I just watched Gomorrah, which is an amazingly brutal film about the Neopolitan Mafia  called the Camorra.  Can u say badly dressed mobster?  Wow, I now know where all that extra Christian Audigier and Fubu  is going.  Basically, they make the Sopranos look like a bunch of  Pansies.   No fancy mcMansions here, just disgusting slums.   Reminded me of City of God.

The film came out in 2008 and was directed by Matteo Garrone, based on the book by Roberto Saviano.    It's totally low budget and shot in a cinema verite' style.  I loved the pace and saturation,  so harsh and real.      It was nominated for a Golden Globe and won 23 other international film awards and  was made for 6 mill and grossed 34 so I guess it was a huge success.   Two thumbs up- you can get it on Netflix.

It doesn't get any cooler.   Steve McQueen is my style icon for men's styling every time. I love this William Klein photo with Peggy Moffit.

One of the greatest  celluloid characters ever is Snake Plissken.  I know, I have the doll on my bookshelf.   Got back into it again after watching Escape from New York for the first time in 10 years.  How can you beat Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes  and Adrienne Barbeau (or "boob-bow" which is what they called her when I was in school) for an epic film?   Kurt Russell rocks the camouflage trend, albeit a janky camou, and kicked ass with a bum leg. I'm sure some fool out there got a giant cobra tattoo on their abs in homage.  Love.

Anton Corbijn directs Rowan Joffe's screenplay on the novel by Martin Booth.    Always loved Anton's photographs.   If you have ever seen a U2 Album cover you know his work, I think he shot almost all of them.   In addition to insane photographs for Depeche Mode , Nick Cave, and Tom Waits.     I read that he is really tall, and that's why all his images have that perspective, almost like he is on a ladder.   Anton also directed one of my favorite music films, CONTROL in 2007.

In the American, he directs George (I'm never bad in anything and already have my first OSCAR) Clooney.    Crimes, assassins, romance,  ahhh, I love it.   

press summary:   Alone among assassins, Jack is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact Larry that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a spell. The assignment, as specified by a Belgian woman, Mathilde, is in the offing as a weapon is constructed. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto and pursues romance with local woman Clara. But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.

Reprinted from ARTFORUM/ article by Amy Taubin

TAMRA DAVIS'S DOCUMENTARY Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child might make you weep (it did me) and might help you better appreciate a painter whose work matters enormously in the history of late-twentieth-century art. It achieves these ends largely though an abundance of footage of its subject at work and with a long interview that Davis videotaped in Los Angeles in 1986, two years before Basquiat's death.

The painter and the filmmaker were friends; they had a rapport and intimacy that allowed Basquiat to be remarkably open, although it should be said that he is almost always open on camera, even when he openly shuts down at a perceived slight or stupidity. "It's Samo--Mr. Samo," he says with a flash of anger when, on a segment (circa 1980) of the cable access show Glenn O'Brien's TV PARTY, O'Brien mispronounces the graffiti tag that Basquiat shared with his high school friend Al Diaz. SAMO©, which is pronounced with a hard "A," is black slang for "same old shit," but as critic and musician Greg Tate noted in his brilliant 1989 essay "Nobody Loves a Genius Child: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Flyboy in the Buttermilk," "it also invites the cruel and punning to identify the writer as Sambo"--in other words, to put his/her foot in the same old shitty racist associations. The SAMO© tag was fixed to enigmatic bits of poetry, filled with just such slippages and contradictory meanings. This linguistic strategy became a central element in Basquiat's painting practice. Explaining to an interviewer why his canvases are full of crossed-out words, he says, "The fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them more." Countering the charge that he simply copied de Kooning or Twombly, he says that what he paints is "someone's idea going through my new mind." He lingers on the last three words, surrounding each of them with just enough silence so that, as we hear them, we also see them as they would be spaced out on a canvas.

