Fleur-de-lis: Inspired by Claude Monet’s “The Water-Lily Pond”

He had asked her to meet him at noon on the bridge. She had said it was her favorite place, and noon was the perfect time. The sun would shine directly overhead and its light would kiss the water below and settle on it in a sheer film of iridescence. She would sit cross-legged on the highest point of the bridge, and he would sit across from her, watching her watch the water. The lilies would blanket the pond, gliding across the surface to leave one cluster and join another. They would stand up then, dust themselves off and lean over the bridge to catch their reflections in the little spaces between the lilies on the pond’s surface. Their faces would then linger on the water, framed by the flowers, suspended on the water.

He arrived half an hour early, and sat on the bridge, exactly as he had pictured it. At noon, the pond was far lovelier than he had anticipated. He waited for her, keeping an eye on the opening between the trees surrounding the pond, where she would emerge from any minute now. He sat there for what seemed an eternity, and then he stood up to get a better look. He leaned over the bridge and craned his neck, stretching it as far as it would go. read more.

The Gwyneth Paltrow of Film Directors: Sofia Coppola

Sealy should give Sofia Coppola a cut of all its earnings. The director has made a career out of making movies about privileged, white people questioning their privileged, white people lives on their privileged, white people beds.

 

What made Lost in Translation her best work to date (after her directorial debut in The Virgin Suicides) was Tokyo. The questions that Coppola asks about the meaning of life become more palpable because of the isolation that Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), and Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a mid-career actor, face in an environment that almost feels like another world. read more.

Your Pain is their Pleasure – 5 Worst Serial Killers of the Century

Seeping through the cracks of society, serial killers successfully deceive and satisfy desires by preying on the innocence and the warmth of the naïve. Here is a list of 5 infamous serial killers (no particular order), and their bloodcurdling tales.

The prime suspect in the disappearance of a hardware store owner, Ed Gein was visited by the local authorities for investigation. The authorities found the store owner, Bernice Worden, dead, her headless corpse hanging upside down from a rope, and her insides scattered in Ed Gein’s shed. Adding to the morbidity, the interior of his house was found to be decorated with ornaments of several other dead people. Police discovered chair covers made of human skin, nipples sown together to make a belt, a suit, and several masks made from human skin and several skulls in his house. read more.

10 Children’s Books All Adults Should Read

The children’s book moniker is a bit of a misnomer for the following titles. While they’re all unquestionably great works for children, there’s a lot more to them once you delve deeper; themes that you didn’t know were there and maturity that you wouldn’t expect from works written ostensibly for children.

Masterfully weaved into a story about a pig’s friendship with a young girl and a matronly spider,the themes of destiny. read more.

The Most Intimidating Literary Man to Interview

The trilingual Vladimir Nabokov’s English might have been an adopted tongue (the sheer conceit of using that phrase for the author of Lolita and Pale Fire!), but we are perfectly aware of the mastery of his lacerating prose.  Certainly Ezra Pound felt personally wounded when Nabokov called him a “total fake,” and the same feeling must have resonated when Saul Bellow was cruelly labeled a “miserable mediocrity” in a private letter by Nabokov. But with the master safely gone, we can present our list of his most disdainful and fascinating quotations. read more.

Conquer Entertainment

I subscribe to Hypebot, Digital Music News, and a few other industry aggregators and this location seems to be the first point where I can actually ask a question to like minded individuals.

I was recently contacted about joining an organization called Conquer Entertainment.  After sitting through the presentations from two separate individuals, and watching everything I can find online, I need to ask the following questions. read more.

A Brief Retrospective on Quentin Tarantino

Once upon a time in California

Quentin Tarantino’s films are exactly like his characters: gritty, and quirky as hell. Just like Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) and Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic), Tarantino too is an autodidact. His films are characterized by nonlinear structure, satire, excessive gore and homages to numerous other films and film directors.

Although Tarantino has a reported IQ of 160, he struggled during high school and chose to drop out in favor of taking acting lessons. That, too, did not last long, and after 2 years, he acquired a position at a movie rental store. He familiarized himself with the art of filmmaking, taking inspiration from the works of other directors. During his stint at the movie rental store, he explored unorthodox genres in filmmaking, which heavily influenced his later work. read more.

