Dug out ye olde movie quote meme again. Let's get this one circulating around the flists one more time.

Come on, it's been more than a year...that's long enough, isn't it?

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions!

( quotes under the cut. warning: some bad words included NOW WITH HINTS )

I'll give everyone a day or two to guess before I start adding hints.

So agenttrojie started an "I Love the Whole World" rewriting craze on metaquotes, and I decided to get in on it with a version for film students - or at least critical studies students.

Inspirational posts are here and here.


I love photography
I love the zoetrope
I love the Latham loop
And the kinetoscope

I love film history
And all its gadgetry
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Cahiers
I love Bela Balasz
I love Munsterberg
And Soviet Montage

I love film theory
What is Cinema?
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

I love realism
I love Expressionists
I love illusions
And all the plot twists

I love that whole world:
The moving picture show
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

When I agreed to watch Death Bed: The Bed That Eats with my brother, my expectations were pretty low. Low-budget indie horror films from the seventies tend to be, with rare exceptions, badly-paced, drawn out snoozefests with inexplicable plots and awful characters.

This is one of those exceptions.

Death Bed is a shining example of a writer/director (George Barry, who is not credited on IMDb as ever having made another movie) taking extremely limited resources and turning out a film that is not only watchable, but highly engaging. The sets are minimal, the special effects are often extremely unconvincing, and the acting ranges from decent to downright awful (there is a flashback in which a gangster character being eaten by the bed says "I'm being eaten alive!" in a strange, matter of fact way while shooting his pistol in the general direction of his own crotch, viewable in the first part of this small collection of clips). The concept, at first, seems not just unreasonably bizarre but incapable of supporting an entire film.

But for all that, George Barry managed to put together a film that somehow works. It has a snappy pace and, very importantly, the action and the backstory are explained very clearly throughout the film (except for the ending, which gets a little vague). This is accomplished through the presence of the artist character - a ghost trapped behind his own painting across the room from the bed, where he receives the inedible belongings of the people the bed has eaten, has flashbacks concerning the bed's history, and repeatedly informs the bed of how much he hates it. It is perhaps somewhat unfortunate that he is the only proper character in the movie (interestingly, he is played by two actors - this is possible because he never speaks aloud, allowing him to be voiced by someone other than the man who provides his visual representation). The rest tend to be lacking in personality or history, though there is a strange set of sequences in which one of the girls is set up as if she's going to be our heroine, complete with internal monologues, before she falls victim to the bed. There are a lot of internal monologues in this film though, lending it a sort of dreamy quality. When characters do speak aloud, the deliverance of the dialogue still tends to seem distant, almost abstracted, leading me to believe that the poor acting might have actually benefited the film by keeping it at a strange remove from reality.

Predictably, Death Bed uses its subject matter as a jumping-off point for inclusion of seventies sleaze (it's a seventies movie about a bed that eats people - how could it not include an orgy that ends in the deaths of all involved?), but it's portrayed surprisingly cleanly (don't be surprised to see some nudity here and there, though). Sex is a factor in the story - a very large factor - but its portrayal onscreen is clearly not where Barry's interests really lay when he made this film. The "orgy" in question is depicted by a bunch of people sitting under the blankets and waving their arms to give the scene some movement - hardly the sexiest of orgy portrayals.

Death Bed is surprising because not only is it a fun film (you know the instant you see the bed downing a bottle of Pepto-Bismol that it's definitely okay to laugh at parts of it), but it's also surprisingly artistic. What might have been nothing but laughs a la the Pepto-Bismol sequence works surprisingly well as a serious dreamworld of shifting themes and tones.

If you looked at the title and thought it sounded at all interesting, see it. As George Barry says in the introduction to the film on the DVD (which you must also watch to get an idea of the history of the film and of the personality of the man who made it): "You might as well give it a try."

I'm hoping to do my book and movie reviews sometime this week, but it hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of other stuff going on right now.

Anyway, on Tuesday in women and film we watched Letter from an Unknown Woman, which is a melodrama that's apparently still pretty popular with certain audiences. It's what was known as a "women's film" or "weepy." It came out in 1948, and it really pissed me off. A proper review will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, I would like to present you with my own little Letter from an Unknown Woman In Five Minutes. And yes, this does contain spoilers, since I'm going over the entire story. I personally wouldn't recommend that you see this movie anyway, but if you're really into angst and self-sacrificing love and all that nonsense and actually want to see this thing, you might want to steer clear.

Basically, it goes like this. Stefan, a former virtuoso pianist, receives a letter the night before he is to take part in a duel. In it, Lisa relates her story, starting out with a statement to the effect that she is probably already dead as he reads it, and that she has always been his. Always. So we go into the letter and see the story unfold.

( VIENNA, SOMETIME IN THE LATE 1800's )

If current trends hold up, there could be a lot of movie reviews showing up on here from now on. I should probably find a community for to post them, or put them on Netflix or something or other. I'll figure it out.

Just a quick review today. Again, no spoilers in the review, though they may come up in the comments.

