kottke.org posts about movies
Christian Marclay debuted his 24-hour film The Clock 15 years ago. The film is made up of thousands of clips from movies and TV shows that show timepieces or otherwise make reference to the time of day. I've seen chunks of it in a few museums & galleries and it's wonderful.
Using this extraordinary minute-by-minute timeline of nearly all the scenes that make up The Clock, one person is attempting to reverse engineer the entire film. It's not The Clock, but it's A Clock. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Says the creator:
So, when I stumbled upon this Fandom Wiki, where the mysterious user ElevenFiftyNine had seemingly started the task of listing all the movies in The Clock, I couldn't help myself; I started remaking the whole thing from scratch.
So, since I can't really say this is The Clock, it is my best attempt at making a Clock, by following the excellent effort by ElevenFiftyNine.
A ten-minute excerpt is free on the website but you need to join the Patreon to watch the entire work-in-progress. According to their most recent update, the film is finished but the final version isn't online quite yet; October 15th is the release date.
BTW, here's the creator's definition of "finished":
I spoke some months ago about what 100% means for this project, and it is not that it is a fully perfect copy of Marclay's work. The information available online is incomplete, and new information might appear in the future. For now, 100% means that all available information, is in a Clock.
And incredibly, they have never actually seen The Clock in person:
Unfortunately I have never had a chance to see The Clock, as it is only visible when exhibited at a museum. This is increasingly a rare occurrence, and even then, apparently the queues when it is on show, are monstrous. Never mind that it might be anywhere in the world!
Aside from the clips, I haven't watched any of this yet, but it is a very tempting alternative to waiting for a rare showing somewhere I happen to be.
Artist and poet Marcus Merritt draws objects from films — the TV above is from E.T. and the payphone is from Terminator 2.
I very much dig the spare illustration style here. (via waxy)
I haven't watched it yet, but I have seen so many recommendations for this gonzo birdwatching documentary called Listers over the past few days that I wanted to share it with you.
Two brothers travel across the United States in a used minivan on a mission to find as many bird species as they can in a single year.
Yeah, not your typical birdwatching fare...the vibe of the brothers' quest is more like a surf or skate video. Here's the trailer:
Watch video on YouTube.
And the whole 2-hour movie is available on YouTube as well:
Watch video on YouTube.
I've hoping to make some time to watch it this weekend; it looks great. The two brothers have also released a companion book, Field Guide of All the Birds We Found One Year in the United States.
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The trailer for Wake Up Dead Man, the new Knives Out movie; looks like another great prestige caper.
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson's murder mystery opus. Starring Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church.
It's coming out in "select theaters" on Nov 26 before its debut on Netflix Dec 12.
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Whoa, I have not watched this documentary in a loooong time — very interesting to watch in the future this company helped to create, for good and very, very bad.
Code Rush is a documentary following the lives of a group of Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley. It covers Netscape's last year as an independent company, from their announcement of the Mozilla open source project until their acquisition by AOL. It particularly focuses on the last minute rush to make the Mozilla source code ready for release by the deadline of March 31 1998, and the impact on the engineers' lives and families as they attempt to save the company from ruin.
Interviews in the movie include Ellen Ullman, Kara Swisher, Jamie Zawinski, Jim Barksdale, Marc Andreessen, and Brendan Eich. (via robin sloan)
This is the trailer for a documentary celebrating the life and work of actor & comedian John Candy.
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I loved John Candy; how could you not? Uncle Buck was my favorite of his movies. I can't believe he died more than 20 years ago already. (via craig mod)
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For her newest film, director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) has adapted Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel Hamnet; both book and movie are about William Shakespeare and his wife in the aftermath of the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Paul Mescal stars as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes. Here's the trailer.
The film recently premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and the reviews are very good.
