#i feel silly sharing more stylistic and experimental things with her

[uumumuu]

I paused my farmland painting to do an interesting color study that I definitely learned a lot from but kind of dont like anymore 😅 oh well I think I'll still throw it up tonight or tomorrow when I can get a pic or scan !

Then I gotta make myself finish the farm piece OR the also very practice-y fanart I also have going on...

[nitrateglow]

Halloween 2021 marathon: 1-4

The Exorcist III

This is for you @hobbitmajora​!

The Exorcist III came onto my radar due to the glowing Red Letter Media review. It’s one of the oddest horror movies I’ve ever seen, starting off as more of a crime movie with George C. Scott’s Kinderman investigating the brutal murder of a child. The crime is part of a series of serial killings, all of them linked by blasphemous touches.

There’s a lot to like about this film: the warm friendship between the atheistic Kinderman and the faithful Father Dyer (if ever I wanted two fictional characters to have a classic movie podcast...), the exquisite dialogue, Brad Dourif’s creepy performance-- and that jump scare! I have not been had by a jump scare so thoroughly since I first saw Wait Until Dark years ago.

It does have a few of the problems that usually come with writers trying to direct movies (Exorcist author William Peter Blatty is in the director’s chair this time, adapting his own novel). Several scenes are talk-heavy and shot from wide, stagey angles, but for me, that’s not too big an issue since the dialogue is so good. it’s certainly a weird movie, one I’ll have to rewatch to fully “get,” I think, but it’s definitely deserving of its cult status.

The Haunting (1999)

A Disney Channel movie of the week masquerading as psychological horror.

This misbegotten remake of The Haunting only further confirms my thinking on what makes horror effective—and it sure as hell isn’t “bigger and louder = more terrifying.” Nothing about this movie is scary. The big interiors are campy rather than eerie. The CG set pieces are silly as hell, designed to show off what you can do with computers but certainly not to give you chills.

Don’t even get me started on the characters. In the original, the characters felt like real people. Here, they’re all types, the most obnoxious being Catherine Zeta-Jones as Thirsty Bisexual and Owen Wilson as Owen Wilson. Lili Taylor actually isn’t too bad a stand-in for Julie Harris, but the cringey emotional speeches her character has to give (“IT’S ABOUT FAMILY! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT FAMILY!”) compromise the effectiveness of her repressed, sad character at every turn. What’s worse is how the story itself strips her performance of what makes Harris’s so memorable: ambiguity.

The 1963 movie never confirms whether or not the ghosts are in Harris’s head or not. She genuinely seems to be losing her mind, but there’s enough room for interpretation otherwise. Not here—the ghosts are definitely there, waiting to try out for the Haunted Mansion film with Eddie Murphy. Now, you can make an explicitly supernatural film scary, true (see The Exorcist and The Shining), but this is all too cartoonish and in your face to deliver shivers, let alone genuine fright.

The Fog

I have a weird general reaction to John Carpenter’s movies. I tend to marvel at the craftsmanship and immaculate storytelling, but they often leave me cold. There are exceptions (The Thing is a favorite movie of mine), but unfortunately The Fog is not one of them.

That is not to say it is a bad or even mediocre movie. The Fog has a great horror concept: a sinister mist overtakes a coastal town, bringing with it the vengeful ghosts of a slaughtered leper colony intent on murdering all in their wake. The suspense is built up deliberately and the scares really work (I gasped aloud several times). I think my issue is a certain emotional distance from the characters. There are several of them, but I would have liked to see them more developed than they are. Adrienne Barbeau as a sultry-voiced radio host is the only one who stands out.

Still, I saw it immediately after that rotten remake of The Haunting, so I’m not going to complain too much.

Sisters

This was a rewatch and a prime example of a movie that improves on repeated viewings. Brian De Palma is a bit like Terry Gilliam for me: usually the first time I watch his movies, I don’t like them very much, but they linger in the mind, prompting me to seek them out again and then finally appreciate them for what they are instead of what I expected they would be.

Sisters is the first of De Palma’s Hitchcock pastiches. Taking from Psycho and Rear Window, it definitely does not come off as a ripoff. It mostly shares Hitchcock’s stylistic playfulness, particularly in how it messes with audience loyalties. In the first thirty minutes alone, our sympathies shift about four times, much like how our sympathies shift from Marion to Norman to Lila and Sam throughout Psycho. But Sisters wades into outright weirder waters than Hitchcock ever did, even in his most experimental work. Parts feel like they could have come from a David Lynch movie.

