Michele Roohani

The emotionally fragile Jean Seberg died 30 years ago but her pictures are still as fresh and beautiful as the day they were made.

Born in Iowa, she gained fame in France—selling the International Herald tribune to Jean Paul Belemondo in Godard’s “Breathless” (à bout de souffle), a major work of the French New Wave:

Married to Romain Gary, she supported the black panthers as well as native Indians’s rights. In retaliation, the FBI fabricated rumors about her. Unable to defend herself, she fell into depression and commited suicide in August 1979.”Death is: a punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.”  Seneca

Her other major movie was “bonjour tristesse” (hello sadness) of Sagan; her real life was turbulent and tragic…

In Breathless, Godard shoots the entire movie on a handheld camera and even though his film is a bit on the slow side for today’s attention deficient viewer, the images he’s created are visually bold and pretty modern (the film was made in 1960).

Seberg remains the quintessential “gamine” in this movie; one of the most beautiful scenes of this film is when the street lamps start to  light up one after another on the Champs Elysées,

It’s Paris making a big entrance…Watch her in this short clip of Breathless here.To see my other post about a classic Alain Delon movie go here.And for l’Avventura check this link.

Is somebody flattering me by copying me? It sure looks like it! To all the people who want to know how the mysterious woman’s face in the official Cannes film festival poster looks like, take a look at my post here.

My friend Mitra called me this morning, super excited about the Cannes Film Festival’s official poster which looks so much like the stills I have in this post:

This poster looks a lot like the images I made by taking pictures of my tv screen last february:

“I got to watch L’Avventura (The Adventure) last night and Antonioni’s poetic compositions were arresting:

Monica Vitti is divine in these shots from 50 years ago…

Today’s generations think they have invented these styles/fashions; our arrogance fades after watching a couple of these films.”

I just can’t resist adding a couple of  more pictures from that film:

It seems that I wasn’t the only one interested in still shots from Avventura—Annick Durban did a great poster for Cannes festival (and flattered me!)

To see the beauty of this now famous scene, go here.

To see my original post go here.

Should I be jealous of Uhura kissing Spock? After all, he is my first love and I’ve known him since he was speaking Persian to the good old James Tiberius Kirk and they were called Pishtaazaane Fazaa…

I have grown up like millions of Iranians with Star Trek—my cousin, Anousheh Ansari, was inspired by them (she even made the vulcan salute before going to space!)

I still have his picture in my bedroom to prove my unchanging love for Spock:

I went to see the movie yesterday and I liked it a lot—I am a hopeless Trekkie and all the holes in the plot didn’t bother me a bit. I was relieved to see the first Enterprise where the shield wasn’t leaking energy every few minutes; maybe as Roger Ebert suggested, they did get new batteries…

On a more serious note, I saw a couple of great movies this week: Il Divo, an Italian film about Gulio Andreotti—I loved it in spite of my ignorance about the politicians involved (and the Mafia),

Somebody called the new Star Trek movie operatic—they have to see Il Divo to see how a governement can be operatic! That clown Berlusconi is not helping the Byzantine image of Italian politics…

Another very interesting film I saw was Examined Life; I only knew a couple of the Philosophers but it didn’t diminish the pleasure of watching some intelligent thoughts on screen:

It reminded me of Saul Bellow’s funny quote: Socrates said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ My revision is, ‘But the examined life makes you wish you were dead.’

The next film was Goodbye Solo, by the hottest young director—according to Ebert—Ramin Bahrani:

not bad for a young Persian dude…

You can watch him with Charlie Rose here.

A good movie to me is the one that stays in your mind for a little more than the two hours that you are spending in the theatre and these films will stay with me for a while like my last year’s favorite, Starting out in the evening or Michael Apted’s unforgettable Up Series about the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old,  up to now (the next episode will be in 2012).

Imagine seeing the same people grow old in front of your eyes every seven years—it took 42 years to make it—now that’s a documentary!

