#benkatzen

Is waking up at dawn on Black Friday really worth the savings? It is a television.  And the one of the several you already own work pretty well I’m assuming. But we have to do it. We are saving so much money. Think of all the “things” we can get! My uncle once equated someone’s worth of a human being, at minimum, to a consumer.  This person may never contribute anything to this Earth, but they will buy stuff.  I thought that was sad.  But I think that is also why I think Black Friday is awful.  “Stuff” all the sudden becomes the focus of an entire weekend, now beginning the night of Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday.  And “Small Business Saturday” does not change the materialistic hyper-focus of Americans. It is also sponsored by American Express.  At the core of it all, I think we flock to Wal-Mart still triptophaning from the night previous because we were told how “one time only” the whole experience will be.  Which is adverstising.  People may hate advertising, but there you are at 6 am, freezing your ass off hoping to “score big on holiday deals.” 

The recession has also changed the way advertisers approach consumers, and consumers the same to brands.  While savings are often the key goals, consumers also have grown closer to brands they feel the have an “emotional connection” with.  In a interview with Fortune Magazine, Starbucks CFO Troy Alstead citing the importance of “value” for the consumers.  “And brands that are providing what they need and want in ways that make them feel respected and valued—that’s what winning today.”  So now advertisers have to not only get audiences to like their product, but to genuinely care about the brand as a whole.  So the goal for advertisers now is loyalty, a two-way relationship where the consumers will buy the product for the emotional stimulus as well as the material. 

    Stumbling upon Kind of Blue was a life changing experience.  When I found it rummaging through my parents CD collection, I certainly did not understand what it was or what I meant to jazz music.  But what I did understand was that it wasn’t normal.  I never heard this in car, it wasn’t on ESPN, none of my friends listened to it, but it was in my house for a reason and it demanded to be investigated further.  When I come out on the other end of the Miles Davis wormhole, pop music was never the same.  The album showed me that music could be a very serious and important form of expression that can’t always be taken lightly.&nsp< /p>

    Learning to drive with reggae music is a strange experience.  When I was knighted with the keys to my mother’s Volvo station wagon, it came fully equipped with the soundtrack to Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come on cassette.  I have no idea why.  So while I was getting yelled at for k-turning incorrectly, I could hum the tune to racial inequality in Jamaica in the 70’s.  I can also turn to my mother at any point for the rest of my life and say, “Dem a loot, dem a shoot.”

    Everyone has to go through the teen angst phase at some point right?  Mine can fully equipped with Tom Morello, Zach de la Rocha and the rest of Rage Against the Machine.  The lead singer had dreads, the amps were always at 11, they talked about how screwed up the world is, and it was heaven.  I no way was I upset with the Bush administration or racial injustice in LA in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.  But I was definitely angry at something, so it made enough sense for me. < /p>

Ben Katzen

    Why do you think Mark Zuckerberg sat there in that board waiting for Erika Albright to accept his friend request on the website he created?  Probably because of his lifelong inability to connect with people mixed with his burning desire to connect them as well.  He sat there refreshing the page to see if she still cared.  If she accepted his request, she cared enough to consider him as a “friend” in some facet.  Thus making it socially acceptable for Mark to awkwardly nod at her in passing if they were to ever saw each other again. 

  Isn’t that why anyone uses Facebook?  It is a trial run for real life.  If you are friends on Facebook, you have both officially confirmed each other’s existence.  Whether you act as such in the real world is entirely up to you.  But Facebook is not replacing emotional connection.  More importantly, one journalist cannot say an entire population of people is losing their inability to communicate because of their existence on a website.  Yes, Facebook is affecting the way the world communicates, but the UCLA loneliness scale can’t prove someone’s loneliness.   Loneliness is an emotion, there is no humanity wide definition of someone’s emotion.  Outside of breathing, everyone is different and what I consider happiness for myself might be different than my roommate’s, or my mother’s, or the president’s. 

In 2011, Corning Incorporated released an online video via YouTube entitled, “A Day Made of Glass.”  That video was Corning’s look into the future of technology and the human interaction with that technology.  Corning, which is a glass and ceramics manufacturer, told the world that touch screen glass will become the future.  You will wake in the morning and the windows will automatically de-tint as the sun comes up, you will get news alerts and texts on your bathroom mirror, and refrigerator pictures will develop a whole new meaning (Think the stairwell in Hogwarts).   Side note: Corning is the manufacturer of Gorilla Glass, which has been outfitting iPhones since 2012.           

And yes, this was in 2011.  Do you remember what happened in 2011?  I don’t.  Well, in 2011 Apple first introduced the iPhone to Verizon customers, finally breaking the chain of AT&T.  This was the iPhone 4 mind you.  Samsung responds with the Galaxy SII.  Microsoft buys Skype.  Steve Jobs introduces the world to “The Cloud” and passes away that October.        

Point being, technology was just stepping their toes into the pool of super technology on the go.  Over the course of the last two years, Netflix has gone from a new way to watch television to winning Emmy awards.  Technology has given Netflix the ability to take something so traditional and “Boys only” and flip it on its head.  Online television has grown so immensely that Neilsen is now forced to add Netflix and Hulu views to their ratings.        