Premiering at the Telluride Film Festival ahead of a November theatrical release, Hamnet is devastating, maybe the most emotionally shattering movie I've seen in years. The book was overwhelming, too, and going into a film about the death of a child, one naturally prepares to shed some tears. Still, I did not really expect to cry this much. That's not just because of the tragic weight of the material, but because the picture reimagines the poetic act of creating Hamlet. Shakespeare's play sits on the highest shelf, fixed by the dust from centuries of acclaim. It is about as unimpeachable as a work of art can be. And yet, here is a movie that dares to explore its inception. The attempt itself is noble, and maybe a little brazen; that it succeeds feels downright supernatural.
The film premieres in the US on Nov 27 with a nationwide release on Dec 12.
Now showing at the Brooklyn Museum (through April 2026) and the ICA in Boston (until Spet 1, 2025) is Christian Marclay's Doors. Like his masterpiece The Clock, Doors is a film montage, this time of people in movies opening and closing doors.
In Doors (2022), Marclay stitches together hundreds of short film clips featuring the opening and closing of doors. More than a decade in the making, the moving image collage draws from nearly all genres of narrative cinema ranging from French New Wave to Hollywood blockbusters. Carefully edited by Marclay, the visual narrative follows actors entering new spaces, with each door marking an editing point and transitioning between films and soundscapes. The work suggests a labyrinthine journey where protagonists get lost and found again. Marclay describes the video as sculptural – a "mental architecture that the viewer might or might not follow and get lost in."
The film is 54 minutes long but runs in a continuous loop. These videos feature some footage from the film; this one shows five minutes and this one four minutes:
Watch video on YouTube.
Watch video on YouTube.
Here's Marclay on the process of making the video:
It's quite difficult to find scenes in cinema showing an actor entering a space and then going into another space. I needed two doors: The actor enters one space and then leaves through another door — so it's one room to the next room to the next room to the next room, and every time a different actor in a different film. It's a strange choreography to edit. The door has to be opened in a similar way and at the same speed to make it believable. If someone is running and then you see them peek slowly through the door on the other side, it doesn't look realistic. I also had to match the motion of pulling or pushing the door. To make things even more complicated, that door is hinged on one side and that has to match, the hinge and the door handle. If done well, the viewer gets sucked in and fooled by these editing tricks. So you see an actor in color in the '80s entering a black-and-white film from the '50s, and you know it's not the same actor, but your mind wants to believe that it is. The trick is to create a flow, an illusion of continuity.
Doors brings to mind Christopher Nolan's Inception ("a mental architecture that the viewer might or might not follow and get lost in") and the doorway effect ("The doorway effect or location updating effect is a replicable psychological phenomenon characterized by short-term memory loss when passing through a doorway or moving from one location to another.")
P.S. The Clock is showing at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, starting at the end of November and running through Jan 18, 2026.
Well, it's been awhile since I've done one of these but I'm gonna skip the apologies and get right into it. Here's a list of what I've been reading, watching, listening to, and experiencing over the past several months. Let us know what movies, books, art, TV, music, etc. you've been enjoying in the comments below!
Dinosaur. It's a huge pigeon on the High Line — what else do you need to know? (A-)
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. Entertaining and engaging. It'll make a good TV series. (B+)
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I hadn't seen this in several years but I still knew all the words. (A-)
Watch video on YouTube.
