Music and Film - Immortal Beloved

I was reading the post today at Maxminimus today about a football playing thug who earns $1.4 million a month. It reminded me of all the music industry thugs, if you will, who glorify a life of violence and drugs and who make bazillions of dollars doing it.  I don't believe that in 200 years this music will be still be appreciated..but I could be wrong.  In the meantime all these musicians are laughing their way to the bank.

What I've been listening to recently is music by a man who you could say also glorified violence, at least he did in one instance, by dedicating his Symphony #3 to Napoleon. 
But Beethoven later redeemed himself by renaming the Symphony Eroica after Napoleon declared himself Emperor in 1804.

I'm guessing that in 200 years, the music of Beethoven will still be appreciated.





Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op. 92 Allegretto

Film - In The Loop

Definitely on my list of films to see

More About Movies- Gonzalo Lira and Acid Laced Satire

Dreamworks vs Pixar?
Blogger Gonzalo Lira explains why Pixar succeeds where Dreamworks falls short.
What sets Pixar apart is the quality of its movies: They’ve all been good.
A few have transcended the medium of film altogether, and become art. I would argue (very good-naturedly) that The Incredibles (2004), Wall-E (2008), and Up (2009) all fit into the category of art.
 
However—maybe precisely because Pixar films are so generous in spirit—few people seem to have noticed the incredible social satire going on, in Pixar’s movies.

What these pictures are offering is not “gentle satire”—Pixar movies offer the harshest social commentary of contemporary American society of anyone working today, in any medium that I can think of. It’s satire laced with acid, and it is incredibly powerful precisely because it is packed into something so seemingly gentle and sweet: Children’s movies.


At first, you don’t notice the acid-laced satire in Pixar’s movies, because all of them are swathed in such an immersive story-telling. The satire would be far more noticeable in a chintzy, “ironic” DreamWorks Animation production, precisely because of DreamWorks’ films’ constant wink-wink at the adult audience over the heads of the kids.
Read his entire post to see why Pixar films, such as Wall-E,  are cinematic works of art.

RED - Cinematic Silliness On A Saturday Night

OK, I admit it.
This film was an onscreen comic for baby boomers.
Lots of weaponry, firepower yet no blood.
But just for Helen Mirren it was worth it.

Film - I Am Love

I finally got around to seeing Tilda Swinton's 'I am Love' last weekend and I enjoyed it, perhaps more for the wardrobe, sets and music, than for the story line. 'Madame Bovary' it was not. Still, in spite of the fact that the film ran for 2 hours, and was desperately in need of editing, it was definitely worth seeing.

In fact any movie with Tilda Swinton aka 'The Swinton' is worth seeing, don't you agree?

The story is of a bourgeois wife of an Italian industrialist, who emerges from her repressed inner life by falling in love with a young chef, Antonio.  Food is the catalyst for her stepping out of her uber elegant yet cold life in her Milan palazzo and into the country life and raw nature, an Eve finding her Garden of Eden with her primal Adam, if you will.

Anyone who has watched this film will see her character's transformation physically represented in the changes in her overall look. With a wardrobe created by Raf Simons of Jill Sander, the story begins with her character Emma (yeah, we get the nod to Madame Bovary), wearing sleek  monochromatic outfits in cooler colors of blue, grey, plum, etc. 

In the key scene where Emma has lunch at the chef's restaurant in Milan, and falls in love with the Antonio with each bite that she takes of her food, she wear red.

Later, when she follows the chef to his country property, high up in the Ligurian hills, the color palate of her wardrobe changes to warm colors. I could go on and on about Romanticism and the reversion to nature and the correlation of nature and sex that are all big themes in this film, but I won't.
I'd rather say something about the jewelry.
The long strand of multicolored Tahitian pearls, the single statement gold bracelet, the ball pendant (just like this one by Chopard at Beladora), and the all important double strand of white South Sea pearls, added the extra luxe detail to the polished look of her character.
Also, the score was by the brilliant composer, John Adams.  The music was so beautiful that it added emotional depth to the lushly filmed scenes.
I definitely recommend this film.  It is worth seeing for the wardrobe, the music and the architecture and interior design of the Milan palazzo alone.

Savvy Shopping - A Father's Day Suggestion For What Was The Sexiest Man Alive

Is this what happens to the Sexiest Man Alive after he signs on to raise a brood of 6 kids?

I think that Angelina needs spiff him up a bit by buying him this little black diamond wedding band for a Father's Day gift with a minute amount of her earnings from SALT.

