Chewing something

Source: Just Jared
When I wanted to give up smoking, I used to chew bubblegum or regaliz. I wonder if this is a good technique for Jake and these other today's guests: Lindsay Lohan, Emilie de Ravin, Kate Bosworth, Kirsten Dunst and Edie Sedgwick.

Sunglasses, glasses, etc.

Ok, let's ignore for a second the cardigan + hardcore shirt combination and let's concentrate on his sunglasses, more connected to the summer season than the grey grandpa jacket. But not only Jake's shades get my attention.
Look at below for different models:

Greener on the other side

I dedicate this picture to the person who shot it in Barcelona. Yeah, I think of you from time to time. "Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity." - Kahlil Gibran quote, Essayist, Novelist and Poet. 1883-1931-. So will we trust?

Jake, theatre and Anna

"Love the pics of "This Is Our Youth". Funny little story actually, I was lucky enough to attend one of the shows of This Is Our Youth when Jake was on stage with the production in London and these pics (The poster especially) bring back fond memories. He was truly magnetic on stage and I look forward to seeing him do more theatre possibly in New York or anywhere on the east coast that I can travel to see, hopefully musical theatre since I am a musical theatre nut. He and Anna were brillant on stage together, I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Jake was an excellent Warren and though I saw other actors portray him during the time the show ran, Jake still reins as my favorite. One thing that really stood out to me was his body language. He moves in a very...fluid motion. And sadly cameras are prohibited so no pics. Sorry guys. I'll just have to live with my memories.

Anyway, that's my little Jake story. I didn't get to meet him or anything sadly, but my seats were decent and I did enjoy his performance very much." Source: Davecullen.com/forum
Jake with Anna Paquin in the play "This is our youth".

Anna Paquin at "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" premiere (05/23/07), she went blonde for Alan Ball's new series "True Blood", in which she'll be Sookie Stackhouse. Alan Ball was also the creator of the series "Six Feet Under", starred by Lauren Ambrose as Claire Fisher, the art student struggling for her own independence, similar to Jane Burnham played by Thora Birch in "American Beauty".
Jake with Lauren Ambrose on 20th April 2006 in NYC.

Jake and Broadway

"June 13, 2007 --IT looks as if Jake Gyllenhaal will make his Broadway debut this fall in a new play loosely based on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign for the White House.

Gyllenhaal, who received an Oscar nomination for his role in "Brokeback Mountain," took part in a hush-hush reading last week of Beau Willimon's "Farragut North."

The actor played a young, idealistic communications director who works for an inspiring, though unorthodox, presidential candidate. During the campaign, his career is done in by more seasoned politicos who thrive on poisonous partisan politics, dirty tricks and back-stabbing.

James Lapine, who directed "Spelling Bee" and "Sunday in the Park With George," staged the reading, which also featured Mark Blum, Denis O'Hare (a Tony winner for "Take Me Out"), Jessica Hecht and Alison Pill ("Blackbird").

"Farragut North" is named after the Washington, D.C., Metro station near K Street, where many lobbyists have their offices.

Willimon worked for Dean during the 2004 presidential race. He also worked on Chuck Schumer's 1998 U.S. Senate race, Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race and Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential bid.

The play, says a source, "is a real insider's look at political campaigns."

People involved in the reading say it reminds them of "Primary Colors," Joe Klein's novel about the Clintons, and "The Best Man," Gore Vidal's gripping 1964 play about presidential politics.

Gyllenhaal, who's said to be eager to do a Broadway play, acquitted himself well.

"He was handsome and charming, very compelling in the role," my spy says.

Gyllenhaal will decide at the end of the week whether to take the play to Broadway, sources say. If he says yes, his producer will be Jeffrey Richards, who won a Tony Sunday night for "Spring Awakening." 'SPRING Awakening" got a nice pop at the box office this week, even though Tony ratings hit an all-time low.

The show, which was named Best Musical, took in $1.2 million by the close of business Monday. Sales were fairly robust yesterday as well, with $300,000 in the bank by 2 p.m.

An insider says much of that business is coming from ticket brokers, who've held back from buying a lot of seats because the show, while critically acclaimed, has hardly been a financial juggernaut.

