The Cast of Arrested Development at The Netflix Original Series “Arrested Development” Press Conference at Sheraton Universal
JUST BOUGHT TICKETS TO SEE BEFORE MIDNIGHT AT THE SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL NEXT MONTH I AM HIGH ON LIFE
Sydney Film Festival Program
Sydneysiders, time to check out this year’s SFF line-up if you haven’t done so already!
This year I’ll be seeing Before Midnight (I’m a hopeless Before Sunrise devotee, how could I not), Grigris (straight out of Cannes, an “uplifting” film by French-African filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) and Beyond The Hills (a rather-less-“uplifting”, prize-winning drama by Cristian Mungiu). I was sorely tempted by a fair few others, but the festival’s perilous proximity to end-of-semester exams has kept me from buying as many tickets as I’d like, unfortunately. A few that particularly struck my fancy were Park Chan-Wook’s English-language debut, Stoker, Nicolas Winding Refn’s second Gosling-starrer, Only God Forgives, Slavoj Zizek’s The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology, Jafar Panahi’s Closed Curtain, and Kim Ki-Duk’s Pieta.
Enjoy sifting through the program; have you got any personal picks in mind?
I think I have done about 10 films that have shot within one minute or five minutes of where I live in Hong Kong. That is why I can’t leave, that is why I have to stay there. Chungking Express is actually shot in my apartment. […] The bloody film was shot in my bloody apartment! (laughs) I should’ve stayed in a hotel. I’d be working all day and sleeping on the floor at night. We couldn’t mess up the set. The film’s very special in that way given the connection to my personal life…
The interesting thing is after the film—I guess it was the Hong Kong tourist board put out a map of film locations—for three of four years there’d be people following this map to my door. Especially Japanese tourists for some reason. They’d go on the escalator and look for the apartment. So, I’d be going off to work or to a bar and there’d be people waiting downstairs. Once I found kids literally on my doorstep wanting to go in.
— Christopher Doyle
zomgmouse replied to your photo: Hollywood Costume exhibition at Melbourne’s…
How much of a split would you say there was between the modern era and Old Hollywood? I’m not so interested in the former, and it seemed like they really put emphasis on it to attract big audiences.
About a quarter of the costumes are from films pre-1970, and they are great selections at that. There’s a few Edith Head pieces, a couple of Marlene Dietrich’s outfits, the Breakfast at Tiffany’s dress, the Seven Year Itch dress, Ben-Hur’s robe, John Wayne’s costume from The Searchers, the GWTW curtain dress…worth your time, even if you’re not that fussed about the newer stuff, which makes up most of the exhibition.
Hollywood Costume exhibition at Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
I had the good fortune of being in Melbourne a couple of days ago and getting to see this exhibition of Hollywood costumes at the ACMI, straight from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. To put it briefly: I had a really fucking great time.
I didn’t have high expectations, but it is an impressive collection indeed; I’m struggling to name highlights, since there were so many of the 90+ pieces that I would consider to be iconic. I will tempt you with just a few: The Bride’s jumpsuit, Scarlett O’Hara’s curtain dress, The Dude’s bathrobe (THE DUDE’S MOTHERFUCKING BATHROBE), a The Dark Knight Rises-era Batsuit…and there are dozens more equally noteworthy costumes but I’ll stop myself there.
As far as I know, all of them are from the original costume departments, barring a few reproduced accessories, and all are displayed on mannequins with slightly twitching, incredibly creepy digital faces. The show is peppered with interesting facts about each costume, and there are even a few interviews with the likes of Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro slipped in there for good measure.
I spent the whole time wandering through the collection in a delirious haze of geekery-induced excitement, which afterwards led me to note that an exhibition like this does funny things to the gap between reality and silver screen fantasy. On the one hand, these artifacts can lose a bit of their mystique when you can see the stitching holding them together, and yet, there’s still something thrilling about getting up close and personal with Hollywood mythology and appreciating the craft of the people making the myths. It’s certainly a surreal and fascinating experience.
Anyway, the exhibition runs every day until August 18th, here are the details. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, definitely worth a visit if you’re going to be in Melbourne at some point over the next few months.
Jean Simmons as Ophelia in Hamlet (1948)
BEFORE MIDNIGHT TRAILER YOU GUYS, I THINK I JUST EXPLODED
NB. Big spoilers for those who haven’t yet seen Before Sunrise or Before Sunset. If you fall into that category, I cannot recommend these films highly enough to you, go forth and watch.
Cinemas.
First and last ones have a Kubrick feel
The kinds of places I dream about…
