Author: NicoleNg

“New York, I love You” is a collection of eleven short films created in 2009, about love stories in New York City. Each short film is directed by a different director who places their own perspective about love in the form of lust, companionship, loss, deceit, and playfulness.

At face value, the theory of this film is no better than the 2010 film “Valentine’s Day” or the 2011 film “New Years Eve,” both of which rest of the laurels of their celebrity-packed casts and cheesily connected plot lines. These films lack true ingenuity exhibit exactly what I would expect from a cash cow blockbuster film – recognizable faces, an addictive love plot, and shallow character development. “New York, I Love You” follows this same path by casting the popular faces of Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman and Bradley Cooper. Yes, the first film with Bilson is awkward and amateur in both acting and writing to a painful extent. However, if you can move past this scene, the creativity, wit, character development, and ambiguity create a viewing experience that is both refreshing and engaging without losing integrity.

What “New York, I Love You” does is create room for dialogue post film, when you wonder more about the characters, their motivations, what was believable and what wasn’t. This kind of conversation is lacking in most blockbuster films with similar casts to these. They leave room for conversation with only regard the quality of graphics, suspense, gore, or crude humor. This is not to say that there isn’t a time and place for each of these in the predictability of most movies, but like a good book, it’s the post experience curiosity that truly makes a work so engaging. Dialogue enables analysis and the ability to truly appreciate a work for the intricacies and thought the writer places into the story line and the characters that live in them.

In the short directed by Shekhar Kapur, Shia LaBeouf plays a severely crippled hotel bellhop that has an ambiguously intimate emotional relationship with Julie Christie. He could perhaps be a simple memory of her once lover, a manifestation of her imagination, or perhaps he is in the present and he is haunted by an obsession with an older woman. In another film directed by Mira Nair, starring Natalie Portland, Nair touches on the arab-jewish relationship, the taboo that exists between these cultures and the ultimate draw of love and curiosity that can also bring them together. These simple unsure yet addictingly fun analyses are what make this movie experience worth watching, as well as the intricacy of the tie between narratives.

The film provides a refreshing audience perspective and thought requirement that is usually not asked of the viewer to participate in. It’s a love affair between us, “New York, I Love You.”

\”New York, I Love You\” Trailer

On Friday, March 29 2013 while strolling down State Street, full of grilled cheese and veggies from Mark’s Carts, the commotion and bustle of the Work Gallery captured me. Low and behold, the perfect post-dinner snack for the mind’s eye lay before me in the form of the Xylem Release party.  Select writers were chosen to perform their pieces during this release, personal works that I only dare to scribe.

The most striking piece was a poem written by Seth B. Wolin. I do not know Seth B. Wolin. And yet, his piece spoke volumes to me. He spoke of the simultaneous individuality and anonymity of the masses, as well as the simultaneous cultural preservation and gentrification balance that most cannot seem to hit correctly. He spoke without excess drama and perfect smoothness.

Wolin explains his poem to be about a man he encountered in New York City, one that he would never meet again.  I truly respect the lack of narcissism in this piece, the ode to observation, and the understanding of the cultural struggle that is so prominent and often escapes those who are not overtly foreign.  He perfectly taps into the thought process I constantly experience on the subway in NYC, running into

strangers and wondering what their story is, and how they ended up here. The poem reads:

Figure on the Five Train
5’9” fresh-faced

transplant from Ukraine.
Where is your father?

Here, there is no province.
Only concrete asphalt red win
sky – starless, bounded monolith of

sky.

Not like home. And yet, neither
are you.

Short, precise, and powerful. Just the way I like em.
“Xylem Literary Magazine is an independent, student-run literary magazine at the University of Michigan that annually publishes original undergraduate student writing and art, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, artwork and photography. The journal exclusively features the creative work of University of Michigan undergraduates, and all aspects of the journal’s publicity, production, and publication are student-run.”

In April 2013 Matilda the musicalwill reach the streets of NY from its London home and join the crowds of other big number Broadway musicals that fill the historic theaters. I have high hopes for Matilda after watching this interview of the composer of the children’s novel turned musical, Tim Minchin, by NYT journalist Patrick Healy.

