13 Amazing 2010 Film & TV Performances - PopWrap

13 Amazing 2010 Film & TV Performances - PopWrap

Here is my take on the PopWrap's 13 Amazing performances missed out by awards and glitz

1-3 I am not to aware of because I don't really remember Zach on SNL, didn't see or like horror movie "The Last Exorcism" and lastly didn't see but thought about going to see "Despicable Me" with Steve Carroll. They compare his performance worth of "Alladin's" Robin Williams.

Ok lets get to the good ones:

4. lets skip completely because I hate vampires, and the only reason I even know this girl is from Degrassi, where she plays Mia, who's character is less pretty but more rea

5. Jonah Hill in Cyrus. He is the oddly loveable son of Marisa Tomei with a serious Mommy complex. The movie makes you feel so gross and awkward at times which is where the beauty in the imperfections of these characters are best. He makes rad music that his mom fully supports, but when a new man comes into her life their relationship takes a turn. The Post compares his performance like many to...Adam Sandler in "Punch Drunk Love" and Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show." Whatever you want to compare it to, its a great hidden jem of the indie movie season.

6. Patricia Clarkson & Stanley Tucci as Rosemary & Dill in "Easy A": I loved this movie, it was cute, and had a great modern twist on a classic and boring "Scarlet Letter." Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are the ultimate scene stilling parents. Laid back but street smart, and know how hard it is to be a teenager.

A memorable quote curtsey if IMDB.

Rosemary: I had a similar situation when I was your age. I had a horrible reputation.
Olive Penderghast: Why?
Rosemary: Because I slept with a whole bunch of people. Mostly guys.
Olive Penderghast: Mom!

7. Some dude of "Friday Night Lights" I could give a rats ass about

8. Florence and the Machine at the MTV Video Music Awards: thanks to alternative radio stations and "Eat Prey Love" this girl is huge and who can resist a good pick me up on a dog day afternoon! Watch it here

9. Some dude from some show I have also never watched...NEXT

10. Imogen Poots as Allyson Karsch in "Solitary Man" missed the movie, but looked decent....on the list.

11. Hye-ja Kim as The Mother in "Mother" also something I missed but looks a little too EMO for me right now....

12. Amanda Peet as Mary in "Please Give" : "Amanda began her career playing shrill bitches ("Saving Silverman") before segueing into more endearing characters ("Studio 60") -- a progression that's put to perfect use in this inspired comedy as she tackles the first endearing bitch of her career and emerges with the most human character she's ever created."-The Post.

I can't agree more, although they missed out her great moments in"Igby Goes Down;" as well; this movie makes her funny too....or at least you laugh at her for her ridiculous behavior. She works at a skin care spa but tans obsessively, and I like the tan on her actually. She knows its bad but does it anyway. She hates her cute but angry grandmother. Is totally fucking the ambulance chasing neighbors who want to buy her grandmothers apartment just to make their dream space. It has a really great lesson in the whole film too...if you have some money, or feel guilty...give some away.

Filmography 2010

super rad!



Music:
1. Ratatat - Nostrand - http://tinyurl.com/2ahhhj9
2. Kanye West - Power - http://tinyurl.com/27mpo83
3. Rooney - Not In My House - http://tinyurl.com/23vpakx
4. Apartment - Fall Into Place - http://tinyurl.com/2fnsnkc
5. Civil Twilight - Letters from the Sky - http://tinyurl.com/2fwrlys
6. SUNBEARS! - Little Baby Pines - http://tinyurl.com/26d9brn

Films in order of appearance: tap the link

My favorites: in order of appearance
1. Easy A
2. Tron (but I haven't seen it yet)
3. The Runaways- but it was weird and useless movie
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World ( a kick ass movie, that makes kick ass look like shit)
5. Black Swan (enjoyed but overly hyped and still hate Natalie Portman) frankly enjoyed Exit Through the Gift Shop way more
6. The Tempest (looks very promising)
7. Twelve ( the book was great, gotta see the movie now)
8. Alice in Wonderland
9. RED (nominated for a Golden Globe, super funny and entertaining)
10. Somewhere (new Sophia Coppola movie, looks awesome as always) she did a great interview in Bust as well
11. The Kids are Alright (so cute and funny, featuring same girl as Alice in Wonderland)
12. Sex and the City 2 (lets be honest, it had its good moments "Lawrence of my labia!!!!"-Samantha
13. Blue Valentine (looks reallll good)
14. Greenberg (gotta love Noah Baumbach)
15. Please Give (one of those great ironic, go nowhere but does something movies) loved it
16. The Virginity Hit (ground breaking style of the potential future of film making and what youtube can do)
17. Cyrus (make you feel weird in all the good ways, awesome sounds of Mike Snow-Animal too)
18. It's Kind of a Funny Story (cute teen anxiety and Zach Gafinakis)
19. Tiny Furniture (not even sure if I need to explain anymore my love for this)
20. Holy Rollers (Orthodox Jews dealing E = entertaining and awesome!)
21. I am Love (Tilta Swinton gives a great immigrant performance)
22. Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy's epic tail of street art....SOOOO GOOD!)

Boardwalk Empire Collides with Tiny Furniture

We all now know my obsession with both Boardwalk Empire and Tiny Furniture by now.....

So while researching every little intricacy and innate important detail about both I came to this ironic and awesome conclusion that bridges them together....intern making me the psychic of cool things to come.....


So here is Jeminma Kirke who went to High School with writer, director, and lead actress of Tiny Furniture Lena Dunham.
Jeminma stole a lot of the scenes in Tiny Furniture and played the role of her needy; self-entitled; twenty-something very naturally. In an interview with Fader, Jeminma speaks about moving to New York when she was 10 from London and growing up in Greenwich Village and being best friends in the world with actress, model, and Zac Posen's muse, Paz de la Huerta.

She brings the sexy back to the 1920's as Enuch Thompson's first "love," in the beginning of Boardwalk Empire. Jemima and Huerta use to "hang outside delis and tried to get people to buy us beer and went and sat in Tompkins Square Park with a tape player, playing mixtapes and seeing what kind of people we could attract." -Fader interview.

Lena claims that Jemima and her met at an awkward middle school dance; where all the snooty New York upper crust private schools would dance together; but she says it was in High School.

Jemima says it was "in the bathroom and I was wearing some really cool outfit like a tube top or something, and she was like “cool tube top”. I don’t remember that, but we became close at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights, which is fucking boring. There’s nothing in Brooklyn Heights."

All good things are connected, I am sure of it, and I am sure theses girls might even have some connection to Kevin Bacon, but I don't feel like finding that one right now.

Tiny Furniture

Tiny Furniture Trailer from Lena Dunham on Vimeo.

I have been obsessed to the point of no return for one year or so with Tiny Furniture. A friend shared the trailer with me from last years South By Southwest where it was premiered. One year later it is now available on IFC on-demand for a small $6.99 and in select theaters. I bought it on-demand first and got my 48 hours out of my $6.99 by watching it twice of course.

The movie follows the protagonist Aura (Luara Dunham), a 22 year old recent Oberlin graduate as she navigates her way into the first stage of adult hood.

Like 90% of all American graduates, she moves home. She comes baring her pet hamster which will later symbolize the end of one chapter of her life, and the beginning of another.

Home for her is a little different then most typical American kids though, she resides in a minimalist Tribeca loft with her real life sister and real life mother who is also artist Laurie Simmons. Her father is also a famous painter but absent from the film.

Aura arrives home from college after being dumped at Burning Man Festival by her college boyfriend who went to "build a shrine to his ancestors out of a dying tree." She is confronted with reality as she sees her uber successful mother and over achieving sister bonding over one of her mother's photography sets as her sister models shoes with the tiny furniture surrounding them.

Aura like many liberal arts creatives has a useless degree in writing and film making and her resume is padded with youtube videos and shorts. Although I find it hard to believe a daughter of two famous artist will have trouble finding work; she first ventures into being a day hostess at a restaurant (that doesn't serve lunch) where she lusts over an unavailable sous chef. He wants her, but in all the wrong ways.

At the same time she reconnects with old city friends (actually life long socialite) from childhood who also have famous artist parents and and introduces her to ""this boy Chad. He is little bit famous, in like an internet kind of way." Who basically uses her for a place to crash as he tries to promote his own youtube channel in New York.

She struggles to make money, and have healthy relationship in this post-graduate delirium state.

When her mother is gone for a week, 10 bottles of wine go "missing" and all the "frozen entrees" are eaten. Her mother disproves of the boy she found to take home and struggles with intimacy issues of their mother daughter relationship.

