Film / Princess of Nebraska
by The issue of abortion has hardly ever been represented so honestly by a movie. Knocked Up and Juno gave the pro-choice movement a boost, and of those two, only Juno came close to confronting the issue. In the Princess of Nebraska, the main character suffers through indecision, naivety and turmoil that seem much closer to reality. Beijing-born Sasha comes to San Francisco from Nebraska for the abortion, with her mobile phone being her main connection to friends and the absent father. Some questionable dialogue and acting make it a patchy film. However, the central themes are honestly represented and the confusion and loneliness suffered by Sascha, coupled with her Generation Y selfishness and shallowness, combine to form a touching portrait of an extraordinarily difficult issue.
Tagged: China, San Francisco
- 0
- 1
RELATED
Ambroise Tézenas’s Beijing: Theatre of the People
Right now, the 2008 Beijing Olympics are cleaning up the mess left behind from the millions of people that passed through their city. Their forty billion dollar sporting event has come to a close and fans from around the world will take away memories of an interesting city that opened up to the world like it has never done before. One person in particular, who used China as a backdrop for his phenomenal photography project, was a French photographer by the name of Ambroise Tézenas. Read more
New York-based designer, and sometime Lost At E Minor contributor, Deanne Cheuk visited Beijing prior to the Olympics as part of the New Grand Tour. We touched in with her to see how she found the experience of being over there: ‘we visited some really modern art galleries, which seemed to be on par with with the best galleries in New York City’.
San Francisco artist Matthew Palladino’s work is on my obsessive website viewing rotation. His colourful, clean, folksy images have got me, though I must say that I’m not as drawn to some of his more overt examples of political subject matter as I am to his more personal, introverted images. Regardless, Palladino implements the most beautiful patterns and shapes with his watercolors. And I just can’t get enough. Read more
Also by XAVIER TOBY
Dalton Trumbo was the first blacklisted writer to win an Academy Award. However, he could not claim the award until years later because he had been forced to write under a pseudonym. Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten and even spent a year in jail as a result of investigations into Communist influences in the motion picture industry. This documentary is fascinating not just for its examination of a bizarre period in American history where fear replaced reason and innocent men were jailed, but also for how Trumbo dealt with these hardships. Read more
The directorial debut of John August, a writer who was worked on films such as Go, Big Fish and Corpse Bride, is a complex and thought-provoking arthouse feature crowned with a spectacular performance by Ryan Reynolds in the lead role. Like most films, it is in three parts. However, these are three distinct parts with the same actors all playing different roles. Read more
An examination of the importance of the moon landing through interviews with astronauts, scientists and extensive use of archive footage, this documentary doesn’t just look at what happened, but at how and why it happened. First person accounts of looking back at the earth, then travelling around the dark side of the moon are fascinating. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (1)
HAVE YOUR SAY
With so many photographers these days making over-stylized digital images, it’s great to see someone like Marlene Marino still working in 35mm. Her use of only natural light, and her languid, straight-forward framing result in intimate, grainy, and candid-feeling pictures that feel like they’ve come out of a forgotten drawer somewhere. Read more
Listening to Mum’s fourth album — Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy — for the first time, I was awash with sentimentalism. Amidst carnival trumpets and burlesque beats, there’s a sense of this being a bohemian rhapsody. Perhaps it’s the mix of cello and brass with experimental electronica. Or maybe it’s just the soft vocals that cascade over playful, imaginative sounds. Whatever it is, it’s totally brilliant. [see also Sigur Ros' Heima]
Listen to Mum’s track, The Amateur Show.
Australian group Pivot have recently signed with the mighty Warp label and — even better (well, for us anyway) — have written a fun Secret Playlist for us. You can see where the many disparate influences have seeped into their latest recording, the beautiful and colourful, O Soundtrack My Heart.
We have a bunch of new playlists up on our sister site, My Secret Playlist, a music discovery website and weekly email publication in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. Over the past few weeks, acts such as The B52s, Team Genius, Pivot, Jukebox the Ghost, Moby, Katy Perry, and the Dandy Warhols, among many others, have written about the music that inspires them. To sign-up to receive the weekly My Secret Playlist publication, just enter your email address into the website’s subscription box.
Artist Taylor McKimens does paintings you want to poke with a stick, and maybe even sniff, if your friends dared you. With grotesque images of diseased bodies, rotting piles of vomit, intestine-looking tubes, and all manner of scatological subjects rendered in muted pastels, McKimens’ paintings look as if pop culture has been left out of the fridge too long and is sprouting some pretty funky stuff. Read more
Tucked along one of Amsterdam’s many narrow, gorgeously paved streets, I.d.e.a. Living stocks a range of jewellery and homewares perfect for kitting out an outfit or apartment. Modern whites, splashes of strong colours, clean lines and a distinctively European style make
Seriously, all jokes aside, we really need to tear ourselves away from our computers every once in a while. These shirts, on sale at Threadless, may be intended as a light-hearted jab at modern culture, but who will be laughing when our hands become gnarled claws from decades of ceaseless typing and our spinal columns have fused solid from lack of movement? Evil monkeys, that’s who.
