Introducing My New Food Allergy Blog... Intelli-Allergentsia!

I just started a new blog about food allergies called Intelli-Allergentsia. Visit http://intelli-allergentsia.blogspot.com/…/the-road-less-sw… to read the first part of my telling how I found myself suddenly plunged into the wheat-free world.

Eventually, I hope to include food reviews, restaurant reviews, and general discussion of other food allergen groups beyond mine (wheat, rye, shellfish, and codfish). I may even solicit articles from my friends with similar problems in the future so that they can tell their stories or give their observations.

Please feel free to leave comments on there as well. I want this conversation to continue, and we will all have an easier time negotiating the food alternative world when we share. If there are wheat or gluten-free food products you would like me to review, or restaurants in the Southern California area that have good gluten-free options, please throw me your suggestions if you'd like.

And if you are someone who just automatically thinks this is me being trendy, you should probably take the time to read the full article (in three parts) when it has been posted to see how wrong you are. Not everybody is a hipster. Not everybody does things just because they think it makes them feel better. Not everyone asks questions or for special menus in restaurants because they crave being the center of attention. It's embarrassing.

I would eat a regular cheeseburger right now with real, honest to goodness bread full of wheat flour if I could be assured that I wasn't going to projectile vomit it across the room twenty minutes later. And then cough endlessly for the next four hours. Shut up and read the story...

Once again, http://intelli-allergentsia.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-road-less-swallowed-my-allergy.html.

Thanks!

RTJ

Head On Over to Rupert Pupkin Speaks for More Pylon Goodness!

A short post here where it seems like I am tooting my own horn (which I am to a large degree), but mainly I want to direct anybody that frequents my blog to visit the Rupert Pupkin Speaks blog instead.

My friend Brian, who runs the site, has posted a piece today that I wrote on the topic "Film Discoveries of 2015". These are films, older than the year 2000, that I saw for the very first time in 2015 and that made an impression on me when I watched them. I selected five that I felt were of high and enduring quality that pleased me greatly, but then threw in a really Grade-Z, ultra low-budget monster flick from the '70s at the end of the article that I found to be particularly memorable and entertaining.

Rik Tod Johnson's Film Discoveries of 2015

http://www.rupertpupkinspeaks.com/2016/01/film-discoveries-of-2015-rik-tod-johnson.html

I hope that you enjoy my article, and while you are on Brian's site, please check out many of the other writers who have contributed their articles on this same topic since the start of the year. There are directors, screenwriters, critics, and many other fellow cinephiles who have written of their favorite new discoveries. The most incredible part is that, because everyone's cinematic journey is entirely different, there are few (if any) repeats mentioned across all of the lists.

Brian posted an earlier piece of mine in December that you can also read here:

http://www.rupertpupkinspeaks.com/2015/12/underrated-rik-tod-johnson.html

I hope that you enjoy my article, and please leave a comment on Brian's blog while you are at it.

Thanks!

RTJ

A Visiting and Revisiting Special: Boycott the 2016 Academy Awards? Pt. 1

There is a good chance that very few people in the Western Hemisphere, and a good many of them beyond, don't already have an opinion about the lack of artists of color in the Academy Award nominations this year. Whether luck of the draw or the system being broken and needing a good fix, having two years in a row where several prominent performances by non-white actors and actresses have gone unacknowledged by the Academy looks pretty bad to most people that care about these things.

My writing partner, Aaron Lowe (Working Dead Productions) and I have decided to discuss this topic in lieu of our usual back and forth conversations on a particular movie in our Visiting and Revisiting feature that we split between our respective websites. To put it out front, we are both Caucasian and male. My politics are outspokenly liberal (though I believe that a centrist position is the best way to get things done in Washington), and Aaron identifies as "pretty strongly liberal" (his words). 

So, you are not going to get a William F. Buckley Jr. vs. Gore Vidal-style point-counterpoint here. What we wanted to do was actually think through the problem and see what lies at the heart of it, determine whether a large-scale, knee-jerk reaction boycott would do any good, and see what possible solutions there could be so that not only are all sides appeased, but that the situation rights itself for the future.

1. Do you believe that the actions (to this point) of the Academy point to systemic racism, or do you feel that the list of nominees from the past two years is simply "the luck of the draw," given the fact that there have been past years where persons of color were nominated and even won?

Rik: When I wrote this question, I used the term "luck of the draw," but of course, I know it really doesn't come down to that at all. There is a nomination process that has been long in place, and it relies on the placement of nominees on each ballot after they first determine a "magic number" for each category, which itself is based on the total number of ballots divided by the number of possible nominees for that category plus one. The term "magic number" does ultimately denote a bit of luck because the selection of nominees does depend on the order in which the ballots get counted. The first candidate that reaches the required "magic number" gets the first slot on the nominee list, and so on until all the available slots for that category are filled. First come, first served.

So, do I think that the nominations are based directly on the racism within the Academy itself? I doubt it. To be sure, the Academy, like much of Hollywood, was built and is still largely based on an "old boys" network, that is -- like much of big business in America -- still terribly, predominately white and male. Yes, the USA is (as of the 2010 Census) 63+% non-Hispanic white, but the disparity within the Academy is even larger, with an LA Times study in 2012 finding that the group was likely to be 94% white, while men make up 77% of the membership overall. I think the biggest problem is that the film industry in America itself caters mainly to the white male audience. If you have 40 Oscar quality pictures released within a year (and that is pushing it; I am just using it as an example) and only a relative few are built around non-white themes or feature lead actors of non-white origin, then it makes the reality that one of those few films will get nominated a long-shot.

