by Bob Martin | Jan 12, 2013 | Actors, Art, Film
Jean-Louis Trintignant
When we are young we believe that we will live forever. We have no idea what that means and the responsibilities that comes along with being alive. How we live does not prepare us for what it is to live a long time
Emmanuelle Riva
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Amour is an exceptional film. It is brave, poignant, honest in that it brings to the surface many of the fears we wish to ignore. It is not a sad movie and at times it’s very funny. The humor is about things that we think about but never say, about our silly concerns that in the end don’t matter. We should all (adults) recognized some part of ourselves in this film.
The film is not fantasy. There is this invitation to the audience, almost from the very beginning of the film to engage in a honest conversation about what we are about to see and what we are about to see is ourselves, in time.
Michael Haneke, Writer and Director
In Europe, actors are allowed to grow old and to become the lead characters in wonderful films about non heroic figures faced with issues that we all relate to. In the U.S., actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone both in their late 60’s portray fantasy figures with guns, muscle and snappy one liners. “America is afraid of getting old”. On the other hand Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva who’s stardom and careers go back to the 1950’s have gotten older like the rest us and their portraits of Anne and Georges are both fragile and heroic.
by Bob Martin | Jan 2, 2013 | Art, Film, Live Performance, music, Theater
Picky, Picky, Picky is how I describe much of the conversation surrounding the 2012 release of Les Misérables. The noise is that the movie is not the (Musical) play and that of the director’s choice to shoot and record the actors singing live on camera, (no lip syncing) making some viewers uncomfortable. Too bad.
There have been over ten theatrical or movie interpretations of Les Miserables and not one of them was the original story. Critics and some viewers wasted their time in not seeing this movie production as something new vs. comparing it to what they had already seen and knew. It’s OK not to like this film, but dislike it because it’s a movie you don’t like and not because it is not the play.
Les Miserables 2012 is an original piece of art, a spectacular movie, beautifully staged, acted and in most cases well sung. If your thought is that the Broadway musical is the only experience you want to remember or have then don’t see this film. It is different and special in its own way.
by Bob Martin | Dec 27, 2012 | Actors, Art, Concerts, Directors, dvd, Exhibits, Film, Movies, music, Writing and Speaking
Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx
Quentin Tarantino, the over hyper creative genius, and his new film Django Unchained flirts with mastery. The film is maybe 15 min too long but its close enough(more about the 15 min later). If you’ve seen a ton of movies in your life, you will find a reference to just about every one of them in Django Unchained, that’s what Tarantino does, except in this one “The Guys with the White Hats” loses out. Directors like Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, Tim Burton and many more have contributed unknowingly to this creative effort and again this is no knock on Tarantino’s creative talents, it is his creative talent in using themes we are all familiar with and in some cases turning them upside down that makes us laugh and maybe even think.
The film makes no pretense that the story of Django is based on anything remotely true and yet still is able to paint an ugly picture about this country’s past. The movie is often hilarious, heart breaking (for some of us) and outrageous. Tarantino has created an African America Super Hero who rides a horse that mimics Trigger and thus slaps down the fable of “Guys with White Hats” being the good guys. There is room here for a sequel(s), the son of Django Part 2.
The movie is gory, so if you find vampires, Bruce Willis, Jason Bourne or Bambi disturbing you should avoid Django and not see it. The dialogue at times is that of two 9 year old inner city kids acting out scenes from a movie, with a child’s emphasis on vulgarity. As promised, the wasted 15 min: Cutting the number of times the N-word is used in half to about 70 would make the film shorter giving Tarantino his masterpiece. Spoiler alert, no other movie that I’ve ever seen has approached the subject of Black Slavers (Blacks who enslaved other Blacks) and while its not gone into in great depth it has not been swept under the rug either and I am not sure how open Black America is to this fact. In addition Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) is an important and complex character in the film, similar to, but a more repulsive, Colonel Nicholson (Bridge on the River Kwai) who are both blinded to their own culpability.
