A short film about the people who make cigars in Miami. Fun and fast moving I really enjoyed the notion that what they did was Art with a big A.
Tag: Review
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Art Seymour: Solo Performance
I saw this with Sam at the Newport Beach Film Festival. It totally ruled! Seymour is this fantastic Chevron designer and this movie is a jazz like exploration of his genius. -
Stewart Brand–The Clock of the Long Now
This is a great book with all sorts of great ideas & observations. I really enjoyed the short fast style of presenting idea, the notion that nothing is resolved, and the invitation for participation.
Stewart Brand is clearly one of the all time great social architects.
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Factory Girl
Anakin Plays Bob Dylan! This amazing film sets Edie up as the poor little rich girl who soul is being fought over by two of the most brilliant men of the last century. She must choose between Dylan and Warhol–it is amazing–she choosing wrong and pays.
This fictional battle is played so brilliantly–Warhol is EVIL–he even eats Hershey Kisses in Confession! Dylan is brilliant, insightful, and compassionate.
I do not think anyone else in the entire world will love this movie as much as me!
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Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images
Lisa, Jack, Kate, and I went up and saw LACMA this Sunday.
I went and saw the Magritte exhibit which was outstanding–lots of great paintings, fantastic curation, awesome exhibition space, good crowd, the entire thing ruled.
We also saw the Picasso print, Krishna History, Japanese stuff, and lots of other things–a really great day at the museum.
The salad bar is overpriced–in fact the food here is an issue that should be addressed, the line for the food cart is huge, but the sit down restaurant is not inviting & the cafe is kind of lame.
The Japanese pagoda was a huge hit with the kids. Jack and Kate also enjoyed rolling down the Tar Pits Lawn. Something that I remember doing as a kid.
After this we saw some live music–Vivaldi, Schoenberg, something else–lots of fun. A great day.
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Pan’s Labyrinth
I went and saw this at the University yesterday at 2:10. I went alone and got a medium popcorn and a large water–they were out of small waters. I went in thinking that I was going to be scared out of my mind–the film had been recommended to me by Scott and Margie.
It was awesome.
Labyrinth’s, a Faun, a pregnant mom, evil step father who shaves all the time, Keys, and Locks, Rivers and Tree’s, all the stuff that made Freud the stud that he was–I mean really really great!
The film itself was magick–put together brilliantly, with the Franco Fascists and Red Revolutionaries conflict perfectly shadowing the struggles of a young girl growing into a women. Just a brilliant movie.
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Vessia
Went with Lisa, John, and Emmy for St. Valentine’s Day. Steadman had given me a gift certificate for watching his mail. It was a very nice night–lots of fun and games. The food was medium. I had MOZZARELLA ALLA GENOVESE which was excellent–great cheese, fresh tomato, & really good pesto–there was a lot of pepper, but not too much oil. A really good dish. DELLA CASA salad was odd and bitter. Not very good at all. For my main course I had MELANZANE ALLA PARMIGIANA & RAPINI (Broccoli rabe sauté with garlic and olive oil)–the eggplant was awesome–very thinly sliced and really good. The Broccoli was a little over cooked, too much oil, not enough salt, the garlic could have used some work–server a little cold, not that great. But the eggplant was so good I did not notice.
Lisa had PASTA ALLA CHECCA which was good, but not amazing. Emmy had RIGATONI CON BROCCOLI which had really good onions & was kind of sweat. John did the blackened Ahi special–which was raw in the middle.
The Deserts were great–banana chocolate cake, tiramisu cake, and chocolate covered hazelnut chocolate thing. All very fine–I liked the chocolate covered hazelnut thing the best, but it was all good.
Service was fantastic.
A great Valentines night was had.
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Pictures at an Exhibition
Lisa, Jack, Kate, and I went and saw the Pacific Symphony at the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall do a fantastic musical program for kids. This show was really one of the best, it included lots of tunes, the kids art was displayed, the questions were for the trumpet, the kids got to make puppets; we really had a great time!
Additionally, we spent some time afterwards having lunch at Macaroni Grille, the kids were starving so it was a “fast lunch”.
After this we went to Borders, the kids watched the taping of Pet People–really had a good time.
Lisa and I were not really connecting–but it was a fine day.
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Smoking Aces
Went with Jason and Eric to the Spectrum last night–we were going to see Epic Movie, but it looked like it was going to suck.
Smoking Aces was an FBI vs. Mob shoot ’em up–it pretended to be more complicated then it was. But the insane Hit Men were great. There were some classic mob hit men, some crazy meth brothers, a potentially lesbian couple, that kind of thing–lots of uber violence, not much plot, OK soundtrack.
All in all not a bad piece of escapist cinema!
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Curse of the Golden Flower
Dave and I saw this at the University Art theater yesterday. I thought it was going to be Crouching Tiger 2.0–instead it was a much more arty exploration of vengeance. There was some good kung-fu & ninjas and stuff, but it was more about the inner workings and intrigues of this extremely psychedelic Chinese castle. There is some weird incest subplot which is fun, but telegraphed to much.
The hours are sounding by guys reciting small bursts of fortune cookie poetry which likely ties to a deeper symbolic meaning, but I could not figure it out.
I did like the film as escape, but I really did not get much out of it.
David Given Schwarm 