My Brilliant Friend (season four). If there's one thing I've watched in the past several years that I wish had gotten more attention from viewers, critics, and awards panels, it's this wonderful show. (A+)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow might be the most perfectly cast role in the history of cinema. Great story too. This movie surprised me when I saw it in the theater in 2003 and it's still in the top tier of action/adventure movies. (A)
Andor (season one). A rewatch to prep for season two. I didn't understand what the fuss was about this show the first time around, but this second viewing was a revelation. Andor is easily the best Star Wars thing since Empire. (A+)
Galleria Borghese. As previously discussed, the Bernini sculptures were a highlight of the summer. (A+)
Caravaggio 2025. Fantastic exhibition. (A)
The vivid blue color of the Mediterranean. (A+)
La Vita è Un Mozzico. We waited for an hour for sandwiches and it was probably worth it? (A)
Black Doves. British spy thriller? Keira Knightley? Ben Whishaw? Twist my arm. (B+)
Captain America: Brave New World. I'm sorry Sam Wilson / Anthony Mackie, there's a "we have the Avengers at home" vibe here that's hard to shake. (B)
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Music to Refine To: A Remix Companion to Severance. I love this album; one of my favorite things of the past several months. (A+)
Mickey 17. It was fine? I was distracted while watching it in the theater, which is never a good sign. My favorite Bong Joon Ho film is still Snowpiercer. (B)
Amy Sherald: American Sublime. Absolutely fantastic. (A+)
The French Dispatch. This has quietly become a favorite of mine among Anderson's films. (A)
The Royal Tenenbaums. However, this is still my favorite. (A+)
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Paris Is Burning. Classic documentary of a bygone NYC era & a subculture that is now both flourishing and threatened. (A-)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (season two). I love these characters, always the sign of a good Trek. The crossover episode with Lower Decks was delightful even though I've not watched any of the animated series yet. The musical episode I liked less (not a showtunes guy) but I appreciated the experimentation. Bring on the Muppet episode. (A)
Severance (season two). Perhaps not as good as the first season — there was a lot in the mid-season episodes that didn't land for me. Still, I always watched when a new episode dropped. (A-)
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Army of Shadows. Part of the unplanned resistance film festival I've been screening for myself recently. Not quite as good as I remembered it, but it's nice to watch something that doesn't just lay everything out on a platter for you so you can emote properly. (A-)
Best in Show. So many lines from this that I use in my daily life. (A-)
The 99% Invisible Breakdown: The Power Broker. This is such a good series with fantastic guests about a legendary book. Who knew that Roman Mars was such a gigglepuss though? (A)
Johnny English. I didn't find this quite as delightful as my family does. I prefer Mr. Bean. (B+)
Paddington in Peru. Not quite the magic of the first two, but entertaining. (B)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I have likely said this before, but while Raiders is likely the best Indy movie, Last Crusade is my favorite (probably due to Tom Stoppard's heavy rewrite of the script). (A+)
Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi. It's interesting to watch the original trilogy having seen so many subsequent movies & TV series.
Ocean's Twelve. The dancing lasers scene is completely ridiculous. (A)
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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Well, I wasn't expecting a critique of AI and the role of technology in society from this animated feature, but maybe I should have? (B+)
A Complete Unknown. Liked this more than I thought I would. (A-)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Just a wonderful book — witty and fun. (A)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Fantastic book. Listen to the audiobook version if you can — Scott Brick's narration elevates the story. (A)
A Quiet Place: Day One. I only watched this because I was on a plane. (B)
Severance (season one). After watching the second season, I rewatched season one. There was apparently much I missed the first time around. (A-)
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Black Bag. Soderbergh is always worth watching, especially when he dips into Ocean's Eleven territory — although this was more serious. (A-)
A Minecraft Movie. The first half was tolerable, enjoyable even. And then not so much. (C+)
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Watched this in the theater for the 20th anniversary. There are some good bits in here, but some of the acting really stinks. Folks in the theater cheered when Anakin slaughtered the younglings, which is probably some sort of meme that I don't want to know about. (B+)
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Sinners. I loved this movie. (A+)
Thunderbolts*. Thought I would like this more than I did. (B)
