Hillary Brown: I still consider myself fairly inexperienced as far as Ingmar Bergman’s films go. I’ve seen Persona, The Devil’s Eye, Smiles of a Summer Night, his adaptation of The Magic Flute, and now Wild Strawberries, but there are major ones I’m missing, and I’m by no means an expert. This makes it hard to contextualize the latter film with regard to the rest of his work. It’s not particularly like any of them, and yet it is. Like Smiles of a Summer Night, it’s concerned to some extent with simple pleasures; like Persona, it’s interested in how horrible we can be to one another, intentionally or unintentionally; and like the filmed version of The Magic Flute, which focuses much on the children in the audience, it investigates childhood as both idyllic and imperfect. Mostly, though, it’s about death, which may come as a surprise if you’d heard, as I had, that it’s one of the sources for Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry, which also features an older man driving to claim an honorary degree/prize and picking up some strangers along the way.

A lot of analyses of the film see it as being about Dr. Borg’s reflection on and reassessment of his life, but I’m not sure any changes get made, nor are the statements made about his life necessarily true. Is he betrayed by his first love, Sara, or were they not meant to be together? Is he betrayed by his wife for similar reasons? Is he a cold man or a good man, and are the two incompatible? The film doesn’t seem to choose any answers. It’s both as obvious and as obscure as the initial dream sequence, which is full of classic symbolism and yet reminds us that symbols don’t equate to meanings simplistically but evoke a range of ideas and emotions. What does a clock with no hands mean? Well, it suggests a lack of time, which can mean that time has run out (i.e., expired), that there is no need for time any longer, that the idea of “function” is at an end, etc. It all kind of adds up to death but with slightly different perspectives on that meaning.

Borg’s reflections on his childhood, in which he wanders, invisible and adult, through scenes for which he was never present, are almost as uncanny as his dreams. There’s something both wonderful and horrible about the chaos of the dinner table and the series of odd relatives (a la You Can’t Take It with You) that includes twin girls who speak in duet. The idea of a summer house, the way everyone’s dressed in white, the ephemeral nature of the title fruit–all of it calls up both longing and regret, a sense of the quickness with which time passes, a nostalgia that’s not blind to the flaws of the past. Mostly, it’s these feelings and the gorgeousness of the black-and-white images (sharply restored by the Criterion Collection) that are the film’s strengths. I preferred Persona’s intensity, but this is in some ways a more amazing film for a director who was only about forty years old to make, dealing as it does with the very end of life.

Posted by teambrown on 30 May 2008 at 10:42 am

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PARTY AT THE FLICKER BAR!

Saturday May 31st at the Flicker Bar! 10pm - The Buddy System & Spring Tigers!!

Posted by ryan on 29 May 2008 at 03:30 pm

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Hillary Brown: Okay, so Mr. Brown is laid up with his newly removed tonsil-less throat healing, so it’s given us the opportunity to work on the list some more. He doesn’t feel like writing, however, so I’ll do the duties, and you’ll simply have to deal with pure text, as Wordpress is being its usual amount of difficult and refusing to upload images. 

It’s really hard to make yourself get around to watching some of these films, even as you know they’re probably on a lot of lists because they’re actually great, not just because of their vaunted reputation, and The Best Years of Our Lives is on most of them. It won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Screenplay, and both Best Actor (Frederic March) and Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell). Still, despite all its credentials, it just sounds so depressing: three men deal with the trauma of having served in World War II after they return home. Well, one of the things that’s impressive about the movie is the way it conveys that trauma without ever becoming slow or dour or mopey. Even though Wyler rarely gets mentioned as being among the greats, director-wise, he was a consummate pro, and he knew how to keep things moving along.

One could complain that the ending is a little neat in the way it resolves the men’s difficulties (March’s alcoholism, Russell’s fear of marriage and intimacy, and Dana Andrews’s love story and career anxieties), but it manages to give them all hope without necessarily solving their problems completely. Those problems are fixed on the surface, but there’s still a sense of lingering emotional difficulties, which is one of the real achievements of the movie: it manages to suggest a lot without directly addressing issues too controversial for American studio film at the time. For example, why doesn’t Harold Russell, who has hooks for hands due to wartime bombing of his ship (note that Russell wasn’t an actor and didn’t really go on to become one; he’s just a real guy with hooks for hands), want to marry his fiancee, Wilma, even though she still very much wants to marry him? At first, he makes the excuse that it’s because she looks at him differently, as does his family. Then he shows her what happens when he goes to bed and removes his hooks, leaving him helpless until someone can help him put them back on; it’s presented as a matter of shame and vulnerability, of his embarrassment but also not wanting to subject her to a life of caretaking. The question that’s never addressed but that occurs to anyone watching the film is that of sex–what kind of a romantic life can he offer her? And it’s a tension that, while not mentioned in the film, fills their scenes with a greater pathos and anxiety, as well as one that’s unresolved at the conclusion.