( The Animation Show, volume 1 )

I've decided that I need to start writing mini-reviews for all the movies I see and the books I read. I've been logging both of these in the calendar pages of my planners for several years now, but when I look back at the titles even a few months later I sometimes find that I can't actually remember what the book or movie was about, or whether or not I even liked it. Bad sign for my memory. Anyway, I should probably be practicing writing reviews anyway. Maybe I'll re-join the bookshare comm to post my book reviews (I'm working on World War Z right now, and it's awesome)

I saw two movies today. First, I went with my staff this afternoon to see Bedtime Stories. Then, I went with Ben this evening to see Gran Torino. Can you say "world of difference"?

( Bedtime Stories )


( Gran Torino )

ETA: I forgot to mention that my reviews will not contain spoilers, unless the "spoilers" are in the previews where you've probably seen them anyway. There may be some spoilers in the comments, but if they originate from me they will be hidden with white text so that you have to highlight them to read them. Note that LJ's message notification system will deliver said comments to your inbox sans html markups if you track the comments on this post, so you could get an inbox full of undisguised spoilers if you do so.

You know what movie you all should see? The Piano. We watched it in film theory on Tuesday, and discussed it yesterday. Now I've gone and looked at the reviews on Netflix (I should stop doing that. There are a lot of idiots on that site). And yeah, most of the ones on the first page are glowing, but then there are people going on about...well, I don't want to ruin it for you. Anyway, the romance is unconventional, and the most potentially troubling aspect of the movie, but one that makes sense if you see it the way you're probably supposed to. Let's just say that for a while it doesn't seem like a feminist film, when it really is at heart.

Oh gods, this idiot is going on about how the entire movie was ruined because the piano was shipped in an unrealistic fashion.

I've been feeling a bit in the mood for a scary movie, so when I went on YouTube to look up something unrelated, I went ahead and clicked on the official preview for a movie called Quarantine. This was the first time I've heard of this movie, and after seeing the preview, I'm almost certainly not going to go see the movie.

Here's the preview.

And here's my comment, in case they delete it (which is quite likely, I think):

Color me unimpressed. I find it kind of ridiculous that an official ad has such an obvious squashing of the frame on its intro. As for the preview itself, the shakycam makes me think Cloverfield ripoff (and what consumer video camera shoots in letterbox, anyway? Maybe it's a news crew, but then it should still be in 1.33). This seems a poor choice for a preview clip, since it's incomprehensible out of context, and the ending seems random and unexciting. I'm definitely not seeing this movie.

Ahh, the joys of telling people how stupid they are....

And I am juuuuust familiar enough with Half-Life canon to find that extremely amusing.

Let me explain.

Back in May, I got this email through the AMIA listserv:

Dear AMIA List Serve subscribers and archivists,

I know thousands of you will get this email so thank you for taking a moment to read it.

I am searching for some media archives of a 1970s congressional hearing. Wed. Aug 3, 1977 Senator Kennedy in the Senate discusses a CIA covert program codenamed “MKUltra”- this was a brainwashing research project in the ‘50s and 60’s.

I am looking to find this footage, select pieces of it, and obtain copyright information (or is it public domain?) for use in a COMMERCIAL FEATURE FILM.

Please help!! Any references or knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

-Anonymous

Though the email was signed "Anonymous," the sender's name comes up as Gordon Freeman. A few more emails have come in from the same guy, looking for the owner of the rights to this image, asking for more information on MKUltra media, and now looking for someone to do tape transfers.

Spoofie is feeling rather curious about all of this (and before anyone asks, I don't consider this to be a breach of privacy, due to the fact that these emails were posted to a large, public listserv).

RIP, Bruce Conner. Your film A Movie was the first piece of avant-garde filmmaking I ever actually enjoyed watching.


Mongoloid
Bruce Conner
1978

Okay, so I requested the questions for this meme more than half a month ago. I've been busy. Seriously. And now I have time.

The meme, as a reminder: 1) Make a list of 15 characters and assign each character a number.

2) Without telling anyone who's on the list or the character's assigned number, get questions from your flist about what they'd like to know about them, i.e. "If 3 and 4 were trapped in a cave together with only a blanket and a toothpick, what would they do?"

3) Post the list of characters and answers to the questions.

( The list, the questions, and the answers )

Decided to go through all those pictures I've saved to use in icon making, and found a few that actually sparked something. Two Disney World, one PotC, one Brother Bear, and two Mork and Mindy.

Teaser:
( the rest )

ETA: I updated OOC Jack. Mmm...looking back at some of the earlier chapters, I have no idea where I got some of this stuff. Ah well...as long as new stuff keeps springing to mind, I suppose it's all right if I've lost a bit of the original mindset.

That's all right. Can't really express how I feel about the ocean on here anyway. It's both great and terribly not great, do you know what I mean? Anyway, yanked this from gundamkiwi. Considering the fact that I don't get that many comments normally, I'm going to change the rules a little just for myself and say that if, after I've written the drabble for you, there haven't been ten comments, you can request another one, as many times as you like until there have been ten and as long as you wait for me to actually write the buggers before listing off another one.

