MetaFilter posts tagged with Film and culture

Wet and dreamy and impossibly beautiful

maudlin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:02:22 -0800

"What you're looking for as a retoucher is a broom, something that covers your tracks, some way of obscuring where you've been. The first thing [most] people take out is bloodshot eyes. That's the last thing I take out—the last thing I'd, like, just wipe, because that just makes it look retouched." -- from Jesse Epstein's video op-ed for the NY Times, based on her film Wet Dreams and False Images ("I know that's not airbrushed. I could put a million dollars that's not airbrushed."), one of three related short documentaries on physical perfection. "Each head has to be identical to the other head, so we don't want anybody putting sandpaper to the head." -- from 34 x 25 x 36. Via the latest installment of Shakesville's Impossibly Beautiful series. (Previous posts on retouching.)

If a movie only exists on film but no one is around to distribute it, does it still exist?

bubukaba — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:54:51 -0800

New Yorker Films, the only US distributor of many of the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Ousmane Sèmbene, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and many others closed operations yesterday. Many of the films they distributed remain unavailable on DVD, and thus completely unavailable to Americans for the foreseeable future. Coming on the heels of the eviction of Film-Maker's Co-Op, New York's venerable distributor and archive of avant-garde film, New Yorker's closing raises questions not only about the symbiotic importance of repertory film exhibition for film preservation efforts, but about the future of film culture and the possible role of the arts in the future economy.

eerie imaginings from the East

nickyskye — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:25:52 -0800

Asian Horror Movies.com. 100's of free, streaming video, full movies, which have English subtitles. Index of titles updated regularly. Japanese, Korean, Thai. Includes a wide variety of films from an eccentric fantasy like 100% Wool to a psychological thriller like Angel Dust. Viewer reviews are below the screen, so you can have a little idea of the film. Recommended: A Tale of Two Sisters l Inner Senses l The Host l Ju-on l Kwaidan l Save the Green Planet l Wild Zero l Audition l Cure l Dorm.

Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs?

kliuless — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:01:35 -0800

In defense of suburbs: "Revolutionary Road," based on Richard Yates's 1961 novel of the same name, is the latest entry in a long stream of art that portrays the American suburbs as the physical correlative to spiritual and mental death.

The Triumph of Derrièrism

defenestration — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:28:42 -0800

Jon Swift, satirist blogger (previously on MeFi), has identified an important new school of film criticism. He calls it Derrièrism—since all schools of film criticism must have French names—and asserts that the main criteria a movie should be judged by is whether the viewer's ass shifts in his or her seat while watching it. He claims Derrièrism is on the rise, citing Andrew Breitbart's soon-to-be-launched Big Hollywood, a site that will include film reviews and criticism by thoughtful cinéastes like House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, Reps. Thaddeus McCotter, Mary Bono Mack and Connie Mack, former presidential candidate Fred Thompson, MSNBC correspondent Tucker Carlson and conservative commentators Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others. Derrièrism has been written about by Variety and The New York Times. Neither note the satirical nature of the writing; either they didn't want to spoil the joke by pointing out the obvious or they need to change the batteries in their satire detectors.

The Art of the Title Sequence

anastasiav — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:11:22 -0800

The Art of the Title Sequence Passing reference on Mefi previously here.

One Pair of Eyes

miss lynnster — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:31:58 -0800

Architectural critic and writer Reyner Banham loved Los Angeles. (Last link is a BBC documentary, circa 1972, 52 minutes -- NSFW at 47 minute mark) Surprisingly, some parts of LA seemed much more run down 30 years ago than now. Most shocking to me was being reminded of how horrific the Santa Monica Pier looked back when it was slated for destruction (appx. 32 minute mark). And no, the pre-GPS Baede Kar system wasn't real, they made it up.

The culture writing of Adam Cadre

colinmarshall — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:45:23 -0800

If you've never heard of Adam Cadre, then Adam Cadre is the best internet writer you've never heard of. He's a novelist and interactive fiction (a.k.a. "text adventure") author, but his site is packed with some of the clearest, most entertaining (and most personal) cultural writing around. It's a blog-esque sort of deal with posts prompted by films, books and other. Choicest articles include a to-the-point takedown of Stranger in a Strange Land, thoughts on Lanark and trolls who have never known love, an exegesis of the virtues of The Sweet Hereafter and the story of his near-lifelong relationship with Cosmos.

"It doesn't really seem that long ago."

