#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 7: A tailor on #NationalTailorsDay

1 litre of vodka is the wager for correctly guessing a woman's dress size. Of course, tailor Józef doesn't need to guess and that 1 litre later, finds himself walking through space. When he comes round from his coma, he builds an observatory where, with his home-made telescope, he dreams of finding an unknown planet, and discovers the world around him

Planeta krawiec [The Planet Tailor] (1983) ☞https://write.underworld.fr/settima/planeta-krawiec-1983

#film @film

From tailor to sailor.

For #Bales2023FilmChallenge June 8: Mutiny on #BountyDay, the most famously visualized mutiny in cinema #history, Sergei Eisenstein's Броненосец Потёмкин [Bronenosets Potemkin / Battleship #Potemkin] (1925)

#USSR #SergeiEisenstein #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 9: filmed in Uganda for #NationalHeroesDayOfUganda

In 1974, German-Swiss #BarbetSchroeder, privileged diplomat's son, already knew more than enough about how to select framing and manipulate timing. The result, Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait [General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait aka No One Can Run Faster Than a Rifle Bullet] (1974) is a prime example of the neo-colonialist gaze ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/general-idi-amin-dada-autoportrait-1974

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 10: A main character wears a cape for #SupermanWeek

Capes, cloaks, and mantles are everywhere in Dieterle and Reinhardt's lavishly outfitted A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). The dreamlike #CostumeDesign by #MaxRée and the uncredited #MiloAnderson is as much as a personality as #Shakespeare's characters are. Any reports of Kenneth Anger's presence as the Changeling Prince are greatly exaggerated.

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon #CostumeDesign @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 11: Say Hi! on #SayHiDay

The #telephone as a character in
#PhillipsSmalley & #LoisWeber's nail-biting Suspense (1913) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/suspense-1913

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 12: Child labour in a movie on #ChildLaborDay

“This isn’t playtime, kids, it’s work.” –Charles Lamont, Baby Burlesk director

In the #BabyBurlesk Kid 'N' Hollywood [aka Kid in Hollywood] (#CharlesLamont, 1933), #ShirleyTemple plays a Hollywood hopeful called Morelegs Sweettrick, who gets her break when the star doesn't feel like showing up (kids, right? no discipline).

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/kid-n-hollywood-1933

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @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.

#KenRussell #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

“You know, I wish I had my board with me… even if I could just wax it once in a while.” —Lt. Doolittle

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 17: Surfing on #InternationalSurfingDay

On the other side of outer space, far far away from crypto-fascist space operas and existentialist odysseys, is a little stoner cosmos where a small, dilapidated starship manned by long-haired freaks drifts about. This is #JohnCarpenter's Dark Star (1974).

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

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 18: An #aquarium on #CleanYourAquariumDay

A middle-class Austrian family – father, mother and their ten year old daughter – live a mundane, almost ritualised life. There's work, school, social obligations. Stuff to maintain and food to prepare. Patients to see and fish to feed. Constant repetition begets chaos.

Der siebente Kontinent [The Seventh Continent ] (1989) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/der-siebente-kontinent-1989

#MichaelHaneke #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 19: Cardboard boxes on #InternationalBoxDay

Inmates preoccupy themselves with making cardboard boxes. While working together, talking, gaining trust, plans for an escape unfold. Le trou [The Hole aka The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960) is based on a real #PrisonEscape and introduced by one of the men involved, Jean Keraudy ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/le-trou-1960

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 20: Filmed in #Argentina on #NationalFlagDay

A slum survives next to a railroad bridge. When the train travelling from the city shows up, the children who are old and gutsy enough run along and yell tire dié! toss me a dime! Some of them make more than their parents do. Fernando Birri's Tire dié (1958) is a sobering account of #poverty and how it's as much a part of life's schedule as a slow running train on a rickety bridge. #film #cinema #documentary @film

> Welcome home, Ethan.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 21: Filmed in #Arizona on #NationalArizonaDay

John Ford's The Searchers (1956)

#JohnFord #JohnWayne #NatalieWood #western #drama #USA #1950s

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 23: A typewriter for #NationalTypewriterDay

Office worker Josef K. is brought to trial and at no point told what he is accused of, if anything. #Kafka was a trained lawyer working as an insurance agent in an impossible artifice world of reports & precise wording. W/i its extended logic a man can get perplexedly lost, either within the walls of his #office or one's bed.

