This is my first design update, wich I will post monthly (hopefully), in which I will feature great architecture, design, fashion and photography. Click the photos to see larger pictures.
Firstly, I love to dream, so most of the items will be way out of my price range. And thats why I'd like to start with this bautiful house by Rodney Walker, on sale at Crosby Doe Associates, with a price tag marked just under whopping $4 Millions. This beautiful house in wine-county Ojai, CA is a real eye-cathcer with the roof design you can see on the pic below. Better start saving then.
Another house that caught my attention was featured in Vanity Fair few months back. A cross between jungle and concrete jungle. This genius work of art by architect firm Herzog & de Meuron has so much details and great spaces. Photographs by Todd Eberle.
I
also found nice article about a certain great comedy, and the
architecture and interior design featured in it. Guess the show from the
picture? Full article at Arcihtectural Digest.
Then a bit about interior design. I don't particulary like this room at the top of Four Seasons NY hotel, by Peter Marino, but the photo is stunning, and I can't stop thinking about the view. The whole New York midtown at your feet. The coffee table and the lamp have cool designs too, but I'm not sure they really match the atmosphere of the room.
Mark Handforth's beatuiful piece of contemporary art, Electric Tree, should serve as inspiration to park design. Instead of cutting down the tree, make it a piece of art with simple lighting. The tree is piece of exhibition of the Museum of Contemporary Art at North Miami.
Here are some nice items I found this month. Including a chandelier from Roll&Hill, a wooden chair by Hugo Franca (which can weight up to one ton, so you wont be moving it around too much).
And here are some items with a very retro feeling. The bike from Brooklyn Cruiser and the Alarm Clock from Areaware.
With this beautiful phone, I'm starting to miss land line. And I know I grew up little after the arcade craze, but I wouldn't mind a table like this. Phone: DP 01 by Punkt, Table: Stealth by Arcadetables.
At the end I'd like to mention a great artist, with genius pieces. Olly Moss, who also provides Empire Magazine a redesigned poster for a current movie once a month. Here is one example, which I chose because it's Star Wars, no explains needed.. You can find more at his own site: ollymoss.com
The last week was packed with award shows including DGA, SGA and Sundance.
Obviously I haven't seen the films presented at the Sundance, but so far I've found atleast two I'd love to see. First is written, directed and starred in by Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother). It tells the story of a man who returns for a weekend to his old college, and comes involved with a student, played by indie-star Elizabeth Olsen. The second movie is called Smashed, starring Mary Elizabeth Winsted (playing Mary Todd Lincoln in the upcoming Lincoln-vampirehunter movie extravaganza), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Nick Offerman (Parks&Recreation), Megan Mullally (Will&Grace). It's basically about a teacher, who likes to get smashed, until one day, she doesn't, but with that cast it sounds smashing!
Big winner of Director's Guild Of America Awards was The Artist, with director Michel Hazanavicus taking home one of the most coveted awards among directors. In the modern world, any director who manages to astonish the whole world with a silent b&w-movie deserves the win. One of the other winners was Noam Murro, who won for achievement in commercial directing. One of his commercial releases of the year was this amazing trailer for video game Battlefield 3, wich blurs the line between reality and game, mixing in-game footage and live-action film. Take a look and see if you notice the differences:
On Sunday, the Screen Actors Guild awards were held for the 18th time. The most prestigious award of the evening, the Award for Best Ensamble on Motion Picture, went to The Help. While it might not excel in direction or tech, it certainly earned award for the cast. The Help stars Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer won in Leading and Supporting Actress category respectively. The evening had some funny moments too, like when the cast of Bridesmaids shared a drinking game they inveted while on set: when some one says Scorsece, everyone takes drink. And the acceptance speech, as rehearsed as it seemed, by the child actors of Modern Family, especially Nolan Gould (plays Luke on the show), who was stopped by castmates before blurting out what ever comes to mind. All in all, the event was quick and beautiful, like SAG awards usually are. Next big awards are 12th Feb, GRAMMYS! Here is a promo for the evet, with design by architect Frank Gehry:
Lots going on in the TV world too. Tv companies went on a shopping spree and greenlit a bunch of series. Including Glee and American Horror Story- creator Ryan Murphy's new comedy The New Normal about a gay couple and their surrogate . Other comedies include How to Live with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life, about a divorced woman moving back in with her parents. Will&Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchinck have a new series coming out too, wich sounds a lot like their previous hit. This one is about a straight and gay man who have dysfuncitonal relationship, so Grace is just a man on this one.
