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February 5 movie: State of the Union. Spencer Tracy plays a politician offered the chance to become President if he plays along with the political party machine. At first he tries to remain his own man, eventually he is corrupted by his desire for power. Katharine Hepburn plays his wife. I did not enjoy this at all. It's boring for most of the movie and then all sanctimonious speechifying at the end. Also stars Angela Lansbury as a ruthless political insider, which I know she can do well because of The Manchurian Candidate, but she's not very good here. I blame Frank Capra for this whole mess of a movie.

Today was the first freakishly warm day of the year. It happens every year in February: gets really warm and I think spring has begun and we're done with cold weather. And then it gets cold again. Oh well, I'll enjoy days like this as I can get them.

Georg and I took Jane to the farmer's market. We walked around the outside & gave her a chance to get used to it before we waded into the thickest crowd. Considering she's a nervous dog and isn't used to crowds, she did really well! She tucked her tail but stayed calm even when a man let his little girl pet her while I was talking to the cheese lady, and the daughter patted Janey right on the nose.

I spent most of the day running errands. Rumors are correct and there is still an Outdoor Provision store in Eastgate (by Trader Joe's) in Chapel Hill. I bought a pair of those amazing Smartwool socks for my sister, who lives in a beautiful and drafty cold house. I've been wearing mine on cold nights and they have made such a difference. We may be having early spring here, but there's still plenty of time for cold weather in Delaware.

Then I stumbled onto a Vietnamese New Year celebration at University Mall. They had people in costume and a lion dance. They were selling box lunches of Vietnamese food outside Southern Season, so I brought our lunch home. It had noodles, rice with sausage, lemongrass chicken, and a spring roll.

Also today we set up the grow light, bought seeds, cleaned last year's plant trays and cell packs, bought a couple more, filled them with soil and planted the seeds! We couldn't find all the seeds we wanted at Barnes & I only seeded one of four trays: cilantro, basil, poblanos, eggplant, and Super Sweet 100 tomatoes. We usually buy tomato plants but the past couple of years we've had trouble finding Super Sweet 100, which is one of our favorites.

We also have a few that need to be sown outdoors: sugar snaps, spinach and beets can be sown now if I'm feeling lucky, or I could be cautious and wait a couple of weeks. And zucchini which needs to wait until it warms up. I'll get the rest of the seeds from Johnny's, my favorite mail order seed company.

Now it's movie time: first Satan Met a Lady, now Sahara.

February 4 movie: The More the Merrier. Speaking of movies that hold up well! I remember loving this movie the first time I saw it, and I was so excited to see it on the schedule again on TCM, and it was just as funny this time.

One thing I love about this movie is how well they use integrate the premise into the fabric of the movie. The movie is about 3 strangers (Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and the brilliant Charles Coburn) sharing an apartment due to the wartime housing crisis in DC. The citywide overcrowding is reinforced in almost every scene: people lining up in hope of getting a room for rent, taxis which can't move until they have at least four passengers, women workers carpooling home in cars so tiny they look European, rooftops jammed with people. In the beginning of the movie Charles Coburn tricks his way to the head of the line so he can rent a room in Jean Arthur's apartment; by the end the lobby of her building is full of men in cots. It makes the movie feel so vivid, like it exists in an actual place.

February 2 movie: The Young in Heart. And here's another movie about which I pretty much said my peace last time. I was surprised at how well this held up. It's only been a couple of months and I try not to rewatch movies that often unless I really really like them. This one was still charming.

February 2 movie: Sabrina. I said my peace last time I watched this movie. There's plenty to enjoy in this movie in spite of its flaws. It's hard to believe I hadn't seen it in two years. TCM shows it all the time.

In the last post I said that just because the AP are dicks doesn't mean they're wrong. Today I have to add that just because Shepard Fairey is a hypocrite doesn't mean he's wrong, either.

So that famous illustration Shepard Fairey made of Barack Obama? The one the campaign used on tons of promotional art? Well you may have heard that the AP is claiming Fairey infringed their copyright. Apparently the illustration was based on an AP photo taken by a freelance photographer, and now the AP wants credit and money.

