Still Alive

As you could figure out, I survived this recent convulsions attack, ER bouracratic flawed process and embarrasing side-effects. On a regular medication now (Lyrica, Xeristar) and I'll continue visiting more doctors and taking more medical exams, the EEG I took yesterday was negative for epileptic case, but I'm afraid of the next exams, really frightened and feeling down. Thanks a lot everybody who helped me with their best wishes and prayers, all of you have maintained my faith when it was weakening, and in my worst moments when most I needed it. Thanks from my heart.


Still alive and still hating the world.

Jake Weird stops

Due to my current health problems. Yesterday night I suffered another convulsions crisis. Next weeks I'm gonna visit a neurologist and another specialists. I will have to stop blogging by now. From time to time I'll try to update something when I feel better (I barely can write). I hope to recover soon, but I'm feeling very weak at this point.

Sorry, folks. Kendra.

Waiting for Zodiac

"In the late 60's a serial killer in Northern California began sending the press letters and cryptograms. One cipher translated into a message that began "I like killing people because it is so much fun". These unsolved murders roughly inspired 1971's Dirty Harry and other films, but the story of the Zodiac Killer was ripe for a more faithful retelling. To deliver one, Fincher ("Figth Club") corralled material from those who lived through the terror; the resulting account stars Downey Jr. as "San Francisco Chronicle" reporter Paul Avery, and Gyllenhaal as cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who wrote two books about the case." [...]
-by Fred Schruers. Pictures and text by IHJ.

"The first hour or so of the film focused on the Zodiac murders. Each of these scenes are thrilling and terrifying – more so than most horror films released these days. These events and their aftermath introduce us to the various protagonists of the film. Jake Gyllenhall plays a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who takes interest in the case and wants to crack it Hardy Boys style. Robert Downey Jr. (always a pleasure) plays an editor at the Chronicle who publishes articles on the Zodiac murders. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards play the primary investigators working on the case. Each of these actors, as well as the many other wonderful actors that I was surprised to see pop up in the film, give absolutely excellent performances. This was the kind of work that makes you forget you’re watching actors and not the characters themselvesAs a result, the film is able to completely absorb you as a viewer into its world, and that’s always a good thing.

...The leads are Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Greysmith a SF Chronicle cartoonist who spends much of the film following the Zodiac killings from the sidelines and Mark Ruffalo as David Toschi, the SF detective who’s leading the investigation. At various points, one man will dominate the film while the other will recede into the background for quite a bit of time as the film focuses on different approaches towards finding Zodiac.

Ruffalo’s always been a favorite of mine, but the shocker here is Gyllenhaal who I’ve never liked in anything till this. His boyishness really suits the character and it’s impressive just to watch how tired and haggard and paranoid he gets by the film’s end. We really watch him age in a very realistic way (as opposed to the porno ‘stache and bad wig in Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal has a great scene w/ John Carroll Lynch in a paint store where almost nothing is said between them but it’s just such a startling and expressive moment of physical acting.

...The acting is superb. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are great as detectives Toschii and Armstrong. Gyllenhaal is good, albeit a little too young, as cartoonist Robert Graysmith. Downey Jr. comes across well as a newspaper columnist writing for the San Fran Chronicle who has a drinking problem.

-MINOR SPOILER- To David Fincher:
Please put the line "I'm going to throw your baby out the window" back in the movie. I was waiting for that line and the gasp from the audience that would have followed but instead you robbed me and them of a wonderfully horrific moment. Re-edit that scene." (extracted from Aintitcool.com)


"I'd rather wake up in jail for a TB test than have to wake up another morning knowing I'm going to the set of US Marshals."

"I don't think you can take it seriously unless you joke about it. I'm suspicious of stoicism" (Robert Downey Jr. quotes)

“I think that no matter what, I always look for humanity, like I always look for a sense of hope. It can be in the bleakest story but I don’t buy total perversity, utter perversity without hope.” (Jake Gyllenhaal Source: Netribution.co.uk)

Paris Je t'aime

"This city can change your mood completely,” said the director Sofia Coppola as we walked down Rue Madame in the Sixth Arrondissement of Paris. During the filming of “Marie Antoinette,” which will arrive in theaters on Oct. 20, she lived in a rented apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, two doors from the famous Café de Flore.

