A Letter to Who?

So there's this guy named Bruce Weber. Nicole tells me that he is a famous photographer. A famous fashion photographer - Calvin Klein, Vanity Fair, that sort of fare.

Well, last night we went to see a movie by this chap, and I must say - he is a good photographer, but a horrible philosopher.

The movie was calld "A Letter to True." True is one of Weber's five golden retrievers, with whom he share what appeared to be a lovely Hampton's beach cottage. The film was billed as follows:

A LETTER TO TRUE is a stunning look at the affection, loyalty, and unconditional love displayed by [dogs] – which the filmmaker sees as a metaphor for peace and hope in the world.

Amen! I was pretty excited about seeing that, and it was no letdown visually. Unfortunately, the story was more a labor of self-love than animal love.

It seemed to me that the "letter" which Weber wrote to True was more a justification for the years he has spent away from the dogs on the road. Photographing Haitian refugees, male models and Elizabeth Taylor, all lovely people I'm sure. But instead of trying to find any sort of dog-style loyalty in these situations, it seemd that Weber was struggling to make his life's work mean something siginigant - to justify himself to his dog.

Toward the end of the film, he even got to talking about death, rolling out a long clip from a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. King talks at length about wanting to be remebered not for his Noebel Prize or where he went to college, but for serving others. I may be a cynic, but it sure looked like Weber was trying to tell his poor unsuspecting dogs that he was out serving others all those years while he was photographing nearly nude men, selling Calvin Klein perfume and making sure Elizabeth Taylor looked good for Vanity Fair, all before retiring to his Hampton's beach home. MLKjr. would be proud, I'm sure.

One more dissapointment. The elephant pictured in the movie poster above - they only trot him out for the closing credits. They must have rented that guy from Barnum and Bailey. How else do you get a haggered old elephant to lounge about and do tricks on a beach in the Hamptons?

Fair or not 9/11

I was away for the last two weeks getting married out in Ojai, California. If you've never been there, I would recommend packing your bags and getting a jetBlue flight out there right away.

When I stepped back into the office the other day in NYC, the newsroom was all ablaze with anticipation of Michael Moore's new film. I haven't yet seen the flick, but I'm starting to really look forward to it.

Of all the ink spilled over the release, I enjoyed Slate's the most. Here and here.

A lot of folks are calling it the Passion of the left. That's really interesting. We'll have to do an entry in the near future about the two movies, the passions they represent, and whether or not a majority of Americans can be put into one camp or the other.

Tolerance for hire

There is an article on CBS News today that makes me scratch my head a bit.

I chuckled at the taken-for-granted superficiality of this piece. Of course the ability of a product to sell makes it acceptable. Duh. What do you mean you should have a part of yourself in public just because you believe it? How last century of you.

There was an astute comment in there though. It's something that I've noticed since moving up to NYC. The writer was wondering about why the market of evangelicals - a rather large purchase power group - was news to Hollywood.

[Jess] Cagle notes, “As one producer told the magazine, the people who run the studios are a very homogeneous group of people, and there is a great divide between those people and evangelical Christians.”

But it's more than misunderstanding a consumer group. I think that this may be uncovering a deeper idea that has been held - incorrectly I believe - for a long time.

Ever since I can remember, I've heard folks say that I produce this or that because it sells. You know, sex sells, hip-hop sells, etc. Well, seems to me that it's more a preference for what people want to create in the first place.

Folks are all suprised that religion and sacrafice sells - I'm not.

I think that the real artists wanted to produce and create with sex and violence in the recent past and the followers have followed them. The artists, I believe, have rediscovered religion, and inevatibly the followers will follow. They will write articles about new trends like the one in CBS News.

But the taste for religion in the common man never went anywhere. The producers just wanted to sell what they wanted to sell.

A nifty little video

I'm a little bit behind when it comes to the latest and greatest in music and theatre (or picture show, as the jackhammer prefers). So today I saw a music video by Radiohead which is a year or so old, but it was the first time I'd heard it.

This is an interesting band. They've got some thoughtful stuff going on. The song made me think about how complicated things get and how hard it is to know what's what sometimes. The video is really clever and it makes you think about what looks good and real and how it may not actually be that way all the time. It captures that feeling of being a bit player in a big game, but being held responsible for stuff you don;t know anyway.

You can see it at on MTV's site, it's about half way down the page on the left. The song is called There There.

In pitch dark I go walking in your landscape
Broken branches trip me as I speak
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there
There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck (don't reach out, don't reach out [x2])
Stay away from these rocks we'd be a walking disaster (don't reach out, don't reach out [x2])
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there (there's someone on your shoulder [x2])
Just coz you feel it doesn't mean it's there (there's someone on your shoulder [x2])
Feel it
Why so green
And lonely [x3]
Heaven sent you
To me [x3]
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen