast churns out solid performances across the board, except for the one-note, tearfest that is Deborah Curtis (Samantha Morton). Although the film tries to paint Deborah as a complex, tragic heroine, probably as a result of Deborah's writing of the source material, her character is ultimately a boring, simple, and monotonous tragic heroine, probably also a result of Deborah's writing of the source material. Deborah's character has a singular motivation (loving Ian) and a constant sense of moral certitude (must love Ian), which makes her out to be quite mono-faceted and disjointed from the other characters in the film. Whether this comes from Deborah's inability to view herself from an outside perspective when writing "Touching From a Distance," or whether she is really just as amazingly anti-dynamic as a person is unclear, but either way, Control suffers from her constant, overly predictable input.
Visually, Control exemplifies the perfect union of content and form. Originally shot on color, but transferred to black-and-white, Control unifies its visual style with the iconic artwork of Joy Division's two studio albums, "Unknown Pleasures" (1979) and "Closer" (1980), both of which feature cryptic black-and-white imagery. In addition to its link to the band's classic album art, the black-and-white cinematography illustrates the bleak, desolate world of Curtis' haunting lyrics, full of shadows, death, coldness, and solitude. Corbijn's history as a photographer informs the film's impressive framing and mature use of camera movement and color contrast, resulting in an unobtrusive yet effectively moody visual scheme and mise-en-scène. Corbijn's camera, helmed expertly by Martin Ruhe, organically captures the melancholy Curtis' worldview, being careful to pick up the image of a black bird flapping off screen as Curtis walks out of frame during one shot, and utilizing the ethereal dynamics of smoke from a church chimney in the film's impacting final shot.
While Control, like nearly any narrative of Ian Curtis' life, centers around the darkened mind of a tormented artist, the film also makes a point to reveal Curtis at moments of immense joy: losing himself to the sonic profundity of David Bowie albums as teenager, witnessing the Sex Pistols blistering live show for the first time, gyrating with gusto during Joy Division's first televised performance. These scenes, primarily found in the first portion of the film, cast a fresh light on Curtis' reputation as a brooding genius. Amidst all of the pain and tragedy of Curtis' life, it is perhaps best to remember him as a young man who loved music and was endlessly passionate about his art, contemplating how he could make music like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop while lying down in a small bed, designed for one.
by Brandon Colvin
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* Heres a little back story about this crazy, creepy, outstanding 3rd eye necklace on my Facebook Page. Enjoy, and like my page. xo


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A photo shoot, complete with a makeup stylist hired for the occasion, and food purchased for the participants.
A polished promotional campaign costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Pricey custom framing of pictures and certificates to adorn office walls.
It doesn't sound like the normal stuff of state government, but those items and many more were billed to Connecticut taxpayers last year with the authorization of a state education official — Nivea Torres, the now-suspended superintendent of the Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS).
More than 950 pages of billing documents, examined by Government Watch, show that in 2016, amid crushing fiscal woes, Torres and her agency continued a three-year pattern of spending freely on public relations efforts big and small.
And, as in many matters involving the performance of administrators — whether in the private or public sector — it can be the small things rather than the million-dollar items that best indicate an administrator's methods and level of financial restraint, or lack of it.
Such issues are a central focus of investigators and auditors who are examining the CTHSS's spending at the request of Commissioner Dianna Wentzell of the state Department of Education — who expressed concern in mid-March about more than $4.5 million in payments since 2014 by CTHSS to a marketing firm called The Pita Group of Rocky Hill.
Here, based on piles of documents obtained via a freedom of information request, is a smattering of taxpayer-funded CTHSS payments to Pita last year:
About $42,000 to produce a CTHSS advertising campaign that now sits in the can, paid for but never used, according to Pita's attorney.
Another $3,469 for a CTHSS "photo shoot" of students last August at Harvard H. Ellis Technical School in Killingly, including $540 for a hair and makeup stylist, plus about $50 for catering the "shoot."
$759.95 for custom framing of four items — which, according to one document, included diplomas from Penn State, where Torres got her B.A. degree, and from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, where she obtained her M.Ed.
On that last Pita invoice for the framing jobs, which was dated last Aug. 9, there was an additional charge of $288 for the services of a Boston-based graphics company that Pita paid to "Hang [15] Various frames and non frame items at CTHSS corporate office."
Government Watch submitted questions to Torres' attorney, Gregg Adler, to obtain explanations from her. Adler said Wednesday that Torres framed her diplomas herself long ago — and brought them into the CTHSS office in Middletown and "asked one of the secretaries to put them on the wall."
That didn't explain why a supporting invoice from FrameWorks, attached to Pita's Aug. 9 document, listed three work orders: one for a photo, one for a proclamation, and a third for "DIPLOMAS" with the following words: "PUERTO RICO AND PENN STATE."
Adler was asked about that Thursday morning, and after a short time he called back and said: "She is not aware as to whether or not her diplomas were subsequently re-framed."
The FrameWork document, by the way, charged Pita $624.96 for the three work orders. Pita applied a 20 percent markup to that — customary in the industry, Pita's attorney, John F. Droney said — to arrive at the $759.95 that it charged the state. The 20 percent mark-up was applied throughout the CTHSS billing documents.
Investigations Continue
Torres was placed on a paid leave March 16 from her $169,000-a-year job for an indefinite period — and has been told to stay out of the office and not speak to employees or outside vendors — after Wentzell asked the state Department of Administrative Services (DAS) investigate her spending on Pita based "various areas of concern."