Sofia stopped at Odorantes, a tiny flower shop that specializes in bouquets that are organized by scent rather than by color. Bouquets in Paris, unlike floral arrangements in America, usually consist of one flower or one hue. “I found this shop by wandering through the neighborhood,” she said, while waiting outside for the flowers to be arranged. “When I shop, it’s not so much about buying. Whether you get something or not, when you go in a store, you see what Paris is like.”

For a few days last May, I accompanied Sofia through several Paris neighborhoods: the Marais, the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, the Palais Royale. We visited the restored Museé de l’Orangerie to see the Monet waterlilies in their original home, and we gazed into the Seine from the Pont Neuf, but, mostly, we shopped as if we were engaged in a kind of sociological study of French customs and style.

Near the Place Vendôme, Sofia stopped at the custom shirtmaker Charvet, where she was having some of her mother’s Yves St. Laurent shirts from the 1970’s recreated as silk dresses. We went to the luggage store Goyard and admired the classic trunks that once belonged to the Duchess of Windsor. At Dary’s, a jewelry shop that specializes in antique pieces, Sofia tried on an aquamarine ring from the 20’s, and at Hermès, we watched the other customers in the large, crowded store compete for the privilege of buying their coveted handbags. At Benneton Graveur, she studied the engraved stationery, particularly a notecard topped by a French and an American flag. Sofia is expecting her first baby in December with her boyfriend, Thomas Mars, the singer in the band Phoenix. Mars is from Versailles, and Sofia plans to have the baby in Paris, where the couple have just purchased an apartment. “This card will be perfect,” she said, admiringly.

In the Marais, we went to K. Jacques, a tiny shop that specializes in all types of classic leather sandals. The simplicity of the shoes immediately conjured up images of sunning in St.-Tropez. We stopped at a vintage magazine and bookstore called Les Archives de la Presse, which Sofia discovered while she was filming Marie Antoinette’s birthday party at the National Archives nearby.

Sofia first considered making a film about Marie Antoinette during a dinner at Chez Omar, one of her favorite restaurants in the Marais. Dean Tavoularis, the Oscar-winning production designer, who has worked extensively with her father, had researched that period for a movie he didn’t end up doing, she explained. “And he started telling me things about Marie Antoinette, like how young she was and her weird relationship with her husband, Louis. I’ve always been interested in the 18th century, and the story behind her persona intrigued me.”

In many ways, the finished film is an homage to all things Français, from the perfection of the period costumes and wigs to the clashing modernity of the post-punk 80’s soundtrack. Just as “Lost in Translation,” Sofia’s previous film, captured the beautiful strangeness of Japan, “Marie Antoinette” is a glimpse into the sense of refinement that still exists in Paris. “I have always been influenced by French films,” said Sofia, as she paid for the extraordinarily fragrant purple-pink roses that took 20 minutes to arrange. “I remember seeing ‘Breathless’ as a teenager and liking that not everything was explained. In American movies, you have to explain everything. The French leave things a little mysterious.”

Sofia walked toward the river and peered into the windows of various antiques shops, looking for a chandelier for her new apartment. She went past a vintage shop on a tiny street, but it was closed. In the window was a slinky black jersey Jean Muir dress displayed on a mannequin. The Cannes Film Festival was in a few days, and Sofia was looking for gowns. “I like that in Paris, you have to get it together,” she said. “It’s nice to see people dress up for dinner. After I interned at Chanel in the 80’s, I went back home to my little town in the Napa Valley, but I was changed forever. Everyone thought I was strange because I was getting French Vogue.”

