Log24

Sunday, July 16, 2017

An Arousing Quality

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:01 am

MOVIE REVIEW from The New York Times

'Distance,' Sensitive Film Story

By RICHARD EDER

Published: December 22, 1975

Sometimes "Distance" is awkward and sometimes it is misconceived, but it had a central virtue lacking in a number of more elaborate and—to use a horrible word—cinematic films around.

It wants to be made. It believes in itself, in its story, in its characters; and that belief pulls viewers into it. Sometimes they are pulled too hard, or in a certain embarrassment because the sequence is obvious or excessive or telegraphed in advance.

But self-belief is an arousing quality, especially at a time when an extreme of baroque weariness gives movies such as "Three Days of the Condor" or Sam Peckinpah's "Killer Elite" the hopeless feeling that they are meant for an empty theater.

See also Log24 posts on and just after the date of Eder's demise.

A phrase of baroque weariness —

"Pull it Surprise!"

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Fast Forward

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:00 am

Continued from Nov. 21, 2010:

“They always print… the lottery.”

The reader may interpret the lottery numbers
as he or she pleases.

Related material: Jersey City in Log24 posts
of April 25 and April 28, and today’s NY Times
image of another Jersey City landmark.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Fast Forward

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 3:00 am

Dan Brown, a sculpture at CIA headquarters, and secret codes are discussed at the bottom of today's New York Times  front page.

In this vein, here is a meditation on Religion and Time  (continued from Kurt Vonnegut's birthday)—

At the end of "Three Days of the Condor," Cliff Robertson asks Robert Redford, "How do you know they'll print it?"

One possible answer: "They always print… the lottery."

The New York Lottery on Saturday, November 20, 2010: Midday 704, Evening 687.

Here 704 suggests 7/04, the Fourth of July, which in turn suggests this journal's post on that date about random numbers and universal wisdom.

Moving further up on the front page of today's New York Times

http://www.log24.com/log/pix10B/101121-SundayTimesSm.jpg

"Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing…. The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.”— A worried professor at Harvard Medical School

For that new generation… Live from New York, it's Universal Wisdom! — In other words, 687!

Returning to the lottery hermeneutics (look it up, dudes) of July 4th, we note that a rather arcane and archaic procedure on a Windows PC keyboard— "Num Lock + Alt + 687"— produces the symbol known as a right guillemet».  This mark, which can stand for "fast forward," may symbolize to the old Slow-Forward Generation the fears of the Harvard professor for the new Differently-Wired Generation.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Hollywood Ending

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:00 pm

In memory of film producer Dino De Laurentiis, who died yesterday at 91—

He is listed in Internet Movie Database under “Three Days of the Condor” as “executive producer (uncredited).”

At the end of that film, Cliff Robertson asks Robert Redford, “How do you know they’ll print it?”

One possible answer—

IMAGE- NY Times report of NY Lottery numbers on Nov. 10, 2010- Midday 586, Evening 589

An interpretation for the philosophers of the Times

See “these rich pages (586-589)” in Husserliana XV

Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität.
Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929-1935.
Hrsg. von Iso Kern. 1973. lxx + 742 pp.
HB. ISBN 90-247-5030-X

For related material by the author of the above phrase “these rich pages,” see “Phenomenological Time: Its Religious Significance,” by James G. Hart (pp. 17-45 in a book with the unusually ambitious title Religion and Time ).

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Wednesday March 7, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:00 pm
Comfort and Joy
 Notes on a Hollywood ending
in memory of
Stanley Kubrick,
chessplayer and film director,
who died on this date in 1999

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07/070307-Joubert.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Assassin Joubert (Max von Sydow) is talking with intelligence agency target Turner (Robert Redford), sought by CIA deputy director Higgins (Cliff Robertson) in “Three Days of the Condor“–

Joubert: Can I drop you?

Turner: [Sigh] I’d like to go back to New York.

Joubert: You have not much future there. It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift.

Turner: You seem to understand it all so well. What would you suggest?

Joubert: Personally, I prefer Europe.

Turner: Europe?

Joubert: Yes. Well, the fact is, what I do is not a bad occupation. Someone is always willing to pay.

Turner: I would find it… tiring.

Joubert: Oh, no– it’s quite restful. It’s… almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause. There’s only yourself. The belief is in your own precision.

Turner: I was born in the United States, Joubert. I miss it when I’m away too long.

Joubert: A pity.

Turner: I don’t think so. Is it any trouble to drop me at the Union Station?

Joubert: Oh, no. It would be my pleasure.

[Joubert pauses, then holds out a gun to Turner]

Joubert: For that day.

EXT. WEST 43RD ST. — DAY

Carolers:

Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all
from Satan’s power
When we are gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

Turner: Higgins!

Carolers:

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

Higgins: Why’d you call so late? We were worried about you.

Turner: Likewise. The car for me?

Higgins: It’s all right. It’s safe. You’ll have a few hours of debriefiing.

Turner: Hey, Higgins?

Higgins: Yeah?

Turner: Let’s say, for the purposes of argument, I had a .45 in one of my pockets and I wanted you to walk with me. You’d do it, right?

Higgins: Which way?

Turner: West. And slowly.

TRACKING TURNER AND HIGGINS

The sound of singing grows louder.

(Dialogue reconstructed from Script-o-rama, Wikiquote, and the more detailed script (pdf) at AwesomeFilm.com.)

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