At this point there is a crowd of maybe 10-15 people huddled around one library computer as this Corning video amazes our little 3g minds.  But why?  Why is this video so captivating? Because at this point a YouTube video on your phone was somewhat of a novelty and people were still trying to figure out the purpose of the iPad.  And we told ourselves that this technology did not control us.

We have since given in.  It now at this point where the Corning glass video is no longer captivating, it is only a matter of time.  How far down the rabbit hole do we fall?  But as technology becomes a necessity for every day life, I look for two thing, when does the counter culture get here and who will truly make a difference with this technology?  

It is now cool to eat healthy, we have all seen Food Inc. and now know how screwed our agricultural system is, and there has been a cultural pushback.  Clothing is also on that same trend, creating an emphasis on organic green clothes and morally produced goods made under quality conditions.  These are trends and they are currently happening in this world.  Will this same trend apply to future technology?  I hope that a population arises that refuses to accept the technology as part of culture, they will develop their own culture, or re-develop shall I say.  Not a return to the Neolithic Revolution per-say, but a re-ownership of our identity.  But as the world grows, I am afraid the bond between machine and man will become too strong to the point where live is unlivable without technology.  

And in this “Super world” who is gonna do some freakin good things?  Will Khan Academy become something more than a California public school experiment that has since fluttered back to the Internet?  Will Mark Zuckerberg and friends introduce the Internet as a right to global citizens instead of a privilege?  Are they only doing it to create more users, yes, but as T.S. Eliot says, “The last temptation is the greatest treason/ to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”  But is still the right deed.   

The word “multitasking” litters the description of almost every picture or video in these artifacts.  The more I read, the more I question how suitable the term fits the definition its been given.  If told to complete two tasks simultaneously, I may finish both assignments but the quality of each individual work would drop significantly. However, in the context of these artifacts, it appears nobody is “multitasking” per say, but cycling their attention between the real task and whatever they would rather be doing.  Because at no point was any student watching both the Bruins game on the television as well as highlights on their computer.  In reality, they were watching the Bruins for 15 seconds, and then switching back to the highlights, while at the same time missing the live Bruins game they were previously watching.  “Multitasking” infers increased productivity, but in reality I believe it is the opposite.

  Through what these students call “multitasking”, there appears to be a growing trend of individualism.  Never is one’s full attention fully focused on the task at hand, given a free moment, students will delve into their devices giving solace from the world and peace in their internet lives.  Twitter, Facebook, and social media outlets appear to allow a world in which you, and only you create, filtering our negative or differing opinions social, economically, or politically.  What is interaction if you control the environment? Where is the spontaneity of life if you only see what you want to see? 

  Yet through this individualism and isolationism, these people seem to desire a constant mode of communication.  Why would a student demand their music to be played on headphones so only they could hear it, to then turn around and share his private experience with the music to his entire Internet community?  It seems backwards to exclude neighbors in the experience itself, to then invite strangers simply because of agreeing tastes in music? 

                                                 Photo Courtesy: Perez Hilton

When a television show has been on the air and in the hearts of America for 7 years, it is bound to have its lovers and its haters.  Entourage, created by Doug Ellin, has been the Sunday night staple of premium television from 2004 until its finale in 2011.  But after Vince and gang all flew away on the airplanes to end the series, fans were let down easy with the promise of an Entourage movie.  But that was back in 2011.

As the series came to a close, Ari had quit his job to focus on his marriage, until he was offered the dream job of studio head at Warner Bros., E and Sloan got back together, and Vince and the boys went off in a plane somewhere like they always do.  The film was planned to pick up six months later, and focus on Ari as he tries to balance his dream job with giving Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves) all the love he has promised.  Now three years later, still rumors of movie in the making, but still fans are left waiting for their baby to make it to the silver screen.  But, not all Entourage are still clamoring for a movie.  

In a recent Variety article, the "famed" Entourage movie has been countered with a Kickstarter campaign to stop creator Doug Ellin from making the movie.  This is no bluegrass movement, the Kickstarter campaign raised over $3 million over the course of two hours.  

Created by Entourage fan Grant Elliot, the campaign's goal is to salvage what is left of the disheveled show, what according to Elliot has dropped off considerably in the final two seasons.  The money raised in the campaign will be used to pay off Ellin's retirement, who Elliot believes will take the money due to his lack of artistic integrity. Also, the money will go towards the cast's health insurance, which is apparently the only reason they agreed to make the movie in the first place. 

Now, I never really believed there was ever going to be an Entourage movie.  But in the back of my mind I always wanted there to be one.  Just to suspend disbelief for just 90 minutes, if only 90 minutes.  In reality, I had always looked at movie adaptations of a television show as a way to let the fans down easy.  Giving the fans a false sense of hope to avoid the immediate wave of criticism of the series finale.  

You television junkies now all about that feeling, just a year before, broke your heart didn't it?  Yeah, me too.  Can Kiefer even run and whisper at the same time anymore? After the series finale of 24, its adoring fans were promised a follow up movie, just me, Jack Bauer, and an attack on the president.  Is that too much ask?  