This is not to discount that there could be some old school, good old boy racism at play here. Maybe Hollywood isn't quite as left leaning as Fox News and its cohorts would like the American public to believe. There probably are many older members of the Academy -- and in 2012, 86% of them were over the age of 50, with the median age being 62 years old -- who harbor ancient racial resentments instilled in them since they were younger and raised in less enlightened times. I don't doubt that there are problem many in the membership who feel that way. It would be like with any slice of America that you cut, there is going to be a certain segment that leans a certain way.

I think a larger problem (in direct response to this question) is that within that older membership, that there is a likely disconnect between themes that are interesting to moviegoers today versus what those older members might want to see onscreen. It is more likely that this white, older chunk of the Academy may not be all that concerned with seeing the far fewer films per year featuring younger (or even established) actors and actresses of color in stories that don't necessary connect to that in which they are interested. These older members also might not want to see supposedly "heavier" films about African child warriors (Beasts of No Nation) or gang shootings in Chicago (Chi-raq), and they likely don't care at all about rap or hip-hop (Straight Outta Compton). In many ways it doesn't surprise me these films got zero or little attention from the Academy. The two films with black leads and/or creators that really had a shot should have been the highly acclaimed (and justly so) sports dramas, Creed and Concussion, and only Sylvester Stallone, a white actor, was nominated between them. Old white guys tend to like sports --- especially football and baseball -- but they may have reacted negatively to Concussion's casting of their beloved NFL as a secretive, villainous organization that doesn't care about the fate of its players as long as they keep the money flowing. (Which they are, but shhhhhhhhh...)

Aaron: To answer quickly, before going on to individual points: I believe the problem lies in the people, not the system. Surely the system has allowed a certain amount of stagnation to set in, but when I went to research how someone becomes an Academy member, and how the voting was handled, I found that it was remarkably fair and balanced, in the literal meaning of that phrase, not in the Fox News meaning. Obviously, the system favors those films and individuals with the largest amount of exposure, which leads to the predictable roundup of popular crowd-pleasers, but that’s the nature of popularity contests. In reality, a contender can come from anywhere, and the system itself is, essentially, colorblind.

I tend to believe that the average Academy member is not as racist as this year’s scandal would imply, and I doubt there’s a conspiracy here where large groups of white-haired old men decided to exclude performers of color. It’s just another case of a large group of people making individual choices; choices that they maybe don’t realize are quite so exclusive. I might be giving these people too much credit, but generally speaking I don’t assume people are mustache-twirling villains. That doesn’t really come as any consolation, and in fact may be worse; if people were doing this consciously we could easily say it was wrong, but if people are doing this with good intentions, it’ll be harder to fix.

The demographic argument about the Academy –that they are older white men and stuck in their ways- rings a bit false to me. Let’s say the median age right now is 66; this means these people came of age during the civil rights movement, and they likely came out of leftist leaning film schools in the 70s; George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, for example. George Miller is in his seventies and he just made one of the most feminist -- not to mention energetic and truly wild -- action movies of all time. I know those people are outliers, but when we talk about how old the average Academy member is, it’s not as if they were raised in the antebellum South. 

But here’s another problem; people recognize and feel comfortable with what they know. There’s no big conspiracy here, but people making movies form relationships with people they get along with, and people they enjoy working with, and the entire system becomes a bit closed off and incestuous. It can be hard to break into that world. I don’t automatically assume racism when I hear about a writers’ room that is primarily white, or male, or what have you. I do assume that whoever put that room together was more interested in having a room full of people that he or she was comfortable working with than in having a room made up of diverse voices. I think that practice is being seen here, writ large. Academy members see things their friends worked on, they vote for things their friends worked on, or speak to their life in some way. And since the Academy is made up of so many older white men, you see a pretty whitewashed selection of films.

To answer another point you bring up; Hollywood is definitely not as left leaning as Fox News would like Middle America to believe. Hollywood is the very definition of capitalistic; they go where the money is. The problem is, the source of the money is changing, and the entertainment industry is incredibly slow to realize this. Look at the continuing controversies over the removal of strong female characters from the promotional materials for films such as the new Star Wars film or The Avengers. The entertainment industry just isn’t ready to accept the fact that there might be money in catering to, or at least acknowledging, a market other than 18-40 year old white males.

2. Do you think "Affirmative Action" should apply to supposedly exclusive and invite-only clubs, such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science?

Aaron: I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with the term “Affirmative Action” and what it implies. I understand the motivations behind it, and they are truly noble, but it implies (whether accurately or not) a certain amount of racism on the other side of the coin. When people talk about Affirmative Action it’s usually implied that those benefitting from it aren’t quite deserving of the help; that they’ve only been included due to their skin color or ethnicity or gender. Of course, that’s exactly what has been happening with white people for hundreds of years, but it still carries a negative connotation.

