SSS is a 1988 experimental film featuring rapid-fire clips of dancers on the streets and junkyards of New York's East Village, "painstaking synched" to improvised music by Tom Cora (cello), Christian Marclay (turntables), and Zeena Parkins (harp). It's by filmmaker Henry Hills, whose official site is
here. More collage films
here, including
Radio Adios, the quick cut-up
KINO DA!,
Money ("
a manic collage film from the mid-80s when it still seemed that Reaganism of the soul could be defeated," with appearances by John Zorn, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Ron Silliman among others), and
Gotham, one of three films Hills made for Zorn's Naked City project.
posted by mediareport
on May 25, 2012 -
11 comments
And so I descend once more into the mysterious depths of 3 Women, a film that was imagined in a dream. Robert Altman's 1977 masterpiece tells the story of three women whose identities blur, shift and merge until finally, in an enigmatic last scene, they have formed a family, or perhaps have become one person. I have seen it many times, been through it twice in shot-by-shot analysis, and yet it always seems to be happening as I watch it. -
Roger Ebert [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on May 20, 2012 -
21 comments
“I say God bless ‘em, man, go make another ‘RoboCop.’ … I don’t know, you can throw a lot of CGI at it and so forth. The morality that’s endemic to the movie that you just watched is hard to replicate. It makes you laugh and cry and moves you, and it’s hysterical and horrible and all those unbelievable things at once.” - Former cyborg and
Italian Italian Renaissance Scholar Peter Weller talks to the
Hero Complex Film Festival about
the Robocop Remake and other things in the run-up to the films 25th anniversary.
posted by Artw
on May 20, 2012 -
93 comments
In 2273, after having been thought lost in a black hole, Voyager 6 returned to Federation space as
V'Ger, the massive and menacing spaceship at the heart of
Star Trek: The Motion Picture...
Designing the Living Machine - concept art for V'Ger,
Redesigning the Walk to V’Ger,
The Lighting and Photography of Star Trek's "V'ger",
working on the interior of V'ger,
V'ger External View,
V'Ger - Spock Mindmeld Model Piece (scroll way down) (may contain
Darth Vader and Miss Piggy),
animating the "V'ger Probe",
V'ger rear view.
posted by Artw
on May 3, 2012 -
41 comments
Many films are called “classic,” but few qualify as turning points in the evolution of cinematic language, films that opened the way to a more mature art form. Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura is such a work. It divided film history into that which came before and that which was possible after its epochal appearance. It expanded our knowledge of what a film could be and do. It is more than a classic, it’s an historical milestone. ... Antonioni’s great achievement was to put the burden of narration almost entirely on the image itself, that is, on the characters’ actions and on the visual surface of their environment. He uses natural or manmade settings to evoke his characters’ state of mind, their emotions, their life circumstances. We learn more about them by watching what they do than by hearing what they say. We follow the story more by reading images than we do by listening to dialogue. The settings are not symbolic or metaphoric—they are extensions, manifestations, of the characters’ psyches. Physical landscape and mental landscape become one. -
Gene Youngblood
posted by Trurl
on Apr 29, 2012 -
20 comments
What you see here is a prime example of what happens to film that is neglected and improperly stored.
This is an original reel from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that is now untouchable. The film has turned acidic, sporting the strongest and most foul vinegar-like odor I have ever smelled. In fact,
Robert Harris told me a story of how his contact lenses were singed by the fumes the film produced, causing temporary retinal damage to his eye. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Apr 27, 2012 -
37 comments
We shrugged when friends told us Prince's Sign "O" the Times was the greatest rock concert movie ever. There are limits to how great a rock concert movie can be, and we figured Jonathan Demme's--and Talking Heads'--Stop Making Sense had stretched them as far as they were liable to go. But even though Sign "O" the Times was directed by the artiste, whose previous cinematic exploits haven't exactly put him in Demme's class, Prince has come up with a contender. Where Demme goes for a sinuous, almost elegant clarity, Prince's movie is all murk, scuzz, steam, and, oh yeah, sex. With all due respect, which one sounds more like a real rock concert to you? -
Robert Christgau [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Apr 20, 2012 -
31 comments
Derelict Cinemas and Theatres by Adam Slater: Since 2008, Adam Slater has been on a quest to photograph Britain’s abandoned and derelict cinemas and theatres before they are gone for good. Below are some examples from his astonishing set of beautiful yet grotesque ruins, which you can see in full on his
flickr page. His blog,
Reality Trip, features more fantastic photographs of old power stations, quarries and more. Be sure to check it out.
