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Is Millennium Actress the Best Movie of All Time?
Satoshi Kon died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 46. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer but chose not to make it public. He left behind a relatively small filmography as a result, with only four true features to his name. I opened this series with Paprika, a visual explosion that either "is similar to" or "inspired" Inception, depending on your opinion. Perfect Blue is probably his best known work, which also "is similar to" or "inspired" Black Swan, which also depends on how generous you're willing to be with your opinion. His other two major works, Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress, always felt a little more slight to me.
I recently had a chance to revisit Millennium Actress as part of an outdoor film series our local arthouse movie theater hosts. I went in with an open mind. I love Kon's work and liked Millennium Actress fine, but the gap between the two I love and the two I like was always fairly large. I was, happily, very wrong. I probably owe Tokyo Godfathers another shot, too.
Millennium Actress is the story of Chiyoko Fujiwara, a long-retired and reclusive film actress who agrees to be interviewed by a two-man crew. Genya Tachibana is obviously a huge fan and old enough to have seen her work firsthand. He's overly formal and places heavy significance on this moment. Kyoji Ida, his young, slacker cameraman, asks why this could be so significant and does not seem interested at all. It's all part of a series on the demolition of Ginei Studios, where Chiyoko worked for decades.
This is fairly familiar ground. It's a movie about movies and the heroes are the people who want to preserve the past at minimum and live within it at maximum. The opportunity for romanticism is already high, but when Chiyoko starts recounting her early performances it really goes into overdrive. The world bends to her story, inserting the crew in the drama of the film's reality. These start simple enough, but become an overarching story that includes a curse, the search for love, and a rivalry between a former famous star and the new emerging starlet.
There are so many pieces of film history happening in Millennium Actress. There is some heavy All About Eve reference to the conflict between the two actresses, but the film rarely centers on this. There is a marriage of convenience and a war and there are several literal earthquakes, but even these huge events don't really get a lot of time. The thing that matters here is a search for lost love that is triggered by a chance encounter. Chiyoko meets a man when she is young and gets into film to search the world for him. Everyone asks her along the way why she would care and why this is worth all the trouble, but this all seems to miss the point. How can you explain something like that to someone else? Why even try?
Millennium Actress tries, sorta, but mostly it wants you to live in the moment. Rather than explain the decision, just accept that it was made and see where that leads you. As the crew advances through her life and her performances, they learn not so much an answer to the "why" of the moment, but they do see the results. That may frustrate you, if you're someone who needs to know why people behave like they do, but if you can embrace the journey, you're really in for something special.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? I think I like it more than Bande à part, though it does prompt me to think about what each movie is trying to do. Both movies are better if you don't ask the question of why the woman at the center of the story does what she does. Both movies are journeys, though this one is decidedly deeper, but again, that's not really a criticism.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, I don't even think it's the best movie Satoshi Kon made, even after really enjoying this experience so much. Paprika has flaws, but it's something I'll come back to more often, and Perfect Blue really is a masterpiece. They're all very different films. I'm more willing than the average person to judge an anime alongside a regular film, but even in that headspace, can't argue that any of them are better than Persona.
You can watch Millennium Actress for free on YouTube. You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged animated, anime, Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Millennium Actress, movie, movie review, movies, Satoshi Kon on August 16, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Bande à part the Best Movie of All Time?
If you read any review or review-like piece about Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 classic Bande à part, you will see the same word used: "accessible." It's not uncommon for consensus to build around a film, especially an "important" one by one of the masters, but it's a little uncommon to see the same exact term. Some may go with "approachable" but really they are all saying the same thing. All of these reviewers want to tell you that even if you don't normally watch Godard movies or even French cinema, this is the one for you.
What does that statement even mean when said about a crime drama carried out by stony-faced men that features an extended, nearly wordless, dance scene in the middle? I guess in comparison to something like Pierrot le Fou this is, sure, an easier film to parse and to follow, but it still feels like the wrong term. It also feels like it's speaking to an imagined audience, like framing something as having the least space in a Star Wars film. I don't think anyone would sit down to watch a movie like this and hope, first off, that it be really easily approached. The complexity for this era of French film isn't necessarily the draw, but it certainly isn't a hinderance, either.
Bande à part is a simple story. Two men named Arthur and Franz (Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey) meet one woman named Odile (Anna Karina) and the two men decide to rob the woman's extended family. Odile is young and beautiful and a little naïve, we learn through her interactions with the two of them. She jokingly steals a hat and agrees to cut English class with them only after telling them that she certainly understands kissing, even "with tongue." When she tells her new friends that she knows where a bunch of money is hiding, it's clear that she isn't necessarily suggesting they take it. It's also clear that is exactly what will happen.
Parts of this will feel familiar even if you haven't seen it. The three of them form a love triangle despite not really having anything in common or having any reason to feel affection. They decide to perform this robbery together despite Odile clearly being uncomfortable with the idea. The whole thing unfolds with a sense of dread, but more importantly it only starts out of boredom. We only see a brief window into Odile without the duo present, but there she insists to her aunt that she isn't interested in shopping or going out or any of the things she's supposed to want. It's brief, but it says a lot about why she might get roped into what she gets roped into.
Just how complicit is Odile? This is the big question, as we see the men shuffle through life motivated by simple greed, though they both speak about Odile in lustful or romantic terms. Obviously there's a love story here, but it's so much more important to consider why this is all happening. You expect any movie about a risky robbery to be about the money, but this seems equally to be about rebellion. The title, Bande à part, even stems from an expression that means to do things separate from a group. The money matters because the gang wants to run away from society, but the question of why they want that in the first place is largely unasked and unanswered. It doesn't need to be, because viewers felt the same way.
The director provides an infrequent narration through the film, sometimes listing the thoughts of characters and sometimes speaking to the next steps. It's often funny, which helps to contrast with the seriousness of the crime and the grim determination of both men. I think this is the detail people are referencing when they say this film is "approachable." The story beats are easy to follow and the narration doesn't necessarily explain things, but it does help you track the mood. The settings are beautifully shot, especially some night scenes with the duo running through the city and falling in some kind of love.
Is it approachable? There are moments to like even if you don't like movies like this, sure, including the most famous scene in the movie. It's a dance scene where the trio dances to the classic Michel Legrand score. It inspired the dance contest from Pulp Fiction and has been referenced several times in other media. It fits with the tone of the film, but it also is part of the commitment to a shifting tone and only slight insights into our characters. I don't think "approachable" is the right word, but I will agree with the overall assessment and say it's fair to say this is worth your time even if you think it might not be worth your time.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? It feels a bit silly to compare Un Chien Andalou to anything, but such is this series. I think this is better and I think it's a truly great and exciting film, even many decades later.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, I still will stick with Persona. That said, I really do encourage you to watch this, even if you aren't the sort of person who might. It's slightly longer than Breathless but much faster paced. I think I'm more interested in the original, but I was more excited by this one. I kept wondering what would happen, right until the surprisingly absurd ending.
Bande à part is currently streaming in some countries, but in the United States you will need to purchase it from The Criterion Collection or another retailer. The company also sometimes streams it, but not as of this writing. You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged Anna Karina, Bande à part, Best Movie of All Time, Claude Brasseur, film, film review, french film, Jean-Luc Godard, movie, movie review, movies, Sami Frey on August 9, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Un Chien Andalou the Best Movie of All Time?
In 1929, you weren't supposed to like Un Chien Andalou. You were supposed to experience it, maybe, but "like" is probably too strong a term. Director Luis Buñuel has seven films included in the top 250 films according to Sight & Sound and co-writer Salvador Dalí, well, you know him, too. The two men met and described dreams to each other and used the images to craft a movie. You get the sense in reading about it that they felt they had to share their images with the world.
Un Chien Andalou is, inarguably, a bunch of images. It's a surreal 21-minute set of images, totally devoid of story or timeline. Scenes shift in time, with title cards that tell you one scene is years before another scene, but the cast may or may not be the same from moment to moment. Reviews of the film take great care to point out that just because one scene shows someone look out a window, the next scene does not necessarily show you what they are looking at. We're conditioned to expect that and we certainly were in 1929, which is what makes the fact that it may not be true all the more interesting.
But that opens the question, really, because we have to ask if it actually is interesting, almost a hundred years later. It's a ridiculous film, but it also was then. If you read user reviews in the usual places you'll see people excited to tell everyone how much they get it with their five-star reviews and people who are frustrated and confused with their one-star reviews. I don't feel like either is strictly necessary, but a lot of the one-star reviews express criticism that I have to assume Buñuel and Dalí would have agreed with. People are frustrated there's no story and it's all disconnected images. They're right.
There are two movies we've watched in this space that I was reminded of: Battleship Potemkin and Last Year at Marienbad. The former is another piece of dated cinema but an undeniable classic. The latter is another divisive art film that's just as likely to skew viewers in one direction as the other. Un Chien Andalou is a singular thing, but it occupies the same space as a lot of great works. The difference is in intent. The men behind this movie wanted it to do what it did to everyone who saw it, like it or hate it. If your anger is that it makes no sense and it's just a dumb, random collection of images, it "worked," whether you like that or not.