The problem here is that Affirmative Action is completely unnecessary in this case. There’s no reason to invite members into the Academy based solely on the boxes they fill out on the census form. There’s also no cap to the number of members the Academy can have, so there’s no real reason to exclude anyone. There are plenty of talented and deserving individuals that the Academy is ignoring. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs issued a statement promising to overhaul the Academy’s membership process, and actively recruit a more diverse crowd, which seems to me like a great start. They’ve done this in the past, when they tried to recruit a younger audience in the 60’s, and that seemed to work well for them at the time.

Rik: I feel Affirmative Action is still very necessary in the public and government sector. But should it be mandatory for private clubs and organizations? I'm not sure that anything should be done about that. If a particular group wants to keep their practices and meetings to an invited group only, I don't see the problem with that. But I also know I would not want to belong to such an organization if their inclusion process was based around standards that were openly racist or sexist. I know that I wouldn't want to belong to a club that was "men only," because what good is anything if there is not a chance of women being involved? (There is a certain irony that so many men brandish an oversized and often outspoken fear of homosexuality, but then really just want to hang out with other guys 90% of the time.) And what good is an organization that doles out awards to the best films within a calendar year if it doesn't have a membership that can recognize a certain portion of those "best films" because it is imbalanced?

3. What do you think would be a good, or even the best, solution towards broadening the membership of the Academy and making it at least reflect the demographic breakdown of America?

Rik: My solution for the Academy membership is to blow it up! By that, I mean make it much, much larger than it is right now (currently only 6,000+ members). I would switch it from invite-only to including all "active" members of the major Hollywood trade unions and guilds. This would include the Screen Actors Guild (including CON-AFTRA; they are combined now), the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, the American Society of Cinematographers, the Producers Guild of America... all of them, as long as they are represented by one of the categories in which an award is given. Anyone that is a current member of the Academy but may not be active in one of the unions or guilds is allowed to remain (you have to give them some reason for living), but this will allow the Academy to include most of Hollywood's artists. Yes, it will put their membership at over 200,000 members (at least), and there will be logistical problems involved in developing a new nomination and voting process and the screening of nominated films, but that is their problem. If you want the Academy to represent the industry, then that is the quickest way.

Aaron: Honestly, that seems like such a logical idea that I was honestly surprised it wasn’t how the process worked already. Being a member of one of those unions automatically means that you are working as a professional, and have had at least one credit within the past year. I have to imagine that such an influx of younger, more diverse members would make an immediate impact.

To read Part II of this discussion, please click here.

Visiting and Revisiting: After Life (1998) Pt. 2

This is the second part of a two-part discussion about Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 drama, After Life [Wandâfuru raifu]. To read the first part of this article, visit my pal Aaron Lowe's Working Dead Productions website at http://bit.ly/1OszYhL.

PART II

Rik: I want to go back to that article on The Guardian website about Kore-eda. The interviewer asks him about After Life, and how the interviewer found it hard to think of a memory that would qualify as “heavenly”. Kore-eda’s response was “If you can’t choose, it means that you are still alive. Choose, and you’re dead.”

It rather pissed me off at first when I was watching the film and discovered that there was a character that insisted that he could not choose. I thought the character was just being contrarian or thinking himself a “cool” rebel. I thought, “What a fucking jerk,” from the very first moment I met him in the film. But when it was over, and I seriously considered whether I could choose a single memory, I realized that I would not wish to do so either. The penalty of not choosing means you are stuck in wherever this agency exists to work in what is essentially a form of the film industry. You get to have lunches with cute girls like Shiori and carry on some form of existence, where you can still create and think and dream and ponder existence? Did I mention you still get to have lunch? Seems like heaven to me.

So, I was very pleased to see Kore-eda’s response. And I think reading that response sold the film to me even more, because it wasn’t just a wishy-washy film based ultimately on a theological lesson to be learned or an idealized vision of a heavenly realm, but was really only willing to be held accountable for more existential discussions. But if the viewer still prefers to be sad that so-and-so chose this or that in the film, they can have that emotion as well.

Aaron: Thus far we’ve avoided the actual plot of the movie, but I think it’s time we delve into it a bit. Though the film follows several characters and treats them all as important and meaningful and deserving of our attention, the real backbone of the piece is the relationship between Takashi, one of the workers, and Ichiro, a recently deceased man who shares a surprising connection with Takashi. That relationship is not fully revealed until the end of the movie, although it never feels like it’s being withheld for dramatic purposes. We only see that Ichiro is having trouble choosing a memory, and Takashi seems to be taking a vested interest in helping him, but until the end the audience assumes that this is because the two are from the same generation (though Takashi seems to be decades younger, this is because he died in World War II). In fact, after World War II ended, Ichiro ended up in an arranged marriage with Takashi’s fiancé, who, it turns out, never stopped mourning him. Once again, we see something that could have been treated as emotionally manipulative schmaltz underplayed beautifully.

All three of these characters, Ichiro, Takashi, and the woman they both loved, Kyoko, choose variations of the same memory. Ichiro chooses a quiet moment on a park bench with Kyoko shortly before she died; Kyoko chose a memory of the same park bench, where she sat with Takashi shortly before he shipped off to war. Takashi also sits on the same park bench, but instead turns the camera to those he has spent the last three years with, working and resting and living. It’s a beautiful ending, one that has me smiling once again as I type, but it once again raises the question of what those memories will signify once everything else has been wiped away, and also implies a more troubling line of thought that may actually say more about me personally than it does about the film. But first, lets try to unpack the threads in this.