At this point its like getting into an argument over a toy when you are six.  If you don't get it right away, you throw a fit.  But if you get it weeks later, all the fun and excitement is gone and you have moved on.  Did you really want it that badly all along? Probably not, but you are more angry that you didn't get it more so than not having it.  

Logistically speaking, would an Entourage or 24 movie even work?  The main theme predicated on 24 is the 24 episodes (each one being an hour in real time) that season takes place in.  The structure of the show is half the fun, when you take that away, you are just left with a decently clever action adventure movie.  How are they going to incorporate those really annoying beeps counting down the clocks?  Without the beeps, what is life?  

                                                    (Photo Courtesy: Boston.com)

At 28 years old, Carter Long, then operations manager, sat down in front of a piano and began a 66-minute improvisation for the score of a 1932   Russian silent film. 

  Head of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts film program Bo Smith was preparing for a double feature of Russian silent films when he realized that one of the films didn’t have a musical soundtrack.  Kiddingly, Long mentioned that he had once played piano, and in that dire moment, there was Carter Long in front of a piano.

  But that was 2009.  Carter Long has come along since then.  Bo Smith left the film program to head the Denver Film Society, and Carter Long was there to fill in his place.  As perhaps the youngest film curator in the country, Mr. Long now heads all daily film screenings as well as 10 annual film festivals. 

  A college student himself, while a few years removed, Long is striving to bring a younger audience to the museum’s film program.  With the museum directly across the street from two college campuses, Long still describes the film program as “under the radar” for college students.  But with a growing portion of independent films in the daily screening repertoire, the young audience is on the up and up.  Films like Tiny Furniture, directed by indie darling Lena Dunham, and Wrong, directed by Mr. Oizo (Quentin Dupieux) have done particularly well with the younger generation. 

  Born to film lovers, Long has been around various genres of film, from independent to foreign, as well as falling in love with the classics of Stanley Kubrick and Warner Herzog.  (It was also Stanley Kubrick month in February at the Museum).  His time at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Sussex (he earned a masters of critical theory of English Literature) allowed him to explore his own cinematic palate, venturing into Japanese and German films.  A fusion of his own personal favorites, the needs of the museum, and his new discovers is the blend he plans on continuing to bring to the museum’s film program. 

      You are kind of a hard man to find Mr. Long.

[laughs] What do you mean? 

  You have no personal contact information on the MFA website.  Just a phone number for the Contemporary Art department.  And you have no Twitter account either, and as a young person in film I thought that was a little odd.

I have never been one for social network.  I barely even use Facebook!

    There was a lot of media attention when you took over as curator back in 2009.  How has life been since? 

Busy.  The film department has grown tremendously since I started and I am trying to bring in as many new and artistic films as possible for our audience.  We actually just had our Samurai Cinema series this April which was something I have wanted to do since I started. 

  Was the shadow of Bo Smith looming at all when you took over?  Or even still around today?

Bo was great mentor and a great film curator and I owe a lot of what I know today to him.  But at this point I don’t really think there is a shadow anymore.  Its been three or four years since I started and I’m trying to make my own stamp on the museum. 

  What are the differences between you and him?

For me I really wanted to bring more of a younger college audience.  Boston is the Mecca of college towns and there are so many young and artistic people in this city. 

  Yeah, I actually tried to see Tiny Furniture earlier this year but couldn’t make it up.

That was a particularly successful film for us.  We ended up selling out the whole weekend.  

  Is there going to be another Stanley Kubrick month anytime soon?

I wish.  But we don’t really want to repeat something we did so recently.  As much as I love him.  But I do want to explore more Herzog in the near future, one of my favorites. 

  I watch Augirre in one of my film classes last semester.  Not a movie you want to watch at 9:30 in the morning. 

Most definitely.  A goodie, but a slow one.

    Would love to see it in theatres. With that being said, does the museum change the experience of watching a film?

Our theatre is just like a any other theatre you would go to.  But where I think the difference lies is a change perspective because it is in a museum.  At first I noticed people who haven’t been to the museum before are a little bit [pauses] more apprehensive. 

  Do you feel any added pressure to be highbrow or intellectual with the films you pick because it is a MFA? 

It certainly is not as simple as an audience! You do need to balance of everything though.  There is such a diverse demographic here you can’t have too much of one type of film.

      What makes you decide on any film?  Why does one make the cut and not the other?

A lot of it comes down the films we have previously shown.  I always want to keep people guessing and interested.  Also we try to have the films tie in with the special events that the museum is doing.  Like the Samurai Series.

    How important was Cinema 93 to you growing up?

How do you know about that!?!

  I do my research.

I see.  Cinema 93 was my local theatre and it became a ritual between me and my father.  He took me to see all the classics, but I remember when I was 15 I saw Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, and Pulp Fiction all that theatre and they are some of my favorite movies to date.   

  Did it shape your taste in film?

I definitely gave me an appreciation for all types of films.  They played independent, documentaries, as well as major movies.  As I got older it gave me an appreciation for the art of filmmaking and the ways people could use as expression.

  Is this the dream job?