Movies: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The movie year 2017 was disappointing. But this week I watched a film which comforted for so many weak movies I have seen this year: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  (imdb). The movie already collected the AFI award as best movie of the year and six Golden Globe nominations. More awards will come!

A grieving mother blames the local cops for not solving the case of her daughter who got abducted, raped & murdered and rents three billboards, to shame them and to revive the interest in her daughters case which starts a series of events (this is a spoiler free blog. You can find a synopsis here wikipedia )

Director Martin McDonagh, who also wrote the script, did an excellent job. "Three Billboard" belongs to the black comedy`s which cast a light on America´s hinterland, filled with peculiar characters. The film is about grief, persistence, revenge & punishment but also about forgiveness and mixes violence with humor. Ben Davis`s superb cinematography magnified the film`s strengths.

What made the film really outstanding? It was the acting! Frances McDormand, for whom the character was written, impressed as the grieving but tough as granite mother and deserves at least another Oscar nomination. I enjoyed watching Woody Harrelson, Caleb Landry Jones & Peter Dinklage (known from"Game of Throwns"). But the real star of the movie was Sam Rockwell as an aggressive moronic and insecure province cop.

Go and watch it!

Books: Wolf On A String

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - I just finished reading "Wolf on a String" by Benjamin Black (the pen name of William John Banville amazon). "Wolf" is one of the best books I read in the recent years and I enjoyed it very much. 

The novel is set in Prague around the year 1600. The city was the capital of Bohemia and the seat of the court of Rudolf II, the emperor of Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, so Prague was the center of the Western world. The story is told in first person by a young intellectual, who had just arrived from Würzburg (Germany). The protagonist gets drawn into a vortex of murder and intrigues at the imperial court (this is a spoiler free blog).

The novel combines history with a whodunit story. Black puts the reader on a trip back in time and immerses him into a bleak, cold & precarious world. Life was very fragile & hazardous then and the protagonist´s fate depends on the arbitrariness of the more powerful. The novel would be the perfect dystopian novel if it wouldn´t be set in the past, our real history.

I cared about the protagonist and indulged into Black`s style, his amusing descriptions of the Emperor, who was a troubled leader, the various persons at his court and his portrait of Prague. Who is predator and who is the prey? The author´s sharp psychological & analytical insights and his sarcastic remarks about sex, architecture, politics & more remind me of Vladimir Nabokov.

I was entertained and learned a lot about history. "Wolf on a String" is highly recommended.

Street Art New York: My Top Twenty 2017

(Drivebycuriosity) - I am connoisseur of street art. I like murals, graffiti, stencils and other incarnations of this elusive art form and take pictures when ever I can. Therefore I shot a lot of street art pictures, especially in New York`s neighborhoods Lower East Side, East Village & Soho.

Here are my top 20 of 2017 (here of 2016). Actually I got 23, but I couldn´t resist. Above a wonderful mural which I found on Kenmare Street in the Lower East Side (between Delancey & Lafayette). Isn`t she pretty? My favorite!

I spotted the Blondie mural in the East Village @ corner Bowery & First Street. It replaced a tribute to the Ramones (driveby ).

Above 2 awesome murals which I had discovered on Ludlow Street between Rivington & Delancey also in the Lower East Side.

These legs walk @ corner of Stanton & Christie Street -  Lower East Side as well.

Above this paragraph you can see some murals I spotted on the wall of rag & bone at the corner of Elizabeth & Houston. This fashion shop impresses with frequently changing art work of high quality.

I found this beautiful lady between East Houston & First Street. There is an area used by New York`s Centre-Fuge Public Art Project, a collective of street artists who show there their own works and murals by invited participants.

I discovered the girl photographing the blurred Mickey Mouse on Crosby Street between East Houston and First Street, a place where frequently amazing murals appear.

The Gatsby Hotel on East Houston Street (near Whole Foods) got a stylish outfit.

The infamous Epstein`s on Allen Street (a dive for the raucous bridge & tunnel crowd) is closed now, but there are still amazing murals to see.

