You describe the "cheez-whiz" aspect better than I did. That's part of the explanation of the reason for it "presenting" to me not as music but as mere sound. Most of the explanation, in fact. Like you, possibly even more than you, I like electronic music, and electronic touches in music that isn't primarily electronic. I'm not sure why that's different. In part maybe because part of the point there is to play with sounds that don't exist in nature. Metal is manufactured, and doesn't really exist in nature. But you don't perceive metal as being a synthetic something in the way that you perceive plastic made to look like wood as synthetic, it's just something else entirely.

I was slightly surprised to see Lana del Rey with those other two. I had the impression that her work was more in the hipster direction than theirs (as her adopted name suggests).

The stuff I've heard from Del Rey is just pop-electronica/trip-hop lite. Very vanilla. She has a nice voice but the material is weak.

Isn't that trio basically doing rap, with some extra noise thrown in?

This is rap. A very casual listen gave me the impression that some of the words are pretty crude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHRnvjCkTsw

I suspect that's nationwide. It's certainly true here. There's at least one station devoted to it, and others have it in their mix.

I've never been clear as to whether there's a clear distinction between rap and hip-hop. Not that I've put a whole lot of effort into it. I've made a couple of efforts to find something in that line that I really liked, without much success. In most of what I've heard the lyrics range from uninteresting to offensive, so in a genre which puts them at the forefront that's a pretty big handicap. I do like The Roots' How I Got Over pretty well. I wrote about it here at the time.

I've seen a couple of the Infinity Wars movies, but they are entirely forgettable. I don't know how people identify with these cartoon characters or their cartoon exploits.

Before I read this blog, the main person who recommended both music and movies to me was my older brother (he cannot do it any more for health reasons). I remember him saying, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, before they were everywhere, that he didn't like these new 'cartoonish' movies, because he could not identify with an indestructible hero performing humanly impossible exploits.

I tend strongly to agree, but then I don't rarely like any any kind of fantasy / magic / alternative world fiction or movie, for the same reason.

My lodger and I went to see Terminator 6 last night, and it was dreadful, of course. He wanted to see it, and I had not seen a Terminator film before so I was game. The trailers were all, every single one of them, for this kind of cartoon epic.

Of course we also live in an era of excellent cartoon movies, mainly Japanese, mainly recommended by Janet.

Of course I would not say the cartoon epics and the big fantasy type movies were 'just the same thing'. But I think there's a loose family resemblance between them, and that is the reason why both have been popular at the same time (in the past two decades).

Heroic exploits in the movies of, say, 1930-1980 would be very difficult for a normal human being, but not impossible for any, Olympian athletic-typic human being.

Im not sure if, once having abandoned any pretense at natural realism its possible for them to go back. They have to make it more and more impossible.

But I just watched a movie where three women parachute out of an airplane in a hummvee, land at the bottom of a lake, entangle their pursuer, a robot sent from the future to kill them, in the parachute, swim to the surface, and then run away.

"Old man note: there is no James Bond other than Sean Connery."

So true.

AMDG

OK, Boomer

I went to see Ford v Ferrari to get Terminator out of my head. First class performances from Bale and Damon

I keep trying to remember what Aristotle said about the plots of plays or epics. Its something like 'not true but plausible'.

The Ford Ferrari movie, though largely a 'true story' as the movies understand that term, somewhat illustrates this. Almost no one could drive a car like Ken Miles / Christian Bale. But one person did!

Its not as if they get involved in a car chase and then drive the car across the top of twenty other cars.

I watched this movie because it was recommended by John Podhoretz, and I like *most* of the movies he recommends. One thing I found dispiriting about the reaction to Scorcese's remarks, was that everyone - including critics I often agree with, such as Pod - simply scoffed at Scorcese, as if he was a ghastly, elitist snob. But Pod himself says that most movies these days are being made for 12 year old boys.

the movie is about 25 minutes too long but really, in my op, a good film. Beautiful performance from the actress who plays Ken Miles' wife, and genuinely thrilling races. One extremely funny, ironic scene between the racer and his wife.

Yes, I think the glamour of Le Mans comes from a time when Europe was far off and glamorous - both to Americans and to English people! Travelling to France had a certain 'Jet setter' feel to it in the period when the movie is set (1966 ish).

