(5/22/17 - 5/28/17) This week in:
May. 28th, 2017 12:26 pmMovies
For (fic) business:
Gajdo Dilo [“Crazy Stranger”] (1997, Gatlif): I first watched this movie a year or two ago when trying to get my Hunchback of Notre Dame fic off the ground, and have come back to it for another dose of inspiration. A French drifter wanders through Romania searching for a Romani singer and is taken in by a Romani violinist, who shows him the highs and lows of life in his village. This movie is raw at every turn, which makes the sweet stuff [sex, music, weddings, bonding with little kids, hilarious swearing] sweet and the painful stuff [prejudice, death, and violent retaliation] all the more painful. Also, it is loud. Really, really loud. I want to make sure that I make the Romani characters in my fic three-dimensional, and while I worry that I’m still not nailing it, this movie definitely helps.
For pleasure:
Night Creatures [“Captain Clegg”] (1962, Scott): Watched it for the first time in honor of the 104th birthday of my favorite actor, and damn if Peter Cushing didn’t swash all of the buckles in this. An 18th century-booze smuggling ring on the east coast of England operates under the protection of mysterious marsh phantoms and under the watchful eye of the town preacher. When the King’s Navy comes to town to investigate, everyone must bring their A-game to stay one step ahead of Captain Collier and his men.This movie is a ton of fun, and reminded me of the delight and surprise I felt watching the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, before they ran the premise into the ground. The villagers are savvy, the villains are genuinely threatening, and Cushing is gorgeous as the Reverend Dr. Blyss. Crafty preacher-man with high cheekbones and a “Rogue-streak” in his hair - yum.
Projects
For the past seven days, I’ve gotten up and written for a half hour before I’ve gone to work or otherwise gotten on with my day. I’ve tried to build this habit in the past, but I typically fall out of it after a few weeks. I’m hoping I can stick with it, now that my work schedule is a little less insane than it has been. Putting words down at this hour feels like pulling teeth because I’m still half asleep, but the upside is that my pump is primed to write in fits and spurts throughout the day (such as on the train) or to think of new ideas or ways to solve narrative problems.
Life Stuff
Lots of opportunities for friend bonding this week. I had a tasty tapas dinner with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic
We now have friends in town from Chicago, and we kicked off our weekend with a matinee performance of Arrabal at the Loeb theater in Harvard Square. It was inspired by Bajofondo, a tango-electronica outfit of which I’m a big fan, and included both a number of their specific songs plus music I suspect was written just for the show. Arrabal intertwined a young woman’s coming-of-age story with tales of the violent reign of Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and mixed in the kind of sauciness you’d expect of an performance inspired by the tango. The narrative had its share of gaps and missteps, but these shortcomings were overwhelmed by the incredible dancing and music. The set design was also really cool; the physical set pieces were sparse, but they did a lot with lighting, projected images (particularly photographs of arrested dissidents), and video. If you can put up with a bit of narrative incontinuity, I highly recommend it. It’s playing till the middle of June.
