Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Stuff White People Like

I came across a great blog today: Stuff White People Like . If you're white or just a really assimilated immigrant as many of my friends are you'll first laugh at this list, then it'll die down to a weak chuckle as you realize how deadly accurate it is, then you'll laugh again because the odds are that out of the 85 or so entries, chances are you only share less than half. So it's okay. You're not so easily typecast. Or at least you'll tell yourself that.

So far I'm only admitting to entry numbers 84, 83, 71, 70, 69, 58, 53, 47, 35, 24, 25, 19, 7, 52, 55, and 46. The rest I'm in denial about.

Weekly Work of Art


My Dad will dig this artist. Although a CPA by trade, my father has been studying paper folding/cutting/sculpting for about 30 years now. Peter Callesen, a Danish artist, is a master at this. His site is www.petercallesen.com

Some designers at The Refinery, a print design house servicing the movie and tv industry where I've been freelancing, brought this guy to my attention. You can usually bet there's something cool on the web when all the designers are gathered around one monitor, procrastinating and remarking in hushed tones.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Sweaty Palms

This is an old clip (maybe a year or so) but someday my kids (I know, I know. Colin have kids?) will not have clue what a mouse or a touch-pad is for. Now when do we get the flying cars already?

Friday, February 22, 2008

Two Shows for the Price of One at Julian Schnabel's Opening

Last night I went to my first big gallery opening out here in LA. It was superstar artist Julian Schnabel’s show at the Gagosian gallery, featuring a series of 10-12 giant digital prints based on X-rays he found in abandoned house in France after he wrapped “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” ( which is nominated for four Oscars this weekend)

I’ve been to openings in the past months, but more the Silverlake variety where it’s a storefront that’s doubling as a gallery and it’s filled with hipsters who have a seemingly nonchalant but actually very calculated bohemian look. I know because I used to be one and sometimes still play one. Collectively in a gathering though, they lose all sense of individualism and just look like a bunch of out of work American Apparel employees.


But I digress.


There were some hipsters at this event, but they were outnumbered by older film director types, aging Beverly Hills money types, rich young socialites in haute couture, sharply dressed celebs, and the requisite papparazi. The man himself, Mr. Schnabel was also in attendance along with all his kids and his attractive Spanish wife. (pics posted are from said night)

I’ll get to the guestlist and name-dropping in a minute, but first the work.

I was meeting my friends Ti, Ilka, and Bill. I was told to get there early (like before it officially started) just to make sure I could get in. I’m glad I did. I wasn’t the first but I was able to view the work with an unimpeded view of the space, which is important for these giant stark prints. Once the room filled later, you couldn’t see the bottom third of the work which didn’t matter anyway since I was too busy ogling famous people or people who looked famous.

Some of the pieces in the show, which averaged 15’ by 10’, were graphically beautiful. Each were blown up details of old x-rays that Schnabel had selected and been impressed with. Aesthetically, a few of them in the upstairs room I found very beautiful as abstract prints on their own, in a wabi-sabi sort of way. Beautiful monochromatic tones of muddy brown, yellow, and green formed by the various densities of bone, flesh and light.

Thematically though, it felt a bit of a letdown. It had shades of a super successful, rich artist who had a passing novel idea and quickly based a show on it. I didn’t get the sense that a passionate development of ideas, nor blood sweat and tears went into it, as you would feel from a less established artist. But then with Schnabel, a man who excels at the art of self-promotion, the level of labor is irrelevant. I guess it’s all supposed to fall in line with his film’s theme, which is about exploring the internal life of a paraplegic man who can no longer express external signs of life. The literal images of X-rays I guess serve as a sort of signifier as to what we really all share in the end.


Ok now the celebs.

The main gallery filled up to capacity and most of the fabulous arrived after seven (it was a 6-8 opening). They were usually announced by a sudden flurry of photoflashes at the front door. Schnabel himself, circulating around the gallery, was easy to locate by the density of photogs surrounding him.

Some of the industry-type people that showed up were James Franco, Michael York, Lawrence Bender (producer for all of Tarantino’s movies.) Steve Tisch (producer and owner of the Giants), Nicky Hilton, Cuba Gooding Jr., Mr. Chow and family (restaurateur to the stars), director Bruce Ratner (Rush Hour ), and oscar-nominated Tilda Swinton (who looked like a stunning alien and was the best dressed)


One of the more interesting sightings for me was directors Werner Herzog and John Waters in conversation.

My friend , Ilka, said "It's quite a show".

I replied, "Which one? The one on the walls or the one on the floor?"

She laughed, saying she actually meant the schmoozing on the floor.

For the past year my friend and editor Terence Ziegler has been telling me I should meet Matthew Modine because he edited both our films and says Matthew is a great guy. So when Matthew showed up at the opening I went up to him and introduced myself as Terence’s friend. He instantly warmed to me and began to chat. As we spoke there was a tall woman standing next to him, listening and smiling. Feeling a little rude I introduced myself to her. She then said a few things to Matthew and wandered off.

