Mise en Snap – Miseducated

Mise en Snap: The Virgin Suicides

05/11/2011

Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides is a gorgeously dark movie that I just had to feature and study. As you can see from the screens, and might expect from a Sofia Coppola movie, it’s very lonely and feminine. The main characters are gorgeous girls who are isolated both because of their beauty and because of the recent suicide of their youngest sister. The film follows their lives as learned from boys in their class by reading Cecelia’s, the youngest sister’s, diary.

Aren’t the mise-en-scenes dreamy?

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Mise en Snap Visual Splendor

Mise en Snap: I Love You Alice B. Toklas!

08/10/2010

It’s about time I did another mise-en-snap!

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is a deliciously tacky film from 1968 that parodies the 1960s counterculture. I watched it once and didn’t really pay attention.. the next time I saw everything and couldn’t stop laughing. (I always get a little mesmerized by 60s decor, trying to find ways to incorporate the hippie’s lounge pad into a family home.) The film is directed by Hy Averback and stars Peter Sellers and Leigh Taylor-Young (in her film debut). It features music by Harpers Bizarre, including the theme song that I still cannot stop singing — haha!

The title is a reference to writer Alice B. Toklas, who wrote a recipe for making cannabis Brownies released in 1954. I had the pleasure of learning about Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein during a college Hemmingway class and trip to Paris — they were both pretty cool cats.

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Mise en Snap: A Woman is a Woman

08/04/2009

A Woman is a Woman (Une Femme est une Femme’) is a 1961 French new wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It’s colorful, quirky and adorable in it’s imagery and story. I found the interior shots to be clean, bright and simple, yet quaint and kitshy-cool. Reminds me of the delicious interior eye-candy to be gorged on in each of the Jeu de Paumes books.

The film centers around the relationship of an adorable exotic dancer Angéla (Anna Karina) and her live-in boyfriend, Émile (Jean-Claude Brialy). This films requires little-to-no serious thought, all of the discussions are completely trivialized and cute to watch. For instance they use book titles to argue and debate issues, pointing to titles that communicate the response that they would like to give.

Angéla wants to have a child while Émile does not, all the while Émile’s best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo), constantly insists that he is in love with Angéla. It must be that every woman’s biological urge to have (bear, adopt, get a cat or chihuahua instead of) children kicks in at some point in their lives (even if just by passing thought!) no matter how much fun they may be having. *wink*

Have a taste!

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Mise en Snap: Psych-Out! a 70s Visual Trip

01/20/2009

Take a trip down psychedelic, vintage lane in “Psych Out” a trippy dippy film from the 70s.

A dark, thick liner paired with a bright, rainbow hue and nude, shimmery lips has always been my makeup regimen. Add glitter and you’re ready for a party.

Cheer up a friend and give them a thoughtful gift. Strapped for ideas or cash? Try a single flower, sketch or candy bracelet and channel the love-passing, pay-it-forward smiles of flower children and candy ravers everywhere.

This was so rad, everyone was lounging around while some girls started pulling glittering beads all up and over the staircase. It created glimmering prisms in the hands of everyone as they grabbed more strands to pull and hang. The completion created a spiderweb of starlight.

“God is alive and well in a sugar cube” (a reference to LSD as it is injected into sugar cubes)

Don’t ever take drugs in an uncomfortable setting. Especially LSD.

Jack Nicholson, aka Stoney, plays a too-cool hippy and blows off his lovely, tripping Alice.

This movie is absolutely fun and visually stimulating for those who adore the drug and hippy culture of the 60s. It proves a point however as a propaganda film that drugs can be very dangerous when taken in unsafe circumstances and you’ll also watch lovely people deteriorate as they do not follow this guideline.

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Mise en Snap: White Oleander and DIY Inspiration

01/15/2009

I had the luck of watching one of my favorites recently and decided to take photos of more delicious mise-en-scenes to oogle at later and to show you. This movie was originally a novel by Janet Fitch and was later -after being turned into a screen play- directed by Peter Kosminsky. Although movies from books are commonly *sniffle* trash this one was quite good and had more than a few visual gems for me to appreciate. I believe it should not remain unsaid that the lovely Alison Lohman is absolutely perfection on screen here, either, just as much perfection as Michelle Pfeiffer is (in the movie) and still just beginning to sparkle into a star. It is about how toxic a mother and daughter relationship can sometimes be.

*hint* make your own lovely goodies and sell them at a local market stall 😮

Suitcase your Memories

movie inspiration
The character’s suitcase art was really interesting to me as well, they were almost like collages and memory jars as an art form within old suitcases. Why not try to find a cheap, old suitcase at your local thrift store and create a very large sort of locket of a favorite memory or time in your life? Add scraps from it, sketches, drawings, everything you don’t want to lose. Decorate it with colors, patterns, words, letters, paintings, textures.. open it and put these special items on display whenever you’re feeling nostalgic rather than keeping them tucked into a jewelry box and rarely admired.

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Mise en Snap: Tales from the Crypt

12/24/2008

I recently had the fun of re-watching the 1973 movie edition of Tales from the Crypt. An absolute design gem in my opinion, you can find lovely mise-en-scenes in most old films (especially in Hitchock’s). Try watching some of your favorite old films for inspiration when designing anything. You’ll find as many tacky, funny goodies as you will absolutely sensational ones. Mind not the knives, terror-stricken faces and gore — as my grandmother LaVera once said, murder is necessary to tell a story.

All horror films should contain tea parties nestled within their gore!
Many Miseducated ladies are known to have fright fests
so why not get a little tea party motivation simultaneously?

I’m really digging the modular stereo with rainbow tuning.

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Mise en Snap Visual Splendor

Mise en Snap: SPUN Snaps from the 90s

12/19/2008

SPUN featured quite a few miseducatedly fashionable moments as well as lovely artistic shots nestled within it’s not-so-attractive, but strangely engrossing plot lines. Each snap(shot) seems to engulf the pleasure and pain aspect of drug addiction. It’s a movie about scoring and partaking in the use of, as well as the lifestyle surrounding, crystal meth. Probably not a good watch for the easily offended or sickened but a good watch for the strange movie lover like myself.

The dog was green to indicate he was sick but it otherwise acted like a normal, healthy dog with a miseducated hair treatment.

The Credits:

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