Black Diamond Band Designed by Bez Ambar $2550 (retail $9,800)

Angelina, just gets better and better.

Perhaps she should have a few more kids.

Carrie's SATC Clothes: Don't Try This At Home

I wonder, is Patricia Field's fashion influence, from film to real life,
my problem with SATC?
Liz Jones in the Daily Mail explains it all
Those clothes are criminal! Ridiculous hats and frilly tutus - Why Sex and the City's Carrie is wanted by the fashion police
Thanks to Sex And The City, women no longer dress as men at work, but instead wear colourful, girlie prints. The character Carrie Bradshaw was a woman who dressed to please herself, not to make her attractive to men.
Patricia Field, the Oscar-nominated costume designer, gave us vintage, utility and eccentric layering. She brought back the full skirt, the prom dress, the eighties (even the batwing, cropped sweatshirt) and stilettos.

But the problems started when we began to take literally what a fictional character wore to make a point, drive a scene or promote a belly laugh. We began to buy £400 pairs of shoes and £800 handbags with no thought of wardrobe space or our credit rating. Very few of us can walk in those shoes. Carrie looked effortless in bondage shoe boots, corsets, black net and gold lame, while the rest of us ended up resembling over-the-hill hookers.

Go ahead and read the rest of the article which gives us the take down on translating the Carrie Bradshaw signature look to real life with everything from over the knee socks to tutus to arm warmers to fascinators.

TUTUS Carrie wore a tutu in the opening credits of the TV show, and it reappeared in the first film when she packs up her wardrobe. It is very Eighties, and works on Carrie given her ballerina body, but wearing one I felt like one of those Disney ice-skating hippos.

What works for a film character with the frame of a 10 year old, is most likely not going to work for the rest of us.

Film: Coming & Going & Getting Some Play

You know that I support all the projects of my peeps,
So here's latest film project by Alfredo Gilardini
which was shown in Cannes this week.

It looks like an unabashedly silly and very possibly politically incorrect summer movie.
The details (borrowed from another blog)
Coming & Going is an irreverent romantic comedy that poses the question: How far would you go to capture the heart of the one you love? Lee is a young, skilled OBGYN who lacks confidence when it comes to talking to women outside his successful medical practice. A freak injury temporarily lands him in a wheelchair and it is at that precise time that he meets his dream girl. Convinced she's only paid attention to him because he's in that chair, he stays in it to win her affections well after his injury has healed. Coming & Going is about love and the extreme things people do for it.The film is directed by Edoardo Ponti (Between Strangers) and stars Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords), Sasha Alexander (NCIS) and Fionula Flanagan (Waking Ned.)



Here's the facebook link
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coming-Going/114914741878682?ref=ts
Why don't you share this link with your facebook friends.

Around Town - LA Theatre or Why I Love Netflix

I had never really stopped to think about the fact that Los Angeles really is a theatre town...
not in the way of London or New York, with their well defined theatre districts, debuts and big productions. LA is all about small productions where the local acting populace can hone their craft. Across the city, in tiny theatres from Venice Beach to Hollywood to Downtown, you can find all kinds of plays, from the obscure to the well known.
And that's what I got on two subsequent evenings this week.
First was the well known...David Hare's "The Blue Room", a play about sex that was anything but sexy.
I liked the idea of the play with only one actor and one actress playing multiple parts that interacted in a quick succession of scenes.

The Girl (Irene) (Scene I & X)
The Cab Driver (Fred) (Scene I & II)
The Au Pair (Marie) (Scene II & III)
The Student (Anton) (Scene III & IV)
The Married Woman (Emma) (Scene IV & V)
The Politician (Charles)(Scene V & VI)
The Model (Kelly) (Scene VI & VII)
The Playwright (Robert) (Scene VII & VIII)
The Actress (Scene VIII & IX)
The Aristocrat (Malcolm) (Scene IX & X)

Considering the intimacy of the scenes, staged in the tiny Odyssey Theater in Westwood where the audience was seated no more that a few feet away from the actors, I would have thought that it would have been easy to have been drawn into the play as it progressed. Unfortunately I was bored by scene VII and just didn't give a damn about any of these characters and who they were screwing and why.

Fortunately it was a play in one act.

The next night I was off to another adventure in theater in Hollywood.

