David & Kelly visit

 Late Saturday night our long time PT and hsi family arrived in Sevilla. They came by car form Sarasota to Miami and plane from Miami to Casblanca and plane from Casablance to Madrid and then by taxi to the train station in Madrid. The final leg was made up of train from Madrid to Sevilla and a taxi to our place. We had a few minutes to breathe before heading to dinner at La Cayetana. 

Turns out our current guests, David & Kelly and their young adult daughters Emma and Caroline love seafood and fish. So last night after they arrived around 9:15, we went to La Cayetana for dinner. We started with the ensaladilla (not as good as Brunilda) and then went for two plates of excellent tuna tartare followed by two plates of excellent tuna tataki, followed by two plates of gambas al ajillo. We also split a canelon of pork cheeks, two arroz Ibericos and an order of bunelos de bacalao. Then we rushed off to MITO for gelato. We got home after a bit of drama around the girls hostal accomodations. They all had been traveling for more than 48 hours but still looked reasonably fresh before crashing around 1AM on day three of travel (planes, trains, and automobiles) 

the next day, they saw pretty much everything in Sevilla! Had tickets to the Cathedral and the Alcazar (which they loved!) and did the Giralda and walked around by the River, went to the Toro d'Oro and its museum. We had dinner at Caspuerta. 

The next day they went to Triana Market and then walked down to the Plaza España (which they loved!) Along the way they had a couple of breakfasts and a couple of lunches each day. David fell in love with the jamon bocadillos. 

Our farewell dinner with David & Kelly and Emma & Caroline. We headed to Baco after a couple of last stops (orange blossoms have been in bloom all week and the city is scented with the most wonderful fragrance.) They purchased a couple of bottles of the lovely perfume of Sevilla (you guessed it, orange blossom!) We were only a minute late for dinner. 

We had two appetizers they hadn't yet tasted: Jamon iberico de Bellota and espinacas con garbanzos. Both were heartily endorsed. Then the three Griffith women shared a large salad with Jamon and goat cheese and then a Jamon and queso variada platter. David has the carriada  and Phil had the presa. I had the smoked salmon. We went to MITO for a last treat before leaving. We parted ways with the younger crew who went to their hostal and the older folks went home to Calle Bilbao.

A lovely visit. They were off this morning on a train to Barcelona. Now on to laundry. We are headed to France in ten days but have frequent guests in April and May. The weather has been just perfect so a great time for visitors.

meanwhile "back at the ranch" - Next term at Northwestern I chose something different. After years of media studies I thought it might be a new focus and really like the idea of learning about our most populous neighbor. I had nothing in school about Mexico other than "the Alamo." So we'll see how this class unfolds. Nine weeks to round out my "school year."

Now, a bit of a repsite for us before heading to the Dordogne for eight nights during Seman Santa. And just so you don't think we miss all the fun by being away here are two processions that have passsed by our balconies- one day time and one night time.... and we have been running into practice groups for the last two weeks late at night on our wlaks home from dinners.... 

so on we go... 

back to school yet again

 So it is "back to school" time here- classes start this coming week.  I am taking another class from Professor Nick Davis. He is a terrific speaker and so well versed in his field.  Very interesting observations on everything we discussed in class last winter. I took a Spring class too, that one was my second from Professor Jake Smith. 

From Nick Davis' last cinema class I took-

A photo of Jake Smith from this past term's class on Children's media - 

 so this time I am going to Nick Davis' class on the Chicago International Film Festival:

Phil is taking a different course: Letter A... briefly described on the cover of the flyer- 

I will keep you posted on the class - below a couple of movie reviews of the film from the first class- 

author "snoopy style" from a 2017 viewing:

John Wayne fan J.R. (Harvey Keitel) and his friends are local Italian petty ruffians on the streets of New York. He meets and gets engaged to a girl. When she tells him about being raped, he is disbelieving, angry, and heartbroken. With his religious conviction, he can't marry a non-virgin and returns to his old thug life.

