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New England Bed and Breakfasts
Maggie Gyllenhaal Takes Over for Toni Collette in Mendes Film
Author: Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Romance, Casting  Here's another casting switch-up for you. Variety reports that not even a month after Toni Collette signed on for a role in Sam Mendes' untitled "relationship comedy,"* she's out and Maggie Pinch Hitter Gyllenhaal is in. The actress dropped the gig when delays messed up the schedule, so Maggie stepped up to the plate. First she replaces Katie Holmes, and now, Collette. Maybe she should also add: "suitable substitution for just about any actress" to her resume. My favorite Satan-worshipping makeup artist has come a long way!The film focuses on a couple who decide to travel across the US, trying to find a perfect place to hunker down and raise their family. Collette was set to play their friend, a university professor who thinks their child will be dysfunctional no matter where they live. Variety ups the description by saying that she's a bohemian prof who is an old friend of John Krasinski's character. (Maya Rudolph is playing his wife.)In its vagueness, it doesn't sound like the best plot I've ever heard, but I imagine that it could make for some entertaining cinema between the eye of Sam Mendes and the words of Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers. As for Gyllenhaal, I like seeing her continue to expand her diverse portfolio of roles. Production is currently under way in Connecticut.*"Relationship comedy" keeps getting used to describe this film. Are the powers that be trying their darnedest to keep people from calling it a romcom?Permalink | Email this | Comments
 
Published: 2008-05-02 07:32:00
Robbins Barstow's spectacular amateur films
Author: Cory Doctorow
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about the wonderful amateur film of a family's 1956 prize-trip to Disneyland made by Robbins Barstow of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Robbins just got in touch with me to tell me a little more about his decades-long love of film, supplying a link to a treasure trove of his fantastic work stretching all the way back to this 1936 Tarzan fan-film:
I am the now-88-year-old filmmaker from Wethersfield, Connecticut, who filmed, directed, edited, and narrated the amateur home movie entitled "Disneyland Dream" which you Boing-Boinged on April 11, 2008. I was delighted to be described as the "skinny, dorky, goofy dad" who documented our contest-winning family vacation to Disneyland in 1956, because our aim was to make the film "pure gold" fun for everyone viewing it. So far (April 19) it has garnered 15,777 downloads from the archive.org web site, thanks to your posting of the link! This is incredibly phenomenal to all of our still life-loving family, and I want to thank you for your fabulous review and letting the world know about it.
I am a retired educator, but all my life I have been an ardent amateur filmmaker, starting at the age of 12, in 1932, making family chronicles, travelogs, and other documentaries. I am submitting on your posted form another archive.org link which I think you will also enjoy -- a teen-age, fictional, Tarzan story which I made in 1936 with my two younger brothers and some neighborhood girls -- "Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge."
Actually, if you go to archive.org on the internet, and search for "Barstow Travel Adventure," you will find a listing of 8 of my personal travel documentaries, including Disneyland and Tarzan, which can be played anytime by anyone.
Link
(Thanks, Robbins!)
Published: 2008-04-20 05:59:34
A look at "design" hotels, loosely defined
To us, little is worse than the word "design" being abused as marketing shorthand for "hip," as in "design hotel." Concierge.com's Danielle Pergament writes:
...in recent years we've discovered a lot of style and no substance [in design hotels]: bare spaces, a dearth of right angles, rooms that hide all amenities from sight.... Design hotels went from clever and niche finds to generic commodities manufactured by W Hotels and their offspring.
Hear, hear.
Of course, concierge.com does want you to travel, so they've come up with their own list of 12 design hotels around the world that satisfies a tighter description:
...there's a new generation of design hotels, one that rejects the notion that a slab of concrete is a place to sit. Whether they're reducing their environmental footprint, employing local artisans, or using the natural world as an extension of their aesthetic...these new contenders are creative and inspired....
With categories like "Antidote to minimalism," "Affordable design" and "Nature as design," the roundup covers a wide gamut. The pick we found the oddest was New England's schizophrenic Winvian, which features fifteen cottages all designed by different architects; the odd mish-mash of styles includes everything from an Ewok-like treehouse to a bungalow built around a freakin' Sikorsky helicopter.
Innovation is good, but we like to see a little cohesion, people! ...
Published: 2008-04-15 13:46:16
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