Public Announcement

Dear readers,

Due to my recent employment in the hellhole formerly known as Zara, I am alas forced to take it easy (blog-wise at least) as a result of the gruelling hours. I will try to entertain you with delightful tit bits whenever I can, just bare with me.

Ginny Jones

Venturous Vixens

One of my favorite contemporary artists is Audrey Kawasaki. Audrey, known for her ethereal oil-on-wood paintings, is a 24-year-old Japanese artist out of L.A. and a dropout from the Pratt Institute.

Her paintings are breathtakingly beautiful and surreal seeing as they were created using a delightful mix of Manga and Art Nouveau. She has an uncanny style of depicting the female form (reminiscent of Schiele and Klimt), showing the subjects in innocent and also very sensual/erotic ways while at the same time exuding a darker tone and a disturbing presence of strange magnificent alien princesses with porcelain doll faces. This magnetic kind of glamour that suggests a darker side to all this seductiveness is stunningly alluring. Her girls are precious, pouty, sexy and a tinge of misery or despair is sprinkled around their eyes as if they were just caught in an ephemeral and otherworldly moment of indulgence.

She paints with luscious and delicate brushstrokes, adding to the haunting fairytale atmosphere. Her sharp yet dreamy imagery combined with the wood panels that she paints on, creates an unexpected warmth to the inscrutable subject matter. She gives her seductive yet melancholy characters a sensual esoteric realm of their own that lures in spectators and produces a faint sense of accessibility. The intriguing and feminine bedroom (come and get me) eyes of these elusive women are Kawasaki’s weapon of choice to enthral her mesmerized audience.

The Homecoming King

In 2004 Zach Braff (who shot to fame in the NBC sitcom Scrubs) unleashed his directorial debut on the world. Garden State, which also stars Nathalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard and Sir Ian Holm was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.

The story goes as followed: Andrew Largeman (Braff) returns to his hometown in New Jersey for the first time in nine years, after receiving word from his father (Holm) that his mother has died. Busy avoiding his father, he visits some old friends and makes some peculiar new ones at the doctor’s office of all places. While he’s reconnecting with the past he also finds something he lost a long time ago, namely himself.

This is a charmingly warm-hearted and quirky movie (you might have noticed I kinda have a soft spot for movies with a perfect mix of melancholy madness and heartwarming humor). It is all relatively standard stuff at first glance, but much of the zing of the movie comes from the wobbly curve balls that Braff throws at the formula. As writer-director he never stops telling us a tale that's true at it’s core and surprisingly unself-conscious. You have to be ambitious to direct yourself in the first movie you've ever directed but despite this, his motivation feels genuine meaning that he wanted to make a movie because he actually had something to say instead of just wanting to spread his name around as a career move.
Portman (as his newly found friend Sam) is vibrant and lovely. Her performance is relaxed and giddy, but there's also an edge of sorrow to it. She is an overjoyed epileptic and compulsory liar who is Braff’s opposite. Her warm, fearless and explosive nature complement his level, pessimistic and sedated self. And eventually makes him realise that good or bad, life is still worth living to fullest. Braff also captures a sense of coming home to a place you once loved and realizing, in spite of any lingering fondness you may have for it, that it's no longer the spot for you. Home is a place you create yourself.
OK, there are a few cliches : the return of the prodigal son mixed with your average coming-of-age tale but, injected with unexpected depth and grace. Sometimes the story might get a little too cute but overall it is a hidden treasure well worth the dig.

The music that accompanied the film was hand-picked by Zach Braff. The songs, in my opinion, exemplified the emotional subtleties of the film perfectly. He rightfully accepted a Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Zach Braff shows genuine talent with his smart, perceptive and funny film debut. In the end you can’t deny that Garden State is a great movie full of bizarre wit and winning moments, laden with excellent performances and a superb soundtrack to boot.

How to Coup

I just finished yet another hilarious novel by the Canadian author, playwright and visual artist Douglas Coupland. I’ve been a fan ever since I read the age defining Generation X. His novels are always highly entertaining with vibrant characters and vivid plots making them the perfect piece of brain candy.

