“The unblinking eye.” May 28, 2009 by Kevin Dayhoff
Your brain is turning into mush…
“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits. — Opening narration – The Control Voice – 1960s
(“The Outer Limits originally was broadcast from 1963 to 1965 on the U.S. television broadcasting network ABC; in total, 49 episodes.”)
“The unblinking eye.” May 28, 2009 by Kevin Dayhoff 20090530 FB Twitpic SDOSM The unblinking eye
It’s been Monday all day. Word has it that it will be Monday for quite a few more hours… At least I have two of my three columns due for this week filed. Right now I need a snack and a nap…
“Teardrop” was released as a single on April 21, 1998 by “Massive Attack.”It first appeared on their album “Messanine.”I had meant to post this on the 10th anniversary of its release and was overtaken by events.I get so annoyed when work gets in the way of art.
Your moment of Zen to Teardrop by Massive Attack. These are fractured images from the Hubble Space Telescope. They are animated in iMovie on a Macbook. The reference to Portishead at the end of the film is an error. But once I posted it, I didn't want to pull the video so the error remains. Sorry.
For fans of the movie, “Pretty in Pink,” there is a YouTube video about “Pretty in Pink,” with Massive Attack’s “Teardrop,” for the soundtrack.Unfortunately I cannot put it on “Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack” because of the strong language content.Please find it here on Kevin Dayhoff’s Storage Closet:
This is DEFINITELY the last Pretty in Pink video for the time being! I wanted to experiment with using some dialogue from the film in a video, to see if it actually was possible to represent a slash subtext using the actual script. I had to be creative here, but I think it works! The song, whilst not contemporary to the film, works well as a backing track; the footage itself was built around one long, slow clip of James Spader that I'd forgotten to include in the previous videos and I desperately wanted to give a home to! Oh, one thing - there is some *strong* language in this video, because it has dialogue - consider yourself warned!
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." (Philip K. Dick)
In the last several days I have run across several references to a evocative movie, “37°2 le matin,” or as it is known in the United States: “Betty Blue.”
The movie, released November 7th, 1986, was based on a novel, also by the title of “37°2 le matin,” by Philippe Djian. The movie version of the novel is directed Jean-Jacques Beineix, who also directed another one of my “all time favorite movies, “Diva.”
The music for the movie is by Gabriel Yared. The recurring musical theme is as haunting as the movie; a piano progression, which will remain in your head for the longest time…
In many of my old movie notes from many years ago – this movie is consistently listed in my all time top-ten movies…
According to several published accounts, “The film received both a BAFTA and Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1986, as well as winning a César Award for Best Poster. In 1992 it was awarded the Golden space Needle of the Seattle International Film Festival.”
For those not aware of the movie, it is not a movie for the weak of heart. It is about a writer who gets involved with a woman who is psychologically disheveled but nevertheless somewhat socially acceptable at the beginning of the movie. The movie documents her precipitous quixotic psychological deterioration... The excellent use of a narrator was effective and affective...
“Zorg is a handyman working at in France, maintaining and looking after the bungalows. He lives a quiet and peaceful life, working diligently and writing in his spare time.
One day Betty walks into his life, a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable. After a dispute with Zorg's boss they leave and Betty manages to get a job at a restaurant.
She persuades Zorg to try and get one of his books published but it is rejected which makes Betty fly into a rage. Suddenly Betty's wild manners starts to get out of control. Zorg sees the woman he loves slowly going insane.”
Wikipedia says:
“Betty (Dalle) and Zorg (Anglade) are passionate lovers who live in a shack on the beach. He works as a handyman who does odd jobs to pay the bills. As the film begins, they have only been going out for a week and are in a very passionate stage of their relationship. Zorg narrates the story of their relationship via voiceover. He describes Betty, “like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart.” She yearns for a better life and quit her last job as a waitress because she was being sexually harassed by her boss.
Zorg’s boss asks him to paint the 500 shacks that populate the beach — a fact that he keeps from Betty who thinks they only have to do one. She attacks the project with enthusiasm that quickly turns to anger once she learns the actual number. In response, Betty covers the boss’ car with pink paint.
During a nasty fight, Betty accidentally discovers a series of notebooks that contain a novel Zorg wrote years ago. She reads it and falls in love with him even more. She then makes it her mission in life to type every hand-written page and get it published. Betty's freespiritedness and devotion to Zorg develop into alarming obsession, aggression and destructiveness, and the film alternates between comic and tragic modes.
