HOOPESTON is documentary in four acts by synedyne, the people who did the This Is My Milwaukee ARG (MeFi post). It's about the decline of tiny town in Illinois and the strange religion that moved in and called it home.
posted by arcolz on Jul 3, 2009 - 14 comments

Telstar: A film about the genius Joe Meek, had a fittingly interesting route to the screen. [previously]
posted by sam and rufus on Jun 30, 2009 - 11 comments

Industrial Span, Dead Cars, Burnout, Roadside Memorials. Short films by Ashley Perry.
posted by WPW on Jun 29, 2009 - 5 comments

Sex Galaxy (trailer 1, trailer 2, NSFW) is a new film that claims to be the first "green film," as it is made of 100% recycled material. In an Wired article, director/producer Mike Davis discloses his film sources. "Boarded-up libraries, abandoned schools, decaying drive-in movie theaters…. These are the realms in which I unearth my wares," he said. "And actually, many of these films are available on the internet. You can find amazing collections through the Library of Congress." The Wired article notes that the recycled material isn't itself wholly original, and Bad Lit expands the history of film plunder further. Sex Galaxy is sourced from Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, which relied on footage from Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, which in turn is sampled from the Russian film Planeta Bur. The history of film reuse is long and storied, and continues after the jump. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 27, 2009 - 16 comments

"Movie Body Counts tallies the actual, visible 'on screen kills/deaths/bodies' of your favorite action, sci/fi, and war films." [more inside]
posted by Prospero on Jun 25, 2009 - 42 comments

Pauline Kael called it "a huge, jerry-built, crumbling ruin of a movie". Roger Ebert called it "such a silly and stupid movie... our immediate reaction is pity". Few directors of Michelangelo Antonioni's stature have followed a film as acclaimed as Blowup (1966) with one as reviled as Zabriskie Point (1970). [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 25, 2009 - 30 comments

Artheme Swallows his Clarinet is a rather bizarre short film from 1912. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic on Jun 24, 2009 - 10 comments

They've taken my Kodachrome away, oh yeah.
posted by normy on Jun 22, 2009 - 62 comments

The British Film Institute on YouTube. How we used to live and more [via].
posted by feelinglistless on Jun 21, 2009 - 7 comments

The American Nightmare (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Documentary on US horror films of the 60s and 70s and how their themes reflected the society of the time. Includes contributions from John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, George R. Romero and Tom Savini. NSFW - horror gore plus extreme reportage.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jun 20, 2009 - 44 comments

A preview version of a 20-minute film following Damon Albarn as he and other western musicians (including Franz Ferdinand and Fatboy Slim) travel to Mali, Nigeria and Congo as part of the Africa Express, a sprawling musical collective collaboration between Africans (including Toumani Diabate, Baaba Maal and Tony Allen) Americans and Europeans. The film includes a visit and concert at The Shrine for last year's Felabration. [more inside]
posted by criticalbill on Jun 19, 2009 - 4 comments

Gorilla Men !!!
posted by onkelchrispy on Jun 15, 2009 - 8 comments

Bonsoir, Monsieur COK!
Dans un formidable élan de générosité notre patron adoré nous offre enfin la possibilité de voir son FILM sur la toile!
A short film about efficiencies in bomb manufacturing.
posted by boo_radley on Jun 15, 2009 - 16 comments

I've listened to dozens of film podcasts, but Left Field Cinema is the first that devotes its episodes only — or at least primarily — to movies worth discussing. I'm talking about Malick's Badlands. I'm talking about Tarkovsky's Solaris. I'm talking Kieslowski's Dekalog which gets a two-parter. I'm talking about Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. I'm talking Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. At long last, I say.
posted by colinmarshall on Jun 12, 2009 - 38 comments

The Brakhage Scrapbooks. Jane Wodening, then Jane Brakhage, assembled three remarkable scrapbooks in the early 1960s, when she was the wife and muse of experimental film maker Stan Brakhage [previously 1, 2] ... Wodening created the scrapbooks from literal “scraps” of their family life, Brakhage’s creative process, and the artistic communities of which they were a part. Pages are covered with the widest array of verbal and visual materials including but not limited to letters, manuscripts, photographs, original art, clippings, pamphlets, filmstrips, and flyers. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jun 8, 2009 - 15 comments

Multipart interview with film maker Kevin Smith on his career so far, why he's directing a film he didn't write, the internet and dying an early death. Part 1 - Selling Out And Salty Language, Part 2 - Writing & Film Making, Part 3 - Change, Death, Legacy, Part 4 - The Dark Side Of The Internet, Part 5 - The Curse Of Chasing Amy, Part 6 - Bright Side Of The Internet, Part 7- Talking To People He Wrote, Part 8 - Gretzky, Gratitude & God, Part 9 - Risking His Life & Starting A New One (and more to come apparently...)
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jun 7, 2009 - 67 comments

