Le vent souffle ou il veut. And donkeys do too.

About 11 minutes into Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar. It contains probs my new favoritest soundtrack to a title sequence ever. I won't spoil it by describing it, but it's amazing.

FROM THE DISSOLVE

Great article  at The Dissolve on the animation genius behind Pinocchio. Prompted me to make an impulsive 2:00 a.m. purchase of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, a book* I've wanted for years.

*"Book" should probs be capitalized. It's essentially any animation nut's bible. Shame on me for taking this long.

LATE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS

Naughty Nosferatu

 Switching jobs so not much time for Chopping Logic. Figured a bit of Nosferatu would be fitting for the season, though. Watched it a week or so ago. I love German expressionist stuff, for whatever reason. Think the first film in the category that I saw was Mabuse der Spieler. Kind of proto-noir aesthetic. Nosferatu's the quintessence of trippy creepiness (the whole Teutonic acting diva-ness, the exaggerated silentfilm pantomiming, plus the Stoker-derived material). But I love how the shots look like graphic-design work: lots of contrast, shadows, all very bold and striking (= proto-noir). One of the many simple things that makes Nosferatu fantastic is the color palette: shots alternate between a sort of feverish yellow and sickly/sad blue-green (see screencaps).

Transylvania Waterworld

Unfortunately Blogspot has the world's worst photo-display set up for posts, so sorry.

Any mention of noir immediately brings to mind Night of the Hunter though, which features one of the most uncanny villain-performances ever by Robert Mitchum. Also has the shot at bottom.

Pollen season

Night of the Hunter

THE ANTIBLOG

 Ain't got nothing to say. Except the last twenty minutes of Jason and the Argonauts is boss: Hydra killed, body burnt up by meteors sent by goddess of the underworld, hydra teeth retrieved by evil king, teeth spread on the ground and turned into skeleton army which proceeds to slaughter all the Argonauts in the middle of ancient ruins. The real star of the movie is the gorgeous stop motion work by Ray Harryhausen. And this evening's pop song is brought to you by Flaxen Crown -- who, interestingly, was supposedly only 25ish when he wrote that.

WITH BURDOCKS, HEMLOCK, NETTLES, CUCKOO-FLOWERS, AND ALL THE IDLE WEEDS THAT GROW

Just finished P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, which, allowing for severe cabin fever and almost total lack of human contact, has just handily leaped to the top of my favorite films of all time (ousting Casablanca). Actually, that's an understatement but I can't think of an adequate superlative to describe it. It's just so real. Or true to the surreality of life. Warmer. Made me think of Infinite Jest crunched into a movie, except wiser and less solipsistic and more hopeful. I don't even particularly care to talk about it, so I'll skip right to Magnolia's own finale. Fais de beaux reves, cybervide, et tout le meilleur a tout le mad mad mad mad monde!

...You could write a pretty nifty little something just playing off the vide/vida pun. Ex nihilo donchaknow. Dweeb.

I'm literally so bored I just spontaneously started conversing with myself on a blog post. So träum was schönes.