The Last Duet on Earth

Barbara Bloom

Back in 1989, when SoHo was still a booming contemporary-art center, Barbara Bloom produced a memorably trenchant installation called “The Reign of Narcissism” at Jay Gorney Modern Art on Greene Street. It was in the form of a neo-Classical period room in an imaginary museum dedicated to one Barbara Bloom. There were faux-antique marble busts portraying Ms. Bloom; fine teacups watermarked with her image; a 38-volume set of “The Complete Works of Barbara Bloom”; a tombstone with a carved epitaph that said, “She traveled the world to seek beauty” and many more artifacts testifying to the transcendent qualities of a great artist.

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The Greatest

Gassman legge l'etichetta di un capo delicato

South Frementle International Film Festival 2011

Miles Davis 1965 circa

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The Dark Knight Rises: First Image Of Tom Hardy's Bane Revealed

Species (1995)

Species is a 1995 science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson, and starring Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Natasha Henstridge, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, and Marg Helgenberger. The film is about a group of scientists who try to track down and trap a killer alien seductress before she successfully mates with a human male.

The creature at the center of "Species" is a result of one of those overreaching scientific experiments gone wrong. In a quiet Government lab in Utah, Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) has combined human DNA with alien DNA that was beamed down from a supposedly friendly planet. The new life form, named Sil, has a supermodel's body and face, presumably from her human genes. The deadly tentacle that whips out from her mouth and tears people's throats apart comes from the extraterrestrial side of the family. As Fitch and a team of experts track Sil through Los Angeles, this science-fiction thriller is slick and competent, but ultimately too predictable and by-the-numbers.

It begins with promising strangeness, leaping into the middle of a scene that is only gradually explained. A 12-year-old blond girl is being gassed inside a chamber; Fitch is shedding a tear, though he understands that his prized creature must be destroyed, fast. (Some bad REM sleep has suggested violent times ahead.) But before the girl goes under, she crashes through the glass chamber and escapes. En route to Los Angeles, she kills a vagrant and a train conductor. She also mutates; her skin begins to bubble, she is enveloped in a huge sticky cocoon, and she steps off the train in L.A. as a grown woman (Natasha Henstridge) who somehow knows how to drive.

Meanwhile, Fitch is explaining his problem to a neatly balanced team of movie types. Michael Madsen plays Press Lennox, a strong, silent guy sent by a shadowy Government agency to eliminate Sil. Marg Helgenberger, as a biologist named Laura Baker, develops a crush on him. And Alfred Molina, as a wimpy Harvard anthropologist, has a crush on her. Forest Whitaker's character describes himself as an empath, a man so sensitive that he can intuit people's feelings simply by looking at photographs of them. The empath has enough to do keeping track of the romantic triangle in front of him, much less sharing the pain of a half-alien on the run.

The creature was created and designed by Swiss artist H. R. Giger, who also created the creatures in the Alien films.

Tiburones!

8 tunes for Spring, 8 tunes for Summmer out now!

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The Artist (2011)

The Artist is a 2011 French romance film directed by Michel Hazanavicius, starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1931 and focuses on a declining male film star and a rising female actress. The film is a silent film and shot in black and white.

Director Michel Hazanavicius had been fantasizing about making a silent film for many years, both because many filmmakers he admires emerged in the silent era, and because of the image-driven nature of the technique. According to Hazanavicius his wish to make a silent film was at first not taken seriously, but after the financial success of his spy-film pastiches OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, producers started to express interest. 

The forming of the film's narrative started with Hazanavicius' desire to work again with actors Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, who had starred in the OSS 177 films. 

Hazanavicius choose the form of the melodrama, partially because he though many of the films from the silent era which have aged best are melodramas. He did extensive research about 1920s Hollywood, and studied silent films to find the right techniques to make the story comprehensible without having to use too many intertitles. The screenplay took four months to finish.

The film was produced by La Petite Reine and ARP Sélection for 13.47 million euro, including co-production support from Studio 37 and France 3 Cinéma, and pre-sales investment from Canal+ and CinéCinéma. Both the cast and crew were mixed French and American.

Filming took place during seven weeks on location in Hollywood. Throughout the shoot Hazanavicius played music from classic Hollywood films while the actors performed.

It premiered today at Cannes Festival, click the title for review. 

Black Widow (1987)

Black Widow is a 1987 neo-noir film starring Debra Winger, Theresa Russell, Sami Frey, Nicol Williamson and Dennis Hopper.

It is a crime drama about two women: one who murders wealthy men whom she marries for their money, and the other an agent with the Department of Justice who grows obsessed with bringing her to justice. It was directed by Bob Rafelson, from a screenplay by Ronald Bass. Black Widow is a late addition to the film noir revival of the 1980s, known as neo-noir.

