art and investments

Ethan and Sharon are taking an art history class this semester. The first session was this morning. When Blair and I picked them up after class, they told us about a conversation. The professor was talking about art as an investment, and said that it’s like stocks, bonds or any other investment. Ethan said something along the lines of “not really…” And they were off to the races.

Ethan is absolutely right. As investments go, there absolutely is a fundamental difference between art (or other collectibles) and stocks, bonds or other financial instruments. But I suspect that he didn’t do a good job of explaining it; he and Sharon reported that he didn’t convince anyone. With that in mind, I’m going to take a shot at the explanation. Of course, brevity will require some oversimplification.

Financial instruments such as stocks and bonds produce income. Or at least that’s the hope. Bonds represent debt, and the issuer is obligated to pay the borrowed money (with interest). A share in common stock represents an ownership interest in a company and, with it, a share of that company’s future income. The value of a stock or a bond is, essentially the present value of future cash flows. It gets complicated because there can be considerable uncertainty around those future cash flows. And a hundred different investors may have a hundred different assessments of the value. And those assessments may be constantly changing. But stocks and bonds have value because, fundamentally, they are expected to produce income.

A painting doesn’t produce income. Its only value is in people wanting to own it for its sake. I suppose there may be people who buy art to rent to others, or to display for a paying audience. But that’s not what the professor was referring to.

To put it more simply, if you buy art to collect with no intention of ever selling it, you will never make any money from it. If you buy a share of stock with no intention of ever selling it, you still expect to get cash flows from the dividends it will pay.

cinema history class: the beast of hollow mountain (1956)

The session: "Westerns with a Twist of Monster"

For this year's version of our session of Westerns, Keith is showing us four mashups: Westerns with monsters

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1974)
Directed by Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodriguez

My Impressions Going In:

Never heard of this one.

Plot:

Cattle are disappearing, and cattlemen are fighting over land, money and a woman. Then the prehistoric dinosaur appears.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

I have to acknowledge that, while I love Spaghetti Westerns, I am not a big fan of the typical old Hollywood Western with the white-hatted hero and the black-hatted villain. And that's what the majority of this movie was. An hour into it, we were still watching a simple western. And I was bored of it.

Things did pick up when the dinosaur finally arrived. Watching the dinosaur chase down the cowboys was great fun. I especially enjoyed one sequence where the dinosaur was seen eating a cow -- all in stop-motion. The tongue effect was kind of cheesy, and I had to roll my eyes as we saw what were supposed to be dinosaur legs stomping on the ground. Sadly, there was just not enhough of that.

Too much Western, too little beast.

Perhaps my rating was too low. It's unfair to judge a movie harshly simply because I don't like the genre -- at least that's the case if it's a good example of its genre. So, if you feel that way, then add a point or two to my rating.

Ratings

Me: 4

Bob-O: 9

Christina: 7.8

Dave: 9.5

Ethan: 5

Joe: 10

cinema history class: the land that time forgot (1974)

The session: "Holiday-Premiered Fantasy Films—Get Your Ray Harryhausen On"

All four movies in this session are fantasy films that were released during the holiday season. In addition, the first three featured the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: The Land that Time Forgot (1974)
Directed by Kevin Connor

My Impressions Going In:

I don't think I'd heard of this one.

Plot:

During World War I two groups of sailors, one German and one British, find themselves in a lost world of dinosaurs, cavemen and other prehistoric surprises. They must put aside their differences if they hope to survive.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

In some ways, this felt like two movies in one. There's a half-hour prologue played out mostly aboard a German submarine. It's a well-done, tense, drama in and of itself, as control of the sub repeatedly shifts between the Brits and the Germans. As this is playing out, the respective Captains develop a grudging respect for each other. It's a dynamic I enjoyed watching.* After that, we get to the titular forgotten land where the feature begins.

And once that feature begins, it's relentless. There's excitement, pathos and suspense. The animatronics that served to create the effects were a huge advance compared to the stop motion that Ray Haryhausen had developed for the other movies that we saw in this series. Having said that, I can acknowledge that -- for some -- the stop-motion may be more enjoyable. Like different styles of art, this is a Coke/Pepsi type of thing.

I was initially bothered by the fact that it took so damn long to get to the main part of the story. I was expecting a land of dinosaurs and prehistoric men -- not a war drama. But on reflection, I changed my mind. The extended prologue was necessary in order to establish the relationship between the captains that is such a driver of their life in the second part of the movie. The German Captain is shown to be a thoughtful, fully developed character. And that makes the movie work better than it would have if he were a simplistically-presented villain.

