#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 16: a #panda spotted in a #movie for #NationalPandaDay

In ON THE MARRIAGE BROKER #JOKE AS CITED BY #SIGMUNDFREUD IN “WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS” OR CAN THE AVANT-GARDE ARTIST BE WHOLED?” (1977) Owen Land explores meaning, wit, and #WordPlay, and manages to unite the #marketing of #umeboshi #plums in a wide variety of vessels, the brokering of brides, and pandas discussing #Freud in all of the above contexts.

#film #OwenLand #AvantGarde #Pandas #ShortFilm #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 17: Someone is sleeping on #WorldSleepDay

In a small train station's waiting room, people sleep. #Trains in the distance rumble along. #Snow covers footprints crossing nearby tracks and the wooden shed where travellers, strangers, huddle together in their shared fate. Pavel Kostomarov's cinematography and Sergey Loznitsa's direction capture the silence. This is Полустанок [Polustanok / The Halt)] (RU, 2000).

#film #Russia #ShortFilm #documentary #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 18: Sports car racing on #InternationalSportsCarRacingDay

A man and a woman meet and fall in love. The woman – Anouk Aimée – still mourns the loss of her stuntman husband, while the man – Jean-Louis Trintignant – is alone since his partner took her life, incapable of dealing with his near-fatal crash at #LeMans. #Trintignant came from a family obsessed with race car driving and was an avid amateur driver himself. His uncle, the #GrandPrix racer Maurice Trintignant, can be seen driving a #Maserati Tipo 151/1 during the race scene.

A deceptively simple #film by Claude Lelouch, with an equally breezy soundtrack by Francis Lai. This is Un homme et une femme (1966).

#film #AnoukAimée #JeanLouisTrintignant #ClaudeLelouch #FrancisLai #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 19: Going through automatic doors on #NationalAutomaticDoorDay

Joseph #Losey's The Damned (1962) starts out as your conventional, lurid, early counterculture affair.

An American tourist visiting #Dorset is tricked by a prostitute, then falls victim to a youth gang controlled by King, a still very green Oliver Reed at his meanest. The trickster is King's sister, who confides in the American hoping to escape her brother's incestuous avances. They elope to a nearby island, closely followed by King and his gang, where they find a group of #children, all contently living in an underground lab, with #AutomaticDoors only they can control. These are the damned.

#film #UK #ColdWar #HammerFilms #JosephLosey #MacdonaldCarey #ShirleyAnneField #OliverReed #TheDamned #horror #drama #SciFi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 20: French spoken on #FrenchLanguageDay

A Walloon language professor and his French set designer fiancée are at an impasse. While his Flemish students vocally protest against more Walloon influence at their uni, the couple - who superficially speak the same #language, #French - struggles to find the right words. They meet, part ways, then find each other again on a train that at morning turns out to be standing still in the middle of nowhere. The man, now without her, disembarks and with two acquaintances who also were on that train tries to find out where he and she are. André Delvaux's Un soir, un train (1968) is a masterpiece about finding the right language in a fractured world.

#film #cinema #Belgium #France #MagicRealism #AndréDelvaux #YvesMontand #AnoukAimée #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 21: Countdown on #NationalCountdownDay

[SPOILER WARNING BELOW]

#Peace, little girl aka Daisy aka Daisy Girl was the #PoliticalAd campaign to end all ad campaigns. It opens innocently enough with a little blonde girl, picking the petals of an ox-eye #daisy while counting. When the final petal's gone, the tone changes completely*

This deceptively simple #propaganda #film was made in support of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign by ad agency #DBB and media consultant #TonySchwartz. It was so effective and bleak in is insinuations that the Johnson campaign was forced to pull it after only one screening.

What fascinates me is the similarity with one particular scene from James Whale's Frankenstein (1931). The Monster (#Karloff) meets a little girl who sits on the shore of a lake, picking daisies. He approaches her, and the girl, knowing the creature is a good man at heart, invites him to play a game with her involving them tossing the daisies into the lake. <spoiler>When they run out of daisies, the Monster picks up the girl who to him is as pretty and innocent as a flower, and throws her into the water.</spoiler>.

