Monday, July 30, 2007

Saturday, July 28, 2007

he couldn't resist the opportunity to get back in the big time










billy wilder's ace in the hole, 1951
(aka the big carnival)
with kirk douglas, cinematography by charles lang

other great kirk douglas films i have watched lately:
-lonely are the brave, 1962 (d. david miller)
(a sad good bye to the west)
-paths of glory, 1957 (d. stanley kubrick)
-man without a star, 1955 (d. king vidor)
-out of the past, 1947 (d. jacques tourneur)

title (above) from kirk douglas in his interview found in the criterion collection 2-dvd set (a must have!).

Thursday, July 26, 2007

no country for old men

no country for old men (d. coen brothers)

some movies i am looking forward to seeing:

-paranoid park (d. gus van sant)
-izgnanie (d. andrei zvyagintsev)
-climates (d. nuri bilge ceylan)
-4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (d. cristian mungiu)
-the man from london (d. béla tarr)
-no country for old men (d. coen brothers)
-one hundred nails (d. ermanno olmi)
-aleksandra (d. aleksandr sokurov)
-secret sunshine (d. chang-dong lee)
-sunshine (d. danny boyle)
-scott walker: 30 century man (d. stephen kijak)
-the darjeeling limited (d. wes anderson)
-there will be blood (d. pt anderson)
-go go tales (d. abel ferrara)
-i don't want to sleep alone (d. ming-liang tsai)
-rescue dawn (d. werner herzog)
-i'm not there (d. todd haynes)
-le voyage du ballon rouge (d. hou hsiao-hsien)
-3:10 to yuma (d. james mangold)
-razzle dazzle (d. ken jacobs)
-the highwater trilogy (d. bill morrison)


the highwater trilogy (d. bill morrison)

(and some forgotten)

r.i.p. laszlo kovacs

-laszlo & vilmos: the story of two refugees who changed the look of american cinema (d. james chressanthis)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

serra, photographer of the sun

images from the richard serra exhibition at the moma, nyc.


























enjoyment from looking very close at these sublime abstractions, inspired by the tales of dostoevsky getting close to paintings by standing on a chair.

do people look or talk about these work's rich surfaces?
a great study of serra's work would be to make an imaginary grid on the surface of one sculpture, and photograph each square foot (for another example of this technique, see the leonardo da vinci book leonardo: the last supper by the university of chicago, esp of john). this would surely be more informative than the humdrum and bunkum of most commentators.

for more abstractions go here

other abstractions of the sun, at the moma


dorothea rockburne: scalar 1971 (details) moma



(through a glass darkly)

guillermo kuitca: untitled 1992 (details) moma

marcel duchamp: network of stoppages, 1914 (detail) moma



joan miro: the birth of the world, 1925 (details) moma


jean dubuffet: soul of the underground from the series materiologies, december 1959 (details) moma

franz kline: chief, 1950 (detail) moma

donald judd: relief, 1961 (detail) moma