Any flaws present are minor, mainly Margot Kidder’s atrocious attempt at a Canadian-French accent. But that is the only issue I have with the movie, which is otherwise among the best horror movies of the 1970s-- and considering how I believe the 1970s was cinematic horror’s best decade, that is saying a lot.

[theseventhhex]

Men I Trust Interview

Emma, Dragos & Jessy

Photo by Mathieu Rompré

Men I Trust is Dragos, Emma, Jessy, Mathieu and Alexis. Founded in 2014, Men I Trust is an indie band from Montreal, Canada that loves to form smooth sounds, calm melodies and simple rhythms that relax, but make your right foot tap and your chin bounce on the beats. They record, mix, master and shoot their music videos. Establishing a unique identity and distinct ability with their alluring style, Men I Trust are sure to capture an abundance of further admirers, equipped with infectious soundscapes and a deliriously addictive musical style… We talk to band member Dragos about storytelling, maintaining creative control and blue cheese…

TSH: What would you say are the main components that allow Men I Trust to have such a unified band chemistry?

Dragos: We do indeed have a unified band chemistry! Besides our friendship and shared common interests, it also has to do with the fact that we do everything ourselves. It allows us to be consistent aesthetically speaking and independent release-wise.

TSH: When it comes to the infectious melodies you guys conjure up, are you normally gravitating towards certain styles and genres?

Dragos: We try to write chord progressions and melodies that convey a sense of story and that are lyrical. We use rhythm to keep it interesting and forward-moving and use smooth sounds because that’s what we prefer. The resulting songs always tend to sound like us, even when we mingle with different genres.

TSH: Emma’s previously mentioned having to abandon oneself it in order to be creative – is getting out of one’s comfort zone beneficial to creativity?

Dragos: It’s more about abandoning the extra-musical doubts that we sometimes have when writing a song. It’s more productive when considering everything musically, because the questions are easier to answer and because we allow ourselves more liberties than otherwise.

TSH: You and Jessy have known each other since the fourth year of high school, do you feel there is an instinctual bond when it comes to music for you both?

Dragos: Definitely! We know and understand each other very well. It is very rare that we disagree on something musically. It’s lots of fun!

TSH: What sort of motivations do you draw on to pen a track like ‘I Hope To Be Around’?

Dragos: Chord progression wise and melody wise, it’s about creating a sense of storytelling. Again, the rhythm keeps it bouncy and moving forward. Text wise, we talk about a common theme we have in about 80% of our songs. It’s about finding ourselves and then striving to overcome one’s own limits and oriented point of view, i.e. one’s desire to grasp the reality wholly. It is important to us that our lyrics convey positive values or ideas that we truly believe in like the awe-inspiring beauty of nature and humans.

TSH: Moreover, what was the process like in layering and fleshing out the excellent ‘Tailwhip’?

Dragos: 'Tailwhip' started with the bass line. The song drives a youthful energy from the groovy rhythms that Jessy is so good at pulling-off. We used fast paced childhood videos and naïve leads to put emphasis on that energy. The lyrics are accordingly light-hearted: we’re talking about our move back to Montreal. Seeing us as adults and as children makes the video very personal while being very groovy at the same time. For the first time, we showcased ourselves playing our instruments, so this was kind of an introduction for us.

TSH: Speaking of ‘Tailwhip’, it must have been so cool to have the song as 2017’s number one track of the year on Gorilla vs. Bear?

Dragos: That’s crazy! We are fans of so many bands that are in that top 100 list and Gorilla vs. Bear are always on point with their picks. Being number one was a huge surprise. It made us really proud.

TSH: How satisfactory is it for you to see yours and Jessy’s sounds be complimented so well with Emma’s captivating vocal range when you guys work together in the studio and jam?

Dragos: The blend with Emma’s voice, our lyrics, rhythms and chord progressions, couldn’t be better suited for what we are going for. Her vocal performance keeps everything light, enjoyable and stylistically on point. Emma is also a great person to hang out with. She is really funny and primed like the karate kid.

TSH: Being a composer and photographer outside of music, what have you been gravitating towards regarding both fields in recent times?

