Essential Foreign Cinema

During the course of my usual web surfing I recently came across The Movie Fanatic's post on 50 Essential Foreign Films 2000-2008. The usual fare of films like Amelie, Das Experiment, The Diving Bell & the Butterfly, and Downfall is featured. But it looks like I missed a few over the years. I'm eager to see This is London, Red Road, Napola and The Counterfeiters which has been taking up space on my harddrive for quite some time. So many movies, so little time.

Discovering the Classics: "The Apartment"

Once in a while, I get hooked on a director and try to ingest everything they create until my eyes can take no more and I move on the next guy/girl. I'll go through phases of auteurs like Tati or Fassbinder but last year it was all about Billy Wilder. Which is strange to me because I never really considered him an auteur but rather a director the Hollywood studios employed to turn out their projects. I re-watched Double Indemnity and then moved onto the classics The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17, the amazing Sunset Boulevard and finally Some Like it Hot. But the one that really stood out for me was The Apartment. I cannot believe that I waited this long to see this gem. It's one of the cutest rom-coms out there and I don't usually like 'romantic' movies. I just wish the studios today who produce the crap out there, paid a little more attention to these older classics. And how adorable is Shirley MacLaine in this flick? I'll spare you the synopsis which you can find on IMDB.
Mad Men alert! From the opening shots of the company office space in The Apartment, you can see where inspiration for the offices of Sterling Cooper came from.

"Close Up and Private"

Let me just start off by saying that I love Menswear. Womenswear, not so much really. I'm just not one of those girls that gets excited over Christian Louboutin pumps or girly clothes. Exceptions such as something like this YSL apply of course. Thankfully, when he's not chilling in a tee and jeans, my better half has a slightly off-beat dandy-ish style and I live vicariously through his bowtie donning on the occasional night out.
Why am I sharing all this, you ask? Well, this leads me to a very interesting photo-blog project by Ukrainian born photographer Sergei Sviatchenko called Close Up & Private. His latest Spring Summer 2010 lookbook came out last month and this time around almost all his photos are up close shots of boys who adhere to the dandy-ish/ivy league style. Most importantly, I love how he also features girls in ties, ascots, bowtie. Don't get me wrong, I love me some chambray shirts and baracuta jackets, but I just adore this oldschool style of herringbone, tweed and oxford shirting on a woman. It's not often I stumble upon websites that feature men's clothes on women so if anyone knows any, shoot some blogs my way.

Check out an interview with Sergei Sviatchenko in Components of Enthusiasm.

autumn-winter 2009 lookbook

Photos below from Close Up & Private. See the website for a lot more...

Little Red Riding Hood re-imagined

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Growing up in Commie Poland, I have fond memories of staying up late reading into the night. Maybe because of it's sinister plot, I always loved the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Here is a very cool animated re-interpretation by Tomas Nilsson. The song is 'Sponsored by Destiny' by swedish band Slagsmålsklubben. I usually go mental at about 0:47. Crank it.