Memo to the Academy 2015: Please pay attention!

My choices for the films, performances and achievements that should not be forgotten in the 2015 Oscar nomination game. These are all my outside the box choices (as much as their outsider stances often surprise me), and so I have left out what I consider to be the usual suspects at this point. My #1 choice, in each category, is both the first mentioned and the film pictured.

BEST PICTURE
The Congress (Ari Folman)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
Whiplash (Damian Chazelle)
Force Majeure (Ruben Ostlund)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy) 
Gone Girl (David Fincher) 

BEST DIRECTOR
Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin
Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice
Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Ari Folman, The Congress
Ruben Ostlund, Force Majeure
Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner
David Fincher, Gone Girl 
Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler

BEST ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Robin Wright, The Congress
Lisa Loven Kongsli, Force Majeure 
Lisa Haas, The Foxy Merkins
Jackie Monahan, The Foxy Merkins
Scarlet Johansson, Under the Skin
Essie Davis, The Babadook
Shailene Woodley, The Fault in Our Stars
Thora Bjorg Helga, Metalhead
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nymphomania
Hillary Swank, The Homesman

BEST ACTOR
Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner
Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice
Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Chadwick Boseman, Get On Up
Ben Affleck, Gone Girl
Miles Teller, Whiplash
Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Force Majeure
Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice
Tilda Swinton, Snowpiecer
Lorelei Linklater, Boyhood
Kim Dickens, Gone Girl
Rene Russo, Nightcrawler 
Dorothy Atkinson, Mr. Turner
Marion Bailey, Mr. Turner
Carrie Coons, Gone Girl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Gary Poulter, Joe
Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice
Martin Savage, Mr. Turner
Martin Short, Inherent Vice
Danny Huston, The Congress
Tyler Perry, Gone Girl
Riz Ahmed, Nightcrawler

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Cheatin’ (Bill Plympton)
The Tale of Princess Kayuga (Isao Takahata) 
The Congress (Ari Folman) (If THE LEGO MOVIE, with its extremely lame live action climax, can be considered the frontrunner for this award, then why can't THE CONGRESS, with its supremely moving live action component frontloaded so, compete in this category?)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
NOTE: What a ridiculously rich genre this is now! Whether or not these films have fulfilled the requirements of the Academy, these are the best documentaries I saw this year which are not on the shortlist of those in the running for the award, and in all cases I mourn this fact. By the way: the body count doesn't make for a better documentary. Increasingly, I love the docs that make way for the adoration, and not the decimation of, humanity, and so: 
A Chair Fit for an Angel (Raymond St. Jean)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman)
Red Army (Gabe Polsky)
Stray Dog (Debra Granik)
The Oracles of Pennsylvania Avenue (Tim Wilkerson) 
Sunshine Superman (Marah Strauch) 
Levitated Mass (Doug Pray)
Iris (Albert Maysles)
The Great Chicken Wing Hunt (Matt Reynolds)
Kids for Cash (Robert May) 
Out of Print (Julia Marchese)
Limo Ride (Gideon Kennedy and Marcus Rosentrater)
120 Days (Ted Roach)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler
Ruben Ostlund, Force Majeure 
Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner
Justin Simien, Dear White People
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Two Days, One Night
Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichardt, Night Moves

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice
James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, Guardians of the Galaxy
Gary Hawkins, Joe
Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterston, Snowpiecer
Marion Nelson, Tracks

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Sharone Mair, Whiplash
Robert Elswit, Inherent Vice
Robert Elswit, Nightcrawler
Mandy Walker, Tracks
Fredric Wentzel, Force Majeure 
Robert Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jean-Francois Lord, A Chair Fit for an Angel
Kyun-pyo Hong, Snowpiercer

BEST ART DIRECTION
Snowpiercer
Foxcatcher 
Saint Laurent
Gone Girl
Inherent Vice 
The Babadook

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Saint Laurent
Belle
Jersey Boys
Get On Up

