Reynold Brown was a realist artist who, over the course of his long career, painted landscapes, drew paperback book covers, and illustrated articles that appeared in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Popular Aviation. However, Brown is best remembered for drawing and designing Hollywood film posters. From 1950 to 1970, Brown designed posters for everything from cheap horror films to expensive biblical epics. Below is just a small sampling of his work.
Though best known as the father of actor Robert De Niro, Robert De Niro, Sr. was also an important and influential artist. His paintings were influenced by both French modernism and abstract expressionism and are memorable for his expressive use of color.
Below are some of my favorite examples of his work:
Best known as a film director, David Lynch is also a prolific and acclaimed photographer and painter. In the catalogue for a recent exhibition in Tokyo, Lynch wrote, ”"When it comes to painting, it´s the darker things I find really beautiful. All my paintings are organic, violent comedies. They have to be violently done, and primitive and crude, and to achieve that I try to let nature paint more than I paint and stay out of the way as much as I can. In fact, I don´t paint with a brush too much any more – I prefer to use my fingers. I´d bite them if I could.”
One of my favorite photographers is Gregory Crewdson. Working with a large crew and with elaborate lighting and staging, Crewdson captures images that are heavily influenced by the painter Edward Hopper and photographer Diane Arbus and which present a surreal and disturbing vision of life in small town America.
Dennis Hopper was best known as an actor but he was also a prolific and influential sculptor, painter, and photographer. He took up photography as a hobby in the 1960s and eventually became so acclaimed that he was even profiled in an issue of Better Home and Gardens Magazine as a “photographer to watch” for in the future. Hopper was also an important art collector.
Below are some of my favorite Hopper photographs:
Double Standard
Andy Warhol
Bruce Conner (in tub), Toni Basil, Teri Garr, and Ann Marshall
“Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a child.” — Norman Mailer
Diane Arbus was born in 1923 in New York City. She started out as a commercial and fashion photographer but she is best known for her work featuring men and women who would never appear in a fashion spread. Her stark, black-and-white pictures of outsiders and fringe dwellers always found the humanity in her subjects. Though she committed suicide in 1971, Arbus continues to influence artists to this day and her work remains powerful.
Below are a few of my favorite photographs of hers:
A lot of film critics are giving Act of Valor a negative review but I think they’re missing the point. Featuring an actual Navy SEAL squad and real-life military tactics (and weapons), Act of Valor feels like a documentary and serves as a much-needed tribute to these brave men. The action scenes are intense and exciting and the movie makes great use of the “helmet cam” vantage point to truly make you feel as if you’re actually there in the middle of the action.
Yes, the Seals aren’t actors but they are the men who are putting their lives on the line for this country and seeing them recreating their missions is exciting in a way that watching Matt Damon or (sorry, Lisa) James Franco going through the motions wouldn’t be. Act of Valor is a movie that makes you want to stand up and salute. You might not start cheering at the end of it but you will appreciate the willingness to sacrifice and the sense of duty that epitomizes the best of our armed forces. It’s a tribute to the men and women who truly deserve the honor.
A few days ago, Lisa asked me what my favorite film of 2011 was. I thought about it for a few minutes and then I said, “Bill Cunningham New York.”
Bill Cunningham New York is a documentary about Bill Cunningham, an 80 year-old fashion photographer who has been the fashion photographer for The New York Times since 1978. The film follows Bill as he takes pictures of both celebrities and ordinary people in the streets and shows how, through his photography, the unassuming and humble Bill Cunningham has preserved a visual history of how New York City has changed through the years. In interviews, Bill talks about everything from his sexuality to his feelings on religion but what mostly comes through is his love for taking pictures. Whenever I need cheering up or I’m frustrated with my own attempts to take that perfect picture, this is the film I watch and it never fails to cheer me up and it just makes me want to grab my camera and go take a hundred pictures.
That’s why Bill Cunningham New York is not only my favorite movie of 2011 but one of my favorite movies of all time.
