Saturday, July 16, 2016

Photographer: Antonio Andrade

Phillipa Steele


ph: Mathew Priestley

Rome


Musei Capitolini, June 2016

Freja Jeppesen


A day in the life, Jul 12


A day in the life, Jul 12, Papa Bike & son

Sarah Brannon


ph: Dirk Seiden Schwan

New York


Lower East Side of New York, 1800s

Frida Gustavsson


ph: Olivia Frølich

First Lines: Giovanni Giacomo Casanova - History of my Life


I begin by declaring to my reader that, by everything good or bad that I have done throughout my life, I am sure that I have earned merit or incurred guilt, and that hence I must consider myself a free agent.

Alys Hale


Rome


Musei Capitolini, June 2016

Babe Paley


A day in the life, Jul 11


A day in the life, Jul 11, after the rainfall

Kim Dillen


ph: Elina Kechicheva

New Stuff: The Hateful Eight


Sophie Hirschfelder


ph: Alice Rosati

Screamers: The Hunting (2009)


A group of humans arrive on Sirius 6-B to investigate an SOS signal sent out from the planet, which has been supposedly deserted since the destruction of the man-made weapons known as "screamers."

Mediocre sci-fi horror with some graphic violence and a completely predictable ending.

Sora Choi


New Stuff: From Girls to Grrrlz


Awa Ceesay


ph: Sofia Sanchez & Mauro Mongiello

Red Planet (2000)


Astronauts, and their robotic dog AMEE (Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion), search for solutions to save a dying Earth by searching on Mars, only to have the mission go terribly awry.

It's quite a regular sci-fi adventure with maybe a bit too many obstacles packed into the plot, but manages to entertain in an old-fashioned kind of way.

Halliwell (no star): "Dreary science-fiction, with the actors inhibited by their space-suits; nothing interesting happens very slowly."

Maltin**: "Utterly ordinary sci-fi saga...Looks good, but covers awfully familiar dramatic turf."

Saara Sihvonen


ph: Franck Gelabert

Friday, July 15, 2016

New Stuff: Ugetsu monogatari


Suki Alice Waterhouse


ph: Ellen von Unwerth

Independence Day (1996)


The aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy Earth; fighting superior technology, mankind's best weapon is the will to survive.
 
Successful rejuvenation of the 50s alien invasion/doomsday subgenre offers top-of-the-art special effects and action coupled with some good-natured tongue-in-cheek humor.

Halliwell*: "Enjoyably silly, jingoistic nonsense that found an appreciative audience for its sensational effects of blwing up the White House and most of the world; it sticks closely to the plot of The War of the Worlds, offering a technological version of a biological virus to knock out the aliens."

Maltin**1/2: "Spectacular - and spectacularly stupid - sci-fi saga...Big, Oscar-winning special effects are impressive, but the human stories are so dumb, the writing so lame, and some of the performances so broad they make some silly '50s sci-fi movies look brilliant by comparison."


Brynja Jónbjarnardóttir


New Stuff: Christof Schläger


A gift from Ursula.

Who's That Girl?


Art: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis

Kristen Stewart


ph: Vincent Peters

Rome

 
Musei Capitolini, June 2016

Kristina Elise


A day in the life, Jul 10


A day in the life, Jul 10, at work

Giannina Oteto


New York


Coney Island, NYC, NY 1949

Magdalena Wrobel


First Lines: Calvin Coolidge - The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge


The town of Plymouth lies on the easterly slope of the Green Mountains, about twenty miles west of the Connecticut River and somewhat south of the central part of Vermont.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Kim Cloutier


ph: Chris Nicholls

Snatch (2000)


Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

Another Tarantino wannabe ruffian satire with some interesting performances, but also offering some  disagreeable humor and a hardly coherent plot; the makers are obviously quite convinced of their own cleverness.

Halliwell*: "Chaotic and hectic thriller involving American, Russian and English low-life, Irish gypsies and dodgy boxing promoters; the narrative moves quickly without getting out of the morass, while Brad Pitt goes over the top in a parody of his Fight Club role."

Maltin***: "Writer-director Ritchie's follow-up to LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS is a similarly energized, violent farce about sleazy underworld...Pitt is amusing as a garble-mouthed Irish gypsy fighter. Fresh, funny, and full of punch."

Philippine Chaumont


New Stuff: The New Yorker


(art: Kadir Nelson)

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Audrey Marnay


ph: Steven Meisel

Extreme Measures (1996)


A British doctor working at a hospital in New York who starts making unwanted enquiries when the body of a man who died in his emergency room disappears.

OK speculative thriller with dubious moral message.

Halliwell (no star): "An unsuccessful medical thriller about a mad scientist, notable mainly as an attempt to broaden Grant's appeal to encompass action."

Maltin**: "Medical conspiracy thriller starts out well enough but quickly becomes obvious and hollow. Grant has one of his best parts as a dedicated doctor..."


Who's That Girl?


Photographer: Jacob A. Riis