#Bales2023FilmChallenge by @bales1181
June 16, 2023: Someone named Richard
“Somewhere in Time” (1980)
“A Chicago playwright (Richard Collier) uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel.” (from IMDB)
My sentimental heart loves this movie ❤️
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081534/
#SomewhereInTime #ChristopherReeve #JaneSeymour #NationalRichardDay #GrandHotel #MackinacIsland #Cinemastodon #FilmMastodon @film
Oof, lots of catching up to do… But first
#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 16: A Richard for #NationalRichardDay
Richard Wagner comes in many forms in Ken Russell's Franz Liszt #musical #biopic-#fantasy extravaganza #Lisztomania (1975). A sailor Dracula is not in the least the most outrageous one.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 22: a movie that gives off positive vibes for #PositiveMediaDay
The groove is driving and the characters jammin' in J. Terrance Mitchell's Get Rollin' (1980). We follow entrepreneur Vinzerrelli who aims to become “the Muhammad Ali of #RollerBoogie” and to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the first roller skater to make $1M, with in his tow, smooth-as-silk Pat the Cat ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/get-rollin-1980
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 14: a pandemonium on #PandemoniumDay
Dan Duyu's 盘丝洞 [The Cave of the Silken Web] (1927) is a fantastic silent interpretation of Wu Cheng'en's 西遊記 [Journey to the West]. In a vigorous display of #wuxia, #horror, monkey shenanigans, and – during the pandemonium unfolding in the final act – a small glimpse into the vast pantheon of Chinese gods and demons. ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/pan-si-dong-1927 (link to the #film in the post)
Alright, final one of today, a little write-up follows when it's not a gazillion degrees 🥵 Oh the irony, because…
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 15: arctic sea ice on #ArcticSeaIceDay
Ignacio Agüero's dreamy pseudo #documentary Sueños de hielo [Dreams of Ice] (1994)
#IgnacioAgüero #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @art_film #GlobalWarming
> 𝛼-60: Do you know what illuminates the night?
> Lemmy Caution: #Poetry.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 16: #AI on #ArtificialIntelligenceAppreciationDay
#Godard's #Alphaville (1965) bears similarities with #Cocteau's Orphée (1950), transported to a mirror world of sorts. It also foreshadows not only our time, but also M Hulot's, whose #Tativille could be a simulacra of 𝛼-60's simulated, dehumanised world ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/alphaville-une-etrange-aventure-de-lemmy-caution-1965
Natacha von Braun (Anna Karina) and Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine). Lights reflected in the windowpane that shields the two characters suggest “the existence of an obscure reality” (after Baudrillard↗). #Bales2023FilmChallenge July 16: Artificial Intelligence on #Ar...
#BalesBonus: for #ArtificialIntelligenceAppreciationDay, watch Stuart Hamisch's terrifying #StudentFilm Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (1958) https://archive.org/details/HaveITol1958
Imaginative film showing how automatic gadgets in homes and workplaces alienate people from one another.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 17: someone gets a tattoo on #NationalTattooDay
Otsuya's (Ayako Wakao) is forced into prostitution and marked with a large spider tattoo. As the figure slowly takes shape under horishi Seikichi's skilled hands, Otsuya too transforms. ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/ci-qing-1966
#YasuzôMasumura's 刺青 [#Irezumi / Tattoo] (1966), based on the novel by #JunichirôTanizaki.
#tattoos #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @art_film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 18: caviar for #NationalCaviarDay
Cabiria (#GiuliettaMasina), a prostitute looking for happiness, meets famous movie star Alberto Lazzari (handsomely moustachioed Amedeo Nazzari). In his plush mansion, he treats her to an opulent – if not bewildering to Cabiria – meal of lobster and caviar.
#Fellini's Le notti di Cabiria (1957) is a love letter to hope, life, Rome, and of course his Giulietta ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/le-notti-di-cabiria-1957
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 19: a Barbara for #NationalBarbaraDay
Barbara wakes up to a fireman entering her bedroom window. Her father reassures her there's nothing. Years later she sparks a scheme that forces the fire brigade to come to their house and climb through her window once again.
#AdolfoArrieta's Flammes (1978) has a strange, stilted quality with characters detached from yet devoted to their raison d'être ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/flammes-1978
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 20: space exploration on #SpaceExplorationDay
Both #AntiCapitalist and pre-Stanley space odyssey; it's Jindřich Polák's Ikarie XB 1 [Icarus XB 1] (1963). Based on #StanislawLem's The Magellanic Cloud (1955).
#JindřichPolák #SciFi #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @art_film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 21: a fake ID to buy alcohol on #LegalDrinkingAgeDay
Henry Levin's Where the Boys Are (1960) is chock-full of characters whose names appear to be straight space-travel-lifted from various John Waters' movies: Tuggle Carpenter! TV Thompson! Lola Fandango! Dr. Raunch for Chrissakes! It's all pretty clean, but without these girls there wouldn't be any Dawn Davenport. And that would've ruined anyone's Christmas.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 22: #3D to celebrate Jaws 3-D's 40th
What would you do if someone sends you a mysterious, nightmares inducing jade mask? Well, you put it on, now! In the name of science Dr Allan Barnes does exactly that and transports him and us to a hallucinatory dreamworld with Zardoz-styled floating skulls and their robed devotees.
