"Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"

This video is the brainchild of Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate (of recent SNL fame). It has that unique blend of humor and melancholy all wrapped up in a weird, yet sweet package.
Just a little something different for your Thursday....

Video courtesy of youtube.com

Finally saw this movie...

...and cried my face off.

{"Up" images via here and here}

The Fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fox Searchlight Pictures

As I sat watching Wes Anderson's stop motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox in a somewhat shady dollar theater with my squirmy, candy-hounding children last week, I was completely captivated. It was quirky, funny, weird, stylish, and absolutely gorgeous to look at. I'm also a devotee of Roald Dahl, whose novel the film is based on. So I'm thrilled to hear that it's being called Oscar-worthy by critics, some of whom think it even has a chance to beat out Pixar's Up.

I'm a fan of Pixar, and I loved Up, so it won't surprise me if Pixar take the prize. But as an admirer of the handmade, I also regret that digital animation has taken over the art form. As beautiful and impressive as digital animation can be, it's missing something for me . . . warmth, I think.

I love how rough around the edges the animation is in Mr. Fox, and I love that it doesn't pander to it's audience, neither the adults nor the children. The film works for everybody, not because of double entendre or off-color jokes, but because it's artistic, well-written, and damn funny. That's a quality the film shares with Roald Dahl, who never treated children like idiots, knew they could handle a bit of discomfort and fear, and didn't see a young audience as a reason to water anything down.

Plus...Meryl Streep. 'Nuff said.

Bright Star

Brilliant Asylum has a great post on Jane Campion's production scrapbook for her film about John Keats, Bright Star. It's always so interesting to see the things that inspire people's creative work (I'm especially interested in this one - it looks like a pretty period piece and it's about a poet! I know, I'm such a nerdy former English major...) Here are just a couple of things from Campion's online scrapbook...

origins of fur

Does this look like a book you'd like to see taking up room on your shelves? It's the fur-covered edition of Dave Eggers' "The Wild Things," the loose retelling of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and the yet to be released movie of the same name. It's an interesting gimmick though I have to wonder:

1) What wild thing is this cover supposed to resemble?

2) And haven't I seen this before?

I did a little bit of brainstorming to come up with a possible lineage of influence... do you think any of the following was the inspiration for this book's fuzzy cover?

image via AbeBooks

Could it be that Margaret Wise Brown's "Little Fur Family" (1946), illustrated by Garth Williams, was the big influence? It does have the Eggers' cover beat by over 60 years and it is about some mildly wild furry things... (If, in fact, it is an influence - at least Eggers' book is not covered with real rabbit fur as was the first edition of this children's picture book).

Meret Oppenheim's "Objet: dejeuner en fourrue" (Object: Luncheon in Fur), 1936

(info. about via MOMA)

Could this classic of Surrealism - fur covered teacup, saucer, and spoon - have stood the test of time as the originator of surprising things covered in fur? Is the Eggers' cover a shout out?

image via orble.com

Robert Downey Jr. looked soulful and hairy in "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," do you see a resemblance between this face and that book?

image via The Blue Harvest

Or is this handsome devil the original furred wild thing?

image via Cottage Way of Life

Could the influence of Little Edie's fashion, and the "Grey Gardens" documentary, have stretched to book design? I wouldn't be surprised....

image via nytimes' series "And the Pursuit of Justice" by Maira Kalman

Perhaps I'm not the only one who really got into the "John Adams" HBO series... Seems that Ben Franklin was one wild man while in Paris and everyone raved about his rustic fur hat.

image via AB IMO PECTORE

Or did it all begin here with a furry little wild thing and the desire to want to hold it in our hands?

Deer Audrey

I recently found out that Audrey Hepburn had a pet fawn. Can you believe it? How stinkin' adorable is that? His name was Pippin, nicknamed Ip. According to a "New York Daily News" article by Patrick Huguenin, "Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn is still full of surprises:"

When Hepburn was making her 1959 flick "Green Mansions," directed by then-husband Mel Ferrer, the animal trainer on the set suggested that she take her on-screen sidekick, a baby deer, home with her so that he would learn to follow her.

