Ask The Gold Trumpet

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I really can't think of the pro for having a PC.  Macs are just better with everything.  Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.


What one book, that you're pretty sure I haven't read, should I read?

What one movie, that you're pretty sure I haven't seen, should I see?

What one album, that you're pretty sure I haven't heard, should I hear?

Just wondering what sort of obscure treasures you'd want to spread the word about.

[Gold Trumpet]

What one book, that you're pretty sure I haven't read, should I read?

Not sure how much you're into history, but I'd recommend Paul Johnson's Modern Times. Yes, the writer has a conservative slant, but its really the most engagaing and thought provoking historical critical assessment I've ever read. I've read a ton of historical and political books that are easy to agree with, but none forced me to think more than this one. I only read the edition that goes to the 80s, but the newer addition is an assessment of modern times from the 20s to the 90s.

What one movie, that you're pretty sure I haven't seen, should I see?

Fritz Lang's "M". I just watched it recently and it blew me away. I never imagined a film (made just in 1931) could tackle its subject with such imagination and focus and made that long ago. Certain shots easily were ripped in Citizen Kane and there's a Paul Thomas Anderson hallmark moment where the camera glides along through a room to capture all the characters. Yet, the film was the first sound film by a filmmaker who arguably peaked with his silent films. But he doesn't abandon characteristics of his silent films in this one. He meshes both together to create what has to be one of the best made and even thought provoking films I've ever seen. (The philosophical aspect should be spoken about another time entirely) Simply, a powerful and imaginative film that is still as effective to watch as any movie today.

What one album, that you're pretty sure I haven't heard, should I hear?

Rattle and Hum, by U2. I'm nearly a U2 disciple, but this album is even overlooked by most fans. I  think its one of their top 3 albums ever. It has the spirit and musical flavor of a Springsteen album, but done to touch with likely Bono's best writing for an album ever. He's never been sharper than this album. Also, its a great live album. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For is done to great re-imagination and other tracks are amped up to better energy than their studio counterparts. Love Rescue Me, their collaboration with Bob Dylan, is the best song on the album.

[life_boy]

Do you go to film festivals or do you prefer seeing films in other environments?

[Gold Trumpet]

Do you go to film festivals or do you prefer seeing films in other environments?

i live nowhere near a film festival to go see one, but I couldn't imagine it to be the proper environment to see a film. Its one week of trying to see as many movies as you can. I can only handle two films a day at the most and I usually do that once every two weeks. I've watched too many movies too often before that I wouldn't watch a movie for a week or even a month afterword. I don't watch movies as often as other people. If I could go to Cannes though, I definitely would.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I appreciate your suggestions, but not only do I own M, I agree with you, completely... do you suggest any other movies?

[life_boy]

What is (are) the most annoying trend(s) you see in contemporary mainstream films?

What is (are) the most annoying trend(s) you see in contemporary independent films?

Maybe I have just missed it, but you don't seem too big on documentaries.  What is your favorite documentary and what does it take (in your opinion) to make a great one?

[Gold Trumpet]

I appreciate your suggestions, but not only do I own M, I agree with you, completely... do you suggest any other movies?

The Son, by the Dardenne Brothers. Done a few years back, the film is a miracle. It has no suggestions of cliche and plays out by simply following a character who is making a discovery that will reliquinish the pain of a tortured past. Never does the story tell us background information. Its an account of what he goes through, his own experience. That's it. To those who think Million Dollar Baby was simple storytelling really need to see this film and think if that position still stands. I can't see how it could. The Son is one of the best films in recent years.

What is (are) the most annoying trend(s) you see in contemporary mainstream films?

Kingdom of Heaven and everything it stands for. First, the fact Orlando Bloom is getting work these days continues the assumption by some this guy can actually act. Every note he had in the film was sour. Every pretensious, overwritten speech he gave made me cringe. I never knew a simple blacksmith was so in depth with philosophical rhetoric when the printing press had some hundred years to be invented. Then, the relationship of religion to violence in American films. As much as the characters believe in God, they believe in the art of war. This film believes in that historical character's foolish thinking. For a film trying to tackle the Crusades, instead of taking a neutral stance to show how insane the entire situation was, it happily believes in the character's heroics and transitions that belief to the audience that War and God do mesh. Unlike most, I wasn't appalled by The Passion of the Christ for its extreme graphic nature. It was so graphic I felt it should have appealed to me. There's a reason Quentin Tarantino called it the best film by an actor-director since Night of The Hunter. And you know what, I hate the historical context mainstream films put most of these events in. (just realized I basically argued that point as well)

What is (are) the most annoying trend(s) you see in contemporary independent films?

