vintage fashion

Do you have about 500 hours to kill on the internet? Well, you're just in luck, especially if you were a fan of the Saturday morning fashion television show, "Fashion File." For the brief time I had cable in the late '90s, I remember from time to time waking up randomly on Saturday mornings just in to stumble upon the Canadian fashion news program on E! that featured coverage of the latest fashion shows, trends, models, and of course, the vast knowledge and curiosity of host Tim Blanks. Once again, I have found "Fashion File", but this time on their website that offers an extensive library of video segments from just about every designer you can think of. Listening to Tim Blanks wax poetically about the genius of Karl Lagerfeld or Alber Elbaz is always a pleasure, but these videos call to mind the forgotten moments in fashion that were fun and subversive at the time but seem like forever ago. Tom Ford's erotica-soaked tenure at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent or the "living instillations" of Imitation of Christ made me wonder if these ideas and the people behind them would be relevant in today's fashion gauntlet. Oh well, we can just watch and enjoy. Trust me, you will watch more than one.

Click here for videos.

coverage pt. 2

Kate Bush
"Running Up That Hill"

vs.

Chromatics
"Running Up That Hill"

I give Kate Bush extra points for the interpretive dance, but I'm still wooed by the sparse groove of the Chromatics cover.

first look: burn before reading

What a melange of faces in the upcoming Coen Brother's film, "Burn Before Reading." The film will debut at the Venice Film Festival in August and be released stateside in September.

"ballon! ballon!"

You know what is finally released on DVD today...

d.a.n.c.e.

I don't think I've ever seen a fashion show be more relevant and potent than its cinematic inspiration, but bear witness:

Alexander McQueen
Spring/Summer Ready-to-Wear 2004
vs.
"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
directed by Sydney Pollock
1969

khan!

There's something really dizzying and wonderful about a film festival. Cinephiles, critics, journalists, filmmakers, spectators, and everyone else huddles together in what could possibly considered cinema watching in its purest form. The guided sense of the masses all focused on the moving image premiering before their open eyes. Sundance was all snow and hijinks, where as I'm sure Cannes would be all sun and French-covered tomfoolery. The 61st Cannes Film Festival cuts its glamorous figure May 14-25. The jury and films in competition were announced yesterday in Paris:

IN COMPETITION
"24 City," directed by Jia Zhangke
"Adoration," directed by Atom Egoyan
"Changeling," directed by Clint Eastwood
"Che," directed by Steven Soderbergh
"Un Conte de noel," directed by Arnaud Desplechin
"Delta," directed by Kornel Mundruczo
"Il Divo," directed by Paolo Sorrentino
"Gomorrah," directed by Matteo Garrone
"La Frontiere de l'aube," directed by Philippe Garrel
"Le Silence de Lorna," directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
"Leonera," directed by Pablo Trapero
"Linha de Passe," directed by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas
"La mujer sin cabeza," directed by Lucrecia Martel
"My Magic," directed by Eric Khoo
"The Palermo Shooting," directed by Wim Wenders
"Three Monkeys," directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
"Serbis," directed by Brillante Mendoza
"Synecdoche, New York," directed by Charlie Kaufman
"Waltz With Bashir," directed by Ari Folman

EDIT: Fernando Meirelles's "Blindness" will open the festival and Laurent Cantet's "Entre Les Murs" and James Gray's "Two Lovers" will also screen in competition.

JURY
Sean Penn, American actor, President of the Jury
Sergio Castellitto, Italian actor and director
Natalie Portman, American actress
Alfonso Cuaron, Mexican director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thai director
Alexandra Maria Lara, German actress
Rachid Bouchareb, French director

The names involved this year read like quite the potpourri of international cinema. However, I'm always confused as to why there are more American films in competition than most other countries. Yes, the motion picture business is big in America, but aren't there equally deserving voices from around the world that are meant to be heard? And I'm tired of the repeat names. Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, and Atom Egoyan can drum up publicity at some other festival, so why choose this one where they've all had films at before? It's a shame Woody Allen never allows his films to be put in competition because that much-talked about menage-a-troisn scene in his out of competition film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", between Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, and Penelope Cruz might deserve it's own special jury prize.

For more information click here.

first look: the wackness

"The Wackness"
directed by Jonathan Levine
July 3, 2008 (limited release)

This trailer is sensory overload. MK with dreads! Method Man with a vaguely Jamaican accent! Ben Kingsley as an aging hippie! Count me in.

v man

The Virgins
photographed by Terry Richardson
Spring/Summer 2008, Vogue Hommes International


"Rich Girls"
The Virgins

This makes me thing of that summer before college when it was a big deal to have the Strokes album with the naked butt on the cover.