I do watch entertaining films like the Batman series/Iron Man/Duplicity but from time to time it is refreshing to watch something that makes you stop and think.

Last but not least, today is Mother’s Day in America so please don’t forget to love your mother.

Visit my best movie post here; these films are really worth watching again.

Alain Delon is the most handsome man of Cinema—I say is because he’s always the same age when you are watching his films. I just saw The Samurai again and took these pictures. I go back to these old films for their art direction and their history.

Just look at these timeless shots of The Samurai:

No Cary Grant can touch him here:

So modern in this beautiful shot:

Delon is very succinct in this film,

my favorite scene of the whole movie:

Netflix is making it so much easier to find these old films. I got to watch L’Avventura last night and Antonioni’s poetic compositions were arresting:

Monica Vitti is divine in these shots from 50 years ago…

Today’s generations think they have invented these styles/fashions; our arrogance fades after watching a couple of these films.

50 years ago people…And you wonder where Barbie (who turns 50 this week) got her image from…

I just loved this shot,

these close-ups are amazing,

The visual language of these films is so relevant after all these years.

Gabriele Ferzetti is smashing and looks so 21st century:

Shot mostly in Sicily—Noto and Messina, the architect protagonist is in his element:

and here,

and this is how I did all of this:

This was my homage to  Alain Delon.

Added on 5/22/09:

My friend Mitra called me this morning, super excited about the Cannes Film Festival’s official poster which looks so much like the images i have in this post:

Did somebody flatter me by copying me?

I saw the new Batman movie yesterday and I liked it a lot. Heath Ledger was great and knowing he’s passed away makes the role even more frightening…

The fact that this latest batman is not cracking jokes like George Clooney’s gay version—with Robin—makes it easier to imagine a darker villain for the story. Christopher Nolan (of the Memento fame) has done a great job in these two last movies about the comic book franchise.

Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer were good as the dark prince but Christian Bale remains the best of the crop and Clooney the absolute worst. He should really stick to his Cary Grant roles. Take a look at the different batmen here.

What I have always liked about Batman is that he’s not a super-hero with funny super powers like the Spiderman, the creepy  Superman or that idiot Hulk! I liked the Iron man for the same reason. The engineer in me cringes every time I have to watch a scientifically impossible film. Even though I am a serious Trekkie, I have never been a fan of the Star Wars. The whole mythology and mentor/princess/father/son bit turns me off. Dune has the same effect on me…

You don’t want to hear about my childhood crush on Mister Spock so I am going back to my ratman.  Last week I had to ask a rat-man to secure my house from an epidemic of rats in Brentwood/Bel Air area…Bats are not rodents by the way and are genetically closer to us humans.

“Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, I should think interesting would suffice.” Spock

Live long and prosper.

So I am a movie junkie (and a news junkie, a history junkie, etc…) but the Oscar ceremony in spite of the very funny Jon Stewart almost always leaves me cold. A bunch of over-pampered, over-paid brats with some over-hyped films to be over-promoted! How about an award ceremony for great teachers or diligent beekeepers for a change? The red carpet saw a lot of blood this year…

Don’t get me wrong, I like big budget films but it’s always refreshing to see a low/no budget movie that makes it…I came out of Juno with smoke coming out of my ears – teen pregnancy is no laughing matter to me and to be so nonchalant about it in a movie that caters to the young is even worse – the script was over-written and awash in smart-ass dialog but I have to admit that the actors were all good.

Having an abortion is hard (just watch the great movie 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days from Rumania) but keeping the baby when you are 16 and giving it away must be harder. The U.S. is the only western country that still has a constant debate about abortion (thanks to organized religion of course). The picture above is from a métro billboard in France; it says: Sexuality, Contraception, Abortion, a right, my choice, our freedom. Can you imagine this happening in the States?

I am glad that Once won in the song category and the acceptance speeches were the best of the the night. I saw Glen Hansard first in the excellent rock and roll film The Commitments and he’s just gotten better. The song that got the oscar, Falling Slowly, is worth listening to.

