Movies that Won't Go to the Oscars

By now, dear reader, you know I love movies. Every year, I wait for the Academy Award nominations, and then my husband and I go on a mad dash to see as many of the "favored" films as we can.  This movie affinity also means I pay attention to which movies top the charts--the primary measurement now being which movie grossed the most in any given week.

Frankly, sometimes it is downright appalling what drivel is foisted on the viewing public AND the public responds enthusiastically.  This past week's top movies:  Noah; Divergent; Muppets Most Wanted; Mr. Peabody and Sherman; and God's Not Dead.

Coming in at Number 6 is The Grand Budapest Hotel--and that's one of the movies we went to see this week.  More on this movie in a minute.

But, first, a digression.  Maybe you are old enough to remember when movies came out, and slowly by word of mouth their reputation spread.  A movie might start slow, but eventually it had time to catch up and become a hit.  Well, not anymore. Clearly, the profit a movie makes drives how long it stays in theaters.  No time for word of mouth, for a slow reputation to build.

Personally, I don't like to go to movies on the first week of their showing in our area--avoid crowds, etc.  But, sometimes, by holding back we can miss a movie's showing in our area.  We also like to patronize some of the independent theaters that still exist--so we sometimes wait for these places to bring in a movie.

So, what movies won't go to the Oscars?  I have noticed--and have also read--that when a movie is released during a year is calculated to make it Oscar-worthy or not.  For example, the earlier in a year a movie is released, the less likely it is to get an Oscar nomination.  Of course, some movies never aim to be nominated, and their release is pegged to holidays--summers, Thanksgiving, Christmas--in order to be the movie that makes a huge profit.

When I learned that a movie based on the book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, I couldn't wait to see it.  We saw Monuments Men last week.  In many ways, it is a good movie.  Oh, the acting isn't the greatest; there are times that the dialogue is somewhat stilted; and the plot greatly simplifies a complex aspect of World War II.  However, the movie does portray a story that few of us know. And one that ALL of us should know.

We may have read about recent discoveries of paintings, stashed in an apartment owned by Cornelius Gurlitt in Munich, most if not all of which had been confiscated--stolen--from Jewish families during the war.  What we might not know is that the Allies made a concerted effort to find, recover and return art works that the Nazis had systematically stolen and stashed.  As the Americans and British Allies are making a mad dash across France and Germany, they are not only racing to keep the Nazis from burning or otherwise destroying great works of art. They are also racing the third party of the Allies: the Russians.  They want to take the art and abscond with it back to Russia.  So many Russian lives were lost, why not take some art as reparations.

The movie centers on a small group of U.S. art experts, led by George Clooney and Matt Damon.  All the character names are fictionalized from the historic figures, which is a bit frustrating.  There is also a wonderful role played by Cate Blanchett, who was a French museum worker who catalogued many of the stolen works of art that came through her museum.  The movie also focuses on two signature pieces of art--the Ghent Altarpiece, and the Bruge Madonna, sculpture by Michelangelo.  While many thousands of work were stolen, the movie (following the book) focuses on a few works, no doubt to help the viewer appreciate the enormity of what they were doing.

All in all--this is a feel good movie.  It is also a cautionary tale.

The other movie we went to see--another early in the year release --was The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Curiously enough, were I doing my pre-Oscar reviews, I might have paired this movie with Monuments Men.  Both movies deal with the effects of World War II.  Both movies revolve, in part, around works of art.  Where they diverge is that The Grand Budapest Hotel is entirely fictional, based on a made-up country, the result of Wes Anderson's incredibly creative mind--he is director, producer, author, and screen play writer.

The movie tells the story of the hotel, now owned by a solitary old man.  The story begins in the late 1960s.  The hotel, once grand, is now practically in ruins, showing all the signs of deterioration seen so many places across eastern Europe after Soviet occupation and domination.  It is set in the country of Zubrowka--don't bother to look for it on maps.  It doesn't exist.  An author is staying in the hotel, and encounters the old man.  He is the one with a tale to tell.