The first 10 people to comment on this post get to request a drabble– 100 words – on a subject/character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal. Post all fandoms you’re willing to write for.

-Phantom of the Opera (Leroux, ALW, Schumacher, 1925 and 1943 film versions only--please specify)
-Lost
-Pirates of the Caribbean
-Secret Window
-Any Tim Burton film (excluding Cabin Boy and Batman Forever)
-Chronicles of Narnia
-Crime and Punishment
-Dracula 2000
-Beauty and the Beast (Disney version)
-Dear Frankie
-The Emporer's New Groove (disregarding the TV series because it shouldn't have been made)
-Invader Zim
-Lexx (yea, right, someone's going to request that)
-Princess Bride

ETA (what does ETA stand for, anyway?): 3/10 drabbles requested and written. Come on, folks, I need the practice. Remember, too, that you three can request a second one any time now.

ETA as of much later: the meme is closed--this post is public in order to show off the drabbles I wrote.

...sorry, Mr. Leroux.

5. The Lost Queen by Chain of the Harmonica
After the war of the ring, everything is as it should be until a mysterious Queen shows up and everything starts to change from there.

( 'The Lost Queen' (or 'Queenie', if you will) )



13. Gone by Onde
With one shot of a canon, Will's life is changed forever. How will he coupe? Warning: Death and Slash WTJS R&R

( Gone )

Mmm...apologies also to anyone on the flist who'll get this post twice because they're also in the PPC Plotholes community.

I watched Dracula 2000 again last night and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I turned the commentary on and actually spent most of the time with the movie in the background while I edited my *cough* fanfic...parody...thing. It's...yeah. I'm looking forward to posting that even though the D2K fanbase is teensy. You'll all read it, right? *puppy eyes* Not that it's anywhere near done, and I ought to be working on OOC Jack...but that one can probably wait until the second movie comes out and we get flooded with badfic again. And yea, still in the middle of the PotO story, but I just recently finished a chapter and sent it off to Frotu for editing, and what with all the school stuff she has to deal with right now it's going to be a while before she sends it back, and then after that we have to work on the next part of the outline before I can write again anyway. Twelve chapters and we've finally covered the first of thirty-five years.

Anyway, as I meant to say before I went off about fanfiction, I posted a review of the film to IMDb. Seriously, it's a funny, funny movie.

Still feeling the kilt love. Gehhh....

I finally got around to making icons--not like there were too many to make.

One Father Ted, three Attila, two Bartleby, and three V for Vendetta.

Teaser:

( deedleedoo )

So here we are again--picspamming. Photobucket's working for me once more.

I think I shall watch Dear Frankie once more, with the commentary turned on, then force myself to put it right back in the envelope and return it--best take full advantage of having Netflix by getting as many movies as I can. It's awfully expensive to buy a copy of Dear Frankie, but such is life.

Anyhooo, picspamming time. I have icons, a sort of ramble/rant about the short film Please! with pictures to illustrate, and some pictures of things in the amusement parks, including something that rather surprised me and that I'm sure my fellow Lost fans will appreciate.

It's icon time! I have both Gerry and Johnny, so take your pick.
Sample:
( Icons! )

Next we have the film Please! which I saw earlier tonight after Dear Frankie. It's only fifteen minutes long, and you can go see it on AtomFilms if you have Real Player or Windows Media Player. Apparently it was quite popular at various festivals, though I don't really see why. I've put all the images under links because there were so many, and be warned, HERE BE SPOILERS!
( Get in the car or my brain gets it! )

Holy poo, it's time for pictures from Real Life--or as real as it gets down here.
( Weehoo, amusement parks! )

Another note on Jaws: Mystic tells me that in real life, the tank would not have exploded. Instead, it would have shot a tunnel through Bruce's guts.

Hmm...not quite as spectacular of a visual.

In other news, I am trying to write! And I mean real writing, not getting drunk and smacking my hands against the keyboard until I have a "chapter" for OOC Jack. By the way, if you didn't check that out, it's here, and yes, I really was intoxicated when I did that. I'd had a beer and half a bottle of some really fine wine. And yes, I did appreciate it instead of chugging it. Took me a while because of that. What's really disturbing is the fact that, even while I was drunk off my feet, I still stuck in a Monty Python reference.

Anyway...there might be something soon. I have a huge project in the works that won't be ready for a long time yet, but I'm trying to scribble down a few one-shots during my breaks at work. Beats staring at the wall.

Buuut...school. Ugh. I still have half of Sister Carrie left to read, and we were supposed to have it done yesterday and there's a test on Tuesday.

And ICONS!

( There's only two, but still! )

yeah...I made some Kontroll icons, but they're just the characters and their names.

( Read more... )

Yes, Icons behind the cut! Woot!

( Read more... )
In other news, there was a bomb threat today, which certainly livened things up out at the film school.