I recently read something about a 1998 German Thriller called Run Lola Run. I think I have noticed the DVD on sale in various shops - next time I see it going cheap I will probably buy it.
I just watched Destino, a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. It was on YouTube but I guess it may be taken down soon so I won't bother giving a link.
At Europa Film Treasures you can watch the treasures of our European cinematographic heritage online.
I just watched an excellent five minute time lapse film called "Istanbul" by Veysel Gencten on YouTube (it is linked from his site).
With the Taliban executing video shop owners in Pakistan's tribal regions, and with a series of bomb blasts shattering theatres in Lahore last month, it's easy to understand why KaraFilm Festival director Hasan Zaidi talks about art being under siege here.
Why Alan Moore hates comic-book movies.
Xeni Jardin has posted her thoughts on the Israeli animated documentary feature "Waltz With Bashir".
Drugged! The top 50 trips in movies.
There is some great stuff at The Art of the Title Sequence.
Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.
Control, the biopic about late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, has scooped five prizes at the British Independent Film Awards, including best film.
Ridley Scott interviewed in WIRED about Blade Runner: The Final Cut.
One of my all time favourite films is Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner". I thought that the "Directors Cut" was better than the original, but apparently Scott was not entirely happy with it and so we now have the "Final Cut" which just recieved its first screening in Venice.
Legendary film-maker Ingmar Bergman has been laid to rest in a private ceremony on his home island in the Baltic sea, Swedish media has reported.
I have just read a fascinating piece by Umberto Eco called Casablanca, or, The Cliches are Havng a Ball.
A film about the World Naked Bike Ride will be shown at the Barbican on June 8th, just two days before this year's ride.
British director Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes The Barley has won the Palme d'Or - the top prize at the Cannes film festival.
This evening I visited a friend in Saffron Walden and we went to watch Capote at a new venue called Saffron Screen. Cheaper than the horrible popcorn palace multiplexes, the venue met with my approval. The film was excellent.
Elephants Dream claims to be the world's first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.
I enjoyed Ultimate Showdown, an animated music video with Art and Animation by Altf4 and Music/Lyrics by Lemon Demon.
In the absence of a real Glastonbury this summer, Julien Temple's transcendent movie provides the perfect stop-gap. Simon Garfield speaks to the man who took the festival to the widescreen.
Another technology entry, HD4NDs exclusive interview with Jim Jannard, founder of RED camera.
LiVES is an Open Source Video Editing System and a VJ tool.
21st Century 3D have announced the introduction of the 3DVX3, the latest in their line of digital stereoscopic motion picture camera systems. Direct to disk recording at 1280x720 per eye, 24fps using two built in, heavily modified Apple Mac Mini computers!
Once upon a time, movie studios and movie theaters were in the same business. The studios made films for theater chains that they either owned or controlled, and they harvested almost all their revenue from ticket sales. Then, in 1948, the government forced the studios to divest themselves of the theaters. Nowadays, the two are in very different businesses. Theater chains, in fact, are in three different businesses.
Read the rest of Edward Jay Epstein's The Popcorn Palace Economy.
In the fifth grade, John Cadigan was voted the most popular, athletic and artistic student in his class. In college, he became antisocial, paranoid and, eventually, catatonic. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Cadigan could have completely retreated into his own world. Instead, he decided to try to come to terms with his condition by documenting the process on film. The CINEMAX Reel Life documentary PEOPLE SAY I'M CRAZY tells the autobiographical story of his struggle.
With regard to Pat Robertson's recent call for the assassination of President Chavez, it seems an appropriate time to mention an award winning documentary about the man (Chavez not Robertson!) - or rather about a dramatic coup in which he was briefly removed from the Presidential Headquarters in 2002 before quickly being restored to power by popular pressure. The Revolution will not be Televised is a documentary put together from footage taken as the drama unfolded, and it won a load of awards in 2003. I missed an opportunity to watch it last year and it is on my list to see.
The Lost Film Festival are still on tour in Europe and though I missed them in Scotland when I was up there for the G8 Summit I have heard good reports - check them out if you get a chance.
Something else I would like to see is The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, which has been receiving excellent reviews and was selected for a number of major film festivals.
I didn't know that anyone had made a film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but they have, and it premieres in London on Wednesday. I am sure it will be financially successful, but turning Douglas Adams' masterpiece it into a film seems only slightly less of a bad idea than the horrible massacre of Hunter S. Thomson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
I went to see Solaris last night at the NFT. I had seen it once before (on a small TV from a poor quality video tape) but had forgotten much of it. On the big screen it was excellent, quite an intense experience!
The world's first digital cinema network will be established in the UK over the next 18 months.
Meanwhile, my friend Malcolm has put together a Tarkovsky page specifically for the NFT season.
Tarkovsky's Solaris will be showing at the NFT for three weeks from 2005-02-18.
I just found out that Richard Linklater is filming Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" using the same sort of technique as his excellent "Waking Life". Not having read the book I wonder whether I should read it before or after seeing the film? According to a comment on this slashdot posting the full text of the book is available on line.
Although my Mother and I have very different tastes in films there is some overlap and we both rank Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock amongst our favourites. I also enjoyed the novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay on which the film was based was based and a friend of mine has the Gheorghe Zamfir soundtrack album. Recently, while searching for a quote from the film, I found The Solution to the novel, as proposed by Brett McKenzie.
In March 2005 the BFI will hold an Andrei Tarkovsky retrospective including extended runs of Solaris and Stalker, both in new prints.
www.zenatode.org.uk Ian Gregory 2010