Update on Purpose
The summer series is over. I am going to leave this page up for reference (especially for the linked lists on the left) and may occasionally post on the topic.
Rocco & His Brothers
Updated Schedule Coming Soon
We've had to slow things down a bit for many reasons (mostly lame and revolving around deadlines), but will return with a new schedule soon. Isn't Tron magical?
Week 5 - The Promise, Aug 9 2006
Suspiria! Finally! This is an amazing horror classic. An excellent review written by Ed Gonzalez at Slant Magazine can be read here. On an architectural note, the Dance Academy highlighted is a famous historical building built in 1516 named Zum Walfisch ("The Whale") in Freiburg, Germany. Humanist philosopher Erasmus von Rotterdam lived there from 1529 to 1531.
My Architect - Week 3 - July 5 2006
Here is a graph of this website. The blue are the links!
An evening of Playtime - PRE-PARTY
So for the next film showing, we are having a little pre-party. The last movie was the first one and one lesson we learned is that it's hard for everyone to make an 8:30pm movie on a Wednesday night. Ok we knew that. But we can try to make the night events begin earlier. Between 7:00-8:00 we have a real DJ (and real friend to do this for us) that's going to spin and loan giant speakers for the movie. Then the movie will start at 8pm. Of course this will be a good time so work late and stop by!
Click image to enlarge flyer,A little about why Playtime was chosen...because it is THE movie on architecture. We simply could not do this summer series without it. To make this film, Jacques Tati re-built new Paris outside of new Paris. Three times removed from the heart (and a fourth if you consider the medium) the humans left in the highly stylish modern world have to figure out how to live in the new. Don't misunderstand - this is not a futuristic sci-fi low budget flick - its comedy, commentary and a little bit of a drama. Tati nearly went broke making Playtime. And the architecture he built is what corporate firms still strive to create every day. I'm not kidding. But also I should say that Playtime is a grower. Its greatness may not be very obvious to someone who just saw the 3rd X-Men movie. But every time I see it I'm amazed by something that I hadn't noticed before. So while not always overly stimulating, it's always beautiful and always saying something despite a near absence of real dialogue.
L.A. Story Recap
Thanks to everyone who attended the first movie in the series. Everything went smoothly and the movie was great. It's exactly the type of low-key entertainment that feeds creativity and thoughtfulness. While not as visually stunning as some of the films in the summer series, it's acute commentaries are extemely relevant to the design world. Steve Martin surprised me with his level of wit and the supporting cast was great. I could have done without the walking through the Hollywood neon-holding hands-turning into children montage. Otherwise, the movie really does have a lot of commentary on planning and architecture, along with a lot of memorable images of LA’s built environment. Some of the best jokes were about the McMansions and car culture.
LA Story is not completely an indictment of bad planning, bad architecture or urban sprawl (even though they are all repeatedly mocked), because, in the end, it actually seemed like a valentine to the city. The LA depicted in LA Story isn’t a city seething with crime, racial tension, isolation or turmoil – it is a city of possibilities – it is a city of love. Albeit sappy love drenched in late 80's cinematography.. This is a very narrow view of a city with a lot of blight - in all senses of the word. Maybe the most perverse illustration of the film’s tendency to overlook the real problems caused by LA’s car culture, is that the voice of God (or, at least, Fate) speaks through a Highway sign and ultimately brings two people together. In doing so, the film almost seems to say “See this traffic and pollution isn’t so bad". I mean he does make it to work in record time by tearing apart infrastructure.
Here's a list of some of the buildings and landmarks that appeared in the movie,
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through which Steve Martin’s character rollerskates)
The Museum of Contemporary Art
The now demolished Ambassador Hotel (the trendy restaurant)
The old Bank of America building (where Martin reviews his finances in an attempt to obtain a restaurant reservation)
The Tail of the Pup (the iconic hot dog stand)
The Gilmore Service Station, both represent the lost Golden age of Hollywood
Poster of Events
Click on image to enlarge the poster,
Week 1, June 7 - L.A. Story
Week 2, June 21 - Playtime
Week 3, July 5 - My Architect
Week 4, July 19 - Suspiria
Week 5, August 2 - The Promise
Week 6, August 16 - Tron
Week 7, August 30 - Castle in the Sky
L.A. Story, Week 1 - Jun 7 2006
L.A. Story is a film written by and starring Steve Martin. You can probably guess from the title that it's a story about Los Angeles. It was released in 1991 and has themes ranging from stereotypical LA vanity to stereotypical LA sprawl. I'm not very good at writing real reviews, so I found a good one
here.
Interestingly enough, Steve Martin played an architect in
Housesitter the year after this was made. Also, L.A. Story was featured in a National Building Museum film festival last year.
L.A. Architecture and architects of note:
Morphosis - amazing siteFrank GehryEric Owen MossRichard and Dion Neutra ArchitectureWes Jones
Richard MeierSciArcTons of good information @
you are here.
Why these films?
In anticipation of the question of why these films were chosen, I should give a little background on the selection process and it's goals. The #1 goal is to get together as a group (friends and family), watch a good film and have a good time. Simple. Thus we tried to pick films that were #1 - visually stimulating and sensitive to the built environment, #2 enjoyable to watch, #3 hopefully under 2 hours and #4 represent as many genres and time periods as possible. Believe me, most filmmakers that care about architecture don't care about keeping you entertained at a Hollywood pace crafted for a society on ritalin. SO, what we ended up with was to starting the series off lightly with a film from the early 90's about Los Angeles and then moving into french comedy/commentary on modern life and its architecture from the 1960's, a recent documentary, a horror film from the 70's, a very recent drama from China, a sci-fi movie from the 80's and ending on another light note with an animated film. Every one of these films has a great story that will be told in future posts and before the film is shown.
