Categories
These Are Those Things

2010: A Great Year For Self Programmed Repertory Cinema

Today’s guest post is from producer/executive Michael Jackson.

This is another of my annual lists dedicated to the proposition that this is the best time ever to see great films, if not – alas – to get them made. In the comfort and safety of your own home the combination of Netflix/Lovefilm, dvd’s and TCM allows for the best ever – self programmed – repertory cinema.

These are all films I saw this year – not ‘classics’ or much written about, but all of which I found intriguing or fun or fascinating. Hopefully you’ll find something you’ll be happy to have seen in the following:

1. There’s Always Tomorrow. (Douglas Sirk 1956). Maybe my favorite discovery of the year from the king of melodrama, Douglas Sirk. This reunites the stars of Double Indemnity, Fred MacMurray and Barbra Stanwyck. He’s a toy manufacturer trapped in conformist fifties family life with Joan Bennett and numerous annoying children, she’s the other woman, with a successful fashion career. Uniquely for the time no-one is cast as the guilty party but everyone is trapped in the LA sunshine. It’s great as drama, social history – and California architecture.

2. Moonrise. (Frank Borzage 1948). I stumbled on this obscurity from the forties by accident. It’s ‘about’ a murderer’s son driven to violence by others refusing to forgive his heritage, and the story is perfectly fine, the acting less so. What makes it compelling is the richness and emotion of the studio based film-making. Watching Moonrise is like living in a parallel dream world. If you like this try Borzage’s exquisite color adaptation of A Farewell to Arms from 1933.

Categories
Let's Make Better Films

A Good Way To Prepare For The New Year

Listverse has another great list that I think is incredibly useful.  What better way to end this year than to decide how you would respond to Agonizing Moral Dilemmas?

I personally feel that deciding on the answers will lead to better films, even a better world.  But at the very least, it will give you some conversation fodder for the evening.  Although do be careful: if people disagrees on a particularly issue, you may never see them in the same light again — even if it is now the true light that shines upon them now!

Check out the list here, and the original one here.

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Hey Kids! Create Your Own Comic Books

MrsP.com guest blogs on B.O.N. yet again today.  All together now: “Thank you, Mrs. P!”.

Running across FREE resources on the web that engage kids is not always easy. I came across Professor Garfield’s Comics Lab Extreme. Kids can just drag and drop any artwork to create their own graphic novels or comic books.  It even allows them to print and save what they made.

http://www.professorgarfield.org/comics_lab_extreme/

MrsP.com, honored with the American Library Associations Great Site for Kids distinction, creates and publishes free video stories read and performed by acclaimed T.V. actress Kathy Kinney. The site has no advertising and offers interactive games, coloring sheets, and activity guides along with “show me the words” options on every story to help early readers, and ESL students. http://www.MrsP.com

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

High School Flash Mob: Gotta Keep Reading

MrsP guest blogs in BowlOfNoses again today!  Thank you MrsP.

Collaboration is the key to most successful projects. This one shows how you can take a pop song, change the lyrics, and get everyone involved in imparting an important message in a fun way. Because I am a huge advocate of reading for kids, this catchy piece spoke to me.

Ocoee Middle School “Gotta Keep Reading”

MrsP.com, honored with the American Library Associations Great Site for Kids distinction, creates and publishes free video stories read and performed by acclaimed T.V. actress Kathy Kinney. The site has no advertising and offers interactive games, coloring sheets, and activity guides along with “show me the words” options on every story to help early readers, and ESL students. http://www.MrsP.com

Categories
Truly Free Film Uncategorized

New Blog Sections: I Need Your Help

You may have noticed on the bottom right hand corner of this HopeForFilm blog that I’ve started having a roll of other indie film thought bloggers — rather an ever changing list of their most recent postings.  Hopefully you already follow all of these good minds, but regardless I think they are all raising issues about making indie films that can’t be missed — and hence their inclusion on this site.  These are smart folks sharing their knowledge and musings — providing the crucial ingredients needed for the culture to work better.  I am sure there are others I should include too, so let me know of them if you find them first.

I have added a similar blog role on LMBF “Aid To Making Better Films” but could use some suggestions there.  I would also like to add curators to TheseAreThoseThings and welcome suggestions.  Issues&Actions has a good list “YouAreNeededToDoSomethingNow” but they all slant towards Net Neutrality and I could use recommendations for more general film issues.  I would like to do the same for TheNextGoodIdea (and have some ideas for that) and BowlOfNoses.  Your help is appreciated.

I’ve long dreamt of an indie film journal that wasn’t about deals or celebrity, but was about process: creative, production, and presentation — a journal that was about the Hows, and the Whys, and the How Comes?.  This is my step towards that work.  I KNOW I would read such a journal.  Would you?  Can we build it?

And while I am at it, I have another question for you.  I’ve noticed some blogs have a curated twitter follow list, providing a feed of select individuals.  Would you like me to include such a thing here on HopeForFilm or Truly Free Film?  Perhaps the same folks who blog articles are currently being featured?  Anyone I forgot? If so, please let me know why they should be included.

Just trying to make it all a little bit better, step by step, with your help and input.

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

How Ridiculous! Impossible Basketball Shots Made Possible

MrsP guest blogs again today!

It is inspiring to see a group of teens giving back with their talents. I love that not only are they having such a great time, but they are thinking of other people too, by adopting a charity. Not to mention the amazing basketball shots they are able to make.

“How ridiculous”

This group of teens from Australia have several more videos up on YouTube.  Check them out.

MrsP.com, honored with the American Library Associations Great Site for Kids distinction, creates and publishes free video stories read and performed by acclaimed T.V. actress Kathy Kinney. The site has no advertising and offers interactive games, coloring sheets, and activity guides along with “show me the words” options on every story to help early readers, and ESL students. http://www.MrsP.com

Categories
Truly Free Film

Full Metal Jacket Diary: From Book to iPad

Today’s guest post if from actor and filmmaker Matthew Modine.  His latest project represents a nice example of  how filmmakers can encourage collaboration from other members of their team and extend their work into new realms.  In this case, even after the death of the filmmaker.

While making Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, I kept a diary. I was portraying a combat journalist, so it made sense to both Kubrick and myself to take some notes along the journey. Sometimes between set ups, Stanley would ask me to read out loud what I had entered in my small cloth-covered book. Being put on the spot like that made me realize that I’d better keep a detailed, accurate, and hopefully, entertaining description of the film’s events. Stanley also allowed me to photograph the filmmaking process. No snapshots would do on a Kubrick set. I used my beautiful 2 1/4 x 2 1/4-inch Rolleiflex camera. I made prints of a number of photographs and gave them to Stanley and the other actors as gifts. Once the filming was over, I returned to my home in NYC and put the photos and my diary in a box.

After several years,