Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi achieved notoriety in 1962 with the sensationalistic documentary Mondo Cane, a globetrotting exposé of bizarre rites and other human grotesqueries that opened the floodgates for a deluge of Mondo titles. When the release of their 1966 film Africa Addio (a.k.a. Africa: Blood and Guts), a despairing look at the continent’s decolonization movements, led to accusations of racism, Jacopetti and Prosperi sought to address the charges by revealing (some would say reveling in) the history of slavery in America. The resulting film, Goodbye Uncle Tom, is an extremely disturbing, at times almost unwatchable, descent into the inferno of an unpardonable institution.
Goodbye Uncle Tom leaves any pretense of objectivity behind in the dust. Using a conceit similar to such Peter Watkins classics as Culloden and The War Game, Jacopetti and Prosperi’s film brings modern-day documentary technology back into a historical setting, using it in...
Goodbye Uncle Tom leaves any pretense of objectivity behind in the dust. Using a conceit similar to such Peter Watkins classics as Culloden and The War Game, Jacopetti and Prosperi’s film brings modern-day documentary technology back into a historical setting, using it in...
- 4/13/2024
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
There have already been several hundred complaints to Ofcom over Gregg Wallace’s “documentary” The British Miracle Meat, which aired on Channel 4 in July, and introduced the nation to the supposed rise in lab-grown meat derived from human flesh.
This groundbreaking satire was an instant viral hit, but seemed to divide the nation between those who thought it was a genius piece of television, and those who were disturbed, disgusted, or even duped.
But this is far from the first time that British television has controversially traumatised the nation: The British Miracle Meat is merely the latest in this country’s rich tradition of using dystopian TV shows and hoaxes to permanently scar the public. Let’s take a look (if you dare) at this particularly bleak area of British TV history, most of which you’ve probably long-since wiped from your memory (sorry):
The War Game (1966)
So...
This groundbreaking satire was an instant viral hit, but seemed to divide the nation between those who thought it was a genius piece of television, and those who were disturbed, disgusted, or even duped.
But this is far from the first time that British television has controversially traumatised the nation: The British Miracle Meat is merely the latest in this country’s rich tradition of using dystopian TV shows and hoaxes to permanently scar the public. Let’s take a look (if you dare) at this particularly bleak area of British TV history, most of which you’ve probably long-since wiped from your memory (sorry):
The War Game (1966)
So...
- 8/7/2023
- by Lauravickersgreen
- Den of Geek
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Drive My Car (2021)List-making season has fully started. Film Comment released both the top twenty films as well as the top twenty undistributed films of the year, and IndieWire published the results of a massive poll of 187 critics. Vulture's critics have each written about their top tens, and Drive My Car tops both Barack Obama and Screen Slate's annual list. Screen Slate has also included individual ballots from "contributors, friends, critics, and filmmakers," which gave Paul Schrader the opportunity to rank The Card Counter as his pick for the best film of the year. Due to a nationwide lockdown in the Netherlands, the International Film Festival Rotterdam will be taking place online, cancelling its previous plans for an in-person event. There are two weeks left to submit to the Sundance Film Festival's 2022 Native Lab,...