That said, it's fairly impossible to ignore the more extreme elements. I knew to expect the most famous images, with an eye being sliced open and some equally creepy imagery around body parts. I did not know to expect a man dragging two pianos with two rotting donkeys. Is this a representation of sexual frustration or animal instinct? I have to go back to the men behind it who would insist that absolutely any digging is of your own accord, they don't intend anything. This isn't even a sly joke, very specifically, it isn't that you don't get it, it's that there's nothing to get.
This kind of directorial intent resists criticism. Did you hate it? Excellent. Did you love it? Excellent, maybe even equally so. There is an argument to be made that by intending no meaning, they've made a perfect puzzle box. You can keep trying to find ways in, but it's constructed perfectly. You cannot find what does not exist to find.
It's all striking and it's interesting and it's worth the time, still, especially because the time is one minute shorter than an episode of network television minus commercials. Film students over the world watch this because it's so central to the start of everything, but you may as well watch it because it's free and it's short. Maybe the images will connect with you. Maybe you'll insistently find meaning, defying the authors. Maybe you'll just marvel at the audacity and imagine one hundred years ago, the guts it must have taken to say that this was it, come see it.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? I don't think so, now. Minnie and Moskowitz is not one of my favorite movies or even one of my favorite movies by Cassavetes, but it's hard to rate Un Chien Andalou these days. It's barely a movie, arguably not a movie by the terms we'd use today. I can appreciate the audacity, but that's about it.
Is it the best movie of all time? No. It's on several top 100 lists because directors vote on those and they all want the world to continue to allow for space for something like this. I can completely appreciate that and I do think they mean it when they say this is one of their favorite movies. I think it is pretty difficult to offer a fair analysis of this movie today, which is why Persona, which owes it a very heavy debt in the striking images department, is still my vote.
You can watch Un Chien Andalou for free on YouTube. You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged 1929, Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Luis Buñuel, movie, movie review, movies, Salvador Dalí, Un Chien Andalou on August 2, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Minnie and Moskowitz the Best Movie of All Time?
The Wikipedia article for Minnie and Moskowitz says that the film received "generally positive reviews" but offers no proof of this claim. Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby, the reviewers for the New Yorker and New York Times, respectively, both hated it. Roger Ebert loved it and contrasted it with Husbands, the most recent film by director John Cassavetes. Ebert said Husbands was overrated and I completely agree, I found it difficult to watch and even more difficult to appreciate in a modern context. It feels long and unedited, with frequent indulgences that feel spiteful to the viewer.
Cassavetes followed up his homage to male friendship and masculine rage and disappointment with the much sweeter Minnie and Moskowitz, a story about unlikely love. Gena Rowlands plays Minnie Moore, a detached, distant woman who is in an affair with an abusive married man. Seymour Cassel plays Seymour Moskowitz, an emotional, simple man who just wants to park cars for living and eat hot dogs. They meet through a chance encounter and strike up a relationship that progresses quickly.
It's supposed to be a story of oil and water, which is familiar territory for a love story, but this really stretches credulity. Minnie's relationship is horrible, with a cartoonishly evil man who is wasting her time and is completely unaware of how to connect with others. The physical violence is shocking, but it works to establish Minnie as having a difficult time of life. She's not sure what she wants, but she imagines romance as something she's open to and increasingly hopeless about at the same time. We see her have a blind date that is beyond terrible, with a man who seems to have never interacted with anyone in his life. He shouts constantly, babbles, and says things no person would say to another person. Minnie is not polite but also shouldn't be, given the circumstances. At the halfway point through the movie, all we know about Minnie is that her life is terrible and that she seems very sad, all of the time.
Moskowitz, however, seems a little more joyful but also so much worse to be around. He eats hot dogs for every meal and ambles through life with no ambition. His mother calls him stupid even at the moment that's supposed to provide the movie's emotional peak. Minnie doesn't seem to like anything about him, but he saves her from a violent, offensive tirade at the end of the blind date and their lives become intertwined. He calls her beautiful, she says she's not interested, but he just won't go away.
This is supposed to be an offbeat romance, but it never gets funny or sweet enough to really qualify. Minnie seems so sad, even when we're supposed to find the whole thing charming, and Moskowitz is so oafish and frustrating that even when it's supposed to have a kind of Moonstruck quality to it, it feels like she needs to get away from him to have any chance at all. You never want these two people to be together or feel any reason to think that they should be together except for a sense that neither is happy anywhere else.
There are fun moments, like a plane trip where Moskowitz tries to convince a child to eat carrots by acting silly. Minnie never gets these moments, short of a romantic, drunken discussion of what movies tell us about romance. Moskowitz flits between these sweet, silly moments and moments that tilt very far in the other direction. Within the first ten minutes of the movie we see him barge into conversations and insist everyone knows him as he drinks out of people's drinks. I know this is supposed to establish him as not your average loser, but man, I really hated him the entire way through. I couldn't stop picturing the real Seymour Moskowitz and imagining how awful he would be to be around.
Your enjoyment here will depend on if it bothers you that these people are so sad and so wrong for each other or not. The whole point of a movie like this is watching the friction as opposites attract. The story of a frustrating man wearing down a sad woman through extreme acts and broad gestures is not a story I want to watch, even well-performed as this one is. I really didn't like the message of Husbands and I think there's more to like here, but this still isn't for me. I see the message here, but I don't buy it at all.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? Once Upon a Time in the West is a little bloated and borrows so much that it feels complex, whereas this is really just two people slowly falling in love. No one in Minnie and Moskowitz other than the title characters is present for more than five minutes. That said, Timothy Carey (the gunman from The Killing as well as other Kubrick and Cassavetes films) plays an oddball who bothers Moskowitz during a meal at a diner and steals the show. I'll remember his small part more than anything else here, but overall this just won't stick with me.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, not at all. Persona keeps the crown and I think other than Husbands, this is the least I've enjoyed a Cassavetes movie. Both Persona and Minnie and Moskowitz have elements of horror in them. I found myself hoping the two characters could separate in both films before they could do more damage to each other. In Persona that's at least intentional.
You can watch Minnie and Moskowitz on The Criterion Channel (subscription required; limited availability). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged 1971, Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Gena Rowlands, john cassavetes, Minnie and Moskowitz, movie, movie review, movies, Seymour Cassel, Timothy Carey on July 26, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Once Upon a Time in the West the Best Movie of All Time?
When I was a teenager, my favorite director was Quentin Tarantino. That's probably a sentence a lot of people could write. If you Google the director now, you get dozens of stories from just the last few days offering to distill his appearance on a popular podcast or explain why one of his popular movies "needs" a prequel. Tarantino is effectively a vessel for film for a lot of people, which his personality definitely supports. He's probably the first director a lot of people would be able to name.
Tarantino the man is more divisive than Tarantino the director, but he's overall a little difficult for people because of his entire approach to film. Patton Oswalt once talked about a year where he saw hundreds of movies in the theater and the impact it had on him, but this seems to be Tarantino's normal life. His films are stuffed with references to the point where no viewer could be expected to get all of them. As a teenager, I didn't get any of them. I smiled when characters referenced jingles I recognized, and this level of recognition spirals out depending on your level of film literacy. I'm not even sure the point is anything more complicated than Tarantino saying his version of "have you seen this other movie?"
Once Upon a Time in the West is a Western by Sergio Leone, who didn't want to make any more movies in the genre after his Dollars trilogy. Once you make The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, you don't feel like you need to keep telling stories about gunfighters, but Leone was given a chance to make a movie with Henry Fonda and he wanted to take it. Fonda was Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, and this along with dozens of other successes painted him as a classic "good guy." Leone had other ideas.
Fonda plays Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West, a heartless, evil killer. It's tough to see Fonda in the role, but by the end of the film he fully embodies the character. Fonda supposedly didn't even want to do it, but Leone sold him by saying that was the whole point. Audiences would be shocked by seeing Fonda as a sociopath, he said, and they were.
The rest of the cast is more traditional. Jason Robards plays Cheyenne, a joking good guy who gets framed for a murder that Frank actually committed. Charles Bronson grimaces as a character just named Harmonica, who plays a few notes every time he's on screen to fill out the unforgettable soundtrack by way of Ennio Morricone. Claudia Cardinale plays a former prostitute who inherits some land and a dream. Everyone's either trying to support her or trying to rob her, which provides the standard Western plot.
I mentioned Tarantino because of the structure of Leone's movie. The director didn't want to make another Western but he did want to work with Fonda, so he had to come up with a way to make it work. The result is a Western that "borrows" from a dozen classics in the genre. Harmonica is clearly a lift from Johnny Guitar, but there are a lot of less obvious versions of the same thing. The result is a movie that never really feels like itself, but frequently feels like lots of other things you've seen.
When the film initially came out, critics panned the film for being long and confusing. This is a completely fair read of the film, especially as you watch Cardinale's character try to interpret the motives of the three men in her life. It eventually becomes clear what everyone wants, but not necessarily why they want it. Harmonica is the exception here, as his backstory is specifically held back for a reason, but most everyone else is shadowy for no real reason. The performances are incredible, but the characters themselves feel flat. Robards is funny and fun in the role, but we never really grow to understand Cheyenne.
