Adventures in Film
I have an ever-growing love of cinema which really ramped up a notch when I discovered Letterboxd, a website for film lovers where you can record the films you watch. Then I discovered the Letterbox Season Challenge. The basic premise is that every week for nine months you watch a film with a certain theme that you've never seen before. This included different genres, directors, film movements and more. It's an odyssey into cinema and I had such a great time doing it.
It started fairly sedately with "Coming of Age in the 2010s" for which I watched a lovely British film called Submarine. It wasn't long before I was delving into new territory though and in week two for "Australian New Wave" I found myself watching Kangaroo, an obscure Aussie film based on an obscure D.H. Lawrence novel. By week three I found myself watching Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, a film entirely in Japanese. It was all a bit bonkers.
I ended up watching some really brilliant films. Some of these are proper classics like The 39 Steps and The Maltese Falcon whilst others were more modern like tank-drama Fury or Oscar nominee BlackKklansman. It's hard to define what makes an outstanding film. You certainly need a decent story and some good performances but it's often how the film was put together that makes the difference. You need a director who can use the budget in the best way he can to bring this story to life and has a real passion for what he is doing. Alfred Hitchcock knew exactly how to make an exciting film like The 39 Steps, David Ayer did endless research to get everything to look just right in Fury and Spike Lee had an important tale of racism to tell.
It wasn't all good. I watched some pretty awful films. The first was The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I needed to watch a film starring Jet Li and this was one I had on DVD that I'd put off watching knowing it's poor reputation. It's got a dodgy script, a weak cast and awful CGI and was so bad it killed it's franchise. When I had to watch a film directed by Wim Wenders the only one I could get access to was documentary Pina about German choreographer Pina Bausch which wasn't my thing whatsoever. For "French New Extremity" week I watched horror film Frontier(s) which so bad I wanted to die horribly like the characters in the film do. The real low point was "Best of the Worst" week when I braved The Star Wars Holiday Special which is something I don't recommend trying unless you have consumed copious amounts of alcohol before hand.
Sometimes it was just a bit odd. For "Third Cinema" week I watched Man with a Movie Camera, a 1929 film from the USSR which is a documentary which has no narrative and just shows daily life in four soviet cities. It's not something I'll ever watch again but it was fascinating as a glimpse into soviet Russia, something you rarely see, and for the way it explores what can be done with a film camera. "Hong Kong New Wave" week was fun as I watched The Arch, a film that is in Chinese and black and white. The challenge became the fact that the white subtitles blended into the image and many of the captions flashed onto the screen for a split second. I had little idea what was happening. Then for "No Wave" week I saw Guerillere Talks, a short piece which is a feminist art film that consists of women sat around doing very little.
I've gained a real interest in the whole world of cinema too. When I watch a film I tend to do a quick online search for it and find out a bit more. I like to learn a little about the production to see if the film did what it was intended to do. Often this can lead to some interesting facts like the tanks in Fury coming from the Bovington Tank Museum not far from here or the fact that the crow in the office in It's a Wonderful Life also appears in The Wizard of Oz on the scarecrow's shoulder.
I also tend to look at the critical reception of films. For films that are obviously bad it's clear that most people will agree but one's view of a film is very much a personal perspective and it's interesting to see if you agree. Critics adored Roma but I thought it was too arty for its own good whilst sometimes I love a film & find it's not been so well receive.
I've got a poster with 100 films on it where you scratch to reveal an image of the film when you've seen it. Over the last week various DVDs and blu-rays have been arriving after I started bidding on the poster films on eBay. My adventures in film are set to continue.
It started fairly sedately with "Coming of Age in the 2010s" for which I watched a lovely British film called Submarine. It wasn't long before I was delving into new territory though and in week two for "Australian New Wave" I found myself watching Kangaroo, an obscure Aussie film based on an obscure D.H. Lawrence novel. By week three I found myself watching Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, a film entirely in Japanese. It was all a bit bonkers.
I ended up watching some really brilliant films. Some of these are proper classics like The 39 Steps and The Maltese Falcon whilst others were more modern like tank-drama Fury or Oscar nominee BlackKklansman. It's hard to define what makes an outstanding film. You certainly need a decent story and some good performances but it's often how the film was put together that makes the difference. You need a director who can use the budget in the best way he can to bring this story to life and has a real passion for what he is doing. Alfred Hitchcock knew exactly how to make an exciting film like The 39 Steps, David Ayer did endless research to get everything to look just right in Fury and Spike Lee had an important tale of racism to tell.
It wasn't all good. I watched some pretty awful films. The first was The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I needed to watch a film starring Jet Li and this was one I had on DVD that I'd put off watching knowing it's poor reputation. It's got a dodgy script, a weak cast and awful CGI and was so bad it killed it's franchise. When I had to watch a film directed by Wim Wenders the only one I could get access to was documentary Pina about German choreographer Pina Bausch which wasn't my thing whatsoever. For "French New Extremity" week I watched horror film Frontier(s) which so bad I wanted to die horribly like the characters in the film do. The real low point was "Best of the Worst" week when I braved The Star Wars Holiday Special which is something I don't recommend trying unless you have consumed copious amounts of alcohol before hand.
Sometimes it was just a bit odd. For "Third Cinema" week I watched Man with a Movie Camera, a 1929 film from the USSR which is a documentary which has no narrative and just shows daily life in four soviet cities. It's not something I'll ever watch again but it was fascinating as a glimpse into soviet Russia, something you rarely see, and for the way it explores what can be done with a film camera. "Hong Kong New Wave" week was fun as I watched The Arch, a film that is in Chinese and black and white. The challenge became the fact that the white subtitles blended into the image and many of the captions flashed onto the screen for a split second. I had little idea what was happening. Then for "No Wave" week I saw Guerillere Talks, a short piece which is a feminist art film that consists of women sat around doing very little.
I've gained a real interest in the whole world of cinema too. When I watch a film I tend to do a quick online search for it and find out a bit more. I like to learn a little about the production to see if the film did what it was intended to do. Often this can lead to some interesting facts like the tanks in Fury coming from the Bovington Tank Museum not far from here or the fact that the crow in the office in It's a Wonderful Life also appears in The Wizard of Oz on the scarecrow's shoulder.
I also tend to look at the critical reception of films. For films that are obviously bad it's clear that most people will agree but one's view of a film is very much a personal perspective and it's interesting to see if you agree. Critics adored Roma but I thought it was too arty for its own good whilst sometimes I love a film & find it's not been so well receive.
I've got a poster with 100 films on it where you scratch to reveal an image of the film when you've seen it. Over the last week various DVDs and blu-rays have been arriving after I started bidding on the poster films on eBay. My adventures in film are set to continue.
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