#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/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 26: An Australian in the lead on #HugAnAustralianDay

Skip the hugging. John Hillcoat's deeply unpleasant debut Ghosts… of the Civil Dead (1988) is based on the book In the Belly of the Beast (1981), a collection of excerpts of letters between prisoner Jack Henry Abbott and author Norman Mailer. True to the book's format, Ghosts consists of disjointed vignettes of monologues, #CCTV footage, title cards, and prisoners' phone calls. For the last 37 months, these filters inform the observer, the hypermodern #supermax Central Industrial Prison has been in permanent lockdown. The cast, a mix of professional actors and ex-cons, and the location, a clean factory-style hangar in the middle of the Australian desert, underscore the underlying raw brutality of the unfolding events.

The #industrial soundtrack is by Bad Seeds Nick Cave (co-writer and starring as Maynard), Mick Harvey, and Blixa Bargeld from when they were still closer to being birthday boys than morose crooners.

#film #cinema #Australia #crime #prison #PrisonSystem #SciFi #BookAdaptation #prisoners #JackHenryAbbott #NormanMailer #NickCave #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 27: #Morse code heard on #MorseCodeDay

Jean #Cocteau's Orphée [Orpheus] (1950) – here the mythological poet and musician is personified by Jean Marais – accompanies a fallen young poet transported to the Underworld by car. The car radio plays fragments of poetry, interrupted by #MorseCode. When back in this world, #Orphée obsesses over the lines of radical poetry he heard and returns to the car's radio to retrieve them.

Morse code and other industrial sounds serve as a soundscape for Cocteau's characters. They swerve in and out of it, sometimes fully aware of them (Orpheus himself is attuned to the #poetry to be found in emergency radio broadcasts), sometimes passing through like a mirage.

#film #cinema #JeanCocteau #MusiqueConcrète #GeorgesAuric #SoundDesign #soundscapes #JeanMarais #mythology #SamuelMorse #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

@12pt9 #Bales2023FilmChallenge April 28 (catch-up): A #comedy to watch with kids on #CleanComedyDay

https://write.underworld.fr/12pt9/once-upon-a-time-or-maybe-twice-there-was-an-unearthly-paradise-called

#film #cinema #TheBeatles #YellowSubmarine #musical #animation #LSD #PopArt #drugs #psychedelic #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

[I have to improvise my posts now that I'm on a server with only 500 characters to my disposal]

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 29: looking through a #telescope on #InternationalAstronomyDay

As in Enrico Novelli's Un matrimonio interplanetario [A Marriage in the Moon] (1910), interplanetary #romance blooms in Аэлита [Aelita: Queen of Mars] (Yakov Protazanov, 1924).

(cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-april-29-looking-through-a-telescope-on)

#film #cinema #YakovProtazanov #USSR #SovietUnion #constructivism #Shostakovich #SilentFilm #Astronomy #propaganda #agitprop #SciFi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 30: A wild hairdo for #HairstyleAppreciationDay (and #Walpurgis too!)

Wild with today's eyes, it is not. Yet Rosemary's “very in” #VidalSassoon #PixieCut was a shocking affair in 68. Suddenly, in her lunch break, Mia/Rosemary transformed from timid waif to women's lib.

(cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-april-30-a-wild-hairdo-for-hairstyleappreciationday)

#film #cinema #witches #horror #FilMastodon #CineMastodon #RomanPolanski #MiaFarrow #JohnCassavetes #IraLevin #BookAdaptation #fashion @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 1: Showing loyalty on #LoyaltyDay

Yukio Mishima was, besides an aesthete, a fierce proponent of Japanese nationalism. In 憂國 [Yūkoku / #Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death] (1966), based on his 1960 story, Mishima himself is palace guard Lt. Shinji Takeyama.

