Kathy Hilton is getting a reality TV show. She’ll teach some young bumpkins what they really need to do to get head. A head. Ahead in NYC. How to please a man. Manhattan. How to please Manhattan Society.
Bob Morris’s Style section piece is so breezily damning, she’ll probably think it’s good and have it framed. Or not. After all, “Her friends say she is smarter than she appears.”
“Anyone who knows Kathy Hilton (and many society women do), knows she has always taken the job of being a parent seriously,” writes Morris, who accompanied Hilton home from Cipriani, where she attended an afternoon fur fashion show. “Back in the lobby of the Waldorf Towers, she ran smack into her son Conrad, 10, in soccer gear.
“‘Hi Conrad,’ she said. ‘How was the game?'”
Yes, she’s a profound influence on her children. And she’ll share her secrets with you–this fall on NBC!
[update: if you’re a hillbilly with more back hair than than shame, get yourself over to the audition at Tavern on the Green, “where we’ve replaced the washed up publicity whores they normally serve with Kathy Hilton!” Thanks, Gawker.]
Author: greg
Interpol Short Film Contest
If it’s too late for you to get the money and the inspiration for your short film from Nike–and it is–try Interpol. Matador Records will “fund” ten short films “inspired by the music and aesthetic of the band.” I put “fund” in quotes because they’re only ponying up $1,000, so no tsunamis flooding midtown.
First, write a treatment, put a storyboard together, shoot a demo or a trailer, whatever you need to explain what you want to do. Get it to Matador by July 5th.
The band will personally choose the ten treatments that “most interestingly embody the spirit of their music in the cinematic form.” The only restrictions: 1)if you use music, it can only be from the clip of the new song they provide, and 2) NO MUSIC VIDEO. Oh, and “help us out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves into” “Black is not the only color.”
Details are all at Matador’s site, where you can also watch Interpol’s music videos–remember, NO MUSIC VIDEO–by Doug Aitken and Christopher Mills. [via The Fold Drop]
Related [?]:
Moby to advise on Joy Division biopic/murder mystery movie
Ex-boy band member fined for soliciting “prostitute” from his moped
[Update: The Joy Division movie is on, but not with Moby, and not with Jude Law (?). Apparently, dueling groups had options that expired, but they announced it anyway, &c, &c. via TMN]
Upcoming Sonic Youth CD now on WPS1
WPS1.org, the online audio program of PS1, has been up for a few weeks now, and it’s getting better. Some listening tips:
Weblog about Filmmaking about Nike
It’s not just for banner ads anymore.
Nick, Choire & co. launched Art of Speed, a weblog-formatted microsite for Nike that’ll run for three weeks on Gawker.
Art of Speed runs with ideas about filmmaking and web-based marketing that got a lot of attention in the BMWFilms campaign. Through Ridley Scott’s production company, BMW commissioned established directors (John Frankenheimer, John Woo, Guy Ritchie) to create short films with independent narratives, but two recurring stars: the cars, and that guy from Croupier.
After BMW, Ford, JWT and Atom Films launched Focus in Films, a series of forgettable shorts by “independent filmmakers” starring the Ford Focus. Nike’s approach, to ask “15 talented young filmmakers” to make shorts on the idea of speed, follows Ford’s strategy. But as Gawker’s post points out, this kind of sponsor-driven programming “can be done well, or badly.” I’m hoping Gawker’s Art of Speed is the former.
So much for real-time
I went to Houston last week for the opening of an amazing show at the Menil Collection, photographs by Olafur Eliasson. Of course, my post about it is now like a 10,000-word essay, which I don’t know if even I’ll ever read.
So in the mean time, check out the show, and the Times article on the de Menil’s Philip Johnson-designed house, which was a sharp International Style stick in the eye of Tara-style 1950’s Houston.
Talk About Lost in Translation…
J. Hoberman interviewed Ghost in the Shell anime director Oshii Mamoru at Cannes, where he screened his latest work, Innocence. As Hoberman reports it, the interview was straight out of the Keanu junket in Lost in Translation, with the director himself barely speaking and the Japanese translator answering for him on auto-pilot.
Totemo mendokusai.
Yet Another NYMDb
Ms. (Katherine) Milkman (Princeton ’04), who has a minor in American studies, read 442 stories printed in The New Yorker from Oct. 5, 1992, to Sept. 17, 2001, and built a substantial database. She then constructed a series of rococo mathematical tests to discern, among other things, whether certain fiction editors at the magazine had a specific impact on the type of fiction that was published, the sex of authors and the race of characters…
Among Ms. Milkman’s least shocking findings was that characters in New Yorker fiction tend to live in the same places New Yorker readers do, not the United States as a whole…
Ms. Milkman is by all accounts, including her own, a normal college student.
– David Carr, reporting on Ms Milkman’s senior thesis in the NY Times
Geezers, Screenwriters & Directors
It’s my guess that we cling to the harsher bits of the past not just as a warning system to remind us that the next Indian raid or suddenly veering, tower-bound 757 is always waiting but as a passport to connect us to the rest of the world, whose horrors are available each morning and evening on television or in the Times. And the cold moment that returns to mind and sticks there, unbidden, may be preferable to the alternative and much longer blank spaces, whole months and years wiped clear of color or conversation. Like it or not, we geezers are not the curators of this unstable repository of trifling or tragic days but only the screenwriters and directors of the latest revival.
