Category Archives: The Morgue

A Productivity Boost!

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Below is Anna Vital’s fun infographic “How to Be Productive.” The essence of it is to pare down the number of topics you need to think about so you can focus on the ones that matter most. This proves that in college my intuition was right when I wore the same outfit (my “lucky” outfit!) throughout exam week. She’s saying you’ll get more done if you don’t waste time deciding what to wear, eat, etc. Check out the outfits people are wearing these days, and you’ll see the productivity gains are already enormous. I like her suggestion “No need to respond to everything.” Except, of course, an occasional post of mine!

How To Be Productive

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

 

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In the Land of Blood and Honey

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Angelina Jolie, movie, In the Land of Blood and Honey

Possibly you didn’t know Angelina Jolie has directed a movie, and, if so, probably you haven’t seen it. I heard about her 2011 film about the Bosnian war, In the Land of Blood and Honey (trailer), in Serbia last fall. Due to Serbian objections to the film, it was actually shot in Hungary, with actors from the former Yugoslavia (starring Zana Marjanović, Goran Kostić, and Rade Šerbedžija). Jolie, whose humanitarian work is well known, says she was motivated to write the script after twice visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and because this conflict was the worst European genocide since World War II. An estimated 100,000 people were killed, and 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped.

It’s a love story between a Muslim woman and a Serbian military officer, with all the inter-ethnic and wartime complications you can readily imagine. But what’s interesting is that, for the most part, the story is told from the point of view of women and what they endure during wartime and how they survive.

The film received mixed reviews in the United States, Rotten Tomatoes rating: 56, with many critics seeming to take issues with Jolie’s humanitarian impulses themselves. However, Newsday’s critic Rafer Guzman said, “It’s a tough, clear-eyed look at a ghastly ethnic war, with an admirably wide perspective that affords compassion for both sides,” while Roger Ebert, who gave it a low ranking, acknowledged that “The film does what all war films must, which is to reduce the incomprehensible suffering of countless people into the ultimate triumph of a few.”

The film was highly controversial in Serbia, not surprisingly, and Jolie and some cast members received threats. Serbs claimed it was propagandistic and reduced Serbs to caricatures of evil. I didn’t see it entirely that way; there were sympathetic Serbs, including the main character. (And the Serbs did carry out “ethnic cleansing,” after all.) Interesting that it won an honorable mention in the Sarajevo Film Festival and a peace award at the Berlin film festival.

My bottom line is that the film is pretty good, even if it does use some tired tropes, but the ultimate question—what was the rest of the world doing while all this was going on?—is still worth asking. Critics might dismiss the film, but no one should forget the tragedy  behind it.

In Secret

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3-6-14 In Secret

Oscar Issac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton, Jessica Lang, In Secret, movie, Emile Zola, Therese Raquin

If you don’t remember the 1940’s film noir classics Double Indemnity (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (Lana Turner, John Garfield), you might enjoy the new suspense movie In Secret (trailer) more than I did.  All three films share a basic plot line, with the latter based on the Émile Zola novel of obsessive love, Thérèse Raquin.

The new movie stars Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Tom Felton, and Jessica Lange in an affecting performance as a domineering mother-in-law who becomes sympathetic after a stroke leaves her unable to speak a terrible secret. In Secret is a period piece, set in 1860’s France (not only does mum-in-law smell a rat, we get to see them, too!), but the familiar plot made it less fun than it might have been. Rotten Tomatoes rating: 47.

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Our News Now

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tv news truck, news, social media, where Americans get newsI first learned about the Sandy Hook school shootings on Twitter, moments after they occurred. Celebrity obits quickly appear on Facebook. Social media make it easy to share news and information, and lots of us do it. Exactly how many? And what do we share?

InkHouse Media + Marketing conducted a survey of 1000 U.S. adults’ sharing habits and found out the top reason people say they share is to “inform.” 54% of us do that, and half that number share to “entertain.” Equal percentages (12%) claim they share “thoughtful articles with tips from experts” and “cute animal photos.” Email remains a more popular sharing vehicle than social media.

But for getting our news, 73% of us still rely on tv, 52% on news websites, 36% on print magazines and newspapers, 25% on radio (that would be me!), and only 23% on social media.