All Families are Psychotic has your run of the mill soap opera plot which enables you to read it with the speed of lightening. The Drummonds are your typical dysfunctional family: there’s mom, dad, dad’s trophy wife, the now-married eldest brother who slept with said trophy wife, the middle sister NASA astronaut with one hand thanks to thalidomide, the youngest mullet-headed suicidal sibling and the woman he’s knocked up who I might add, has no vowels in her name. Half the family has AIDS and is also plagued by financial disaster and felonious activities. They are forced (by a series of ever more fantastic occurrences) to attempt to deal with each other. All of pop culture's plagues are represented: AIDS, cancer, addiction, domestic violence, divorce, adultery, and so much more. Everyone's got something wrong with them which often is the case. Throw in some clever observations, earnest feelings, stylistic quirks and you’ve got one juicy novel.

Another one of Coupland’s brilliant books is Microserfs about the lives of coworkers in the software industry and the effect of their work on their relationships and lives. Here he tries (for the first time) to create a bridge between the art and literary world by using bold and unusual typography in a lot of the book’s page layout reminiscent of Pop Art and Text Art. This idea is expanded in the sensational and wacky Jpod which also deals with more or less the same subject matter. This is a novel filled with black comedy and Coupland’s trademark plot twists that also investigates life inside an amoral culture bombarded with too much information. Another recommendation is the stunning Hey Nostradamus which sucks you into an emotional roller coaster as the impact of a high school shooting is dissected.

Much of Coupland's work explores the unexpected cultural shifts created by the impact of new technologies on North American culture. Reoccurring themes include the conflict between secular and religious values, difficulty in aging, adulthood, an ironic attitude in response to intense media saturation and an aesthetic fascination with pop culture and mass culture. Coupland is constantly exploring how the human mind and soul function within the generally static realm of middle class suburbia. He writes with tabloid sensationalism, which he then undermines with ironic self-awareness.

His new novel The Gum Thief will be released this winter.

Vintage Rock

Friday night I was freezing my little tushy off in Dessel amidst a crowd of thousands as we were anticipating the arrival of a phenomenal band, Aerosmith. I’ve been a huge fan for many, many years now and I had finally gotten a chance to see them in the flesh.

When I was a little girl I was captivated by their lush videos that complemented their songs to a T while at the same time having the allure of a short film due to the presence of many rising stars. Their songs were catchy, dramatic, full of life and able to touch everyone’s rebellious side. Their musical evolution over the years has made them major innovators in American hard rock, pop, glam, blues and rap and has also inspired legions of rock artists that came after them. Aerosmith's longevity (37 years and still going strong), durability, and adaptability have allowed them to sustain high levels of popularity, acclaim and success. Due to their string of ground-breaking hard-rock albums, they also hold the record for the most gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums by an American band.

Anyway, they gave one hell of a show (including a priceless Hunter S. Thompson-esque clip at the end) performing various hits and a few lesser known gems. Steven Tyler was doing his best to stay true to his image as rock “god” by hogging the spotlight whenever he could. Oddly enough his lavish presence with a balanced mix between frenzy and cool reminded me of a future version of Jack Sparrow. But despite Tyler’s efforts to steal the show, my praise goes out to Joe Perry who played his guitar like there was no tomorrow and showed us what old-school rock is all about.

Highlights were of course the classics: Crying, Walk This Way, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing and my personal favorite Dream on (sampled by Eminen in 2002 in Sing for the Moment) which gave me goose bumps on top of the ones I already had due to a mild state of hypothermia.

And last but not least, I would like to thank my dear friends Katrien and Diedrik for making it possible for me to join them on Graspop. Stand up and take a bow.