Except for the extended interview with Basquiat, which she fragments and returns to throughout the movie, Davis follows a linear path, charting Basquiat's ten-year career from his entrance to the downtown art scene as SAMO© in 1978 to his death from a drug overdose in 1988. In no way does she try to emulate Basquiat's explosive style or the sense of suspended time and space in his painting, although the movie's lively editing owes something to the bebop-laden sound track. "I like all kinds of music," Basquiat says. "But bebop is my favorite." Conversely, I would have preferred that Davis linger on at least a few individual paintings in her quick-cut montages of gallery shows and the painter's various studios. Yes, his output was astonishing; at his death, Basquiat left about one thousand paintings and an equal number of drawings. The movie gives a sense of how driven he was, how it seemed as if he aimed, by sheer volume, to assure himself a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century painters, when in fact he achieved that position by virtue of a necessarily smaller number of masterpieces, produced in the early and late stages of his heartbreakingly short career.

In addition to the footage of Basquiat (there is one remarkable close-up of the artist at work paired with a voice-over explaining that he held his tools exactly as he had as a child at the Brooklyn Museum school, and this, combined with his visual sophistication, is what made his line so distinctive), the film succeeds through an assembly of highly articulate talking heads: colleagues and friends Fred Brathwaite (better known as Fab 5 Freddy), Julian Schnabel, and Kenny Scharf; critics Nelson George and Rene Ricard; the great historian Robert Farris Thompson, who explains that Basquiat "excavated black history in his paintings. . . . Like a Native American shaman, he says, 'I walk with you' "; dealers and curators (in order of their appearance in Basquiat's life) Diego Cortez, Annina Nosei, Bruno Bischofberger, and Larry Gagosian; studio assistants and girlfriends.

Davis relies on Basquiat's first significant girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, now a psychiatrist, to make connections between the artist's personal life and the pressure of a career that exploded overnight, and she admirably walks a fine line between clarity and discretion. The film is perhaps too reticent about Basquiat's drug use (one might come away with the impression that drugs only became a problem in the last years of his life, which is not really the case). The movie, on the other hand, doesn't pull any punches in its discussion of the racism of the art world. Hilton Kramer puts the nail in his own coffin with his assessment that "[Basquiat's] contribution to art is so miniscule as to be nil" and that the only reason for the painter's success was that "liberals need to make a gesture." MoMA curator Ann Temkin explains somewhat ruefully that museum curators are uncomfortable with work that looks new because they are so immersed in the art of the past. This problem, of course, didn't stop major American museums from showing Basquiat's contemporaries Schnabel and David Salle during the 1980s' return to painting. What was "new" about Basquiat's work was the place from which his painting spoke--that of the black American male artist. Basquiat was so upset at being snubbed by museums that he got his devoted and astute collectors Herbert and Lenore Schorr to offer both MoMA and the Whitney a painting. The offer was refused; according to the Schorrs, one of these institutions told them that "the painting wasn't worth the space." I only wish Davis had been able to add Tate's voice to this discussion. In "Nobody Loves a Genius Child," Tate comes out swinging. The essay takes its title from the Langston Hughes poem that also opens and closes Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child. He was a genius, he was radiantly sad and radiantly angry, and he is much missed.

-- Amy Taubin

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child opens July 21 at Film Forum in New York. Filmmaker Tamra Davis will appear at 8 PM for the July 21 and 22 shows; Fab 5 Freddy will appear at 8 PM for the July 23 show. For more details, click here.

Picture puzzles.  Dream invasions.  Questioning memories and realities and interpreting layers of time and space perception, Chris Nolan gets it all together in a complex labyrinth you can't take your eyes off of.    If you have not seen Inception , go see it.    Loved Nolan's vision in Memento (based on a short story by his brother).   His new film which he wrote and directed  is brilliant. 

Popped in to REGEN PROJECTS to see the new Walead Beshty show.   Really good.  Picture Industry : Entertainment industry, the metaphor is this town.   Show opens tonight- 2 thumbs up!

