June 27, 2010
Plus, The Railway Children come to Waterloo and the Blue Boat goes up for auction
She & Him
Unlike, say, Lindsay Lohan, Zooey Deschanel can act, write songs, and sing. She & Him, the duo Deschanel formed with M. Ward, just released their second album
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Movies With A View
Typically, if you live in Manhattan, you stay in Manhattan. But we swear, Brooklyn’s outdoor film series is worth crossing the bridge, if only for the magnificent view alone. Imagine watching Annie Hall with the Manhattan skyline as the backdrop, or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade while picnicking. Plus, unlike Bryant Park, your films won’t be interrupted by the sounds of harried commuters and Times Square-tourists. DJs from Brooklyn Radio kick off each night at sunset, followed by a short film before the feature presentation.
Vidiots Annex
Forget film school. Starting this July, Vidiots, Los Angeles’ venerable indie video store launches its film studies program taught by industry pros, historians, and critics. Debate censorship controversies throughout Hollywood history, examine comedy from the silent era through today’s talkies, or geek out over the mythology of superheroes and robots. Take group (starting $128/four weeks) or individual classes ($40/sesion), and sign up for the Saturday night film club for evocative flicks followed by even more evocative discussion with fellow cinephiles.
DailyCandy: Speakeasies ‘round the world
Summer may just be the best time to drink in secret, and as our friends over at DailyCandy have pointed out, there are some exceptional places to do it too. Whether you’re in Cleveland, Toronto, Melbourne, or Paris; whether you’re looking for rare-label wines or seasonal cocktails, there is a hidden spot for you. We at Takimag are especially intrigued by Amsterdam’s Reguliersdwarsstraat 74. As the saying at the top of their menu says, “life has to have some rules, otherwise you might as well go and live in France.”
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Since Marie Antoinette, we have long-awaited Sophia Coppola’s next film. And now we”ll have to wait a little longer, the flick doesn”t come out until December. Still, the trailer‘s worth a look. Unexpectedly, it stars Stephen Dorff, the shrimpy party animal who made his name in the 90s, and Elle Fanning, Dakota’s little sister, who plays his daughter. The film is rather Hollywood, about a film actor living at the famed Chateau Marmont, who suddenly finds himself having to look after his kid. Lets hope this one’s as good as Lost in Translation. It does make us wonder, though, about Coppola’s daddy issues; she seems to pair girls with men an awful lot. At the very least the soundtrack will be worth a listen, Coppola’s baby daddy and his band, Phoenix, do the music.
The Blue Boat
Designer boats seem to be all the rage since Jeff Koontz decked out some flashy Greek’s yacht a few years back. If you have a few hundred thousand to throw around, now you can have one too. The RAL5105 goes up for auction on July 20 at the Hôtel Hermitage in Monte Carlo. The Parisian Artcurial is putting the latest masterpiece of multidisciplinary artist Xavier Veilhan on the auction block. John Dodelande invited Veilhan to think about creating a boat, and so Veilhan worked with the 80-year-old Frauscher shipyard in Austria, to make it a reality. Potential buyers have a chance to view it in Saint Tropez (June 15 to July 12) and then in Monte Carlo until the auction. The 6.9 meter, eight-person blue beauty is equipped with a MerCruiser 220 HP motor, and will surely turn heads. Looks like a whole lot of flashy fun in the sun, if that’s your thing, but don”t fret if you miss out on this blue baby, you can always hire a vintage Riva to cruise the Cote d”Azur.
H20 by Axis Mundi, Barcelona
New York architects Axis Mundi have been hired to retrofit the exterior of this office building in Barcelona. Designed for a bottled water brand, the facade will be made of a polymer composite, suspended on steel trusses attached to the existing building, located close to Antonia Gaudi’s residential masterpiece—Casa Mila. The concept is based on the interference patterns that are created by the flow of water surfaces. In physics, interference is the addition of two or more waves that result in a new wave pattern. If only more such patterns were superposed in order to deal with bad architecture. Looks like a big hit, but then, most Barcelona architecture is.
Alexander Calder in Focus, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, opens July 28
With any luck a gentle breeze will blow through the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago when an exhibition of more than 60 works by Alexander Calder opens. They will stand alongside 20 new works by young sculptors who have been inspired by the American artist. The seven artists, in their early forties, who have embraced Calder’s hands-on approach to color, balance and movement, include Martin Boyce, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Kristi Lippire. Many of these artists regard Calder as the “godfather of Green art”, though no one is claiming Calder was a Green artist. During the 1940s he turned to materials at hand when sheet metal was in short supply. The show will travel to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (11 December-6 March 2011) and then to the Orange County Museum of Art in California, and the Nasher Museum of Art in North Carolina. Don”t miss this, we absolutely love, love, love Calder!
John Baldessari’s In Still Life 2001-2010
This free, interactive artwork allows you to create your own still life by rearranging the 38 objects in Abraham van Beyeren’s Banquet Still Life (1667). Each object has symbolic meaning; for example, lobster suggests abundance and earthly prosperity, but may also warn of the dangers of gluttony. Peaches, on the other hand, are a symbol of salvation and truth, as well as fecundity. As Baldessari says, “still lifes are about the fleeting things in life.” The work brings Baldessari’s original In Still Life into the 21st Century. In 2001, he hung van Beyeren’s Banquet Still Life on the wall next to an empty frame at LACMA and invited exhibition visitors to digitally rearrange and remove the objects in the original 17th century Dutch painting, thus creating a new still life of their own.
The Railway Children, Live at Waterloo Station
After two sell-out and critically acclaimed summer runs at the National Railway Museum in York, The Railway Children arrives in London. Join Bobby, Peter, and Phyllis as they come to terms with the mysterious disappearance of their father. See their journey of discovery, friendship, and adventure as they become The Railway Children. Best of all, witness Phyllis averting disaster as she waves her red petticoat in front of a real, moving steam train at a specially built theatre in London’s Waterloo Station. The redundant Eurostar platforms will have the audience seated on two sides of the steam engine. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the classic film, Railway Children, based on the book by E Nesbit. Profits from the play are going to the Railway Children Charity, dedicated to changing the lives of children living on stations and streets in India, East Africa, and Britain.
