Ken Jacobs: Sign of the Times

The Sunday edition of the New York Times had a great review of Ken Jacobs' work, including his newest piece for the Nervous Magic Lantern: Towards the Depths of the Even Greater Depression.

Did I mention that few are more gifted with titles than Jacobs? At his best--for instance, Ken Jacobs' Theater of Unconscionable Stupidity Presents Camera Thrills of the War--he is, arguably, second only to Mingus.

Ken Jacobs in Los Angeles

Ken Jacobs, best known for rending space and time in his cinematic performances, digital videos and 16mm films, will be in Los Angeles for a full week of screenings and performances. If you have never seen a Jacobs film or his truly-indescribable Nervous Magic Lantern, buy a ticket, grab a seat and strap in. If you're already an admirer, now's your chance to catch up on the recent outpouring from this prolific artist.

Scott Foundas has a great review of Jacobs' new work in the LA Weekly. My own writing on Jacobs' cinema can be found here.

Toward The Depths of The Even Greater Depression, a Nervous Magic Lantern performance at REDCAT on Monday, October 12, at 8:30 p.m.

An evening of Jacobs’ new and recent work screens at the UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater on Thursday, October 15, at 7:30 p.m.

The Whirled screens together with Aza Jacobs’ The GoodTimesKid at Los Angeles Filmforum at the Egyptian Theater on Saturday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m.

Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks) screens at Los Angeles Filmforum at the Egyptian Theater on Sunday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m.

Photo: Ken and Flo Jacobs in their New York City home.

Primitive Cinema

Not exactly Benning, but funnier than Dvortsevoy.

A Benning Miniature

James Benning's Fire & Rain, which is the trailer for the Viennale.

Refutation of the Trickle Down Theory of Healthcare

We've been hearing a lot lately about how a public option would somehow be a stint on healthcare innovation. A competitive marketplace, some seem to think, is the best medicine no matter what the illness. A segment on PRI's The World shows the error in this way of thinking.

Really, Pat? Really?

Contemporary Nazi sympathizers with a large media footprint are hard, but apparently not impossible, to come by. In this bit of revisionist history, Pat Buchanan claims that Germany never wanted war and even perversely implies that the genocide was the Allies' fault: "Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps."

Which reminds of the time I inadvertently attended a Ralph Nader rally. It was actually a documentary that I was obliged to see for reasons I won't go in to, but you can probably imagine the crowd at a Nader-movie within spitting distance of the Pacific. It was not a subtle film; the audience booed and hissed, actually hissed, at every archival image of Ronald Reagan, who played the villain in this particular movie. Buchanan, however, was presented as an affable third-party candidate sharing Nader's pain. No hissing for Pat, the anti-Semite, just thoughtful nods and furrowed brows with one index finger over the lips. I wanted to stand up and scream, "Are you all mad?"

It was, if nothing else, a vivid reminder of the power that film form has over even well-educated people.

(Though at the end of the movie I felt like I had been hit repeatedly over the head, I politely clapped as is meet and right so to do when the filmmaker is in attendance; however, I did refuse to go to my feet when Nader himself made a surprise appearance. "Dear Lord, " I thought, "I hope he's not running for President again." Turns out he was.)

Film Goes From Big Sleep to Dreaming Big at LACMA

The Los Angeles Times reports that The Los Angeles County Museum of Art plans to expand its film program--which it recently announced it was going to cancel--provided there are donors to support it. Director Michael Govan spelled out his ambitious proposal to the coalition of film enthusiasts known as Save Film at LACMA on Tuesday.

Govan hopes to raise money for the film program from donors and patrons, much as other departments are funded. His vision includes an expansion of the budget and the hiring of several film programmers with different areas of expertise.

The goal is to create an endowment between $5 million and $10 million; however, the consequences of failing to meet this ambitious goal are ill-defined.

As the Times reports, corporate donations will allow the program to continue until larger donations can be found:

Last Wednesday, LACMA received a donation of $150,000 from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., Time Warner Cable and Ovation TV in support of the film program. The money has allowed the museum to continue the series past its scheduled closing date in October. With the donation, the program has enough money to operate through the end of the fiscal year in June 2010.

"Grades for Reporters" Fail

After a week of heated back and forth, it seems that Stars and Stripes, the military's editorially independent news source, has succeeded in shaming the Pentagon into canceling its contract with the the Rendon Group. The Rendon Group, a Washington-based PR firm, had been compiling background information on reporters for the Pentagon, including whether their past stories written while embedded with US soldiers were "positive, negative or neutral." Although the military denies that these ratings were used to determine whether or not embed requests would be granted, it seems clear that they were used in this way as late as May of this year.

In at least two of the profiles, copies of which were obtained by Stars and Stripes, Rendon clearly stated the purpose of the analysis was to help military public affairs officers determine what kind of coverage to expect from the journalist, whether to grant their embed request, and if that journalist could be steered toward “positive” coverage for the military.

NPR's On the Media had a segment devoted to the controversy this weekend:

Clarity On Torture

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Teddy

Senator Edward M. Kennedy - 1932-2009