The Shadow of Time

[theamania]

Facts I learnt from The Lion King: 1.Most lions (the good ones) are very concerned about the sustainability of their ecosystem, only the evil lions overhunt. 2.Lions can live by eating worms. Instead of being carnivore, they can be…urgh…wormivore. 3.In Africa, parents with British accent are perfectly capable of raising children who speak American English. 4.Hakuna Matata works like magic as a treatment for PTSD. It cured a kid, who just lost his father, in like two seconds. Too bad Hamlet didn’t land in Africa instead. I’d love to see him sing rather than contemplating on being.

[theamania]

As an auteur, Yorgos Lanthimos seems to be meticulous about the poster designs for his movies as well~ Love the minimalist aesthetics of them.

[theamania]

Mifune and Tatsuya, rivals in Yojimbo (1961), victim and detective in High and Low (1963). Kurosawa’s triangular composition. 

[theamania]

My random midnight Double Feature:

High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963)

Floating Clouds (Naruse, 1955)

[theamania]

My random midnight double feature: 

Memories (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1995)

Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)

[theamania]

My not so random Midnight Double Feature: 

The Face of Another by Hiroshi Teshigahara (1966)

Persona by Ingmar Bergman (1966)

[theamania]

My random midnight double feature 2: Yojimbo (1961) and Kids Return (1996). A perfectly dramatized samurai Western that is intense and hilarious; a realistic portrayal of adolescent life with bittersweet humor. Kurosawa, and Takeshi Kitano to whom Kurosawa entrusted the future of Japanese cinema before he passed in 1998. 

[theamania]

My random midnight double feature 1: Ikiru (1952) and M (1931). 

Amazing cinematography, plot structure,ensemble performance. Unexpected development and plot twist. Kurosawa is a humanist who keeps up hope for potential change of status quo; Lang is a thinker who asks questions and provoke the audience to reflect on the legal system and the issues of crime and punishment. 

[theamania]

Maids’ tales, in France, Korea and US, in the past and in the dystopian future. (To be fair, The Handmaiden is the English title for Agassi, meaning Lady/Miss. Like shown in the posture, the focus of the plot is on the Miss, rather than the maid. Similarly, The Help is centered around the Miss rather than the help.)

[thefinalimage]

Known primarily for his revenge triptych, South Korean auteur, Park Chan-Wook, has rightfully earned a reputation for high-drama punctuated with devastating violence. What’s less often talked about is his thematic and stylistic range. The final images collected here are from a procedural, a pair of revenge melodramas, a rom-com, a horror, and a psychological thriller. They all clearly demonstrate a diverse, highly poetic filmmaker with very deliberate visual pallet.

[thefinalimage]

Kwaidan | 1965 | dir. Masaki Kobayashi

[theamania]

What a great movie with a powerful horrifying ending

[thefinalimage]

Shock Corridor | 1963 | dir. Samuel Fuller

[winkbooks]

Striking book covers from an unlikely designer Cover by Peter Mendelsund powerHouse Books 2014, 304 pages, 9.3 x 11.2 x 1.4 inches $43 Buy a copy on Amazon

As paper books fade, their covers have never been better. Perhaps book covers need to shine more intelligently in order to make us smarter in this age of distraction. Here is another book cover designer who can write as well as he can design. Peter Mendelsund is an unlikely designer who came to the profession very late as an unemployed classical pianist, but as he takes you through his portfolio, the bad as well as the good, you can see why his covers are so sought after. He comes to an idea laterally, from the side, at an oblique never-obvious angle. He avoids “pretty” and “beautiful” and aims for “aha” – which produces beauty.  There are tons of great lessons for any kind of design or art in his delightful descriptions of his creative solutions to the problems of many words. – Kevin Kelly February 20, 2015

[theamania]

It is said that the young Hayao Miyazaki appears in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989):D

[artofthetitle]

New this week! Break the fourth wall with Blur Studio in the opening of Deadpool. Watch the Deadpool title sequence on Art of the Title

[criterioncollection]

“Like a Taiwanese REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE made with the gravity and epic sweep of THE GODFATHER.”

In our new essay on A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, Godfrey Cheshire explains why "Yang’s fourth feature retains an inexhaustible freshness that speaks to viewers the world over.”

[criterioncollection]

Were there any films that he or you drew inspiration from while making A Brighter Summer Day?

I’m sure there were, but we didn’t discuss this. The one exception was Scorsese, particularly Goodfellas, which Edward used as the model of a gangster movie. But Edward’s style was completely different from Scorsese’s. People often refer to Edward as someone influenced by European filmmakers, comparing him to Antonioni, but he wasn’t intentionally imitating anyone. What I think did have a huge influence on him was the auteurist spirit you find in European cinema. He knew the importance of expressing oneself and having a style of one’s own. It was under this influence that he learned not to fear making films that were too difficult, and not to fear the audience’s incomprehension. But I think this influence was primarily one of attitude, not of aesthetics.

Read a new interview with screenwriter Hung Hung on his experience working with the great Edward Yang.