The Culture Enthusiast

I don't consider myself a Bill Murray fan but he's such an indie icon these days. I don't even know if he's still considered a comedian. He developed this sad and melancholic aura which made me stay clear of his more recent movies such as Moonrise Kingdom.

But whether I like it or not, he is setting himself apart. His career path is so different from the ones of Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase or Eddie Murphy. And I'm not saying this just because of his many collaborations with Wes Anderson but because of things like these Bill Murray Paper Dolls:

 Watching the video really made me smile. And it also made me compile impromptu lists about Bill Murray.

Top 5 Bill Murray movies

Broken Flowers

The life aquatic with Steve Zissou

Lost in translation

Quick change

Hamlet

BONUS: (movies where he's not really the main character)

Darjeeeling Limited

The Rutles

Bill Murray movies I wanted to watch, but then I saw the trailer and completely gave up:

Caddyshack

What about Bob?

Bill Murray movies I need to watch again because maybe, who knows, I'll like them this time:

The Royal Tenenbaums

Rushmore

Little shop of horrors

Bill Murray classics I shamelessly haven't watched but that I'm not planning to watch now:

Groundhod day

Ghostbusters

(Bill wearing socks image and video via Niege Borges. You should really check her website out, she's a Brazilian designer who's doing very creative work.)

What are your favorite and not so favorite movies with Bill Murray?

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

Despite being terrified of Stephen King's books*, I need to buy a copy of his On writing urgently. I can't tell you how many times I have seen authors and bloggers recommending it. i'm not a big fan of horror stories but we must admit he is an extremely successful writer.

In this post, Jon Morrow highlights some of King's tips about writing and connects them to blogging. I found all of them very helpful.

*Granted, I've never read any of his books, only seen (a lot of) the movie adaptations and they scare me straight.

Do you like Stephen King's books? What did you think of his tips?

  detail from the San Giobbe AltarPiece by Giovanni Bellini (1480)

He received his first lessons from Andrea Mantegna, his brother-in-law, which were decisive for the formation of his talent.

A self-made man, he maitained an independent studio and never received any honours. He was always imposing himself through his own merit.

Even when he was in his 80's he was still proposing new paths to aesthetic research.

In 1516, the german painter Albert Duher, wrote to a friend that he saw Bellini in Venice and that despite Bellini's old age he was still the most important painter there.

Images' sources: 1, 2, 3

What is your favorite painting from Bellini? Do you like his Madonnas?

Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, MO-NEY!

I rented It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world because I just realized I watched many parts of this movie but I had never really seen all of it. Then I remembered why. The movie is over two and half hours.

The dialogues are really funny and make it worth while though. The physical comedy and the endless car crashes, on the other hand, do get a bit tiring.

Because of this, It's a mad... won't have that much appeal to modern audiences. Compare those phony fights, with Will Ferrell punching a baby in his new movie (around 2:40). Actually, compare the whole two hours of  It's a mad... with the two excruciating minutes of that trailer - am I the only one deeply disgusted by it?

This is exactly why we've got to give it to  It's a mad... - it is incredibly ambitious. It's more than two hours. It has 10 main characters. It has a lot of special effects*. All possible comedy stars alive are in it. (According to IMDB, it became known the director was hiring every comedian he could think of. Some famous stars even contacted him to volunteer for the movie, or to ask why they had not been contacted). 

How did they pull this last one off, by the way?  There were no ego trips. Meanwhile, Eddie Murphy, Mike Meyers and Adam Sandler went on to play more than one character (if not all) in a movie.

But the most unique aspect of the movie is the plot. Several people are ready to do what it takes - really, whatever it takes - to get their hands in some easy money (and screw others in the process).

There's so much potential for drama here. Do you remember that Woody Allen movie, Melinda and Melinda, where he tells the same story as a comedy and as a drama?

It's a mad... has a lot of potentially dramatic scenes. Like the one where Melville, the dentist, is trying to convince his wife to get in a 1916 plane just to get ahead of the others. He lies and basically risks his life and that of his wife for money. In how many dramas do we see characters risking their families lives for money?

