(no subject)
May. 14th, 2003 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmYesterday was pretty exceptionally bizarre, as much as a day where nothing happens can be.
I told my roommate that I can't interact with other people's creativity no matter how much I love it right now because I immediately feel artistically bankrupt (this after being uncontrollably thrilled not twelve hours before with a new poem I wrote). She told me she went through a phase like that at a comparable point in her creative education, and that made me feel intellectually better.
I went to my voice lesson, despite still being sick, and did really really well. We're working on Kurt Weill stuff -- The Ballad of Jenny and September Song. September Song in particular is really working for me and if I can maintain the precision and force I had yesterday when I am no longer sick and it produces actual sound of a quality, one might even be able to say that yes, I sing. Teacher commented on my exposure to opera helping me understand how voices work better and that she thinks it's making me more comfortable with my head voice -- certainly, I can sustain much higher notes, with more precision and focus of a sudden. Makes me feel a little less silly for having seen 2 of the 3 Boheme casts (and yeah, I'll hit the 3rd one sooner or later as well).
I think the two or so weeks off was good. I tend to insist on bashing through all obstacles, but sometimes, you just have to step back and work on some other obstacle for a while -- it's not like there's a bloody shortage of them.
The random button on CD players is bibliomancy for the new era.
Have postponed a photoshoot until Monday. Just wasn't feeling present enough.
Watched Matrix people talk on Charlie Rose last night. None of them were as smart as I wanted them to be. Was very fascinated by the image the Wachowski brothers manage to create for themselves not only by refusing to do the whole media promotion thing, but by having other people speak on their behalf -- "Well the boys feel...." Awfully bloody savvy for people allegedly not playing the game.
The Matrix is a strange animal, because it's both very good and very smart, and incredibly stupid and rather poorly constructed.
On the one hand, it's brilliant, because it provides us with a fully realized comic book universe that isn't based on a pre-existing comic book -- so intead of providing us with visual imagery designed to help us reference illustrations and concepts we already understand, it had to create this fully realized, immersive and daunting world. And yes, bless it for being brains and action and for tapping into the whole Internet/hacker craze without being about that and being about it badly.
That said -- the script is a fucking mess -- with long agonizing sequences of exposition that exist either because the film was so agressively high concept without having any sort of cogent center (I mean, the film really says, "promise, the next one has a plot!") or because it stars Keanu Reeves who is best left to be confused and supposedly stylish on screen (I loathe his performances almost universally, with the main exception being in My Own Private Idaho where I think his casting was inspired). Lawrence Fishburn makes those long sections of exposition absolutely compelling to watch, and makes it seem like it's all supposed to be that way, but relying on a teacher character to teach the audience because you can't find any other way to make your script make sense is not good construction.
These sorts of flaws work, or at least can be overlooked when you are being presented with a whole new world, because one says to oneself -- ah, perhaps this world is flawed -- or one is so desperate for the information that will make that world comfortable, that it's okay. Well The Matrix is no longer a new world for us and even bigger and better effects may not be enough to satisfy us now that we are deprived both of the first one's process of discovery, that so encouraged us to ask -- could I be that guy... that girl?
I want this to be cool. But I think it might just be time to cheer some really neat car crashes.
I told my roommate that I can't interact with other people's creativity no matter how much I love it right now because I immediately feel artistically bankrupt (this after being uncontrollably thrilled not twelve hours before with a new poem I wrote). She told me she went through a phase like that at a comparable point in her creative education, and that made me feel intellectually better.
I went to my voice lesson, despite still being sick, and did really really well. We're working on Kurt Weill stuff -- The Ballad of Jenny and September Song. September Song in particular is really working for me and if I can maintain the precision and force I had yesterday when I am no longer sick and it produces actual sound of a quality, one might even be able to say that yes, I sing. Teacher commented on my exposure to opera helping me understand how voices work better and that she thinks it's making me more comfortable with my head voice -- certainly, I can sustain much higher notes, with more precision and focus of a sudden. Makes me feel a little less silly for having seen 2 of the 3 Boheme casts (and yeah, I'll hit the 3rd one sooner or later as well).
I think the two or so weeks off was good. I tend to insist on bashing through all obstacles, but sometimes, you just have to step back and work on some other obstacle for a while -- it's not like there's a bloody shortage of them.
The random button on CD players is bibliomancy for the new era.
Have postponed a photoshoot until Monday. Just wasn't feeling present enough.
Watched Matrix people talk on Charlie Rose last night. None of them were as smart as I wanted them to be. Was very fascinated by the image the Wachowski brothers manage to create for themselves not only by refusing to do the whole media promotion thing, but by having other people speak on their behalf -- "Well the boys feel...." Awfully bloody savvy for people allegedly not playing the game.
The Matrix is a strange animal, because it's both very good and very smart, and incredibly stupid and rather poorly constructed.
On the one hand, it's brilliant, because it provides us with a fully realized comic book universe that isn't based on a pre-existing comic book -- so intead of providing us with visual imagery designed to help us reference illustrations and concepts we already understand, it had to create this fully realized, immersive and daunting world. And yes, bless it for being brains and action and for tapping into the whole Internet/hacker craze without being about that and being about it badly.
That said -- the script is a fucking mess -- with long agonizing sequences of exposition that exist either because the film was so agressively high concept without having any sort of cogent center (I mean, the film really says, "promise, the next one has a plot!") or because it stars Keanu Reeves who is best left to be confused and supposedly stylish on screen (I loathe his performances almost universally, with the main exception being in My Own Private Idaho where I think his casting was inspired). Lawrence Fishburn makes those long sections of exposition absolutely compelling to watch, and makes it seem like it's all supposed to be that way, but relying on a teacher character to teach the audience because you can't find any other way to make your script make sense is not good construction.
These sorts of flaws work, or at least can be overlooked when you are being presented with a whole new world, because one says to oneself -- ah, perhaps this world is flawed -- or one is so desperate for the information that will make that world comfortable, that it's okay. Well The Matrix is no longer a new world for us and even bigger and better effects may not be enough to satisfy us now that we are deprived both of the first one's process of discovery, that so encouraged us to ask -- could I be that guy... that girl?
I want this to be cool. But I think it might just be time to cheer some really neat car crashes.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 09:47 am (UTC)I think his casting in Dracula is good mostly because he's playing a weak character - and he does that very well.
(I'm still amazed that I like him as well as I do in Matrix the First)
/catty mode off
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 09:58 am (UTC)Though I loved My Own Private Idaho.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 10:00 am (UTC)I find him tolerable in Dangerous Liasons, because he's supposed to be irrelevant there. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 02:21 pm (UTC)Hi there. :)
"Watched Matrix people talk on Charlie Rose last night. None of them were as smart as I wanted them to be."
Well, really, is this a surprise?
Eleanor?
Date: 2003-05-14 04:11 pm (UTC)