Since Everyone Else Decided to Post Today…

While the artist’s life may have driven everyone’s favorite eyebiter to go without HBO (a catastrophe if ever there was a catastrophe), the sometimes solitary life of a scholar-in-training has forced your 5th favorite correspondent/epistlist to spend long hours reading texts in languages he barely understands and shorter hours reading languages he doesn’t understand at all. Somewhere along the way he’s supposed to find time to think of research topics and research those topics. It is, sadly, no longer acceptable to write the paper synthesizing a couple of articles, or the paper explaining how one randomly selected type of literary criticism effects this less-randomly selected author (that these occasionally find their way to the salad should come as no surprise). But the worst part of graduate school is that I have increasingly less time to spend on things just for myself, and too often that means Salad posts have fallen by the wayside. Though my frequency might be faltering there are as of yet no plans to (again) abandon the site. Although, I must admit that it would be great to hear something from the readers. Let yourselves be known.

Otherwise, today’s topic is one of the stranger examples of an art/film. Recently we talked about Cory Arcangel’s nintendo experiments. The project that first drew me to Arcangel was his Whitney biennial piece, a Mario 3 cartridge hacked to only show the clouds while really awesome techno bump-bump-thumped around the room. One of the things that very much makes this piece “art” is its singularity. Arcangel hand hacked the Mario 3 cartridge to make it into something very much his own, and something new. Once more, we were the only ones capable of seeing it, and watched it within its own installation, its own exhibition space.

One of his follow-up projects was a Mario “short film.” Its initial conception was similar; it had a unique installation at a museum/gallery setting, and was a hand hacked cartridge. But in its afterlife, it’s found it’s way to youtube. I’m going to post part 1 within the post, and anyone who’s interested should go to youtube for the other parts.

The primary question is how has our viewing experience changed as a result of watching the movie on youtube rather than in a museum. There are a few obvious answers. 1) the piece is somehow less art-like. It no longer has the curatorial stamp, nor does it have the singularity or limitedness of art. 2) the craft element has disappeared. We’re no-longer impressed with the technical aspect of the movie, the ways in which Arcangel was able to graft new vessels into old wine. Instead, it resembles a computer program, something far more people are skilled to do. And 3) as a result, it becomes more of a movie. Though our main character is an 8-bit Mario, we expect more film-like things to happen. More movement, more progression. Arcangel presents an existentialist Mario, fine, but doesn’t necessarily explore that through any film-like interactions. Oddly, it seems to suffer because it carries itself with the pose of fine art, rather than the mixed popular-high art genre that is film.

It’s an interesting project nonetheless, and I’m interested in the opinions of others. Hopefully, notwithabang will give his thoughts from the gamer’s perspective.

I Think It’s Time We Talked About Ending Your Therapy

Note: This post also appears on TheFuriousRomantic.com.

* * *

There are a lot of good things about HBO’s new series In Treatment. I won’t be sharing my thoughts on any of them, however, because HBO has pissed me off.

Having watched the very first episode of In Treatment while visiting family (I cannot afford cable at home, a result of “the artist’s life”), and having enjoyed it enough to want to watch more of the show, I did some research when I got home and was surprised to find that HBO was offering the show online, for free, via an iTunes podcast. This seemed too good to be true, but I tried downloading the episodes from the podcast, and it worked, so I shrugged and decided to just not worry about it. This was a pleasant feeling, and I privately congratulated HBO on the marketing move. I was still convinced that something fishy was going on, but my naive prediction was that I would be allowed to watch the first season of the show online, in this manner, before then being cut off.

This prospect did not bother me. I understand that even when your total production budget has been dramatically reduced – due to the fact that you shoot 90% of your show in one room, and that the majority of your cinematography consists of filming two actors sitting across from one another, at only a few different camera angles and under the same lighting arrangement – that these things cost money.

So on my merry way to therapy I went, for approximately three weeks. Due to the different sort of format they use for the show (each week features five different original episodes, but I am not going to go into any more detail, because I’m pissed off) I was able to watch fifteen half hour episodes, online, for free. That’s seven and a half hours of free premium entertainment. More than just a taste, this represents several separate meals. They might have been good meals, too. Actually, I can’t remember. I’m pissed off.