The Wild Years

If you’re reading this and it isn’t June 22^nd yet, stop and continue tomorrow because a 101 years ago today a Hollywood legend (and a personal favorite) came to life, literally. He was born in Poland and started his career as a journalist for a tabloid in Berlin. Any ideas? After the rise of Hitler he fled to America seeing as he was Jewish and this is where his career in showbiz obviously started to take off. Early on he collaborated with some of the greats (Ernst Lubitsch and Greta Garbo) but eventually fell into his own as a gifted screenwriter. “I’m not a born director,” he once said, “I became a director because so many of our scripts had been screwed up.” And by doing this he became one of the pioneers of the now famous writer-director formula. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking film noir, drama or comedy, he was able to do it all. Comedy was especially a genre in which he excelled: Some Like It Hot, Irma La Douce, The Apartment, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina,… He also worked with the biggest stars in the business: Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, Gloria Swanson, Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray, William Holden,… The man in question is the legendary Billy Wilder.

Wilder, a man with equal directing and writing talent, leaves behind a body of work that is filled with wit and sophistication. Most of his pictures are textbook examples of craftsmanship. If anything, Billy Wilder should inspire every aspiring and practicing writer (and even directors) to use brains and heart, and thus to give the movies of the future both a shape and a heartbeat, as he did.

His legacy is a vast one, especially in the history of Hollywood censorship. Amongst other things he was responsible for the expansion of the range of acceptable subject matter. He didn’t only create some of the greatest comedies ever made but he has made various classics in the farthest possible range of genres. Few creators of hilarious comedies as Some like it Hot were equally comfortable with dark and brooding material as Double Indemnity.

Personally Wilder was just as incisive as the dialogue he wrote. He once told an actor “You have Van Gogh’s ear for music”, told Walter Matthau “We’re on the track of something absolutely mediocre” and wooed his wife by telling her, “I’d worship the ground you walk on if only you lived in a better neighbourhood.”

His movies can easily be labeled as original. Wilder never shied away from dark and risky subject matter. He dared to push the limits of the subject matter that was available to screenwriters then. Plot and dialogue were the most important part of this film. He wanted to tell a story about real people in everyday situations no matter who they were. His sharp dialogue became legendary and an inspiration for many generations after him. He mainly used a classical plot build up but filled it with his infamous wit and cynicism. He didn’t sugar-coat things which often led to aggravation. As an outsider in Hollywood he was able to take some distance and take a good look at America which ironically made him a Hollywood great. He was a master at intertwining genres without the audience really noticing. It is sometimes hard to label a Wilder film seeing as he was a master at morphing them all together as is the case real life.

If you want to see a well-written and well-made movie, look no further Billy Wilder is the man!

Hot and Cold

In 2003 Wayne Kramer directed his first motion picture, the offbeat surprise hit The Cooler. It stars William H. Macy in yet another magnificent performance as Bernie Lootz (a lovable-loser and the kind of part that stands at the core of Macy’s career ex. Fargo, Boogie Nights and Magnolia). He is a “cooler”, a man who spreads his own bad luck to those who are winning and thus is used by Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) to kill the high rollers' action. That is, until he falls in love with a cocktail waitress (Maria Bello) and gets "lady luck," on his side. This naturally causes friction between him and his boss as the winnings start to pile up.

The Cooler is moody tale about the high stakes of gambling with a pinch of sex and a dash of violence. Baldwin for example, paints a chilling portrait of a smooth and suave man on the surface who is so ruthless underneath that he will literally stop at nothing to get what he wants. Despite it’s dark exterior, it also contains a very uplifting heart that surfaces in the form of Bernie and Natalie’s relationship as she attempts to build up his confidence and make him see his own self-worth.

In the end, The Cooler is an amusing drama about gambling that tackles the everlasting struggle of the underdog while at the same time being endearingly romantic as it portrayals two lost souls who find strength in each other's weaknesses. A fascinating and insightful insider view of casino operations is also given in a sharp and abrasive manner acting as the ideal counterpart to the human core. The humanity is best depicted in a few precious and convincing sex scenes that not only exude genuine and engaging affection but also amusement on a person-to-person level. Plus a brave performance by Maria Bello who was applauded for showing her authentic curves that weren’t pimped à la Hollywood.

Besides The Cooler, Kramer has also written and directed Crossing Over, Blazeland, and Running Scared, which starred Paul Walker.

