vendredi 19 décembre 2008

"Platoon", directed by Oliver Stone




Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two commanding officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes (Tom Berenger) and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin (Willem Dafoe). A line is drawn between the two officers and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon. Written by Jeremy Thomson
Source: imdb.com

My Touch! War movies are definitely not my cup of tea: "Fuck you man! No I Fuck You you fucker.. Shoot HIM YOU FUCKER"... well... it's not my cup of tea. But, I know Platoon is a MUST in term of cinema history so... I did my duty... Veni Vidi Vici.... that's it.
No seriously it's very interesting movies coz you are just as fresh as Chris jumping out from the chopper and going to "do you share about your country"... and slowly... you turn you mind and change... and get scared of yourself.

"East of Eden", directed by Elia Kazan (1955)




Cal Trask is a particularly unhappy young man. He sees himself as the black sheep of the family and is always competing with his brother Aron, who seems to be perfect in almost every way. Aron is also their father's favorite and Cal desperately wants his father's love and affection. It's the period leading up to America's entry into World War I and these are tumultuous times. After his father loses most of his fortune trying to ship refrigerated lettuce to New York, Cal decides to speculate on a crop of beans and makes a small fortune but he soon realizes that he can't buy his father's loves either. Cal's discovery that his mother is alive - he and Aron were told that she had died - and that she is a madam leads to a final, tragic result for all three of the Trask men. Written by garykmcd
Source: imdb.com

My touch!: A very interesting movie about frustration felt over the teenage period. James Dean, again, perfectly performed the tortured teenage try to find himself.


jeudi 18 décembre 2008

"eXistenZ", directed by David David Cronenberg




Allegra Geller, the leading game designer in the world, is testing her new virtual reality game, eXistenZ with a focus group. As they begin, she is attacked by a fanatic assassin employing a bizarre organic gun. She flees with a young marketing trainee, Ted Pikul, who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard. Unfortunately, her pod, an organic gaming device that contains the only copy of the eXistenZ game program, is damaged. To inspect it, she talks Ted into accepting a gameport in his own body so he can play the game with her. The events leading up to this, and the resulting game lead the pair on a strange adventure where reality and their actions are impossible to determine from either their own or the game's perspective. Written by Kenneth Chisholm {kchishol@execulink.com}
Source: imdb.com

My Touch! Very realistic movie, even though it looks pretty disgusting in many points. Makes you wonder how far your sensation desire can bring you.


samedi 13 décembre 2008

"Brazil", directed by Terry Gilliam




Sam Lowry is a man stuck in a dead-end job living a dull life in a dystopian future world with an over-reliance on machines and technology. Sam habitually escapes into a fantasy world, in which he is a knight rescuing a beautiful mystery woman. His contented but lonely life becomes complicated by his mother's attempts to secure him a promotion, the intrusion of a renegade heating engineer, and the real-life appearance of the woman of his dreams.
Page last updated by SoylentBlueispeople, 7 months ago
Top Contributors: moviedude-72, jbsabc2007, SoylentBlueispeople
Source: imdb.com

mardi 9 décembre 2008

François Picabia (January 22, 1879 - November 30, 1953)





Francis Picabia (born François Marie Martinez Picabia, January 22, 1879 - November 30, 1953) was a well-known painter and poet born of a French mother and a Spanish-Cuban father who was an attaché at the Cuban legation in Paris, France.

Born in Paris and financially independent, he studied under Fernand Cormon and other at the École des Arts Decoratifs in the late 1890s. In the beginning of his own career, from 1903 to 1908, he was influenced by the impressionist paintings of Alfred Sisley. From 1909, he came under the influence of the cubists and the Golden Section (Section d'Or). The same year, he married Gabrielle Buffe.

Around 1911 he joined the Puteaux Group, which met at the studio of Jacques Villon in the village of Puteaux. There he became friends with artist Marcel Duchamp and close friends with Guillaume Apollinaire. Other group members included Albert Gleizes, Roger de La Fresnaye, Fernand Léger and Jean Metzinger.