The Mask (1961) is an extremely watchable #psychotronic affair ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-mask-1961
CW: stroking
Für die deutschen Leser unter euch gibt es hier einen hervorragenden 4-teiligen Artikel über 3D-Filme. #3D-Schwulenporno, oooh Boy! #CSD
Could've mentioned Allen H. Miner's Doom Town (1953) too, for you #Oppenheimer* fan boys. It's on the 3-D Rarities DVD.
https://letterboxd.com/film/doom-town/
*had to switch that 5 minute trailer off 1,5 minutes in. Read a book, folks.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 23: vanilla ice cream for #NationalVanillaIceCreamDay
James Lorinz's psychodrama Swirlee (1989)
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 25: threading a needle on #ThreadingTheNeedleDay
In #VlatkoGilić's short and rather disturbing Moć [Power] (1973), Serbian hypnotist #SlobodanĆirković aka #Roko initiates a group of men to thread a needle and slowly, going from him to the next to the other, connect it through their bodies until all of them are stitched into one ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/moc-1973
#film #cinema #documentary #hypnotism #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @art_film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 26: various countries ban together for #OneVoiceDay
William Klein's Festival panafricain d'Alger [The #Panafrican Festival in Algiers] (1969)
#WilliamKlein #documentary #CinémaDirect #photography #BlackPanthers #music #jazz #politics #neocolonialism #Africa #AfricanDiaspora #PanAfrica #BLM #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 27: bagpipes heard on #BagpipeAppreciationDay
Great Highland bagpipes, or a' phìob mhòr as they're called in Gaelic, are traditionally played on the battlefield. #PeterWatkins' Culloden (1964) moves the senseless bloodshed from 60s Vietnam to the Scottish Highlands of 1746. The most clearly it's seen in the men's eyes. That stare we recognise all too well from the televised horrors from the 60s and beyond ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/culloden-1964-m6lp
John Hunt Leigh in Culloden, pìobaireachd↗ ceòl mór (litt. piping “great music”). #Bales2023FilmChallenge July 27: bagpipes heard on #BagpipeAppreciationDay Great Highland #bagpipes, or a' phìob mhòr as they're called in Scottish Gaelic, is traditionally played on the battlefield. Peter Watkins' Culloden [aka The Battle of Culloden] (1964) moves the senseless bloodshed from 1960s Vietnam to the Scottish Highland...
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 28: playing soccer on #NationalSoccerDay
A lot of #soccer there's not, in #WimWenders' Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (1972). An early, perfect example of Neue Deutsche Film, cinematic thanks to #RobbyMüller's observant eye and Handke's precise language. And a very slow burning road movie, a Taxi Driver in reverse if you will, that doesn't suffer the neurotic showmanship of its Hollywood counterpart > https://write.underworld.fr/settima/die-angst-des-tormanns-beim-elfmeter-1972
If you love-hate the beautiful game, here's a short list for you https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/a-team-sport-played-between-two-teams-of/
#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film #soccer #football #footie #Fußball
Summer, with its smouldering heat and sticky misdemeanour, is in many parts of the world the endless season of football, or soccer if you like. It's everywhere, and if you're blessed by living in Germany, inescapable. With that in mind, I started working on a list of films featuring the beautiful game and its noble athletes, in one way or another. Mostly the other. A work in progress. Fitting suggestions welcome. TBD Trouble on the Terraces (1994) Il mondo di notte numero 3 (1963) Xiao nian Su Qi Er (1985) Peola (1970) Zivot radnika (1987) Robbery (1967) Come cani arrabbiati…
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 29: lipstick
With its sweeping cinematography and #Technicolor splendour, Black Narcissus establishes a stark contrast between piety and the pull of worldly desire. The bewitching #lipstick scene works as well as it does because of the scene's photography. That red smear, like blood pulsating from a fresh wound, becomes a deeply unsettling, vulgar gesture ☞https://write.underworld.fr/settima/black-narcissus-1947
Talking about #Technicolor and #Eastmancolor, this is a fascinating #film blog:
The Eastmancolor revolution and British cinema, 1955-85
https://eastmancolor.info/
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 30: a #whistleblower movie for #NationalWhistleblowerDay
Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/serpico-1973
#SidneyLumet #AlPacino #PeterMaas #FrankSerpico #BookAdaptation #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 31: watermelon on #NationalWatermelonDay
#MarcoFerreri's Dillinger è morto (1969) is a story of food & alienation. #MichelPiccoli's Glauco, bored of his successful career, bored of his beautiful wife, bored of his beautiful house, finds sudden vigour in the act of preparing #food and restoring an item that shouldn't be where it is and with that, essentially recreates #JohnDillinger's escape from Crown Point ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/dillinger-e-morto-1969
Updated with much better screenshots. The linked blogpost has a tad more information too.
Attached: 2 images #Bales2023FilmChallenge July 17: someone gets a tattoo on #NationalTattooDay Otsuya's (Ayako Wakao) is forced into prostitution and marked with a large spider tattoo. As the figure slowly takes shape under horishi Seikichi's skilled hands, Otsuya too transforms. ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/ci-qing-1966 #YasuzôMasumura's 刺青 [#Irezumi / Tattoo] (1966), based on the novel by #JunichirôTanizaki. #tattoos #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film@a.gup.pe @art_film@a.gup.pe
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