Audrey Niffenegger

My first encounter with Audrey Niffenegger’s work was her graphic novel or as she likes to call it “a novel in picture”: The Three Incestuous Sisters. She is an acclaimed author, visual artist and full time professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Her first novel was the mega-best-seller The Time Traveler's Wife, an exceptional novel due to it’s unconventional structure and gripping story. It tells the deeply engrossing yarn of Henry, a man who has a genetic abnormality that causes him to travel in time. He meets Claire as a young child and continues to time travel to her until they eventually meet in real time. He and their relationship are in constant flux. Although they have just met, they have known each other for 15 years and embark on an arduous marriage due to Henry’s small imperfection.

Niffenegger did a wonderful job by taking some complex ideas (time travel, marriage, love, children, friends, literary and artistic allusions, religion, death, childhood, loss, and the list goes on) and poetically weaving them together with amazing clarity into a Sci-Fi romance with an audacious twist. The novel goes beyond the typical love ballad to become a sweet story about living in the moment and enjoying people as they come and go through life. Niffenegger has created an impeccable balance between the down-to-earth-characters whose story is told so matter-of-factly and the enchanting surreal which results in a sexy, dazzling tale.

The Time Traveller’s Wife is a bittersweet novel that I could not put down. I’m not big on love stories as they usually tend towards nauseatingly sweet cliches but this story was written with such (oddly enough) realism and authentic feeling that it was able to walk the fine line between a tearjerker and an exceedingly original Sci Fi fantasy. It is hard to come up with an fresh love story without becoming corny but Niffenegger has resuscitated a classic genre by creating this stunning fairytale with a dark heart.

This dark core is also clearly visible (even more so) in her graphic novels. The Three Incestuous Sisters tells the strange and haunting story of three sisters who live in a lonely house by the sea and get up to all sorts of stuff. The Adventuress on the other hand, is a Gothic romance that follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist’s daughter. Customary to her “novels in pictures” are the dramatically nuanced full-page prints which tell the story more than the minimalist yet spooky prose does. The sparse prose and haunting aquatint etchings create an otherworldly experience while telling grim and erotic tales.

New Line Cinema is planning to develop a film adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife. The adaptation will be directed by Robert Schwentke and will star Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. Due for release in 2008.

Volvo’s X-factor

Last week I fortunately stumbled across a great little film that really took me by surprise especially seeing as it was a car ad, for Volvo none the less.

This highly original brain teasing commercial (an oxymoron if there ever was one), was created in 2004 by none other than twice Oscar-nominated director Stephen Frears (who is amongst other things responsible for The Queen, Dirty Pretty Things, High Fidelity and Dangerous Liaisons). This unique short movie was only released on the Internet to launch the ad campaign for Volvo’s V50. The car of course is the star of the story but alas is being overshadowed by the brilliant, versatile and ever so yummy Robert Downey Jr. Together they shine in a short film that “starts in a place called Doubt and ends in a place called Confidence" and thus attempts to stimulate an audience that has reached a point in their lives where they have to decide to head down a new and exciting road with the Volvo V50 or stay in the rut of reality.

Due to Frears’ uncanny talent, he was able to turn a commercial into a true work of art. The Route V50 is a slick, surreal and low key treasure that reinforces one’s faith in advertising (at least if you had some and might have lost it). Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik_5ns8RF1g

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ty3FEJ4HWk&mode=related&search

Japanese Lit 401

Over the past few weeks I have picked up my two-book-a-week reading habit again. Needless to say, enough to talk about. And for those of you less interested in literature, too bad. Recently I have been devouring a lot of novels by Japanese authors and judging from what I have read, I will probably continue to do so seeing as this is an exhilarating horizon that I haven’t yet thoroughly explored.

The first novel I read, made me speechless and trust me that rarely happens. The gem in question is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro who is from Japanese descent but is currently living in the UK. Another one of his books might ring a bell for those who aren’t familiar with his work, namely The Remains of the Day due to exceptional film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Anyway, Never Let Me Go tells the story of three kids in a secluded boarding school somewhere in the English countryside. It is a touching coming-of-age tale with a twist seeing as these kids aren’t your run of the mill adolescents. A poetic and unsettling mystery gradually unfolds that is quite out of the ordinary and makes the cover and the initial expectations it produces vanish into thin air. In the end it is a luscious sci-fi tale which looks into the heart of humanity and that will take your breath away.