Cardinale is mostly wasted in the central role, which critics also called out. She's a victim of circumstance and has to make the most of it, which is fair enough, but as the nominal lead of the movie, she mostly glares at men with guns. The plot is so borrowed from Johnny Guitar that it's distracting, but for a movie that came out 14 years after the influence, the step backwards in agency for the female character isn't great. Supposedly Leone wanted to film full-frontal nudity for Cardinale's character and she refused and said that it wouldn't add anything to the story, which makes you wonder how he felt about getting across who she was supposed to be in the film.
The mish-mash of Western stories here isn't the same thing as what Tarantino does, but it's supposed to make you feel the same way. The plot is very Johnny Guitar, but that's not an accident. By doing it deliberately, Leone confronts a reality of Westerns that people don't often confront. The genre is inherently samey. The guy in the black hat wants to kill everyone because he wants to kill everyone. The guy with the harmonica is named Harmonica and he's got a mysterious backstory. The other guys are good because they like the pretty girl. The pretty girl is a pretty girl. Stop asking so many questions.
This is a reductive viewing of a classic, but I also think it's a fair one. I am not predisposed to love Westerns, so a combination film that's an homage to a dozen of them was never going to be my favorite movie. I think Once Upon a Time in the West is a successful version of what it's trying to do and it's especially notable because Fonda's performance is unique and remarkable, but critics didn't like it until they did and now it's a classic. There are so many versions of this story and mostly you'll find yourself agreeing with the rethinking. Here, I can't follow the logic. The criticisms of the original reviews seem very valid to me, especially the read on Cardinale's character. It's by no means a bad movie, or even a bad Western, but I don't think a movie with structural issues should be in the spot this one's in on the lists it's on.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? No. Vivre sa vie is better, as is, I think, Johnny Guitar.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, Persona retains the crown. I was definitely too hard on this one, but it's a different question of "is it good" and "is it the best?" It's good and you'll enjoy it, but Leone made at least three better Westerns. The plot here is the biggest problem, you'll find yourself frequently asking why characters are doing what they're doing and what their reasons for supporting someone are. It's all clear by the end, but it's not my favorite way to tell a story.
You can watch Once Upon a Time in the West on Amazon Prime (subscription required). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Henry Fonda, movie, movie review, movies, Once Upon a Time in the West, Quentin Tarantino, western on July 19, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Vivre sa vie the Best Movie of All Time?
I started this project for two main reasons. First, I asked a dozen people what their favorite movie was and wanted to push myself to watch all of them. Second, I wanted to educate myself better about movies I wouldn't otherwise watch. Over the last five years I've watched between 100 and 200 movies a year, which is already too many, but I wanted to work on gaps in my knowledge base. I simply spend the majority of time watching recent stuff in English, so I wanted to push into history.
Before I saw Breathless I read a lot about Jon-Luc Godard. There's a steady thread through essays and retrospectives of his career that finds scholars and critics worried people will lose interest in Godard. This always seems overblown, especially given the way film history plays out. Most of these pieces are worried about people giving into blockbusters and popcorn films. The same arguments could be made today as thirty years ago. I don't think this dark day is coming. It's easier now to make an art film and it's more likely today that you'll find something that fits your specific tastes. It's easier now to stream the classics, as well. This idea that people will watch more Marvel movies (or whatever the stand-in for Marvel movies was then) and fewer all-caps IMPORTANT movies is one people keep bringing up, despite it never fully happening.
Do people still watch Godard, and more importantly, does that question, asked that way, matter? If you want to understand cinema then you never stop trying to fill in these gaps and you will invariably start with someone like Godard. If you don't care, you probably never were going to care. I don't think one kind of movie really overlaps with the other and I don't think any trend in popular film today makes the other less likely to continue. You don't have to watch French classics, but if you want to, it's easier today than it ever was. That's a victory, no matter what you feel about what you imagine the desires of future cinephiles to look like.
Today's film is Vivre sa vie, or My Life to Live in some countries. It stars Anna Karina, Godard's wife at the time, as Nana, a woman who runs away from her family and struggles to connect with life around her. It's an oversimplification to say it follows her career as a prostitute, but it must be said that is the narrative thrust. It more importantly follows her search for meaning, or at least understanding, through several artistic forms and philosophical discussions.
The film is told in twelve scenes, each prefaced with a title card. This artificially breaks up the film into distinct portions with clear breaks between moments. This is a technique Tarantino lifted, as are the camera angles behind Nana's head as she speaks. These angles are deliberate, but they hide the conversation behind her head and force us to imagine much of what's happening in the frame we can't see. So much of modern film, especially quiet, character-driven work, owes just a tremendous amount to devices like these.
And it's so watchable, even six decades later. Breathless is a caper, you know why you're watching who you're watching and you're wondering what will happen to them. Vivre sa vie doesn't have the same built-in tension, so it relies more heavily on Nana. The fact that it works is a tremendous testament to Karina's performance, but also the overall production. Nana turns on a jukebox in one of the film's most famous scenes and we see her dance around, briefly engaged in life a clear way though no one else in the room embraces the mood. Another, though opposite reaction finds her at the movies, seeing The Passion of Joan of Arc. Her date tries to put his arm around her as she is visibly moved to tears by the power of the silent film. Again, she is not on the same page with the men in her life, but we are inarguably on her page.
The 11th of 12 scenes is a discussion between Nana and a philosopher who apparently played himself. This approaches, but does not fully go over, the line of "too much." For me, scenes like this will always fall into the same bucket as the strangest parts of David Lynch's work. Out of context, a philosophical discussion about if thoughts and speech are actually different things is extreme stuff. In context, it's a contrast to the matter-of-fact discussion of the rules of prostitution that Nana gets from another person in her life. I feel the same way about a man sweeping the floor for five minutes in Twin Peaks. You can choose to accept that as part of the work and wonder why it's there or you can abstract it, that's your call.
Overall, yes, you should still watch Godard, even if you're starting with this one. It's quick and beautiful, which aren't necessarily terms that go together often in classic cinema. If nothing else, you'll gain an appreciation for how many people have cribbed from this one, and that's reason enough to experience it.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? Yes, I prefer this to No Sudden Move. Very different themes at play in these two and the institutions that the characters battle are different. This is much more a story of internal lives, which goes back to the differences between this and Breathless. You could draw a connection, but it would take forcing one.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, I will still say Persona is better, though this is a much closer one than most have been. I really enjoyed this and it's really inspired me to continue my trek through French cinema. Stick around, let's do it together.
You can watch Vivre sa vie on HBO Max or The Criterion Channel. You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged Anna Karina, Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Jean-Luc Godard, movie, movie review, movies, My Life to Live, Vivre sa vie on July 12, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is No Sudden Move the Best Movie of All Time?
Steven Soderbergh was on WTF with Marc Maron last week to promote his new film No Sudden Move. Maron spent a significant amount of the interview discussing the realities of filmmaking with the director. I'd encourage anyone with any interest in films to listen to it, as Soderbergh is more honest about his career than most people are willing to be in settings like a huge podcast with tons of listeners. He says that he's failed a few times, which is nothing new to admit, but he talks about how failure changes your view of what you do next. David Mamet, years ago on the same show, said something that sticks with me still: "you can sink with your good ideas, but if you want to succeed, you better learn to entertain people." Mamet arguably is not taking his own advice and obviously has some significant issues these days, but it all ties back to a conversation that Soderbergh goes much deeper on.
Soderbergh said that No Sudden Move is a movie, not a film. He also said that he hasn't made a film since Che in 2008. All of his recent works are movies, not films. Maron pushed him on this distinction and the director said that films win awards. It seems to be like the classic definition of pornography: "you know it when you see it." A film is a specific type of movie to Soderbergh, and honestly, this is a definition we can all probably live with in some way. The Academy even recently tried to make a new category for "popular" movies, which would definitely feature what Soderbergh would call "movies" and not "films." Soderbergh has only made two movies that lost money, prior to the recent apocalypse for theaters, and those are Che, which he calls a film, and his remake of Solaris which we have discussed in this series before. I'm not sure if losing money is necessarily a defining point in the movie/film continuum, but there's probably something there.
No Sudden Move is probably a better movie than Ocean's Eleven or Logan Lucky, my two favorite Soderbergh movies (not films), but I don't think I enjoyed it as much. Almost every review urges you to see it twice, which I normally balk at but this time I obliged. I don't think you should have to see anything twice, but if you feel compelled some movies definitely reward repeat viewings. The twists here aren't necessarily so confusing that you need to do it twice, but the second viewing will help you understand how some characters feel they fit into all of this. There's still plenty unexplained, but that's the nature of the genre. Sometimes when characters move past the double cross into the triple cross in a gangster movie, you're not meant to keep track.
Don Cheadle and Benicio del Toro play small-time hoods who get called in for what should be an easy job. They're supposed to "babysit" a family and collect a document from a safe. It's easy, then it becomes difficult. This is run-of-the-mill stuff for a movie like this, but the art is in how you pivot. The heist itself is tense, as it requires a low-level employee (David Harbour, who you'll recognize from Stranger Things) to leverage his affair with a secretary to gain entry to a safe. The safe is empty, onto the next twist. Things progress from there.
I won't walk you through the plot, because movies like this are all in the plot. Ray Liotta is fantastic as the hot-heated schemer who put this all together, Brendan Fraser is an absolute highlight as a mid-level crook, and Amy Seimetz, Jon Hamm, and Bill Duke really make even smaller roles feel like significant, real characters caught up in a constantly expanding mess.
