show cats' / 'objectified' / 'drag me to hell'

i think i have a new favorite documentary: The Standard of Perfection - Show Cats !!!



'show cats' is basically a real-life 'best in show' (christopher guest) only with cats. the doc is about a few different show cat breeders who are gearing up to go to some fancy pants competition in austin, texas (if i remember correctly). if you like cats and/or documentaries about crazy people, 'show cats' is for you. i found this film and its subjects inspiring -- i don't think i want to be a show-er of cats, but i aspire to be as dedicated as these people are to something someday and cats seem like the most worthy option at the moment.


and another documentary that i made it to yerba buena center for the arts -- 'objectified' -- new film from the dude who did 'helvetica', which i still haven't seen. i recommend 'objectified' if you have any design-nerd tendencies, or are just curious about what's behind every-day objects -- (most) of the designers interviewed in the film are really inspiring.

japanese designer naoto fukasawa in his studio (i liked his philosophy about design best)


also really good -- perfect amount of horror/suspense and camp:

i really like this alison lohman -- raimi's film would not have worked without her -- she is good!

notes on the year punk broke

I was recently reminded that I had never actually seen the music documentary by David Markey "SONIC YOUTH: 1991, The Year Punk Broke" and since I've recently seen the light that is the Sonik Tooth and love Kurt Cobain (rather, I was obsessed with him in high school), I figured I'd rent it. I should note, I loved "Goo" in high school and still have my cassette tape copy, but I never really listened to anything else even though I had friends who loved them -- I bought "Daydream Nation" at least twice in my life and both times did not get it at all and then finally decided to try it again when I saw on some blog that I could download it for free and suddenly i totally understood "teenage riot" and wondered what the fuck was wrong with me before. But I have to say that since this revelation, it is "Sister" that I like best so far and a very wise friend named Connell told me this would be true and he was right.

Anyway, YPB is only available on vhs, so I am lucky that no one stole the copy at my video store. It's crazy that Nirvana hadn't really blown up when this documentary was made. What I like about the film is that I was expecting more of a narrative, interview style documentary and instead it's mostly just concert footage and the bands acting silly in front of a camera or walking around with the camera and a microphone. I don't think there is one serious statement made by anyone in this film. Difficult to analyze, really, and not really worth it, so I decided to get crazy (for me) and just take notes while I watched it and ate kettle corn. Here they are:

people act so funny when cameras are around.

thurston is such a ham/front man -- i had no idea.

remember when hipsters wore old man pajama shirts out in public? (j mascis is wearing one on stage)

funny how much the crowd is into Dinosaur Jr. not me. too wanky.

whoa. remember Babes In Toyland?? what was that all about?

"school" by nirvana -- so good.

"Dirty Boots" also sooo good.

jeez, i want to see sonic youth at the fox theatre. wish i had more $$$

did they have to keep replacing kurt's guitars and the drums every time he dove into everything? sheesh. seems extravagant and self-indulgent in this day and age.

thurston is so cute. i like his hair. so cute with glasses!

omg, courtney love is SOOO annoying.

lots of triptastic '90s camera effects. the black and white is nicely done.

i should have drank some beer while watching this.

remember when you used to go to the record store to purchase tickets??

whoa, the ramones sound like crap.

omg. the nineties. kim gordon is putting lipstick and mascara on nirvana.

thurston is so fucking funny.

fucking shit, "expressway to yr skull" is, like, the best song ever.

pic i took of thurston hanging out of the hotel window from my television:




Now I want to see another Markey movie called "Desperate Teenage Lovedolls"....

in defense of cuteness obsessshions

i haven't been watching anything due to obsession with cuteoverload.com

wait, i take that back. i saw "i love you, man" (starring paul rudd -- waaaay cute) on mother's day and laughed harder during a movie than i think i ever have before (i was literally stomping my feet -- my sister was embarrassed) and also i went to see "adventureland" -- also very cute and good and i love the main kid from that one movie that i liked only okay called "the squid and the whale."

but this is what i'm into watching lately:

sorry i don't know who took this adorable f-ing photo

all i can seem to bring myself to watch are videos of kittens falling asleep, etc.
see fer yrself:



will resume once life is less hectic and thus requiring less escapist entertainment.

oh also........


looking at all of this cute stuff reminds me of when i went to see the yoshitomo nara exhibit at the san jose museum of art a few years back. i like his stuff even though it's pretty pop (which sometimes annoys the crap out of me) and commercial. but in real life, his paintings are large and so pastel and dreamy.
this article by sharon mizota about the exhibit helps explain both nara's appeal, i think, as well as why cuteness matters so much to some of us:

"Although they recall his own youth, Nara's images subvert conventional depictions of childhood as happy, simple and carefree. In the context of Japanese pop culture, they can also be seen as a critique of the extreme idealization of childhood known as kawaii. Kawaii is popularly used to describe anything cute, sweet and childlike. Exemplified by characters such as Hello Kitty and Pokemon, the cult of kawaii is commonly understood as a reaction to the extreme pressures that accompany adult life in Japan: a demanding school system, inflexible workplace hierarchies and highly conventional expectations for behavior and comportment.

