a new one from david lynch

here's a new advertisement from david lynch for his organic, fair-trade coffee. buy it here and let the nightmares ensue.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 10:02 AM 3 comments

tom, bill, and mary

i remember when i first saw nashville i searched endlessly for this tune and couldn't turn it up...not sure what made me think of it, but this song's great and i'm glad it's now out there.

christina raines is beautiful here...and believe it or not, she'd never sang before. i was reading the comments on the vid, and someone called attention to how closely she resembles emmylou harris here...spot on.

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 8:07 PM 0 comments

we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams

in 1971 the Quaker oats company paid Roald Dahl to create a film adaptation of his book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". unhappy with Dahl's literal film translation of the book, Quaker quietly commissioned David Seltzer to edit Dahl's script. the result was a film offering a marked departure from Dahl's book, chiefly in its portrayal of Willy Wonka. in the book, Wonka is made out to be dark and aloof whereas, in the film, Wonka's dialogue is seasoned with lyrical literary references by the likes of o-Wilde and Willy Shakes, to name a few.

below you'll find Arthur O'Shaugnessey's lovely poem titled "Ode" made famous by Seltzer's 1971 screenplay for "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

watch the willy wonka scene here.

Ode by Arthur O'Shaugnessey

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,	5
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,	10
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure	15
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;	20
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 10:41 PM 3 comments

sneak peak at the muppets movie

december 2011 will bring the release of a new The Muppets movie. the troupe behind the movie includes nicholas stoller (writer, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), jason segel (whose puppet performance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall i'd call breakthrough), and james bobin (director, Flight of the Conchords). the film is rumored to have myriad celebrity cameos, and loads of good ole' fashion muppetry (see scanned entertainment weekly spread below). loving the stuff coming off the (newly rehabbed?) sesame street.

related: style inspiration - jim henson

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 7:22 AM 3 comments

there's something about desks

jason kottke recently featured a lovely short on his blog called "the desk". the short showcases the desks of various creative individuals and explores the relationship between the worker, the desk, and the creative process.

creatives featured include Alice Twemlow, Eric Abrahamson, Massimo Vignelli, David Miller, Kurt Andersen, Soren Kjaer, Alfred Stadler, Jennifer Lai, and Ben Bajorek.

my desk is a mecca of unfastened ideas (cluttered).

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 5:43 PM 0 comments

pierrot le fou is flat

the party scene in jean-luc godard's pop art film "pierrot le fou" is fascinatingly boring and full of phonies*. the monochromatic color scheme and dialogue speak directly to the self-aware materialism of the pop art movement. these stills are all too reminiscent of lichtenstein's work, but it was very interesting to see how godard flattened out this film.

*as holden caulfield might say

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, September 13, 2010 at 5:34 AM 10 comments

slave to the traffic light

Ross McBride's Digital Dalí clock is a subtle reminder of the relative importance of time reminiscent of Dali's iconic work "The Persistence of Memory". available at RossMcBride

since we're on the topic of time, take a look Jim Henson's short film called "Time Piece" that premiered at MoMA in 1965. the surrealist film provides a visual and aural commentary on the relentless passage of time. Henson employs montage and disjointed rhythms to manipulate the linear passage of time. the result is a film that transports the viewer to a dimension where time has no bearing. and my, does time look silly from this fourth dimension...

Jim Henson's Time Piece

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:29 AM 0 comments

a.o. scott on dazed and confused

nytimes film critic a.o. scott discusses his admiration for richard linklater's 1993 film "dazed and confused". the film takes place in 1976 yet remains relevant and accessible to all. visually, it maintains authenticity without making any overt historical references. and the music. and the cast. and the cars. and the haircuts. watch below:

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 7:48 AM 3 comments

roy lichtenstein in the american pop landscape

here's a great roy lichtenstein interview circa 1966 here he talks about the evolution of his work: from painting on two dimensional surfaces to using materials like plastics and metals to sculpture and finally to his lighthearted comic book style portraits. lichtenstein enlightens us with his views of pop culture and industrial colors and textures.

here is his reflective plastic landscape pieces he mentions :