- 12/22/2021
- MUBI
Nobody director Ilya Naishuller joins Josh and Joe to talk about his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Nobody (2021)
Hardcore Henry (2016)
Billy Jack (1971)
My Winnipeg (2007)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Top Gun (1986)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Seven (1995)
Bill Hicks: Revelations (1993)
The Mission (1986)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Captivity (2007)
The Killing (1956)
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
You And I (2008)
Infested (2002)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Goodfellas (1990)
Goldfinger (1964)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Papillon (1973)
Papillon (2017)
Midnight Run (1988)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Oldboy (2003)
Parasite (2019)
Assassins (1995)
Ladder 49 (2004)
Waterworld (1995)
Heathers (1989)
Mad Max (1979)
A History Of Violence (2005)
The ’Burbs (1989)
Punishment Park (1971)
The War Game (1966)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Uncut Gems (2019)
Culloden (1964)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Fail Safe (1964)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Let The Right One In (2008)
Patton (1970)
Hardcore (1979)
Mr. Nobody (2009)
District 9 (2009)
Paths of Glory (1957)
A Clockwork Orange...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Nobody (2021)
Hardcore Henry (2016)
Billy Jack (1971)
My Winnipeg (2007)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Top Gun (1986)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Seven (1995)
Bill Hicks: Revelations (1993)
The Mission (1986)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Captivity (2007)
The Killing (1956)
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
You And I (2008)
Infested (2002)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Goodfellas (1990)
Goldfinger (1964)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Papillon (1973)
Papillon (2017)
Midnight Run (1988)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Oldboy (2003)
Parasite (2019)
Assassins (1995)
Ladder 49 (2004)
Waterworld (1995)
Heathers (1989)
Mad Max (1979)
A History Of Violence (2005)
The ’Burbs (1989)
Punishment Park (1971)
The War Game (1966)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Uncut Gems (2019)
Culloden (1964)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Fail Safe (1964)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Let The Right One In (2008)
Patton (1970)
Hardcore (1979)
Mr. Nobody (2009)
District 9 (2009)
Paths of Glory (1957)
A Clockwork Orange...
- 3/30/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
A hundred million viewers tuned in to ABC back in ’83 to find out if the world would end with a bang or a whimper. Edward Hume and Nicholas Meyer’s daring docudrama reacquainted Americans with their status as hostages in a global game of nuclear roulette. Gruesome nuclear annihilation visuals complement fine performances led by Jason Robards. The tense, thoughtful show is presented in separate TV and theatrical versions.
The Day After
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1983 / Color / 1:78 widescreen & 1:33 flat TV / 122 & 127 min. / Street Date August 7, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, Jim Dahlberg, John Lithgow, Bibi Besch, Lori Lethin, Amy Madigan, Jeff East, Georgann Johnson, William Allen Young, Calvin Jung, Lin McCarthy, Dennis Lipscomb.
Cinematography: Gayne Rescher
Film Editor: William Paul Dornisch, Robert Florio
Original Music: David Raksin
Special Effects: Robert Blalack
Written by Edward Hume
Produced by Robert A. Papazian
Directed by Nicholas...
The Day After
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1983 / Color / 1:78 widescreen & 1:33 flat TV / 122 & 127 min. / Street Date August 7, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, Jim Dahlberg, John Lithgow, Bibi Besch, Lori Lethin, Amy Madigan, Jeff East, Georgann Johnson, William Allen Young, Calvin Jung, Lin McCarthy, Dennis Lipscomb.
Cinematography: Gayne Rescher
Film Editor: William Paul Dornisch, Robert Florio
Original Music: David Raksin
Special Effects: Robert Blalack
Written by Edward Hume
Produced by Robert A. Papazian
Directed by Nicholas...
- 7/21/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: Apropos of absolutely nothing (and definitely not in response to a certain world leader taking disastrous steps towards dooming the environment of the only inhabitable planet we have), what is the best film about the end of the world?
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
It’s a hard tie between “Melancholia” and “Take Shelter.” One is a devastating meditation on depression, isolation and death, and the other is a dramatic masterpiece that evokes the dread and anxiety of a looming end. They’re very different films (and coincidentally opened within months of each other), but both end on final shots that left me breathless.
This week’s question: Apropos of absolutely nothing (and definitely not in response to a certain world leader taking disastrous steps towards dooming the environment of the only inhabitable planet we have), what is the best film about the end of the world?
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
It’s a hard tie between “Melancholia” and “Take Shelter.” One is a devastating meditation on depression, isolation and death, and the other is a dramatic masterpiece that evokes the dread and anxiety of a looming end. They’re very different films (and coincidentally opened within months of each other), but both end on final shots that left me breathless.
