(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

It was my first day in an immigration attorney's office. Rochester, Minnesota, is a small city of 100,000, and Michael York is one of the only people who practice immigration law exclusively. Although Rochester is small and a non-traditional immigrant center, the population has changed much in the last years because of international workers coming to the Mayo Clinic and to IBM. Other immigrants are refugees sponsored by the Catholic or Lutheran Churches which have a big presence in Olmsted County and throughout the Midwest.

In a matter of one day, I was introduced to immigrants and residents comprising virtually every conceivable situation. Some were applying for marriage licenses, hoping to gain the same citizenship as the woman or man whom they loved. Others were trying to bring their entire family of seven from Durango, Mexico, after having spent the better part of their life working in the United States in order to prepare for this day. Still others were calling the office every day, wondering how the paperwork was coming along for their wife who had been left voluntarily under threat of deportation a year ago. Still others were hoping that, after applying for temporary asylum status every year for more than ten years, they could finally change their citizenship from their war-torn home country which has changed hands some dozen times in the last nineteen years.

...he drove from in from Mexicali, no worse for wear.
money to burn, time to kill.
but five minutes looking in his eyes and we all knew he
was broken pretty bad, so we gave him what we had.
we cleared a space for him to sleep in,
and we let the silence that's our trademark
make its presence felt.
come on in, we haven't slept for weeks.
drink some of this. it'll put color in your cheeks...

(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

Despite the fact it was my first day, I felt I was able to contribute both to the attorney and these clients, these people. I enjoyed speaking Spanish with a Mexican man who has been working here for years and is attempting to get employer-sponsored citizenship. My heart went out to a woman who was calling about her husband's file, a husband she has not seen for two years since he was forced to leave the country. I thumbed through thousands of files, thousands of lives and stories and situations, thousands of big dreams and tiny legalities.

“The problem with our immigration system is that it is reactionary,” the attorney said. Ever since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the legislative bodies of the United States have been playing a form of eugenics or race-based selection through the inclusions and glaring exclusions of our immigration policies. From the Japanese Gentleman's Agreement and the 1924 literacy test to today's surviving questions on immigration forms which ask about McCarthy-ian Communist ties, our laws are still reactionary and therefore not comprehensive or fully just. Until the laws change to more ably reflect the current state of immigration and globalization, each year will see more and more individual exceptions and exemptions costing billions of dollars in bureaucracy.

...they came in by the dozens, walking or crawling.
some were bright-eyed.
some were dead on their feet.
and they came from Zimbabwe,
or from Soviet Georgia.
east Saint Louis, or from Paris, or they lived across the street.
but they came, and when they'd finally made it here,
it was the least that we could do to make our welcome clear.
come on in, we haven't slept for weeks.
drink some of this. it'll put color in your cheeks.

(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

“Our immigration system is like a rewards or benefits program,” York said coolly. “You can come to our country if your grandfather fought with our troops at one point, if you were struck by lightning twice, and if you have never ever lied to another human being. Pictures also help.” At first, this statement seemed a calloused joke, but the more I thought about our immigration laws and our nation's underlying philosophy, it all made sense. Our laws are set up in such a way that we refuse to admit the benefit immigrants inevitably bring to our economy, society, culture, and communities. Our laws and statutes are meant to be prohibitive, to let in merely a fraction of the desirable and desirous immigrants who long to live and work within our borders. Like a lottery or a rewards system, no one is actually meant to win.

As I packed my bag at 6:00 to leave for the day, another person called. Frustrated, I had to remind myself that this was not a client of the firm. This was not just a number, or a passport picture, or an INS file, or even just a story. This immigrant on the other end of the line is a person, a person caught in a game that few are supposed to win, a game based on rules few Americans would agree with if stated explicitly, a competition which pits them against individuals and systems they should be working with rather than against. I answer the phone in such a way that hopefully brings color to her cheeks and a smile to her eyes.

http://borderstories.org/index.php/nogales-born-and-raised.html

Reading Paul Donnelley's Fade to Black, A Book of Movie Obituaries leads one to wonder, wistfully, how the film greats of today will eventually meet their doom.