Secondly, In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami which was something completely different. Twenty-year old Kenji guides tourists through the underbelly of the Japanese nightlife, namely the sex industry. His next customer is Frank, a middle aged American with bad skin and a few lose wires (although Kenji’s suspicions start of a bit dubious). Tension rises along with the body count in this short disturbing (seriously, not for the fainthearted) but interesting look into some unsuspecting aspects of Japanese culture. This gruelling little adrenaline rush can almost be labelled as Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) does Tokyo. Ryu’s style is simple, to the point and very vivid while making and interesting comparison between East and West.

Then another Murakami, not Ryu but Haruki. They may share the same last name and nationality but that as far as it goes. The narrator of Sputnik Sweetheart is “K”, a man who has been in love with his outlandish best friend Sumire for a while now but alas, at a wedding reception she falls head over heals with an older woman named Miu. As Sumire accompanies Miu on a trip to Greece, a random event changes the course of the character’s lives. The book delves into the concepts of identity, alienation, loneliness and how to find happiness in a world where everyone is together yet at the same time isolated. One of Haruki’s trademarks is a hint of surrealism which takes on the form of an alternate mirror-world suggesting that we only see what we want to see. In the end he manages to keep a few balls in the air, contributing to the idea that true knowledge is elusive.

I liked all three books (especially Never Let Me Go) a lot. Each novel was a refreshing Eastern joyride with a very distinctive feel to it. Whether you like it

a) strange, sad and poetic

b) violent, simple and vivid or

c) surreal, existential and lovely

you’ll surely find it here.

Never talk to little girls

When I first saw the movie poster and read the tag “Absolutely terrifying”, I obviously thought “oh well, the latest installment in a long line of recent horror flicks”. How wrong I was. Seeing as I’m rather squeamish by nature, I hesitantly watched the trailer and was surprised to see it wasn’t at all what I was expecting but then again, they don’t always show the really good stuff in the trailer. My next step was reading a synopsis:

14-year-old Hayley Stark meets the 32-year old photographer Jeff in an Internet chat room. They arrange to meet at a local coffee shop where they talk about this and that. Eventually Hayley decides to go home with Jeff seeing as he has a bootleg MP3 of a Goldfrapp concert that she’s dying too hear. Here things take an ugly turn as the innocent little girl decides to teach Jeff, who she suspects is a paedophile (why else would he engage in conversations with a 14-year old girl?), a nasty little lesson.

Hard Candy was a big hit at 2006’s Sundance Film Festival. The Sundance Film Festival is one of the most prestigious and largest independent film festivals in the United States. It is annually held in Utah and is a showcase for new (and established) American and international independent filmmakers, if you were wondering.

The very contemporary and controversial subject of Internet paedophilia is addressed and if this wasn’t risky enough, it also adds some sensational cruelty to boot. Despite her actions, you can’t help rooting for the little avenging angel which creates a wry aftertaste seeing as her deeds are far from condonable.The subject matter is handled with discretion and tact without exploiting it for the obvious thrills. The title "Hard Candy", by the way comes from the Internet slang for an under-aged girl.

Almost 80 % of the movie takes place in Jeff’s house with him and Hayley being the only characters but due to the intensity of the plot and their chemistry, there is never a dull moment. The colours are cold and metallic combined with tight hand-held close-ups creating an excessively polished style that lends a clinical look to the method behind the madness.The movie includes some shocking but not gratuitous or gruesome scenes. The horror that is conveyed is from a more psychological yet ever so disturbing nature in this cleverly concocted cat and mouse game.

Personally I was intrigued by the concept of the unexpected role reversal and wondered if this two-man show would be viable but it certainly lived up to it’s expectations. It isn’t a typical blood, guts, gore and things that go bump in the night horror flick but it sure as hell created an unbelievable feeling of unease. Due to it’s psychological and simple nature it was able to raise a lot of moral questions while driving the tension to an unparalleled climax.

