Monday, April 28, 2008

April Showers bring May Flowers



I had better explain this photo right off the bat. It's from the delightful film, Southland Tales. The latest, now on DVD from the creator of Donnie Darko. And yes, Justin Timberlake is in the movie. So is the Rock, Sarah Michelle Geller (as a porn star), Sean William Scott aka Stiffler, the guy from the Princess Bride who says "inconceivable" a lot, the scary short lady from Poltergeist, Amy Poeller, Cheri Oteri, John Lovitz, the swarmy lawyer from Night Court, Mandy Moore, and even Christopher Lambert (the Highlander himself). The movie is a absurd, hilarious, dark talk of a dystopian future. Totally insane and almost unintelligible. At one point 2 cars have sex with each other. I highly recommend it. 4 Molos


Visual Arts:

May is nearly here, which means only one more month until summer! Not that you'd be able to tell from the weather...but at least it seems to have stopped snowing. However, if you want to hold on the your dark winter gloom a little more, come check out the wonderful new work at the Frye Art Museum by Dario Robleto. Heaven is Being a Memory to Others. Part 1 of a 2 part double exhibition that will be up through July or so. Dario has created new works that are, essentially, reflections on the life of Emma Frye. They are installation/sculptural works that are integrated with paintings he chose from the collection. The works, about love, unfulfilled motherhood, immortality and beauty are based on research Dario did while in residence here last year. Not much is known about Emma and her personal life, especially, but there is a great deal of lore and certain jumping off points for conjecture. Whatever liberties he may have taken, the show is surprisingly gorgeous and I'm thoroughly impressed. A rare treat. 4 Molos

However, I do recommend coming to visit the show after the 2nd part opens, which is to be Dario's 10 year retrospective show, Alloy of Love, which will open May 17th.


In other arts news:

New work at Fat Tiger this week...we are showing work by the artist Don Farrell. His work can be seen on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/dionysusapollo . Cait Willis will have work up, as well as myself. Cait will also be showing at Gallery 108 Occidental.

I built a new wall in the Tiger Cub Gallery space...well I should say I'm building a new wall. Mudding drywall is very hard. It seems to involve a lot of learned skill. I now understand why people specialize in mudding. Pain-in-the-ass.

I'm also looking forward to my friend Chris Sheridan's show at La Familia gallery, One way of looking at it, which opens this Thursday as well, and runs through the month.


In Film:

Other than Southland Tales I have not seen a lot of great movies lately. Well, except I finally saw Annie Hall (4.5 Molos), which was great. But you probably already know that.

Oh, I can certainly not recommend the movie Revolver, the latest half-assed film by Guy Richie. Madonna must be getting to him, because whatever talent he had, washed out after Snatch. This movie is lousy, and annoying. It's not good when a film annoys you to watch it. Plus, Ray Liotta? This is the second lousy film I've seen with both Ray Liotta and Jason Stathom lately (the other one being the semi-kids movie called something like Dungeon, A Seige Tale...or some such thing-which was chalk full of B-Actors...). I no longer understand how Ray Liotta ever had a career. I mean I guess he was great in Goodfellas, but that was just a great move...now he's just taking his weird creepy whinny attitude guy to all these bad guy characters, and just ruins whatever scene he is in. Revolver- 1.5 Molos

In Music:

There's have been a lot of exciting and good releases of late, notably the new Tapes 'n Tapes, Tokyo Police Club, Portishead (April 29th), Neon Neon, Fleet Foxes (out soon...I've got an early copy) and Sun Kil Moon that are all worthy of reviews, however I have been too swamped to really be able to give any of them a proper listen. But keep you ears open....












Best film I have seen, released in 2008:

1. Cloverfield
2. The Bank Job

(I really haven't been going out to the movies at all...)


Best records of 2008:

1 Grand Archives Grand Archives
2 Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
3 Nada Surf Lucky
4 MGMT Electric Feel
5 Stephen Malkimus and the Jicks Real Emotional Trash
6 Throw me the Statue Moonbeams
7 The Supreme Beings of Leisure 11i


(to be added: Tokyo Police club, Sun Kil Moon, Tapes 'n Tapes, Portishead, Neon Neon, etc etc..)

1 comment:

redefinemagazine said...

you + us + brief write-up in our blog = happy family!

oh yes.