And that is an example of how this movie succeeded where Mysterious Island (which we saw two weeks earlier) didn't. MI included the same basic concept of enemy combatants getting stranded in a lost world and having to put aside the enmity that had been driven by their war. But instead of creating good drama, it seemed hokey. Of course, credit where credit is due: I noticed that tLtTF did borrow some gags from MI, which had been made a dozen or so years earlier. Notably, the scene (in tLtTF) in which the sailors feast on a dinosaur they had killed was reminiscent of the scene in MI in which the soldiers ate the giant lobster that had accidentally boiled itself.

I didn't much care for the ending, as it seemed too deliberately designed for a sequel. But in the scheme of things, it wasn't a bad ending.

Ratings

Me: 9.5

Bob-O: 9.5

Christina: 8.3

Dave: 9.5

Ethan: 9

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* It reminded me of one of my favorite moments in Star Trek (TOS):  In "Balance of Terror, the Romulan Captain's final words, spoken to Captain Kirk, are, "You and I are of a kind. In a different reality I could have called you 'friend.'"

happy tunesday! the titanic song (chet atkins)

 I hadn't thought about this recording in a while, but it started playing while I was working today.

I am fascinated by songs that sound really cheery while covering really sad or unpleasant topics. And this is a perfect example. Listen to the happy vocals and harmonies, all in service or retelling the story of the Titanic. I particularly like the understatement of the line, "it was sad when that great ship went down."

Enjoy!

cinema history class: jason and the argonauts (1963)

 The session: "Holiday-Premiered Fantasy Films—Get Your Ray Harryhausen On"

All four movies in this session are fantasy films that were released during the holiday season. In addition, the first three featured the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Directed by Don Chaffey

My Impressions Going In:

I was vaguely aware of this movie, and had seen some clips from it, but had little real knowledge.

Plot:

Jason and his crew go in search of the golden fleece while the gods toy with him.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

I liked the whole concept of the gods playing with the mere mortals, turning them into pawns on the chessboard of life (as Bob-O put it). But that wasn't really the main focus of the movie. The scenes with the gods were mostly there to kind of transition the movie from episode to episode, which gets at the film's biggest weakness -- that it was too disjointed and episodic (a criticism I made of the previous film, Mysterious Island). That said, Hera's presence was kind of an interesting twist.

As with the prior two films, the effects were very good, and made the movie more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. That's especially true of the scene with the giant bronze Talos statue chasing down Jason's crew (thanks a lot, Hercules).

Ratings

Me: 8

Bob-O: 10

Christina: 10

Dave: 9.9

Ethan: 8
Joe: 10

cinema history class: mysterious island (1961)

The session: "Holiday-Premiered Fantasy Films—Get Your Ray Harryhausen On"

All four movies in this session are fantasy films that were released during the holiday season. In addition, the first three featured the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: Mysterious Island (1961)
Directed by Cy Endfield

My Impressions Going In:

I had never heard of this

Plot:

Civil War soldiers escape their POW camp in a hot air balloon, and land on a remote island populated by giant animals.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Back in the 1970s there was a crappy TV show called Dusty's Trail. DT was a thinly disguised ripoff of Gilligan's Island. My only encounter with the show was years ago when I bought a street DVD by that title. It was packaged to look like a wacky movie about pioneers, and looked like it might be worth the fifty cents or so that the vendor was asking. I got it home and watched it. Or at least some of it. It seemed oddly episodic.  A situation would arise, then get resolved. Then another situation. Then another. Instead of a movie, it felt like several episodes of a TV show stitched together. Which is exactly what it was, although I didn't know that at first. I bring that up because Mysterious Island reminded me of that. It felt too much like a series of separate events centered around one small group of people.

Having said that, I need to backtrack. A little. This movie did feel too episodic -- maybe disjointed is a better word -- and did make me think of Dusty's Trail, it wasn't as disjointed as all that. But I did find that the whole shift of focus (from prehistoric creatures to Captain Nemo) made for a bit of an annoying mashup.

The stop-motion effects and models were entertaining to watch and made for a fun time, even if the plot was kind of lacking. It was Ray Harryhausen's effects that saved the whole thing.

Ratings

Me: 6

Bob-O: 9.7

Dave: 9.8

Ethan: 8
Joe: 10

tunesday! (give me a sign)

 

Eytan Mirsky's father passed away in December.

Soon after, Eytan wrote this heartfelt tribute.

RIP, Shmiel Gross.