Better Late Than Never: Dennis Hopper Double Standard

The Self-Made Shell Of Hopper & The New Mexico Desert At Moco.

Dad & Me

Hopper Speaks At His Star Ceremony On Hollywood Blvd.

The Steps Of Hopper's Home In Venice.

Nothing like waiting till the last day, right? This past Sunday was the last day for the Dennis Hopper's art exhibit Double Standard at MOCA. My dad and I got there real early to avoid all the other last dayers and the heat that was frying the streets of downtown LA. The retrospective which opened in July was sadly a tribute to Hopper the art/photographer (as well as actor, who passed away just this past May 29th at the age of 74.) Hopper who spent the past 25 years hold up in his studio/compound in my hometown of Venice, Ca. proved himself to be major player in world of contemporary art. He was an artist that who really wasn't afraid to delve into all aspects of art, the show featured abstract paintings, black and white photographs, various assemblage pieces, Venice graffiti inspired art and pop art pieces (as well as a small theater featuring film clips from his career as and actor "You're a eggplant.") Personally I was drawn to his photography (mostly from the 60's.) Hopper really had "the photographic eye" which later helped him in his film directing career. I took to heart something that he said in an interview once, Hopper said something to the fact that when nothing else was shakin' in his artistic career, he just picked up his camera and made art. Nice advice and a nice send off Mister Hopper.

The Cuban Slide: Slide Show Night @ The Annenberg Space for Photography

Up on the big screen.




Glenn, Steve, Colleen & Me

 

Still trying to impress Miss Kahn!

With Lydia & Karen

With my wonderful friend Michel.

With one of my lifelong mentors; Mike Jones

With Pia & Karin

Last night I had thirty images featured at The Annenberg Space for Photography’s Slide Show Night event. Every exhibit at the Annenberg features such a night to coincide with its current exhibit since it opened March 2009. Currently photojournalism is featured with the presentation of Pictures of the Year International 2010.   The fact that my images from a recent trip to Cuba were shown along with other photographers from all over the country as well as the world was very satisfying indeed. The journey ironically started at the Annenberg (were I have worked part time since it has opened) last January. I was in the library/reading room of the Space and I started thinking about a place that’s always fascinated me; Cuba. While the thought was fresh in my mind I jumped on a nearby computer and emailed my cousin who has traveled to Cuba many times in her work as a college professor. I asked her “are you ever going back to Cuba?’ To my surprised she replied that she had been there just two weeks before. And as luck would have it she was planning to go back in six months to do more research on her next book. She said that she could actually use a photographer. So if I was serious about making the trip, let her know? I knew that I couldn’t pass up this adventure, even though I really was in no position financially to do so. I remember that great little bit of dialogue from the beginning of the movie where George Hamilton played Evil Knievel (and I’m paraphrasing here) “A Roman general in the time of Caesar once said that if it is possible it shall be done, and if it was impossible it will be done!” So I told my cousin; “yes, I’m in.”

I was lucky enough to have half of my travel paid for by the university; but the rest I had to tap dance for. I had six months, so I brainstormed. Then I had the idea that “hey, I’m going as a photographer; and I’m planning to comeback with (I was hoping?) with some great images of an amazing place… so I was lucky enough to find great a few sponsors through my great friends (many who have seen my past photos and some  I’m honored to a photo of mine hanging in there home.) And so was able to make this (possibly?) once in a lifetime trip to Fidel's Island. After a wonderful two weeks in this incredible place, I came back with photos for my cousins book, as well a enough to make a photo book for me. And as for Cuba? I came away with this feeling about the island and its people; in a nutshell it's just like that TV show LOST; people stranded on the island with each other and not much else? Many hope to escape or to be rescued, but until then... all they have is each other, so they have to stick together (I even felt that with the pets & animals.) I really hope that my photos conveyed this? Which brings me to last night, it was so cool to have this idea/adventure to come full circle in less than a year. And I was able to invite my wonderful patrons to such a nice event, as well as a few other special people in my life (I wish I could have invited more friends, but I pushed my portion of the guest list as far as I possibly could!) I'm not a photojournalist per say, but I'm a curious man with a camera. FYI the images are now on The Annenberg Space for Photography website (for some reason I can't get the link below to "just click" to it... but you can cut & paste the link... that'll take you to the slide show page... my images from Cuba are on the 3rd slide show page... which you can get to if you click to it down below on the right... I hope you take the time to check them out...

http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/events/slideshow_night_poyi10.asp

AGIAN... IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY?

