Thursday, April 29, 2010

Best Movies You've Never Seen #7



La double vie de Véronique (1991) - Krzysztof Kieślowski

So I'm trying to include things that aren't French into my viewing schedule but I still seem to be magnetically drawn to the 90s era of filmmaking - I can't help it!

I am one of these people that still hasn't seen the Three Colours Cycle - yet, its something I hope to remedy ASAP - so this was my first Kieślowski film. I loved it so much. My attitude to Kieślowski reminds me of how I avoided reading Camus because everyone loves him so much and bangs on about how great he is, including a lot of people whose taste you doubt, but then you finally read him and realise why everybody loves him - because he's awesome.

Back to the film, I love the idea of fate vs free will and all that, so the subject matter was was totally up my alley. Also it has the most beautiful soundtrack - something that both me and my mother (and grandmother) would probably love if you get my drift. All that and dual-lead Irene Jacob is absolutely amazing in this as well. I now want to track down some of her other films as well.

TRIVIA - Harvey Weinstein asked Kieślowski for an alternate ending for the US release of 'The Double Life of Veronika' which of course is included in the Criterion edition - oh Criterion how I love/loathe you equally. Like I don't have enough on my Criterion wishlist anyway!

In performance, it's a monologue, and in this monologue you create so many spaces that we can project onto, so many images, one after another






Pics from Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry tumblr

Portraits taken during the MoMA's exhibit of performance artist "Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present". Abramovic sits at a table in silence, and museum guests can sit across from her and stare. Some people couldn't handle the heat.

'.. In performance, it's a monologue, and in this monologue you create so many spaces that we can project onto, so many images, one after another. What's also special is that the sound of the voice will create certain vibrations. Sometimes it's not even the word but the space in between the words, a long pause that works magic. A monologue becomes something beyond language; it becomes so strong. The moment it becomes a conversation, I think, we try to be clever, we try to construct things, and then everything falls apart again. But with the monologue, emotions come in a different way...'
-Marina Abramovic'.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me all the more sure I want to move to NYC. I love these three women especially.

Oh that and the fact Hole played there last night!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Jail La La



Best video I've seen in ages and one of my favourite songs at the moment. Love some Dum Dum Girls.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

round and round

Sometimes you wake up at stupid o'clock to do stupid things like getting ready for this. You think your doing something healthy but actually your body hates you because you really need those two hours of sleep and its not physically possible to drink any more coffee and you just need to listen to songs that go round and round to hypnotise you into a faux concentration coma while you try to act normal at work. Y'know what I mean?

Anyway songs like these are good for that.





Ivan & Alyosha- Easy to Love from Aaron McConkey on Vimeo.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument



I love French film director Arnaud Desplechin (dir. of the incredible 'Kings and Queen' and 'A Christmas Tale') and 'My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument' is one of his films I'm dying to see but am having trouble locating aka can't order via mail from Video Dogs and can't find anywhere online.

It stars one of my favourite French actors Mathieu Amalric (sort've Arnaud Desplechin's muse if you will), who you may know from 'Diving Bell and A Butterfly' OR 'Casino Royale'. I've just found out Amalric's film 'Tournée' has been selected for Cannes. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't even know he made films? Clearly haven't been doing my IMDB research well enough!

On another note its one of my life goals to go the Cannes Film Festival someday - if only(!) it could be this year!

Enter The Void



French trailer for 'Enter the Void' the new Gaspar Noe film - three hours - jesus - can't wait x i'm scared.

I had to sit next to someone in the dining cart, she smiled too much like she thought I were some boy who needed to see her smiles.



As planned

After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don't you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?

-Frank O'Hara

Sunday, April 18, 2010

mini mumblr fest'


ALEXANDER THE LAST OFFICIAL TRAILER
Uploaded by ifcfilms. - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

Alexander The Last - Joe Swanberg

Aaron Katz's - "Cold Weather" from Keegan DeWitt on Vimeo.



Cold Weather - Aaron Katz



Harmony and Me - Bob Byington

Tiny Furniture Trailer from Lena Dunham on Vimeo.



Tiny Furniture - Lena Dunham

Too. Many. Movies. Overload!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk










most of these images are from random tumblrs but I can't remember whose sorry!

As a smoker - still, i know, i know - I love these pictures of people smoking as it further romanticises my addiction. Rufus Wainwright really said it best.

Nothing more than this t-shirt below (I think its new ksubi?) as I've been smoking menthols for years. I knew I was ahead of the times. Totally forgot to add it to my fashions-I-wants post.

Realised its a bit hard to read, due to Alisson Mosshart sexy shirt grabbing moves, anyway its says - Fuck Fashion, Lets Smoke Menthols - 'natch.


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Second hand books are wild books


Anthropologie

Pottery Barn

Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
- Virginia Woolf

I think I must be in a bit of capitalist frenzy at the moment as everywhere i look there seem to be things I want to buy - which is most exhausting when one has no funds!