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The Monuments Men

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Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton, looted Nazi art

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, accompanied by Gen. Omar N. Bradley, and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., inspects art treasures stolen by Germans and hidden in German salt mine in Germany. April 12, 1945. (photo: U.S. Army)

OK, reviews of The Monuments Men (trailer) have been tepid, George Clooney did give himself all the high-minded speeches, and it was hard to suspend disbelief with the star-power cast (who did a great job but are monuments themselves). Still, despite all those quibbles—and the spate of belated “the real story” websites and compelling personal stories emerging—this was an entertaining and satisfying movie, based on the book by Robert Edsel. For an exciting fictional treatment of this episode, see my review of Sara Houghteling’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

The characterizations of the architects, archivists, and artists that formed the film’s Monuments Men team are strong, and a surprising amount of humor is inherent in their personalities and the interactions between them, despite their desperate mission. Its purpose, as George keeps telling us, was not just to preserve “stuff,” but our way of life, our history, patrimony. The movie spares us conflicted opinions about its characters. They’re pure black or white, good or bad, people who want to save art or those who want to burn it. This oversimplification is a source of some of the criticism.

That is to say, there’s something comfortably old-fashioned about this film. If you’ve seen enough WWII films, you can guess the directions the plot will take, but really, the stakes are so high, does it matter?

Clooney’s character is right. This was a vitally important mission. It was hard. It was dangerous. And these heroes—seven actors representing around 350 real-life “monuments men” from many countries—accomplished it. Together they recovered more than five million paintings, sculptures, church bells, tapestries, and other works looted by the Nazis.

Edsel knew his material and made it real. Previously, he co-produced a documentary of historian Lynn Nicholas’s award-winning book, The Rape of Europa.

Jewess with Oranges, looted art, Aleksander Gierymski

“Jewess with Oranges” by Aleksander Gierymski, looted, and found at an art auction near Hamburg in 2010

Hungary, Budapest, St. Stephen's CrownThe Monuments Men is especially fun viewing for those of us here in Princeton, because more than a dozen of the real Monuments Men had ties to Princeton, two of whom directed the Princeton University Art Museum from 1947 to 1972.

One of the directors, Dr. Patrick Kelleher, wrote his doctoral dissertation in 1947 about St. Stephen’s crown, a Hungarian national treasure he helped recover from the Nazis . I saw it in Budapest, after it was restored to the Hungarians by former President Jimmy Carter.

Not everything the Nazis looted was saved; and not everything has been found—“The Amber Room” is a premier example. Many stolen works may today be stored in basements and attics or even hanging on the walls of the children and grandchildren of ordinary soldiers who carried them home. And they still make news, as recently as last week. (And again, on April 8 and on April 12) As author Robert Edsel says, “They can be found,” as “Jewess with Oranges” was in 2010. His Monuments Men Foundation is intended to accomplish exactly that.

Queen Nefertiti, EgyptAt the opening of the movie in Princeton, current and retired Princeton University Art Museum leaders spoke with the audience and related this anecdote: On Christmas Eve, 1945, some Monuments Men were celebrating in a room full of unopened cartons. Someone said, “Hey, it’s Christmas, shouldn’t we open a package?” He found a crowbar and pried open a wooden crate, reached in, and pulled out the bust of Nefertiti. Was it worth it. Oh, yes.

Alas, the lessons of this extraordinary collaboration between the military and the world of art and archaeology were neglected in the 2003 assault on Baghdad, when U.S. troops failed to secure the high-priority National Museum of Iraq (below; photo: wikimedia.org) Although museum officials already had quietly hidden most of the collection, some 15,000 items looted items have still not been recovered.

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Hot Ticket

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Ra Paulette, Academy Award, documentary, Cave DiggerImpossible to view and practically ignored a few years ago, the Oscar-nominated short films have become one of the hottest tickets around. Last night I saw the documentary shorts and later today will see the live action shorts. These viewings are courtesy of the Trenton Film Society, which shows the films at the intimate Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton. (The festival also offers the nominees in the animation category.)

In recent years the short films have become available through Netflix and other resources, but I like the Big Screen—well, the Bigger Screen—at the Playhouse.

Only one overworked word describes the five documentary shorts: Awesome.

