Jaques Tati

Never saw any of Jaques Tati's movies, but he was referenced in some article I was reading, and found some youtube clips interesting. One of his themes seems to be disorientation in buildings, especially modern buildings:

modern buildings

Traffic

House

Play Time (1967), shot in 70mm, was the most risky and expensive work of Tati's career, and it bankrupted him. It took nine years to make and he had to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture. ForPlaytime, Tati fabricated a set (dubbed "Tativille") on the outskirts of Paris that emulated an entire modern city. In the film, Tati and a group of American tourists lose themselves in the futuristic glass-and-steel of the Parisian suburbs, where only human nature and a few views of the city of Paris itself still emerge to breathe life into the city. Playtime had even less of a plot than his earlier films, and Tati endeavored to make his characters, including Hulot, almost incidental to his portrayal of a modernist and robotic Paris - Notes for Class Discussion

Tree of Life

Can't wait to see this.

Pride of Jesse Hallam

Filmed in Kentucky and Cincinnati in 1980, this is a great made-for TV movie. There are lots of good shots of Findlay Market and different places around town, like the produce docks on the riverfront and some Clifton apartment buildings. Apparently you can watch the whole movie below.




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Clooney Studio Vertu

George Clooney is apparently planning on filming a scene at Memorial Hall next week. When he does, I suppose he will be greeted by this on Studio Vertu"s wall:

 

Closer look
 

Brundon

My kids loved this scene, among others:

Song of the South

Disney first released this picture in 1946, and there was some racial controversy about it even then. The NAACP acknowledged "the remarkable artistic merit" of the film, but decried the supposed "impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship" (even though the film was set after the American Civil War). It was shown on television in 1972 and in theatres in 1986. Other than that, Disney has never released it on home video in the USA because executives believe it might be construed as racially insensitive. It had previously been released on home video in England and Japan, but was withdrawn worldwide in 2001. Bootleg copies are widely circulated, and to their credit, the Disney Corporation has not brought legal action.

Based on the Uncle Remus cycle of stories by Joel Chandler Harris, it was Walt Disney's first live-action film, though it also contains major segments of animation. The live actors provide a sentimental framework, in which Uncle Remus relates the folk tales of the adventures of Br'er Rabbit and his friends. Maurice Rapf was asked by the Walt Disney Company to turn the stories into a shootable screenplay. One of the reasons Disney hired Rapf to was to temper what Disney feared would be a white Southern slant. Rapf was a minority, a Jew, and an outspoken left-winger, and he feared that the film would inevitably be Uncle Tomish. "That's exactly why I want you to work on it," Walt told him, "because I know that you don't think I should make the movie. You're against Uncle Tomism, and you're a radical." Rapf initially hesitated, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer.

Iron Giant this Saturday

I have wanted to see this movie for a long time. I just googled it and found out it is based on a novel by Ted Hughes, which I found suprising. I didn't even know he wrote children's stories. Might be worth checking out the rest of his writing.

 

Anyway, we will definitely be attending this movie, and would love to meet other families there. Send and email to mike at citykin dot com if you want to meet-up.

We saw Edward Scissorhands last week. I hadn't seen it since it was originally released in 1990. It was better than I remembered, but a bit too mature for little kids, especially the part where the neighbor tries to seduce Edward. They mostly ignored the film and ran around.
Edward Scissorhands suburban scene as seen on FS:

 

I thought it was interesting that this mother brought a crib to the square for the movie. She was offering face painting, I believe:

 

Not, "my spoon is too big", but a similar intermission cartoon:

 

Sprawling from Grace

Sprawling from Grace, is probably a movie that I will never see. The movie includes an interview with Jan Gehl, and I would like to see it for that reason alone:


The Director of the movie says:

...I grew up in the suburbs. ....We would gather on the fringe of our suburban subdivision, smoking cigarettes atop the hills of newly excavated earth, earth that gave way to the construction sites where the next tier of suburbia was to be built. We would gather in the basements of each other’s suburban homes playing Atari games, listening to rock and roll, raiding our parent’s liquor cabinets, and experimenting with drugs that dulled our senses into acceptance of this mundane existence. One day bled into the next without distinction. Our lives mirrored the homogeneity of the communities we lived in. And so, we emulated the architecture that surrounded us. There were no stores, cafes, or arcades to gather in. No jobs for teens within walking or biking distance. No place to meet someone new and interesting, outside of those neighbors who lived close by. Just, row upon row of neatly kept houses that only varied in appearance every third house. And so, we bided our time, waiting for that magic age. Sixteen. Freedom. If only I could drive...

Another movie from 2006 that also looks interesting: Manufactured Landscapes.

...a thought-provoking investigation of photographer Edward Burtynsky's legacy, with its aesthetic studies of industrial landscapes. But Baichwal's documentary probes deeper than a mere surface-level glimpse of Burtynsky's life and work. It uses the topic of Burtynsky as a springboard, segueing, from there, into a protracted exploration of "the aesthetic, social and spiritual dimensions of industrialization and globalization." Whereas Burtynsky's photographs reveal human beings dwarfed by the massive industrialized landscape that surrounds them, Baichwal (much as Louis Malle did in his Humain, trop Humain) sheds a light on the tedium and monotony suffered by workers who are assigned small components of huge manufacturing processes, and must endure the repetitive work that it entails.

The Point

An innocent little movie from 1971, narrated by Ringo Starr, with music by Harry Nilsson, about a little boy, Oblio, and his dog Arrow, who are outcast. The movie is about acceptance and the inherent value in each person. The best part is the sweetness shown between boy and dog to the tune "Me and My Arrow". I liked it, but was a bit suprised that the kids liked it as much as they did. They keep wanting to re-watch it.