I have seen this kid around town taking pictures and was shocked at how young he was.  Entourage actor Adrian Grenier makes his debut as a director with this film. This film is really cool, Adrian disects his own celebrity and mentors this 13 year old shutterbug.  (who may actually go on to be a real photographer, not celebrity parasite like the others out there)

Documentary Spotlight (courtesy of film)
When precocious 13-year-old paparazzo Austin Visschedyk snapped a photo of celebrity Adrian Grenier (HBO's Entourage), little did he know his life was about to change. Turning the tables on the juvenile paparazzo, Grenier stepped on the other side of the lens in an attempt to mentor a teenager obsessed with the lure of the Hollywood lifestyle. Grenier develops a meaningful relationship with his camera-clicking young friend as he attempts to reconcile their mutual exploitation. Indeed, Grenier puts himself on the line here, trying to make sense of his own recently acquired fame.

Given the success of Entourage and its place in the Zeitgeist, Adrian Grenier is the perfect person to explore our preoccupation with celebrity and the adolescent desire for fame. Exquisitely layered, Teenage Paparazzo moves beyond personal documentary, charting a cultural revolution of celebrity obsession that may have been born in the United States but stretches across the globe.

Courtesy of the New York Times//

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: June 18, 2010

Amid all the luxuries on display in the Italian film "I Am Love" -- the chandeliers, tapestries and paneled walls, the paintings, statuary and white-gloved servants -- nothing holds your gaze as forcefully as Tilda Swinton's alabaster face. The first time you see that vision, her character, Emma Recchi, a Russian who's married into a wealthy Milanese family, is stage-managing the lavish birthday party that opens the film. By the end of this often soaringly beautiful melodrama, which closes with a funeral, Emma's face will have crumpled into a ruin. But it will also be fully alive, having been granted, like Pygmalion's statue, the breath of life.

"I Am Love," directed by Luca Guadagnino, tracks that metamorphosis with surging, insistent music by John Adams and a lush visual style that could be called postclassical Hollywood baroque. Since the movie had its premiere last year at the Venice Film Festival, the name Luchino Visconti, the Italian director of operatic narratives about the European aristocracy, including "The Leopard," has been ritualistically invoked as a touchstone. While Mr. Guadagnino has most assuredly absorbed Visconti into his system, he is also schooled in Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, Douglas Sirk's melodramas and what were once disparagingly called women's pictures, stories of female suffering and sacrifice, a genre that the critic Molly Haskell memorably associated with "wet, wasted afternoons."

Lacma will be showing this new documentary about California Low Brow master Robert Williams.
Wed. June 16 at Bing Theater.    7pm
Thanks to Nancye Ferguson who produced and co-directed the film.

In the sixties he was the man.  Lonesome Cowboys, Flesh, Heat and Trash were all starmaking hits for him.   He still looks hot and he will always be cool.  Andy Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro.   Or Little Joe as he was affectionately called.

Biography courtesy of Joe's website.   Joe Dallesandro   

One of the 10 most beautiful men Scavullo said he ever photographed. The "Little Joe" of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." The Valentino of the Underground. The crotch on the Sticky Fingers album cover. The only guy at the party willing to return a punch from Norman Mailer. The actor whose performance made George Cukor understand what it meant to be a drug addict. The beauty wily enough to catch a fainting Tennessee Williams and then get out of the hotel bedroom while the going was good.

The naked guy in those Andy Warhol movies.

Okay, so they weren't really Andy Warhol movies. They were Paul Morrissey movies. Andy had all but stopped shooting films after he was himself shot by a crazed feminist in June of 1968. So, the naked guy in those Paul Morrissey movies, the gorgeous young man whose body spoke volumes; spoke so loudly, in fact, that lots of folks didn't realize the kid could act until they watched the films a second or third time.

These are distinctions that don't necessarily make Joe Dallesandro proud. Nor do they cause him to hide his head in shame. At 18, he was an unlikely pioneer, the first film actor to be overtly worshipped as a nude sex symbol. As to the young man himself, he couldn't have cared less. He was just doing his job. Clothed or unclothed didn't seem to bother him. Besides, who the hell would see these movies anyway?