Django Unchained is enormously entertaining and not a source for cultural or political debate and yet people will feel a need to see it as some referendum about current, past or future events. What can be debated is that Tarantino got to do a film that no African American director would be allowed to do, and that should be debated (and not with me). Django is a movie, just like Les Miserables, Jack Reacher, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are all just movies. Django just happens to be really good.
- Django Unchained: A love Story (visionarywateringhole.wordpress.com)
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- Django Unchained is a heroic love story
- http://sonofbaldwin.tumblr.com/post/37790755920/to-be-unchained
by Bob Martin | Dec 14, 2012 | Art, Concerts, Events, Live Performance
Milton is inviting you to
‘The Party’
Come and let there be an experience of a wonderful event . .
Portrait of Jazz
full of fun, dancing, laughter and genuine enjoyment!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Prescott Jazz Society has continued this
Birthday-Christmas event through
the years offering the best in entertainment.
* This year you may review videos of ‘Prescott Jazz Legends’,
enjoy dining choices from a great American Buffet,
listen to a top-shelf Jazz Quartet featuring vocalist & pianist Steve Sandner
w/Ray Carter and drummer Jesse Yarbrough w/myself, Milt Cannon.
* Cocktails, dinner and concert will be from 3:00 – 7:00 pm.
* For the first time ever there will be dancing from 6:00 – 8:00 pm with
the disco band FUNK FREQUENCY (a very very exciting dance band).
* Also for the first time there will be the auctioning of a ‘Portrait of Jazz’.
(handsome adornment for the wall of any home or office)
Milt Cannon and Bob Martin’s Birthday.
The artwork has been donated to the Society by the gifted Phoenix, AZ
artist Bob S. Martin who will attend and also celebrate
the same birthdate as myself. Milton is inviting you to
‘The Party’
Come and let there be an experience of a wonderful event . .
full of fun, dancing, laughter and genuine enjoyment!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Prescott Jazz Society has continued this
Birthday-Christmas event through
the years offering the best in entertainment.
* This year you may review videos of ‘Prescott Jazz Legends’,
enjoy dining choices from a great American Buffet,
listen to a top-shelf Jazz Quartet featuring vocalist & pianist Steve Sandner
w/Ray Carter and drummer Jesse Yarbrough w/myself, Milt Cannon.
* Cocktails, dinner and concert will be from 3:00 – 7:00 pm.
* For the first time ever there will be dancing from 6:00 – 8:00 pm with
the disco band FUNK FREQUENCY (a very very exciting dance band).
* Also for the first time there will be the auctioning of a ‘Portrait of Jazz’.
(handsome adornment for the wall of any home or office)
The artwork has been donated to the Society by the gifted Phoenix, AZ
artist Bob S. Martin who will attend and also celebrate
the same birthdate as myself.
* Pricing: the Prescott Jazz Society remains true to our history of
offering you the maximum for the barest minimum.
$45.00 pp (reservation only- membership discount applies)
ADVANCE V. I. P. is only $38.00 pp (until Dec., 1)
(comes w/preferred seating with table service)
General Admission: $25.00 pp (no dinner; no table service)
* Please call now! (928) 237-7908 for early reservation
HASSAYAMPA INN~MARINA, 122 E.GURLEY ST., PRESCOTT, AZ
* Pricing: the Prescott Jazz Society remains true to our history of
offering you the maximum for the barest minimum.
$45.00 pp (reservation only- membership discount applies)
ADVANCE V. I. P. is only $38.00 pp (until Dec., 1)
(comes w/preferred seating with table service)
General Admission: $25.00 pp (no dinner; no table service)
* Please call now! (928) 237-7908 for early reservation
HASSAYAMPA INN~MARINA, 122 E.GURLEY ST., PRESCOTT, AZ
by Bob Martin | Dec 10, 2012 | Art, Live Performance, music
Chic Gamine
I really like this group. Nice clean sound and would enjoy seeing them live. Maybe at The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in 2013. Maybe someone is listening? Listen to more here Chic Gamine