...and here's a typical andy warhol interview with the same journalist where too-cool-for-skewl andy reluctantly answers questions and talks about his films. there's a brief edie sedgwick interview in there as well. can't help but find anything related to the factory intriguing...totally wrapped in andy's web of fame.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, May 24, 2010 at 8:07 AM 1 comments

I Met the Walrus

in 1969, a 14-year-old beatles fanatic named jerry levitan snuck into john lennon's toronto hotel room armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck. somehow, jerry convinced lennon to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, a grown jerry teamed up with artists alex kurina to further lennon's timeless message. watch the 2008 academy award nominated short titled "I Met the Walrus" below. further below yet, read how the interview went down (as told by jerry himself):

*i posted this in 2008 but recently rewatched the film and felt compelled to reshare the love 

how it all went down (as told by Jerry):

I was 14 in 1969 when John Lennon mysteriously appeared in Toronto. So I skipped school and made my trek at 7:00 a.m. to a hotel I guessed he would stay in, went to the top floor, knocked on every door and woke a lot of disgruntled people. A cleaning lady asked, “Are you looking for the Beatle?” I said yes and she told me where he was. Kyoko, Yoko’s daughter was lying on the floor, colouring in front of a suite. I knew I’d found him, barged in, and made myself at home. John laughed at the spectacle, and let me stay.

Later on, with tape recorder in hand, I interviewed him and Yoko for about 40 minutes and talked about peace, The Beatles, John and Yoko music and teenage angst. I told him how I defended The Beatles to fans who were turning to other groups. I also told him how a butcher claimed that the Two Virgins album was pornography. He laughed and calmed me down. When I listed the hidden messages I found in the White Album he went out of his way to tell me that there is nothing magical about Beatles music and that he and the other Beatles are just regular guys. John gave me his copy of Life With the Lions and I left that encounter floating on air.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 4:47 PM 1 comments

mission to the moon in HD

here is some nerd-tastic footage of neil armstrong and buzz aldrin on apollo 11 launching to the moon in 1969. the footage, originally captured on 16mm film, was 8-minute film was recently converted to HD and represents only 30-seconds of realtime (500 fps). it gets really beautiful around 1:30 and 4:30.

for more otherworldy footage check out the rodarte sister's aanteni

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM 0 comments

Prisencolinensinainciusol: what english sounds like to people who don't speak english

an italian songwriter named adriano celentano wrote a song with nonsensical lyrics in an effort to replicate the sound of english. both the video and song are euro-wacky and terrific. ultramafic could mix wonders with this.

thanks for the tip, garrett!

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 5:50 PM 8 comments

powers of ten

one of my favorite of the Eames' work is this 1977 film titled "POWERS OF TEN". it starts out with an aerial view of a picnic in chicago and zooms-out to the outer limits of the universe before zooming-in to the microscopic world here on earth. the music is quite other worldly, too. it provides a wonderful new perspective of the seemingly quotidian incidents of our lives. the must is other worldy, too.

full screen that shit and enjoy:

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 3:36 PM 6 comments

the most regal nose in hollywood

shot by then-boyfriend photog bob richardson who was 23 years her senior:

with jack nicholson at the 1976 academy awards. they dated on and off from 1973-1990. anjelica is the third huston to receive an academy award after her father, director john huston, and her grandfather, actor walter huston:

with a piece of calder jewelery:

  another bob richardson photo. sidenote: i don't trust people who don't like horses:

in crimes and misdemeanors in 1989:

:

in vogue 1972:

Posted by Madame Lamb on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 7:39 PM 11 comments

chanel no 5: the anti-rose

chanel Nº 5 was coco chanel's first perfume and remains her most popular. in 1921, coco comissioned ernest beaux to concoct a scent that smelled like the antithesis to roses. "i want to give women an artificial perfume. yes, I really do mean artificial, like a dress, something that has been made. i don't want any rose or lily of the valley, i want a perfume that is a composition." the spicy perfume contains synthetic aldehydes, ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, neroli, vanilla, and vetivera and adheres to coco's belief that "a woman should smell like a woman, not flowers." (see baz luhrmann's short film for chanel no 5 here). the design for the bottle was inspired by the place vendome (the same plaza that the ritz is in) and was reserved as an exclusive gift for loyal chanel clients. it quickly became the world's most sought after fragrance; in 1953, reporters asked marilyn monroe what she wore to bed to which she responded "why, chanel Nº 5 of course.". in 1959, warhol made nine silk-screen prints of the perfume; and the packaging is even a part of the MoMA's permanent collection.