In 1913 Picabia was the only member of the Cubist group to personally attend the Armory Show, and Alfred Stieglitz gave him a solo exhibition at his gallery 291. From 1913 to 1915 Picabia traveled to New York City several times and took active part in the avant-garde movements, introducing modern art to America. These years can be characterized as Picabia's proto-Dada period, consisting mainly of his portraits mécaniques.

Later, in 1916, while in Barcelona he started his well-known Dada periodical 391, modeled on Stieglitz's own periodical. He continued the periodical with the help of Duchamp in America.

Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art. (See Cannibale, 1921.) He denounced Dada in 1921, and issued a personal attack against Breton in the final issue of 391, in 1924.

The same year, he put in an appearance in the René Clair surrealist film Entr'acte, firing a cannon from a rooftop. The film served as an intermission piece for Picabia's avant-garde ballet, Relâche, premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, with music by Erik Satie.

In 1925, he returned to figurative painting, and during the 1930s became a close friend of Gertrude Stein. In the early 1940s he moved to the south of France, where his work took a surprising turn - he produced a series of paintings based on the nude glamour photos in French "Girlie" magazines, in a garish style which appears to subvert traditional, academic nude painting.

Before the end of World War II, he returned to Paris where he resumed abstract painting and writing poetry. A large retrospective of his work was held at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris in the spring of 1949. Francis Picabia died in Paris in 1953 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre. In 2003 a single Picabia painting once owned by Andre Breton sold for $1.6 million.[1]

Source: wikipedia

vendredi 5 décembre 2008

Man Ray (August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976)






Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky (August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976), was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painter above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is noted for his photograms, which he renamed rayographs after himself.[1]

While appreciation for Man Ray's work beyond his fashion and portrait photography was slow in coming during his lifetime, especially in his native United States, his reputation has grown steadily in the decades since.

In 1999, ARTnews magazine named him one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century, citing his groundbreaking photography as well as "his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage, and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art" and saying "Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty,'"—Man Ray's stated guiding principles—"unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would."[2]
Source: wikipedia

jeudi 4 décembre 2008

Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968)







Marcel Duchamp (pronounced [maʀsɛl dyˈʃɑ̃]) (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Duchamp's output had considerable influence on the development of post-World War I Western art, and whose advice to modern art collectors helped shape the tastes of the Western art world.[1]

A playful man, Duchamp prodded thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much with words, but with actions such as dubbing a urinal "art" and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks as he quickly moved through the avant-garde rhythms of his time.

"It is necessary to arrive at selecting an object with the idea of not being impressed by this object on the basis of enjoyment of any order. However, it is difficult to select an object that absolutely does not interest you, not only on the day on which you select it, and which does not have any chance of becoming attractive or beautiful and which is neither pleasant to look at nor particularly ugly. (Marcel Duchamp)"


Source: wikidpedia

Tate Morden Museum of London : Duchamp / Manray / Picabia exhibition



Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia were at the cutting edge of art in the first half of the twentieth century, and made a lasting impression on modern and contemporary art. Duchamp invented the concept of the ‘readymade’: presenting an everyday object as an artwork, Man Ray pioneered avant-garde photographic and film techniques and Picabia’s use of kitsch, popular or low-brow imagery in his paintings undermined artistic conventions.

Their shared outlook on life and art, with a taste for jokes, irony and the erotic, forged a friendship that provided support and inspiration. At the heart of the Dada movement and moving in the same artistic circles, they discussed ideas and collaborated, echoing and responding to each other’s works. Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia explores their affinities and parallels, uncovering a shared approach to questioning the nature of art.
Source: Tate Modern website

My touch!: Very interesting exhibition about 3 major artist that revolutionized our vision of art and, ergo, life consideration. Through their work, we can see the emergence of life questioning and somehow, criticism against the way consumption was (and still) taking most of our life. Under this post, you will see special pages about these 3 figures of Art.

mercredi 3 décembre 2008

"Some like it hot", directed by Billy Wilder starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon




Two struggling musicians witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and try to find a way out of the city before they are found and killed by the mob. The only job that will pay their way is an all girl band so the two dress up as women. In addition to hiding, each has his own problems; One falls for another band member but can't tell her his gender, and the other has a rich suitor who will not take "No," for an answer. Written by John Vogel {jlvogel@comcast.net}

My touch!: One of my favorite movies!

