Need some B Roll?

I love the greenscreen job on this. Classy!

Trailers that make you cry... a lot

Coming in November, for those of us who love to weep for 90 minutes:




oh, Oprah, you always lead me in the right direction... although I can't support Lenny Kravitz in anything in anyway.

Movies, movies, movies

Looking through the film vaults for public domain movies I'd like to share some of the films I've watched in the last week:







I'm still trying to find Horror Hotel/ City of the Dead on something other than the internet archives. I may have to go to the Madness of Movies to find it...

RiffTrax: Mst3k?.... uh, kinda

So has anyone seen this before? I don't think it's new, but some of the writers/actors from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 have a website called RiffTrax in which they're selling audio commentaries to new (and old) movies that you can play in sync with the rented movies you may own. They also allow user to upload and sell their own commentaries. You can buy DVD from them as well and wait the few weeks, if you're not techno savey



Sorry, Joel's not involved... still pretty funny.

Rom Zom Com

So we had to make a short film in my editing class that highlighted the idea of continuity editing. My group decided to do a Romantic horror comedy, or as I like to call it "Rom Zom Com". I wrote an original casiotone/garage band score for my version, and was in charge of the makeup/ special effects.



pretty freaky, I know.

Sita Sings the Blues

Check out this clip from Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues" via cartoonbrew.com

It's won a ton (srsly) of festsival awards, but unfortunately, the bits of twenties jazz in the piece are under copyright lock and key, so the film can't be released. It's making the festival rounds right now, so if you get the chance, go see it in it's entirety. Maybe it will unlock the secrets for me of following Indian epic story lines and character dynamics (or confuse me even more). Anyway, it's beautiful, it features old jazz, hindi art, and lots of heartbreak. Sounds perfect.

NFB of Canada

Check out who's got the goods! The National Film Board of Canada just put up a new website featuring full length films, animations, as well as clips and trailers from throughout their history all posted online for your viewing pleasure. It's a nice resource for this ground breaking publicly owned organization. And if you dig a bit you can find some full length films and videos; a collection I'm sure they'll be expanding as time goes on. Who needs to convert their teevee to digital? Not me (okay, I will miss the Dr. Phil.....).

It did remind me of this Malcom Mclaren animation:




mmmm... publicly funded arts....

Jan Svankmajer's Sileni (Lunacy)

I had the pleasure last night of watching Jan Svankmajer's 2005 film Sileni or "Lunacy".

The narrative structure is hung on two Edgar Allan Poe tales "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" and "The Premature Burial" and features a character developed around the philosophies and politics of Marquis de Sade. Anyone familiar with Svankmajer's work will anticipate the dark themes, surrealist imagery, and stop motion animation that run amok in this film. Essentially, I interpreted it as a political work, much like de Sade's essays written just before the French Revolution, Svankmajer lays out questions of personal freedom, acceptance of normalcy, and getting a laugh out of shocking bourgeois sensibilities.

The main character is snapped out of night terror fits throughout the film.  He fears the fate and label of inherited insanity brought on by his mothers funeral. I found the repeated sequence of him awakening suddenly quite effectively used to establish questions of the hero's sanity, as well as the reality of the world he is awaken to. Each scene is sandwiched by short sensual plays acted out with animated chunks of raw meat. This film is NOT vegan, however I especially appreciated the disembodied tongues copulating, if I am allowed to separate my own personal beliefs for the sake of discussion.

  If I had any critical observations to make, I felt that the stop animation perhaps could have been integrated into the film with a little more finesse. The main story was strong enough that it could have stood on its own without the short plays, except perhaps to add a strongly disturbing graphic element to the social commentary of the film.

As Svankmajer commented in the prologue of the film, it is a horror movie, but the horrors presented seem to be more of the brutalities of oppressive absolute beliefs and the violence of a ruling class. But I may just have a strong stomach.