#independent comedy

[francis-ford-kofola]

HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022) dir. Mike Cheslik (official website of the movie)

[doghowto]

4th of July BBQ just for the dogs! 🥩 Follow me for more dogs living good!

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, 2024)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Breakfast Club (1985) dir. John Hughes

[theersatzcowboy]

Mississippi Masala (1991)

Two of the Hottest People You’ve Ever Seen fall in love—despite the protestations of their families and the cultural differences that divide them—against the backdrop of the dreary Deep South in Mira Nari’s sexy, undeniable romantic dramedy.

Director: Mira Nair

Cinematographer: Edward Lachman

Production Designer: Mitch Epstein

Costume Designers: Ellen Lutter and Susan Lyall

Starring: Sarita Choudhury, Denzel Washington, Roshan Seth, Sharmila Tagore, Charles S. Dutton, Joe Seneca, Ranjit Chowdhry, Mohan Gokhale, Natalie Oliver-Atherton, Sahira Nair, and Konga Mbadu.

[goblinpuppy35]

David Thewlis

Divorcing Jack - 1998

Part 9/ 7

[cobwebinthecorner]

I keep on watching the Dropout show shorts they post on YouTube like it's my only way of experiencing their content, and COMPLETELY forgetting that I'm actively paying for their streaming service and I can just watch the full episodes instead.

[therogerclarkfanclub]

Damn Handy teaser trailer

The trailer for Roger's and Kaili Vernoff's upcoming horror/comedy short film, Damn Handy, is now available! 🎉

The link above is wonky, so if that doesn't work, just go to the link below to see the trailer directly on Vimeo.

Watch the Damn Handy trailer on Vimeo

[nate667]

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐟 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 🇺🇸🤘🏼

[spacetimesally]

The Spacetime Sally short, "Spaceship Dawn" (10:04) - YouTube

The consequence of a lost gamble puts Sally in the hostess seat for a corporate orientation film for a space station research vessel in, 'Spaceship Dawn'

Unfortunately, this might be too long to post to the tumblr platform (the constant aggravating error message "Well that certainly didn't work..." since Friday when trying to upload the video, which is less than 500mb, and I tried a 1080 file, a 720 file, from a chrome browser, from a firefox browser, from my phone, on Friday, on Saturday, and on Sunday, and it just won't do), so, please check it out on YouTube.

Embedded from YouTube, maybe you see the video below, maybe you don't, the tumblr platform is a finicky bitch.

[inusuto]

Comic jumpscare! Remember when I did those...holy crap, 4 years ago?? Well, what better way to return to form than lament the impending fall of a country! :D

[chillstudieos]

Book #1 - Page 05

Previous - Next

We will not talk about how long this took. December was a tough month for me 0--0.

Anywho, MORE ART!!!!! I should be quicker to make pages now that We about to hit cartoon style. I'm much faster drawing in a goofy style then in an anime one. LOL.

Anyway---ENJOY! More pages coming soon!

[novakmiyc]

Support an indie animation project

Hello! Thank you for visiting this page.

I'm @novacorpseart, and this blog is for my upcoming project- 'Kill Me If You Can'.

For a while now, I've been inspired by creators such as Vivsiepop, Liam Vickers, @gooseworx, @zeddyzi and @lackadaisycats, who have brought their stories and characters to life despite the difficulties of independent animation. That's what I want to do.

I've spent years developing my own original characters, their story, and the world they live in. I want to share them with the world- but I need support. My ideas are still developing and I'm still working on everything I need to start off my project. It'll be a couple years before anything big happens, but I thought that it'd be better to start early and gain supporters.

My idea: A nu-metal band of dysfunctional friends called "Kill Me If You Can" learns to cope with their new fame and the struggles that come with it, especially those who wish to stand in their way. The show will be a 2d animated drama-comedy and have an age rating of teens and up, as it will contain some dark/adult themes.

If you want to support me and my project, please just follow this blog. Reblog my posts, send asks, comments, anything. If you think you have skills that could help me out (and would like to), send me a message.

