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Film and the Arts

Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson and Viva l’Italia Exhibit

On January 27th, from 7 to 9pm, PowerHouse Arena will host a book launch party for paparazzo Ron Galella’s new books Man in the Mirror and Viva l’Italia. Man in the Mirror is a tribute to the life and memory of Michael Jackson that features shots ranging from his early days in the Jackson 5 up to the weeks before his untimely death.

In Viva l'Italia Galella presents portraits of Italy's most famous sons and daughters. In honor of the exhibitions starring subject, the Arena will exclusively be playing the King of Pop all night. 

The venue is also hosting Galella’s Man in the Mirror exhibition from Jan. 8th – Feb. 14, 2010. The event will feature from both Man in the Mirror and Viva l’Italia.

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was a superstar of unprecedented and epic proportions, and is still the best-selling recording artist of all time. An icon raised in the spotlight, but ever reclusive and terribly shy, Jackson was the ideal subject for paparazzo Galella.

Galella shot Michael throughout his whole life. Finding intimate moments with the legend offstage, he captured candid, unguarded portraits of the man behind the mask and a lifetime of style and glamor.

Over the years Galella also captured Michael in the company of fellow celebrities including:
Muhammad Ali, Diana Ross, Chuck Berry, Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda, Liberace, Quincy Jones, Barry Manilow, Emmanuel Lewis, Don King, Liza Minnelli, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Sophia Loren, Sylvester Stallone, Ted Kennedy, Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston, Donald Trump, Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, and Marcel Marceau.

He displayed the personal side of Michael in images of him with his children, his sister Janet and the rest of the Jackson family, and even his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. In a tribute to the life and memor
y of Michael Jackson, Galella has compiled a body of images of the King of Pop in Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson.

In Viva l'Italia, Galella sets out to find his own Italian roots, and in so doing, takes us on a viaggio as he combs his vast archive for images of Italian and Italian-American actors, artists, and fashion designers, along with a wide range of other cultural icons. Galella's tour begins in Rome's famed Cinecittà where Federico Fellini relaxes between takes on a film set. It was Fellini who proclaimed, "paparazzi are bandits of images," coining the word with his character Signor Paparazzo in La Dolce Vita.

As he continues on, Galella presents us with portraits of Italy's most famous sons and daughters, including
Virni Lisi, Isabella Rossellini, Silvana Mangano, Marlon Brando, Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, and Sophia Loren.

Never one to shy away from bad boys, he even includes the "Dapper Don," John Gotti, emerging from federal court in Manhattan. Gale
lla's photography is complimented by quotes he has amassed over a half-century of travel and celebrity encounters.

For more information visit www.powerhousearena.com
 
Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson and Viva l’Italia Launch Party and Exhibition Opening
January 27, 2010
Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson and Viva l’Italia Exhibit
January 8 – February 14, 2010

powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Golden Globes Sunday — Read Nominee Interviews

The  Hollywood Foreign Press Association presents its annual Golden Globe Awards this Sunday, January 17, in a live NBC telecast starting at 8 p.m. ET. And, true to the journalists' group international basis, the HFPA joins a host of others in donating aid to the victims of this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti, giving $100,000 on January 14 to Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti relief fund.

The organization already this year has presented $1,249,000 in financial grants to 29 film schools and non-profit organizations, including the American Film Institute, the American Cinematheque, the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, the Independent Feature Project, the Museum of African American Cinema, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, Outfest, and such schools as Columbia University, Loyola Marymount University, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Read more: Golden Globes Sunday — Read...

Bollywood Review - "Pyaar Impossible!"

Directed by Jugal Hansraj
Written by
Uday Chopra
With: 
Uday Chopra, Priyanka Chopra, Advika Yadav, Dino Morea, Anupam Kher and Rahul Vohra

The phrase "Don't do business with relatives" doesn't mean much in Bollywood, where generations of scions follow in family footsteps to create filmmaking dynasties. Even so, that doesn't mean you give Paris Hilton her own hotel to run.

filmjournal/photos/stylus/120950-Pyaar_Md.jpg
Uday Chopra — actor son of major Indian producer/filmmaker Yash Chopra and younger brother of the successful Aditya Chopra (producer-writer-director of the 2008 hit Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, among others) — spends a lot time helping out around the family studio, doing some executive producing here, some assistant directing there. And while letting him write, produce and star in his own romantic comedy must have seemed a very nice birthday present or some such, it's no gift to audiences. Despite a few cute moments, the beauty-and-the-geek tale Pyaar Impossible! ("Love Impossible!"), set against the backdrop of computer software and corporate theft, is a vanity project that only goes to show that while love may or may not be impossible, nepotism is eternal.
 
We'll give Chopra points for at least not directing it himself, and for having a good eye for talent in choosing Jugal Hansraj to do so, even though Hansraj's only previous credit was the animated flop Roadside Romeo (2008). Whatever this film's faults, they don't stem from Hansraj's hand; he keeps both romantic complications and corporate shenanigans moving along at a good, grounded clip, and his experience as a former child actor probably helped wickedly precocious newcomer Advika Yadav, who as a six-year-old romantic mastermind steals her scenes with conviction and the most ironic cuteness since the last Pee-wee Herman show.

