French Filmmaker Eric Rohmer dead at 89

French filmmaker Eric Rohmer has died at age 89.

Who you might ask?

Well Rohmer was a brilliant director who was part of the French New Wave in the 1960's. He had a habit of making blocks of films with a particular theme running through them. I've only seen his Six Moral Tales - which consists of La Boulangère de Monceau (The Bakery Girl of Monceau), La Carrière de Suzanne (Suzanne's Career), La Collectionneuse (The Collector), Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night at Maud's), Le Genou de Claire (Claire's Knee), L'Amour l'après-midi (Love in the Afternoon/Chloe in the Afternoon).

He also had his Comedies and Proverbs - La Femme de l'aviateur (The Aviator's Wife), Le Beau mariage (A Good Marriage), Pauline à la plage (Pauline at the Beach), Les Nuits de la pleine lune (Full Moon in Paris), Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray/Summer), L'Ami de mon amie (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend/Boyfriends and Girlfriends) and the Tales of Four Seasons - Conte de printemps (A Tale of Springtime), Conte d'hiver (A Winter's Tale/A Tale of Winter), Conte d'été (A Tale of Summer) and Conte d'automne (A Tale of Autumn).

His films deal with people and their various relationships. There's a lot conversations that take place and usually not much action or drama. Still there's something beautiful and compelling about his movies. These are brilliant films and if you haven't seen them before, they are worth checking out.

1977 Interview with Eric Rohmer from zenfoolio on Vimeo.

Is Fox News The Broadcast Branch Of The U.S. Republican Party?

Pretty much. (L.A. Times)

Hmm. Fancy That.

There's no equivalent federal tax credit for parents with kids in arts programming like there is for parents of sportier tykes, says the L-P. That was one of Stephen Harper's promises when the arts bit him in the ass before the last election. According to the government, it's busy prioritizing the economy, blah blah blah. I can think of one, oh, $86 billion industry that would know how to put money to work to stimulate the economy, but whatever.

I'm actually shocked that anyone cares about such piddling amounts as any of the vote-buying-tax-credit schemes on offer from the feds (in lieu of real programming, childcare, etc. ad nauseum) but who am I to say?

Six In The Morning

1 END OF A MEDIA ERA Well, despite efforts by CEO Leonard Asper, Canwest's newspapers are up for bank auction. The Globe and Mail reports the Canwest boss sent a letter to the Bank Of Nova Scotia arguing that selling his family's papers in the current economic climate would be bad for shareholders. Scotiabank, which leads a group of secured creditors, basically told him to get lost. (Globe And Mail)

2 HUGE SEARCH FOR MISSING REGINA WOMEN But Carlene Walters, a post-traumatic stress disorder sufferer who's been missing since randomly leaving her home Dec. 30, is still missing. (Leader-Post)

3 LIBERALS GO ON THE ATTACK The federal party slams the Tories for shutting down Parliament in a new advertising campaign (Toronto Star). Good. Really, Canadians should be protesting this in the streets and they're not. Maybe a few partisan TV commercials will wake up the sheeplings who don't read the Economist.

4 SCHOOL BOARD DREADS CUTS A Saskatoon school board lays out its problem with provincial budget freezes and reckless tax changes. Repeat after me: former School Board trustee John Conway has been proven correct when he said taking taxation powers away from school boards would cause huge problems. (StarPhoenix)

5 PROP 8 CHALLENGE HITS COURT; JUDGES BAR YOUTUBE BROADCAST The completely irrational and insane citizen-voted California law that blatantly discriminates against gays and lesbians is being challenged in the state's supreme court today. But you can't watch the action live on YouTube, because U.S. conservative gay-bashers succesfully whined to judges that their bigot-allies testifying against gay marriage have a right to spew their hateful bullshit without their faces being on the Internet. How conveeeeeeeeeeeeenient. (LA Times)

6 ENTER THE SEXBOTS Here's a preview of the future. Get used to this kind of stuff. It's only going to get crazier. (Toronto Star)

Pick of the Day: Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds

There's some pretty rad technology discussed in this book by University of Regina Astronomy prof Martin Beech. Crashing comets into otherwise arid planets to provide a source of water, transporting gas from the Sun to Jupiter to turn it into a mini-star, altering the orbits of asteroids and getting them to clip Venus to speed up its rotation so that a "day" doesn't last 243 Earth days, even erecting giant screens and mirrors in space to help cool down Venus and heat up Mars.

With other planets in the solar system, we don't really have a choice if we're to make them conducive some day in the distant future to human habitation. But the truly scary thing is that scientists, due to fears about runaway climate change if we're unable to get our greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels under control soon, are actually contemplating similar interventions here on Earth. It's called geo-engineering. And it's a pretty sad comment on the lameness of our species, that we've abused and exploited nature to such an extent that we actually have to resort to terraforming Earth to ensure it remains habitable.

That we need to move off Earth is a no-brainer. As Beech notes in an interview in our upcoming Jan. 14 issue, tremendous resources are there for the harvesting in the solar system. As well, if we can establish viable extraterrestial settlements they can act as an insurance policy should humanity one day be menaced by the type of catastrophe that exterminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. (YouTube) But before we do that, we really need to get a handle on sustainable development so that we don't soil those worlds like we have our own.

In the hope that we one day get our shit together and begin to explore and settle other planets here's the trailer for the 1958 sci-fi cheesefest Queen of Outer Space which is set, and I use the term extremely loosely, on Venus. (YouTube)

Got notice late last week that tonight at 7 p.m. there's a forum on Community Engaged Research at the University of Regina's ShuBox Theatre where several artists and educators who specialize in community engagement talk about the benefits of what they do.