Thank you <3

[fibula-rasa]

Lost, but Not Forgotten: What Price Beauty? (1925)

Direction: Thomas Buckingham

Scenario & Story: Natacha Rambova

Titles: Malcolm Stuart Boylan

Production Manager: S. George Ullman

Camera: J. D. Jennings

Art Direction: Natacha Rambova 

Production Design: William Cameron Menzies

Costume Design: Adrian

Studio: Circle Films (Production) & Pathé Exchange (Distribution)

Performers: Nita Naldi, Pierre Gendron, Virginia Pearson, Dolores Johnson, Myrna Loy, Sally Winters, La Supervia, Marilyn Newkirk, Victor Potel, Spike Rankin, Rosalind Byrne, Templar Saxe, Leo White Maybe: John Steppling, Paulette Duval, Dorothy Dwan, and Sally Long

Premiere: None, general release: January 22, 1928

Status: Presumed entirely lost.

Length: Variously reported as 5000 and 4000 feet (more commonly listed as 4000) or 5 reels

Synopsis (synthesized from magazine summaries of the plot):

Mary, a.k.a. “Miss Simplicity” (Dolores Johnson) is a starry-eyed, country-to-city transplant. She works at a beauty shop operated by a glamorous matron (Virginia Pearson) and owned by the young and handsome Clay (Pierre Gendron). 

Mary is in love with Clay, but doesn’t have the nerve or feminine wiles to woo him. The uber-sophisticated Rita (Nita Naldi), however, is chock full of nerves and wile. Rita’s fancy clothes and perfumes and advanced flirting skills leave Mary feeling destined to fail at winning Clay’s amorous attention. 

These feelings sublimate into an expressionistic dream for Mary, where she finds herself transformed into a sophisticate like Rita. Her boss is seen as a magnificent wizard, converting her clients into archetypes of glamour: exotic types, flappers, and sirens. Her competition, Rita, is seen as a bewitching spider.

In the end, surprising Mary, it turns out that her fresh-faced, unassuming charm is more appealing to Clay than Rita’s more practiced charm.

Additional sequence(s) featured in the film (but I’m not sure where they fit in the continuity):

Scene of the trials and tribulations of a fat woman trying to “reduce”

Points of Interest:

Only one quarter of Nita Naldi’s Hollywood films have survived (7 extant titles/21 lost or mostly lost titles).

——— ——— ———

What Price Beauty? was the first and only film produced under Natacha Rambova’s own company. Coordinating production for the film was the business manager for Rambova and her husband Rudolph Valentino, S. George Ullman. The couple met Ullman when he was working for Mineralava beauty products, the sponsor of their 1922-3 dancing tour. 

When Rudolph Valentino entered into a contract with United Artists, said contract reportedly stipulated that Valentino-Rambova were not a package deal. Therefore, Rambova could not collaborate with Valentino on his productions for United. Possibly as consolation, Ullman funded a production for Rambova while Valentino worked on The Eagle (1925, extant).

For Rambova, What Price Beauty? was meant to be a proving ground for her idea that an artistic film could be made on a modest budget. She also wished to remind people that she was a skilled artist in her own right.

In an interview in Picture Play Magazine from August 1925, Rambova asserts:

“…I do not want the production in any sense to be referred to as high-brow or ‘arty’. My reputation for being ‘arty’ is one of the things that I have to live down, and I hope by this picture, which is a comedy—even to the extent of gags and hokum—to overcome that idea. “A woman who marries a celebrity is bound to find herself in a more or less equivocal position, it seems, and her difficulties are only increased when she happens to have had some artistic ambitions of her own before her marriage. I am afraid that those who have accused me of meddling in my husband’s affairs forget that I enjoyed a certain reputation and a very good remuneration for my work as well before I became Mrs. Valentino.”

“What I desire personally is simply to be known for the work which I have always done, and that has brought me a reputation entirely independent of my marriage.”

There isn’t a vast amount of information on what exactly prevented WPB from gaining release in a timely fashion. If the film was truly nothing more than a ploy to separate Rambova from Valentino, that would be an absurd waste of time, money (~$80,000 in 1925 USD), and talent—Rambova employed soon-to-be famous designer Adrian for costumes and William Cameron Menzies for set decoration. Not to mention that, in front of the camera, Nita Naldi was still a popular star and the Rambova discovery, Myrna Loy, made her quickly hyped debut. 