mardi 2 décembre 2008

"Rebel without a cause", directed by Nicholas Ray, with James Dean (1955)




Jim Stark is the new kid in town. He has been in trouble elsewhere; that's why his family has had to move before. Here he hopes to find the love he doesn't get from his middle-class family. Though he finds some of this in his relation with Judy, and a form of it in both Plato's adulation and Ray's real concern for him, Jim must still prove himself to his peers in switchblade knife fights and "chickie" games in which cars race toward a seaside cliff. Written by Ed Stephan {stephan@cc.wwu.edu}
Source: imdb.com

My touch!: That's a great movie about teenage time and the struggling you have during that time.

"Burn after reading", directed by Ethan and Joel Coen




Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst who quits his job at the agency after being demoted ostensibly because of his drinking problem. He then decides to write a memoir about his life in the CIA. His wife, Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton), wants to divorce Osbourne and, at the counsel of her divorce lawyer, she copies many of his personal and financial files off his computer and onto an optical disc. Katie's lover is Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). The disc eventually finds its way to Hardbodies, a workout gym. An employee of the gym, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) obtains the disc from the gym's custodian and ascertains that it contains classified government information. Along with his fellow employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), he intends to use the disk to blackmail Osbourne - Linda needs the money to pay for cosmetic surgery. They call up Cox in the middle of the night, but he is not receptive. When blackmailing him fails, Linda decides to take the information to the Russian embassy. At the embassy, she hands the disk over to the Russians, promising that she will give more information afterwards. Because Linda and Chad don't have any more information, they decide to break into Cox's house.
Source: imdb.com

My touch!: It's a good and entertaining! Brad Pitt plays perfectly the Mr Muscle Naive guy and the whole story is not based on the "CIA SHIT" as the trailer might drives you. It is more kind of couple flirting around and catching opportunities wherever they can... and that's the funny thing. A bit disappointed since the Coen brothers tends to be a bit more funny in their comedy... but it's ok. If you have nothing to do or just want to chill... it worth it.

lundi 1 décembre 2008

acb galeria - contemporary art gallery, Budapest

Actually I haven't been to the acb gallery for a while!
I know, that's pity! ok ok... I confess, I have been a very lazy boy lol
No seriously, last exhibition I saw was very... well.... not very... hum.... ok, I didn't like it!
Besides, this place is hidden in an inside court and hard to find.

Anyway, I g2 find my way back there as what's new
Here is the acb website

So, what's up at acb gallery nowadays? Attila Szucs... find some shots below taken from the acb website



Nora Soos




Zoltan Adam

MONO Galeria - Contemporary Arts Gallery, Budapest




Although I pass by almost every day, I know I don't pay enough attention to this interesting place. Unfortunately, Budapest is not very big for contemporary art and it's kind of difficult to find some good place exhibiting locals. FYI, most of the "gallery" are more kind of Ikea or something else to furnish your place ... and nurture your lazy ego. So nothin' really interesting.

HOWEVER (et oui y'a un however), it exists a small community of art lovers dedicated to their passion and decided to make Magyar artist voice hear worlwide... and for 2009, I will go encounter these people! (is that right... encounter in that case? please advice guys!).

SO (it will never end!), MONO is a small gallery located in Buda side, not far from the VAR, 2mn from the metro station moszkva tér. It shows regualry local artist, mostly paintings and sculpture. To me, this place is nice... but I get a kind of preference for Dorottya Galleria.
Very dinamic place with fields also including fashion (but on another place, to be discovered soon).
You can sometimes find some very interesting piece such as the recent Fejős Miklós exhibition.
For more information about this artist as well as next MONO exhibition, check out MONO WEBSITE

Old stuff from last Amsterdams' trip: the Muziekgebouw




A glass showpiece on the harbour front
The Danish firm of architects, 3xNielsen, was selected in 1997 by the Amsterdam Council to design this new showpiece for the city. Amsterdam wanted a Dutch building with a strongly international character.

The firm was selected because of the sober style of their previous projects. The architects have put their own signature on the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ and the Bimhuis by using mainly three colours: the natural concrete colour, black, and the light maple wood with which the main auditorium is panelled. The completely angular design is broken only by the undulating shapes of the foyer decks.