Or the scene where Cap. Culpepper is devastated because of his money and family problems and just stares at Mexico in the map. He embodies that idea that money is an escape of all your problems, which is probably shared by all the characters in this movie and the audience. After all, we never get to know what they will do with the money or why they wanted it so badly.

We only know the motivations of two characters, Cap. Culpepper and Emeline, but it seems that everybody's motivation is the same. They think money will solve their problems. Don't we see that constantly in dramas too?



The theme of what people would do for money is very universal and one that has been explored constantly in dramas. It's a mad... could have easily turned into a tragedy, but it didn't. Why?

Take a look at the ending. Spoiler alert, baby. (Sylvester rules).


I read in IMDB that the end disappointed many, but it's still an excellent one. They get caught and no one gets the money. This is perfect because it's realistic (plus, enough with the movies where the bad guys get away with things).

In a similar and more recent movie, Rat Race, the people who spend the whole movie running around after money end up giving the money away to charity - just like that.

Can we possibly believe that people who were ready to do anything to get that prize would give it up so quickly, without resisting or rationalizing it? In It's a mad..., one of the characters in the end says they deserve the money because they "suffered a lot" for it.

Rat Race's end is politically correct and unreal. It's just the writers wishfully thinking: "maybe they will magically copy the characters' generous behavior just like we magically turned petty characters into generous ones".

It's a mad...  doesn't spare the characters but it spares us. The characters will probably go to prison but we don't have to. During the movie we (more or less) sympathized with the characters or at least cheered for some of them. I particularly liked (and pitied) Cap. Culpepper.

In the end they don't get the money and end up seriously hurting themselves. None of their previous problems is solved. The only break they get is laughter. Their ultimate consolation is comedy.

This is why It's a mad... didn't turn into a drama. The director and all those comedy starts share the idea that ultimately it's better to laugh it off. I imagine that's the reason why all those stars wanted to be a part of this movie in the first place, because they all think the same way, they agree with what the movie is saying.

A lot of people have the wrong impression that comedians are easy going people that see the world through rose colored glasses. Quite the opposite. Many times, comedians are very pessimistic, troubled people. (There are many examples to this, but you can see a fictional one in the character of the comedy producer in Melinda and Melinda, or a real one in Woody Allen and his nihilistic outlook on life).

A person doesn't become happy go lucky once he becomes a comedian. It's just that he chooses to see life differently. Melinda and Melinda's tagline is: "life can be a comedy or a tragedy, it all depends how you look at it."

It's a Mad... recognizes that we do live in a mad world full of greedy people, but it reminds us that ultimately there are things we can laugh at.

Did you like It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world? What are your favorite lines and characters? 

* Some extra info via IMDB:

The scene where Melville accidentally knocks the blowtorch into the stairs with the sledge hammer took 86 takes to get it just right.

For the intermission of the premiere engagement at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, the filmmakers recorded messages supposedly sent over police radios describing what was happening to various characters. These messages were played not only in the auditorium during the intermission, but out at the concession stand and even in the bathrooms. 

I'd like to share my latest book purchases and maybe rationalize how on Earth I am supposed to finish all of them. I bought them on the same day and almost couldn't carry them home.

In my defense, they were bargains. (Isn't that always the defense?)

Paul Johnson's preface got me really excited: "It is therefore essential that society defend itself against cultural breakdown. The best way it can do this is by grasping the importance of art to the well-being of mankind: as many people as possible making it their business to examine art constantly, inform themselves about it and develop their faculties of understanding and loving it." 

Don't worry, Paul, I'm on it.

***
I usually begin checking the summary and flipping through the chapters. It always gets me down to see the first chapter is always about cave paintings. I want to skip it but can't bring myself to do so. It looks too much like cheating.

Usually Egyptian and Greek art come after, then I get a little motivated. But most times I want to cheat big time and start backwards, beginning with modernism (usually the chapter that mentions Turner).

