#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 17: someone sets a world record on #GuinnessWorldRecordsDay

#DavidCobham's #Muloorina (1964) tells about a small, arid town in #Australia that one day finds itself on the world's stage. Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, a local salt lake that hasn't seen a drop of rain in nine years, is the perfect spot for a landspeed record attempt by British daredevil #DonaldCampbell and his #Bluebird ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/muloorina-1964

#film #documentary #cinema #cars #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 18: an adoption on #NationalAdoptionDay

#JohannesSchaaf Tätowierung [Tattoo aka The Delinquent] (1967)

16 year old Benno (#ChristofWackernagel) lives in reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich altruistic #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong. With his ne'er-do-well mate Sigi, Benno traverses #Berlin ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/tatowierung-1967

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

– Get the #OuijaBoard.
– It's got the Bible on top of it, keeping it quiet.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 19: play a #boardgame on #PlayMonopolyDay

Two neat little ladies playing that quirky 1891 novelty game in #RolandWest's The Bat Whispers (1930) summon the aforementioned bat, black-clad fiend and #Batman predecessor. Who is he? What does he want? And how can he be stopped? Do you know the answer?

YES                 NO
      GOOD B Y E

#PreCode #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 20: a #BeautifulDay

Two hopeless lonely hearts meet each other at #ConeyIsland, spending the most wonderful day in each other's company.

#PálFejős' joyful Lonesome (1928) was made just when motion pictures became talkies, and new and more modern novelties were expected by the audience. Fejős delivers, with sound and musical inserts, and the occasional – almost shocking – burst of colour ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/lonesome-1928

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 21: an entrepreneur for #NationalEntrepreneursDay

In my book, entrepreneur is just a fancy talk for conman. A famous one, the one who may've tried to sell you the #BrooklynBridge, was George C. Parker. #MaeWest's Peaches O'Day bamboozles it her way in #AEdwardSutherland's Every Day's a Holiday (1937). And boy, does she have a bridge to sell you!

https://write.underworld.fr/settima/every-days-a-holiday-1937

#PreCode #vaudeville #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 22: a #birthday party for #BalesBirthday!

Happy birthday, @bales1181!

Screenshot from satirical allegory #JanNěmec's O slavnosti a hostech [A Report on the Party and Guests] (1966)

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 23: family dinner for #Thanksgiving

While mother Scorsese's famous meatballs in gravy is working its way to perfection, son Martin interviews his parents Catherine and Charles. For those unsure what to cook, and for those who don't celebrate Thanksgiving at al, mama's recipe is included in #MartinScorsese's #Italianamerican (1974) end credits. And here ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/italianamerican-1974

#documentary #food #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 24: holiday shopping on #BlackFriday

A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought in #RolandKlick's Weihnacht (1963) > https://write.underworld.fr/settima/weihnacht-1963

#holidays #Christmas #ShortFilm #documentary #docudrama #capitalism #WestGermany #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 25: protecting a woman on #WhiteRibbonDay

In #AkiraKurosawa's 隠し砦の三悪人 [The Hidden Fortress] (1958), a couple of greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines after the man has promised them a share of the gold they're carrying. Unknowingly, the fools not only protect their bounty, but a general and princess trying to escape an enemy clan so they can rebuild their kingdom ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/yin-shizhai-nosan-e-ren-1958

#ToshirōMifune #MisaUehara #film #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 26: a koala for #WorldLewisDay

It's not possible to be in #nature, one can only be absorbed by it. This is Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film #PeterWeir #JoanLindsay #BookAdaptation #Australia #koalas #animals #drama #1970s

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 27: online shopping on #CyberMonday

- What year is it now? I forgot.

In the soul crushing future of 1999, one heroic nuclear family bravely fulfils their gender-specific duties. While Father Mike works in his computer-aided office, Son Jamie fails at computer homeschool and Mother Karen slavishly shops, cooks, and cleans the cyber way. Thankfully, the future turned out to be even bleaker than #LeeMadden could've imagined in his 1999 A.D. (1967).

