Charming Monsters

One of the films I most regretted missing at this year’s Toronto Film Fest was Micmacs, the latest from the fabulous French film director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, best known for Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children and Amélie. It’s opening for a limited run in Los Angeles and New York on May 28, and will hopefully be showing up in Toronto indie cinemas this summer (I’m fairly sure I could snag a DVD from Suspect Video already, but Jeunet’s visuals demand a big-screen appreciation). For more info, there’s the official movie website.

Amazing series of NYC dance photographs shot by Jordan Matter, featuring members of the Paul Taylor and Martha Graham Dance Companies in contemporary urban settings. Full set is online here; it’s an ongoing project, so it’s probably worth checking out the site every few months.

From the artist statement:

I began to photograph these dancers as everyday people. In the photographs they are away from the stage, yet they cannot leave dance behind. As they go about their daily routines, they do so as dancers. This speaks to the power of a passionate life; if you’re fully invested in something, it is always with you.

[via kottke.org]

Technically, con season has already begun – Jim, Omar and Christine were at Emerald City in Seattle last month, representing UDON – but *my* first show is the Calgary Expo in Alberta this weekend, April 24-25th. Calgary is a great show, really well organized with a stellar guest list, so it’s a nice start to the season.

We head in a day early to help with a few pre-con events, and stick around for a few days after to hang out in Banff for some networking events. Which is awesome, but I’m rapidly reaching the point of being pinched on deadlines all around, and I suspect there’s some awkward “working from the hotel room” in my future.

May gets a little wacky, with local Toronto cons to bookend the month: TCAF on May 8-9 and Anime North on May 28-30. UDON doesn’t have a booth at either show, although some of our artists have personal booths, which will need a bit of support. TCAF will actually be busier for me than Anime North, even though it’s a smaller show: I’m friends with the organizer and will be helping with a few events, plus hosting some out-of-town friends. Not to mention that Jim is sandwiching some more travel in between the two shows, which is going to make for a fun juggling act!

Grimoire is the Japanese vintage shop at the heart of the Antique Doll (aka Dolly-kei) movement in Japanese street fashion, so influential that the style is often labeled “Grimoire” in the way facial tissues are known as Kleenex. Where Mori Girl is influenced by Swedish / Northern European elements, Dolly-kei looks to Western Europe folk traditions, borrowing loose layers of prim, embroidered cottons, fur throws and salvaged upholstery trims.

Unlike lolita fashion, with it’s heavy emphasis on key brands and rare prints, Dolly-kei is all about the truly unique: one of a kind vintage items sourced from Europe and North America, ideally combined with hand-made accessories and pale, natural make-up. It’s fascinating in part because a shop like Grimoire would have a lot more trouble carving out this niche in North America or Europe, where they’d be competing with every thrift shop, vintage boutique and charity shop with a similar selection. The combination of a curated collection with the relative unavailability of suitable vintage elsewhere has provided the Tokyo Dolly-kei scene with a focused point of interest and community that seems to have really helped drive the style forward.

[Grimoire Shibuya article on TokyoFashion.com]

GONE WITH THE WIND is one of those movies I wind up watching every five or six years, usually because I become convinced I haven’t seen the full thing. Only to realize that I have, of course. Anyway, Jim was traveling for work last week and the library had a copy in stock, so I spent another gorgeous Technicolor evening in the lost land of the Old South.

There’s no question that the racial politics of the film range from awkward to terrible; even the “good” African-American characters are such overplayed stereotypes that it makes one’s teeth ache a bit. That said, GONE WITH THE WIND is filled with stereotypes in place of characters, from the milksop Southern lads fawning over young Scarlet to the painfully pure Melanie, wife to Scarlet’s long-denied love, Ashely. Complexity is left to the main characters – Scarlet, Rhett and even Ashely – and it’s an interesting complexity, everyone selfish and neurotic and faintly unpleasant. It’s a fascinating reminder that the most compelling and memorable characters are not necessarily the nice, sympathetic ones.

Also: can you say gorgeous costume design? GORGEOUS. I’m not really a fan of the Southern Belle hoop skirt look, but the outfits in this movie (from the first third, especially) are lush enough to make me start longing for whalebone skirts.