Marianne Thomas, former photo editor at The San Francisco Chronicle, died Sept. 20 at age 57, the newspaper reports. She was The Chronicle’s photo editor from 1992 to 2002.
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in Obituaries
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in Music
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Are they great, terrible, or both? You figure it out. Links go to Netflix.
Flu Birds. A tight-knit group of teens find themselves fighting for their lives when unexpected visitors — a flock of flesh-eating birds infected by a malicious virus — crash their carefree camping trip in the woods. With each deadly swoop, the flying predators are spreading their dangerous strain and transforming the locals into bird feed. Can a shrinking group of survivors fight back and reclaim the skies?
Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro Chan. Sakura Kusakabe is destined to invent an immortality-granting technology that will cause all women to stop aging when they turn 12. Fearing a pedophilia outbreak, God sends his angelic assassin Dokuro-chan to prevent Sakura from completing his work. The angel adopts a nonviolent strategy to containing Sakura, but her short temper causes her to kill him — and revive him — again and again in this unique anime treat.
Kenny. Porta-loo deliveryman Kenny Smyth (Shane Jacobson) is probably one of the most underappreciated professionals on the planet. But without him, this much is true: There’d be a lot more crap to deal with. In a comedy of excremental proportions, Kenny makes his rounds with his dedicated Splashdown crew and ultimately finds himself at the mother of all waste management sites — the International Pumper and Cleaner Expo in Nashville.
Hell on Wheels. Indie filmmaker Bob Ray delivers a high-octane documentary that charts the revival of modern-day roller derby, beginning with the feisty group of women from Austin, Texas, who started it all back in 2001. The film’s soundtrack features original music by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Grupo Fantasma, RPG, Nashville Pussy, Alice Donut, the Crack Pipes, U.S.S. Friendship and more.
Taxi to the Dark Side. Just days after an Afghan taxi driver picked up three passengers and never returned home, he wound up dead at Bagram Air Base, killed by injuries inflicted by U.S. soldiers. Interviews, news footage and firsthand reports provide a gripping look at the case and the Bush administration’s policy on torture. Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) directs this Best Documentary winner for the 2008 Oscars.
Jellyfish. The stories of three disparate women intersect at a Tel Aviv wedding. Newly single Batiya (Sarah Adler) works with the catering crew; Filipina Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre) attends the event as the caregiver of an elderly woman; and the bride (Noa Knoller) sees her honeymoon dreams go up in smoke. Directed by popular Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and his screenwriter wife, Shira Geffen, the film won the Camera d’Or at Cannes.
in Film & TV
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Far from the Kremlin and its rising military and economic ambitions lie remnants of a seemingly eternal, agrarian Russia. James Hill was there with his camera.
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The chaos that is engulfing Pakistan appears to represent an especially frightening case of strategic blowback, one that has now begun to seriously undermine the American effort in Afghanistan. Tensions over Washington’s demands that the militants be brought under control have been rising, and last week an exchange of fire erupted between American and Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. So it seems a good moment to take a look back at how the chaos has developed.
in News
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Somali pirates plying the Gulf of Aden in speedboats equipped with grenade launchers and scaling ladders have launched what the maritime industry calls the biggest surge of piracy in modern times, sending shipping costs soaring and the world’s navies scrambling to protect the main water route from Asia and the Middle East to Europe
in News
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It’s football season. I got to the field early and holding all my gear managed to get a cheesburger, chips and soda and eat on the edge of the field before the game. Nice evening light, Eminem & ACDC blaring on the loudspeaker, grilling meat wafting through the air; I put the chips inbetween the buns of the burger, smiled and remembered how much I love my job.
in Sports
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Twice, over 24 years, Aditya Arya tried to open the boxes that photojournalist Kulwant Roy delivered to him, bit by bit, on his Lambretta scooter before he died, anonymous and impoverished, in 1984. But each time, he gave up. There was just too much in those boxes, explains Arya, an advertising photographer with a busy schedule.
There is still too much. On the eve of the first exhibition of Roy’s work, which opens at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) on October 3, thousands of Roy’s negatives, in neatly labelled boxes, remain unseen.
But the 7,000-odd that Arya has digitally scanned since December 2007—when he finally began to unpack the legacy that Roy, a family friend, had bequeathed him—are glimpses of a historical treasure house.
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Like many of us, Josh Azzarella was affected by 9/11—but in a way only a visual artist could be. The constant loop of images from the day playing on TV and, later, the removal of the Twin Towers from movies and videos fired his artistic imagination. He became interested in exploring how personal and collective memory is evoked by removing imagery. This led the award-winning New York-based artist to try digitally modifying videos and stills to see whether they retained the essence of the parts that had been removed from the original.
in Photography
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Just too many titles to be curious about this week. Are they great, terrible, or both? You figure it out.
Savage Streets. When a gang’s harmless prank leads to the brutal sexual assault of her deaf little sister, Heather, and the murder of her best friend, Francine, Brenda (Linda Blair) takes matters into her own hands. Hitting the streets of Los Angeles, Brenda seeks justice with the help of bear traps and a hunting crossbow. John Vernon, Linnea Quigley and Robert Dryer co-star in this Charles Bronson-esque revenge thriller from director Danny Steinmann.
10,000 A.D.: The Legend of the Black Pearl. In a postapocalyptic world, rival human tribes, the Plaebians and Hurons, face extinction by the evil Sinasu. Trained by the mighty warrior Ergo (Raul Gasteazoro), young Huron Kurupi (Julian Perez), mankind’s greatest hope for survival, embarks on a journey to crush the enemy. But to defeat this powerful and often unseen foe, the Plaebians and Hurons must ultimately put their differences aside and join forces.