Come on, it'll be fun!

George Lucas. Crushed to death under a huge pile of money. Last words: "More!"

Lindsay Lohan. Crushed to death under a huge rock of crack.

Javier Bardem. Crushed to death under his own face.

Werner Herzog. Perishes of heat prostration while hiking into the heart of the sun.

Kate Beckinsale. Just quietly forgotten to death. Last words: unknown.

Tim Roth. Inner vileness.

Luc Besson. Sudden crushing sense of inadequacy.

Arnold Schwartzenegger. Eaten alive by own bicep. Last words: ironic quip.

Dario Argento. Raped to death by his own shadow. Well, it makes as much sense as anything in INFERNO.

Nicole Kidman. One of these days that face is going to snap like an elastic band. God help Keith Urban if he's standing nearby. Last words: "Ow." Age: no man can say.

John Hurt. Chestburster. Either that or he makes the mistake of going to sleep lying down.

David Thompson. Already dead. We just haven't told him. Last words: that book about Nicole Kidman.

Stanley Kubrick. Faked his own death in 2000. Will be discovered hiding in a tea-chest, strangled by his own untrimmed beard and fingernails.

John Travolta. Finally goes supernova, before collapsing in on himself.

Tom Cruise. Thetans. Last words: "I was right!"

Sharon Stone. Karma.

Oliver Stone. Shock, after making good film. Age: 104.

Mel Gibson. Fractures skeleton during a botched attempt to induce the Rapture.

Lars Von Trier. Smugness. And giant scorpions.

Eli Roth. Ass-eating virus.

Michael York. The heat death of the universe. Age: still 35.

Meg Ryan. Smirking.

Tom Hanks. Passive smirking.

Martin Scorsese. Will finally descend to sub-atomic level -- no wait, that's THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Scorsese will probably ascend to heaven without actually dying, like Elijah.

Michael Bay. This one's mine.

Feel free to suggest your own.

But keep it clean!

Como o "Cinema é a minha praia!" gosta de ver o que se passa pelo mundo. Fui ver o que a Rússia tem feito em filmes de ação. De cara, as primeiras cenas me fizeram ficar em dúvida, se eu já teria visto o filme. Mas sendo de 2004, não poderia ter sido. Talvez pode ser um remake. O certo é que a cena com os dois esgrimistas deixou forte essa impressão.

Depois, um tiroteio entre policiais e bandidos me fez foi rir por parecer um vídeo caseiro. Ou até um cenário do jogo de paintball. Confesso que teve momentos que achei que iria entrar o tema da SWAT e os Trapalhões. E como ainda era o início do filme, o bandido, o russo Nikolay (Richard Tyson) consegue escapar do cerco policial. Não sem antes atirar um senhor projétil num dos tiras que tentava dar o flagrante na venda de armas. A tal arma estilhaça uma placa de concreto e... Não faz nenhum rombo no tira.

Após esse filme eu me senti analfabeta no quesito armas. Eu já não entendia nada. Fiquei ainda mais perdida! Desconhecia o poder de fogo de umas pistolas ante a uma metralhadora. As armas e o som que saem delas é um show a parte nesse filme.

No encalço do Nikolay, para vingarem a morte do tira, seguem como turistas para a Rússia, Roger (Michael York) e Rudy (Robert Madrid). Por conta de uma tentativa frustrada, Rudy é ferido e Roger é detido. Onde conhecem um Capitão. O jovem Vlad (Alexander Nevsky). Que em vez de deportá-los, resolve continuar com eles para desbaratar toda a quadrilha. Vendo Vlad fiquei pensando de quem esse jovem viu muitos filmes, se Stalone, se Schwarzenegger. No final ele diz. O que me fez rir por confirmar a pose do cara.