But with so many Broadway shows about to close, "Spring Awakening" is likely to have a strong summer".
Source: Nypost.com

Growing up

"Film is about communication—but so is music. So is the Internet. So is homicide. Everyone has a message they want to get across, so it seems natural for humans to interpret film as having deeper meanings. But maybe that’s not the real story. Maybe there’s no message at all. Maybe film criticism is one more exercise in human egotism, and films we label groundbreaking are simpler than we think. Much of "Donnie Darko"’s conflict takes place in Middlesex Ridge School. The first real journey through those doors is taken in slow motion, accompanied by the Tears For Fears ballad “Head Over Heels”. This is the fifth chapter on the DVD edition of the Donnie Darko director’s cut, also titled “Head Over Heels.” The phrase seems out of place in a DVD full of chapters whose labels are rather straightforward, such as “Going Together”, the segment in which Gretchen agrees (if you can call it that) to be Donnie’s girl and “Inappropriate Methods”, containing the firing of Karen Pomeroy. It’s just a song, right? Nondiagetic sound, as the film students would say? Maybe not. A closer look at the lyrics reveals that perhaps the film and the song share more than just an obsession with time.
The clumsy but oddly sweet romance between Donnie Darko and Gretchen Ross is handled well in the film—“well” meaning “subtly,” of course. It can be argued that the most romantic scene in the entire film is Gretchen’s refusal to kiss Donnie on the way home from school.
It takes Donnie and Gretchen nearly the entire film, in fact, to express physical affection in any way, shape, or form. Their time together is quiet—a hand held here, a brief kiss there, and yet the two characters form the strongest bond out of any two characters in the entire film—except, perhaps, the bond between Donnie and the dark rabbit of his nightmares. [...] The flames eating at Cunningham’s portrait are nicely symbolic, but Donnie cares nothing for the metaphor he’s unwittingly created, nor for the child pornography he accidentally exposes with his crime. The deed is done—fitting punishment for a man who thinks himself fit to tell kids their own ambitions. “No one knows what they want to be when they grow up,” Donnie laughs into the microphone at Cunningham’s question-and-answer session."
by L. Jablonski, Source: Metaphilm.com.
"Brendan (finely played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the world-weary, wisecracking student shamus, whose search for his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) draws in upper-crust low-lifes closely fitted to the stock requirements of both film noir and teen TV drama: double-dealing femmes fatales, knuckleheaded musclemen, drug-addled drifters.
But "Brick"'s more sensitive than that. What it borrows from noir is not simply a set of style cues, but a sense of obsessiveness, solemnity and encroaching social breakdown, which serves as a satisfying metaphor for the self-enclosed, self-regulating society occupied by teenagers. "Brick" uses its melodramatic plot to replicate the sense of life-or-death significance that characterises subjective adolescent experience. The gumshoe's disgust in the face of spiralling moral turpitude is blended, in Brendan, with the adolescent's fear of growing up and joining the corrupt world of adults." Source: Bfi.org.uk

Dark sounds

My theory about "Donnie Darko" was added as a tardy contribution in the last CultureSnob.com Blogathon."Without getting bogged down in details of the synopsis, Donnie Darko simply put is: pure feat in filmaking. Never before has a film noir been able to capture and convey such raw beauty.
Never before has such a dark and grim premise been so cleverly told: through painingly-pretty blue skies, descriptive and creative random blurbs of literature, genuine and concise dialogue, and an ending that brings us back to the beginning, which we quickly learn is the beginning...of the end. One of the highlights for me was the use of music, including an awesome and refreshing alternative to the cliche' part of a movie where we meet all the characters, and a group of characters meet for the first time- exchanging dry, predictable, formal dialogue. Instead the creators chose to pan from afar, mute-out all sound, and play-from very beginning to end- the appropriately symbolic song, "Everybody wants to Rule the World."
Source: Joblo's "Movie Reviews" by Bud_Fox.

"While taking the noir detective hero to "the final stages of degradation" [...] Jeremy Butler cites Janey Place's analysis of how these roles typically are used in film noir: The women of film noir have been divided by Janey Place into two categories: the "rejuvenating redeemer" and the "deadly seductress," also known as the "spider woman." The redemptive woman, according to Place, is strongly associated with the status quo, moral values, and stable identities. Her love provides an escape route for the alienated protagonist, but he is seldom able to join her world of safety. The rejuvenating redeemer exists as more of an ideal than an attainable reality."
Source: "Women in Film Noir", E. Ann Kaplan.

"Flashback to two days prior and we see how Brendan arrived at that place. In the days that follow her death we slowly learn of how Emily arrived there. Brendan loved Emily even after she stopped loving him so when she called and asked for his help he obliged. [...] An extension of the sound is the language. The characters in Brick speak with rhythm, eloquence and a unique, but believable, slang. The dialogue is like a song without music".
Source: Fromthebalcony.com.