SATURDAY!
Only Saturday in graduate school is just like Thursday, but you read at home.
Last night, my wife and I sat down and watched Primer, which is a minimalist, high concept science fiction movie about time travel. There's a lot to like about the movie. It's pretty well shot (especially for a first time film), and is incredibly complex and thoughtful. It's also a pretty sophisticated movie, loaded with lots of jargon and a *minimal* use of exposition or explanations of any kind. Plus the movie has one of those great stories about its production: ex-engineer makes his first movie for $7,000 and it turns out totally sweet.
The only problem is that the same thing that makes it special, minimal exposition, is also the biggest flaw. The movie is just fucking hard to follow. I respect the attempt to make a movie that is "naturalistic" and avoids a lot of clunky scenes of characters sharing knowledge they would never care about just to catch me, the dumb ass audience member, up. That's pretty righteous and bold, indeed. But it's more then a little like watching a movie where Kant and Hegel argue, and no one explained what the fuck a "categorical imperative," "phenomenology," or anything else meant. No matter how pretty and smart it is, you just start to get a little pissed off at not knowing what the hell is going on.
In fact, the movie falls prey to its own cleverness. Because that's what it is: clever. And clever is not smart. For instance, the movie is really lacking in theme. Sure, there are hints of themes: questions of causality, the nature of time/space/reality, the role of technology, morality, the meaning of life, the strength of identity, and the bonds of friendship. These are all at the margins, but since character interaction takes a backseat to style (even if its minimal), these all lack. Fuck, even Back to the Future has some ontological stance on the nature of time, space, and the universe. I'm not sure that Primer does.
Unless we want to get all "meta" and postmodern. The movie opens with a voiceover, explaining how this movie is about friends who tinker in the their garage. As the voiceover continues, it explains that these friends have good days and bad days, and the work they are doing is certainly not major. Rather, at best, their work is "clever" - small advances here and there. Later, with their time machine, the characters set out to accomplsh certain tasks. First, it is as simple as make some easy cash. Later, it becomes much more complex: the goal is to alter specific events, by doing them over and over (a la Groundhog Day, only on purpose this time) in order to get them *perfectly* right.
Now, imagine instead of "time machine," imaging we're talking about a "movie." Imagine we're talking about tinkering around with cameras in the basement, then we decide to actually make a movie, just to turn a small profit. But things get out of hand - and we're just shooting scenes over and over, trying to get them right. Tensions run high - "Who the fuck do you think you are - Orson Welles? and so on. Looked at this way, the movie itself could be a fun little comment *on* itself. Ooh-la-la - very cultural studies.
In the end, it was pretty good stuff, a head scratcher (and better than most movies in its ilk - I'm looking at you Lost Highway). It's definitely a nice break from the standard bombastic genre picture, as it takes its central conceit (time travel) seriously, practically making it a character in the way Woody Allen makes NYC a character. Plus, the movie is short (1 hr 15 min), so it never gets *so* painful.
Only Saturday in graduate school is just like Thursday, but you read at home.


Last night, my wife and I sat down and watched Primer, which is a minimalist, high concept science fiction movie about time travel. There's a lot to like about the movie. It's pretty well shot (especially for a first time film), and is incredibly complex and thoughtful. It's also a pretty sophisticated movie, loaded with lots of jargon and a *minimal* use of exposition or explanations of any kind. Plus the movie has one of those great stories about its production: ex-engineer makes his first movie for $7,000 and it turns out totally sweet.
The only problem is that the same thing that makes it special, minimal exposition, is also the biggest flaw. The movie is just fucking hard to follow. I respect the attempt to make a movie that is "naturalistic" and avoids a lot of clunky scenes of characters sharing knowledge they would never care about just to catch me, the dumb ass audience member, up. That's pretty righteous and bold, indeed. But it's more then a little like watching a movie where Kant and Hegel argue, and no one explained what the fuck a "categorical imperative," "phenomenology," or anything else meant. No matter how pretty and smart it is, you just start to get a little pissed off at not knowing what the hell is going on.
In fact, the movie falls prey to its own cleverness. Because that's what it is: clever. And clever is not smart. For instance, the movie is really lacking in theme. Sure, there are hints of themes: questions of causality, the nature of time/space/reality, the role of technology, morality, the meaning of life, the strength of identity, and the bonds of friendship. These are all at the margins, but since character interaction takes a backseat to style (even if its minimal), these all lack. Fuck, even Back to the Future has some ontological stance on the nature of time, space, and the universe. I'm not sure that Primer does.
Unless we want to get all "meta" and postmodern. The movie opens with a voiceover, explaining how this movie is about friends who tinker in the their garage. As the voiceover continues, it explains that these friends have good days and bad days, and the work they are doing is certainly not major. Rather, at best, their work is "clever" - small advances here and there. Later, with their time machine, the characters set out to accomplsh certain tasks. First, it is as simple as make some easy cash. Later, it becomes much more complex: the goal is to alter specific events, by doing them over and over (a la Groundhog Day, only on purpose this time) in order to get them *perfectly* right.
Now, imagine instead of "time machine," imaging we're talking about a "movie." Imagine we're talking about tinkering around with cameras in the basement, then we decide to actually make a movie, just to turn a small profit. But things get out of hand - and we're just shooting scenes over and over, trying to get them right. Tensions run high - "Who the fuck do you think you are - Orson Welles? and so on. Looked at this way, the movie itself could be a fun little comment *on* itself. Ooh-la-la - very cultural studies.
In the end, it was pretty good stuff, a head scratcher (and better than most movies in its ilk - I'm looking at you Lost Highway). It's definitely a nice break from the standard bombastic genre picture, as it takes its central conceit (time travel) seriously, practically making it a character in the way Woody Allen makes NYC a character. Plus, the movie is short (1 hr 15 min), so it never gets *so* painful.

VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
RMIT is a mixed bag of a university, and your sense is correct -- it's one of a number of former "technical schools" that became a university some time late in the 1980s. Some of those newer institutions are doing ok, carving out a niche for themselves, but some struggle for one reason or another.
RMIT seems to be struggling, but there are administrative and management reasons for that. Of course, in some disciplines, you'll find some very good people (they have, at times, tried to hire "star performers" to raise their research profile), but just coincidentally, while I was in Canberra last week (at the ANU, one of our top universities) I was privy to a "Damn, isn't RMIT in a mess" conversation.
Aust. universities generally are rather like US state universities -- dependent largely upon public funding, although we have a deferred fees scheme that works reasonably well. Lots of institutions, RMIT being one, are working very hard to get students from the full-fee international student market.
I hope that helps. None of this, or course, predicts whether your advisor will have a good time or not -- hopefully, they'll enjoy themselves and the people they;ll interact with will be outstanding. But your overall impression was correct, sir.
As for the planned city thing, not only do you get the planning phase, but you also get the less planned self government phase which came after.
True ocnfession: I grew up there, and it's a strange place to grow up. Originally there was a (quasi Stalinist, but in a touchy feely way) planning body called the National Capital Development Commission. It set all the rules for the city's design and growth. The consequence was the town was a very pretty but sterile place.
Self government was achieved in the 1980s, and the town has changed a lot since. More "human",