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. The last scene is a masterclass in not having the faintest idea how to end a movie. (B+)
Andor (season two). Only a slight dip from season one. Overall, the series was a brilliant look at radicalization, the messiness of rebellion, and the oppressive flatness of authoritarianism. (A+)
There There by Tommy Orange. Devastating. (A-)
The Fear of Never Landing. Good album to chill out to by Marconi Union, who previously brought you the most relaxing song in the world. (A-)
Novocaine. This was bad. (D+)
Glass Onion. More Benoit Blanc mysteries please — I love watching Daniel Craig and his CSI: KFC accent chewing scenery. (A-)
The Gorge. Half of this was great and the other half was just another pseudo-horror action thing. (B-)
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Marvelous. (A)
Andor: The Rogue One Arc. This fan edit of Rogue One in the style of a three-episode Andor arc is as Gilroy-esque a cut as you're ever going to get. (A-)
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. I had been kinda ambivalent about the M:I movies, but Fallout converted me, so now I'm slowly making my way back through the back catalog. (B+)
Via Carota. Best meal I've had in a long time. The tagliatelle was better than any pasta dish I had during my trip to Rome — it's true, don't @ me! And the roast chicken was perfect. (A+)
V for Vendetta. Underrated. (A-)
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt. I'm going to tell you the embarrassing truth: I thought this was about actual samurai and perhaps related to the Tom Cruise movie. It is very much not. I gave it a real shot but ended up abandoning it about halfway through. (C)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Still a marvel of animated creativity. (A)
The Phoenician Scheme. Didn't vibe with this at all. (B-)
Downhill mountain biking. This is giving me so much life right now. (A+)
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. Not my favorite W&G but still. (B+)
F1. Like Top Gun: Maverick crossed with Ford v Ferarri but Cruise and Bale played the aging outsider role much better than Pitt. Is Pitt even a good actor or is he just extremely charismatic? (B+)
Superman. I thought it was fine but didn't like it as much as others seemed to. Better than anything Zach Snyder did for DC though. (B)
Watch video on YouTube.
Shōgun. Rewatch with my son. Just an incredible show all the way around. (A+)
The Last of Us (season two). This show was always fighting an uphill battle with me — I don't like zombie media and I dislike characters (Ellie!) who wouldn't survive/thrive in the situations that they're in with their personalities & characteristics. And I finally won. (C+)
The Handmaid's Tale (season six). *sigh* No idea why I started watching (and then finished) this season; I'm a sucker for closure I guess. (C)
Nintendo Switch 2. I bought this to play Kart with my kids and also for a better Fortnite experience. So far, so good. (B+)
Mario Kart World. I haven't played a ton of this, but it's good so far. Free roam mode is pretty fun. I've gotta write up my Kart wishlist sometime...Nintendo only checked off one or two items in World. (B+)
Sargent and Paris. Caught this on the very last day of the show and hoo boy was it crowded. (A- for the show, C+ for the crowds)
Let God Sort Em Out. Need to listen to this one a few more times but I'm liking it so far. (B+)
Right now, I'm watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season three, listening to Deacon King Kong on audiobook (fantastic, a lock for an A+), rewatching Wandavision, and picking at Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane.
Past installments of my media diet are available here. What good things have you watched, read, or listened to lately?
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In a review of City of Angels, the 1998 Hollywood remake of Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, Roger Ebert says:
To compare the two films is really beside the point, since "Wings of Desire" exists on its own level as a visionary and original film, and "City of Angels" exists squarely in the pop mainstream.
In his latest video, Evan Puschak leans into the vast gulf between the two films to "explore the differences in cinematic cultures and styles". He takes a close look at the same scene in both films and what they reveal about Hollywood on the one hand and European art cinema on the other.
I don't think anything could be more up my alley, in my wheelhouse, in my lane, my cup of tea, my speed than this upcoming retrospective of Wes Anderson's work at London's Design Museum.
The Design Museum has been granted unprecedented access to Wes Anderson's personal archives, which the filmmaker has built up over three decades. This is the first time most of these objects will be displayed in Britain.
This landmark exhibition will chart the evolution of Wes Anderson's films from early experiments in the 1990s to recent productions as well as collaborations with key long-standing creative partners. Explore the design stories behind award-winning and iconic films such as 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar', 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and 'Isle of Dogs'.
The exhibition starts on Nov 21, 2025 and runs through Jul 26, 2026.
