"sighing flossers" for "flying saucers")
I won't be updating as much the next two weeks because I'm really into the Olympics and will be trying to find broadcasts of my new favorite sport - handball!
Gabriel starts school Wednesday. Today, the whole family went to an open house at the new school and we all were real impressed.
Born today:
Henry Moore (1898-1986)
Moore was an English sculptor and artist, best known for his abstract bronze sculptures. He was born in Yorkshire, the son of a collier. He fought in World War I and attended the Royal College of Art afterwards. In the mid-1920s, he traveled in Italy and France, studying the masters (Michelangelo), but also, perhaps more importantly, primitive art, such as the pre-Colombian sculpture, the Chac Mool (below).
By the end of the decade, he was teaching at Royal College of Art and getting his first commissions. In the 1930s, he was associated with, briefly, surrealism, and the generally informal modern art movement led by Pablo Picasso.
During the 1940s, he was one of his country's leading artists, becoming a patriotic war artist; after the war, his works were full of humanism. For the rest of his life, he continually engaged with large-scale public sculpture. He is best known today as a radical innovator of the form, with an enduring interest in the reclining figure.
"Knife Edge Two Piece" is a memorable Moore work - a bronze sculpture (1962-1965) that stands right outside Parliament.
*
Movie Review
Flowers of War (2011)
Directed by Yimou Zhang
Starring: Christian Bale
***1/2
I can't praise this historical drama highly enough. Though Zhang is a well-known, outstanding filmmaker (Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower, Raise the Red Lantern), the film flew under the radar and I knew little about it going in, despite the presence of Bale.
It's a moving, emotive, sometimes violent, florid drama about the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking. Fearing for their lives (for the invaders, of course, rape most of the left-behind Chinese women), a group of Chinese courtesans seeks shelter in a government-protected church occupied by abandoned Chinese convent girl students and a Western mortician (Bale). Of course, social clashes occur between the very different girls, but eventually they must look out for each other when the Japanese come knocking and demanding.
The material has a strong emotional pull to it, and the filmmakers wisely pull no punches in showing us the shocking brutality of the time and place; this is not a movie for the squeamish. The filmmaking is showy without being distracting, and the characters are compelling enough for us to get invested in them; by the end, we're fully, tensely absorbed in their plights. There's more to Bale's character than meets the eye, and the actor acutely portrays his character's complete turnabout from louche apathy to involved, selfless determination.
Good stuff. And reputedly the biggest-budgeted Chinese film in history - and a huge smash in the country.
*
An entry for the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
Christian Bale
as Dicky Eklund in The Fighter (2010)
Bale won his Oscar for his riveting, can't-take-your-eyes-off-him performance as the real-life brother of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward. Bale acts up a storm here, almost going over-the-top, but he invests the part with so much heart and soul that it doesn't matter. Displaying mesmerizing technique, Bale lost a ton of weight for the role (as he did for 2005's The Machinist) and scurries around like he has ants in his pants. A crack addict who won't admit how disillusioned he is, he has a thin, attenuated jumpiness, haunted eyes. He babbles incessantly. But underneath the scuzzy facade, Bale shows us Dicky's tenacity and resilience. He even turns out to be a pretty good brother too.
Images:
http://www.sweetmedicineshoppe.com/ProductImages/sacredimages/statues/ChacMool.jpg
http://www.kew.org/henry-moore/explore/slideshows/sculpture12/sculpture12-04.jpg
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2011/12/baleflower_a.jpg
http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/H/P/W/fighter-christian-bale-photo2.jpg
Information:
http://www.biographyonline.net/artists/henry-moore.html
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