Does the fact that Ichiro chooses a memory of Kyoko, even though Kyoko’s memory was of a different man, alter what those memories mean? Would Ichiro have chosen differently, or felt differently about his wife if he knew she had chosen to forget about him once she moved on? And what does it say about Takashi that he chooses to forget about life entirely and remember only purgatory? In Kyoko’s memory, as I brought up earlier, will she remember that Takashi died in the war? Will she remember he was her fiancé, or even what his name was? Likewise for Ichiro: will he remember that their marriage was arranged, that she had loved another man, and that she had died before him?

Rik: I think that Ichiro keeping the memory of his wife, even with the further knowledge that she chose a memory with Takashi instead has a lot to do with the times and social setting in which he lived. Arranged marriages might seem horrific to us now, but they would have been more standard in Ichiro’s youth. Emotion was supposed to be held in check and replaced with duty to one’s family, honor, and social standing. Having grown up in this mindset, it would be (at least on the surface) easier for Ichiro to remain committed to the memory of his wife of many years, no matter her ultimate feelings for a past love.

As for Takashi, my take is that he was a very young man when he died during the war, and while he has only been at this facility for the past three years, I assume he has been kicking around doing social work for many, many more, at least 50-plus years (at the time of the making of After Life). He has spent more time in this “afterlife,” as it were, than he has living a corporeal existence. So, why shouldn’t the fact that he prefers to choose a moment in his afterlife to his rather brief existence on the planet be shocking? If he is happy in his work, is good at it, and has made great companions, why shouldn’t he?

I think it has been fairly well proven that our memories, no matter how much we cherish them, are really not to be trusted. We tend to embellish them the longer we hold them, details from other “memories” can drift in to another one, or if it is an event that we don’t recall as well as others, we can often err in the recollection in an effort to keep up a front. And the angle from which we see something, even an emotional angle, can be wildly different for other people within that same memory. I can tell you about the memory of my skipping on the stairs of the 4th Avenue Theatre ready to see Pinocchio at the age of 4, and tell you what a perfect day that was, and my mom might tell you that I was being a little shit all day long and crapped my pants as well.

Aaron: To the film’s credit, that is a concern that Kore-eda brings up in the film itself. There is a character that is caught embellishing her memories, and then another who, once she’s watching the memory being filmed, realizes she got some details wrong and finds the experience quite disturbing. Kore-eda realizes that memory is faulty, and not likely to be a depiction of absolute truth, and I think he’s OK with that. I believe that in this film’s theology, the point isn’t to depict an accurate slice of your life, but to recreate the emotional feeling you’ve carried with you all those years. Perhaps that’s what the memories do; they remind you of the feeling of being alive. But here’s where it troubles me, if I allow myself to think about this too long. Do the dead take that memory as a keepsake, as I brought up earlier, or do they live within that memory? If they live within one memory for eternity, would that begin to feel like hell after awhile, no matter how good the memory? And if all of the memories associated with that one memory are gone, what emotion can possibly remain?

As I said, it’s a can of worms that probably speaks more to my own neuroses, but if I allow myself that’s the hole I start to go down. It’s weird that I suddenly became critical of this, right here at the end, because even with those questions After Life remains a marvelous, beautiful film that fills me with happiness and, yes, a feeling of love for my fellow man. Which, sad to say, is not my default state, as I’m sure you can empathize.

Rik: I suppose it could be considered a hell of your own making in a way, wrapped up in a heavenly disguise. I am assuming that if you can only take a single memory with you – putting aside the consideration of whether you had to live forever within that memory itself -- then yes, it would be a hell, because I would then surmise that your ability to think critically would be severely stunted because you wouldn’t have access to most of your own mind. And even if you could access everything in your brain except the remainder of your memories, wouldn’t it drive you insane as you watched or lived within this memory, over and over and over again, and all the while trying to figure out what it means, and why nothing else ever happens to you? If you could still think, wouldn’t going over a single moment in time repeatedly make you absolutely batty?

The more I think about this, for this to not create such an outcome, the dead in this film – or at least the ones who choose to move forward -- are basically committing themselves to a form of supernatural lobotomy, where they are rendered incapable of grasping the meaning or understanding of something while being trapped with that single memory, drooling like an idiot for eternity.

What is your take on the relationship between Takashi and Shiori, the assistant social worker with whom he shares an unspoken bond? For the entire film, there is obviously something between them, but we don’t really get a clue how deep it might run until Shiori, upset that Takashi has decided to move on fully to the afterlife and choose a memory, throws a conniption fit and kicks and throws snow around. And just as Takashi heads to film his “memory,” she confronts him about her own reluctance to move onward, and says, “If I choose, I’ll have to forget all about this place. So, I won’t choose. I’m going to keep you inside me forever. I can’t bear to be forgotten by any more people.” It’s my favorite line in the movie, and the saddest as far as I am concerned. It also seems to me to be the moment where Takashi really realizes what he must do. Your view?