Why Your Favorite Movie Will Not Win Tonight

There are few nights more anticlimactic than Oscar night, the night where we ignore the back and forth between Barry Obama and Hillary Clinton and celebrate the anti-democratic, unelected elite. It’s hardly surprising that in a time of recession and general economic malaise that we have decided to come together to share in life’s rich pageant and praise famous men and women. It’s just a shame that Letterman won’t be there. Without question, the best Oscar host of the last 15 years.

But since the Academy of Revisionist History Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will never admit their mistakes, there’s nothing to do except pick the losers of tonight’s festivities.

Best Actor: Viggo Mortenson, Eastern Promises; Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah; Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; George Clooney, Michael Clayton; and Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood.

In this the year of long titles (we haven’t even mentioned No Country for Old Men), the similarly long winded Daniel Day-Lewis is almost sure to win. The only thing that might hold Lewis back is the very real possibility that the Academy believes Day-Lewis to be on such higher level than any other actor that they don’t actually vote for him. I for one agree; he is so good that there should be a general category, “Best Performance by Daniel Day-Lewis,” but until such time, it’s unfair to hold it against him.

Best Actress: Ellen Page, Juno; Laura Linney, The Savages; Marian Cotillard, La Vie en Rose; Julie Christie, Away from Her; and Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: the Golden Age

This is a really tough category. I think that Ellen Page wins if everything’s coming up Juno–which I don’t see happening. I’d give the award to Blanchett, but I think she’ll win for supporting actress, and no-one has seen any of the other movies. My mind is telling me to pick Christie, but something is telling me to pick Laura Linney. It was something of a surprise nom, but then again, she’s a pro who has been at it for a while now and this may be here year to get recognized.

Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men; Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War; Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild; Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton.

Bardem. No contest…upset pick: Tom Wilkinson. Affleck may be the next big star, but this just isn’t his year.

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There; Ruby Dee, American Gangster; Saoirse Ronan, Atonement; Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone; Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

As I said a minute ago, I’m going with Blanchett since she’ll be recognized for both roles. That said, Amy Ryan has the best upset chance, followed by Tilda Swinton in the unlikely “Michael Clayton sweep scenario” wherein she, Wilkinson, Clooney, and the movie win.

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood; Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Ivan Reitman, Juno; Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men; Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton

As goes the DGA, so goes the Oscar. This year that means Joel and Ethan Coen. A well deserving pair, if not necessarily for this movie.

And, lastly, Best Picture:

People who won’t be vice president (maybe)

Is this the year for an all-Chicago slate?

Michael Clayton: A Surprisingly Excellent Film

With the Oscars just two weeks days away, it’s way past time to review the last remaining Best Picture nominees: Michael Clayton and Atonement. We’ll start today with Michael Clayton which, as the post title has already given away, is a surprisingly excellent film, a beautiful example of the way elements of different genres can be mixed together in order to create something new and exciting.

In Jacques Derrida’s playful yet obfuscating “The Law of Genre,” JD argues that genre cannot be transcended. A text, in trying to move outside of its genre, simply changes its definition. A novel that suddenly introduces a play, ala Moby Dick or Exit Ghost, is still a novel, even if the dramatic form appears to be incongruous with the prose of the novel. I bring this up for several reasons. The first is that many movies (and other pieces of literature) play with the “4th wall” and have characters acknowledge their fictionality (the best example of this is Funny Games, Michael Haneke’s magnum opus, whose English language remake is soon to be released. See our coverage of Haneke’s language games, here). Still, this does nothing to change the genre of film. Until such a time when we enter the world of Last Action Hero and moviegoers can enter the movie and film characters can come into our world, film will always remain a film. The other reason that I bring this up is because of this article in Slate, America’s premier online magazine. According to the Slate piece, Michael Clayton is only superficially a thriller. Though it mixes elements from the action genre (quick cuts, car chases, MURDER!) in order to heighten the tension, the movie best succeeds as an indictment of the legal realm. In their words:

beneath the expertly deployed suspense lies something more interesting: an indictment of the mercenary universe of white-shoe law firms and a devastating—and unusually accurate—look at the demoralized lives of the lawyers who work for them.