The film suggests a lot about the fate of the returning soldiers through the other two main characters, played by March and Andrews. The latter is highly medalled, and we see that he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks (or right next to them, actually), marrying a gold-digging hussy (Virginia Mayo) right before he left to fly planes. But, despite the fact that my grandfather, and your grandparents, too, I’m sure, always told me that, back in the day, businesses were happy to hire smart people with little or no experience and train them for a job, that doesn’t hold true in the film. The only thing Andrews has ever done, other than bombing, is work as a soda jerk in a pharmacy, and that’s the only job he can get after the war. The pharmacy itself has been sold to a big company and is no longer locally owned. Basically, labor has been devalued. We see this just as much from March’s story, despite his much better position. Having worked at a bank before the war and been fairly wealthy, he’s offered a new, better position at the same institution upon his return, administering GI loans, but the bank is reluctant to make good on the government’s promises, making excuses about shareholders and collateral and the like. And although, in the end, Andrews ends up with a better job and March drunkenly expresses his dismay at the situation, none of the fundamentals change.

The title, too, contributes to thoughtfulness at the end of the film, rather than woo woo America flag waving. Although Mayo’s character says briefly, “I gave you the best years of my life,” that statement simply seems to have provided a push toward the title. Whose lives? What years? Is it ironic? Does it mean that the current years are the best years of these men’s lives, or that they’re the opposite? Does it mean that the years they spent fighting, seeing death and destruction but also achieving camaraderie with their fellows in the name of a greater cause, were the best years of their lives, and now those years are over? Does it suggest that being at war is simpler and easier than returning from it? Or that that attitude is naive? Does it say something about those left behind on the homefront, waiting and watching? Whatever it says, it could be saying a lot of these things, which is part of what makes it a great film.

Posted by teambrown on 28 May 2008 at 08:44 am

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Hey everybody the lineup for the 5th annual Athens Popfest (August 12-16th) has been announced and Kindercore will be represented by ani-band The Buddy System and nuwave dance pop power trio Ruby Isle!

Buy tickets HERE and check out the full lineup:

5th Annual Athens PopFest Artist Lineup

Roky Erickson & The Explosives, The Music Tapes, Elf Power, Dark Meat, Boyracer, The Apes, Bunnygrunt, Thee American Revolution, Circulatory System, My Teenage Stride, The Faintest Ideas, We Versus the Shark, Casper & the Cookies, Cryptacize, Ruby Isle, The Great Lakes, Fishboy, Cars Can Be Blue, Love Letter Band, Andy From Denver, The Buddy System, The Smittens, Supercluster, The Coathangers, The Selmanaires, Spring Tigers, Dead Confederate, Violet Vector & the Lovely Lovelies, Velcro Stars, Red Pony Clock, Big Fresh, the Lolligags, Secret History, Judi Chicago, Hot Pants Romance, Nana Grizol, The Sterns, Thrushes, Laminated Cat, Fat Planet, The Ocelots, The Besties, Twin Tigers, The Afternoon Naps, Boy Genius, the Hotwalls, Amo Joy!, Oh Sanders, That’s My Daughter, Little Birds, A Faulty Chromosome, Panda Riot, Patience Please, Railcars, Tendaberry, One Happy Island, The Hat Company, The Young Untold, Bad Animal, Oh Fortuna, Good Graces, Night Driving in Small Towns, Umbrella Tree, Noisycrane, Bob Hay & the Jolly Beggars, Allison Weiss, Whistling School for Boys

…& 16 more bands still to be announced!

Posted by ryan on 23 May 2008 at 02:09 pm

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Dear George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,

my name is justin robinson and i have a bone to pick. first off let me go ahead and thank both of you for my awesome childhood. you guys were as a much a part of me growing up as anything else. you helped entertain and expand my imagination like no two other people in Hollywood as either the director or producer of ET, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Goonies, Back To The Future, Gremlins, and countless other films, hell even Willow was awesome…but above them all sat one man, Indiana fucking Jones. the greatest character in movie history….and now you’ve gone and fucked with that. in your old age you guys have both lost whatever spark once brought us all such joy. it was bad enough that you completely ruined Star Wars, but Indiana Jones?!?! that’s unfuckingforgivable. the new Jones’ adventure is beyond all things silly, kinda boring, and not that much fun. not to mention Cate Blanchett totally sucks every second she’s on the screen and the overwhelming amount of obvious greenscreen takes all the thrill out of almost every action sequence. and don’t get me started on the “treasure”. i got one word for your new movie, LAME. okay, maybe i’m being a little too harsh. it’s honestly not a terrible movie…it’s just not nearly as awesome as Iron Man, or the Bourne Movies, or a lot of other recent action movies i’ve seen that i don’t have nearly the emotional attachments to. i guess the word LAME should be changed to DISAPPOINTING…but then again, i should have learned my lesson from you guys a long time ago. it’s about making money, not making awesome movies.