Joe Dallesandro was born in Pensacola, FL in 1948 to teenaged parents, a father who was stationed at the Naval base and a mother who would serve time for grand larceny when Joe was just five. By then, his dad didn't think he could handle raising Joe and Joe's little brother Robert on his own. Both of the boys were placed into an adoption facility in New York and then brought up in a series of foster homes. Joe was a troublemaker at school, his difficulties compounded by his short stature and even shorter temper. It also didn't help that one of the families ran their home like Fagin's in Oliver Twist, entreating the kids in their care to ransack neighborhood buildings.

A frequent runaway, largely to get his absent father's attention, Joe found his allegiances and surrogate family among gangs of his peers on the streets. His father eventually planted both Joe and his brother at their grandparents' house in Queens, but even there, outside their purview, he enjoyed a life of petty thieving and vandalism, then moved on to stealing cars for kicks.

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She may be the Jocelyn Wildenstein of comedy, but Joan is no pushover and doesn't take herself too seriously- who can these days?  She coined  "Can we talk?"  ...about a chemical peal.   No seriously,  she's funny, caustic, timely and her comedy is always in good taste even when it's about bad taste.  Of course, that is always relative.   I applaud any woman that can write a great joke and survive in a man's business so many years.   Joan is a pioneer.   "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" is directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg.

Mother and daughter blog StyleLIKEU makes some great videos and has access to some insanely stylish closets on their site.  

Here is one starring nightlife personality and blogger Ladyfag.    

LADYFAG in ANASTASIA & SNEGUROCHKA from Stylelikeu on Vimeo.

I love Jane.   I love Barbarella Jane, Hanoi Jane, Aerobics Jane and Klute Jane.   One thing she was not, is a plain Jane- Eva.  I guess 40 years in the business and being an actress on top of that means you change it up.

Klute (1971) starred Jane Fonda (in an Oscar-winning performance) as a New York call girl being terrorized by a sadistic ex-client, with Donald Sutherland as the private detective (the title character) looking for a friend whose disappearance may be related. Part neo-film noir, part sophisticated, adult drama, the film is a fantastic character study as well as a gripping thriller, modern feminist classic and a fascinating journey through the New York City of the sexual revolution.  (from cinemaretro.com)

Runaways costume designer Carol Beadle did an amazing job styling the film and creating a look that said young, badass and suburban.    She worked for many years as a rock music and pop star stylist .  "I drew a lot of inspiration from some of the amazing glam bands that were around then, primarily to get the showmanship, the onstage clothing--Roxy music and Bowie and the Stones. I also just tried to take note of the scene in California. Zeppelin was touring, glam rock was just coming out. I thought about what music ordinary teenagers were into--maybe Blue Oyster Cult or Heart--and what TV they were watching. That's really where teenagers got their style from."      Carol also styled the film Max Payne 2008.  (if you want to work with Carol, she is available through the REX agency.)

All photos courtesy of Apparition

It's the first ever user-generated HD Video Contest where photographers become filmmakers, and we all see beyond the still. Last month Josh Thacker was chosen as the very first winner for his film "Job Security," based on his interpretation of a still photograph at the end of the previous chapter, "The Cabbie," shot by Vincent Laforet on a Canon EOS 7D. Josh's film was the second chapter of seven, ending with a still photograph of his own for the Vimeo community to once again interpret. After a flurry of Chapter 3 entries, here are the five finalists. Please watch all five and cast your vote for the winner.

Chapter 1: The Cabbie from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

My dream dinner guest would be Malcolm McLaren.  Always been fascinated by him and his performance, art, Svengali and shameless self-promotion.   He once said, if I can't appropriate I can't make work.  Well, not something to be proud of, but I think in the 64 years he has been around he has more than left his mark.
 

He is back on the art scene again with a film of pillaged montages comprised of an archive he found twenty years ago in Paris-by accident.    Paris-Capital of the 21st Century.   A master manipulator and recontextualizer his  film remakes old advertising footage with panning, pastiche, juxtaposing collage, digital manipulation and musical scores.   McClaren also provides a steamy seductive voice over.  (I love when he talks on his Paris CD, so creepy it is grand)   I can't wait to see it.