I'm extremely suspicious about modern art but I love reading about it. It's like a sick curiosity: I want to see it where it all fell apart. Just kidding. Sort of.

This is probably why I like reading art books, it's like a roller coaster ride. You start very slow and with  great anticipation, then there's a lot of excitement and that Renaissance high, and in the end you get slightly Andy Warhol nauseous.  

Negro attacked by a Jaguar by Henri Rosseau - 1910

I was very surprised to discover his work is categorized as primitive or naive art. I really like his paintings, but I could never really go for primitive art, it always looked a bit artificial to me (I'm looking at you, Gauguin).

A Coen Brother's western with Jeff Bridges wearing an eye patch - what else do we need?

What called my attention the most about True Grit was the things that called Imdb user's attention about True Grit. I couldn't believe the topics of discussion in the movie's page. It sums up to: the movie was too violent, the language used by the characters was unrealistic and the performance of 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld was either underrated or overrated.

None of that even crossed my mind while watching the movie. I didn't think the movie was that violent. I'm usually very sensitive when it comes to violence, especially unnecessary violence, and I wasn't bothered or shocked by True Grit. As a matter of fact, despite having a very westerny story ("After a drifter murders her father, 14-year-old Mattie hires an alcoholic US Marshal  to help her exact revenge") the movie is also a compelling drama and a little bit of an action movie. I sure recommend this for people who, like me, are not western fans. 

Secondly, the whole deal about the language - are we all History buffs all of a sudden? During the movie, I only noticed that it was difficult to understand what Jeff Bridges was saying, but I put on the subtitles and moved on. If we feel a bunch of uneducated criminals were talking too eloquently, well, shame on us. 

Lastly, there's Hailee Steinfled. People have this thing when it comes to young actors. Let's face it, it gets us and them nowhere. Take a look at another young actor with a similar name: Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense.  People were all over him after The Sixth Sense and where is he now? That movie was more than 10 years ago, can you name other good movies he's done? So, Hailee did a great job in True Grit, let's leave it at that.

Actually, I was expecting more talk about her character, Mattie. This is what really made the movie interesting for me. Unlike most westerns, this had a great female character who kept me intrigued. 

Think about it. What does she have going for her? Her father has just been killed. She is a 14 year old girl in a world filled with men with guns. Nobody gives her credit. And yet, she is brave and persistent. I'm not just talking about the fact that she is willing to spend time with a US Marshal and a Texas Ranger looking out for a criminal (and all that entails). But even before that, she is smart and brave. She had me on that negotiation scene. 

She handled that situation perfectly and got what she wanted. Yes, I envy her. I don't have the guts to bargain (plus, I think it's a little cheap, but the main reason is the non-guts thing). 

Then there's the scene where Cogburn and La Boeuf decide to leave without her and she just doesn't accept it. She is the perfect example of a person who puts her money where her mouth is. She faces a great deal of hardship ranging from sleeping with corpses, to sleeping next to an old lady who pulls the blankets to sleeping in the wilderness with snakes and God knows what.

But, most importantly, she has a real sense of justice and duty.

Her character is so unique and amazing because movies are so ready to thrown in historical inaccuracies and plainly forget common sense just for the sake of pleasing feminists. 

I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples, but take the last version of The Three Musketeers. Milady de Winter was a seductive woman and a spy for Cardinal Richelieu. This 2011 version portrays her as a ninja. (You needn't see the movie, to get the gist of it check the trailer, around 1:00).

Movies are too hasty in selling us this idealized version of the past where everything is as modern as the present. One of the many problems with doing this is that you make it seem there was no way for women to be heroines in the past.

Women's bravery does not necessarily have to do with physical skills. Mattie is a true role model because she doesn't go after Tom Chaney by herself - she goes with two other guys whose jobs was to persecute criminals. She is extremely independent and smart but there is nothing unrealistic about her. She makes the most out of the resources she has: her intelligence and her endurance (plus some legal knowledge).

