Bag the Habit
Holly Tienken and Liz Long
www.bagthehabit.com
Various items, $7–$42

Bag the Habit was born in 2006 in a small Jersey City, New Jersey, teashop where Liz Long worked and Holly Tienken (MFA 2001 Design) was a regular customer. The shop was a popular meeting spot for many of the city's artistic and entrepreneurial communities, in fact the Bag the Habit logo was conceived on a bench outside and the brand was launched with an exhibition featuring bag designs by 25 local artists. The core philosophy of the company is creativity and collaboration and Tienken and Long work directly with suppliers in both the U.S. and China to try to integrate sustainable practices into the supply chain and to partner closely with brands to encourage reusability.

Bag the Habit is committed to the use of eco-textiles and was the first company to produce a full line of shopping bags using exclusively 100% recycled textiles. Bag the Habit offers a retail line as well as custom-made bags to fit a variety of shopping needs. The retail line includes the Luxe Tote and a five-bag Market Set, both made from 100% recycled polyester. The bags—which come in a variety of patterns and colors, are washing machine friendly and have a zippered pocket that fits the entire bag inside—can hold more than 35 pounds. There are also reusable Produce Bags that are made from Repreve yarn, a product of recycled plastic bottles and manufacturing discards. Custom orders offer all of these same features and can be dyed to match any Pantone color.
[Dan Halm]

Design is everywhere, or so many people say, and with good reason. But what of writing about design? As its core principle, the MFA Design Criticism program at SVA seeks to address that very concern, using a multidisciplinary approach to research, analysis and dissemination of writerly insights with the intention of informing and motivating both the design geek and the general public.

Challenging the limits of existing design writing venues goes hand-in-hand with the type of work students are encouraged to explore as trainees and pioneers in this still-nascent field. In this spirit, D-Crit has initiated a series of chapbooks—small, portable collections of essays produced by students of the course.

Designed by the Walker Art Center Design Studio in Minneapolis, which also developed the D-Crit department's identity, two books in the series have been published so far, with a third due for release later this spring. Acting as a sort of anthology to cover the range of topics and voices found in the D-Crit program, each book is based on a different course assignment and is co-edited by a different faculty and student pairing.

The first chapbook, At Water's Edge, was drawn from Akiko Busch's Reading Design course and explores aspects of the New York City waterfront. Dress, which this writer co-edited with faculty member Andrea Codrington Lippke and which came out last fall, untangles the "sartorial signifiers" and unique styles of a wide range of public figures—everyone from Julian Schnabel and Dora the Explorer to Steve Jobs and Muammar Gaddafi.

The third book, Object Lessons, co-edited by D-Crit student Cheryl Yau and faculty member Steven Heller, is soon to be released. This volume will delve into the rich narratives that surround found objects—objects ranging from the ubiquitous fire extinguisher to Yorick's skull featured in Act V of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Students discover the often surprising histories connected with these objects as they trace their provenance through the traditional, hands-on methods that Heller enforces in his course called Designing Research (duly dubbed the "No Google, no Internet course").
[Aileen Kwun]

Restless
Cinematography by Harris Savides
Sony Home Pictures Entertainment
Two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo, $45.99

Annabel, a beautiful and charming terminal-cancer patient, has a deep-felt love of life and the natural world. Enoch is a young man who has dropped out of the business of living after an accident claimed the life of his parents. When these two, both outsiders, meet—at a funeral—they find unexpected common ground in the way they experience the world. For Enoch, this includes the relationship he has with his best friend, Hiroshi, who happens to be the ghost of a World War II kamikaze fighter pilot. For Annabel, it involves an admiration of Charles Darwin and an interest in how creatures live. Upon learning of Annabel's imminent demise, Enoch offers to help her face her last days with irreverent abandon—tempting fate, tradition and even death itself.

Directed by Gus Van Sant, with cinematography by Harris Savides (BFA 1982 Film and Video), Restless follows the complex and moving journey of Annabel and Enoch as it moves toward its culmination—the couple's acceptance of themselves. The cast includes Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right), Henry Hopper (son of actor Dennis Hopper), Jane Adams (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Ryo Kase (Letters from Iwo Jima). The Blu-ray release is packed with many bonus features, including deleted scenes, five additional featurettes and Van Sant's silent version of the film.
[Dan Halm]

Orcs: Forged for War
Stan Nicholls (author), Joe Flood (illustrator)
First Second Books
Softcover, 208 pages, $17.99

Orcs: Forged for War is a graphic novel set in author Stan Nicholls' prose world, Maras-Dantia. In this world, Orcs are intelligent, highly capable creatures far removed from the mindless brute evil stereotypes often found in fantasy. In this graphic work, as in his strictly prose novels in the Orcs series, Nicholls reinterprets the image of the Orcs, evolving them into fierce warriors dedicated to the protection of their realm from the incursion of intrusive humans. Nicholls is aided in this quest by the able pen of SVA alumnus Joe Flood (BFA 2002 Illustration), whose powerful artwork is a perfect blend of deliberate cartooniness and realistic rendering. And while there is a playful air about his art, this is not a novel for the weak of heart or stomach: impalements, beheadings, disembowelments and other forms of violence occur frequently and Flood is not shy about depicting these bloody goings-on in close-up detail. As the Orcs fly into the frenzy of battle, it is easy to get lost in the kinetic energy of the storytelling, although sometimes at the cost of being able to keep track of the massive number of similar-looking characters. Most well-defined is Captain Stryke, commander of the Wolverines, a ruthless Orc battalion hired to transport a contingent of Goblins on a secret mission to obtain a high-powered weapon for the ruthless human dictator Queen Jennesta. As the body count rises and double-crosses unfold, readers may well wish the story could continue forever. Fantasy has always lent itself well to graphic storytelling and Orcs: Forged for War is a good romp in a totally intriguing world.
[Christopher Bussmann]

Fright Night
Directed by Craig Gillespie
DreamWorks Pictures
DVD/Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D, $29.99/$39.99/$49.99

Fright Night, a remake of the 1985 horror cult classic of the same name, follows the story of Charley Brewster, a high school senior who suspects that Jerry, his charming new next door neighbor, is a vampire. The film is directed by Craig Gillespie (BFA 1989 Advertising) whose previous works include Lars and the Real Girl, Mr. Woodcock and episodes of the Showtime hit United States of Tara. Fans of the original film will notice some major changes: a shift of location to a sleepy suburb of Las Vegas and—most noticeably—an alteration in the character of washed-up B-movie actor and Fright Night television host Peter Vincent to a Criss Angel-style magician.

Featuring a cast that includes Colin Farrell (A Home at the End of the World), Anton Yelchin (Star Trek), Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad), David Tennant (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later), the redo has a playful tongue-in-cheek tone (as did the original) with just enough horror and suspenseful moments to keep hardcore horror fans interested. With his fine use of color, lighting and the sense of isolation he creates throughout the film, Gillespie proves to be adept in this genre.

The Blu-ray release is packed with bonus features, including the mockumentary Peter Vincent: Swim Inside My Head, "The Official How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie Guide," deleted scenes, a gag reel and the (uncensored) music video "No One Believes Me" by hip-hop artist Kid Cudi, also directed by Gillespie.
[Dan Halm]