Halloween: Sense and Sensitivity

“Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” Apparently, Halloween is also the one day of the year when cultural appropriation is at its peak. One would usually be careful about being politically correct, but a lot of the time this falls by the wayside on Halloween. Many costumes are racist and promote cultural stereotypes. The OU STARS (Ohio University Students Teaching About Racism in Society) run an enlightening campaign about this issue. read more.

Stripped To the Bone – Discover the Zombie Genre with these 10 Movies

With the release of Warm Bodies, the 3D remake of the famous Evil Dead, the fourth season of The Walking Dead, and Bollywood’s very first zom-com Go Goa Gone, the monsters of the year are zombies. If you have just discovered the genre, here is a list of 10 must see zombie movies.

1. Night of the Living Dead  
2. Black Sheep 
3.  I Am Legend  
     Read more.

Let’s Talk About Miley

Though clearly a wild child, First of all, while some people tend to get angry thinking we’re wasting our time talking about celebrities and their current lifestyles when there are so many more important things to talk about, they need to be reminded that this is the world we live in now; these celebrities matter. They have a following larger than science communicators and politicians; it is unfortunate, but that’s the way it is. The actions of trending celebrities cause a ripple effect advertising agencies can only dream of replicating. read more.

Vampire Movies 101 – Discovering the Vampire Genre

Cinema is no stranger to the creatures of the night, but just in case you’ve never gotten around to experiencing the genre, or you want to experience it anew, we’ve made a list that introduces you to the world of vampires. read more.

The Last Word How 20 Modern Reads Ended

Often the brilliance of modern books is overshadowed in favor of books that have been around forever. Some modern books are so well-written that they can give the classics a tough competition on any shelf, of any library, anywhere in the world. Here are 20 pieces of modern literature that have fantastic endings. Read more.
 

Studio Ghibli The Other Disney

Founded in 1985 and made famous by Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli is the flip side of the animation coin. Their movies have entertained international audiences for decades; and they have the privilege of being the only foreign production house to have won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature for Chihiro Ogino: Spirited Away.

Although their strategies and ideologies differ, Studio Ghibli and Disney movies have a lot in common. But while Disney waters down the story and changes the brutal ending, Ghibli draws the storyboard in a very different way. Ponyo is a little goldfish, the daughter of a sea-goddess. She is found by a little boy who she promptly decides to spend forever with. She also has some 100+ sisters, and an overbearing father.

Both studios also heavily feature witches, overprotective fathers, and naïve characters way in over their heads. But where Disney seems to be losing its charm today, Studio Ghibli prevails. Read more.

Thou Shalt Not Read

In this culture of offense, it is not unusual to discuss banned books in the detached manner of the average jaded individual. Some of us pretend, desperately, that the suppression of thought is a legitimate exercise.  This self-denying pretension needs to be countered both violently and with literary coolness: Nabokov, Proust, Flaubert, Joyce, and others need to be hoisted upon the malcontents and the prohibitionists and the “liberal” censors. This is what we would have missed had we buckled to them.

1.     Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

“Filth.” “Sheer unrestrained pornography.” “Repulsive.”

Such were the clueless epithets furnished on Lolita upon release. This great novel, now a bestseller for decades, is taught in universities and is the subject of numerous serious books and conversations.  At once, we see the censorious mentality in all its dullness and self-righteousness. We imagine a more modern version of some Roman censor cackling to himself as he restricts distribution of a book he has barely thought about and probably never read. Nabokov, naturally, was his icy self, famously declining to contribute to the championing of the book: “My moral defense of the book is the book itself. Read more.

Why The Bling Ring is an Accurate Representation of America Youth

Sofia Coppola’s movie based on the Vanity Fair piece by Nancy Jo Sales is an introspective look at Young Hollywood. The string of real life celebrity robberies orchestrated by a group of California youths is a telling representation of the lifestyle aspirations of the current youth in America.

The perpetrators of the crime ring that targeted A-listers Miranda Kerr, Megan Fox and Lindsay Lohan etc. were quite wealthy in their own respect. In this context, when the incentive for theft becomes less material and more a representation of who the material belonged to, we have an interesting case study of young people glamorizing toxic lifestyle choices. Read more.