The tale is of the hotel and Gustave H., played with a fine comedic touch by Ralph Fiennes.  Gustave H. is the concierge of the hotel who does everything, make that EVERYTHING to make his clients happy.  The plot follows a mad-cap path through the hey days of the hotel, to the reading of the will of a grand dame who loved to stay at the hotel, to the framing of Gustave H., to a thoroughly dissolute son of the grand dame, to a brass-knuckled enforcer for the son, to prison, to the Alps, to ... Oh, just go see the movie!  

In addition to seeing Ralph Fiennes, look for F. Murray Abraham, Ed Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson--and one or two other fine actors. 

If you like Wes Anderson (and I do) you may find this to be his best movie yet.

I suspect neither of these movies will get a nod at Oscar time--but I still found them hugely enjoyable, and worth a night (or afternoon...which we retired folks can do) out.

DAY TRIP--Fallingwater

(this photo is from the Wikipedia page on Fallingwater--all the others were ones I took during our day trip)

Our next day trip covered a few more miles than the one to Hawk Mountain.  We decided to go to Fallingwater, a place neither of us had ever seen.  Fittingly, this lovely house (but, oh, so much more than a house) is a U.S. National Historic Landmark, as well as being on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

The day began with most unpromising weather--yet another day of rain.  We drove across the PA Turnpike in a pouring rain that made driving anything but a delight.

Just as we reached Fallingwater, the clouds began to clear and snippets of sunshine peaked from behind the remaining clouds that were reluctant to leave.

Autumn has finally arrived--the leaves were not quite as bright as I had hoped.  Autumn is my favorite time of year--and I look forward to the splashy displays of vermilion, yellow, and orange.  There is just enough color now to satisfy me.

After checking in at the Visitors' Center, we waited for our tour group number to be called.  Then we walked down a crunching gravel path to Fallingwater.  

No photographs are permitted inside the house, so I had to content myself with views from the outside.  

A little history is in order.  Anyone who grew up in western Pennsylvania knows the name Kaufmann's Department Store.  For decades, this department store was the height of upscale shopping.  This downtown Pittsburgh store was the kind of place people got dressed up to visit.  Maybe you remember the days when department stores had ladies with gloves operating the elevators.  Kaufmann's was that kind of place.

By the time Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. was running the store, the Kaufmann family had a country retreat location on Bear Run, some 76 plus miles southeast of Pittsburgh.  They wanted to have a house built on the location.  Through various contacts, Edgar Kaufmann engaged the services of Frank Lloyd Wright.  He fully expected that Wright would design a house that would face the lovely view of the waterfalls.  Imagine his surprise when Wright's design called for the house to be built OVER the waterfalls.

What followed is a well-known story of twists and turns in the building process.  Not only was the location a surprise, but the design itself was revolutionary.  Wright called for cantilevered reinforced concrete balconies  that were the primary features of the house extending over the waterfalls.  The conversation flowed back and forth between Kaufmann and Wright.  Some of the controversy swirled around whether or not Wright's design could, in fact, be built.  Of course, eventually it was. 

When Kaufmann Senior died, his son Edgar Kaufmann, jr. (who, for some reason, insisted on the lower case j for jr.) inherited some of his father's wealth along with Fallingwater.  The son Edgar was an only child--and, as it happened, he was also gay.  He never married, though he did have a long term partner.  Since Edgar, fils, was childless, he made plans for Fallingwater to be deeded to Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which occurred in 1963.

The house was, in many ways, a glorious failure.  While it was being built, the soundness of design was the subject of constant communication between Wright and Kaufmann, Sr.  Eventually, during the 1990s, the house had to be reconstructed to shore up the cantilevers.  The last work, which finally appears to resolved the structural problems, was done in 2002.