She reminds me of the two female leads from Gone with the Wind, Scarlett and Melanie. All of these  three women were ready to suffer and sacrifice for their families. Their strength is in the ability to struggle and to survive and not in the ability to be a high heeled ninja - with make up on.

As far as I could tell, Rooster Cogburn was not the only one who had true grit.

It's so strange that the book How to live on 24 hours a day by Arnold Bennet is not more popular. I used to say I didn't have enough time to read or study but this book has certainly killed that excuse. It offers tips to manage time in order to both read and ponder over what you read - which is incredibly important.  

Despite being written in 1912, it's not as stuffy as you'd thing. It's actually very clear and even funny  sometimes. Here's a part I really like (the highlights are mine) from chapter 5, "Tennis and the immortal soul":

You get into the morning train with your newspaper, and you calmly and majestically give yourself up to your newspaper. You do not hurry. You know you have at least half an hour of security in front of you. As your glance lingers idly at the advertisements of shipping and of songs on the outer pages, your air is the air of a leisured man, wealthy in time, of a man from some planet where there are a hundred and twenty-four hours a day instead of twenty-four. I am an impassioned reader of newspapers. I read five English and two French dailies, and the news-agents alone know how many weeklies, regularly. I am obliged to mention this personal fact lest I should be accused of a prejudice against newspapers when I say that I object to the reading of newspapers in the morning train. Newspapers are produced with rapidity, to be read with rapidity. (...)The idea of devoting to them thirty or forty consecutive minutes of wonderful solitude (for nowhere can one more perfectly immerse one's self in one's self than in a compartment full of silent, withdrawn, smoking males) is to me repugnant. I cannot possibly allow you to scatter priceless pearls of time with such Oriental lavishness. You are not the Shah of time. Let me respectfully remind you that you have no more time than I have. 

I fit perfectly into the description of a person who acts as if they had all the time in the world, though I do I try to change constantly. 

The only thing the book advises I failed putting in practice is to study and focus on one subject. I really wished I could read about one area only. I guess in this respect I'm a bit like Dickie Greenleaf from The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Byt the way, this book is available online on Project Guttenberg and Librivox (audiobook).

Do you struggle to find time for reading and studying? Can you focus on only one subject?

Image source

"Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house." - Le Corbusier

I don't know why but I have this interest on Bauhaus architecture. Maybe it's because the Bauhaus is not only architecture it's also social engineering. More precisely, as the book Living Machines - Bauhaus Architecture as sexual ideology by E. Michael Jones puts it, Bauhaus "embodied a new way of living in conscious revolution against traditional values".1

This book has a very interesting and reader friendly structure: it alternates between one chapter concerning  Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius' life and ideas and a chapter examining the buildings with the Bauhaus style. The conclusion is that all these buildings brought more misery than functionality to their residents. 

People living in different places like the Projects in Chicago, worker's houses in Poland or students dorms in Harvard University all experienced similar problems. A sense of isolation, imprisonment, despair and godlessness is produced by modern architecture. Not to mention problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse, violence and the destruction of families.

The same consequences happening to people in such different cities allows no space for doubts: it was intentional, it was social engineering.

Gropius was using architecture as a means for a cultural revolution. He wanted - in his own words - " to take part in a new community which is going to create the new Man in a new environment". 2

When someone starts talking about creating a new man - beware.

What do you think of the Bauhaus style of architecture? Do you see influences of it in your own city?

Image via Wikipedia

1 and 2: Jones, Living Machines, p. 82

PS: If you're interested in this subject, I also recommend Architecture of the Absurd by John Silber.

A post where I over-analyse Addams Family Values and ask a whole lot of questions.


When I was a child, I used to love the Addams family. They seemed so strange and at the same time so cool. I was strange and wanted to be cool, so it was the perfect movie for me. The cast was amazing and the jokes were dark and funny.

Gomez's mustache, Morticia's glowing eyes, Pugsley striped shirt... it was all fun and games until I watched Addams Family Values with a more critical eye. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened. Suddenly, I'm scared of the Addams. While I was watching this sequel I was shocked and it wasn't at the fact that the beautiful blond nanny is actually Joan Cusack.

