Skip to content

METROPOLIS

“”

7/13/2011 New The Funny Women of the 21st Century

The trend began in 2007 with Ellen Paige's portrayal of a knocked-up teenage eccentric and made it all the way up to this year's group of screaming, dancing, vomiting bridesmaids; funny women have been making a comeback. There have always been countless film stars fulfilling the ideal of style, confidence, and poise; it's the classic quality with which they angle their heads, hold their drinks, angle their feet. Yet, I find that when it comes to filling the hours I allot in my schedule to mindless YouTube-ing, it is these new comediennes to whom I constantly return. It's Ellen Paige drawling "forshiz" and Emma Stone's adorable lisp and Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolf dancing like fools. It's that I constantly find my friends and I parroting their lines to one another like fools, and that I constantly find myself assuming their facial expressions.


6/10/2011 Groupies: A Tribute

One of Hollywood's main functions is to take regular people-- politicians, criminals, alien hunters-- and fabulize them until they become something you'd actually be willing to look at for 2 hours. In Cameron Crowe's 2000 film, Almost Famous, Kate Hudson plays a groupie, Penny Lane, like a sexy, effervescent sprite, as she dashes carelessly in and out of musician's hotel rooms and private jets. Her whole life seems very glamorous and exciting until the tour begins nearing New York where the band's wives await and Hudson is suddenly treated like a commodity, at one point bet by a band member in a poker game against 50 dollars and a pack of beer. In this way, the film somewhat touches upon the grim realities of groupiedom. It is, however, a Hollywood production, and thus Hudson never for a moment loses her glamour, morality, or desirability.

» » » Read more

6/01/2011 WORD TO THE WISE: ROOFTOP FILMS

Watching tourists walk around Times Square, you can see them looking around in a big mass of fanny-packed confusion for an actual New York resident. The sad truth of it is that Manhattanites are simply too cool to hang on the streets. In the winter, they hole up in the contaminated warmth of subway stops or, preferably, in cozy corner cafes. And now that it's summer you certainly won't find them blindly searching through their sweat for the nearest Duane Reade. No, the people of the city have taken to the roofs; there is really no reason for them to leave these cool, concrete heights, up there you can find everything you need: art, gardens, restaurants. Moreover, the roof is a unique experience in that it possesses the hard-to-find combination of being both scenic and illicit. An excellent example of this phenomenon in the Rooftop Films festival, gracing the city's roofs every summer.

» » » Read more

5/31/2011 ONLY IN NEW YORK


 
1. PERCHED PIGEONS ON GRECIAN FIGURE
2. INSIDE MOMA, AERIAL VIEW
3. UP IN ARMS

5/20/2011 Tipoff: Ryoji Ikeda's the transfinite

Occasionally I hear about something happening in the city that has me wishing I were cool enough to appreciate it--Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda's the transfinite is probably the perfect example. A visual and sound installation opening at the Park Avenue Armory, the transfinite is math-inspired, massive, and mostly just incredibly cool. It opens today at the 55,000 square foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall (643 Park between 66th and 67th) and will be up through June 11th.  For a cool $10 you too can stand in front of/on these enormous screens and contemplate the place of the digital in the modern world, or just stare mesmerized at some strobes. I mean, making the intellectual beautiful sounds like it's right in line for a great Art History comparison (Rivera's Man at the Crossroads? de Chirico's Song of Love? Just me?) but mostly the idea of a glowing data wall inside some huge steampunk aircraft hangar is just really kick-ass. Any hipsters out there feel like taking me up on this?


5/19/2011 ONLY IN NEW YORK



1. LADY GAGA "S" TRAIN
2. TRAILER PARK LOUNGE AND GRILL, 271 W. 23RD ST.
3. NOH SANG-KYOON, FOR THE WORSHIPPERS (2008)
(giant buddha made from sequins)

5/17/2011 BEER FASHION: A TRIBUTE

Getting dressed for my first outing back in my home state, Massachusetts, the thought I had as I was going out the door was, "You know what would really complete this outfit? A beer." I feel like people stereotype about Massachusetts; when I tell them where I'm from, I can see their imagined ring of pilgrims, cows and white picket fences circling my head. Consequently, they probably also assume that the residents of Massachusetts dress in multiple popped polos, madras shorts, and those leather loafers with the little sailboats emblazoned on the side. And, truly, in the town I live in, which is primarily inhabited by people with names like Worth Johnson and Clayton Sanders, people often do show up in shorts with crabs appliques all over them (obviously not understanding the irony inherent within this decision).

» » » Read more
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)