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.

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)

No no no no

Singer Lhasa de Sela has died. (CBC Media Blog)

God Calls in One of His Servants, Sends Him 'Down There'

Oral Roberts, one of the first of that particular breed of American holy roller/sociopaths to harness the power of television to share the word of God -- and make shitloads of money -- has died at 91. (New York Times)

In the eighties, Roberts claimed that if he couldn't raise $8 million, "God would call him home." God called in that debt on Tuesday. We -- okay, I -- didn't think God was serious about it, but I guess you just never know people. Deities. Whatever. I can only imagine the kneecapping/waterboarding/nipple twisting poor Oral got for not coughing the money up sooner.

By the way, I got this photo off of a blog called Pandagon, who used the picture of the statue in front of the Oral Roberts University (presumably of Roberts' own greasy, begging hands) to illustrate an article about the university. Pandagon claims the school is a veritable hotbead of greed, sexual abuse and other terribly sleazy things. I am shocked. Shocked.

Patrick Swayze is a Ghost

Patrick Swayze has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 57. (NYT)

Ugly in Pink

I just want to say this right off: I am not a seething ball of hate.

It’s true, I’ve expressed, within the Prairie Dogs pages, both actual and virtual, a fear and loathing of many things, from emo to the Smurfs to Twilight, to ill-mannered individuals who peel and eat hard-boiled eggs in public. (Okay, that last one got cut before publication. I’m expressing that one now.) But there are so many things I love and adore. Bicycles. Butterscotch. Too-clever power-pop lyrics. High heels. Ridiculously cheap banh-mi. Well-written television comedies. Sicilian-style lemon ice. Dirty jokes. Gender equality. Worn magazine. Nice-looking men. Independent retailers. Baseball statistics . Steampunk novels. Etc. Just to name a few.

But to blog is to vent, and somehow, I end up writing most about stuff I can’t stand. But I am really a sweet, appreciative, loving human girl. Really.

I am in no way capable of mourning John fucking Hughes.

Pretty in Pink was Reaganomics on a high school level, with Molly Ringwald’s Andie as the Deserving Poor, Horatio Alger type heroine. She is entitled to her mating ritual with the rich boy, because she is virtuous capitalism personified. The rest of the wrong-side-of-the-tracks characters? Who cares? Clawing/dating your way up the food chain is the way to win, losers.

Ferris Bueller was a high school Patrick Bateman. Cruel, narcissistic, obsessed with status, willing to walk on anyone’s face for a giggle. You think Ferris didn’t grow up to kill ladies? Ferris is a fucking nutcase. (Best 80’s film festival lineup evar: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Roger and Me, and American Psycho. You get the era’s self-congratulatory fantasy, it’s bleak reality, and posterity’s verdict.)

The Breakfast Club? Because all you really need, young lady, is to scrub that shit off your face and put a pretty pink bow in your hair. Then you’ll get a cute, violent wrestler who, no, never will take his nasty daddy issue temper out on you, and the rest of your life will be dandy peaches.

And let’s not even talk Weird Science, cause, as the existence of mail-order-brides and Real Dolls and lame-o plastic porn can attest, lots of people really, really dig the notion of not-real, biddable, robot slave girls.

So no, Stephen, I actually don’t find Hughes’ body of work “gentle” or “entertaining”. I find it creepy, patriarchal, racist, (You know what’s hilarious? An Asian guy with a name that means penis!) and repugnant, and have since I was a child. Hughes was responsible for what I consider some of the most insidious lies and fucked-up mythologies ever perpetuated on youth by Hollywood film. I’m sure his friends and family mourn him, it’s always sad when a human dies early, but that guy put a lot of evil shit in the world.

R.I.P John Hughes

The man behind Ferris Bueller's Day Off has died of a heart attack (Telegraph). He was 59.

Like a lot of you I'm sure, John Hughes touched my life through his films. He made gentle, well-crafted and entertaining movies about families and growing up (and sex!) and all that stuff. He wrote and directed The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck and the aforementioned mega-classic Ferris Bueller--and a ton of other treasures (which depending on your taste may or may not include Home Alone). You can see a full resume here on the Internet Movie Database.

My top John Hughes' movie moment is the Chicago Art Institute montage in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In the scene, the three friends--Ferris (Matthew Broderick), Sloan (Mia Sara) and Cameron (Alan Ruck)--wander the museum while skipping school and dramatically/ridiculously ponder famous paintings.

Then, Ferris and Sloan sneak off to cuddle before a beautiful Marc Chagall work. And the repressed, lonely, and crazily virginal and frustrated Cameron plants himself in front of the epic Georges-Pierre Seurat pointillist painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte-1884".

Lost, helpless and probably half out of his mind with jealously for Ferris' relationship with his girlfriend Sloan, Cameron stares and stares and stares at Seurat's great work, looking closer and closer until he can't see anything but the dotted dabs of paint that make up a child's face.





Such are the hazards of looking at things too closely--you miss the bigger picture. Cameron is real subject of the film, the character who truly has changed by movie's end.

I'm pretty sure this scene was the reason I went to Chicago for the first time in 1992--to stare at famous dots and divine the secrets of life.

I probably learned about as much from the experience as Cameron did.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hughes.

Daily Moon: Walter Cronkite Memorial Edition

Back from Saskatoon! Good to be home.

Well, it's a little rah-rah-U.S.A.! for my tastes but I always liked newsman Walter Cronkite, who passed away yesterday so what the hell. Here's 90 seconds of Cronkite reflecting on his coverage of the moon landing, ripped from the youtoob.



Dechene mentioned something special he's got so I'm hoping he'll put that up as tomorrow's Daily Moon. We'll see!