Aaron: I always felt like the relationship was a little one sided on Shiori’s part. Obviously Takashi is fond of her, and he may have eventually grown to love her, but within the period that we see he is clearly a little ignorant as to Shiori’s feelings. I’m actually at a bit of a loss as to how I would define Takashi’s character overall. He’s not exactly a cipher, he has a personality and inner thoughts, but we’re never really privy to them. We see the stuff about his former fiancé, and we see that it moves him deeply, but he plays everything close to the vest.

Shiori is a bit more of an open book, probably owing to their generational differences (though they appear roughly the same age, Takashi is around 50 years her senior). Shiori wears her emotions openly, and I believe the line you quote is probably the heart of this entire movie, and gets to the fears and concerns we have about death. Not just that we’ll be gone, not just that the Earth continues without us, but that our emotions, our love, will disappear as well. That would make Takashi’s choice at the end of the film, to remember his time in purgatory, a powerful symbol of love and caring. He’s given this group of people the highest honor you could imagine in this theological system; they will never be forgotten. When they’ve all moved on and possibly forgotten each other, Takashi will still remember them, and the emotions he felt, and the help they gave him.

Look at me… I’m all over the map with this one. Feeling unease at the system on display in one paragraph, and then arguing the opposite just a few moments later. That, I think, explains its endurance with me. Though I find myself happy after each viewing, I still find myself puzzling it over in my mind for weeks, months, or years afterwards.

Rik: There is a shot early on where we see a doorway in a darkened entrance, and the doorway is lit from the outside, but we cannot see anything clearly out there because there is a mist or fog obscuring it. We then see that week’s arrivals make their way one by one through the door. To me, the building (and the city, if indeed there is a city, in which it is located) exists out of time; perhaps in another dimension. The workers in the building arrive each morning, and we see their apartments, so we know they carry on an existence, just perhaps on another plane unearthly. They eat lunch, make small talk, and have repressed feelings for one another, in the case of Shiori and Takashi. It is not unreasonable to expect there are numerous other agencies like this, because more than twenty people die each week in Japan, and this facility seems to average about twenty entrants per week. So, it is also not unreasonable to assume there is a functioning city built around this afterlife industry, and thus.

The question is: is it an otherworldly city built on top of the city we would know on Earth? I am not really surprised by the scene where we see cars and people walking around, but the question is if they are in our world or theirs. The only other explanation that I can reason out is that the workers of the waystation and the applicants for the afterlife are ghosts and are occupying buildings that exist in our dimension but go unseen by the regular populace. It doesn’t explain how they are able to have possessions, eat, and move things around without scaring the crap out of earthly inhabitants, and since we never see any evidence of such behavior, I prefer to accept that the entire city and the movements of its occupants exists outside of our own dimension, but is an exact replica so that the workers of the agency can go out and study locations for film shoots.

Aaron: As much as my mind constantly goes to this sort of pragmatic detail, I have to remind myself that this film is an allegory and not meant to be taken literally. As much as I may want to know how something works, or if the people who pass by Shiori in the outside world can see her, I realize it’s beside the point. We know that other waystations exist, because Takashi says he worked at one until three years prior to the movie’s opening. I think it stands to reason that there are several in each major city, at least one in every small town. Probably they exist like FBI field offices, dotting the world in a frequency that matches the local population.

We could also ponder what those stations would look like in other countries, or to other religions. No one we see questions the theological implications of the film, which is of course to the film’s credit. No one seems surprised to not see St. Peter, or clouds or pearly gates. Everyone, in fact, seems to be almost expecting what he or she finds, which looks like nothing they have been prepared for by any religion. But as you mentioned earlier, the film’s lack of theological specificity is one of its greatest aspects, and gives After Life the universality that the real afterlife would hopefully have.

Rik: Here is a stray thought that I had while watching this film. All of the applicants are Japanese, but I wonder what would happen to someone not of Japanese descent if they were to die in Japan. Would they automatically go to a different way-station run by others of their ancestry? Are the Japanese waystations only for the Japanese, and so on? It might have been cool to have an American of non-Asian descent who perhaps had a heart attack on a plane at the airport end up in the waystation and not be able to comprehend most or all of what was being asked of them.

Aaron: Now that you’ve put that idea in my head I find myself excited about the possibilities of it, but I also think it would have been a bit out of place in this film. It would have pulled focus from the already large cast and possibly veered too far into comedy or tragedy. But, of course, that could just be my own love of the film balking at the idea of tampering with it.

Rik: And one more thing I have been pondering --and I am sorry to take this into the realm of comedy, when this film, while lightly humorous in moments, is not a comedy – the use of technology in the film. Ichiro is made to go through piles and piles of videotapes in trying to select one of his memories. Given that the film came out to theatres in 1998, when DVDs were really just taking hold of the film industry, was this a comment on Kore-eda’s part upon governmental facilities and how behind the times they often are in regards to keeping up with technology? I figure that whatever administration (read: supreme being) is behind the curtain, as it were, would have the capabilities of having the most up-to-date means of processing the millions of people that die each year.

And Ichiro and Takashi’s memories extend to World War II, when videotape was not yet invented. When the deceased arrived at the facility in those days, did they have to go through old newsreels of their memories? Was it silent films and then picture books before that, and matted prints and scrolls before that?