After writing down the peculiar hours of the vintage shop, Sofia headed to the Jardin du Luxembourg. “My father was so taken with this place that he built a little fountain in Napa based on the fountain here,” she said, as she walked down the wide gravel path that leads to the heart of the garden. She motioned to a bench. “This place has always been emotional for me.” Right before she was about to get married to Spike Jonze (now her ex-husband), and before her first movie, “The Virgin Suicides,” was shown in Cannes, the stress had got to her: “I just sat here and cried.” She would come here while filming “Marie Antoinette” when she had serious things on her mind. “The beauty of this garden would always reassure me,” she said. “Paris has a way of restoring your faith.”

SOFIA'S ADDRESS BOOK

Shops

Azzedine Alaïa Boutique and shoe store. 4 Rue de Moussy; 011-33-1-42-72-19-19.

Benneton Graveur Stationery. 75 Boulevard Malesherbes; 011-33-1-43-87-57-39.

Bois de Rose Classic smock dresses for girls. 30 Rue Dauphine; 011-33-1-40-46-04-24.

Bonpoint Children’s clothes. 320 Rue St.-Honoré; 011-33-1-49-27-94-82. Go to www.bonpoint.com for more locations.

Galerie 213 Sofia especially likes the photo books. 58 Rue Charlot; 011-33-1-43-22-83-23.

Charvet Custom shirts and more. 28 Place Vendôme; 011-33-1-42-60-30-70.

Clignancourt Flea Market Sofia shops here for furniture. Porte de Clignancourt (Sat.-Mon.).

Dary’s Antique jewelry. 362 rue St.-Honoré; 011-33-1-42-60-95-23.

Deyrolle Taxidermy in a beautiful space. 46 Rue du Bac; 011-33-1-42-22-30-07.

Didier Ludot Vintage couture. 20-24 Galerie de Montpensier; 011-33-1-42-96-06-56.

Pharmacie Homeopatique Weber For beauty products not available at home. 8 Rue de Capucines; 011-33-1-42-61-03-07.

Free “P” Star Vintage clothing. 8 Rue Ste.-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie; 011-33-1-42-76-03-72.

Goyard Classic luggage. 233 Rue St.-Honoré; 011-33-1-42-60-57-04.

Hermès Sofia shops here for notebooks and bags. 24 Faubourg St-Honoré; 011-33-1-40-17-47-17.

Jöelle Ciocco Skin care. 8 Place de la Madeleine; 011-33-1-42-60-58-80.

K. Jacques Leather sandals. 16 Rue Pavee; 011-33-1-40-27-03-57.

Lanvin Albert Elbaz’s take on French tradition. 22 Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré; 011-33-1-44-71-31-73.

Les Archives De La Presse Vintage magazines. 15 Rue des Archives; 011-33-1-42-72-63-93.

Marc Jacobs Palais Royal, 34 Rue de Montpensier; 011-33-1-55-35-02-60.

Odorantes Flowers. 9 Rue Madame; 011-33-1-42-84-03-00.

Pierre Hardy One-of-a-kind shoes. Jardins du Palais Royal, 156 Galerie de Valois; 011-33-1-42-60-59-75.

Sabbia Rosa Lingerie. 73 Rue des Sts.-Pères; 011-33-1-45-48-88-37.

Serge Lutens Perfume. Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido, Jardins du Palais Royal, 142 Galerie de Valois; 011-33-1-49-27-09-09.

Restaurants and Bars

Café de Flore Centuries-old artiste hangout. 172 Boulevard Saint-Germain; 011-33-1-45-48-55-26.

Le Castiglione Known for its cheeseburgers. 235 Rue St.-Honoré; 011-33-1-42-60-68-22.

Chez Allard Famed old bistro noted for poulet de bresse. 41 Rue St.-André des Arts; 011-33-1-43-26-48-23.

Chez Omar Excellent couscous, exceptionally popular. 47 Rue de Bretagne; 011-33-1-42-72-36-26.

Gerard Mulot Pastries and chocolate. 76 Rue de Seine; 011-33-1-43-26-85-77.