Documentary's don't have the glitz of glamour or high profile actresses and directors.  If you want drama and suspense, check out the The Cove which won the Oscar for best Documentary Feature.   This is a powerful moving film. 
Directed by


In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O'Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation "Flipper." One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and "Keep Out" signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it. [D-Man2010]
http://www.thecovemovie.com/

Downtown Calling the film  
NYC in the late seventies was it's own entity.  Some say it still is a little island of cool. Back then  it was the birth of hip hop, a vibrant creative era and a political enigma.    Civic chaos and the style, fashion, music, club culture and dance that came out of it was monumental.  Downtown calling tells this story.

 The cast includes Mos Def, Maripol, Fab 5 Freddy, Chris Stein, Zephyr, Ed Koch, Jazzy Jay, Charlie Ahern, DJ AM, Arthur Baker, Jaleel Bunton, Dave Sitek, Henry Chalfant, Daze, Johnny Dynell, Bobbito Garcia, Nelson George, Michael Holman and on and on.   Debbie Harry narrates.  .

I hope the remake is good cause the original is off tha hook.   If anyone can pull it off it is the talented duo of Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.  Bring it back to the future.

I love Logorama which won best animated short. (France) '09  Such a cool group of films in this category. 

Logorama is written and directed by: 

In a world made up entirely of trademarks and brand names, Michelin Man cops pursue a criminal Ronald McDonald.  (copy care of oscar.go.com)

http://www.logorama-themovie.com/

A little Repo Man trivia/  Here are the lyrics to the brilliant and funny Jonathan Richman song.  The Burning Sensations actually covered the song for the Alex Cox classic.


Pablo Picasso

Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called assholes
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole

Well the girls would turn the color
Of the avacado when he would drive
Down their street in his El Dorado
He could walk down you street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not like you
Alright

Well he was only 5'3"
But girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not in New York

Oh well be not schmuck, be not abnoxious,
Be not bellbottom bummer or asshole
Remember the story of Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
Alright this is it

Some people try to pick up girls
And they get called an asshole
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and so
Pablo Picasso was never called

"Pablo Picasso" was written by Jonathan Richman for his proto punk group The Modern Lovers in 1972.

I guess it was Emilio Estevez missing from the John Hughes tribute at the Oscars that got me into a Repo Man  (1984) kind of mood.    Ran into Harry Dean Stanton at a party and talked about the film at length- love him.  (the remake is coming out-more on that later)  I have a soft spot for historic films set in LA.   Writer director Alex Cox is amazing.

  Probably one of the best punk film soundtracks ever, maybe even numero uno.

1. Iggy Pop - "Repo Man" - 5:11
2. Black Flag - "TV Party" - 3:50
3. Suicidal Tendencies - "Institutionalized" - 3:49
4. Circle Jerks - "Coup d'État" - 1:59
5. The Plugz - "El Clavo y la Cruz" - 2:56
6. Burning Sensations - "Pablo Picasso" - 4:01
7. Fear - "Let's Have a War" - 2:29
8. Circle Jerks - "When the Shit Hits the Fan" - 3:11
9. The Plugz - "Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man)" - 1:46
10. Juicy Bananas - "Bad Man" - 4:59
11. The Plugz - "Reel Ten" - 3:09

 "We Live in Public" is a 2009 documentary by director Ondi Timoner about the loss of privacy in the Internet age.  Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the internet.   
 The film focuses on Internet pioneer Josh Harris.  
Here more info from the press release. 


PLOT: On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect the web is having on our society as seen through the eyes of "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of", visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director, Ondi Timoner ("DIG!"), documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade, to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives. Josh Harris, often called the "Warhol of the Web" through the infamous dot.com boom of the 1990's, founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network and created his vision of the future, an underground bunker in NYC where 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days over the millennium. He proved how in the not-so-distant future of life online, we will willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire. Through his experiments, including a six-month stint living under 24-hour live surveillance online which led him to mental collapse, he demonstrated the price we will all pay for living in public.

EFR

A riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the military's unrecognized heroes: the bomb squad technicians who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives doing one of the worlds most dangerous jobs.  (from hurt locker )  I loved Avatar but I will be so excited if Kathryn's film wins.    (weird coincidence, she was married to James Cameron)- go figure.

She is only the fourth woman ever to be nominated for directing and the first since Sofia Coppola received recognition by the academy for "Lost in Translation" 2003.     No woman has ever won.

If you have the chance go see this emotional, provocati

Total early John Travolta fan here.    Saturday Night Fever changed my life, my first R rated movie.   It was in the early 80's John did Urban Cowboy. Much tamer, but good drama.  I watched it again recently and realized the Western styling is fantastic.   Charlie Daniels performs a mean "Devil went down to Georgia".  

It doesn't get any more sultry than Monica Vitti, Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni in Michelangelo Antonioni's  La Notte.  Italian neorealism at it's best.  Here is the nightclub scene.   So fabulous.  I think I'll only be wearing black dresses this year.  chic.  Madonna and Steven Klein were also inspired, look at the new Dolci & Gabbana campaign..   The details, the styling, the Italien....I wish I could balance a glass of wine on my head.  BELLA!!

Jay Z is always a visionary. Elegant, cool, understated, talented and smart he's a wonderful rap role model.   Blending art and pop culture his new Sam Brown directed video references some of the biggest art moments of the last decade.   Simple, luxuriously visual, b/w and edgy he makes a powerful statement.   I'm curious to see if other rappers follow his lead. 

  "On to the Next One" -- is produced by Swizz Beatz.   On Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 .

Directed by none other than photographic legend Robert Frank Cocksucker Blues is a wild ride. The X-rated classic of the Rolling Stones 1972 American Tour.    Starring Truman Capote, Bianca Jagger (always in a tuxedo and hat), Tina Turner, Terry Southern and Andy Warhol . 
I heart the seventies.    The scenes on the private jet are RIDIK!!  Question...did any girls wear bras back then, didn't look that way.  The clothing came off pretty quick.  Bonus concert footage of a young Stevie Wonder going on with Mick.   I love rock n roll.

Germany in the 1970s: Murderous bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the very foundations of the still fragile German democracy.

People always ask me about my daughter's name Nova Lee.  This is why we named her Nova.   It means many things in different languages. I love the name because it sounds cool and means star with lots of energy.   Now that she is 8, it really fits her personality.

Nova \n(o)-va\ is pronounced NOH-vah. It is of Latin origin, and its meaning is "new". Astronomy: a nova is a star that releases a tremendous burst of energy, becoming temporarily extraordinarily bright. Chevrolet used to make a small muscle car called the  "Nova".   My mother in law likes to say, Nova Lox is her favorite breakfast at Holiday time.

We also loved Planet of the Apes, so she was named for the beautiful deaf mute character played by actress Linda Harrison in that movie.  It seems ridiculous, but we loved the name so it made sense. (FYI: Nova first appeared in the novel, Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle)

 Her middle name is Lee, after the great kung fu master and legend Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon is his most iconic film (4th and last film). Bruce Lee was super cool. Many don't know that he was part German and a philosophy major.   Bruce revoluntionized cinema for Chinese actors and really was the first minority action hero.   He was known as the fighting philosopher and was very well read.    His first major role on TV was as KATO in the Green Hornet bringing martial arts and his complex ideas into living rooms across America.     His films started a cultural movement .   Remember the disco song "Kung Fu fighting", well it was written about him.     He wrote a book of his deep thoughts and teachings called The Tao of Jeet Kune.    Published posthumously.   His ideas revolved around the philosophy of finding yourself, or "just be".   I love that.     He is now considered a great teacher of Chan buddism and a prophet in the search for knowledge and peace. 

The holidays bring out the sap in me.   Show me The Sound of Music and I'll shed a tear.   Growing up in Germany every Christmas my family and I would sit around and watch the beloved tale of SISSY (1955).      Sissy was the gorgeous and courageous Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria.  (my Grandmother's ancestors are from here so it resonates).  Starring the amazingly talented Austrian born Romy Schneider in the role.  The dresses are off tha hook opulent.   She worked with the great Orson Welles and was the lover of French heart throb Alain Delon.   Unfortunately, Romy died young (44) in 1982 of cardiac arrest but her legacy and style will live on forever.   If you can rent any of her films I highly recommend this one.   Sissy is like a national pastime in Bavaria during the holidays, and like Germknodel it gets better with age.   
   romy schneider info

 Sissy is like a national pastime in Bavaria during the holidays, and like Germknodel it gets better with age.   

The lovely and talented actress Britney Murphy passed away this morning at age 32.  Reports are saying cause of death was cardiac arrest.  This is such sad news.   I was fortunate to have worked with Britney a few years ago and she was always witty, charming and full of life whenever I saw her.   A true spitfire. She was amazing.   I am totally in shock.

  I wish her loved ones and family my condolences.  
 

Just got turned onto this great crime drama called THE HIT.     Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Peter Prince.    It was released in 1985.     This movie stars a magnificent cast including the always suave and debonair Terence Stamp.  (Is he ever bad in anything?)  Tim Roth is intense as the cocky apprentice Myron to John Hurt's professional hit man character, Braddock.   The styling is incredible (love the bird cuff) and Roth gives one of his best performances here.  Insecure, violent and unpredictable.     The violence is infrequent, but reminds me of early John Woo or Tarantino in terms of its elegant and brutal choreography.   Followed by intense scenes of redemption.   Tarantino probably saw him in this and said, "you have to do Reservoir Dogs".    Aside from the performances, and the film is a sleeper, takes a while to get going, my favorite thing  is the cinematography.    The lighting is fantastic and just awe inspiring. Reminds me of a Stephen Shore photograph from the seventies.  Filmed in Madrid and rural Spain and London.      This movie has not aged and is still brilliant and unpredictable.  It grows on you.

I've seen the film Auntie Mame (1958) with Rosalind Russell a hundred times.     She is the eccentric, batty, intellectual Mame Dennis.    Love her so much.  Every time I watch I enjoy it more.   TIMELESS!  Now my daughter and I watch together.   We ooggle the fashions, laugh at the drama and love Mame for her tolerance and elegance as she entertains writers and artists in NYC through the depression.   Nominated for 6 oscars.   IN my top 5 of fav. films.  Fabulous and ahead of its time.

Werner Herzog remakes the classic Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes.   Abel Ferrara  made the original with Harvey Keitel and it was fantastic.     Haven't seen the remake yet, but Werner claims it is a completely different film.  Fairuza Balk is back too.  Hopefully an equally memorable film experience.   

I'm getting totally back into Dario Argento's brilliance.   Chalk it up to this time of year, Halloween, shorter days.    Dario started his career as a film critic and then moved into screenwriting.   He collaborated with Sergio Leone  and Bernardo Bertolucci on the classic spaghetti western ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.    His directorial debut came in 1969 with the film, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE.
Suspiria came out in 1977 and has all the fabulous horror ingredients.   Sca.ry, surreal, moody, violent, and supernatural .   I love Dario's sensibility, his colors, and art direction.  Actress and director Asia Argento is his daughter and also an artist.

Who better than filmmaker Ridley Scott to drudge up the dirt on the Gucci family?    Well he is slated to start production on this film next year.    Angelina Jolie is in talks to play Patrizia Reggiani, Maurizio Gucci's ex-wife, who's currently serving a 26-year sentence for plotting his 1995 murder.

This has all the ingredients for a juicy hit thriller.   Fashion, murder, and money...the plot thickens.   