The response I've seen online has been pretty one-sided. We love that image, we have it on t-shirts and bumper stickers and hanging on our walls, and we love Shepard Fairey, and we hate the AP, so it's a no-brainer, right? Here's a typical response, from Dailykos: "This is quite the novel claim by those assholes at the AP -- that artwork based on a photograph is now a copyright violation. Not use of the photo, or even use of part of a photo. But that an entirely different work, on a different medium, is now somehow owned by the AP because it happens to be based on that photo."

Let's unpack that. First of all, what is a derivative work? According to the Copyright Office, a derivative work is "a work that is based on (or derived from) one or more already existing works." And, "Any work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship is a derivative work or new version."

Looking at the two side by side, it would be hard to deny that the photo was the basis for the illustration. And Fairey hasn't denied it. In the same publication the Copyright Office is very clear that only the copyright holder of the original work can authorize a derivative work.

So, onto Kos' claim that because the illustration is in a different medium, it can't be a derivative work. The Copyright Office gives a list of examples of derivative works, including: "Motion picture (based on a play)...Sculpture (based on a drawing); Drawing (based on a photograph)." All three are examples of a work translated into a different medium. The last one explicitly covers Fairey's illustration.

I also found an example where artist Jeff Koontz made a sculpture based on a photo, which he saw on a greeting card. He did not have the photographer's permission, the photographer sued, and the sculpture was found to be infringement. (Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir 1992))

So Kos' rant about those assholes at the AP and their novel claims, well ... their novel claim seems pretty well backed up by both statute and case law.

It took me about 10 minutes to find the information above. Would have been faster but I thought I had it on my own website, and wasted about 5 minutes looking there. I guess the take-away message is, first of all, Kos is full of shit. Second, just because the AP are dicks doesn't mean they're wrong.

Actually I'm being a little disingenuous. Kos comes up with (and seems to conflate) two defenses in his post: first the one about translation to a new medium, where he's just flat wrong. And then fair use, which is what most of the responses I've seen hinge on. Personally I think it's a stretch. But I'm not a legal scholar; I'm just some idiot with a blog. And I know that fair use is a hotly contested area of the law, and it seems that there are legitimate arguments both in favor and against in this case. For instance, Fairey donating all the proceeds to the Obama campaign I think means there was no commercial benefit from the work, and that's a mark in favor of fair use. On the other hand, another factor when considering fair use is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole," and that's a mark against.

It seems pretty clear to me that calling Fairey's image fair use is debatable. And that anyone (like Kos) ranting about how obvious it is and how the AP are copyright bullies without a legal leg to stand on .. well Kos, there's this thing called Google. You might try it sometime. If you think copyright law should be different from what it is, make your case. I might agree with you. But pretending it is what you want it to be rather than what it is .. that's just pointless.

In practical terms, I think the likely outcome will be Fairey and/or the campaign cutting a deal of some kind with the AP. I would feel better about it if the settlement would go to the freelance photographer rather than the AP. Because the photographer is the one who created the work that was infringed. And the AP really are dicks. Which, again, doesn't mean they're wrong.

February 2 movie: The Eagle Has Landed. WWII thriller starring Michael Caine as the leader of a group of German commandoes on a mission to kidnap Winston Churchill. It's difficult to maintain tension in a movie where the outcome is a foregone conclusion (it's not exactly a spoiler that Churchill was never kidnapped), and they do a good job of it. The movie mostly focuses on the nuts and bolts of the mission and moves at a steady clip once things get going. There's also a certain fatalism that's interesting: it's set near the end of the war, when everyone (including the Germans planning the mission) know the Allies are going to win. Caine's goal seems to be not to succeed, but to go out in a blaze of glory. For instance he insists that he and all his men wear their Nazi uniforms underneath their disguises, so they can't be taken for spies, even though this drastically increases their chances of being caught.

The cast is very good. Caine is excellent as always, as are Robert Duvall as his superior officer and Donald Pleasance as Himmler. Donald Sutherland is an IRA soldier who went over to Germany at the start of the war, and joins the mission. He was good, although his accent wandered all over the place. And I have to admit, I was soured on his character because the only Irish nationalist who helped the Germans that I know about is William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw, and he was a nasty piece of work. I think I was supposed to find Sutherland rakish and likeable. Instead I found him repellant because I kept thinking about Lord Haw-Haw and his zeal for fascism.