While the house was being built, Edgar jr. joined the fray, defending Wright.  It is telling--at least to me--that when Edgar jr. was selecting a career, he eschewed retail altogether, having no interest in the life of running a chain of department stores.  His passion?  Art.  He studied during the 1920s  at the School for Arts and Crafts at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.     He also was a residence apprentice in architecture at Wright's Taliesen East school in the mid 1930s.


Edgar jr. went on to become the  Director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  He also authored a book on Frank Lloyd Wright.

What a day trip.  Not sure if we have energy for another such trip this autumn, but if we do, I will surely let you know.

Infinite Variety

When I was in graduate school and took the obligatory Shakespeare course, each student had to select one of the plays to concentrate upon. I chose Anthony and Cleopatra. I still love this play, for many reasons. One of the reasons I love it so is because of the shimmering phrases various characters utter to describe Cleopatra.

In an early scene, Enobarbus, who is Anthony's lieutenant, says of Cleopatra:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies. . .

Anthony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii, lines 271-274

That phrase--infinite variety--applies to one person in the context of the play, but I can't help but think of this phrase and apply it to all humanity.

Today, my husband and I sat at our customary Saturday morning breakfast in our local diner. I was casually looking around, and suddenly said--I am constantly amazed at the infinite variety of the human face. My husband--who is a seasoned people watcher--agreed. He remarked that he recently spent time sitting and watching the parade of people that passed by him while he was at a conference.

People's faces. Think about it--the raw materials are relatively limited. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth--all assembled within the frame of a face, but within those limitations, so many variations. I find it just plain astounding.

Photo source:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/images/people-faces.jpg

It reminds me of two questions our daughter asked when she was a growing girl. She was pondering infinite variety in these questions. One time she asked me if there was any place in the United States that had never had a human walk upon it. What a wonderful (and unanswerable) question.

She topped that question when she asked one day whether or not we would run out of music. I wasn't quite sure what she meant, so she explained--there are only so many musical notes, and only so many ways of putting them together. When will we run out of new songs? Rather like my wondering about the endless variety of human faces.

One of my favorite painters is Thomas Eakins. I have read quite a bit about him, including his somewhat misanthropic life. He was not a warm and fuzzy person. One of the things that made him particularly controversial was his insistence on studying the human body, and on painting full nudes. The prudishness of America found his penchant for nudes, well, scandalous.


Eakins was known as a portraitist, although he was out-shone by his contemporary John Singer Sargeant who was widely regarded as the best portrait painter of his era. When I look at Sargeant's portraits, however, there is something cloying and too sweet about them. Oh, they are charming enough, but there is no humanity in them. They are just pretty paintings.


Eakins knew how to paint a portrait in such a way that all the infinite variety of humanity is caught therein. Years ago, I saw Eakins' painting of his wife, an artist in her own right, Susan Hannah MacDowell, which was on display in the then newly opened Hirshhorn Gallery. I loved the painting on first viewing it, and still love it. This painting is a PORTRAIT.

So much humanity in this lovely face. In her eyes there is a knowing weariness; she has seen much. There is triumph, there is resignation. There is beauty, there is decay. Infinite variety indeed.

In Living Color

I had not intended to write anymore about our vacation to Greece, but a serendipitous arrival of the Smithsonian magazine changed all that. Have you ever noticed how when you are thinking about something, you become hyper-aware of that topic?

Well, the Smithsonian magazine (one of my favorite mags) arrived yesterday featuring an article entitled "True Colors" about Vinzenz Brinkmann, an archeologist who has studied the wonderful Greek statuary so prominently displayed (now) in the British Museum, originally on the Parthenon. His conclusion: these statues which we see in lovely alabaster white were once in living color.

Who knew? Well, I am sure some of you did--those who are art experts. While I was vaguely aware that art historians had posited that the marble statues were once painted, I did not realize that someone like Brinkmann had done extensive work and could now suggest what the statues would have looked like. Using the tools of modern technology--UV light, cameras, high-intensity lamps--Brinkmann has recreated these jewels of antiquity. The results are shocking.

