1. French Quarter, New Orleans, La. No other American neighborhood provides as much eye candy as the cobblestone streets of New Orleans#39; French Quarter–known as “the Quarters” to locals–and we#39;re not referring to the annual Mardi Gras parades, with their thousands of taffeta-draped harlequins strutting to funk, RB, and Dixie. No, it#39;s the architecture that#39;s intriguing. Stroll this district, which is bounded by the Mississippi River, Rampart Street and Canal and Esplanade, and you
The adaptation process is always a tricky one, but Oliver Stone had to make some especially tough choices in editing his big-screen version of Don Winslow’s Savages – and as a result, scenes with Uma Thurman , one of his cast’s biggest names, were left on the cutting room floor. Paring down the book to tell the tale of two Southern California weed growers ( Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson ) going commando to get their kidnapped girlfriend ( Blake Lively ) back from the Mexican cartel, Stone (who adapted Winslow’s novel with Shane Salerno and the author) had to leave certain material out; at a rambling two-plus hour run time, it’s already crowded with languid scenes and a deep line-up of characters. Thurman joined the cast last year and shot scenes playing the Laguna Beach-dwelling mother of Lively’s rich hippie girl O (short for Ophelia). The character, a frequently absent multiple divorcee, is mentioned in the final cut but ultimately was snipped out in the name of ruthless editing. (There goes that Pulp Fiction Travolta reunion.) “Oh we cut a lot; the book is one hundred and twenty scenes. I think we only in a movie have 30 scenes to play,” Stone told journalists in Los Angeles of the sections of the novel whittled down and excised in the adaptation process. “We had to make decisions in script, we made decisions in the editing, we had to consolidate so much and there’s so many things different in the movie than the book, you have to read the book to understand that.” “We have some good deleted scenes that you’ll see one day that are fun, but they had to go,” he continued. Also apparently left on the cutting room floor are scenes of Benicio del Toro as cartel thug Lado at home with his family, including Mia Maestro as his wife – humanizing relationships that del Toro’s Lado mentions but aren’t seen in the film. So perhaps an eventual Savages extended cut/DVD/Blu-ray release will insert Thurman’s scenes back in; Lively says their scenes together help explain why O is the pot-smoking, perhaps reckless free spirit that she is. “Her mom is off with her eight different husbands,” she said. “It’s a shame that you will miss that, in the movie. It was really beautiful stuff with Uma Thurman, and I think it really told a lot more of how a girl could end up this way. She’s the modern girl. Divorces are so much more common now than they were. Love is very untraditional, and these are three people who don’t have a family, creating a family within each other.” Savages is in theaters today. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Cool Hunting met with filmmaker David Lynch at the swanky Chateau Marmont to discuss his design collaboration on a limited edition bottle of Dom Pérignon ( really ), only to discover that his favorite creative muse is the City of Brotherly Love: “I always say my greatest inspiration came from the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So many reasons, the mood of the place, the architecture, what I saw and heard and felt. It was very magical, but laced with a deep tormenting fear and sickness. And I ate many steak sandwiches there.” [ Cool Hunting via MCN ]
Photo: Hitesh Mehta/Collins Design Whether you’re planning your next splurge of a vacation — or just trying to mentally escape your drab cubicle — the striking architecture and views of these environmentally-friendly hotels will do the trick. In Authentic Ecolodges , author and architect Hitesh Mehta highlights 36 of the most beautiful — and sustainable– hotels around the world, from China and Thailand to Canada and Tazmania, ranging in price from $15 a night to over $500 a night. We’ve highlighted 10 of the most incredible hotels here, with descrip… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted onDecember 12, 2010byBenny Hollywood|Comments Off on A Roof of Hot Air Makes a Picnic Pavilion the Perfect Autumn Hideaway
Image via Reflex Déco From Dutch designers Overtreders W comes “Het dak dat opgaat in rook,” or the “roof that goes up in smoke.” It’s a fitting name, since this innovative picnic pavilion consists not only of the usual tables and chairs, but also of an inflatable roof, filled with hot air heated by a wooden stove in the center of the pavilion and kept in place by wooded stilts…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted onDecember 12, 2010byBenny Hollywood|Comments Off on A Roof of Hot Air Makes a Picnic Pavilion the Perfect Autumn Hideaway
Image via Reflex Déco From Dutch designers Overtreders W comes “Het dak dat opgaat in rook,” or the “roof that goes up in smoke.” It’s a fitting name, since this innovative picnic pavilion consists not only of the usual tables and chairs, but also of an inflatable roof, filled with hot air heated by a wooden stove in the center of the pavilion and kept in place by wooded stilts…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
Images via reflex déco We always say that the greenest brick is the one already in the wall : that it’s better to revamp or refurbish an existing building than to build an entirely new one, even if the newcomer is as green as can be. Now the architecture firm Wepsi de Meuron Architekten has taken that logic to the extreme, restoring a 300 year old farm house in Central Italy that nearly burned to the ground in 1995. The building has been transfor… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted onNovember 29, 2010byBenny Hollywood|Comments Off on Futuristic Green Design Concepts Give New Life to Old Buenos Aires Building (Slideshow)
Photo: Casa FOA. Design and architecture event Casa FOA takes an old building or structure in Buenos Aires and puts it in the hands of talented architects and designers — who transform it to showcase interior design ‘concept spaces.’ Apart from bringing new life to old buildings, the exhibition reveals local trends in design and raises money for the Argentine Ophthalmology Foundation (FOA) . This year, the event took place in San Telmo neighborhood and included several green-themed concepts.
