Jason Shulman has created a series of photographs by pointing a large format camera at a large monitor for the duration of a movie, effectively flattening down an entire film into a single image. The photographs end up looking like impressionist paintings with only small details and color schemes recognizable from the original work. I think they’re beautiful.
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2011
I didn’t track my movie watching in 2012 but below is a list of movies that I watched and enjoyed over the past year.
Marley (10/10)
Being Elmo (9/10)
True Grit (8/10)
Toy Story 3 (8/10)
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi (8/10)
Adventureland (7/10)
The Descendants (7/10)
The Avengers (7/10)
Rango (6/10)
21 Grams (7/10)
The Joneses (6/10)
Here were my favorites from 2011, 2010, 2008, and 2007 I have done a handful of posts over the past year that have to do with movies. Go explore them under the movies tag.
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is probably my favorite Christmas song simply because of its emotional ambivalence. It resonates closely with so many of the feelings I have around the Christmas season. The lyrics open up that uneasy longing for that unattainable ideal of Christmas that so many of us want. The holidays can be hard.
My emotions during the holidays weigh heavily. Christmastime brings a contemplative melancholia that I actually revel in, and there is a wistful type of comfort in accepting this. In knowing that the season is steeped in nostalgia and want for a better time and place. In accepting that my memories will grow a little dimmer with the passing of the year. In acknowledging that our world can be unraveled, changed, and built back up with little of our own control. In understanding that friends, family, or loved ones are gone from our lives – for good. I feel akin with the folks who recognize that Christmas can be complicated, emotionally irresolute, and inherently blue.
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Below is a list Total Films put out containing of the 50 most hated films of all time today. It’s really just a list a movies that people love to hate. It mostly consists of crappy remakes (Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho) and horrible sequels ( Joel Schumacher’s 1997 “Batman And Robin”). There aren’t really any surprises on the list but I thought it might offer you a little Schadenfreude for your Tuesday evening. The entire list is after the jump and the top ten contain Total Film’s reason for making the list. Enjoy.
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I didn’t track my movie watching again during 2011. The fact is I didn’t really even watch that many movies over the last year (Much of my TV time was spent watching all of the Mad Men episodes). However, here are the five great movies I have seen over the past 365 days:
1. Herb & Dorothy (10/10)
2. Wrist Cutters: A Love Story (9/10)
3. Exit Through the Gift Shop (8/10)
4. Blue Valentine (8/10)
5. Young Adult (8/10)
I have done a few posts over the past year that have to do with movies. Go explore them under the movies tag.
Gif Credit: Maudit
This gif is a clip from the single most expensive scene shot in silent film history. The film is Buster Keaton’s “The General” (1926) and had a total budget of $400,000 supplied by Metro.
It was filmed in a single take with a real train and a ‘dummy’ engineer (notice the white arm hanging out the conductor’s window). It looked so realistic that the townspeople who had come to watch screamed in horror. The looks of shock on the faces of the Union officers in the film were also real because the actors who played them were not told what was going to happen to that train. Rumor has it that a spectator even fainted.
The scene was filmed in a conifer forest near the town of Cottage Grove, Oregon. The production company left the wreckage in the river bed after the scene was filmed and the wrecked locomotive became a minor tourist attraction for nearly twenty years. The metal of the train was salvaged for scrap during World War II.
On a side note, The Denver Silent Film Festival starts next week.
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The song “You And Me”, featured in the new film “Blue Valentine”, is of mysterious origins. All that is known is that the archival label Numero Group (which is an absolutely brilliant label that researches, recovers, remasters and repackages obscure pop gems that are no longer distributed) discovered the rehearsal tape at an estate sale in Columbus, OH. It was labeled only as ‘Penny and the Quarters’,
Directors at Numero have played this recording to over 100 movers and shakers from the time and no one has a clue who originally sang it or where it came from.
Regardless of its unknown origins, or popularity from the movie, the song is gorgeous. I think you should give it a listen:
Penny and the Quarters – You and Me