I saw La Haine when it came out and as soon as it was on DVD I bought it. I lent it out and it’s whereabouts are now unknown. Nevertheless, this is easily on my top ten of all time list, perhaps number 1. Black and white, with a close up, in your face attention to detail you’ll only see in a film like Jean Luc Goddard’s Alphaville. Alphaville I saw with a film maker friend of mine right after we graduated from college. Incredible, every shot is treated witht he care that a still photograph would be. Now that I think of it, I’m willing to bet Wong Kar Wai of In the Mood for Love fame is a big fan of Alphaville.
Here’s links to both films on Netflix:
La Haine on Netflix.
French director Mathieu Kassovitz traces a fateful day in the lives of alienated ghetto youths Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) — a Jew, an Arab and an African, respectively — who are grappling with the aftermath of unexpected tragedy. When their friend Abdel lies comatose after a police beating, Vinz vows to dispense rough justice, sealing the destiny of all three.
Alphaville on Netflix:
Directed by cinematic legend Jean-Luc Godard, this mesmerizing sci-fi noir centers on secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) and his mission to destroy Alpha 60, the sentient computer that controls Alphaville by destroying freedom of thought or individuality. Brilliantly realized and crafted, Godard’s 1965 film helped to lay the foundation for future sci-fi classics such as Blade Runner, The Terminator and The Matrix.
Curious about this new social experience I checked it out. It was bizarre, curious, gross and rewarding all at the same time. Curious to see where it goes in the future.
I didn’t see this person but this exchange was hilarious:
This person described himself joyfully as a bodyguard slash musician.
He was holding an assault rifle.
Some Dutch madmen.
Just weird.
We stumbled in on this show of Nathan Skiles’ work yesterday. The colors alone are fantastic, the clocks are genius. The fact that he uses foam rubber is just plain cool.
From the show’s press release on the Sloan Fine Art site:
In Black Forest / White Lightning, Nathan Skiles presents a collection of densely adorned cuckoo clocks, ranging from the intricately elegant to the over-the-top outrageous, as a means to invigorate his method of associative image making and feed his interest in the incongruous. While the clocks lend themselves easily to observations on the convenient clichés and “rules” of time and space, specific (and repeated) themes within the works expand beyond immediate associations and evolve into musings on the self-consciousness and limits popularly ascribed to these rules. And with his innovative use of foam rubber as his primary material, Skiles tricks the eye and obliterates the baggage of immediate recognition, further challenging his audience to look beyond the immediate and investigate the core issues presented in his work.
I shot some images of his clocks myself, they’re posted here for you to enjoy:
More of Nathan Skiles’ work.
I missed this show featuring Josef Albers’ designs for the covers of the Command Records.
This label’s releases are described as…
“…the most unusual record you have ever put on your turntable. It is a unique mixture of entertainment, excitement, beauty and practicality.” — Persuasive Percussion (1959) liner notes
My kind of music.
More from the gallery overview:
Command Records was founded in 1959 by Enoch Light (1905-1978), a classical violinist, bandleader, and sound recording engineer. Light went to extraordinary technical lengths, and often great expense, to create recordings of the absolute highest quality possible that took full advantage of new technical capabilities of home audio equipment in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Light specifically perfected stereo effects that bounced sounds between the right and left channel speakers, which was called a “ping-pong effect”.
On each album sleeve, Light would include lengthy technical descriptions about each song, the musicians, the depth and breadth of the sounds, and how they were recorded. In order to fit his descriptions, he doubled the size of a standard album sleeve and enabled it to fold open like a book, thereby inventing the gatefold-packaging format. The gatefold sleeve became highly popular in following decades.
Luckily there’s some great images on the gallery site. Josef Albers was a graphic artist but his massive influence on the profession was through his educational programs, such as his excellent color theory book, Interaction of Color.