Kawaii, along with more violent fantasies such as those played out in pornographic or sadistic manga (comic books), operates as a pressure valve. Idealized notions of childhood offer a small, nostalgic escape from the restrictions of adulthood.

The kawaii phenomenon is especially poignant (or perhaps just a sign of denial) in a society in which children are "growing up" faster than ever. The practice of enjo kosai, or casual teenage prostitution, received widespread media attention in the '90s. Brutal attacks and murders by children are also on the rise. In June, an 11-year-old girl lured a fellow student to an empty classroom and killed her with a box cutter.

In light of such tragedies, Nara's angry-yet-cute kids don't seem so far-fetched. By combining the visual language of kawaii—extra-large-sized heads, bulbous bodies and ineffectual limbs—with a seething and barely suppressed rage, his images both offer and deny escape. Despite their cartoonish quality, they embody an unpleasant truth: childhood is not the innocent, perfect playground we like to envision, but a hotbed of resentment and frustration."

xo, sarah

I Am a Cinematographer

I am sort of obsessed with Swedish people or at least Swedish movies, but I am far from an expert on them or anything. But I wanted to see Everlasting Moments because it's a Swedish film and because it's about a turn-of-the-century woman who wins a Contessa camera and almost hocks it, but instead she is encouraged to try her hand at photography.
This is a really pretty film to look at, which I guess goes without saying given the subject matter. I have never seen any of the director's, Jan Troell, other films, but Troell has been a screenwriter, director and cinematographer since the 1960s and has made a bunch of films -- including one called The Emigrants (1971) starring Bergman's darlings, Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow.
Everlasting Moments is essentially a sort of family drama genre film, and the story isn't necessarily anything new. The Larsson's are poor; the father, Sigge (played by Mikael Persbrandt) is an alcoholic, fond of the ladies, a bit of an ego-maniac, but often good natured; Maria (played by Maria Heiskanen) is his wife and she is devoted, uses what spare time she has to do sewing for rich families to make extra money, loves her children (there are like FIVE of them), and even loves her husband despite his tendency to blow up at her when he's drunk and hit her. Maria is enchanting and so lovely to watch that I didn't really mind that I was watching a story I've seen before. Her photographs, once she finally pulls out the camera, are so haunting and show such clear-sightedness that I was eager to see what would become of her. Maria makes a friend in the man who runs a portrait studio - he helps her use her camera and gives her supplies for developing her photos even though she doesn't have any money. As they gradually get to know each other, it is clear that he, Sebastian Pedersen (played by Jesper Christensen), is in love with Maria and wants to save her, but Maria has too much pride and sense of duty to leave her husband. She never explicitly tells Mr. Pedersen that she loves him back, but I would argue that it is clear that she does. The development of their friendship is most gripping aspect of the film as it coincides with Maria's growth as a photographer. Everlasting Moments definitely has the feel of a smaller, independent drama, but one worth watching.

Oh I am a cinematographer by Palace Brothers.

it's a hard life god makes you live

not really, though, because i got to go to this show..... here's a video i took of the bonnie 'prince' billy in santa rosa at the church on orchard street. it's not great quality as i was drinking a lot of tecate and also am obsessed w/W.O. so most of it is me focusing on his face as close as i possibly could. the "woohoos" at the end are me, too.... hee hee hee


"hard life" live performance by bpb from sarah mccoy on Vimeo.

and here's a pic i took to give you a better idea


p.s. thank you to adam for telling me where to go to post a video <3

ode for kelly reichardt

I have been meaning to write about watching Wendy + Lucy and Old Joy now for about two months. I had always wanted to watch Old Joy because I am a pretty big fan of Will Oldham, but I ended up seeing Wendy+Lucy first. I have loved Michelle Williams since she was on Dawson's and I think my need to see W+L was intensified because I happened to be re-watching the WB series that really started her career in 1998. In the theatre I kept thinking how much she's grown up and has improved as an actress. She was never bad, in my opinion, on the Creek, but she just seems so young on the show.





Wendy + Lucy is about a girl who has scraped together enough money to try and make it to Alaska to find work (and you get the feeling, although it's never explicitly stated, that she maybe just wants a change), but her car breaks down in Oregon. The film is shot in Portland, but the specific town is never mentioned, and the terrain that we see her cover looks like it could be any larger medium-ish suburban city. To make things worse, she gets caught nicking some cans of dog food (presumably to make what money she has last), then arrested (in one of the best scenes in the film), and her dog goes missing. Williams' performance is restrained and I've read that some critics didn't like her restraint in the film -- this is not a melodramatic film -- it's quiet and simply follows her few days spent trying to get her car fixed and find her dog -- exactly the kind of film that I could see some viewers not having the patience for.

