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Albert Maysles as a cinematographer and a photographer has spent his life observing and documenting the paths that his own life has taken for 51 years. A new book from Steidl and the Steven Kasher Gallery called A Maysles Scrapbook takes us through those 51 years of image making in the first comprehensive monograph of both Albert’s personal photography and the wonderful film collaborations he created with his brother.
Check it out here.
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Polly Ann Williams, one of the women featured in Lauren Greenfield’s THIN, the HBO documentary about women battling eating disorders, died Friday, Feb. 8 in what media outlets are calling an apparent suicide. The 33-year-old Williams was an aspiring photographer and a lobbyist for the National Eating Disorders Association. Her family asks those who wish to make contributions in her memory to visit www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.
On her website, Greenfield remembers WIlliams as “an extraordinary woman with unforgettable gifts. … In her short life, she touched more people than most people do in their lifetime and I know she was very proud of the contribution she made in the eating disorder community.”
Check it out here.
There are lots of reasons why making a film about Annie Leibovitz, our most famous living photographer, may be a bit intimidating. For one thing, photography is essentially static, so how to bring it to life on screen? For another, Leibovitz has something of a reputation.
Graydon Carter, her boss at Vanity Fair, likens her to ‘Barbra Streisand with a camera’, which is possibly shorthand for ‘she’s a nightmare on legs!’ (I’m guessing that he isn’t referring to her singing.) Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, admits that, yes, Annie is demanding, that the idea of ‘budget is not something that enters into her consciousness’, before quickly adding that she is worth it because ‘she cares! she cares!’ Even Leibovitz’s flesh and blood, in this case, her sister Paula, confesses: ‘You don’t want to be anywhere near her when she’s taking pictures.’
Check it out here.
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Last week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the surprise hit was a music documentary called ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, the story of which can be summed up as “Spinal Tap in Real Life” (Stonehenge even makes an appearance). Anvil, who die-hard late-80s metal fans (and possibly no one else) will recall as precursors to Megadeth and Slayer (and contemporaries of the Scorpions and Whitesnake), never “made it” like many of their peers and acolytes- yet they have soldiered on, playing the rawk for 35 years.
Check it out here.
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Potentially, the worst television show ever. I love it! The Christian disclaimer at the start is fascinating, and after watching the program, it seems ridiculous to hold on to the concept that this pair must stay together. I mean, really, who wants to be with a guy who wishes he were Red Skelton!?
Check it out here.
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When Leon Kaufman’s (Bradley Cooper) latest body of work – a collection of provocative, nighttime studies of the city and its inhabitants — earns the struggling photographer interest from prominent art gallerist Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields), she propels him to get grittier and show the darker side of humanity for his upcoming debut at her downtown art space. Believing he’s finally on track for success, Leon’s obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer, Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), the subway murderer who stalks late-night commuters — ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways imaginable.
Check it out here.
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Amy Stein | Photography | Blog: Chris Jordan…On the Rachael Ray Show?!?
Photographic artist and gallery mate, Chris Jordan, has been making the TV circuit of late to promote his new Running the Numbers series. He has been seen on the Colbert Report, Bill Moyer’s Journal and now the Rachael Ray Show.
Here.
The Angriest Man In Television: “Behold the Hack, the veteran newsman, wise beyond his years, a man who’s seen it all, twice. He’s honest, knowing, cynical, his occasional bitterness leavened with humor. He’s a friend to the little scam, and a scourge of the big one. Experience has acquainted him with suffering and stupidity, venality and vice. His anger is softened by the sure knowledge of his own futility. And now behold David Simon, the mind behind the brilliant HBO series The Wire. A gruff fireplug of a man, balding and big-featured, he speaks with an earthy, almost theatrical bluntness, and his blue-collar crust belies his comfortable suburban upbringing. He’s for all the world the quintessential Hack, down to his ink-stained fingertips—the kind of old newshound who will remind you that a ‘journalist’ is a dead reporter. But Simon takes the cliché one step further; he’s an old newsman who feels betrayed by newspapers themselves.”
