kingrat

Born Into Brothels finally came up in my Netflix queue. What an amazing film. I kind of expected along the lines of isn't it sad about the poverty these children live in. There's some of that, but the movie is more a celebration of the talent of the children profiled.

Zana Briski has been living and working with the prostitutes of Sonaguchi, one of Kolkata's red light districts. She gave a number of children cameras and taught them photography. I knew the film was to feature their photography, but in the long wait I'd forgotten this. So when the first photographs came up I was just amazed at their quality. It was only a few minutes later that I realized the photos were all taken by the children.

Briski worked to get the children admitted to boarding schools, with partial success. Along the way, the photographs were exhibited in the U.S. and Europe, with the proceeds going to pay for the schools.

Avijit seemed to be the most talented. This was one of his where he picked up a bucket of water and sand and poured it out to put something in both the foreground and background. They don't have many of their photographs online, but follow the link below to see a few of what they do have.

Kids with Cameras is now setting up similar projects in other countries.

I watched the Battlestar Galactica mini-series on DVD last night after I got back to the hotel. I really liked this version. The personal conflicts dovetailed nicely with the overall story, although they were pretty cliché. But they were still well done. I loved how the makers weaved the theme of sin and retribution throughout the plot, both the personal interactions as well as the overall human/Cylon circumstances. Being the first in an eventual series, it would have been nice had the explained why the Cylons revolted and why they exhibited such savagery in this war. Rymer also did a nice thing with Baltar's guilt and attempts to save his own skin. How he accuses someone else of crimes to cover his own. I thought they might be leading up to the result that happened, but I wasn't quite sure.

I rented this movie mainly cause I wanted to see a scantily-clad Natalie Portman. It's the geek in me. Though all the scantily-clad parts I'd seen already on the net. So I'm not sure what I was looking for. The movie didn't really deliver whatever it was though. Ms. Portman is in a state of undress, but it weren't sexy. And the movie was dull, I couldn't follow the time breaks, and I don't get why Alice lied about her name all the way through. Not to mention I just can't see anyone acting like they do, particularly the behavior exhibited by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts' characters. Jude Law seems to be making a career of playing cads though.

Since I mentioned it as well, I did like Overnight. Kind of like the Metallica documentary, this one was originally commissioned by Troy Duffy's band The Brood just after Troy Duffy got his movie deal with Miramax. The band still didn't have a deal yet. And like Metallica, I don't think it ended up showing the group in the light they really wanted. Though in this case it was more Troy Duffy himself.

The show starts off from the point where Troy Duffy got his movie deal. Prior to that he was a bartender at a low-rent Hollywood bar. Almost from the beginning you can see Troy Duffy being an arrogant prick. Through his attitude, he manages to piss of everyone. The people paying him. His band. And in a telling fit, after the band's managers complain about getting no money when they sign them to a record deal, Duffy tells them they don't deserve anything. Guess who is making the documentary? Yup. The managers. In the end, the fuckwad made them see the money in the documentary that they didn't see from the record deal. Cause they could have made the documentary make Duffy look like a driven mover & shaker. Instead, he appears to be a manic depressive asshole. I think the latter is the truth, but had he been a bit nicer to his friends at least, they could have hidden the mistreatment of everyone else.

Anyway, in the end Troy Duffy blew the little money he made and everyone goes back to day jobs.

I've actually only watched one episode of this show on T.V., but that was enough to intrigue me. So I've purchased all three seasons on DVD. I think the only thing that frustrates me about this show, especially season 3, is the lack of the story arc. I'd really love to see movement on one of the two major issues in Monk's life: the case of his wife's murder, or getting re-instated to the police force. Not that I need to see him solve that case or be reinstated. But in 16 episodes, you'd think they'd go back to these parts more than just the first episode of the season. But they didn't really, despite several episodes with dream sequences with his wife.

I've loved police procedurals in the mystery novel genre, and generally like them as T.V. shows. Monk is great for these. It's like Encyclopedia Brown for adults. And despite the fact that Monk's phobias invariably pop up at the worst possible time, and it can usually be predicted, the writers always seem to make the occurrences fresh.

I just watched Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a documentary made during the writing of their album St. Anger. Even if it is long (2½ hours), it's an excellent movie. But not because it gave me any insight into Metallica's creative process or anything. It was something else.

First, I have to say I am more a casual fan of Metallica than I am die-hard. Much more casual. I don't think I heard of them before And Justice For All's One video made M.T.V. back in the day when M.T.V. played videos. The only album of theirs I've listened to in its entirety is the black album. So my opinion won't mean shit to the die-hard fans.

And my commentary on this isn't because the documentary revealed Metallica to be something I didn't think them to be. While many bands, particularly those in the metal genre, started off as hard-partying youngsters, as they age they are likely to morph into something else, at least behind the scenes. That much was apparent for Metallica when they all chopped their hair years ago and started having kids and whatnot. Fuck, even Ozzie with a brain like swiss cheese spends a large amount of his time like Martha fucking Stewart. That was the real reason for the popularity of his reality show, The Osbournes. It wasn't that he was fucking crazy. I think we all expected that after years of taking too many drugs and his legendary antics. What made that show what it was placing the crazy in what often appeared to be normal settings that many of us experience and then letting the insanity loose. But I digress. I expected Hetfield and Ulrich to be middle-aged behind the scenes.

So what revealed itself to me in the documentary? It was the utter inability of this group of men to live without a full time psycho-babble therapist in their midst. Even to the point that they were worried he thought he was in the band, and yet they still couldn't give him the boot. I've had my own experiences with therapy. There's good therapy, and there's meaningless babble. And watching 2½ hours of therapy sessions where everyone spouts mindless drivel disappoints me. It would disappoint me if it was my family, if it was my friends, my (nonexistant) girlfriend, or anyone I would think to be the no-bullshit intelligent type. And I always thought of Metallica as the no bullshit band. And I was wrong. They were disappointingly human in a way I did not expect. Men who could not be honest with each other after over 20 years together. They couched their statements to avoid blame. They manipulated each other. They chased off Jason Newsted, which though it might have been good artistically, was done primarily because Hetfield had to maintain the upper hand. These people were fundamentally dishonest with each other and afraid of themselves.

And that insight is what I gained from the documentary.