[ see video here ]

What gives me hope for this musical that will set it apart from many of its over-priced, over-set, gaudy under-thought Broadway predecessors is that the composer truly believes in the magic that is Roald Dahl.  Minchin does not attempt to make the stage spit glitter and have the dolled up actors throw can-can kicks around the stage. Instead, he composes the musical to posses the same struggle and underlying darkness of the book itself, while bringing lightness with music and humor that Dahl does with text.  “It’s about child abuse…a horrible story, to have kids thrown around by their hair, beaten, locked in cellars, and deprived of an education, and yet have such a light air to it” says Minchin.  He explains that these underlying themes are prevalent is many childhood stories, and it is the craft of the writer to bring this to people’s attention in the most light-hearted way.

Dahl (1916 – 1990) authored children’s books close to the hearts of those in the millennial generation, with works such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factor, the BFG, The Witches, and The Twits. Dahl, like the characters in Matilda, experienced a childhood filled with loneliness and struggle, as his father and sister passed away while he was still a child, and he was later sent to boarding school.  He was a rebellious child , often caned for the pranks he played on teachers and his rejection of God and religion. After serving in WWII, Dahl’s experience with his wife and daughter, Sophie (who he named the paralleled character in the BFG after), suffered health issues throughout their lives. It makes sense then that Dahl would pull upon his experiences and translate distasteful incidents into fantastical, and allegorical, stories for children to relate and escape into.

The images from the trailer to the musical exhibit deep hues of blue, black and grey within the set, and similar costuming and sets to that of the 1996 movie, directed by Danny DeVito. Currently, the musical is sold out at its London location and has won sever Olivier Awards, including Best Musical, with high hopes for its New York premier.

Banksy, the pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter, is not actually Paul William Horner, and his mystery makes him even cooler.

Banksy is known for his stencil work on the streets of England where he promoted strikingly truthful phrases paired with dark images that revealed his anti-war, capitalist, and establishment perspectives. The street is his canvas, and has Christened houses, museums, and “do not trespass” grounds with his works. He flees from the police, and for his entire artistic life has remained anonymous. He brings what many other street-artist predecessors have also introduced to the public – a form of art that breaks free from all rules, institutions, and inhibitions. They are representations of the people, a democratized perspective of sorts, which integrates into the very streets you walk and live every day. In 2010 he

created his first film, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” showcasing “the inside story of Street Art – a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide,” and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Film in 2011.

Street art brings a sense of truth and excitement that traditional, gallery housed art lacks. The unavailability, raw perspective, and inherently cool factors make its study that much more exclusive and exciting.

The City of Angels has wings. It’s bright and clear rays create new marks on my skin; my face scratched by the salt of the sea.  As the sun wakes the earth and unveils cliffs and valleys naturally spotted with magenta, lime, and lemon, a new world is revealed.  Yes, changes by man are inconspicuous, and neighborhoods exhibit the expected heeled, bleached, glamorous reality of television.  But those who inhabit it show a way of life unbeknown to the deciduous breed that I’ve only known. Striving artists of multiple types show rigor and passion for their craft in bountiful numbers, only to hopefully become the cream.  Tension is slowly erased from my mind and instead is filled with sunlight. Strides turn to strolls and stress to smiles.  The Hills rise up and up and above your head and are polka dotted with residents burrowed in between them.  The lights at night shine like stars in a clear sky, creating constellations new even to the Greeks.

The City of Angels has wings, yes, but New Amsterdam breeds an unmatched animal. Its hills are paved with concrete and glass, its parks artificial, and its people never stationary.  The once pure waves that still exist in The City of Angels are littered here with bottles, over population, and sweat. Buildings block sunlight and fill the air with intensity.  With few areas of solace and escape, intensity reigns this world. It will thicken your skin, and make you feel overwhelmed and alone all at the same time. But it’s the destruction that makes you stronger.  Passion is in never lacking in a place that has transformed from The Gangs to The City.   Constantly pushed out of comfort and into the wild, you know it’s for the better.  Strife and stride keep you going, donned in black and ready for anything.

It’s Angels versus Amsterdam, the eternal battle.  There are no winners, just wanderers and explorers, trying to find their way home.  To which do you belong?

In light of a recent conversation of being “cool,” a good friend of mine and I defined a person possessing this ubiquitous adjective as one less related to the Regina George type, and more toward the well versed, off-beat, passionate end of the spectrum. A person unafraid to explore unknown territory in both themselves and in subject matter, and confident to show their knowledge, or lack thereof, with the world.

Alas, the mid-year resolution to become “cooler” incepted.

These are a few pictures I took a year and a half ago for my Ann Arbor street style blog, Wolverine Wear Daily. Here’s to giving the portfolio another go, pursuing underdeveloped passions, and being cooler.