#film #SciFi

#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 28: someone is given something special for #GivingTuesday

#JeanCocteau & #RenéClément's La Belle et la Bête (1946)

Just before leaving home, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things, but the youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower. The father finds it in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast… ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/la-belle-et-la-bete-1946

#Cocteau #film #CineMastodon @film

Peace is at hand.
— Henry #Kissinger,1972

#Bales2023FilmChallenge Nov 30: #warcrime

Over an 11 day period, the 1972 #Christmas bombings resulted in 20000 tons of American shells being dropped on #Hanoi & #Haiphong, killing at least 1624 civilians. During this unmentionable carnage, #HảiNinh directed The Little Girl of Hanoi (1974), which gave the people of North #Vietnam not only a face, but a voice ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/em-be-ha-noi-1974 #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film #warcrimes

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 1: #Christmas lights for #NationalChristmasLightsDay

It took experimental filmmaker #MarieMenken three years to shoot Lights (1966). From midnight until 1 AM, she filmed New York's window displays during the holiday season, using her camera, motion, colour, and available light sources as her paintbrush ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/lights-1966 #ShortFilm #ExperimentalFilm #ArtFilm #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

If you have a #Vimeo account, you can watch #MarieMenken's Lights (1966) on The #Film-Makers' Coop channel here https://vimeo.com/230187590

@film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 2: shaving on #SafetyRazorDay

Accompanied by the sweet tunes of I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves. The Big Shave (1967) is short but contains many of the hallmarks of #MartinScorsese's later work. #Scorsese's theme here is the carnage laid upon so many young men sent off to the smouldering battlefields of the East. There'd be another 6 years of that. And meanwhile, some young men came back. And became cabbies ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-big-shave-1967

#CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 3: hugged on #LetsHugDay

Nanon (#JoanCrawford) is mortally afraid of men. Of their grabbing, grasping, groping hands. She only trust knife thrower Alonzo the Armless (#LonChaney) but he and accomplice (#TufeiFilhela) use the #circus to hide from the long arm of the law. Who'd suspect an armless man? The Unknown (1927) is arguably #TodBrowning and Chaney Sr's pinnacle of silent #precode #horror. 14 minutes are still missing. Check your attic!

#film #cinema @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 4: a letter to Santa on #SantasListDay

3615 code Père Noël (#RenéManzor, 1989)

France's proto-Internet #Minitel used codes, not URLs. Dial 3615ULLA to text with a sexy lady – some telecom employee pretending to be one – and 3615PERENOEL for #Santa Claus. The real one, of course. 9 yr old Thomas is dead set on proving that Santa is real and not some weirdo looking for a gullible kid to play with. A trap is set, and the boy waits ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/3615-code-pere-noel-1989

#film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 5: digging in soil on #WorldSoilDay

Mr. Hayashi (Bruce Baillie, 1963)

#BruceBaillie #ArtFilm #documentary #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 7: a Judith/Judy for #NationalJudithDay

#BenMaddow, #SidneyMeyers, & #JosephStrick's The Savage Eye (US, 1959/60) follows divorcée Judith X's lonely exploration of a gritty, hopeless LA. Filmed over 4 years by #HaskellWexler, #HelenLevitt, and #JackCouffer in #CinémaVérité style, Eye feels naked and raw, and broke ground for the American New Wave that came crashing in a decade later ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-savage-eye-1959

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 8: a #ChristmasTree for #NationalChristmasTreeDay

Fireworks' (1947) Dreamer, #KennethAnger, is still asleep. The violence is harrowing, filmed with such exquisite eye that it's impossible to look away. Blood finds its way out, pulsating and spurting. Ambiguous glances. A hand, no finger. A young man awakes, is born. The dreamer is still asleep ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/fireworks-1947

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film #LGBT

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 9: something's lost and found on #OfficialLostAndFoundDay

A white #dove, lost over #Prague, is shot down by a boy and found by an artist in #FrantišekVláčil's directed and #JanČuřík's wonderfuly photographed Holubice [The White Dove] (1960).

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 10: a candle is lit for #WorldwideCandleLightingDay

Candles lit in prayer, longing, and #poetry in #AndreiTarkovsky's Nostalghia [Nostalgia] (1983).

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 11: mountains travelled on #InternationalMountainDay

In #KeisukeKinoshita's highly stylised 楢山節考 [The Ballad of Narayama] (1958), a starving community has come to the agreement that the elders approaching the age of seventy are to be carried up the mountain Narayama to die. The day prior to the mountain's festival, sixty-nine year old Orin prepares to leave, carried by her son Tatsuhei ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/you-shan-jie-kao-1958

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 12: bad breath on #National12HourFreshBreathDay

#LesBlank explores the taste, smell, history, and myth of that stinky rose, #garlic in Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980). And manages to sneak in a little workers' rights agitprop along the way. It truly is a wonder spice!

#WernerHerzog #AliceWaters #food #documentary #USA #1980s #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film ★★★½

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 13: the #NationalGuard shows up for their #USNationalGuardBirthday

American dissidents are given the choice to spend decades in federal prison, or 3 days in the desert, chased by National Guardsmen et al. If they manage capture the American flag, they're free to go. While the washed-out 16mm footage and #Nixon references may tell you otherwise, #PeterWatkins' #PunishmentPark (1971) remains a gut-punching portrait of a timeless America.

