“Speak Loud, Speak Proud” is a hip hop musical being presented at the church, located at the corner of Willett Street and State Street, across from the northeast corner of Washington Park in Albany.
Month: February 2016
Oscar nominated shorts for 2015
“‘Prologue’ seems to exist for no other reason than to show off the drawing talent and enthusiasm for over-the-top gore of its creator.”
Every year, I try to watch at least one set of Oscar-nominated shorts. On Presidents Day, The Wife and I were going to see the live-action movies at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, but the child watcher didn’t pan out. So, my spouse saw the live-action at 1 p.m. and I saw the animated items at 4 p.m. Then, the next day the Wife and the Daughter saw the animated set.
Don’t know if I’ll ever see the live-action shorts, because they’re now showing only at 9:30 p.m., and that’s not my best time of day to go out to the movies.
Animated
SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM
USA
7MINS/2015
Director: Sanjay Patel
Producer: Nicole Paradis Grindle
Synopsis: Patel uses his own experience to tell the story of a young, first-generation Indian-American boy whose love for western pop culture comes into conflict with his father’s traditions. Sanjay is absorbed in the world of cartoons and comics, while his father tries to draw him into the traditions of his Hindu practice.
Tedium and reluctance quickly turn into an awe-inspiring adventure as the boy embarks on a journey he never imagined, returning with a new perspective that they can both embrace.
This is the new short film from Pixar Animation Studios, and it’s fine, not great, but I don’t much enjoy the uneven playing field that Disney holds. In any case, this will almost certainly not win.
WORLD OF TOMORROW
USA
17MINS/2015
Director & Writer: Don Hertzfeldt
Synopsis: A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future.
OK, THAT was a terse description. Here’s a slightly more enlightening take:
This ‘Future Emily’ takes the toddler on a journey through space and time, discussing the nature of memory, consciousness and immortality, and explaining the ways in which the world will change, for better, and for worse.
Many folks think this film will win the Oscar, and I thought it was thought-provoking. My bride said that there was a piece of dialogue that she thought was reminiscent of something from Thorton Wilder’s Our Town. Specifically, it had to do with that Emily noting that people are not appreciating life when we’re living it.
HISTORIA DE UN OSO(BEAR STORY)
CHILE
11MINS/2014
Director:Gabriel Osorio
Producer:Pato Escala
Synopsis: An old, lonesome bear tells the story of his life through a mechanical diorama.
I LOVE this one! It’s the favorite of both my spouse and myself. It works at several levels. Here’s a review:
“The story itself is rather simple. But the sadness in the bear’s life—the empty table he leaves every morning, the pictures of his absent family on the wall, the disheveled home of a man who has no reason to clean anymore—betrays something deeper and darker in the background. The short packs an emotional wallop if you let it.”
WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT COSMOS
RUSSIA
16MINS/2014
Director & Writer: Konstantin Bronzit
Producer: Alexander Boyarsky
Synopsis: Two cosmonauts, two friends, try to do their best in their everyday training life to make their common dream a reality. But this story is not only about the dream.
No dialogue yet conveys the bond beautifully.
Unfortunately, the director says film pirates are “killing” this short.
Now, these animated items are rather short, so they add a few other stories.
From the shortlist of possible nominees:
IF I WAS GOD…
CANADA
Creator: Cordell Barker
Synopsis: What would you do if you were 12 and suddenly found yourself charged with God-like powers? Would you use them for good? For bad? Perhaps a little of both?
Here’s an interview with Barker.
THE SHORT STORY OF A FOX AND A MOUSE
Nicely rendered. The Daughter’s favorite. See this video.
Then a couple of other videos, one involving a bunch of meerkats and a vulture that looked very Disney.
Before the fifth nominated film, there was a warning about nudity and violence, inappropriate for children.