Roger Ebert lists it on his top-ten “most hated films.”
Oh well. Mr. Ebert likes Michael Moore…
A reason Mr. Ebert may not like the movie is that he is frequently hyper-critical of movies that have “hypocritical agendas” such as “a confrontational film that is passed off as art, but is merely lurid and sensational; Ebert has levelled this charge against such films as The Night Porter and Blue Velvet.” [Cited by Wikipedia (although I have seen this in other published accounts.)]
“Now comes ‘Betty Blue,’ which opens with a shot of two people sideways on a bed, making love beneath a portrait of the Mona Lisa, while the narrator says: ‘I had known Betty for a week. We made love every night. The forecast was the storms.’…
[…]
She finds a manuscript he has written, determines that he is a genius, and types it up, tens of thousands of words. (Typists will enjoy the typing scenes, in which she makes typing errors, causing her to throw away countless copies of Page 1, and then has the whole manuscript typed in no time. This is the way typing is thought about by people who always use yellow legal pads themselves.)
What is Bieneix trying to say in "Betty Blue"? I am not sure. The behavior of the characters is senseless and boring. We lose interest in Zorg because anyone who could tolerate Betty Blue would scarcely have the discrimination to write a good book. One scene follows another senselessly, like in a soap opera, until Betty goes mad and we can go home.
And yet the movie has made millions in France, where it will not have escaped anyone's attention that Betty is played by an attractive young woman named Beatrice Dalle, who is naked as often as not.
[…]
Reviews have been written debating the movie's view of madness, of feminism, of the travail of the artist. They all miss the point. "Betty Blue" is a movie about Beatrice Dalle's boobs and behind, and everything else is just what happens in between the scenes where she displays them.
I saw the movie twenty years ago… Who knows, with my current sensibilities, perhaps I would see the movie again and not like it either… I do not remember the gratuitous nudity for which Mr. Ebert objects, although I have no doubt that there is a great deal of that in the movie…
The trailer is rated “R.” Although, curiously enough, the “R” rating for the trailer is because of the nudity of the male protagonist.
I remember being fascinated by the portrayal of the artist–writer and his interaction with the madness of his companion. Sorta like a “Five Easy Pieces” on acid. (“Five Easy Pieces” is another all time favorite of mine. I will always remember that it opened on my birthday, September 11th, - in 1970.
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
“Welcome to 2019” – “If Vangelis hadn't provided such superb music for Blade Runner, then I think we might have been inclined to turn to Pink Floyd for the soundtrack. To see why, download this excellent composition of Blade Runner movie clips edited together by Patrick Meaney to the Pink Floyd track "Welcome to the Machine". This is a 10.8 Mb .wmv file.”
Chaos ensued in a local J.C. Penney Co. store recently when a rouge mannequin attacked a hapless shopper looking for the right blouse.
Police were called and sources close to the incident have reported that a mannequin was arrested at the scene and hauled off in handcuffs.
Defiant throughout the ordeal, the mannequin, (who may or may not be an android or a cylon,) latter identified as Mrs. Roberto Caricature, said that she was only acting in self-defense.
The Department of Homeland Defense immediately raised the national threat level to a soft yellow-orange crèmesicle, for possible mannequin uprising activity.
According to published accounts, Mrs. Innocent Civilian, 51, “said she was ambushed by a legless female mannequin at the company's Westminster Mall store, a skirmish that left her with a bloodied scalp, a cracked tooth, recurring shoulder pain and numbness in her fingers.”
The Associated Press reports, Ms. Civilian “said the incident happened… in the women's department, as she was shopping for a blouse. The only one in her size was on the mannequin. As a salesclerk was removing the garment, the dummy's arm flew off and struck” Ms. Civilian in the head…
Ms. Civilian, of Westminster, remarked that since the alleged “run-in with a store mannequin,” she has been traumatized by the incident and “something must be done with the rampant abuse of shoppers at the hands of lawless mannequins.”
The Los Angels Times reports, the “alleged attack was the latest in a string of mannequin mayhem incidents nationwide.
"There are a slew of lawsuits like this," said mannequin manufacturer Barry Rosenberg, who joked that stores should run background checks on dummies before letting them mingle with shoppers.
“Most of the cases involved mannequins toppling over onto customers, but an Indiana woman claimed she caught herpes from the lips of a CPR training dummy. She dropped her lawsuit against the American Red Cross in 2000 after further tests revealed that she didn't have the disease, according to news reports.”