Aaron: I think you may be onto something there. I always felt the VHS tapes were just a sign of the times, and honestly I think that might still be the real reason behind things; it was probably just what came to mind when it came to filming that scene. But then, it also fits the somewhat ramshackle nature of this whole department. Everything looks a little handmade; the workers begin each day by communally cleaning their offices. They live in little dorm rooms and brew their own tea and grow their own plants and make their own music. It doesn’t seem like they have the largest or most opulent budget imaginable, and so it would make sense for them to be slightly behind the times. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were still using VHS today. 

Rik: Well, I think it is pretty obvious that I really liked this film and you are trapped in slavish devotion to it. But I also feel that as much as I enjoyed it (and have now seen it three times in the past month, though it is finally time to return it to Netflix), I will probably not revisit After Life for a good while, because I have lived in it a little too long. I find pondering such affairs somewhat uncomfortable, especially at length. However, given how much After Life and Hana resonated with me (Hana even more so), I am likely to give more of Kore-eda’s films a shot in the future, as long as I can find them. But I will add that if I can find a decently priced copy of After Life anywhere (it seems to be out of print in North America and prices currently start around $90 for a copy), then I am going to grab it. Because you never know when I, like you, are going to need to see this again. Any last thoughts?

Aaron: I think calling my love of After Life ‘slavish devotion’ might be exaggerating things slightly (though only slightly). Clearly, even after all these years and all this discussion, I’m still unsure about several things within the film, and haven’t completely made up my mind about everything. However, this is a film that always fills me with a sense of enormous well-being, of joy and warmth and love. Hirokazu Kore-eda became a name to watch for me after this film, and I’ve been following him ever since, eagerly tracking down his newest releases (several of which remain unavailable in North America). A couple months ago I was lucky enough to see the North American premiere of his newest film, Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary in Japan), after which he gave a short Q&A. He came across exactly as you would expect him to, based on his films. He was thoughtful, generous in his answers and time, and funny in a subdued manner.

I have no advice of where to go next in pursuing his filmography; I tend to think they are all worth at least one viewing. Through his filmography ‘humane’ does seem to be the most apt word to describe him, as his affection for his characters works to leaven even the most depressing aspects of his films. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed this film, and even more glad that you’ve enjoyed at least one of Kore-eda’s other works. I look forward to discussing them all with you in the future, even though we may not document those discussions for posterity.

Rik: And we shall leave you with that. Check back with us in the near future for a Visiting & Revisiting discussion of the super-schlocky 1978 Italian sci-fi "masterpiece," Starcrash aka The Adventures of Stella Star!

How Many Have You Seen? The New Annual Pylon Oscar Nomination Rundown...

I've made attacks on the Academy Awards before. Yes, I have watched the Oscars every single year since I was a kid, and I have always made a big deal about being sure to watch it whenever it rolled around again. Especially back in my home state of Alaska, where we would hold parties each year and my friend Matt and I would write up stupid jokes for every single one of the nominations and have our pals fill out a ballot. 

But I also recognize that the Oscars are, in many ways, a joke. They can build or destroy careers, and in that way, they can be deadly serious, if only to the ones whose careers are at stake. But if you are just an average person on the street, the Oscars really don't mean all that much. It's a thing that many of us watch without thinking, like the Super Bowl or a Thanksgiving Day Parade. We do it because that is what everybody does. I fully stopped watching the Super Bowl three years ago because, really, why should I when I don't actually watch football anymore, or even really like the game at all? (I suppose if the Packers get into it, then I would again.)

And in the past, thinking that I was cool or above it all and should really just grow up and be concerned with more important affairs, I have ripped the Oscars vocally and online to whoever would listen (or pretend to listen). The Oscars really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, I suppose -- not that I believe there is an actual "grand scheme" to anything -- but come on. I am such a phony. I am too big of a movie nut not to seem the Academy Awards each year. I have to admit it... I really do love the Oscars. Always have, always will.

I will probably never miss them for the rest of my life. And this is taking the more grandiose and pretentious term cinema out of the equation and just focusing on movies. The Academy Award ceremony is movie love on the biggest platform there can possibly be. Even when you don't agree with many (or any, some years) of the nominations or winners, there is no bigger stage for fans of cinema than the Academy Awards ceremony each year. And since I rarely fully agree with many of the nominations, I just need to learn to lump it and acknowledge that I will still watch the Oscars even if they only select Michael Bay films for the rest of eternity.

That said, I will still raise a fuss if I wish, purely on the grounds of free speech. When the Academy performs a perceived injustice, and I agree that they have, I will speak my mind. This year, and last year, the lack of African-American nominations when there are clearly legitimate contenders for such honors is a huge red flag. And especially in a year in which the Academy has chosen Spike Lee to receive an Honorary Oscar for his career achievements in film and a socially conscious voice, the lack of such nominations is astounding. Lee took the Academy to task on the issue of race when he received his honorary Oscar late last year. I doubt he gets to do a speech at the full ceremony in February, but if he should get the chance... watch out! 