PROLOGUE
UK
6MINS/2015
Director: Richard Williams
Producer: Imogen Sutton
Synopsis: “Prologue” describes an incident in the Spartan-Athenian wars of 2,400 years ago. In it, a small girl bears witness as warriors battle to the death. The dialog-free project utilizes natural sounds to complement the intense animation entirely animated by Richard Williams himself.
OK, I get it. War is hell. But I agree with this assessment:
“‘Prologue’ seems to exist for no other reason than to show off the drawing talent and enthusiasm for over-the-top gore of its creator, and therefore really has no place amongst the ranks of the previous four short films.”
I told my family NOT to stay for this last piece, and they abided by my suggestion.
Live-Action
My wife thought three of them were real downers.
AVE MARIA
PALESTINE/FRANCE/GERMANY
15MINS/2015
Director:Basil Khalil
Producers: Eric Dupont, Eric Fantone
Synopsis:The silent routine of 5 Palestinian nuns living in the West Bank wilderness is disturbed when an Israeli settler family breaks down right outside the convent just as the Sabbath comes into effect.
This was apparently a quite charming comedy.
DAY ONE
USA
25MINS/2014
Director: Henry Hughes
Producer: Michael Steiner
Synopsis: Inspired by a true story, DAY ONE depicts a new translator’s first day accompanying a US Army unit as it searches for a local terrorist. As she quickly discovers, her job will bring up brutal complexities as gender and religious barriers emerge with lives hanging in the balance.
This was tough to watch, reportedly.
ALLES WIRD GUT(EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY)
GERMANY/AUSTRIA
30MINS/2015
Director, Writer & Producer: Patrick Vollrath Synopsis: A divorced father picks up his eight-year-old daughter Lea. It seems pretty much like every second weekend, but after a while, Lea can‘t help feeling that something isn’t right. So begins a fateful journey.
No, everything will NOT be OK.
SHOK (FRIEND)
KOSOVO/UNITED KINGDOM
21MINS/2015
Director & Writer: Jamie Donoughue
Producers: Harvey Ascott, Eshref Durmishi, Howard Dawson
Synopsis: The friendship of two boys is tested to its limits as they battle for survival during the Kosovo war.
War is fodder for many live-action shorts.
STUTTERER
UK/IRELAND
12MINS/2015
Director: Benjamin Cleary
Producers: Shan Christopher Ogilvie & Serena Armitage
Synopsis: Apart from his aging father, Greenwood has only one connection to the external world in the form of an online relationship. Every night, often for hours at a time, he exchanges messages with Ellie. On the eve of their six-month anniversary, Ellie messages Greenwood and tells him that she has traveled to London to surprise him. She asks if he would like to take things “offline” and meet in person for the first time. The image above is taken from the moment just after Greenwood gets that earth-shattering message and is suddenly facing a daunting proposition with everything at stake.
While consequential, this was not nearly so heavy as the others.
G is for the Greenwood Riots
“Thirty-five blocks of Greenwood were burned to the ground, wiping out businesses” that decimated the section of town.
The Greenwood riots of 1921 represent a piece of U.S. history that is not widely known. They took place in the part of Tulsa, OK known as the “Black Wall Street.” As this PBS link notes: “Most black people lived in the racially segregated ‘Greenwood’ section of the city, which contained stores, shops, hotels, banks, newspapers, schools, theaters, and restaurants. Greenwood had several wealthy black entrepreneurs…”
Indeed, following World War I, Tulsa boasted one of the most affluent African American communities in the country, which created resentment and “pure envy”, as Ebony magazine put it.
“By 1921, membership in the Ku Klux Klan was rapidly spreading throughout America and an active chapter had been formed in Tulsa. The riot was triggered over a Memorial Day weekend by a report in two white newspapers that a black youth had tried to rape — or at least assault — a young white woman elevator operator. One of the newspapers allegedly editorialized that the youth ought to be hanged,” although the Tulsa World, in an extensive history of the period, says that the publishing such a piece “does not seem likely. For one, the Tribune actually editorialized against lynching, both before and after the riot.”