The actors are all amateurs. This is Martin Scorsese's feature debut. It's a black and white indie. Harvey Keitel is still a student actor. Despite that, one can see the inherit skills of these guys. Scorsese is trying various camera moves. He's an artist playing with his paint. There is a real unpredictable sense of violence and there is his music sense. It's not polished by any means but one can see Scorsese trying something in almost every scene. There are scenes that ramble on but those have a visceral sense of uncertainty. The technical aspect varies and it can feel disjointed especially the dream sequences. The sexual dream comes out of nowhere which doesn't fit the rest of the movie. There is the ambient noise which may be deliberate but probably the byproduct of guerrilla student filmmaking. Keitel is exuding energy as the lead. He's the focus even at such a young age. I do wonder why the female lead has no name. To be fair, most characters do not have names. One would expect JR call her by her name at least once. Is it a continuing Scorsese limitation with female characters? I can only call up one strong female lead in his writing. There are a few more in his other works. It's probably a limitation of simply being a dude. It's hard to write what one doesn't know. Overall, this is a crystal ball that predicts Scorsese's rise as one of the great American directors.

author "bob" from a 2009 viewing: 

This is a hard movie to review because it's essentially an amalgam of several different shorter student films, and some work better than others.

That said, at the crux of "Who's That Knocking at My Door" (the final mass-released version) is a complex character-study laden with Catholic guilt and burdened by all the inherent stigmas and traditions of growing up Italian-American.

Obviously Scorsese knew his source material very well. More than half of the players and virtually all the locations come straight from his own life. What's really cool about the film, though, is how honestly he portrays these sociological nuances. He doesn't tell you Keitel's character's views and attitudes are good or bad, they just "are" --- and it's obvious how the character developed them from a peek into his everyday world.

This bracing honesty is the most appealing thing about the film, along with some drop-dead gorgeous camera work and editing featured here. The first scene where Keitel meets Bethune on the ferry has got to be one of the most imaginatively-shot and enthrallingly staged boy-meets-girl moments on celluloid. Throughout the film, Scorsese overlays soundless scenes from the past and future, creating interesting juxtapositions, always engaging and challenging your perceptions.

With a lot of debuts there are missteps. I don't think that fairly characterizes this movie however. There are definitely parts that drag and don't work well but seen in the context of a shorter film, they would have been more effective. As they're all blended together here, the pacing sometimes suffers.

It's hard to imagine any of the fans of Scorsese's later works, which rely so heavily on hyper-real camera-work and tightly-structured story lines, to have the patience for "Who's That Knocking." But for those who really enjoy the thoughtfulness, subversiveness, and subtext of Scorsese's films, it's a treat to see their origins so prominently displayed.

So it should be interesting- more to follow

back to school again

So the class I am taking that started today is from one of my favorite professors Jake Smith, a cultural historian with a special emphasis in media.  We last took his class on the History of the Recording Industry. It was excellent in an unexpected way. Much more depth than I expected and very very interesting so I figured this one had a good chance to being the same. 

Having just finished a class by Nick Davis on Classics of Contemporary Cinema, this seemed like a fine segue into another area of media. 

Here is the syllabus:

Pinocchio to Pokémon: The History of Children’s Media

Jacob Smith, Professor, Radio-Television-Film Director, MA in Sound Arts and Industries

When we consider the subject of children’s media culture, we quickly discern a host of contradictory behaviors and attitudes: childhood is seen as a period of timeless wonder, but children are bombarded with all the latest fads and gadgets; we try to insulate children from the adult world, but provide them with media technologies that allow them easy access to it. This class will explore contradictions such as these by exploring the history of children’s media. We will discuss film adaptations of fairy tales and classic children’s literature; children’s television; digital games; children’s music; and online video. Our case studies will allow us to engage with debates about contemporary media culture and the nature of childhood. Children are often understood to be a particularly vulnerable segment of the media audience, and children’s media has much to tell us about media regulation and censorship, theories about media influence, and the media’s role in education and marketing.