When her sister throws a party when her mother is out one night, Aura is fed up with too many teenagers in their house, unsupervised and drinking so she decides to walk around the loft with no pants on with her "self entitled best friend." Creating a scene that shows Aura's vulnerable side and performance art aspect. The New York Times say that, "Ms. Dunham, as body-based artists sometimes do, bares her all, soft bulges and blemishes included. This, she seems to say whenever she points the camera at herself, is me, a very real, very human body coming into being. "

Aura's sister has some great qualities that are not a far stretch from her actual person. She indeed won a national high school poetry award, and shows the new generation of hipster, self-entitlement New York City scene youth. Her thick rimmed glasses and quirky snipes at her sister make their dialogue endless for quotes. For some reason the fight at the beginning when Aura needs a light bulb for her room sticks in my head. Her sister playing the tough but mono-tone bully asking Aura "Do you really want to start this!? I mean do you REALLY want to start this, because there are like a million things I could say right now....like go get a fucking light bulb!" This sibling bickering is classic throughout the whole film showing the relationship differences with each other and with their mother.

I can't stress enough about how awesome and independent this movie is. Every post graduate male or female should see this coming of age tale. It touches aspects between reality, film, and performance. To some it may seem like a leaky faucet dripping away scene by scene, but for me, each scene was a delicious bite into something fresh and sweet for our generations view on post-graduate life, finding who you are and what you are going to be.

Juliette Lewis

Juliette Lewis rocks!

Not much more to say with her stellar rad attitude and bright screen presents she always brings joy to everything she does.

She has that kind of "I don't give a fuck swagger."

She is in a rock band.

And on top of everything else she is FUNNY.

She makes bad movies ok, because her parts still make you laugh and forget about how awful "The Switch" was.

She has been going STRONG since the 80s this women should be a role model for more actresses then any Miley Cyrus.

She is Oscar nominated for Cape Fear; She is EMMY nominated for Showtime's My Louisiana Sky; Beginning in 2004, Juliette took a hiatus from acting to embark on a musical journey. After six years, two full length albums and countless high profile tours and festival gigs with her band The Licks, Juliette set out on a solo career. Releasing Terra Incognita last fall, the album has taken her all across the world from Europe to Japan to Turkey, Australia, North America and Canada.

She helped kick off Milan Fashion week most recently walking in the Miss Bikini Luxe show.
The show opened with her new single “Hot Kiss.”



The multitasker was taking a time out from filming “Whip It!” directed by Drew Barrymore, she’s also working on her third album, which is due out in 2009. After the show, Lewis headed to Lotus nightclub for tipples and tunes with a gaggle of gal pals.

Now some of this is old news, but I can't help but give a WOOOO for this awesome actress who gets downplayed too often. I mean she just exudes cool, she has dated Brad Pitt and been married to pro skater Steve Berra...she is an ultimate California girl at heart. Free spirit all the way. I give a Mazel to her!!

Boardwalk Empire

I have recently discovered a gripping new show to rival the loss of The Sopranos from HBO.

Boardwalk Empire has some amazing cinematic pedigree; executive produced by Martin Scorsese who also directed the first episode. Also executive produced by Marky Mark Mark Wahlberg.

The head writer is Terrance Winter from The Sopranos; he obviously has loyalty to his late Sopranos actors as they litter this show like any premium cable network show does best. Scorsese helped Terrance establish the look of the show and the other directors have made this look seamless.

The setting for this ragtime show is Atlantic City, New Jersey in the roaring 20s in the era of prohibition. The opening credits immediately had me drawn with it's music by The Brian Jamestown Massacre - song called Striaght Up and Down.


I love the placement of some of my favorite indie actors with big wigs like Buscemi; Steve Buscemi plays the Atlantic City Treasure who lives "like a Pharoah" at the Ritz Carlton.

Michael Pitt is a troubled war vet James "Jimmy" Darmondy. Jimmy looked up to Thompson (Buscemi) since he was young, and went to Princeton only to drop out to serve his country. He has a good head on his shoulders but something tells me; whatever happened in the war, is still bothering him. He understands the art of war but sometimes his ideas often fail him leaving a lot of pain for him; as he must flee Atlantic City and leave his fiance and son and mother; to join Al Capone in Chicago where his new lover is slashed and opium-upped and dies leaving him paranoid and homesick.

Money and murder makes this show a viscous cycle of mobs against mobs, race wars, and woman's rights. The time period has lots of great drama already written into; so the show has lots of sub plots to inter connect the web of American history and fiction.

Much like The Soprano's the mobs are primarily ethnically split. We have the Jews and Italians in New York; Atlantic City has shown mostly Irish; Italian and Greek in Chicago and the rest of the wannabe gangster muts sprinkle the scene everywhere else.

Since the pilot the feds have been on Enuch Thompson and see him as corrupt as the day is long; he is a charming and well liked fellow and walks the boardwalk like a movie star. He owns the city and everyone gives a piece of their business to him; his brother is the Sheriff as well so it's a family affair in Atlantic City.