I do have to give away a cameo to talk about the best part, though. Matt Damon plays the money behind the muscle and shows up towards the end to explain what was really happening. This device can feel forced in lesser movies, but here it reads like George Clooney's Danny Ocean moments where he tells everyone exactly what was happening during all the quick cuts and the jazzy music. This is less of a reveal after misdirects and more of a look in the boardroom, but it plays out the same way. It speaks to the larger politics of Detroit and the 1950s war between car companies that is all happening in the background of No Sudden Move and it makes this feel like a much more significant movie as a result. This isn't just ten crooks all trying to rob each other, this is a story about a much, much larger robbery than any one person could pull off.
The leads are good and the supporting cast is even better, and ultimately this is just a very clever, very smoothly polished story about what happens when people try to take more than they're given. There are several scenes where characters put words to the theme, directly pointing out to each other that they're being greedy. It never rises to the level of the rat in The Departed, but it's an interesting metacommentary on the film within the film. It's worth seeing once, and maybe twice, but I see what Soderbergh means when he calls it a "movie" and not a "film." Maybe you think that's him being self-effacing, but I think it's him moving the bar down. If this is just supposed to be a good time, it clears that bar with ease.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? Yes, this is significantly better than Tropic Thunder. It will age better, too, which is interesting. The targets here (greed and corporate crime being more insidious than individual crime) are targets that will deserve ire for a very, very long time.
Is it the best movie of all time? I guess you could spin this question for a Soderbergh production, given his terminology. The best movie is significantly better than the worst film, using his terms, but I guess the best film ever is better than the best movie ever. Maybe we're stretching this, but Soderbergh was not trying to dethrone Persona when he made this movie, so it's fair that he didn't do it.
You can watch No Sudden Move on HBO Max (subscription required). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged Amy Seimetz, Benicio del Toro, Best Movie of All Time, Brendan Fraser, David Harbour, Don Cheadle, film, film review, Jon Hamm, Kieran Culkin, Mat Damon, movie, movie review, movies, Ray Liotta, Steven Soderbergh on July 5, 2021 by Alex Russell. 2 Comments
Is Tropic Thunder the Best Movie of All Time?
Space Ghost Coast to Coast is a TV show that needs a lot of explaining. The original Space Ghost was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 60s that came and went. In the 90s, Mike Lazzo and Williams Street used the characters and settings from Space Ghost to create a faux late-night talk show where these ridiculous characters hosted an otherwise normal interview show. That version is Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which aired for years on Cartoon Network and eventually became part of Adult Swim, the nighttime block of "adult" programming that arguably gave way to what animation on television has become for the last several decades.
If you're completely unfamiliar with it, all of that introduction probably still doesn't help. Space Ghost the character is a bombastic idiot, a Falstaff figure if you really want to stretch the importance of a silly double-joke cartoon from the 90s, and his crew are all villains he's imprisoned to work on this talk show. The internal reality of the show is ridiculous, but it is complete. Some of the guests (all real celebrities or cult figures) engage with it straight and some seem to have not been briefed on the premise at all. It works because both versions are consistent. It's not "random," a word that dogs comedy that had the guts to be anything other than the primary form at the time, but it is unexpected. In one episode Bjork plays Space Ghost's wife, but it's not clear how much she is in on the joke. It doesn't really matter, they write the show around what the guest does, which allows for it all to spiral out.
I mention all of this because I was thinking of these several lenses you need to view that show through to even start to like it when I watched Tropic Thunder recently. I certainly think Ben Stiller's war movie parody is more approachable than Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but the quality of both pieces of media is almost secondary. First, you have to buy in to the premise. You have to be willing to say "okay, it's a talk show in space with cartoons, but everyone pretends they're real" or "it's a fake movie about a fake movie that's mocking real movies that sometimes were also premised on real things that were misunderstood by real people." The war in Vietnam was already complicated, that's the premise that the original media about it always took, anyway, so abstracting it three more times is a hard place to start.
Tropic Thunder is about the filming of a movie called Tropic Thunder, where a cast of actor stereotypes goes to the jungle to film a serious war movie. Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and others play as types that you'll recognize even if the exact source material isn't always all that important. We see Jack Black's character's success in The Fatties: Fart 2 and you know what, you get it. Ben Stiller's character runs towards the camera and is shot in the back in slow motion several times as he extends his arms and yes, that's Platoon. It's all Apocalypse Now. I don't think we need to run down where everything is "from" to appreciate this. It's a broad parody but also has specific jokes. That part all lands and I am not going to spend any more time explaining why the funny movie is funny.
Roger Ebert said Tropic Thunder is "the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video." Obvious the "video" reference there dates this a little bit, but it's as relevant a commentary overall today as it was in 2008. Comedy can feel disposable as it often requires you to understand cultural subtext that changes over time. Shakespeare feels inaccessible at times because the jokes are about a society that's very different than our own. People call some comedy "timeless" but at the very least, the meaning changes even if it doesn't diminish. Things that are funny will remain funny, but if you watch a comedy from more than fifty years ago today, you will hear at least one reference that you have no chance of understanding. There are so many of these examples in old Hollywood, where an aside from Cary Grant about a specific cigarette ad or a bon mot about a political figure of the time just sails over the viewer's head. It's just how this stuff works.
Tropic Thunder bridges enough gaps that it's not exactly like that, but a lot of it is definitely "of the moment." It's still very funny over a decade later, and it's especially crazy that this seemed like the peak of Robert Downey Jr. but absolutely was not. He was nominated for an Oscar for this, which really seems wild now, and was just a few months into his forever-job as Iron Man. That seemed big then, of course, but who could have possibly predicted that it would essentially alter popular film entirely from the ground up. I think arguments about that being good or bad are something else entirely, but imagine how much bigger a deal all this is now than in 2008.
Robert Downey Jr. plays his role in blackface as a character who is so oblivious he doesn't see why that would be offensive. IndieWire wrote what appears to be a summary of a podcast appearance here where Downey said recently that he doesn't regret the choice. Ben Stiller's character in the film recently made an Oscar-bait film called Simple Jack which involves all of the characters repeatedly using a slur to discuss his character's condition. The sum of these two parts, and a lot of other details, really, should add up to a movie that's impossible to watch even a few years later, but that's not the case. Ben Stiller said at the time that none of it needed defending because it's all in service of mocking an industry that does this stuff all the time. Your views on that defense are your own, but I think it mostly holds up. You don't have a movie here if you cut back on the envelope pushing, but I wouldn't blame anyone who felt like it was all too much.
I didn't know how I'd feel about revisiting this one, but I expected it to age poorly and it mostly hasn't. The movie industry is still self-important and all of the "heightened" fake films still honestly feel like things you could see happen today. It's not timeless comedy, but it's at least comedy that sticks around. Maybe that's more of a commentary on how little the industry and war films have changed, but even so, all the more credit to the film for knowing not just how it was in 2008 but how it would remain.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? The one bit of Tropic Thunder that has changed meaning in the last decade is the central slimy, evil executive character. It's supposedly a parody of Scott Rudin, who at the time most of the audience may not have recognized. A few months ago his life exploded when several prominent stars came out with stories of his abusive behavior. The parody is still funny, but it's a different kind of funny now. Things like that make this feel like a movie you can keep coming back to, which I think I can't necessarily say of Weathering With You.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, but can a comedy be the best movie? My favorite comedy is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, but even that requires so much cultural understanding that it feels like a tough sell as a universal best movie. This will stay Persona for now, but then again, there are different situations for a war movie parody and a complex, terrifying look at identity and the soul. You might want Tropic Thunder most nights.
You can watch Tropic Thunder on Amazon Prime (subscription required). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged Ben Stiller, Best Movie of All Time, comedy, film, film review, Jack Black, movie, movie review, movies, parody, review, Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder, war movie on June 28, 2021 by Alex Russell. 1 Comment
Is Weathering With You the Best Movie of All Time?
I don't really watch much anime these days, but that really depends on your frame of reference. If you watch no anime, ever, then I guess I watch a lot compared to you. I've featured two so far in this series, the mind-bending Paprika and the almost-a-love-story-but-really-something-else When Marnie Was There. It feels weird to talk about anime at all. It's really impossible to get past the reality that it's a very weird world with a high barrier for entry. I've never been to Japan and don't know that much about it, but a lot of the best anime really does ask you to know some very specific things about very specific places.
Today we're talking about Weathering With You, the 2019 follow up to the 2016 film Your Name. Both were written and directed by Makoto Shinkai and Your Name was one of the most successful films in Japan ever, not even just among anime. If you haven't seen Your Name and you have any interest in doing so, I really can't recommend it strongly enough. It's probably the best anime from the last ten years, if not the best ever, and it's certainly the one I'd recommend if someone was only going to watch one. It's a romance for the ages and a concept that deserves more space than we have today. Go and do this thing.
But if you were going to, you probably already have, right? Your Name was a mega hit, as much as an anime can be, and the follow up was going to work no matter what. If anime isn't your thing, you're just going to have to trust me when I say this was big. The way we watch things has subdivided people's attention to the point where the size of an audience is rarely, if ever, an indicator of quality, but Your Name really took off and deserved the success it found. How do you follow that up?
You apparently go much riskier, which is what Shinkai did with Weathering With You. It's a story about climate change hidden in a teenage love story, but "hidden" might be overstating it. Hodaka Morishima runs away from home and wants to experience big-city Tokyo. Hina Amano is a girl who gives him a hamburger when he's at the end of his rope, but more importantly she's a magical being who controls the weather. One of the most fascinating elements of Weathering With You is how they treat this, with most characters doubting her but then coming around once they see her clear up the sky on command. This is the central magic that makes the movie go, so it's really important to understand how other characters engage with this as a reality. Really bad anime messes this up more than almost any other detail, and it's really critical that you see that she actually is magical, it's not a coincidence or a trick they might double cross the viewer on later, but also just how that fact reads to her fellow man.
