Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

So many Alices

On March 5th, Tim Burton is set to release his vision of Alice in Wonderland here in the states. I feel as though the buzz surrounding this film is near deafening and I'm very curious about the finished project. When I saw the first still shots and press from the movie I remember thinking it was an interesting choice for Alice. Later, I realized that is because I have an image of "Alice" that has everything to do with long blond hair and a blue dress and for some reason anything that deviates from this seems odd. I'm a little ashamed to admit that is probably because I was first exposed to Disney's Alice and that is the image that stuck (despite reading numerous beautifully illustrated versions of the tale), but really there are so many Alices out there. Lewis Carroll's story, first widely published in 1865, has inspired illustrators, animators, photographers, and film makers for well over a century. Burton is certainly not the first to put forth his version of our gal and her Wonderland and, undoubtedly, he won't be the last....


Labels: , , , ,

"Willie C.! Take care, man. Stay cool. Stay cool forever."

Every few months I come across the movie Beautiful Girls on television and I always watch it. It came out in 1996 and I don't remember ever hearing about it, but since then, during my absurd number of viewings, it has become one of my favorite comfort films. One of those movies I can watch over and over and I always enjoy it.

I will confess right now that a big reason for this is that the film takes place in a small New England town in winter and it is spot on. I love that everything takes place against a backdrop of near constant flurries and cold and the even the piles of old dirty snow that line the streets in certain shots make it feel like home to me.

The movie is about a group of high school buddies reconnecting for a reunion. It is a homecoming for one particular character, Willie, who now lives in New York City and makes his living as a jazz pianist in a bar. He returns home to Knight's Ridge where the rest of this group of close friends live and work...begrudgingly facing adulthood. He, too, battles with relationship and career decisions and the broader struggle of simply growing up.

Timothy Hutton is fantastic as Willie, but this film is really the definition of an ensemble. Matt Dillon, Michael Rappaport, Uma Thurman, and a young Natalie Portman round out a cast of endearingly flawed, funny, and real characters.

There are painful portraits of regret tempered with just the right amount of humor. It is like visiting with that group of good time guys from high school and seeing how it all played out- good and bad. It is nostalgic, immediate, and emotional- all that and worth the watch....every time.
Labels: , , ,

''I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?''


I read in Entertainment Weekly that on March 22nd a 25th Anniversary Edition of the movie Stand By Me was released. This film, based on a Stephen King novella, not only seems to perfectly capture the feel and look of the 1950s- it has some pretty incredible performances by the four adolescent boys featured in the story of some friends traveling (by means of following the railroad tracks) to an adjoining town to see the rumored dead body found there by some older teens.

This is definitely one of those movies I can watch again and again and every time it ends in tears. Just as the reviewer Chris Nashawaty writes... "We've all been held hostage by coming-of-age stories that shamelessly cudgel us into sniffling submission. And while they might succeed in making us reach for the Kleenex, we rarely feel good about it afterward. Then there's a movie like Stand by Me (1986, R, 1 hr., 28 mins.), which gets your tear ducts working honestly."

If you are looking for a good cry....search no further.
Labels: , , ,

video trio

This clip from the IFC series "Portlandia" makes me laugh - mostly because it's so true (everything is better if you put a bird on it!):



 These videos by EF, "Education First," make me want to run away from home and learn a new language. Here's the Paris video:



And I love, love, love this short by Pixar, titled "Alma." It's spooky and beautiful and begins with the typical childhood experience of peering into a doll shop...

CORRECTION: As one of our wonderfully-informed readers discovered - this short may not be by Pixar, but may instead merely be Pixar-like (see comment). Go here for more information. And thanks Mason!

Labels: , , , , ,

movie posters

Artist Claudia Varosio has designed the most fantastic collection of re-imagined movie posters. The pared down, retro look of her cinema prints are just perfect. Ms. Varosio's inclusion of immediately recognizable elements from each film are not only clever, but much more aesthetically pleasing than the actual glossy, commercial posters out there.

If you know a film buff in need of the perfect gift or somebody who wants the coolest dorm walls ever....you need to check out this etsy shop.







Labels: , , ,

Inappropriate Golden Books

A Pixar artist, Josh Cooley, has been doing illustrated versions of scenes from some classic guy movies and is now publishing his work in a book titled "Movies R Fun." Don't you think these are so cool? I think these would make such great gifts for the movie buff in your life. (discovered via GeekoSystem)



Labels: , , ,

Happy Monday

A smile for your Monday morning....or really any time of any day.



This documentary is set to release in May. I imagine it will be pretty fascinating, but if nothing else it will definitely provide moments of cheer.
Labels: , ,

Finally saw this movie...

...and cried my face off.



{"Up" images via here and here}
Labels: , ,

The Year in Lists

Image courtesy of strawberryluna

It's the end of the year, and so the annual "best of" lists have been written and spread across the world of information. I love these lists, comparing them to my own, arguing with them, using them to fill in gaps in my cultural literacy. Actually, I just love lists. Their orderliness gives me hope for my own cluttered life.