Ah! O que fizeram da Rússia? Que nem tudo tem que ser verossímil, eu até concordo. Mas teve cenas... Não imaginável na Rússia, como a da Estação de Trem.

Enfim, se têm outros filmes para assistirem, o façam. Não desperdicem tempo com esse. Eu nem acredito que vi até o final. Mas vi.

Por: Valéria Miguez (LELLA)

Moscou em Chamas (Moscow Heat). 2004. Rússia. Direção: Jeff Celentano. Elenco: Michael York, Alexander Nevsky, Richard Tyson, Robert Madrid, Adrian Paul, Mariya Golubkina, Joanna Pacula. Gênero: Ação, Policial. Duração: 89 minutos.

Wir befinden uns in der Zunkunft ..genauer gesagt , wie der Titel schon verrät im 23. Jahrhundert. In dieser fernen Zunkunft leben die Menschen von der Aussenwelt völlig isoliert in einer gigantischen Glaskuppel , welche sie aber als ihren natürlichen Lebensraums ehen , weil sie es nicht anders kennen. Auch herrschen dort andere Sitten .Monogamie gilt als verpöhnt , Drogen und andere Rauschmittel gibt es überall ...das ganze hat nur einen Haken , niemand in dieser "Stadt" darf älter als 30 Jahre werden . Und um das zu kontrollieren trägt jeder Bewohner einen Lebenskristall in seiner Handfläche ....der in den verschiedenen Jahren die Farbe wechselt , bis er dann anfängt zu blinken ..Wenn dies geschieht , werden die Betroffenen in das "Karussell" gebracht . Alle sehen darin ein religiöses Zentrum , wo sie ,w enn sie eintreten in eine höhere Ebene des Bewusstseins gehoben werden .....doch eigentlich werden sie dort nur unter viel Show hingerichtet ,ohne das es die anderen mitbekommen.

Nun gibt es aber auch ein paar schlaue Köpfe , die hinter dieses System des Karusells gekommen sind , welche als Läufer bezeichnet werden und die das Gerücht in Umlauf bringen , das es ausserhalb der Kuppel eine Zuflucht gibt vor diesem Karussell ...Und dann gibt es die Sandmänner ...welche als Polizei agieren und auf die Läufer angesetzt werden ....Und wie es ja meist dann in solchen Filmen ist , läuft alles gut , bis eine Frau ins Spiel kommt , denn dann bekommt Sandman "Logan5 " den Auftrag herauszufinden , ob an dem Gerücht etwas wahres dran ist , verliebt sich aber und ist dann selber auf der Flucht ...Nach einer sehr aufregenden Flucht finden er und seine Partnerin die Zuflucht und treffen dort auf einen alten Mann ....So einen alten Menschen haben sie natürlich noch nie gesehen , sie bleiben eine Weile bei ihm , bis sie beschliessen die anderen davon zu überzeugen , das man auch ruhig älter 30 werden kann :)

Soviel zum Inhalt , nun zur Bewertung :)

Logans Run ist trotz der stellenweise primitiven Effekte [ hey , er kam 1976 raus ] ein grossartiger Film , die Schauspieler waren zwar alle nicht ursprünglich geplant von den Filmmachern , passten aber perfekt in die Rollen ....[ Michael York als Logan5 ,Jenny Agutter als Jessica 6 und Peter Ustinov als der alte Mann]

Fazit : kann man sich gern immer wieder mal angucken und gehört in die Klassiker Abteilung :)

• Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson (33)
• Nathan Fillion (37)
• Elizabeth Mitchell (38)
• Mariah Carey (39)
• Sadie Frost (40)
• Quentin Tarantino (45)
• Michael York (66)