Dororo. In exchange for a seat of power, Kagemitsu Daigo (Kiichi Nakai) pledged 48 body parts from his unborn son, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki), to 48 demons. Now a mighty Samurai warrior out for revenge, Hyakkimaru crosses paths with a young thief named Dororo (Kou Shibasaki). With Dororo by his side, Hyakkimaru grows more complete with every demon he vanquishes. Hitori Gekidan co-stars in this live-action adaptation of Tezuka Osamu’s manga.
Weenie Roast Massacre. Mentally disabled Marty Flaherty (David Prouty) watches an innocent gathering with his friends take a bloody turn in this slasher flick. Following a debilitating accident, Marty, a once-promising high school football star, is resigned to living an uneventful life in his parents’ home. When his friends organize a weenie roast to lift his spirits, the event turns deadly once a mysterious psychopath begins picking off the partygoers one by one.
Foot Fist Way. A pompous control freak, small-town tae kwon do instructor Mr. Simmons (Danny McBride) finally loses his cool when he gets wind of his wife’s infidelities. Facing meltdown, he sets out on a pilgrimage to see his hero, martial arts master Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (Ben Best), in action. But is the world ready for a meeting between these two black-belt egos? Expertly drawn characters and furious action make this a comedy that really packs a punch.
Alien Private Eye. Lemro (Nikki Fastinetti), a pointy-eared private dick from the planet Styx, takes a vacation on Earth, where he’s quickly drawn into interplanetary intrigue involving the recovery of an ancient Egyptian disc. On top of that, he’s also tasked with taking down a galactic crime organization in this sci-fi action adventure written and directed by Vik Rubenfeld.
This American Life, Season One. Ira Glass’s public radio show makes the transition to television with its focus intact (and netting three Emmy nods in the process), telling uniquely American tales through anecdotes and personal reflections. Glass, director Christopher Wilcha and the rest of the crew spent six months on the road compiling these stories, which take viewers from Iowa’s pig farms (where the “perfect” swine is being bred) to a Chicago hot dog stand.
Cinematographer Style. Cinematographer Jon Fauer interviews 110 of his colleagues — including Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men) and Gordon Willis (The Godfather) — on their approach to the craft of motion picture photography. Shot on 35mm film and accessible to anyone who loves movies, the absorbing documentary reveals how style, experience and inspiration combine to make movies look the way they do.
Liberia: An Uncivil War. Filmmaker Jonathan Stack provides a fearless account of the Liberian civil war in 2003, chronicling the showdown between the corrupt regime of President Charles Taylor and the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians pray for intervention by the United States, which has become newly preoccupied by the Iraq War. Stack’s unflinching film is an unforgettable portrait of a country in crisis.
in Film & TV
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He lurched without bravado into a litany of film pitches, a young-adult book series, a handful of TV shows at various stages of development and his new gig as co-executive producer of NBC’s No. 1 comedy hit, “The Office.” Hunched over the Mini’s tiny steering wheel, at more than six feet in a Ralph Lauren Black Label suit, Paul Feig paused, as if maybe nine projects weren’t enough. He mentioned one more little idea in the works. It sailed forth in a torrent, which, I later realized, represents the problem with Paul Feig.
“There’s an adult novel I have an idea for that I’m in love with,” he began. “It could possibly be a really weird, quirky indie movie, but I think it’s going to be funnier as a book. It’s just really dumb.
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Three of the raw files from the prototype Canon EOS 5D MKII – files straight out of the camera – that were used in “Reverie” short film – are now available for download to your hard drives
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Eleven years in the making and spanning 30 years of material, Deformer chronicles Templeton’s err… unique life and upbringing through photographs, journal excerpts, letters from his strict grandfather, religious notes from his mother, personal sketches, and artwork.
in Books
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FEAR(S) OF THE DARK is a wildly inventive and visually dazzling collection of fearful tales by six of the world’s most renowned comic and graphic artists – Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire. From a besotted student whose girlfriend is weirdly ardent in her affections, to a Japanese schoolgirl menaced by a long-dead samurai, and a pack of hounds on a bloodthirsty rampage, FEAR(S) has a story strand to trouble every sleep – not to mention a stunning range of animation styles. Shot in shimmering black and white, the six intertwined tales create an unprecedented epic where phobias and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense.
in Film & TV
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Even after playing with the Leica S2 for just under an hour, we can say with some authority that it’s one of the most beautifully designed cameras we’ve ever touched. And this is saying a lot for Leica which already has a storied reputation for creating simple, elegant, and highly functional camera bodies
in Leica
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by Dian Agung NugrohoI realize capture this moment when reviewed some photos I had capture that day on my PC.
Check it out here. Via BoingBoing.
in Photography
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A man took these photos inside an amusement arcade in Pyongyang, capital of North Korea.
Check it out here. Via BoingBoing.
in Gaming
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Here’s a little Q&A Jeff Whitley (JW) with Vincent Laforet (VL) about his short montage Reverie, shot in a few days with a pre-release Canon EOS 5D MKII.
in Interviews
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the NUJ has released a short film called Press Freedom: “Collateral Damage” which tackles the issue of police surveillance of bona fide journalists who document political dissent.
The film is a damming account of the Orwellian techniques and methods of the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT Squad) over the last few years.
This film includes evidence of the FIT Squad targeting working journalists and footage of police attacking journalists when covering protests. The film also has an interview with Jeremy Dear and photographers outside New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.
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I was a skinhead in the late ’60s and gave it up when I discovered it involved fighting and that fighting hurts. Then, in the mid- to late ’70s, I hung out with them again as a photographer and it was a totally different scene.
These photos are from that era.
in Punk Rock
