In the summer of 2000 I went to a PETA rally and met a woman named Syd who took a picture of me and, subsequently, sent me this somewhat Cubist drawing. I spent an hour today trying to scan & manipulate the image so I could use it for my burgeoning Blogger.com personal profile. Before I put this sucker back into hiding, here it is - in all its garish glory - for all of you to see.

Drew's heading to bed early due to his ongoing cold. At least he gets to gloat about his 238 to 235 victory in tonight's Scrabble match. I'm off to bed to read more of My Lucky Star, Joe Keenan's hilarious satire of Hollywood.

NAZIS, GANGSTERS AND MANIC-DEPRESSIVES, OH MY!

In February I saw a bunch of films at the Portland International Film Festival. Here are the highlights. Bear in mind that it might take awhile for some of these babies to hit theaters.


Sophie Scholl – The Final Days
Grade: A

Based on real events, this moving German film was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar. Julia Jentsch (The Edukators) delivers a potent performance as Sophie Scholl, a young woman who was arrested and executed in 1943 for her role in an anti-Nazi resistance group called The White Rose. The lengthy scenes between Sophie and her interrogator are intense and claustrophobic, and the despotic courtroom procedures will make your blood boil. Despite all the uncomfortable feelings it evokes, the film leaves you with the hopeful sense that Sophie’s humanitarian ideals will ultimately triumph over tyranny.


Tsotsi
Grade: A-

Filled with images of senseless violence and abject poverty, this Oscar winner isn’t likely to boost tourism in South Africa. The title character is a young black gang member, thief and murderer who gets a shot at redemption when he discovers a baby in the backseat of a car he steals. Presley Chweneyagae is phenomenal in the complex lead role, convincing us that Tsotsi has the capacity for both unspeakable rage and heartfelt contrition. Though there are some overly sentimental scenes toward the end, this is the most gripping coming-of-age film to come along in quite awhile.


The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Grade: A-

Music and mental illness collide in this fascinating documentary about Daniel Johnston, an artist and singer-songwriter whose fans include Beck, Sonic Youth and the late Kurt Cobain. Combining interviews, audio recordings and home movies, director Jeff Feurzeig follows the gifted and troubled artist from his childhood in West Virginia to his brief glory days in the Austin, Texas music scene in the 1980s. Though manic-depression sabotaged his initial quest for stardom, Johnston is now working his way back from the brink à la Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.

L’ Enfant (The Child)
Grade: B

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne of Belgium won the coveted Palm D’Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for this gritty and depressing portrait of a bona fide loser who catches hell from his girlfriend and others when he tries to sell his infant son. Skip it if you look to movies for escapism. But fans of cinema verité will find plenty to admire in the naturalistic acting and the decidedly unglamorous settings.

Art School Confidential
Grade: B

Five years ago director Terry Zwigoff and comic book writer Daniel Clowes brought us Ghost World, one of the smartest American comedies in years. Their uneven follow-up collaboration pales by comparison, but it’s still edgy and funny. Max Minghella plays an idealistic art student who begrudgingly resorts to ass kissing and amoral behavior to get ahead. The supporting cast is a hoot, particularly John Malkovich as a nutty professor and Jim Broadbent as a down-and-out reject from the art world.

Look Both Ways
Grade: B

This quirky and disturbing Australian feature ranks with Harold and Maude as one of the most morbid comedies ever made. In animation sequences, an artist pictures herself being devoured by sharks and getting shot to death by masked intruders. Her new boyfriend, a photographer with testicular cancer, also sees death and decay all around him. Strong performances and imaginative visuals offset the film’s tireless – and eventually tiresome- obsession with disaster.

(PART OF) A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Tonight I missed an opportunity to hear the terrific British author Sarah Waters read at Powell's. Instead my partner, Drew, and I went to the opera to see the 3 1/2 hour epic Nixon in China. Drew's recovering from a cold and the spectacle fell short of Spectacular, so we only made it through one act. But I must say that seeing Tricky Dick, Pat Nixon and Chairman Mao form a Conga line was quite a treat.

To atone for dissing Sarah, I'm gunning to boost her sales by posting my recent review of her new novel The Night Watch:

Sarah Waters hasn’t caught up with the twenty-first century yet, but at least she’s made her way out of the Victorian era.
Her first three novels – Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and the Man Booker Prize finalist Fingersmith- are all set in and around London in the 1800s. Like the works of Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body), they’ve won critical acclaim and a devoted lesbian following.
Fans may be taken off guard to discover that her latest novel, The Night Watch, is not another slice of lesbian Victoriana. It has plenty of lesbian content alright, but it takes place in the 1940s. At least the London setting remains the same. Judging from her formidable bibliography, Waters spent ages researching this tender, seamless tale of relationships amid the chaos of World War II.
Waters’s previous novel, Fingersmith, is lots of fun, but the endless plot contrivances become exhausting and distracting after awhile. The Night Watch is a more mature work that favors complex character development over dizzying twists and turns. The story is enormously gripping nonetheless, apart from a few slow going scenes in the middle section.
The novel’s structure seems challenging at first, but it’s actually quite accessible. We first meet the characters in 1947; the two subsequent sections take us back in time to 1944 and 1941. This unconventional approach sends readers scurrying for resolutions about the plot’s origins. Think of it as Memento without the amnesia.
The central characters include Kay, an ambulance driver betrayed by her lover, Helen. Viv, a typist, is the pregnant mistress of a married soldier. Her brother, Duncan, is an imprisoned bloke who pines for his cell mate, Fraser.
Waters writes beautifully about intimacies and sexual longings of all stripes, as though she’s equally comfortable in the skins of her gay, lesbian and straight characters. Her empathy and eloquence yield dozens of sensuous, life-affirming moments that offset the wartime brutalities she describes in gruesome detail.

I'm reviewing a shit-on-a-stick movie for my first blog entry in the hope that things can only go uphill from here.

Basic Instinct 2
Grade: D+

If your instincts are telling you to see this sequel for cheap thrills, do yourself a favor and ignore them. Sure, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments involving 110 mile per hour car sex and a wet and wild Jacuzzi brawl. For the most part, though, it’s a tedious and convoluted mess that’s bound to sweep this year’s Razzie Awards. Despite some nude scenes and belabored attempts to ooze sex appeal, Sharon Stone fails to titillate as novelist and suspected murderess Catherine Tramell. But she looks like Meryl Streep compared to British actor David Morrissey, who has no charisma whatsoever in the pivotal role of Catherine’s psychiatrist.