Above the famous graffiti wall on Bowery & Houston Street. The mural is a creation by the Spanish artist duo PichiAvo & commissioned by the real estate corporation Goldman Properties, which also owns the legendary Winwood Walls in Miami (miami).

Beware - there is a tiger on Lafayette Street.

This beauty is on Allen Street at home.

Tictall, a fashion shop on Orchard Street, commissioned a cute mural.

On Eldrige Street, near East Houston, I also find frequently changing murals.

The "no parking face" beautifies a door in the East Village.

There were more beautified shutter doors, of course. The Library is a pub on Avenue A.


 

Someone glued this amazing Sticker on Elizabeth & Broome Street.
 

Stay tuned!

Culture: Abstract Expressionism @ Hauser & Wirth, New York

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  The Armenian-American painter Arshile Gorky was a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism (wikipedia). The global art gallery Hauser & Wirth showed on Manhattan´s Upper East Side ( 69th Street hauserwirth) a collection of his paintings & drawings.

I display here my favorites from the show, a very subjective selection as usual.

According to the press release the paintings & drawings were created between 1943 and 1947. The curators call them "landscapes" (exhibitions).

 

Enjoy!

Photography: Tropical Christmas

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  It seems the whole world is preparing for Christmas. My wife and I are just back from our travel which brought us to Cartagena (Colombia) & Panama City. These tropical places are preparing for the holidays in their own way.

I used the occasion to take some pictures from the southern Christmas. Above you can see Christmas trees I spotted in Cartagena, in a hotel, on the airport and in a shopping mall.

Panama City likes Christmas trees too. This classy one I saw in hour hotel there.

There also was a very modern & stylish tree.

I could also see different versions of Santa Claus´s  sleds, the first in Cartagena, the second in Panama City.

Some streets in Panama City were illuminated for Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Traveling: Cartagena - An Undiscovered Jewel

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  My wife and I are just back from Cartagena, our second visit of the Colombian harbor town, which lays on the south coast of the Caribbean City.  The place is an undiscovered jewel. It seems the city is neglected by American & European tourists because of the violent Colombian history. But the country has changed and got peaceful (here my travel report colombia) Again we had a lot of pleasure in Cartagena.

The Caribbean city has a population of about 900,000, roughly the same as San Francisco. Parts of the city look like Manhattan, thanks to a parade of new & ambitious hotel towers set along the coastline. Cartagena is build around a bay which is used as harbor.

 

There is a historic old town build in colonial style and surrounded by a city wall, which once should protect from the pirates who frequently raided the Caribbean coast. Cartagena's walled city and fortress are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and looks very colorful.

I enjoyed the flamboyant stiles & colors of the historical streets, place & buildings, but otherwise the old town  is too touristy for my taste.

We were attracted by the pleasant climate. Even that the tropical city is close to the equator we didn`t suffer the steamy tropical heat I had experienced in Singapore at the same time of the year. Early December we enjoyed temperatures mostly in the upper 80s F (low 30s C) and a low humidity and  strong breezes made the climate even more comfortable.We didn´t experience any rain and the sky was mostly bright. Fortunately there were no mosquitoes, bugs, moths and other insects who are typical for such an environment. I seems they had fought a successful war against the bugs. The flip side is they I didn`´t spot any butterflies. There are no geckos who feed from flies. Instead we spotted flocks of majestic Frigatebird birds who were sailing in the sky.

 On our visits we stayed in 2 hotels, both on the beach. Above pictures from Hyatt Regency, one of the hotel towers on Bocagrande, a semi island which protects the harbor from the open sea. The name means "big mouth" and refers to the wide entry into the Cartagena bay where the harbor is located.

Staying there was a perfect escape from New York´s cold winter climate and a place to relax, to read & to meditate.

Above a shot form Bocagrande, which has only 3 avenues, running parallel along the water front.

The dry weather allowed spotting perfect sunsets and I indulged into the  the color plays of the dusk.

Staying there was fun. Someday day we might come back.