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Micah P. Hinson takes the good with the bad
We said a few weeks back that Micah P. Hinson is ‘like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre’. With that in mind, we spoke to him recently and asked him whether his hometown of Texas was a difficult place for a young, aspiring musician to grow up in: Read more
Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects, have led the way with this re-use of the existing building fabric of CaixaForum in Madrid. Rather than being slavish to the existing openings, the building has been cut away for a contemporary practicality. We think this is an example of heritage not getting in the way of progress. Check out a similar concept of a previous post re-using the city fabric, where we were dreaming of such thing.
Located on a mountain in country outside Mudgee, in New South Wales, Australia, a permanent camp designed by Casey Brown has been set. A timber structure clad in copper has been designed to have a closed state and an open state. From the closed position, the flanks of copper are hoisted and capture views across the valley. With an imagery of structures, materials and mechanics of old, there is something romantic about this foothold on the hill.
I like Roots Manuva because he tells stories. I know that sounds simplistic, but honestly, have you noticed how rappers, certainly American rappers, have stopped narrating their lives and are purely focused on how great they are? I know, I know, hip-hop is all about word play, slang, and blah blah blah. But I listen to music for stories and heart-felt sentiment. Roots Manuva gets that. He’s old school that way. His latest album, Slime & Reason, is still rooted in the UK grime scene (does that still exist, or has it gone the way of electroclash? I’m earnestly asking), but a lot of it is more overtly dub than anything he’s done so far, and he’s got some beats and samples on this record that are as dramatic and epic as some of the metal bands I listen to. He talks about real sentiments and earnest emotions and believable and relatable experiences, which may make him uncool amongst the sneaker-collecting kiddies, but even though this isn’t his best record, I still like where it’s coming from.
This is Mike Bertino and his work absolutely wonderful. He’s got this original, almost lo-fi Tim Biskup thing going on and it makes me really want to grab a beer with him. I love when artists give their pieces names like Knuckle Inferno and Man Beard. It just makes them that much better. He keeps a blog where he publishes his latest work and lets you know where they’re available for purchase, so go check it out. I think I’m going to ask him to be my BFF. Well, at least one of them. Not the only one. Cause, you know … I have more than one. Read more
Your enemies can always be counted upon to be just that. Unfortunately, your friends sometimes cannot.
Created by graphic-tee fashion label, the-affair, and printed on beautifully soft American Apparel in a limited edition of 200. Purchase now. Read more
Happy, happy, joy, joy! We have a TV On The Radio poster designed by Tunde, as well as Dear Science on vinyl, to give away to a randomly selected Lost At E Minor subscriber who leaves a comment under this post telling us why they simply must have it.
Discuss
- curiousmoth on "books/literature section in Lost At E minor?"
- curiousmoth on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
- Huna on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
- Andy on "books/literature section in Lost At E minor?"
- Andy on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
- Andy on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
- curiousmoth on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
- Huna on "Art & Politics/Propaganda?"
Recently
- Young Blood at New York’s Opera Gallery Jenn Porreca
- Phillip Fivel Nessen Ilana Kohn
- Collaborate with Spike Lee on a mobile film Casper Johansson
- TV On The Radio poster and vinyl Zolton
- The Teddy Bear’s Picnic Casper Johansson
- Juana Molina Francis Andrews
- Aurie Ramirez Gerry Mak
- Gojira’s Vacuity Gerry Mak
- Ryan Sullivan scarf Zolton
- Spelling Change for Obama Casper Johansson
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
TAGS: acoustic music animals animation Australian bands black and white illustrations black and white photography blogs Brooklyn Brooklyn artists Brooklyn bands cartoons China collaboration colour colourful illustrations comics electronic music flash games folk music Hip Hop Japan London Los Angeles magazines Melbourne New York New York artists New York bands New York illustrators New York photographers pop music portrait portraits prints rock music San Francisco soul music street art street fashion surrealism Sydney t-shirts technology typography UK bands
IMAGES:
POPULAR:
- Marc Collin: My Secret Playlist!' - loved 60 times
- Brittanie Pendleton - loved 48 times
- Elaine Biss's feminine charms - loved 25 times
- Ed Harcourt: 'My Secret Playlist' - loved 22 times
- Prefab House - loved 19 times
- Andreco's brilliant visions - loved 18 times
- I Give Up On T-Shirts - loved 16 times
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.
Gerry said | 5 September, 2008
I wouldn’t say Juno or Knocked Up gave the pro-choice movement a boost, since in both, the women decide to keep their babies, and both movies conclude that that was the correct choice. If anything, I thought they both hid a pro-life agenda beneath thrift store clothing, pot smoke, and snarky dialogue.