City Island (2009): review 7/10

A prison guard brings a convict home to live with his family- an ill-mannered, if amusing collection of Italian New Yorkers which includes his sharp tongued wife, his insolent son (who has a fixation with fat women), and  pole-dancing daughter.

This is a very enjoyable, classic screwball comedy, with much fun arising from the characters' various secrets.

The film begins very promisingly, alternatingly surprisingly between black comedy and pathos, and is very well acted, but it loses its sharpness somehow along the way as the plot works towards its conclusions

There are very poor table manners in this film, with much gesticulating with forks and even food being thrown across a dining table.

From Florianopolis town centre

Road tunnels and slum housing, oil on card, 11.8 x 9.8 cm  SOLD

From the town centre.

I t owes someting to Cezanne again.

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Tomorrow I shall, in constrast, take the bus to Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, to paint the grand mountains there: pray for a rainless day.

Two new pictures

 

A model posing as a Cézanne, oil on card, 11x 11cm   - available

My workroom

My workroom, oil on card , 9.7 x 12.5 cm

I work here: art things and teaching, and the things I need for the computer plus eating and watching films. Also dressing and listening to music. I don't have a tv.

I do not enormously like the room: it often feels messy because there are too many different functions in the same space.

I prefer to have my tasks and pleasures compartamentalised, so they do not corrupt each other, the money related things rnnng into the creative things and so forth, where everyhing becomes spoiled.

Shadows on garages

Shadows on garages, oil on card, 11 x 9.5 cm - available

Very hot sun, so bright it's almost unpleasant: walking about in the half finished-ness of Brazil; things jerry-built, lying about.

Day: Guarulhos Airport

Day: Guarulhos Airport, oil on card, 9.3 x 12 cm- discarded

The final painting from my Easter trip to the Vale do Paraiba.

A portrait of Larissa

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A portrait of Larissa, oil on card, 8.6 x 11.5 cm  - available

A portrait of my charming architect friend in her room in Taubate.

The sort of portraiture that interests me is that which uses, Dutch style, the rooms inhabited by a person as an extended attribute (though my friend is less gloomy and more lively than my depiction might imply): I like portraits by Hammershoi, Whistler and Vermeer.