While Slate considers this the ole switcheroo (a surprising variation, according to Webster’s), I hold Michael Clayton’s admixture of genres to be one of its more interesting developments.

With Apologies

Crashing a Party One Drunken Eve

Whose brews these are I think I know
He’s stopped to use the bathroom though
He will not see me stealing beer
Or from his apartment me he’ll throw

The evening’s end is drawing near
And I, not drunk enough I fear
Yet drunk enough to eat that cake
Though it be made from hooves of deer

I’ll pretend I’m at a wake
Though me? Irish? I could not fake
Sometimes background is skin deep
What became of LP Mandrake?

The poem’s bad enough to weep
And I, sober, to bed will creep
On Thursday posts I hope to keep
On Thursday posts I hope to keep

Department of Awesome!

Every so often, there comes along a little web video that more or less vindicates all the points you’ve been trying to make over the years.  Robot Chicken has had its fair share of hits and misses over the years, but with bits like this, the misses can surely be forgiven:

We’re happy to say that we weren’t the only ones unhappy with 300.

Props to the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee for unearthing this.

A nerdy bonus after the the jump.

And we’re back, for round two.

First, some important news: We’re back to reviewing adventure games here at Yesterday’s Salad.  While we’re happy to give folks what they’ve been clamoring for, readers should be aware that every review we post comes at the expense of a medical school factoid; so, we hope no one is getting too attached to their left recurrent laryngeal nerve for the moment. And, now for something completely different.  For reals.

ProgZmax, noted sprite guru and talented adventure game developer (creator of Mind’s EyeMind’s Eye, reviewed here) asked me earlier (much, much earlier) if I’d be willing to do a review of an earlier effort of his, Dance ‘Til You Drop.  While there were a few games already on the reviewing docket, I said that I’d get to it at the soonest opportunity.  The soonest opportunity presented itself, and I was all ready to play the game, until I found out that it featured none other than Richard Simmons as a protagonist, and I ran in the other direction, screaming.

It’s not that I have a personal animus against Richard Simmons, who is by all accounts a kind-hearted man with an outsized personality (and considerable capacity for self humor).  It’s just that he evokes a certain spirit of the ’80s (or to use a more acceptable term around here, zeitgeist) that I’d rather shove down in a deep dark corner… and pretend was lost in a fire when asked about it in polite conversation.  But, in the course of bringing sexy back to Adventure Game Studio reviews (was it there in the first place?), I figured that I owed ProgZmax one.

So, as I mentioned before, Dance ‘Til You Drop puts you in the shoes of Richard Simmons, as he attempts to juggle the double duties of managing his ailing dance studio, and trying to go above and beyond the call of duty (which is leading step aerobics) to help the less-fortunate. While this may beg further explanation, for the purposes of this review, I will stick to paraphrasing the plot; to reveal more would spoil the fun and surprise, as Dance ‘Til You Drop succeeds primarily as a quirky admixture of hi- and low-brow farce.

The graphics are appropriately retro, and are lo-fi in regards to color and resolution, which might not be everyone’s liking, but they are unquestionably well-executed. Similarly, the soundtrack relies heavily on what I presume are Simmon’s regular fare, which is similarly subjective. Yet, having conferred with a colleague who has a phD in retro, I can assure you that the selections are perfect for the setting.

Fans of Mind’s Eye might be a bit disappointed to find that the puzzles are a little less sustained that in the later effort.  While Dance ‘Til You Drop is not quite as substantial as that later title, by no means should you should write off as mere juvenilia.  The puzzles are generally strong throughout, though somewhat sparse, and they cohere well with the plot and the overall tone of the game.  To wit, they provide a reasonable challenge, and at the same time, manage to strike a good balance between the credulous and the ridiculous. Considering the plot, the combination is pitch perfect.

