Surprise, Surprise

There is nothing like a surprise at the holiday time of year. Mine is "Kick-Ass"(2010). I never paid any attention to it.  Not much of a super hero fan other than the Japanese reels of Ultraman and the weirdly wonderful Batman T.V. show from childhood. Big mistake! "Kick Ass" is a black comedy worthy of late night cult status. I thought it was simply a Coming of Age flick. Fun but not worth the time. Wrong! This is an absolutely strange and brilliant film. In the tradition of "Harold & Maude", "Eating Raoul" and many others. A MUST see. Brilliant Nicloas Cage as " Big Daddy" is actually over shadowed by his onscreen daughter named "Hit Girl". Other surprises for film history fans are everywhere!. I'm not going to tell....
Well done.

Pick of the Week

Classified X (1998)- A documentary tracing the history of stereotypical portrayal of African Americans in the movies. Written and narrated by writer/director/actor Melvin Van Peebles. Van Peebles is best know for his groundbreaking 1971 film "Sweet Sweetback's Bad Asssss Song". Yes, the title is spelled that way. "Sweetback" broke the mold of stereotyped and assimilated black Americans in the cinema. His characters spoke like the people in the streets of the 1970's. They were strong, defiant and sexual. We will get back to that film in another posting. Classified X is entertaining and edged by the delivery of Van Peebles. He also wrote but did not direct this fascinating look into mirror for us all.

Film Crew Slang

"Bracketing"-Shooting the scene several times with different F-stops/T-stops to create a range of exposure effects.
F-stop-The amount of light transmitted by a lens based on a simple mathematical calculation. Focal Length of lens divided by the diameter of the aperture.
But different lenses will take in different amounts of light depending on the number of elements in them. So two lenses with an aperture of f4 may actually allow different amounts of light to pass through them. One might create a brighter image than the other.
T-stop-Similar to F-stop but a T-stop is measurement of the actual amount of transmitted light for a particular lens as opposed to the theoretical calculation of an F-stop.
T-stops are used mostly in the motion picture industry.

Pick of Last Week

Catching up on the posts. I neglected to post a Pick last week, so here it is:
"Paradise Now" (2005)- A disturbing but humanistic film about two Palestinian friends in the occupied Western Bank. They have been recruited to become suicide bombers in Tel Aviv. It's more about people than politics, but the two cannot be separated. It won a Golden Globe and was Oscar nominated.

Ghost Hunter

"A Christmas Carol" (1938)- My favorite version of the Dickens tale. Reginald Owen is the greatest Scrooge, as Sean Connery is the greatest James Bond. Owen shows mastery of his craft as the bitter, angry, and sad man who lashes out at the world and covets all. He must do so or admit to his own faults and terrible life. The Ghost of the Past admonishes him "It's men of greed like you who have long forgotten gratitude". His response of confusion, realization and insult is pure gold. See this one. It's nostalgia and brilliance wrapped in a present. Additionally, the Lockhart family is half the cast. They were much like the Barrymore family. Anyone who knows "Lassie" or "Lost in Space" will be surprised to see Bob Cratchit's daughter.

It's A Wonderful Life

It's on NBC right now. As I get older I realize how everyone whose life I've touched and whose touched my life in however slight or grand way has steered me to where I am today, for good or ill. This movie really drives home how we all make a difference in so many peoples lives and never even realize it! And under the direction of Capra it's a classic!

Tora, Tora Tora

I usually don't watch war movies, but this one caught me off guard. It actually tells of all the missed signs of the people who could've prevented it. Reminded me a lot of 9/11. However, I can see why it did not do well when it was released. Deep in the screw-up called the Vietnam War, the country was not ready for this movie at this time.