Tag: Food

Isle of Dogs

Max Mayo3 Comments

This is basically a defense of Wes Anderson, which is a position I’d never dreamed I would be in 10 years ago.

Wes Anderson, above all else, is an aesthete and his films are extensions of his personal style. I’ve come to terms with his output being more about presentation than what is presented. And in fact, only when we stop protesting what he isn’t and address what he is, can we actually criticize him.

Though there is nothing overly new or rich about the characters, story, or themes in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, from an animation perspective alone this film is worth seeing. Anderson creatively synthesizes cutting edge stop-motion animation with Japanese woodblock print imagery, kabuki and bunraku theater influences to create images and sequences that are easily some of the best in his œuvre, and some of the best in animation.

Buried in Anderson’s style fixations is his ethos of individualism, personal duty, social civics, and common morals. Again, he’s not treading new thematic or psychological ground, but he is finding new, unique and interesting ways to express himself. That is more than most artists ever achieve. In his commitment to this ethos, and as an auteur with substance, I see much more in common between Anderson and Robert Bresson or Quentin Tarantino, than I do Michael Bay.

Now for the cultural appropriation question, for which this film has drawn much ire. Overall, I found this film’s approach to be well-meaning and indeed respectful of Japanese culture. The lengths to which Anderson goes to carefully emulate Japanese theater, woodblock printing and cinema speaks volumes. I liken this film more to his masterwork The Grand Budapest Hotel than The Darjeeling Limited. The latter film renders the Indian subcontinent as a colorful, exotic backdrop for white man-child angst, while the former is an example of a film that intelligently and creatively engages with a foreign culture. In fact, I would like to see more filmmakers attempt what Anderson is doing here. And finally, as a challenge for any criticisms, I think most of the claims of foul play could (and would) still be argued even if Anderson had made the opposite choices. This begs the question, is what is being criticized actually the problem, or is the problem that people shouldn’t create artistic projects that engage with cultures foreign to the artist. Obviously there is a line for cultural appropriation, but I do not think this film approaches it.

All of this is to say that I found Isle of Dogs to be a charmingly slight, or slightly charming, film and a must-see for animation fans. Oddly, my biggest complaint with it is that there are not nearly enough dogs in it!

The New Yorker

Max Mayo3 Comments

In the Fall of 2012, my late Grandma Lydia and my father came to visit me in college at SMU. My Grandma brought with her several copies of a magazine called The New Yorker. I was vaguely familiar with this magazine, but had never actually held a copy before that point. On one of those afternoons, resting in their hotel room before heading out for the next activity, I eyed one she had left on the couch. Enticed by its colorful cover design, I picked it up, slumped in a chair and began to flip through it; within minutes I knew this was something I needed.

It was the September 10, 2012 Fashion issue. I really only turned the pages, reading little bits here and there, but I knew. In that issue, as in all of them, there were endless descriptions of New York City’s surplus of cultural events, trendy political commentary, personal essays by famous writers, long form journalism, long form culture articles, short fiction, poetry, cartoons and reviews of what at that time seemed like everything. My grandmother, noticing the glint in my eye, urged me to keep that issue. In the days that followed, I read that magazine from cover to cover, a rarity for anyone familiar with it. My thirst unquenched,  I then signed up for the trial subscription. And when that was finished, I became a yearly paying subscriber which has been the case for the last 5 years. In that time, I’ve received the magazine weekly, devouring and struggling to keep up with that relentless pile, often bringing my own stacks of back issues on vacations and holidays.

As of April 9th, 2018, I am no longer a subscriber. Without going into detail as to why, I instead want to use this space to reflect. The magazine was, without a doubt, one of the integral catalysts for my broader intellectual curiosity late in college. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. Despite any criticisms that have led me to this decision, it is more true to say that my leaving the The New Yorker is a signifier of just how influential it has been. Perhaps I will be a subscriber again one day, and I will still be loosely following it online (within the 10 free articles a month constraint). But for now, a heartfelt goodbye and thank you to The New Yorker.

