Ashley Franscell worked the past couple of months following a woman who is dying of breast cancer. Here is her story
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Bruce Gilden photographed and interviewed scores of people in South Florida who have lost their homes and are already suffering through hard times. Later this week, Magnum in Motion will present a multimedia package of Gilden’s work.
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A good friend of mine just gave me the DVD: Brilliant Fever: W. Eugene Smith and Pittsburgh and while I knew Smith’s work, I fell in love with it all over again watching it.
in Film & TV
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Elliott Erwitt and Alec Soth, two great photographers widely separated by their vision, style, and generations–but sharing a sense of irony, self-effacing wit, and a photo agency (Magnum)—took the stage at New York’s Javits Center last night to talk to a packed audience about their work and careers.
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Shooting live performance either in the rehearsal studio or on stage is where many photographers cut their teeth with dance and then attempt to pursue a career in dance photography. It’s usually a dead-end.
in Photography
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Welcome to the flagship “episode” of Saturday’s For Suckers. Vids, vids, vids will be forced down your throats on all of my last posts each month. Most of ’em will be themed but this month’s video buffet is an ADHD-worst-nightmare free-for-all. Peep:
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Are they terrible, great, or both? You figure it out.
First link to Amazon, then a link to Netflix at the end of each one.
Yeti: Love Story. A camping trip goes very wrong when five college students are kidnapped by a secret cult that plans to sacrifice them to a mysterious hairy beast called the Yeti — who turns out to harbor a deep attraction to young men — in this raunchy comedy. The situation starts to improve when one of the victims begins to examine his own desires and finds that the Yeti doesn’t seem so unappealing — but can the group escape from the crazed cult members? @Netflix
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens. This documentary takes an in-depth look at the influential career of iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz, from her earliest artistic efforts to her storied tenure at Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines and beyond. Intimately filmed by Annie’s sister Barbara Leibovitz, the program features interviews with the artist as she works at home, along with telling insights from many of the celebrities she has photographed, such as Mick Jagger. @Netflix
Billy the Kid (Documentary). Filmmaker Jennifer Venditti documents the engrossing life of Billy P., a teen in small-town Maine enamored with girls and pro wrestling. But as the cameras roll, a more complex portrait emerges of a troubled but ultimately triumphant young man. From finding the courage to ask a girl on a date to confronting his painful childhood with remarkable humor, Billy is a testament to the power of love and family to overcome any obstacle. @Netflix
Devil Hunter. Cult exploitation favorite Jesus Franco directs this sordid tale about Laura (Ursula Buchfellner), a sexy model who’s kidnapped and whisked away into the jungle, and Peter (Al Cliver), the bold Vietnam vet who sets out to find her. Soon, Laura discovers it’s not just her captors she has to fear; not only do the locals crave human flesh, but their bloodthirsty earthbound god wants Laura for himself. Antonio Mayans and Gisela Hahn co-star. @Netflix
Elite Squad. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some cops are just as crooked as the drug lords who run the slums. On the brink of retirement — and burnout — Capitão Nascimento (Wagner Moura) must find a trustworthy successor to lead a dangerous mission. Co-written by director José Padilha, Bráulio Mantovani (City of God) and Rodrigo Pimentel, the gritty action-thriller is based on Pimentel’s 19 years of experience as an elite squad police captain. @Netflix
Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition [Limited Edition]. While sulking in the California desert, misfit teenager Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) stumbles on a powerful alien laser weapon, which he uses to wreak havoc on all who have wronged him. The venerable critic Leonard Maltin gave this space oddity a two-and-a-half star review, a fact that gets quite a drubbing by the crew at MST3K in this fan-favorite episode. Watch for Roddy McDowall in a brief cameo as Dr. Mellon. @Netflix
ZOOM – Back to the 70s. Get ready to go retro with this nostalgic compilation from the Emmy-winning PBS children’s series. Written and hosted by kids, “Zoom” stars seven youngsters from varied backgrounds performing material and activities suggested by the TV audience. Included are segments featuring all the hosts from the show’s six seasons, along with four complete episodes. So, join the fun as the Zoomers stage plays, engage in life discussions, sing, dance and more. @Netflix
in Film & TV
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Laptop destroyed today. The Click might be slow on posts for a day or so.