Not that that's enough to save this well-meant effort. Ahbay Sharma (Chopra) is a computer geek who, in college, saved beautiful co-ed Alisha (Priyanka Chopra, no relation, seen here stateside in the terrific 2008 faux-gay comedy Dostana) from drowning. Seven years later, living with his supportive dad (beloved Bollywood veteran Anupam Kher), he still carries a torch for the girl, who never got a good look at him. But when con artist Varun Sanghvi (Italian-Indian model turned actor Dino Morea) steals the code for the groundbreaking software Ahbay's developed, Ahbay tracks him to Singapore, where Sanghvi's selling the purloined program to a company whose marketing head is, surprise, Alisha — now single mom to Tania (Yadav). Through a mix-up, Ahbay becomes the nanny — the latest in a line whom Tania's terrorized. But after a rocky start, Tania sees that Ahbay loves her mom, and the kid's plans eventually lead to an adorable musical number (one of three in the film proper) that clues Alisha in to Ahbay's identity.

Bollywood romantic comedies, to their credit, construct romantic obstacles that feel more organic than the almost defiantly contrived ones often found stateside. As in I Love Lucy, they make the preposterous palatable. Nothing, however, can do that for Uday Chopra, who wears only about two expressions and who, in his way-too-many close-ups, looks uncannily like the late-period Michael Jackson — which somehow adds to his inadvertent-stalker creepiness. The painfully charmless Chopra is unconvincing as either a computer geek or even a geek at all. He seems exactly like what he is — a rich kid playing with daddy's toys.(In Hindi and English, with English subtitles) 130 minutes. Unrated, but the likely equivalent of G or maybe PG.

Kurosawa Centennial 1910-2010

In honor of the centennial of incomparable director Akira Kurosawa (1919-1998), Film Forum is celebrating with a month-long retrospective of all off his history-making films, as well as his lesser-known classics and his earliest endeavors, including his wartime directorial debut. The festival runs January 6–February 4, 2010, followed by a two-week run of Ran, starring Tatsuya Nakadai.

The festival opens with a 9-day run (Jan. 6-14) of Stray Dog, starring Toshiro Mifune as a cop searching for his stolen service revolver through post-war Tokyo. Other films include the landmark Seven Samurai, the inspiration for The Magnificent Seven; Throne of Blood, Kurosawa's take on MacBeth; Rashomon, the film that made him a world-class name; Hidden Fortress,which, as everyone knows by now, inspired Star Wars; Yojimbo, High and Low, Ikiru, Ran, as well as his lesser-known The Bad Sleep Well and I Live in Fear.

His first movie with actor Mifune, Drunken Angel, launched one of the greatest collaborations in movie history, not only as a team with remarkable output, but resulting in the best, most time-honored films in the canons of both artists.

Stray Dog (1949) Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
January 6-14 (9 Days) New 35mm Print

Throne of Blood (1957) Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada
January 15 Fri

The Hidden Fortress (1958) Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara
January 16 Sat

The Idiot
(1951) Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori
January 17 Sun

Sanshiro Sugata I (1943)
Sanshiro Sugata II (1945)
January 18 Mon

One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)
January 19 Tue

Ikiru (1952) Takashi Shimura
January 20 Wed

I Live in Fear (1955) Toshiro Mifune
January 21 Thu

High and Low
(1963) Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
January 22 Fri

Drunken Angel (1948) Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
January 23 Sat

The Quiet Duel (1949) Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
January 24 Sun

Scandal (1950) Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
January 24 Sun

The Most Beautiful
(1944) Yoko Yaguchi (The Future Mrs. Kurosawa)
No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) Setsuko Hara
January 25 Mon

The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa
January 26 Tue

Kagemusha (1980) Tatsuya Nakadai
January 27 Wed

Rashomon (1950) New 35mm Restoration
Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo
January 28 Thu

Dreams (1990) Martin Scorsese
January 28 Thu

Seven Samurai (1954) Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
January 29/30 Fri/sat

The Lower Depths
(1957) Toshiro Mifune, Bokuzen Hidari
January 31/February 1 Sun/Mon

Rhapsody in August
(1991) Sachiko Murase, Richard Gere
February 1 Mon

Dodes'ka-den (1970) New 35mm Print!
February 1 Mon

Red Beard (1965) Toshiro Mifune
February 2 Tue

Yojimbo (1961) Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
Sanjuro (1962) Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
February 3 Wed

Dersu Uzala (1975)
February 4 Thu

Ran (1985) Tatsuya Nakadai
February 5-18 (2 Weeks) New 35mm Print

More details can be found at www.filmforum.org.

Film Forum
209 W Houston Street (between 6th Avenue & Varick)
New York City
212-727-8110

 

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