links/2024w06

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Experimenting with returning links to being their own weekly post (or perhaps twice-weekly, on Weds and Sat?), a hodgepodge of trailers and quotes and more. Plus it’s easier to update these at the last minute than it is trying to update the newsletter before it sends (and K said she enjoys clicking through them so there). Anyhow…

And if a prosthetic need not mimic the limb it is replacing, then perhaps prosthetics could be more than just replacements? Ms Clode is an expert in the design of robotic prostheses controlled by artificial tendons. She is keen to explore the possibility of augmenting existing bodies with new capabilities, making prosthetics “a technology that could be of use to everybody, not just amputees”. To that end she has designed the “Third Thumb”, a small and robust prosthetic digit that does exactly what it says on the tin. Controlled, like Ms Knox’s vine-arm, by pressure sensors in a pair of shoes, the thumb can be used to replace a missing one. But it can also be added to an intact hand on the opposite side from its existing, biological thumb.

HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

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(Directed by Akira Kurosawa from a script by Ryūzō Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Elijiro Hisaita, and Akira Kurosawa; starring Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Tsutomo Yamazaki, and Yutaka Sada. Released 01 March 1963; watched 2023w51 via Criterion Channel)

Had to restart because I was too exhausted to appreciate it on first viewing, but once I did, it handily became my favorite Kurosawa film: tight, taut, and at the same time, free-flowing – especially in the second half (similar structure to IKIRU) –, unafraid to take lengthy divergencies into the intricacies and frustrations of police work (reminded me of Jules Dassin's THE NAKED CITY in its procedural aspects – the briefing / report sequence was riveting – and its eye for locational verisimilitude). Mifune is, unsurprisingly, electrifying – never have I been as inspired to consider shoes so passionately – as is Tsutomo Yamazaki as the desperate, deadly, and ultimately broken kidnapper (how inspired, I wonder, was Frank Miller by the shot pictured above when he designed Kevin in the first SIN CITY yarn?). One of the essential crime films - and perhaps one of my favorite films: if it's not on the list, it's certainly nearing it. Will be adding to the collection post haste.

Ryuichi Sakamato’s virtual encore

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While it sounds like the tech leaves something to be desired, the execution and intent of the project as a whole seems a poignant farewell to one of the greats. Love the IKIRU homage.

... gentle fog that curls around everyone's ankles for the opening piece; a tree that draws itself on top of the piano a bit later. "It was never my intention to simply service people who knew they loved Ryuichi, but to try to expand the audience that would come to understand his work," says Eckert. Luckily, the artworks elevate the performance instead of detracting from it. While Sakamoto is playing the hit track "Energy Flow," for example, a window opens high above him, and snowflakes start floating through it. The snow effect references Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film IKIRU, where the main character--an elderly man who knows he will die soon--spends his final moments sitting on a park swing during a snowfall, singing a romantic ballad.

Picked up Sakamoto's final album, 12, on vinyl this week and it’s sublime.