Matthew turned to me and said, “That woman came up to me a few minutes ago and said ‘Hi, it’s great to see you again!’ and began to talk to me. I have no idea who she is. I don’t ever remember meeting her”

I said “Well, you know, maybe she saw you at the Loew’s 84th st. Cineplex up on the screen.”

Matthew laughed, “Maybe.”

We chatted a couple minutes more before we were abruptly interrupted by another woman who he politely greeted. I stood there a minute before telling him I know he’s got a lot of people who “are happy to see him again” and left him to his adoring fans.

Later Matthew came across our group again and joked around with me and my friends for a bit. He said he had met the legend Werner Herzog but was a bit put off by him.

When he tried to give Werner a compliment on his doc “Grizzly Man”, Werner replied tersely “That was THREE films ago!”

Matthew’s wife, Cary was a pretty warm and lively woman, too. Refreshingly they both come off as stimulating and grounded people. A great couple and inspiring that they've been married for 28 years in an industry rampant with non-commitment.

I also ran into an old friend, Mark Taylor, who I hadn’t seen since he was production co-ordinator on “Three Seasons” ten years ago back in Vietnam. He hadn’t aged at all. Now Mark is head of production at TBS.

And that’s why I came out here. For the big schmooze.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.

Here are a sampling of some books that have figured prominently in my life and surely have had an influence on some level:
1. Watership Down , by Richard Adams.
I read this several times as a kid. This was my Tolkien. A small group of loyal rabbits puts blind faith and trust in a runt who has apocalyptic visions of their home being destroyed (land developers). They elect to set on a journey to find safe lands, much to the strong objections of their own leadership and community. It's a big allegory for trusting your intuition, testing friendship, and a society's leadership interpreting warnings as a threat to it's power. And talking rabbits. Cool.


2. Tropic of Capricorn , by Henry Miller.
This is Miller's version of Dante's Inferno, an autobiographical and surreal account of his youth in New York City before he set off for Paris to be an expat writer. Thick with Miller's stream-of-consciousness prose, he depicts himself a powerless and sad man struggling in the belly of the beast that is the city, before his rebirth as an artist. I picked up this book at the perfect time in my life, when I was right out of art school and living at the mercy of New York during the Dinkins administration, before the city was cleaned up. Crack vials on the sidewalk, prostitutes down the street every night, and a baptism by mugging two weeks after I arrived made Miller's depiction of an artist's struggle in hell-on-earth resonate. I wasn't alone.


3. The Closing of the American Mind, by Alan Bloom
I think I picked this up on one of those nights when I didn't have any dates or money, living La Vie Boheme, and trolling bookstores to kill time. It's a critical examination of how American schools teach self-validation, not self-examination in preparation for the real world. They do nothing to challenge already long-instilled values that prevent a capability of seeing beyond western-centric philosophies. I read this book in the early 90's but much of what it preaches is very relevant today.


4. A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan
Visiting Vietnam in 1994 made me realize how ignorant I was about the war and it's politics. (Movies and television had been my only real "education", which turned out to be grossly simplified and one-sided.) I realized I had easily swallowed a lot of inaccurate nonsense not just about Vietnam, but really anything beyond first-hand experience. This book was about the early period of the war when the U.S. just sending in advisers. But it was already a doomed venture as the top brass and administration only saw what they wanted to see, not what was really going on. - An ongoing American pastime.


5. The Children , by David Halberstam.
One of my all-time favorites. A very thick book (try lugging an 800-page hardcover on crowded subways for casual reading) that profiles the lives of a handful of young black college students from the time they decided to participate in 1960 lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregation, through marches and freedom rides through the south, through the power struggles between various civil rights organizations, to life in the decades after the Civil Rights bill was signed.

The reason I like this book is because it honestly tracks the character arcs of these various students and how the movement had an effect on them. Some, like John Lewis, made civil service his life's pursuit and became a popular U.S. Congressman after starting out as a sharecropper . Others like Marion Barry, seemed to revel in the attention and power in a negative way, leading to his election and then downfall as a corrupt mayor of D.C. But many others returned to humble and honest lives once the civil rights bill was signed. It's hard not to be attracted to the intense and intimate bond they all shared while fighting for something noble and just.

Following the young students around the south was David Halberstam's (who passed away this year) first assignment as a young journalist before he moved on to cover wars in the Congo, then Vietnam where he won a Pulitzer, like his peer Neil Sheehan .

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Geek Alert: Something I Can't Afford but Bought Anyway


I've been wanting one of these for a while. A Wacom Cintiq tablet. Essentially a highly sensitive screen with a pressure sensitive stylus. For years I've been drawing on a tablet below my eyeline, but watching the screen where the work goes on, which requires some weird hand/eye sync to get used to. Now I get to look where my hand is moving. They used to be far too expensive for me, but this new model is just a little expensive for me, so I jumped.

It's still not like drawing on paper, though, since the screen is very slick. Drawing on a texture like paper gives more friction which allows more control and precision quickly . The tablet can allow this but really lends itself best for loose and gestural stuff or painterly techniques (at least until I get used to it) So for VERY detailed stuff I still sketch on paper and scan it to paint in Photoshop. Below are a couple recent things done completely in Photoshop using my new toy.