[kubrickontheguillotine.com]
posted by Fizz
on Apr 20, 2012 -
4 comments
Those Americans who are familiar with the name Claude Lanzmann most likely know him as the director of “Shoah,” his monumental 1985 documentary about the extermination of the European Jews in the Nazi gas chambers. As it turns out, though, the story of Lanzmann’s eventful life would have been well worth telling even if he had never come to direct “Shoah.” In addition to film director, Lanzmann’s roles have included those of journalist, editor, public intellectual, member of the French Resistance, long-term lover of Simone de Beauvoir and close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, world traveler, political activist, ghostwriter for Jacques Cousteau — I could go on, but it’s a good deal more entertaining to hear Lanzmann himself go on, and thanks to the publication in English of his memoir, “The Patagonian Hare,” we now have the opportunity to do so. (previously)
posted by Trurl
on Apr 16, 2012 -
6 comments
John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, drove the point home at the association's annual convention last year in Las Vegas. "Simply put," he said, "If you don't make the decision to get on the digital train soon, you will be making the decision to get out of the business."
As movie studios look to eliminate the expense of 35mm prints, what are
the consequences of going digital? (
printer-friendly link)
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Apr 12, 2012 -
80 comments
As brutally stylish as it is when the fists and baseball bats are flying, the underlying themes of family and perseverance are what make The Warriors stand out from the rest of the "grim future" epics of the period. -
Celluloid Dreams
posted by Trurl
on Apr 10, 2012 -
49 comments
The Big Sleep is a film I have found a very intense love for. The rotating cast of shadowy crooks and deceptive dames coupled with the roller-coaster plotting makes this classic movie endlessly entertaining. Bogart and Bacall are electrifying together and the supporting cast is equally captivating. Considering it’s over 60 years old, The Big Sleep
still works in a big bad way and feels fantastically modern. It’s as if the film is simply too fast and too entertaining to age. It was crafted by the hands of some of Hollywood’s finest artists at the time and oozes quality as a result. Most of all though, this movie is just pulpy, fearless, fun and really, really cool. -
Pictures and Noise [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Apr 7, 2012 -
56 comments
You may have heard that they made a movie of the
The Hunger Games. While others discuss its dystopian vision of a barbaric future America, we will concern ourselves with something more important:
the clothes.
[more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Mar 25, 2012 -
84 comments
How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big Budget Flick: "Now, in response to The_Quiet_Earth’s question about time-traveling marines, Erwin started typing. He posted his answer in a series of comments in the thread. Within an hour, he was an online celebrity. Within three hours, a film producer had reached out to him. Within two weeks, he was offered a deal to write a movie based on his Reddit comments. Within two months, he had taken a leave from his job to become a full-time Hollywood screenwriter."
[more inside]
posted by marcusesses
on Mar 21, 2012 -
163 comments
"As such, the film offers an interesting mix of, on the one hand, the surreal impossibility of reasoning with the state and its hired representatives (similar, say, to the writings of Franz Kafka); and, on the other, what seems to be a particularly American breed of libertarianism, one in which even parking meters can be interpreted as 'just a lot of guys laying down a lot of rules and regulations,' where all instances of authority are meant to be, if not resisted, than at least publicly mocked and undercut."--
BLDGBLOG weighs in on the classic American film
Cool Hand Luke (
theatrical trailer). Part of a series entitled
"Breaking Out & Breaking In"
posted by bardic
on Feb 26, 2012 -
15 comments
Kirby Ferguson's fourth and final installment of
Everything is a Remix:
System Failure has been released. (Also on
YouTube.) It covers intellectual property rights, the derivative nature of creativity, patents and copyright.
Transcript.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 17, 2012 -
5 comments
The Seventh Art is an independently produced video magazine about cinema with three sections: a profile on an interesting group/company/organization in the industry, a video essay and a long-form interview with a filmmaker.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy
on Feb 10, 2012 -
1 comment
... it’s no exaggeration to say that LIFEFORCE tosses everything in but the kitchen in an attempt to entertain you. Actually, scratch that, it tosses everything including the kitchen sink. By the time the movie is complete, you may have to watch it again just to verify that you actually saw what you just saw. The movie is a mess of enormous proportions which I absolutely loved.* (previously) [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Feb 6, 2012 -
59 comments