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Marco Beltrami, The Homesman
Mica Levi, Under The Skin
Garth Stevenson, Tracks
Antonio Sanchez, Birdman, or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
Gary Yershon, Mr. Turner

BEST SOUND MIXING
Edge of Tomorrow
Force Majeure
Whiplash
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

BEST SOUND EFFECTS EDITING
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Snowpiercer
Edge of Tomorrow

BEST EDITING
Whiplash
Nightcrawler
Gone Girl
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Edge of Tomorrow 
Under The Skin

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Under The Skin
Edge of Tomorrow
Snowpiercer
Birdman, or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

BEST MAKEUP
Mr. Turner
Snowpiercer
Get On Up

Forgotten Movie Songs #28: "A Gringo Like Me" from GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS

When I start to think about Ennio Morricone's career, my mind boggles. His 500+ film and TV score output seems like a world record, a career that would take an entire career to completely assess. A sample (and the amount of notable titles here could be endless, so I'm sorry if I concentrate only on the ones immediately familiar to me): The Good The Bad and the Ugly (my choice for the best film score of all time), The Mission, Once Upon a Time in the West, Days of Heaven, The Untouchables, A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in America, Duck You Sucker, My Name is Nobody, Bugsy, The Great Silence, Danger: Diabolik, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Cinema Paradiso, La Cage Aux Folles, The Thing, In The Line of Fire, Malena, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, A Pure Formality, Frantic, 1900, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Lolita (the Adrian Lyne version), U Turn, Wolf, and The Stendahl Syndrome.

His output is unmatchable. Hundreds of classical pieces composed before his film involvement, multiple hundreds of orchestrations, both of symphonic pieces and pop songs and experimental pieces. electronic and rock and classical and so many more kinds of sounds. If you just sit and listen to anything done by Morricone, you will be transfixed, even if you have no connection to the event for which the work was written; he is in this way, along with maybe Britain's John Barry, the most immanently listenable composer out there. It's impossible to ague against the notion that Morricone, at the behest of his frequent filmic collaborator Sergio Leone, singularly changed--at the very least--the western film genre (and probably the crime film genre, too); for most of us, after we saw Clint Eastwood's The Man with No Name dispatching villains while backed with Morricone's growling guitars or howling vocals, we were haunted collectively. They so embodied the darkest machismo of the ages that it was impossible for most to imagine the Wild West without such sounds as accompaniment. Genre aside, though, and in trying to simplify such a complicated career, basically, I would say: if Morricone wrote it, it's worth listening to, over and over again. By 2007, when he finally won an Honorary Oscar, I had been predicting such a win for two of three years. It was long overdue, and when it happened, Eastwood was there with him. I only wish Leone could have been there, too (he died in 1989, way too early). 

This song, "A Gringo Like Me," is one of his many masterpieces. It's included in all the compiled overviews of his work, even though I would posit that .0001 of even the informed audience has seen the film it hails from (I haven't seen it either, I should say). But it's historically significant to a ridiculous degree. This main theme to Ricardo Blasco's 1963 film Duello nel Texas, later released as Gunfight at Red Sands and featuring Richard Harrison as Ricardo "Gringo" Martinez, represents Morricone's very first foray into the Western genre, and the first steps into his redefining of it. Morricone contributed to more Italian westerns and crime movies than I could ever attempt to see. Even so, always when I'm watching a film that's new to me, and from wherever in the world, I will hear an odd, burpy FLURR-FLURRRP or a strangely flutey FA-FLEEDLE-DEE-DEEEE, or a bizarre, life-affirming vocal cue ethereally intoning "OOOOH OOH WAAOOO WAAAOOOWAA" or a periodically low-toned "HOEWWUPP!, and I will comment "Is this a Morricone score?!" and sure enough, it turns out to be so. And I am delighted. Time and time, I am reminded of Morricone's work while I'm watching a film, and I comment so quickly to myself "Well, Ennio is here and all is well," because his presence enlivened everything he touched.