Also costars Treat Williams and Larry Hagman as American officers, representing the sublime and the ridiculous, respectively. Neither of them added much in my opinion. Hagman was especially a problem, with his extremely unfunny "comic" relief.

The thing that really put me off was the transparent, clumsy attempt to win sympathy for the team by disassociating them from Nazism. In Caine's first scene he throws away his career and lands himself in prison with a pointless, clearly doomed attempt to rescue a Jewish girl he'd never met before. The scene feels so random and out of place, like they're saying "Look, see? Right here!!! Our guy isn't really a Nazi!! Well okay, he is, but he's a good Nazi! Okay, he didn't actually save anyone, barely even tried, the girl got killed immediately, but still! He's good!!! It's okay to root for him!!!" (Then again, "pointless" and "clearly doomed" describe the mission as a whole, so maybe there's more to that first scene than I give it credit.)

I didn't hate the movie nearly as much as this write-up makes it sound, at least not while I was watching it. I have to give them credit, the action was exciting enough to keep me from noticing the plot holes and distract my from my misgivings about Nazis and pro-Nazi Irish terrorists as heroes. I guess I can recommend this if you're a big fan of Michael Caine. Or if you love adventure movies about war, and promise not to think too hard about it.

February 1 movie: Seven Days in May. I watched it again right away to hear the commentary by director John Frankenheimer. I have to say, he gives great commentary. He remembered so many details about how the movie was made, and it was a really good mix of colorful stories, technical details, discussion of the themes & issues at play, and praise for the actors & crew.

A couple of interesting stories that won't give anything away: well the first scene of the movie shows a demostration / counter-demonstration in front of the White House which breaks out into a riot. And they were filming in front of the actual White House because JFK had been a fan of The Manchurian Candidate and gave them a lot of access. So they had stunt men who were supposed to be in the brawl, and a couple of them kept trying to leave, but the crew kept shoving them back in, and they filmed it because it added to the appearance of chaos. And then someone else showed up, like a heckler or something, and tried to disrupt the shoot. And the cops grabbed the heckler and threw him into their police car. And Frankenheimer filmed all that and put it into the movie, so the heckler looks like just another actor.

Another spoiler-free story: apparently Frankenheimer was unhappy with the set decoration in Ava Gardner's apartment, he thought the art looked bland and her character would have a more stylish home. So he had a painting which he really loved. Which in fact, had been bought during his first marriage, and he loved it so much that he took it during the divorce, just snuck it away without talking to his soon-to-be ex-wife about it.

So he told a crewman to go upstairs, get the painting off the wall of his office, and hang it in Ave Gardner's apartment. It made the apartment look much better, he was happy with the set, great, everything can proceed. Then a couple of years later, out of the blue he got sued by his ex-wife! She had seen the movie and recognized the painting. And he had to give it to her (or maybe sell it and give her half the money -- not totally clear on this). Either way he got the scene and lost the painting.

(The funny thing is that he was right, the painting really did make Gardner's apartment. I noticed it the first time I watched the movie. I remember thinking, "wow look at that painting! I wonder who the artist is?" I didn't think it looked better than the rest of the art because I honestly didn't even see any others. That one painting was so compelling that I thought it was the only art in the room.

Been pretty sick the past few days, which I haven't written about because, writing about being sick is generally boring. So I'll just say that I'm grateful to Georg for setting up a power strip in the bedroom so I can lie in bed and use my laptop without worrying about the battery running down. (Which happens alarmingly fast these days. I think it's time to get a new battery.)

There are rumors of snow overnight, and in fact we saw flurries on our way home from the store this evening. Nothing sticking to the road of course. The supermarket was remarkably free of pre-snow panic. I got a few lunch things, plus milk to make oatmeal, so that I can stay in for the next couple of days if roads are icy.

My birthday turned out to be full of techy goodness: XM radio from Georg, and money from my folks which I'm using to buy the digital recorder I really wanted. Through a friend of a friend I have a lead on an interview with an older lady who lived in DC during WWII, loved jazz, and saw a lot of great acts -- like the King Cole Trio in its early incarnation. She lives up in Charlottesville now and I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking the station's recorder on a road trip out of state. (My other option was to borrow a rig from my friends in professional radio, and I definitely would not feel comfortable taking theirs that far.) Which seems like plenty of justification to buy the nice one I've been admiring. It's the size of a small cell phone and records in WAV. I want something, well I hate the word "prosumer" but that basically describes it. Better sound quality than the cheap mics you plug into an iPod, but not as expensive as what a true pro needs.