It rains in Tokyo all the time. It snows in the warmer months. It's an apocalypse, but it's also just another work day. This is another thing I want to spend what may seem like too much time on, but the world is really ending, at least how we know it, and it's a bold choice to not have the end be an action movie. It's just raining, more and more, and slowly but surely, everything will be unusable. This isn't shown through catastrophe, it's just something you pick up on given how everyone lives. By the end it scales up, sure, but even though the magical "sunshine girl" is the love story plot, this is really a movie about how climate change impacts us very slowly and it doesn't really matter if we accept it or not. It won't happen just like this, but it will happen, which allows for a non-moralistic depiction of something we don't like to think about.
Hodaka and Hina set up a small business to use her ability to clear up a small area's weather. People want to have a nice day at the park or to ensure a public event goes well without rain. These are small potatoes, but they really matter to the people living their lives. The world is slowly ending, filling with water and becoming more hostile to humans, but there are brief moments of respite. It comes at a cost to Hina, which drives the plot and complicates the love story, but my favorite parts of Weathering With You are these glimpses into the larger world.
Your Name is a much better film and was a much bigger success. One review said the only problem with Weathering With You is that it came second. These are good problems to have, but I think it's a little lazy that most reviews haven't really found a way to even talk about what this is, just what it isn't. The love story here is less central to the plot, but also that allows for a bigger world. No one we meet in Your Name is nearly as memorable as the side characters in Weathering With You. They're completely different films, and where Your Name owes so much to romances that came before it, Weathering With You feels like a love letter to some classic anime genres.
The art is gorgeous and impossible to overstate. Perfect Blue is one of my favorite films of all time and one wonders if people who were making anime several decades ago could have even imagined a film like Weathering With You. If you don't watch a lot of anime you may not notice or care, but some of the landscapes may make you look closer at other drawn and constructed art. It's crisp and almost photorealistic, which is a very different direction than the Pixars of the world are headed towards. Obviously this is a preference thing, as is your choice to watch the subtitled or English-dubbed version (the leads won't be voices you know, but Alison Brie and Riz Ahmed play supporting roles, which is fun) but I found myself really struck by the thing as a whole.
You owe it to yourself to watch this movie and to not expect Your Name 2. If you've avoided anime in general, I'd recommend Your Name as a starting point, though I think both films are worthy of your time.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? I love Touch of Evil and I can't really say this is better. I don't really want to know what Orson Welles would have thought about this comparison.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, still going to side with Persona. I didn't turn on this movie expecting it to dethrone a classic, but I really have to say again that I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'd read the reviews saying it was a letdown as a follow up to one of the most beloved anime films of the last decade, and maybe if that's how you evaluate things, it is. But why live your life like that? I guess this series is the answer to my own question: because every question is a grand one if you let it be.
You can watch Weathering With You on HBO Max (subscription required). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged anime, Best Movie of All Time, film, film review, Makoto Shinkai, movie, movie review, movies on June 21, 2021 by Alex Russell. 3 Comments
Is Touch of Evil the Best Movie of All Time?
If there is a through line for this project, it is that I was surprised how many movies on the Sight & Sound list of the greatest movies ever made I had not seen. There are a few that I'd never heard of, but mostly I thought it was as good as any other list to serve as a checklist for movies to watch. I've come to find that most people seem to agree, though it is interesting the deeper you go into people's opinions on opinions. The snakes eats the tail quickly, with discussions of merit for some of the more out there stuff and the rankings within it.
One of my favorite movies of all time is The Third Man, which comes in at #73 on the most recent version of that list. Persona, our current best movie of all time holder for the list we're building, is tied with Seven Samurai at #17. It's the nature of lists like this that you have to question some of it. Are there really 80+ movies better than Casablanca? I love Stanley Kubrick as much as the next person, but is 2001: A Space Odyssey one of the ten best movies ever? If you get lost in the minutia and the specifics you lose the beauty of these exercises. The point is, similar to the Oscars but with much more care, to offer an attempt at a list of things worth your time.
When I saw Touch of Evil on this list (#57) I was surprised. I like Touch of Evil, but it's a little messy, even for an Orson Welles movie and even for the genre, and to see it ahead of Sunset Blvd. is hard to defend. I'm a pretty fervent defender of Welles the actor even beyond Welles the director, but I knew I had to revisit it to see if I still felt like that ranking was wrong.
Touch of Evil is the first movie I've seen in a movie theater in just under a year and a half. I'm fortunate to live near the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, where I was able to revisit this 1958 noir with a bunch of other folks who wanted to experience a very strange story about morality in policing. There's a lot to unpack in how Touch of Evil reads in 2021. Primarily, Welles' police captain Hank Quinlan was an undeniable villain at the time but now really challenges the viewer with the idea of "one bad apple" as a criminal in the police force. The structure around him backs him at every turn and his subordinates who are clearly less evil still support him, even when they can tell they shouldn't. This was probably something contemporary viewers would pick up on, but it screams much louder in today's world.
Welles played the villain as often as he did the hero. That distinction can get complicated at times, but Welles wasn't necessarily interested in complex characters in that way. Hank Quinlan is huge, physically and metaphorically, and the only complexity we get for him is that he used to drink and that his wife passed away. There is a world where these elements, plus the decades on the job in a border town trying to keep a tentative peace, make us feel for Quinlan and at least understand how he got in this state, if not outright agree with his methods. Another director might lead the audience down that path, but it's enough for Welles to just tilt at it. Quinlan "runs this town" as so many crooked cops do, but he doesn't do it to further his own success or to grab power. He does it out of a compulsion and a misguided idea that putting away "bad guys" is the right move, even if they didn't do this specific thing or you can't pin it on them successfully.
You can't feel bad for Quinlan, which gives Welles the space to mumble menacingly and to really command the screen even from a position of supposed weakness. Quinlan uses a cane and is drastically overweight, which serves to contrast him with Charlton Heston's Miguel Vargas. This detail is hard to get past and I don't want to handwave it away by saying this was 1958, but casting Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop is truly strange. Welles was originally just supposed to play Quinlan, but Heston suggested he direct as well. This led to him rewriting the script to change the hero into a Mexican character, but this all happened after Heston had signed on. I can't find much about the choice to not recast the role, but this is just the reality of Hollywood at the time. There's a true critique to lay on Touch of Evil that the only unquestionable hero of the film is a white guy playing a Mexican character. I think the reason this doesn't get discussed more in the legacy of the film is that the only reason it exists at all is that Welles wanted to make a statement about the difficulty of relations between America and Mexico. It's reaching to call this progressive, but it's interesting. Heston's legacy is also so muddled with how he spent the last decades of his life elevating monstrous beliefs and positions that unpacking this choice and how he must have felt about it would take us more time than we have here.
I love Welles' performance here, but I ultimately don't think some elements of Touch of Evil hold up as well under multiple viewings. Janet Leigh plays Susan Vargas, the new bride to Heston's Vargas, and doesn't really get anything to do except scream and fret. She plays the role well, especially shining in a conversation where she gets cornered by the remaining members of the crime family that her husband is prosecuting. Marlene Dietrich has the more interesting female role as Tanya, the fortune teller who knew Quinlan before much of what would lead to the sad state he's in by the events of Touch of Evil. There's a lot said by what's not said in the scenes Dietrich and Welles share.
I still like Touch of Evil, but it is undeniably messy. The climactic scene where Vargas tries to get Quinlan to admit to planting evidence is thrilling but the twists and turns are a little harder to endure than other contemporary noir. Welles is the standout performer here, but much of what you'll read about Touch of Evil focuses on his filmmaking. The film opens with a famous "tracking shot" that's an extended zoom out of the opening car bomb that sets the plot in motion. The pacing suffers for modern viewings, but you will still find a lot to marvel at in how it's all shot. It's a marvel in many ways but also a product of when it was made. Where it goes beyond the time is why it is on so many lists of tremendous achievements, but you need to set your expectations correctly and your ability to love it completely with depend on your feelings about Welles and Heston, to some degree.
Is it better than the last movie we looked at? I do think it's better than The Seventh Seal, which is probably blasphemy. Heston as a Mexican character is pretty ridiculous, especially knowing what you know about Heston as a political figure, but I really am amazed with Welles' choices and his personal performance. I wouldn't be surprised if someone hated this one and I think there's enough in here to turn off a lot of people, but I think it's one of the better Welles productions. And that's saying something.
Is it the best movie of all time? No, I will keep Persona in this spot this week. If you like Orson Welles or noir at all, you should check this out. I feel like I'm waffling a little bit on this one even though I really enjoyed it and I think it's worth your time. There are people out there who can't stand Orson Welles as a performer, especially when he goes for it to this degree, but I'm on the record as a huge fan. The choice to have him talk over anyone he deems unnecessary and to bluster around but also act performatively confused when it suits him all constructs such a fully realized character. To do that for the villain that you'll hate and grow to hate even more is what sets Welles apart.
You can watch Touch of Evil on Amazon Prime ($3.99) or YouTube ($3.99). You can recommend a movie to me for this series through email at readingatrecess @ gmail.com or on Twitter @alexbad and I will watch it, no matter what. Try to pick something good.
Posted in Best Movie of All Time, Movies and tagged best movie, Best Movie of All Time, Charlton Heston, film, film review, movie, movie review, movies, Orson Welles on June 14, 2021 by Alex Russell. 1 Comment


