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ntributed to rip friend db posted by david brickman at 5 50 pm no comments labels albany art conceptual art jan galligan photography monday january 29 2024 the best films of 2023 martin scorsese left lily gladstone and robert deniro all received oscar nods for killers of the flower moon some say leo dicaprio right was snubbed it s been a while since i ve posted here and it feels good to be back even if only for a brief visit i didn t write about movies last year because i simply missed too many of them to make a credible commentator on what was worth viewing and why but fortunately this year is different though i still missed some important films i ve listed those at the end of this post i find that i saw enough of the academy s best picture contenders to be in a position to make an informed review so here goes a lot of people would say the race for best picture this year is a tight one and i would agree my own list has no single outstanding 1 and no 2023 release i ve seen thus far has achieved the level required to get my highest rating of four stars that s not unusual to give four stars i have to believe the film was nearly perfect but four pictures this year got three and a half stars from me and that ain t bad plus it s always possible i ll catch one later that meets the test but for now here are my top picks along with a few quibbles of course killers of the flower moon marginally my choice for 1 this film has been criticized by some for being too long that s hogwash a film can be too long at ten minutes if it stinks or not long enough at three hours in my theatrical viewing of this near masterpiece the time flew by as a nuanced and complex story was told extremely well the acting is superb even incorporating spoken osage dialogue by the three leads all of whom learned the language for their parts and the visuals are riveting an unnecessary and distracting cameo by director martin scorsese right near the end dimmed it slightly for me but lily gladstone is so subtly brilliant as the hub around which this wheel revolves if she doesn t get the oscar for female lead i ll be shocked pee first then see it image at top of this post anatomy of a fall a truly original thriller mystery organized around a family that shares three languages german french and english with a brilliant performance by its female lead sandra huller who has been rightly nominated for an oscar i ve seen zillions of foreign films but never one that handles the multiplicity of languages in an international family so fluidly and poignantly the french german couple speaks english at home as a compromise to me this says a great deal about our changing world and in the context of the film about their troubled marriage image at bottom of this post gael garcia bernal is brilliant in cassandro cassandro this may be the best recent movie you ve heard nothing about but don t dismiss it mexican star gael garcia bernal masterfully portrays the real life gender bending mexican wrestler cassandro who turned his disadvantage into success in the ring as an exotico i m straight white american and male and don t care much for wrestling but i absolutely loved this touching hilarious and life affirming film about a gay mexican wrestler the holdovers no surprise here it s gotten plenty of attention all of it well deserved at first i was reluctant to praise this film too much because i myself lived in a similar setting a new england prep school for four years and would have a natural bias to enjoy the story but it seems audiences and critics everywhere agree that it s first rate especially due to superb acting by its trio of stars paul giamatti always terrific da vine joy randolph in a breakout performance that earned an oscar nod and dominic sessa in a terrific debut see image above at left american fiction features an all star cast of black actors led by jeffrey wright a past tony emmy and golden globe winner american fiction satire is so tricky i liked this picture a lot and probably would have rated it higher if it wasn t so stuffed with clichés or maybe they were put their intentionally as part of the joke so for example when jeffrey wright s upper middle class black character in a perfect performance that should win him a statuette gets passed by while trying to hail a cab exactly at the moment when he tells someone on his phone that he doesn t believe race matters it seemed just too on the nose otherwise though the film is as entertaining as it is thought provoking with some nifty plot twists and a highly original script drawn from the 2001 novel by an outstanding writer percival everett asteroid city based on the tiny sample of people i know who go to the movies wes anderson s pictures tend to be polarizing that is they either love them or hate them this one i loved it s predictably very quirky stuffed with great actors and its scenic design is both wildly colorful and just plain wild a work of art not to everyone s taste but extremely well done and it s got scarlett johansson need i say more dumb money this film features an outstanding paul dano as the basement dwelling nerd who catapulted game stop into a wall street phenomenon through an options trading short squeeze and yes i did find myself confusing it at times with 2015 s the big short what distinguishes dumb money is the excellent ensemble acting that supports dano s awesome performance and the spate of relatable characters they portray as they get swept up in the game stop drama despite the geeky subject matter it is actually a hugely entertaining movie about something we all know quite well money the elephant in the room is oppenheimer it got how many oscar nominations my favorite number 13 ok so it s a really big hollywood style film with massive production values with a pretty interesting story and the acting in it is really very good especially the lead cillian murphy and supporting actor robert downey jr actually my favorite in it was florence pugh even when dressed but it s just so darn bombastic pun acknowledged it hits a very high dramatic note right at the start and then it stays there for three hours for all that effort it could have been better my friends barbie ah the feminist political football that is 2023 s highest grossing film if only everybody would settle down and just accept barbie for what it is a fun boomer esque merch hawking popcorn movie about dolls and humans where s the harm in not being the perfect statement for our time i wore pink pants popped the collar on my polo shirt and enjoyed the spectacle and then pretty much forgot about the whole thing past lives not terrible for a directorial debut but my clear candidate for the year s most overrated film what got me was how the story revolves around a presumably irresistible young woman who i found utterly unappealing i don t mean this by her appearance no shaming going on here i mean her personality was simply terrible so the whole thing fell apart and it really felt like a first time script which it is awkward self indulgent unrealistic sorry just not worthy of all the hype and there you have it a highly opinionated take on ten of the top films of 2023 others i plan to see include the zone of interest maestro the boy and the heron 20 days in mariupol and society of the snow notably not on my list to be seen is poor things due to my dislike for emma stone s acting and my doubts about having the stomach for another yorgos lanthimos grossout i do hope you will forgive me