Poster art...



Dave McKean did this year's Telluride Film Festival poster. This above is not the poster. To see that go here.

Vacation...



I'm in Colorado for a few days to visit the folks and attend the Telluride Film Festival. I'll blog some film notes when I get a chance but otherwise won't be updating every day of the week as usual.

Illustrated plants...



Illustrated Garden is a collection of scanned old illustrated botany books. Well worth a look.

Photography



Karoly Gink was one of the great Hungarian photographers of the 20th century. [Click on 'Entrance' to see photos]

Radios...



Classic Radio Gallery [If only they played old radio classics]

Rock Posters...



Stanley Mouse & Alton Kelly Rock Posters

Painting...



Paintings from Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was an atmospheric nuclear weapon test series conducted in the summer of 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The series consisted of two detonations, a low altitude test and a shallow water test. The devices, each with a yield of 21 kilotons, were named shots ABLE and BAKER. These paintings are by Gunnery Sergeant Grant Powers, USMC, Lieutenant Commander Arthur Beaumont, USNR, and Captain Charles Bittinger, USNR. [Via Exclamation Mark]

Illustrations...



Camilla Falsini has her own funny world full of shapes and characters. [Via Carolina]

Anarchist...



Emma Goldman Papers Online Exhibit [via Plep]

Cartoons...



World War One Cartoons from the British Library Images Online.

UPDATE: Something is wrong with the link. Here is the main British Library site. From there click 'online gallery' and then 'images online' From there seek out World War I.

Photos...



Joseph Szabo captures a side of teenagers that some would just assume doesn't exist. [I know that some of you are thinking, 'I've seen this photo on a Dinosaur Jr album'. Indeed. This just sets the record straight - the photo was done long before the album.]

Painting...



Hongnian Zhang is a contemporary Chinese American painter who paints a wide range of subjects from nomads in Tibet to early American historical paintings to nudes.

Movie Posters...



Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Poster Index. Lots of good posters of bad movies. [via Drawn!]

Galaxies...



Hubble Heritage Gallery has lot of cool photos and information about the galaxies of the universe.

Album Covers...



Italian Soundtrack Album Covers [via MeFi]

Photos...



Philip Jones Griffith photos of modern day Vietnam.

Painting Illustrations...



Joe Ledbetter mixes cute with tough [and sometimes brutal].

Movie...



Quick; Can you name the movie that was made by Robert Siodmak, Curt Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, written by Billy Wilder and shot by Eugen Schüfften and Fred Zinnemann?

I know you're thinking; What are the odds...? [Or maybe you're thinking; Who are these people? If so, trust me, this is an all star filmmaking line-up rarely equaled in the history of cinema].

The movie?


People on Sunday [Menschen am Sonntag], put together by this group of German men in 1929, is a classic - but hard to find - silent narrative documentary that captures the exuberance of youth and the general nature of human beings on a weekend in Berlin in the 1920's.

The plot - such as it is - involves two men and two women who go to the beach for the day and flirt, fight, play around and just lay around drinking and playing music - before going their seperate ways once the day is done.

I saw it the other night at the UCLA Film Archive where they are screening an International Preservation Festival [also here] this month.

At 79 minutes it's over rather quickly. But in that time this fine film gives us a snapshot of Berlin in the 1920's and - despite the fact that there is only a thread of a narrative - it keeps viewers involved.
One reason is because of how modern it looks and feels and the effortlessness with which it appears to be made. The characters are non-actors, who are clearly comfortable in their roles to the point that they don't overact. The film also has erotic overtones [and one suggested sex scene] that many viewers might not expect to see from a film made in the silent era. [And, too, the storyline of unmarried men pursuing young women was something The Hay's Code would put an end to from 1934 to 1967 in America].

The cinematography of 'People on Sunday' is also quite modern due to the dynamic use of closeups and interesting angles. The image itself has been restored to a remarkably crisp, sharp lustre. The shot selection and editing too are masterful.

Most notably, perhaps, is that this many good filmmakers got together and made a good film without their egos clashing. Yes, the wonders of selfless youth can create art.

- For those interested it is available on DVD in England, on Region 2.

Chaplin...



Postcards of Charlie Chaplin. The site also includes 'then' and 'now' photos from some of his film.

Movie Posters...



Egyptian Movie Posters. Some of the movie titles are classic. [Via PCL LinkDump]

Illustration project...



Gravity's Rainbow illustrated by Zak Smith. This is brilliant. He does an illustration for all 760 pages.

So I illustrated Gravity's Rainbow -- nobody asked me to, but I did it anyway. Most of the pictures are drawings -- ink on whatever paper was lying around, but there are also paintings (acrylic), photos I took, and experimental photographic processes. I tried to illustrate the passages as literally as possible....

Photographs...



The Photographic Exchange Club Photographic Album for the Year 1857 from the George Eastman House Still Photograph Archive.