This scene was cut and considered lost until the 1980s. Could Tony Schwartz have been aware of that scene? He was at the right age to have seen the pre-code, pre-cut version.

*Peace, little girl is deceptively simple and only a minute long. However, do watch it on a sunny day: https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs01185386.

#film #cinema #propaganda #elections #LyndonBJohnson #BarryGoldwater #ColdWar #Vietnam #VietnamWar #politics #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 22: Someone breaks into song on #NationalSingItOutDay

In #蔡明亮 / Ming-liang Tsai's 洞 [Dóng / The Hole] (1998), set in a #plague-ridden #Taiwan it's raining relentlessly. The #rain and a #virus forces people to retreat. In Hsiao Kang's crumbling building, a plumber inadvertently punches a hole from his floor to the unnamed woman's below. While she, another victim of the #disease, holes up in her apartment they struck up a strange detached relationship. Between endless rain and frantic #food hoarding, in her heart a #musical sings.

#film #cinema #MingLiangTsai #LeeKangSheng #YangKueiMei #SciFi #romance #musical #cockroaches #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 23: Someone barely escapes something on #NationalNearMissDay

In Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Charles Reisner / Buster Keaton, 1928), former vaudevillian Keaton narrowly escapes the façade of a house crashing down around him. Both Keaton and the stunt lived on, probably most famously in Keaton aficionado Jackie Chan's Project A Part II (HK, 1987). Despite all the well-meant tributes, none of the later stunts are as nail biting as the pre-OSHA original.

#film #cinema #SilentCinema #SilentFilm #BusterKeaton #slapstick #vaudeville #stunts #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 24: Roommates or flatmates on #FlatmatesDay

May Lin (楊貴媚 / Kuei-Mei Yang) is a real estate agent who meets up with a man (陳昭榮 / Chao-jung Chen) in the bare, too sterile flat she brokers. Another man, Hsiao-kang (李康生 / Kang-sheng Lee) who took the key of the same dwellings for his own cause, decides to settle in. In 蔡明亮 / Ming-liang Tsai's 愛情萬歲 [Ai qing wan sui / Vive L'Amour] (TW, 1994) the apartment serves not only as a space where events take place, but locks and guides the flatmates through their impulses.

#film #cinema #Taiwan #Taipei #TsaiMingLiang #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 25: Walking in #sand on #WalkInTheSandDay

During a summer vacation on #FireIsland, two young men come across Sandy, a young woman with an injured #seagull. While nursing the bird back to life, the relationship between the three deepens. A second girl, the much younger Rhoda (the breathtaking Catherine Burns) is taken in by the trio. Set almost entirely on a sunny #beach, Last Summer (Frank “The Swimmer” Perry, 1969) is one of the most claustrophobic films you may ever watch.

#film #cinema #LastSummer #FrankPerry #EvanHunter #BarbaraHershey #BarbaraSeagull #RichardThomas #BruceDavison #CatherineBurns #ComingOfAge #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 26: Someone wearing #purple on #PurpleDay / #InternationalEpilepsyDay

Both in The Wormwood Star (Curtis Harrington, 1956) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Kenneth Anger, 1954) Marjorie Cameron wears shades of purple. Professionally known as #Cameron, she was a follower of #Thelema, the philosophical movement founded by occultist Aleister #Crowley.

Meanwhile in 1946, rocket scientist Jack Parsons and (pre-Scientology) #SciFi author L. Ron Hubbard worked on a series of Crowley-related magic ceremonies named Babalon Working. After Parsons declared the initial rituals a success, he encountered Cameron in his own house. She became the element required to continue the ceremonies, this resulting in her being declared Babalon, the #Scarlet Woman.

#film #cinema #MarjorieCameron #JackParsons #JLP #Liber49 #AleisterCrowley #SexMagic #Magick #Babalon #Thelema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 27: Play an acoustic musical instrument on #NationalAcousticSoulDay

There are two notable amateur films in the National Film Registry. One of them is the Zapruder film, the other Sid Laverents' Multiple SIDosis (1970).