so yeah, thanks a lot for fucking with my childhood again. you guys are a bunch of out of touch douchebags and Spielberg should stick to the one genre he still does well, World War II movies. Lucas should just stay away from every creation he’s ever come up with because he just turns them to shit. whatever, fuck you guys.

your pal,

justin

Posted by justin on 23 May 2008 at 01:34 pm

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Read it HERE

Posted by ryan on 23 May 2008 at 12:12 pm

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Hey Buddies!

We are back from a quick swing through the state that “Cops” built and we had a blast despite our Friday show being cancelled! Deciding to make the best of a bum sitch, the whole gang spent the day at Disney World! We made it through all 4 parks in a single day and had about as good a time as one can imagine.

I posted pics on my Flickr page and will most likely post some more on our MySpace page when I have a chance.

Big thanks go out to all of our Florida friends both new and old! The Buddy System’s big list of good dudes continues to grow: Jesse & Nethie, Jack at Aestheticized Presents, and Curtis from Summer Birds in the Cellar!!

This Saturday we will be sharing the Georgia Theater stage with this grab bag of killer acts: Venice is Sinking, Casper and the Cookies, Deaf Judges, Fairmont Fair and Matias. The doors are at 9 and we are on second so come early and stay late! Chances are we might have something special up our sleeves for the show, come find out!

We leave you with this gem of a band photo taken after Lauren and Craig convinced Mat and I to face our crippling fear of heights and ride the Magic Kingdom’s “Splash Mountain”… as you can see it worked out great, our fear = comedy gold.

THNX
The Buddy System!

Posted by ryan on 15 May 2008 at 02:39 pm

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Hillary: Whew. It’s been a while since we did this, and I have to say I think it’s a little bit of a shame we didn’t come back with a better movie. Not to knock Angels with Dirty Faces completely, but I’m not sure it really belongs on the lists of Great Films (with capital G and F). Jimmy Cagney is wonderful, no question, full of energy and reacting to everything around him. Without him, you have no movie. I mean, I like the Dead-End Kids, and there are a few other positives to mention, but it’s a lot more like The Bells of St. Mary’s than it is like Casablanca, which, coincidentally, Michael Curtiz also directed. I don’t necessarily mean to knock it for being fairly conventional and unrealistic–there are plenty of movies from the same era that deserve higher praise that are both–but it is, a little. For another thing, why in the world would boring Pat O’Brien as boring Father Jerry have any kind of shot at winning these kids to his side? It seems to be a nature v. nurture parable, but half the nurture is really terrible at it, and the other half, while compelling, isn’t really going about things in the best way. There’s a lot of smacking the kids or punching them or showing them the consequences of not playing by the rules in a fairly abusive way. Yes, I know it’s an old movie, but it’s sort of mystifying nonetheless that the kids Rocky Sullivan slaps around worship him as a hero. It’s a good thing dishy Ann Sheridan and marvelous Humphrey Bogart, the latter playing a pretty unusual role for him as a wussy, slimy, corrupt lawyer, are in the movie. So, were you equally disappointed?

Jared: I agree with pretty much everything you say, yet I think maybe I enjoyed the film a little better. Maybe it’s all the Will Eisner I’ve been reading lately coupled with my own fondness and nostalgia for films of that era (it’s been a while since I’ve seen one), but I was very entertained. The performances were especially compelling, even down to the actors who played young Rocky and young Jerry (Hillary and I recognized William Tracy, who plays young Jerry, as Pepi from Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner, a film which, unfortunately, is not as well known as its remake, You’ve Got Mail). I don’t know that I saw it as much about Nature versus Nurture as about Nurture versus non-Nurture. The movie, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is ostensibly about two young boys who run from the law after getting caught stealing pens (I know, lucrative, huh?) from a railroad car. One of the boys (Jerry), escapes and eventually becomes a priest. The other boy, Rocky, is a little bit slower and therefore gets caught, goes to a detention center, and ultimately becomes a career criminal. The point is made several times, that their lives diverged primarily because Rocky could not run as fast as Jerry. I believe the phrase ‘there but for the grace of God’ is actually used by Jerry at some point. I was struck, in fact, by how compassionate the film was in its stance toward Rocky—very Eisnerian in that regard too. The child abuse thing is clearly jarring to us because of the times in which we live but, also, I don’t recall ever seeing Jerry slap any of the kids—does he? I think it’s another sign of Rocky’s (and the kids’) rough upbringing that they are (all) so violent. The kids love him because he is like them. He beats them up every now and again, but they also beat each other up. It’s kind of a code: a macho, tough guy, life on the streets, code.

