edith scob 1937-2019

Billy Drago 1945-2019

Suzan Pitt 1943-2019

Inscape Literary Magazine 2019

My Brilliant Friend 2018

Stunning and very engrossing 8 hour series based on the books by the secretive  and pseudonymous Elena Ferrante that should keep many of you happy and purring with delight during these hot summer months. Directed by Saverio Costanzo in Large scale emotions, narrative and design the series (subtitled) is the story of two young girls Elena and Lila who grow up in a run down post war Naples neighborhood that is more outside than inside the city. There are many characters that come and go and grow up and change before our eyes, but the two young girls first seen as adolescents and then as teenagers are the focus of the film and both of the young untrained actresses who play the girls as teens are superb. I should say they are both stunning especially Gaia Girace who should have a brilliant career in films if she chooses. You can’t take your eyes off her, she is that striking. The film of course brings to mind all the great Italian directors Fellini, Rossellini & Di Sica and so many others and is overstocked with complicated plots and colorful characters. It might be confusing at first as there is so much to take in. Both girls are brilliant students but one gives it up to work for her father who is a shoemaker and the other continues on with her studies, and both have many of the young and handsome neighborhood Italian boys and later sexy and handsome men falling in love with them, usually to no avail. Some may have a problem with the careful shabbiness of it all, it is wonderfully designed, the clothes and cars of the 50’s are especially beautiful and some may have problems with the violence, there is plenty of it. A child is thrown from a window as casual as someone flicking a cigarette, brawls erupt in the streets and in homes and shops, stones and kicks are thrown. Some of the eroticism is played out by the young men, who strut their stuff dancing and at the big Italian wedding that closes the film with each other. The film, ends rather abruptly at this wedding which promises more to come. 

Collage mixed on cardboard June 2019

The London Reader

Just published. Check out the piece by Robbi Nester and one of my paintings at this link. Its a PDF. Please copy and paste the link.


file:///C:/Users/ira%20joel/Downloads/The%20London%20Reader%20-%20Summer%202019%20-%20After%20the%20Flood.pdf

Sylvia Miles 1924-2019

Working girl 1988

           Mike Nichol’s 1988 throw back to 30’s and 40’s romantic comedies. The film is lush comfortable and a little misogynist with an unbelievable premise and a make believe aura that is set in a fabled New York City where the only borough is Manhattan and the women who live in Staten Island and take the ferry to the Emerald City every morning all look like clowns with mile high hair and the men are all Guidos who cheat on their women, wear tight pants and have hairdos as wild as the women. The plot concerns a sweet ferry rider commuter played by Melanie Griffith who lives with her cheating dim boyfriend played by a young and very handsome Alec Baldwin. Mel works in the stock market and is bright and alert so naturally she is only a secretary but longs to climb that ladder up. She is attractive and has to endure the sexual come-ons from the likes of Kevin Spacey and Oliver Platt but she puts them in their places.
             She eventually does make it as an assistant to the strong tough boss lady played well by Sigourney Weaver who is the villain of the piece just because she is doing her job well and is serious, so she is a bitch, and gets her comeuppance at the end of the film in a very public and humiliating way. Meanwhile Mel has a great idea for a merger of some kind, and it looks like it was stolen by Sigourney and Melanie gets her revenge when Weaver falls off a mountain during a skiing vacation and breaks her leg. Not very subtle but I guess it works. The rest of the movie is how Melanie changes her looks in a minute and poses as the head of her dept. and offers up this obtuse merger plan as her own. She joins forces with Harrison Ford who is an investment banker or counselor who she meets cute at a party and who by the way is dating Weaver. I’m getting all huffy and puffy here, which is what the movie is huffy and puffy.
       Joan Cussack who plays Melanie’s best friend is made up to look like a freak, mile high teased hair, too much make up, loud vulgar clothes and an outer borough accent that is outer outer here, and she pretty much steals the scenes she’s in even though she looks grotesque and scary. Melanie also has the look of outer borough but she soon becomes chic and glamorous when Joan gives her a cut and dry in the office. Presto. Nichols keeps Griffith’s baby girl voice down and shows her in all sorts of undress throughout the film including some scanty and flamboyant Victoria Secret like under garments and pushes her amble behind in our faces, naturally there is no male nudity or suggestive poses except for a discreet shot or two of Ford and Baldwin shirtless and clueless. Griffith hatches plans and Ford hatches plans and soon they are falling in love, which I didn’t buy for a minute but its all sweet and harmless I guess.  Nichols began his directing career on Broadway doing those sit com like Neil Simon plays but he soon graduated to making serious movies like Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf a hit, and Catch 22 and Day Of the Dolphin big flops. Working Girl was a big hit for him and with The Academy Awards who nominated it for some major prizes including Best Picture and Director.  It’s not a horrible movie and is easy to take. It’s glamorous, humorous and easy on the eyes.