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.
When Morgan Spurlock was doing publicity for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold earlier this year, he claimed that 1988’s Mac and Me contained the worst example of Hollywood product placement. After watching the following scene on YouTube, it’s hard to disagree.
I’m watching one of my favorite movies, Walk Hard, on Comedy Central right now. One of the highlights of the film for me is when Dewey Cox goes to India and meets “the Beatles.” I love the way everything in this scene parodies every single music biopic ever made.
I’m late in saying this but I wanted to make sure that I said “Happy birthday, USA!” before the day ends and it’s the Fifth of July. And when it is the Fifth and you’re tempted to stop thinking about the Fourth, consider this:
Now that Game of the Thrones has concluded its first succesful season, True Blood has returned for a fourth season. Though the shows are very different, they have one very important thing in common. Both of them create a fictional world and then make that world seem as real as the world outside your front door. Last Sunday, me and Lisa watched the premiere of the fourth season of True Blood.
Each new season, it always takes me an episode or two to really get reacquainted with True Blood and Sunday’s episode was a good reintroduction to the citizens of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Each season of True Blood journey and I’m looking forward to taking it for the fourth time.
Things started off with Sookie (Anna Paquin) in the world of faeries which turned out to look like the world’s most boring garden party. There she met her grandfather and as soon as he showed up, I yelled, “It’s Lumbergh!” because he was played by Gary Cole. Things don’t work out that well because things never work out well for Sookie and she and grandpa Cole end up fleeing the faerie world while the faeries shoot lightning bolts at them. Sookie and grandpa jump into a gigantic pit of lava which returns Sookie to Bon Temps, Louisiana but also kills Gary Cole. However, both me and Lisa agreed that he’s going to come back somehow during this season because why else would he be played by Gary Cole?
After returning to Bon Temps, Sookie discovers that spending fifteen minutes in Faerie World is the same as being away from the “normal” world for 18 months. With everyone assuming that she was dead, the entire cast has moved on to new storylines. Jason’s joined the police force, Bill and Eric are becoming media stars, and Tara’s a lesbian. After everything she’s been through with men, is anyone surprised? My favorite scene was Arlene’s baby and all the headless dolls. Lisa and I used to do that to our dolls all the time and we turned out alright.
At least, I think we did.
This episode was mostly all about setting up things that hopefully will pay off later in the season. There were a lot of hints of what’s going to come over the next few episodes. My favorite part of this episode was the pro-Vampire PR campaign and I hope that the show explores this storyline a lot more over the next 13 episodes.
It’s good to be back in Bon Temps even if I do know that it means that I’m going to have to deal with Lisa trying to get me to let her dye my hair “Pacquin blonde” for the next three months. As long as I remember to keep my bedroom door locked and not fall asleep while she’s around, I should be just fine (along with being very tired).
As everyone has either seen or heard by now, the Dallas Mavericks won their first ever championship title last night when they easily defeated the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the NBA finals.
People are not only excited that the Mavericks won but they’re also excited by how they won. They came into the finals with everyone predicting that the Heat would easily defeat them. They came in as underdogs. But they never let that keep them from giving a 110% and, unlike the Heat, they never stopped playing with five minutes left in the quarter. The Heat thought they could buy a championship. The Mavs proved that you have to be willing to play for it. LeBron James might be bringing home the big bucks but the Mavericks brought home the championship.
Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks, the new NBA champions!
(Special thanks to my sister, Lisa Marie Bowman, who provided me with invaluable help in putting this post together.)
June 6th, 2011 is the 67th anniversary of D-Day but, if you’ve watched the nightly news, you might not know that. According to them, the only important thing about June 6th is that it’s the day a congressman admitted that he’s been using twitter and Facebook to send out pictures of his junk.
However, 67 years before Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted what everyone already knew, brave men from across the world bravely sacrificed their lives to defeat the greatest evil the world had ever known. June 6th is about honoring their memory and sorry Rep. Weiner but we’re taking the day back.
Do you ever wonder why and how the great artists of the past first decided to become artists in the first place? Have you ever thought about why, since before recorded history, humanity has always had the same desire to record and recreate their existence in the form of art? I know I do and that’s why I was excited to see the new 3-D documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is probably the only chance that most of us will ever get to see the oldest, preserved art created by our ancestors. The Chauvet Cave in Southern France was first discovered in 1994 and it is believed to contain the oldest known cave paintings in existence. (Some of the paintings are estimated to have first been created 32,000 years ago.) The Chauvet Cave has been very carefully preserved by the French government and the interior of the cave has remained so fresh and undisturbed that ancient footprints can still be seen on the cave’s floor.
For this documentary, German director Werner Herzog was allowed to film in the cave but, as he shows us, he had to work under several restrictions to preserve the cave. He could only work with a three-man film crew, he had to stay on a 2-foot metal walkway the entire time, and, because of the high levels of carbon dioxide in the caves, no one was allowed to stay in the cave for more than a few hours at a time. Once you see the film, you realize that all the restrictions are worth it to preserve the cave.
The paintings in the cave are so well-preserved that they seem as if they could have been painted just a year ago. While most prehistoric cave art sites have focused on paintings of animals that could be easily hunted — like horses and reindeer, the Chauvet Cave also features paintings of more dangerous animals, like lions, bears, and especially rhinos. What really struck me was how these paintings were created with a clear aesthetic purpose. Several of the animals are painted in such a way that creates the illusion of movement. The most famous of the Chauvet Cave paintings appears to feature a stampede of horses.
As Herzog makes clear in his narration, the perfectly preserved cave paintings show that “cave men” weren’t the simpletons we always assume they were. Instead, the paintings reveal that they were observant and actually had personality. One of my favorite parts of the movie was when Herzog and a paleontologist look at one wall that is covered with ancient hand prints. The paleontologist points out that we can tell one person made all the handprints because the hand has a crooked little finger. That hand print is also found throughout the entire cave and allows us, 32,000 years later, to follow the man with the crooked finger as he walks through the cave.
Because of the restrictions he had to film under, Herzog had to have his 3-D cameras custom-built and he and his 3-man crew had to put the cameras together inside of the cave. It was all worth the trouble because the 3-D effects truly make you feel as if you’re standing there in the cave with Herzog. Unfortunately, we probably won’t ever be able to see the world’s oldest paintings in person but The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is the next best thing.
Through the Shattered Lens