Review: Cloud Atlas

I was super excited to see this film but felt the need to wait a while before I wrote about it as it struck me as a piece of work that benefits from a good deal of reflection.

"Premier Automne"

7 Films to watch out for in 2013

Over at Yellow Bunting I posted a list of my top seven films for 2013 enjoy!

Review: The Hobbit (Spoilers)

The Lord of the Rings trilogy were the defining films of my childhood. It was the first time that I was aware that movies were actually made rather than just being there. It also later introduced me (via the extensive DVD extras) to the nuances of film making and probably sent me down the path I'm on today.

So you can imagine my reaction to the news that they were going to film The Hobbit. On Sunday I finally got my chance to go and see it! Warning: There be spoilers ahead.

Poster from here

Why indie film is so damn good

I heard about The Underwater Realm on Twitter and FSR and was gobsmacked by the luscious trailer (found here with lots of behind the scenes goodies!). It looks like an ambitious Hollywood blockbuster (not unlike the upcoming Cloud Atlas) but in reality it was shot with a budget that wouldn't cover the tea and coffee on your average mainstream movie.

And you can't tell. Visually it is gorgeous and best of all it will be free to view on You Tube on Christmas Day! I can't wait.

Enjoy

Personal Hero: Alice Guy

Cross posted to Yellow Bunting

In the early years, when filmmaking was still new and being developed as an art form, there were more women working in the industry than there has ever been since. In fact less than 10% of film directors working today are women and that drops to 6% for Hollywood directors.

There has only been one woman in the history of cinema to own and manage a film studio and this was between 1910 and 1914. That woman was the Grandmother of narrative film, Alice Guy.

Born in France, Guy worked as a secretary for Léon Gaumont, a renowned photographer. Gaumont had made his own movie camera after a visit from Louis Lumière, one half of the Lumière brothers. Up until this point film had just been used as a device to document but Guy saw potential for something greater. She was allowed to experiment with camera as long as she didn’t neglect her work. What resulted was one of the earliest (if not the earliest, though it is hard to date these early films) examples of narrative cinema, a 50 second film titled La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy):

This was the first step in a career that saw Guy write, direct or produce over 700 films in 25 years, even when she was pregnant with her children she was still making 2-3 films a week. When titled La Fée aux Choux premiered Gaumont relieved Guy of her secretarial duties and put her in charge of his filmmaking division. She later established her own studio in New Jersey with her husband, Solax Studio, which at the time was one of the most powerful studios in the world.

However, history was not kind to Guy’s memory. The studio went bankrupt after her divorce and the rise of Hollywood as a more cost effective place to make films. The studio was auctioned off and Guy returned to France in 1922 but she never made another film despite the fact that she was beginning to venture into another fledgling medium – sound.  Gaumont made no mention of Guy’s role in developing his studio or even the medium itself when he wrote an account of his company in the 1930s despite Guy’s protestations. She was effectively edited out of the history of a movement she helped to kick-start. It even took until the 1950s for own country to honor her for her services to filmmaking with the Legion of Honor, France’s highest, non-military award.

Photo from here

Though she ceased making films, Guy continued to write about them and worked for International Film Service and we can only wonder at how she would have made use of the multitudes of technological advances that were introduced to the film industry after 1922.

Alice is Guy is an important figure in the early years of cinema not just because she is a woman but because the codes and conventions of cinema today have their beginnings in a whimsical experiment from a woman who realized before anyone else that a story could be told with a medium that many others thought would not see out a decade.

Pause for the sound of tumbleweed...

Oh hello there! You probably don't remember me, it's Sarah who writes this blog and was then torn away by real life and wasn't even able to write a bunch of blog posts to come back with even though she has plenty of films to write about. So for now I will leave you with an article from FSR about my filmmaker of the moment Mr. Joss Whedon.

(Slightly Late) July Round Up

It is a little hard this month as I've fallen behind on watching and reviewing but here it goes:

Best: Of course its The Dark Knight Rises!

Worst: Frailty, the ending just didn't do anything for me

Looking forward to in August: I'm interested in seeing how the reboot of the Bourne franchise is going to go. Plus it comes out on my birthday...

Marvel Unveils Next Round Of Movies!

I adore a good superhero flick and Marvel seem to be at the top of their game in terms of this. The Avengers was an unprecedented crossover of epic proportions and Marvel are getting ready for phase two which will lead up to The Avengers 2.  Over at Total Film, the titles of the next few instalments have been released along with some posters and concept art!

A charming little film to brighten your day!

Courtesy of Sean Mullen comes the Pixaresque The Artists. It is beautifully animated and wonderfully funny!

David Cronenberg

The latest in Film School rejects "6 Filmmaking Tips From..." series is David Cronenberg and is well worth a read! Now go and watch Dead Ringers or Eastern Promises...

The Purple Rose of Cairo

I heard about this film a few weeks ago and subsequently added it to my LoveFilm request list. I always enjoys films about films and this one was no exception with its delicate examination of fantasy and reality.

"I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything"

Tim Burton: A Filmography

Hot on the heels of my Dark Shadows review from last month, I rediscovered this little gem of a film by animator and film maker Martin Woutisseth: