Janet Fish 1938-2025

 

Peter Greene 1965-2025

 

Mid December 2025 mixed on paper

 

Jay Kelly 2025

George Clooney is a marvelous movie star, and his latest screen character Jay Kelly is also a marvelous movie star. Both star in Noah Baumbach's good and mostly moving movie on Hollywood and the toll it takes on the stars and people who work there. Jay Kelly is a popular high end star in the mold and mood of some of the great male stars of the golden years who Jay adores and holds in high regard, Cooper, Gable, Grant as he names them in hushed reverence. Baumbach who is a director of stories about relationships knows his film history and what went before him. It's in this sub genre of Hollywood lore that he tells us his story of Jay Kelly.

There is a long history of movies about the making of movies in Hollywood going back to the early days of sound and includes many classics including “What Price Hollywood” , “Singin In The Rain”, “A Star is Born” (the Cukor Garland version and “The Bad and The Beautiful” to name just a few. The last film dealing with the ins and outs of Hollywood, the one that immediately comes to mind is Robert Altman's “The Player” which looms large over Jay Kelly in approach, technique and form. There is no murder mystery in Jay Kelly but there are the deaths of souls and relationships throughout. Baumbech opens his Hollywood fable large and loud, a film has just finished shooting with its star Jay Kelly burnt out and exhausted. He's mulling over the idea of this will be his last film after 35 years of stardom. Baumbach moves his cast and crew all over the large set, he knows his stuff and its a fascinating (for me anyway) to watch how a movie might be made. There are several plot threads running here, one is that Jay is due to go to Italy where they are having a large tribute for his career, and he's up and down on this idea. No he won't go, cancel it, then yes he will go and his large and loyal entrouge led by his manager and close friend Ron played in Oscar winning fashion by Adam Sandler, an at first unrecognizable Laura Dern as his grouchy publicist and Emily Mortimer who co wrote the screenplay as his hairdresser along with several others who come and go like a Santa Ana wind.

Jay lives in a late very large modern sleek house (its quite the set) alone in the Hollywood hills and is left to his personal failures mainly having to do with his two estranged daughters there is no mention of a former wife, or any real deep romantic relationships and his memories are played back for us in conversations that Jay has with his ghosts that Baumbach brings to life in sharp focus and strong visual movie make believe.

Yes his daughters, both are hurt by the supposed neglect he gave them growing up, and the younger one is more ok with her estranged relationship with him than his older daughter who is a bitter pill, both are no prizes to be sure. Some of his encounters with them are real and others are imagined and these are for me the dullest parts of the film. But as some playwright once said attention must be paid, and Baumbech who is a strong supporter of damaged and conflicted families gives us a dose of attention. There is also a bitter reunion in Italy with Jay's problematic aging father wonderfully acted by Stacy Keach who Jay has flown in for his tribute but leaves soon after arriving.

As I mentioned Baumbach influences are many and varied from Robert Altman to Fellini who hovers over the last part of the film that takes place in Italy like a giant Thanksgiving day balloon. It's here in Italy that Jay has his mea culpa coming to grips with his failures, faults and gifts mostly as he watches the film tribute to his career which uses actual footage and clips from Clooney's impressive career and the film ends with a deep close up of Clooney who addresses us with the line “can we go again? I'd like another one”. Make of it what you will. Also in the very good cast is Alba Rohrwacher, Greta Gerwig, Jim Broadbent and Billy Crudup. So far one of the ten best films of 2025.

Mixed on paper 2025

 

Frank Gehry 1929-2025

 

Odd Ball

Holy moly I just checked on my art on odd ball magazine and there are 16 pgs. of my drawings, collages and photographs that have been used throughout the years, that's a lot of art. Feel free to click on the link and view if you like 16pgs. of my published work. Everything is for sale.


https://oddballmagazine.com/?s=ira+joel+haber&fbclid=IwY2xjaw
OdiYxleHRuA2FlbQIx
MABicmlkETE5UlVXNmJibEl3VzM4QlVxc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQ
MjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHjGH-2HJEbybBWnhrQivLhLJdE
_sPJ_C9xRmB_yJB0uSaXK-YfuPqFMaDqs2_aem_JOVdCCNbS6MFYThApDeMwg

Fat Donnie #5 an on going series.

 

Fat Donnie. An on going series of portraits.

 

Tom Stoppard 1937-2025

 

Lee Tamahori 1950-2025

 

Robert A.M. Stern 1939-2025

 

This is going to hurt. Netflix

This is a superb medical series from England that takes place mainly in the obstetrics gynaecology unit in a big chaotic hospital that brims over in intensity and lots of humor and charm. Played by Ben Whishaw in another great performance (and yes he plays gay once again) he is a compassionate involved doctor who gives all to his job. Its sometimes graphic (giving birth is not pretty) but as I said there is lots of humor and many terrific performances besides Whishaw, and did I mention how magnificent he is? The first season is 7 episodes and I was sorry to see it end, but there is another season out there so I'll be still for now. I especially loved a young actress never seen by me before Ambika Mod who broke me in two, Ashley McGuire another great actress and the incomparable Harriet Walter who plays Ben's difficult mother. Great writing which I demand from my series, see this one.