I'm back for a second show of 2016! Just under the wire for the Holidays!!!
We start things out with a visit to Disney Springs to experience Starbright Holidays, then head to Epcot and find a duck with an Aussie, and wrap things up with the jingliest Jingle Cruise ever!


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I bought a Mk7 GTI because I knew it could be far more than advertised. It started with a reportedly under-rated 220 hp and 258 lb-ft. Dynamometer testing by tuners and enthusiasts indicates that the actual stock output is closer to 235 hp and 270 lb-ft, figures which rival that of tuned engines of earlier generations and already more than my bought-back tuned Jetta TDI. I had watched APR for a LONG time. Although I used other tuners for my TDIs, APR is the only company I considered for my GTI.
I was accustomed to being quite pleased with a 30-hp bump in power from my TDIs after a tune. However, APR's basic tune bumps the Mk7 GTI's already-healthy peak output by 81 hp and 111 lb-ft, for a total of 316 hp and 381 lb-ft, even with a factory air filter and exhaust system. Believe it or not, improved fuel economy can also be had with a little self-control… OKAY… A LOT of self-control! 😉 APR was having a sale and my work schedule allowed me to visit a tuner during the week. A Stage 1 tune alone transformed my GTI into a different car. It was quite amazing!
A year later, in 2018, I added APR's downpipe, intercooler, and their Stage 2 software update. That added a small, but nice bump in power and torque. Stage 2 output is advertised at ~337 hp and 383 lb-ft (power to the road is less), which is quite satisfying in a 3100-lb hatchback. In 2020, I upgraded the exhaust to a stainless steel catback by Baun Performance, LLC. Much to my surprise, that exhaust gave me a little more pull up top. Click this link to read about that upgrade.
In 2021, I went for even more by upgrading to an IS38 turbocharger and APR's Stage 3 programming. Coincidentally, two cross-country road trips compelled me to switch to programming that supports 91 AKI fuel. APR advertises its 91 AKI program to produce 395 hp and 371 lb-ft. This dynograph composite shows the difference between Stage 2 and Stage 3 at the wheels while running on 91 AKI fuel. The car is very eager to get me into trouble! It's very easy to quickly find myself at Virginia's "automatic-reckless-ticket" speed of 80 mph, which comes VERY quickly during a spirited pass on a two-lane highway, even with a trailer in tow. HAHA!
Naturally, the endurance of my stock clutch concerned me since I had added over 100 lb-ft to the mix. Plenty of towing putting it through its paces, too. I upgraded to an RSR Clutch Kit by HS Tuning at around 34,000 miles. The RSR clutch uses a factory dual-mass flywheel and will hold 380 lb-ft, which is 100 lb-ft less than what was advertised when I bought it. I'd buy their RSR Hybrid Clutch Kit if I was shopping today. I think my driving style will remain relatively unchanged, except for a few on-ramp blasts and the occasional authoritative pass. 😉 If I'm wrong, then I may need some bail money and a good attorney!
Most people don't think about tires being a "power enhancement." Tires are the bond between the driveline and the pavement. As a result, anything that improves traction will improve the car's ability to apply all of its newfound power to the pavement and to acceleration. The factory all-season tires compromise traction for longevity, especially during the winter. Using dedicated summer performance tires (or even some high performance all-season tires) makes a huge difference in the driving dynamic. I've tried and like the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500. It's an excellent tire for the money. I also like my current tire of choice, the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+. It's more expensive than the Indy 500, but it performs better and is suitable for year-round driving. Next, I may try the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, which is a summer-only tire. Someone local to me says his 400+ horsepower GTI grips very well with these tires.
Send Bail Money!
The engine bay still looks almost stock…
Food-grade stainless steel!
Cat-Back Exhaust by Baun Performance, LLC…
All engine work was performed by EuroPros in Yorktown, VA…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Diverse voices 'write to change the world'
UI faculty participate in The Op-Ed Project workshop
By: Lois J. Gray | 2015.11.09 | 08:37 am
Women represent almost 50 percent of the world's population.
Why is it, then, that the range of voices heard in the world is incredibly narrow and comes from a tiny sliver of the population: mostly western, older, privileged, and overwhelmingly—85 percent!—male?
Teresa Mangum
University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Director Teresa Mangum wants to get more diverse voices, especially women's voices, out in the world.
So, when she learned about The Op-Ed Project, she wanted to bring it to the UI campus.
The project is a social venture founded to increase the range of voices and quality of ideas heard in the world.
Working with universities, think tanks, foundations, nonprofits, corporations, and community organizations, the organization scouts and trains under-represented experts —especially women—to take thought-leadership positions in their fields (through op eds and much more); connect them with an international network of high-level media mentors; and vet and channel the best new ideas and experts directly to media gatekeepers on all media platforms.
Twenty-one UI faculty representing diverse disciplines and backgrounds were selected to participate in a two-day "Write to Change the World" workshop Nov. 7 and 8—the first time the workshop has been offered on the UI campus.
The workshop was made possible thanks to support from the following: the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the UI Chief Diversity Office, the Office of Strategic Communication, the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Though there is a substantial amount of expertise at the UI, Mangum adds, sometimes people do not view themselves as thought leaders or experts with something valuable to share.
"One of the joys of directing the Obermann Center is that I meet so many faculty members whose ideas are changing the world behind the scenes," Mangum says. "But professors usually focus on their students and their work, not realizing that their expertise gives them a unique perspective on current issues. Routine voices in the media often jump to conclusions; Op Ed workshops draw very smart tortoises out of their shells so they can start to keep pace with those eager, often short-sighted hares."
Mangum adds that this workshop was for people taking their first plunge into writing op eds and other forms of public writing.
"We recruited novices with exciting work to share who were eager to find ways to be effective citizen-scholars," Mangum says. "We want to empower faculty to take their expertise to a broader audience using more public platforms. By doing so, they'll help us do what strong universities do best—get a broader range of perspectives out into the world. That benefits everyone."
Two award-winning journalists, Mary Curtis and Lauren Sandler, led the two-day workshop.
The following are the UI faculty who participated:
Loyce Arthur is an associate professor in the UI Department of Theatre Arts. She has designed costumes for numerous productions and enjoys the process of telling stories about people from a variety of world cultures.
Mériam N. Belli is an associate professor who teaches the history of the Middle East and North Africa in the UI Department of History. Her work examines social and cultural experiences, beliefs, and practices and their representations and re-inventions.
Keisha N. Blain, UI assistant professor of history, specializes in twentieth-century U.S. history, African American history, the modern African Diaspora, and women's and gender studies.
Amy Butler, associate professor in the UI School of Social Work in the Graduate College, is focusing on the consequences of sexual assault on young women's mental health, smoking behavior, and substance use and abuse.
Jean Gordon is an associate professor in the UI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders whose research focuses on spoken-language production and how it changes with normal aging or with the onset of neurogenic language disorders, such as aphasia.
Keri Hornbuckle is the Donald E. Bently Professor of Engineering and associate dean for academic programs in the UI College of Engineering.
Brandi Janssen is a clinical assistant professor in Occupational and Environmental Health and the director of Iowa's Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (I-CASH). Jansen trained as an anthropologist, and her research examines the production and marketing strategies of local food producers and their relationships with conventional agricultural production.
Anita Jung is a professor of intaglio and print media in the UI's School of Art and Art History whose interdisciplinary collaborative work began as investigations regarding violence toward women.
Kristy Nabhan-Warren, UI associate professor of religious studies and Figge Chair of Catholic Studies.
Marizen Ramirez is an associate professor in occupational and environmental health in the College of Public Health. Her many research interests include areas such as sports injuries, disaster epidemiology, youth violence, post-traumatic stress, and school-based injuries and violence.
Michael Sakamoto is an assistant dance professor and an interdisciplinary artist active in dance, theater, media, and photography. His work has been presented in 14 countries.
Leslie Schwalm is a UI historian and feminist scholar who teaches in the UI History and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies departments.
Jacki Thompson Rand is a UI associate professor of history and co-coordinator of the American Indian and Native Studies Programs. Her courses focus on federal Indian law and policy, museums and memory, and public history.
Wenfang Tang is a professor, director of undergraduate studies, and the C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Hua Hsia Chair of Chinese Culture and Institutions and teaches in the UI Department of Political Science. His research and teaching focus on political and social change in contemporary China.
H.S. Udaykumar is a UI professor of mechanical and industrial engineering whose research interests have been in the areas of moving-boundary problems as they apply to materials processing, biofluid dynamics, and high-speed, multi-material flows.
Sarah Vigmostad is an associate professor in biomedical engineering. Her research focuses on the advancement of physiologic computational modeling so that clinically relevant questions can be asked and answered in order to improve disease diagnosis and treatment.
Darrel Wanzer-Serrano is an assistant professor of rhetoric and public advocacy in the UI Department of Communication Studies and a founding member of the UI Latina/Latino Studies Minor Advisory Board.
Sherry K. Watt is an associate professor in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program in the UI College of Education. Her area of research explores various reactions people have to difficult dialogues related to social issues. She applies her research by teaching learners how to develop the skills to engage across differences.
Jessica Welburn is a UI assistant professor of sociology and African American studies. Her research interests include race and ethnicity, urban inequality, and the experiences of African Americans in the post-Civil Rights Era.
Marian Wilson Kimber is an associate professor of musicology in the UI School of Music. Her research has centered on biography, gender, musical reception, and the intersection of poetic recitation and music in the nineteenth century.
Patricia Zebrowski is a professor in the UI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her research, teaching, and clinical work focus on the development of stuttering in early childhood and the cognitive factors underlying change readiness for teenagers who stutter.
Learn more about The Op Ed Project and view bio sketches for all faculty members who participated, or contact Teresa Mangum at 319-335-4034.
Lois J. Gray, College of Education, 319-335-5347
The Op Ed Project
Write to Change the World Workshop
The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
the UI Chief Diversity Office
The Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development
Four UI faculty members win top teaching award
By: Kris Yows | 2015.03.23 | 11:29 am