Pick of the Day: Love & Savagery

Second day of the Ice & Fire Winter Carnival is on today at the Rider practice Field from 1-6 p.m., don't forget. And if you need a place to warm up after, the RPL Theatre is screening the following two films tonight.

At 7 p.m., it's Love & Savagery. Set in 1969, this Canadian-Irish co-production is directed by John N. Smith, and involves a Newfoundland geologst/poet who travels to Ireland to examine a geological wonder called the "Burren", where he meets and falls for a local lass named Cathleen. Here's the trailer (YouTube)

The second movie, which screens at 9 p.m., is called Inside Hana's Suitcase. It's a Canada-Czech co-production directed by Larry Weinstein, and concerns a group of Japanese school children who, under the direction of their teacher, solve the mystery of a girl named Hana Brady whose name is on a battered suitcase that they received from the notorious WWII concentration camp Auschwitz. Here's a clip from the movie (YouTube)

Which Reminds Me...

Oh, the sad occasion of Art Clokey's passing has prompted me to start sifting though YouTube. Have you been? It's amazing what you can find there. I've been fondly recalling all the old classics - "Blind Man's Bluff", "The Winner", and then I was reminded of a film that I first saw on a compilation tape of post-modern animation entitled "He Was Once" (directed by Mary Hestand in 1989). See if you can spot a very young Todd Haynes. Enjoy!

Part 1:

And here's Part 2!

Stephen Harper on Zombies

No. Not that Stephen Harper. But I did interview a Stephen Harper on the subject of zombies. I'll let him explain....

“It’s worth clarifying that I’m a British media studies academic, and not your Prime Minister. Then again, inviting him to discuss zombies might not be such a bad idea: world leaders aren’t exactly known for their humanity, but yours seems to have more in common with the living dead than most...”

See, what happened was, for the zombie article I wrote for our decade-in-review issue, I tried to arrange an email interview with Professor Stephen Harper of the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at Portsmouth University. He'd written a piece I enjoyed called "Zombies, Malls and the Consumerism Debate" for the journal Americana. And, considering his name, I figured he'd be a doubly perfect source for an article looking back on zombie film in the Zero Decade. But, due to holiday celebrating getting in the way, the interview didn’t come off until after the issue went to press.

Still, Harper’s insights into the zombie genre are pretty damn impressive so I’m running the whole interview here on the blog.

But first a few highlights....

“Humanity is living through apocalyptic times – war, famine and disease blight the planet and even the ability of the environment to support human life is being undermined at an alarming rate. Such developments aren’t natural or inevitable (in fact they are all more or less preventable); they are the excrescences of a mode of production that is in terminal decline – in fact, a system that can only be described as necrotic. Especially in the wake of the recent economic crisis, it’s become more and more apparent that capitalism is a rotting corpse. Although a dead system, it blindly staggers onwards. Having enjoyed a fruitful life, it has now exhausted its potential and is now no longer advancing the cause of human progress in any way, but cannibalising humanity. ”

“Perhaps more than any other type of monster, zombies condense ideas about power and its abuse. As you know, the zombie has origins in the Haitian voodoo tradition and insofar as they are seen as slaves, zombies invite a degree of sympathy, opening up a space in which we can see ourselves, as it were, in them.”

"More terrifyingly, of course, the undead can also represent the ‘return of the repressed’, resurrecting unpleasant histories or reviving reactionary values. In many films, zombies figure forth the ‘dead weight’ of archaic or conservative ideologies, recalling Marx’s famous observation in The Eighteenth Brumaire, that ‘the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living’."

Here is the complete interview with Dr Stephen Harper on the subject of zombies. It is a very good read.

And Speaking of Saturday Morning Cartoons: Art Clokey RIP

Art Clokey, creator of both Gumby and Davey & Goliath, passed away in his sleep yesterday at the age of 88. For some reason, whenever I recall getting up early to watch re-runs of Davey & Goliath as a kid in the 70's, it was always dark and snowing outside. I don't know why, but there was something really cozy about watching that show, which is strange because it was seldom comforting. Maybe it's just me. At any rate, may Art rest in eternal peace, as I'm sure he had hoped he would.

(Los Angeles Times)

Saturday Morning Cartoon

"Okay, maybe my dad did steal Itchy, but so what? Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing the Honeymooners, we wouldn't have the Flintstones. If someone hadn't ripped off Sgt. Bilko, they'd be no Top Cat. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney. Your honor, you take away our right to steal ideas, where are they gonna come from?" - Roger Meyers from The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died".

After the success of creating one of the most iconic superheroes ever, Bob Kane eventually moved out of the comics field and in 1960 started "creating" characters for cartoons. He came up with Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse - a parody of his Batman and Robin characters. Strangely this cartoon foreshadowed the more campy version of Batman that would soon follow.

The only opening credits I could find are in another language but it adds some charm to the show.




In 1966 Kane did what everyone else was doing - he jumped on the super spy bandwagon with Cool McCool. McCool was an inept spy that managed to save the day in spite of himself.

It's awfully similar to the earlier 1965 live action TV series Get Smart but with Dick Tracy inspired villains. For that matter the later cartoon series Inspector Gadget is similar to Cool McCool. They even both have mysterious characters who are always sitting in chairs (in McCool it's his boss Number One, in Gadget it's the evil Dr. Claw.) The recycle never ends.