The education agency's internal auditors are continuing an inquiry of their own. Others have started inquiries into the matter, including: federal agents from the inspector general's office of the U.S. Department of Education, which gives $8 million a year to the CTHSS; and the State Contracting Standards Board.
Also, a $123,000-a-year Torres subordinate, who dealt extensively with Pita, was placed on a paid leave March 16 — Athanasula Tanasi. That's her married name, but she is widely known as Sandi Casberg, the name to which Pita directed its invoices. She has been unavailable for comment.
Both suspended officials have been told that "no conclusions have been reached at this time" and their suspensions are "not a disciplinary action."
Torres has signed 13 agreements with Pita since 2014 calling for $1.3 million in fees to the firm. Millions more have been paid for Pita to pass along to broadcast, print and online companies for "media buys" — bringing CTHSS payments to Pita to a cumulative $4.7 million according to the education department, or $4.9 million based on the state comptroller's official website.
Torres also has paid taxpayer money to Pita to promote both the tech schools and herself by producing tweets for her Twitter and LinkedIn social media accounts: "[C]ontent will be specifically created for [Torres'] new personal Twitter feed to position Dr. Torres as an inspirational, next-generation education thought-leader," said a 2014 Pita social media strategy.
Pita's LinkedIn status posts have been aimed at "positioning Dr. Nivea L. Torres as a strategic innovator and change catalyst at the System's helm," according to an agreement signed by Torres.
Torres also spent $84,000 in public funds last September to buy memberships to a national educators' group for 1,312 administrators and teachers under her jurisdiction. About 235 of them were eligible to vote for Torres in a December election for a vice president's position in the group, called the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE). She lost.
Free Hand
The newly obtained invoices indicate that Torres had an unusually free hand in spending state funds in connection with the Pita contracts. Investigators are looking at what financial procedures and controls were in effect.
Some of the billing documents are for little things — lots of little things, listed on a June 2015 Pita invoice in the amount of $24,892 for "giveaways and shipping" including: "5,000 Oval magnets," "5,001 Yellow highlighters," "5001 Blue clip magnets," "5,000 Blue hard hat stress relievers," "5,001 Blue flashlights," and "5,001 Blue pens/yellow highlighters."
There are also broader cost questions. One is why Torres authorized millions in spending on Pita's promotional efforts when each of the system's tech high schools has had many more applicants than available ninth-grade slots during the past five years, according to the Connecticut Department of Education statistics.
Asked about that, Adler said on Torres' behalf that "certain demographics" — such as females, Hispanics and special education students — "are under-represented at some sites. The goal is to create a more representative student body for the entire system."
Then there's the still-unanswered question of how much knowledge and involvement that a tech schools supervisory panel had in approving the Pita payments. Robert Trefry, chairman of that CTHSS board, declined to comment on that in recent days, citing the ongoing inquiries.
Minutes of CTHSS board meetings since 2014 contain only one specific mention of Pita. At a June 10, 2015, meeting, Pita representatives gave a report on a website-development contract that Torres signed the previous year. "The Pita Group, a marketing business partner, presented the CTHSS demo website that will be officially launched in July, 2015," the minutes say.
Adler said that Torres embarked on three-year promotional program with Pita based a goal in a strategic plan formally approved by the CTHSS board in 2014. The goal was to "re-brand" the tech schools and "create a new image" for them with "more awareness of career opportunities" for both male and female students, he said.
No Apparent Competition
Pita was selected by CTHSS from a master list of more than 40 public relations and marketing firms that was prepared by DAS after soliciting formal proposals and evaluating the firm's qualifications and prices.
"Agencies are instructed to obtain 3 quotes for each project they have and issue their purchase/work order to the lowest provider," DAS spokesman and staff counsel Jeffrey Beckham said in an email.
However, a spokeswoman for the state education department, Abbe Smith, said Wednesday that "it appears" no such quotes were obtained by CTHSS when Pita was hired.
Pita's lawyer, Droney, said the public relations firm did everything right, performed the jobs it was asked to do, and has nothing to hide. It will cooperate with any inquiries by investigators, he said.
As to the unused ad promotional campaign for which Pita was paid $42,000, Droney said there's video material "ready to go to a [TV] station." But, he said, in September the firm was told to go no further and not purchase any "paid media."
Adler said that Torres "decided not to proceed with the campaign and focus on other efforts underway ... since CTHSS had made great strides" and "it was appropriate to focus on grass-roots efforts."
One of Wentzell's concerns was about payments to Kozak & Salina, LLC, a lobbying, political consulting and government relations firm retained by Pita for "external relations and strategic consulting services." The politically connected firm of David Kozak and Adam Salinas shares office space in Rocky Hill with the The Pita Group.
Two of the 13 agreements that Torres entered with Pita were for the public-relations firm to pay Kozak & Salina to perform services for $36,800 during the 2014-2015 fiscal year and $55,200 for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
State executive-branch agencies aren't allowed to hire lobbyists. Kozak & Salina issued a statement Wednesday to the effect that it was not doing any lobbying, directly or indirectly, on the CTHSS's behalf: "[W]e identified private sector business leaders and manufacturing groups and companies to pursue strategic partnerships with technical high school system and also to raise awareness of the work performed there. Our work did not include lobbying state officials."
Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and find him on Twitter@jonlender.


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