You'll probably want to skip this paragraph if you don't want to know the ending... but I like that Kelly Reichardt uses her own dog, Lucy, to play Wendy's dog. And I think that more than anything else, W+L is a sort of meditation on the relationship a person has to his/her pet, and how that type of relationship is related to growing up. Wendy is forced, in my opinion, to leave Lucy behind in what appears to be a safe home once she realizes that she is pretty much out of money and that her car is beyond repair. Of course the film is more complex than this, but Wendy's choice to leave Lucy behind is an emotionally intense one. One of the more subversive layers is that Wendy is a woman traveling alone and when she loses her dog and car she is completely vulnerable. When she tries to sleep outside by the train tracks, she is accosted by some creepy drunk dude, and though nothing happens to her, she is clearly lucky. If it weren't for the security guard outside of the store she breaks down in front of, she'd be REALLY screwed. The security guard is played by Walter Dalton and he does a fantastic job playing an older man who is the only person Wendy really meets that is empathetic to her situation and also willing to go out of his way to help her out as far as he is able. As we increasingly become alienated from pretty much everyone around us, the small friendship they develop is rather remarkable.

Wendy + Lucy is easily one of my favorite films of 2008 (right up there with Synecdoche New York, Let the Right One In, Iron Man, the Batman movie, and Herzog's documentary Encounters at the End of the World ). I can definitely see why it earned Film Comment's Best Film of 2008 in their critic's poll.



Okay, but now for what is now one of my favorite films of all time!! The film Miss Kelly Reichardt made in 2006 - OLD JOY !!! This film is genius! It's hands-down one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. Thank heaven for my amazing local video store, Lost Weekend on Valencia street, because they just happened to have a few extra copies and sold me one for ten bucks.




Old Joy feels like your life when you decide to go for a day trip hiking or camping or something and you smoke pot and listen to good music in the car and look at amazing trees.... the best times in my life are like this and look a lot like Reichardt's film. I'm taking this Literature and Ecology course right now, and I swear my professor should take something off of her syllabus and replace it with this film.

Old Joy is about Mark and Kurt, two old best friends who haven't seen each other in a while and spontaneously decide to go find this hot springs a few hours away and just take a break. Mark, played by Daniel London, is married and expecting a baby and seems to live a pretty quiet life, with liberal political views and I think he talks about doing some volunteer work with a non-profit or something. He's a good guy, but seems a bit stressed and wound tight. Kurt is his direct foil, a free-spirit who has clearly rejected a more normative existence and has purposely strayed from attachments. Old Joy has elements, of course, of the classic 'buddy' film, and also the 'road' movie. The film is based on a short story by Jonathan Raymond and he co-wrote the screenplay with Reichardt and you can buy the book - it looks like this:



If you are at all interested in watching this film, or have seen it and liked it, I recommend reading the New York Times article because Reichardt and Oldham do much more to illuminate the film than I ever could. In fact it's so good, and affected me so much that I almost don't want to write about it - at least not till I've watched it a few more times. But the soundtrack is really lovely and by Yo la Tengo. And a very wise friend of mine suggested that one way of reading the film is by seeing Kurt and Mark as representations of a divided self -- we all have a bit of Mark and Kurt in us, and it's difficult to negotiate the two inclinations in a way that feels truly balanced. The other thing I'd like to add is that we can all go to the hot springs they go to in the film! A place called Bagby Hot Springs near Oregon City. This movie will definitely make you want to drive to Big Sur ASAP or move to Portland or hike the Appalachian Trail or do whatever it is you have been yearning to do.

In the immortal words of Edward Abbey (from his book Desert Solitaire, I believe):
"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards."

I'll leave you with that and also some mp3s - a song by Yo la Tengo from Old Joy and also a song of of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's new record "Beware" -- a kind of haunting track called "There's Something I Have To Say."

Why I don't like "Slumdog Millionaire"

After reading an excellent critique of Danny Boyle's Best Picture winner "Slumdog Millionaire" by Mitu Sengupta on AlterNet, I feel the need to vent a little bit about this film. Or rather, I think you should read Sengupta's article, and just know that I agree with her entirely -- the film is totally a sham and made me feel uncomfortable when I was leaving the movie theatre, and that feeling only increased once I had more time to digest it. When I was filing out of the cinema, some dude behind me was like, "Jesus, India looks like a real hell hole" or something to that effect. Then my friend complained about the heroine, saying that she is really boring and lacked any real depth, and I was like, yeah - she's just vulnerable and pretty, thus we do not need to know anything else about her - and oh yeah, she is essentially the epitome of male fantasy as a result. But what really irritates me isn't the film's lame, shallow characterization, but the fact that it is so wholly unrealistic that it's success can only be somewhat damaging - at least in terms of viewers' perception of India, and the poor in general. And of course the overall message of the film is precisely the type of bullshit that, especially, Americans want to believe right now -- it's okay that people are suffering because the film provides us with the fantasy of escape tied to wealth. The mentality of the film is directly in line with the thinking, in my opinion, that has gotten us (North Americans) into the mess we are currently in -- just another band aid solution that doesn't actually force any real change or progress.
The only good message I found in "Slumdog" is that it privileges various types of intelligence -- I like that Jamal surprises everyone with his knowledge (he lacks any formal education), and that might help to subvert some small aspect of the negative perception of the poor and, as Sengupta writes, "patronizing, colonial and ultimately sham statement" that the film makes.