Bar Hemingway Classic bar with great cocktails. Hotel Ritz Paris; 15 Place Vendôme; 011-33-1-43-16-33-65.

Ladurée Historic tea salon beloved for its macaroons. 16 Rue Royale; 011-33-1-42-60-21-79. Go to www.laduree.fr for more locations.

Le Voltaire Chic bistro on the river. 27 Quai Voltaire; 011-33-1-42-61-17-49.

Mathis Supertrendy bar. 33 Rue de Ponthieu; 011-33-1-53-76-39-55.
extracted from "The New York Times" /Travel Section, article courtesy of Penny Lane.

Maggie's Apartment

Maggie in the filming of "Trust the Man" (2005)

"Maggie Gyllenhaal, her fiancé Peter Sarsgaard and their newborn daughter Ramona won't be kicked out of their apartment, according to the New York Post.

The actress, 28, faced eviction from her $5,000-a-month apartment in downtown Manhattan after two of the three owners of her building argued she didn't have a valid lease (her lease had been signed only by the third owner).

Gyllenhaal filed an affidavit reading, "I am residing in the subject premises pursuant to a lease duly executed by one of the owners of the subject premises."

Manhattan Civil Court Judge Marc Finkelstein agreed, noting that "she has paid and continues to pay all the rent under that lease."

The actress's attorney, Lorraine Nadel, tells the Post, "Maggie should never have been dragged into this. The owners of the building should have fought it out themselves and left her out of it."

Gyllenhaal moved into the apartment in 2005, and has the option to stay though the end of 2007 – though she and Sarsgaard reportedly are planning to buy a 3,600-sq.-ft. townhouse in Brooklyn, according to People magazine.

How shady of those building owners. Get out of there A.S.A.P., Maggie and Peter. I'm sure little Ramona would much rather grow up with a backyard to play in anyway."
Source Maternityandstyle.

Observing Sophia

Sean O'Hagan (Sunday October 08 2006) The Observer

"It's kind of uncomfortable having to do this stuff right now,' she says, referring to the fact that she is promoting her new film, Marie Antoinette, while heavily pregnant. 'It's hard to, um, sit right.'

If her vagueness and her sulkily beautiful Mediterranean face combine to make the 35-year-old Coppola seem like a slightly out-to-lunch teenager, I suspect this may be a way of keeping the world at bay. And keeping control. No other young female film director possesses her kind of clout in Hollywood, and this is not just to do with her dynastic name. Marie Antoinette is a lavish but flawed historical drama, a huge leap in scale for her, and an even bigger leap of faith by Sony studios who gave her $40 million and total artistic control.

Marie Antoinette is all atmosphere. Based loosely on Lady Antonia Fraser's revisionist biography of the Austrian-born queen, it was shot on location in Versailles with a stellar cast that includes Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman and Steve Coogan, as well as several hundred extravagantly dressed extras. It is a gorgeous-looking soufflé of a film whose perceived lack of a political subtext or even point of view has already caused an unholy row in France. 'It's kind of like a history of feelings,' Dunst said recently, 'rather than a history of facts.'

Perhaps for this very reason, it was booed by some sections of the audience at the Cannes' Film Festival earlier this year, and more recently dubbed 'a scandal' by Liberation's film critic, Agnes Poirier. 'History is merely decor and Versailles a boutique hotel for the jet set, past and present,' fumed Poirier, 'All we learn about Marie Antoinette is her love for Laduree macaroons and Manolo Blahnik shoes.' Sofia can't see what all the fuss was about.

'It's very French', she says, shrugging, when I bring up the catcalls at Cannes, 'Afterwards, I had a lot of French journalists saying, "I like your Marie Antoinette but I still hate the real Marie Antoinette". I guess she's still kind of a loaded subject there. All I can say is that I set out to challenge myself with each movie, and having to do a period film was a huge challenge. How to do it in a fresh way, and from the point of view of a strange girl in a strange world. If you attempt something new, it's always a risk.'

