This piece is a tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe and is comprised of photographs, a video and a slide show that present selected works dating from 1969 to 1988. The photographs focus on three traditional genres: still life, nudes and portraits. Mapplethorpe’s photography captures a stark beauty, often implying a more ominous and forbidding world of sexuality and violence. His artistic work, frequently controversial, invests his still life and portrait subjects with an erotic charge that transforms and ennobles them. Mapplethorpe’s photography captures the peak of bloom, the apogee of power, the most seductive instant and the ultimate present that stops time and delivers the perfect moment into history. Speaking to his influence on the world of modern art, photography will never be the same.
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution photographs, an HD short film and a remarkable, memorable slide show.
Please visit my website to view the photographs and slide show, and to watch this short film:
“Klik!” is a sexy, bodacious babosity by the Dutch filmmaker rapscallions Bobby de Groot, Sven Neve and Arjan van Meerten from Amsterdam’s House of Secrets. The trippy one-minute stereoscopic 3-D animated short film was created for the opening of the 2009 Klik animation festival in Amsterdam.
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations, as well as the audaciously cheeky animated short, “Klik!”
Please visit my website to view these illustrations, and to relish this joyfully bodacious animated short:
“Zombeer” is a dark and shocking horror short film by the Dutch director Rob van der Velden, whose previous short horror film won a Dutch Quentin Tarantino Competition. A drunken brew master has embarrassed the town brewery for the last time and has been exiled to the lonely late-night shift. But he hasn’t let this setback interrupt his drinking, and he ends up falling head-first into a boiling vat of churning hops. Now we all know that this would turn any drunk into a raging zombie, right? And that the now-tainted beer will turn everyone else who drinks this hops-with-a-bite into bloodthirsty zombies also, right? So now we have an entire town of drunken, bloody-minded zombies. That’s the plot. Done.
This piece includes a number of appalling, ghastly color photographs, as well as the dreadfully savage short film, “Zombeer.”
Please visit my website to view these gruesome photographs, and to watch this terrifying short film:
“Le Coeur est un Métronome” (The Heart is a Metronome) is a wonderfully moving four-minute animated short film by the young French filmmaker Jean-Charles Mbotti-Malolo. What happens when children really grow up and become young men, when they no longer necessarily accept admonishment from their fathers for their misdeeds. What happens when both adults throw a tantrum and storm out of the house? Do they fall out of love with each other?
In this touching film, dancing is the high point of the exchanges between the two characters, because it is their only means of communication. And it is the street dance routines that entertain and mark this movie out as so special, slick, rhythmic movements, quite perfectly animated and indeed choreographed, as father and son perform together almost despite themselves.
While watching this inspiring film, I could not help but reminisce about the legendary Gregory Hines-Sammy Davis Jr. Tap Challenge in the movie “Tap.”
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations from the film, as well as the marvelous animated short.
Please visit my website to view these illustrations, and to watch this touching animated short film:
Photographer Len Steckler is just now releasing photographs that he took of Marilyn Monroe during a 1961 visit with Pulitzer-prize winning poet Carl Sandburg. Steckler is selling them as a limited edition series called “Marilyn Monroe: The Visit.”
This piece presents a number of vintage photographs from that series, as well as two videos about these photographs.
Please visit my website to view these photographs, and to watch the videos about "The Visit" series of photographs:
Well, I ended up missing most of the Super Bowl, as well as almost all of the ads that went along with the Big Game. But I did catch the Google ad and it’s a knockout, a real triumph of story over the technical wizardry that’s usually showcased in Super Bowl ads!
Includes photographs, as well as the wonderful Google Super Bowl ad, “Parisian Love.”
Please visit my website to watch this great Google ad:
“Embrace Life” is a one-minute public service announcement directed by the English filmmaker Daniel Cox. The spot uses no violent images, no blood and no gore; however, it still provokes a strong emotional response in the viewer.
This piece includes a number of color photographs, as well as the one-minute PSA, “Embrace Life.”
Please visit my website to view the photographs, and to watch this evocative PSA:
This is a photographic tribute to the great Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski. The piece includes a number of high resolution B&W photographs, a wonderful slide show and the HQ short film, “Skrebneski: The First Fifty Years.”
Please visit my website to view these wonderful photographs, the slide show and the short film:
“The Lady and The Reaper” is an acclaimed, very funny animated short film by the Spanish director Javier Recio Gracia, which was just named a 2010 Oscar Nominee for Best Animated Short Film. The film tells the tale of a sweet old widow who is living alone on her farm, waiting for the arrival of death so she can be with her beloved husband once again. One night, while asleep, the lady’s life fades out and she’s invited by the grim reaper to cross death’s door. But just when she is about to do so, the old lady wakes up inside a hospital ward and discovers that, unfortunately, she’s been saved from death’s door by an arrogant doctor. The doctor then wages what he thinks is a heroic battle against the grim reaper, attempting to recover the old lady’s life at any cost.
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations from the film, as well as the award-winning animated short.