I am deep into this show already; I know it's already ended its first season but I was a little behind on the bus catching it from the beginning. The show is smart, stylistically awesome, gritty; gangsta and much more.

Now I would like to share with you some of my favorite characters and why they are awesome:


Michael Shannon: He was in The Runaways as a crazy band producing monster; also from Revolutionary Road as a crazy; lets just be honest he is a really good actor to play crazy ass characters. In Boardwalk he is a Federal Agent obsessed with Thompson's little lover girl Ms.Shroader and beats himself with his belt to get off on her picture of her file which is when she was 16 years old.



Vincent Piazza: He is a smooth walking gangsta from New York who is currently boneing Dormondy's mom; I think when Jimmy finds this out he is going to be pretty mad. He has been looking for Jimmy because Jimmy was in charge of killing a bunch of his dudes. He also had a really bad STD and couldn't get it up till he met Ms.Dormondy played by Gretchen Mol. He was in one of my FAVORITE indies of last year: Rocket Science as the know it all brother Earl.

Paz de la Huerta: She plays Thompsons hott dumb girlfriend who is always kinda drunk or just talks really funny; she is very greedy and mean and super sexual and harasses his new love Ms.Shroader whenever she helps her shop for expensive clothes. She was in Choke with Kelly Macdonald.




Kelly Macdonald: is the hear throbbed princess in distress that Enuch Thompson just cannot let go. Her husband was killed to cover some dirty work Enuch planned and since he beat her in all; it wasn't a huge loss. She is kept quiet by being taken care of but is a member of the woman's Temperance League so she needs to leave the politics to the men if she wants to live. She is considered a whore by her old neighbors; but enjoys the life Enuch is giving her right now. She is also being stalked by creepy Federal agent...who lusts for her.

There's far too many others I could say more about right now. So check out the show and see for yourself.

Skins USA

So MTV has become the outlet of the cult classic tv show from the UK Skins. Skins has been my current obsession for MONTHS now. Constantly re-watching this group of urban British junkies as they navigate through life. Coming of age would be an understatement to what the show tackles in subject matter.

The average age of the staff of the UK version is 21.

Some story lines may be more relatable then others; but the intensity and unique structure of the series has become a hit across the globe. It makes Canada's Degrassi look like kindergarten. So as my addiction grew I divulged into all things Skins I could find on the internet, even ordering a teen novel that depicts the events of the summer holiday between seasons 3 and 4 which were some of my particular favorites.

This all brings me to this, Skins USA. Set to come out in January 2011. The website looks like a cross between an American Apparel ad and some hipster dance party I wasn't invited too. It's all going to be taking place in the hardcore setting of Baltimore, Maryland. How can this mid-atlantic city compare to this name Skins gave Bristol? I am not 100% I have never even been to Baltimore. The trailer shows some identical scenarios that the UK version did in season one, and also naming some of the characters the same names. One of the writers claims it will be the realist thing on TV aside from reality tv I guess, and it shows "the wild ride of life as a teenager in the United States." Frankly I do find the last statement nostalgic because I have a soft spot for growing up in the United States and youth culture. I wonder how they will get the gritty stuff passed American TV standards though. Skins goes there with its vulgarity, content, drug use and over all language that has never been seen on American TV, making it like some drug in it self to watch and indulge into on the internet from a different country.

The lead protagonist being Tony once again with his side kick, Stan instead of Sid. Also calling his GF Michelle the same nick name Nips. Also including a strict Muslim character as well as an anorexic Cassie who is called Katie who wants to kill herself and is institutionalized/ same trampoline scene and everything. I am skeptical of this American copy cat. Especially with all the nasty comments from fans on the website. It seems like we need to come up with our own version of something new instead of stealing something amazing it, and potentially making it crap. I am still planning on watching it of course, but I will not leave my UK Skins on the back burner, they are already producing a movie from seasons 1-4 and a new cast for season 5 so as long as people keep torrenting it from the UK, I am still all Skins all the time.

The Get By: Making it on the Streets of NYC

The Get By

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Zaqistan

This is a viewer created ad for Lexus Hybrid I saw on Current TV and I think everyone should see it and love it!
http://current.com/groups/lexus-vcam-results/92261698_lexus-vcam-zaqistan-official-selection.htm#voteUp_92261698

States

For some reason this popped in my head, now its shown as a visual aide.
I have been to all the states in road trip form shown on this map, with a key of colors to indicate when I did them since 2005 the start of my road journeys in my mothers green Honda CRV which is now mine.
I have only 13 states to visit plus Alaska to have been everywhere in the united states.

Photo Shoot