Was she surprised, though, by the vehemence of the reaction? 'Well, there was a standing ovation, too,' she says calmly, as if the continuing controversy is just water off a duck's back. 'I think the booing was not really that loud. It was picked upon and reported because, you know, it's a better story than a standing ovation.'

Lady Antonia Fraser, who has become friends with Coppola since the director purchased the rights to her myth-puncturing biography, can't see what all the fuss is about either. 'I love it,' she trills, 'It doesn't deviate from the story, but nor does it copy the book slavishly. It's Sofia's vision of Marie Antoinette. My vision was within the covers,hers is in the images on the screen. I enjoyed it enormously and so did Harold [Pinter].'

This is indeed the case. 'He liked the film. He wrote me a sweet letter,' says Coppola, smiling. ' That meant a lot. I mean, he's so honest. I don't think he'd write a letter if he didn't mean it. It's like, if it turns out that nobody else likes it, I can still say, "Well, at least Harold Pinter did".'

Given the times we live in, Marie Antoinette could well become a box-office hit, too. While not quite as shallow as Poirier paints it, nor as visionary as Lady Antonia insists, it is an oddly empty film. Having moved away from the cool contemporaneity of her previous mood piece, the lauded Lost in Translation, Coppola seems adrift in the ancien regime. The result is a historical drama for the Wallpaper* generation, all sumptuous interiors, dresses to die for, and an oh-so-ironic Eighties glam-pop soundtrack. As Bow Wow Wow's trash classic 'I Want Candy' blares out its blatant message of self-gratification over yet another baroque
party scene, you wonder what happened to Coppola's signature style, the hazy, impressionistic, understated languor of her two previous outings.

Her debut, The Virgin Suicides, was also an adaptation, in which Jeffrey Eugenides' contemporary gothic novel was given a terminally narcotic hue, even if the virgins of the title looked like they had been created by Coppola's fashion buddy Marc Jacobs.

It was followed by Lost in Translation, another meditation on dislocation, that became an unlikely mainstream hit, grossing $44m. It, too, was melancholy in tone and perfectly caught the singular loneliness and creeping enervation of hotel
rooms in strange cities. It made Scarlett Johansson a star and kick-started Bill Murray's ongoing late career as Hollywood's favourite ageing hipster, a title he inherited from the equally deadpan Harry Dean Stanton. Along the way, Coppola became an arbiter of a new kind of cinematic cool in which, as Vanity Fair recently put it, 'youthful naivety and impeccable taste reign supreme'.


There is a sense that all Coppola's films to date have in some way been autobiographical. Or, as as she puts it, 'they tend to be someone who's lost in the world, the girl who has to find her way'.

The young Sofia Coppola was that very girl, and the world she inhabited in her formative years, though gilded, could have suffocated a lesser talent. She was born Sofia Carmine Coppola on 14 May 1971, into a Hollywood dynasty where her father, Francis Ford Coppola, reigned supreme. Her mother is Eleanor Coppola, a documentary film-maker; her aunt, the veteran Hollywood actress Talia Shire; and her cousins the actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. The likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Marlon Brando were regular dinner party guests.

The family moved west in the Seventies from New York to California's Napa Valley, where her father now owns a famous vineyard. It produces a champagne called Sofia, which is described on the label as 'revolutionary, petulant, reactionary, ebullient, fragrant, cold, cool'. The real Sofia once described it simply as 'embarrassing'. Before he moved sideways into wine production, her father lived and breathed movies. 'Everyone in my family is in the film business,' she once said, 'and that's all we talked about... I had a 20-year tutorial on film in my own home.'
Her earliest childhood memories are of sitting on Andy Warhol's knee and helicopter rides over the Philippines jungle, where she lived for nearly two years while her father almost killed himself and bankrupted a major studio while making Apocalypse Now in the early 1970s. 'It was fun,' she smiles. 'I didn't really think of my father as a famous film director. He was just, you know, my dad.'

