Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
I could go on and describe many things: the movie itself, my feelings about the movie, how certain elements worked and didn’t, where fans were serviced, where they were not.
But instead let me just say that at the end of this movie, when the last words were spoken and the screen went black, all 15 people I attended the film with (and most of the audience) ERUPTED in applause, whoops and hollers.
I have a headache from the freakout I had at the end of that film. Men were openly weeping. Complete strangers hugged, and we’re talking no-pat-on-the-back, arms tensed, heads nestled in shoulders. The kind of hug your mother gives you as soon as you stop liking hugs.
There were so many moments in this film where folks were shouting at the screen in joy…this is a joyful film.
Yes, there are many deaths and explosions and fights and gunshots. But this is a film where everyone’s having a good time, and their goal, their only goal, is for you to have a good time as well.
God bless Fast & Furious…AND GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
GRADE: A+
p.s. we were drunk when we saw this, and I drove way too fast the entire way home, blasting rock n’ roll and dubstep. One day I will do that and find someone to race with, just like back in the day, when I’d be driving down to San Diego and end up in a race with some random dude who also lived his life a quarter mile at a time. Sigh. I got so much energy left over from that movie, I don’t even know what to do with myself.
“I didn’t feel very grounded as a kid.
After moving a lot, dropping out of high school and moving out of the house at 16, I turned to photography as a place of refuge. There was a lot of stuff in the world I wanted to take control of. I wanted create a world that’s a little bit magical, that people can kind of get lost in. Photography became my safe haven. I felt lost, and taking pictures gave me a purpose. It felt like the most natural way to express myself. I always want to create a peaceful space.”
—
Excerpt from Laura Taylor’s Interview on The Photographic Journal
photo credit: Laura Taylor
Great read, great photos. Go spend a few minutes, why don’t ya.
When I asked her to dance, I assumed she’d shake a little, make a face, understated. We’re in public, there are many eyes watching us! I probably would’ve just said no.
Whitney did not just shake a little. She GOT DOWN. Got down to the sounds of three teenage siblings belting out mediocre pop songs on the Santa Monica Promenade while their dad worked the tiny soundboard, their braces no doubt contributing to the strange shapes their mouths made while they gyrated uncomfortably for the awestruck crowd.
I, meanwhile, was awestruck by Whitney’s utter lack of self-consciousness. Completely alien to me, it is.
[video]
I hide ever so well amongst the legions of tourists. No ones knows that, instead of capturing Rachel’s face for the slideshow that’ll accompany my Adventures in Los Angeles, I’m actually making art!
All of you visitors with your cameras and your eyes gone wide from the madness that is my city, you are my camouflage.
Today!
Train Announcements : The New Yorker -
“Attention, passengers: we have a very full train today so please don’t block the doors. We will be moving shortly.
Attention, passengers: we cannot move the train unless you keep out of the way of the closing doors. Stand clear.
Will the passenger holding the train doors open in the second-to-last car please step on or off the train so that we can continue.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a passenger holding the doors of the train open, and we cannot move until the woman he is speaking to either gathers her suitcases and steps off the train with him, or convinces him that it is really over and he should just let her go. We apologize for the delay.
Attention, passengers: this is your conductor speaking. The train is being delayed while the woman with the suitcases tells the man holding the doors that she just wants to go back to Chicago and try and remember who she used to be before he convinced her to give up on her dreams to watch him follow through on his. She makes a fair point so we will be delayed until the gentleman holding the doors accepts that it’s time to move on…”
In LA, I stayed at what can only be described as a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves tiny house at Chateau Marmont. It even had a tiny kitchen.
Lou Noble took this photo.
The episode of Last Call with Carson Daly that I’m on airs on the 16th
Oh how I would love to do one a them Strobist diagrams for this shot:
“On the left I had a lamp I found in the bedroom. It had…um, some kind of bulb in it? Next to that, just to the left of me, I had another lamp, also found in the bedroom, same bulb mabye. My assistant, Emily, was holding that, pointing it at Molly. Then I had ANOTHER lamp, found that one in the living room, that was off to the right. Ooh, then there were the lights in the kitchen walls, those were on. And everything was kinda pointed at Molly?”
And oy vey, a challenge getting all that just right. There was a food tray on that table on the left, that had to go, had to get that red…what is that, a sari? That had to be just right.
See, usually I just shoot, kibbitz, keep it loose. But once we had Molly up on the counter, there was a specific shot that slowly formed in my head, and once it appeared, it had to be Just Right.
Molly was a real trooper about it, my butt probably would’ve falled asleep, up on that counter. Tons of fun shooting her.
Sometimes…sometimes I just feel like Jim Rockford walking along the beach at night, cigarette in hand, adidas on his feet, looking out at the water, ya know?
Always get a kick out of visitors to the city squealing with joy when they jump into the ocean.