KAI SUSHI BAR

Prawn motoyaki on portobello mushroom.  Rating:  6/6


I’ve been meaning to eat at Kai Sushi Bar for a while.  I received a 10% flyer a while ago but after looking at the menu realized the kiddies wouldn’t have much to eat here because they always want udon noodles. 
Kai Sushi Bar serves primarily izakaya-type dishes and sushi, as advertised in its name. 

The best dish I had was the Prawn motoyaki on portobello.  It was $12.  You tell me if you’re made of money and can afford this awesome tasting dish.  It was so good.  But it was so expensive.  Out of all the dishes, I think I would perhaps pay $12 for this one.  Maybe.  Hey, I don't have deep pockets.

Spicy tuna.  Rating:  5/6


Another factor that Stomach argues is a strong point against a repeat visit on our part, is the prices.  It is very expensive and even with 10% off, which btw we didn’t use because it had expired…we know we will be left feeling hungry.

The Spicy Tuna he argued isn’t any better than any other restaurant.  It was good but it wasn’t spectacular for the $9 price tag.  I thought it was good.  I would perhaps pay $9 for it again because I like spicy tuna sashimi.

If anything was a rip today, it was this dish.  The plate has a California Roll (rating:  4/6)  on the left ($5) and a Hana Roll ($9).  Not only were the maki ordinary in size, they were ordinary in flavour.  I was especially disappointed with the size of the Hana Roll, which for $9 was so not worth it.  I was expecting something more substantial with way more scallion flavour. 

Here’s a piece of the Hana maki on my plate.  The crunchy bits were an interesting contrast.  Rating:  4/6

This is the Prawn 3 ways.  $10.  Rating:  6/6

Innovative and delicious.  Very small portions though so Stomach and I just got to taste a little bit of each as we shared.  On the left is prawn wrapped scallop with lemon, then prawn sushi and prawn motoyaki. 

I took a few pics of some of the pages of the menu.  Many of the cooked dishes looked really enticing.  If I were to come back, it would be for the cooked dishes and not the sushi.  The sushi is over-priced IMHO.

Stomach and I left the restaurant a tad hungry as the sushi portion was smaller than I expected.  Usually I’m almost full on a $9 creative roll.  This was so not the case this time.

The restaurant was not that busy.   While we were eating, a lone woman came in and sat down at the table next to us.  After getting her tea and then looking at the menu, she promptly got up and left…no doubt because of the prices.  However, you know this restaurant is located near Shaughnessy and perhaps there are people who are willing to pay good money for their food.  The food was really good and the environment brand spanking new and nice.  The service was efficient and friendly. 

See that little note on the bill at the bottom?  Well, I’ve done my job and would like a discount for doing so, please.  I noticed that many reviewers "liked" this place and I can see why.  But geez, they must be money pants and tiny eaters.

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On the Upswing Now

I made it through round three. This one was a little rugged. I was pretty miserable with nausea and headaches the first couple days and then I got a bad case of the runs yesterday. I'm feeling better today, but not 100% yet. I'm hoping to be back up and running this afternoon.

Despite feeling crappy we had a nice visit from my mom. We put her right to work! She did an amazing job weeding, planting and transplanting! We're really lucky to have a gardener who flies in from the east coast! Things are looking much more pulled together here. Now my job is to spread a bunch of mulch to keep the weeds down (all this rain means the weeds will keep coming for a bit here).

Keith is back in Oakland now (got back late Sunday). After he left Duluth, his mom took a turn for the better. She hasn't been on the ventilator for a couple of days now! And she was moved to a rehabilitation section of the hospital. They'll be working to get her back into shape so she do more things for herself.

More about → On the Upswing Now

hair trend: CURVED FRINGE

HAVING A SLIGHTLY CURVED/CURLED FRINGE...

is a softer and easier way to wear your hair rather than the dead straight blunt fringe. 

To DIY: Use a flat iron and give a little bend by curving the iron right at the bottom.

INSIDER TRICK: If your fringe is getting in your eyes and it's a coupla weeks til your next appointment - giving it a slight bend will help extend your look in between trims.

More about → hair trend: CURVED FRINGE

Ingmar Bergman Studies

Updated September 19, 2011

Film Studies For Free brings you, below, a very long list indeed of links to online and openly accessible studies of the work of Ingmar Bergman. The list was especially inspired by hearing of the first of the three video studies above, via Adrian Martin, Corey Creekmur and Christa Fuller. This news led to the subsequent discovery of the rest of this amazing videographic trilogy on Bergman's films by Jonas Moberg. Update: FSFF has learned that these videos were devised by Thomas Elsaesser, during his year as Ingmar Bergman Professor at Stockholm University in 2007 in conjunction with the project "Ingmar Bergman in the Museum" (a summary of which is linked to below). Initially, seven of these videos were planned, to go with each of the chapters in the book Film Theory - An Introduction through the Senses. The research for all seven Bergman Senses Videos was carried out by Elsaesser, together with Anne Bachmann, a PhD student at Stockholm University, and Jonas Moberg then edited three of them. Sadly, time ran out on the project and the remaining four planned videos weren't completed.

Bergman scholars and fans should also know about Ingmar Bergman: Face to Face, the beautiful website of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which showcases and links to numerous further resources. Sight and Sound has also just featured a fascinating essay by Lena Bergman on her father's viewing habits in his unique private cinema, a converted barn on Fårö, the Baltic island where he lived until his death in 2007. This year’s Bergman Week festival takes place in the cinema on Fårö from 28 June to 3 July. Television viewers in the UK might, in addition, like to hear that Film4 will show 16 Ingmar Bergman films in a series beginning next week. Yay!

If FSFF says so itself, the below list is probably one of its best ever (do scroll right down for all the videos). It was certainly one of the most rewarding to compile... It hopes you will find it in equal parts enjoyable and useful.

• 'Ingmar Bergman: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library'
• Michael Bird, 'Music as Spiritual Metaphor in the Cinema of Ingmar Bergman', Kinema, Spring, 1996
• Pedro Blas Gonzalez, 'Smiles of a Summer Night', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, 'Review: Irving Singer (2007) Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on his Creativity. Cambridge, MASS: MIT Press', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010
• Michael Brashinsky, 'The Spring, Defiled: Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring and Wes Craven's Last House on the Left', Play it Again, Sam, ed. by Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)
• Amir Cohen-Shalev, 'Beyond Reconciliation: Filial Relationship as a Lifelong Developmental Theme in Bergman’s Films', Style: Volume 43, No. 1, Spring 2009
• Thomas Elsaesser, 'Ingmar Bergman – Person and Persona: The Mountain of Modern Cinema on the Road to Morocco', European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood (Amsterdam University Press, 2005 - Scroll to p. 133 in PDF)
• Thomas Elsaesser, 'Ingmar Bergman in the museum? Thresholds, limits, conditions of possibility', Journal of AESTHETICS and CULTURE Vol. 1, 2009
• Hamish Ford, 'Ingmar Bergman', Senses of Cinema, 23, 2002
• Hamish Ford, 'The Silence', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Ed Gallafent, 'Two Views Over Water: Action and Absorption in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries(1957)', in James Walters and Tom Brown (eds), Film Moments: Criticism, History, Theory (2010)[scroll down in large PDF]
• Daniel Garrett, 'Dark Nights of the Soul: Themes in Irving Singer’s book Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Acts of Love Can Redeem Loneliness', Offscreen, December 31, 2010
• Daniel Garrett, 'Wild Strawberries: A Brief Note about Ingmar Bergman and Pauline Kael', Offscreen, 9.9, September 30, 2005
• Sarah W. Gilmartin , 'The Masks of Performance: Art’s Aesthetic and Social Representation in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1983)', Inter-Disciplinary.net, 1st Global Conference (2007)
• Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, 'The Fairy-Tale Theatre: Reception and Authorship at the Margins of the Ingmar Bergman Archive', Archives and Aueturs Conference, Stirling University, September 2009
• Ananya Ghoshal, '“Not a day has gone by in my life when I haven’t thought about death” - Ingmar Bergman', in Mortality, Dying and Death: Global Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by T. Chandler Haliburton and Caroline Edwards (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008 - scroll to p. 338 in PDF)
• Erik Hedling, 'Shame: Ingmar Bergman’s Vietnam War', Nordicom Review 29 (2008) 2, pp. 245-259
• Erik Hedling,'[English Language review of] Birgitta Steene, Måndagar med Bergman: En svensk publik möter Ingmar Bergmans filmer. Stockholm: Brutus Östlings bokförlag Symposion, 1996', TijdSchriftvoorSkandinavistiek, 1, 1999, pp. 174-179
• Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, 'Silence and Fury: Rape and The Virgin Spring', Screening the Past, 28, 2010
• Vreni Hockenjos, 'Strindberg through Bergman: A Case of Mutation', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1
• Poul Houe, 'Faces as Facts of Fiction', Scandinavian Canadian Studies/Etudes Scandinaves au Canada, 18, 2009
• Jesse Kalin, 'Preface', The Films of Ingmar Bergman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Jesse Kalin, 'Introduction: The Geography of the Soul', The Films of Ingmar Bergman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Ingmar Bergman, the biographical legend and the intermedialities of memory', Journal of AESTHETICS and CULTURE Vol. 2, 2010
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Everything Represents, Nothing Is": Some Relations Between Ingmar Bergman's Films and Theatre Productions', Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 5.1
• Maaret Koskinen, 'From Short Story to Film to Autobiography: Bergman’s Intermedial Variations', Film International, January 14, 2011
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Ingmar Bergman', Swedish Institute, 2007
• Tarja Laine, 'Failed Tragedy and Traumatic Love in Ingmar Bergman’s Shame', in Kooijman, Jaap, Patricia Pisters, Wanda Strauven (eds), Mind the Screen: Media Concepts According to Thomas Elsaesser (Amsterdam University Press, 2008 - scroll to p. 60 in PDF)
• Marco Lanzagorta, 'Cries and Whispers', Senses of Cinema, 25, 2003 
• Kevin B. Lee, 'The Soul of the Megapixel: Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband and Scenes from a Marriage', Reverse Shot, June 9, 2008
• Rikard Loman, 'Bergman’s Vintersagan at the Royal Dramatic Theatre', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1
• Brian McIlroy, '[Review of] Steene, Birgitta. 2005. Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide', Scandinavian Canadian Studies/Etudes Scandinaves au Canada, 16, 2006
• Lloyd Michaels, 'Introduction', Ingmar Bergman's Persona (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 
• Karin Nykvist, 'Remembering and Creating Childhood in the Works of Ingmar Bergman and August Strindberg', in Negotiating Childhoods, Edited by Lucy Hopkins, Mark Macleod & Wendy Turgeon (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011)
• Darragh O’Donoghue, 'The Seventh Seal', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• John Orr, 'Camus and Carné Transformed: Bergman's The Silence vs. Antonioni's The Passenger', Film International, 3.5, 27, 2007
• S. Ruken Öztürk, 'Besieged and Liberated Woman in 'Art' Films: The Problem of Private Sphere', Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, (hakemli dergi) 58 (2), 2003:153-176
• Arthur Rankin, 'The Child Archetype in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Thomas Redwood, '[Review of] Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Film and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick and Wong Kar-wai. New York: Lexington, 2007, Screening the Past, 23, 2008
• Daniel Ross, '[Review of works by Irving Singer]', Screening the Past, 25, 2009
• Steven Shaviro, 'Ingmar Bergman', The Pinocchio Theory, July 31, 2007
• Daniel Shaw, 'Woman as vampire: Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966)', Kinoeye, Vol 2, Issue 15, Oct. 2002
• Irving Singer, 'Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher' (video podcast), MIT World, November 2007 (embedded below)
• Murray Smith, '[Review of] Paisley Livingston, Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy', Notre Dame Philosophical Review, May 19, 2010
• Birgitt Steene, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
• Birgitta Steene, 'The Transpositions of a Filmmaker: Ingmar Bergman at Home and Abroad', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, 20, no 1, 1999
• Birgitta Steene, 'The Sjöberg-Bergman Connection: Hets – Collaboration and Public Impact' TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1 
• Michael Stern. 'The Face as a Fingerprint: Mediation, Silence, and the Question of Identity in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona', Konturen, Vol. 3, 2010
• Sharon Lin Tay, 'On the Edges of the Authorial Voice: Liv Ullmann’s Faithless, Gendered Authorship, and Ingmar Bergman', Women on the Edge: Twelve Political Film Practices (London: Palgrave, 2009) (excerpt)
• Egi Törnqvist, Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
• Elsie Walker, 'An 'Incorrigible Music: Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata', Kinema, 2008
• Denise Ming-yueh Wang, 'Ingmar Bergman’s Appropriations of the Images of Death in The Seventh Seal', 제17권 1호 (2009): 41-62
• Thomas E. Wartenberg, 'Review of Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity', Notre Dame Philosophical reviews, May 23, 2008
• Lynn R. Wilkinson, 'Playful Performances: Ingmar Bergman’s Bildmakarna and Film Authorship', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 30 (2009), nr. 1
• Margareta Wirmark, 'Strindberg versus Bergman: The End of Spöksonaten', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1 
• Robin Wood, 'Call Me Ishmael [on Fanny and Alexander]', originally published in Canadian Forum, 41, 1983, republished in MOVIE, Issue 2, 2011 
• Rochelle Wright, '[Review of] Philip and Kersti French. Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället). London: BFI Film Classics, 1995. Pp. 77. And Margareta Wirmark. Smultronstället och dödens ekipage. Stockholm: Carlssons, 1998', TijdSchriftvoorSkandinavistiek, 20, 1999, nr. 1
• Rochelle Wright, '[Review of] Marilyn Johns Blackwell, Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman [Studies in Scandinavian Literature and Culture, eds. George C. Schoolfield and Robert E. Bjork], Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1  

Irving Singer, 'Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher' (video podcast), MIT World, November 2007

Liv Ullmann at the Bergman Week 2010, speaking about the filming of Face To Face with Ingmar Bergman. She talks about the relationship between a director and his actors, and specifically the scene when her character commits suicide in the film.

Wim Wenders talks about Ingmar Bergman

Agnes Varda talks about Bergman.

David Stratton talks about Ingmar Bergman.

Bergman Center interviews American director John Landis about Ingmar Bergman at Venice International Film Festival.

Bergman Center interviews French actor Jean-Marc Barr about Ingmar Bergman at Venice International Film Festival.

More about → Ingmar Bergman Studies

Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part VII

Now that I've explained the importance of food reward to obesity, and you're tired of reading about it, it's time to share my ideas on how to prevent and perhaps reverse fat gain.  First, I want to point out that although food reward is important, it's not the only factor.  Heritable factors (genetics and epigenetics), developmental factors (uterine environment, childhood diet), lifestyle factors (exercise, sleep, stress) and dietary factors besides reward also play a role.  That's why I called this series "a dominant factor in obesity", rather than "the dominant factor in obesity".
Read more »

More about → Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part VII

Memory Screens: New Issue of IMAGE AND NARRATIVE

Frame grab from 1975 (Shaun Wilson, version 1 (2005), DV as single channel DVD, colour, sound, 5mins). Visit Shaun Wilson's website here and read his article about 'home movies' here

The concept of memory screens is an overarching term exploring the relationship between forms of media, viewers, practitioners and memory. The notion of memory screens alludes to the ways in which memories become remembered, layered, forgotten and transformed. The range of articles in this volume reflects the relationship between memory and history, both public and personal. ['Thematic Cluster: Introduction' by Teresa Forde]

Film Studies For Free continues to be impressed by the excellence of the online journal Image and Narrative which has recently published a special issue entitled Memory Screens.

FSFF particularly appreciated film and video artist Shaun Wilson's essay on the art of vintage home movies, Jenny Chamarette's study of the dynamics of the ‘spectre’ or ‘spectral body’ of the auteurist figure of Agnès Varda, Peter Kravanja's exploration of narrative contingencies in Rohmer and Akerman and Teresa Forde and Erin Bell's discussions of memory and British television. But this is a very high quality issue throughout and, as always at I and N, particularly characterised by the thoughtful integration of close analysis and film and moving image theory.

Image and Narrative, Vol 12, No 2 (2011): Memory Screens

Table of Contents

• 'Thematic Cluster: Introduction' by Teresa Forde ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Remixing Memory through Home Movies' by Shaun Wilson ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Video Installation, Memory and Storytelling: the viewer as narrator' by Diane Charleson ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Spectral bodies, temporalised spaces: Agnès Varda's motile gestures of mourning and memorial' by Jenny Chamarette ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Television and memory: history programming and contemporary identities' by Erin Bell ABSTRACTPDF
• 'Television Dramas as Memory Screens' by Teresa Forde ABSTRACT PDF
• 'The Lives of Others: re-remembering the German Democratic Republic'  by Margaret Montgomerie and Anne- Kathrin Reck ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Nostalgic [re]remembering: film fan cultures and the affective reiteration of popular film histories' by Nathan Hunt ABSTRACT PDF

Various Articles

• 'Cinema, Contingencies, Metaphysics' by Peter Kravanja ABSTRACT PDF

Review Articles

• Hillary Chute's Ambivalent Idiom of Witness' by Charlotte Pylyser  ABSTRACT PDF
• 'Naissances de la bande dessinée de William Hogarth à Winsor McCay' by Pascal Lefèvre ABSTRACT PDF

More about → Memory Screens: New Issue of IMAGE AND NARRATIVE

"Born in a dream": studies of Ritwik Ghatak

Subarnarekha (lit. "Golden Line/Thread", Ritwik Ghatak, India, 1962-65)

All motion, in fact, has the same origin. The camera moves, so do men. Then everything comes to rest, or, various integral compositions made out of these create a whole design born in that dream.
Ritwik Ghatak [Ritwikkumar Ghatak, Rows and rows of fences: Ritwik Ghatak on cinema (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2000), p. 65]

Every film is going to be more than you can see... Where the real cinema takes place is in your head.
      [...]
The notion of a film born in a dream that then manages to figure that dream in all of these movements, in all of these modulations, in all of these articulations is at the heart of Ghatak
Adrian Martin, 'Seven and a Half Minutes with Ritwik Ghatak (An Apprenticeship in Magic)', Film and Television Studies ‘Under Construction’ Seminar Series, Monash University, June 8, 2011(mp3: 1:40:38, mp4 - Video version)

Very recently, in a much-discussed Film Comment article by David Bordwell, and in the project of a fascinating book titled The Language and Style of Film Criticism ([eds. Alex Clayton and Andrew Klevan] Routledge 2011), an old-fashioned line has been redrawn, separating the work of criticism proper (evocative, descriptive, evaluative, lyrical, etc) from the so-called ‘formalism’ of close, textual analysis (frame and audio analysis, structural segment/part breakdown, etc). I reject this distinction.

In the lead-up to the WORLD CINEMA NOW conference this September at Monash, I propose taking seven and a half magnificent minutes – one complex scene in three parts – from Ritwik Ghatak’s Subarnarekha (The Golden Line, India, 1965) – and seeing how deeply we can dig into its sharp audiovisual beauty. Ghatak (1925-76), only now receiving the full international recognition he deserves, is a key figure for any history of cinematic forms: using the melodramatic tradition as his pivot between classicism and modernism, he elaborated a moment-to-moment style that was a form of fluid mise en scène shot through at every moment with the kind of disruptive ‘intervals’ beloved of his Master, Eisenstein. In Ghatak, scenes do not simply unfold: they open up into multiple, contesting worlds, man versus woman, old versus new, feeling versus reason, body versus song …

