Still not quite sure what is going on with the liturgical timing of Star Wars films these days, but we are here to document it anyway.
| Film and year | US Release Date | O Antiphon |
|---|---|---|
| Episode VII (2015) | 18 December | O Adonai |
| Episode VIII (2017) | 15 December | two days prior to O Sapientia (Dec. 17) |
Labels: Advent, film, O Antiphons, Star Wars
There's no question that the number of screens we have available to us have changed our lives and can change our schools. There's also no doubt in my mind that we need to limit the amount of "screen time" that kids have.
But I take real issue with an angle in a recent NPR story Kids And Screen Time: Cutting Through The Static.
Thirteen-year-old Tom Zimmerman gets it: "One example: this one kid who was, like, in this room, and he had, like, this fake lightsaber, and he was acting really crazy. And it looked really stupid. And it was funny, but I'm sure that kid won't want it in the future. But so many people have taken that video and put it on their channels that there's no way of getting rid of it."
That 2002 video — of one teen boy in a heated lightsaber battle with himself —has been watched millions of times, but the so-called "Star Wars Kid," now in his 20s, says he was bullied because of it and had to leave school.
And that gives principals like Brad Zacuto not one but two big reasons to worry about screen time: 1) Because of what's not happening — important face-to-face time; and 2) Because of what is happening — kids putting themselves out there in embarrassing and potentially dangerous ways.
links removed
I beg to differ. Thirteen-year-old Tom Zimmerman doesn't get it. Neither does reporter Cory Turner.
The problem with the "Star Wars Kid" video is not the video; it's the bullying. Why aren't we talking about the bullying?
Because the video "is pretty amazing", or so comments reporter Cory Turner in the audio version of the story.
Just see for yourself:
So, step back and look at this. What is being proposed here is that kids not "put themselves out there" at all.
Is that wise? In this increasingly digital economy we want to stifle this form of creative self-expression too? We've already taken away art and music, and now kids can't even make awesome YouTube videos in their basements?
So what if you embarrass yourself? Make another one! There has to be a happy medium here. Kids have to be able to play around with this stuff. We've never had video tools available like we do today. Don't we want kids to play with this stuff?
The odds of your video going viral are next to nothing (not discussed in the NPR story) and the odds of you encountering bullying are pretty high (not addressed in the NPR story).
What's really "dangerous" here is stifling imagination, risk-taking, and a sense of play. What's really "dangerous" is telling kids that they must conform to their peers, not stick out in any way, and not have any original ideas, lest they be bullied by the enforcers of the status quo.
The answer is more creative self-expression, not less. Every kid should have to submit a "Star Wars" video.
At least you would in my class.
The actor Donald Sinden has died.
"Donald Sinden, British Actor of Stage and Screen for 60 Years, Dies at 90" (New York Times)
"Donald Sinden dies; multifaceted British actor of movies, TV and stage" (Washington Post)
GROSS: Wes Anderson, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Now, I've read that the first germ of the idea for "Moonrise Kingdom" was in the recording of Benjamin Britten's "Noye's Fludde," which translates to "Noah's Flood." What's the connection between this music and the concept of "Moonrise Kingdom"? WES ANDERSON: Well, I don't know Benjamin Britten's work that well, but I have always had a particular affection for it, because this play, "Noye's Fludde," or however you say it, he wrote to be performed by mostly amateur church groups, with a couple of professionals thrown into the mix. And it's meant to be performed in churches, rather than auditoriums or opera houses or anything else. So anyway, I was in a production of it, along with my older brother, when I was 10 or 11 years old. So many of the - I've been sort of humming these, you know, these hymns and things from that play/opera all my life, and I had a thought that I wanted to incorporate somehow into this, which I didn't know how I was going to do for quite a long time. But somewhere early on I sort of thought the movie should be set to Britten, and we use not only the "Noah's Flood" pieces, but also we kind of tapped into his - into the whole body of work.
Wes Anderson, Creating A Singular 'Kingdom', NPR's Fresh Air
Update 6 June 2012 11:45 a.m. via Twitter:
@sinden And those scenes, plus many others, were filmed at Trinity Church, Newport! Wes and the whole crew were fantastic to work with.