But Gunfight at Red Sands is his first, at least in the western genre. It's hard to imagine this as being initial the brick in such a monumental path that led to The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America. And it makes me wonder how many great tunes he scored. I mean, seriously, it must be in the hundreds. I don't immediately have the name of the lyric writer at hand (Jose Hierro is as close as I can get). But the composer--with that absolutely amazing buildup to the vocals--is definitely Morricone, and he definitely changed the way we hear the world. The boldly superb vocalist, by the way, is Peter Tevis.



Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Be the first one to fire
Every man is a liar
There's just one kind of man who tells the truth
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Don't be a fool for a smile or a kiss
Or your bullet might miss
Keep your eye on your goal

There's just one rule that can save you your life
That's a hand on your knife
And the devil in your soul

Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me
Or a gringo like me
Or a gringo like me
Like me

Film #164: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being arrived in 1984 when the author, then and now based in France, was approaching his 10-year anniversary in exile from his homeland Czechoslovakia. In Eastern Europe, his books–often baldly critical of the Communist regime that had taken over his country in 1968–had routinely been banned from publication, and Kundera was stripped of his Czech citizenship in 1979 (he has since insisted on being considered a novelist of French origin). The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the last of his works to have an overtly political bent, was a fin de siècle which followed in a non-linear fashion the lives of five European citizens: Tomas, a 50-ish brain surgeon and womanizer; Sabina, the strong-willed artist with whom he has a iron-clad erotic connection; Tereza, the meek yet floridly emotional photographer who captures his heart (even perhaps against his will); Franz, the Swiss professor who naively falls for Sabina upon her escape to Geneva following the Prague Spring of 1968; and Simon, Tomas’ estranged son from a previous marriage.

When producer Saul Zaentz–who had won two Oscars producing films by Czech émigré Milos Forman–settled upon Kundera’s novel as his follow-up to the immensely successful Amadeus, he opted not with Forman’s services at the helm, but instead with those of the esteemed Philip Kaufman, who was still reeling from the unfortunate box-office drubbing that greeted his superb adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. One might wonder why Zaentz settled on Kaufman rather than Forman, who certainly was able to lend more Eastern European authenticity to this adaptation. However, given that Kaufman had already successfully transferred Wolfe’s “unfilmable” book to screen and that Kundera’s work was similarly afflicted with such a label, Zaentz’s decision made sense. Furthermore, the hiring of master screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière as Kaufman’s co-scribe was another encouraging stroke. Carrière (who would later be chosen as an Honorary Oscar winner in 2014) had already built an unparalleled career working with some of the world’s finest directors--Luis Bunuel, chief among them--on pieces focusing in on the delicate, often dark romantic dance between men and women. He was perfect for this assignment. The screenwriters first jettisoned the novel’s non-linear structure in order to center in on the real story at its core: the love triangle between Tomas, Sabina and Tereza. They made Tomas a much younger character and, in doing so, eliminated the need for Simon, Tomas’ son. And, most wisely, they reduced the amount of political commentary, except as it related to the physical and emotional actions of the three lovers.

As a result, the 1989 film version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being was not entirely satisfactory to the author, who gave a general stamp of approval to Kaufman’s final work but later admitted it was nowhere near to the spirit of his novel (in fact, he’s stated he will never again give permission for one of his books to be screen adapted). Even so, the movie was a resounding art house success and still remains one of the most affecting screen ruminations on the philosophical underpinnings of love and sexual pleasure ever produced. Deeply moving on many fronts, it’s a film like no other and though it’s lost some of its luster over the years (I do wish, now, that it had been directed by a Czech or at least a European director, and done in the Czech language), I do still respond heartily to the beauty of its look and constuction, its ideas, and its actors.



