Retirement: Online Art Workshops

Wanted:

Comments, Suggestions, Critiques of this piece...Email me privately, please. I'd like it all: the good, the bad and the ugly...

Quay Brothers:
Hubby, Tristan and I saw the Brothers Quay at the Academy on Wilshire last Friday night. One thing that irks the hell out of me about the Academy is that they treat it like a Fortress. I won't go into the crap we had to go through to BUY the tickets there but getting in is like breaking into Fort Knox. You have to go through Metal Detectors (I'm sure Leonard Maltin doesn't have to go through the metal detector). I'm waiting for the strip search next. *sigh*. They rummage through my purse (I brought the tiny one on purpose). Then poor hubby who has all things metal in his pockets: keys, money, etc... Takes like 10 minutes to go through the detectors...Then they ask him if his boots are metal tipped. I suggested next time he boot the security guard up the ass and ask him if they're metal tipped. *sigh* (Ok, I know the security guard is doing his "Job" but c'mon it's the Academy LOL).
The crowd was WEIRD. Totally TOTALLY a crowd of students, wanna be filmmakers and animation nuts...lots of Burton-y wanna be types there (for lack of a better term). The two women at the end of the show who were dressed like gothic puppet dolls from Queen Victoria era freaked me out a bit as they "edged" their way down seat by seat, row by row, trying to get close to the Brothers...WEIRDOS.
OH one last Irk: They closed off the entire middle section. Sooooo those of us paying people that have had their tickets for WAY longer then opening night have to sit either to the left or the right (and if you are sitting all the way to the left or all the way to the right, you knowh ow much those seats can suck and how little you actually can see). We sat about 4 or 5 rows back on the left hand side (so we were right in front of the Brothers and got to see all of the twin idiosyncrasies that they did all night long. LOL Stroking the podium, pulling on their ears, etc...They both would do similiar movements -it was kinda interesting watching them in their "twin mode"). BUT what irked me was that they file in all of the Academy people. They want US paying folk there before 7:15 so we got there at about 6:30 6:45. They file in the Academy People at like 7:30! All of us schmucks have been sitting there for like an hour now waiting...the film/lecture starts at 7:30 but now we have to wait for the academy "people" to arrive (and everyone's head flips to see "just who" is here)...They occupy the middle section...BUT then all of the people who arrived LATE get seated in the "good" remaining seats-basically front row (s) CENTER! GRRR!!!! They should seat the Academy people in the BACK as most of them didn't seem to "get" the evening and let us paying folk who WANT to see this front and center, get a share of the good seats.
That's my gripe of the night.
The talk was great. It was interesting hearing how they work-very impromptu "feeling" based. My favorite piece of the night was the score they did to music: In Absentia. It was about 19 minutes long and was amazing. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD. I loved the "Little" things about that film: how they rubbed dirt into the woman's hands, how she wrote continuously again and again to her husband and it looked like braille or graffitti art when she was done, how the music "fit" the film, -the whole feeling of the film. It was perfect for the score it was set to. They also told the story of how after the composer saw the film (they screened it for him) that he was sitting by himself in the middle of the theatre, down front. The brothers were standing in the back. They told how he was just crying while he sat there as it reminded him of his Mother who was killed by the Nazis. It was very interesting and the film packed an emotional punch.
There were lots of people who seemed to get up and leave early. That was strange...I know that most don't seem to "get" their films...but you don't need to necessarily understand them to "get" them. They pack a strong visual punch.
Also interesting was their literary and musical references. How strongly those influences are on them..you most definetly can see Kafka in their work.
All in all, it was well worth the trip. It was a LONG night. It didn't get out til, I believe, 10:45.
We've been to several of these over the years-the Marc Davis series...My favorite was still last year's evening with Frederic Bach. It was amazing to see his films up on the big screen-especially Crac and the Man Who Planted Trees...I absolutely adore his films and they are ones that I can watch again and again...but to see them on the big screen was a treat. As was seeing the Quay Bros films on the "BIG" screen. WOW.
But the Brothers Quay presented a wonderful, unique evening (note: they "spoke" on their own without the need of someone there to ask questions so that was wonderful). I'm looking forward to their new film that comes out this Fall.