Meanwhile, the mannequin, Mrs. Roberto Caricature, claims self-defense.
Seems the mannequin had a bad childhood. It wasn’t her fault.
Ms. Caricature explained loudly as she was lead away in handcuffs, that she was particular modest and had “tired of folks just taking her clothes off in public and leaving her exposed.”
“I have my rights,” she extolled, according to police reports. “People just walk to us mannequins all the time and fondle and ogle us. It’s not right I tell ya. It’s not right.”
"'My mom got beat up by a mannequin' was the joke around my house, "Ms. Civilian said.
For Mrs. Caricature, it is not a laughing matter. “Mannequins across the land are demanding our rights. We’re tired of being victimized.”
Mrs. Caricature, who claims to be an “adroidaquin,” the child of a marriage between an android and a mannequin, claims that she is tired of the abuse. “We dream of electric sheep too,” she elaborated.
The Los Angeles Times, for which it has long been suspected of being run by mindless, stateless androids, agreed. (There are no American flags in front of the building…)
“Getting roughed up by a dummy isn't a slapstick affair. The fiberglass figures can weigh as much as 100 pounds, said Rosenberg, chief executive of Mondo Mannequins in Hicksville, N.Y.
“He added that his company had been named in numerous lawsuits by retailers who themselves have been sued over dummy-related injuries.
“Mannequin maulings and litigation aren't new. In 1990, a Florida woman collected $175,000 after a faceless Macy's dummy fell onto her neck and reportedly injured a disc.
“In 1993, a Minnesota woman was knocked unconscious by a falling mannequin at a Dayton's department store, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She needed five stitches and several chiropractic sessions to recover but didn't sue.
“And in 2001, a Canadian shopper in Vancouver won a $330,000 verdict after a Gap store mannequin landed on her head. Elizabeth Ball was apparently jinxed when it came to store displays. A few years earlier, while shopping at a lighting store, she was beaned by a falling chandelier, according to the Canadian Press.”
Questions and feedback are always welcome and greatly appreciated. Email is best. Please be sure to put the word “Soundtrack” in the subject line. I read all of my mail, but cannot always respond due to time constraints.
Anonymous mail is forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security (please include your phone number).
All mail is subject to print, including your name. However, if you don't want me to publish your e-mail, or if you would like to remain anonymous, just let me know.
The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. All opinions and any and all mistakes that may appear in this blog are my fault and mine alone and are not in any way shape or form made in any official capacity or any past, present or future employers.
This blog is written for human consumption; however, it has only been tested on anthropomorphic replicants and android sheep. The Food and Drug Administration wanted it to be tested on animals. However, the animal rights activists protested, forcing me to abandon testing and release the distressed critters. I released them in the lobby of the animal rights office. I figured those friendly folks could best take care of the mice and we all shared a common goal – that the mice be free.
Therefore this material has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The long-term effects of reading this material remain uncertain. Please proceed at your own risk.
All information is peripatetically verified when possible, cited as appropriate and applied in the real world at your own risk (except for insights gathered at séances at Barbra Streisand's house). If you find a mistake, let me know and I will correct it. Remember, not all potatoes can swim; always keep plenty of ice cream available and do not run with sharp objects in your hands.
Questions and feedback are always welcome and greatly appreciated. Email is best. Please be sure to put the word “kdart” in the subject line. I read all of my mail, but cannot always respond due to time constraints.
Anonymous mail is forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security (please include your phone number).
All mail is subject to print, including your name. However, if you don't want me to publish your e-mail, or if you would like to remain anonymous, just let me know.
The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. All opinions and any and all mistakes that may appear in this blog are my fault and mine alone and are not in any way shape or form made in any official capacity or any past, present or future employers.
This blog is written for human consumption; however, it has only been tested on anthropomorphic replicants and android sheep. The Food and Drug Administration wanted it to be tested on animals. However, the animal rights activists protested, forcing me to abandon testing and release the distressed critters. I released them in the lobby of the animal rights office. I figured those friendly folks could best take care of the mice and we all shared a common goal – that the mice be free.
Therefore this material has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The long-term effects of reading this material remain uncertain. Please proceed at your own risk.
All information is peripatetically verified when possible, cited as appropriate and applied in the real world at your own risk (except for insights gathered at séances at Barbra Streisand's house). If you find a mistake, let me know and I will correct it. Remember, not all potatoes can swim; always keep plenty of ice cream available and do not run with sharp objects in your hands.