Changing our Viennese directors in mid-stream, we watched Billy Wilder's FEDORA (sadly an ancient pan-and-scanned VHS off-air recording), which prompts all sorts of thoughts about the phenomenon of the late film, especially as I was just pontificating on Otto Preminger's last works. Older filmmakers' output has a tendency to be neglected upon release, especially in Hollywood, where fashion is all. Wilder in particular suffered about twenty years of critical and commercial decline. After THE APARTMENT won him three Oscars in one night, Moss Hart is supposed to have said, "This is the moment to stop, Billy." If that's true, how those words must have rung in his ears as he released ONE, TWO, THREE and KISS ME STUPID and AVANTI! and THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES to a largely indifferent or hostile public. And then, following the bloody train wreck that is BUDDY, BUDDY (don't watch it, folks), another twenty years of enforced idleness.

That last movie is the only real disaster, for me -- I find much to enjoy in the later films, though perhaps you have to be sympathetic to Wilder as a filmmaker first. Here's Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester on the subject:

SS: Clearly around the late sixties his view of society or his take on society became... not interesting to an audience.

RL: He had a very oblique take on a very formal structure, and then that structure was taken away and there was an empty field there and he didn't have to become oblique. You see, there is a parallel with me. If I don't really know what we're doing now, how can I have that oblique take on it? I think that may come from, as you say, the coccooning of physical and financial comfort. Then you don't take buses and you don't know what's going on and I listen to Oasis and say, 'But I absolutely heard all those chords before ...'

Well, he's dead right about Oasis. And he may well be right about Wilder. Certainly Wilder developed his skills within the constraints of the Hays Code and the studio system, and when it was forced to relax its stranglehold Wilder was handed his freedom and maybe didn't know what to do with it. If your skill is in a kind of Lubitschian suggestiveness, suddenly being able to say or show anything you like must be daunting. Voluntarily working within the PG certificate might be a solution, but Wilder had always made films aimed at adults.

And although he was an enthusiastic consumer of literary pornography (it seems likely he read the first, anonymously published Henry Millers) his relationship to sex onscreen became uncomfortable. There are little, uncertain flourishes of nudity in the later films, but they feel oddly forced and unnatural. They violate the Wilder style.

FEDORA, from a story by actor-turned-novelist Tom Tryon, combines all the virtues and vices of late Wilder. The satire of '70s Ho'wood is strained and inaccurate, although "The kids with beards have taken over," is a great line. There is some awkward nudity, though by restraining the profanity to 1960s levels Wilder and IAL Diamond manage to avoid seeming like they're either old-fashioned or jumping on a sweary bandwagon. For once in his career though, Wilder seems to have saddled himself with an ineffective structure -- part one sets up a mystery: what's with Garbo-like reclusive star of yesteryear Fedora (Marthe Keller)? And how has she remained so youthful? Fiona guessed the solution fifteen minutes in. Part two explains, in prolonged and unnecessary detail, how and why Fedora's secret was maintained. But once the basic solution is revealed , the dramatic tension has dissipated and there's only the mildest interest in learning the details. What's left at this point is 45 minutes in the company of some nice actors in attractive locations, with a few excellent lines. And it's testimony to the quality of William Holden's performance and the sheer weirdness of Marthe Keller's that this is very nearly enough.

It sounds like I'm down on the film, but I really enjoyed it. I was just conscious of what was wrong.

Holden plays washed-up producer Barry Detweiler (a transparent Wilder stand-in). When his voice-over starts up with exactly the same bitter tone as his V.O. in SUNSET BOULEVARD, I got goosebumps. Maybe that's part of the trouble, the film borrows its resonance from earlier movies. Even Fedora's breakdown reminded me of Robert Stephens' suicide attempt during Wilder's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Wilder's earlier writer-director gifts really only show in a scene where Holden searches Keller's bedroom and one baffling discovery leads smartly to the next -- empty film boxes, school jotters filled with the line "I am Fedora," written over and over, a drawer full of white gloves, a hidden shrine to Michael York...

