The Culture Enthusiast

Scene from The Shop Around the Corner Hey guys, I just stopped by to let you know I'm taking a little blog break during December, so I can go on vacation during the holidays. You can contact me by email and in the mean time have a lot of fun making Christmas movies marathons!  Happy holidays! ...

Summer Day by Georgina de Albuquerque A little bit of history Date: 1926 Location: National Museum of Fines Arts, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Georgina de Albuquerque is a Brazilian painter from the 20th century. After marrying the painter Lucílio Albuquerque, she went to Paris where she studied...

It took me forever to watch The Artist. I mean, a modern silent movie, with a plot screaming Singing in the Rain and a trailer that seems to give away the whole movie?  I had zero expectations when I finally watched it and was utterly amazed.  The movie is about George Valentin, a silent movie star who gets fired when the studios start...

If you asked me to recommend a book of poetry, I’d recommend Sonnets from thePortuguese. Many times, poetry can be unintelligible and difficult to tackle – Sonnets from the Portuguese is neither. They are written in a direct way which makes them easy to understand. They are about love, which is relatable.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote these poems to her husband, the also poet,...

The Parthenon is a temple inside the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena. It is  considered the most important surviving building of Classical Greece.  I've recently finished reading about it in an art book and was fascinated by these facts: 1) Pericles built the temple with the funds provided by Athen's allies to build a new fleet to fight the Persians. The...

For the love of Thomas Hardy They say script writers should always assume their audiences are twelve year old. That's awful but at least it wouldn't pose too much of a problem for kid movies, right? It actually does. There are not a lot of intelligent kid movies out there. I know a lot of people love Shrek, for example, but I just don’t...

Yesterday's Broke and Bookish Top Tuesday's meme is more than appropriate: Top 10 Authors and Books I'm Thankful for. While compiling this list it occurred to me: wouldn't it be nice to meet these authors one day and thank them in person? But for now, here's my virtual thanks: 5 Books I'm thankful for: 1) Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery I begin with one of my childhood...

The Calumny of Appelles by Botticelli (click on the image to enlarge) A little bit of history Date: 1494 Located in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy In Ancient Greece, there was a famous painter called Apelles. You might never heard of him because none of his paintings or even copies of his paintings survived. Apparently, before he died he was working on a...

That's it, I've had it with lame movies. You know you've reached a cinematic rock bottom when you're watching What Women Want just because, hey, Mel Gibson is in it. So now I'm focusing on classics, because you can't go wrong with them. And one of my favorite classic actors is James Stewart. I discovered he made over 90 movies and I've only...

Some people manage to read on crowded buses and on the dentist's office. Even though a lot of times we are forced to adapt to our environment in order to do some reading, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a comfy environment for reading in our homes. On weekends, when I have more time for reading, I like to set the mood to...

"Amish Barn" by Jack Jeffers, 1980 The more I think about it, the more I realize photography is a complicated business – philosophically speaking. The other day I went to an exhibition called "End of an Era: The Photography of Jack Jeffers" where the picture above called my attention.  Its title is “An Amish Barn” and, apparently, the people who owned the barn in the...

The classy, not-creepy predecessor of Black Swan. I watched The Red Shoes a couple of years ago when I was really into ballet. I wonder how many guys who hate ballet watched it only because Martin Scorsese vouches for it. This 1948 classic follows the career of a promising young ballerina, Victoria Page. She entered the most prestigious company in the world under the direction...

The Classics Club asked: "What classic piece of literature most intimidates you, and why? Are you intimidated by the classics, and why?" I love the classics and consider them to be the most rewarding books. So, in general, I don't find the category "the classics" very intimidating. But there are some titles and authors that are very intimidating to me. I divide them in these three...

Last month I was happy to receive two awards from my sweet blogger buddies, Angela from Aj Arndt Books and Eva from Fancy Windows. Thank you so much girls! As George Constanza would say "I'm busting, Jerry, I'm busting!" This means a lot to me because I love these girls' blogs. Angela’s book blog offers book discussions and news plus a free ebook every month which is pretty neat....