Jimmy Cliff 1944-2025

 

Udo Kier 1944-2025

 

final collage in this series of three. 2025.

 

The Beast in Me. Netflix.

A clinker that is at best a paint by numbers thriller that we've seen many times before. The plot concerns a damaged writer, Her last book was a tell all about her horrible relationship with her father, and horrible male relationships is underlined throughout this series.

The damaged writer has gone through a terrible loss, and is also separated from her wife, a gooey realist painter whose work is immediately gobbled up by a make believe gallery director who shows lots of mediocre art in her big big gallery and just happens to be married to Mathew Rhys the villain of the piece. I'm not giving anything away here, since Rhys is threatening and nasty from the get go. His performance is so over the top which I guess will make some think "Gee what a great performance it is". It isn't.

The damaged writer is played by Claire Danes who gives another one of her mannered performances, who cries on cue, and is distraught on cue. Look I don't hate her, but she seems to gave the same performance over and over since her Homeland days. Into her life in Oyster Bay comes a controversial real estate billionaire who has recently moved in next door to her with his new wife, Ms. gallery director (the first one has gone missing or has she?) and his ferocious mean dogs that scare Claire.

The billionaire has I said is menacingly played by Matthew Rhys who wants to build a big running path behind the properties including Claire's and she wants no part of it. Rhys is also planning a huge hudson yards like project in the city with the help of his menacing dad played by Jonathan Banks who looks horrible and over acts throughout. The menace is underlined and the politics are as they use to to say "ripped from todays headlines"

Aggie/Claire is having problems writing a next book and an idea is hatched for her to write a tell all about her new controversial neighbor and his missing wife. The plot is so far fetched and stretched out that I don't understand the attention and good reviews it's getting except that maybe the people who liked it have never seen a good thriller, noir or otherwise.

There are really no surprises, everything is so in your face, and the murders are also predictable including one which involves the victim getting smashed in the head with a small bad sculpture. Hell if I'm going to get smashed in my head by an art work it had better be a Noguchi

, a Brancusi or a nice small Henry Moore. The rest of the cast is ok, neither here nor there, and they fill their parts with nothing more than what is required of them. This beast is not in me.

2 new works on paper 2025.

 

Alison Knowles 1933-2025

 

Elizabeth Franz 1941-2025

 

Peter Watkins 1935-2025

 

Tatsuya Nakadai 1932-2025

 

Sally Kirkland 1941-2025

 

Pauline Collins 1940-2025

 

John Russell Taylor 1935-2025

 

Deadline At Dawn 1946

The Criterion channel is offering up this month a series of Film Noir classics some great and all very good including this little B potboiler made in 1946 by RKO but filmed on the back lot of 20^th Century Fox. Set on a hot summer night in New York City it starts out with Bill Williams a sailor on leave and cute as a button waking up from a deep dark drunken sleep by the side of a newstand in Times Sq. He finds a roll of bills coming to a total of 1,400 that falls out of his pocket but can't remember anything about the roll or his roll on the night on the town.

He picks himself up, dusts himself off and takes off on the hot summer crowded streets of Times Sq. which are nicely indicated by the swell art direction constructions by Albert S. D' Agostino, Jack Okey & Darrell Silvera and the beautiful noir drenched cinematography by the great Nicholas Musuraca who started filming movies in 1923 and went on to shoot many classics of Noir and horror including Clash by Night, Out of The Past, The Sprial Staircase, and The Cat People along with tons of early tv stuff. Williams is literally pushed into a 10 cents a dance place where he meets up with one of the 10 cents dancer played by Susan Hayward in her 24^th film and tough and tangy as we like her.

She zings and sashays all over the place and she is soon getting the hots for the cute as a button Bill Williams who tells her of his drunken night on the town with some dame who we have met earlier in the movie. She's played by the blowzy Lane sister Lola and is soon out of the film for reasons I will say no more. We also meet in the sweltering small digs of Lola a blind pianist and ex hubby of hers named Sleepy Parsons (I kid you not) acted by Marvin Miller who might be remembered by Baby boomers as Michael Anthony who gave away millions on the 50's hit t.v. Show “The Millionaire.” The plot Thins and thickens as this fast and loose 83 minute thriller moves on the fast track with speeding taxi cabs, odd characters, (Roman Bohmen appears in a brief scene as a grief stricken cat owner who's cat has just died) and other odds and ends still up at 2 in the morning in this sweltering New York.

There is a mystery of course, hell its based on a William Irish also known as Cornell Woolrich novel and plenty of twists, turns and confusion all of which I found fabulously entertaining. Directed by the well known theatre director and co founder of the Group Theatre Harold Clurman, whose only film this was, and with a screenplay by Clifford Odets of all people so there are plenty of great lines and sentences coming out of the actors mouths. “People with wax heads should keep out of the sun”, If she cut off her head, she'd be very pretty” to mention just two.

Also in the cast is Paul Lukas who three years earlier won a best actor Oscar for “Watch on The Rhine” and here he is cast in a supporting but pivotal role as a cab driver who becomes a partner in the chase with Williams and Hayward. Also look for some great character actors including the superb Joseph Calleia who was never bad, Osa Massen,and Joe Sawyer as a drunken ballplayer named “Babe”. Might be on my ten best list for 1946.

Diane Ladd 1935-2025