When it comes to unappealing couples that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Arch Hall Jr. and Marilyn Manning are near the top of the heap. Their appearance in
Eegah provided rich fodder for Joel and the bots. And yet, only one year after the release of
Eegah, Hall and Manning would find themselves together again in radically different roles.
[more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI
on Jun 17, 2013 -
15 comments
In the mid-1920s, Claude Friese-Greene filmed
The Open Road, a record of his journey through Britain, using the
'Biocolour' technique first developed by his father William. Eighty years later, the BFI produced a digital version of the
preserved and restored film.
We've seen
London in 1926 previously
on MeFi, but there's plenty more of
The Open Road to see, including
weavers in Kilbarchan (1:16),
farmers harvesting with oxen in Cirencester (0:52),
Glamorgan coal-miners (0:46), and more.
[more inside]
posted by Catseye
on Jun 17, 2013 -
7 comments
"
One day I dreamed that my parents, my brothers and I went to visit three islands and I jumped into the water without protection," she wrote in her diary. "
I felt like I could be in the water and not drown. I was curious and I swam into the deep water and then I saw my skeleton with my name written on it." Roger Omar
collects children's dreams, and asks
artists to illustrate them.
[more inside]
posted by taz
on Jun 9, 2013 -
18 comments
The Vampires, a secret federation of thieves and killers, rule the Paris underworld through intimidation, murder, and a certain diabolic je ne sais quoi. After the headless body of the police inspector in charge of the Vampire investigation turns up in a swamp, dauntless reporter Philipe Guérande steps up his efforts to bring the gang to justice. But is he equal to the schemes of the protean Grand Vampire and his lieutenant, the cat burglar, assassin, and sometime torch singer called Irma Vep? And can anyone hope to prevail against the rogue criminal Moréno and the unearthly power of his gaze?
Les Vampires (1915-1916),
Louis Feuillade's six and a half hour film serial, still communicates the nerve, pace, and delirium that inspired Lang, Hitchcock, Assayas and Maddin. Here are
all ten episodes of this
"supreme delight of cinema." Three more of Feuillade's best serials wait below the cut.
[more inside]
posted by Iridic
on May 31, 2013 -
12 comments
Do you turn off Old Yeller before the end so you can pretend that he lived a long and happy life? Did a cute pet on a movie poster make you think it would be a fun comedy but it turned out to be a pet-with-a-terminal-illness tearjerker instead? Are you unable to enjoy the human body count in a horror movie because you're wondering whether the dog's going to kick the bucket? Have you ever Googled "Does the [dog/cat/horse/Klingon targ] die in [movie title]?"
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then welcome -
DoestheDogDie.com is here for you!
[more inside]
posted by jedicus
on May 29, 2013 -
142 comments
io9: "After making a mere $84 million at the U.S. box office,
Star Trek Into Darkness is considered by some to be a disappointment. Perhaps the problem is that it was a touch confusing. To help our readers better understand it, we've compiled and answered
these Frequently Asked Questions about the movie."
(Maximum Possible Spoiler Warning)
posted by davidjmcgee
on May 21, 2013 -
450 comments
The project centers on nine women in the feminist lesbian porn industry who are recorded for a 24-hour period, with 10-second blips of their everyday lives playing out in five-minute intervals. What’s revealed is an intimate portrait of a marginalized community opening up about sex, gender politics, depression, and their daily grind in a way
that’s downright real.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on May 18, 2013 -
4 comments
Google is celebrating what would have been graphic designer Saul Bass' 93rd birthday with
a Doodle celebrating some of his most famous title sequences. The doodle, set appropriately to
Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance, " pays homage to Bass' visual work on
Psycho,
The Man With The Golden Arm,
Spartacus,
West Side Story,
Vertigo,
North by Northwest,
Anatomy of a Murder, and
Around the World in 80 Days.
posted by troika
on May 8, 2013 -
30 comments
The
George Eastman House is producing a series of nicely produced videos, each about 10 minutes long, demonstrating
every major technological development in photographic process with guidance from historians, curators, and artists and illustrated by objects from their collection. There are more to come, but you can start now with
The Dageurrotype,
The Collodion Process,
The Albumen Print,
The Woodburytype,
The Platium Print, and
The Gelatin Silver Print.
posted by Miko
on May 5, 2013 -
12 comments
“For more than 150 years, logging techniques remained the same. Men cut trees by hand and loaded them on horse-drawn sleds to be hauled over snow to the river. Skilled river drivers maneuvered the logs downstream, risking their limbs and lives every day. [
From Stump To Ship] survives as a record of the long log business. Highly detailed scenes, filmed year-round, are uniquely enhanced by the original script, written to be read with the silent footage in the 1930s. The soundtrack is brought to life by
Tim Sample, narrator and renowned Maine humorist, in the role of the filmmaker, Alfred Ames.”
[more inside]
posted by zamboni
on May 1, 2013 -
9 comments
Shake Hands With Danger is not just your ordinary, terrifically entertaining, 70s-era heavy machinery safety film. Oh, no! It also features some badass country-rock riffery and very, uh... site-specific lyric content that propels it into a whole other league of entertainment.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on May 1, 2013 -
34 comments
The problem is that cinema, as I define it and as something that inspired me, is under assault by the studios and, from what I can tell, with the full support of the audience. The reasons for this, in my opinion, are more economic than philosophical, but when you add an ample amount of fear and lack of vision and a lack of leadership you’ve got a trajectory that is pretty difficult to reverse. - "Retired" director
Steven Soderbergh speaks to the San Francisco International Film Festival about
the state of cinema - (
summary, full audio at bottom of
page 2)
posted by Artw
on Apr 29, 2013 -
49 comments
Despite her varied accomplishments, it seems
Nelly Kaplan remains largely unknown outside of France.
The only female filmaker
linked with surrealism; she is
known for films that utilize her unique combination of gentleness, grotesquerie, vulgarity, boldness, and contradiction.
La Fiancee du Pirate (1969)
is online (Also known as "A Very Curious Girl" and "Dirty Mary") .
It was praised by one of greatest fans Pablo Picasso
as insolence raised to the status of a fine art.
(Her 1967 documentary
Le Regard Picasso won a Golden Lion at Venice but seems to have practically disappeared).
posted by adamvasco
on Apr 25, 2013 -
1 comment