So, we need to talk about the Addams. First off: why are they rich? The characters are different but they a) seem to accept that difference in themselves and b) not care if others don't accept it. But the producers want us to accept them too. Why not make them poor or middle class? It's like the producers thought we'd might be more responsive to them in case they were rich. Apparently, the Addams need validation.

It's like that saying: "Rich people aren't crazy, they are eccentric." Does this apply to the Addams clan? Are we willing to accept and overlook strange behaviour as long as it comes from rich people?

Notice that this is not a mere detail. The plot of both Addams Family movies revolves around people trying to get their money (first their sleazy lawyer, then a gold digger psycho).

Since we mentioned Pugsley, why does he exist? He has few lines and does nothing. He only does what Wednesday tells him to. Even in camp he seems to be in the same room as she is.


Who are the boys in this movie? Joel Glicker is a shy boy who's allergic to everything and who is despised by Wednesday in the end. How are boys supposed to react to this movie if there isn't one interesting, confident boy in it?

Anyway, it's difficult to watch and enjoy Addams Family movies now. It seems that their agendas are too out there for me to overlook them. You have jokes concerning killing other people (be them your annoying camp conselours, your camp mates, your parents, your husbands etc), jokes about the devil, a glamorization of all things criminal.

Wednesday did prove her point - she is scaring me to death.

I have some poetry books lying around which I just can't finish reading. I usually put novels on a deadline: x number of pages per day. I can't do that with poetry. Or can I? (cue evil smile and raised brow) No, I can't. We can't read poetry as we read prose.

So, I set the poetry aside and began reading Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards instead. It has been an enormous help. Richards is considered the father of New Criticism, so his book is all about close reading.

He begins the book as an experiment. He gave his students a poem without any further information - they didn't know the author, the date, nothing. This meant the poem could have been written by Shakespeare or by a four year old. 

He took students' analysis and used it to help us effectively analyse a poem. In case you are wondering, the major difficulties he pinpoints are:

1) The meaning of the poem

2) The sounds and rhythm of the poem

3) The images that are (or that are not) in the poem

4) Your own personal experiences - they cannot determine if a poem is good or not

5) Stock responses

6) Sentimentality

7) Inhibition

8) Doctrinal adhesion

9) Paying  too much attention to technical details

10) Prior demands made upon poetry as a result of theories on criticism

Keeping all of these items in mind seems like a good way to start tackling poetry. However, I don't see myself finishing all those poetry books any time soon. No wonder poetry books are not usually best sellers.

Image via My Imaginary Brooklyn

How do you read poetry? Can you finish a whole book on poetry or you concentrate only in a few poems at a time?

Leave it to Matchbook to be inspirational and useful. In their July issue they have an amazing article on how to start collecting art (pages 50 - 59).

This came at the right moment because I've been reading about Peggy Guggenheim lately and totally wanting to be her. Who knows? Maybe I could take some steps towards it (collecting art, not being Peggy Gugghenheim - though having three pups wouldn't hurt).

Their advice on visiting galleries regurlarly made sense to me and one I plan to put into practice asap. Despite being a museum buff I've never been to an art gallery.

This is why Matchbook is one of my favorite (online) magazines. Oh, how I wish they offered print issues!

Image via Matchbook 

Would you like to collect art? Which type (sculptures, paintings, photographs)? If by any chance you already collect art, kudos to you - you're my new hero.

In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine tells Jerry: "It is so sad. All your knowledge of high culture comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons." 

What's even sadder is that all my knowledge of high culture comes from pop culture, from Tv shows just like Seinfeld.

For some years I've been trying to listen to classical music. It has been somewhat difficult to appreciate it, you know, after years of exposure to every new pop band and song that ever existed. (Yes, this means I know What makes you beautiful by heart. Please don't judge me, it's an addiction.)