Apart from Holden's crusty, bitter presence, York's appearance as himself adds a certain bizarre gaucherie-- the one role York can't possibly play is himself. I can't quite say why, but the York performance style, which seems perfectly acceptable in other roles, becomes absolutely preposterous once it's supposed to stand in for the actual person we're looking at. In a role intended for Faye Dunaway (which would have made this a Holden-Dunaway NETWORK re-match) the normally naturalistic Marthe Heller, in white gloves and Jackie O shades, gives an expressionistic perf of terrifying eccentricity, like a strung-out elf, or a Michael Jackson puppet in drag. One could quibble, but why bother when she's the most interesting thing onscreen?

Fiona provides the epigram: "It's a film about physical decrepitude that's really about artistic decrepitude." And consciously so -- that's exactly why Holden's character is our guide through this curiously one-way labyrinth. Wilder is recasting the past, trying to bring it back, and yet the last exchange of dialogue puts a rueful postmodern spin on the inevitability of failure:

Countess: "I know you will keep this to yourself... for old time's sake."

Detweiler: "Too bad. Because this would have made a much better picture than the script I brought you."

Countess: Yes... but who would you get to play it?"

(I found the above clip and Wilder's grave at A. Gropius and Nana's blog, "in dreams begin responsibility". Only fair to link to them.)

The Word of Promise Inspiration for Today is a two CD-set packaged in a designed swing tray jewel case. There will be 40 three-minute devotions, equaling two hours of inspired listening time. The devotions will include an excerpt from The Word of Promise New Testament Audio Bible, an insightful reading by Michael York, and meditative music from composer Maestro Stefano Mainetti. See details

Bob Fosse nació el 23 de junio de 1927 en Chicago.

Hijo del actor y cantante Cyril Fosse, desde muy pequeño está vinculado con el mundo del espectáculo. Estudió claque y ballet y con tan solo 15 años creó su propia coreografía con el tema de Cole Porter, That old magic.

En 1948 debuta como bailarín  hasta llegar a salir en varios musicales de Broadway, aunque realmente comienza trabajando en “night clubs” de fama dudosa.

En 1953 salta a la gran pantalla de la mano de Stanley Donen con el musical, Tres chicas con suerte.Tras probar suerte en Hollywood, decide regresar a Broadway como coreógrafo, donde se volvió casi indispensable, con obras tan exitosas como New girl in town (1957) y Redhead (1959).Su triunfo en Hollywood comenzó con la realización de coreografías para adaptaciones cinematográficas, compaginándolo con apariciones como actor en Mi hermana Elena (1955) de Richard Quine y El principito (1974) de Stanley Donen.

En 1968 dirige Noches en la ciudad, (adaptación de Las noches de Cabiria de Federico Fellini), con Shirley McLaine la que sería su ópera prima y un rotundo fracaso.

Cuatro años más tarde estrena el musical Cabaret, adaptación de la novela de Christopher Isherwood, protagonizada por Liza Minelli, Michael York y Joel Grey. El film marcaría un antes y un después en los musicales.

Hasta ahora estábamos acostumbrados al amor como tema principal cuando pensábamos en un musical, pero con la llegada de Cabaret esto cambio.Trataba de aspectos menos triviales, como la homosexualidad y el aborto.

También estábamos habituados a que en los musicales los protagonistas nos sorprendieran cantando en cualquier momento, en la obra de Fosse, se limitan a cantar solo cuando están en el escenario actuando.

Obtuvo 8 Oscars, Mejor director (arrebatándoselo a Coppola por El padrino), actriz para LizaMinelli, actor secundario para Joel Grey, fotografía, sonido, montaje, dirección artística y bandasonora

Sinopsis

La cantante y bailarina estadounidense Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli), acompañada siempre del gran maestro de ceremonias (Joel Grey), es la estrella del conocido cabaret afincado en Berlín, Kit Kat ClubMientras tanto, en “el mundo real” los nazis toman el poder y van introduciéndose poco a poco por las calles de Berlín. Ambos terminan por enamorarse de un joven playboy, lo que llevará a que sus vidas den un giro completo.