Please visit my website to view these illustrations, and to watch this acclaimed animated short film:
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” is an acclaimed, hilarious animated short directed by Nicky Phelan, which is a 2010 Oscar Nominee for Best Animated Short Film. “Granny O’Grimm” turns the age-old traditions of bedtime stories and fairy tales topsy-turvey. Cleverly crafted as a mixture between a conventional fairy tale and a horror story, this animated short is a wickedly wonky re-telling of a tale that makes us laugh at the same time that its sense of bitterness makes us reconsider the cost of marginalizing our elderly in a world that’s obsessed with youth and beauty. It’s both amusing and terribly sad that Granny’s best attempts to be a gentle loving grandmother telling a bedtime story go so very far astray as she gets caught up in her own angry bitterness.
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations and the award-winning animated short film, “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty.”
Please visit my website to view these pictures, and to watch this wonderful animated short:
“Nuit Blanche” is an amazing 4-minute HD short film directed by the Canadian filmmaker Arev Manoukian, which has just been named the $100,000 Grand Prize Winner of LG Life’s 2010 Good FilmFest. “Nuit Blanche” explores an experience many of us have lived before, a fleeting yet powerful connection with a perfect stranger. Set on a dark cobblestone street in the 1950’s, a man catches the gaze of a woman in a cafe across the street. This split-second moment becomes suspended in time, as the two gravitate towards each other in a hyper-real fantasy where nothing can hold them back.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution B&W photographs, and the beautiful, acclaimed HD short film, “Nuit Blanche.”
Please visit my website to view these wonderful photographs, and to watch this award-winning HD short film:
The Sundance Film Festival has announced its 2010 Jury Prizes, and James Blagden’s “Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No” was awarded an Honorable Mention in Short Filmmaking. Blagden created an animated short film that tells a hilarious, meandering story about the former major league pitcher Dock Ellis, which leads him to one of his greatest moments in the sport. It provides a magical narration of his infamous no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the San Diego Padres in 1970 while he was “high as a Georgia pie,” or specifically under the influence of LSD. After retiring, he later worked as a drug counselor before passing away last December.
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations, a video presenting Dock Ellis's first-person account of his infamous no-hitter and the award-winning animated short film.
Please visit my website to view the high-res. color illustrations, and to watch the two amazing videos:
“Bric à Brac” is an engaging 4-minute animated short film by the French filmmakers Emeline Degand and Maud Bourotte, who are two students at the EESA (now École Georges Méliès). The cardboard, stop-motion animation tells the bittersweet story of two little robot-like thingees, who are made out of spare parts (as is everything around them). The rhythms and poppy facial expression changes are awesome, and the two scrap-metal automatons really seem to enjoy experimenting with the musical capabilities of their bodies. But very sadly, one ends up turning into an ecstatic Whirling Dervish, tragically getting much too carried away!
This piece includes a number of colorful, high-resolution illustrations from the film, as well as the animated tragicomedy short, “Bric à Brac.”
Please visit my website to view the colorful pictures, and to watch this wickedly engaging animated short:
“Mon Ami Charly” is a wickedly wild, award-winning animated short film by four students from the French ESMA School of Arts. In the film, a little girl gets bored being all alone and asks her mother for permission to go meet her “imaginary friend” Charly. The mother refuses but the little girl disobeys her, and things go rapidly downhill, completely loony-tunes crazy from that point on!
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations, as well as the wickedly crazy animated short, “Mon Ami Charly.”
Please visit my website to view the illustrations, and to watch this weird and wacky animated short:
“Sikumi” is a short film by Writer/Director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, which was the winner of the Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of an Inuit hunter who drives his dog team out onto the frozen Arctic Ocean in search of seals, but instead becomes a witness to murder. “Sikumi” serves as a metaphor for larger concepts such as Community, which judges and sets standards of conduct for a people, and Conscience, which, in the absence of witnesses, must live with itself. A startlingly spare and beautiful update on the Western, “Sikumi (On the Ice)” takes full advantage of the stark and dramatic setting it employs on the way to becoming one of the best short films of recent memory.
This piece presents a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, as well as the award-winning short film, “Sikumi On the Ice.”
Please visit my website to view these wonderful photographs, and to watch this beautiful short film:
The Sundance Channel has just launched the first online exhibition from acclaimed filmmaker and photographer Bruce Weber, entitled “Gone Fishing: A Little Journey in My Backyard.” The exhibition includes more than 70 photographs, videos from many of his films, as well as a wealth of information about Weber himself. The exhibition also presents the Bruce Weber-directed Pet Shop Boys’ video “Being Boring,” in its entirety.
“Being Boring” may well be the most beautiful thing the Pet Shop Boys ever recorded, a song that deals with youth, beauty, sex and the intimation of death in the face of the devastation wrought by the AIDS crisis. Over a lush musical soundscape of warm basslines and sustained strings, Neil Tennant opens up lyrically, but it’s with the last of the three verses that “Being Boring” really makes its magic felt, as the tone shifts from one of gentle reminiscence to become a lament for friends lost. That verse takes on an extra sense of poignancy with the knowledge that Tennant had recently lost a close friend to AIDS, but in spite of that the song retains an air of positivity: it’s more a celebration of life than a mourning of death.