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This is a unique look at the history of the world from 1925 to 2025, told through the lens of movies whose plots take place in those years. For example, the WWII era is represented by The Sound of Music (1965), The Pianist (2002), The Darkest Hour (2017), Casablanca (1942), The Thin Red Line (1998, Come and See (1985), Son of Saul (2015), Oppenheimer (2023), and Godzilla Minus One (2023).
As the video goes on, more and more of the scenes depict imagined past futures from films like 1984, Transformers: The Movie, Blade Runner, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Johnny Mnemonic.
In the end, it's not a happy video — lots of war, both past and future. Hollywood does like to dwell on our worst times.
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Clocking in at almost an hour, this "definitive interview" with Wes Anderson by Vanity Fair about all 12 of his films is perhaps only for Wes stans or cinephiles, but then again, listening to thoughtful, creative people talking earnestly about their work is almost always worth the time.
Hi, I'm Wes Anderson. I have made, apparently, 12 films and I'm now going to walk us through every one of them in some way.
(via open culture)
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Slice of Life (trailer) is a feature-length documentary about the American Dream through the lens of former Pizza Huts that have been transformed into everything from bars to churches to candy stores to cannabis dispensaries. A woman who runs an LGBTQ+ church out of a former Pizza Hut says:
It's the stained-glass windows that draw people and touch people, and I think really takes it out of the realm of a Pizza Hut. It's the power of transformation. When things continue to transform, beauty can come from it, good things can come out of it.
You can rent or buy the film from their website.
I've written before about how Pizza Hut was a special place to visit when I was a kid:
Pizza Hut was the #1 eating-out destination for me as a kid. My family never ate out much, so even McDonald's, Arby's, or Hardee's was a treat. But Pizza Hut was a whole different deal. Did I enjoy eating salad at home? No way. But I had to have the salad bar at Pizza Hut. Did I normally eat green peppers, onions, and black olives? Nope...but I would happily chow down on a supreme pizza at Pizza Hut.
Ok so this is weird and delightful. Swedish electronics company Teenage Engineering makes a collection of singing wooden dolls called the Choir. The dolls are basically speakers but with some autonomy and personality...and they can work together:
what you see are eight wooden dolls, made to serenade you with a repertoire of choral classics as well as perform your own original compositions through midi over ble. each member has their own characteristic vocal range. individually one can sing a dynamic solo, together they perform an immersive a cappella concert.
Composer Rob Simonsen used three Choirs together to help create the score for Elio, the newest Pixar movie that takes place in space.
we were looking for an otherworldly sound—something that sounded relatable, that echoed vocalizations, communication that humans could understand, but felt like it was from another world. i came across these choir dolls and heard their sound. it was beautiful — electronic, but human. each body is handcrafted. they have a robotic but organic sound at the same time. it felt like a perfect answer to what we were looking for.
In this interview with Simonsen, he talks about working with the Choir to create the movie's sound; the relevant part starts at the 15:20 mark and includes some of the music they composed with it.
Watch video on YouTube.
There's a flip flop element to this too: they mic'd up the dolls to record the audio, just like they would with human performers.
Here's another short clip of the Choir in action:
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Like I said, weird and delightful. You can get your own full ensemble from Teenage Engineering for about $2000.
See also Dueling Carls, which this reminded me of for some reason.
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I read Project Hail Mary (by The Martian author Andy Weir) a few summers ago; it was fine. I suspected at the time it might make a better movie than a book and after watching the trailer, I'm excited to see this next summer. Ryan Gosling stars and Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, produced the Spider-verse movies) are directing. Out in theaters March 2026.
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Death of a Fantastic Machine (aka the camera) is a short documentary on "what happens when humanity's infatuation with itself and an untethered free market meet 45 billion cameras"...and now AI. It's about how — since nearly the invention of the camera — photos, films, and videos have been used to lie & mislead, a trend that AI is poised to turbo-charge. Not gonna sugar-coat it: this video made me want to throw my phone in the ocean, destroy my TV, and log off the internet never to return. Oof.
