In Chicago with the founders of Inventables enjoying pizza
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002)
I saw this as part of the Cinema Tuesday program set up by Texas Public Radio.
This movie is a documentary about the Funk Brothers. They were the session musicians at Mowtown back in it’s hay day.
“This unheralded group of musicians had played on more number ones hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined - which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music.”
The movie is a combonation documentary and concert film. Basically they slowly unravel the story of the band and as they do they have modern singers sing with the band on some of th the hits they created.
Some of these performances were great - others were not. But the music was always perfect.
There were a couple of things that really struck me about the film.
First - I’m not that into music. That doesn’t mean I don’t know anything but I was really suprised at how many of the Motown hits they played I actually knew. I guess that’s just a testament to the pervasiveness of that music.
Second - I had no idea that that “What’s Going On” had anything to do with Vietnam. It’s kind of weird because of course I became familar with the song much much late. I have always liked that song - but before this movie I had never thought about the context of when and why it was written.
Finally, the film grappled with the idea that you can do what you love and be the best in the world at it, but what does it mean if in the end no one knows it was you that did it. They like all unsung heroes contributed something very amazing, but are unknown and unappreciated.
Frankly even with a film dedicated to them I think the damage was already done.
I was really envious of the band when they started talking about how they would go and record for Motown all day and then leave and go to jazz clubs to play their own style of music. This process allowed them to experiment and introduce new ideas into the Motown recordings because they had so much freedom to pursue their own brand of music.
I was envious because I can’t imaging anything more exhilirating than being at the top of your game and just being able to indulge in standing in the “flow” night and day. I’ve never experienced that playing trumpet - but I can tell you it does happen programming and it is the sort of thing tha tmakes the world fade away and the moment last forever.
Bottom Line: It’s a well constructed documentary about a band you probably love but have no idea they even exist. Just take a bathroom break or get some popcorn during Chaka Kahn.
Right now I can tell you - I was working on a project with cramfs/squashfs files sytems. I started to read an article on how to make a ramdisk overlay. In the process I bound directories on a ram disk to the main directories on / of my Linux Laptop.
When I finished the process I deleted the directories to get rid of them. It turns out that in turn deleted the contents of the directories. Fortunately for me bin died early so I didn’t loose all my data - but I managed to munge the system so bad I’m re-installing.
Some people would blame linux for this - I wouldn’t. I was messing around as root and was doing things I didn’t fully understand - this is just the sort of thing that happens….
Oh and how does it feel - well I’m leaving in 18hrs for Chicago - I would like to have a laptop to take with me - painful with a sprinkling of stress - but relief that my home directory was spared.
Be warned I’m testing out the Spoiler Plugin for word press. I’m not sure how well it works - or if it works at all over RSS/Atom/etc.
If it doesn’t let me know !
I don’t know how to explain this movie. One person I read said it was a thinking man’s Forrest Gump. There is a lot more subtly and in many ways a lot more plausible chain of events. So it’s not an entirely fair comparisson. Gogol (The Ukranian writer) has a play call “The Inspector” where a nobody is mistaken for a very important goverment official incognito. There are some over tones of this in the movie. They are connected but tangental - mostly because Chance (The main character of the movie) is completely incapabale of guile of any sort.
I particilarly loved when he tried to tell the book agent that he didn’t want to write a book because he doesn’t write. The book agent promises to find a ghost writer. Then Chance reveals that he cannot read. The book agent says he understands - everyone is too busy to read. This exchange happens over and over again thru out the movie. Chance gives his answer and the people hearing it fill it in with their own version which makes him endlessly popular.
I won’t lie - after 20 minutes I was ready to walk away from the movie. If a friend (hi Morris) hadn’t told me it was his favorite movie of all time I would have stopped. The movie gets off to a slow start and it’s very nature makes it hard to imagine where they are going to take you. I made it all the way thru in the end and I’m glad that I did. I was laughing a lot by the end. Peter Sellers gives one of those performances which at first seems so effortless you think - that’s not really acting - but as it keeps going you realize how amazing it is that he is able to strip away all of his personality and charm and replace with a blank slate.
Spoiler Alert |
Bottom Line: Great movie - just be prepared to let the film unfold and rope you in.
I saw this when I was a little kid. I remember liking it - in the back of my head it was stored as a bicycle - Vison Quest.
Which since Annie had never seen it, and I’m trying to learn how to ride like an adult - I figured it might be fun to revist. Plus it was filmed in Bloomington, IN. Which I’m familar with since I grew up in Indiana.
I have to admit I was plesently suprised by the movie. I expected it to be cliche (and to a little bit was) but over all the acting and build up make it so much more than that.
There were a lot more things going on than just winning the big race. I don’t think I understood that when I saw it as a kid, but now it’s a lot more impressive that they dealt with so many issues of class and transitionting from a wasted youth into a responsible adult.
And also there is a lot of time spent dealing with accepting and embracing what you are and where you come from. The father in the film is the same actor who played the father in 16 candles . It is an interesting comparison because in this movie he is less intentionally funny but more sincere.
Bottom Line: If you ride a bike - you should see it. If you want a good movie about growing up - you should see if.
First - full disclosure - I spent a lot of my childhood collecting comic books. By childhood I mean up until I went to college. I didn’t really read the Fantastic Four. I don’t know why - I just never got into them the same way. Part of it probably the fact that they fought a lof of Skrulls and I just never liked them as villans.
As for the movie, it’s a fine movie. I mean the acting was really good for a super hero movie (Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom excepted from that list). They did a good job of building out the characters. The effects were nice, and the movie moved along.
One quibble - They dramatically changed Dr. Doom’s back story - making it more about a love triangle and less about pride (Original verison is here).
Overall - it’s a fine movie. Too much hype, but at least it wasn’t a remake - unless you count the fact that they made a FF4 movie 10 years ago that was never released :) The real problem with the movie is they take the entire time just to explain how they became the Fantastic Four in the first place. This would probably not be so annoying if I didn’t already know the answer to that question and would prefer to get more “Clobbering Time” in…..
Bottom Line: Summer popcorn movie - not bad - but the second one will determine if it is going to be something great or just another super hero movie.
This is mostly a bug fix release. I’m working on some much much better docs - but they’re not ready but the bug fixes are . There are now links to info on the plugin page. Also I added a FAQ to start tracking questions that come up over and over.
BUGFIX: gmt varialble not being set correctly
BUGFIX: Changed the name of the Check Mail button to fix an issue with mod_security
BUGFIX: Fixed issue with Cronless-Postie
BUGFIX: There was an argument passed by reference incorrectly
FEATURE: Added in Cronless Postie Readme
FEATURE: Added in Postie Readme
The security system inside of Postie shouldn’t make this a big issue - but I realized that since most people have their postie email checker publicly available and probably wouldn’t want their Postie blog-by-mail email address displayed - this fix removes that. I figure they can’t get in - but who wants the spam :)
Sorry! I put it in there for testing purposes and forgot to remove it.
Now you have to know the email address to send mail to it.
BUGFIX: Confirmed POP3-SSL on debian-3.0 mail server
BUGFIX: Updated the plugin version
BUGFIX: Stopped displaying the email account
I guess they really want me to run the cd before hooking up the router :)
I’ve been having problems with my dual head setup at home (2 20″ Dell flat panels). When I boot up a game the monitor shifts resolution. Other times it flashes. I figure that can’t be good for the monitor. I usually just turn it off - but then has caused problems because the monitor has a usb hub plugged in and when I do I lose my accessories :(
Apparently the secret under windows is to make my right monitor primary. So far it works - go figure?
