Braddock, Pennsylvania is a town that went kaput. The steel mills closed and all the people who made money from working in such places fled Braddock and it slowly began to resemble a derelict ghost town.
However, the people that stayed are seeing new opportunities in their town. Levi's are helping to fund a regeneration project and have made documentary about whats happened and what is going on and where it is going. It has started now at VBS.TV
Here is a great promo video for the series and project directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road)...beautifully shot, just try and get past the creepy child's voice over!
Go watch the full story now....then go and buy some jeans and feel even better about yourself!
Rian Johnson is a film maker and photographer. He made the amazing Brick, a film noir inspired and homage, set in a contemporary American high school...cool as fuck and perfectly shot, filmed, and conceived.
He then made a movie about con men, called The Brothers Bloom that came out this year, but I missed it and apparently it wasn't that great.
I just came across what claims to be his tumblr blog....whether it's actually his or not I do not know for sure, but I sure do like the photos on here....
Awesome collaboration...Hip-Hop's finest The Roots have sampled a track from American 'indie' super group Monsters Of Folk....blends pretty damn well....
As good as this is...there is better stuff on the new Roots album How I Got Over and on the eponymous Monster of Folk records....go listen to them...
Rich Hall is an American comedian whom I think has spent most his career doing stuff in the UK. He has a really funny joke about a place in America thats so flat you can see your dog running away for four days!....(it may be funnier when he says it!)....
He just made this really interesting documentary for the BBC called The Dirty South, chronicling what he sees (and makes great points to prove this) as Hollywoods incapability to accurately portray the southern United States as anything more than a grim stereotype of it's people and history.
Hall, along with his great sarcastic and cynical sense of humor, gives a great history lesson of the south and it's relationship with (and perception from) the rest of America whilst explaining how these perceptions came to be. By mostly focusing on Hollywood movies from all era's, the great southern writers and play writes and the rise of Rock n Roll. Showing how all these artistic projections have simultaneously painted a picture of entire region, people and history by actively reinforcing certain stereotypes (whether deliberately or not)...whilst also bringing new levels and ranges to their own respective mediums and pushing the boundaries in what can be done with film, writing and music.
That my sound a bit heavy, but luckily Rich Hall is much better at making his point than me, and also he is way funnier...his rant about how and why Hollywood biopics of musicians are so awful is absolutely hilarious, yet will also make you feel like a proper mug...but at least glad that your are not as cynical as this guy!...
If you have the slightest interest in either movies, literature, popular music or the human condition then check out Rich Hall's The Dirty South on BBC iplayer NOW!
Aallllllllriiiiiiiite!...I just watched Inception...Christopher Nolan has once again proved that it is possible to make an action suspense thriller with ridiculous and spectacular special effects, yet still convey a story that will challenge the audience on several levels...both in merely trying to keep up with a complicated plot but also question aspects of everyday humanity and universal themes of love, dreams and the perception of reality and oneself.
What is also so satisfying about Inception is that it demonstrates film at its best, in terms of acting, directing, writing, special effects, photography, narrative flow and place....it is (hopefully) a trailblazer into a new style of big budget filmmaking while also clearly displaying and respecting ideas that came before it.
To say the film works on many levels is kind of a pun....(given the concept of the film) but it really does.....to explain it here would not do it justice...but Robert Beames wrote a great review...READ IT HERE
You can see INCEPTION at The Duke of York's and probably most other cinemas in the world from 16th July (thats today!).....and you really should...this ain't one for downloadin' on the sly....it's needs to BIG and LOUD!
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is without a doubt one the greatest films ever made!
Here's a few reasons why...Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickins, Vera Lynn, Terry Southern....and these are a few of many great moments...
'We'll meet again...'
Dr. Strangelove is playing at the Duke of York's on 24th and 25th July....
From the people who liberated food from plates and put it in buckets, comes another revolution in the ever progressing world of fast food.....KFC has surly this time surpassed itself....with...THE DOUBLE DOWN!
I heard of this on The Daily Show a few weeks ago and have been meaning to look into it....now I have and it really is true....I guess it could be a hit.....these are the guys who had the 'bucket' idea after all....
Probably the best thing about the Double Down though is the joke that it itself is.....this is great...
'IT'S A PUSSY SANDWICH!'
'MAYONNAISE, TARTATRE SAUCE...AND GRAVY?!!'
I really want one now!
If you aren't already stateside then the double Down is (hopefully?) coming to a KFC near you soon...
Henry Diltz is one of the photographers who's work is featured in the new exhibition - The Doors: When You're Strange.
Here, Henry talks about his first meeting with The Doors in early 60s LA and tells anecdotes about his time working with the band and studies some of his work...he also has some good stories about how he started a 'love bead' trend and the alternative history to the 'Hard Rock Cafe' empire!
A cool guy with some cool stories...
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The Doors: When You're Strange is on at the Idea Generation Gallery in London RIGHT NOW!...so go have a look!