Other ordered series include the basic comedy about twenty-somethings and one about strugglin LA newcomers. New soap opera about strugglin star in Texas was also approved. So expecting these on NBC, CBS and ABC at the end of this year or at the start of 2013.
In other news, White Collar-star Matt Bomer announced, that he will be appearing on Glee as the older brother of Blaine (Darren Criss). And Madonna revealed that the music video for her first release Give Me All Your Luvin from he upcoming album M.D.N.A. would air on 2nd Feb at American Idol, and fully released the following day. Looking forward to it!
And as a comedy relief at the end, on the long string of "S*it ____ Says", NBC released collection of the S*it Liz Lemon Says. After it was removed from their youtube-channel, I have to trust non-official channel, so this video might be removed sometime, but enjoy!!
Monthly design update coming tomorrow if I have time before leaving for Finland for couple of days, if I dont, it will be up next week. And remember the expected Michael Jackson episode on Glee this Tuesday!
Here is the full list of nominees. They were announced this Tuesday by actress (and last years' nominee) Jennifer Lawrence and Academy President Tom Sherak:
There were few surprises, mainly the acceptance of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as a Best Picture nominee and Rooney Mara's Best Actress Nomination for the film Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which I'm going to see this weekend, can't believe I've missed it!). And even though Harry Potter didn't get nominated for Best Picture, I was super glad to see that it got 3 nominations, and in categories that I think they have a good chance of winning (Visual Effects, Make Up, Art Direction). And although the Help only got 4 nominations, I'm happy to see that 3 of them came from acting, since that is where the movie excels.
There were so many great performances the past film year, so there were bound to be some snubs, especially in the acting categories. Likes of Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Albert Brooks (who told "Academy really hates me") didn't get nominations, and these were are plausible nominees, not just ones I wanted to see nominated. I was also very surprised not to see The Adventures of Tintin nominated after taking home the Golden Globe and Producers Guild Award for best Animated Feature Film.
Hugo leads the race with 11 nominations, and even though in the past 20 years, 15 times the winner has been the film with most nominations, the Artist remains as the general front runner for Best Picture, especially after its Producers Guild Award, wich remains as the most accurate prediction for Oscar Winner. And amazing footnote: with the dual nominations for the Best Score, John Williams reaches total of 47 nominations, wich is just incredible!
I was shocked when I saw the Best Original Song slot, 2 nominees!! What is wrong with the academy? Although it is a smaller category, I'd still like to see some effort, especially after there were so great contestants for that nomination, like Mary J. Blige, Madonna, Elton John and Zooey Deschanel. It seems like the academy is losing interest in the category, last year there were only 4 nominees. I'd like them to bring 1945 back, when there were 14 nominations. With only 2 contenders I'm expecting to see great performances from both. Here are the songs nominated:
I'd love to see the two white piano scene recreated on the Oscar night, with Jason Segal, Jim Parson and fellow Muppet's singing on stage. I'm not quite sure how seriously I can take this song, but this category has always favored "kid's" movies (remember all those golden Disney nominees?). The second song nominated is "Real in Rio" from the movie Rio. It includes part where the cast sings (Jesse Eisenberg, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am), but if that is too hard for the producers to put together, they might go with over the top samba-carnival type of performance with colours and feathers all over the place.
I'll be providing my picks for the categories in few weeks after seeing most of the nominated films. And don't forget the Screen Actors Guild awards this weekend, which will give us more info how the actor awards will go and off-course a star filled red carpet :)
Time for weekly update! Since this is my first proper post, I'd like to clarify some points.
I watch a lot, and I mean a lot, of comedy, including 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family etc. so there will be lot of updates of them.
I'm always interested in new series too, or older ones I'm not familiar with, since Finnish and Irish TV don't show all the best series. On the movie front, I love award shows, especially now that it is the season. I also follow new releases and upcoming movies.
Some of the most interesting events in film industry are happening this week, first there is the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, US. This festival focuses on the independent films. There are few films that have alreay popped out, but more from them after the festival is over.
And another big event, this years Oscar nominees will be revieled tomorrow! Exciting! I'm really looking forward to see wich movies got a Best Picture nod, and how many are there. After the change on AMPAS balloting, there can be anything between 5 to 10 nominees, wich means not all directors will get nominated in their respective category. I'm also waiting eagerly to see wich songs get nominated, since it provides sometimes a lot of surprises, espcially when compared to the Golden Globes. Last years Globe winner didn't even get an Oscar nomination, so we'll see what happens to Madonna, I'm guessing Elton John gets to rejoice, since her song doesn't really sound like Oscar winner to me.
