Observations on film art

| The Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories | scanners (UPDATED) Stanley Kubrick faked the Apollo 11 moon landing. The Newtown massacre and Boston Marathon bombings were "false flag" government conspiracies designed to take away our guns. Also, black is white, rich is poor, Obama is a foreign-born Muslim, work is freedom, freedom is slavery and Mona Lisa was a man. Continue reading → "I believe he's not guilty." "Are you sure?" "No, but I have a reasonable doubt." The last words spoken in David Mamet's HBO feature film "Phil Spector" are "reasonable doubt." This is a work of fiction. I'm not quite sure what that means (beyond "Don't sue us") -- but it sounds a little like one of Mamet's nonsensical latter-day post-right-wing conversion rants. Continue reading → But what really matters is the Muriels. Continue reading → Another brawl in the square Another stink in the air! I was an eyewitness to "Les Misérables." After repeated exposure to that dreadful theatrical trailer-cum-featurette about how the singing is all done live on camera! (AP photo)

Movie Reviews and Ratings by Film Critic Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert Film criticism: Always declining, never quite falling Daumier, Le mélodrame (1860-64) DB here: Before the Internets, did people fret as much about movie criticism as they do now? The dialogue has become as predictable as a minuet at Versailles. Film criticism is dead. No, it’s not! Hah! Well, the track record of the official movie critics isn’t that great. Infinitely more awful is what you read on the Net. The result being….? Same thing goes for the Net. Yeah? But not a passion for using Spellcheck. So if print criticism is so valuable, how come all those professional critics are getting fired? Film criticism is dead. Repeat as often as you like. I thought I had watched this rondelay often enough from the wallflower section, but I got dragged onto the dance floor by Tom Doherty. To watch their backs and retain their 401(k)’s, most print critics have been forced into sleeping with the enemy. Feeling the same heat, academic critics have also plunged into the brash new world. Unhappily, none of this enhanced our 401(k)s. Nothing if not critical

Film Studies For Free Some Came Running 香蕉鱼书店 BANANAFISH BOOKS 7月5日新书上架: Long Distance Dialogue II 来自韩国三位摄影师的摄影书项目，香蕉鱼夏天推荐。 6月15日新书上架：Kinfolk #12 盐水特辑 ："没有盐的夏天是不完整的。我们与海和调味品的关系比你想像得更紧密，这可能就是气温一升高，我们便迫不及待奔赴水边纵身其中的原因。唇边留下的一抹盐是在海边度过恣意一天的最好证据。在本期杂志中，我们将介绍更多享受夏日的好方法。" 《池塘》创刊号：painting for the wind, photos/paintings/words by 苏菲 其实想法和设计都非常简单，我把它称为“一个人的一张杂志”，只有8p，可以定期或者不定期出版，记录当下的时间、念头和痕迹。 我的《池塘》是我的一个人杂志，也期待你的！ 6月的香蕉鱼，将更多的精力投入在了线下活动里。 6月7、8两日，我们前往北京上海和有着共同理想的朋友们交流谈心，憧憬未来。 6月14日，日本NHK world纪实频道导演来南昌香蕉鱼工作室拍摄我们工作的样子，采访香蕉鱼两位创始人，讨论着关于中国大陆当下年轻人的生存状态。 6月22日，我们受到小宇宙工作室汤溪的邀请，一起去南昌地标书店青苑书店交流以及传播独立出版的概念。 在工作之余，做着香蕉鱼，这个月的生活节奏大致就是我们原来搬来南昌时一直希望出现的完美模样。 然而，这是否就是我想要的？ 5月28日：香蕉鱼布袋第二版： 谢谢暐，将纸上的鱼儿腾跃布袋上，带给我的爱与美。 5月4日：今年最理想的状态希望是这样的：双月按部就班的，严格遵守出版计划将四月、六月、八月、十月、十二月远山淡影作品制作完成；而中间的单月，两个人就任意发挥想像力和动手能力捣弄出一些香蕉鱼的周边产品出来。 主题依然是那句slogan啦！ 类似这样的小鱼大概会有30多种不同的鱼纹，由香蕉鱼苏菲手绘设计，然后手工丝网印刷在黑和白的棉布袋上。 5月4日：给加餐面包注册了一个instagram账号@pausebreadpress，在那边活跃的朋友们可以关注我们印刷出版的即时动态了。 5月1日：四月远山淡影出版的四本书中人气作家陶立夏的Island Writing已全部售罄！ 4月30日：新书上架： 《逢图Phonetograph》by susu7755，毕业于中央美元视觉传达专业的susu，将手机里的照片收集起来制作了自己的第一本个人作品集。 和我们一起期待吧！ ——普希金

In Conversation: Steven Soderbergh Steven Soderbergh has directed 26 films since his 1989 debut, sex, lies, and videotape — the behind-closed-doors portrait of yuppie Louisiana often credited with kick-starting the indie-film revolution of the nineties, released when he was only 26. In the 24 years since, he’s been a remarkably prolific chameleon, managing arguably more than any other director of his generation to successfully bounce between the low- and high-budget, not only directing but often editing and shooting his own films, each, in its way, an audacious experiment. In one extraordinary three-year streak — 1998 to 2001 — he directed two noirish classics (Out of Sight, The Limey), pulled an Oscar performance out of Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich), earned an Oscar of his own (Traffic, the same year he was also nominated for Brockovich), and launched a lucrative franchise (Ocean’s Eleven, followed by Twelve and Thirteen). So, retirement.Just to be clear, I won’t be directing “cinema,” for lack of a better word.

Screenplay Basics - Scripped - StumbleUpon A Scripped Compendium by Johnathan Carr Traditional storytelling recounts past events, whereas screenwriting is locked in the present - thus you may not deviate from PRESENT TENSE. You may also be tempted to describe every inch of the world you're creating - don't! Take comfort in the idea that a screenplay is not meant to have any literary value. As you're writing, be mindful to preserve only the most important details: information that will advance the story. At the beginning of a feature film script, often but not always, the first line will be: FADE IN. While you can write a longer ACTION paragraph, think about keeping it under five lines at a time. In the ACTION line, be sure to capitalize SOUND EFFECTS, CAMERA DIRECTION and the first appearance of a speaking CHARACTER. Use a PARENTHETICAL to note an action the speaker is performing while speaking or if you want to indicate whom the speaker is addressing such as addressing a new character in mid-DIALOGUE. Think subtext.

The Mad Men Account by Daniel Mendelsohn Mad Men a television series created by Matthew Weiner Lionsgate, 4 DVDs per season: Seasons 1 and 2, $39.98 each; Season 3, $49.98; Season 4 (to be released March 29, 2011), $49.98 Since the summer of 2007, when Mad Men premiered on the cable station AMC, the world it purports to depict—a lushly reimagined Madison Avenue in the 1960s, where sleekly suited, chain-smoking, hard-drinking advertising executives dream up ingeniously intuitive campaigns for cigarettes and bras and airlines while effortlessly bedding beautiful young women or whisking their Grace Kelly–lookalike wives off to business trips in Rome—has itself become the object of a kind of madness. At first glance, this appeal seems to have a lot to do with the show’s much-discussed visual style—the crisp midcentury coolness of dress and decor. With these standouts (and there are many more), Mad Men shares virtually no significant qualities except its design.