Chicago: Smell the Glove

On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We’re gonna make our dream come true.
And we’ll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.

Jesse, we're going Milwaukee mostly to go to a bookstore, possibly to go to a museum, and B. wants to check out some antique stores, if we find any good ones.

So it's not the most glamorous trip we're planning! Plus we're probably going to miss the Oscars, no? Also it's B. and A. and me going, which dampens any rrrrromantic factor, although I suppose we'd have the back seat during the drive...

I do agree that it would be a hundred mazillion times funner if you came along, though.

I met someone new. He's taking me to Madison.

XOXO,

Jesse.

I've decided that I'm finally going to see something at the Madison film fest this year, so I'm going through the movies.

Self-important Emp1r1cal Film #3, with Voice-over
Wisconsin’s Own

USA, 2005, 5 min, Color, DVCam
Madison Premiere

Directed By: Dav3 Andra3
Sponsored By: travelwisconsin.com, Eastman Kodak

A clinically depressed filmmaker takes his audience on an irreverent, self-deprecating journey through his innermost thoughts and anxieties, complete with voiceover. Dave Andra3 is a graduate of UW–Milwaukee.
- Travis Gerdes

HAHA. I went to high school with this dude, and OF COURSE this is the sort of film he's making. And I'll be it's really not that self-deprecating.

Mardi Gras: Made In China
Y'all Gonna Learn Chinese

USA, 2005, 71 min, Color, BetaSP
In Mandarin, English with English subtitles

Directed By: David Redmon
Producer: David Redmon
Executive Producer: Deborah Smith, Dale Smith
Cinematographer: David Redmon
Editor: David Redmon
Music: Matthew Dougherty
Cast: Ms. Pearl, Roger Wong, Ga Hong Mei, Lio Lina, Qui Bia, Ling Ling, Dom Corlone

Sponsored By: UW Asian American Studies Program

In a squalid Chinese factory, Ga Hong Mei spends eleven hours a day yanking strings of hot beads out of a dangerous machine. She struggles to fill enough bags to prevent her wages from getting docked. On the other side of the world, New Orleans native “Ms. Pearl” squeals with delight as she catches her zillionth tangle of glistening bead necklaces from a Mardi Gras float. Mardi Gras: Made in China portrays the immense disconnect between the factory and the consumer that arises in a global economy. The cultural and economical differences are stunning, as is the Chinese workers’ reaction to the sticker price of the beads and the astonishing way people “win” the beads. In tracing the path of the disposable commodity of Mardi Gras beads, filmmaker David Redmon tells a story about globalization in which CEOs aren’t really the bad guys, we are. Official selection, Sundance Film Festival, One World International Film Festival, Amnesty International Film Festival, and Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
- Heather Shimon

Maybe because it seems like an easy target? Or because it seems like a tastleless time to be down on New Orleans?

Are "we the bad guys" because, unlike most sweatshop products, drunk sorority girls show their tits to get beads? Not that abusive conditions for factory workers are acceptable, but New Orleans was a poor city even before Katrina and Mardi Gras pumps money into the economy every day of the year.

also: i am at an internet cafe b/c after working on my physiology take home test for SEVEN hours & not finishing it, I'm resorting to "ask the internet" . . . granted, we still have one class left so the information gaps will probably be presented on tuesday, but I'd like to be done with this shit.

I assume the shock over the price is the result of the worker's surprise at how low the price is for something on which he worked so hard?

xpost

Chain
Global Visions

USA, 2004, 99 min, Color, digibeta
Wisconsin Premiere

Directed By: Jem Cohen
Producer: Mary Jane Skalski
Writer: Jem Cohen
Cinematographer: Jem Cohen
Music: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Cast: Miho Nikaido, Mira Billotte
Production Company: Antidote Films, Gravity Hill Films

Sponsored By: UW Global Studies Program

Chain, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, examines the world and the influence of homogenization and corporate culture. A Japanese executive travels to the United States on business to research amusement parks looking to create a similar one at home, while an American drifter haunts a shopping mall looking for work and a place to sleep. Both move through a vast, imaginary American city created from footage shot all over the world, though no one locale is discernable from the next. Chain stores, fast-food restaurants, and featureless parking lots abound as regional character and charm slowly disappear. Chain features an incredible score by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Recognized by the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards as “Someone To Watch,” Jem Cohen won numerous awards for his feature Benjamin Smoke (2000).
- Joe Beres

(tater)

Anyway I can't criticize a film I haven't even seen-- though I just did.

Food laws: think kosher, but less strict. Preparation does not matter, only source.

Also; I'm still up for hanging out tomorrow night, if anyone else is? I was thinking Moody's, maybe around 8? They have free peanuts and cheap pitchers...

Another nice thing about Moody's in the winter: two fireplaces.
On the other hand, you leave reeking of french fry, but that's not a big deal.

sorry to whine so much.

Fuck burning a hat.