CJR: Secrets of the City: “It could be a scene from The Wire, particularly this year. The fifth and final season of David Simon’s dramatic HBO series will focus on the newsroom of a fictional paper called, like the real one, the Sun. The Wire, although fictional, explores an increasingly brutal and coarse society through the prism of Baltimore, where postindustrial capitalism has decimated the working-class wage and sharply divided the haves and have-nots. The city’s bloated bureaucracies sustain the inequality. The absence of a decent public-school education or meaningful political reform leaves an unskilled underclass trapped between a rampant illegal drug economy and a vicious ‘war on drugs.’ In the final season, Simon asks why we aren’t getting the message. Why can’t we achieve meaningful reform? What are we telling ourselves about ourselves? To get at these questions, he wants us to see the city from the perspective of a shrinking newsroom.”
Comment is free: Ink-stained wretches: “But as The Wire plunges headlong into its fifth and final season, those layers of sloppy kiss print coverage have not been reciprocated by the show’s creator, David Simon.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Much of The Wire’s new season grapples with the American newspaper, a once-glorious enterprise ransacked by a dismal convergence of investors’ heedless and rapacious pursuit of double-digit profit and a tectonic shift in media technology. It’s a storyline rooted in Simon’s experiences as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun from 1983-995 – and his unhappy departure from that paper during its precipitous decline in ambition and prestige.
It is surprising is that it has taken so long to create a snappy dramatisation of the decline of US newspapers. Television’s last serious look at the business was CBS’ Lou Grant – which aired from 1977-1982, an era when ‘stop the presses’ still meant, literally, stop the machines that print the newspapers.”
Rob Walker – Consumed – Marketing and Advertising – Yo Gabba Gabba – Nickelodeon – Television – New York Times: “With a host in a crazy orange outfit called DJ Lance Rock (‘equal parts Jimmie Walker and Bootsy Collins’ as OC Weekly put it), ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’ stars five cute creatures and features dancing children, animation and upbeat messages in a somewhat campy and surreal setting. If the title reminds you of, say, ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ and the Ramones’ chant ‘Gabba gabba hey,’ that may not be a coincidence. The show was created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz; each has young children and each is in his mid-30s. ‘They were thinking, What would inspire our generation of dads?’ Rivkin says. The answer included recurring segments in which rapper Biz Markie offers kids a human-beatbox rhythm of the day and Mark Mothersbaugh, a founder of Devo who also composed the music for ‘Rugrats,’ gives drawing lessons. Musical guests have included current indie rock heroes like the Shins and Cornelius.”
Apple Unveils Movie Rentals and Thin Notebook – New York Times: “Mr. Jobs also announced a new version of Apple TV that does not require a cable for users to play movies from iTunes directly on the television.”
From the NYT Magazine:
The more we talked over the following 18 months, however, the more painful his adolescence began to sound. Apatow was always small for his age, and he grew adept at making fun of himself before others could. He began audiotaping “Saturday Night Live” when he was 11, transcribing the show and then trying to figure how they made it funny. When TV Guide arrived each week, Apatow would underline all the comics scheduled to appear on “The Mike Douglas Show.”
Apatow’s childhood hero was Steve Martin. On a summer trip to L.A., Apatow persuaded his grandparents to drive by Martin’s home until Apatow spied his hero in the driveway. Martin wouldn’t give him an autograph, so Apatow wrote him an angry letter saying it was his patronage of Martin’s projects that allowed him to live the high life. A few weeks later, Martin sent Apatow a copy of his book “Cruel Shoes” with an apology: “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was speaking to the Judd Apatow.”
Here.
Every Sunday I go through the list of new releases on Netflix. Here are two that I’m sure you’ll soon be renting:
Nothing ever happens in the tiny Orange County, Calif., town of Blanca Carne, but that’s about to change. Hella Burger’s evil mascot, Horny the Clown (Van De La Plante), is on a murderous rampage. Tired of seeing her friends slaughtered by Horny’s meat cleaver, 17-year-old Mackenzie (Leighton Meester) decides to put an end to his killing spree. Nicholas D’Agosto, Lola Glaudini and Larry Joe Campbell co-star in this darkly comic terror-fest.
