It’s only a flesh wound, lambchop!

Google has given V-I a clean bill of health.  I’ll slowly re-add the old content, but I have to do it carefully since I don’t know exactly where the nastiness was.  In the interest of getting things up and running, I basically blew up the old site, although I still have the database, which has all the old posts and comments.  Importing it a few posts at a time could be a challenge, but I’m sure someone out there has done it, so I just have to learn how.

For now, feel free to re-add new posts for the old topics if you’d like, and I’ll integrate the old content as I get to it.  If there’s something you’re dying to review from the old stuff, let me know in the comments here, and I’ll see what I can do!

I’ll take care of all the cool sidebar stuff we had today or tomorrow.  How do I know what I’m listening to if I don’t have Mitchell’s Recent Spins in the right column?

Certified Copy (2010)

Certified Copy (2010)

Dir. Abbas Kiarostami

Starring: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, etc.

75/100

I’d recommend this to Penny, Grace and Kevin. I’d probably recommend this to Chris, Mitchell and Tony as well. I’m not sure if the last three would really like this, but I’m pretty sure they would find this interesting. Jill has a decent chance of being interested in this. No to Don. Larri has a very slim chance of liking this. Not sure about Marc.

**

The film begins with a writer (Shimell) talking about his recent book about art forgery. His book deals with the differences between the originals and copies–namely, why and if the originals are superior. Later he meets one an art collector (Binoche). They go for a drive, and thus begins a long conversation about art, which reminded me of films like My Dinner with Andre, Mindwalk or even Before Sunrise/Before Sunset films–especially when the conversation turns towards husbands and wives.

Having said all this, the film isn’t as straightforward as I’m making it sound. There is an element of mystery, and I don’t really want to say much more. I will say that there is a kind of mystical poetry in the film–the layers of ideas and the way ideas are expressed and overlap in different ways.

There is a lot to process in the film, and, unfortunately, I haven’t finished processing the film, so I don’t really have too much more to say.

***

While I don’t have much to say, I want to leave some questions, as well as do my best to respond to them. The first, and probabably most obvious question, is whether the James Miller, the writer, is the woman’s (Binoche; called Elle in the credits) real husband. I understand that critics have debated this point (which reminds me of Last Year at Marienbad–there are similarities with that film), and I’m not sure it’s really crucial. I tend to think that he’s not the husband, but sort of becomes the husband while remaining himself at the same time. (This is the poetic mysticism that I referred to earlier.) Being both isn’t possible, but there’s a sense that that could be the case.

This raises another question: how does their relationship/situation relate to the earlier question about original art versus copies of them? One person I knew interpreted the second half of the film to be a sort of test case for the question of the first part. Is the Miller–a copy of the husband–just as valid as the real husband? I’m not sure I agree with this reading, but it is interesting, and there might be something to this. (I still haven’t worked this out.)

I really should see this again and spend time thinking about it.

Merry Christmas!

There’s no set purpose for the site; I’d like to use it in whatever way we find useful, whether that’s discussing the latest books we’ve read, planning someone’s birthday dinner, continuing online a discussion we began in person, or sharing stuff we found on the Web.

There are a couple of functional issues I still need to work out. First, if you don’t see a link at the bottom of this page saying “login,” you’ll have to point your web-browser to the login page if you want to log-in and post something here. This is where the login i.d. and password I gave you for Christmas come in.

Second, I’m giving you all village-idiot.org email addresses, but I’m having trouble making that function work. When it’s working, well, we can talk about that when we get there.

Here are some quick pointers for using this site effectively:

  1. Remember that passwords are case-sensitive. Type your password carefully, including any numbers, symbols, or punctuation marks.
  2. One of the first things you should do when you log-in the first time is change your password.
  3. Don’t be afraid to play around. You probably don’t have the access privileges necessary to do any real damage by hitting the wrong button. The worst that could happen is you spend a long time typing a brilliant message and you click the wrong thing and lose all your text (I’ve done it!). So maybe for these first few messages, you could stick to short messages.
  4. Don’t enter your personal email address when you post a message. I plan to make this site accessible to the public, so if you don’t want Spam, don’t post your email address.
  5. For longer messages (such as this one), type the first paragraph or so in the “entry body” text box (you’ll know what I mean when you log-in and try to post something) and then type the rest in the “extended entry” text box. This will make the front page look a lot nicer.
  6. If you post something about movies, please put “SPOILER” in the first paragraph so people who haven’t seen a film can choose to avoid your message.
  7. HTML tags work here (I’m using the OL tag in order to generate this numbered list, for example), so feel free to use it. If HTML is foreign to you, you can at least use the B, I, U and URL buttons to highlight parts of your text. Just highlight the word you want to make bold, then click on the B button and you’re golden.

The best way to figure out how to use this site is to play around with it, so feel free to post “test messages” and stuff. Please let me know if you have any problems or comments!

Ho, Ho, Ho!