Along the way of this demonstration, I hope to offer a model of how film analysis might be done, or at least how I try to do it: its possible protocols, procedures, pay-offs. Seven and a half cinematic minutes with Ghatak, plus around two musical minutes with Abdullah Ibrahim, amounting to around sixty minutes … Adrian Martin, 'Seven and a Half Minutes with Ritwik Ghatak (An Apprenticeship in Magic)'

Today's entry here at Film Studies For Free -- a list of links to openly accessible studies of the work of the great Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak -- was very much inspired by the online availability of a podcast of a lecture by Adrian Martin, Associate Professor in Film and Television Studies and co-director of the Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory at Monash University. In the lecture Martin discusses a scene in Ghatak's Subarnarekha (lit. "Golden Line/Thread", India, 1962-65).

The sequence discussed by Martin may be found at 7:40 in the first of the two clips embedded above, continuing up to around six minutes through the second clip. As the above lecture abstract indicates, along the way, Martin says many important things about the practices of film criticism/analysis, and, indeed, about Film Studies more broadly. Great work, and thanks to Arts at Monash University for making it available. [Update: August 2011 - here's a link to the video recording of the lecture. Right click on the link to save to your computer for viewing later).

• Omar Ahmed, 'AJANTRIK / PATHETIC FALLACY (Dir. Ritwik Ghatak, 1958, India) - Man and Machine ', Ellipsis: The Accents of Cinema, December 7, 2009

• Anustup Basu, Mantras of the Metropole: Geo-televisuality and Contemporary Indian Cinema, PhD Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2005 (see chapters 3 and 6)

• Raymond Bellour, 'The Film We Accompany', Rouge, 3, 2004

• Moinak Biswas, 'Her Mother's Son: Kinship and History in Ritwik Ghatak', Rouge, 3, 2004

• Moinak Biswas, 'Speaking through troubled times', Journal of the Moving Image,Number 6, 2007

• Megan Carrigy, 'Ritwik Ghatak', Senses of Cinema, Issue 29, 2003

• Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, 'Sound Memories: In Search of Lost Sounds in Indian Cinema', Journal of the Moving Image, Number 6, 2007

• Saayan Chattopadhyay, 'Framing Frontiers', Sarai readers 2007: Frontiers

• Ann R. David, 'Beyond the Silver Screen: Bollywood and Filmi Dance in the UK', South Asia Research, 2007; 27, 5, 5-24

• Kevin B. Lee, 'Ritwik Ghatak: An Online Primer', Shooting Down Pictures, February 8, 2010

• Kevin B. Lee, '997 (132). Subarnarekha / The Golden Thread (1965, Ritwik Ghatak)', Shooting Down Pictures, February 8, 2010

• Adrian Martin, 'Seven and a Half Minutes with Ritwik Ghatak (An Apprenticeship in Magic)', Film and Television Studies ‘Under Construction’ Seminar Series, Monash University, June 8, 2011(mp3) (video version)

• Erin O'Donnell, '“Woman” and “homeland” in Ritwik Ghatak's films: Constructing post-Independence Bengali cultural identity', from Jump Cut,  Issue 47, 2004

• Ashish Rajadhyaksha, 'An Aesthetic for Film Sound in India', Journal of the Moving Image, Number 6, 2007

• Raks Media Collective, 'Dreams and disguises, as usual', Sarai Reader 2005: Bare Acts


•  


• Raks Media Collective, 'Stammer, Mumble, Sweat, Scrawl, and Tic', e-Flux, 11, 2008

• Anindya Raychaudhuri,‘Resisting the Resistible: Re-Writing Myths of Partition in the Works of Ritwik Ghatak’, Social Semiotics, 19:4, December 2009

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Ritwik Ghatak: Reinventing the Cinema', Rouge, 10, 2007
  

• Subroto Mihir Roy, 'Semeiosis of Music in Ghatak's Select Films', National Film Archives of India, 2007/8

More about → "Born in a dream": studies of Ritwik Ghatak

The End of the Box Braids

Sorry that I've been MIA lately. The last couple of weeks have been strange for us. Syd went to camp for a week. The day after she came back, she went to stay with family members while I went on a mini vacation for a few days. We saw each other for a day and a half, and then Syd took off to go camping with my brother and his family. We finally met up at a family reunion the other day and I brought her home with me so we can finally spend some time together.

All this means that Syd (and her hair) haven't seen me or had my help for about 2 and a half weeks. As a result, Syd's box braids were looking kind of rough. I also only have a couple of picutres of her hair during that time.

The picture below was taken the day before she left to go camping, so the braids were already 2 weeks old. Her hair was slightly wet here because she had been caught in the rain just before I snapped the picture.

Later that day, I washed her braids and put them into 2 cornrows for her camping trip. I used Kinky Curly Knot Today as a leave in and then used Kinky Curly Curling Custard to hide the fuzz and hold the cornrows for the duration of her trip.

When we came home a few days later, I removed the cornrows and put the resulting crimpy-looking braids into 2 low pigtails. After 3 days of camping, playing with cousins, fishing, and bike riding, the fuzz was back in full force.

