Taken In

I’ve seen my share of bad films.  Really bad films. 

Not bad as in...

Drug references.  Nudity.  Sex.  Foul language.

But genuinely bad.  Bad acting.  Bad story.  Bad cinematography.  Bad directorial decisions.  Bad...art.

Twilight.  Fireproof.  The Tourist.  Thor.  I could go on, as this type of Hollywood "blockbuster" saturates the movie business.  But I'm encouraged by the fact that independent film makers are gaining steam.  Real artists.  Visionaries.  They produce meaningful, thoughtful, realistic films.  

Real people.  Real problems.  Real solutions.  Real life.

Chris White's TAKEN IN is one such film.  Over the course of a weekend, a father and daughter are bound by the confines of a roadside motel and theme park.  It is obvious from the beginning that neither of them has any interest in being there, much less talking to one another.  The limited boundaries of time and space force Simon and Brooklyn to become honest with each other, and their respective pasts.  

TAKEN IN is an honest film.  Life comes in various forms, both good and bad.  Ups and downs.  This father and daughter are presented with an opportunity.  What do they do with it?  See for yourself.  

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You can be a part of another feature length film by Greenville, SC indie film maker Chris White by visiting the link on the right at KICKSTARTER.  

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photo by Jessica Hollingworth

Currently reading...

Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important.  The airline pilot who announces that he is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn't think of saying it may rain.  The sentence is too simple -- there must be something wrong with it.

William Zinsser
from On Writing Well

Wide

Look outside and you’ll see Korea.  Not to be confused with Seoul.  Not the zoo of sleek, modern office buildings.  Not the Armani, Prada, or Lexus retailers. 

But Korea.  Real Koreans doing real Korean things.  The street outside is narrow.  The buildings old.  Retired men ride bicycles.  Elderly women walk permanently hunched from years of planting, picking, and planting (again) in the rice fields that constitute the nearby countryside.

Across the street, past the bicycles mounted with baskets carrying stacks of cardboard, past the scores of motorbikes, past the Korean school children and shopkeepers, men and women sit in a cluttered restaurant advertising fresh octopus, squid, and all the rice you can eat.  They look hot.  Sweaty.  Some eat iced noodles to keep their bodies cool.  All use the typical stainless steel chopsticks, a matter of pride on the peninsula, as they require more finesse than those used by their neighbors across the sea, whether to the east or west.  This is Korea.  Yeongju to be exact.

But from where I’m sitting, it’s a different story.  On my side of the window, the line dividing the old and the new, the humid and the cool, the Asian stereotype and the artsy, vintage, espresso filled air of my favorite café, I hear bouncy jazz.  I envision a cozy club in lower Manhattan.  My foot is tapping, but it’s not from the iced Americano.

This is Café Wide, tucked away on a side street in my small Korean town.  Inside are shelves of 1960’s era electric fans, alarm clocks, and tea sets, reminiscent of June Cleaver’s make-believe kitchen.  Across the cafe is a display of vintage cameras.  Big.  Bulky.  Boxy.  An era of technology long gone.  To my right is a shiny pastel blue refrigerator, stolen from the year that Beatles made it big.  On the wall behind the espresso machine, painted in black and white, is Vultron.  One part artsy.  One part eclectic.  Throw in a little big city feel and cozy atmosphere, stir well, and you've got Cafe Wide.  My home away from home.

Foreign Film Friday

a foreign film review by Chris White

THE LIVES OF OTHERS

Written & Directed by Florian Hinckel vonDonnersmarck

Growing up in Reagan’s America, we pitied those who were living behind the so-called “iron curtain.” We spoke of our freedom and democracy as people who know only what has always been.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS gives us a glimpse behind that storied curtain—twenty years or so after the fact—and in doing so, reveals a passion for free expression…for a life lived without state-sponsored oppression, that neither I nor any of my freedom-loving, American neighbors could have possibly known.

East German artists in the 1970s and 80s served at the pleasure of the state. The state monitored their artists—both publicly and privately—to keep tabs on how pleasing an artist’s behavior was.

In the film, an acclaimed playwright abides his benevolent keepers. Lives in relative peace with them. Until…his actress girlfriend becomes a person of increasing state suspicion. And it is here, under the oppressive monitor of the state, that their lives are forever changed.

With, perhaps, the most satisfying ending in recent cinema history, THE LIVES OF OTHERS fascinates and compels at every turn. It is a deeply human film. One that may be, in fact, the most accomplished first feature since Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE.

2006 \\ Color \\ 138 min.

Sony Pictures Classics

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany

...not in Korea

Success?

I was a weird kid. 

I can remember one Christmas afternoon when I was in elementary school building a Lego train station in my bedroom.  I had received the set via Santa Claus.  I don’t remember exactly what triggered my thoughts, but I was struck then and there by the idea that time moves at a speed too quickly to grasp.  Unstoppable.  Fast.  Very fast.  Too fast.

Maybe it was because the train station didn’t take as long as I thought to build.  The fun part of Lego sets is the building, not the finished product.  For me, once the police station, or hospital, or whatever, was constructed, that was it.  Done.  What next?

Or maybe it was because it felt like just 5 minutes ago my brothers and I were waking up early and anxiously waiting in the hallway for our parents to say we could survey the loot.  And now I found myself realizing that it was over, and would have to endure 365 more days before I got to do it again.

Time flies.  Not just when I’m having fun.  Everyday.  I don’t know why this idea took a firm hold of me at such a young age.  But it did.  And I’m happy about it.

As an adult on the cusp of 30 years of existence, I am terribly afraid of wasting time.  I’ve wasted my share.  It depresses me if I think about it too much.  So I find myself constantly (obsessively) evaluating my life every few days.  Have I been active in chasing my dreams?  Has the past year been a success?  Have I grown as a person?  Have I learned anything new?  Have I written that book that I said I would if I could just get to the other side of the world?

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Postage

by Jessica Hollingsworth

Currently reading...

One of the interesting things about living in the United States is that
you know, just know, can feel it in your bones, that you inhabit the
beating heart of the world.  This isn't true, of course.  Nevertheless,
we take it for granted that when we have our Super Bowls, 3 billion
people around the world upend their work schedules and forgo sleep
so that they, too, can watch.  We assume that as we view the colossal
fuck-up that is the life and times of Britney Spears, people abroad
care as much as we do when the sad, bloated Mouseketeer decides
to shave her head.  We are told that when our economy sneezes,
Canada, Europe, Asia, wherever, catches a cold.  When we screw up,
it's the rest of the world we screw up.  And when we triumph, the rest
of the world stops to admire the great shining city on the hill.  We are,
we believe, the prime movers and the rest of the planet just rolls
along on the ride that is America.


J. Maarten Troost
from LOST ON PLANET CHINA

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English Island Field Trip 

by Jessica Hollingsworth