Yes I looked up Le Mans this morning and saw that some Dutch guy Ive never heard of won eight times. The only thing I lnow about Nascar is that video with the funny prayer, including thanking God for ‘my hot wife’. She appears in the video in my recollection and is a very very solid mother of five

I sort of think Mario Andretti was something of a household name in his time. At any rate I was aware of him and I certainly didn't follow auto racing. But I certainly couldn't name a current non-NASCAR race driver. Drawing a blank on current NASCAR in fact at the moment, since Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick have retired (I think).

Football season is about the only time I ever see TV with commercials, which always reminds me how much I hate them. They fairly often feature people whom I'm obviously supposed to recognize but generally don't. Also they're of a size and demeanor that makes it pretty apparent that they're athletes. Of course that's what you would expect in commercials during football games. There's one that includes two that I do recognize, Peyton Manning (football) and Brad Paisely (country music).

I don't necessarily mind CGI as such. But "an indestructible hero performing humanly impossible exploits"--there's no excitement or tension if the filmmaker can just dispense with physical reality whenever it suits him.

I meant to say earlier that I'm skeptical of Podhoretz as a film critic, because he scoffed at Bergman. That's a big demerit in my book. I'm trying to remember what made me aware of Scorsese's column. I think it was someone else's recommendation but I can't remember now. Anyway, point is whoever that was didn't scoff.

True about miniseries. Since early on there has been this association of movies (regular 1.5-3 hours) with novels, but it never really worked. Novels are usually just too big to fit that format all that well. But with the 10 or more hours of a miniseries, you really can do justice to a novel, or create something comparable to a novel.

Do either of you (or anyone else reading this) have a Criterion Channel subscription? It has real cinema, of course, and I'm embarrassed by how little I've used it. Plenty of capital-C Cinema there, but a lot of it seems less than interesting to me.

I don't have internet at home so everything I watch is on DVD.

I'm really irrational about TV commercials. I mean, most people dislike most of them, but dislike is way too wimpy a word for my reaction. I've always been that way. Not sure I could watch football without a mute button to squelch the audio when commercials come on.

Yeah, there's probably near-zero overlap between the Marvel audience and the Art Film audience. Just to be clear, I do find the Marvel stuff mildly enjoyable, but no more than that.

I have watched all of the Marvel and DC films up until the last few which I don't seem interested in, so maybe I'm over it now?

However, I am much more into real cinema. I would have to say that Woody Allen is my all time favorite director and if he has ever used CGI for anything it was in a very small capacity. In Deconstructing Harry he made Robin Williams exist as an out of focus character, does that count as CGI?

Martin Scorsese is of course correct, as are all of you, these superhero movies are just cartoons with real actors/actresses. They do carry some emotional weight (as seen in Avengers Endgame) but even then you can argue forever about the how and why of what happened because as Mac (I think) pointed out, within this sort of world the rules can be changed to suit the filmmaker.

I only watch TV and DVDs. I have internet, but I do no streaming. I just returned from a week at a friend's in Wisconsin and he had streaming....I'm glad I don't have it, I would get sucked into these series and never read!

Commercials are horrific, Mac. I use the MUTE button a lot!

In case it was not obvious, my response was to the comment about overlap in the Marvel and Art Film audiences...

My last comment was to Janet, too, though it works just as well either way. Didn’t see Stu’s for several hours.

I admit I do sometimes make a muting exception for the Geico gecko.

Saw JoJo Rabbit last night -- I have a couple slight qualms, but on the whole it's very good. Funny, but also quite moving in places.

I need to catch up on Malick. I think there are at least two post-Tree of Life ones that I've missed.

I guess everybody is all excited about Frozen II. :-|

A Hidden Life starts here on Dec. 20. I tried to read a book of Jagerstatter's letters and was just slogging my way through. I finally decided I had to give it back to the person I borrowed it from, but I suspect the letters near the end might have been more interesting.

There's a movie about Franz Jagerstatter that was made for Austrian television in 1971. It's up on YouTube, and it has English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDvW42iSeVs

Sorta like the difference between movies and film? ;-)

I hate to say this (really, I do), but a movie about Franz Jagerstatter doesn't sound very appealing to me. It doesn't mean that I don't admire him.

Mac I Don’t usually like seeing movies but this is Malick!

