Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Sometimes words just seem silly. I have things to say about this but I hardly dare. I've already said too much.

Test

This thread has risen from the grave, it appears.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

We checked the mod changelogs... it wasn't us!

Carry on!

__________________

Anyway.....


I have a long-standing love/hate thing with Ornette Coleman. I love those initial Atlantic records, but he often falls into that category of abstract exhibitionism that leaves me very cold, so I don't really have a high regard for many of his later efforts. The kind of free-style folks I enjoy - Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Eric Dolphy - can still maintain a soulful grounding and emotional connection, neither of which I get from Coleman's more modern work. Coleman's free-style is closer to people like Anthony Braxton, Pat Methany or Derek Bailey for me, intellectually cold, emotionally distant. It's what gives free jazz a bad name.

But I'm always game to watch a Shirley Clarke documentary.

I only have one later era Coleman, Dancing in Your Head, and I definitely recognized pieces of that here. Everything else seemed likely to have come from a similar time period though, so you might not be a fan of many of the performances. To my ears though, I found every skronk of it to be great. Not remotely emotionally distant or intellectually cold. In fact the opposite. Present and instinctual and full of feeling.



The documentary is a jumble of different styles and might rub some the wrong way, as it can get deliberately goofy at some points (Coleman riding a stationary bicycle through space, for example). But I think it is one of the most interesting and revealing portraits of an artist I've seen since Mystery of Picasso or Don't Look Back. It alone is worth my recent subscription to the Criterion Channel (which was already worth it, anyways...I think I watched four movies in a row last night...I feel reborn)

It looks like a lot of the footage is from 1968, and his Blue Note/Impulse LPs of the late 60s are about the last ones I like. Head is frustrating to me. It was usually described as his "funk" album, but it's a different kind of funk than I was expecting. I need some semblence of a groove. I'm not much of a fan of his Prime Time stuff, his collab with Methany (which gets a mad amount of praise from the critics) is stale to my ears, and his "Sound Museum" series epitomizes them, cold like a museum, and you can only appreciate them by standing at quite a distance.


Oh my gosh. Is there going to be a Shirley Clarke Criterion box in our future?

Do I need to ask? Some people would call this "tiggs"ing.

Oh, also, I'm not going to make a thread about it or anything, but RIP to Lee Scratch Perry.

Unless he says otherwise, I'm gonna assume it's Corruption, The Pink Ladies, Her Name Was Lisa and Midnight Heat.

Here.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Thanks, mark.


Junior Murvin >>> The Clash, btw.

I've had Head for probably close to twenty years and it's only in the last few that I have warmed up to it. Never a favorite though. But when I heard the opening track in the documentary last night, my immediately response was 'yes!' hearing it in a live context.


I realize now that I have very few Coleman's in my collection at all. Other than Head, I've only got Shape of Jazz and Change of the Century. Change was one of the first jazz records I ever bought, and for a long time, I probably would have considered it my favourite jazz record, period. But because Coleman records were readily available at that time in Toronto, I took him a bit for granted, and was mostly on the hunt for things I found a challenge to find. Now, I can't find any of his work that I want, and so I'm left with a big hole in my collection. I imagine if I ever get a job again, one of my first priorities is grabbing a few more of those Atlantics, as well as some of his stuff from the 70's.


Last night, other than the Ornette doc, I watched Budd Boetticher's "The Tall T", rewatched Night and Fog and gave roll to a silent Ozu I'd never heard of (An Inn in Tokyo). All very recommended. I also started a Equinox rewatch, but it was getting stupid late, and so I bailed on that pretty quick.

My personal favorite Perry LP

Literally nothing is better than The Clash.

Also, I'm toying with the idea of starting a thread in the Miscellaneous Forum where I can start work shopping some writing I've been working on the last year or so. It's a hodge podge of hits and misses but I just need a place to put them outside of my head. Any constructive criticism, positive feedback or outright ignoring is welcome. I'm so far inside of these pieces at this point I can't possibly tell what is good and terrible anymore and any signals of life that indicate their are still points of view outside of my own brain are welcome. I'd also welcome anyone (when and if I start such a thread) to use it to air out their dirty creative laundry if they are looking for a place to do so.

I dig Cotton Comes to Harlem. It’s not only an early Blaxploitation flick but is arguably the genesis of the buddy cop flick, predating 48 Hours by over a decade. Plus, anything with Calvin Lockhart in a villainous role gets bonus points.

Have you read the Himes novels?



AND UNRELATED:

You people know music. Please help me as I describe in the most vague way a song I heard on the radio that is now driving me crazy. This song would be from the 70s or 80s. Popular enough that it was played on a station that plays "Greatest of All Time" music. What stood out to me was that there was a "loop"--the same short guitar riff (and maybe percussion?) played the whole song. There was a short phrase that seemed to make up most of the song (something like "and I don't mind"). What is this song, and why is it both stuck in my head and yet at the same time I can't say a single lyric or hum the melody to save my life?