There's another recorder which costs less and is said to sound about as good, though the controls are confusing and hard to use. I could live with with the UI problems, but I can't live with another fatal flaw: it has an unfortunate product design which makes it look kind of like a taser. If I had a good recorder I would want to use it at political rallies in the next election cycle. And I definitely would not bring a device that looks like a taser to a Secret Service checkpoint.

(With the money from my folks I also bought several collections of 20s-30s dance bands, mostly of the "sweet" variety. For about $75 I got 250 songs, almost none of which I already had. I've really been getting into the sweet band sound & I want to do a show all about them this spring.)

Now I think I'm going to write up a couple of movies and go to sleep early. I hope we get decent snow overnight!

and all I have to do is give my personal information to a nice man in Nigeria! A novel twist on the classic email scam:

How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?,You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the then secretary to the UNITED NATIONS.
This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of USD $100,000 (One hundred thousand United State Dollars Only).
This includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.
We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.
You are advised to contact Mr. [REDACTED] of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/ International Bank Draft of USD$ 100,000 (One hundred thousand United State Dollars Only. This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice.
Therefore, you should send him your full Name and telephone number/your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you.
Contact Mr. [REDACTED] immediately for your Cheque:
Person to Contact Mr. [REDACTED]
Email: [REDACTED]
Thanks and God bless you and your family.
Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft.
Making the world a better place.
Regards,
Mr. Ban Ki-Moon

January 31 movie: Seven Days in May. Wow. This movie is incredible. It rivals The Manchurian Candidate for the best political movie I've ever seen.

I put it in my queue in early fall, when I was obsessed with politics but before I had gotten so involved in the campaign that I didn't have time or energy to watch movies anymore. (Come to think of it, that's when I started watching soap operas again. I would get home late, fall down on the couch, and didn't have the mental energy for anything more demanding than One Life to Live.) Didn't know anything about it when I put it in the queue, and forgot about it until it showed up in the mail today. And it blew me away.

I don't want to give anything away in case you don't know about the plot. I didn't and I really enjoyed it more unspoiled. So I'll just say it's a political thriller with a spectacular cast: Fredric March, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Martin Balsom, Edmond O'Brien. Even minor characters like John Houseman, Andrew Duggan and Richard Anderson were perfectly cast. Frankenheimer knows how to bring out the best in his actors. I was impressed by the lack of scenery chewing from Douglas; he's practically restrained.

And Fredric March, who I always love, was at the top of his game. He conveys so much in every scene. He plays the POTUS, and in one of the first scenes he's shown standing next to a swimming pool, drying off with a towel. He wasn't a young man anymore and it's pretty unflattering. I think a lot of former matinee idols would refuse to be filmed like that, shirtless and flabby. But it's important to the character, because a major point is that the people see him as weak and ineffective. So it adds a lot of meaning for him to appear so soft and pale and vulnerable. To me it's a sign of what an actor he was.

How much did I love this movie? I'm staying up late to watch it again with the commentary. Even though it's a weekend and I could easily watch it in the morning. The commentary was recorded in 2000 and Frankenheimer remembered a tremendous level of detail about making the movie.

January 30 movie: Words and Music. Biopic about Richard Rodgers (Tom Drake) and Lorenz Hart (Mickey Rooney). Actually it's mostly about Hart, whose life was much more dramatic and who had died just a few years before the movie was made. I have to say, I wish they had cast someone else as Hart. Because the sight of Mickey Rooney on a sweaty, shaking bender because he's drinking himself to death because he can't take the pressure of being trapped in the closet? That is a sight I could have lived without.

They don't address Hart's closeted homosexuality at all, no surprise for a movie made in the late 40s. They explain away his unhappiness and bachelor status by coming up with a girl he was sweet on in his youth (Betty Garrett) who dumps him, which he never gets over. But then at the end of the movie he says that it wasn't really her at all, she was just a symbol of something lacking in his life. Oh, and in his eulogy Gene Kelly says his lyrics were "gay and witty." That's as close as Hollywood could get.