This was the last day of the braids. They could have lasted a little longer, but Syd isn't a fan of the fuzz and we were ready for something different. The 101 box braids were in for a total of 18 days.

More about → The End of the Box Braids

New SCOPE: Chris Marker, Cult cinema, Dance on Film, 1970s Film Theory

Image from The Company (Robert Altman, 2003)

Today, Film Studies For Free is thrilled to point you in the tremendous direction of the latest contents of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies. There's lots to recommend in this issue but FSFF particularly enjoyed Katharina Lindner's article on the female dancer on film, along with numerous, wonderful book reviews and conference reports, all part of the fabulous and openly accessible service that Scope provides to the international film studies community.

Scope, Issue 20, June 211

Articles

• Pasts and Futures of 1970s Film Theory Matthew Croombs
• Cultivating the Cult Experience at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Donna de Ville
• Spectacular (Dis-) Embodiments: The Female Dancer on Film  Katharina Lindner
• Chris Marker and the Audiovisual Archive Oliver Mayer

• [ALL ARTICLES ON ONE PAGE]

Book Reviews

• Hollywood Independents: The Postwar Talent Takeover by Denise Mann  
  100 American Independent Films, 2nd edition; The Contemporary Hollywood Reader  Reviewer: Gareth James
• Documentary Display: Re-Viewing Nonfiction Film and Video by Keith Beatti Reviewer: Jeffrey Gutierrez
• Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit by Dina Iordanova with Ragan Rhyne (eds); Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals Reviewer: Linda Hutcheson
• Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting's An Autumn's Tale by Stacilee Ford; John Woo's The Killer Reviewer: Lin Feng
• Responses to Oliver Stone's Alexander: Film, History, and Cultural Studies by Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds); Screening Nostalgia: Populuxe Props and Technicolor Aesthetics in Contemporary American Film Reviewer: Andrew B.R. Elliott
• Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies by Abe Mark Nornes and Aaron Gerow; The South Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global Provocateurs Reviewer: Jonathan Wroot
• Chapaev by Julian Graffy; Leni Riefenstahl: A Life Reviewer: Andrei Rogatchevski
• Harmony and Dissent: Film and Avant-garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century by R. Bruce Elder; Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator's Experience Reviewer: Caroline Hagood
• Reworking the German Past: Adaptations in Film, the Arts, and Popular Culture by Susan G. Figge and Jenifer K. Ward (eds); The Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and Its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century Reviewer: Matthias Uecker
• Stellar Encounters: Stardom in Popular European Cinema by Tytti Soila (ed); Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice Reviewer: Rachael Johnson
• Alternative Film Culture in Inter-War Britain by Jamie Sexton; The Lost World of Cliff Twemlow: The King of Manchester Exploitation Movies; The British 'B' Film Reviewer: Laurence Raw
• Elia Kazan: The Cinema of an American Outsider by Brian Neve; Cinephilia in the Age of Digital Reproduction: Film, Pleasure and Digital Culture, Volume 1 Reviewer: Mildred Lewis
• First Person Jewish by Alisa S. Lebow; Neo-Noir Reviewer: Marat Grinberg

• [ALL BOOK REVIEWS ON ONE PAGE]

Film Reviews

• Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-war Britain (1951-1977) Reviewer: Dai Vaughan
• Bonnie and Clyde Reviewer: Ian Murphy
• Cracks & Tell-Tale; Robin Hood; The A-Team  Reviewer: Laurence Raw
• The Karate Kid & The Karate Kid Reviewer: Rachel Mizsei Ward

• [ALL FILM REVIEWS ON ONE PAGE]

Conference Reports

• Flow Conference 2010, University of Texas, Austin, 30 September–2 October 2010 Reporter: Kelly K. Ryan and Heather Muse
• Women's Filmmaking in France 2000-2010, Institut Français, London, 2–4 December 2010 Reporter: Sarah Forgacs
• MeCCSA Conference: Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association, University of Salford, 12–14 January 2011 Reporter: Greg Bevan
• ¡Documentary Now!, University of Westminster, London, 28–30 January 2011 Reporter: Philippa Daniel
• Rendering the Visible Conference, Georgia State University, 10–14 February 2011 Reporter: Drew Ayers and Steven Pustay
• Erotic Screen and Sound: Culture, Media and Desire Conference, Griffith University, Brisbane, 15–18 February 2011 Reporter: Michelle A. Mayefske
• SCMS 2011: Media Citizenship, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New Orleans, 10–13 March 2011 Reporter: Shana MacDonald

• [ALL CONFERENCE REPORTS ON ONE PAGE]

More about → New SCOPE: Chris Marker, Cult cinema, Dance on Film, 1970s Film Theory

KIRIN SEAFOOD RESTAURANT, CITY SQUARE

I love Chinese banquet food.  Though we didn’t eat a formal banquet menu today, we had many dishes that were banquet-wow.