With an elegant title card, Kaufman’s film begins (presumably) outside of either Tomas’ or Sabina’s apartment, where we can hear sexually-charged feminine laughter quietly ringing through the closed door. We then begin to hear Leos Janacek’s delicate music (Kundera’s father was one of Janacek’s students) and we then first see Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) exiting a surgical situation with great flourishes. Very quickly, he gets some intimate attention from a nurse with whom he agreeably dallies, to the pleasure of a voyeuristic pair of doctors and one quickly revived patient (in a wild gag that feels like something out of Kaufman’s The Right Stuff). Day-Lewis invests his Tomas with a brash, predatory confidence–he looks like the ultimate 1960s player, with his wolfish eyes hiding behind ultra-cool black sunglasses. We can see that this confidence is shaken, though, in very different ways by the two women destined to be in his life. His afternoons with Sabina (Lena Olin in a brilliant showing) are bold dips into pure erotic play with no consequences, yet they have exposed Tomas in a very sly manner, so much so that Sabina is the one person who understands him better than he does himself.

SABINA (while wearing her great-great grandfather’s bowler hat): You are the complete opposite of kitsch. In the kingdom of kitsch, you would be a monster. Are you only searching for pleasure, or is every woman a new land whose secrets you’re waiting to discover?

It’s these sort of remarks that make Tomas just a tiny bit less sure of himself when he’s ensconced in Sabina’s mirror-laden boudoir.

His world, though, is truly jolted by the arrival of Tereza. Fresh faced and wide-eyed, she is this Superman’s Kryptonite. As played by the magnificent Juliette Binoche, Tereza would certainly capture any man’s heart; she’s dressed down, awkward, well-read and oh so sweet. Their first meeting, in a rural bar where she is a waitress and where Tomas, instantly captivated after seeing her glide under the water in a spa pool, has followed her. Tereza is girlish, but she’s not so innocent; she’s immediately up for sex with Tomas (“What a coincidence…your room number is 6 and my shift ends at six,” she says at first glance). But Tomas senses a danger to his “lightness of being”–the last thing he wants is to fall in love and he sees he could easily do so with this skipping, joyful, doe-eyed woman. And so he retreats back to Prague and to the less demanding Sabina. However, it isn’t long before Tereza makes her way to his flat and, in a fiercely humorous and unforgettably sexy scene, she undergoes an undisguised doctorial physical examination before boldly attacking Tomas with a barrage of kisses, causing them to both tumble about the room and onto the bed, where their first sexual encounter commences with Tereza’s joyous screams. There is simply no love scene in the history of cinema that has this quality of utter abandon and enervated passion. It’s an extraordinary moment.

Tomas wakes up the next morning with his hand clasped tightly in Tereza’s. This is, of course, new for him, since he routinely leaves a bed early or sends his conquest packing before time comes to actually sleep. In a bit of foreshadowing, Tomas pries her hand away and replaces his own with a copy of Sophocles’ Oedipus, kissing each of her fingers tenderly before leaving. Still, this is not a one-night stand. Tereza, with no intention of leaving her lover, takes up residence in his place. This starts to get Tomas rather nervous, as we see in another brilliant bit of dialogue between he and Sabina, who toys with him by hiding his sock and offering him one of her stockings as replacement.

TOMAS: You think I’m doing something silly. (Sabina feigns confusion) If I had two lives, in one life I could invite her to stay at my place. In the second life, I would kick her out. Then I could compare and see which had been the best thing to do. But we only live once. Life is so light, like an outline we can’t ever fill in or correct or make any better. It’s frightening.

It’s inevitable that Tereza and Sabina meet and, hoping that Sabina can give this callow woman some tips on how to break through as a photographer (and possibly get her off Tomas' back), Tomas makes this happen. But Tereza can sense the sexual tension in the air, and later, in another of the film’s great scenes, she awakes furiously from a nightmare in which Tomas is making love to other women. Literally beating herself up, she turns to Tomas, her face streaked with tears, and asks him why he would do this to her. “It was a dream,” he assures her, but in her heart she knows this is not so. Still, Tomas urges her back to slumber with a dainty poem. This piece of dialogue–the most memorable in the movie–turns out to be a bit written by Kundera directly for the film:

TOMAS: You can sleep. Sleep in my arms. Like a baby bird. Like a broom among brooms in a broom closet. Like a tiny parrot. Like a whistle. Like a little song. A song sung by a forest within a forest, a thousand years ago.

