Preach it, Sister!

Hey,

An article that everyone should read, because there are a lot of sexy, sexy fish in the sea.

later
Tom

The Grand Marwencol Hotel

Hey,

So I've seen a couple of really good movies lately and I'd like to talk about them.

The first is called Marwecol, a documentary from 2010 I caught on Netflix. The movie is about Mark Hogancamp. In 2000, Mr. Hogancamp was viciously attacked by five guys outside a bar in Kingston NY and was beaten to the point of brain damage. Huge chunks of his memory were wiped out and he suffered a lot of physical and psychological trauma. If there was any silver lining it's that Mark was an alcoholic before the attack and he literally got the addiction beaten out of him, but he was a wreck and it took months of therapy to help him learn how to walk again and do everyday things.

Then the therapy ran out and Mark was left on his own. Unable to really hold down a job and needing some way to process what happened to him, Mark starting building elaborate dioramas using 1/6th scale dolls (Barbie dolls and large GI Joe guys). In the process, he started to tell a story about his alter-ego, a WWII pilot who gets shot down over Belgium and discovers this hidden town called Marwencol which is inhabited solely by women, the men having been rounded up by the SS long ago. So Mark's guy sets up a bar and the town becomes a sort of Shangri-la -- a free town with booze and women and no war and soldiers from all sides show up to escape (and fend off the occasional SS attack).

As Mark puts these dioramas together, he starts photographing scenes. Hundreds of thousands of pictures. Eventually, he comes to the notice of an art journal and then a gallery and then he's asked if he'd like to put his work on display. Mark wrestles with that decision, but eventually decides to open up his art.

That's a summary but I'm really just scratching the surface. The whole movie is fascinating and you're left pondering a number of questions and I'd be curious to know how Mark's life has changed since the movie came out. I do know that there's a gallery in Kingston that's selling his work so hopefully his efforts are being repaid.

So that was the small screen. On the big screen this past weekend I saw Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. So it's a Wes Anderson joint and it is super Wes Anderson-y. Luckily, the fictional East European country where the movie is set provides enough of a frame that Anderson's style can play out unhindered by common sense. As always, it's a gorgeous, detail-oriented film that strongly evokes every place it displays. There's a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, but the main tale is about a lobby boy who is taken under the wing of the hotel's concierge. Said concierge also has a way with the hotel's older guests and when one of them dies, she leaves a valuable painting to him, but then he gets framed for her murder and the lobby boy has to help free him and clear his name.

It's the most action-adventure Wes Anderson film I think I've seen and it's certainly the most gory (although it's a Wes Anderson film so it's not very bad and even the worst scene is kind of whimsical). I think I liked Moonrise Kingdom better, but this was a delightful little film and well worth checking out if you like Wes Anderson's stuff.

later
Tom