; preachy; of or relating to the art of preaching
Julia, Linda, Gabriel, and I had a wonderful day yesterday in Beaufort and a good time at the outlet mall in Hilton Head. Unfortunately, we got a flat tire on the way home, but the tow company sent a nice man out pretty quickly and we only lost an hour of time.
Kristen Stewart, star of the Twilight films, made $34.5 million last year and now asks for $12.5 million per picture. Egads!
Jerry Sandusky? You got what you deserved. And your idiot of a wife who blindly stood beside you? What a joke. This is not loyalty, folks.
111 years ago today, in 1901, Pablo Picasso had his first public exhibition in Paris. He had already produced hundreds of paintings but was a relative unknown outside of Barcelona. The world, more specifically the art center that was Paris, was introduced to him by the 75 or so paintings that were part of the Paris exhibition. His show took place at the dealer Amborise Vollard's gallery and it ran about three weeks, Picasso's work displayed alongside the Basque painter's Francisco Iturrino's. Shortly after this, Picasso's "Blue" period began. The Blue Period lasted for a bout three years, 1901-1904. The monochromatic blue shades, greys and whites, the downcast, lowly, sadly underprivileged characters - all were trademarks of the period. Three masterpieces from this fertile, landmark period:
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| Child With a Dove |
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| The Blue Nude |
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| The Old Guitarist |
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(Brief) Movie Reviews:
Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011)
A British actress named Ophelia Lovibond (who I mistook for Melissa George) nearly hijacks this family film - based on the kids book by Richard and Florence Atwater - playing Jim Carrey's assistant Pippi, who speaks using little but words that start with 'p.' It's a gag that doesn't get old. The penguins are cute too - they're a combination of real Gentoo penguins and CGI - flittering and sliding around Carrey's apartment and the Guggenheim Museum. It's a fun, harmless, silly movie for kids about the necessity of family and sticking together, although adults will get as much of a kick out of the proceedings, with Carrey his usual game self, pulling off some elastic physical comedy, and Angela Lansbury, Clark Gregg, and Carla Gugino provide able support. It was directed by Mark Waters, who has made some enjoyable films that I've quite liked - Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
(***)
Late Bloomers (2012)
William Hurt, with a British accent that alarmingly seems to come and go at will, has a few fine moments but gives a mostly generic performance as a London architect whose wife, played by Isabella Rossellini, starts to panic when she has a a bout of memory loss. The thought of growing old - the couple is around sixty - is something she fumblingly tries to come terms with; he, on the other hand, isn't too concerned about aging before she starts constantly reminding him that he isn't as young as he used to be. She begins to change: exercising, age-proofing the house. When she realizes that he has no interest in facilitating her worries, a rift is formed, and the two separate. In Julie Gavras' film, not much of any significance happens; it's an easy enough film to watch, though it's a little dull. As a comedy it's not really that funny; as a drama, it's over-exaggerated. The characters aren't unlikable but they don't stay in one's memory very long. The film's flintiest, most engaging character is Rossellini's mom (played by South African actress Doreen Mantle), a tough, unsentimental old bird who cuts through the film's thin threads. The ending felt rushed, too.
(**)
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Day 5 of my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, and we're at...
John Cazale
as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II
Robert DeNiro (who won), Michael V. Gazzo, and Lee Strasberg were all nominated for supporting Oscars in Coppola's great sequel, but not the late, great Cazale as the pitied, pitiful Sonny, whose weakness threatens to destroy the Corleone family. Cazale, nervous and liquid-eyed, his head a hanging monument of sorrow and under-estimation, is the recipient of the deadliest kiss in film's history. "I know it was you, Fredo," Al Pacino's Michael whispers to Fredo. Sonny sulks through the first two movies, tossed off and ignored, a weak-willed nothing. There's nothing weak about Cazale's beautiful performance, though, not at all. A wonderful New York stage actor who was in a relationship with Meryl Streep at the time of his unfortunate death from cancer in 1978 (at the age of forty-two), Cazale only made five films and yet has the best resume imaginable: the first two Godfathers, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Five films, five classics.
Images: http://www.leninimports.com/picasso_child_holding_dove_postcard_1.jpg
http://www.prlog.org/11215171-blue-nude-by-pablo-picasso.jpg
https://andreaneidle.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/picasso_old-man-with-guitar.jpg
http://www.dailycal.org/assets/uploads/2011/06/popperspenguins-620x398.jpg
http://www.indiewire.com/static/dims4/INDIEWIRE/c3a00b7/4102462740/thumbnail/353x248/http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/a1/7fa9f07e7411e1bcc4123138165f92/file/late%20bloomers.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4QFRsNU3coA/TnjCdnBNAYI/AAAAAAAAClU/umFLeN8xW6Y/s1600/John+Cazale+The+Godfather+Part+II.PNG
Information: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/picasso-exhibited-in-paris
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