Week in Review: February 26th – March 4th, 2018

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Sampha: Process – A Malick-like collage of performances set in urban London, the beaches of Sierra Leone and in a giant empty diving pool, among others. It amounts to an experimental album film, consisting of no linear plot or dialogue (or full songs for that matter), but one gets a vague sense of Sampha’s background and concerns around his mixed global identity.

Sullivan’s Banks – Another short collage, this one about eight banks designed by American architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). Heinz Emigholz directs the structures one at a time by simply placing the camera at various angles for observation. Shot in the 1990’s, each analysis begins with a few elliptical master shots where you can see how each building blends in to a small town square. Only when the camera moves closer do you begin to see their quiet radicalism and idiosyncratic nature. Sullivan was a fan of ornament and the density of details and materials on these banks absorb you as the camera tessellates around them. While the film offers no opinion per se, if there is an argument being made it is that Sullivan was a modernist and a visionary that American architecture stopped following.

Maillart’s Bridges – This is another Emigholz short film that is part of his Architecture as Autobiography docu-series. It examines 14 structures, primarily bridges, designed and built by Swiss engineer Robert Maillert (1872-1940) early in the 20th century. Maillert was notable for his creative use of reinforced concrete to minimize material usage and structural footprint. Emigholz’s camera replicates the approach to Sullivan’s banks, with one caveat: as the camera pivots around the sturcutres we almost never see their functional tops. Instead, Emigholz is fascinated with looking at the bridges the way Maillert may have, admiring and exploring the visual play of curves and lines amongst the Swiss Alps’ landscape.

Blind Spot – Teju Cole is one of my favorite creative minds and his first photobook does not disappoint. As he notes within the text, the book represents the 4th segment in a tetralogy about looking. A photography project shouldn’t come as a surprise though. Cole’s penchant for flaneuring in his literary works helps elucidate the formal continuity between the four projects. The photographs, representing over a decade of international travels, are often stunning but he lets none of them speak for themselves. Each image is coupled with a piece of text on the opposite page that contains a reaction to his prolonged exposure to his picture. The pairs are organized thematically and they elliptically build out a continuous stream of thought around his philosophical, aesthetic and political ideas. With this photobook, one looks at Teju Cole looking at what he was looking at.

Chef’s Table – It’s hard not to chuckle at the self-serious formula at this point, which is unfortunate because the chefs are still anything but formulaic. I watched Season 3, Episode 6 about chef Virgilio Martínez of Central based in Lima, who’s ecosystem inspired dishes are fascinating. He and his team scavenge around Peru for hundreds of unique ingredients used nowhere else in the world, and then combine them in groupings based on elevation. Apparently some of the dishes aren’t even designed to taste good.

Solaris – Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1973 three hour Russian science fiction classic. This was a re-watch as part of my Annihilation post-mortum and I can confirm that it still holds up. The film is much broader than I recalled, though I think its possible to read the film as Tarkovsky’s personal crisis over the then obvious shortcomings of the Soviet experiment. A telling 5 minute sequence set in a futuristic Moscow is merely a drive around the multi-tiered infrastructure and booming skylines of Tokyo.

Taipei Story

The 90th Academy Awards – I watch the Oscars every year for shallow reasons that I can’t quite reckon with. It is almost always the same: a drab four hour affair punctuated by a few funny presenting bits and the ensuing consensus of whether or not the host was any good. This year I was pleased by the #MeToo tone of the evening and Jimmy Kimmel’s general presence, but there just weren’t any surprises in this stagnating event. I uncharacteristically did not make a prediction list, but I didn’t need one. All most all of the wins were predictable. The one spark was when Kimmel took a caravan of stars over to a local movie theater, interrupting an ongoing film’s audience with candy baskets and hot-dog canons. The bit ran too long, and it honestly looked like chaos, but it contained the potential for disaster and thus was exhilarating. If the Academy really wants to expand the broadcast audience, they need more uncertainty.