Sid Laverents was an airplane engineer and former one-man band vaudevillian who in his fifties, joined the #SanDiego Amateur Moviemakers Club. One of his best known outputs, Multiple SIDosis, took him and his 16 mm #Bolex four years and 1,900 feet of celluloid to make. In it, Sid – and a musical group made up of many overdubbed versions of himself – performs the popular and insanely catchy tune Nola. Catch it here: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8mblxjfh5kE

#film #cinema #vaudeville #OneManBand #music #ChristmasMovie #AmateurFilm #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

Back to the old tricks.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 29: Deception on #SmokeAndMirrorsDay

Vérités et Mensonges is what it's actually called, but you may know it as F for Fake (1973). Orson Welles and three uncredited fellow conspirators – Gary Graver, Oja Kodar, and François Reichenbach – delve into the world of #art forger Elmyr de Hory by way of his biographer Clifford Irving. Welles et al free-associate with concepts of art, lies, #deception, and #authenticity. Houdin, Welles, Picasso and Hughes, hoaxers, hucksters and artists in their own right. And then it's over: this work of art, this sleight of hand, this demonstration of factuality, an exposé.

#film #cinema #OrsonWelles #OjaKodar #HowardHughes #hoax #FForFake #FilmEssay #documentary #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 31: Spot the #Eiffel Tower on #EiffelTowerDay

Never was or will I be a fan of Jacques #Tati, the loveable Luddite who wouldn't be as big as he became if it wasn't for the technological wonders of the 20th century. Having said that, his #Playtime (1967) holds a special place in my heart. Tati's alter ego Monsieur #Hulot roams a hyper-modern #Paris, actually an enormous soundstage dubbed #Tativille. People, buildings and gadgets interact with and against each other, each and everyone as plotless as a prop. In unison, it becomes a perfectly orchestrated symphony of maddening modernism. But Tati wouldn't be Tati if it wasn't for a glimpse of quiet nostalgia. A woman holding the glass-and-steel entrance door of yet another concrete office building. In the glass, a burst of warm light and colour and movement. And then it's gone, and we remember how that tower once was the thorn in the Luddite's eye, that “baroque and mercantile fancy of a builder of machines”.

#film #cinema #JacquesTati #MonsieurHulot #TourEiffel #EiffelTower #Paris #architecture #MonsieurHulot #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

Hmmm, I've still got yesterday's freebie…

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 31, again: The #EiffelTower in a #movie for #EiffelTowerDay

#SciFi may be one of those genres that's forever linked to the future and, depending on which side of 2000 you are at, either in a dystopian of utopian fashion. In 1925, René Clair released Paris qui dort. An #Eiffel Tower watchman wakes up to find the world around him asleep. The few ones still awake – the bright, pretty, carefree things – explore, live and loot.

#film #cinema #ScienceFiction #TourEiffel #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 1: Craft something on #NationalHandmadeDay

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl. Or a girl with a glue gun. Or skip the girl, get yourself a piece of cardboard, some foam latex, and a six pack of beer. Frank Grow's Red & Rosy (1989) is the embodiment of a special staple of #DIY culture that appears to be long-lost. Really kids, you don't need much of a budget. Or tomorrows latest equipment. The hottest Hollywood hotshot? Forget about it, ask your drunk uncle to yell at the camera for 10 minutes. You want authenticity? Tape some random medical footage straight from your teevee. Need a shot of adrenal juice? Well, just watch this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1woAMfQ9DuQ

#film #cinema #horror #comedy #puppetry #HotRods #punk #LowBudget #DragRacing #FrankGrow #RicoMartinez #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 2: a #movie that takes place out in nature on #NatureDay

Two American families, adults and their children, go on a #HikingTrip in the south of #France. They find themselves increasingly lost, not only in #nature but also in and among themselves.

