Posts tagged with movies
World on a Wire
A dystopic science-fiction epic, World on a Wire is German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s gloriously cracked, boundlessly inventive take on future paranoia. With dashes of Kubrick, Vonnegut, and Dick, but a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of reluctant action hero Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate and governmental conspiracy. At risk? Our entire (virtual) reality as we know it. This long unseen three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the weird world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses.
Recently restored. Trailer here and more information & US playdates are available on the Janus site.
Guys, Its Not Even That Good of A Title
“Stranger than Fiction may refer to:
In film:
- Stranger than Fiction (1921 film), an action-drama starring Katherine MacDonald
- Stranger than Fiction (1930 film), a drama starring Harry Lorraine
- Stranger than Fiction (1934 film), a newsreel directed by Charles E. Ford
- Stranger than Fiction (1994 film), a documentary directed by Nicholas Briggs
- Stranger than Fiction (2000 film), a comedy-thriller starring Mackenzie Astin
- Stranger than Fiction (2006 film), a comedy-drama starring Will Ferrell”
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. Their films would probably be better if they’d seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much. Actually, it’s when you see too little that you run the risk of being influenced. If you see a lot, you can choose the films you want to be influenced by. Sometimes the choice isn’t conscious, but there are some things in life that are far more powerful than we are, and that affect us profoundly. If I’m influenced by Hitchcock, Rossellini or Renoir without realizing it, so much the better. If I do something sub-Hitchcock, I’m already very happy. Cocteau used to say: “Imitate, and what is personal will eventually come despite yourself.” You can always try.
Nothing… Spice, a Little Dust
Model unit supervisor Brian Smithies dusts off the planet Caladan prior to shooting. The three-dimensional model was one element among many in the complex composite shot of the Atreides armada entering the Guild heighliner for its space-folding journey to Arrakis.
“Spice must, like, flow, man.”
Rambo Movie Body Count
This needs an update for Rambo IV.
More facts, charts, quotes, and greatness over at the Lapham’s Quarterly Tumblr.
Capulets and Antigens
My Boyfriend is Type B is a South Korean romantic comedy film from the year 2005. The basic premise of the film comes from the Japanese blood type theory of personality, which claims that a person’s blood type can determine their personality traits. The heroine is type A (conservative and introverted) while her love interest is type B (passionate and irresponsible). –Wikipedia
The Guardian brings word that David Cronenberg is set to direct Lethem’s 1997 novel As She Climbed Across the Table.
As thriller plots have lost their moorings in the real world of causes and effects, something valuable has been lost. When actions become arbitrary, stories lose their power to help us make sense of the world and they become strictly formal patterns.
—Thom Andersen, “Collateral Damage: Los Angeles Continues Playing Itself”
“maybe he would make some front-page, drive-in news”
Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane
From a collection of posters for William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration.
Hausu
A poster by Sam Smith for Nobuhiko Obayahshi’s 1977 film House. A new 35mm print is currently making the rounds in the USA, courtesy of Janus. Here is a list of screenings.
From the NY Times review:
The yelps you’ll hear and possibly emit, though, will be of surprise and delight, not terror. “House,” which turns on a misbegotten, increasingly violent trip taken by seven teenage girls, is not in the least scary, despite its body count and gore. If the hairs on your neck snap to attention, it will be only because of Mr. Obayashi’s flamboyant visual style, his comic flights of fancy and genre manipulations. This might be about a haunted house, but it’s the film that is more truly possessed: in one scene a piano bites off the fingers of a musician tickling its keys; in another a severed head tries to take a bite out of a girl’s rear, snapping at the derrière as if it were an apple. Later a roomful of futons goes on the attack.
View the trailer here.
I saw this at IFC in New York. Recommended!
Criterion is selling t-shirts as well.
The Power
If you are feeling nostalgic for the days of scanning shelves full of well worn VHS tapes at your local video store, I recommend Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box. Fantagraphics has a preview of the book here.
“It’s the only avant-garde we’ve got.”
“Not that I’m complaining. I like it here.”
Newer » « Older