I'm Not There

What looks to be a very interesting new Bob Dylan film, I'm Not There. The title comes from the elusive, ambiguous, mysterious, as yet officially unreleased Basement Tapes song, “I’m Not There (1956)”. Can’t wait to see this!

Helvetica: the Movie

One has to wonder how a typeface could be worthy of a feature documentary. A 50th anniversary surely isn’t sufficient reason. But as has oft been quipped by typographers, Helvetica isn’t just a typeface, it's a way of life!

The film is really quite entertaining, though I’m not sure its appeal could carry over to the non-designer demographic. These debates about typefaces and ideology (modernism, post-modernism, etc.) are great fodder for graphic designers — I've engaged in them for as long as I’ve been in the business — but for some it may seems like a lot of blather about nothing.

Still, given the incredible ubiquity of Helvetica, it's worth learning why it’s as popular as it is. And, conversely, why some high profile designers hate it so. Me, I’ve always preferred Helvetica's near twin, but (to my eyes) eminently more beautifully drawn family of fonts, Univers.

You can pre-order the DVD here (I already did!). And my good friend, Eman, has done up some very cool anniversary t-shirts that you can see here.

Fay Grim

As well as looking like a fun movie, this is a beautiful movie poster.

“It’s what you do next that matters.”

Is anyone else as addicted to movie trailers? This looks really fun. And I love the line near the end: “People who really care for you don’t mind if you make mistakes. It’s what you do next that matters.”

Saw Miss Potter last night: nice attention to historical detail and a touching story. If I remember correctly, critics were no fan of Renée Zellweger but I thought she made a wonderful Beatrix.

Into Great Silence

I saw Into Great Silence a couple of nights ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. What a tremendous film: a documentary about the lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, remotely located in the French Alps. The Carthusian is considered the most stringent of the monastic orders in the Roman Catholic church: severe vows of silence, solitude, and poverty. The film is long (160 min.) and very quiet. Also very beautiful. The photography is exquisite: the camera watches the monks as they work, worship, and pray and there are sublime moments in the images of drying dishes, falling snow, ringing bells. The sounds are minimal and therefore all the more significant: dripping water, creaking wood, shuffling feet. For a Western film, it all feels very Zen! As the viewer is taken through the season at the monastery, the faces of these men become familiar and one leaves feeling a sense of respect for these individuals who (even as I write!) are participating in a rigorous attempt to become closer to their God.

Or not. Part of me thinks it’s craziness! If I try to think of such a lifestyle myself, I don’t think I could last a day, let alone a lifetime. And yet the audio/visual resources of which I avail myself ceaselessly (computer, newspaper, television, radio, etc.) can sometimes leave me feeling almost nauseous. Maybe there’s a paradoxical kind of freedom to be found in such penitential restraint?

The History Boys

This is a movie I have to see this Christmas. The Globe & Mail’s Johanna Schneller (The Moviegoer) gives her magical movie moments of 2006 (“not my Best Of list ... more of a thank-you note.”) and has this to say about The History Boys:

Richard Griffiths dissects a poem in The History Boys. How do you dramatize what a great teacher does? Movies about the glory of education usually rely on big moments — teachers jumping onto desks, students speaking rapidly in a frenzy of intellectual revelation. Instead, this film has one exquisite scene in which Griffiths sits with a single student and mentions a few things about a poem. In the questions he asks and the gentle manner in which he asks them, you learn everything you need to know about this man, you absorb everything the movie is saying about teaching — and you actually feel what it is to learn, the quiet, private thrill of thinking.

’Nuff said?

“Romance has been reduced to a boob graze”

Or so says Johanna Schneller, “The Moviegoer” columnist at The Globe and Mail. And who can argue?

“What I want for Christmas can’t be found. I am pining for a strong, smart, sexy, grown-up romance. Not a romantic comedy, where everything is fey and giggly. Not romance as a subplot in an action/adventure picture. I want a movie where love is the point — face-flushing, heart-racing, tears-streaming love....

“....Hollywood has lost faith in love. It has lost faith that watching a couple go through legitimate ups and downs is inherently interesting — to both sexes. It’s lost faith that words alone can seduce, that romance can be serious, and that it can be funny without pratfalls, fart jokes and fake sobs. It’s lost faith in the unhappy ending, the glorious torture of watching two people who are meant for each other but can’t work it out .... And that loss is a terrible shame, because any adult knows that often the greatest romances are the ones that end.”

Borat

From the CBC website, a review of the movie:

“Borat is a film about how foreigners see westerners — promiscuous, greedy, materialist hypocrites — and how the West sees foreigners: horny, incomprehensible, primitive curiosities. And so it is a film about how everybody is wrong, but also how much there is to laugh at in the cutting shards of truth that create those stereotypes. All of which accounts for just how hard it is to watch.”