vietnamese artist diem chau’s work feels like a warm summer night in the park with a new crush; the electricity of your hand brushing against hers (or his) for the first time and walking home with them as the sun comes up.
incidentally, my friends over at Hal Riney partnered with Chau for a new spot, directed by one of their favorite directors, Tim Goodsall.
Scion, in continuing to thinly veil their attempts at vicarious cool-ness by way of creative philanthropy, is unveiling this weekend their latest endeavor: Super 8. A joint venture between the car manufacturer and the now-risen phoenix that was birthed from the death of RES magazine: Flux.
Super 8 showcases eight emerging filmmakers including the likes of the aforementioned Saam Farahmand (who will also be performing a live AV set) and San Francisco’s own, Terri Timely.
So if you find yourself in the LA area on August 15th between 7 and 10pm, make your way to Scion’s gallery in Culver city to enjoy the festivities. And don’t forget to take advantage of the un-ironic free valet parking!
Incidentally, the good people over at Flux are doing profiles on the 8 filmmakers as a lead up. All of which thus far are great reads. go here!
“You who do not practice the defeatist motto: “It’s better than nothing”; you who have a strong enough cinematic eye to impose it on subjects you feel something for; you who will not agree to make a film about sugar production for the simple reason your grandfather was diabetic; you who scorn saccharine sentimentality and refuse to disfigure a work with it. It is you who hold the fate of the documentary–battered and bruised by a thousand blows from all sides–in your hands.”
Jean Painlevé pioneered science films and underwater cinema, and for that matter scuba diving. His familiarizing anthropomorphism and genre-inspiring story telling have changed your lives in ways you probably don’t even know. The Criterion Collection has released 23 of his films and a wonderful biographical documentary. They are beautiful. One more reason French guys are rad.
simple idea, great execution.
I <3 HOTDOGS has quickly become one of my new favorite sites.
Reaching across just about the widest breadth of film history, I <3 HOTDOGS does little more than select a handful of stills from movies, but their shot selection and consistency keep me coming back time and time again. there’s something to be said for simplicity.
Best remembered for its spacy, intriguing Stevie Wonder soundtrack, the 1979 documentary The Secret Life of Plants explores the possibility that plants may be sentient life forms.
Based on Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird’s 1973 book of the same title, Secret Life contains a great deal of amazing time-lapse photography of plants growing and metamorphosing. The documentary is not currently on DVD as far as I can tell, but the whole thing is embedded above. Thank you, internet!
Hammer Films, a fledgling British production company that had undergone several hiatuses due to bankruptcies hit it’s stride in 1951. The company moved into its latest “Hammer House” on the bank of the Thames river that served as both the studios offices and primary location for it’s shoots, signed a distribution deal with American film producer Robert Lippert, and began its collaboration with director Terence Fisher.
And with Fisher, Hammer, that had spent the early part of it’s existence shooting 3-4 films a year of varying genre’s, found it’s true niché in creating horror films. Producing legendary cult classics like Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy. This series of films not only cemented Hammer Films both critically and financially, it also developed Christopher Lee as a horror icon.
In 1968, Fisher, Lee and Hammer created what many consider to be their greatest horror film, The Devil Rides Out.
In The Devil Rides Out, Lee stars as Duc de Richleau, a religious man who must keep his friend from joining a satanic cult that has a psychic hold over him.
During an attempt to withdraw his friend from the cult’s baptism ceremony, Duc witness Satan himself!
And after a night of defending himself from a series of black magic attacks, Duc is victorious and manages to save everyone from the cults grip.
But don’t take my word for it, go and rent Hammer’s greatest horror film now. (note, it’s american release was renamed The Devil’s Bride, but discriminating video stores will know what you’re looking for.)
Lazy? Certainly. I’m pulling “not saying shit” on these clips for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this film is absolutely impossible to find. Between this and the Fleetwood Mac Tusk doc., I’m signed on with every dangerous/crawling-with-hackers-stealing-your-worthless-identity auction network throughout Eastern Europe, Korea, China, and all nations currently comprising South and Southeast Asia. A Swedish Love Story is a brilliant piece of work.
The painfully short, incomplete, clips on YouTube have, whether they intended to or not, created a community of people who care deeply about this film they’ve never seen. I haven’t seen all of it. If anyone reading this can remedy that, let’s talk.
A Swedish Love Story (Swedish: En kärlekshistoria) is a 1970 Swedish romantic drama directed by Roy Andersson, starring Ann-Sofie Kylin and Rolf Sohlman as two teenagers falling in love. Inspired by the Czechoslovak New Wave, the film was Andersson’s feature film debut and became a big success in Sweden and abroad. It is today considered a classic about teenage love.
Parts 2, 3, and 4 below. Read the rest of this entry »
everything you’ve heard about this movie is true. Let The Right One In is a beautifully delicate and fresh take on vampires, but not in that brad pitt/kirsten dunst kind of way, in the kind of way that’ll make you want to move to Sweden, be 12 years old and fall in love with a vampire.
sadly, before this picture even got distribution, Matt Reeves, the director of Cloverfield, had signed on to write and direct an American version. He swears reverence to the original Swedish version, but American sensibilities just can’t handle the subtly this story requires.
if you haven’t already, i highly highly recommend it.
(hopefully some news about why this is so impressive to me soon)
In 2007, Partizan constituent, Saam Farahmand (27 at the time) was crowned “Best Director” at the CAD Music Video Awards, after a prolific year of creating promos for Good Shoes:
These Puritans:
and a pile of videos for The Klaxons:
And he’s only gotten better since then; creating a globe-trotting documentary about SoulWax, shooting commercials for Sagem and this stunning spot for chocolatier Anthon Berg:
And most recently, Saam directed this fantastic short film for Alexander McQueen’s collaboration with Puma.
As if this all wasn’t enough, Saam’s opened an art gallery in London to help expose emerging artists, and continues to produce films with his beautiful mix of simplicity, effortless chic and a twist of sci-fi. I for one can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
Vision Research looked at the film industry several years ago and noticed a serious problem. Slow-Motion makes everything look cool, but this slow motion they have now (typically 60-100 frames per second (normal motion plays at 24-30 frames per second or FPS)) is just not slow enough. “We need to make these actors look cooler, let’s make a slower motion!” So they did, releasing the Phantom.
Early versions of the Phantom had capabilities to shoot as fast as 1000FPS. (for super slow motion, you must shoot more frames per second, and the project that data at the standard 24FPS, creating a potentially confusing situation in which you have to shoot faster to get slower.)
But the good people at Vision Research were unmoved. “This is not slow enough!”
So they continued on. Fast-forward (no pun intended) to a few days ago when Vision Research announced their latest model, the Phantom v710. 1000FPS you say? please.
In news that surely gave Zach Snyder nocturnal emissions, Vision Research’s latest model can shoot at speeds of up to ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND FRAMES PER SECOND, creating undeniably the slowest fucking motion ever.
As an aside, I believe Vision Research’s only competitor is the laughable Photron, who touts their “FastCam SA5” as “The world’s fastest high speed camera” clocking in at a measly 7500FPS. So congratulations guys, you official embarrassed your competition.