There Goes the Neighborhood

Saw this heartbreaking story on last night's 60 Minutes.  Watch it.

Glass, Reed, and Occupy

Last week composer Philip Glass and rock legend Lou Reed (see another post on him here) made an appearance at an Occupy protest in front of the Lincoln Center Plaza, where Glass's opera Satyagraha was being performed.  The opera is based loosely on the life of Gandhi, and its title refers to his concept of civil disobedience in times of social injustice.

The original video clips of Glass's and Reed's speeches were not of the best quality, but amateur artist Jean Thevenin produced a more sophisticated short film documenting the scene.  The music is from Glass's song "Protest," which plays during the second act of the opera (and is strikingly similar to his score from The Hours).

Visible Shape (Philip Glass & Lou Reed occupying Lincoln Center) from jaune! on Vimeo.

Beauty Is in the Eye of Kubrick

Before he was a film director, Stanley Kubrick worked as a photojournalist.  In the summer of 1949, he shot pictures for a story called "Chicago City of Contrasts" for Look magazine.  Below are some of my favorites from the Chicago collection; you can see them all here.  

The Museum of the City of New York and VandM.com have also teamed up to showcase and sell some of his best work as a photographer.  The images are phenomenal--take a look here.

It's easy to see his photography roots in these cinemagraphs from his movies, too (Blogspot won't let me embed GIFs).  They're awesome.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Award Season...

...with the announcement of the New York Film Critics Circles winners.  Here are the major winners.  Thoughts?

Best Picture

The Artist

Best Director 

Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist

Best Screenplay 

Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin for Moneyball

Best Actress 

Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady

Best Actor 

Brad Pitt for Moneyball, The Tree of Life

Best Supporting Actress 

Jessica Chastain for The Tree of Life, The Help, Take Shelter

Best Supporting Actor 

Albert Brooks for Drive

Best Cinematographer 

Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life

Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary) 

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Best Foreign Film 

A Separation (Iran)

Best First Film 

J.C. Chandor for Margin Call

The Tree of Life--you can see my original post about the film here--certainly was a beautiful movie, no hesitation on the cinematography award there (side note: Lubezki also filmed Children of Men, which has some mind-blowing, super-long action shots without any cuts.  He's awesome.).  But is it too avant-garde for the Oscar community?  Brad Pitt was great in it too, but I'm wary of Jessica Chastain's appearance on this list, although I haven't seen her other two movies.

And can Aaron Sorkin pull off best screenplay two years in a row?  We shall see.