Supposedly based on a real troublesome event and riddled with much #film-making adversity, Raúl Ruiz's O Território [The Territory] (1981) nearly stranded as much as the hikers did. In support, Wim Wenders used the same cast for his Der Stand der Dinge (1982), about a film crew's attempt to remake Roger Corman's Day the World Ended (1955). In a wonderful, unscripted circular way, Corman was one of the executive producers of O Território.

#film #cinema #RaúlRuiz #Portugal #hiking #survival #religion #cartography #RogerCorman #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 3: #Party on #WorldPartyDay

To support his family, small-town boy Domenico moves to #Milan in the hope to find a #job. Eventually he's employed, as a clerk in a drab office replacing a senior worker who died. While the days drag on, only interrupted by coffee shop small talk with fellow #teenager Antonietta, the #Christmas office #party draws nearer.

With the dark absurdity of coming out of fascism and having to run a real-world country with a naive ineptitude – represented by the too-large-borrowed-from-father-suits – and pretence childlike bureaucratic procedures, Ermanno Olmi's Il posto [The Job] (1961) is a wonderfully sharp observation of #postwar #Italy.

#film #cinema #ErmannoOlmi #Neorealismo #neorealism #ComingOfAge #TeenangeAngst #bureaucracy #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 4: Rats in a movie on #WorldRatDay

NOTE no screenshots because I cannot post any content illegal in Germany. However, I do believe it is a must to study any film of far-reaching significance, no matter how repulsive.

I took a long time considering what to nominate for today's topic. This is not an easy one. And frankly, barely qualifies as as film.

In the 1930s, three films (2 British, 1 American) portrayed Jews in a positive light, as victims of persecution through history. When in 1938 the Novemberpogrome took place in (Nazi-occupied) Germany (the term “Kristallnacht” is a horrible euphemism and I won't use it), media was not unanimously jubilant about it. Understanding that violence is not the way to popular consensus, plans were made to change people's thinking about the Jews, using widely available visual media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_cinema). In 1939, the faux #documentary Der ewige Jude [The Eternal Jew], directed by the leader of Goebbels' #propaganda film department Fritz Hippler, started production. Scenes shot in Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland were intercut with real, but out-of-context documentary footage, giving it a false sense of authenticity.

A returning theme in Der ewige Jude is disease. Not merely to suggest “the Jew”'s unclean life and religion, but as a synonym of people as a vermin, a parasite to decent (read: Aryan) society. In a horrible demonstration of the Kuleshov Effect, footage of a large group of #rats coming out of a sewer is followed by a crowd of Jews in the Łódź Ghetto, filmed without their consent or knowledge of where this footage would end up. The voice-over states:

"Where rats appear, they bring ruin by destroying mankind's goods and foodstuffs. In this way, they spread disease, plague, leprosy, typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and so on. They are cunning, cowardly and cruel and are found mostly in large packs. Among the animals, they represent the rudiment of an insidious, underground destruction – just like the Jews among human beings."

Do remember that, whenever you hear or see comparisons made between people and disease, or people and rats. Let's not just never forget, but always remember and never repeat.

#film #cinema #Germany #antisemitism #dehumanization #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 5: A #movie #FilmedInNebraska for #NationalNebraskaDay

The one that got bombed by Strangelove.

Both Lumet's Fail Safe and #Kubrick's #ColdWar comedy came out in 1964, right after the #CubaCrisis. The world was awash with the realisation that the bomb, The Bomb, wasn't merely proverbial flexing. And when crisis happens, there are two options. One is to laugh, the other is to grasp. Sadly for Lumet, and the world, his Fail Safe was released while everyone was still too busy chuckling.

#film #cinema #Nebraska #SidneyLumet #FailSafe #HenryFonda #WalterMatthau #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 6: Someone is rejected on #SorryCharlieDay

A scandal, that's what it was! In the late 1960s, Peter Fleischmann picked the picturesque Catholic village of #Landshut as the backdrop for Jagdszenen aus #Niederbayern, the #film adaptation of Martin Sperr's #TheatrePlay with the same name.

