Favourite film from the silent era?
Favorite film from a country that no longer exists?
Favourite film with the lead as a woman older than 50?
First film that made you fall in love with cinema?
Reason you're studying film at uni? (You are right?)
Film that you've seen the most times? And how many times?
Least fav and fav film from the last 5 years and why?
Favorite film from the studio era?
Favorite active director?
Favourite job in filmmaking that isn't editing, writing or directing to analyse?
Favourite essay/article/video essay about a film?
Lastly, what role do you think film critics play in respect to the art form of filmmaking?
Sorry if this is too many.
it's not too many, but you overestimate my exposure & breadth & goodness as a person (/half joking). I am behind in every way for cinema.
The Lodger ate it uppp even before the twist (you must see it for the twist. it's like M's finale in reverse). I have to watch more silents though, I'm sure I would like their delicious grain, heavy props and costuming and make-up. I remember being entranced by Metropolis at ~15.
does battleship Potemkin count <- he is useless
I can't remember how old Margo Channing actually is, but to avoid a terrible answer it will be her - all about eve made me cry for no good reason but its power and loneliness.
I don't have any one film. I never really was allowed to watch movies until the pandemic, and even then it was eclectic pluto tv & what my mom liked - I'm always discovering new outlooks and histories. I'll combine this with the college question - media studies is my minor, yes, but its reasoning is the same as English for my major - I do not create art or think as most people do, so being able to see as much as I can and collect debris is important to me. I see it all as improving myself. I've only seen around 600 movies in my life, and I am a child - but there is nowhere to go but up. I want to go up and evolve. since all things are about their characters changing, anything can touch me.
probably Spiderman 3🥹 dont ask
favs: Phoenician scheme (entrancing american evil), education with Lawrence and Toni (im serious.), least fav: licorice pizza, frankenstein and all things similar (for me the 20s feels like playing with that slime at summer camp days. you have to be careful to make your own points, and not just masturbate endlessly over idyllic pasts)
put that Singin' in the Rain cocaine in me forever. Spartacus may be the only good epic of its kind. I kind of hate this era for its wealth & beauty & waste, especially when it's often the only thing that fully comes through. evil mention for Raintree County, which me and my mother only saw the last half of, but were completely entranced by - as stupid as gone with the wind, but without the fame & assigned """"glamour"""" that causes idiots to not recognize what it is, so it only becomes peak trash. I love trash. Elizabeth Taylor as a southern belle who thinks she has one drop & uses it to be insane and baby traps abolitionist Montgomery Clift? who the fuck is o'hara, this is good for me!
wes Anderson probably I have hope for him even though I dont really like what ive seen.
I need to see more, I'm not good at noticing directors.
honestly I hate analyzing editing and directing, I don't have the mechanical knowledge to notice shot types as a movie is going on (only when a frame is paused) - I like performances, costuming, when mise en scene / sets echo, and "reference points" - when you include a song, a film, a book, a poem, I always like to compare and contrast. I am visual and not ashamed - fill up my rectangle!
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.36794668 - I really adored this book when I found it at my college's library, ignore its ugly cover - not only its subject matter, of course, but how Unstaged Grief limits its reference points to contemporary art and events. so much more creative.
I really don't know. newspaper critics (even elevated / famous ones like Ebert) are usually just a litmus test for the main audience, a describer of pieces of the movie and a way for a review reader to discover if they might like something - critics with more fire or spunk in their reviews probably chart ways a movie's reputation may change. my mother takes the staunch position that the best critics should get out there and film themselves, which I hesitate on - critique is a separate art, that ideally should harness emotions only for flair, and try and bring on all possible related fields to a movie. all lenses, all the time - I think critics ought to be important for filmmakers as a record maybe, a way to learn about the histories and craft in a way that just watching older films (even the greatest) may not provide. can you really understand something like the night of the hunter without knowing how it was viewed on release and its reversal? how can you innovate deeply all by yourself / your bubble? and while critics should not hold power to destroy careers in theory - sometimes things are messy, dangerous, wasteful, self-absorbed and unwilling to experiment, childish. pop it.