Dragos: The visual and ideal aspects are really important for the band. We think that when you like a certain artform like music, it’s hard not to be at least interested in all of them. Before starting the band, Emma studied art and I studied philosophy. We also have a knack for photography and videography. We really like Terrence Malick and David Lynch. It’s funny because our video for ‘You Deserve This’ got compared a lot to Twin Peaks, before we got to binge watch the two seasons last year. Some ideas in our lyrics are inspired by the ancient Greeks, John Stuart Mill and Goethe. The last three years, I’ve mainly read science articles, so that also shows up in our songs.

TSH: How vital has it been for Men I Trust to have creative control of the band and to stream and distribute your music accordingly?

Dragos: Our independent status came to be by necessity more than by choice. When we started the band, we were interested in being part of a record label. We thought being signed sounded cool. We felt like all the serious bands were signed on a label. However, when we released our first album, our music sounded “too experimental” and labels didn’t see any “commercial potential” to our songs. We then started reading about distribution and more generally on how to manage a band. After doing everything once, it’s easier and more time-efficient to repeat everything again for each release, so we kind of got used to doing everything on our own. Now, that our music is starting to get more attention we literally get spammed by labels and PR companies, but we don’t see the utility to give away part of our music ownership in exchange for services that we are able to do ourselves. On our websites, we ask that labels and PR companies do not contact us, but people still try to reach us or they simply don’t read. It’s really fun for us to be in control of everything and we take great pride in doing so. Everything is super fast, straightforward and aesthetically more personal and consistent this way. We stay in direct contact with the people that like and support us. To sum it up, we aren’t closed to the idea of working with a team, it’s just that our band is still pretty easy and fun to manage by ourselves, so we don’t see the need to sign anything in the near future.

TSH: Are you still very much into video games?

Dragos: Yes! We’re fans of Space Engine, Civilization, Starcraft, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Diablo II, Golden Eye & Mario Kart!

TSH: When Men I Trust are on tour, what brings about most laughter and joy between the three of you?

Dragos: When we are on tour, we are 4! We bring our drummer Mathieu with us. I don’t know if it is because we are musicians, but we constantly have never ending running gags about silly sounds and voices. We like to imagine or imitate silly voices. It’s impossible for us not to laugh whenever we hear a technical problem like cracking sounds, exaggeratedly off-pitch music or feedbacks. It’s silly and really first-degree humour, but it makes us giggle! Every one is always playing a persona with silly voices. We took it to another level where the more something is being repeated consistently, the more we find it funny. Maybe we’ve become a bit crazy for being exposed together this long.

TSH: Does Emma still have a craving for blue cheese, as well as hopes to own a pig?

Dragos: Haha! Blue cheese is her absolute favourite thing in the world. Seriously, she asked for blue cheese for Christmas when she was 14-15. She also bought a stuffed pig, because she cannot own one while being on the road. It’s a great pillow and it also reminds her not to eat them.

TSH: Speaking of food, what sort of cuisines does the band really relish?

Dragos: We’re all vegetarian… most of the time. We’re breakfast, sandwich and Asian cuisine fans. Add beer and coffee and repeat.

TSH: Amidst so much bedlam in the world, how do you like to attain a positive headspace?

Dragos: Art and nature!

TSH: Finally, as Men I Trust ventures ahead, what are the keys aspects that you hope to maintain and stay true to?

Dragos: Always doing what we love. We seek timeless beauty and do everything with care. These are things that both satisfy us and what we aspire to have.

Men I Trust - “Tailwhip”

I HOPE TO BE AROUND

[vdbstore-blog]

New Post has been published on Vintage Designer Handbags Online | Vintage Preowned Chanel Luxury Designer Brands Bags & Accessories

New Post has been published on http://vintagedesignerhandbagsonline.com/model-adwoa-aboah-in-2017-there-is-more-than-one-way-to-be-beautiful-%e2%80%8band-cool-fashion/

Model Adwoa Aboah: 'In 2017, there is more than one way to be beautiful ​and cool' | Fashion

Adwoa Aboah is ridiculously beautiful, but that is not what makes her the most in-demand model of the moment. Sure, the razor-sharp cheekbones and the blown-glass lips don’t do her prospects any harm. But there is something in her gaze to camera that makes her beauty seem as if it’s not the most compelling thing about her. It is this that has raised Aboah – face of a new Gap campaign, muse to Donatella Versace, booked for the catwalk by everyone from Christian Dior and Chanel to Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang – above the modelling rank and file.