The moment gives you chills, it’s so perfect.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being feels less urgent when its dealing with the political aspects of its story. Its makers somehow seem disengaged, as if they view these bits as being largely expositional and beside the point, which they really are (at least in the context of the film). These moments, while necessary, often stop the movie rather cold and impede our interest in its true raison d’etre. Yes, part of the gist of Kundera’s story is that sexual freedom leads to political freedom, and vice versa. But the political scenes are just dully drawn, without much nuance (they feel like something out of a drab John le Carre adaptation). There are a couple of major scenes, though, in which the political observations work. One is the party scene where the house band, tearing through Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day” for the sock-hopping crowd, is urged to play a Communist-approved dirge for the gang of party loyalists, who are toasting each other at a nearby table. The dance floor thins out as Tomas looks at the self-satisfied Communists and wonders if scoundrels know if they are scoundrels. The house band soon transforms the Communist ditty into a rock song, though, and Tereza joins one of Tomas’ male friends on dance floor. The sequence is expertly edited by the great Walter Murch, who manages to keep its many layers in supreme check. Later that night (in the final scene of the first act), Tomas ruminates on seeing Tereza dance with another man. Tereza begins to smile and dance so cutely around him. “You’re jealous, you’re jealous!” And Tomas protests. “I’m not.” He tries to get up and she pushes him back down–repeatedly. She grabs his feet and pulls him across the room (Day-Lewis does an athletic move here) and they are reduced to a mound together, her tickling him and insisting that they get married, and him resisting all the way. Another sublime scene of immense energy!

Enter here the film's other great character, that of Karenin, the dog that Tomas and Tereza adopt on their wedding day (tellingly, they name it after Anna Karenina, a devoted lover who meets an early death). A mutt if there ever was one, Karenin serves as a symbol of selfless love, of giving and caring. The dog thrives, but it’s strangely clear that, despite the certainty of all this shared love, Tomas is not going to give up his womanizing ways so easily. While having an argument over his infidelities, Tereza runs out of the flat and smack into a Russian tank roaring down the Prague streets (Kaufman actually shot the film in France, which production designer Pierre Guffroy cleverly redressed to look like 1968 Czechoslovakia). Here, through the magic of Murch’s wonderful editing and cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s equally masterful work, we get another of the film’s finest sequences: the Prague Spring, in which Tomas and Tereza’s actions on the streets are matched perfectly with well-chosen shots of actual documentary footage shot during the ’68 riots. In perfectly weathered color and B&W 16mm footage, we see Binoche–snapping pictures furiously–and Day-Lewis consorting with actual protesters, through the mixture of Kaufman’s footage and that of countless other filmmakers whose personal footage of the Communist atrocities had been far flung throughout the world (Murch says that he would find one piece of film in Rome and then find the reverse angle of that same shot in Oslo). One note: Czech filmmaker Jan Nemec is listed as a consultant for the film, and in fact much of his footage is used in this sequence, so much so that Nemec even gets a cameo as a man with a camera on a Prague balcony.

The second act of the film sees Tomas and Tereza following Sabina to Geneva, where she escapes to practice her art and ends up falling for a dowdy, naïve Swiss professor, Franz (Derek De Lint). This section of the film, too, feels lightly drawn, but it does allow Nykvist to change up his color palette a bit from the yellowed and burnished look of Prague to a more vibrant set of tones (Nykvist was nominated for an Oscar for his work, along with Kaufman and Carrière’s screenplay). It also give us another great scene in which Olin’s Sabina, dining at a kitschy restaurant with Franz, expounds on that feeling we all often have as we’re get older–that feeling that everything is getting worse:

SABINA: Everywhere, music is turning into noise. Look at these plastic flowers. They even put them in water. And look out there–those buildings…the uglification of the world. The only place we can find beauty is if its persecutors have overlooked it. It’s a planetary process…and I can’t stand it.

