bnagel

I watched “Capturing the Friedmans” this weekend.  It is an unbelievably good documentary about a truly disturbing subject.  I can’t do it justice right now but here is a great review at Slate.com

I saw the movie “21″ tonight. It was bad. Very formulaic. Very Hollywood.

I watched The Last King of Scotland this weekend. Great movie and great performance by Forest Whitaker. By following the young doctor, the audience is really brought into the film and can feel and understand the optimism that blinded him.

For my illustration I focused once again on the architecture. The architecture of the film was mostly 60’s modernism made of white concrete exteriors and paneled wood interiors.

It has always struck me how that type of architecture, like modern art is so often misinterpreted today. By stripping the buildings of ornament, the architects hoped to create a sense of equality. They meant to strip away the aristocracy that was associated with all the fluff of traditional architecture. They meant to start new, fresh and clean, and eliminate any preconceived notions of space, form and texture. (there was more to it, but this is what I took away from school. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.) In the end however, these buildings tend to feel cold, stark and impersonal. They do not wear well, and they tend to make the visitor feel unwelcome, and unwanted. To me, they do exactly the opposite of what was intended. It fit the premise of movie perfectly. It got carried away with the optimism and the idea and forgot the needs of the people.

I saw the movie Wanted in the theater a couple of weeks ago. It gets a mixed grade from me. The special effects and actions scenes were amazing but there were a lot of things that just didn’t work, such as the entire back story of where the names came from. Maybe I’m just not into the mystical loom theology.

Anyway, for my illustration I decided to play up the ancient vs modern interweaving that went on the movie. The modern special effects, fast cars, guns, skyscrapers, etc. mixed with the rundown textile factory, the ancient story of the monks, the massive wood looms, etc. The mixture kind of reminded me of anime which sometimes mixes stories of ancient mythology in the ultra modern japan filled with robots and monsters.

Keeping with the newly created tradition of drawing scenes based on recent movies that I have watched, I decided to draw a suburban liquor store based on the movie Superbad. (I just saw it last weekend). Great movie. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of a story but, along with being funny, it also had a decent plot.

I just saw the movie Reno 911: Miami and I loved it. I have watched the series since it began because I knew the cast contained a few people from The State. So it was nice to see that most, if not all, of the original State members had cameos in the movie.

I have also been trying to do an illustration after each movie I see. Its a good little creative exercise and keeps me drawing. I have learned, however, that I mostly like to illustrate the scenery and architecture instead of the characters. So thats what I did here.

I saw the movie “The Bank Job” last week. It was a good, complicated British crime movie set in London in the the 1970’s. This illustration looks nothing like the movie but was inspired by the scenes of London. I also wanted to experiment with color as I’ve trying to to getaway from my standard blue, orange and gray.

I saw Rambo 4 recently and, although I wasn’t expecting much, I was not very impressed. It was by far the bloodiest Rambo movie and it was alto the shortest, 77 minutes without credits. I also didn’t really like the use of real footage of dead women and children in the beginning of the of the film. It just seemed to be in poor taste to use the images as entertainment for a Rambo movie.

This illustration is a quick shot of the main scene from the movie. For what seems like 1/4 of the movie Rambo has a large gun which he uses to literally cut people in half.

I updated the illustration a little. Added some more texture and changed the colors a little. The other image was way too flat. Its still a little dark, but I think I like the new one.

I watched a great documentary this weekend called I like Killing Flies. Its about a restaurant owner in Greenwich Village who has been in the same little spot for around 30 years. The thing I noticed the most was the textures in the kitchen. every surface had 30 years of wear and they all blended into one mass. It almost became like an organic space as each little nook and cranny becomes filled with something. And even though it was filled with stuff leaving only enough room enough for him and a few helpers, He knew were everything was and everything had a specific place. It was a very cool space and after being there for so long, it became a part of him, and him a part of it.