So please enjoy this list of my favorite 2009 lists:

Best Under-The-Radar Books of 2009 (part of NPR's comprehensive list of the Best Books 0f 2009)

The New Yorker Blog's Best Ten Films of 2009

All Songs Considered Reader's Poll Results for the Best Music of 2009 (where you can also listen to all the picks in their entirety)

The Chicago Tribune's Best TV shows of 2009

The People's Choice Awards for the Best Podcasts of 2009 from PodCastAwards.com (And if you'd like some personal recommendations, I consider myself a podcast connoisseur.)

And of course, PC Magazine's Favorite Blogs of 2009 (where sadly you will not find Hiving Out listed. Of all the nerve.)

Enjoy browsing and feel free argue with these lists in the comments. We'd want to hear your picks!
Labels: , , , , , ,

New Year's Eve

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. " - Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally
A decade ago I spent New Year's Eve with Vivi- neither of us fans of the hoopla and both of us apart from our respective terrible boyfriends. We had plans to go to a party and then we didn't have them, so we spent the night walking in the freezing cold of Boston looking for a perfect spot to ring in the new century. It is a long story that ends with us eating pea soup and rice pudding, grabbing the first cab we could at 12:01 to get out of the single digit frigidity and getting back to my apartment for some When Harry Met Sally.
I love that movie and the quote I posted above. What I love most about that New Year's Eve however, is that I finished the century with the person who was with me through all the best and worst times of our adolescence, the person I laughed and cried with the most, the person who inspired and comforted me. I am always grateful for that (and that the aforementioned terrible boyfriends are not the lovely gents we call ours today). 
Happy 2010!
Labels: , , ,

Shakespeare In Love

I came across Shakespeare In Love the other day on television and I could not believe it has been almost a dozen years since its release. I watched it because, despite the fact I own the DVD, it had been forever since I enjoyed it. I remembered immediately why I love this movie...
Beyond the incredible costumes, sets, score, and cinematography, there is wonderful wit accompanied by downright silly humor and heart-wrenching romance.

There are really two loves involved in this film- the connection between the character William Shakespeare and his muse, Viola de Lesseps, and the love of art, of the creative process. We watch both relationships unfold and flourish throughout the film (and get the better part of a fantastic performance of Romeo and Juliet to boot). I know there was a lot of controversy surrounding this film's Oscar win, in fact I found it on numerous "least deserved" lists. That is such a shame. There were some incredible movies competing in 1998, but I still think Shakespeare in Love was deserving- a near perfect combination of humor, passion, all aspects of the arts and...love.

Labels: , , ,

"Can I bring the lovebirds, Mitch? They haven't harmed anyone."



This year's Halloween is a bit of a bust for me. I've been too distracted by work to come up with anything to wear. Last year I went as Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock's "The Birds" which was so much fun because all I had to do was wear a thrifted green wool suit and buy a couple of black birds on markdown at the local crafts store. I even got to work a pimple into a bird bite (of course one can't buy Hedren's movie star quality, but messy pulled back hair and black mascara likely to run? Check and check). Anyway, so here are some inspiring images of girl and/or swarm of birds for last year's look because I've got nothing but the tired grad. student look for this year...

The only Barbie I'd ever buy via Boing Boing

image via We Heart It

"Vanity Fair" picture of Jodie Foster (via Chaos Theory)

ceiling design by Geremia Designs (via apartment therapy)

photo by Alex Prager (via BOOOOOOOOM!)

"rage in eden" by ~fernando (via inspiring creativity)

via SEBASTIAN


Labels: , , , ,

forts and tents and childhood

I saw "Where the Wild Things Are" yesterday and loved it to pieces. It was so beautiful and wistful and sad. It really captured the essence of the book, the mood - which is something much more difficult to grasp than mere plot points. Not a movie for children, per se, but definitely a movie about childhood.

One of the things that it brought back for me was my long lost love of forts and tents. My sister and I used to make pretty elaborate ones in our bedroom on the weekends and we loved sleeping in it (it'd always have to be done before "Golden Girls" started on Saturday night. Apparently, the experience of sitting in a fort made out of your bed blankets and sheets is only made better by the banter of the elderly).

But isn't there something so magical about sleeping in your own homemade (or bedroom-made) fort? The coziness of it. The way the light comes through. How secret and safe it feels to be inside, but yet it is so vulnerable (the structure itself, yes, but also the you inside of it). As an adult, I think there is also something so incredibly romantic about it too. There are scenes in movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" that really capture that romantic aspect as well as the security and desire to have an even more inside space (more private, more yours) than the inside your own home or your own room. Anyway, here are some of my favorite images of homemade tents and forts...

image via home sweet home

image via nine kinds of crazy

image via somerset

image via somerset

image via Fifikoussout

And, yes, it is a "real" tent and not homemade, but Richie Tenenbaum's tent was still perfect:
image via ready to die

image(s) via be my cupcake

Remember that scene under the covers in ""Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"? It totally counts as a fort moment:
images via this michel gondry fan site (dialogue via imbd)

Clementine: Joely?

Joel: Yeah Tangerine?

Clementine: Am I ugly?

Joel: Uh-uh.

Clementine: When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too.

Joel: [kisses Clementine] You're pretty.

Clementine: Joely, don't ever leave me.

Joel: You're pretty... you're pretty... pretty...


P.S. In my search for fort images, I discovered the Wild Things Forts' Contest! I think it's over, but I hope they put up some more images soon.
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)