"It was truly amazing to see Audrey with that fawn," remembers [Bob] Willoughby [photographer] in the caption alongside a photo of Pippin cuddling up to Hepburn like a lap dog as she naps on the couch. (Her pet dog, Mr. Famous, is curled in a ball at the other end of the sofa.)

"While Audrey's maid had been told about the little deer, she could not believe her eyes seeing Ip sleeping with Audrey so calmly," writes Willoughby. "She was shaking her head and just kept smiling."

all photographs by Bob Willoughby

More cute Aud and Ip pix here and here

children watching...

"Children watching cartoons in a movie theater,"San Carlos, CA, June 1946 by Charles E. Steinheimer via LIFE

Okay, this post title sounds a little ominous, but this it's not a children-of-the-corn type of post. It's just the opposite. I came across the above picture and it reminded me of when I went with my nephew to see the musical production of "The Grinch" this past Christmas. He was, at the time, just new to 3 years old and he had never seen live theatre before. We were worried he'd be restless or bored or would pull something that 3 year old boys are experts at pulling, but he was not only a gem the whole time - he was also mesmerized. He stood the entire time and, like the little boy in this picture, held the seat in front of him as if he had to anchor himself to some place (sitting in his seat was not going to do it). The musical was, well..., what you'd expect, but his face and the way he was utterly swept up in the experience was wonderful to watch.

So here are some more images of children as audience members fully caught up in what they are watching. What's interesting is that most of these are of puppet shows or plays or parades. The only one of kids watching movies is the one above and that picture was taken in 1946. It's strange that, for the most part, pictures that I came across of groups of kids watching movies or tv were so different from these - there wasn't the same array of expressions and reactions. And the pictures of audiences in 3D glasses? Really kind of strange how uniform in expression they are (creepy even, if you ask me). Anyway, these old black and whites seem reason enough to go see more live stuff with my nephew or any of my friends' children - I cannot get enough of these expressive little faces.

"WPA Federal Theater Project in New York: children watching Marionette Unit," 1935 via wikipedia

"A group of children watching the Punch and Judy puppet show," UK, 1946 via LIFE

"Children at a Puppet Theater, Paris," 1963 by Alfred Eisenstaedt via girlfriday

"Children at a Puppet Theater, Paris," 1963 (version II) by Alfred Eisenstaedt via girlfriday

"Kids watching the Christmas Parade, Raleigh, NC" (no date) via The North Carolina State Archives

still from Francois Truffaut's "Les quatre cents coups" ("The 400 Blows"), 1959

And you have to watch this clip from "Les quatre cents coups" ("The 400 Blows"). You don't have to know anything about the movie other than these 2 older boys are sitting in on a puppet show of "Little Red Riding Hood" (a perfect story to trigger many different reactions from its audience). Also, these little kids, in case you can't tell, are not acting - these are their honest reactions to what they are watching. And wait until the end of the clip to catch my favorite part: one boy resting his head on another boy's shoulder. Neither boy flinches, neither boy moves. It is completely natural and innocent. And it kills me every time.

via youtube

Gearing up for "September..."

This is my favorite The Sartorialist shot ever. I love it on so many levels. Don't you?

God knows I am no fashion plate. When I was younger I might have worried about it and gotten anxious over it, but now I'm happy to wear what I know suits me, what I feel comfortable in, and what makes me feel like I look nice. And nice is all I need. This may sound like a cop out, but check out this quote from the most stylish blogger in the world, The Sartorialist:

"One of the tricky parts of shooting a fashion blog is the temptation to always be looking for fashion with a capital 'F.'
Although I do shoot that a lot, especially at the shows, when I am "on the street" I shoot with a slightly different eye.
When I am in a neighborhood I'm not looking for the "next big trend" or a ground-breaking style statement, but just reacting when I see a person and thinking to myself "he/she looks nice."

He goes on to say that "'Looking nice' is truly underrated" and that he notices those that reflect that quality even if it's: "Not groundbreaking, not earth shattering, but in its own way, a very glamorous way to live a simply nice life."

Of course, I still really want to see this movie even if it results in me hating every single "nice" thing I own...

discovered on being red