The feeling that good writing is continually getting pushed back in what should be important for a film. As much as a camera trick can keep me interested or disillusioned, they come up more hollow these days than ever before. For me, a few directors are sheer filmmaking hollowness. Wes Anderson at the very top. Reason why I didn't really critique him my Life Aquatic review is that it would have been useless. He's a pure cult director so I gave up on the idea of thinking and tried to enjoy that movie. I just could never watch it again. It took Sydney Lumet 10 years or so to realize his camera was at the behest of his screenplay. Few filmmakers are transmitting the visual image and pure editing (without reliance on a strong screenplay) to actual good work.

Maybe I have just missed it, but you don't seem too big on documentaries. What is your favorite documentary and what does it take (in your opinion) to make a great one?

I'm really not into documentary films that much. Its not that I surveyed as many as I could and came to a grand conclusion, but I've seen a general amount and came to a good enough one. As much as I do like certain documentaries, i've never seen a documentary that was better than the best non fiction book I've read. So many documentary feel like cliff notes for really good non fiction books.

But, I'm also pleading ignorance. There are some documentaries I want to see. Many many Holocaust films (from what I've read) have the most sane idea of what a documentary should be: just the recording of an interview or an experience that doesn't chain the film down to facts or data. Thats my perfect idea of a documentary right now. I just need better motivation to get them. The problem is many docs don't interest me.

[w/o horse]

What is really interesting to me is the idea of telling a story, of a man or a place, through vignettes, that a story can have an emotional undertone, a current, rather than physical reactions, a physical  current.  As in; Gummo.  The first couple of times I saw Gummo I thought it was trying way too hard to smash the ball out of the park, but when I watch it now I realize that I know this town.  I know these people, and they are defined to me by the things they aren't doing in the movie as much as by what they are doing, as in the seemingly random activities (cat hunting, arm wrestling, working out, etc) eventually amount to a psyche.  I use Gummo as an example because I am from Xenia and know people like those in Gummo (even though it was not filmed in Xenia) and at the end of the movie I feel the same as I do when I hang out with those people.  In that way, the movie has made an emotional connection with me, which is the purpose of storytelling.

I bring this up because that is how I see The Life Aquatic.  I think that, more than his other movies, Anderson was telling a story, a rather exact story, about Steve Zissou.  When I am done watching Raging Bull I vicariously feel invigorated, through having been through so much with Jake La Motta.  When I am done watching The Life Aquatic, I feel drained (please no clever puns about my use of drained), as Steve Zissou does in the film.  In fact, I think Raging Bull and The Life Aquatic are very similar, not in their narrative structure, but in their aims.  Both movies are microcosms of male cultural.  While Raging Bull has an amped, energetic feel; Life Aquatic is apathetic, it is whimsical, but focused.  The movie never loses track of where it is in Steve Zissou's struggle, or, as it may be, his anti-struggle.  As to say that the confrontations are mainly internal, again like Raging Bull, and that Zissou is mainly battling himself.

What about this do you find disagreeable?

Also, are you all guys from another board, or have you been together for a long time, etc?  Because I live in LA, I am a film student, I know many film lovers, and I have not encountered such bottle necked ideology as I have here.  Shouldn't film communities be fluid, constructive places, in which ideas are challenged, not in which more or less the same opinion is buttressed?  Or is this just a newcomer's perception of things entirely, and the group of people are quite open to unorthodox ideas?

[Ghostboy]

I think, for the most part, the latter is the case.

[modage]

yeah i agree with ghostboy.  and everyone else agrees with me.

[w/o horse]

Hey, are you guys being ironical.  I get it.

[Gold Trumpet]

About Life Aquatic...

My fault with the film isn't in the structure of the storytelling. It's in the story and everything else. Where you connect with the film, I just see gloss. It's truly a cult film. You either get it or you don't.

About the board....

I definitely see a majority viewpoint for many arguments, but if you dig deeper, people have different tastes. Its just there are little arguments going on right now. It seems out of fashion to extend oneself to really argue with someone else other than through a petty fight.

[Reinhold]

what's your favorite peanutbutter-and-____________  sandwich?

[Gold Trumpet]

what's your favorite peanutbutter-and-____________  sandwich?

Peanutbutter and peanuttbutter. Combination of things on bread never go well with my stomach, so just the peanuttbutter, please.

[03]

should i have a thread like this?