These two I think I will come back to but how great would it be to have a book themed room/hallway in your house? This wallpaper and chandelier could be just the start of a great library!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

i love my leather jacket






images via random tumblrs and Cat Party blog

I do love my leather jacket a la The Chills but I also love these jackets and t-shirts A LOT as well.

the sun was high and so was I



I love Best Coast to bits and am also francophile film freak (though I am trying to expand my horizons to Greek, Swedish, Italian and Japanese films - v. slowly), so it would make sense that I would like these beautiful videos that combine key scenes from some key french new wave films - 'Les demoiselles de Rochefort' by Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda and 'Un Homme Et Une Femme' by Claude Lelouche



The best part is that 'Les demoiselles de Rochefort' is showing at Melbourne Cinematheque as part of their Jacques Demy season in a couple of weeks! Also be sure to catch their rescreening of Varda's 'Daguerréotypes' tomorrow if you can too.

Be realistic, demand the impossible





A favorite slogan of the Situationists during the social upheavals in Europe during May 1968 was "Be realistic, demand the impossible".

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Best Movies You've Never Seen #6



Do The Right Thing (1989) - Spike Lee

I can't imagine walking into a cinema in 1989 and seeing the opening credits for Spike Lee's 'Do The Right Thing' it must have been the best feeling in the entire world. It still stands in my mind as the BEST opening credit sequence of all time. Also the rest of the film looks and sounds just as fresh, bright and exciting it literally pops off the screen. I think I've convinced myself to watch it again soon.

i always wanted to be something special most of all



Patti Smith sings 'You Light Up My Life' amazing!

The interview before is so adorable too. I like how she calls everyone kids - I do that - validated.

(via Kathleens Blog)

i've been out walking i don't do too much talking these days







I've been wanting to learn guitar since I was young but instead learnt piano for 12 years (hated it and didn't improve much after the first 2 years), drums for 2 years, bass guitar for a month (i figured with piano and drums i should really cut back).

I think now that I'm nearly 27 I should add learning guitar to my things to do - amongst learning to drive, moving overseas, running a 5k and volunteering. Quitting smoking is something I plan to do after completing all these tasks AKA if I don't complete them I get to keep smoking - duh, logic!

These Days by Jackson Browne for Nico was always the first song I wanted to learn as well.



I also kinda loved 'The Guitar' directed by Amy Redford though I've never felt the burning connection I still love the idea behind this film. Though I'm planning on getting an acoustic first and upgrading to a red electric later.

click click saddle up see you on the moon then



I'm obsessed with this song and this performance of Ring Ring by Sleigh Bells. I've watched it way too many times. Alexis Krauss is absolutely mesmirising and amazing - she makes me want to buy 100 pairs of American Apparel shiny disco pants and get more tatts and start a band.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It's spelt F-L-Y



Ok its not like I go around posting fashions Look Books every day - mostly because they are stupid or because everyone else does and they buy way too much into a certain 'aesthetic' e.g. Sophomore and Charlotte Ronson but I love this Aldo look book. I mean c'mon! Jessica Stam x Terry Richardson x Cramps 'Human Fly' cover by Dragibus x Boyd Holbrook? Looks like a lot more fun!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Best Movies You've Never Seen #5



Kicking and Screaming (1995) - Noah Baumbach

"I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now."

Theres a certain breed of 90s films which I just adore. There are usually just post coming of age, almost like what comes after university where a bunch of young slackers sit around and talk crap about life and relationships. Sounds boring but the scripts were always absolutely winning - incredibly insightful, quotable and funny (see above). The characters were also half charming and half hopeless and there were rarely any proper happy endings which appealed to the eternal romantic cynic in me. Noah Baumbach (who cuts quite the dapper headshot) made a few of these films most notably 'Kicking and Screaming', but also 'Highball' and 'Mr Jealousy' - before he started delving into the darker side of his family history with 'Squid and The Whale' and 'Margot at the Wedding'.

He's also got a new film out called 'Greenberg' which looks like 'Kicking and Screaming' for the over-40s with a bit of Manic Pixie Mumblecore Girl thrown in. I want to like it so much I'm having trouble figuring out why I hated it? If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Dear Fred, I Thought of You Today

Paul Varjak, there is a mix tape I will never make
you. I might have been your firebird, kohl-

smeared & looped like ankh, hot as the stone pulse
of amethyst. I might have named you Romulus.

I might have canoodled you under the shadow
of the Megadeth monolith, might have managed a motion

picture soundtrack from the fire escape. The answer
to this is glam rock, rag bear, & I was born

a woman, bitterly hymnal. I am not one killer but multiple,
volunteer dowager. I would never name you John.

Ardor permits so little, really, but the noble
lot was not for me. C’mon, Fred, give me a two-step

tonight. Let me be your blue-eyed piece.
There’s no one to shamble with anymore; all I need

is a kook or two to kick the shit. Parcel post or Marcel
Proust?, the Doppler effect’s patron saint. We

could rob a bank & nip a brass flask, heavy metal.
Slap back to a snakeshack upstate, fictive as the mist.


It’s over, that’s a windfall, I know. You’re only my asymptote.
I’m a syntactical hack. Forgive me. Grace isn’t my M.O.


- By Laura Goode

Thursday, April 1, 2010

“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”








images from all over the shop :(

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

-Robert Creeley