In 2015, there were several viable African-American contenders for Oscar gold, they practically got shut out, with only Straight Outta Compton getting a screenplay nod (the screenwriters are white) and Creed getting a nomination for Sly Stallone (also white you may have noticed). Idris Elba, monumental in Beasts of No Nation, and thought to be a shoo in was totally snubbed. And many thought Will Smith was also a no-brainer for Concussion (though I have yet to see that one).

Look, I'm white and this crap is getting embarrassing. We are not talking some Tyler Perry or Martin Lawrence-level garbage here. I'm not getting riled up about Madea not getting her due. And I definitely do not believe in some recreational soccer bullshit where everybody that competes (I'm sorry... recreates) gets a medal for participation. I don't think that there should be a nomination for every slice of racial group there is. If they did, the already too long Oscar broadcast -- and I am saying this as someone who can't wait to see it and loves it immensely -- would take even longer than it already seems.

But it does become pretty transparent that when there are two straight years (let alone many years, but the last two in particular) where there are high-profile projects featuring black actors that have been both successful at the box office (not necessarily a thing for Oscar choosing) and also highly critically acclaimed, but then there are zero to very few black actors, actresses, directors, and screenwriters nominated, something is broken in the Academy. And it is probably the old white guy membership.

Let's go over the Oscar categories one by one and tabulate what I have seen thus far...

[Titles in bold black are nominations that I had seen at the time that I published this article.] [Titles in bold red are nominations I've seen after initial publication but before the Oscars. Updated through 2/13/16.]

Best Actor in a Lead Role:
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

OK, right from the start, I am in trouble. I have only seen 2 out of 5 performances (Damon and DiCaprio). Steve Jobs came and went out where we are back in October, and doesn't come out on DVD until Feb. 16, inside two weeks from the ceremony. Trumbo has been in what they call limited release forever around our area, so it will probably never come to our small-time, 14-screen theatre (ha!). The Danish Girl probably won't play here either, so it looks I will have to rely on Amazon or iTunes to see these things in time. (Don't even get me started on Samuel L. Jackson and Idris Elba not being on this list.)

Best Actress in a Lead Role:
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Ooohh, it gets even worse. Yeah, I'm a guy, so many of you would not be surprised that I haven't seen any of the lead role actress performances. But it's not that I don't want to. In our household, I'm the one that has been flapping my gums about seeing Room (I loved Brie Larson in Short Term 12) and Carol (Cate and Rooney as lesbians? Hell to the yeah...), and I am way more likely to go see Joy and Brooklyn than my spouse. The worst part is that Joy was playing here until the day after the nominations were announced on Thursday. On a side note, I thought for sure Emily Blunt would be on here for Sicario. So I guessed wrong, though not in seeing it, because that movie was one of my favorites of the year (more on this coming up in a bit). A big fat zero out of 5.

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

I was counting on a couple more nods for The Big Short in this category, and the one that I was least impressed by got chosen. (More sound and fury from Bale as far as I am concerned.) But I just got to see Stallone in Creed, and I like that he has been selected. As I mentioned both Spotlight and Spies have passed through already, so I am going to be dependent on video. I am disappointed that Harrison Ford didn't get noticed for bringing Han Solo back to us (briefly) and doing it in a way that made some of us fall in love with him all over again. A solid 3 out of 5.

Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

You've heard my tale on the other four films here, and Leigh's crazy role is the only one I have seen. That's good enough for me -- she is one of my longtime fave actresses -- but still, only 1 out of 5 so far. (Can I count Alicia Wikander because I drooled over her in both Ex Machina and The Man from UNCLE last year?)

Best Directing:
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Pretty good... 3 out of 5, with McKay, generally a comedy director of much more raucous material getting a surprise nod as far as I am concerned (and many others, I am seeing now). A little peeved about Ryan Coogler not getting picked for his excellent work in Creed, though I wouldn't put the film up for Best Picture (just a notch below), and F. Gary Gray probably should have been in here for Compton. I didn't expect Tarantino to get picked this time, but I will take Miller in his stead.

Best Film Editing:
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It's the more technical categories where I get to shine in showing what I have seen already, since blockbusters and sci-fi movies tend to get nominated a lot. And that is exactly how it goes in the Film Editing category, where I have already seen 4 out of 5 nominees. Good job, me.

Best Foreign Language Film:
Colombia, Embrace of the Serpent
France, Mustang
Hungary, Son of Saul
Jordan, Theeb
Denmark, A War

Every year, I try to pay attention and catch whatever foreign films are getting some buzz. This category is actually fairly easy sometimes since foreign films often don't get nominated in the year in which they were released. It is not unusual if I have seen two or three of the nominees by the time they are announced. Not this year though. A big fat zero.

Best Original Score:
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
Carter Burwell, Carol
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sicario
John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I thought Morricone might not get selected since some of the most memorable bits from the score are reused bits from other films he scored in the past (The Thing, The Exorcist: The Heretic). I am glad Sicario got chosen as well, but it deserved Best Picture, Best Director , and Best Actress nods, at least, if not also for Benicio del Toro for Supporting Actor, in what I think was one of the more memorable performances of the year. Oh, well... On the "seen it" front for this category, 3 out of 5 once again.

Best Production Design:
Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant

Another 3 out of 5 tally. Luckily, just seeing either of the remaining films in this category knocks down several nominations at once. Can't wait to see them.