text:
Кфар-Иехошуа () — мошав в Северном округе Израиля. Основан в 1927 году, административно входит в региональный совет Эмек-Изреэль, организационно относится к Мошавному движению. Население в 2018 году превышало 1200 человек, основу экономики составляет сельское хозяйство.

География
Кфар-Иехошуа расположен в западной части Изреэльской долины, в  к северо-востоку от Кирьят-Тивона и в  к северу от Йокнеама. Расстояние до Хайфы — 25 минут езды на автомобиле. Высота над уровнем моря — , общая площадь — .

Административно входит в региональный совет Эмек-Изреэль. Региональный совет осуществляет доставку учеников средней школы из Кфар-Иехошуа в близлежащий мошав Нахалаль. Западнее и севернее Кфар-Иехошуа проходит региональное шоссе 77. Рядом с мошавом расположены станция железной дороги «Йокнеам-Кфар-Иехошуа», а также историческая станция Изреельской железной дороги.

История
Кфар-Иехошуа основан в 1927 году группой репатриантов Третьей алии, главным образом — выходцев из России. Новому поселению дали имя в честь Иехошуа Ханкина — деятеля поселенческого движения, скупавшего земли под еврейские населённые пункты, в том числе и в Изреэльской долине.

Планировку поселения осуществлял архитектор Рихард Кауфман. В соответствии с его идеями Кфар-Иехошуа получил концентрическую форму, при которой семейные сельскохозяйственные участки располагались вокруг сосредоточенных в центре общественных зданий. Хотя формально Кфар-Иехошуа был мошавом, его основатели взяли на вооружение некоторые идеи кибуцного движения. В поселении была создана кооперативная касса, распределявшая средства между семьями так, что малоимущие жители располагали большим кредитом, чем зажиточные. Участки, выделяемые каждой семье были равных размеров.

Кфар-Иехошуа сохранял репутацию «идеологического» мошава до конца 1990-х годов. Лишь в 1998 году из-за организационного кризиса были упразднены кооператив и централизованная реализация продукции, а также взаимое финансовое поручительство.

Население

По данным на 2019 год, население мошава составляло 1224 человека, из которых 1188 были евреями. Более 90 % жителей-евреев на 2008 год были уроженцами Израиля, почти половина жителей-репатриантов прибыла в страну до 1960 года.

В 2008 году медианный возраст жителей Кфар-Иехошуа равнялся 34 годам. Дети и подростки в возрасте до 17 лет включительно составляли более 34 % населения, жители пенсионного возраста (65 лет и старше) — 16 %. 57 % жителей в возрасте 15 лет и старше состояли в браке, на замужнюю женщину в среднем приходилось 2 ребёнка. Средний размер домохозяйства в год переписи — 2,6 человека; в примерно равных пропорциях были представлены домохозяйства, в которые входили 1, 2—3 и 4—5 человек; домохозяйства, насчитывавшие больше 5 человек, составляли незначительное меньшинство.

Треть населения в возрасте 15 лет и старше в 2008 году имела высшее образование (от первой академической степени и выше). Почти половина населения в этой возрастной категории продолжала обучение по завершении 12-летней средней школы.

Экономика
Основу экономики мошава составляет сельское хозяйство. В общей сложности насчитываются 90 сельскохозяйственных участков, большинство из которых продолжают использоваться по назначению. В Кфар-Иехошуа действуют несколько коровников, курятники, пасека, плантации хлопчатника, томатов, плодовых деревьев, а также производство комбикормов. Мошав расположен вблизи от промышленной зоны Мигдаль-ха-Эмека («Саги-2000») и промышленного парка «Ципорит». Жители Кфар-Иехошуа работают также на предприятиях Афулы, Назарета и Нацрат-Илита, Йокнеама и Хайфы.

По данным на 2008 год, около 2/3 населения Кфар-Иехошуа были гражданами в трудоспособном возрасте. 98 % из их числа были трудоустроены (примерно в равных пропорциях как частные предприниматели и наёмные работники). 35 % были заняты в сельском хозяйстве, ещё около 30 % в сферах образования, здравоохранения и социальной поддержки, по 10 % в промышленности и бизнесе, связанном с недвижимостью.

В 75 % домохозяйств в 2008 году имелся персональный компьютер, в 80 % — как минимум один автомобиль (в 44 % — два и больше). В среднем на домохозяйство приходились 1,7 сотовых телефона. Средняя плотность проживания составляла 0,7 человека на комнату.

Примечания

Ссылки

Мошавы
Населённые пункты, основанные в 1927 году

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Firstly they tried to leave the match, before Shane McMahon changed it to a no count-out-match and then, Owen and Zayn smashed a chair on Orton to force a disqualification, only for McMahon to restart the match again, this time under 'anything goes' rules.
With Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens set to take on AJ Styles for the WWE Championship in a handicap match at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, Shane McMahon decided to book a handicap match of his own for Smackdown's main event, pitting Owens and Zayn against AJ Styles, Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura.
However, Owen and Zayn weren't interested in the match as they tried to get out of it, both time Shane McMahon had to intervene and change the rule of the match.
Then the babyfaces chased down their foes. A Kinshasa from Nakamura and an RKO from Orton put Zayn out of his misery.


Summary: "We can't live without each other. You're my other half." "I've killed a woman." The domineering voice on the phone was that of a high school classmate, Mitsuo Ichikawa(Shunsuke). Buried memories from the past resurface in the heart of a man with the same name, Mitsuo Ichikawa(Yasushi Fuchikami). It drags him right back into the passions of the past. They reunite as accomplices, yet their relationship as master and servant slowly changes into something else.
Double Mints live action is based on the manga with the same title, by Nakamura Asumiko. As almost all her works, expect a dark, unusual BL story. The movie was a low budget, but one really can't tell, as they did a great job. It's usually hard for me to like the characters in a live action after having read the manga it's based on, but these actors actually did a great job. I really loved the fact that there was no awkwardness between the actors, as it happens a lot of time in BL dramas, and I can say that this is one of the best performances I've seen in a J-movie.
If you haven't yet, please give Double Mints a go and let us know what are your thoughts on it.
What's your opinion on Double Mints movie? Please let us know in the comments below.


Let's face it Seahawks fans, Seattle has not fared well against the Dallas Cowboys since they squeaked by them in the Wild Card round back in 2007.
In the two matchups since that win, Seattle has lost 38-17 in 2009 and 34-9 in 2008. I'm not exactly sure how it works out as to why the team has had to fly to Dallas for three consecutive games now, but I guess that's just how it has worked out.
Dallas comes into the game with a 3-4 record. They have two close wins over the 49ers and Redskins, and a 34-7 victory against the Rams. Apparently, if it weren't for the NFC West, the Cowboys would really be hurting right now. Of course, if it weren't for some mistakes this season by their quarterback Tony Romo, Dallas could potentially be 6-1.
So far this year, Romo has showed that he can throw for a ton of yards, nearly 2,000 already this season, but when it comes to closing out the game he's not getting the job done.
In his Friday press conference, Pete Carroll talked about the many things that Romo does well.
There was also a lot of focus on the Seahawks quarterback and whether Tarvaris Jackson would once again be healthy enough to get the start.
Jackson spoke about his injury in his Thursday press conference.
Tarvaris had some interesting things to say about the up-tempo offense they've been running. Not only did he like it because it has the potential to slow down the pass rush, but Jackson says he is calling 60-80% of the plays depending on the rhythm.
Despite the growing comfort level of Jackson in the offense, this has the potential to be a rough game for the Seahawks. The things the Cowboys seem to do best are some of the team's biggest weaknesses.
Despite Romo's struggles to close out games, the Cowboys have a strong passing attack. Up until last week the Cowboys have been tough against the run, another thing Seattle hasn't done well with this year.
The Cowboys also have outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware, who has been terrorizing quarterbacks this year. Just last week alone, he got to Michael Vick four times. When you think about how athletic a guy like Vick is, that gives you an idea about just how good Ware is if his 12 sacks this season weren't already a good indication.
"He can get around the edge, he can bull rush, he can pretty much do it all," said Jackson.
So not only are the Seahawks facing a talented team, they're going to have to try and pick up a win in a hostile environment.
As the team enters the second half of the season, how the team does in the next 11 games is going to give us fans a good feel for the direction the team will need to take in the offseason.
Some of the things Jackson said in his Thursday press conference really impressed me, and combined with some impressive things he's been able to do on the field behind a young line. Jackson is still relatively young and I get the sense that he's going to make the most of this opportunity to prove something that he didn't have the chance to try and prove while he was in Minnesota.
He clearly takes the team's losing record to heart, but with the team starting to come together and get more comfortable he appears optimistic that things are going to start to turn around. At this point, a winning record over the next 11 games would be a great start, and with a win on Sunday against the Cowboys it would definitely represent a solid step toward accomplishing that goal.
The Seahawks game against the Cowboys is not scheduled to be shown on American Forces Network or Direct-to-Sailor this weekend. If you want to help get the Seahawks games shown overseas, please "Like" American Forces Network on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/myAFN and then select "Fan's Choice" on the right side to vote for the game of the week. Hopefully we can work on spreading the word and get the Seahawks Military Appreciation Day game against the Ravens on AFN.


As much as we love bread in our daily meals–whether for breakfast, lunch, merienda, or dinner– more often than not, you end up with a few slices that aren't as fresh as the day you bought it.
Here are two straightforward ways to make use of that almost-stale bread you have left in the kitchen.
Chop your remaining bread slices into cubes and place in a bowl. Combine with herbs, spices, and seasonings of your choice and toss in a bowl with some olive oil. Fry it butter for a few minutes and voila–quick n' easy croutons for you to enjoy with your salad or soup.
Fire up your skillet and fry your leftover bread until crispy. When done, ground the bread using a food processor, or blender. Add some parsley, thyme and rosemary, or Parmesan cheese for that extra oomph!
Try these simple life hacks and never let leftover bread go to waste again.


