Some movies aren’t just movies. Some movies have the power to capture the imagination in such a compelling way that it becomes an obsession.
This article, a reflection on Star Wars, which was released 30 years ago this month, is a beautifully compelling account of one man’s love affair with a movie. Although it’s about Star Wars — and there is no shortage of Star Wars obsession in the world — swap the details out, and it would serve as a wonderful expression of someone else’s obsession with some other movie.
What is it about a series of sounds and images that can compell the mind so? I don’t even know. But they have that power, and that’s why I love the movies.
The featured article at Wikipedia right now is a great article all about 35mm film. Since so much of our discussions on the podcast have talked about the various technical aspects of working with 35mm (see especially our discussions of sound and widescreen), I thought it would be of interest. One of the nice things about Wikipedia is how it changes — when I was researching the widescreen segments for AMT, I consulted that same article and it was nowhere near as good as it is now.
I stumbled across an absolutely wonderful article this afternoon. Not only is it entertaining on its own, not only is it enlightening as well, but it touches upon several different discussions we’ve had on All Movie Talk (and one or two still to come).
Anything that spotlights the humor found in single frames of Buster Keaton and the Coens has to be worth reading. But note, in particular, the discussion of the work of Jacques Tati (including the unlabelled frame at the top of the article), a brilliant visual humorist we’ve not gotten the chance to discuss yet.
We’ve talked before about great movie openings — the very first scenes of a film — but what about the actual title sequences? Check out this really neat two-part video compilation on YouTube of 25 great title sequences: Part One, Part Two.
Once you’ve done that, let us know if the editors missed any of your favorites.
For me, the trailer confirms one thing I already knew, and tells me one thing I didn’t. What I already knew was that the second film was missing the Geoffrey Rush character, so I’m ecstatic that he’s back to ham it up some more. The thing I didn’t know is just how perfect and at home Chow Yun-Fat would look in this world. He absolutely belongs here.
The British TV series Q.I., which stands for “Quite Interesting,” is a celebrity comedy quiz show with a lot of chatter between the questions. It’s hosted by Stephen Fry, and this is my favorite clip from the show, in which Fry tells a couple of anecdotes about Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price, complete with impersonations.
Here’s a fun Flash movie puzzle, similar to the M&M Dark Movie Puzzle that was posted here a while back. The idea is much the same: guess which movie is being acted out by…stationery products. Unlike the earlier puzzle, this one focuses less on interpreting actual titles as acting out famous scenes, so keep that in mind. Thanks to Grishny for passing this one along.
This is a neat movie puzzle. It’s a painting that contains pictorial representations of the titles of 50 “dark” movies, mostly horror movies but also a couple of dark thrillers. Click on a clue to submit a guess. Enter the title. If it’s right, the entry box will turn green, and the clue will become darkened. Some are easy. Some are hard.
