Sylvia Plath

Born to middle class parents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath published her first poem when she was eight. Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection in everything she attempted, she was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A's, winning the best prizes. By the time she entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950 she already had an impressive list of publications, and while at Smith she wrote over four hundred poems.
Sylvia's surface perfection was however underlain by grave personal discontinuities, some of which doubtless had their origin in the death of her father (he was a college professor and an expert on bees) when she was eight. During the summer following her junior year at Smith, having returned from a stay in New York City where she had been a student ``guest editor'' at Mademoiselle Magazine, Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills. She later described this experience in an autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, published in 1963. After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.
In 1956 she married the English poet Ted Hughes , and in 1960, when she was 28, her first book, The Colossus, was published in England. The poems in this book---formally precise, well wrought---show clearly the dedication with which Sylvia had served her apprenticeship; yet they give only glimpses of what was to come in the poems she would begin writing early in 1961. She and Ted Hughes settled for a while in an English country village in Devon, but less than two years after the birth of their first child the marriage broke apart.
The winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest in centuries, found Sylvia living in a small London flat, now with two children, ill with flu and low on money. The hardness of her life seemed to increase her need to write, and she often worked between four and eight in the morning, before the children woke, sometimes finishing a poem a day. In these last poems it is as if some deeper, powerful self has grabbed control; death is given a cruel physical allure and psychic pain becomes almost tactile.
On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30. Two years later Ariel, a collection of some of her last poems, was published; this was followed by Crossing the Water and Winter Trees in 1971, and, in 1981, The Collected Poems appeared, edited by Ted Hughes.Tweet

Russ Meyer:"Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1966)

"Welcome to violence!" The sinister voice-over that begins Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! warns its presumably all-male audience that a new breed of woman exists, feral females that hide deceit and murder under their soft seductive skins, and apparently, these women are everywhere. This bit of misogyny leads directly into an equal-opportunity tale of mayhem where the ladies are indeed fully in charge. Some modern-day revisionists like to refashion this film into some sort of proto-feminist fable, but the only real twist is allowing the ladies to be villains as amoral and violent as any classic moustache-twirler. The male leads (particularly Stuart Lancaster's odious wheelchair-bound millionaire) are either hateful of women or exist to offer knight-in-shining-armor assistance when necessary, so don't look to Faster, Pussycat! for any feminist theory. Nevertheless, this is still the crowning achievement of Russ Meyer's stunning catalogue. The arch, stylized dialogue is packed with spicy slang and poetic asides, and the action is briskly paced. Tura Satana steals the show as the lead bad girl, alternately yelling and purring her way through a role that rips up scenery and co-stars in equal measures. Every inch of the film entertains, from the wild desert drag racing sequences to the sexually charged fried chicken lunch that the characters stop fighting each other long enough to share. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! has a deliciously ruthless rhythm that few films of such modest aspirations ever achieve -- it could very well be the most finely crafted exploitation film ever made.Tweet

The Shangri-Las:"Myrmidons of Melodrama" (1994)

Until the release of this import, there had never been a truly satisfactory Shangri-Las anthology; in fact, the group had been subject to worse piecemeal mangling than almost any other significant act of the 1960s. This 33-track production finally sets the record straight, including all of the significant A-sides, B-sides, and album tracks they recorded for Red Bird between 1964 and 1966, as well as an earlier single for a different label, and four radio commercials. Includes every one of their hits, but anyone who likes those will be enchanted by quite a few of their more obscure numbers here: "Dressed in Black," "Paradise," "It's Easier to Cry," "Never Again," and "Heaven Knows" are all first-class (if sometimes mordant). Not everything is up to that level, but enough is to make a case for them as one of the very best girl groups, and the good sound and thorough liner notes are significant bonuses. It may be more extensive and expensive than some fans wish, but don't settle for the numerous skimpy/rip-off domestic compilations, all of which manage to leave off some key tunes; this is the definitive document.Tweet

Bryan Singer:"The Usual Suspects" (1995)