@film #cinemastodon #film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge Dec 14: filmed in Alabama on #NationalAlabamaDay

George Wallace, #Alabama governor, refused to allow Black students into the University. In Crisis (1963), #RobertDrew et al followed Pres. Kennedy and AG R.F. Kennedy. They filmed everything; from tense phone calls, private moments (one of #RFK's daughters on the phone with a perplexed Dept. Katzenbach), and many, many shots in which nothing – which is everything – is said ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/crisis-behind-a-presidential-commitment-1963-ljvd

#film #documentary #JFK

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 15: pearls worn on #NationalWearYourPearlsDay

No one said those pearls were to be worn in an obvious place. From Henri d'Ursel surrealist-ish folly La perle [The Pearl] (1929).

#HenridUrsel #ShortFilm #SilentFilm #cinemastodon #surrealism #Belgium

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 16: an underdog movie for #UnderdogDay

Underdog Ánimas Trujano is dead set on becoming his town's next mayordomio. It may take a moment to get comfortable with casting Japanese movie legend #ToshirôMifune as the titular important man, but from that moment on, #IsmaelRodríguez's Ánimas Trujano (El hombre importante) (1961) feels as universal as any great cinematic experience should be ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/animas-trujano-el-hombre-importante-1961

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film #Mexico #Oaxaca

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 18: Arabic spoken on #ArabicLanguageDay

#GilloPontecorvo's ever-relevant La battaglia di Algeri [The Battle of #Algiers] (1966) ✊🏼

#drama #war #politics #انتفاضة #anticolonialism #Italy #cinemastodon #film #filmastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 19: hard candy for #NationalHardCandyDay

#CornellWoolrich's haunting tales of childhood lost leaped from Ireland to #Argentina in #CarlosHugoChristensen's Si muero antes de despertar (1952). With similarities of Lang's M (1931), this fairy-tale feels more oppressive; due to the helplessness of a boy's power in an adult world and his understanding of grown-up responsibilities ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/si-muero-antes-de-despertar-1952

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

– I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 21: a short girl for #ShortGirlAppreciationDay

The great Gloria Swanson (4'11” – 5ft 2 / 1,49 m) – fabulously dressed by Edith Head (5'1” / 1,55 m) with an endless parade of platform shoes – in Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950). Also starring, Buster Keaton, who was 5'5” / 1,65 m.

#BillyWilder #GloriaSwanson #BusterKeaton #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 22: #mathematics on #MathematicsDay in India

Mahagonny (1980) is film maker, artist, musicologist, and alchemist #HarrySmith's mathematical analysis of #MarcelDuchamp's masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, aka The Large Glass (1923). It is set to #Brecht and #Weill's #opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny from 1930.

#AllenGinsberg #LotteLenya #JonasMekas #PattiSmith #film #cinema #CineMastodon #ExperimentalFilm @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 23: farmers for #NationalFarmersDay in India

El-Fallâh el-fasîh / The Eloquent Peasant] (#ChadiAbdelSalam, 1970) takes place 4000 years ago, in #Egypt's Middle Kingdom. A peasant (#AhmedMarei), leading his mules past a stream of water, is tricked. With his animals gone, he pleads to the Pharaoh to restore Maʽat, harmony 𓀀 https://write.underworld.fr/settima/el-fallah-el-fasih-1970

#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge Dec 24: the night before Christmas on #ChristmasEve

Told in #fotonovela format, we follow the pitiful account of Monique, who as a young girl learns that her mother is not who she thinks she is. Even in the short comically melodramatic breathe that is #RaúlRuiz's Colloque de chiens (1977), the map has been laid out for Ruiz's later, much more complex narrative ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/colloque-de-chiens-1977

#SilkeHumel #ExperimentalFilm #film #ShortFilm #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 25: a Santa for #Christmas

#Animation means “a bestowing of life“. Like his ancestor in the arts Bernard Palissy and the ancient winter solstice celebration of the return of light that long ago spawned Christmas, #WladyslawStarewicz's The Insects' Christmas (1912) breathes life into real but inanimate beetles, dragonflies, and frogs. From me to you, here's a little Christmas treat https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:The_Insects%27_Christmas_(1913)_.webm

#insects #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 27: a zoo on #VisitTheZooDay

#DavidAttenborough's narrated and #PeterGreenaway's directed fable of life and decay, A Zed & Two Noughts [aka Z+00 or ZOO] (1985).

#film #cinema #zoo #animals #CineMastodon @film @art_film