OLD SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY

Its amazing really, how easy it is to create some interesting imagery even using the most basic, crappy old  mobile phone - no iphone apps or Photoshop, just pure and simple old-school luddite technology. These ones were taken around 11pm on my walk home after seeing the excellent film Inside Job. I now know a lot more about leverages, Reganomics and why Alan Greenspan's a knob...which I must admit is extremely exciting.

THE POST YOU DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT DOING A POST

Just a quickie to say I'll be out like a light for the next two weeks but I figured I'd give you fine people a taste of what to expect in my next post...

And also just say how feverishly I'm anticipating the release of Casey Affleck's directorial debut in the form of alleged 'Hollywood flameout' Joaquin Phoenix documentary I'm Still Here. Initial internet reviews seem to suggest a largely shallow, hot mess...but if any scene approaches anything like the mildly disturbing hilarity of Phoenix's Letterman performance 18 months ago, that alone should be worth the price of admission. Not mentioning the two sexual harassment lawsuits brought against Affleck by female crew members working on the film, apparently settled out of court. Wonder what Affleck's wife and Joaquin's sister Summer Phoenix makes of all this?

That was then...

This is now...whose been attending the Vincent Gallo Charm School? 

Last 3 images courtesy of Google

BLACKPOOL CHAVPOOL

I'm not exactly sure why I'd always conceived such romantic notions of sunny Blackpool in my mind (like the nostalgic scene below left). The idea of the charming north west seaside town's 'pleasure beach' abuzz with red-lipsticked girls in high-waisted shorts licking ice creams, their sexy, quiffed rebel boyfriends draped around their shoulders with fags dangling from the corner of their mouths seemed so cool to me, I guess I still hoped to find some trace of that long-gone innocent era. Maybe I watched Grease one too many times, or more likely excellent 1987 British film Wish You Were Here starring Emily Lloyd (below right). 

What I did find in Blackpool was pretty amazing, unfortunately not in a good way. The town managed the unenviable accolade of being The Chavviest Place Robert Smiths Tears Has Ever Visited (beating even Tracy Emin's creepy, sordid hometown of Margate) and at the risk of sounding like an insufferably patronising Guardian-reading member of the chattering classes, I actually felt incredibly sorry for the local Blackpool folk trapped into the cycle of benefits, council housing, teen pregnancy, lack of education and worst of all obesity. This seaside town seemed to encapsulate all these problems the media likes to brand Broken Britain. The Brokeback Coalition should really spend a day here, forcing down a tepid pork pie'n'gravy lunch in despair from the buffet cart (actually located within the slot machine enclosure gambling addicts!) of the gigantic, tacky Coral Island gambling emporium as the last of their benefit payment gets swallowed up by a greedy, whooping machine.   

The real Blackpool looks like the pictures below - the lone remaining Bay City Rollers fan trying to make some coinage while avoiding 'paedo!' taunts from the local teenage toughies and an obese woman no longer able to walk (no doubt wearing one of these quality Justin Bieber tops purchased from the local market stall). 

It must be so gratifying for these northerners to know that while their town and prospects decay before their very eyes money continues to be thrown at London's Olympics and other 'crucial' public services such as Boris' massive London Cycle Hire scheme - no doubt aimed at protecting his legacy in the event of a comeback by Red Ken at the next election.  

I didn't hang around the misty, grey seafront to witness the nocturnal carnage brought on by Blackpool's notorious paralytic hen and stag crews already starting to congregate along the promenade in matching outfits. I'd had enough and my eyes were hurting. Stopping at an off license on my way out I bought the man's only copy of the Guardian to which he expressed surprise saying 'I haven't sold one of those for ages. People round 'ere only ever get those' pointing to the redtops. Get thee to the train station...pronto.      

Images 2 and 3 courtesy of Google

TETRO

Isn't it a fine thing to still be able to view new film releases from the legendary directors you first discovered as an impressionable teenage slacker in the cult classic section of your local video shop? No, I'm not talking about Woody Allen's Whatever Works (in that film - nothing) or Scorsese's melodramatic Shutter Island, but rather Francis Ford Coppola's epic Tetro starring achingly charismatic indie weirdo Vincent Gallo and stunning (if jailbaitish) newcomer Alden Ehrenreich.

Tetro continues Coppola's commendable move toward more auteurish film-making begun with 2007's Youth Without Youth. The film centres on Gallo's bull-in-a-china-shop bohemian Tetro (in self-imposed South American exile from his family) and his younger brother Bennie's attempt to forge a relationship with him - piecing together Tetro's mysterious past through his coded writings.

Coppola's balmy Buenos Aires setting and stark black and white cinematography reference the anxious Tijuana tension of Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil, and the film's protracted overwrought theatre sequences in the second half are positively Felliniesque. Just as the baroque, meandering narrative threatens to lose it way, the film sharply plunges back into focus with the revelation that Tetro is not Bennie's badass brother at all, but an altogether more sympathetic, complex and ultimately likable character.

Name checking Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes and other key films in the narrative, Coppola has crafted a film lover's film, rich with all the traditional strengths of vintage film-making so often missing from today's often deplorably formulaic Hollywood fare. Now if only Vincent Gallo would stop the witch hunt against Harmony Korine and 'poorly hung men' and reply to my emails...the twat.

All images courtesy of Google

ITALIAN PALAZZI

Last weekend I saw Luca Guadagnino's stunningly decadent film I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton. Set within a wealthy Milanese textile dynasty, the film features scene after scene of extravagant bourgeois elegance - perfect houses, perfect clothes and ostensibly perfect lives. Most impressive of all however, were the sumptuous interiors of the Recchi family's Milan palazzo headquarters.

Italy's ornate palazzi were originally used as the historic residences of generations of nobility. Built in a wide variety of architectural styles, they are dotted throughout the country from Venice and Bologna to Sicily. Evolving during the Renaissance, this new type of urban building was usually several stories high with rooms grouped around a courtyard. Many today are luxury hotel conversions such a the Palazzo Gherardesca in Florence.

The American artist and designer Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi in Greenwich Village attempts to create a fusion of vintage palazzo ambience and contemporary New York luxury. Architectural purists may view Schnabel's project as sacrilege but his interiors (pictured below), give the building a modern edge neccessary to address the authenticity it lacks.

Take a look here at the renovation project of the Palazzo Pizzo in Calabria, southern Italy.

All images courtesy of Google