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During the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence, perpetrated by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe. Among the survivors, those who are most isolated are the women who have borne children as a result of being raped. Their families have rejected both them and their children, compounding their already unimaginable emotional distress.
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Jonas Bendiksen/Magnum Photos
In 2005, I started work on The Places We Live, a project about urban poverty and slums. For three years, I visited dozens of families in four slums around the world.
The Places We Live was not a search for finding the absolute extremes of urban poverty—I wasn’t looking for the dirties spot, the poorest hovels or the most crime-ridden street corner. My task was to find how people normalize these dire situations. How they build dignity and daily lives in the midst of very challenging living conditions.
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I had become very impressed with the Canon G10 after just a few days of earlier light-duty testing. Each evening that week I would sit with my 15″ Macbook Pro reviewing the day’s files. At one point I found myself looking at raw files on-screen and not being sure if I was looking at Hasselblad P45+ files or Canon G10 files. That includes at 100% onscreen enlargements.
in Equipment
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The Hankyoreh, a newspaper and media company in Korea, commissioned Magnum to produce a series of photographs to commemorate South Korea’s 60th anniversary and the company’s own 20th anniversary. The Resulting project is apparantly the largest single undertaking by the Magnum agency, who sent 20 of it’s photographers to South Korea between the end of 2006 and the start of 2008 with each spending between 10 and 60 days in the country.
in Photography
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For Toronto street artist Posterchild’s latest project, he installed blue wooden boxes around town with a camera inside.
in Photography
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Mort Rosenblum and Gary Knight shaped a rough concept after covering badly understood conflicts together in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. At a photo workshop, Simba Gill told Knight of his own idea for a magazine. After an hour-long conversation in Paris, the three partners established dispatches with no more than a handshake.
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in Books
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Are they terrible, great, or both? You figure it out.
Links go to Amazon. Links to Netflix after each.
Six in Paris. French new wave pioneers Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard headline this 1960s-era short film anthology, featuring six vignettes centered on metropolitan life in the City of Lights. Titles include Jean Douchet’s “Saint Germain-des-Prés,” Jean Rouch’s “Gare du Nord,” Jean-Daniel Pollet’s “Rue Saint-Denis,” Rohmer’s “Place de l’Étoile,” Godard’s “Montparnasse et Levallois” and Chabrol’s “La Muette.” @Netflix
Sunday School Musical. When financial woes threaten their church’s future, a group of teens, led by one talented performer, enters a song and dance competition in hopes of winning a heavenly cash prize. Starring Candise Lakota as Savannah, this heartwarming and energetic Christian spin on the tremendously popular High School Musical franchise features 21 songs, including seven originals by composer Don Raymond. Rachel Goldenberg directs. @Netflix
Trailer Park of Terror. When their bus crashes, stranding them in a remote area known as the Trucker’s Triangle, six troubled teens and their youth minister, Pastor Lewis (Matthew Del Negro), find themselves face-to-face with a murderous redneck named Norma (Nichole Hiltz) who keeps company with the undead. While the hapless crew is snoozing away in her trailer park, Norma’s thinking of ways to make their lives a living nightmare. @Netflix
The Strangers. In this heart-pounding thriller, young suburban couple James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) welcome the peace and quiet of a secluded family vacation home — that is, until three masked home invaders make them realize how dangerous isolation can be. Written and directed by Bryan Bertino, the film also stars Australian supermodel Gemma Ward, Kip Weeks, Glenn Howerton and Laura Margolis. @Netflix
Magical Witch Punie Chan. She may look like an ordinary girl, but Punie-Chan is really a magical princess who’s out of this world! With her lovable sidekick, Paya-tan, in tow, Punie roams the halls of her school and squashes anyone who gets in her way. Sure, she’s cute and has a flair for fashion, but the prickly Punie also has a killer ability to take down her enemies with a crushing submission hold that leaves them breathless. @Netflix
in Film & TV
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Last week, Fox News set off a short-lived controversy when it attacked Newsweek for not retouching the magazine’s larger-than-life cover photo of Sarah Palin. Calling the headshot “ridiculously unfair to her,” anchor Megyn Kelly declared that “any respectable magazine should be doing a little retouching.”
in Ethics