Bigger inside than out
From the train or from the Piet Heinkade, passers-by see a building which seems to be moored by the quayside like a big, transparent ship. What repeatedly attracts attention is the exceptional sightlines. From all sorts of places throughout the building, unexpected vistas of the water or the city open up. Every change of weather shows the building in a different light. Inside, too, there are all kinds of hidden jewels for the future visitor. In a predominantly angular building, there is an exceptionally beautiful use of diagonals in a number of places. From the space behind the glass façade, there is a spectacular view along the two auditoriums where the building is displayed in all its glory.

The auditorium as a beating heart
Every auditorium is unique, due to the multiplicity of wishes and interests that are involved. In its move to the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, the IJsbreker wanted a change, through innovation and increase of scale. As in every concert hall, the auditorium forms the heart. Everything has been taken into consideration. What makes the main auditorium so special is its flexibility. The auditorium is moveable on three sides. The acoustic ceiling can be moved up and down, which provides unique, variable acoustics. The floor can be either completely flat or tiered, with a difference of 1.20 m. with respect to the stage, so that various auditorium arrangements are possible for both the flat or tiered floor. And finally, the side walls by the stage can move in and out, and the back wall can be hoisted up, making it possible to experience intimate chamber music or a full symphony orchestra.

The building received 100% financial backing from the Amsterdam Council (construction budget of € 52 million). The Muziekgebouw/Bimhuis was designed by the firm of architects 3xNielsen from Aarhus, Denmark. Further info: www.3xn.dk Computer graphics by CIIID

Source: Muziekgebouw website

My touch!: A beautiful masterpiece of Dutch architecture. It comes in direct line of the fantastic Dutch legacy for archi' field. Very surprising no matter whether you are inside or outside of the building. Perfect place to have a coffee and chill out or to have a very intimate dinner next to the sea with your beloved one!


Back on track !

Hi there!

As you might have noticed, I have not been posting much lately.
This is mostly due to lots of work, tiredness, little breakdown...

Anyway, as usual, I have been traveling (yes yes ! I did it!), going to cinema and checking news... so I hope you will enjoy !

CU and take care babies !
El Samuelo

dimanche 23 novembre 2008

vendredi 17 octobre 2008

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", directed by George Roy Hill




Butch and Sundance are the two leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Butch is all ideas, Sundance is all action and skill. The west is becoming civilized and when Butch and Sundance rob a train once too often, a special posse begins trailing them no matter where they run. Over rock, through towns, across rivers, the group is always just behind them. When they finally escape through sheer luck, Butch has another idea, "Let's go to Bolivia". Based on the exploits of the historical characters. Written by John Vogel {jlvogel@comcast.net}
Source: imdb.com

"High School Musical", directed by Kenny Ortega





Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez met over winter break after they were forced to sing together at a party. They became friends, and expected not to see each other again. But then, Gabriella's mother's company transferred her to another home in Alburquerqe, New Mexico, where Troy lives. Then, Troy and Gabriella end up at the same school after winter break. They decide to audition for their school's musical, and after they audition and get a call back along with Sharpay and Ryan Evans, the two actors who've been in every school musical, the whole school makes the biggest deal out of it. Then, Troy and Gabriella's call back was amazing, and Troy and Gabriella got the leading parts in the musical, and Ryan and Sharpay were the understudies. Written by Hayden Vurdie
source: imdb.com

My opinion: Well... this kind of movies are definitely my cup of tea. However, HSM is a huge success in US and many others countries, it is from far the most successful Disney movie in terms of gross and profitability... so I think it is important to take a glance at it to try to understand why it works. It was interesting.



lundi 13 octobre 2008

"Höstsonaten/ Autumn Sonata", directed by Ingmar Bergman




After having neglected her children for many years, world famous pianist Charlotte visits her daughter Eva in her home. To her surprise she finds her other daughter, Helena, there as well. Helena is mentally impaired, and Eva has taken Helena out of the institution where their mother had placed her. The tension between Charlotte and Eva only builds up slowly, until a nightly conversation releases all the things they have wanted to tell each other. Written by Mattias Thuresson {mattias.thuresson@mbox300.swipnet.se}