A young man named Abram – played by Sperr – returns to his family village. Soon the townspeople's thorns move from the in their eyes other disgraceful villagers to the much-needed mechanic.

Where did he return from? He was in prison. What for? For being a homosexual. He's a #Drecksau (a dirty pig), his mother says. The village whore can't turn him around. A sow is slaughtered in real time in celebration of a successful #harvest and plans for the town's future are forged.

While created when West Germany's #Paragrafen175 was in place [1872–1994], illegality of same-sex relations], the homosexual aspect wasn't the main cause of the outrage. Some of the Landshutter villagers who played alongside the professional actors felt they were depicted as being backwards. This isn't a movie about hunting, sigted some. Lifting the veil of the prevalence of, a #Fernweh in a sense, *that* Germany (hush) was another.

Catholic Mass is a theatrical re-enactment of the life and suffering of the son of God. When rites outstay their meaning, when invocations turn routine, the worshippers lose sight.

#film #cinema #WestGermany #PeterFleischmann #MartinSperr #AngelaWinkler #HannaSchygulla #LGBT #Bayern #Bavaria #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 7: A #television production in a #movie on #PublicTelevisionDay

The global TV audience of #Mondo-Vision, a live broadcast #TimeTravel experiment, determines through their emotional investment in the lead's screened experience what the man's destination will be. Even so, the spectators' collective energy should serve as a powerhouse, enabling a televised leap into the future. The man whose faith determines it all is Terence Stamp – played by the actor with the same name. He agrees to partake in the hope that enough emotional energy can be harvested for him to travel back in time so he can reunite with his lost love.

While definitely taking a cue or two from Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968), Jérôme Laperrousaz's Hu-Man (1975) has a much grimmer feel to it. The seventies were not a time of or even for optimism, including Stamp's career and personal life. Noun Serra's dizzying editing and the real-world danger both the in-movie actor and real-world actor are exposed to makes Hu-Man a much more self-referential and personal experience for this future's reality-fatigued viewer.

#film #cinema #France #JérômeLaperrousaz #memory #RealityTV #TerenceStamp #JeanneMoreau #SciFi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 8: A spotlight on #StepIntoTheSpotlightDay

“I'm the king of the silent pictures. I'm hiding out till talkies blow over.”

Warren Beatty plays Mickey, a #StandUpComedian who has it all, then gambles it all away. Well, that's the first 5 minutes of Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965). Beatty is out of his element, and the movie's still too indebted to the cheery 60s to carry that New American Cinema grit. There are several great small surreal moments that are carried by uncredited character actors alone. And then there's a sole spotlight, stealing it all away.

#film #cinema #ArthurPenn #WarrenBeatty #Chicago #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 9: #EasterSunday freebie

James Stewart is Elwood P. Dowd. An ordinary man with an extraordinary claim: his best friend is an invisible, six feet three and a half inches-tall #pooka – a mythological Celtic, shapeshifting creature – who in Mr Dowd's case resembles a rabbit called #Harvey. Elwood's sister and niece, who also occasionally see the furry goblin, have their relative send to a sanatorium where the doctors and us viewers learn more about this curious case.

Harvey (1950), based on Mary Chase's #PulitzerPrize Play with the same name, is guaranteed to bring a smile on your face, this humbug's scout's honour! Have a nice #Easter, CineMastodons!

#film #cinema #HenryKoster #JamesStewart #púca #ShapeShifters #Easter #comedy #drama #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 10: Siblings on #NationalSiblingsDay

#Sisters Ester and Anna arrive with Anna's son Johan in the small Central European town of Timoka. The country verges on the brink of war. Ester is sick and confined to her hotel room. Anna roams Timoka's establishments, Johan wanders the hotel corridors.

It's hard to watch #Bergman's Tystnaden [The #Silence] (1963) without Kubrick's ghosts sidling in. #Tystnaden however doesn't need consternation to cause dread. The interaction and lack thereof between the three leads and the few extras translate into something merely tangible and evermore frightful.

