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Daily Dose

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Beady Eye

By Doug Levy on

Former Oasis members Liam Gallagher, Gem Archer, and Andy Bell didn’t waste any time after their world-conquering band dissolved, storming back into the studio and the spotlight as Beady Eye.

Led by Gallagher, one of rock music’s most iconic frontmen, the band stretches its wings on debut album Different Gear, Still Speeding, featuring tracks by all three songwriters (with the lineup completed by drummer Chris Sharrock). The record, produced by Steve Lillywhite, indulges heavily in the classic-rock influences for which the band members are known, ranging from T-Rex stomps to Beatles-esque romps, all uniquely stamped with Gallagher’s unmistakable, inimitable vocals. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Still Developing

By Tanja M. Laden on

Catalog-style, limited-edition publication Still Developing is a compendium of words and images that pays tribute to Polaroid’s continuing analog appeal in the digital age.

Based on a touring exhibition of professional and amateur Polaroid photography called Instant Gratification, the book is issued by ism: a community project — a nonprofit organization providing an online forum for creative photo-journals, juried essays, and a series of provocative Q&A’s, as well as real-life experiments that investigate endangered art forms. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Mesrine, Killer Instinct

By Mindy Bond on

The first of two parts, Mesrine: Killer Instinct is an action-filled biopic starring Vincent Cassel as Jacques Mesrine, the French gangster known for his devilish charm, audacious bank robberies, daring prison escapes, and penchant for publicity.

Based on his autobiography L’instinct de Mort, Killer Instinct tracks Mesrine from his days fighting in the Algerian War and his introduction to the criminal underworld to being named Public Enemy No. 1 in Canada. With the help of Cassel’s brooding performance, filmmaker Jean-Francois Richet delivers a dark thrill ride that hearkens back to the best of Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry days. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Heather Woodbury

By Shana Nys Dambrot on

Writer Heather Woodbury takes on the day’s most pressing issues, from the environmental crisis to Christian fundamentalism and crazy TV lust, in As the Globe Warms, her serialized video “performance novel” and avant-soap digest.

As with previous works What Ever and A Tale of 2Cities, ATGW is written live on stage in real time, with plenty of audience advice and online chronicling. The new, expanded production picks up with Episode 25, but the vaguely circus-like energy and freshly baked character-driven nature of her narrative collages make it easy to dive right in. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Google Art Project

By Shana Nys Dambrot on

With its massive Art Project, Google employs its dominance over digital media to present a vast online archive of the world’s most enduring and beloved fine art masterpieces, along with street-view tours of the institutions that house them.

Each featured museum was given free rein in selecting the breadth and scope of its contributions, resulting in an array of ancient and modern works, cross-referenced by place and artist. The real treats are the mega-high resolution on the zoom-enabled pics, viewer’s-eye tours of impressive architecture — and the chance to play online curator yourself with priceless objects of beauty. … Read More

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Daily Dose Pick: Anna Calvi

By Doug Levy on

Championed by Nick Cave and Brian Eno and drawing noirish comparisons to early PJ Harvey, British siren Anna Calvi takes a widescreen approach on her stunning debut album.

Calvi, who is half English and half Italian, eschews the de rigeur retro blues of modern English pop in favor of a more cinematic palette. She covered Edith Piaf’s “Jezebel” as her debut single, cites Morricone among her influences, plays stirring flamenco guitar, and revels in the visual aesthetics of Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch. … Read More

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Daily Dose Pick: Photography as Fiction

By John Hood on

Erin. C. Garcia’s new book Photography as Fiction culls some of the most vivid imagery from the archives of LA’s J. Paul Getty Museum.

Garcia, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the Getty, has gone to great lengths to select some of the most robust and telling photographs in the museum’s collection. The results, which include offerings from Man Ray, Joel Peter Witkin, Thomas Eakins, and Alfred Stieglitz, run the gamut of the form’s more breathtaking representation of story. … Read More

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Daily Dose Pick: Waiting for ‘Superman’

By Mindy Bond on

Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth, examines the failings of the US education system in his controversial and poignant documentary Waiting for “Superman.”

Interweaving the narratives of five children with statistics and interviews with education reformers, the film illustrates the more nimble nature of charter schools that can hire non-union teachers and design their own curriculum. But good charter schools, like KIPP, are difficult to get into, and in the interest of fairness, acceptance rests on a cruel lottery system. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Vivian Maier

By Paul Laster on

Documenting the fascinating discovery of an unknown street photographer, a website devoted to Vivian Maier provides a glimpse into the work of a prolific shutterbug.

A nanny in Chicago — she once watched over Phil Donahue’s children — Maier had a hidden talent: she was a keen observer of people and a brilliant photographer. Real estate agent John Maloof brought her work to light when he discovered thousands of her prints, negatives, and undeveloped rolls of film at auction in 2009, and has slowly been sharing the treasure trove online. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Philip-Lorca diCorcia

By Paul Laster on

A photographer with a painter’s eye for light and shadow and a filmmaker’s imagination for narrative, Philip-Lorca diCorcia creates extraordinary images.

Whether photographing pedestrians on city streets, exotic dancers on stripper poles, or hustlers in parking lots and seedy motel rooms, diCorcia always captures a sense of drama in his photographs. Fittingly, in the realm of fashion, his visual storytelling takes the focus off the clothes in favor of portraying certain lifestyles. … Read More