FICHA TÉCNICA

Dirección: Bob Fosse

Guión: Jay Presson Allen, Hugo Wheeler

Música: John Kander

Interpretes: Liza Minelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Helmut Grier, Marisa Berenson, Fritz Wepper

::Andrea Cabrero::

::Mentes Inquietas:: 

We are collecting the little bits of film that make induce joyfulness. When we have fifty, they will be melted down and injected into Michael Haneke, in an effort to cheer him up. 

Today's volunteer from the audience, his "consciousness violently shaped by war," profers a slice of Cinema Euphoria that is STRONG MEAT:

"Tomorrow Belongs to Me"

So many moments of CABARET are talked of, repeatedly shown, revered. We think of the compere, Liza's rendering of "Money, Money, Money," the dancers using the chairs as props, the seedy life of some, the occasional splendour -- but let's not forget the oft-forgotten scene of the Hitler Youth choir singing in the bier-garten: memorable, hypnotic, seduction of another form. Would you have signed up? I might have. Fortunately, tomorrow belonged to me -- not them.

Emotions can be disturbing.

Circa 1939

Who is this masked man, lurking behind the mask of anonymity like Hugo Weaving in a tall hat, answering only to the nom-de-plume of "Circa 1939"?

It's my Dad, and that's the year of his birth.

When he mentioned, after a very satisfying dinner, that this would be his nomination, I have to admit that eyebrows were raised to stratospheric heights where the chilly conditions threatened to wither them at the roots.

"Is that euphoric?" queried Fiona, dubiously.

"It's a toe-tapper," I admitted.

The power of this sequence is the exquisite balance of seduction and repulsion, letting us see how empowering it would be to join that song, how hard and frightening to resist, while trusting our knowledge of history to let us make the right choice. It's an amazing piece of MONTAGE, drawing it's power from the assembly of little bits of film of faces, connected to a stirring tune to create an extraordinary emotive crescendo.

Leni Riefenstahl's extraordinary Nuremberg rallies material from TRIUMPH OF THE WILL quickly became an icon of easy horror, but this sequence freshens the imagery and makes it potent and alarming again.

(I love the stories about various filmmakers sitting down to a screening of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL to see what America's propaganda response should be. René Clair was horrified: "This must never be shown!" Frank Capra wrote later was that his initial reaction was that immediate surrender was the only sane response in the face of such mass unity of will. Only Chaplin sat laughing until the tears ran down his face. He'd had an idea for a film.

Later, Capra claims to have conceived the idea of turning this weapon back on the Nazis, using it show the horror of mass conformity, threat of fascism and the need to resist. Luis Bunuel seems to have had the job of cutting Riefenstahl's epic down to size so that it could be deployed in this way.)

CABARET was turned down by at least ten top directors, including Gene Kelly, who must have been terrified of it,* and Billy Wilder, who had lived through this time and place and felt too close to it. (I always think of the stubborn old guy in the Bier-Garten as Wilder.)

So Bob Fosse got the gig, despite SWEET CHARITY, his only other film, having rolled over and died at the box office. An incredible piece of luck, for us and for him (he pipped Coppola to the Oscar). I am SO impressed with the shot of the Joel Grey's compére at the end there, dropping in out of the blue like the images of demonic Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST, and doing a camp variation of The Crazy Kubrick Stare. Chilling and oddly exhilarating.

- - - - - - - -

Speaking of the volk, we are halfway through watching Lang's NIEBELUNGEN, so expect more thoughts on mythic structure when we're done with Part II: KRIEMHILD'S REVENGE.

*See Comments for Aunt Suzy's correction, re Gene Kelly's role in CABARET's gestation.