#OrsonWelles' Le procès ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/le-proces-1962

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #BalesBonus Joan #Crawford as Flaemmchen [“Little Flame”] in Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel (1932)

#JoanCrawford #film #PreCode #typewriters

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 24: Someone swimming on #'SwimALapDay

In his 1973/74 A Bigger Splash, cinematographer and filmmaker #JackHazan juxtaposes #DavidHockney working on “Portrait of an Artist” with speculative scenes about the creation of the work and the disintegration of Hockney's & Schlesinger's relationship. It did create a splash, in particular in its ordinary depiction of a homosexual relationship ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/a-bigger-splash-1973-74

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

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 26: Sarah on #NationalSarahDay

Commissioned for a West-German TV series, filmmaker #HarunFarocki visits artist #SarahSchumann in her Berlin studio. The resulting documentary, Ein Bild von Sarah Schumann (1978), shows the process of creating one art piece over the course of nine weeks. Schumann's work in that period consists of collage portraits of women important in her life. ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/ein-bild-von-sarah-schumann-1978

#documentary #feminism #FineArt #TVMovie #ShortFilm #1970s

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 25: Let's go camping on #NationalCampCountsDay

#JohnSturges' Jeopardy (1953) is a thrilling, reverse home invasion. The haunting photography (by Victor Milner), small, intense cast, short runtime and claustrophobic sets make for a very modern, economic #thriller. And #BarbaraStanwyck is the heroine we wouldn't see much of until decades later ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/jeopardy-1953

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 27: Someone proposes on #DecideToBeMarriedDay

Refugee Karen meets an Italian serviceman and decides to say yes when he proposes. When they go home she finds to her dismay that he's a poor Sicilian fisherman from #Stromboli, a volcanic island home to a small Catholic parish. #Rossellini's Stromboli (1950) is a peculiar melodramatic IT/US hybrid that seems to strongly dismiss the Italian aspect ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/stromboli-terra-di-dio-1950

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 28: A car crash on #NationalInsuranceAwarenessDay

A couple rushing home at night hit a cyclist. Knowing he's still alive, they opt to leave the site of the crash and never mention it again. Reports about the death of a cyclist cause a rupture; because of the couple's class differences, because they're lovers, and because no one can know about their whereabouts on the night of the accident ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/muerte-de-un-ciclista-1955

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 29: A handshake on #NationalHandshakeDay

Cheated out of their wages, two broke Americans are approached by a former prospector. There's #gold in the #SierraMadre mountains, he tells them. Seemingly character driven, #JohnHuston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) is an adventure moved by a relentless #landscape, the urge to drift, and utter #greed ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-treasure-of-the-sierra-madre-1948

#HumphreyBogart #western #adventure #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

Wait, no one's been shaking hands with danger!?

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #ThreeFingerJoe

#Bales2023FilmChallenge June 30: Driving a #Corvette on #DriveYourCorvetteToWorkDay

#CarlosSaura's Peppermint Frappé (1967) takes Vertigo with a twist of Buñuel and serves it over an anti-#Franco​ist tale of self-doubting machismo obsessing over The Other. Even Elena's car, American instead of a much more obvious European model, dismisses fascist Spain's perceived superiority. Indeed the Generalisimo drove a Cadillac ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/peppermint-frappe-1967

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 1: A #joke for #InternationalJokeDay

The great Garbo was known for her beauty, her coolness, her tragedy, everything but her laughter. So typecast she became that the tagline for *Ninotchka* (1939) – Garbo laughs! – is a #joke in itself.

Penned by the great #BillyWilder, the Ernst #Lubitsch directed comedy unexpectedly revived #Garbo's career, who by the time 1938 came around had become box office poison.

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

And the joke? Well… ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/ninotchka-1939

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 2: Sports journalists

Veronika Voss, once one of #Ufa's greats, has a chance meeting with sports journalist Krohn. Despite not recognising her at first glance, the faded star and her world turn out to be irresistible to him. Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss is #Fassbinder's tribute to both #BillyWilder's Sunset Blvd. and real-world Ufa actress Sybille Schmitz ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/die-sehnsucht-der-veronika-voss-1982

#RainerWernerFassbinder #RWF #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 4: a movie that screams #America for #IndependenceDay

In 1982 Jørgen Leth sent 66 postcards from America. The landscape, food, language, anything an American may take for granted framed in a moving still. The American, ready for stardom, poses and orates. The scenes become show, regardless if it's a New York cabbie or a man famously falsely credited for predicting fame, slowly eating a Whopper ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/66-scener-fra-amerika-1982

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 5: filmed in #Venezuela on #VenezuelaIndependenceDay

Cinematic poem Araya (1959) by Margot Benacerraf and Giuseppe Nisoli

#MargotBenacerraf #GiuseppeNisoli #documentary #poetry #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 6: someone named Daniel for #NationalDanielDay

Daniel explores his homosexuality in #WestBerlin. Initially he opts for an almost heterosexual affair. He then probes further, swings by #Berlin's public toilets and pools. Only when he encounters a leftist, gay #commune he finds that pride, not conformity, is his way to living his life. Von Praunheim's Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers… > https://write.underworld.fr/settima/nicht-der-homosexuelle-ist-pervers-sondern-die-situation-in-der-er-lebt-1971

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

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 7: forgiveness for #GlobalForgivenessDay

Forgiveness as a tool of power, a method of control. #VilgotSjöman's 491 (1964) is an extremely, bleak, aggressive, and hopeless depiction of youth in postwar Sweden.

☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/491-1964

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

Note: this is *not* a mid-60s promotional picture for Trainspotting.

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 8: skinny dipping on #InternationalSkinnyDipDay Eva (#HedyLamarr) hangs her clothes over her horse's back, then – cut through a wonderfully voyeuristic moment – goes swimming in a lake. The foal, still carrying Eva's outfit, wanders off to find a stallion.

#GustavMachatý Ekstase [Ecstasy] (1933) is full of not so subtle but beautifully framed innuendo. ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/ekstase-1933

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

- Good night, Gentle Jesus. Sleep well.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 9: a barn for #BarnDay

In the barn of a remote Lancashire farmhouse, three children stumble upon a stranger. Confused, they conclude that the fellow must be the Second Coming of Christ. In the world of the adults, a man is wanted by the police.

Whistle Down the Wind (1961) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/whistle-down-the-wind-1961

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 10: filmed in the #Bahamas for #BahamasIndependenceDay

#MickyDolenz's encounter with a siren while the #PorpoiseSong plays during the opening scene of #BobRafelson's Head (1968).

More about this on a non-Monday of sleep and functioning Wi-Fi.

#TheMonkees #mermaids #drugs #psychedelic #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge July 13: a movie that is an oxymoron on #OxymoronDay

Submerged in #DerekJarman's Blue (1993), seeing through what was left of his eyes, we live through the artist's life, and love, and loss. When you leave the theatre, you're temporarily blinded by the physiological afterimage of a devastating disease. What remains is the voice of a filmmaker who lost his sight ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/blue-1993

#LGBT #AIDS #art #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

A recommended read on Sabzian: O Blue come in https://www.sabzian.be/article/o-blue-come-in

#DerekJarman #LGBT #AIDS #art #film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @altfilmguide

HANDS UP
PUT YOUR HANDS UP
GIMME MORE
GIMME GIMME MORE BETTER GIMME MORE

#Bales2023FilmChallenge May 8: victory achieved on #VEDay

A constantly changing team of athletes coached by artist Ashley Bickerton play a baffling hybrid of craps, dodge ball, and roulette while arcade game noises and Brooke Halpin's catchy chants accompany the players. This is Ericka Beckman's You the Better (1983) ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/you-the-better-1983

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#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

#film #cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film

#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)

#cinema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film