Dizzies Newsfeeds™

Over at the L.A. Times, Dizzyhead Dennis looks at two of my favorite recent Japanese movies, Linda Linda Linda and (all-time Dizzies fave?) The Taste of Tea. To my great relief, it looks like he enjoyed both of them.

At Salon, (d)Izzy Grinspan's article about the performance art aspect of trashing your wedding dress draws dozens of letters...as did the excerpt from Douglas's new book, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean...(On the other hand, a grand total of five people chimed in on my Ian McEwan review!)....Jenny D has news about her novel, musings on George Herbert's "The Temple," and a preview of an excellent upcoming Luc Sante piece. And at Weekend Stubble, Paul looks at the future of bookselling. (After you get depressed by that, watch the Conchords video on his blog to cheer up.)...In the Times: “We’ve never seen this guy,” Mr. Voorsanger said, speaking of the imaginary client as if he were real—and elusive. “He refuses to see us. He just writes us letters and communicates through e-mails. He said he was enormously moved by Cormac McCarthy’s new book, ‘The Road,’ in which everything is black. Chip Kidd did the cover.”...In the latest Modern Painters I was reading a piece by Mike Atkinson about CGI and was bowled over when he quoted my immortal Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow review...that really was a good movie, wasn't it? I mean for what it was?....A blurb on the front page of the acoustic version of Friday's NYT said A.O. Scott thinks Ratatouille is one of the best portraits of the artist put onscreen—does he say that in the review?!...RIP Edward Yang..."In the age of the iPod, do the Beatles still matter?" Umm...Brian Eno is great....So is Can—in theory! (Via Dennis)....

TECH NOTES: If you double click in the space between two words, both words will be selected.

Two tastes of 'The Taste of Tea'

Thanks to Dizzyhead Rob for that elegant post. We've found a few clips on YouTube that give you a sense of the pleasures of this film (though these stress the absurd more than the empathic).

First is a live TV mishap (the three people in the living room's far background are under deep hypnosis):



And . . . "The Mountain Song"!



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Over at the Poetry Foundation site, Gabrielle Bell (whose autobiographical comic Lucky gets the Dizzies seal of approval) does an amazing job translating Emily Dickinson into her medium. It's a stunner!

The Taste of Tea (2004)

The Dizzies' movie of the year was made in 2004. This doesn't matter. What does matter is that the invaluable ImaginAsian theater decided to book it for three weeks this month (I also anticipate their release of the even older Ping Pong (2002) in April).

Katsuhito Ishii's deliriously lovely family drama is first and foremost very funny. Very, very funny. From the grandfather's tuning fork non-sequitors to shoreline batting practice, Ishii concocts a stunning array of absurd comic set-pieces - it's impossible to choose a favorite among them (although I'm partial to the anime rave posedown on the subway). They're connected not only by the central node of the serene family home, but by a consistent visual style. Ishii, after lensing the initial comic set-up, pulls (way) back for a painterly landscape shot, turning his characters into dots under blue skies and power lines.

There's more to life than yuks, and as the film progresses it focuses more on character than punchlines - to the son's crush on a fellow Go-team member, daughter Sachiko's mission to complete a backflip, the uncle's impossibly tender reunion with an ex-lover, the mother's return to professional life, and supremely, the grandfather sewing up the final details of his enigmatic life. The way Ishii orchestrates the finale is heartbreakingly brilliant - tying together every wayward aspect of the plot in a few incredibly moving sketches. Then Sachiko smiles and the world is bright.

Hopefully Ishii's next film (co-directed with Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki), 2005's Funky Forest: The First Contact will wend its way over here to be The Dizzies' film of 2008. From the looks of it it can't miss: