Saturday, April 25, 2015

New Stuff: The New Yorker


(art: Mark Ulriksen)

Alla Vox


Attack on a China Mission (1900)


A man tries to defend a woman and a large house against Chinese attackers.

A classic of film history that incorporated a sumptuous production (for that time) and a story told in four shots - in a way the grandmother of all action movies.

Irma Spies


ph: Jens Utzt

New Stuff: The Wire


Jessica Stam


ph: Christian MacDonald

Flying Leathernecks (1951)



A Major leads The Wildcats squadron into the historic WWII battle of Guadalcanal.

Mediocre, violent and quite chauvinist flag waver which savours the air battle scenes.

Halliwell (no star): "Empty, violent war actioner full of phoney heroics."

Maltin***: "Solid, if not especially otiginal, WW2 actioner, with good aerial scenes and nice turnby Flippen as crafty sergeant."


Who's That Girl?


Photographer: Malcolm Arbuthnot

Marie Piovesan


ph: Gianluca Fontana

R.I.P. Daevid Allen

Alyona Subbotina


ph: Giampaolo Sgura

A day in the life, Apr 19


A day in the life, Apr 19, standing outside looking inside

Natalia Vodianova


From my vaults: Lana Del Rey


(ph: Nicole Bentley)

Bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana_Del_Rey


Fernanda Prada


ph: Natalia Alaverdian

New York


Frida Gustavsson


ph: Peter Gehrke

First Lines: John Wyndham - The Chrysalids


When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city - which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was.

Arlenis Sosa Peña


ph: Enrique Vega

A day in the life, Apr 18


A day in the life, Apr 18, Ruslan Rudi

Riley Montana


Afterwards (2008)



A newly divorced lawyer is shaken up after he meets a doctor who claims that he can sense when select people are about to die.

Made with style and atmosphere, and the cast do their best, but the story is just too silly.


Friday, April 24, 2015

Cintia Dicker


ph: Fabio Bartlet

New Stuff: We Need to Talk About Kevin


Missed seeing this movie, so I got the dvd.


Sarah Van Den Brink


Dirty (2005)


Two gangbangers-turned-cops try and cover up a scandal within the LAPD.

A great cast and feverish atmosphere, but a slightly unclear plot make this an above-average thriller about corruption among cops.

Maltin*1/2: "Aggressively foulmouthed and foul-minded, this visually convulsive TRAING DAY wannabe has ambitions, but offers neither its characters nor its audience any salvation."


 

Sophie Touchet


ph: Hans Neumann

New Stuff: The Mountain Goats


Always happy, when The Mountain Goats release a new album!


Barbara Palvin


ph: David Vasiljevic

Drive (2011)



A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbor.

What would have been another (violent) action flic is successfully given an artsy treatment and the feel of an existentialist drama with a tight-lipped, hard-boiled anti-hero.

Maltin**: "What some see as a prime example of postmodern cool strikes us as a pretentious hogwash from the word go. The bursts of gruesome violence are equally hard to swallow. By the way, Gosling seems fully articulate when he sets up his first gig, but spends the rest of the film nearly silent (and striking poses). Only bright spot is a juicy supporting role for Brooks as a savvy gangster."

Who's That Girl?


Art: Marcela Cardenas

Angelique Deng


ph: Julia Noni

A day in the life, Apr 17


A day in the life, Apr 17, white

Kate Moss irrégulière


From my vaults: Desmond Dekker

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Shaughnessy Brown


ph: Haylee Barsky

New York


Panorama of skyscrapers and ships in Manhattan, New York City, 1926

Edie Sedgwick


First Lines: Edwin A. Abbott - Flatland: Romance of Many Dimensions


I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are priviliged to live in Space.

Hannah Holman


ph: Romy Frydman

A day in the life, Apr 16


A day in the life, Apr 16, objet trouvé

Charlotte Free


Hadaka no shima (1960)


A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

Poetic masterpiece without any dialogue that depicts the bleak, but mutual relationship between landscape and human sustenance in rhythmic daily and seasonal rituals.

Halliwell*: "Slow, controlled, beautiful film in which not a single word of dialogue is spoken. The artificiality of this concept eventually diminishes its stature."

Irina Denisova