11.26.12 |
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New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis:
Once upon a movie time you went to a film, and after it played on the circuit, it disappeared, perhaps showing up later on television. Home video changed our relationship with movies — suddenly we could watch a title when we wanted as many times as we wanted — a relationship that shifted further with the introduction of DVD, which gave viewers even more and possibly deeper ways into a film with special features, directors’ cuts and hidden jokes and clues called Easter eggs. This new film-audience relationship may help account for the emergence of these new, complex narratives.
The article highlights a pretty fascinating trend in “A list”, mainstream movies that implement more unorthodox plotting and screenplays. I doubt as little as a year ago I’d see a film like The Master playing wide in a blockbuster theater chain.
11.14.12 |
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Brian Phillips writing for Grantland:
The real story of Star Wars is the redemption of Darth Vader, while Captain Renault’s redemption in Casablanca is just a by-the-way bonus. But the resemblances are intriguing. Why do they exist? I don’t think the answer is that George Lucas deliberately copied Casablanca; I think it’s that Star Wars and Casablanca are both made out of a million spare parts from other and older stories, and some of the action-romance archetypes that George Lucas drew upon in Star Wars had also been drawn upon 35 years earlier by the committee of accidental geniuses that made Casablanca.
I normally wouldn’t have seen a connection between these two films in a million years, but Brian’s piece makes a compelling, albeit indirect, arguement.
11.12.12 |
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There’s many Tumblr blogs out there devoted to film, but this one really stood out: Intertitles focuses on screen caps of movie titles. When you start staring through a bunch of posts in a row the importance of typography and negative space during a movie’s title sequence becomes very clear.
10.22.12 |
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Matt Zoller Seitz for Press Play:
When we finally see Marsellus’ face 95 minutes into the movie, Tarantino instantly demystifies him as a burly man standing in a crosswalk holding a box of donuts—whereupon Butch runs him over. Marsellus’ first close-up represents Pulp Fiction’s storytelling strategy in microcosm: after all that advance press, he’s just a stranger bleeding on the street, his face framed upside-down as if to certify what we already suspected, that his mythology has been suddenly and violently flipped.
Check out the full seven minute video essay here or on Vimeo. Great work.
10.16.12 |
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Great back and forth between BP hosts Tyler, David and guest Scott Nye on the filmography and impact of Tony Scott on modern studio filmmaking. It’s long at two and a half hours but well worth it, especially for some of the insights on Top Gun and Man on Fire, two Scott highlights.
10.15.12 |
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PTA on shooting with 65mm:
It’s a different film, so it’s a different feeling. It’s really that simple, but ultimately … you know a 35mm camera, they’re small. I mean you can be as small as a little speaker that I’m looking at here, sort of no bigger than a laptop. Some of these cameras are teeny. And with 65mm cameras you are limited, because they’re incredibly large, and they’re loud, and you can’t fling them around or put them on a Steadicam. You can put them on your shoulder if have a really good chiropractor or masseuse.
So they’re limiting in that way, but that was good for us. We were trying to be straightforward and simple and old-fashioned. And loud — they’re very loud. You can hear bzzzzzzz.
Cliché aside, Paul Thomas Anderson embodies the definition of a modern film auteur. He’s not super chatty with the press either so an extended conversation with NPR is a nice find.
10.12.12 |
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Listening to this fun episode only confirmed what I’ve been ranting about for years: why doesn’t Hanks just make another flat out comedy? Post Oscars he strikes me as a funny guy who’s been trapped in serious work for at least the last decade.
10.12.12 |
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Top film lists of a decade are nothing new, but the writing here by the A.V. Club staff on this compilation is great. Good choices too; there’s a lot of Coen Brothers and Tarantino near the top. (One quibble though: where’s Heat?)
10.08.12 |
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I’ve had a soft spot for actor Kyle MacLachlan ever since watching him as Jeffrey Beaumont in Blue Velvet. The guy has had a pretty varied career as well: six years of Sex In the City and lots of smaller, quirkier roles spanning both TV and film. So naturally he’s a pretty stellar fit for The A.V. Club‘s regular Random Roles interview feature.
Love his commentary on watching Showgirls (Kyle had a starring role) for the first time:
It was about to première, I hadn’t seen it yet, and I wanted to. So I went to see it and… I was absolutely gobsmacked. I said, “This is horrible. Horrible!” And it’s a very slow, sinking feeling when you’re watching the movie, and the first scene comes out, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a really bad scene.” But you say, “Well, that’s okay, the next one’ll be better.” And you somehow try to convince yourself that it’s going to get better… and it just gets worse. And I was like, “Wow. That was crazy.” I mean, I really didn’t see that coming.
10.05.12 |
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Indiewire is right…these are really awesome posters. Love the diversity of style as well, from minimalism to bill typography to washed out, 70s-esque wide shots.