checkingonmysausages.blogspot.com
Checking On My Sausages: The Dark Knight Rises
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Sunday, 9 September 2012. The Dark Knight Rises. Gothic, the romantic horrific, the dark powerful majestic. Today's Batman and his Gotham aren't Gothic but Goth: listless, cynical and unimaginative. Gotham used to be different, a black world of fear. Now Gotham looks like our world : we are black. Batman the superhero used to give you a frisson of fear-tinged excitement. Bruce the man used to be an enigma, he used to be impressive. Selina Kyle, curious and opinionated, a woman in an improvised dance with...
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Checking On My Sausages: January 2012
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012. Annoying little insect* hovering haughtily above. Spying on us, sniping at us. Light it up like a firework and bring it down to earth. What knavery is this to deny us explosion by cutting away before the deed is done ( I Am Legend. Or worse leave a crumpled heap of metal, dry and unexploded? If you want a picture of the future of cinema, imagine a helicopter exploding - forever. Its eye is shining. Is it here for good or ill. Is it here to take us away from this hell? Followed...
checkingonmysausages.blogspot.com
Checking On My Sausages: June 2012
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Saturday, 16 June 2012. The Greatest Films Bandwagon Jump. Over a year ago I counted down my fifty greatest films. Of all time. My selection criteria paid no heed to critical canons or accolades, technological breakthroughs, historical influence or any opinion held or impact felt beyond my own experience with the flickering white skin called cinema. This year Sight and Sound. With apologies to the 1930s. 1922 Cinderella (Lotte Reiniger). 1943 Day of Wrath. 1945 Roma Citta Aperta. 1959 World of Apu. 2000 ...
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Checking On My Sausages: Burning Bright (2010)
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Friday, 28 September 2012. Your mother has committed suicide. Your brother has autism. Your stepfather has robbed you of your inheritance, your future, your dreams of independence and all.to set up a safari ranch in your back yard. You sit, stewing, angry, depressed, lost to a future as a handmaid to your brother's outbursts that to you, sad and exhausted, sucked of all vitality and hope, appear as the whims of a spoilt brat. From room to room they go, stalking safety. From a purely dramatic standpoi...
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Checking On My Sausages: March 2012
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Wednesday, 14 March 2012. Movie Morality Debate Topics. Here I bring the week of pieces on the morals of film to an end. With a few thoughts. What are the issues surrounding a film which pretends to be fiction and isn't or pretends to be real and is fictional or fake. Think of the ambiguous natures of Abbas Kiarostami's Shirin. Or Exit through the Gift Shop. Do we need to know whether a work of art is 'real' or 'unreal'? Is it our right? Are we being betrayed? Special Editions, 3D, Directors Cuts. Are fi...
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Checking On My Sausages: Miniature Worlds
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Friday, 26 October 2012. Which of you has done this? Abnormal, miraculous, beautiful and disturbing. His house is recreated small and he is therefore made big - a simple man who has made a pact with God to save the world through sacrifice. Which of you (Gods) has made it all? She is bored, directionless and trapped. Sometimes the world feels too much for you and sometimes it is not enough; your head in the clouds with the skyscrapers. Lex is the new law. Posted by Stephen Russell-Gebbett.
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Checking On My Sausages: Images Inspired by Paintings
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Sunday, 18 November 2012. Images Inspired by Paintings. The art of painting has clearly inspired many a film-maker. Single shots have drawn on subjects common to painting for atmosphere or symbolism. Works have been recreated (Godard's Passion. But of course maybe they are merely inspired by the same thing that inspire great paintings : to be pleasing to the eye. In other words, beauty. Forever Mozart (Jean-Luc Godard). War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk). El Sol del Membrillo (Victor Erice).
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Checking On My Sausages: The State of Cinema Essay 2012
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Thursday, 29 November 2012. The State of Cinema Essay 2012. Cinema used to connote a place and film a material. Now what makes a film is a philosophical or contextual issue, one of form and favour. The 'cinematic', due in part to the digital revolution which overthrew film's textures, is apparently concluding its metamorphosis into the televisual, raging with inadequate weapons, 3D and IMAX, against its invisibility. 17,000; Quiet City. Star Wars : Uncut. And Paul Verhoeven's imminent Trick'd. Found foot...
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Checking On My Sausages: October 2011
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Friday, 21 October 2011. Words as Visual Storytellers. One rarely come across discussions of the visual manipulation of words and letters in film. I am not referring here to the symbolism of naming characters or places (to denote personality, role, destiny and so forth) or of the sometimes unorthodox presentation of subtitles and unvoiced emotions (e.g. Night Watch. Or Crank 2 : High Voltage. As a start, here are three examples I have mentioned in passing before. The first comes from Superman Returns.
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