If you look at that video of Mohammad Sidique Khan [one of the 7/7 bombers] recording a video for his nine-month-old daughter, when he thought he was going to fight and die in Afghanistan, he was saying, ‘You and your mum are the best thing in my life, and I’d love to watch you growing up and learning to speak.’ And you realise that he’s making a pretty soppy speech from a middle-of-the-road Hollywood movie. He’s the ‘good dad’. And in his head he is. And that doesn’t preclude him going out and doing something violent. You do bad things not because you think they’re bad, but because you think they’re good — unless you’re a nihilist. British satirist Chris Morris discusses his first feature film
Four Lions, which is a comedy about Islamist suicide bombers.
Trailer.
Clip, concerning peroxide. Audio interview with Morris about the film,
Part 1 and
Part 2.
posted by Sticherbeast
on Apr 6, 2010 -
47 comments
You might have thought
The Phantom Menace was the worst movie ever made, but no - it's Attack of the Clones. And RedLetterMedia is here to tell you
exactly why.
Parts
one,
two,
three,
four,
five,
six,
seven,
eight, and
nine.
posted by flatluigi
on Apr 4, 2010 -
310 comments
Curious about the Average Shot Length of a movie? Wondering how the ASL has changed over time? The
Cinemetrics database comes to the rescue with statistical data on shot length!
posted by burnfirewalls
on Mar 15, 2010 -
19 comments
Despite my absolute fidelity to Sade's text, I have however introduced an absolutely new element: the action instead of taking place in eighteenth-century France, takes place practically in our own time, in Salò, around 1944, to be exact. (some links extremely NSFW)
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 14, 2010 -
95 comments
Slacker is a unique film written and directed by Richard Linklater that follows the life of various characters in a Austin, Texas. Mind-numbingly boring or oddly captivating, Slacker provided an inspiration to other independent movies of the era and helped established the image of slacker as we see it today. Quoting
Ebert, "We don't get a story, but we do get a feeling. "
A Salon retrospective.
posted by mikepaco
on Feb 8, 2010 -
86 comments
Coloring the Kingdom: the story of the all-female “finishing school” of hand-drawn animation that worked behind the scenes to create the first animated full-length Disney feature, Snow White. (
via.)
posted by 1f2frfbf
on Feb 5, 2010 -
8 comments
He invented or popularized a startling array of the fundamental elements of film: the dissolve, the fade-in and fade-out, slow motion, fast motion, stop motion, double exposures and multiple exposures, miniatures, the in-camera matte, time-lapse photography, color film (albeit hand-painted), artificial film lighting, production sketches and storyboards, and the whole idea of narrative film.
By 1897, in a studio of his own design and construction – the first complete movie studio – his hand forged virtually everything on his screen. Norman McLaren writes, "He was not only his own producer, ideas man, script writer, but he was his own set-builder, scene painter, choreographer, deviser of mechanical contrivances, special effects man, costume designer, model maker, actor, multiple actor, editor and distributor." Also, his own cinematographer, and the inventor of cameras to suit his special conceptions. Not even auteur directors such as Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, John Cassavetes, and Stanley Kubrick would personally author so many aspects of their films."
Inside: 57 films by Georges Méliès, the
Grandfather of Visual Effects.
[more inside]
posted by Paragon
on Feb 3, 2010 -
31 comments
There isn't a single decent candidate running for office, the homeless guy struck by a car was more fortunate than the auto workers and if you want a grilled raccoon they sure have a deal for you: it's
Detroit 2009, The Movie, the chronicle of a rough year from The Detroit News.
posted by krautland
on Jan 1, 2010 -
40 comments
The Aught-O-Matic. Slate's interactive guide to the critically recognized best movies of the decade, aggregating the results from several "best of the decade" lists. It's still in the process of being updated.
posted by Sticherbeast
on Dec 17, 2009 -
26 comments
Ya'll remember Johnathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, Minnesota gubernatorial candidate for the Vampires, Witches, and Pagans Party?
Of course you do. But have you seen
Impaler, the documentary about him?
hulu
posted by Pope Guilty
on Nov 3, 2009 -
10 comments
Looks like The
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers have been slated to star in
their own stop-motion animated movie,
Grass Roots: The Movie, produced by
bolexbrothers! Here, the Freaks' creator,
Gilbert Shelton, talks about the movie. In true stoner fashion, though, it's been "in production" since 2006, but
you can watch a teaser here. While you're waiting for the movie to be made, here's the youtubed version of bolexbrothers award-winning stop-motion feature length film,
The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb: 1 -
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 -
6
posted by not_on_display
on Oct 27, 2009 -
34 comments
The movie adaptation of
Mark Whitacre's story, Steven Soderbergh's
The Informant, based on the book by
Kurt Eichenwald was released last month. Whitacre's life belies easy explanation: a hugely important corporate whistleblower, at some point during the five years he spent informing on agribusiness behemoth
Archer Daniels Midland Whitacre embarked on a massive embezzlement scheme that would see him imprisoned for nearly eight and a half years. To this day, the
FBI remain divided on whether he is more hero or villain.
[more inside]
posted by MuffinMan
on Oct 20, 2009 -
19 comments
55 years ago,
Brown v. Board of Education was decided, which lead to the controversial court-ordered school integrations in the South. Four years later,
the prolific Charles Beaumont wrote his
only solo novel,
The Intruder, based on a true story but set in a fictitious small southern town of Caxton that is riled up by a mysterious man from out-of-town who wants to halt the school integration. The novel was turned into
a movie by the same name in 1962, produced, directed and financed by
Roger Corman, starring
a charismatic William Shatner as the mysterious intruder, some 4 years before the start of his iconic role in Star Trek.
Shot on location, using
locals who were not fully aware of the plot of the movie, the whole film was made for $80-$90,000, and was Corman's only film to lose money at the box offices. The production was
banned in some Missouri cities because the local people objected to the film's portrayal racism and segregation. The film finally saw a profit after its re-release on DVD in recent years. (
Previously discussed as part of this 1970s Shatner post; video links inside)
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jul 7, 2009 -
26 comments
ScriptShadow reviews the latest screenplays from Hollywood, usually with links to the screenplays themselves.
posted by alby
on Jul 7, 2009 -
13 comments
A Horror Film that will Stiffen You with Laughter! The jungle is jumping, with gals, gags, and goofs! And a gorilla! It's not the set-up for an awkward joke, but an
honest to
goodness motion picture, starring Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist, and nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo as themselves, though in roles approximating
Martin and Lewis. It was the comedy duo's only movie (possibly due to the
cease and desist request to
Sammy Petrillo from Jerry Lewis), and was one of Bela Lugosi's last movies. Some classify this movie as a
z-grade budget film, while others claim it to be
staggeringly unfunny. But don't take their word for it. You can
watch it all online, or download it from the
Internet Archive.
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 12, 2009 -
17 comments
Followup-filter:
Previously, we discussed the strange case of
After Last Season, the strange, deadpan trailer for a film that provoked curiosity around the 'net. Hoax? Comedy? Performance art? After Last Season has just made its (4 city) premier and the first reactions are in ...
[more inside]
posted by outlier
on Jun 7, 2009 -
76 comments