My first appointment with Aboah is cancelled because she hasn’t yet got out of bed. So far, so supermodel. But when we finally speak, it becomes clear that this Linda Evangelista moment is about as far as Aboah goes in terms of conformity to the modelling tradition of aloof, enigmatic beauty. After our interview, she has a busy day ahead. First, a meeting with Dr Lauren Hazzouri, a psychologist specialising in young women’s mental health. After that, it’s off to Gurls Talk, the online platform she founded to enable discussion about mental health, body image and sexuality, to plan an upcoming event. Forget castings and go-sees: Aboah is changing the rules of how a modern model makes it big.

In Gap’s new Bridging the Gap campaign. Photograph: Douglas Segars for Gap; gap.com/bridgingthegap

Earlier this year, Aboah stepped up from being the insider’s favourite face on the catwalk to being a major industry player when she appeared on the March cover of American Vogue, one of a lineup of seven models of differing skin tone and body shape. It is easy to mock this as a virtue-signalling Vogue stunt – the strategic placement of a hand that appeared to shield the Vogue readers’ delicate sensibilities from Ashley Graham’s size-14 thigh was a bit of an eye-roller – but the weight of glossy magazine history stands as proof that Vogue’s group model covers are markers for cultural shifts in the industry. Peter Lindbergh’s portrait of Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington for the January 1990 edition of British Vogue was the image that consecrated the supermodels’ status as the goddesses of their age. The 2009 American Vogue gatefold cover of nine young models, with a coverline that read “the Real Lives of Models: Boyfriends, Babies, Closets, Catwalks, Diets, Dramas” made official the modern obsession with off-duty models. And this year’s cover, which placed Aboah and Graham alongside Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner – “The Beauty Revolution – No Norm is the New Norm”, read the text – signalled the moment the mainstream aesthetic finally embraced diversity.

The American Vogue cover matters because, until recently, fashion industry voices speaking up for diversity tended to be filed under “alternative”, and therefore sidelined. Things are changing. Today, Adwoa is on the line to talk about an advertising campaign for Gap in celebration of the white T-shirt, in which she stars in a video directed by Edward Enninful, the superstylist who will take the helm of British Vogue in two months’ time. The film is remarkable for the fact that, in an industry where diversity can often mean one token black model, non-white faces outnumber white in a studio full of models, actors and singers, including Yara Shahidi, Alek Wek and Wiz Khalifa. The message is serious but the mood is light, verging on silly, as the cast sing along to Sunny by Boney M. Diversity, says Adwoa, was explicitly the point. “There was something powerful in having a group of people on set with such different backgrounds,” Aboah says. “On set it was an incredible energy, a camaraderie that came from the idea that we are all fighting for the same cause.”

With best friend Cara Delevingne. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Aboah has known Enninful for years. As the daughter of uber-agent Camilla Lowther, she is fashion aristocracy – Cara Delevingne is her best friend – but the campaign was the first time she had collaborated professionally with the stylist. “It was an amazing experience. He’s just lovely to be on set with, because he’s still got that excitement about what he’s creating.” Aboah is excited to see what changes Enninful will bring to Vogue. “I love Vogue, and I have huge respect for the team there. But, as a magazine, it doesn’t represent what the country is now, or only a very small part of it. And I hope that Edward is going to make it something that represents all the amazing things about Britain. Vogue should be about giving a voice to all different cultures. In 2017, there is more than one way to be beautiful, and more than one way to be cool. And when you put an image on the cover of Vogue, that means something that goes beyond fashion.”

Aboah has a deep, gravelly voice and talks slowly with a self-assured seriousness. No end-of-sentence upswing, none of the girlish faux-intimacy endemic among young female celebrities. I notice this, and then I check myself for noticing it, because it makes me realise how unusual it is to engage with a 25-year-old woman who does not feel the need to temper having a strong opinion with being adorable, whose instinct on facing a camera is to tilt her chin upwards and issue an indomitable glare rather than a winning smile. Aboah, wise beyond her years, is passionate about the very real diversity problem still highly visible in the fashion industry (among the seven models who booked the most advertising campaigns this season, only one, Mica Argañaraz, was non-white). “People can get so lazy with their casting,” she sighs. Is it just laziness, I wonder, or something more pernicious? “Sometimes it is worse than laziness. Sometimes I think people just don’t care.”

