Feliz Día de los Muertos

So yesterday I admitted that I don't get the appeal of Halloween. Bad me.

via Flickr

On November 1st however, Mexico hosts a holiday I could really get behind. It's el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

El Día de los Muertos takes the idea of the Roman Catholic All Saints day (which is also today) and merges it with the democratic impulses of All Soul's day (which is tomorrow).

Setting aside a day out of the year to honor my dead loved ones? Sign me up.

HBO remade Mildred Pierce; I'm withholding judgment

One of the greatest films ever made was 1945's tour de force Mildred Pierce. Joan Crawford had been let go by Metro Goldwyn Mayer and this was her first film for Warner Brothers. It netted her the only Oscar of her long and distinguished career.

Mildred Pierce is the ultimate film noir murder mystery. Under Michael Curtiz's direction, the movie's stellar cast wallows in 1940s glamor. The set design, the lighting, the wardrobes and yes the story are a compelling and fascinating watch. Joan Crawford could chew on scenery like none other and her larger than life portrayal of Mildred is matched line by line by Ann Blyth's over the top characterization of Mildred's horrific daughter Veda. Throw in Zachary Scott for beefcake and Eve Arden for comic relief and it's a winner all around.





Mildred Pierce was adapted from James M. Cain's 1941 novel of the same name. In order to get the film made, Warner Brothers altered the story pretty significantly. They downplayed the sexual carryings on and played up the violence. Cain's novel is as much about the Depression and Prohibition as it is about they dynamics of a hard working mother and an ungrateful daughter and neither of those topics get touched upon in the Warner Brothers film.

Over the weekend, I learned that HBO has remade Mildred Pierce as a five-part mini-series that will premiere in the spring of 2011. The cast looks interesting and there was enough material left out of Cain's novel to make a brand new Mildred Pierce. Kate Winslett play Mildred and it will take me a while to get used to seeing her as such I have to admit. Guy Pearce plays the penniless playboy Monty and that's some great casting.





What give me hope for this movie is that it's being directed by Todd Haynes.

Todd Haynes made 2002's Far from Heaven, a movie I say is the best film of the 21st century so far.





With Far from Heaven under his belt, he proved that he can handle a period piece. And how. Wow, that movie is as beautiful to look at as it is devastating to watch.

So I'll be curious to see what Kate Winslett does with the character of Mildred Pierce and even more curious to see what Haynes does with Can's novel. What ever happens, get ready for a 1940s revival to counter the current craze for all things Mid Century Mad Men.

Autumn re-runs: A history of western art in under three minutes

This post ran originally on 13 June 2009. Oh me oh my do I love art history and I'd forgotten all about this fantastic video. The point of my weekend re-runs is to give a second chance to some of my old material and bo-baby does this video need to be seen again.

Check this out. Someone posted this on Twitter this week and I've been watching it ever since. For the life of me I'm not exactly sure who posted it though. I think it was @leonagaita or @verdigrisvie though. If it were someone else I apologize and ladies, if either of you were the original poster, thank you.

I haven't gone off on an Art History tear in a couple of weeks and this video will do it for me. This thing's a brilliant, animated survey of the last 500 years of western portraiture. I love, love, love how this video's producer got to the 19th century and kept going up to the present. Far too often, people gloss over the last 100 years because they don't quite know what to do with it. That's unfortunate because even though it may not be immediately obvious, all art rests on the shoulders of the art that came before. This video drives home that point brilliantly and it does it in less than three minutes. Bravo!

If you're having trouble with this, follow this link. This video came from the great website GUBA, and it was posted by someone who goes by the name jun129. Thank you jun129.

Autumnal reruns: Apartment Therapy makes my head hurt

This post ran originally on 29 August 2009 and I'm running it again to keep up the educational tone of my reruns this weekend. I can't repeat it often enough, science is your friend. There is no other method to understand the world.

It's Saturday and I'm feelin' the need to pontificate.

Against my better judgement, I logged onto that doggone Apartment Therapy the other day. I have no excuse other than I was looking to read something inane, and what better place for a fix of inanity than AT?

I found this:

Over the weekend we read about some recent studies showing that plant essential oils from common herbs—specifically rosemary, thyme, clove, and mint—can be effective as natural pesticides. Apparently just a few drops of the plant oils mixed with water can repel or kill destructive aphids and mites. This seems like great news for those trying to grow veggies and fruit at home without the use of harmful chemicals...

Uhhhhhh, the plant extracts mentioned here; rosemary, thyme, clove and mint, are most definitely harmful chemicals. If they weren't harmful chemicals, they wouldn't kill aphids and mites.

All plants are engaged in an arms race with the creatures that eat them. Plants defend themselves the only way they can, they evolve chemical defenses. Some of these defenses are aimed at a specific predator and some defenses are more broad spectrum. Human beings aren't usually the intended target in this arms race, and as a species we reap some really tasty rewards. So even though I happen to love the taste of rosemary, thyme, cloves and mint (to maintain the theme of the AT pablum I quoted above), I never forget that the taste I'm so drawn to in these plants is essentially a pesticide. I'm not the intended target, but if I eat enough rosemary it'll make me as sick as a single bite of rosemary does a katydid or an aphid. Rosemary's taste comes from a chemical made by the plant to act as a pesticide, and rosemary's certainly not alone in this. These foods and flavors aren't bad and I'm not saying that you shouldn't eat cilantro or mustard greens any more. Toxicity is a matter of dose. Period. A toxic dose of cyanide is surprisingly small. A toxic dose of water is significantly higher, but it's still a toxic dose.

The following is an excerpt from a lecture given by Richard A. Muller, a professor at the University of California at Berkley. He makes some great, though counterintuitve points about this whole natural/ unnatural division. I LOVE this kind of stuff.

Life is rarely, if ever, an either/or proposition. Divisions between natural and unnatural are arbitrarily drawn. Natural is a meaningless label applied by marketing departments. The current vogue for "organic" foods may have standards behind that label (for the time being at least), but it too is an arbitrary line in the sand.

Have you ever noticed that the bug spray Raid smells like chrysanthemums? It does because its active ingredient is pyrethrin. That's chrysanthemum extract. So what's the difference between spraying Raid on a tomato plant and growing a chrysanthemum next to the same plant? One may make you feel better but at the end of the day, there's no real difference.

I say it all the time, science is your friend folks.

Designer's confessional: I don't get Halloween

OK, I'm taking a break from my usually scheduled reruns to make an earth-shattering confession.

 I don't get Halloween.

I liked it well enough when I was a kid but after the age of about 12 I just stopped understanding its appeal. I like who I am and I like the life I lead. So why should I dress up like somebody else for a night?