HollywoodMemorabilia Blog

Responsible for many of jazz and rock and roll’s iconic music photos, world renowned photographer Jim Marshall passed away this week at the age of 74. Marshall, who caught iconic shots of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Beatles and perhaps most famously Johnny Cash, passed away in his sleep Tuesday evening.

Shop legendary autographed music photos.

Some of Marshall’s more notable works include Hendrix famously burning his guitar at Monterey, Johnny Cash’s middle finger at San Quentin and a shot of the Beatles eating dinner before their final concert performance in 1966. Responsible for literally tens of thousands of celebrity photographs, Marshall spent much of his life working for Rolling Stone and publishing his photos in books, most famously Trust: Photographs of Jim Marshall.

I braved the monsoon that hit New York City this past Saturday to finally catch Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. A fan of Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s last collaborative effort, the Departed, Island had been in my movie queue for the past few weeks. As anyone who’s seen the movie might agree, it’s weird. In fact, just about everything was weird this past Saturday. From the weather to the out-there movie posters for the recently-remade Alice In Wonderland and The Crazies (doesn’t Hollywood make anything original nowadays?), to the obscure autographed celebrity photos lining the walls of the recently renovated Battery Park theater, Island set the tone for a strange and wet night in lower Manhattan.

The film gets off on a hmm, weird, note as Leonardo DiCaprio (who may I remind you starred in Titanic of all films) gets seasick to start the picture. Aside from the acting whiz of DiCaprio and co-star Ben Kingsley, the movie drags you through one hour before rapidly shifting course the second, and a completely new third direction for the final 22 minutes. In fact, the only thing stranger than Island’s actually mind-twisting ending is the fact that Matt Damon (type-cast?) is starring in a new war film called Green Zone, as evidenced by an autographed movie poster that was being framed as my friends and I were walking in.

Island is worth the $10-12 movie ticket if you feel like going for a ride. The movie, more so the ending, is a trip, even if the altogether story falls rather flat.

Millions of fans and movie memorabilia collectors around the world tuned in to the 82nd Annual Oscars last evening, one that made big winners out of Kathryn Bigelow, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz. While the demand for cinema posters and other pieces of celebrity memorabilia grew to new heights in 2009, it was the intensity of Bigelow’s the Hurt Locker that swayed and awed audiences the most. The Iraq war film took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture and Best Director last night, making Bigelow the toast of Hollywood in a field usually dominated by men. The Hurt Locker, starring Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie, finished the evening with a total of six Oscar wins.