— Anne Marie (@girlierev) June 6, 2012
@sinden Yep! Filmed for 2 weeks in June 2011. Built the ark around our center aisle pulpit. Additional scenes in parish house basement. Fun!
— Anne Marie (@girlierev) June 6, 2012
Labels: Britten, film, Wes Anderson
Labels: church music, film, improvisation, organ music, poetry, St Paul's (Richmond)
Now that I've heard The Shaggs, I finally understand Destino, the film on which Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí collaborated.
Aaron Copland's only solo piece for organ Episode comes from his score to the film Our Town (1940).
His score was nominated for an Academy Award.
Here is the film, courtesy of archive.org.
The music that Copland would later arrange for organ can be heard toward the very end of the film starting at about 1:19:30
Sadly, the film quality isn't great, but I for one look forward to viewing the whole thing when time allows.
Labels: Copland, film, organ music
Film composer John Barry died yesterday.
His compositional versatility allowed him to write music to complement a wide variety of narratives from the James Bond franchise -- though this was somewhat disputed -- to our personal favorite score: Dances with Wolves (1990).
The score's success in the film was acknowledged with an Academy Award.
But it had a much larger life after this. Throughout the 1990s, Barry's score for this "epic western" was used in promotional material for all manner of "epics" and "westerns" and things that were neither. To an adolescent film score nerd, this homage was clearly ubiquitous for many years. And why not? It's a lovely tune.
There's a loveliness and honesty in the various "themes" for the film that also speak of a shared American experience when removed from this particular narrative. (In fact, if memory serves, PBS did make good use of it in promos for their "American Experience"). And I suppose the reason it was so readily adopted is that there was nothing of the sort ready.
I don't know many pieces that tread on this hallowed ground. It's not as cathartic as Barber's Adagio, nor is it as optimistic or as much of Copland's writing. Drawing from the film narrative, one might call it "American introspective".
And if we dare label these notes with such a specific intent, doing so might help explain why the music speaks so well in the film and beyond. These chords, and these sweeping gestures point beyond the American landscape into our very selves and ask us to examine what we find there.
In the world or American literature, I think the closest parallel would be "The Peace may be exchanged" from Rubrics by Dan Locklair. Here in the Christian community, we are asked to rise out of our dusty pews and into the whole church and examine those fellow men and women who travel the way with us.
This is a special kind of music.
Conventional Wisdom holds that deaths come in threes. We've seen an esoteric champion of the "ultrarational extreme" and a film composer die in the first part of this week. If you average these two, you get someone much more "mainstream classical", I think. I don't want to tempt fate, or jinx anyone, but I would caution all composers (especially New York minimalists) to be very careful crossing the street, walking down stairs, etc.
Labels: film, John Barry, Locklair
Here's a trailer forCarnival of Souls.
Filmed in Lawrence, Kansas, the film features the Reuter Pipe organ factory. It looks as though the whole thing might be available on YouTube now.
"As Mary continues to coax her malevolent tune from the organ, she moves more deeply into trance, beginning to experience an extended impressionistic vision of a throng of ghouls emerging from the water to waltz to her music in the pavilions ruined ballroom. As the Man moves towards her and then reaches out for her while she watches in numb horror, her fingers spasm on the keyboards, signaling the approach of a not-too-metaphorical climax. But just before it occurs, the minister appears suddenly and wrenches her hands from the organ, furiously calling her music sacrilege. He "asks her to resign" because of her lack of reverence and awareness of things significant to the church and concisely laments her "lack of soul". Before she leaves he softens his attitude a bit and tells her that the church can offer her help. She departs in totally wordless dejection. From here on her appeals for help to her acquaintances become more desperate."
I play like this all the time, and without meaning too. And then I stare at my hands. There are creepy montages, and the room starts to spin.
Fortunately I haven't been asked to resign, yet.
Happy Halloween.
Labels: film, organ music
Don't have the budget for Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man? No worries -- just write your own.