This piece includes a number of B&W photographs from the video, as well as the Pet Shop Boys’ music video “Being Boring.”
Please visit my website to view these photographs, as well as to watch the very touching music video:
After seeing the wonderful short film "It Can Be Arranged", we asked its star and writer Michelle Mellgren to send us her thoughts about why she decided to do the film project, the process and how she felt now that the hard work paid off into an excellent piece...
Here is her response:
It originally started, as one of five scenes, in a play called Bar V. I wrote one scene, along with five other writers who had pieces. My friend Oscar Nunez (The Office), wrote one of the scenes. After the productions Oscar gave me some invaluable advice. "You need to start filming, Michelle, this is great and all, but what do you really have to show for your work when all is said and done?"
He was right!
The process took another 4 years. I wrote and filmed other things and learned as much as I could. Eventually, I met the right people for this project. Juan, I met at LACC film school, he provided the equipment and crew. Diana worked on my first short and was in the same theater company where I did the play, Kristen was in acting class with me and she recommended Jorge, my director. I didn't quite know how it would happen but just kept on the journey and trusted the amazing people who crossed my path.
I could not have done this without every single person involved. And it feels great to know that we did it together...pulling our resources and believing in each other.
**above picture is a produciton still courteosy of Damage Ink ProductionsAfter seeing the wonderful short film "It Can Be Arranged", we asked its... more
“Logorama” is an award-winning, provative and daring animated short film from the French H5 design collective, directed by François Alaux. The film was screened last week as an Official Selection at The Sundance Film Festival, and it’s on the 2010 Oscar Nominee Shortlist for Best Animated Short Film.
The film takes the viewer on an entertaining, violent, profane and action-packed caper set in a world comprised entirely of well-known corporate logos and iconic mascots. How familiar are the stars of this film? Well, an evil Ronald McDonald embarks upon a murderous shooting spree on a street overflowing with 7-Elevens, U-Haul trucks, Wal-Marts and Pizza Huts. The Michelin Men are bumbling, foul-mouthed cops on his trail, and Bob’s Big Boy picks his nose and flings it on an unsuspecting victim.
But make no mistake, “Logorama” is a cleverly executed critique of our modern times. Our world is fueled by the corporate signatures of commerce and consumption, where everyday symbols are imprinted in our collective memories, nagging away on the subconscious, hand in our pockets and ready to draw money from our wallets. It is within this context that H5 go far beyond a simple exercise in artistic defiance. This is the beauty of their work: they transgress the graphic codes of our everyday experience. They place them within a completely different context, which sufficiently sparks considerable food for thought.
This piece presents a number of colorful illustrations, as well as the full-length version of the award-winning animated short film, “Logorama.”
Please visit my website to view the illustrations, and to watch the full-length version of this amazing animated short film:
“Mr. Okra” is a warmly touching, award-winning documentary short film by T.G. Herrington, an Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival. “Mr. Okra” won the Documentary Short Audience Award at the 2009 Austin Film Festival and the Peroni Italy Audience Choice Award at the Third Annual NYC Food Film Festival 2009. The film is an intimate look at one of New Orleans’ most colorful characters: the charismatic vegetable salesman “Mr. Okra,” who provides a glimpse into the soul of an American city.
Arthur J. Robinson (a.k.a. “Mr. Okra”) is a simple man in a complicated world. Mr. Okra stands as a stark contrast to the high technology and shiny produce markets of the modern world. His is a different world, a world steeped in tradition, complicated by its diversity, but simple in its truth. Beyond the clichés of Bourbon Street, amid the decadence and decay of one of America’s most unique cities, Mr. Okra is a character from another time. His is an analog world, in a digital age.
This piece presents a number of color photographs and the wonderful documentary short film, “Mr. Okra.”
Please visit my website to view the photographs, and to watch this memorable documentary short:
“Please Say Something” is a groundbreaking contemporary 3D animated short film by Irish filmmaker David O’Reilly. Currently being shown at The Sundance Film Festival, this ten-minute masterpiece firmly establishes O’Reilly as one of the most exciting and inventive young animators working today. “Please Say Something” won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival and the prestigious Cartoon d’Or 2009 for Best European Animated Short Film. The film, set in the far-off future, is the story of a difficult relationship between a very emotional cat and her husband, a mouse. The raft of marital crises is shown in a jigsaw-like puzzle of 23 distinct episodes, lasting 25 seconds each, which O’Reilly describes as a “30-Second Breakneck Heartbreak Uncut Turbodrama.” The film presents a very humane story, with characters who can make you laugh and feel sad at the same time
This piece presents a number of illustrations from the film, a slide show and the animated short, “Please Say Something.”
Please visit my website to view the illustrations and slide show, and to watch this award-winning animated short film:
