Lynch's 'Blue Velvet' Becomes Real Art

bluelynch.jpgI love stories of obsession involving the persuasive power of great film -- though not necessarily the lure of the eerie and violent. So there's an avant garde artist going around the world showing his painstaking recreation of David Lynch's Blue Velvet. "If the 1986 landmark of film noir bizarre can officially claim the status of cult classic, then Brooklyn artist Christian Tomaszewski has become its high priest, leading the devoted to worship at shrines he's created in Poland, Germany, and Queens," says an article in this week's Village Voice, my sister paper. "For the past three years, in a series of museum installations (the final now at the Sculpture Center through July 29), Tomaszewski has been remaking the movie's spaces, props, and moods, including the hallways outside Isabella Rossellini's apartment, a scale-model view from the closet where naked Kyle MacLachlan witnesses gas-sucking Dennis Hopper commit a brutal rape, and that notorious severed ear." Some people just have way too much time on their hands. 

Art & Hollywood: FBI's Most Wanted Pics

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The news is all around that Steven Spielberg unknowingly had a stolen Norman Rockwell painting in his art collection. Don't you hate when that happens? (By the way, if you want to know more about Hollywood and its art collections, then read my LA Weekly 2005 feature, Blame Ovitz: When Art Started Imitating Hollywood.)

Jen And Ben Nixed For '24' Guest Spots?

alongcamepolly-stiller-aniston1.jpgCan this really be true? WENN entertainment news wire is reporting that Jennifer Aniston has been snubbed in her bid to land a guest spot on her supposedly favorite TV drama 24. "The former Friends star reportedly put her name forward for a part in the show but producers turned her down flat - because she's 'too recognisable'. Executive producer Joel Surnow says, 'You can't put those people on (the show) because they're too recognizable. They'll take you (viewers) out of the reality.' Aniston wasn't the only big name to be turned down for a role in 24 by producers - Ben Stiller was also deemed too famous for the show." All I can say is, HUH? Didn't anyone ever tell these producers there's such a thing as TV sweeps' stunt casting? I'm trying to confirm, but everyone's at Christmas parties...

Why Is David Geffen Selling His $$$ Art?

UPDATE: *Now there's talk that David Geffen sold a third painting...* Is the mogul selling some of his spectacular art collection to amass a war chest to buy the Los Angeles Times from Tribune Co? Nice to be able to take two paintings off the wall and sell them privately to some hedge fund billionaires, then pocket a neat $143.5 million. The New York Times reported that Geffen deacquisitioned Jasper Johns' 1959 “False Start” (left) for $80 million and Willem de Kooning's 1955 “Police Gazette” (right) for $63.5 mil. The new owners are Kenneth Griffin (who visited fell in love with the painting during an art tour of Geffen's estate) and Steven Cohen respectively; both are building high-profile art collections. (For more on the showbiz-art connection, see my 2005 LA Weekly feature: Blame Ovitz: When Art Started Imitating Hollywood.) The prices bode well for November's big auction sales, among the largest ever; Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art sale alone, scheduled for November 8th, carries a low estimate of some $300 million. "The sales are feeding speculation that Mr. Geffen is trying to raise money to buy The Los Angeles Times," The NYT said. "But it is clear that like many other seasoned collectors, he is taking advantage of a red-hot market infused with money made by today’s crop of hedge-fund billionaires." Actor Steve Martin, too, is said to be deacquisitioning. On the other hand, plenty of other Hollywood folk keep acquisitioning. At one art auction where New Line's Bob Shaye was buying, he earned the nickname "shades" because no reporters in the room knew the identity of the guy in sunglasses who wouldn't tell them his name.