I'm also excited to see how Harry Potter will do, there has been some buzz over the latest and final Potter movie in the internet, for example theWrap.com, wondering "Why can't Potter get some academy love?". As a total Potter fan, I hope they will get some recongition in the awards, since after the few nominations the series has garnered, it has never won an actual award. And to compare with The Return Of The King, I really think both are quality films and beautiful, and I wonder what the Lord of The Rings series has that Potter doesn't, my guess is that the academy is being bit snob and thinking that Potter is not mature enough. Though the Return of the King, didn't garner any actor nominations, there are some great performances in the Potter film, wich will get overshadowed by other films, not even at the BAFTA's did they get too much love, wich is their native country after all. And lets not forget that the film has gotten nothing but praise from critics too, it even won the Golden Tomato, given to a movie with the highest overall critical approval of the year, and that's something!
-Last week in my TV-
Last week few of my favourite series returned from their winter break, including Glee and New Girl. On Glee we finally saw Will propose to Emma, after all the speculation on how the photos of the cast singing at a swimming pool would connect to the plot line. Will popped the question, with the glee club singing Rihanna while attempting some synchronized swimming, nice effort, but good thing there were some professional swimmers too. After all, they can't let the water mess their make-up and hair.
New Girl was funny as usual, with the gang celebrating Scmidt's (Max Greenfield) birthday with some mid-life crisis included. This season at New Girl will also see Zooey pair up with actors such as Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) and Delmot Mulroney (to me he'll always be to cocky dude who tried to take Rachel's job at Friends after her return form maternity leave).
I also finally watched the pilot episode of Smash, wich will air February 6th on NBC. The pilot was made available to watch in iTunes and Amazon etc after all the buzz around the show. The musical-drama focuses on group of people working on new musical of Marilyn Monroe. And the cast includes my favourite Debra Messing (Will&Grace), she just has something that keeps me hooked. On the show the cast will preform original songs composed for the series, and few covers; like Christina Aguilera's Beautiful, wich was also available for free download on the show's Facebook site. It's definetly a show to keep an eye out for.
Also news for the Sex and The City fans, according to Hollywood Reporter, the SATC prequel Carrie Diaries is officially in production now. The series follows Carrie during her senior High School year. There has been a lot of buzz who will play her on the series, and I'm sure who ever they pick, will face a lot of critisism over the choice, but then again Sarah Jessica Parker obviously cant reprise her role as Carrie on the show, or atleast it wouldn't be very believable :). Also on the same post: Beauty and the Beast will be getting a revival, and I'm talking about the Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton verison now, making it a modern version of the classic fairytale. Comic-book hero Green Arrow will be getting himself a show too. Can't wait to see if it will be a succes like Smallville, or another adaption flop like the last year's attempt at Wonder Woman.
And happy news!! Cougar Town got its premiere date of February 14th, cant wait to see the cul-de-sac crew in action again!
One of my favourite series 30 Rock adressed on last weeks episode the controversy that actor Tracy Morgan caused with his innaproproate comments about homosexuals. Nevertheless the episode was hilarious with camos from Kelsey Grammer and Denise Richards (as the leader of idiots), and James Marsden appeard as the new boyfriend of Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon. Here is picture from NBC.com from last years episode, showing Tracey Jordan (Tracey Morgan) leading the protest of the idiots:
I'll be writing more updates later this week about the Academy Award nominations. And I also decided, that I will be writing a monthly post about design, art and fashion at the end of each month, so that it wont mess up my plans with the TV and film parts :)
I was watching the E! News Red Carpet show so the pre-show preview is pretty much based on that. I think E! has the best interviewers, Giuliana Rancic and Ryan Seacrest, who are total pro's and have been doing that so long, they really know their stars. Kelly Osbourne and Ross Matthews were in charge of the fashion commentary. Here are some moments from the red-carpet:
Among the first to arrive was host Ricky Gervais, it was speculated that he wanted to avoid awkward moments with another stars, though he might just have wanted to get the carpet over with, and focus on his hosting.
I know the powercouple Brangelina got a lot of attention, but I think nominee-Diane Lane and hubby-Josh Brolin acted most like a couple, opening about their regular life, doing dishes and laundry, altough Brangelina had "real people" moment as Bru said, when Pitt rushed to open the door fo his wife. After Pitt left E! stand, Ryan Seacrest could be heard saying that he feels guilty for makin Pitt walk the stairs up to the stand, since he was still walking with a cane after his accident, a cane wich George Clooney later used on the show as a prop when he introduced Moneyball.