When Pathé finally purchased WPB for distribution in 1928, they did very little to promote the film. Naldi had moved on from the film industry—as had Rambova. And, while Loy hadn’t become the huge star we know today by January of 1928, Warner Brothers had already given her top billing in a number of films. Pathé barely mentions Loy’s role in the little promotion they did do.

To put WPB’s release in the context of Rambova’s personal/professional biography (which you can read more about here):

June/July 1925 – WPB is completed, Rambova and Valentino separate (in July according to Rambova’s mother as quoted in Rambova’s book Rudy)

August 1925 – Rambova leaves Hollywood for New York City, reportedly to negotiate distribution for WPB. She and Valentino would see each other in person for the last time. Rambova leaves NYC for Europe.

September 1925 – Valentino draws up a new will disinheriting Rambova

November 1925 – Rambova returns to the US to act in a film, When Love Grows Cold (1926, presumed lost), a title which Rambova objected to

December 1925 – Rambova files for divorce

August 1926 – Valentino dies 

January 1928 – WPB is finally released with no fanfare by Pathé

In my research for my Rambova cosplay, the suspicious production/release history for this film stood out to me. I hoped that I might find some reliable evidence of whether WPB was a consolation prize and/or a scheme to keep Rambova and Valentino apart. Honestly and unfortunately, circumstantial evidence does support it!

After poring over what few contemporary sources cover WPB, there seemed to be no plan in place for distribution as the film was in production. United Artists, at whose lot the film was shot, claimed to have nothing to do with its release. Ullman had a news item placed about negotiating the distribution rights in the East. However, in Ullman’s own memoir, he admits that when he travelled to New York with Rambova, it was in a personal, not professional capacity—navigating the couple’s separation. (Ullman’s book contains many disprovable claims and misrepresentations, so anything cited from it should be taken with a grain of salt.) That said, Ullman’s failure to secure even a modest distribution deal for WPB in a reasonable timeframe speaks to how ill-founded Valentino’s and Rambova’s trust in his business acumen was.

WPB cost $80,000 to produce, which converts to $1.4 million in 2023 USD. While that wasn’t an outrageous budget for a Hollywood feature film at the time, especially one with such advanced production value, it’s certainly an absurd cost if the goal was only to separate a bankable star from his wife and collaborator.

A close friend and employee of Valentino and Rambova, Lou Mahoney, recalled in Michael Morris’ Madam Valentino:

“The picture was previewed at a theater on the east side of Pasadena, and Mahoney remembered the audience reaction as positive, but, thereafter, What Price Beauty? was consigned to oblivion. Mahoney knew why: ‘No help came from anyone, no thoughts of trying to get this picture properly released. No help came from Ullman, Schenck, or anybody else. Their whole thought was that if the picture were a success, Mrs. Valentino would be a success. She would then start producing under the Rudolph Valentino Production Company. But this nobody wanted—except herself, and Mr. Valentino.’”

——— ——— ———

The few reviews from 1928 that I was able to find are not very complimentary of WPB. The critics seem thrown by the film’s tone or genre—reading it as a drama. (Part of that is Pathé’s fault as they listed it as one.) But, according to sources contemporary to WPB’s production, it was intended to be a farcical satire of the beauty industry and social expectations of feminine beauty. Given the simple story, the intentional typage of characters (“The Sport,” “The Sissy,” and “Miss Simplicity”), and the over-the-top-but-on-a-budget art design of WPB, all signs point to high camp. In 1925 as well as 1928, the stodgier side of the critical spectrum would likely fail to see its appeal.

It’s a true shame we can’t find out for ourselves how good, bad, or campy WPB was as of yet, but here’s hoping the film resurfaces!

More about Rambova

GIFs of some of her design work on film

☕Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

Transcribed Sources & Annotations over on the WMM Blog!

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Breakfast Club (1985) written, produced, and directed by John Hughes.

[mossgloam]

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nearly a decade ago, @aloegoeltz and i recorded a silly lo-fi video for my song, rather be alone; recently, i discovered a way to download it from an old account and thought it should live here. 🍂⏳👹

new music on the way soon.