A marvelous article from the Washington Post helps explain my verdict of shocking. I laughed outright at the one quote from this article: "Can you imagine the family-values, back-to-basics, republican emperor Augustus . . . represented by something that looks like a cross-dresser trying to hail a taxi?" So says Fabio Barry, an art historian at the University of St. Andrews. He begs to differ with Brinkmann. The controversy in the art world demonstrates the tug of war between two opposing views. One side presumes that statues were in pristine sparkling white; the other side premises that statues, while carved of white marble, were overlayed with brilliant colors.

Here's the recreated statue to which Barry refers--the "cross-dresser trying to hail a taxi":

Photo Credit: Vatican Museums Photo

At the heart of this controversy--were Greek (and Roman) statues originally colorized--is, in part, our present concept of what ancient sculpture looks like and SHOULD look like. We are all so schooled in a mental image imprinted since we first looked at ancient statues. They're white marble--right? And anything that alters that pre-conceived notions runs head-long into our mental template. NO NO NO--our brains scream, when presented with a colorized statue.

But I find the prospect intriguing. Frankly I find Brinkmann's arguments, and his research, persuasive.

Several years ago, we visited our daughter who was doing a semester abroad at University of Glasgow. We then traveled to London, and visited the British Museum, where we viewed the "Elgin Marbles"--the statuary that originally graced the Parthenon.

Now, I find the above work perfectly lovely, but how I see this statue is not the way the ancient Greeks would have seen it. They would have seen these larger than life statues in living color, high on a hill that could be seen from anywhere in ancient Athens. Imagine!

Photo credit and quote from magazine: "The painted replica of a c. 490 B.C. archer (at the Parthenon in Athens) testifies to German archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann’s painstaking research into the ancient sculpture’s colors. The original statue came from the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina."
Stiftung Archäologie, Munich

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors.html?utm_source=magrefer200807-July&utm_medium=referrals&utm_campaign=SmithMag&utm_content=sculptures#

There’ll Always be an England

A new sight in London--nicknamed the Gherkin

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Perhaps the title of this blog won’t quite fit my topic, as I intend to write only about London. But, truth be told, I can’t think of a pithy expression about London that captures the sentiment of the timelessness of some places.

London has been “there” for a really long time. London existed, if only as a small settlement, before the Romans invaded what became the British Isles in 45 AD. The history of London unfolds in a succession of waves of conquerors. Not surprisingly, it is an amazing city. It is no wonder that tourists go to London and gawk at the sights.

The Tower of London at night

This trip was my sixth visit there. When my parents (and I) traveled back and forth between Africa and the US, we visited there three times, and I have been there three additional times. So I have had a chance to see many of the typical tourist spots.

On past visits, I saw Buckingham Palace, St. James’ Park, Hyde Park, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge. I saw Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. I have spent some time (not enough) in some of the museums—the British Museum, the National Gallery and the Tate Modern.

For the most part, on this trip, we eschewed visiting these well-known places. There were, however, a couple of places I did want to see. We had not previously been to the Victoria and Albert Museum, so we spent a bit of time there. This museum calls itself “the world's greatest museum of art and design.” While the exhibits there were very interesting, I found them somewhat overwhelming: so much stuff. Not a very technical word, I know. But every exhibit hall seemed crammed full of items; it was difficult to absorb so much information.

We went to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall—it was a Christmas concert that featured the King’s College Choir from Cambridge. I don’t know if the King’s College Choir is as famous in the UK as my US impression presumes. This is the choir that has a Christmas Eve service of lessons and carols broadcast every year on NPR (and, of course, the BBC). So, its reputation is heightened for me. The concert was great fun; the Royal Albert Hall (where the annual BBC Proms concerts are held) was cavernous; the pipe organ at the back of the hall enormous. At the close of the concert, the program featured a carol sing which reminded me a bit of the carol sings I grew up with. One of my favorite Christmas carols for audience participation is “Good King Wenceslas.” It can be sung very dramatically, with male and female voices alternating depending on who the “speaker” is at that point in the lyrics.