#film #cinema #IngmarBergman #IngridThulin #GunnelLindblom #JörgenLindström #Sweden #existentialism #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 11: Ride a #submarine on #NationalSubmarineDav

Karel Zeman was a Czech film maker who seemingly magically combined live action with #StopMotion #animation. In his Vynález zkázy [A Deadly Invention] (1958), loosely based on #JulesVerne's Face au Drapeau, a professor is kidnapped by a fiendish count who wants to get his hands on a terrible super-weapon. Underwater pursuits commence! Based on the engravings that accompany the Verne story, Zeman came up with fantastic highly stylised in-camera effects that make the sets, actors and props resemble cross-hatched etchings.

That's more than enough words, here's the #trailer https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9ZLfe5xad4U

#film #cinema #Czechoslovakia #KarelZeman #JulesVerne #satire #science #SciFi #adventure #ZdeněkLiška #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 12: An only child (no, make that two!) on #NationalOnlyChildDay

An amazing adventure in the unusual!

Young Jill – played by the tragically doomed Lora Lee Michel – grows up on a ranch in an undisclosed African country (aka “Africa”) with her father. One day, two porters pass her house carrying an orphaned baby #gorilla. Smitten, she wants and gets the ape, names it Joe, and raises it until the simian reaches exceptional size. That's when a couple of showman collecting exotic menagerie for a Hollywood nightclub come across the odd couple. After long consideration and desperate for money, Jill decides to take Joe to the States where the two become an overnight cabaret sensation. But like Kong before him, Joe is not made for the concrete jungle.

One decade and a Hays Code later, the people who brought the world King Kong (1933) present Mighty Joe Young (1949): more drama, more spectacle, and superior special effects by Marcel Delgado, Ray #Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien et al. A box-office dud ánd Academy Award for Special Effects winner, Mighty Joe Young is now recognised as an #animation classic. In particular the nightclub scenes (keep your eyes peeled for Phil “The Swedish Angel” Olafsson!) are a wonderful display of the magic of #StopMotion.

#film #cinema #MightyJoeYoung #ErnestBSchoedsack #RuthRose #MerianCCooper #JohnFord #MarcelDelgado #RayHarryhausen #WillisHOBrien #WillisOBrien #TerryMoore #LoraLeeMichel #PhilOlafsson #animation #StopMotionAnimation#FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

@12pt9 #Bales2023FilmChallenge April 13: Focus on #plants on #InternationalPlantAppreciationDay

#KirlianPhotography is the #pseudoscience that claims that plants can communicate telepathically. In The Kirlian Witness (Jonathan Sarno, 1978), Rilla (I can't believe she's not a rapper) interrogates her dead sister's plant to find out who killed her. Not to be confused with the alternative cut The Plants are Watching.

#film #cinema #telepathy #esotheric #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 14: A dolphin spotted on #NationalDolphinDav

Shot on location in #Greece, sponge diver Phaedra (Sophia Loren) makes a splash when she finds an ancient statue of A Boy on a Dolphin*, rumoured to bring good luck to her town. Her attempts to sell it to the highest bidder makes not only the bronze but also her the object of desire of an honest archaeologist and an unscrupulous playboy antiques dealer.

* not only the title of this movie bus also possibly a reference to #Arion, son of the inhabitants of Lesbos (would that make this movie a bit too wild for 1957?), or #Taras, son of Poseidon and Satyrion. According to Greek legend, both mythological characters were saved by #dolphins.

#film #cinema #Hydra #AegeanSea #JeanNegulesco #AlanLadd #CliftonWebb #SophiaLoren #dolphins #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/ @12pt9

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 15: Erased on #RubberEraserDay

Jōhatsu, literally “evaporation” is the Japanese term for people disappearing without a trace. Salesman Tadashi Oshima is one of them. Director Shôhei Imamura, together with Oshima's fiancé Yoshie Hayakawa and actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi created an investigative #documentary looks into this man, his possible whereabouts, and the others that are gone. 人間蒸発 [Ningen jôhatsu / A Man Vanishes] (1967) is a fascinating exploration of aspects of 1960s Japanese society that make jōhatsu distinct from similar, worldwide events.