A slick triumph of casting and wordplay, The Usual Suspects was one of the most fiendishly intricate American films of the 1990s. Relentlessly stylish and growing more convoluted by the frame, the film invited its audience to take part in the confusion, to attempt to discern illusion from reality as if watching a magician's act. What makes The Usual Suspects remarkable is that fact and fiction never evolve into distinct entities, entwining in an almost indiscernible jumble to baffle the viewer. Like the all-important but (largely) unseen Keyser Soze, Suspects' genius rested in holding its audience hostage to the intangible, making it equally impossible to believe what you've seen or dismiss what you haven't. In turn, the film is shamelessly manipulative, demanding the audience's complete involvement and undivided attention; a bathroom break carries the risk of losing the plot entirely. As the men caught up in the film's labyrinthine intrigue, Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin fit their roles perfectly, demonstrating an ensemble casting coup. Spacey, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Verbal Kint, is particularly impressive, managing to be pathetic, off-handedly irreverent, and cunning all at once. The qualities on display in his performance make him the poster child for the film's overall tone: shifty, garrulous, and altogether not to be trusted, Spacey's Kint embodies the film's compulsive, charming will to deception. Director Bryan Singer handles his characters and the film's many twists with the ease of a devious master puppeteer, mixing liberal doses of film noir, humor, and intrigue with refreshing audacity. The result was one of the most accomplished thrillers of the decade, a mystery whose wild manipulations came courtesy of a director whose hands were very tightly gripped around the controls.Tweet

George Jones:"I Am What I Am" (1980)

I Am What I Am announced that George Jones had officially returned to form artistically and, in the process, it became his biggest hit album ever. It's easy to see why -- the production is commercial without being slick, the songs are balanced between aching ballads and restrained honky tonk numbers, and Jones gives a nuanced, moving performance. "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "I'm Not Ready Yet," and "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" were the hits, but the remaining seven album tracks are exceptionally strong, without a weak track in the bunch. It's mature country, both in the laid-back approach and subject matter, but that doesn't mean it's dull -- like the best country music, these are lived-in songs that are simple, direct, and emotionally powerful, even with the smooth production. I Am What I Am is the sound of George Jones at his peak and it's the highlight of his later years. Four bonus tracks -- "Am I Losing Your Memory or Mine?," "The Ghost of Another Man," "It's All in My Mind," and "I'm a Fool for Loving Her" -- give the 20th anniversary version of the album an added richness.Tweet

Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was a French comics artist, working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées. Giraud earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius, and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series), the latter appearing mostly in the form of a boxed signature at the bottom of the artist's paintings. Esteemed by Federico Fellini and Stan Lee among other notables, he was one of the few francophone comic strip artists to receive international acclaim.

Among his most famous works are the Western comic series Blueberry he co-created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier, one of the first Western anti-heroes to appear in comics. Under the pseudonym Moebius he created a wide range of science fiction and and fantasy comics in a highly imaginative and surreal almost abstract style, the most famous of which are Arzach, the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius, and The Incal. Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 2004 by French director Jan Kounen. In 1997, Moebius and cocreator Alejandro Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson for using The Incal as inspiration for his movie The Fifth Element, a lawsuit which they lost.

Moebius contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films, including Alien, Willow, and Tron (1982).

Here's a one-hour BBC documentary on Moebius
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Lars von Trier:"Dogville" (2003)

Master provocateur Lars von Trier divided audiences with this formally daring film about a woman on the run who finds a worse fate at the hands of her rescuers. Set in Depression-era America, Dogville was filmed on an empty soundstage à la Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, a mounting that literalizes the movie's metaphoric baring of the American soul. Like Emily Watson's Bess in Breaking the Waves and Björk's Selma in Dancer in the Dark, Nicole Kidman's Grace is the latest in a long line of von Trier's sacrificial innocents. Her march to martyrdom comprises the heart of this parable, which comments on the essential hypocrisy and meanness of America. By the climax, however, the movie enlarges its metaphor to suggest a more sweeping critique of human nature. The apocalypse that ends Dogville, signaled by Grace's reunion with her mobster father, carries faint echoes of divine retribution. Ending with a montage of photographs from the Great Depression, von Trier seems to tip his hand toward a more limited reading of his movie, which was denounced by some critics as an anti-American screed. Its political and philosophical subtext aside, Dogville is clearly the act of a filmmaker working with consummate confidence. The writing and the performances can be wooden, but the 177-minute epic remains compulsively, disturbingly watchable. Held together by John Hurt's brilliant narration -- perhaps the finest voice-over in movies since Barry Lyndon -- Dogville is a testament to von Trier's prodigious storytelling skills.Tweet