Unlike classic noirs, neo-noir films are aware of modern circumstances and technology—details that were typically absent or unimportant to the plot of classic film noir. In the films of the early 1940s and '50s, audiences are led to understand and build a relationship with the protagonist or anti-hero. Neo-noir films of post-1970 often reverse this role. Unconventional camera movements and plot progression remind them that they are merely watching the film and not partaking in the story.

Modern themes employed in neo-noir films include identity crises, memory issues and subjectivity, and—most importantly—technological problems and their social ramifications. Because these fundamental elements are as ambiguous in practice as their definitions, film theorists argue that the term "neo-noir" can be applied to other works of fiction that similarly incorporate such motifs. Robert Arnett states that "Neo-noir has become so amorphous as a genre/movement, any film featuring a detective or crime qualifies." It is because of this genre's ambivalence that neo-noir is still shaped and interpreted so malleably today.

The story of Black Widow revolves around two women, one the femme fatale Catherine (Theresa Russell) whose true name is never revealed. She preys on wealthy middle-aged men, seducing them into marriage and killing them by a mysterious means of poisoning. Each death is misdiagnosed as Ondine's curse, a condition by which seemingly healthy middle-aged men die in their sleep. The other woman is Justice Department agent Alexandra Barnes (Debra Winger) who stumbles onto the first murder while investigating another case. As Alexandra delves further into the case, she uncovers a pattern which she believes ties the same woman to several similar murders.

Using exhaustive research, elaborate disguises, and identity changes, Catherine weaves her web anew with each murder, killing a publishing magnate, a toy maker (Dennis Hopper), and a museum curator (Nicol Williamson), and is moving quickly to her next victim: Paul Nuytten (Sami Frey), an international hotel tycoon. Later in the film she reveals she has been married six times, which suggests that she may have committed as many murders.

Receiving grudging permission from her boss Bruce (Terry O'Quinn), Alexandra decides to go undercover to track down first Catherine's background and then her next potential victim. She trails the murderer to Seattle, where Catherine kills husband number three (the museum curator), and finally to Hawaii, where the two women meet and eventually engage in a sexually intense war of wits and wills.

They both compete for the affection of wealthy Paul Nuytten, and Catherine eventually marries him. Alexandra is arrested for Paul's murder when the police find a poison in her room. Catherine visits Alexandra in prison, and while they talk, Paul shows up with Alexandra's colleagues. Alexandra tells the shocked Catherine, "yes, we know — we found the poison before he did."

This is a very good movie that reminds one what we lost when Debra Winger slowed down her movie-making. She gives an honest, heartfelt performance as an investigator chasing a woman who marries rich and whose husbands wind up dead every time. The widow then remakes her appearance, gets a new identity, and dupes another man. Only Winger is convinced that this trail of murders is the work of one woman.

Theresa Russell has the right detachment for this role. One suspects the character is a real man-hater and is, in fact, attracted to Winger. Winger is admiring of Russell's constant flirtation with danger. This is a complex relationship that the two play out.

French & Saunders ~ What Ever Happened to Baby Dawn?

Hollywood Palace with Fred Astaire (1965)

Happy birthday!

the Sun

Compulsion (1959)

Compulsion, directed by Richard Fleischer, was a film made in 1959, based on the 1956 novel Compulsion by Meyer Levin, which in turn was based on the Leopold and Loeb trial. It was the first film Richard D. Zanuck produced.

Sometimes murder is just a way to pass the time. Compulsion is a compelling stylish thriller that sees two callous law students murder a young boy in cold blood to prove their intellectual superiority. Having been raised by wealthy, snobbish families Artie Straus is a sadistic bully and Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) a timid introvert. The two college friends concoct the 'perfect crime' - the murder of a young boy, but their arrogance and conceit leads to their arrest. The inimitable Orson Welles plays the criminal defense lawyer, based on the famous Clarence Darrow, who takes on their almost impossible case. This outstanding courtroom drama directed by Richard Fleisher is loosely based on the notorious and horrific 1924 murder trial of thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb. It was nominated for a BAFTA and garnered the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor award for Stockwell, Dillman and Welles as well as a Palme D'Or nomination.

Compulsion' is a film of ideas, but with character and plot that cannot quite live up to the highbrow efforts of the director. The film was shot in 1959, but harks back to the earlier 1920s and the real life case of Leopold and Loeb. Either way the female characters are portrayed far too weakly in the film and moments of assault are pushed aside. These old fashioned ideals would not normally impact on a `classic' film, but in a film of ideals they cannot go unnoticed. The film feels innocent and a little hokey, but in a murdering type of way. It plays out as the dark heart of `To Kill a Mockingbird'. For this reason, although the film struggles to be taken seriously, it is still worth watching for the concepts within it.