HYPE CHECK Leica M9 Digital Rangefinder Camera What it is: The cult of Leica originated in the '40s, when Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Magnum photographers first brought the so-called "decisive moment" into the cultural consciousness. Their startlingly immediate images of street life, war, and ...

by Jason Rowan on Dec 3rd 2009 1:40PM

Comments: 11

In the Golden Era of Hollywood, re-touching photographic stills of movie stars was the standard. The layers of illusion that the studio machine wrapped around the already striking actors was impressive; makeup, ingenious lighting, and delicate, highly sophisticated airbrushing were applied by ...

by Jason Rowan on May 19th 2009 11:50PM

Comments: 12

4. Shirley MacLaine The marketing images for the Lifetime movie 'Coco Chanel' feature Shirley MacLaine in a virtually Vaseline-lensed piece of lines-free visual fiction. And she's not playing a young woman! Are we really supposed to accept that a woman who has led such a long, rich life ...

by Jason Rowan on May 8th 2009 12:00PM

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3. 'The Women' Featuring an array of women over 40, and several over 50, the DVD packaging for 'The Women' has nary a wrinkle in sight. In fairness to the Photoshoppers, if you watch the trailer, it appears that the women have all had their lines permanently banished to Botox-land (along with ...

by Jason Rowan on May 8th 2009 12:00PM

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2. Catherine Zeta-Jones John Waters said of plastic surgery, "I'm against it. If it's bad you look like someone who moved to Los Angeles and never made it, and if it's good you look like someone else". Apparently, judging from Photoshop Disasters' coverage, Cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden ...

by Jason Rowan on May 8th 2009 12:00PM

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1. Dane Cook In his MySpace blog, Cook took on the designers of the poster for 'My Best Friend's Girl,' in which Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs and Cook all seem to be lit from completely different sources and photographed on continents apart. Cook called the poster "so glossy it makes Entertainment ...

by Jason Rowan on May 8th 2009 12:00PM

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'The Third Man' The gist: Carol Reed's classic film throws you back into the ruined, "bombed about" streets of Venice in the aftermath of World War II. Holly Martins, a writer of American Western paperback novels, comes to the Austrian capital in search of work, stumbles onto the death of a ...

by Jason Rowan on Jan 6th 2009 12:01AM

Comments: 1

'There Will Be Blood' The gist: The gripping, lovingly-detailed tale of the rise of a heartless oil prospector swept the awards in '08, nabbing an Best Actor Oscar for Daniel Day Lewis for his truly riveting performance. Following events from 1898 through 1927, the film is a masterful study of ...

by Jason Rowan on Jan 6th 2009 12:01AM

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Chungking Express The gist: Wong Kar-wai's 1994 feature set in an open air market in Hong Kong tells a story of people, and a place, in constant transition with unusual energy and verve. The film is a rapturous amalgam of influences, from film noir to Hong Kong cinema to The Mommas and the ...

by Jason Rowan on Jan 6th 2009 12:01AM

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'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' The gist: Sidney Lumet's emotionally gritty film explores the consequences of a bad idea taken to much worse extremes. A dark tale of buried resentments that ultimately destroy a family, 'Devil' features bracing performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman, ...

by Jason Rowan on Jan 6th 2009 12:01AM

Comments: 0