Oh, and a note to all men: while watching it, bare in mind that it's just a movie.

Arts Smarts

I wouldn’t call myself a real art connoisseur but I know the basic tendencies, quintessential artists, that kind of thing. I love going to museums and standing face to face with some of the most famous paintings of our time but (maybe it’s just me) rarely I get the feeling “Wow, now that’s art”. Mostly I’m curious to see them in person and after a while you start liking them and frequently we stand there in a simulated state of awe not because we love what we see but because they are classic, representative, famous or let’s just say it works of art. I’ve never been someone who is easily visually stimulated hence also my preference of plot and dialogue over action and special effects in movies. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about movies, books, music or art, I like to be touched by the emotion or story behind it all. Painting a pretty picture just doesn’t cut it for me.

There is one artist however that I’ve truly admired for a while now and I was even lucky enough to see a brilliant exhibition on her work a few years back in London. I’m talking about Tamara de Lempicka and her glamorous Art Deco paintings. I’m continuously captivated by her sensuous, luscious and unequivocal style. She is a true master at capturing the decadence and seduction of this dazzling era.

Her work was marginalized (she is not considered one of the 20^th century greats) and is now mostly famous due to postcards, calenders,… Still, despite the general opinion, her work is elegant, functional, and ultra modern and in my own personal opinion mesmerizing.

Lempicka’s work which is predominantly situated in the Jazz Age (1918-1929), an age where great writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and Evelyn Waugh (Vile Bodies) also flourished. She uses bold colours and sharp lines reminiscent of Cubism which add an explosive touch to her work. The initial pezaz is also her way of drawing attention to the dept and humanity in her paintings. Tamara herself was bisexual hence also her preference to glorify the female form.

Personally I am a big fan of the Roaring Twenties’ style, history, literature and icons due to their glamour, sophisticated beauty and abundant intrigue; Lempicka’s paintings just happen to be the embodiment of all this.

I couldn't resist...

And now something completely different and girly… I recently discovered a really adorable new little character that has taken Japan (and soon the world) by storm. It is the chic and very fashionable brain child of Yuko Shimizu, the freelance designer who has also brought us Hello Kitty.

I’m talking about the precious Rebecca Bonbon:

“Rebecca is a young French bulldog. She was born on November 1 in France. An American girl fell in love with Rebecca and brought Rebecca to her home in New York. Now Rebecca lives in a spacious apartment overlooking New York's Central Park.
Rebecca takes a walk in the park every day wearing very nice outfits. She meets many friends, there, and enjoys chatting with them. Rebecca loves flowers, ribbons and accessories of all sorts. She also likes weekend parties and picnics. But what she loves most are bonbon candies. That's why she was named RebeccaBonbon.”

Watch the animated version of the story at the bottom of this page.

Simple Sweet Sorrow

A while back I saw a movie that made quite an impression on me, not due to it’s special effects, star-studded cast or intricate plot but due to it’s simplicity. I had heard a lot of good things about this movie but I never got round to seeing it until I bought it in Amsterdam a few months ago. It was never officially released here in Belgium but if you were lucky you’d stumble on a copy once in a blue moon. The movie I’m talking about is Vincent Gallo’s minimalist, quirky and endearing directorial debut Buffalo 66. It is hard to label this film seeing as it is a perfect combo of "romantic" comedy and existential drama. The movie is filled with great dialogue, unusual situations, wonderful performances (especially Gallo is brilliant as the wounded, embittered and screaming to be saved Billy) and some of the most heart-warming moments that have hit the silver screen in the past decade (bare in mind the movie dates back from 1998).

The socially impaired Billy Brown is released from prison after a five-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. He decides to visit his parents who think he has a great job and has gotten married. In desperate need of a wife, he kidnaps a dance class student called Layla (Christina Ricci) and forces her to pretend to be his one true love. Despite the unusual situation, Layla actually starts to like Billy but he is too busy fighting his inner demons and past to realize that kidnapping her might be the best thing that ever happened to him.

