Raymond Chandler & detective fiction • a few new releases from 2011/2012 • 90 favorite paintings/artworks • long essay on the 60s/boomers reunion films • teen movie week • 40s classic week • films about Africa week • 80s children's entertainment week • reaction to Disney/Lucasfilm deal • Neon Genesis Evangelion series begins (ep. 1-7) • The Favorites series begins • my first narrated video essays • teasers for my short film
Chapter 15: Slow-Motion Restart (May - October 2012)
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MAY
Returning four months later, after experiencing the random, jarring disappearance of my site for a few days
Asking readers/commentators to make their own 100 favorites list
My journey with the religious epic, from the cropped/stretched double-VHS package to a digital screening at the Egyptian in Hollywood
Mixed feelings about this Robert Altman/Leigh Brackett adaptation of Raymond Chandler with many brilliant aspects but a smug, misguided attitude toward its source
JUNE
Two "anti-films" - one shot on celluloid but viewed on YouTube, the other shot on a phone and viewed in a cinema
Thoughts on various films, including The Wild One, from my IMDb commenting days
How are these two iconic detectives, both played by Bogart, different from one another?
JULY
Christopher Nolan's third Batman film was both anti-populist and too cowardly to own the implications of its anti-populism
Ninety of my favorite artworks from the Middle Ages to the turn of the millennium
AUGUST
What does a Chaplin classic lose by gaining narration?
Two films, with tellingly different sensibilities, both about seven sixties veterans now in their thirties, gathered for a reunion at one friend's home in the country
SEPTEMBER
Jumping into a discussion about the 2012 Sight & Sound greatest films poll
Updating a picture gallery and a chronological directory
Old IMDb discussions on various topics, including a controversial scene in Sweet Movie
My response to a David Denby essay about the state of cinema - the ensuing comments section was one of my longest, with an extensive back and forth between participants
Looking at two video montages with different tempos
Histoire(s) du Cinema • The Long Day Closes • Madchen in Uniform • Me and My Gal • Melancholia • North Shore • Road to Morocco • Savages • Shoah • Story of Film • Super 8 • Tangled • Tanner '88 • Ways of Seeing • The Wind in the Willows
Plans for the fall: themed weeks in October, video essays and weekly series in November, a short film in December
OCTOBER
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With time, even those films immersed totally in the moment become pieces of history and we wonder what their characters would be doing now
What has and hasn't changed for teens - and high school movies - since 1982?
Comparing book to film adaptation in a review that closes a week focused on teen movies
Does Preston Sturges try to have his cake and eat it too by making an occasionally serious comedy about a foolish filmmaker who wants to address the world's problems in his work?
Three films from three different perspectives on World War II: home front, battlefield, and somewhere in between
Wrapping up a week of forties Hollywood with the live-action equivalent of an Animaniacs cartoon
Two 2006 films about John Newton with the same title but differing sensibilities, styles, and points of view - one a British biopic, the other a Nigerian countermyth
Hollywood takes two approaches to cover exploitation of Africa
Concluding a week of films about Africa with earnest ironist Aki Kaurismaki's film about an old Frenchman concealing a refugee (plus a bonus look at his unusual adaptation of the foundational bohemian narrative)
For whatever reason, 1982 was a big year for fantasy films as these two animated fantasies attest (alongside the next review)
There's nothing quite like the texture of physical effects to bring a fantasy world to life
A week devoted to imaginative children's entertainment from the eighties ends by examining how works like Muppet Babies or Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein remix classic texts
Steven Soderbergh's film introduced me to Spalding Gray's work, and I was especially impressed by its use of pre-existing footage to tell the life story of the late playwright
I found more to mourn in the end of George Lucas' ownership of Star Wars than to celebrate in Disney's promised expansion of the universe
Chapter 16: Best Face Forward (November 2012 - January 2013)
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NOVEMBER
I gave the site a makeover - and a new name - on my birthday, and used a visual tribute to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to mark the theme of transformation (though hopefully a more positive one!)
Kicking off a Neon Genesis Evangelion episode guide including conversations with Bob Clark, who introduced me to the sci-fi anime series
Explaining my concept for my upcoming short film Class of 2002
Introducing my Favorites series, which would finally conclude in 2016
In the aftermath of his fast-paced battle with an Angel, Shinji (and the audience) is at last properly introduced to his environment (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
The histories and theories of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Sabina Spielrein are filtered through David Cronenberg's particular vision
Participants in the Spanish Civil War recall their experiences after four decades of fascism
Whose definition of the hedgehog's dilemma applies here - Freud's or Schopenhauer's? (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner celebrate the meat and potatoes of transactional politics as a path to grand societal change
Mathieu Kassovitz masterfully captures the energy of the nineties zeitgeist
More pictures from Fists of the Pocket, this time a visual tribute to the lead actress
A meditative segue after another big battle (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
Calling for a fourth annual best of the blogosphere round-up that never happened...that era was already over at this point
Sofia Coppola's mood piece feels both musical and novelistic
After many fleeting glimpses, Rei Ayanami finally comes to the forefront (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
DECEMBER
My first narrated video essay, on Fists in the Pocket as a metaphor for the rise of fascism - a perspective that felt even more relevant with the rise of the angry young man alt-right a few years later
Two Alices (or two white rabbits?) in Wonderland
A treasure chest of previously unused images, stretching back to the earliest days of the site
Rei and Shinji plunge into Operation Yashima (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
Lars von Trier offers a very different nightmare on Elm Street
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Three critical takes on Modern Times, in preparation for a video essay
Juxtaposing Otis Ferguson, Roland Barthes, and Graham Greene on Charlie Chaplin's first (kinda) sound film, in one of my favorite video essays (with Greg Stevens and Jeff Pike as additional narrators)
Frozen frames of photos in flames (a visual tribute to Hollis Frampton's nostalgia)
This stand-alone adventure, following a six-episode arc, was the last episode I covered for two and a half years (includes conversation with Bob Clark)
Valuing a cerebral film for its tactile qualities
The trailer provides the first visual evidence of what I worked on all summer and fall
Visual tribute to a memorable moment in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
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