The short is adapted from a feature-length documentary directed by Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson called And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine (trailer). Van Aertryck & Danielson made one of my all-time favorite short films ever, Ten Meter Tower (seriously, you should watch this, it's fantastic...then you can throw your phone in the ocean).
P.S. I hate the title the NY Times gave this video: "Can You Believe Your Own Eyes? Not With A.I." That is not even what 99% of the video is about and captures none of what's interesting or thought-provoking about it. However, it is a great illustration of one of the filmmakers' main points: how the media uses simplifying fear (in this case, the AI bogeyman 🤖👻) to capture eyeballs instead of trying to engage with complexities. "Death of a Fantastic Machine" arouses curiosity just fine by itself. (via craig mod)
The Criterion Collection is releasing a new boxset of Wes Anderson films, The Wes Anderson Archive: Ten Films, Twenty-Five Years.
Wes Anderson's first ten features represent twenty-five years of irrepressible creativity, an ongoing ode to outsiders and quixotic dreamers, and a world unto themselves, graced with a mischievous wit and a current of existential melancholy that flows through every captivating frame. This momentous twenty-disc collector's set includes new 4K masters of the films, over twenty-five hours of special features, and ten illustrated books, presented in a deluxe clothbound edition.
The boxset's trailer is predictably Andersonian:
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More details:
New 4K digital masters of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, and The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, supervised and approved by director Wes Anderson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
This boxset will set you back a cool $400 ($350 on Amazon), but look at all that stuff!
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This video feels like a throwback to a simpler time on YouTube: 331 film clips edited together to recreate Eminem's Lose Yourself. A particularly well-done example of a time-worn genre. I lol'd at "let it go!!"
A few weeks ago, I posted about the hundreds of stills from their animated movies that Studio Ghibli has made available for free download. Since I'm a big fan of the weird little guys director Hayao Miyazaki loves to put in his films (e.g. the kodama in Princess Mononoke1 and Spirited Away's soot sprites), I thought it would be cool to pull some images from the Ghibli archive featuring these lovable little freaks.
And an honorable mention to this frame from Porco Rosso:
The weird little guys category generally doesn't apply to humans, but this image of little kids crawling all over a pig man's airplane certainly classifies as an unusual swarm.
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In this episode of Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak takes a look at a simple scene from one of my favorite recent films and shows how director Steven Soderbergh makes it sing.
Like Spielberg or Fincher, Soderbergh is a master craftsman, who can translate a scene from page to screen with the confidence of a seasoned pro. You feel that confidence when you watch his movies, and it's both relieving and engaging.
I thought Black Bag was great (and great fun) — it's got a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is streaming on Peacock in the US.
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail premiered in theaters on April 3, 1975. 50 years on, it remains one of the finest comedy movies ever (though it is definitely not everyone's cup of tea). If you're a fan, you can catch it for free on YouTube (with ads, not sure about region restrictions) or in select theaters in North America. You can also stream it for free on Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV, Roku Channel, Plex, and a few other free movie services. (via open culture)
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Even after 60+ years, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best-looking films out there; this video explores why. I got to see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen last fall and it was stunning — the colors, the amount of detail, the cinematography in general.
Well this is just wonderful: Studio Ghibli has uploaded hundreds of high-resolution still images from almost all of their films, including all of the major ones: Princess Mononoke, Sprited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, The Boy and the Heron, Howl's Moving Castle, etc. etc. The images are labeled "solely for personal use by individual fans to further enjoy Studio Ghibli films" and people are urged to "please feel free to use the images within the bounds of common sense".
Head to the list of Ghibli movies and click through to each film to find & download the stills. (via open culture)
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A few months ago, I wrote about Pee-wee as Himself, a two-part HBO documentary about the life and career of Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) that had then just premiered at Sundance. Now we've got a trailer and a premiere date: May 23.