For more click here.

bleu

Corps et Âme
photographed by Willy Vanderperre
Spring/Summer 2008, Vogue Hommes International

I was fortunate enough to finally see Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot Le Fou" the other week on the crisp and lush Criterion transfer. There was that wonderful Godard rebellion running amok in the form of polemics and politics, but there was something very romantic and emotionally charged that immediately grabbed me more than some of his other work. This editorial in the new issue of Vogue Hommes International has that same sensibility, if not so explicitly implied in the expressively blue face paint. Dynamite not included.

coverage

"Are You That Somebody? (Aaliyah Cover)
The Gossip

All she needs is a pet eagle perched on her arm.

politics, finally

A possible first lady with a sense of humor and great legs? Bill and Cindy, be afraid. Be very afraid.

song of the week: "cross the dancefloor"

Madonna this. Madonna that. To pause from the great debate about how much her new Timbaland produced sound tickles our fancy, I offer something closely akin to her last album:


"Cross the Dancefloor"
Treasure Fingers


"New York Story"
Lee Douglas


Is all of this disco referencing in recent dance music an answer to the sucked dried but oft-imitated pop-synth sound of '80s dance that has been so popular since the turn of the millennium?

Click here and here if you liked what you heard. P.S., Thanks to Maggie for turning me on to Treasure Fingers. That sounded kind of dirty, but she kinda liked it.

performance

What would film be if not for the face? I couldn't think of a better way to acknowledge the best performances of 2007 than to share a collection of their faces. As a audience we may forget bits of dialogue, pieces of the plot, or grand action sequences, but we never forget a face on film, especially when they're this good.

Amy Adams, "Enchanted"
Brad Pitt, "The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford"
Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Marina Hands, "Lady Chatterley"
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Talk to Me"
John Carroll Lynch, "Zodiac"
James McAvoy, "Atonement"
Viggo Mortenson, "Eastern Promises"
Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, "Margot at the Wedding"
Tang Wei and Tony Leung, "Lust, Caution"
Max Von Sydow, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Kaycee Moore and Henry G. Sanders, "Killer of Sheep"
Matt Damon, "The Bourne Ultimatum"
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Josh Brolin, "No Country for Old Men"
"American Gangster"
and "In the Valley of Elah"
Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg, "2 Days in Paris"
Michael Cera, "Superbad"
Leslie Mann, "Knocked Up"
Irfan Khan and Tabu, "The Namesake"
The cast of "Southland Tales"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
and "Charlie Wilson's War"
Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener, "Into the Wild"

angels in america

"(...) It's anatomically correct," McQueen points out with a small measure of glee."--Alexander McQueen, on the 9-foot metal sculpture that is halfway submerged from the ceiling of his new Los Angeles flagship store, to the Los Angeles Times

sneakerhead

Lanvin Taffeta Hi Top, $730

Too bad my Economic Stimulus check wouldn't cover such an extravagance.

that's the very last time we saw each other

For his album listening party last summer, Kanye West and editor Derrick Lee made a series of mash-up videos, with each song taking on a new context with its cinematic counterpart. The rhythm of West's lyrics in this video becomes akin to the the lushly romantic and melancholic world of Wong Kar Wai's sci-fi dreamscape "2046." His fan-like love for Asian popular culture, nostalgic idea of the future, and eye-popping visuals are more concrete and passionate here than in some of his other videos. For more, click here.

p.s., What happened with "My Blueberry Nights"? It's unfortunate that the few international auteurs with current releases (Michael Haneke, Susanne Bier, Olivier Assayas) have yet to connect to an American audience. Fernando Meirelles, perhaps you can make things better.

rounded edges

Patrik Ervell button-down, $252

Rounded collars for spring? I'm not convinced yet, especially at that price.

bon anniversaire

My mind was a bit unfocused in March. In between expensive holiday weekends, snow days, and other days of being wild, I plum forgot March 5 was The Look-See's birthday. I didn't think, or expect, this forum (or whatever you want to call it) of ideas, rants, commentaries, etc. would extend beyond my current whim, or at the very least remain interesting for readers. Who knows if it still is, but I do appreciate those that have watched it evolve and continue to take new shapes and forms. I suppose I'm never short on finding, discussing, and looking at the beautiful things that are out there. Thank you for reading.

Somehow this says it all:

for melis

These bitches interned at Teen Vogue and they can't even pronounce GHEE-VON-SHEE? Lisa Love and Riccardo Tisci would not be pleased.

first look: mister lonely

"Mister Lonely"
directed by Harmony Korine
May 2, 2008 (limited release)

This looks deliciously odd.

disco is dead pt. 2

"Beatific"
Glass Candy

Doesn't this song make you want to roller skate? Just a thought.