Tatooine

↑ Carrie Fisher with her Stunt Double on the set of Empire Strikes Back (1980) / via

Ronin Sweaters

      This week, I discovered the fresh and deliberate storytelling of director John Frankenheimer. His patient heist film Ronin (1998) was a thrill to watch and had the strong and steady pulse of a handsome European racing cyclist. Natascha McElhone really nailed the enigmatic and icy Irish lass Deirdre. So did costume designer May Routh:

Aerial Fancies

      Aerial vantage points provide the oddest perspectives.  Once upon a time — I was standing tiptoes on a chair in the kitchen trying to reach a far-away basket of snacks.  Up on the chair, I discovered that the top of the fridge was caked with a fine layer of fudgy kitchen dust. It was the first time I noticed that our old blue and green oriental rug told a story about birds eating berries.

↑ Tulip Farm - Netherlands via True Activist

↑ Tulip Farms of Holland, photographer unknown

↑ "San Francisco Bay salt flats" by Michael Layefski

↑ "Potash evaporation ponds with blue dye near Moab, Utah..." by Kevin Beebe

↑ "Evaporation Ponds" by Jesse Varner

          In a roundabout way, we arrive back to tulips in Holland with my favorite duo of design - Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten (1977). This amazing and a legendary little film, which profoundly ponders structure and scale, was based on the essay "Cosmic View" by Dutch scholar Kees Boeke.

Smoke Bomb

      I would love to experiment with colored smoke bombs but, when you live on an island, using flares and distress signals for art will warrant a visit from the coast guard. Even inland. So, you know. Excitinnnng!

↑ Vita Cagnone for D-Mode Magazine by Antonella Arismendi

↑ Untitled by ▲ Levitsky

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 2 by Filippo Minelli

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 11 by Filippo Minelli

      Roger Moore's James Bond gets desperately creative with a smoke flare in A View To A Kill (1985)

So, like, PRETTY MUCH: During a snowy downhill chase, an orange Commie helicopter blows up Bond's orange stolen Commie snowmobile and he uses the broken ski from the now defunct Commie snowmobile to shred down the glacial mountain doing 'gnar tricks 'n cliff jumps (Tom Sims) while dodging Commie machine gun fire (all while wearing a white parka trimmed with fur and makin' it look, like, so easy) and when he gets to the bottom of the mountain the orange Commie helicopter is still raining bullets down so he grabs for his pack and draws out a distress flare and with a practiced hand shoots is straight into the cabin of the 'copter and the Commie pilots are pissed and they start spinning out of control in a beautiful haze of smoke, blaze orange against the white snow and blue sky, and then they BLOW UP. James Bond then makes his way to a submarine disguised as an iceberg where a beautiful scantily clad babe is waiting for him to make out with her.

Goldfinger Brownjohn

      Simplistic in concept and artfully minimal in design, artistic director Robert Brownjohn's title sequence for Goldfinger (1964) is perfectly executed.  What a brilliant idea to project sequences from the film onto the gilded body of glorious 'glamour-girl' Margaret Nolan!  A simple/cheeky idea, meticulously executed + perfect typography + the velvet rumble of Shirley Bassey = quintessentially sexy spy-junk history! His piece is not only timelessly modern and sophisticated, but stands alone as one of the most iconic pieces of 1960's design and cinema.


      SPEAKING of which... One of the MoMA's exciting recent acquisitions is none other than a series of photographs by Herbert Spencer which document Robert Brownjohn's preparatory studies for the Goldfinger title sequence! NYC friends, this collection is being presented in conjunction with the film exhibition 50 Years of James Bond and is on display until March 18th, 2013. The following are just a few of the photographs on exhibition. So beautiful:

Supernatural Women, part 1

      Hello Milla Jovovich, supernatural babe extrordinaire! This woman sure does know how to work in front of a camera. Here are some screen-tests for Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997) in which Milla is portraying supernatural 'Fifth Element' Lee-Loo. Watching her work as this unknown element / supreme being is like witnessing her mining the stuff out of space rocks or something.




      Then, of course, there's Jean Paul Gaultier.  For me, it's his freakiest stuff that's the best; on the runway, I love his languid females in rubber nurses outfits the best.  In The Fifth Element it's apparent that he's had his hand in a dystopian futuristic honeypot and touched every outfit in the film.  Here is Milla on camera in what would someday become Burning Man's most signature outfits. (Hello Day-Glo orange rubber suspenders! Gold scuba pants! White Bandage Jumper!!)