  • A 109-year-old Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer (obituary, 2/27/14), who played the piano in Theresienstadt and was still playing at the time of filming, who says, “I love people” (The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life).
  • A gay man, nearly beaten to death as a teenager, becomes acquainted with the former skinhead who was one of his attackers (Facing Fear)
  • The Yemeni protests that turned violent and led to the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, seen through the eyes of youthful cameramen (Karama Has No Walls)
  • Unlikely artist, Ra Paulette, working alone and by hand carves magical caves out of soft New Mexico sandstone (Cave Digger)
  • The last days and death of convicted murderer Jack Hall in the loving care of inmate volunteers in an Iowa prison hospice (Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall)

Real people doing amazing things. Truly awesome.

Figaro

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Figaro, McCarter Theatre, Stephen Wadsworth, Barber of SevillePrinceton’s McCarter Theatre is putting on two Beaumarchais farces—The Barber of Seville (1773) and The Marriage of Figaro (1778)—in  repertory this spring. The plays, better known in their operatic versions, are new translations by Stephen Wadsworth (opera director at Julliard). In the 1990s at McCarter, Wadsworth successfully remounted three neglected plays by 18th c. French playwright Marivaux and has a distinguished directorial career in theater and opera throughout the world.

I had the chance to see the charming actors playing Figaro and his bride-to-be Suzanne in an early rehearsal of the first scene of Figaro. They portray these two characters in both plays, a feat impossible in opera, because those works by Rossini and Mozart (musical interlude) are set in different registers and require different voices. Following the scene was a brief talk by Wadsworth.

“Comedy is the costume that politics wears,” Wadsworth said and emphasized the timing of the two works, written shortly before the French Revolution. In Figaro, the chief dilemma is that Count Almaviva, who is the employer of Figaro and Suzanne, desires to reassert an old right of primae noctis and be the one to deflower Suzanne on her wedding night. The play’s depiction of aristocratic arrogance was a significant cultural influence on the French populace, and Georges Danton himself said the play “killed off the nobility.”

To make his social satires acceptable to the powers-that-be, Beaumarchais set them in Spain, but his packed audiences got the message, anyway. “L’Escalier du Capitole” of the 1770s. Can’t wait to see them on stage! April 1 – May 4, 2014.

A Painful Memorial

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Philip Seymour Hoffman, playwright, American Playwriting FoundationYesterday’s New York Times included a front page story and full-page announcement of the establishment of “The American Playwriting Foundation,” to make annual $45,000 grants for creators of new American plays, one of the largest awards available for this purpose today. The Foundation was established in honor of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, “who relentlessly sought out truth in his work and demanded the same from his collaborators.”

Initial funding for the Foundation came from the National Enquirer, which published an interview with someone falsely claiming to be Hoffman’s friend David Bar Katz. In its haste to print this information, the newspaper “made a good faith error” by inadequately checking its source. Katz’s subsequent lawsuit led to an apology, and “instead of seeking a purely personal reward for the harm done to him, Mr. Katz brought the lawsuit as a vehicle to . . .create something positive out of this unfortunate turn of events.”

Out of one man’s tragedy, another’s unselfishness, and the foolishness of an entity with more money than sense, miraculously, something good may rise.

My 7/28/14 review of Hoffman’s last major role, in what is both movie title and obituary, “A Most Wanted Man.”

 

End-Game for Downton?

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Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes

Highclere Castle, filmic home of Downton Abbey (photo: farm9.staticflicker)

In an interview with the New York Times, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes allowed as how the show isn’t like a soap opera that can go on for decades. Seems it’s like a soap opera that can go on for no more than 10 years, he thinks. Next season will be season five, so he’s thinking about an end-game. Last night’s season finale—if not the whole season—left some critics cold.  “What happened to the formerly addictive, splendid, elegant costume drama?” asks Daily Beast reviewer Kevin Fallon. Not enough, in his opinion. Not enough change. Especially last night, when Charles Blake was revealed as an aristocrat himself, which relives Mary of one terrible choice. The mention of Brown Shirts as the possible attackers of Edith’s lover was a dark bit of foreshadowing that change may finally come to Downton.

So you think you know Washington, DC?

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U.S. Capitol, Washington

(photo: farm4.staticflickr)

Take the House of Cards opening credits quiz and find out just how well you know our capital city.  I got 46 points out of 100.  House of Cards (the Netflix-produced show starring political shenanigans and Kevin Spacey) returned recently with 12 new episodes released on the Netflix website.

And enabling the binge-viewing popular among friends who’d watch a season of 24 over a weekend.

The most important way in which Congressman-now-Veep Underwood’s fictional Washington differs from the real thing? Spacey said it: “Our Congress gets s— done.”