#film #cinema #Japan #ArtTheatreGuild #蒸発 #jōhatsu #jôhatsu #johatsu #jouhatsu #ShôheiImamura #ShigeruTsuyuguchi #ToshirôMayuzumi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 16: Cash for #NationalCashDay

Good-for-nothing Willi (Charly Wierzejewski) is in trouble. After yet another run-in with the law, and yet again meeting the wrong people at the wrong time, he falls in love with a destitute street worker (Eva Mattes). Now he really needs #money so he can support himself, her, and her kid. He tries his hand at renting himself out to a rich homosexual [homosexuality was illegal in 1970s W Germany], then moves forward to robbing the money transporter of a local supermarket with his pimp buddy. But as usual, Willi is in trouble.

Shot on location in #Hamburg's red-light district St. Pauli, Supermarkt (Roland Klick, 1974) is gritty, unpleasant and has an authenticity rarely seen in other films of this genre. An absolute recommendation.

#film #cinema #WestGermany #RolandKlick #CharlyWierzejewski #EvaMattes #StPauli #crime #heist #robbery #drama #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 17: Stressed out on #NationalStressAwarenessMonth

Stressed?‽ Who's got time to be stressed when there's a business to be run!!? Tom Palazzolo's Jerry’s Deli [Jerry] from 1974 is a great character study of not only a character, but a whole time period inhabited by characters. The titular Jerry is Jerry Meyer, owner and proprietor of a Chicagoan deli that happened to be right next to Palazzolo's film lab. You wanna eat? Now, eat! Wanna order? Whaddaya waiting for?? Order!! Roast beef on rye please. On RYE!?!

#film #cinema #TomPalazzolo #JerryMeyer #Chicago #food #documentary #charisma #delicatessen #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 18: Exercise on #NationalExerciseDay

Europeans are not too worried about certain things. Having a body for instance is something good. Instead of shame, you take care for it with regular exercise and plenty of fresh air. Preferably both. In Germany this is called #Freikörperkultur, sometimes confused with nudism.

In 1925, Wilhelm Prager released his Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit – Ein Film über moderne #Körperkultur [Ways to Strength and Beauty], showing the human in various stages of exercise and undress. We see sportspeople – including future-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller and then-movie mountaineer Leni Riefenstahl – world leaders (Rockefeller and Mussolini, though the latter was cut from re-releases) and dancers such as Josephine Baker, Bac Ishii, and the scandalous Anita Berber. The film was mostly aimed at women, who by then were part of the workforce, sitting at desks in modern Metropolises. So modern it was that people were encouraged to complete their Wege-collection of trading cards, which came with their cigarettes. Good thing they're all #outdoors.

#film #cinema #Ufa #Weimar #Germany #FreshAir #documentary #gymnastics #FKK #WilhelmPrager #JohnnyWeissmuller #JosephineBaker #BacIshii #AnitaBerber #dance #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 19: Hanging out on #NationalHangingOutDay

Part of the never-realised #SuperStar-studded The Poor Little Rich Girl Saga, #Warhol's Afternoon (1965) documents a day in the life of doomed socialite Edie Sedgwick. Miss Sedgwick and her entourage (#Ondine, Dorothy Dean, Arthur Loeb, and Donald Lyons) spend an afternoon at Edie's place. The stars – bored and beautiful – chat, drink and do drugs. “Isn’t it wonderful that we can be just friends?”