HB: You’re right that Jerry never hits any of them. He’s the good guy. He’s just also unfortunately boring. And you’re right that it’s a product of its time and that, within the movie, it’s really not jarring. Those kids sure can’t play basketball, though. There’s maybe one dribble in the entire scene. I think your point about the role of chance as far as determining where our lives end up is valid, but the movie undercuts it, too. Which one of them pulls down young Ann Sheridan’s hat over her eyes? Which one of them is generally more mischievous? Which one of them already has a record and offers to take the fall? To say it’s just chance isn’t really accurate. Another thing that’s interesting about the movie is the near complete absence of parents. One could point out that the reason these kids are stealing slot machines and wallets (and pens) is because they have no parental supervision at all, and, while the church is a decent substitute, it can’t be there all the time. Is it just that their parents are at work? Are they orphans? What the heck is this crazy lawless world? The film also has something to say about what money can do for you, even through its montage of Rocky’s criminal career. While he starts out with multiple stints in juvie and for misdemeanors, the headlines and the court system treat him more favorably as he profits more from his misdeeds (which we see in shots of high-kicking showgirls and flowing champagne). It’s not a blatant critique of the system, but it’s certainly an element that’s present in the film, especially as boss Mac Keefer runs the town and its legal institutions largely because he has money. I’m also going to have to point out possibly my favorite scene, when Rocky sends the kids to a deli with $5 to buy lunch for all of them, then complains when they come back with only $4.50 in change after having stolen almost everything for their meal.

JB: Yeah, they’re not used to playing basketball by the rules, certainly—or, more likely, the actors didn’t know how to play basketball, much less fake it convincingly. You’re right though, it’s the biggest mess of a basketball game I’ve ever seen. You’re also right that Rocky’s character does seem, by nature, to be more of a hoodlum. I think it’s partially just a little sloppiness in storytelling (in fairness, I’m sure they didn’t expect the film to be dissected by two jackasses seventy years later on the Intertubes)…I mean, it’s not all spelled out (or I missed it), but I’m guessing that Jerry’s parental situation was better than Rocky’s/the kids’. And yeah, I do think that “the Church” is kind of substituting for “Parents” in the movie. I think the movie definitely paints a bleak picture of a somewhat broken society (the cops and lawyers are corrupt, the children and their hero are all criminals, the female lead has lived through hard times, etc.), but this may be mainly to set up the final scene, which I guess we shouldn’t spoil.

HB:All true. I may be a little unfair in comparing it to the cheesefest that is The Bells of St. Mary’s, too, in that it really does try to be gritty and, to some extent, it succeeds. It’s just no Scarface (and, yes, I’m talking about the Paul Muni one, dear readers). Did you know, by the way, that Pat O’Brien was a raving right winger, to the extent that he supported General Franco? Also, I always forget that it’s not really this movie Kevin’s watching/uses in Home Alone, but more a parody of it created just for that flick.

JB: Isn’t Pat O’Brien also the name of the annoying guy on t.v. who left those (emphatically un-)sexy phone messages? Irish people suck, heh heh. Anyway, I think we pretty much agree that AWDF is an entertaining film that’s maybe not as great as the greatest films of all time, but is also better than average? Especially recommended for fans of James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart. Keep the change, you filthy animal.

Posted by teambrown on 14 May 2008 at 12:16 pm

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Hey Buddi​es!​

So it turns​ out the club that the Buddy​ Syste​m was suppo​sed to play in Lakel​and Flori​da this Frida​y has shut down.​ Club 210 appar​ently​ close​d their​ doors​ witho​ut telli​ng anyon​e and now we no show to play betwe​en our Thurs​day show at Gaine​svill​e Pop Mayhe​m and Satur​day at The Crowb​ar in Ybor City.​

Can any one out there​ help us out with a show to fill the void on Frida​y?​ Messa​ge us through our MySpace page and let’​s see if we can work somet​hing out.
We are prett​y nice,​ you might​ like us!

THNX!​
THE BUDDY​ SYSTE​M

Posted by ryan on 07 May 2008 at 11:54 am

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Ruby Ruby Isle is in the final stages with Night Shot. The Cover is done (courtesy of Chris Bilheimer) and final mastering is being done with Jacques Wait as I write. The album features two guest appearances. One from my other bandmate Amy Dykes and one from… are you ready?.. Tay Zonday. I am so excited!!!

We also have 3 videos in the works from 3 very different directors, so it should be very interesting to see what comes of it.

Today, check out the cover… Its crazy Boston influence is apparent, Bilheimer is a genius.

Posted by dan on 06 May 2008 at 10:42 am

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