Manufactured Consent By Hugh Lilly Matthew Barney is an American sculptor, photographer and filmmaker whose most prominent work, The Cremaster Cycle, has been variously described as “one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema” and, at perhaps the opposite end of the appreciation spectrum, “[a] humongous riff on struggle, … Continue reading
On YouTube in four parts, “Painting with Words,” a great little documentary about the writer and historian David McCullough.
In this 2006 BBC series, out now on DVD, British Historian Simon Schama looks in detail at eight important works of art ranging from the 16th century—Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath”—to the late-’50s:—Rothko’s Seagram Murals. The two most interesting entries are where art arguably altered the course of history: “The Death of Marat” … Continue reading
Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel A Single Man, which forms the basis of a new film by the fashion designer Tom Ford, depicts a day in the life of a gay, middle-aged English professor at a Los Angeles college who, after losing his partner in a car accident, becomes involved with a student. The film is … Continue reading
Tilda Swinton’s Hitchcockian hairstyle in the trailer for Luca Guadagnino’s Io sono l’amore (I am Love).
Q: What’s worse than floating heads on a movie poster? A: Stuff coming out of the top of a person’s head:
The 82nd Annual Academy Awards By Hugh Lilly The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its 82nd annual awards ceremony on Sunday March 8th. After opening with a song-and-dance number from TV actor Neil Patrick Harris—part of the night’s “Old Hollywood” theme—hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin got down to the business end … Continue reading
Man, the Japanese posters for movies are awesome. Above, the poster for The Wolfman, which is way more interesting than the film it advertises.
Max Richter’s piece “On the Nature of Daylight” is hauntingly beautiful by itself, but when, in the closing titles of Shutter Island, it’s combined with Dinah Washington’s “This Bitter Earth,” it takes on tremendous new dimensions:
With the conclusion of its twentieth season, The Simpsons became the longest-running serialised television show of all time—overtaking Gunsmoke’s twenty seasons. It’s commonly argued—in books like Vanity Fair writer John Ortved’s recent oral history Simpsons Confidential—that the series hasn’t been funny for at least ten years, since the mid-to-late-’90s halcyon days where people like Al … Continue reading
