Although I’ve seen a few films that I wouldn’t recommend, these two are certainly worthwhile:
Kids directed by Larry Clark — I first saw this when I was sixteen. Needless to say, 
I never got it. I was too young to understand the point, the message of the film. However, watching it now, ten years later, it hits me hard. This movie is historical, whether you appreciate it or not. It speaks honestly of our generation, of children growing into teenagers, growing into adults. I think it’s easy for some to ignore the harsh reality in which we live — we can get HIV, we are not invincible. Wikipedia says that Larry Clark is known for casting first-time actors in his work. Indeed, this was the theatrical debut for the four main characters — all of whom went on to become professionals: Rosario Dawson is Ruby (no introduction needed, but if I must: The 25th Hour, Rent, Sin City etc. You know her…she’s hot. ‘Nuff said); Chloë Sevigny is Jennie (professional model, also in Broken Flowers, Zodiac and currently Big Love); Leo Fitzpatrick is the notorious Telly (Fitzpatrick hasn’t done much, but he has made appearances on Law and Order and Carnivàle); Justin Pierce is Casper. Pierce had the potential to be a Hollywood success case, just like his co-stars Dawson and Sevigny. In 2000, he was discovered dead in a Las Vegas hotel room — he had hung himself. The dark nature of the film was only emphasized after Pierce’ suicide. I cannot separate Casper, the character, from Pierce, the person. Overall, Kids is truly haunting.
Grizzly Man directed by Werner Herzog — Herzog is a German filmmaker who has worked on the production of nearly 60 films. 
With Grizzly Man, Herzog explores the world of Timothy Treadwell, an enthusiast of the dangerous brown grizzly bear. Treadwell lived among grizzlies for thirteen summers in Alaska, filming over 100 hours worth of their interactions. He befriended them, gave them names and observed as a peaceful protector. The film is a splicing of this footage, accompanied by Herzog’s narrative. As an audience, we see the progressive demise of Treadwell’s desire to interact with human society. Instead, Treadwell retreats further and further into his life among the wild. By the end of the film, Herzog exposes us to various takes Treadwell did in order to wrap up his last season in Alaska. In these scenes, Treadwell is furious — he felt targeted by the National Park Service, he felt misunderstood. Days after he filmed these last scenes, he was attacked and killed by an angry grizzly. The movie is reminiscent of Into the Wild or John Muir, but the footage is real. Herzog honors this reality and the man behind it.
One of the most influential skateboarders of all time is “re-emering,” claims the NYTimes. Serving the final months of a four year jail sentence in a half-way house, Jay Adams is hoping to attend the upcoming X Games in Los Angeles, California.
Adams was a member of the Z-Boys, the skateboarding rebels sponsored by Zephyr Skateboards in the mid-1970s. You’ve probably heard of him from the movie, Lords of Dogtown, or the documentary by his pal, Stacy Peralta, Dogtown and Z-Boys. He has been called “the original seed,” “the soul” of the Dogtown movement — he was spontaneous, creative, and ruthless. Adams said, in an interview via mail while he was in prison, “I believed we paved the road people are going down right now. Somebody’s always gotta be the first ones. We just got a li’l bit radical and rowdy before anybody else.”
He was originally arrested in 2005, after being caught in a Hawaii-California drug deal. Adams is now 47 years old and still struggling with the aftereffects of a nearly life-long drug addiction. Since his release, he has been the facilities manager at an indoor skate-park in Southern California. He literally cannot escape his passion for the sport: “I love skateboarding, always have and always will…I get the same feeling now as I did when I was a seven-year-old boy.”
Scenes from Dogtown and Z-Boys show Adams as a punk-kid, always pushing the boundaries and questioning authority. He was, and remains today, a revolutionary.
It looks like General Augusto Pinochet’s daughter is entering the political realm. The BBC reports that Lucía Pinochet Hiriart will run in a Santiago municipal election in October. In 2007, Lucía, along with her mother and siblings, were all detained based on the suspicion of aiding Pinochet in embezzlement during the dictatorship. The eldest son was the only not cleared of the charges.
In 2006, Lucía praised her father for having fought a “flame of freedom” during the military junta of 1973. She had intended to run for an independent 
seat in Parliament in 2007 prior to her arrest. Although a municipal position has limited power, speculations are being made that the acquisition of this seat would “test the political climate for the 2009 presidential election.”
The country’s first female president was elected in 2006 — Michelle Bachelet was one of the many who disappeared during Pinochet’s regime. She was held and tortured at Villa Grimaldi, a notorious detention center in Santiago (I visited Villa Grimaldi in my time in Santiago. They’ve turned the concentration camp into a public park of sorts, commemorating the deaths and losses with beautiful trees and statues, while still mainting the enormous watchtower that existed during the dictatorship). In 1975, Bachelet and her mother were exiled to Australia. She did not return to Chile until 1979, when the totalitarian regime was brought to an end with a plebiscite. Despite Bachelet’s personal experience with such atrocities, she has led Chile on a path of true progress. In 2007, she passed a law allowing girls, 14 years and older, to receive the morning-after pill without their parent’s consent. This is an enormous step in a nation which has been controlled by the Church for decades.
I can only wonder if progress like this will continue if Chile’s citizens support the election of Pinochet’s offspring.
Contrariwise.org was originally a website used for the owner’s high school photography assignment. Today, she maintains a series of literary tattoo photographs — 
“tattoos based on books, poems, lyrics, and many other things.” It appears that many tattoo fans like Kurt Vonnegut, The Little Prince, E.E. Cummings and Walt Whitman. This site is literally tattoo inspiration for the literary.
♦ On the subject of tattoos and blogs, check out The Tattooed Mama’s All Things Cupcake blog which features a page of cupcake tattoos!
Editorial Postscript: Apparently I am not the only one noticing this blog! Paper Cuts, a NYTimes book blog, just published a post about it, as did the London Telegraph and Gawker.