(cont. https://social.horrorhub.club/@settima@write.underworld.fr/110294507203324791)

#film #cinema #DomotoMasaki #YukioMishima #YoshikoTsuruoka #CoupDEtat #Japan #JapanArtTheatreGuild #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 2: a foster child for #NationalFosterCareDay

The town's muse tragically drowns, taking her newborn child with her. The girl floats down the river and is picked up by an older, childless couple who gladly raise her as their own.

cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-2-a-foster-child-for-nationalfostercareday

Mutya ng Pasig [Muse of Pasig] (Richard Abelardo, 1950) is well worth your time on a slowly meandering, hot summer night.

#film #cinema #folklore #Philipines #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 3: filmed in #Montana on #NationalMontanaDay

Jon Jost's Last Chants for a Slow Dance (1977) took me aback on my first watch. Tom (Tom Blair) is out there looking for work. Out of the way of his wife and into the heart of Montana. On a slow moving road trip, dragging and scorching like hot tar, we accompany him and some of the vapid interactions with others out there

cont https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-3-filmed-in-montana-on-nationalmontanaday

#film #cinema #JonJost #USA #RoadMovie #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 4: Someone praying on (for?) #NationalDayOfPrayer

Simón is a stylite, living in the Syrian #desert on top of a pillar, close to God, #praying. As with anyone who believes in sin, or desires to be free of sin, sin comes to Simón, as this is #Buñuel's Simón del desierto [San Simeón del desierto aka Simon of the Desert] (1965).

cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-4-someone-praying-on-for

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

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 5: A #concert on #NationalConcertDay

On a grand ocean liner, friends, colleagues and admirers have come together to scatter a beloved #opera diva's ashes. During a visit to the boiler room an operatic competition unfolds accompanied with the pulsating rhythm of the steam liner's bloated belly.

cont. https://social.horrorhub.club/@settima@write.underworld.fr/110317339622807033

#film #cinema #FedericoFellini #PinaBausch #music #satire #comedy #drama #Italy #France #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 6: Ordering a beverage on #BeverageDay

At a poolside party, the swimmer appears. He notes that the houses in between his hosts' and his are connected by a “river” of pools and decides to swim home, from one pool to the other, foolishly, superficially meeting people, crashing suburban pool parties, increasingly irrational.

(cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-6-ordering-a-beverage-on-beverageday)

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon #FrankPerry #BurtLancaster @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 7: Glued to #NationalPasteUpDay

In a strange other England, a train on its way to #Canterbury pulls into the station. When Alison disembarks a stranger pours #glue in her hair. She's the 11th, the policeman said. It's the glue man, the townsfolk know. Like the pilgrims in #Chaucer's poem, the travellers journey towards the closure of this mystifying case.

cont https://social.horrorhub.club/@settima@write.underworld.fr/110328186619277675

#film #cinema #hauntology #UK #PowellPressburger #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 9: A teacher for #TeacherAppreciationDay

A goodnight #kiss on the lips was all it takes for 14-year old Manuela to fall for her teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg. Then, after celebrating her rousing performance as the male lead in Don Carlos, Manuela gaily blurts out that yes, she is indeed in love with her teacher! This lack of discipline can't go unpunished, with devastating results.

cont https://write.underworld.fr/settima/what-you-call-sin-i-call-the-great-spirit-of-love-which-takes-a-thousand

#film #cinema #LGBT @film #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 10: Filmed in #Washington for #NationalWashingtonDay

An uneventful night at the Crisis Clinic, psychology student Alan Newell takes his books to study. Then a woman calls. She's drowsy. She has taken barbiturates and wants to talk while slipping away. While Alan fights to keep the woman on the line, attempts are made to trace the call.

cont https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-10-filmed-in-washington-state-for

#SydneyPollack #SidneyPoitier #QuincyJones #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 11: A big ego on #WorldEgoAwarenessDay

Pretty boy Lonnie gets what he wants. And he wants to be out of where he came from, and he wants to be wanted and rich. And he's got the looks and the voice and the ego. So he gets it, the getting out and the love and the money. And then some. And then some. And then.

cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/its-not-my-fault-that-opportunity-came-my-way

#film #cinema #JamesLandis #SchuylerHayden #VilmosZsigmond #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 12: A hospital setting on #NationalHospitalDay

A strange man arrives at Dr Holst's #hospital. So strange he's send to the psychiatric ward. This man, Steinmetz, insists on the doctor's help. He can materialise things but living beings is what he wants. He has an OP in his home, it can be done there. While the doctor refuses, Steinmetz evolves

https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bales2023filmchallenge-may-12-a-hospital-setting-on-nationalhospitalday

#JensRavn #ValdemarHolst #JohnPrice #PrebenNeergaard #LotteTarp #SciFi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 14: Someone hurts their back on #SpinalCordInjuryAwarenessDay

A brawl over a woman. That's what breaks The Great Phroso. After recovery, a year later, he finds himself a paraplegic and his stolen wife dead in a church with an infant next to her. To Africa he takes the child – it's the other man's, the ivory trader's – and carefully, vengefully raises her.

cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/how-did-god-ever-put-a-thing-like-you-on-this-earth

#film #cinema #TodBrowning #LonChaney #LionelBarrymore #PreCode

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 15: Someone putting on or removing stockings on #NationalNylonStockingDay

Legs legs #legs and then some! While Miss Bi… Miss Rich (#ClaireDodd) chats with Nan's boss Chester Kent (#JamesCagney), Nan (#JoanBlondell) absent-mindedly puts on two #stockings on one (lovely) leg, removes it, then slips it onto the other: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=6HCXA4wrZgo

#LloydBacon #PreCode #musical #BusbyBerkeley #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

https://write.underworld.fr/settima/meow

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 16: Someone barbecues on #NationalBarbecueDay

However regarded as a lesser #Tati, Trafic [Traffic] (1971), is another display of lovingly choreographed insanity, notably a #CarCrash that makes me wonder if this was Tati's attempt to transpose Godard's Week-end [Weekend] (1967) into a pleasant, pre-May 68 France.

(cont. https://write.underworld.fr/settima/where-are-you-going-mr)

#JacquesTati #MonsieurHulot #France #Italy #comedy #cars #food #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 17: Filmed in Idaho on #NationalIdahoDay

A disaster has struck the future world. A private one, Karen's sister has had an accident. A global one, so severe that a Government project is put in place in the #Idaho desert and in different points in time. Teenagers are send 56 years ahead to repopulate the land. Then, without warning or reason, The Project shuts down.

Cont: https://write.underworld.fr/settima/esto-perpetua

#SciFi #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 18: Appreciating #art on #InternationalMuseumDay

African art with such a deep significance were, w/i the bounds of Western civilisation, “things”. Through the editing, photography & dialogue they speak to the viewer, escaping the institute's walls. This voice was enough for the CNC to cut ⅔ of the film; the segment that's not blatantly #AntiColonial, was to be watched.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/when-men-die-they-enter-into-history

#ChrisMarker #Resnais #documentary #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 19: An activist on #MalcolmXDay

'Twas the week before Xmas & Santa Claus arrives. An army of Santas bring cheer, song & hot cocoa to delighted shoppers, then visit the shutdown GM factory. Day 7 Santa visits Magasin & in the true spirit of Xmas hands out books. Staff starts pummelling the Santas, ripping off beards. Children, in tears, their dreams of a just world shattered.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/here-santa-opens-a-factory-with-1000-workers

#JonBangCarlsen #documentary #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 20: A band director/conductor for #NationalBandDirectorsDay

In the children's #film Valahol Európában [It Happened in Europe] (Géza von Radványi, 1947), a band of plundering feral orphans hiding out in a ruined castle find an old disillusioned pacifist conductor (Artúr Somlay) who's waiting out the war.

#GézaVonRadványi #ArtúrSomlay #Hungary #war #WWII #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 21: It's the end of the world on the #EndOfTheWorld

It's another schoolday in rural America when the #NuclearAttack alarm starts ringing. A teacher, instructed to calmly walk the kids home, tries to keep the youngest ones oblivious of the impending doom. While the children walk, talk and sing, this thing up there, in the sky and in the mind, grows bigger.

#FrankPerry #EleanorPerry #LoisDickert #drama #film #ColdWar #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film ★★★★½

#Bales2023FilmChallenge

I somehow almost and often do forget to mention the #film's title. This is Ladybug Ladybug (Frank Perry, 1963).

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 22: A seaside town for #NationalMaritimeDay

Night Tide (#CurtisHarrington, 1961): on the #SantaMonica pier, sailor Johnny (#DennisHopper) falls in love with one of the attractions of the local sideshow, Mora the Mermaid. As people warn Johnny about the faith of Mora's previous suitors, captivated, he becomes convinced that she is a real siren, planning his downfall.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/night-tide-1961

#mermaids #Thelema #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 23: Freebie: Father and son (March 4 redux)

Not a film you can be prepared for, Padre padrone [My Father My Master aka Father and Master] (Taviani, 1977). The author, Gavino Ledda, hands a stick – that stick – to the actor who plays his part. There we are, in Sardinia, beautiful Sardinia. A boy in class, learning. His father barges in.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/padre-padrone-1977

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 24: Someone prepares #food for someone else on #NationalCaterersAppreciationDay

At night, a small group of prostitutes frequent a local 面薄 [mee pok] eatery. One of them, Bunny), caught the hawker's eye, but she's not interested in a #MeePok​Man (fish ball). Then, a car crash. Bunny is left for dead in front of the eatery. He takes her in, preparing endless meals

Mee Pok Man (#EricKhoo, 1995) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/bo-mian-lao-1995

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 25: Tap dancing on #TapDanceDay

Dušan Makavejev's Nevinost bez zaštite [Innocence Unprotected] (1968) is a treasure trove. Of fantastic people, feats, footage, and genres. We sit down to watch #Serbia's first feature talkie and are joined by the people who created it. While they speak, and occasionally burst out into song, we meet Dragoljub!, the movie's lead with the jaws of steel.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/nevinost-bez-zastite-1968

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 26: A Dracula movie for
#WorldDraculaDay

A black forest. A man walks through, holding a smoke machine. Then a carriage with a familiar coachman. #Dracula! Where are we? No, not 19th century #Transylvania. The film stock reveals bullet holes in ancient walls, and beyond these walls a ladder, maybe scaffolding. #PerePortabella's 1971 Cuadecuc, vampir is a hyper-reality.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/cuadecuc-vampir-1971

#JesúsFranco #vampires #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 27: A bridge to celebrate the #GoldenGateBridge opening in 1937

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).

#AlfredHitchcock #Hitchcock #PierreBoileau #ThomasNarcejac #JamesStewart #KimNovak #mystery #drama #crime #thriller #romance #BookAdaptation #USA #1950s ★★★½

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 28: Hungry on #WorldHungerDay

In Mrinal Sen's আকালের সন্ধানে [Akaler Sandhane / In Search of Famine] (1982), a Calcutta film crew arrives in a small Bengal town to make a film about the 1943 #BengalFamine. Initially, their arrival sparks joy and wonder but while filming, the participants – travelling back and forth between 43 and 80, Calcutta and rural Bengal, and reality and re-enactment – face the one constant, #famine.

#cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 29: Mountains on #MountEverestDay

Grauzone (Fredi M. Murer, 1979) takes place in a Swiss valley where former Bergler (mountain people) live a modern, comfortable life on summits made of concrete instead of rock. When rumours about a #pandemic stir an ancient, unnamed fear, a young prosperous couple find that what they believed was concrete, solid, immovable, suddenly shows signs of a shift.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/grauzone-1979-5mn2

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 31: Filmed in Utah on #NationalUtahDay

With Sure Fire (1990), director #JonJost accomplishes that what Lynch tries. A mundane gem with an ominous undertow, but all without the need for mystery or eccentric characters. Just #Utah, and its people.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/sure-fire-1990

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film