With the gals, good times all around!

The Beauty & The Desperado

Not a photo you get every day; Jeff & Rubina!

With "Sweet Louise," who always has a kind word for me!

A personalized card from The Pink Panther!

I haven't posted a blog in a while, but I'm inspired to do so. I just celebrated another year on the planet. Birthdays, they go as fast as the come these days... when we're young we can't wait to get older (or at least 18-21.) Then a funny thing happens, we start to dread them; "damn not another year older or I'm gonna be how old?" And that's how I honestly feel sometimes. But, other times it's just the opposite. This world is crazy and so is life; but try and not take it too personal. We should all feel terrific to reach another year older, with so many things out there that can stop our clock in a split second it's nice to keep on ticking! This year I decided that I wanted to celebrate with as many friends as I could. Nothing fancy, I found a great dive (a saloon called "The Scarlet Lady") it gave us plenty of elbow room and away we went! It turned out to be a wonderful night, a moment just to enjoy each other again. As you get older you really do appreciate a familiar face and all the history that comes with that beautiful face. I hope to celebrate many more; as long as this crazy world will have me? And I intend to do it with all my beautiful familiar faces as often as I can.

THE HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES: THROUGH FILM (1900's - 1970's): OIL, WATER, HOLLYWOOD, PLANES, FREEWAYS & PORN

I'm a native Angeleno and I love my city... I also love a good movie (and sometimes a bad one too.) There's  lots of folks who live in this town and really don't know "JACK" about it!... about what made her the "Garden of Eden" she is... and it really pisses me off! So it brings me to this idea to take a look at the evolution of "The City of the Angels" as told by Hollywood... cliff notes for the pilgrims!

I would start of with a recent classic THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) directed by masterfully by Paul Thomas Anderson and loosely based on the novel OIL by Upton Sinclair. The film starts in 1902, when Southern California was laying under a sea of black gold. Sounding a lot like director John Huston, Daniel Day Lewis looms large as the flinty oil hound Daniel Plainview. Lewis (in a deserving Oscar winning performance) literally sucks the oil from the ground with his very presence. "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet! No one can get at it except for me." He'll even drink your milk shake all up for you too!

Maybe the only more important than the oil boom was the value of water to Los Angeles?

"Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water" sez the "REAL JOHN HUSTON" as the deliciously villainous Noah Cross in CHINATOWN (1974.) Roman Polanski gave us a fictionalized version of the city father William Mulholland stealing water from the farmers in the Owens Valley to quench the thirst of a parched city in this true classic that, Jack Nicholson cemented his status in films with his portrayal of cool, classy 1930's private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes who stumbles upon hanky panky at the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power while working a adultery case and almost loses his nose for his troubles. Not only does screenwriter Robert Towne gives the viewers a great taste of L.A. history it also serves up a twisted tale of incest that ends with Faye Dunaways head dropped on a blaring car horn with a bullet in her head in CHINATOWN. Nicholson and his P.I. character returned in THE TWO JAKES (1990) as he's working on a case in 1948 post war L.A. which involves real estate, oil and someone from his past.

 

The importance of the Martin Scorsese, Howard Hughes bio film THE AVIATOR (2004) in Los Angeles history is two fold; it follows Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as he inherits his fathers tool company (the senior Hughes made his fortune inventing a heavy duty oil drilling bit... I'm sure Daniel Planview must have used a few.) The young Hughes at first was a aviation enthusiast, designing planes for himself, in his quest to break flying records (the film features an incredible sequence that has Hughes crash landing on a Beverly Hills golf course while testing a new aircraft) then building his aviation empire Hughes Aircraft that was to become one of the major supplier of planes for the government during the war, sparking the aerospace boom and becoming a pioneer in commercial airline industry forming the company TWA. Hughes was also a filmmaker; directing the films; HELL'S ANGELS and THE OUTLAW (as well as buying RKO studios.) DiCaprio does a top job portraying the legendary and obsessive-compulsive mister Hughes, from young playboy in the twenties who parties at the famed Coconut Grove (with the likes of film stars, Katherine Hepburn and Jean Harlow) to the suffering genius on the brink of madness; "Tell Jimmy I want ten chocolate chip cookies, medium chips, none too close to the outside." 

