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Film

10 Random Acts of Kindness That Will Restore Your Faith in Hollywood

By Alison Nastasi on

It’s easy to see Hollywood as a detestable machine. Between the unnecessary remakes, sequels, prequels, talking heads, and the advertising onslaught, it’s enough to make a true cinephile scream. There are great things about Hollywood, though. Sometimes we’re treated to a tale that thrills us to the edge of our seat or touches us profoundly — and sometimes those stories happen off screen. The Internet is abuzz with a report about a terminally ill Trekkie. Director J.J. Abrams — who is normally extremely secretive about his projects — granted the man’s dying wish: to see the upcoming film, Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams screened the unfinished movie for a fan named Daniel who has been diagnosed with cancer and only has weeks to live. According to Dan’s family, they “enjoyed it immensely as a film and as a gesture.” We rounded up other heartwarming stories that restored our faith in Hollywood. Grab a tissue or two, and meet us after the jump. … Read More

Film

10 Movies That Make Us Miss the Twin Towers

By Jason Bailey on

It’s always a bit of a jolt to flip through a photo album or an old high school yearbook and to come upon a picture of someone who’s gone, a beloved relative or a classmate who left before their time — it hits you fast, and, for just a moment, it hurts again, the force of that loss compressed into a single moment of grief. It’s not the exact same feeling, but there’s something like that moment when you watch a movie shot in New York between the 1970s and 2001, and that inevitable shot of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center appears. The towers appeared in literally hundreds of films, sometimes as background, sometimes very active in the onscreen action, but its eventual fate always makes it the foreground object when those films are viewed now. On the eve of this sad anniversary, a look at ten movies that make us miss the World Trade Center even more. … Read More

Architecture

WTF of the Day: Luxury Towers That Evoke 9/11

By Caroline Stanley on

The way we see the world is informed by our past experiences, so it’s entirely possible that when the architects of Rotterdam-based MVRDV drew up the plans for The Cloud, a pair of luxury residential towers that are set to go up in Seoul in 2015, no one involved with the project immediately saw a mental image of the World Trade Center under attack. Unfortunately, that’s all we can see — not some whimsical, pixelated cloud hovering around the 27th floor. We’re curious if they’ll be moving forward with the approved design now that photos are starting to create some controversy on the Internet. Click through to get a better look at the structure, and let us know the comments if you think we’re being too sensitive about the design. … Read More

Photography

Tourist Photos of Famous Landmarks or Impressionist Paintings?

By Caroline Stanley on

Have you ever noticed how most people’s photos from visits to places like the Eiffel Tower or Niagara Fall are interchangeable? Corinne Vionnet’s series Photo Opportunities has taken that idea and flipped it on its head to make something entirely new. The Swiss photographer layered between 200 to 300 tourist-taken shots of some of the world’s most famous landmarks to create what look like blurry, Impressionist paintings. “This work is intrinsically linked to the people who took these pictures,” Vionnet has explained. “The collaboration is obvious, but it is without their knowledge. These pictures are on the Internet, to be seen by any eventual visitors. I am just one of those visitors. It is the sheer quantity of these almost identical pictures that gave me the idea of superimposing them. I do not think I would have had the idea if I had made all these pictures of the same places myself. Anyway, the work would lose its meaning.” Click through to check out a gallery of images. … Read More