We stayed close to where the Tower Bridge is located, so this was one iconic sight we did see several times. It amuses me that some people think this is “London Bridge.” In fact, my husband and I saw one set of tourists taking photos with the bridge in the background as they held hands up in the air, in the fashion of the child’s nursery rhyme.

One sight we saw—and studiously avoided—was the so-called London Dungeon. It was clearly a tourist attraction, and looked as phony as a $ 3 bill. Yet, there were lines of people waiting to get in. The place apparently features ghoulish displays—not my kind of place at all.

One place we revisited—having been there before on a previous visit—was the Tate Modern Gallery. I had read an article in the New York Times about an artist who had a featured work being displayed there, and was very excited to see this work in person. The artist is Doris Salcedo and the particular work is called Shibboleth (Bible scholars may recognize this word and begin to anticipate some of the meaning of the work).

Here’s an excerpt from the Tate Modern’s website describing the work:

Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

It is always a thrill for me to see in person a work of art about which I have read.

Of course, there were many more sights that we saw (including our primary reason for visiting England)—to be continued. . .

Kicking Art

My daughter recently sent me an email wherein she asked if I wanted another opportunity to kick art. Like any good question, there is a back story.

This back story is doubly good, as my daughter thinks I tend to over-do the back story bit. But for me, life has always been about context. It is almost impossible for me to tell a story straight-forwardly. There are always nuances, circumstances, associations that need to be explained. And for every event, there was something leading up to that event. The human brain constantly tries to create order out of seeming chaos—hence, my predilection for coming up with the back story.

But, I digress! Anyway, while our daughter was studying in Glasgow, during a semester abroad, we visited her in the spring of 2002. Glasgow, both the city and the university where she was, has a fine reputation for art. Since our daughter’s major was art history, she took us around to see various art of import in the area. We went to the two Willow tea rooms designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who was very active in the art nouveau movement in the early 20th century. We also visited the Mackintosh House that he had designed—not only the house but all the furniture in it. And we visited the Glasgow School of Art.

While we were there, we saw an exhibition of contemporary art. As we walked around, I kept hearing this random clicking sound. I really thought nothing of it. But the next thing I knew, I stumbled over and in fact kicked this small hockey puck sized object on the floor. After a bit, someone came in and picked it up and replaced it in its original location. It was the source of ONE of the clicking sounds. There were in fact THREE hockey pucks in the room—all clicking, but at different intervals. One was clicking regularly and quickly, another regularly and slowly, and the last was clicking irregularly and quite at random. Unbeknown to me, these hockey pucks were part of the contemporary art exhibit. They were the work of Martin Creed who won the Turner Prize in 2001.

Well, how was I to know?

So what did my daughter send me in an email inquiring if I wanted to kick art again? She sent a link for the NY Times article featuring Martin Creed who has an exhibit presently at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. So, if I wanted to kick art, I could drive there!

A brief quote from the article suffices to describe his approach to art:

. . .the art of Martin Creed veers between shock therapy and something quite a bit more tender. Either way it is direct, irreverent and also clownish, with, when it succeeds, an undercurrent of seriousness. Mr. Creed’s purpose is generally to take liberties, with the body, the museum, the idea of art and most of all with the viewer’s imagination. He uses whatever medium seems suitable.

So, the way I look at it, had Martin Creed been in Glasgow when I kicked his art, he probably would have approved, and would have ordered the clicking hockey pucks to remain in their new arrangement, courtesy of a clumsy American tourist!

A note about the photographs: the first two Mackintosh ones are from the official Charles Rennie Mackintosh site. The last photograph, of Glasgow Cathedral, is one I took.