Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, the latest film from director Sidney Lumet, is a cautionary tale that takes a seemingly victimless crime then painstakingly analyses the disastrous consequences. As an illustration of how people can be easily driven by the tedium and pressure of everyday working life to extreme acts, it succeeds. Clever filmic techniques such as repeating the same situation from different viewpoints provide new information in an innovative way, but the overuse of this technique becomes tedious. The characters, while well acted, have few redeeming qualities, only the father played by Albert Finney being a man of any morale fibre. They are disgusting humans and their previous misdemeanours all come to curse them in a variety of ways. The film is devoid of humour or hope and is one of the darkest and most depressing I have ever seen, but maybe that’s the point. Most people spend their lives tolerating situations they hate and while at times excruciating, it was also uplifting. It was like watching a horrific, slow motion car crash, but did show how easily society turns people into lifeless, uninspired drones and reminded me to never become one of them.
Also by XAVIER TOBY
Australian movie A Few Best Men
With all the gross out jokes and silliness of the common comedy romp, you’d think making them would be easy. Well, it’s not. It’s actually really difficult. Writing a joke is one of the hardest tasks anyone can undertake. Read more
Melancholia: a film by Lars von Trier
I wish there were a lot more of the types of films made by Lars von Trier. Each is very different but still distinctly von Trier, and each is superb. Melancholia is the follow up to the wonderfully confronting Antichrist. This is all about the end of the world, and told with an honesty and pacing that is probably much closer to the actual end of the world than all the Hollywood crap would have you believe. Read more
We Need To Talk About Kevin: based on Lionel Shriver’s novel
A delightful uncomfortable film, told from the point of view of a broken woman. Kevin’s just not right, and that’s obvious from the outset as mother Eva battles to bring him up in a world where the onus is put squarely back on the mother. The intensity is poured on throughout, as tragedy seems imminent. Read more
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I gotta say, the Occupy movement has much better art and design skills than the Tea Party. Check out these posters by Occuprint. Print them out, and distribute widely. Read more
I’m really liking the style of Natsko Seki. I like the scale she uses, the surrealism, the playfulness and textures. It looks fresh and you can keep looking at her work and finding more in it the longer you look at it. Read more
The Australian film collective behind the sci-fi spoof, The Time That Time Forgot, perfectly capture the look and feel of awkward, low-budget rip-offs from the ’70s — the psychedelic lighting, bad dubbing, and amazing hair. One almost wishes Italian Spiderman was for real. [more about Italian Spiderman]
Along with San Francisco and Barcelona, New York is arguably the modern street skating city, both in reality and image. Because of the unique background, experience and perspective of the film’s creators and the decision to “cast” the city of New York as one of the main characters, Deathbowl to Downtown promises to be an unprecedented, seminal film. Read more
Oh man! Now I’ve seen it all. An entire blog dedicated to cupcakes, those perfect little bundles of sweet, sweet goodness. Hell, my mouth is watering just looking at them. What will they think of next? A blog about pretzels? Ha! Oh, wait a minute. Damn!
Falling in between Enya, Bright Eyes, and Air, The Republic Tigers have been tagged ‘indie rock meets new age fog’. If that’s all too wishy-washy for you, then check out their new album Keep Color and watch the video to the album opener, Buildings and Mountains.
Listen to The Republic Tigers track, Golden Sand
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Corkers are little animal appendages that you can affix to wine corks to make them into little cork creatures. They come in monkey, deer, buffalo, bear, bunny, and crow.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Pitched as ‘Ulterior Motives in Contemporary Art’, Disorder Disorder is running until November 14 at Penrith Regional Gallery. It’ll be well worth the trip out west of Sydney: the Australian, Japanese, American and European cast reads like a warriors of street art roundup and includes Mike Giant, Ed Templeton, Anthony Lister [artwork above], Ozzie Wright, and Jonathan Zawada. Read more
Cookie Boy’s creative cookie designs
I don’t eat cookies, so good thing Cookie Boy’s cookies are little pieces of art too pretty and cute to eat. Read more
Michelle Blade’s psychedelic artwork
Michelle Blade’s washed out paintings are deceptively simple, her washy acrylics creating psychedelic textures and conjuring ghostly figures from the past. Read more
Baltimore Mural by Josh Van Horne
My friend Josh Van Horne, a local Baltimore artist, did this amazing mural in our neighborhood that depicts the history of this warehouse-laden area.
Matthew Dear’s Black City album totem
Our friends at Ghostly International are releasing Matthew Dear’s Black City album as a limited edition ‘totem’. A what? A totem – a limited edition metal bar used to access a private music chamber. Cool! Read more
Created by graphic t shirt label, the-affair, and printed on beautifully soft American Apparel. Limited edition of 200.
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