A Massacre and a Tea Party

Summer in SoCal took a little detour into NY and Boston where my cousin was looking at potential colleges. I donned the role of chauffer during the trip, but was able to get my fix of fine art in the area. While the fam was mingling around Columbia and NYU, I took to the Met again. Ah, here we have one of my favorite Monet's "La Grenouillere." I was also really into Manet's "Matador" this time around for some reason.

Boston on the other hand was completely new to me. It is as far as I'm concerned as beautiful a city as everyone claims it to be. Numerous campus tours prevented me from going to the Fine Arts Museum, but I did make it a point to peek into the Public Library to see the Sargent murals. Overall, Boston was great. It's also the only city where you can have both a massacre and a tea party...

Spring Breakdown: Day 2

Day two begins with the huge swooping crane camera shot over the pool. By the way, our hotel pool is never nearly this crowded and in reality it is probably grossly over fire code capacity. I used to think they just let extras run around and be natural but the process is actually an intentionally orchestrated movement of characters. In other news, I may have surreptitiously weaseled my way into the background of this shot but I'll have to wait until the final movie comes out to see if I made it in.

Off to the side of the pool is the table where the main characters sit, fully clothed and completely shying away from the spring break action. In observing the movie making process today, I learned that actors actually do a lot of sitting and waiting around while frantic crew set up shots and lighting. In this photo we have Sarah Hagan, Amber Tamblyn (aka Joan of Arcadia) and Parker Posey chatting with the director between takes. If you want to see more pics, contact me. In the meantime, enjoy the new video clips below.

Click here to watch the camera crane shot in action.
Click here to see a take of the "nerdy" characters acting nerdy.
Click here to see an actual take with Dratch, Poehler, and Pyle.
Click here for the "cut" portion of the scene above.

Spring Breakdown: Day 1

I woke this morning to the sight of a giant WB truck out front only to find that a movie entitled "Spring Breakdown" was being filmed at our hotel. Yes that's Parker Posey, Amy Poehler, and Rachel Dratch in the photo. It looks like the story revolves around three middle-age women who decide to hit up a college style spring break in South Padre.

Click right here to see filming in action. The scene shows the three conservatively dressed women showing up at the hotel for the first time, surprised by the throngs of spring breakers abound. The pool area has been transformed into a party zone but no filming has taken place there yet. More pictures later.

Using Your Head Painfully

What the? What on God's soccer-ridden earth could compel Zidane to throw a head butt in the final minutes of overtime in today's final and get ejected? We can only speculate about the trash talk involved, but this could go down as one of civilizations great unsolved mysteries. Who really built the pyramids?? What did Materazzi say to Zidane??

Gettin' Down in Irvine Town

Look what I painted! Yeah right. This is Frank Meyer's "The Charleston" as I saw it at the Irvine Museum yesterday. Typically dedicated to early California landscapes, the museum is currently showing art of California expressionists, influenced by the German movement. Apparently the Irvine family has quite the extensive collection.

In the meantime, I have World Cup fever and I'm addicted to yellow kiwi fruit from New Zealand...

California: Part Dos

Finally back in Southern California! Blazing sun? Endless traffic? Yep, it's all still here in all it's glory. After a long painting hiatus, I finally took a stab at a small landscape while visiting an Indian reservation casino called Pala (named after the tribe) nestled awkwardly in the mountains outside of San Diego. I'm no big gambler but I figured driving my dad and his friends to the desolate entertainment destination would be a good chance to see some mountains and farms. For the record, I was right...