-Roger Angell, “Life in rerun, now playing near you.” >The New Yorker, Issue of 2004-06-07
The Polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky
It seems hard to imagine Tarkovsky doing something so instant, but apparently he took Polaroids all the time. Looking at the few illustrated in the Guardian, though, they’re uncommonly beautiful. The director’s son provides brief comments, and he’s collected several dozen photos into a book.
Instant Light, Tarkovsky Polaroids, from Thames and Hudson (UK)
Bloghdad.com/Neighborhood_Thai
Apparently, Paul Wolfowitz and I have something in common: our neighborhood Thai restaurant. We’re in DC for the weekend, eating at Sala Thai, and he walks in alone, with a newspaper under his arm. Makes a beeline for the bar, where he orders, reads his paper–in far more peace than he’s brought on the world–gets his takeout, and leaves.
Related: Al Gore calls for wholesale resignations of the dangerous architects of disgraceful Iraq and terrorism fiascos, including our neighbor, Paul Wolfowitz. Read the transcript, or watch the video.
Bloghdad.com/Neighborhood_Thai
Apparently, Paul Wolfowitz and I have something in common: our neighborhood Thai restaurant. We’re in DC for the weekend, eating at Sala Thai, and he walks in alone, with a newspaper under his arm. Makes a beeline for the bar, where he orders, reads his paper–in far more peace than he’s brought on the world–gets his takeout, and leaves.
Related: Al Gore calls for wholesale resignations of the dangerous architects of disgraceful Iraq and terrorism fiascos, including our neighbor, Paul Wolfowitz. Read the transcript, or watch the video.
The Making of Michael Moore’s Passion
The similarities between Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, and Farenheit 9/11 and The Passion are worth noting. Let’s see: zealots with messiah complexes? Yep. Threat of damnation if film’s message isn’t heeded? Check. Sensationalistic cineporn tactics to reach beyond true believers? Yep. Special guest star: Satan? Uh-huh. Out to make so much money their directors’ll have an easier time passing a camel through the eye of a needle? Check and checkmate.
At The Hot Button, David Poland gets all New York Review of Books on Moore’s ass, pointing out, with cool and logic, the inconsistencies and contradictions in the creation myth that’s being preached about Farenheit 9/11 and its marketing. It’s a great read, and he’s right–Moore’s inaccurate depiction of the Disney Sanhedrin is distorted and inflammatory.
Likewise, Gibson claimed of biblical accuracy for his film, when in fact, it drew heavily from the ecstatic visions of one 19th century German nuncase. That scholars and serious theologians–and experienced religion reporters pointed those discrepancies out had approximately zero impact on the film’s reception.
The Passion looms over F911 in another way: Weinstein and Moore are demanding a King of the Jews’ ransom for the right to distribute a film that could hit the box office like The Second Coming.
[via Greencine]
The Making of Michael Moore’s Passion
The similarities between Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, and Farenheit 9/11 and The Passion are worth noting. Let’s see: zealots with messiah complexes? Yep. Threat of damnation if film’s message isn’t heeded? Check. Sensationalistic cineporn tactics to reach beyond true believers? Yep. Special guest star: Satan? Uh-huh. Out to make so much money their directors’ll have an easier time passing a camel through the eye of a needle? Check and checkmate.
At The Hot Button, David Poland gets all New York Review of Books on Moore’s ass, pointing out, with cool and logic, the inconsistencies and contradictions in the creation myth that’s being preached about Farenheit 9/11 and its marketing. It’s a great read, and he’s right–Moore’s inaccurate depiction of the Disney Sanhedrin is distorted and inflammatory.
Likewise, Gibson claimed of biblical accuracy for his film, when in fact, it drew heavily from the ecstatic visions of one 19th century German nuncase. That scholars and serious theologians–and experienced religion reporters pointed those discrepancies out had approximately zero impact on the film’s reception.
The Passion looms over F911 in another way: Weinstein and Moore are demanding a King of the Jews’ ransom for the right to distribute a film that could hit the box office like The Second Coming.
[via Greencine]
Imagine there is no Hell
Ouch. a 10,000sf warehouse of Momart, the leading art handler/storage company in the UK, burned to the ground yesterday, taking an as-yet unknown number of major Brit Art works with it. The Guardian has some speculative details on what burned, including Jake and Dinos Chapman’s massive installation, Hell, but there’s still a lot that’s not known.
If Charles Saatchi believed in karma, this would be devastating to him right now. But unless he’s actively trying to come back as a worm, he doesn’t so, never mind. [via MAN]
Update: I’ve rewritten the title for this post half a dozen times. My initial impulse of shock still stands, but the close second–schadenfreude over Saatchi’s misfortune–is untenable. It really is–sorry, Charlie–not about you. Jonathan Jones visits the site an reflects on the ashes of Hell.
Imagine there is no Hell
Ouch. a 10,000sf warehouse of Momart, the leading art handler/storage company in the UK, burned to the ground yesterday, taking an as-yet unknown number of major Brit Art works with it. The Guardian has some speculative details on what burned, including Jake and Dinos Chapman’s massive installation, Hell, but there’s still a lot that’s not known.
If Charles Saatchi believed in karma, this would be devastating to him right now. But unless he’s actively trying to come back as a worm, he doesn’t so, never mind. [via MAN]
Update: I’ve rewritten the title for this post half a dozen times. My initial impulse of shock still stands, but the close second–schadenfreude over Saatchi’s misfortune–is untenable. It really is–sorry, Charlie–not about you. Jonathan Jones visits the site an reflects on the ashes of Hell.