#filmaking

[mistydayyyy]

[foxsketch6543]

WATCH THE PROCESS HERE ❄️🌨️

[mantriatrt]

My Real FRIENDSHIP Searching for my ETERNAL TEAM and ETERNAL FRIENDS. TEAM & EF 🐾 , 🐟🐟 , ⭕️ , ❌

[depechenoir]

The manner in which certain identities and subjectivities perform within narratives help to reproduce and reassert the rewards of being a good citizen whilst concomitantly projecting the perils of being ideologically-subversive. Marxist sociologist Siegfried Kracauer engaged with some of these issues as early as 1947 within his seminal work From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of German Film. Here, Kracauer argued that early Weimar cinema and its characte constructions not only served to reflect the contemporary culture which produced them, but also served to unearth certain underlying truths that were not immediately obvious (in this case, anticipating Germany’s embrace of fascism). Kracauer depicted film and its images as a form of cultural mirror that could be studied to better understand the world and culture that produced them.

[t-rottengod]

WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS?

[blurrymerzsblog]

Just dream and flow.

[the-celluloid-correspondent]

Sisu, Tetris, and Polite Society Movie Reviews

Sisu: Directed by Jalmari Helander

During the final days of World War II, a solitary prospector crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-Earth retreat in northern Finland. When the soldiers decide to steal his gold, they quickly discover they just tangled with no ordinary miner.

Sisu delivers exactly what is shown in the trailers: a bunch of Nazis getting fucked up by a one-man army. It delivers this premise spectacularly with unique kills and spectacle action sequences. Furthermore, it has fun with this killing spree, to the point you find yourself immensely enjoying soldiers getting blown to smithereens. Jorma Tommila is fantastic here as this silent and stoic one-man army. He is badass, intimidating, and owns the screen. He truly portrays a character who is too angry to die. However, it was annoying seeing the insane amount of plot armor the main protagonist has. He survives numerous deadly wounds and events that should have killed him instantly. It became hard to take the movie seriously, especially when the events became more and more ridiculous. With that stated, I did enjoy this movie for what it was, and I had a blast watching it.

My Rating: B

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Tetris: Directed by Jon S. Baird

Henk Rogers discovers Tetris in 1988, and then risks everything by traveling to the Soviet Union, where he joins forces with inventor Alexey Pajitnov to bring the game to the masses.

Tetris is by far one of the most entertaining movies of 2023. It takes the ridiculous true story (yes, this is a true story) and has fun with it. The story is told in an immensely entertaining fashion that highlights the ridiculousness and seriousness of the acquisition of Tetris. The balance between these opposites tones is handled perfectly. Furthermore, the film pays a fantastic tribute to the game by incorporating its theme into the score and 8-bit pixel animation into the visual storytelling. Taron Egerton and the rest of the ensemble shine here. Overall a very fun movie that will definitely be on everyone's list of the most underrated movies of 2023.

My Rating: B+

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Polite Society: Nida Manzoor

A martial artist-in-training believes she must save her older sister from her impending marriage. After enlisting the help of her friends, she tries to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of sisterhood.

Polite Society is a meta, Gen-Z version of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. From the action pieces to the visuals, it tells its crazy story in an over-the-top fashion perfect for the film. Despite the first two acts being very strong, the film somewhat crumbles in its final act. The final act is dragged out and becomes too ridiculous to take the film seriously. However, the performances from the ensemble cast helped redeem the final act. The entire ensemble looked like they were having a blast filming this and doing their own stunts. Though it was obvious when they switched between the actor and the stunt double. Overall, Polite Society is a fun movie that goes lightly off the rails in its final act.

My Rating: B

[eyesclosednowjump]

Consider how playing with framing and certain styles of shooting and lighting your subjects can influence what the audience feels and perceives about the story and characters.

[kidakumajodevil]

Ed Wood Review

This time I’m reviewing a biopic: Tim Burton’s Ed Wood! The genre is one of my least favorite; I generally avoid watching them. It’s hard to pin down a particular reason: maybe I just prefer to escape to fantasy world’s, or that presenting a real person’s history in such a dramatized fashion for entertainment doesn't sit well with me. However, Ed Wood intrigued me, and I decided to give it a watch for the reasons I’m featuring on Bloody Sunday: much of it deals with the production of 50’s era Horror B-Movie’s (particularly the legendary “so bad its good” movies of the titular director)…and Bela fucking Lugosi. And woe and behold, just like with Shadow last week, I ended up watching it twice in a row. 

The premise of our film is that our hero Ed Wood (played wonderfully by Johnny Depp in what I believe to be his finest role) is struggling in Hollywood; he has infinite ambition/determination…and not much of anything else. Despite this, he has an uncanny ability to inspire loyalty in the people historically associated with his name: much of the movie follows him meeting these people and gathering a consistent crew willing to help him forge his “visions” (as misguided as they often are.) They get into all kinds of hilarious hijinks: like stealing a octopus from Universal as a set decoration, Ed getting funding for his movies by converting to the Baptist faith, or even just showing the domestic lives: each and everyone of them a fun, entertaining character in their own right (My second favorite being Maila Nurmi, AKA Vampire! Played excellently by Lisa Marie). Most of the movie follows this “slice of life” format, but we did sorta get a centralized plot in the form of Ed’s many struggles. There’s a very sweet subplot about Ed coming to term with his “cross-dressing”. And the movie, while using it for comedy, presents it a very respectfully tone that is quite unlike how LGBTQ people were usually shown in the later 1990’s (an amusing parallel to Ed’s own shockingly progressive, if horrible, Glen or Glenda.) Ed is sweet, adorable, and quite sympathetic…and sadly overshadowed in his own movie.  