The musical cast is great. Singing by Perry Como, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Mel Torme, Anne Sothern, June Allyson, and dancing by Gene Kelly, Vera Ellen and Cyd Charisse.

January 28 movie: The Merry Widow. Wonderful Ernst Lubitsch movie starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette Macdonald. I don't even know what else to say about it. It's just so much fun.

January 28 movie: Three Strangers. Odd, moody movie starring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Geraldine Fitzgerald as three strangers who make a pact to share a horse race ticket -- I didn't really understand this, it was some English thing, but they have a ticket and if it pays off then they roll it over on the horse race? Whatever! The point is that they make a pledge on a statue of Kuan Yin to share whatever winnings come to them.

All three turn out to be fairly seedy characters, and the movie purports to be a suspense thriller about the various reasons they desperately need the money, but actually it's a somber meditation on human failure. Peter Lorre plays an aimless, drunken petty crook, and ends up being the most sympathetic character almost by default. Also costars Alan Napier as Fitzgerald's estranged husband, and Joan Lorring as Lorre's love interest.

January 27 movie: The Private Life of Henry VIII. Charles Laughton shines as Henry VIII. I knew he would be good because he played the same part so well in Young Bess. I also loved Merle Oberon as Anne Boleyn -- she's physically perfect for the part, I just wish she were in the movie more -- and especially Elsa Lanchester as Anne of Cleves. I'd like to read a biography of Anne of Cleves. She's such an interesting figure and she tends to get short shrift in histories of all the wives.

January 27 movie: Galaxy Quest. I had forgotten how funny this was! I put it in my Neflix queue ages ago, and forgot it was there. And then all the movies at the top of the queue were out (including a movie about Harold Arlen which I really want to see because I have a tribute show to do in two weeks, and I'm afraid some lazybones like me is sitting on it forever) so I got Galaxy Quest. It's a sly, good-natured sendup of Star Trek and its fandom. I still think they missed the opportunity of a lifetime by not casting Wil Wheaton in this movie. He could have been an obsessive fan who hated "Young Tommy," the child crew member. Though it might have been hard for him to do that with the affection the movie mostly shows to Star Trek fans, considering the vitriol sent his way.

January 26 movie: Latin Lovers. Lana Turner is a millionaire businesswoman who's unfulfilled because she's tired of being in control all the time. What she really needs is a man with enough machismo to take her down a peg. Enter Ricardo Montalban. I guess I ought to hate this movie the way I hated That Certain Woman. But I just can't. Because, Ricardo Montalban! There's a great scene where he dances, first with Rita Moreno and then with Turner. He explains to Turner that the samba is "tight inside, loose outside." Montalban also "sings" a couple of songs, unfortunately dubbed by a Mario Lanza sound-alike.

January 26 movie: That Certain Woman. There are a lot of things about old movies which I can overlook. Put aside my modern sensibilities and accept the movie for what it is and the time. I can't do that with movies where a couple split up, and the woman's life is ruined, and the man goes on his merry way without ever giving her a second thought, and she's supposed to quietly endure it as a test of her .. devotion I guess. Bonus points if she gives up her child to him, ostensibly so the child will have a better life, except there was nothing wrong with the life she would have given it. And eventually they reunite, and he's so sorry about the years she suffered, and that makes it all okay. I can't stomach that, and it's all over this movie.

In other words, this movie sucked. Bette Davis stars as the long-suffering woman, a grown-up Sara Crewe. Henry Fonda is her boyfriend, the heel. No, he's not a heel. It's worse: he's weak. He abandons Bette Davis, puts her through hell, simply because he lacks a spine. And she puts up with it because she wuvs him. Ugh. Also stars Ian Hunter as Ralph Bellamy.

January 26 movie: Fiesta. I watched this again so I could record it on DVD. It's a silly fluff of a movie, light as a feather, and I love it so. What can you say about a movie about bullfighting in which bulls are never hurt? Fiesta would have us believe that the point of bullfighting is to taunt the bull and get close enough to tap it on the forehead, at which point the bull is paralyzed by shame and grovels, allowing the matador to stroll away.