Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) music by Teiji Itō added 1952
Much like Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bête , which came three years after this short, this piece pivoted on the repetition of certain objects. Through the rondo-like succession of imagery, these objects are instilled with emotional significance.
The cinematography by Deren’s Czech husband Alexander Hammid is skillful and effectively disorienting. It is all the more impressive when the limited budget the pair was working on is taken into account. His focus and composition were excellent, and his perspective was obviously sensitive to Deren’s vision.
9 years after the filming, Teiji Itō produced a minimal score for the piece at the age of 17. Through the use of semitones between what sounds like a human voice humming and a bowed bass note, the pressure of the unresolved diminished unison adds great tension to the short. The semitones paired with the staccato percussion speaks as much of Itō’s sensitivity to Deren’s vision as the cinematography spoke of Hammid’s. It is no wonder that Deren and Itō were later married.
I was in the mood for some sci-fi, so I hit up this dvd of Earthsea that I inherited from someone else’s parents. I’m pretty sure I’d actually seen it before, and it was better than I remembered. I’ve read some of the books so I knew the context, which I think helped a lot. I really liked a lot of the themes in the story, and enjoyed the experience overall. I didn’t realize, when starting it at 10:30, that it was like 137 minutes long. But yeah, you get some nice special effects, a dragon, an amulet, and some all-around good fantasy fun.
From the director of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid comes the 1972 of the Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name. Not having read the book (I’ve read other books by Vonnegut though), I was able to more fully enjoy the movie. What I liked the most was the story’s exploration of circular time, and ways in which the past is replayed in the future. Also there was a really great car rampage scene in a cadillac.
It’s Armageddon Weekend on History Channel. Revelations, Nostradamus, the Dust Bowl of the 30s. They even mentioned 2012 once, briefly. I would have never imagined I’d be seeing a straight block of “The World Is Ending!@!!1″ on TV. I should have seen this in my william burroughs/ambient industrial days.
They have an interesting spin on it, but it’s still TV right? They kept showing pictures of Osama bin laden when they were talking about the anti-christ. I think they’ve got that one wrong.
Also there’s no no way a asteroid is going to hit the planet in anything less than 40 years from now, there are a lot of scientists who study the sky. I’m more of an 8-spoked-wheel kind of guy.
The cinch is now that I’m all propagandized, I’m going to be thinking about this all the time. And that is really a drag. “Christians today still wonder and debate- will this world come to an end, and when?”
Apparently “Apocalypse” means unveiling, not… apocalypse. But I’m opting to still use it because it just sounds a lot better than Armageddon- WHICH is actually just a field in Israel, not an event. Sad, there’s no name for it.
HOLY CRAP THE WORLD IS ENDING I SHOULD BUY WATER!! Y2K+12
Shots of nature + gradeschool morality. In one part, they go to a delicate rock ecosystem (Mt Maranya) and dip their hands in the clear pure water, lift up beautiful small plant growths from the rock. It was like watching skin being torn off, pretty inconsiderate. Cringe cringe. I can’t believe it got 7.5 on imdb. “They’ll be back with supplies in three days… if they can. I had mixed feelings watching the helicoptor leave. It was like being left alone on another planet, surrounded by images from the dawn of time.”
That being said, plants that digest insects are awesome.
This is I think the third time I’ve seen it- I think it’s my favorite movie. The color palatte, which ranges from monochromatic to luscious greens and blues, is amazing. The sound is a work of art in its own, like a brilliantly mixed field recording over which the rather heavy dialogue is layed. The composition of the shots has a great amount of variety and ingenuity- the shots both create the vibrant atmosphere and allow the actors to use a great deal of subtlety in the facial expressions and body language. The dialogue is complex, and full of mystery- much of which is never fully resolved. The pacing is marked by moments of stillness and contemplation. And finally, the concept- the screenplay was written by the authors of the novella Roadside Picnic, the original source of the idea. The details of the story are different but the overall idea is much the same.
Everything comes together for me perfectly with Stalker, it is easy for me to get lost in its complex fantastic world.
Oh, anime. In the style of Studio Ghibli, this could be called a way-post-apocalyptic steampunk fantasy. It’s man-versus-nature-versus-science-versus-supernatural abilities. Some of the special effects were nice, especially the water. Oh anime.