Sarah Michelle Gellar also revealed that her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. was once Mr Golden Globe at the ceremony, altough admitting not remembering wich year. Michelle Williams arrived with her loyal friend Busy Phillips (Cougar Town) to the red-carpet. Sofia Vergara just made it to the #1 at my funniest actresses after her interview talking about her working out and dieting, when Modern Family co-star Julie Bowen joined her. Sofia told she would "slide" down the stairs. Another of her co-stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson revealed that Sofia calls stewardesses "plane-waitresses", after which Seacrest told he couldn't understand if she was talking about fitting or feeding when talking about her dress.
Glee's Mark Salling donned the mohawk as usual, can't wait to see what he does with it post-Glee. He also told Rancic that he thinks George Clooney seems "like a reasonable chap". Which he really seems like, and he also looked very happy with Stacy Kiebler. Another Glee-star Matthew Morrison seemed very happy about his characters upcoming proposal on Glee.
Nominee-Zooey Deschanel looked like he was still on her character for New Girl 60's promo photshoot from earlier this week. She even had little tuxedoes painted on her fingertips. Alongside hee was sister and actress Emily Deschanel (Bones). One of the most beautiful women of the evening was Charlize Theron, who unfortunately was suffering from laryngitis, and joked that she changed her voice to match the dress.
And there was one moment when E! acted like a true gossip show, when Modern Family-star Sarah Hyland had a little wardrobe malfunction after her zipper popped open, and E! sent cameras right after her to get the photos. She remained calm though and joked about it wih Giuliana.
One of the most expected guests on the red carpet was Natalie Portman, since this was her first proper appearance after having a baby, and she looked gorgeous. Another expected person was Madonna, who seemed litlle irritated at the press, she seemed to push her W.E. star Andrea Riseborough star in the front, to promote the movie and to avoid interviews. While Madonna was waiting to be interviewed (they made her wait!!), Ryan Seacrest asked Emma Stone, who was at spotlight at that moment, how she felt about Madonna standing behind her, she answered with deadpan face "It's pretty exciting". Maya Rudolph also joked about Madonna, saying that the photographers have funny way of yelling Maya's name, making it sound almost like Madonna.
Kelly brought up saphire blue as the most popular colour, and told that fishtail dresses were popular too. As I listened to the interviews, most popular designers seemed to be Zac Posen, Reem Acra and Naeem Khan along side with the fashion powerhouses. And Bvlgari seemed to be in charge of the jewellery of the evening. E! had some great ideas to bring the fashion forward, like StilettoCam, to show of the shoes, although I only saw it once in action with Octavia Spencer's Louboutins. And the GlamCam360 was a great idea, giving a full 360-degree unobstructed view of the dresses, some stars didnt make it to the cam though.
The ceremony it self, wich most stars decribed as the most fun award show, was great. Ricky Gervais was funny, but not outrageous. Although he managed to stun the audience, especially during the opening monologue there were some awkward faces. And I loved the look on Salma Hayek's and Jessica Biel's faces when Gervais made some comments about one particular scene in Bridesmaids, while introducing Melissa McCartney. But I must say the cameras shuttled around the room so the camera captured some funny moments there too, so Hayek and Biel might have just been casually talking. It is said that at Globes, the bigger the star the quieter the room is during their speeches.
Like I mentioned in my last post, the room was crowded. When people came up to accpet their awards, some had to rise off their chairs to let the winners through. There were some oopsies during the show too, like mic not working for a while, or the tele-prompter. We even saw one fall, when Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGover took tumble on the step to the stage when the crew accepted their award for mini-series. The show saw a great comeback too, when Madonna snapped back at Ricky while introducing her "like a virgin", she responded: "If I'm still like a virgin, we have to do something about it, it has been while since I kissed a girl.. on TV"
There were no real suprises that evening, since the categories in film are divided among drama and comedy, it really proves nothing that Scorcese won for direction while not for the film Hugo. Directors Guild of America is the most likely to show the real winner of the year, wich most likely will be the Artist. You can find the winners at the top of this post, but I think every win was deserved, it was great year for film and tv.
One of the stars yesteday was Uggie, the dog from the Artist, who got to play with the award too:
And here is the winner for Best Original Song, Masterpiece by Madonna, form movie W.E.:
New post coming up this week now that the Golden Globes are over....