The Greatest Tractor Show on Earth Ever (2007)
Some titles say it all, and this document of the Cheffins Tractor Millennium is no exception. All told, 1,958 tractors turned up for this extravaganza in the summer of 2000. The event was capped off by the great dynamometer horsepower challenge, which pits modern tractors against vintage machines. Participants include John Deere, Fordson, Marshall, Doe and Caterpillar. Relive the magic of this thrilling event for tractor enthusiasts.
Sometimes the description of a film newly releasing on Netflix is worthy of a post. This one, Sex Machine, is described thusly:
Frank can’t really explain why he has the words “Sex Machine” tattooed on his arm. In fact, he can’t seem to remember much of anything about his life lately — including why his head is throbbing, bleeding and wrapped in gauze. Seeking solace in the arms of his girlfriend, he sets out to find answers to a long list of troubling questions and, in the process, butts heads with a gang of deadly assassins and a vengeful mad scientist.
Releases on DVD May 15, 2007
Here.
The documentary film, “Looking for an Icon” opens this week (if you live in a major market (and I don’t)). It’s a 55 minute look at four photographs that took top honors in the World Press Photo contest. World Press is hands-down the finest photojournalism competition in the world.
Here’s a clip from the movie review from the NYT:
This documentary by Hans Pool and Maaik Krijgsman about four World Press Photo contest winners defines icon to mean a still image so searing that it supplants memories of the event it was supposed to record. The selected pictures pass the test: a South Vietnamese brigadier general executing a Vietcong guerrilla in 1968; a 1973 image of President Salvador Allende of Chile, soon to be assassinated; the 1989 snapshot of a Chinese protestor blocking a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square; and a 1991 Gulf War photograph of a United States soldier in a helicopter, weeping near the body of his best friend.
Can’t wait to see it. Whenever that is.
You can read the rest of the short review by clicking here. (requires free registration)
Writing about the new ITV series Deadline, this from Sqweegee’s Blog, EPUK:
The tone of the programme is pretty much summed up by elegantly coiffured Darryn Lyons’ dressing down of Lisa L’Anson after the former Big Brother loser takes time out from an assignment to have her hair done: well, who hasn’t?
‘You make me look like a f*ing prick’, seethes Mr Paparazzi, apparently distressed at the idea that he might need assistance in this department. ‘You go and get your f*ing hair done and do your f*ing shopping. That’s all you’re interested in: shopping and f*ing hair.’
Lyon’ rant is a prelude to L’Anson being told to clear her desk by Street Porter. ‘I’m going to tell you the two reasons so you’re f*ing PERFECTLY CLEAR why I want you out of here,’ screams the Fleet Street legend, looking in urgent need of a hairdressing appointment herself. But failing to produce any reasons at all, she just rambles on: ‘Lisa, cut the crap and get out of the office. It’s the second time you’ve worked for me and it’s been just as crap as the first. You are a bullsh*t artist, now get out of here.’
More Here.
From LA Weekly, a conversation with Quentin Tarantina, Robert Rodriguez and the masters of grindhouse films (Richard Rush, Bob Clark, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Allan Arkush, Lewis Teague, and George Armitage):
TARANTINO: I have to tell you that, of course, everyone talks about the George Romero movies when they talk about the zombie genre. But hands down, on my own list of great zombie movies — or even the great shoestring classics of ’70s horror — Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is right up there in the tip, tip top. The thing I loved about that movie so goddamned much is that the whole movie is humorous — it’s humorous from beginning to almost end. If the movie is 90 minutes long, for 79 of those 90 minutes it’s a comedy. And then, when the zombies show up in the last 11 minutes, there ain’t a goddamn thing funny about it. They just wipe out everybody. I have never seen a movie that for 79 minutes is a comedy and the last 11 minutes is balls-out horror!
Here.
Mercury News:
Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry “Bud” Melman on David Letterman’s late night television shows, has died after a long illness.
Mr. DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman’s “Late Show” announced Wednesday.
He made dozens of appearances on Letterman’s shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: singing a duet of “I Got You, Babe” with Sonny Bono, doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Here.
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