Category: movies

  • Kikujiro

    Kikujiro

    “In case you’d come looking,
    she left this bell for you.
    It’s an angel bell.
    If ever you’re sad or in trouble,
    just ring this bell.
    An angel will come to help.”

    Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano, 1999): “the story of a young boy searching for his mother during his summer vacation.”.

    Requires Flash Player

  • Last Exit to Nowhere

    Weyland-Yutani Corp
    Kobayashi T-Shirt
    U.S.S. Sulaco T-Shirt

    Last Exit to Nowhere “is a small collective of like-minded film enthusiasts, designers, illustrators, screenprinters and photographers. We collaborate to create unique T-shirts that pay homage to the most memorable places, companies and corporations in cinema history.”.

    From the top:
    Weyland-Yutani Corporation (Alien, 1979);
    Kobayashi Porcelain (The Usual Suspects, 1995);
    U.S.S. Sulaco (Aliens, 1986).

    Requires Flash Player

  • If we don’t, remember me

    Dr. Strangelove

    “Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.
    But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops.”

    If we don’t, remember me. Scenes from movies turned into animated gifs.

    Above: George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964).

  • The Sky Crawlers

    The Sky Crawlers

    “You always have the option to change the road you travel every day
    Even if the road is the same you can see different things
    Isn’t this enough to live?
    Or rather, may not be enough?”

    The Sky Crawlers (Sukai Kurora, 2008) “is set in an alternate history where, although the world is at peace, in order to ease the tension of a populace accustomed to war and aggression, private corporations contract fighter pilots to stage combat operations against each other for show.”.

    Music by Kenji Kawai. Listen: Main Theme (ending).

    Above: screenshot from the official trailer, detail.

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  • Tropes

    “I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”

    (Oscar Wilde, Reality Is Unrealistic)

    “Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés.

    Tropes transcend television. They exist in life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, does its best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere.”.

    TV Tropes: “a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction.”.

  • Play Time

    Play Time “Play Time is French director Jacques Tati‘s fourth major film.
    Tati wanted the film to be in color but look like it was filmed in black and white.”.

    “In Tati’s world, machines are confounding; yet, they are ever-present.
    Tati has seen how this technology has opened up the world by granting more possibilities to all, and to reflect that, he has constructed office buildings with walls made entirely of glass and corridors that appear to go on forever.

    He knows it’s a double-edged sword, however: while the glass opens things up, it also pushes us farther apart. Of course, living in Tati’s world isn’t all bad.
    Regardless of how much our creations fail us, humans don’t buckle under, we endure.”.
    (Jamie S. Rich)

    Above: Jacques Tati (sitting on the left) as Monsieur Hulot in the offices sequence.

    Requires Flash Player

  • Down by Law

    Down by Law – “What are you doing on the outside?”
    – “I was a DJ.”
    – “What?”

    Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986). With Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni.
    “The story of three different men in a Louisiana prison and their eventual journey.”.

    Requires Flash Player

  • Signs

    Signs

    Signs. A short film about communication. By Patrick Hughes.

    Requires Quick Time Player and broadband

  • Concursante

    El Concursante “I don’t speak with economists
    never
    it’s a waste of time
    I will do an exception for you
    because you seem a bad economist.”.

    Concursante (The Contestant, 2007). A movie by Rodrigo Cortes.
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  • Ninotchka

    Ninotchka
    Leon: “Will you smile?”
    Ninotchka: “Why?”
    Leon: “Well, just smile.”
    Ninotchka: “At what?”
    Leon: “At anything.
    At the whole ridiculous spectacle of life.
    At people being so serious, taking themselves pompously, exaggerating their own importance.
    If you can’t think of anything else to laugh at, you can laugh at you and me.”
    (From Wikiquote)

    I love this woman.
    Ninotchka (by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939).