in college, a full bottle of my chanel Nº 5 fell took a fatal fall off my dresser smashing onto the ground and permeating it's wonderfully synthetic aroma throughout my suite for weeks. to make matters worse, my roommates (like too many young women) couldn't stand the scent. perhaps learning about it's composition will inspire you to give it a second chance? it's all i wear.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 8:35 AM 5 comments

sweet bard of the youth

the most recent issue of vanity fair is running an excellent set of articles and photos profiling the late john hughes. included are a set of photographs documenting some of the director's personal belongings, a collection of short stories, and a feature tracing, among other things, hughes' legacy and his passion for music and writing. here's a bit out of a segment on molly ringwald's muse-like hold on the director:

As the story goes, commercial considerations weren’t the only impetus for Hughes’s writing Sixteen Candles. While leafing through headshots in search of potential Breakfast Club cast members, he froze upon the glossy of a pale-skinned young actress with red hair and puffy, tired eyes—pretty, but not conventionally so.

“From what I heard from him,” says Ringwald, “he put my headshot on the bulletin board by his desk and wrote Sixteen Candles over a weekend. And when it came time to cast it, he said, ‘I want to meet her: that girl.’”

read more.

and a few of the photos:

a box of demo and mix tapes hughes compiled for use in his films.

a sketch from one of hughes' notebooks.

the backing of hughes' director chair from the set of sixteen candles - signed by cast and crew.

"You know everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting. You're a miracle! Your stories have NONE of that. They're not even amusing ACCIDENTALLY! "Honey, I'd like you to meet Del Griffith, he's got some amusing anecdotes for you. Oh and here's a gun so you can blow your brains out. You'll thank me for it." I could tolerate any insurance seminar. For days I could sit there and listen to them go on and on with a big smile on my face. They'd say, "How can you stand it?" I'd say, "'Cause I've been with Del Griffith. I can take ANYTHING." You know what they'd say? They'd say, "I know what you mean. The shower curtain ring guy. Woah." It's like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn't pull it out and snap it back - you would. Agh! Agh! Agh! Agh! And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 8:20 AM 2 comments

RAD

juuuuust got netflix and made plans to watch RAD (1986)* over mac n' cheese w/ my dearest childhood friend jarad (it won't be the same without my big bro frank) but, to my disappointment, netflix doesn't have the title*. for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing this pre-x-games BMX gem, here are some highlights to spark your interests and rally your support for RAD. left, our leading player, hottie newspaper boy cum pro BMXer cru jones (played by bill allen). his sweetheart, christian, is played by a fresh faced lori loughlin. and below, the world's most memorable BMX number (think gymnastics floor only with pegs and a soundtrack provided by australian new wave band real life in the background...so badass).

*i was the 23,429th person to sign a petition to get the movie released on DVD.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9:49 PM 3 comments

happy valentine's day

Paris je t'aime ! Eiffel Tower
Uploaded by krijka. - Independent web videos.

send someone a valentine. i recommend someecards.com and cardboardlove.com for inspiration.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 6:05 AM 2 comments

bond

ian fleming named james bond after an ornithologist by the same name. fleming on holiday at bond's estate in jamaica while writing the first novel. researchers have reason to believe that fleming modeled bond's character after himself as fleming was a purported "jet-setting womanizer" that posessed many of the same quirks as the character james bond. which chiseled-jawed-bond is your favorite? i'm a sean connery gal myself, but i also take to roger moore.

sean connery, george lazenby, roger moore, timothy dalton, pierce brosnan, daniel craig

Posted by Madame Lamb on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 7:03 AM 3 comments

let's rehearse

harvey weinstein gives director errol morris a PR lesson prior to the release of the thin blue line. via /film.

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 1:49 PM 1 comments