Neither Julia nor I can get 2nd and Charles out of our head. We might have to make a trip back to Augusta next weekend.
And me and my little walking buddy, Daisy, saw one of these babies today out strolling prissily along the 3rd hole of the golf course:
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| Daisy and Chas saw me, not Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones (below) |
Like Crazy is surely one of my favorite movies from last year - and, damn shamedly, an overlooked one. The plot is beguilingly simple: an American guy and an English girl meet in college in L.A., fall in love, but are constantly forced to be on separate continents as snags in her work visa prevent the two from being together for longer than holidays and extended visits. The guy is played by the appealing Anton Yelchin (of Fright Night) and the girl is played, in a richly expressive breakthrough performance, by Felicity Jones; The Hunger Games's Jennifer Lawrence shows up, in a compactly touching turn as Yelchin's new (temporary?) girlfriend. Co-writer and director Drake Doremus does a superb job capturing the natural rhythms of a couple in love, and he evokes, with nuance and understatement, the changes of mood and season, the passing of time, the shifting of feelings over the course of a relationship. He is also courageous enough to forgo the obligatory (and almost destined-to-be) happy ending; sometimes when one gets what they want, they might no longer want it much anymore. The film flirts with rambling, but the screenplay has an arc to it, and the film is touching and moving. It's similar in theme to 2010's Going the Distance, but it captures fragility in a smart way. (***1/2)
Bill Brandt (#26)
Brandt = nudes. That may not be fair, but it'll suffice.
Brandt (1904-1983) has spent most of his working life in England, but he was actually born in Hamburg. He spent some time in Paris in the late 1920s, where he was an assistant for Man Ray. His first major book of photos, The English at Home (1936), showed British people as they really were: stratified, economically divided. During the next year, he traveled north and took photos of the economic and social situation in factory towns. During the war, his was an ongoing photoreportage of Londoners and the buildings during the Blitz.
He is more known for the second half of his career, when he began to work in portraiture, lansdscape, and, of course, nudes. Many of his early nudes were shown in front of imposing, menacing architectural backgrounds, almost stifling. These images shocked people, not the least of which because of Brandt's close-up treatment of details, wide-angle lenses, and distorted lenses.
He also photographed many famous British literary and cinematic artists: Peter Sellers, Graham Greene, Francis Bacon.
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| from The English at Home |
In music news, it's a bit alarming how little I know about Entertainment's Weekly's 30 Greatest Musical Artists of today:
http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20585702_20585925_21143987,00.html
I've heard Beach House before, thought they were okay... Man, I'm getting old, I guess. Some of these artists I've never even heard of - nor do I have the slightest interest in doing so.
I will say that the Civil Wars are a good band. I've been listening to them on Pandora - they have a good, clean, plainspoken, mournful, sound - kind of like Robert Plant/Alison Krauss replete with gorgeous, clear harmonies. I'd say go out and buy their CD, but does anybody still do that?
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