You all know it was coming: Bela Lugosi (played beautifully in the literal Oscar-winning performance of his life by Martin Landau) is the heart of this movie for me. There’s so many facets to his role: as a big horror geek, all the references to Dracula and his other classic movie roles made me chuckle. Bela himself, on the other hand, made me howl with laughter. His jokes and physical performance are a hoot…and then you get the serious side. Bela’s at the end of his life: a fading relic, who is considered obsolete by Hollywood at large. You can see in his weary face all the demons he’s fighting: his morphine addiction, his financial problems, his rage, his sadness, but most of all his loneliness. I don’t want to spoil things, but I was reduced to a sobbing mess near the end. And through it all, Ed’s always there comforting him sheltering him. And Bela looks out for Ed too, in his own way. Ed as a character is a little bit overshadowed by his other half, but I believe the relationship these two men have is the true soul of everything in the movie. And even after Bela is buried in the darkness of his trademark cape, he casts his shadow over the rest of the film. This dissonance, between comedy and heartfelt happiness (and tragedy) is the movie’s most remarkable feature. 

On the technical side, this is such a great movie: I enjoyed just being able to look at on my screen. The decision to film it in black and white gives it a gloriously pulpy mood: grounded for a Tim Burton movie, but still having his trademark gothicness. This film is a true homage to that black and white era of horror, down to its soundtrack (with the legendary SWAN LAKE, Op.20 being a recurring motif), and that makes it watchable alone without all these other amazing elements.

Tim Burton occupies a weird spot for me. I like many of his movie’s…but he wasn’t a childhood mainstay of mine. As a result of this relationship, he was in the “good director, but overrated” camp. This movie has single-handedly reversed my opinion: he’s a great director, and this is his best movie. I came for the horror…and stayed for Bela. And the many, many things that make this an awesome cult film. I give it my bloody recommendation!

[hard--headed--woman]

Sorry again for the late post ! Today, after talking about my favourite poet (Renée Vivien), I'm gonna talk about on of my favourite filmmaker ;

Chantal Akerman !

Chantal Akerman was a Belgian filmmaker who was born in Belgium in 1950 and died in Paris in 2015.

She has had an absolutely insane influence on cinema, most recently when her film "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles", was named best film of all time (which honestly is very fair, this movie is a damn masterpiece).

She was a lesbian, though she didn't talk about it much and didn't want to be reduced to a "lesbian filmmaker". She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton, a cellist. Female homosexuality is a recurring theme in her movies - with sometimes long and explicit sex scenes between women, not at all created for the male gaze.

Chantal Akerman comes from a Polish Jewish family. Her grandparents and her mother, Natalia, were deported to Auschwitz, and only her mother returned. Her relationship with Judaism has had a profound influence on her cinema.

She studied briefly at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle in Paris, before going to New York, meeting some other filmmakers, and making some short movies, movies and documentaries. But her huge international success came in 1975, with Jeanne Dielman.

"I was tossing and turning in bed, worried. And suddenly, in a single minute, I saw the whole of Jeanne Dielman..."

I'm going to try and keep it professional when I talk about Jeanne Dielman, but it's going to be hard, because I LOVE this film.

It's a three-hour film that follows three days in the life of a widowed housewife, Jeanne Dielman, who lives with her son, spends her time doing household chores and prostitutes herself to survive. The film is shot in the illusion of real time: if Jeanne spends 30 minutes cleaning her living room, you'll be watching her do it for 30 minutes. (Obviously none of the scenes are that long and there are ellipses but that's to illustrate my point). It's revolutionary. A poignant film about the condition of housewives, alienation, the way we make sure we're busy all the time so we don't have to think about life or death. The tension escalates little by little until the deeply disturbing end of the film, when everything comes crashing down. A masterpiece. Everyone should watch it. It's long but it's worth it! (Plus the main actress is incredible, both as an actress and as a person).

This film was a huge success, and she continued to make others, with recurring themes of the status of women, mother-daughter relationships, lesbianism, death, mental health, alienation, boredom, the need for freedom, solitude, the passage of time, inner suffocation...

More generally, women are at the heart of his work. Women, their inner lives, their identity as women, their experiences...

Chantal was also a great feminist. She defended women's rights in her words, her actions and her films, and was keen to put women in the spotlight. She even surrounded herself almost exclusively with women to create her films.

Suffering from manic-depressive psychological disorders and deeply affected by the death of her mother Natalia a year and a half earlier, she decided to end her life at the age of 65 on 5 October 2015 in Paris.

She is buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery.

She is remembered today as an extraordinary filmmaker and a true innovator. Her films, long, emotionally chanllenging, psychologically and philosophically profound, are quite simply splendid. Check her work!!!

Chantal had a unique and magnificent style, and many more people should watch her films and documentaries.

[atoubaa]

Stills from "Alberta's Room" directed by Victoire Karera Kampire

[venice-1987]

An annoying phenomenon I've noticed

Alternatively: Whatever you do, don't go onto the TDP reddit

(Alternatively, let people ship things)

[scrunckled-idiot]

I WAS TRYING TO-

I WAS TRYING TO LOCK AND ZERO SPYS BODY TO ENGIES HEAD TO MAKE DELL AND UH-

GUH-

UGHGU UHHGH

GUGHHNNNNNNNNNHGGU

[lforlimbo]

4.4.1957 Happy Birthday Aki Kaurismäki “But I couldn’t write dialogue for upper-class people because I wouldn’t know what they say. I don’t know if they talk at all. Maybe they are just shopping. And selling and buying stocks. Stocks and stockings. I find rich people boring.”

[vertigoartgore]

Rest in peace David Lynch.

January 20th, 1946 - January 16th, 2025

Photo taken from this article.