#film #cinema #AndyWarhol #EdieSedgwick #RobertOlivo ##PoorLittleRichGirl #PoorLittleRichGirlSaga #TheFactory #drugs #boredom #documentary #art #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge Today, April 20 is SOLD! on #NationalAuctioneersDay

Werner #Herzog travels to New Holland, #Pennsylvania to witness the 1976 World #Livestock Auctioneer Championship. #Cattle is weighed and paraded in front of the buyers, and the 53 contestants have a few minutes to auction the animals off to the highest bidder. We see glimpses of the audience. New Holland is the land of the money-eschewing #Amish, descendants of German-speaking Swiss, whose dress, ways and speech found an ideal state in an increasingly convoluted world. While money rolls, the Amish hand out their home-baked pies to the Championship onlookers. To German-as-Apfeltorte Herzog, the auction is bewildering, the “last #poetry possible, the poetry of #capitalism”. In keeping with Herzog's poetic, ecstatic truth, Bruno S. too travels to America and encounters the auctioneers in Stroszek (1977).

#film #cinema #WernerHerzog #WestGermany #Americana #documentary #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 21: A fiddler for #FiddlersFrolic

In Mayan worldview, mortals move along the horizontal, gods along the vertical plane. A boy travels both worlds, united by music and wonder.

Juanito, a #Mixquic boy with hypersensitive hearing finds solace from the hustle of #MexicoCity in the silence of the chinampas – the pre-Hispanic man-made agricultural plots in lake #Xochimilco. There he plays his cardboard fiddle for the nature around him, until the sound from a real violin reaches him. The violinist, an old hermit who lives on one of the #chinampas, takes the boy in and teaches him how to master his hand-built instrument Yanco. When the man dies, the boy goes out at night to be able to play Yanco. In a changing world where the living and the dead used to naturally cross paths, the strings stir different to some.

The #Nahuatl film Yanco (Servando González / Mohy Quandour, 1961) is a small cinematic miracle that begs for a beautiful restoration akin to how കുമ്മാട്ടി [Kummatty] (Govindan Aravindan, 1979) opened up the world to indigenous filmmaking.

#film #cinema #Mexico #ServandoGonzález #MohyQuandour #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge (catch up) April 22: Rain on #AprilShowersDay

The opening scene of #Kurosawa's 羅生門 [#Rashômon / Rashomon] (1950).

#film #cinema #Japan #AkiraKurosawa #Rashomon #crime #samurai #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 23: Step into my mad lab on #WorldLaboratoryDay

Dr. Tube (Séverin-Mars) invents a powder that distorts reality and promptly tests it out on some oblivious test subjects, who quickly can no longer recognise the world around them. The brilliance of La folie du Docteur Tube [The Madness of Dr. Tube] (1915) is its use of practical in-camera effects that makes us, the viewer, experience the hallucinogen. This little folly by the great Abel Gance features Albert Dieudonné in a small part, who later would again work with Gance in his Napoleon (1927), as Napoléon Bonaparte.

Now take a nice deep breath here (trust me, I'm a doctor): https://cinemathequefr.github.io/henri/film/48677-la-folie-du-docteur-tube-abel-gance-1915/

#film #cinema #France #AbelGance #SéverinMars #AlbertDieudonné #laboratory #SciFi #comedy #SilentFilm #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 24: Screaming!! on #ScreamDay

One joyous day, Pvt. Wilhelm gave his dear life for movie geeks everywhere. The Gary Cooper (super duper!) #western Distant Drums (1951) is the origin of what's known as the Wilhelm scream. During a dramatic action scene, our dearly beloved private is hit in the thigh with an arrow. The bloodcurdling #scream was part of a sounds effect reel voiced by Sheb Wooley, known better for his 1958 rock n rolll novelty song “The Purple People Eater” than fighting off hostile natives. Later, other screamers popped up in anything from A Star Is Born (1954) to Reservoir Dogs (1992). And yes, even a long time ago. In a galaxy far far away.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CzOHw0wWNTQ

#film #cinema #WilhelmScream #SoundEffect #ShebWooley #western #Raoul Walsh #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 25: license plates on #LicensePlatesDay

Hitman Jef Costello (Alain Delon) coolly drives a #Citroën DS 21 to his garagiste (André Salgues), who routinely switches the license plates in a beautifully wordless, efficiently lit scene in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967).

#film #cinema #JeanPierreMelville #AlainDelon #AndréSalgues #NeoNoir #cars #CitroënDS #goddess #crime #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/