and please do go out and support your local movie theater enjoy samuel theis and sandra huller star in anatomy of a fall an intriguing international mystery that could win a statuette for the german actress posted by david brickman at 6 46 pm 3 comments labels academy awards american fiction anatomy of a fall asteroid city barbie cassandro cinema dumb money film foreign film killers of the flower moon oppenheimer oscars past lives the holdovers tuesday july 25 2023 db goes to italy ends up on tv not everyone who goes on vacation gets a surprise like the one i got in italy in may my wife and i were visiting a close friend who lives in narni a hill town in umbria when we all agreed to go check out a new museum of street art that had been established in the local 14th century castle pretty much every hill town in italy has one of those the castle that is not the museum narni which btw is considered to be the exact geographic center of the italian peninsula and was the original narnia in roman times is so small that we simply walked to the castle from annamaria s home in town as excited to see the inside of the old redoubt as we were to peruse the art show well the castle was great and it turned out the show was really good too inside the exhibition i got talking to annamaria about the art including the fact that i had previously written on this blog about some of the artists included or mentioned there specifically jean michel basquiat and keith haring linked here to those posts at that point a fellow accompanied by a cameraman asked if he could interview me the results revealed above around 1 45 into the video aired on regional tv news that night how cool is that subtitles translated by db and william laviano inserted by william laviano posted by david brickman at 2 04 pm 4 comments thursday november 10 2022 running at 64 last outdoor run of the year struggling a bit but still holding up a tree photo by dick bennett well it looks like ol father time has begun to catch up with me making this year s running season a bit of a setback for a couple of months i was plagued by minor injuries or perhaps they are better called conditions left hip sciatica that made half of my leg numb hard to run when your leg can t feel a nagging pain in my right big toe arthritis gout or a strained tendon and the occasional basketball induced sprained ankle conspired to reduce my usual training to a mere trickle for most of the summer before all that first world agony i had an ok start to the season running my usual slate of 5k races in april may and june at a reasonably decent pace for springtime that amounted to one race each month with two top three age group finishes being the results more or less in line with past years finishing the dunkin run 5k in 28 19 photo by joe putrock but then the problems began and i struggled to recover though i m glad to report some minor success in the end with moderately acceptable showings in my last two races of the season that included a surprising 2 nd place age group finish in my home race the dunkin run 5k for which i received a rather ugly medal a fitting representation of the overall season during which i never broke 28 minutes for a 5k a mark that was so routine just a year ago as to be unremarkable now all at once it s unattainable but that s ok i ve seen age suddenly overtake many of my senior league basketball cronies when guys in their sixties and seventies who for decades have appeared impervious to wear and tear seem to lose their sharpness and skill almost overnight you never know when it s going to hit or how hard but it absolutely will come this awareness of the universal fragility of our mortal body has made me that much more grateful that i still can get out for a good run on a beautiful fall day and can still walk onto and off of a basketball court under my own steam cherish those moments and i truly do with hoops season in full swing my team is off to an impressive 6 1 start and my injuries for now have subsided leaving me able to play at my best most of the time though it s not the same as a beautiful long jog in the open air it s still a good run with all the attendant healthy benefits as for racing there s always next year on another note somewhere amid the physical limitations of the summer i managed to get up on water skis for a few minutes which was terrific fun it was the first time i d tried that in at least twenty years and will probably be my last as i was sore for days afterward here s proof of the feat offered up for your amusement video by william laviano hope you have a great fall and winter see you next year posted by david brickman at 9 26 pm no comments labels aging basketball health personal achievement running self congratulation sports sunday october 30 2022 in memoriam frank giorgini it is with great sadness that i report on the recent death of a dear friend the world class ceramic artist and udu drum maker frank giorgini of freehold ny he was 75 years old and had been undergoing treatment for cancer frank and i first met in the mid 1980s when we both were teaching classes at the harmanus bleecker center in albany under the auspices of the albany institute of history art and the inimitable guidance of monica miller also a wonderful artist one of my favorite memories of that time was when we shared a two person show at the bleecker center that featured frank s udu drums and my photographs all of it dusky and formal a lovely pairing of sculpture and black and white pictures frank was probably best known for his handmade and commercially manufactured clay pot drums which are treasured by percussionists all over the world for their unique earthy sounds and robust shapes some exquisite examples of which are held in the permanent collection of musical instruments at the metropolitan museum of art in new york city frank used to proudly state that he was the only living person whose product was in that collection though i suppose other living artists instruments may have been added after the fact if not then there are now none who can make that claim but frank had equal impact in many other aspects of ceramic production both in the commercial realm as a tile maker and in the fine art realm though in his case the line between the two was fuzzy at best many will recognize his tile and mosaic installation in the whitehall street station of the brooklyn bmt subway line which was commissioned and installed in 2000 entitled passages it traces the history of manhattan backward in time using numerous airborne gulls as a unifying element you can see many pictures of it here a detail from passages photo by warren sze nature and animals constantly featured in frank s personal work whether exploring the personas of humble blackbirds in his shimmering raku fired tiles or adorning a decorative udu with undulating lizards he understood and celebrated these creatures as equals as humans we were fortunate that he also treated us with the same respect most artists no matter how talented need something more in order to be successful whether it s a lucky break an enthusiastic patron or a trust fund in frank s case it was his congenial personality everyone liked frank and i can imagine no one who would have turned down an opportunity to work with him or support his vision one way he shared that vision was through teaching he published books and instructional videos on tile making and worked as an adjunct professor at parsons design s...
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