This is a tear jerker.   I'm very excited to see the groundbreaking film.  Based on a novel called PUSH by Sapphire.    Oprah and Tyler Perry produced it.    Comedian Mo'nique, Lenny Kravitz , Mariah Carey, Paula Patton star.   Precious introduces Gabourey Sidibe who is incredible in the role.    Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece Precious Jones, a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want.   Rave reviews!  This is a film a lot of people are going to be talking about. precious

The last couple of days so many articles and news stories have come out about Roman Polanski.     As a director and artist he is brilliant.    Possibly my favorite film is Rosemary's Baby.   Repulsion and the Tenant  genius and the Pianist amazing.    If anyone can do creepy and paranoid well with a touch of loneliness, it is Roman.     On the other hand, he did commit a heinous crime.      (although, many Hollywood powerhouse's were sleeping with underage women during the seventies, Roman just got caught).     I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole thing.   He  lost Sharon Tate to the Manson family and his Parents to Hitler.    The man has lived some tragedy.    Here is a great article from the Wall Street Journal about the petition going around the world to forgive Roman.

By ANTHONY PALETTA

Amid the many reactions to director Roman Polanski's arrest last weekend in Switzerland more than 30 years after he fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, none have been as strong as those of the international film community. A petition demanding his release has attracted over 100 film-world signatories, including luminaries from Martin Scorsese and Costa-Gavras to David Lynch and Wong Kar Wai.

Reading the petition, you could be forgiven for thinking that the dispute was over some obscure diplomatic codicil. Its principal focus is on the mechanics of the arrest, namely Switzerland's detention of Mr. Polanski on a U.S. request as he was traveling to the Zurich Film Festival. It cites Switzerland's status as a "neutral country" and the "extraterritorial nature" of film festivals. The substance of his guilty plea and the circumstances of the crime receive only glancing mention, in a single line: "His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals."

One would never know that those easily brushed off "morals"--rape and pedophilia--have actually been a central concern of some of the petition's signatories.

Pedro Almodóvar, the daring Spanish director, created a fascinating study of a pedophiliac relationship between a priest and an altar boy in "Bad Education." There's a frank mutual attraction between the characters, but Mr. Almodóvar never leaves any question that their relationship is exploitative at its core, and he makes clear the scars such manipulation can create. If a petition were being circulated for Father Manolo instead of Mr. Polanski, it's doubtful we'd see Mr. Almodóvar's signature on it.

Asia Argento, international cinematic siren, is no stranger to depictions of rape. In her father Dario Argento's "The Stendahl Syndrome," she is raped twice, each occasion a source of transformative psychological trauma. If that doesn't seem experience enough, her own adaptation of the J.T. Leroy novel "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" features two of the queasiest rapes of modern cinema, with the adopted son of her character (portrayed by a 7-year-old actor) brutally assaulted by his stepfather and then by another of her boyfriends.

Harmony Korine, a devotedly weird filmmaker, is no stranger to the frequent pairing of strong drugs and assault; the harrowing end of his screenplay for "Kids" features a character raped while under the influence of an unnamed depressant. In "Kids," the assailant didn't give her the drug; there's no question about Mr. Polanski plying a 13-year-old with Quaaludes. Yet Mr. Korine's name is there on the petition.

That's far from the extent of the scabrous depictions of rape in the signatories' work. Monica Bellucci appeared in perhaps the longest single-take rape sequence ever filmed, a nine-minute segment of Gaspar Noe's stomach-churning "Irreversible."

In their depictions of these acts, the directors and actors in question seem keenly aware of the extreme violence of rape and the terrible psychological consequences that follow its victims for years afterward. But for them, apparently, life doesn't imitate art.

Still, some film-world names were notable for their absence from the petition. Director Luc Besson refrained from signing it, noting, in an interview with RTL Soir, "I don't have any opinion on this, but I have a daughter, 13 years old. And if she was violated, nothing would be the same, even 30 years later."

Perhaps the only group more incoherent than the cinematic community in its reaction has been Polish officials. Mr. Polanski, who was born and raised in Poland, has received much support from his countrymen. In an irony evidently lost on Polish bureaucrats, government ministers of the Civic Platform Party began protesting Mr. Polanski's arrest on Saturday, one day after their government successfully passed a law making chemical castration mandatory for pedophiles in cases involving victims under 15.

Now there's a thought.

--Mr. Paletta is an editor at the Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University.