How to Shoot Instagram Photos That Look Like Your Favorite Directors’ Films
Wong Kar-wai
In the mood for the lovely red hues of this director's films 2046 and In the Mood for Love? It helps if you just happen to have a gorgeous woman in a cheongsam at your disposal (not to mention some to-die-for period details), but in a pinch, the saturated Kelvin filter will suffice.
Clueless: Crayola Brights & Rich Girl Prep
The name checking of designers such as Calvin Klein adds further to the fantasy element of Cher’s privileged life. In one memorable scene, she pleads with a mugger not to force her to the ground in her expensive Azzedine Alaïa dress. Begging that “It’s an Alaïa”, the mugger is momentarily dumfounded, responding, “An A-what-a?”. She reasons that “it’s, like, a totally important designer” and worthy of risking her life for. Previously, this was a name unfamiliar to the standard teenage population, making it instantly desirable in its unobtainability. With this, Clueless ushered in a generation of designer name lovers.
“People say to me that the dad is so naughty,” laughs the writer, director and star. “But those people are not French. There’s a reason the Marquis de Sade is French. In America anything to do with sex is pornographic. But in France perversion is legitimate among intellectuals. Les bijoux indiscrets, by Denis Diderot, is highly regarded. And it’s about a penis and pussy that talk. Seriously. [via]
One reason why none of the venues for the Independent Film Festival of Boston are in Boston propah:
The free public preview of "The Avengers" held at the Boston Common a half week after the press screening Vellante attended. He couldn't get into this one for insane bureaucratic reasons detailed in his piece -- and, really, how dare he try to see the best possible presentation of a movie before he writes a review for his readers? -- but he didn't miss that much. The venue was the Common's faux IMAX screen (or as my friend Brett calls it, "Lie-MAX"), for which customers pay an extra $6 per ticket. The theater was packed with fans; the opening credits were applauded. Every ironic one-liner was met with delirious laughter; every climactic donnybrook with cheers.
Nah. No one noticed.
Part 2:
I caught an afternoon showing of " The Avengers" today at the AMC Common, and boy does it make me want to invest in my home entertainment system. Not only was the framing a little bit off (lopping most characters at the hairline), they never bothered to turn on the subwoofer in the theater. That's right. Two and a half hours of explosions and the Hulk, and no low end or rumbles. One (matinee) ticket, a small coke and a small popcorn come to $19.75--I'd like to think that for that, I ought to get the full picture and sound! I suppose the really disappointing part is that I wasn't entirely surprised.
Part 3:
“Due to a rise of projection problems, Boston area film critics are protesting their work conditions by picketing outside offending theaters and watching bootleg screeners off of their phones. They refuse to reenter these theaters unless negotiations to improve projection quality resume.”
Sahkanaga
I love this film, for all the easy reasons to love a film. Great plot, acting, directing, cinematography. It’s got an interesting storyline so I’ll recommend it to everyone, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to discuss just how much this reflected my experiences of growing up in the south. I was born and raised in and around Charleston, South Carolina. I grew up running up and down the state and into Georgia and North Carolina and those delicious crisp grey and green blueridge mountains, from Kings Mountain to Arden to Shelby and beyond.
I Got the Movie Music in Me (and the Sound Effects too)
My solution to this came in the form of a newfangled invention, the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), specifically, one very early model I had that allowed me to put in a tape, connect the VCR to my stereo cassette player (God this terminology is making me sound old) and record from the videotape to the audiotape. I cannot overstate how fundamentally life-changing this was for me. Finally, I could record a movie I loved off of television and then record the sections I wanted to hear again and again onto audio cassette (then, presumably, take a drive in my Model T to the music store where I could make all the kids listening to the Victrola jealous). [the cinetrix TOTALLY did something like this.]
A Playlist Of Game-Changing Moments In Song
I’ve been obsessed with the idea of identifying critical moments in popular songs for a long time, but have been struggling with defending what that exactly means. One friend dismissed my ever-growing playlist of songs with identifiable pinnacles of brilliance as just “good songwriting.” I tried to tell her that, no, wait, good songwriting is one thing, but being able to completely change the composition of a song, the whole understanding of the joy that a song can bring, in one critical moment, is not just good songwriting, it’s genius. Nor was I talking about anything as simple as climax and release.
Jonathan Lethem's SFIFF keynote:
According to Lethem, “a fictional scene in a movie is an inadvertent documentary of the actors’ lives”. “If there is one thing certain in 21st century art making, is that to present one’s vulnerabilities is to call forth the haters”. He added that, “Lately, it is typical to dismiss a generation’s prototypical artists by suggesting that their susceptibility to congenital pre-adolescence disqualifies their claims on our grown-up attention…. As if any of us can safely claim to be watching with ‘grown-up attention’”. “The counter-argument is that late techno-capitalism has made spoiled children of us all. Or at least, wants to.” “We gaze into the mumble. And the mumble gazes back at us”, he concluded. [via]
Related: Lethem on [his 33 1/3 volume on] Talking Heads' Fear of Music.
Related related: It Sure Do Bother Me to See My Loved Ones Turning Into Puppets
Black Clock contributor Howard Hampton (issues 4 and 15) has compiled a soundtrack for the sweeping epic (during which no one will be seated!) that is our latest issue. Fire up your Maxwellian demon or tune into your imagination and viddy what scenes may come.
Black Clock 15
The soundtrack album that never was!
Nicholas Rombes gets a jump on the 20th anniversary of Wild Palms:
a truly sunny and nightmarish postmodern nightmare, with references and allusions to everything from David Cronenberg’s films to Wallace Stevens to Philip K. Dick to Walt Whitman. Episode 3, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, has perhaps the strangest mix of pacing and image as anything ever shown on television.
And last, the latest installment of Scandals of Classic Hollywood: The Passion of Laurence Olivier
Whether the affair started before, during, or immediately after filming is a moot point — about as important as whether or not Brad and Angelina started making out before the end of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. What matters was that the chemistry between the two was palpable, and the British gossip columns went crazy. The Old Vic cast Leigh as Ophelia to Olivier’s Hamlet — Love! Betrayal! Drowning! So hot right now! — and the existing rumors gained strength. The inconvenient fact of Olivier’s infant son made the public opprobrium even more severe. Neither Olivier nor Leigh’s spouses would grant divorce, so Olivier and Leigh said screw it, we’re just gonna move in together. And while they didn’t pose for the papers as they moved into their new home, neither did they make it a grand secret.
