Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Cinema Gallery: 200 MORE Movie Images, Part 1 of 5

I am doing this only because (a) I enjoy it and (b) Movieman over at The Dancing Image let me know that I had a particular talent at this frame-grabbing business (he said that my previous 200 images in my Cinema Gallery were among his favorite movie blog posts ever, which is quite a compliment, coming from him). So, for 2010, I'm contributing 200 more entries towards my CINEMA GALLERY. I hope y'all find something fascinating about these images, and that they spur you on to watching the movies from which they hail. In the end, this is a deceptively simple post: you'll see only 40 frames here, but all are extremely indelible.

An innocent is fed in Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 66)

The Color of Pomegranates. (Sergei Parajanov, 68)

Blue shadows on the trail in Three Amigos. (John Landis, 86)

A penguin's tears break into ice cubes in 8 Ball Bunny. (Chuck Jones, 50)

Kim Hunter, in all her backlit glory, reassuring David Niven in A Matter of Life and Death. (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 46)

A worthy woman's lowest point's hardly endured in The House of Mirth. (Terrence Davies, 2001)

"Satan?" The Iron Giant. (Brad Bird, 99)

A fan's disbelief's registered in A Hard Day's Night. (Richard Lester, 64)

The slap of righteousness in The Night of the Hunter. (Charles Laughton, 55)

A return to simpler times in The Deer Hunter. (Michael Cimino, 78)

The trapped witness the trapped in The Diary of Anne Frank. (George Stevens, 59)

Cozy couch play in Clueless. (Amy Heckerling, 95)

The marathon begins in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Sydney Pollack, 69)

Max's resume peaks in Rushmore. (Wes Anderson, 98)

Determining the depth of the Washington water in Being There. (Hal Ashby, 79)

"This Must Be The Place." Stop Making Sense. (Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads, 84)

A boy's nominally set for battle for Culloden. (Peter Watkins, 64)

Reaching for the meds in THX-1138. (George Lucas, 71)

The idyllic, yet somehow still scary opening shot to The Other. (Robert Mulligan, 72)

The Mercury '67 on the rise in Bullitt . (Peter Yates, 68)

The ultimate shot--the one that says it all--from Dazed and Confused. (Richard Linklater, 93)

Altered States: the beginning of a mind- and body-altering experience. (Ken Russell, 80)

In Barry Lyndon, a duel plays out. (Stanley Kubrick, 75).

Max Frost readies to address his young constituency in Wild In The Streets. (Barry Shear, 68)

Eggs broken, and situations assured, in Funny Games. (Michael Haneke, 97)

"You'll muck it up!" The Hill. (Sidney Lumet, 65).

Our hero faces our heroes in The Valley of Gwangi. (Jim O'Connelly, 69)

The play in the yard in Titicut Follies. (Frederick Wiseman, 67)

Fingers plink out a tune in Hausu. (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 77)

Fear of castration. After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 86)

Kristen's around the corner in Hardcore. (Paul Schrader, 79)

Many faces, one body, in Catfish. (Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, 2010)

Touching up the twenty in To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 85)

The last glimpse of home, from a far-up airplane, in American Graffiti (George Lucas, 73)

A deserted autumn street from Halloween. (John Carpenter, 78)

Notes for a film being made as we watch it. The Sea That Thinks. (Gert de Graaff, 2000)

The heady colors of Punch Drunk Love. (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)

A Texas drive-in sees no customers at the beginning of Midnight Cowboy. (John Schlesinger, 69)

That shiny dead hand breaking the overloaded waters of the once-raging Cahulawachee in Deliverance. (John Boorman, 72)

Still faithful, but disappointed, underneath West Virginia's Matewan. (John Sayles, 87)

Still to come: 40 more entries into 2010's Cinema Gallery pantheon.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Three movies on the ball field, in one minute flat