The Geneva sequence also offers us an opportunity to see Sabina and Tereza make a true connection with each other, with Tereza wanting to practice taking nude shots and Sabina agreeing to be her model. In an extraordinary scene, where we get to see these two expert actresses saying it all mostly with their expressive faces (Binoche’s often being obscured by a Praktica camera), we finally understand that Sabina strength is in her body, which she isn’t afraid to bare, and Tereza’s strength lies in her face (she’s terrified of being naked, as we shall see).

The third act of Kaufman and Carriere's brilliant adaptation–which I will keep largely under wraps–returns us to a dirtier, more depressing Prague (in which we are treated to cameos by a very young Stellan Skarsgard and a very old Erland Josephson, both rather underused). These scenes underline the dangers inherent in love and see Tomas making sacrifices one would have never have thought the wolf at the beginning of the film would have deigned make for anyone. I stay away here, also, from Tereza's most stunning words, as I save them for your discovery (I love that Tereza remains the most mysterious soul in this trifecta). By the film’s idyllic final thirty minutes, which is filled nonetheless with heartbreaking loss, we are convinced we have seen one of the most wonderful yet most nakedly honest screen romances cinema has to offer. It may be slightly flawed but Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being remains captivating throughout. It's difficult to find a single movie quite like it.

NOTE: This piece first posted as a part of WONDERS IN THE DARK's overview of the best romantic movies ever made. Take a look at the complete collection here.

My 70s Movie Ad Collages--available for purchase!

This is a various 70s piece, titled 5TH SMASH WEEK. 24" x 36"

This is one called BAD GEORGIA ROAD (24" x 36").

I am a child of the 1970s. When I was in the crib, I used to cry for the movie section of the newspaper and my dad, getting ready to go out and serve on the Atlanta police force, would provide it to me. Then I'd be quiet. This was my comics section, the thing that got me excited to be awake and alive. Movie ads got me to the movies, and the movies changed my life. Later on into my childhood, I would craft what I called my "movie books"--many editions of stapled-together pages, with ads from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut out and affixed onto any sort of paper, by all means necessary--glue, tape, staples. These books have since disappeared.

When I was in my 20s, I worked as a copy boy for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On my off hours, I would visit the microfilm department and peruse the movie sections for each week of the 1970s. I made copies of the pages I liked. By the end of this little project, I had over 400 pages of ads, from Jan 2, 1970 to Dec 31, 1977 (I wasn't able to get '78 or '79, unfortunately). 

Recently, I have started making collages of these ads. I have done seven pieces thus far. Each piece is done on a very thin Fredrix canvas board, but the more expensive ones are done on wood-framed canvas that's ready for hanging. I work mainly in two sizes: 24" x 36" (which is currently going for $300, 350 on wood frame), and 18" x 24" (currently priced at $250, 300 on wood frame--both prices do not include shipping costs). I can do smaller pieces, too, which would naturally be cheaper. I could also go larger, too! All ads are taken from the original microfilm prints and are Atlanta-specific, copied onto high quality paper, hand cut, and placed on the board. For each piece, I cut out generally three times as much as I need, just so I have some choices. Great care is taken not to leave any dead white space; also, I try not to repeat any titles. Each piece is coated with only one coat of decopage (any more ruins the visual quality) and comes with a metal loop affixed to the back, so that it may be quickly hung (no need to buy a frame for the ones on cnavas board, though it's certainly an option). It is a dream of mine to do a whole head-to-toe canvas, or even a wall collage of these ads. Call me if you want it, too.