It's weird to be in this situation, having a documentary made, because I'm used to having control of my alter ego.
Earlier this week, Aaron found this clip featuring a set of twins who were eyewitnesses to an accident and who also speak mostly in unison.
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This short clip reveals more about the Powers sisters' unusual way of communicating ("we don't know why, but we have tried to talk separately, but it's not ourselves, it's not us"):
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This synchronicity between twins is uncommon but not unique. In fact, Werner Herzog is filming a movie called Bucking Fastard right now that stars Rooney and Kate Mara as a pair of inseparable twin sisters based on the true story of Freda and Greta Chaplin.
Here's how Herzog describes the Chaplin twins:
In 1981 they had a short run in the British 'red tops,' or tabloid newspapers, and were famous for a few weeks for being the 'sex-crazed twins' who were so infatuated with their neighbor, a lorry driver, that he took them to court and had a restraining order taken out against them. Their story is unique. They are the only identical twins we know of who speak synchronously.
We know that twins sometimes develop their own secret language when they are all alone by which they can exclude the rest of the world, but Freda and Greta spoke the same words at the same time. I have had the experience where they open the door, greet me, and ask me inside, all completely synchronous in word and gesture. I suppose this type of a conversation could be a ritual developed by practice. But later on, they answered questions they can't have been expecting absolutely in unison. Sometimes they spoke separately, then Freda, for the sake of argument, would speak the first half of a sentence, at which point Greta would chime in with a word or two in unison, and then bring the sentence to a conclusion herself. Or the other way around. They wore exactly the same clothes, hairstyles, shoes. Their handbags and umbrellas were identical; they were as coordinated as a Rorschach test ready to be folded in two at any moment. When they walked, they didn't walk in step like soldiers, left-right, left-right, but they had their inside feet together and kept time with their outside feet. It was the same with their handbags, which they didn't both carry in their left hands; they carried them in their outer hands and their umbrellas with their inside hands. You could have folded a picture of them, and the two halves would have matched. Their gestures were synchronized, their physical awareness of each other continuous. Who was left and who was right in sitting or walking was for me the only way of telling which one was Greta and which was Freda at our early meetings.
You can see them speaking & interacting in this 1987 short documentary about the twins, A Pair of One.
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Filmmaker Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) is a big ol' movie dork, and it's endearing to watch him break down all the different types of film, aspect ratios, and projection options as he explains how many ways you can watch his latest movie, Sinners, when it comes out this week. Super informative too if you've always wondered about the different IMAX formats and just what the heck it means when someone you love gets excited about 70mm.
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Ok so I've watched the trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie, The Phoenician Scheme, a couple of times and I still don't know what it's actually about? But from the looks of things, it is more of the same for people who like that sort of thing, which is lucky for me.
Also, Michael Cera might be the most Wes Anderson-coded actor that's never before been in a Wes Anderson movie.
For The Guardian, the film critic Guy Lodge has complied a list of 25 films that "shed light on the US under Trump". From the introduction by filmmaker Alex Gibney:
This is a dire moment in the US. It's a moment where there's an opportunity for people with a lot of money to rip apart all of the guidelines enacted by the Roosevelt administration, way back in the day, to guard against the brutality of unfettered capitalism. Capitalists like to have all the power that they want, whenever they want it. They're not much interested in democracy either, it turns out. Nor, apparently, the rule of law. The government is not the solution — it's the problem. And now a vengeful president who just wanted a get-out-of-jail-free card is going to punish his enemies and show us all how to destroy the American administrative state by using the big stick of Elon Musk's chequebook.
Here are a few of the films and their trailers — you can check out the article for the rest.
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016):
Watch video on YouTube.
Election (Alexander Payne, 1999):
Watch video on YouTube.
White Noise (Daniel Lombroso, 2020) {Note: this is not the DeLillo adaptation}:
Watch video on YouTube.
American Factory (Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, 2019):
Watch video on YouTube.
I'm curious...what films would you add to the list?
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