Das Rad (the Wheel) • 04.13.08
Spotted this 9 minute German film over at Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy:
Very cool, or should I say: Ausgezeichnet!
Archive for the ‘Film’
Recommend on MahaloKagemusha • 03.20.08
Did I mention that I love Hulu?
All of Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha viewable online (but watch the high res version as there is a problem with the low res version ending prematurely).
Oscar Live Coverage • 02.24.08
Mahalo is live covering the Oscars: Oscar Live Coverage
and we also have a page on Oscar Red Carpet Live Coverage. Come check it out and weigh in with your Oscar Predictions on our message board.
Update: Oscars in 60 Seconds:
How To Speak French - Director’s Commentary • 02.13.08
Mahalo Daily has followed up this morning’s excellent French episode with the Director’s Commentary. Check it out:
How to Speak French • 02.12.08
If you’ve ever watched a Godard film, you’ll enjoy today’s Mahalo Daily on How To Speak French:
YouTube: How To Speak French
Related: How to Speak French, Valentine’s Day, French, Jean-Luc Godard, How to Learn Basic Phrases in Any Language
Futurama • 07.31.07
Seeing The Simpsons Movie got me all jazzed up over the upcoming Futurama direct to DVD movies and the upcoming Futurama Returns on Comedy Central. Fortunately, Evan is a *huge* Futurama fan too and was kind enough to bust out both Futurama and Futurama Returns today.
Before the movie started, I turned to our other Evan, Evan D. and told him that I wished it would get 15 minutes in and the screen would explode to reveal Bender saying that they were taking over (and thereby have The Simpsons Movie really be a Futurama movie). Once it started, that thought left my head though. It really was good.
Everyone else is doing it…. • 07.31.07
They didn’t seem to have a double chin setting. Hmm…
Saw The Simpsons Movie Friday night with a bunch of the Mahalo Guides. Great flick. Really funny.
Kristin just saw this post and said that it looks nothing like me and that “You should have made yourself fatter.” Ah, love…
UPDATE:
Victor did me a favor and fatified my Simpson’s version of me. Here it is:
Ingmar Bergman • 07.30.07
The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite movies. Ingmar Bergman Died.
If you must see Spider-man 3, wait for the DVD… • 05.05.07
We went to see Spider-man 3 last night. This was worse than X-Men 3, it was a horrible horrible waste of 2 and a half hours of our lives, and I did something I never do: I walked out of this film before the very very end. I’ll tell you exactly why, but be forewarned: spoilers follow.
Oh, Sam Raimi. Why did you have to cram too many of your amusing little cut scenes in with the silly witty banter? Why did you have to make several scenes that were borderline musical numbers? Why? Why did you have to make this much more a prolonged episode of Friends, telling the twisted love story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, than the wonderfully awesome action movie we were all expecting? Wasn’t the scene with Bruce Campbell as a French maitre-de exactly the perfect amount of silliness? Did you and the entire cast have a spat with the movie execs and decide to make this a horribly paced film as deliberate sabotage? Why in the name of all that is holy would you make Hobgoblin and Spider-man allies at the end?
Oh, Tobey MaGuire. What about the scenes with you dancing around acting all hip didn’t tell you that it would make you look like the biggest loser on the planet?
Oh, both of you. Why oh why does Peter cry 3 times!?! Didn’t you realize that with all the silly scenes surrounding his crying scenes, we the audience were left with no sense of Spider-man as a hero? He was no longer the complex character that we all know and love. He was a clown. A crybaby.
Also, why did Sandman just give up? There was no defeat of him at the end. Venom/Sandman just managed to kill Spider-man’s best friend Harry (again, that was a bad choice to begin with but to continue to completely bungle it was insane) and Sandman says “I never meant for it to happen” about Peter’s Uncle’s death and Peter says “I forgive you” and THAT’S IT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! And you expected me to stay for the scene with MJ singing after you did a full fade to black after such an excruciatingly horrible conclusion to the action of the movie? Give me a friggin’ break.
In any case, it was such a horrible film that it was mildly amusing throughout.
Raining men… • 03.25.07
This video is hilarious. Found via Crushed by Inertia.