Miko — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:52:54 -0800

Home Movies. A 1975 documentary by a young academic folklorist, exploring what it was that people were doing when they made home movies: remembering selectively, creating a "golden age." This little film looks kind of clunky these days (though I think I hear a clear antecedent of Ira Glass' delivery style in the narration of the filmmaker) , but it provoked some interesting thoughts about how little of our motivations for recording our lives has changed in the digital age, even as the ease with which we do it increases. We're still trying to preserve our lives, prevent time's motion, and create stories about ourselves.

FILM IS ABOUT TO START...

Neilopolis — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:15:30 -0800

In 1974, Martin Scorsese interviewed his parents on film, prompting them to discuss their life together as well as their Sicilian ancestry. The resultant documentary was entitled Italianamerican. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [Inspired by...]

matteo — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:12:06 -0800

Jerry Lewis at 80 (more inside)

w/ Hollywood: web-Dreams can come True

thomcatspike — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 11:38:08 -0800

MY DATE WITH DREW - Follow up to this past thread.
Though the first post's linked page has changed since the last discussion. What happened to the web journal behind this movie?

Piles of Polish Posters (Plakaty) Posted Presently.

.kobayashi. — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 21:16:28 -0800

Freedom on the Fence: The Polish Poster. While we're at it: The history and culture of the Polish poster and an analysis of American Films in Polish Posters. Or, if you'd prefer, The Classic Polish Film Poster database (where the Disney/Children's film posters are quite lovely). Also, The Wallace Library at the Rochester Institute of Technology has a fantastic searchable and browse-able database, with many hi-res images. Finally, some other Polish Poster Galleries. (What's that? You want more? You want artist-specific galleries? Okay. Here's work by Mieczyslaw Gorowski, Piotr Kunce, Wieslaw Walkuski, and Jan Sawka. Oh, you wanted Communist-era Polish propaganda posters? Fine. Here ya go.) [previous MeFi discussion on Polish film posters; also, some of the images from these links may be NSFW, depending on how S your W environment is.]

The End Of Sexual Taboos: Erotic and Pornographic Cinema

nthdegx — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 20:46:15 -0800

The End Of Sexual Taboos: Erotic and Pornographic Cinema. Not safe for work.

Not just for Trekkies anymore...

FunkyHelix — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:15:35 -0800

Fandom is, at the core, neither good or bad. It simply is. [+]

Never such innocence again

verstegan — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:17:52 -0800

The Mitchell and Kenyon collection consists of 800 rolls of nitrate film documenting scenes of everyday life in England between 1900 and 1913. This extraordinary archive, now painstakingly restored by the British Film Institute, includes footage of trams, soup kitchens, factory gates, football matches, seaside holidays and much else besides. Here are some sample images and a short clip of workers at a Lancashire colliery, all astonishingly evocative and reminiscent (to me) of Philip Larkin's poem MCMXIV: 'The crowns of hats, the sun / On moustachioed archaic faces / Grinning as if it were all / An August Bank Holiday lark .. Never such innocence, / Never before or since .. Never such innocence again.'

Toronto International Film Festival

dobbs — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 22:29:19 -0800

The Toronto International Film Festival begins Thursday. The 2004 program is one of the best they've had in years (certainly the best since the 90s). Planning on attending? If so, you may appreciate TIFF Reviews - "the online meeting place for fans of TIFF 2004". Since TIFF is the the largest film festival in the world, most attendees (myself included) find it very difficult to pick their films. Once the fest starts, members of the TIFF Reviews forum are encouraged to leave reviews of what they've been watching in the hopes that it'll help other people plan their 10 days in the dark.

Pavitr Prabhakar. Say it out loud.

Tlogmer — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:57:57 -0800

Forget translations. Spiderman gets remade, bottom-to-top, for the subcontinent.

Moving Archives

nthdegx — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 03:47:16 -0800

The Sorcerer's Scissors; Air Raid Practice, Knoll School Hove; and An Eye to the Future [wmv's all, I'm afraid]. These and other examples nonpareil available at the University of Brighton's Moving History: "A guide to UK film and television archives in the public sector".

terrapin — Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:34:47 -0800

Police Boycott "Harry Potter" Police in Penryn, PA (near Harrisburg) have refused to direct traffic at a YMCA event. The police claim that because the YMCA reads "Harry Potter" to local children that they are promoting witchcraft. Fire Police Capt. Robert Fichthorn says "I don't feel right taking our children's minds and teaching them (witchcraft). As long as we don't stand up, it won't stop. It's unfortunate that this is the way it has to be."

crog — Thu, 04 Oct 2001 22:00:51 -0800

Will a changing world change film? Will the Sept. 11th tragedy instill a new social or political significance to contempoary art? Does this mark the end of irony? How do you think these recent events are going to shape film, art and comedy?