Now to drag me into Hollywood for anything is no small thing and I'm glad that I went just to remind myself that culture (good and bad) is everywhere and that the borders of the city don't end at Doheny Drive. Luckily, preceding a theater experience from hell, was a nice dinner at Cafe des Artistes, a charming restaurant with a decent frenchy menu and lovely service. After hoovering down my dinner and two much needed glasses of wine, it was off to see the "Buffalo Hole" the Arena Stage at Theatre of Arts.

Here's the description

A Dirty Bloody Black Comedy. From his outpost single wide, 30 miles from nowhere in freezing Foxholm, North Dakota, Braggert Strong awaits the arrival of his family to say their last goodbyes to a father, Patton L. Strong, Medal of Honor “winner” who has been a little less than “fatherly.” Between vicious dog bites, a mother who arrives 60 and pregnant, a sissy brother who won’t leave, and a sister who’s rode hard and put away wet, Braggert has little if no idea what he’s in for. A story of revenge, “dog food” and…amputation.

I don't even know what to say about this horrendously bad black comedy. It was insulting on so many levels, with characters so cliche that it made the playwright and lead actor, Robert Riechel Jr., just look like a smug ignoramus. The play was insulting to men, to veterans, to medal of honor winners, to fathers, to Midwesterners, etc. in a way that only a hip Hollywood writer would think was clever. But we've all seen these stock white trash characters before, so there was nothing daring or amusing in this production.

Out of politeness I didn't walk out.

Thank God for netflix so I could watch Balzac's "Cousin Bette" at home in my comfy bed after sitting through that pathetic play. Yeah, give me a well acted classic film over a wanna be edgy play any day.

The Joneses - There Goes The Neighborhood

An interesting concept taking product placement to a new level with family life as affiliate sales

Couples Retreat - Netflix It

OK, so sometimes my taste in comedy runs to the lowbrow, but I laughed so hard watching this movie, that I'm disappointed that it wasn't nominated for best picture. BTW, when was the last time that a comedy won Best Picture...well a while ago. (Here's the breakdown on Best Pictures and Genre Biases)

The yoga scene and the couples therapy scenes are priceless.

Film - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I loved the vengeance seeking hacker heroine of this book,
and I wasn't disappointed by the sequel The Girl Who Played With Fire
But seeing the film last week made me never...ever...want to travel to Sweden

Film - The Young Victoria

I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to go see 'The Young Victoria' in a theater or not. It seemed, at least from the trailer, more like a Masterpiece Theater production, something that I would rather order on Netflix. But since I'm fascinated with 18th and 19th Century history especially the art, architecture, furniture, clothing and jewelry of those periods, I thought that this was certainly a film to see on a big screen...at least on a cold Sunday afternoon.

Emily Blunt's performance in 'The Young Victoria' didn't have the fire of Kate Blanchett in 'Elizabeth', the gravitas of Judi Dench in 'Mrs. Brown' or the purposefulness of Helen Miren in 'The Queen' but that was due more to the script than to her acting.

And I felt that the script was incomplete in the sense that there wasn't enough back story explaining the situation in England. How many people today have an understanding of this historical period and the fragility of the British monarchy after the Revolutionary War, the madness of King George, the French Revolution, the years of war with Napoleon and the pressures of an expanding empire. The film didn't give us any of this historical context.

But what the film did give us was the importance of royal marriages in terms of strategic alliances, and what made this story extraordinary was the fact that the marriage of Victoria and Albert, was not only a brilliant strategic alliance, but a true love match.

Historical and Romantical!

But let's face it, I really saw the film for the costumes and the jewelry like these silver gilt (silver and gold) diamond earrings and diamond riviere necklace.
And what isn't seen in this photo was Victoria's wedding ring, a gold snake symbolizing eternal love. Something similar to this.

Here we have the riviere again

The swagged necklace and hair ornament

The earrings either in pietra dura or cameo, I can't tell from this photo

The gemstone necklace and earrings with gold cannetille

And the all important wedding parure

The wonderful thing about well made Victorian jewelry is that much of it is wearable today, particularly the earrings and the bracelets. A week ago in Miami I was going to purchase a Victorian suite, in the original box, with natural pearls in a pair of bracelets, a necklace and a tiara...the perfect gift for a bride, but I hesitated. But now after watching 'The Young Victoria' I'd like to have more Victorian jewelry not just because it is rich in history but because it is beautiful.

For more about Victorian and other period jewelry take a look at Gemgossip.com...thanks Danielle, I snagged the photos from your post!