Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are the funniest, most comically brilliant duo I have ever known. They met in 1978 while attending the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Their French & Saunders comedy show spoofs movies, tv, and pop culture in a hilarious way. Add to that the BBC’s amazing production quality and their spoofs are just so dead on. They’ve spoofed Madonna, Fellini, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as well as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I love that their subject matter ranges from the very high brow to the common everyday. And what pulls it all together is the amazing chemistry between them.

A lot of folks are more familiar with their later work, Absolutely Fabulous, which I also adore. They still put on French & Saunders Christmas specials, which we can’t really get in the states, but youtube has a lot of their work and you can also order it on netflix. I highly recommend checking their stuff out.

I was reading the six feet under fan site because I am totally obsessed when I came across this artist. I just love dioramas and I want to start creating a new series of them as soon as I get the chance. Matt Burlingame’s work is completely dark, surreal, and creepy. Some of his creations are actually a bit too violent for my taste, but for the most part I really love what he’s doing here. The photo below is a detail from Claire’s room in the six feet under house, and instead of beds all the characters have coffins to sleep in.

And by the way, I had no idea the art in six feet under was all done by actual artists that were commissioned to do the works — how cool is that?

http://www.mattburlingame.com/index.html

My favorite television show of all time is undoubtably The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling is a creative genius. The sheer output from this man’s mind is just amazing. His screenplays all start with a brilliant kernel of an idea, into which he infuses an atmosphere of anxiety and dread, finished off with a twisted ending that really makes you think long after the program is over.

(Read on …)

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, filmed in 1962, stars Katherine Hepburn and Dean Stockwell as a morphine-addicted mother and her sensitive poetic son. Katherine Hepburn is intense and I must say a young Dean Stockwell is totally hot in this picture. The film explores the murky, depressing lives of four family members who are so mired in past mistakes that they can’t make any positive changes for themselves.

Written by Eugene O’Neill, this classic play was never meant to be seen on stage, as he had a lawyer draw up a contract sealing the manuscript away. Somehow O’Neill’s wife got around this and that is why we can appreciate this work of art today. Deeply personal, the play draws from O’Neill’s own family life growing up.

Relentlessly throughout the entire film, the characters attack each other and blame each other for their own problems, while all the time trying to escape their own pain using alcohol and drugs. It’s a powerful movie that has a great deal of resonance for people today.

The movie was beautifully shot on City Island, and the house on Tier Street where most of the action takes place is still standing. A photo of the house can be seen on Forgotten New York’s amazing City Island page.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie “Crash” but I think the line when Sandra Bullock’s character says “I am angry all the time… and I don’t know why.” was such an interesting statement. Because I feel that way a lot of the time, just angry.

There is something about modern life, the fast-pacedness of it, and the anonomity of it, that leaves us feeling totally alienated and angry. We just want to lash out at other people because we don’t know what to do with the feeling. There’s a lack of feeling that we’re connected to others and responsible for the welfare of the world.

I don’t have all the answers to it but I do think it starts by looking within and asking yourself if what you’re doing is helping mankind or if you’re just selling your talents and your soul away. You have to do a lot of soul-searching and stop sleepwalking through life to break out of the cycle of anger. Anger’s like a subtle (or not so subtle) knocking at the door saying that something’s not right, and that you’re compromising your values.

One of my favorite commercials of all time was an IFC satirical spot about a 5-year old director named Christie, played by Hallie Kate Eisenberg. Lili Taylor appears in the commercial about a very difficult to work with and independently-minded film director.

Says Christie, “I call my film Horses are Pretty, because well, Horses are Pretty”.

Christie’s first film was Oogie Boogie Booger. And apparently if she doesn’t like your acting, she bites you.

I did a search but I can’t find this video anywhere. I have to see these commercials again they are brilliant. Maybe I’ll ask the Museum of TV and Radio where I used to work, or IFC. If you see it out there anywhere please let me know.

The Magic Garden was this amazing kid’s show that was on in the seventies in the New York tri-state area. It was a very creative show, with two young hippie women and their crazy puppet characters. My favorite part was the story box, which they would open, and inside were all these awesome props and costumes you could wear and then they would make a story out of whatever happened to be in the box. I remember the sweet anticipation of waiting to find out what was in that box! If you remember the show and love it like I do, you can listen to the songs here, and get all sentimental.

MTV used to be so much fun. I would sit for hours watching videos, from the 80s new wave stuff all the way to college when I’d watch 120 minutes. Well, now it’s hard to see videos on MTV anymore what with all the reality shows. Yes, I know, there are new MTV channels out there that do show videos but it’s just not the same. Enter Videos at antville, where people post links to videos they’ve found online. You can search your favorite bands or just browse to see what’s out there. There are a lot of very artistic and just cool videos and this is pretty much the only place you can see some of them nowadays.

Antville

The 1940s house was a great “reality” series on BBC, where a family has to live in a 1940s house, dress like it’s the 1940s, eat and basically live like it’s WWII era-Britian. The family they chose is kinda lame, I have to say, but other than that it was really interesting. They really learned about all the sacrifices people had to go through during that time. I loved when they put the family through fake air raids and bombings. And it was interesting to watch them grapple with dwindling supplies of everything from milk to soap. I think watching it you really get a sense of how lavish our lifestyles are nowadays, and how what we think of as a necessity really is a luxury. This is in my opinion one of the better of all the “Live in a different era House” series that have been on the BBC and PBS over the years.

So Chloe won! I thought she rocked the final project of putting together your own collection. I’ve talked about Project Runway here before, but it’s just really addictive. I thought that Santino also did pretty well with the final, and I was torn between Santino and Chloe but Daniel’s collection was very uneven. I always thought the whole season Santino would win because he was the most passionate, and took risks. Chloe definitely lacks the charisma of Santino, and doesn’t seem like a designer personality. But what she has is a real understanding of women and what looks good on them. I think ultimately that’s very important in real world fashion design, because who really wears all the weird feather and shredded outfits?