It's easy! The U.S. Department of Energy shows you how in the beginning of this film from 1980.
Sinden.org continues to observe the Octave of the American Election. Normal programming, if there is such a thing, will resume eventually.
Major kudos to Miss Wombat of in time of daffodils for providing us with a keen election night musical analysis.
After his concession speech, the McCain camp piped in music from the film Crimson Tide: "a movie about an old white guy submarine captain, and the upstart young, black XO who have to deal with Russia attacking their sub."
This is, as Miss Wombat notes "an almost hilarious topical reference about black vs. white and experience vs. inexperience."
But more than that, isn't it a pointed reference a certain vice presidential candidate who was a threat to both campaigns? And to the ever present Russia, a country in close proximity to said vice presidential candidate's house?
Not to mention that the site of all of this drama is an electorally significant Ohio-class submarine?
Two logos are seen. The first was used until from 1989-1996, and the second from 1996 onward.
Wait for the second one. It's worth it.
(via herself and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx a movie she's embarrassed to admit she was watching -- and let's face it, I would be too if it started out like that)
Need another BFS video logo? Here's a version of the first logo with different music.
Labels: film, randomness
The first part of a new series that reviews the American Film Instute's list "100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)".
I was pretty impressed when two DVDs arrived in the mail (it's an old school epic with overture, entr'acte), but not as impressed as I was by the awesome, nine-lap chariot race. It is clearly the model for the podrace in The Phantom Menace, but that one is not nearly as good.
The rest of the movie -- and there is a lot of it -- is less impressive. Leprosy and Jesus make an appearance.
This film fell 28 places (and nearly off the list), and I can't say I am surprised. It was #72 on the original.
After I watched The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T late last week, I descended into a merciless spiral of word-association movie watching fueled by Red Bull and eight-at-a-time Netflix. Here's how it went down:
- The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)
- Dr. T and the Women (2000)
- Women vs. Men (2002)
- Men in Black (1997)
- Black Hawk Down (2001)
- Down with Love (2003)
- Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)
- Stranger than Paradise (1984)
- Paradise Road (1988)
- The Road Warrior (1981)
- Xena: Warrior Princess, Season 1 (1995)
- Princess and the Warrior [Der Krieger und die Kaiserin] (2000)
- Warrior Queen (2003)
- Queen of Outer Space (1958)
- Space Cowboys (2000)
- Cowboys of Faith (2007)
- Faith of our Fathers (1997)
- Fathers and Sons (2004)
- Sons of the Desert (1933)
- Desert Hearts (1985)
- Hearts and Minds (1974)
- Mindstorm (2001)
- Summer Storm (2006)
- Bikini Summer (1991)
- Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
- Goldfinger (1964)
- The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)
Labels: film, randomness
Herself came into the room as I was watching The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), the only feature film written by Dr. Seuss.
She identified the eponymous character and inquired as to his motives. I immediately replied:
"He wants 500 boys to play his enormous piano at the same time."
This is a great movie.
Labels: film
First, I saw Helvetica and decided I like movies about fonts.
Here's a font movie you can watch now: Trajan is the Movie Font
Labels: film, graphic design
Oscar the:
- architect, Niemeyer
- boxer, de la Hoya
- class of submarine
- doomed musical (2004)
- edible meat and cold cut production company, Mayer
- fashion designer, de la Renta
- Grouch
- hotels, Greece
- I, King of Sweden
- Judicial application
- King of Sweden (also), II
- Latin American patriarch, Romero
- movie (1967)
- Norwegian and Swedish prince
- Oil Spill Contingency and Response
- Peterson, pianist
- Queen Sharmell's husband, Gutierrez
- relief pitcher, Villareal
- single-engined land-based fighter, Nakajima Ki-43
- traditional leader in folk music since 1886, Schmidt
- undesireable remake (1991)
- van Nooijen
- Wilde, author
- X-ray technician, Medrano, Jr.
- Y. Takeshita
Zmoked meat and cheese products- Zoology professor, Werner Tiegs
Labels: film, randomness
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