March 28       Media and the Construction of Childhood

We begin by thinking about the intersection of popular media and childhood: a crossroads that has long inspired both beloved content and adult concern. Next, we encounter an argument about the “social construction of childhood,” a conceptual framework that will structure our consideration of a “modern” notion of childhood. Our case study this week is the film, Big (1988), which shows how popular narratives might shed light on the history of childhood.

April 4            The Birth of the Children’s Audience: Fairy Tales and Classic Kid’s Lit

We begin our historical survey of children’s media by outlining some of the factors that contributed to a “modern” notion of childhood. Our primary case studies are fairy tales and books from the “golden age” of British children’s literature. Media adaptation provides a method for gauging how notions of childhood change over time, and we examine several versions of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” from the surreal to the spectacular.  

April 11          The Child Movie Audience, Censorship, and the Rise of Disney

This week we encounter the concept of the “moral panic”: a recurring social dynamic in the history of children’s media. Continuing our historical survey, we move to the 1910s and 1920s, when the rise of a child audience for motion pictures spurred a moral panic that movies were corrupting the nation’s youth. We’ll see how that panic helped to pave the way for Walt Disney, and we’ll take Disney’s Pinocchio (1940) as our case study. 

April 18          Postwar Kids Culture

The postwar era was marked by the Baby Boom and a dramatic shift in childrearing advice. This provides us with an opportunity to consider how trends in childrearing literature shape media practices in the home, a dynamic we can apply to more recent examples. With regards to the postwar era, we examine the “Poet Laureate of Permissive Childrearing”: Dr. Seuss. We’ll talk about Seuss’s little-known but fascinating The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953). The postwar era was also marked by a new medium – television – and a new moral panic about its relationship to children. 

May 2             Marketing to Children and “Home Alone” Kids

Television ushered in a new era of advertising directly to children. We examine concerns about advertising to kids, the intersection of the toy industry and TV, and influential brands like Barbie and GI Joe. We update this debate with a consideration of online “unboxing” videos. Our historical survey moves to the 1980s and 1990s and the blockbuster Home Alone (1990) has much to tell us about marketing to kids and a new kind of worldly-wise “latchkey kid.”

May 9             Media as Children’s Education 

Television caused concern as a vehicle for advertising to kids, but it also held out the promise of a new kind of media education. This week we investigate educational and prosocial media for kids, with a focus on the history of PBS, the Children’s Television Workshop, and shows like “Sesame Street,” “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood,” and “Blues Clues.” We consider some of the research on child development that shaped the style of these programs and compare a US and UK model of children’s television. 

May 16           Children’s Play and Videogames

We shift our focus from film and television to videogames, tracking the rise of videogames as a form of popular entertainment and considering them in relation to theories of play. The history of play spaces provides a new perspective on games like Pokemon and Minecraft, as well as the multi-media LEGO franchise. The topics of children’s play and play space also bring up a host of other related issues, including playground design, the “free range kids” parenting movement, and concerns about “nature deficiency disorder” for media-saturated kids.

May 23           Meanings and Effects in Children’s Media; Revolutionary Childhood

This week we engage with one of the central debates about children and media: media violence and its effects on children’s behaviour. We outline some of the main arguments and research regarding media effects, as well as criticisms of that approach. We also examine an ideology of “revolutionary childhood” in Soviet Russia and Communist China, and look at several media depictions of child soldiers.

May 30           Kids Make Media

In our final session, we think about several ways in which children can be active participants in their media culture. First, we examine the history of child actors, who present a fascinating contradiction since they both embody the modern ideology of innocent childhood and go against that same ideology by being professional child laborers. We’ll watch some examples of famous child actors in action and discuss the particular characteristics of children as screen performers. The documentary My Kid Could Paint That (2007) provides a fascinating case study. We also think about kids as filmmakers – something that has become much more prevalent in the digital era. Finally, we consider children’s rights legislation and how it might translate into the active participation of children in media production.

So it promises to be an interesting 9 weeks of classes.