If you like adventure games, and thinking about the eighties doesn’t have you dialing your analyst and therapist (please not to combine), Dance ‘Til You Drop is recommended. •

Holidays Abound

Lo, that most glorious of Holy Days is soon to be upon us: the Feast Day of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius! As there was no Saint Valentine (at least not any one St. Valentine so as to have his own day), Yesterday’s Salad has decided to do the right and honorable thing and to to celebrate the official Catholic Feast Day of the 14th, the Feast of Cyril and Methodius, the patron saints of Slavic peoples everywhere and inventors of the Cyrilic alphabet. I guess when it comes down to it, we at the Salad are just far more pragmatic than the Saudis who, in light of the news that Valentines day was a shame, decided to declare a WAR ON VALENTINE’S (something like our WAR ON CHRISTMAS?) and banned red flowers from local flower-shops.

So because these saints were such great linguists, I present a short word of the day, what could be called (if one were inclined to turn YS into a children’s book), The Case of the Saladeer and the black hat. For this really is a mystery.

The OED records two separate entries for “black hat,” one a sub-entry of “black” and the other a sub-entry of “hat,” naturally. Here is the entry under hat:

black hat (Australian slang): a newly-arrived immigrant.

and here is the entry under “black”:

black hat n. colloq. (orig. U.S.) (a) a villain or criminal, esp. one in a film or other work of fiction; a ‘bad guy’; (b) Computing slang a person who engages in illegal or malicious hacking, creates or distributes computer viruses, etc.

While the second definition is well attested, I can’t seem to find that much about the first. I did find this snazzy google book Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases, and Usages, which, I guess, attests to the fact that the OED isn’t lying to us.

There’s also a third usage of “black hat” out there, ripe for the picking: a very orthodox Jewish person. As in this article, and this bizarre, nonsensical, perverse and often baffling youtube video:

With so many different meanings, at the very least, “black hat” deserves its own entry.

Isabella Rossellini’s “Porno” Then and Now

Isabella Rossellini will always be linked with David Lynch because of Blue Velvet but her new surrealist project ought to cement that connection. Contra the disavowals of ibiteyoureyes, Velvet is Lynch’s not-quite-masterpiece. Mixing sheer terror, creepiness, and humour, Lynch refashioned American children’s adventure stories into an exploration of the psyche, sexual fetish, and pure evil. Indeed, the way Lynch reenvisions the Hardy Boys recalls Hemingway’s branding of W.H. Hudson’s The Purple Land as a “sinister book” in The Sun Also Rises; the “innocent” adventure is rare at best, and one can never predict how it will be interpreted. Although there are many harrowing sequences in the movie, one of its most chilling and daring segments features a naked but wounded Isabella Rossellini waiting on Kyle Machlachlan’s porch. Like much of the movie, the scene exists on the boundaries between action and voyeurism, and attraction and repulsion. The scene is beautifully incomprehensible to all involved, largely as a result of Rossellini’s powerful performance. Her body is hardly the only thing laid bare for all to see.

Recently, Rossellini decided to channel Lynch’s Rabbits by creating a series of short movies, Green Porno, that feature her dressed in insect costumes investigating that eternal question, “how do insects do it?“

The shorts played at Sundance and the Berlin International Film Festival and will soon come to TV’s sundance channel. Here’s a link to an interview with Rossellini.

Without having seen the shorts, it’s safe to say that the most interesting thing about their production (other than the fact that Isabella Rossellini decided to reenact insect sex!) is the fact that they were intended for the so-called “third screen”: pcs, mobile phones, ipod touches, etc. I wonder if this is the first time a serious “art film” has ever been designed for these platforms. If it succeeds, will there be any implications for the broader art world, and the ever expanding genre of video art? What about pieces like Cory Arcangel’s hacked nintendo games? Could these projects be readily transported to mobile devices? There’s also an interesting linguistic aspect to Green Porno: the name itself was chosen for the medium. Here’s how Rossellini explained it:

“What do people mostly go online for, but to look at porn?” explains Canadian filmmaker Jody Shapiro, Rossellini’s co-director. “So we put ‘Porno’ in, and when people Google it, maybe we’ll get lucky and Green Porno will come up. We might as well take advantage of the delivery system.”

Devious.