Case in point is the Wintermelon soup.  Yowsa, what a neat presentation!  The soup comes in its own hand-carved Wintermelon bowl.  The waiter uses a metal spoon to shave off slices from the melon bowl into each person’s soup bowl.  Every person gets a good portion of seafood and clear flavourful broth. 

Look at that wintermelon! It’s gargantuan!  We had 16 people (give or take a kid or two) and there were leftovers to take home.  This is a fantastic soup.  My favourite.  Rating:  6/6

Appetizer platter:  smoked salmon, vegetarian goose (beancurd stuffed with mushrooms), smoked meat, deep fried chicken “knees” and jellyfish.  Rating:  6/6

Here’s the mock goose.  I have no idea why it would be called vegetarian goose because it looks nothing like goose.  It was very flavourful and the beancurd skin was soft.  The  mushrooms were tender and savoury.  Rating:  6/6

Here’s my portion of the almond-coated Stuffed Prawn.  Rating:  5/6

This was an impressive presentation at the table and though it was good, I thought that perhaps the almond coating was a bit on the chewy side for some reason…whether that was due to the dish sitting too long before being eaten or whatever.  If the almonds were crunchy, it would have been so much better.

Here’s my portion of the Wintermelon soup.  The spongy clear thing on top is Loofah.  Yes, loofah is edible.  Of course, they don’t use the stuff from London Drugs that you buy in the bath section for scrubbies.  Luffa is a type of gourd so definitely eaten like a veggie. There was scallop, pork, conpoy, prawns, mushroom and of course wintermelon too.  There may be more elements but I really forgot to take note and list them all.

The ubiquitous kiddie dish.  Beef and veg in oyster sauce on fresh rice noodles.  Rating: 6/6



This is the Peking Duck first course. Duck skin, hoisin, scallion and a mandarin pancake seem to go so perfectly together.  I’m never really disappointed with this flavour combination!
Rating:  6/6












The second duck course is lettuce wrap with the duck filling.  Don’t you just love wraps?  I never tire of Peking Duck!

Water spinach in beancurd sauce.  Rating:  6/6

Fresh oyster with ginger and green onion hot pot.  Rating:  6/6

I am so glad that someone ordered this dish.  I love fresh oysters!  The oysters in the hot pot were humungous though; so if you’re faint of heart, ask someone to cut you half.  I usually like my oysters on the smaller side so shared mine with Stomach. 

Deep fried pepper salt black cod.  Rating:  5/6

Good, but I don’t know…maybe not as awesome as it could have been.  I like tons of fried garlic in these types of dishes.  I wanted more of that.

Silky prawns and egg.  Rating:  6/6

Our guests from out of town requested this dish especially.  I am so in tune with their taste buds!  This was my favourite dish of the night.  I know it’s so simple…kind of like an egg foo yung, but it’s not.  There’s no gloopy oyster sauce. there’s no sprouts and the egg is not fried in a pancake shape.  The only veg is slivered whites of scallions.  It’s just superior technique that makes the eggs so tender, soft and savoury and the prawns are just cooked through.  This dish was so good I think I could have eaten the whole plate. 

Salt-baked Chicken.  Rating:  5/6
Only at a Chinese dinner table will you encounter at the end of a meal all the white meat left on the plate.  Everyone loves the bony, dark meat bits.  I like to gnaw on the wing tips myself. 

Yeung Chow Fried Rice.  Rating:  6/6
See those individual rice kernels?  That’s a good sign.  I liked the proportion of shrimp, bbq pork, veg to rice.
 

Red bean soup.  Rating:  3.5/6

Who’s crazy about red bean soup anyway?  This one had a LOT of dried tangerine peel and it wasn't sweet enough.  I hate chomping on those bits of orange peel accidentally.  I took home all the uneaten bowls of red bean soup to make red bean icepops in my new Zoku.  I added condensed milk to the soup and then froze it all in the Zoku.  It was way tastier as red bean popsicles!

Service at Kirin is always excellent.  This is why when you have out of town guests, you bring them here.  There is parking in City Square that is complimentary when you eat at Kirin.  Remember to bring up your ticket to validate.

More about → KIRIN SEAFOOD RESTAURANT, CITY SQUARE

New SENSES OF CINEMA

Image from Guest (José Luis Guerin, 2010)

Film Studies For Free took a little break and caught up with some reading. A mini flurry of posts will issue as a result over the next few days, including this first one listing links to the excellent contents of the latest issue of Melbourne based online journal Senses of Cinema.

FSFF particularly liked the interview with the remarkable filmmaker José Luis Guerin about his most recent film Guest, Pedro Blas Gonzalez on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Jiwei Xiao on the films of Jia Zhangke.