80s Film and TV composers filter: Let's hear it for Serbian-born action-flick composer Sylvester Levay. He scored a #1 Billboard 100 hit in 1975 with "Fly, Robin, Fly,", but moved from pop music to action movies. Maybe he's known best as the genius behind the alleged World's Most Expensive TV Soundtrack, the theme of which you don't have to pay $900 to hear.
Why did he move from action movies to historical musicals in the 90s? Maybe the genre was a little overloaded. [more inside]
posted by hpliferaft on Jun 3, 2009 - 8 comments

"Because the camera is so close to the character(s) being followed, we feel that we're physically attached to those characters, as if by an invisible guide wire, being towed through their world, sometimes keeping pace, other times losing them as they weave through hallways, down staircases or through smoke or fog." A video montage and essay by Matt Zoller Seitz. All shots are identified at the end; you may know more of them than you think. (via)
posted by maudlin on Jun 3, 2009 - 15 comments

The real world location behind “Up’s” Paradise Falls. But could that house really fly?
posted by Artw on Jun 2, 2009 - 54 comments

I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for "why" or "because." Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls (nsfw) of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men... [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 1, 2009 - 20 comments

A creative New York couple and their wonderful, vintage photographs: pioneering filmmaker, Morris Engel, and award-winning photojournalist, Ruth Orkin, who is renowned for her iconic American Girl in Italy. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on May 31, 2009 - 5 comments

Tony Scott has confirmed that a prequel to Alien is in the works, with commercial director Carl Rinsch at the helm. Of course, his brother Ridley was no stranger to advertising. Meanwhile Dark Horse is celebrating 30 years of the franchise by releasing a new series of Aliens comics.
posted by Artw on May 30, 2009 - 188 comments

Three years after the failure of his recklessly ambitious Marxist epic 1900, Bernardo Bertolucci returned to directing with La Luna - a story of opera and incest featuring a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Jill Clayburgh, then at the height of her late 70s fame. [Also appearing in small roles were Fred Gwynne and an up-and-coming Roberto Benigni.] Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described it as "one of the most sublimely foolish movies ever made by a director of Mr. Bertolucci's acknowledged talents." Roger Ebert wrote, "Bertolucci has sprung his gourd this time." [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on May 30, 2009 - 4 comments

Ruined Endings... because you fell asleep during the last part of that movie and you just want to know what happened, this site exists.
posted by not_on_display on May 29, 2009 - 39 comments

Hollywood Bloopers: 1936-1947 A couple of the years won't load for me, but the ones I can watch are fun.
posted by grumblebee on May 29, 2009 - 14 comments

The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires combined the tail end of Hammer film's Dracula series with, the then, burgeoning martial arts craze to create "The First Kung Fu Horror Spectacular!" [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on May 29, 2009 - 11 comments

In 1978, William Peter Blatty published The Ninth Configuration - his first novel since the blockbuster success of The Exorcist. A reworking of his earlier Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane, it told the story of a Marine psychiatrist providing unorthodox treatment to mentally wounded Vietnam veterans at a facility located in a castle in the Pacific Northwest. Two years later, Blatty's film adaptation received Golden Globe nominations for Best Drama and Screenplay - winning the latter. Critic Mark Kermode described it as "a breathtaking cocktail of philosophy, eye-popping visuals, jaw-dropping pretentiousness, rib-tickling humour and heart-stopping action. ... Blatty directs like a man with no understanding of, or interest in, the supposed limits of mainstream movie-making. The result is a work of matchless madness which divides audiences as spectacularly as the waves of the Red Sea, a cult classic that continues to provoke either apostolic devotion or baffled dismissal." (previously)
posted by Joe Beese on May 27, 2009 - 20 comments

Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing! Werner Herzog remakes/doesn't remake Ferrara.
posted by ambulance blues on May 27, 2009 - 58 comments

Well, she's already been rebooted once, died twice and come back as a comic book. I'm sure she'll survive a feature relaunch.
posted by permafrost on May 26, 2009 - 72 comments

Lonely, lovelorn robots (film). Tardiness and sharks (film). Creative sounds with dominoes. (audio) Using Tetris as the inspiration for interior design elements. (visual) Just a few fun things floating around in the mind of Tomas Mankovsky.
posted by jeanmari on May 25, 2009 - 2 comments

“Until the recent Great Rebellion, the Jedi Bendu were the most feared warriors in the universe. For one hundred thousand years, generations of Jedi perfected their art as the personal bodyguards of the emperor. They were the chief architects of the invincible Imperial Space Force which expanded the Empire across the galaxy, from the celestial equator to the farthest reaches of the Great Rift. Now these legendary warriors are all but extinct. One by one they have been hunted down and destroyed as enemies of the New Empire by a ferocious and sinister rival warrior sect, the Knights of Sith.” - The first draft of Star Wars... was awful.
posted by Artw on May 25, 2009 - 149 comments

Sorry I'm late: whimsical, enjoyable stop-animation. The making of is also great.
posted by Saddo on May 22, 2009 - 18 comments

Though film is not generally Andy Warhol's field of greatest fame, some see his long and storied history in film as "where Warhol's supreme achievement lies". And then there are the two horror films from 1973: Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (or Flesh for Frankenstein) and Andy Warhol's Dracula (or Blood for Dracula). The two films were filmed quickly and inexpensively in the Spring of 1973, using the Roger Corman method of filming two movies at one location using the same actors to decrease costs. Frankenstein was filmed first, using Space-Vision 3-D. But filming 3D footage was too expensive and time-consuming, so Dracula was shot in standard 35mm film. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 21, 2009 - 23 comments

