New York on my mind...

2009-03-15T18:51:00.003-04:00

It has been over a month that I have found myself roaming the streets of Paris, loving it, hating, feeling entranced and captured by it, and rendered absolutely incapable at times to find myself in it!

I find that I have finally found my departure from this worderfully mesmerizing and immobilizing city...this is a metaphysical change, a new, resolved, and resolute approach to creating something out of thin air. So much of my time is spent conversing, discussing food, art, energy, and life, and little of it is, alas, recorded. I find that our age is spent too much on the computer, on the phone and in the real world, and in between we rarely find time to reflect upon ourself. We consume a constant current of information without allotting any significant amount of time to analyzing any of it. We are too much consumed by media and too little concerned with our impact the space we occupy. In light of this, I am resolute on reconsidering time, its use, its space, its meaning...

I am discarding my New York habits and adapting new ones. As Emerson said: "All Life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better," and so shall I begin...

get inspired...

2009-02-04T13:50:00.002-05:00

apparently the Parisian air, obscure drinking establishments and the minds of 2 scientist and one jane-of-all-trades produce miracles...

at L'International, Paris

Bond Un-Solaced

2008-11-18T18:03:00.025-05:00

Bond and Camille under fire in Quantum of Solace.

I've watched Bond all my life. This goes without saying that the 22 films and counting are under my belt. I saw Quantum of Solace this past Sunday with a 140 minute running time, being the shortest Bond film ever, I found it alarmingly vivacious and cold.

Two years after the Majesty’s Secret Service successful CPR of the Bond series with Casino Royale, much thanks to the blonde and brutish Daniel Craig – Quantum of Solace, directed by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, The Kite Runner), is the despondent plateau Bond traverses rehabilitating himself after a taboo emotional entanglement with lover Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who died a traitor in Bond’s eyes at the end of Casino Royale.

Bond films are usually a collection of must haves: exotic cars, gadgets that jump out of video games and still look suave under Bond’s control, the Bond girl, the villain(s), and action only the British Secret Service could produce out of the pound, not the dollar.

Quantum of Solace picks off where Casino Royale ended. The film starts with Bond’s Aston Martin in a chase scene, engulfed in an alluring Italian backdrop. Quickly, the polished Aston Martin is uni-doored after multiple gunshots and Nascar-like crashes. The Bond car is never seen again and is much missed throughout the film. Later in the film, the hard-edged Bond beauty, Camille (Olga Kurylenko), picks up Bond in the alleys of Haiti in a 2009 Ford Ka (say what?). You should thank the intrusion of the green movement -- because even Bond girls have geopolitical agendas these days.

Gadgets? What gadgets? Sony partnered with MGM/Columbia Pictures Studios for Quantum of Solace and other previous Bond films , so Sony decided to show off their latest limited edition C902 model. Enough said. No fancy wristwatches, explosive suitcases, or Golden guns here. Bond’s gadget line up is as bleak as his dialogue, minimal and primitive.

Vesper’s death sets off Bond’s reckless trigger-happy turmoil. Even Agent M, played more inclusively than in Quantum of Solace, is shook by Bond’s pursuit of bullet-prints in every lead of a secret organization other than MI6. With less free-running rooftop scenes from Quantum of Solace, fists and bullets fly in all directions with heavy editing very familiar of the Bourne Trilogy series. There was no difference in Bond and Bourne, both in grief over a lost lover; their vigilante persona is a threat from enemies and within their own organization.

The villain, Dominic Greene, copiously played by Mathieu Amalric, is a two-faced tycoon, self-promoted as Bolivia’s hope to return the most natural resource to its people, water. His small and stagnant stature plays well compared to the restless vengeance driven Bond. His bulging eyes being his only emotive response, his cool demeanor balances the erratic action cinematography and the complex numerous storylines.

Auspiciously animate despite a short script, Camille is bent on revenge and is the only intimate connection with Bond. Right away you ask, where’s the sex? The redhead sexpot and secretary from London, Miss Fields (Gemma Arterton), daintily requests Bond to return to MI6 headquarters for his obscene behavior. Shortly, after the usual innuendo, they share a suite and the most uncharacteristic of Bond was his one-liner to lure her for his sexual relief, “I can’t find the stationery,” and Bond’s charms gets the best of her in a dash. "James Bond doesn't masturbate," said a friend of mine after the film, "sex is his daily mission." Camille was more of a succor to Bond’s inertia than his love interest. An ex-girlfriend to Green linked to General Madrano (Joaquin Cosio), who killed her mother and sister in their burning house, is the rogue ringed with revenge. No fashion glamour to start a trend, guns and guts is what she takes into the film and out with Bond’s envy.

The frenetic Bond does have his specialties. He kills another lead of the secret organization other than MI6 on the balcony of a Haitian hotel. Bond not only kills the lead robotically by pricking his jugular vein, but leaves him to die with no remorse – much like Mathis, his contact from Casino Royale (Giancarlo Giannini) who is killed by Quantum and buried by Bond in a dumpster. This is a very emotional Bond with inhumane attributes. His frenzy results in an excommunication from MI6, but Bond still manages to manipulate his independent sources under the London eye.

With his martinis unknown, James Bond is much shaken and stirred. But with a little too much lemon peel.

- Magoo

Quatro-linear

2008-10-10T12:38:00.009-04:00

Originally uploaded by Julie Solo

We all hope that we can see in 3-D, sometimes stepping outside and beyond the dimension is just what one needs to propel our imagination forward...

Who are you, Julie Magoo?

New York on my mind...

get inspired...

Bond Un-Solaced

Quatro-linear