Vincent Gallo (director, actor, painter, musician, motorcycle racer and model) created an independent classic true to the gritty minimalist nature of the genre in which story and performance prevail. Despite the independent feel, Gallo also plays around with the medium resulting in split screen imaging, stills, insets for flashbacks, and a rotating freeze frame during the film's climatic scene. Sadly he hasn’t been up to much (director-wise) ever since The Brown Bunny which created a lot of controversy in 2003 due to the unsimulated fellatio that Chloë Sevigny gave her director in the movie.

Needles to say, his films might not appeal to everyone but seeing as I am a fan of writer / directors and independent film this certainly tickled my fancy. The movie was honest, sincere, funny, a little out there but was able to show just the right amount of emotion and depth at exactly the right moments without becoming sentimental or cheap.

"All literature is gossip."—Truman Capote

I have been a big Truman Capote fan for a while, actually ever since I read the classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s about ten years ago. When I was a little girl I was simply in awe of the beautiful Audrey Hepburn as the dazzling hooker heroine Holly Golightly (what’s in a name?) in the 1961 film adaptation. A true gem of style, sophistication and cynicism if there ever was one.

Capote is renowned for his tales involving love, loss and the upper class wrapped in a tight package of sympathy and a light-hearted bow to match. Needless to say, the perfect reading matter for a long hot summer.

Capote himself was an exuberant society figure ( a real contemporary dandy) who started his career as a writer for various magazines (including the prestigious New Yorker) and became a full-fledged author when his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms came out in 1948. His life and career were glitz and glamour all the way until he started writing the “non-fiction” novel In Cold Blood. From this point on his life and career were criticised even more than before. This important chapter in his life (which would eventually also lead to his downfall) became the subject matter of not one but two movies: Capote and Infamous.

Intrigued by a newspaper article about a murder in a small town in Kansas, the legendary Truman Capote starts his own investigation while at the same time portraying the effect of the heinous crime on the community. He and his Pulitzer Prize-winning best friend Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) head of to Holcomb Kansas. Truman decides that there is so much more to the story and turns it into his next book, one that he wants to write with a little help from the convicted killers (hence the non-fiction part). The openly gay Capote eventually ends up falling for one of the men which adds an extra layer to the plot. This especially leads to personal turmoil seeing as he needs both men to die in order to have an ending to his magnum opus.

A year before Infamous (although recently released in Belgium, it dates back from 2006) the sensational Capote was released in which Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a sublime performance as the tragic Capote. The stories are exactly the same but stylistically both movies are worlds apart. Infamous is bold, bright and out there like Truman himself. The movies also zooms in a bit more on the society aspect of Capote’s life whereas the in all other areas superior Capote turns the story into a more demure, emotional and factual account of the event. Capote’s relationship with inmate Perry Smith is portrayed with same delicacy and beauty as a Faberge egg in the lather while Infamous gets straight to the point resulting in some head on action between Toby Jones and Daniel (Bond) Craig. These conflicting approaches (the sedate vs the spectacular) are also immediately clear by simply looking at the movie posters.

Toby Jones was funny but lacked the emotional depth and the authenticity of the Academy Award-winning Hoffman. Maybe I am biased seeing as in my opinion Hoffman can do no wrong (ex. Happiness, Magnolia, State and Main, only to name a few) but Jones’ portrayal only enhanced the caricature that Capote became. Normally I am all for a little abundance but in this case it is hard to create an accurate depiction without ridicule seeing as Truman Capote was no ordinary fellow ( best known for his small stature, high pitched voice and offbeat clothing) and even without his brilliant books (especially the controversial In Cold Blood), he would have probably become as the title suggests infamous. This is also the reason why it is easy to get caught up in the persona for sheer entertainment value (hence also Infamous’ star studded cast) and lose sight of the man, the story and the impact they created.

Welcome to my blog!

Why a blog, some of you might ask. Simple, so I can share my profound and tantalizing opinions about books, movies, everyday life and whatever catches my fancy with the world. Enjoy and don’t be afraid te speak up.

- Ginny Jones -