Late to the Party

Monday and Tuesday I was laid up on our gray sofa, wrapped in an old comforter, gulping gallons of wonton soup, nursing a terrible sore throat. I guess weeks of running to the finish line at work towards the end of term and racing to complete as much work as I could before open studios this weekend had finally caught up with me. I spent those long hours of forced relaxation watching documentaries and movies that I'd been meaning to see for awhile, many that I'd read about again and again, and had just never had the time. Here I share with you a two-line review of each, from the comforts of my now sweaty couch.

Party Girl, 1995

A colorful portrait of the 90s downtown club scene in NYC that follows 24-year-old Mary (played by Parker Posey), a Holly Golightly character who works as a librarian-by-day/party-promoter-by-night, trying to balance the task of finding love and herself all while wearing one fabulous outfit after another (all of those printed tights!).

Bill Cunningham New York, 2010

Of course I'd read about this one on tons of blogs before, and am so happy I finally got to see for myself how absolutely adorable Bill Cunningham is. His complete devotion to his work and his spartan lifestyle—literally sleeping on a cot surrounded by walls and walls of filing cabinets filled with every single negative he's ever shot—was astounding and inspiring. 

Eames: The Architect and the Painter, 2011

A decent overview of the designer couple's lives together showed me that I actually knew pretty much nothing about them beyond The Chair. Narrated by James Franco (though I tried not to hold that against it), it begins with their meeting at Cranbrook (when Charles was already married to someone else with a daughter!) and ends with Ray dying on the 10th anniversary of Charles' death. 

About Jenny Holzer, 2011 

The work that she is most known for are her text pieces, quick one liners she calls "truisms" streamed across electronic billboards like stock tickers. It was interesting to find out the origins of her work, to see that what can come across initially as a cold stream of words actually comes from a personal place, that there is something much deeper under the surface. 

Netflix has all of these streaming online. I suggest you get yourself sick and spend all day watching them immediately. 

- Cathleen