Casino Royale on Blu-Ray • 03.16.07
We just finished watching Casino Royale on Blu-Ray. Looked great. I thought it was entertaining, although Kristin thought it was too long, grew bored, and stopped watching about 2/3rds of the way through.
My only real complaint: if you’re going to go to the trouble to have the classic long stylized Bond-esque intro credits, then by all means keep it classic. This Bond flick was missing one major thing: silhouetted nude women dancing to the intro music as Bond waves his gun around shooting at things. Instead of nude women, they substituted dying men. LAME.
300: Spartan Hotties Versus Persian Trannies • 03.12.07
I wish I could take credit for this title, but alas, it’s Nathan Lee’s title for his not-so-nice review of 300:
village voice > film > 300: Spartan Hotties Versus Persian Trannies by Nathan Lee
Man on Man Action: It’s Spartan hotties versus Persian trannies in Zack Snyder’s far-too-faithful Frank Miller adaptation
It’s a pretty funny read, but a rather poor excuse for a review, as it finds nothing but flaws in 300, many of which seem to be projected onto the film by the writer’s own particularly anti-graphic novel world view. I mean, God forbid a film remains faithful to that which it is attempting to depict!
Thanks to Mags for forwarding this article to me.
God, John[ny], and The Wandering Jew Are Americans • 03.10.07
The full title of this old paper of mine is God, John[ny], and The Wandering Jew Are Americans: Manifestations of Biblical Legends/Myths of Immortality Within Late 20th Century Popular Culture. You can find it here in html format, and here as a PDF. It is copyright to myself, but I freely grant anyone the privilege to use the text in a classroom or educational setting, as long as it is not for a publication or for profit.
To the person who wrote to me several months ago, asking that I repost this article online, my apologies for the long delay. It took me quite a while to track the paper down.
Update: Found the song and video the paper is partially about on YouTube:
Hyperland • 03.08.07
Boing Boing: Documentaries on Google Video • 03.07.07
Holy crap this is awesome: Boing Boing: Documentaries on Google Video
Here’s a link to the free documentaries on Google Video — all 3,713 of them, including a 1978 BBC documentary of a road trip with Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman called Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision and a 40-minute documentary about Richard Feynman called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
Nosferatu • 02.26.07
The Richard Donner Cut • 02.17.07
We watched the remixed version of Superman II last night. It was much more Superman as Christ-figure, and as such ties in much more closely with the recent Superman Returns.
However, the missing goofy scenes between Louis and Clark as she’s trying to out him as Superman makes their relationship feel very undeveloped. Also, the way that he is outed as Superman in this version of the film is very odd.
The turning back time to fix the earth repeat from Superman I also was odd, because he seems to rewind to before when General Zod and crew were freed from the Phantom Zone, but there’s no indication of him thwarting their freedom, and perhaps more glaring, that little rewind should have erased his fight with the trucker, so his return to that diner to re-enact the fight, now with his superpowers, following upon the trucker’s defeat with the declaration “I’ve been working out” just seemed really out of place in this film; in the original, which was a much more goofy film, it was one of my favorite scenes.
Between this and American Psycho and the Uncut 40-year Old Virgin, I think I’m done with uncut and re-edited versions of films. For the most part, that missing editing process and rethinking process was needed. The one notable exception is Bladerunner: The Director’s Cut, which I think is a stronger piece than the original. Apocalypse Now Redux is worth seeing, but I don’t think it is better than the original.
American Psycho Uncut • 02.15.07
I recently watched the Uncut version of American Psycho. Although I’ve never seen it, I have the feeling that the cut version is much much better, partly because many friends praised the original as this dark sadistic piece. This uncut version was just too long, too intense, and too graphic. The graphic scenes detracted from the overall effect.
Samuel Beckett’s Film & Not I • 01.28.07
U B U W E B - Film & Video: Samuel Beckett has both Film and Not I viewable on the site or downloadable. Not I was first performed in London 5 days after I was born, thought nearly a year earlier in New York at Lincoln Center.
Cashback • 01.25.07
Cool short film. Now on Google Video with french subtitles. And here I went and bought it on the iTunes Store. Wonder if this is legit or stolen.