While her father famously sweated, shouted and swore his way through his epic films, his daughter is a Zen-calm presence on set, the still centre of the organised chaos that is a film shoot. 'I'm not a yeller,' she says, smiling. Her cousin, Schwartzman, whom she cast as Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette, said recently of the experience, 'I never saw her freak out once. She's totally calm, she's like this lighthouse.'

Given her father's long shadow, it took Coppola some time to find her creative footing in film. In her twenties, having graduated from the California Institute of Arts, she dabbled in fashion and photography, for Karl Lagerfeld and French Vogue respectively, blessed by her family's name and social connections, but unable to excel in either world. She studied painting, too, then briefly and disastrously tried acting, unwisely appearing as Al Pacino's daughter in The Godfather Part III, a bad performance in one of her father's most disappointing movies. The critical mauling she received meant that even the casually cruel world of fashion seemed preferable, and she returned to that milieu, creating her own label called Milk Fed which still exists as a lucrative Japanese franchise.

'I was kind of lost and unfocused,' she says now of that uncertain time. Then, in 1998, with her father's encouragement, she made Lick the Star, a short film set in a girls' high school. 'I just loved the way it looked,' she says, smiling, 'and it kind of helped me find my way. With the acting thing, everything was so public. I don't really think of it was a big mistake, it was more a way of finding out what I didn't want to do. I'm much more comfortable behind the camera.'

This is where she has remained ever since, and with considerable success. At 35, she has an Academy Award and three Golden Globes under her belt, all for Lost in Translation. The same film made her only the third woman, and the first American woman, ever to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Director.

Interestingly, that film was made during a period of personal turmoil, and the events that unfolded onscreen seem to have echoed the fracturing of her marriage to the hipper-than-thou director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). When I ask her about Jonze, she shifts in her seat and says, 'We're, um, not that in contact any more.'

For a time, Coppola was linked to Quentin Tarantino, who namechecked her in the credits to Kill Bill Vol. 2 in 2004. Right now, though, she is settled and expecting her first child next month with Thomas Mars, singer with the French electronic rock band Phoenix. Her hip credentials are impeccable. She has become something of a muse for her friend, the fashion designer Marc Jacobs, who once named a bag after her and employed her as the face of his eponymous perfume. She hangs out with Sonic Youth and makes videos for the White Stripes.

Sophia Coppola with Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) & Selma Blair

Her style and quiet, almost childlike air have made Coppola an icon of contemporary cool for a generation who seem to have some difficulty growing up. Among her Zeitgeist-defining cinematic contemporaries are her friends Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) and Zoe Cassavetes, daughter of director John, who is currently shooting her first feature film. According to Vanity Fair, 'they're not a Brat Pack; they're a Play Group' whose collective grooviness is supposedly predicated on 'sojourns in Paris, the best new bands, 1970s songs that no one has ever heard, the perfect shoe'. Film-making, then, as fashion, with Sofia as the queen of the catwalk.

Unsurprisingly, this kind of cultural reductiveness irks Coppola.
'Yeah, yeah,' she sighs wearily, when I mention the play group analogy. 'People have to find these scenes to fit you into, really. It makes it easier to write about you, I guess.' So the sense that there is a shared aesthetic - a kind of collective ironic cool - is wrong? 'Oh, I wouldn't say it's wrong,' she drawls, unfazed, 'I mean, you can look at things any way you want, slant them to suit your point of view. I guess it is an aesthetic more than a movement, but, you know, I do have my own aesthetic too, the people I look to and admire.' Could she elaborate? 'Well,
um, when I was growing up, it was Godard, Truffaut, the French New Wave. The style was so cool to me.' So, your own aesthetic is essentially about style rather than, say, story or drama? 'Um, I guess. I mean, I've always been drawn to individuals really, people with their own distinctive but identifiable style that no one else has. That's all I try to do, find my own distinctive way of doing things.'· Marie Antoinette opens on 20 October

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited extracted from
The Observer article courtesy of Penny Lane.

M.A. Trailer