A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

Sleeping Beauty: A Review

A lot of girls I know have been eagerly looking forward to seeing Sleeping Beauty, a film directed by Julia Leigh, starring Emily Browning. I think it’s because we all secretly love fairy tales, especially when they come in adult form.

Also, Jane Campion is in some way attached to the project, and I’m a complete sucker for her films—Bright Star, The Piano, A Portrait of a Lady, An Angel At My Table—because they’re always about strong women caught up in impossible love stories. Every time I date someone, I see if they pass the Jane Campion test, which means that I come to them in the dark of the night, with nothing on but a cape, and see if they make love to me violently. If they do, I get married to someone else.

The biggest fan of Jane Campion that I know is Shark Mobczak.

A Night At The Ballet: Sleeping Beauty

Last week, I read an article by Joan Acocella in the New Yorker about Alexei Ratmansky, the artist-in-residence at the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), and it made me want to:

1. Become a Romanov and time travel back to Russia at the end of the 19th century so that I could go watch an original performance of a Tschaikovsky ballet in a royal box, wearing a tiara.

2. Go see a performance by the ABT, currently in season, at Lincoln Center.

So I called Grumpy, who is the only straight man I know who loves the ballet, and said to him: “Buy us some tickets to the ballet, bitch.”

Then he said to me: “Yo girl, why you tripping, I be busy and shit.”

July 12, 2011 ABT Sleeping Beauty Tchaikovsky my life

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Photo Post

I re-discovered the album “Homesongs” by this British guy Adem this weekend. A few years ago, someone bought it for me after seeing him at South By Southwest, and for months after, I listened to it on repeat.

Adem never made it huge (he’s MINE), even though the album is pretty preternaturally beautiful. Really droning and silent and sad, like a barebones Bon Iver. If you don’t believe me, believe Pitchfork.

My favorite song is “Cut”, which swells with the lyrics: “I sit by your side, as you sleep, for awhile…”

Searching for images to accompany the lyrics led me to discover stills from the film, Sleeping Beauty, which just debuted at Cannes. It’s directed by the Australian novelist Julie Leigh, and “presented” by Jane Campion (who knows what that means). It looks like a fucked up, contemporary take on Belle de Jour.

Something else to look forward to. Check out the trailer now.

June 20, 2011 Adem Jane Campion Sleeping Beauty social commentary

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