Though I suppose it could have the worst of all worlds and be saccharine and deadly slow at the same time. Or some kind of saccharine and unbelievable nunny set of episodes which is simultaneoysly incomprehensible as a narrative. When you think about it the Saint movie and the art hot house movie are very similar genres

Of course Janet is right that these movies are comics not cartoons

Yes, I invented the word 'nunny'. This semester I did a directed reading with seven grad students on The Concept of Woman. Its a four volume book about - the concept of woman, ending up with JP II and complementarity. Its a really good, serious scholarly work. Prudence Allen, the author, is a religious sister but she was taught by many people who were far from her own perspective and she has a fine, well disciplined academic mind. Except for when she doesn't. I invented the term 'nunny' for when she doesn't, after somewhat lamely suggesting 'maybe its feminist methodology?' Its not supposed to be a work of theology. Its supposed to be a work of history of ideas, specifically history of philosophy. But we are told the modern age begins with the apparitions at Guadalope, treated as solid science and the discovery of the shroud at Turin, also solid science. There's nothing wrong with that in theology but in history of ideas, its kind of 'nunny' to think that everyone could see the evidential basis for the apparitions at Guadalope or the Shroud of Turin. It takes a kind of pious mind (which I entirely lack).

The most surprising thing in what you said is that a serious academic would also have a nunny mind. Not that I think it's impossible, but it certainly seems rare. Seems like the academic process would pretty well beat that out of one.

There actually is a surprising amount of scientific evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud. It was an article in Rolling Stone back ca 1980 that made me really take notice--the conclusion was that the image was created by "a burst of radiant imagery" (if I remember correctly). The best the skeptical writer could do, in the face of the evidence, was to conjecture that Jesus was some kind of enormously powerful magician. The supposed disproof in 1988 seems to have been seriously flawed. Which of course doesn't mean one should put the Shroud forward as "settled science."

I am pretty sure that isn't really any such thing as truly settled science. There are things that we have settled on as being almost surely true, but who knows? Tomorrow we could find out that water isn't just made up of hydrogen and oxygen, but has a twist of lime or something.

I say this because lately I am so annoyed by the phrase, "But it's SCIENCE!"

AMDG

Ive been sent prep notes for this Malick movie. Its three hours long No intermission and then the producer Has been flown from Germany to talk to us about it afterwards. On the plus side I can probably knock off the entirety of my advent preparation in one somewhat gruelling Sunday afternoon

I inclined to the latter when I read the email.

Malick’s film is amazing.

I snuck out before the lectues

I think A Hidden Life is as good as The Tree of Life. Its just very beautiful.

It will be here on the 20th. I am planning to go with my sister.

AMDG

I think one has to see Malick in a theatre. It does not work watching it on TV and pausing it to make a cup of tea. It only works as an immersion experience.

People all around me cried in the cinema on Sunday. Its very affecting. A young undergraduate told me she wondered why it had to be that slow.

Three of us who saw it discussed at lunch yesterday whether it could have been more ‘catholic.’ For instance showing him at mass. I thought not. I liked its indirection. One person thought there should have been more from the couple’s letters. I think he must have fallen asleep for the whole of the last hour - its one letter after another.

I put on my best professor face and told her it just had to be. For the sake of the immersion.

On Sunday they told us before the movie began that anybody quiet with their phone on would be expelled from the cinema. So we all politely silenced our phones. They told us at the same time that there was a clock right at the back of the cinema. Our showing started at 3 o’clock and ended at six. I only looked at the clock once at 5:30. And that was more because By that time the hero is in prison and it gets quite stressful. So I was wondering how long this would go on for, not feeling bored by the slowness. If anything the movie is like a very very slow thriller. Its like that movie where the Resistance hero claws his way out of his cell with a spoon -A Man Escaped, one of my favourite films.

I can well believe it. I'm continually annoyed by the quick cuts favored in every moving picture these days, from big productions to tv commercials. The Antonioni films were a pleasure and a relief in that respect. Just yesterday I watched a bit of a recent documentary about the Laurel Canyon music scene in the '60s, and although it's interesting the inability to get a good look at anything was maddening.

Coincidentally, I am also in my pjs. Had to do an hour or so of paid work immediately after I got up and haven't gotten around to getting dressed yet.

Hear, hear! This made me laugh, even though I like mushrooms:

“Mushrooms, too, are vegetables. Purists may object, because mushrooms technically aren't even plants. They belong to the Fungus Kingdom. I've always found it a bit odd that people would want to eat something that belongs to the same kingdom as Athlete's Foot and bread mold.“

Thanks for the music, Louise. It gave me the first bit of "Christmas spirit" feeling I've had this year.

Funny, just a couple of days ago I bought some Marmite. Ran out a while back and hadn't bought more, but for some reason had a sudden desire for it.