Film

Last year, Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson of NYC's karlssonwilker inc. were asked to develop ideas to celebrate the launch of MINI's latest model the Coupe. One quite "self-serving" notion was to go on a road trip, through countries they wanted to explore, meet with creatives along the way, and take the various countries' "creative [...]

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"Clang, clang, clang" went the Lino...type "Ding, ding, ding" went the bell "Zing, zing, zing" slid the copy At the moment I typed it, it fell "Chug, chug, chug" went the motor "Bump, bump, bump" rang the lead "Thump, thump, thump" went the matrices When it molded, I could see the type fed "Buzz, buzz, [...]

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The BBC made a hilarious two-part Downton Abbey parody -- Uptown Downstairs Abbey -- for the annual Red Nose Day charity.  Narrated by Michael Gambon, the two-parts feature Absolutely Fabulous’ Jennifer Saunders as a marvelously nasty Dowager Countess, her AbFab co-star Joanna Lumley as a housekeeper who knows that she is meant for a posher [...]

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Mad Men season five… about time! But that new outdoor ad of the guy suspended in white space… what's the big idea? It's certainly eye-catching. And it's already become controversial after just a few days. In those respects it may be meant to announce "Don Draper: the George Lois years." People are offended by the [...]

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Directors Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey have recently produced another design documentary that easily deserves a spot on the shelf next to Gary Hustwit's trilogy, Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. Now screening at independent theaters around the country, Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter provides fresh insight into the personal lives of the [...]

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The Adventures of Werner Holt, A revealing story of young soldiers in Nazi Germany, directed by Joachim Kunert and co-written with Claus Küchenmeister (from the novel by Dieter Noll), was filmed in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Unlike Hollywood, which was much slower to portray Nazi horrors, this is a complex drama of the average German [...]

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The Bruce Lee craze of the 1970s produced an endless array of merchandise in the hopes of cashing in on the world-renowned martial artist’s popularity – especially after his untimely death in 1973 at the age of 32. I'd been a fan of his since he'd played "Kato" in the old "Green Hornet" TV series, [...]

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It isn't exactly a Christmas movie, even though it has a great Christmas party scene. But this film contains one of the best title sequences of 1957. Desk Set, one of the first computer vs. man (and woman) films uses computer tropes in a pioneering way. The plot: A mysterious man hanging about at the [...]

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  You've read Steve Heller's effusive review of Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design in the N.Y. Times this past Sunday; it's the one that concludes, "... an essential portrait of a designer who successfully balanced art and commerce, and who remains an influence on contemporary graphic and motion design." Well, Pat Kirkham [...]

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A few years ago I had the good fortune to edit a lovely little book called I Met the Walrus, based on an Oscar-nominated short animated film of the same name. Set in 1969, both tell the story of Jerry Levitan, a precocious 14-year-old who was a huge Beatles fan and wanted nothing more than to [...]

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