Each piece is signed, dated, numbered and titled on the back. I choose my titles based on something on the piece I center in on...a bit of ad copy or whatnot.  It takes generally about three days to do each work, given the collating, copying, cutting, placement, and finishing.

The pieces can be themed. I can do:

• Horror
• Science fiction
• Westerns
• Oscar movies
• Art/foreign films
• Blockbusters
• Blaxploitation
• Hicksploitation
• Martial arts
• Comedy
• Sleaze/porn
• Drive-ins
• Music
• Atlanta events (Braves games, rodeos, concerts, plays)
• Animals
• Cars and motorcycles
• And I can include specific titles, if provided and available (BTW, I search out ads from 1978 and 1979 from other sources, if deemed necessary). 

The possibilities are endless, really, and no two are every going to come out alike. Incidentally, when I'm done and the decopage is dry, a small number of the ads take on this aged, yellowed look. This adds another visual level to the piece. I prefer to work only in black and white, but if you wanted a certain color paper used, this could certainly be arranged (though it would add to the original price).

Need I say this? These would be TOTALLY AMAZING Christmas gifts!! Place your orders now!

Again:

SIZES and PRICES: 

• 24" x 42" (on canvas ready for hanging): $350, plus shipping if necessary;  
•  24" x 36" (flat canvas board) -- $250 plus shipping, if necessary
•  18" x 24" (flat canvas board) -- $175 plus shipping, if necessary

Of course, I can do pieces that are of smaller size and of more manageable price. But I believe bigger is better here in order to get the sort of dazzlement I'm aiming for. Anyway, if interested, contact me VIA E-MAIL at jdtreadway@gmail.com or friend me on Facebook.

Here are some photos of past work, just to give you some ideas on the possibilities. Click on each piece it you want to see it enlarged:

This one is called THE RIALTO, and consists of ads for movies that played at the old Rialto movie theater in downtown Atlanta, which is now houses one of the great performance stages in the city. These are mostly action or blaxploitation films here, 24 x 40" wood frame canvas. Here are some detail shots: 

TRIPLE BLOOD TRIP is the title here; it's 24" x 36" and is all horror/sci-fi. All pieces are signed, titled, numbered, and dated on the back. 

Another various piece, 24 x 36"and titled HELD OVER.

Another horror/sci-fi one, called SUPERSTARS OF SHOCK. 24 x 36"

An all sleaze/porn one, titled ALL GIRL ACTION. 18 x 24"

An all sci-fi one, called WE ARE NOT ALONE. 18 x 24. 

This one is called ATLANTA IN THE 70s, and includes music shows, car shows, rodeos, political and movie ads. 24 x 36. 

Here I am mugging shamelessly for the camera at Atlanta's Manuel's Tavern as I deliver a piece of movie art to my much loved cousin Greg for his birthday! 

1933--The Year in Review

A helluva annum. Biopics, monster movies, sophisticate comedy, musicals, and black film all take a huge leap forward this year. Yet, for me, this one film by these brotherly geniuses, these absurd masters of the stage who learned equally to master the screen...well, this film became the go-to wackjob that spoofs war and politics and other heady subjects so brilliantly that it would remain relevant, really, always. I love all Marx Brothers movies, at least up until the mid- to late-40s. But this is THE one. The big ape, the chilly queen, the gluttonous king, the nostalgic Frenchman, the hopeful dancers and the wiseacre social scenesters all remain attractive...but none can best these four nutballs. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are in no way reflective of the choices made by the Oscars.