If a vegan person in love with Asian food moved to New York, this is exactly what that person would make. And while I have no desire to ever move to NYC, I am a guy with a big jar of kimchi and no idea what to do with it.
This sandwich is: hearty, savory, lightly spicy, protein packed, and fast, taking only 15 minutes to cook and assemble after you've marinated your tempeh, which only needs one hour to bathe. Afterwards, the marinate is mixed with vegan mayo to create a creamy sauce that is out of this world.
If this sandwich ignites your tastebuds, leave behind a nice rating, share your thoughts in the comments, or show us your own rendition @noeggsorham on the Instagrams!
Much love friends ~ may this recipe find you in good spirits!
Reuben, Tempeh, & Kimchi walk into a bar. They form a band. This is their first album.
Cut tempeh into pieces to fit the size your bread. I cut my tempeh block in 4 pieces, cutting it in half horizontally and then in half again through the center of the tempeh. Set aside in a shallow container such as a 9×13 baking pan.
Combine together the remaining ingredients listed under "tempeh" and stir or shake to combine. Pour marinate over tempeh in a shallow container, and let marinate at room temperature for at least one hour and up to 24 hours in the fridge, rearranging the positioning of the tempeh half way through.
Once the tempeh is finished marinating, heat a large skillet (I used cast iron) over medium heat. Add enough sesame oil to cover the bottom of the pan, add the tempeh and cook until brown on one side, about 3 minutes, flip and cook on the opposite side until browned. Set on a plate while you assemble the sandwiches.
To make the sauce, whisk together two tablespoons of the marinate the tempeh was bathed in, along with 1/4 cup vegan mayo.
Lightly oil or butter one side of every piece of bread. With the oil side facing away & facing down, assemble the sandwich, adding a layer of lettuce, followed by avocado slices, tempeh, kimchee, sauce, and the second piece of bread with the oil side facing up. Repeat with second sandwich.
Using the same skillet from before, heat over medium-low heat. Add both sandwiches to pan and firmly press down on them using a spatula, or another heavy pan. This will help the sandwiches keep their shape.
Cook until lightly golden brown on one side, 2-3 minutes. Flip, and repeat process for second side.
Cut sandwiches into triangles and serve immediately – perhaps with heaps of potato chips on the side for a full deli experience.
SERIOUSLY…YOU GUYS ROCK!!!! and I'll ROLL with this dish!!!


My name is Oliver but my mom calls me Bubba. I am a Boxer / Rhodesian Ridgeback mix and I used to weigh 80lbs before my mama put me on a diet.
I am 8 years old now, and mama found my in a box in the trash when I was 3 weeks old and rescued me! She is a nice lady because she still loves me even though I ate her rental couch.
She says she is going to buy stock from Febreze because she thinks she should invest in something she uses so often. I love to eat, swim, and play tug-o-war. If you ask me, my mama is the lucky one.


text:
namespace gpu {
struct SyncToken;
}

namespace ppapi {
namespace proxy {

class PPAPI_PROXY_EXPORT CompositorResource
    : public PluginResource,
      public thunk::PPB_Compositor_API {
 public:
  CompositorResource(Connection connection,
                     PP_Instance instance);

  bool IsInProgress() const;

  int32_t GenerateResourceId() const;

 private:
  ~CompositorResource() override;

  // Resource overrides:
  thunk::PPB_Compositor_API* AsPPB_Compositor_API() override;

  // PluginResource overrides:
  void OnReplyReceived(const ResourceMessageReplyParams& params,
                       const IPC::Message& msg) override;

  // thunk::PPB_Compositor_API overrides:
  PP_Resource AddLayer() override;
  int32_t CommitLayers(const scoped_refptr<TrackedCallback>& callback) override;
  int32_t ResetLayers() override;

  // IPC msg handlers:
  void OnPluginMsgCommitLayersReply(const ResourceMessageReplyParams& params);
  void OnPluginMsgReleaseResource(const ResourceMessageReplyParams& params,
                                  int32_t id,
                                  const gpu::SyncToken& sync_token,
                                  bool is_lost);

  void ResetLayersInternal(bool is_aborted);

  // Callback for CommitLayers().
  scoped_refptr<TrackedCallback> commit_callback_;

  // True if layers_ has been reset by ResetLayers().
  bool layer_reset_;

  // Layer stack.
  typedef std::vector<scoped_refptr<CompositorLayerResource> > LayerList;
  LayerList layers_;

  // Release callback map for texture and image.
  typedef CompositorLayerResource::ReleaseCallback ReleaseCallback;
  typedef std::map<int32_t, ReleaseCallback> ReleaseCallbackMap;
  ReleaseCallbackMap release_callback_map_;

  // The last resource id for texture or image.
  mutable int32_t last_resource_id_;

  DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(CompositorResource);
};

}  // namespace proxy
}  // namespace ppapi

#endif  // PPAPI_PROXY_COMPOSITOR_RESOURCE_H_

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Oratory vs. Cranford Lacrosse
On Wednesday, Oratory Prep hosted Cranford for a conference game. Going into this game, Cranford was undefeated in the conference and did not lose a single conference game by less than two points. Oratory knew that this game was going to be a challenge and was prepared to face it. Oratory's defense played extremely well only allowing three goals in the 1st half. It was 3 – 0 until 26 seconds left in the third where Oratory's offense finally scored. After this goal, Oratory went on to score three more goals making the score 4 – 5 with less than 40 seconds left in the game. Oratory's defense knew that they need to create a turnover and began to pressure the ball carrier. With 30 seconds left, Jonathan deMontagnac was able to clear the ball to Luke Jacobello who then passed it to Ryan Kenny, who moved the balls to Matt Terraciano. With 11 seconds left, Matt Terraciano was able to score and Oratory tied the game up at 5 – 5. In the first overtime, Oratory was mainly on defense until Declan Mckee was able to take the ball away and clear it to the offense. Sadly, Oratory was not able to score and the second overtime began. Similar to the first overtime, Oratory was mainly on defense. With less than a minute left, Cranford took an awkward shot which found the back of the net ending the game with a 5 – 6 score. Ryan Kenny had 2 goals and an assist, Matt Garibaldi had 2 goals, and Matt Terraciano had 1 goal.


text:
Apple Search Ads is Expanding: Hello Canada, Switzerland and Mexico!
Search Ads is expanding to Canada, Mexico and Switzerland; Apple Search Ads will go live in these new territories on 17th October at 10 a.m. PDT (that's 18:00 p.m. BST, later today!). Apple Search Ads allows developers and marketers to promote an app at the top of the iOS App Store search results, easily and efficiently. And, with more than 65% of all app downloads coming directly from App Store searches, Search Ads provides a great opportunity to direct relevant customers to your app.
Originally launched in the United States just over a year ago, Search Ads will now be available in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Switzerland. The addition of Canada, Switzerland and Mexico is the third expansion of App Store territories eligible for Search Ads.
Although the additional territories give app developers and app marketers greater opportunity to promote an app and reach new customers, the new additions will present novel challenges for Apple app advertising. The launch of Search Ads in the Canadian, Mexican and Swiss App Store is the first expansion outside of App Store territories in which English is the dominant language. The learning curve will be even greater for Canadian and Swiss campaigns since both Canada and Switzerland have multiple widely-used languages. In preparation of Search Ads going live in the new territories, the help pages have been translated into Spanish, Canadian French, Swiss French and Swiss German.
The expansion of Search Ads in Canadian, Mexican and Swiss App Stores is exciting and is suggestive of further planned-expansion in other French, German and Spanish speaking App Stores. At Redbox Mobile, we are looking forward to the future expansions from Apple and expanding our clients' user reach.
Want to know more about how to promote your app in the new App Stores eligible for Search Ads? Get in touch with Redbox Mobile to find out how we can get your app to the top of the Canadian, Mexican and Swiss App Stores' search results. Alternatively, set up your own campaign on our Blackbox platform, which generates campaign keywords and uses machine learning to adjust CPT Bids and optimise the campaign budget with real-time reported statistics.


Rules of the Competition ACM established the Doctoral Dissertation Award program to recognize and encourage superior research and writing by doctoral candidates in computer science and engineering. These awards are presented annually at the ACM Awards Banquet.
Nominations are limited to one per university or college, from any country, unless more than 10 Ph.D.'s are granted in one year, in which case two may be nominated.
Please see our website for exact eligibility rules. Only English language versions will be accepted. Please send a copy of the thesis in PDF format to emily.eng@acm.org.
Each nomination shall be forwarded by the thesis advisor and must include the endorsement of the department head. A one-page summary of the significance of the dissertation written by the advisor must accompany the transmittal.
Submissions must be received by October 31, 2012 to qualify for consideration.
Winning dissertations will be published by ACM in the ACM Digital Library.
Dissertations will be reviewed for technical depth and significance of the research contribution, potential impact on theory and practice, and quality of presentation. A committee of individuals serving staggered five-year terms performs an initial screening to generate a short list, followed by an in-depth evaluation to determine the winning dissertation.
The selection committee will select the winning dissertation in early 2013.
The Doctoral Dissertation Award is accompanied by a prize of $20,000 and the Honorable Mention Award is accompanied by a prize of $10,000. Financial sponsorship of the award is provided by Google.