pullquote

Adventures in cinema: Cut Cut Cut

I have no idea how the edits in The Secret (1979, dir. Ann Hui) are motivated, but each wild, perfect cut for at least the first third of its run time had me clapping and giggling in delight. (The end, not so much.)

Adventures in cinema: miniatures set to music

Through some happy accident, I came across this video by Pom Pom Squad for their song, "LUX," inspired by Lux Lisbon and quoting heavily from Sofia Coppola's adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides.

It's a microgenre, to be sure, but I love when musicians riff visually on feature films. Ex Hex is another, with their "Donna Wanna Lose" video taking them on a compressed journey through the visuals and plot of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.

And then there are the hybrids I want to speak into existence. HAIM should cover "Help Me" by Robin Gibb and Marcy Levy--THERE ARE HANDCLAPS--and shoot their best Times Square homage with Paul Thomas Anderson (acknowledging it may be too far from the valley to truly take and maybe something from Foxes--Janis Ian's "Fly Too High"?--would make more sense).

Adventures in cinema: the kids, they are all right

While I wasn't paying good attention in this pandemic year, turns out many present/former students got up to movie making. Which is particularly impressive because there are no production facilities/courses to speak of. Even better, it evolved from a COVID-born online movie watching/discussion group, with a list that exceeds 500 titles at last count. (I am particularly in love with their double features.)

Bias acknowledged, ma non c'è male! The short is good, fucking weird, and wears its influences/thefts proudly. The adherence to masking protocols here (see Behind the Scenes below) and on their previous production hurt my black heart because they are getting it done regardless but jfc, this year.

(It occurs to me that I may have to meet/apologize to the director's parents at graduation this spring for whatever bad ideas I might have transmitted via one enrichment thingie and the subsequent two classes with me during said student's undergraduate career.)

Adventures in cinema (etiquette): Masquing

IFC Center: Mask Up from Posteritati on Vimeo.

a masked entertainment!

Adventures in cinema (studies): We, Insomniacs All*

screen grabs from SCMS. this panel--peopled by presenters from London to California--was a wonderful way to start a Saturday, appropriately pottering about in my pyjamas.

*I aptly, absolutely misremembered this phrase: "We, amnesiacs all, condemned to live in an eternally fleeting present, have created the most elaborate of human constructions, memory, to buffer ourselves against the intolerable knowledge of the irreversible passage of time and the irretrieveability of its moments and events."

Adventures in cinema: aca-alcohol

the way we live now, Society of Cinema and Media Studies annual meeting, 2021
(in fairness, the overdetermined socializing was quite nice, says this somewhat feral semi-scholar)

Adventures in cinema: Anna in the cities

Vivre Ensemble (1973, dir. Anna Karina)

Adventures in cinema: frog in my throat

One Froggy Evening (1955, dir. Charles M. Jones)
how this first week of one-year pandemic anniversaries has felt: at a loss for words b/w wanting to burst into song

Adventures in cinema: if you're feeling sinister

Fata/Morgana a.k.a. Left-Handed Fate (1966, dir. Vincente Aranda)
watched for the first time; couldn't tell you a thing about the plot, but it looked a dream

Adventures in cinema: 2 ou 3 choses Richard Lester sait de la couleur

Help! (1965, dir. Richard Lester)
watched for the first time
I read Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester's Getting Away with It on a beach in Quintana Roo.