In any case, a “group of armed African-American men rushed to the police station with the intention of preventing a lynching from occurring. There was no lynch mob but a confrontation developed between blacks and whites… As the news spread throughout the city, mob violence exploded. Thousands of whites rampaged through the black community, killing men and women, burning and looting stores and homes. Some blacks claimed that policemen had joined the mob; others claimed that a machine gun was fired into the black community and a plane dropped sticks of dynamite.
“When the National Guard arrived, it arrested blacks rather than white rioters. Some four thousand to five thousand men and women were held in custody for several days before being released. No whites were arrested even though many of the mob members openly boasted of what they did. Thirty-five blocks of Greenwood were burned to the ground, wiping out businesses” that decimated the section of town. “Reports of the number of blacks killed ranged from 25 to 300. Approximately 20 whites were killed.
“Despite promises to help, the city did not support those who lost their homes and jobs despite claims for over 1.5 million dollars in damage. Most support came from the black community and a few sympathetic whites. Only in recent years has white Oklahoma begun to accept any responsibility for what happened.”
In this 2014 report, Greenwood riots survivors tell their stories. More recollections are out there, many from 2011, the 90th anniversary, in the New York Times and The Root, e.g. Here’s a video from the History Channel.
Wikipedia has White American riots in the United States. In response to the primarily black violence in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody, Salon notes: “White pogroms against blacks are a fixture of American history.”
Bottom photo from here.
Carassimi’s Jephete at First Pres Albany March 4
Continuing with the First Friday music and art series. The church is located at the corner of Willett Street and State Street, across from the northeast corner of Washington Park in Albany. Please enter on the Willett Street side. Light refreshments available.
Winter 2015-2016
The one thing I hate about the metric system is that one gets to below zero WAY too easily.
I know winter 2015-2016 is not over yet, but I’m intrigued by it so far. It was 71F/22C on Albany on Christmas eve, a record. We didn’t even have any measurable snow until a few days later.
Remember that monster storm that slammed the East Coast in the latter part of January? It crippled Washington, DC, Virginia, and eastern Pennsylvania. Even New York City got a couple of feet.
Do you know how much we got from that storm in Albany, 150 miles north of Manhattan? Zero. Nada. In fact, my sister in Charlotte, NC got worse weather than we had, as did my buds in Kentucky and Tennessee.
I note this because most folks in the United States have no sense of geography. Several times, even my downstate colleagues in New York City and Long Island asked, “Are you finished digging out?” Digging out from what?
As of February 20, we had less than a foot of snow (less than a third of a meter) for the whole season, a quarter of what we receive normally, and nowhere near the nearly 70 inches (1.75m) we had LAST year at this time. I haven’t shoveled the walk yet, although I’ve taken a broom to the sidewalk a few times.
And the temperature has been moderate. Not that it didn’t get cold. On Valentine’s Day morning, it was -13F (-25C), another record, though it cracked 50F (10C) two days later.
The pipes to the kitchen froze, which meant I got to wash all the dishes by hand, hauling hot water from the nearby bathroom, where the pipes, further from the external wall, did NOT freeze. I LOVED washing the dishes that way, though I must have tried a dozen times to rinse them with water from the unwilling tap.
I think this stuff is fascinating to me because, as we age, it’s much harder to distinguish one year from another. Last year WAS a brutal winter, with the average temperature for February 12F (-11C), when it should have been 19F (-7C), with several days below zero Fahrenheit. (The one thing I hate about the metric system is that one gets to below zero WAY too easily.)
I’m noting this now when it’s scheduled to be above 50F (10F), but that “just enough cold air may seep in at a key time to allow snow to fall during all or part of one or two storms from the Ohio Valley to portions of the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts during the Tuesday to Thursday time frame.” In other words, it ain’t over yet, even though the groundhog failed to see his shadow and we expect an early spring.