PICTURE: DUCK SOUP (US, Leo McCarey)
(2nd: King Kong (US, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack), followed by:
Zero for Conduct (France, Jean Vigo)
Queen Christina (US, Rouben Mamoulian)
42nd Street (US, Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley)
Dinner at Eight (US, George Cukor)
Design for Living (US, Ernst Lubischt)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Germany, Fritz Lang)
Sons of the Desert (US, William A. Seiter)
She Done Him Wrong (US, Lowell Sherman)
The Private Life of Henry VIII (UK, Alexander Korda)
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! (US, Lewis Milestone)
The Emperor Jones (US, Dudley Murphy)
Lady for a Day (US, Frank Capra)
The Invisible Man (US, James Whale)
The Mystery of the Wax Museum (US, Michael Curtiz))

ACTOR: Charles Laughton, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (2nd: Groucho Marx, Duck Soup, followed by: Paul Robeson, The Emperor Jones; Werner Baxter, 42nd Street; Fredric March, Design for Living; Al Jolson, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!; Gary Cooper, Design for Living; Otto Wernicke, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse; Lionel Atwill, The Mystery of the Wax Museum) 

ACTRESS: Greta Garbo, QUEEN CHRISTINA (2nd: Mae West, She Done Him Wrong, followed by: Miriam Hopkins, Design for Living; Katherine Hepburn, Morning Glory; Barbara Stanwyck, The Bitter Tea of General Yen; May Robson, Lady for a Day; Janet Gaynor, State Fair; Fay Wray, King Kong; Ruby Keeler, 42nd Street)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: John Barrymore, DINNER AT EIGHT (2nd: Chico Marx, Duck Soup, followed by: Adolph Menjou, Morning Glory; Frank Morgan, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!; Frank McHugh, The Mystery of the Wax Museum; Ned Sparks, 42nd Street; Eugene Pallette, The Kennel Murder Case)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Marie Dressler, DINNER AT EIGHT (2nd: Jean Harlow, Dinner at Eight, followed by: Margaret Dumont, Duck Soup; Una O'Connor, The Invisible Man; Joan Blondell, Footlight Parade; Spring Byington, Little Women; Ginger Rogers, 42nd Street)

DIRECTOR: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, KING KONG (2nd: Jean Vigo, Zero for Conduct, followed by: Rouben Mamoulian, Queen Christina; Leo McCarey, Duck Soup; George Cukor, Dinner at Eight; Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley, 42nd Street)

SCREENPLAY: Burt Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, DUCK SOUP (2nd: Frances Marion, Herman J. Mackiewicz and Donald Ogden Stuart, Dinner at Eight, followed by: Jean Vigo, Zero for Conduct; Ben Hecht, Design for Living; Rian James and James Seymour, 42nd Street; Norbert Jacques, Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse; Mae West, Harvey Thew and John Bright, She Done Him Wrong)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: ZERO FOR CONDUCT (Jean Vigo) (2nd: The Fatal Glass of Beer (Clyde Bruckman (WC Fields)), followed by: A Bundle of Blues (Fred Waller (Duke Ellington)); The Pharmacist (Arthur Ripley (WC Fields));  Busy Bodies (Lloyd French (Laurel and Hardy)), The Barber Shop (Arthur Ripley WC Fields)); The Kid from Borneo (Robert F. McGowan (Little Rascals))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: POPEYE THE SAILOR (Dave Fleischer) (2nd: The Three Little Pigs (Walt Disney and Burt Gillet), followed by Night on Bald Mountain (Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker); The Old Man of the Mountain (Dave Fleischer); Carmen (Lotte Reiniger))

CINEMATOGRAPHY: William H. Daniels, QUEEN CHRISTINA (2nd: Boris Kaufman, Zero for Conduct, followed by: William H. Daniels, Dinner at Eight; Karl Vash and Fritz Arno Wagner, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse; Sol Polito, 42nd Street; Joseph Walker, The Bitter Tea of General Yen; George Barnes, Footlight Parade)

ART DIRECTION: DINNER AT EIGHT, Queen Christina, Little Women, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Footlight Parade

COSTUME DESIGN: QUEEN CHRISTINA, Duck Soup, Dinner at Eight, She Done Him Wrong, The Private Life of Henry VIII

SPECIAL EFFECTS: KING KONG, The Invisible Man

MAKEUP: THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, Queen Christina, The Bitter Tea of General Yen