I've been wanting to post these athletic film pieces for months now, and now that I have very little time to compose a preferably detailed new post on filmicability, it seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Will Tribble has a blog here and these three movies I include here are among his many film outputs (which I have yet to delve into, in all honesty, even though he recommends on his You Tube channel that we all watch "every single one"). The two of his pieces that first caught my eye almost two years ago were his excellent one-minute adaptations of both Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Oscar winner Forrest Gump and his energetic condensation of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill double feature. Then, just now, I discovered Tribble's detailed take on Danny Boyle's zombie extravaganza 28 Days Later. I love the Keystone Kops quality to these three pieces because they combine something I adore--movies--with something I generally despise--sports. These are pristine video mash-ups of these two forms of entertainment: one comes from the brain, the other from the body (the undoctored playing fields Tribble's movies play out upon cement the examined films to the sports arena). The camerawork in all three pieces is outstanding and robust--the open skies and green fields make a particularly deep, horizontal impression. And the sound--an amalgamation of pertinent music cues and terrific foley and voice-over--is a feat unto itself. But Tribble's deceptively little works are obviously a product of meticulous direction, design, choreography, film study, and acting. I particularly like they underline that, in all movies, we're seeing characters get from points A to Z. I'll be looking at more of Will's work, for sure.


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BONUS: THE GODFATHER, in one minute flat, from Japan;

Monday, January 10, 2011

2010 Directors Guild Awards -- Predictions and nominees

I think I'll do this just like I'm doin' right now: hours before the announcement's made, I'll release my predictions. And then, afterwards, I'll dip in and include the eventual selections. Yep. This is what I'm doing for my predictions for 2010's Director's Guild Awards, to be announced later on today. These are, of course, the progenitors to the Oscar nominations. 'nuff said. My predictions for today's nominations are:

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

And the real nominees--just announced--are...


DARREN ARONOFSKY
Black Swan
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Mr. Aronofsky’s Directorial Team:
· Unit Production Manager: Jennifer Roth
· First Assistant Director: Joseph Reidy
· Second Assistant Director: Amy Lauritsen
· Second Second Assistant Director: Travis Rehwaldt
· Location Manager: Ronnie Kupferwasser
This is Mr. Aronofsky’s first DGA Feature Film Award Nomination.

DAVID FINCHER
The Social Network
(Columbia Pictures)
Mr. Fincher’s Directorial Team:
· Unit Production Manager: JoAnn Perritano
· First Assistant Director: Bob Wagner
· Second Assistant Director: Allen Kupetsky
· Second Second Assistant Director: Maileen Williams
This is Mr. Fincher’s second DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He was previously nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. He previously won the DGA Commercial Award for Speed Chain (Nike), Gamebreakers (Nikegridiron.com), and Beauty for Sale (Xelibri Phones) in 2003 and was nominated in that category again in 2008.

TOM HOOPER
The King’s Speech
(The Weinstein Co.)
Mr. Hooper’s Directorial Team:
· Production Manager: Erica Bensly
· First Assistant Director: Martin Harrison
· Second Assistant Director: Chris Stoaling
This is Mr. Hooper’s first DGA Feature Film Award Nomination. He was previously nominated for the DGA Award for Movies for Television/Miniseries for John Adams in 2008.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
Inception
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Mr. Nolan’s Directorial Team:
· Unit Production Manager: Jan Foster
· First Assistant Director: Nilo Otero
· Second Assistant Director: Brandon Lambdin
· Second Second Assistant Director: Greg Pawlik
· Additional Second Assistant Director: Lauren Pasternack
This is Mr. Nolan’s third DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He was previously nominated for The Dark Knight in 2008 and for Memento in 2001.

DAVID O. RUSSELL
The Fighter
(Paramount Pictures and The Weinstein Co.)
Mr. Russell’s Directorial Team:
· Unit Production Manager: Mark Kamine
· First Assistant Director: Michele Ziegler
· Second Assistant Director: Xanthus Valan
· Second Second Assistant Director: Timothy Blockburger
This is Mr. Russell’s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.

AWRIGHT! Five for five.