Palm Springs Travel Guide
Tags: Design Travel / Architecture Travel / Modernism Week / → All Tags
Palm Springs Kicks It Mid-Century Style With Modernism Week
This goes out to all you Atomic Ranch readers and melamine fiends: set your George Nelson starburst clocks for 2pm on Friday, February 13, as Palm Springs is due to kick off its annual Modernism Week, celebrating all things mid-century (yes, even avocado-color appliances).
With a week solid of vintage shows, exhibitions, and even double-decker bus tours, Palm Springs is pulling out all the stops to attract everyone from the hardcore retro collectors to the curious.
$75 will get you access to everything, including highlights such as the screening of two films about designers Charles and Ray Eames, a vintage car show, and all-day house tours of some masterpieces of modernist design that will easily put the Brady Bunch's swinging pad to shame.
Even if you've never before considered a multicolor mobile to be a necessary living room element, Modernism Week is sure to delight. After all, you're out in the California sun getting sneak peeks into people's eclectic homes and observing the icons of mid-century design in their natural elements. We guarantee that it will only take you a few A-frame houses before you're obsessing over plastic tables and Osterizer blenders with the best of them.
Related Stories:
· Palm Springs' Modernism Week [Official Site]
· A Palm Springs Event Chock-full of Minimalism [NYT]
· Design Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: NYT]
Tags: Back of the Envelope Guides / Film Festival Travel / Palm Springs International Film Festival / → All Tags
The 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival
The Palm Springs International Film Festival has been hiding in the shadows of another famous January fest for nearly 20 years but it looks like some star wattage is helping it come into its own. Tonight the festival officially opens with a screening of "Last Chance Harvey", starring Dustin Hoffman, and ends Jan. 19 with a "best of the fest" star-studded event.
Tuesday night, the PSIFF annual gala honored Sean Penn, Dustin Hoffman, the cast of "Revolutionary Road," and director Gus Van Sant. The gala also drew A-Listers Anne Hathaway, Dakota Fanning, and Amy Adams. But be prepared, if you are going to be surrounded by celebrities, you may be tempted to live like one.
Tags: Fall-TV-2008-Map / Television Premiere Travel / Fall TV 2008 / Palm Springs Travel / → All Tags
Fall TV 2008: "The Mentalist" Isn't Psychic, He Just Plays One on TV
Jaunted is planning our fall travel with some help from the networks. Check out our Fall TV 2008 Map to go where your new favorite characters go.
If the heroine of "The Ex List" had gone to former celebrity psychic Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), she might have gotten an answer she was looking for. The hero of "The Mentalist" (CBS, Sept. 23, 9 pm) has come clean that he was never really psychic, but is using his seemingly paranormal powers of observation to help the California Bureau of Investigation solve grisly crimes. It's just like "Psych," but not intentionally funny!
Jane's methods are unorthodox--he skulks around crime scenes without an escort and fearlessly lies to suspects--and put him at odds with no-nonsense agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney, above left) and very religious newbie Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti).
In the pilot, Jane and the team take on a double murder in Palm Springs that looks to be the work of a nasty serial killer--but is it really? You don't need to be clairvoyant to know this is more than an open-and-shut case.
Related Stories:
· We Predict Psychic Museum Will Fail [Jaunted]
· Fall TV 2008: "The Ex List" Peeks Into The Past [Jaunted]
· Fall TV 2008 coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Seat42F.com]
Tags: Celeb Travel / Film Festivals / Drew Barrymore / Zac Efron / Vanessa Hudgens / → All Tags
Drew Hearts "Juno" In Palm Springs
Drew Barrymore presented an award to the cast of Juno at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on Saturday. Did you make it this year? Halle Berry took her pregnant self there to receive an award for "Things We Lost in the Fire." Zac Efron hit the red carpet along with "High School Musical" costar and possible girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens, before joining his "Hairspray" costars for a sing-along screening of the movie musical.
Juno, this year's Little Indie That Could about a Minneapolis teen's unplanned pregnancy, finished third at the box office this weekend and picked up three Golden Globe nominations. Don't worry, we'll still cover next week's Golden Globes ceremony even if the stars don't attend--and even though our invite got lost in the mail.
Related Stories:
· Back of the Envelope Guide: Palm Springs FF [Jaunted]
· Film Festivals coverage [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: BusyBeeBlogger]
Tags: Film Festivals / Palm Springs International Film Festival / → All Tags
Back of the Envelope Travel Guide: Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs: So Retro...
As most of us struggle through frozen winter weather, a trip to the Palm Springs International Film Festival from January 3-14 sounds just lovely. High temperatures aside, though, the festival also offers 11 days of films from a variety of genres, made by filmmakers from around the globe.
And with the city's close proximity to Los Angeles, selections are more likely to not suck. To wit: Not only did the Palm Springs Film Society screen No Country For Old Men this November; they also brought along its star James Brolin to the premiere. Be prepared to pony up some cash, though, if you plan on staying in a hotel or going out to eat on a regular basis: this is, after all, Hollywood's playground.
Tags: Television Travel / California Travel / Hidden Palms / Kimberly Pierceall / → All Tags
Hidden Palms Gives Old Resort Town A Teen Makeover
Between the hipification of the Dinah Shore Weekend and the dehydrated hipsters of Coachella, Palm Springs looks poised to give The O.C. a run for its money as an oasis of California cool. (Hey, if our favorite world travelers have stayed there...) The mystique can only grow with last night's premiere of soapy CW teen drama "Hidden Palms," whose website proclaims, "Scandal. Suicide. Murder. Some towns get all the fun." The summer leftover even boasts two former featured guests on "The O.C." who apparently have been forced to move inland by the ghost of Marissa Cooper.
While the show is actually filmed on a soundstage in Phoenix, Arizona, Kimberly Pierceall of the SoCal-based paper the Press-Enterprise notes on PE.com's tourism blog that the reviews of "Hidden Palms" have so far reflected the popular conception of Palm Springs as a place past its prime, while local residents are concerned that audiences will take the fictional seamy underbelly of the show for plain truth.
Still, with Kevin "Dawson's Creek" Williamson at the helm of the show, maybe a new generation of partiers will make like Paris Hilton's granny and flock to the desert instead of the ocean. The New York Times has already tantalizingly described the show as "a sick world, but one for which you wouldn't mind having the swatches."
[Photo: No Control]
Related Stories:
· Palm Springs Hotel Reviews [HotelChatter]
· Un-Hiding Hidden Palms [beloblog]