It's time for my second favourite award ceremony (after the Oscars), the 69th Golden Globes, wich are to be held in LA today. Hosting, once again, will be Ricky Gervais. In the ceremony The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) will honor people working in the field of TV and Film.
Here is a small sneakpeek of the venue! This year there has been even more issues with the seating, because of all the ensamble movies nominated. But even still, star-power is guaranteed.
First up: the drama film categories. Best Film nominees were all pretty much guaranteed, though I'm sad not to see my favourite Melancholia on the list. Of the nominees, the Descendants seems like the most likely winner, though sadly I havent seen it, premieres 29th in Ireland. The Help would be my favourite win, mainly because of its superb cast, it really brings the movie to life. Not something I can say about Hugo. I really dont see the hype around that film, I know its Scorsese, but nothing in it brings it above average. Sure it isn't one of those 3D where you just wanna couge your eyes out, but it still wasn't enough, I know he can do better. But all in all, pretty solid nominees.
The acting category can provide surprises. George Clooney has recieved much buzz about his perfomance, but I'd like to think Brad Pitt or Leo DiCaprio have chances, but usually its the Oscars that award biopics. In the actress category Viola Davis is the frontrunner, after her emotional take as the help in the Help. Tilda Swinton was the star of We Need to Talk About Kevin, she gave truly daunting performance as the mother of Kevin who massacres his fellow students, father and sister. And again I must go on about Melancholia, Kirsten Dunst deserves recognition for her acting, I had no idea she could act like that! Hopefully she'll land an Oscar nomination, she did win Palm D'Or though.
In the comedy category the Artist is a pretty sure bet. With the awards it has gained already, it seems it will go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture too. It is a bit sad though, since the other nominees are beautiful films too. The Bridesmaids has defined all odds by getting such a great response from audiences and critics alike, but I doubt the HFPA will award a film wich features Maya Rudolph taking a dump in the middle of the street. In the actor category Jean Dujardin is my bet, though Ryan Gosling deserves some trophies (I would have wanted to see him them for his role in Drive). For me one of the hardest categories to pick winner from, was the comedy leading actress, since I havent seen all the performances there, but I'd like to see Kristen Wiig win, though Kate Winslet seems to pull all awards towards her.
And then we are on to the TV section: In the drama category, new-comer Homeland might prove to have what it takes to win. I'd like to see every single show to win Comedy/Musical category, but Modern Family proved at the Emmy's, that it is on a winning streak. And I'd love to see Modern Family actors to take home the supporting actor/actress trophies, mainly to see Sofia Vergara give an acceptance speech while getting emotional. As for the leading acting categories: Matt LeBlanc and Laura Dern have gotten some buzz for their work. Alec Baldwin would be also a great choice. Actress category is full of my favourites, I was suprised to see Zooey Deschanel get nominated, she deserves it, but might be a little bit too soon. Former SNL-members Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are both hilarious in their roles, but as the comedies blossom, so do the actresses, so I dont really care who wins, they all deserve to win.
I dont have time to go through all categories, but quick word about the Best Original Song. I was shocked not to see my favourite So Long by She&Him (Zooey Deschanel's band) from the Winnie The Pooh movie, unlike the Elton John song nominated, it has some heart too.
I'll post some update tomorrow about the winners, lets see if I had any guesses right.
and here to Deschanel-brainwash a small interview with her, and the song playing in the background:
I've been thinking about starting a blog now for a while, and now I finally decided to do it. Next step was to decide what kind of blog I want to write, and I figured I'd make a blog I would read. And the answer is entertainment, and I know its very broad field of interest, so let me clarify; mostly this will be about films and television, but I'd like to take chance at music and design too.
And what annoys me about most websites, is the constant flow of pointless news, so I'm going to make weekly blog (or try to keep it), so people wont have to check in all the time for random posts, but they can expect a post at a certain time of the week, like a magazine. Thats what the title is reference to, week number.
This week I haven't got much time to write, since I need to catch up on my Golden Globe nominees, some movies still left to check out. Here is good link to see the nominees, it also has nice piece on the films/actors/actresses that their staff think got snubbed. But we have to remember that it is the HFPA that chooses the winners, and they dont always (or ever) choose the blockbuster. I love Golden Globes because they honor TV too. Especially looking forward to the TV Comedy categories, so many good nominees and I dont think they'd like my idea to award them all... :)
And in the end I'd like to share a nice picture I found from Googly Gooeys. This blog will be bit of all those categories, but mostly film and tv :)
