Speedin’, cruisin’ or crawlin’: the car is King in Los Angeles
Palm Tree on Rodeo drive
As a pretty savvy driver, who can take on any Parisian around the Arc de Triomph in Paris, I find driving in LA a whole other proposition. If you are zooming along, or crawling at a snails pace, LA is the city where you spend more time in a car than anywhere else!
…in no particular order & with my favorite recording…
Number Seven: Billie Holiday
How one song she sang embodied racial crimes in America: “Strange Fruit”.
Billie Holiday performs at the Downbeat club in New York, 1947 – Photograph by William Gottlieb
Billie Holiday hardly needs introducing and I want to concentrate on one song in particular: “Strange Fruit” (click on link to see rare live performance). Her haunting voice sets the tone and serves as a powerful tool of protest and accusation.
Can a remake of a masterful classic film ever be as good or even better?
That is the big question in Hollywood: which film can we remake to capture the audience of today? I vote for the 1999 remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair” with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, find “Create the Look” of Rene Russo’s looks below.
Pierce Brosnan in the remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair“
…in no particular order & with my favorite recording…
Number Six: Rita Reys
The Dutch jazz singer Rita Reys was very deservedly called: “Europe’s First Lady of Jazz”
Cover photo of the album “The Cool Voice of Rita Reys”
Rita Reys sang most of the famous jazz standards but my absolute favorite record is: “Rita Reys Sings Michel Legrand”. This was an artistic marriage made in heaven. Michel Legrand, the French composer, wrote one hit song after another, and his film scores are amongst the most notable in the world.
Question: “What’s an associate producer credit?” – Answer: “It’s what you give to your secretary instead of a raise.”
This is one of the many hilarious lines in one of my favorite movies: “State and Main“ written and directed by David Mamet in 2000. The title is as baffling to non-Americans as it is crystal clear to Americans: in most American towns there is a “Main Street” and somewhere it will be crossed by “State”, short for the State Highway. And this movie is all about a little sleepy town in Vermont where a Hollywood film is being shot, with all the uproar that creates…
chateaustyle.me 