In 2015, the year she appeared on her first Vogue cover, shot by Tim Walker for Vogue Italia, Aboah founded Gurls Talk. The following year, during which she was prominent on billboards in adverts for Calvin Klein underwear, she spoke openly about overcoming addiction, and about a history of depression that began in her early teens and reached its nadir with a suicide attempt in her early 20s. With her disarming frankness, she is the poster girl for a generation all too aware that life isn’t always pretty.

At the age of 13, Aboah started boarding school. Lonely and isolated, she began a teenage experimentation with drugs that escalated into addiction to ketamine. At university, depression led to what she has described as “self-medicating” with drugs, and her deeply concerned parents sent her to rehab in Arizona when she was 21. But, on her return to London, the intensity of her rising profile as a model, combined with continuing struggles with depression, fuelled the addictions and led to another stint in rehab, during which, in October 2015, she attempted suicide. She spent four days in a coma. Since then, treatment for depression, bipolar disorder and addiction have helped her find equilibrium. Recently, as part of the therapeutic process, she and her mother made a powerful film about the experience, and about the challenges of communication about mental health even within a loving family.

Because Gurls Talk is founded on the principle of open communication, Aboah felt that honesty about her own problems was essential. “I didn’t have loads of followers when I started Gurls Talk. I had no idea I would ever be doing as much modelling as I am now. Would I still have been so honest if I’d known that I would be in this position? I hope so. I think that honesty is why Gurls Talk works. I see on the site how one girl being really brave and honest leads to someone else opening up. Girls need that connection and it has to be authentic.” It is impossible to avoid the A-word in conversation with any woke millennial. Authenticity is a huge deal to Aboah’s generation, yin to the yang of Instagram, “this fake life that we try and project into the universe”.

Among diverse models for Gap’s Bridging the Gap campaign. Photograph: Douglas Segars for Gap; gap.com/bridgingthegap

Instagram is a central issue for Aboah. Gurls Talk is striking for being an attempt to use social media to project positive, affirming, accepting messages about female identity, in the context of an environment where much of the visual culture of social media promotes a narrow and unrealistic ideal. Aboah has become a spokesmodel for racial diversity, but her rise in the industry is not simply about skin colour. She also represents a broader shift – to the mainstreaming of alternative aesthetics, of a burgeoning sense that young women are starved of representational variety in fashion media.

It was when Aboah shaved her head, several years into her modelling life, that her career really took off. “It was a kind of a fuck-you to the industry, even if I wasn’t conscious of that at the time. I didn’t warn anyone, I just walked into my agency one day with all my hair shaved off. But they loved it. I love it, too – I’m definitely in no rush to grow it back.” She talked about the haircut experience in Teen Vogue: “I’ve learned to appreciate looking unique, and not having long, blond locks … at last. That in itself is the most important achievement,” she wrote. At 1.72m (5ft 8in) she stands out as several inches shorter than models with whom she shares a catwalk. With her red-tinted buzzcut and freckles, vintage-Portobello-mixed-with-Adidas wardrobe, Aboah’s look is in direct opposition to the lash-fluttering date-night sex appeal of model tradition. She can do the chameleon-model thing when required – see her April cover of Vogue Mexico, all sultry poise and Sade eyebrows – but it is remarkable how often her personal off-duty style, with its streetwear influences, makes it into her editorial photos. Even in American Vogue, Aboah appears in a Rodarte mesh T-shirt whose sporty vibe is close to her own off-duty look, accessorised with the same piles of brassy gold curb chains she often wears in her Instagram shots. She embodies the way designers Alessandro Michele of Gucci and Demna Gvasalia of Vetements and Balenciaga have used their catwalks to broaden definitions of beauty and cool to include a new celebration of outsider chic. The geek, the goth, the nerd and the misfit are fashion’s new muses.

Even with the power that comes with being as in-demand as Aboah is, modelling can be tough in that “it is a life where you are always on standby. You have no control over your schedule, which makes it really hard to have balance in life, to see your friends or have a boyfriend.” But it gives her a platform, “and there’s no way I could not use that. It’s not about having an opinion on every single thing just for the sake of it. I know what my causes are. And I care about them, so I’d rather get out there and talk about them than just play it safe.”

Source link