 

Sid Hudgens /Danny Devito : [voiceover] Come to Los Angeles! The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see. There are jobs aplenty, and land is cheap. Every working man can have his own house, and inside every house, a happy, all-American family. You can have all this, and who knows... you could even be discovered, become a movie star... or at least see one. Life is good in Los Angeles... it's paradise on Earth." Ha ha ha ha. That's what they tell you, anyway...

With the 1950's and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997) we have a violent city that's full of big plans (real estate, freeways) and yup, corruption... and lots of it! Director Curtis Hanson who also adapted (with Brian Helgeland) James Ellroy's thick novel paints Los Angeles as a big juicy city ripe for the picking. This film has dirty cops, statuesque movie star look-alike hookers, reefer smoking pretty-boys and lots and lots of dead bodies... yeah we're pretty sure L.A. was like this... maybe even worse. The films gang-buster climax at a rundown hotel amidst the oil fields of Baldwin Hills is as pure a L.A.location as you'll ever see. With a great screen adaptation plus great actors equals masterpiece... but that's on the hush, hush... and on the Q.T..

I jump to the late 1970's again with Paul Thomas Anderson and his picture BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997.) Casting sometimes is everything and this film really hits the mark... literally with Mark Walhberg as Dirk Diggler the porn star hero of this epic piece (with one of his own) of L.A. culture.  Set in the San Fernando Valley (the porn capital of the world) Anderson gives us a fictionalized portrayal of the saga of porno star John Holmes.

 

An icon and sex symbol of the 70's himself, Burt Reynolds really gives one hell of a performance (Oscar nominated) as Walhberg's director mentor Jack Horner. Also in the cast is; Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Heather Graham (as "Roller Girl!"), John C. Reilly just to name a few. It's a time in L.A. were everything goes; sex, drugs & more sex & more drugs, 

The good old days before AIDS and came to town and spoiled the whole party. So until someone makes a great film about the 80's & 90's I guess it all begins and ends for now with Paul Thomas Anderson? Now go rents some of these movies and maybe you'll learn something about Los Angeles while you're at it pilgrim.

 

THE HURT LOCKER: TEN SECONDS TO HELL!

I finally saw THE HURT LOCKER, and pardon the pun... it blew me away! Directed by Kathryn Bigelow's who's most well-know film is the 1991 surfer-bank-robber epic, POINT BREAK. This edgy wartime drama is set during the current Iraq War (and was filmed in the Middle East in Jordan and Kuwait .) The intensely written script by freelance journalist Mark Boal (who was once embedded with an American bomb squad in Iraq) wastes no time putting you on the edge of your theater-seat and has you soon gripping it's armrests. This is the best war film since Ridley Scott's, Blackhawk Down, the type of picture that's so realistic, it makes you want duck for cover while watching it (might I add, if this movie was in 3 D... oh momma!) The story is a simple one, a three man army unit (Jeremy Renner,Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty) ride around Baghdad in there Humvee trying to defuse bombs without getting themselves killed in the process. These explosives aren't the comic book kind that Hollywood drops in movies in lieu of  story and character development. And needless to say, you won't find anyone outrunning a fireball here like John Rambo. The three leads really hit the mark; Mackie as the cautious leader, Geraghty as the green kid and Renner in a star making performance as the "wild card" bomb tech. Renner's part has the flavor of a character that Steve McQueen's boots would have filled some forty years earlier. The drama of The Hurt Locker, also is also reminiscent of a long forgotten (and hard to find) picture of director Robert Aldrich from the 50's called Ten Seconds To Hell, starring Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler. That story was about a team of men who defuse bombs in postwar Berlin. But make no mistake, under Bigelow's taunt direction her movie stands tall on its own as piece of fine filmmaking;bar none! Bravo Bigelow! Hello Oscar!

VENICE BEACH: A WINDY WINTER DAY

These are a few shots taken last week between rain storms down at Venice Beach.
photos copyright Ray Ramos Photography