Best Visual Effects:
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Finally, a sweep! And it's no surprise either, really, given my usual taste in big screen fare.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

The usual suspects (this year) that I haven't seen here, giving me only 2 out of 5. 

Best Original Screenplay:
Bridge of Spies, Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, Alex Garland
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Spotlight, Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Straight Outta Compton, Screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

Goddammit, Compton finally got some love. Should have been at least an acting nod or two, if not more. My wife was very excited about the nod for Inside Out as well, given that it is an animated film, which often get overlooked in most categories outside of their two exclusive categories. I especially like the pick of Ex Machina, certainly one of the more original sci-fi tales to come along on the big screen for a good while. Another 3 out of 5 tally.

Best Animated Feature Film:
Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out
Shaun the Sheep Movie
When Marnie Was There

Big, big surprise with only one film seen out of the five for me. I like that the Oscars are being more adventurous in selected foreign animation relatively often in this category, but that also means that I have go seek them out more as well. It also means that I get to skip a lot of mainstream animated sequels that might otherwise get nominated. So at least they are doing one thing right.

Best Cinematography:
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario

Hoo hoo! A camerawork nod for Sicario, which deserves it, and one for The Hateful Eight, which frankly seems like it was expecting it. (Seriously, it was exactly what I thought when I was watching it.) A big 4 out of 5 movies seen this time.

Best Costume Design:
Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant

Ugh, just sat through the exceedingly dull Cinderella two weeks ago. Nice costume work, yes... I will agree. And not a bad film, just not more than an average film. Another 3 out of 5 seen.

Best Documentary – Feature:
Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

At last! I have seen one of the documentaries before the nominations were announced! And another film (Amy) is at the top of my Netflix queue even though I don't get a crap about its subject. Only 1 out of 5 right now, but with one other on Netflix streaming right now and another one about to be, I am fairly certain this short list will get knocked down in time for the Oscars.

Best Documentary – Short Subject:
Body Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Last Day of Freedom

Another zero non-effort. That's usually the case with short films in any category. No surprise. I guess that I will have to see if some service like Vimeo or Amazon does a group showing of short films that have been nominated.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Mad Max: Fury Road
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
The Revenant

I thought for sure that I would sweep this category in advance -- I usually do -- but some Swedish version of Forrest Gump snuck into it in a way that is usually reserved for the Original Song category. Oh, well... 2 out of 3 wasn't bad, to clean up Meat Loaf's grammar at tad, until I found 100-Year-Old Man on Amazon Prime the other night and watched it (I'd say "for free!" but I did pay up front for that service. So, no...) And now that I have seen it, it's another category sweep! (Just a slightly smaller one...)

Best Original Song:
"Earned It," Fifty Shades of Grey
"Manta Ray," Racing Extinction
"Simple Song #3," Youth
"'Til It Happens to You," The Hunting Ground
"Writings on the Wall," Spectre

Another category where I am surprised if I see any of the films since this is the one category where really, really crappy films can sneak into the Oscar race just because Diane Warren is still breathing and producing shitty music. The worst part is that now I have to watch Fifty Shades of Grey because it has been nominated. (I don't have to actually watch it, but it does go on my watchlist automatically.) Such bad selection this year that they had to go to the documentary category to swipe a couple of films, and one of them was produced by Discovery Channel. Another 1 out of 5, but I should knock out most of this by the time of the broadcast.

Best Animated Short Film:
Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay's Super Team
We Can't Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow

Best Live Action Short Film:
Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
Shok
Stutterer

Two more categories featuring short films with which I must catch up en masse or not at all. Two more 0 out of 5 tallies. Not really holding my breath on these ten films, though at least the Don Hertzfeldt short (World of Tomorrow) is available on demand. And since I watch everything he does, I will at least be 1 out of 10 by the time the Oscars roll around.

Best Sound Editing:
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yes! Another sweep! At least I got a couple of those.

Best Sound Mixing:
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

One more 4 out of 5 tally, before we hit the biggie...

Best Picture of the Year:
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Not too bad... halfway there. Whether I get to see the other four will depend on what our theatre ends up getting in the next month. Bridge of Spies and Spotlight have already played here, Brooklyn never got here, but I'm holding out hope for Room. And this list is about two films too short, though I can think of about five that should be on here. Why not select ten films when you have the opportunity to select ten films? I don't get it. Why not just set it, and not make it ambiguous as to how many might get selected in a given year? And now, they are going to get a rash of shit about a couple of their omissions. And they rather deserve it. Not that they care.

All told, out of 121 nominations, I have seen (as of 1/16/2016) 55 of them. That is right at 45% (repeating) of the nominated films and performances, and this is from a guy that watches movies constantly. Just not, apparently, many of the ones nominated for Oscars this year. The upside is that seeing any combination of the films that were nominated the most makes me jump right up the ranks pretty quickly: Carol, Bridge of Spies, and Spotlight (6 noms each), The Danish Girl and Room (4 each), and Brooklyn (3 noms). 

Pre-guessing and second-guessing the Oscars noms and winners is what makes this game so fun. It's stupid, meaningless, and mindless entertainment, just like many of the far more popular movies that the Oscars usually skip over each year. I will get to my Oscar picks next month in the week before the broadcast, which will give me time to hopefully see many more of these films.