Dream Weaver
Don’t fight it. This weekend, Inception is going to become unavoidable, and that’s a good thing. Everything about the film was designed to attract a flurry of hype: an ensemble of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters (Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard), a thrilling plot, and the genius writer-director that brought the world Memento and The Dark Knight. And yet, the buzz surrounding the film is not all hot air; Christopher Nolan’s latest is an astounding piece of work, and already well in the running for the best film of 2010. The film follows a “dream thief”—a man who steals executives’ business secrets from their slumber—and his search for redemption from years of corporate espionage and running like a fugitive. It moves at a breakneck speed while remaining dark and ambient; as Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune puts it, “It's gratifying to experience a summer movie with large visual ambitions and with nothing more or less on its mind than (as Shakespeare said) a dream that hath no bottom.” The Daily Beast’s Gina Piccalo traces the arc of DiCaprio’s career, from the young star of a Bubble Yum commercial to the complex lead in Inception.
A Hazy, Soulful Summer Album
This season calls for droned-out, sweaty, dreamy songs that come baking off the pavement, and that is exactly what you will find on Disconnect from Desire, the new record from the psych-pop group, School of Seven Bells. Modern day descendants of Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin, the band is mystical, haunting, and soulful all at once. This is the kind of album that can withstand the hottest of days, and it is perfect for a boombox on the beach. Go forth, witchy women.
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A Writer’s Home Inside Your Own
Humans are natural voyeurs, and we love to see inside the spaces where creative genius strikes. So it was only a matter of time until a website extensively documenting the inside of famous writers’ homes emerged. This week, writer A.N. Devers launched Writers' Houses, a new site dedicated to the art of the literary pilgrimage. The site not only serves to inspire via interior photos and thoughtful blog posts, but it also aims to have the Web’s largest database of where and when famous authors lived, so as to help facilitate artistic journeys for those who want to take them. Bonus: To celebrate the launch, design house M + E created four limited-edition drawn prints of author’s homes (Gorey, Dickinson, O’Connor and Poe). They would hang perfectly in one’s own writing room.
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