ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING

I was asked a few weeks ago by the Chicago Reader's J.R. Jones if I'd like to submit a capsule review of Ong Bak 2: The Beginning to the paper. Here is a link to the piece, which was published on the Reader's website on Tuesday and in print on Wednesday (11/18):

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning

I hope to publish a more detailed piece on the film here in the coming weeks. It's enjoyable as a whole, but eschews most of its predecessor's strengths.

Though not of the same analytical rigor as the essays published here, this opportunity was especially gratifying for three reasons: It simultaneously marked the first time I've been paid for writing and my first appearance in print, and it was an honor to submit a piece to the paper that published most of Jonathan Rosenbaum's output for the past quarter century.

To return briefly to the issue of print publications, I'd like to say that, for what it's worth, my heart still beats for printed media. While my experience with much of the writing by critics upon whom I've modeled my own approach has been on the internet (beginning with Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose print publications were unavailable in my home town), I still quixotically aspire to publish in print. It seems a foolish, antiquated ambition, but a print version of The Pensive Spectator would be an incredibly satisfying culmination, even if the cost of such an operation is prohibitive and its likelihood close to nil. The internet has given me an outlet that I'd otherwise lack, but its qualities as a medium fail to replicate the virtues of a printed journal, newspaper or magazine. Eyestrain and hyperlink fatigue have never marred the page-turning experience.

APOLOGY

The recent period of inactivity at the site has been due to personal and professional obligations that prohibited the kind of care I prefer to take in writing these essays. I'm happy to report that these temporary issues have been resolved and regular updates should once again be the order of the day.

Thanks,
Patrick

IMAGE 1

Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires*


This is among the final images of the first episode (the translated title amounts to The Severed Head) of Feuillade's delirious, nearly absurdist 1915 silent epic, Les Vampires.

An assassin dispatched by the criminal society known as The Vampires absconds across the rooftops of Paris after a gruesome murder in a magistrate's antechamber. The sleek, slinky bodies of The Vampires (all clad in form-fitting black ensembles during their criminal exploits) ballet across the screen in marked contrast to frantic clodhopping of the journalists and authorities pursuing them. His prone stance embodies both stasis and action, and the stilled image leaves the speed of his movements ambiguous. The Vampires' violent, if aesthetically thrilling, disruption of bourgeois society is encapsulated in this image of a purely black, cat-like figure stalking across and against a strict geometry.

*Though I'm sure others have done it, I first came across a feature such as this at Glenn Kenny's blog, Some Came Running, and I'd like to give credit where it's due. I think it's a useful way of looking at films. It's admittedly a narrowed perspective, but worthwhile nonetheless, as a carefully selected, isolated image (one not selected by a distributor's marketing department) can speak volumes about a filmmaker and/or a film.