Of the movies that were nominated and didn’t get far I loved the visually stunning The diving bell and the butterfly and The Savages and of course Persepolis. I read the diving bell book some years ago and found it depressing but the film was a masterpiece, Julian Schnabel’s masterpiece. I left all three movies with a feeling of elation, joy…

“Étais-je aveugle et sourd ou bien faut-il nécessairement la lumière d’un malheur pour éclairer un homme sous son vrai jour?” Le scaphandre et le papillon
“Had I been blind and deaf it wouldn’t take the harsh light of disaster for me to find my true nature” The diving bell and the butterfly

I just saw this wonderful film, Starting out in the evening, about an old writer who has outlasted the social order in which his life made sense. How can you go wrong with New York in the fall and tons of books? I can’t believe that the lead actor is the same guy who played in Superman returns.

I am a movie junkie but so much of what’s being produced now is blissfully forgettable; I know I like a film if I keep thinking about it the next day and when I start talking about it to others. These are a couple of them: The lives of others which got an oscar is about the constant question of how a good man acts in circumstances that seem to rule out the very possibility of decent behavior. The actor, Ulrich Muhe, was amazing – unfortunately he passed away in July.

The one movie I will always remember is Into great silence. The film is an eloquent achievement in capturing the slow and delicate rhythm of the Carthusian monks’s daily lives in silence – a great meditation if you are stressed out. “Silence. Repitition. Rhythm. The film is an austere, next to silent meditation on monastic life in a very pure form. No music except the chants in the monastery, no interviews, no commentaries, no extra material.”

I enjoyed Children of Men, a superbly directed political thriller – London has never looked this scary…

My favorite of all action movies was The Bourne Ultimatum. An unusually smart work of industrial entertainment with the great Matt Damon – as good here as he was in the two previous Bourne films. The music is so interesting I had to shell out a buck for Moby’s “Extreme Ways”.

All and all it’s been a good year for the low budget films and this makes me very happy. I am planning to see The diving bell and the butterfly, American gangster, and Persepolis.

I also hope to be able to find Primo Levi’s journey. (I am insisting that he didn’t commit suicide!)

I am trying to get a copy of the documentary, Out of place: Memories of Edward Said . He remains controversial even after his death.

and…maybe Beowulf for fun.

Living in the 21st century and exposed to Darfur and Iraq via our television sets, nothing can scare us anymore. Hannibal Lecter opens his victim’s head and eats his brain alive and I remember that instead of being revolted, I smiled at the stupidity/absurdity of the scene – unlike the Exorcist, the horror film masterpiece, that kept me awake for a few nights, 25 years ago…

Walking in my neighborhood, I can tell which houses have kids – they are usually meticulously decorated.

Halloween originated in Ireland and October 31st was perceived as the night during which the division between the world of the living and the dead is blurred hence having jack-o-lanterns (made of pumpkins, turnips or beets) to scare the evil spirits away. Tomorrow night, children (and adults) will dress up as scary creatures: ghosts, ghouls, zombies, witches, and goblins – Harry Potter galore…

The picture below is my last year’s crop.

Now that i have your attention, I have an important announcement: you can buy many of my images from this fabulous site. You can get them as cards, mounted prints, canvas prints, even framed. My major posters are still being sold on all the “art” sites of course.

I have been waiting to get more of my images on redbubble but I think that it’s time to tell my friends about it; I will be adding to the batch little by little.

The models here are the beautiful Joey House, House of Petals‘ owner/actress and a friend, Mark.

“I can resist everything except temptation.” Oscar Wilde

The new Ang Lee film, Lust Caution, was released last friday and the NC17 rating is already making it more important than it really is. NY Times article made me want to see it. When it comes to TV, the HBO’s “tell me you love me” is an example of unnecessary, gratuitous sex shown on screen. I really don’t need to see Jane Alexander in an oral sex scene but that’s just me…

“It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate