Essential Pre-Code at the FIlm Forum

Get back to the good old days when women were sexier, men were scoundrels and the movies were dirtier. When skin was shown and eyes left open wide. The days of good one liners and strange plot twists. Yes, the Film Forum is giving it to us with the Essential Pre-Code. Films, mostly from the thirties, selected to make ones temperature rise. With actress like Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Mae West. Leading men such as Carry Grant, Warren William and James Cagney. Bad boys and naughty girls fill the screen down on West Houston for two and a half more weeks. So get out and get dirty in black and white.

Seedbombs for NYC

Here is a great idea on how to bring the green back into inner-city neighborhoods. This company makes "Seedbombs" that are dispensed by candy machines. This is a way to use change to make a real difference. This mixture of clay, compost, and seeds will take that vacant lot and bring it back to the green side of the spectrum. By anonymously throwing this green explosion one can make what was gray and empty, green again. This is as much about awareness as it is plants. If some of these derelict urban site's become randomly green it makes people think. Maybe "We" could be using this space better. If this does not help support public gardens and green space, what does? One can get a bag of Bombs from the Web. They also will send out a "SeedBoumb" Vending Machine anywhere. The best part is that they are all ready out there. One in Union Square Farmers Market and one at Marlow & Daughters on Broadway in Brooklyn. All one has to do is put in change and make a change in what surrounds us.
http://greenaid.co/

German Expressionism at the MOMA Two More Days!

German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse

There is only two more days to get up to the MOMA and check out their exhibition on German Expressionism. In Germany before the first world war artiest where going through an awakening. Using new printing techniques and experimenting with form and color these artiest came into their own in the 1920's. Painters like E. L. Kirchner and Max Beckmann, to Oskar Kokoschka and Vasily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel and Emil Nolde shared a feeling that they where on the edge and could see the a world full of change. Then the war came into play with all it's wreckage and plight. After the war was over some of the artiest used there art to show the poor and widowed population of Germany. Others look to the life of the rich in the nightclubs with their loose women and dancing. The MOMA has a broad display of this short movement that seem to say so much about those times in Eastern Europe. With prints, woodcuts, paintings, etching, sketching, and water color this show has two more days to tell New York that art might not change the world right away, but it can show how the world changes.

Marilyn Monroe Showcase at BAM

Head over to BAM in Brooklyn to make these hot July nights even hotter. The blond bombshell herself is steaming up the screen in a multi night showcase of comedy and Drama. What is there to say about Marilyn Monroe. She lived in the limelight and died as a legend. Tonight she plays a blind young New Yorker trying to catch a rich husband with her two friends in "How to Marry a Millionaire". Also catch her "Dumb Blond" routine in "Gentlemen Prefer Blonde's", "The Prince and the Showgirl" or in "Let's Make Love" in witch she sings the Cole Porter song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." BAM has also got prints of Marilyn's more dramatic rolls. She expands her range in "Niagara", "River of no Return", and "The Misfits." In "Misfits" she stars along side Clark Gable. This would be both stars last film before they burned out. All these are going to be shown in restored 35MM prints. So go over to Brooklyn and see Marilyn in any of these classic films.

She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift… Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.”—Billy Wilder