Senses of Cinema, Issue 59 Contents

• Editorial 

Feature Articles

• Moira Sullivan Lars von Trier’s Other Comments at Cannes
• Jean-Baptiste Thoret The Seventies Reloaded: (What does the cinema think about when it dreams of Baudrillard?)
• Pedro Blas Gonzalez The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or, Socrates in the Desert
• Graham Daseler Lost Treasure: Trouble in Paradise
• The Celluloid Liberation Front Auschwitz­–Harlem: Post-Traumatic Economy in The Pawnbroker
• Lorraine Mortimer Something Against Nature: Sweet Movie, 4, and Disgust 
• Journey to Galveston: An Interview with Catherine Berge on King Vidor by Peter Tonguette
• Peter Tonguette King Vidor: The Editor’s Director 
• Accidental Cinema and the YouTube Sublime: An Interview with Joe Swanberg by Brigitta B. Wagner
• Jiwei XiaoThe Quest for Memory: Documentary and Fiction in Jia Zhangke’s Films
• Flannery Wilson Filming Disappearance or Renewal? The Ever-Changing Representations of Taipei in Contemporary Taiwanese Cinema 
• On Reality and Imagination: An Interview with Documentarian Dai Sil Kim-Gibson by Tammy Kim
• Imed Labidi Welcome: An Insight into the Landscape of Contemporary French Consciousness
• Kafi Kareem Trinbagonianness in Film: National Identity in Trinidad and Tobago Cinema 
• Defeating the Irremediable Solitude of the Guest: An Interview with José Luis Guerin by Rolando Caputo

Melbourne on Film

• Adrian Danks on On the Beach
• Stephen Gaunson on Marvellous Melbourne: Queen City of the South
• Deb Verhoeven on Melbourne Wedding Belle
• David Nichols on Your House and Mine
• Federico Passi on The Cleaners
• Jake Wilson on Flinders Street
• Ben Goldsmith on Ghost Rider

Festival Reports

• Chris Berry on Far East Film Festival
• Marc Saint-Cyr on Nippon Connection
• Rachel Thibault on Independent Film Festival of Boston
• Sirkka Moeller on Short Film Festival Oberhausen
• Catherine Simpson on Istanbul Film Festival
• Neil Young on CPH PIX
• Sally Shafto on Panorama des Cinémas du Maghreb
• Daniel Fairfax on Cannes
• Bérénice Reynaud on Images Festival
• Tom Redwood on Adelaide
• Bérénice Reynaud on Pan African
• Cerise Howard on Fribourg

Book Reviews

• Robert von Dassanowsky on Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker: Critical Essays on the Films
• John Fidler on The Apartment Plot
• Peter Tonguette on Steven Spielberg: A Biography
• Burke Hilsabeck on Machine-Age Comedy
• Jay Daniel Thompson on Darwin's Screens
• Chris Yogerst on The Philosophy of the Western
• Daniel Eisenberg on Real and Reel: The Education of a Film Obsessive and Critic

Cteq Annotations

• Julian Savage on Fear Eats the Soul
• Colin Browne on Fox and His Friends
• Adam Bingham on Veronika Voss
• Darragh O'Donoghue on The Third Generation
• Rebecca Harkins-Cross on In a Year with Thirteen Moons
• Serena Bramble on In a Lonely Place
• George Kaplan on They Live by Night
• David Sanjek on Johnny Guitar
• J. David Slocum on Rebel Without a Cause
• Dan Harper on Assassination
• Alain Silver on Samurai Spy
• Anne Rutherford on Double Suicide
• David Melville on Death of a Cyclist
• Lee Hill on Viridiana

More about → New SENSES OF CINEMA

Garden Spirits BETA

Enjoy The Beta! Survey Attached, you may send feedback to its producers. Please complete the survey after finishing the whole beta game and provide detailed information when requested.
If you don't want to complete the survey, please close the pop-up window which appear after exiting the game.

Uploaded By Joshua.

Beta Closed!Thanks For Playing!

Screenshots: #1 , #2 , #3

More about → Garden Spirits BETA

Alpha Kimori Episode One

Cross the lines of war to unite two star-crossed lovers in Alpha Kimori Episode One, a sensational adventure with classic RPG styling.
The newly discovered planet Kimori plays host to two warring human factions - the Bidarians and the Jinrians. Amidst the constant turmoil, Rick, a young Bidarian warrior, falls in love with Yuki, the Jinrian princess. Can the two find a way to share their love and in the process unite the enemies?
Follow Rick and Yuki on their amazing journey in this colorful Japanese Anime inspired RPG. Befriend new characters along the way and partake in fun turn-based battles. Upgrade party members with new skills and spells, challenge entertaining side quests, and experience and epic story with a delightful mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements.

Game Size 47 MB

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Screenshots: #1 , #2 , #3

More about → Alpha Kimori Episode One

The Timebuilders: Caveman's Prophecy

Explore a forgotten time when dinosaurs ruled the earth in The TimeBuilder: Caveman’s Prophecy, a fun Time Management game! Guide your tribe out of their cave and into the world. Discover new lands filled with dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and mischievous saber-toothed kittens. Use all your skills to manage your people, build houses, and gather resources while creating awesome inventions to help your people!

Game Size 428 MB

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Screenshots:

Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!

Recommended for free users: Use Jdownloader to increase download speed!

More about → The Timebuilders: Caveman's Prophecy