Nonogirl Radio

The Boys of Baraka

I'm slowly catching up on my Ironweek DVD collection; I stopped my subscription this month. Last night I saw the Boys of Baraka about a school takes 20 African American boys out of Baltimore and sends them for a two year education in Kenya. The goals are to place the boys in a new environment and prepare them for high school.

I saw a completely different side of Baltimore than the one that my friend comes from. She says that her parents, both doctors, live in a mansion. She went to a Quaker school rather than public school. And she knows someone who embarked on a gentrification project where he tried to get teams of people to go into impoverished neighborhoods and buy homes.

However, I was a little uncomfortable with what I was seeing. It felt a little like an outsider went in and  pieced together the scenes to show the bleakest potential. It helped to read the production notes here.

The film ends rather abruptly when the school closes down because of political instability in the region. The parents are disappointed because they've the great strides their children made at the school. Then the film ends with a couple scenes updating us about the four main characters. I felt like if I blinked, I'd miss the ending and it also didn't offer much analysis.

Apocalypto

In criticizing the use of violence in Mel Gibson's latest film, Kenneth Turan gave Mel Gibson a dressing down that goes like this:

"Mel, no one in your entourage is going to tell you this, but you are not part of the solution. You are part of the problem. A big part."

This precision-like attack on Gibson grabbed me out of my half sleep, a rare moment in radio.

Black Gold

I saw Black Gold as research for Intersection's upcoming gallery show on Chocolate and man did I learn a lot. Those 78 minutes were packed with information for an economic, globalism luddite like me.

I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but now, I will only by FREE TRADE coffee.

Paul Conrad

Over a most delicious vinegar chicken, I learned about a new hero last night, Paul Conrad. He's over 80 years old and has been making daily political satire cartoons, initially for the Los Angeles Times. He frames biting truths into a one square cell following only his own gut feelings from reading the morning paper.

The documentary says that there once were 200 political cartoonists, now there are only 85. The newspaper business is about making sales, not making controversy.  Corporatization destroys of one of our most fundamental democratic building blocks, free press.

Loud Quiet Loud

Documenting their triumphant return to the stage after more than ten years apart, loudQUIETloud proves that influential Boston band The Pixies are still amazing performers, but remain unable to communicate with each other offstage. An exhilarating concert film and a fascinating portrait of the inner workings of a great but troubled band.

--from here

Yeah, what he said.

But really, the film didn't disappoint. The audience in the theater sang along to the songs (which I think they allowed to be played all the way through) and I was smiling, reliving the shows.

There's good editing, great pacing, and it captures the painful behind the scenes with visual poetry.

Another Closing

Friday night I walked into Jean's opening at Black and Blue and saw Bret, the surly man from Leather Tongue.

He always scared me. I was a regular to Leather Tongue when I worked at Kinko's and rented scratched up, $.99 videos on Tuesdays. I bought my Fucktooth and Doris zines from LT. And when I was brave enough, I talked to Bret and sold my zine there.

I'm not sure what scared me. Maybe it was the dark, low-ceiling interior. Maybe it was his lack of a smile coupled with punk rock attire.

But what I saw on Friday was completely different.

He smiled, he laughed, and he said that Leather Tongue was closed.

Story of the Weeping Camel

Last night I saw a beautiful documentary about life in Mongolia's Gobi region. The story focuses on a nomadic family and the birth of a camel who is getting no love from its mother.

It's a beautiful film that illustrates another way of life.

Street Fight

I've been sick for the past three days and I've taken in a lot of tv. But today, I was ready to be vertical (meaning sitting on my couch rather than lying in bed) and started to get caught up on viewing films from my Iron Weed subscription.

My roommate said he watched all of them in one night and raved about Street Fight, a documentary about the 2002 mayoral race in Newark, NJ. It's about the political machine that every city seems to have. It's about race and power and class. And it's a must-see.

Grizzly Man

In flu-recovery mode, I watched Grizzly Man, checking another film off my "To See" list.

Let me just say that this guy is weird! He needs a reality check and I'm glad that Herzog presents dissenting opinions that aren't just from the anti-tree huggers, including a First Nations person who thinks that Treadwell did more harm than good for the bears.

Despite revealing the main character's death by bear mauling within the first thirty minutes, Herzog is able to weave a story that held me gripped as Treadwell's motivations and character unfold set against some of Treadwell's beautiful footage.

Most interesting is the DVD feature on the scoring of the film. Herzog brought together a super group led by Richard Thompson and asked them to improvise the score while together for two days at Fantasy Studios. The results are breathless.

Experimental Films

I know, they can be tedious. You may squirm. You may wonder what the point is or why aren't things ever in focus. Does there have to be that high pitched noise?!

But I'm excited about two films that may or may not be considered experimental, but are definitely worth catching:

First, is Dolissa Medina's Cartography of Ashes. I caught a preview of this at last night's Hybrid Project at Intersection. I find it hard to describe but the soundscape is amazing, layered and with a narrative that weaves different parts of the city together. The images are both archival and perhaps modern images that are treated to provide a century-old look. It's playing in several places, but I'm going to catch it Friday projected on to the Folsom Street fighter training tower.

Also, I'll finally get to see a full Alan Berliner piece. I first learned about his work at the Third Coast Festival for audio producers. Sure, he created an installation of drawers that, when opened, activate up to 108 different audio sounds. But I think primarily he's a filmmaker. Thanks to my useless memory, I completely forgot what made his films so compelling, but I remembered his name. And his latest film, Wide Awake, is screening at the SFIFF!