Lost At E Minor is an online publication of inspiring art, illustration, photography, music, fashion, film — basically contemporary pop culture.
posted by netbros on May 20, 2009 - 23 comments

An art student project slags the art school administration. (SLYT) An art student at the San Francisco Art Institute snuck a short film into the MFA show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that raised cheers from the packed audience. A black and white film, hand processed in Coca Cola, that portrayed the Art Institute as a ghost town and shamed the administration by name in calling attention to the fact that they are gutting the faculty and stealing valuable resources from students.
posted by njohnson23 on May 19, 2009 - 65 comments

Dreams With Sharp Teeth – clips from a Sundance Channel documentary on science fiction writer (and somewhat litigious colourful character) Harlan Ellison. Harlan says pay the writer. (via)
posted by Artw on May 19, 2009 - 101 comments

Colin is a new British horror film told from a Zombie's point of view. It was made for £45 and apparently it went down well at Cannes . Peter Jackson's first film Bad Taste did a similar thing. This documentary features Jackson's parents talking about taking the film to France.
posted by debord on May 19, 2009 - 90 comments

Perpetual Motions — for emerging filmmakers to make short calling-card films and for more experienced creators to explore the limits of animation on the web. From the National Film Board of Canada.
posted by netbros on May 17, 2009 - 1 comment

The David Lynch Interview Project. A 121-part documentary series featuring 3-5 minute portraits of ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) Americans from all over the country starts on June 1. Here's a Preview.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on May 16, 2009 - 15 comments

Blanka is a collection of original, vintage, and limited edition posters and prints.
posted by netbros on May 16, 2009 - 9 comments

Since the mid 1990s, Don Hertzfeldt has been making animated shorts by hand. To date, his 8 primary films have an apprioximate runtime of 75 minutes, and in total have won 117 awards, all shot on 16 or 35 milimeter film. (There is another 8 minutes or so that was part of the Animation Show (previously).) His recent films have been shot on the same camera rig that recorded It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), as he noted in a 2007 interview (part of a Scene Unseen Podcast (direct link to the MP3)). Hertzfeltd is currently two thirds of the way through his most ambitious project to date, a trilogy of films which have been called "the closest thing on film yet to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." (Video links inside) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 15, 2009 - 31 comments

The National Film Board of Canada's 5th annual online short film competition "Internet votes will decide the best film, and the winner will be announced at Cannes on May 21." NFB previously. [via Drawn!]
posted by mediareport on May 14, 2009 - 6 comments

Kurt Vonnegut's perennial 1961 story "Harrison Bergeron" has been given a new film adaptation. (via)
posted by Joe Beese on May 13, 2009 - 68 comments

Cult western classic One-Eyed Jacks (1961) is the only film ever directed by Marlon Brando, who happened to replace the original director, none other than Stanley Kubrick.
posted by ageispolis on May 11, 2009 - 15 comments

The SF Signal Mind Meld feature poses science fiction related questions to a number of SF luminaries and the scientist, science writer or blogger. Subjects have included the best women writers in SF, taboo topics in SF, underated authors and the most controversial SF novels of the past and present. The also cover lighter topics, such the role of media tie-ins, how Battlestar Galactica could have ended better (bonus Geoff Ryman) and the realistic (or otherwise) use of science on TV SF shows.
posted by Artw on May 6, 2009 - 17 comments

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has put 675 reels of archival 16 mm film online via the Internet Archive. Most of the film is unedited, and stems either from Museum research, or was donated by interested amateurs. Much of it is silent, reflecting the technology of the day. One highlight are the four surviving reels of the long-running TV show 'What in the World" (look for the episode starring Vincent Price), but the archive is full of other hidden gems, such as the 1950s archaeological expedition to Tikal, a 1940 film "A 1000 Mile Road Trip Across America", and Glimpses of Life Among the Catawba and Cherokee Indians of the Carolinas (1927). The films are downloadable in various formats, including MPEG2, Ogg Video, and 512Kb MPEG4. Happy browsing! via.
posted by Rumple on May 3, 2009 - 12 comments

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Scores. The Hollywood Reporter and a jury of film music experts select the 100 greatest film scores of all time. One of the jury is Dan Goldwasser, editor of Soundtrack.net, which publishers interviews with composers, reviews of soundtracks and keeps a valuable list of trailer music - for when a new trailer uses old film music and you can't quite remember where it's from. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Apr 30, 2009 - 60 comments

The Meatrix: parts I, II: Revolting, and II 1/2.
posted by parudox on Apr 28, 2009 - 51 comments

Disturbing Strokes [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Apr 20, 2009 - 54 comments

Women losing their shoes, mostly high heels, appear to be a common theme in movies and TV serials... This list one is the first, consisting of what I term “Prime” shoe loss scenes... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Apr 18, 2009 - 50 comments