Anyway, one of the issues of beginning to listen classical music is exactly what happened with Seinfeld. You already know some of the songs, so you feel happy because hey, suddenly I'm not so dumb, but them it's like yeah, this is from Tom and Jerry.

Here's some pieces that made me happy to recognize them only to realize it was from a movie. See if you can guess from which movie they are (answers in the end):

1) Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro

2) Bocherinni: String Quintet in E, Op. 11 No. 5 

3) Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1st and 2nd movement

4) Poulenc: Mouvements Perpétuels No. 1

5) Listz: Liebesträume, S 541 

From the movies:

1) Trading Places (opening scene).

2) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (I'm Abbey Froman scene). 

3) The Truman Show (I never stopped believing scene).

4) Rope (Philip plays it in the piano). 

5) All about Eve (it's the only song Margo wants to listen at her party).

Do you remember any other movies that used classical music?

I just remembered I never got around to writing about Persuasion by Jane Austen. I recently finished reading all her books and that makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because they are all amazing books and sad because there are no more Austen novels to read. Maybe it's time to start re-reading them.

I recommend reading Persuasion after Sense and Sensibility since they're a bit similar in tone. The plot is Austean, as always: pride - not individual pride as personified by Mr. Darcy, but family pride - is again a key element of the plot. As I've mentioned before, Mr. Darcy's pride in Pride and Prejudice is of a palatable kind (Lizzy and us learn to love and forgive him). The pride showed in Persuasion is much more realistic, ugly and unpleasant.

Funny how many people say they dislike Mr. Darcy in the beginning of the book. Wait till you get to know Anne's family.

Her father and two sisters are utterly despicable. Her father's vanity and superficiality at an old age are just pathetic and sad. I visualize Sir Walter as the precursor of our metrosexuals, which means that, in my head, he looked like George Clooney.

Anne's family, people full of themselves, convinced her not to marry the man she loves, Frederick Wentworth, because he is poor and a nobody. Fast forward eight years, Anne is an old maid at twenty seven and Frederik is the successful and wealthy Captain Wentworth. And he is back in town, willing to marry. That is, to marry anyone who is not Anne.

There's not one Jane Austen novel who is not incredibly practical and educational. For those who didn't like Mansfield Park's heroin, Fanny Price, you will find Anne just as virtuous but much more heroic and stronger.

What Persuasion taught me is that virtue prevails. Anne has always been a virtuous and cautious person and this is more important than being vain or proud. Mrs. Smith, Anne's old friend, moved me so much. She wasn't always virtuous, she was a bit shallow and careless in the past (her husband managed to impoverish them both). Now, despite being old, crippled, poor and with no connections she is still joyful and she helps others who are poorer than her.

Moreover, in Persuasion you can see the difference between Austen novels and our modern romantic comedies. Most romantic comedies act as escapism for women. 

Austen novels, though they can be used as escapism if you want to, always teach you something through the characters and their actions. As a matter of fact, they teach you a lot about extremely important things. Rom-coms, on the other hand, don't.

Take Bridget Jones's Diary, for example. This movie is loosely based in Pride and Prejudice. But Bridget is neither smart not virtuous. She is - something Lizzy or any other Austen heroin is not - neurotic. See how Lizzy or Elinor never lose control of the situation. And notice how in almost every scene Bridget does - much to our amusement.

My point is: Austen tells us "take it easy, think it through and this will repay you." Bridget says: "sleep with a cute scumbag and act crazy 24/7 - you will be irresistible even to women!"

I made this comparison (Austen novels X modern rom-coms) when talking about Persuasion because it offers a device which has been explored ad nauseam by romantic comedies: the idea that "he will come back".

The difference is that Persuasion talks about the importance of making our own choices and, especially, making wise choices. Otherwise, learn how to live with the choices you made.

Anne didn't spend the past eight years living across the hall from Wentworth jeopardizing his relationships. She didn't have the certainty that, just like that, he would come crawling back to her. Many movies and Tv shows give this idea to women and not only is this escapism but it also makes them live in another reality. Unlike Anne, they won't move on.