- 6/5/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Above: Italian 2-foglio for Loves of a Blonde (Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1965).As the 54th New York Film Festival winds to a close this weekend I thought it would be instructive to look back at its counterpart of 50 years ago. Sadly, for the sake of symmetry, there are no filmmakers straddling both the 1966 and the 2016 editions, though Agnès Varda (88 years old), Jean-Luc Godard (85), Carlos Saura (84) and Jirí Menzel (78)—all of whom had films in the 1966 Nyff—are all still making films, and Milos Forman (84), Ivan Passer (83) and Peter Watkins (80) are all still with us. There are only two filmmakers in the current Nyff who could potentially have been in the 1966 edition and they are Ken Loach (80) and Paul Verhoeven (78). The current Nyff is remarkably youthful—half the filmmakers weren’t even born in 1966 and, with the exception of Loach and Verhoeven, the old guard is now represented by Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar,...
- 10/15/2016
- MUBI
Paul Greengrass has spent the past twenty-plus years crafting lean, energetic action films such as his Bourne entries — a franchise he returns to this Friday with Jason Bourne — and equally taut docudramas such as Captain Philips and United 93. His staging and editing of action has become a seminal staple of modern cinema, though it has proven hard to properly imitate as the coherence he often achieves is lost on his imitators. His films explore national paranoia and wounded heroes (often Matt Damon), while his style focuses on kinetic, intimate, and spur-of-the-moment action and storytelling.
Thanks to BFI‘s most recent Sight & Sound poll, Greengrass has compiled a list of his ten favorite films, many of which globe trot outside of the U.S. to everywhere from France (Godard), to Japan (Kurosawa), and Russia (Eisenstein), among others. There’s a clear connective thread between the French New Wave style of...
Thanks to BFI‘s most recent Sight & Sound poll, Greengrass has compiled a list of his ten favorite films, many of which globe trot outside of the U.S. to everywhere from France (Godard), to Japan (Kurosawa), and Russia (Eisenstein), among others. There’s a clear connective thread between the French New Wave style of...
- 7/26/2016
- by Mike Mazzanti
- The Film Stage
★★★★★ Peter Watkins didn't enjoy an especially long career at the BBC. The furore surrounding his second documentary saw him not only resign, but flee the UK into self-imposed exile. The project that sparked the controversy was 1965's The War Game, a harrowing imagining of a potential Soviet nuclear attack on Kent. The UK government had concerns over its damning portrayal of the country's nuclear preparedness and put pressure on the BBC to bury it upon its completion. Despite a theatrical release that resulted in it winning the Best Documentary prize at the 1967 Academy Awards it wasn't aired in Britain until 1985, and now receives a much appreciated BFI Blu-ray release alongside Watkins' other BBC offering.
- 4/4/2016
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The War Game is among the films screening in Berwick Berwick-upon-Tweed celebrates the 11th edition of its Film and Media Arts Festival from September 23 to 27. Following on from last year's theme of Border Crossing, the 2015 festival expands even further into nebulous territories by taking the theme of Fact or Fiction to encourage visitors and viewers to navigate, explore and question the overlapping borders between fact and fantasy, journalism and propaganda, and preconceived conceptions of documentary and narrative film.
Alongside the Fact or Fiction titles - which include Peter Watkins's long-censored The War Game (1965) and Vampir-Cuadecuc (Pere Portabella, 1970), one of the strangest behind-the-scenes films ever made (transforming Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970) with Christopher Lee into something genuinely otherworldly) - the 2015 festival also introduces a new strand: Berwick New Cinema. This section includes films such as Androids Dream (Ion de Sosa, 2014), Abdul & Hamza (Marko Grba Singh, 2015) and A Spell Of Fever.
Alongside the Fact or Fiction titles - which include Peter Watkins's long-censored The War Game (1965) and Vampir-Cuadecuc (Pere Portabella, 1970), one of the strangest behind-the-scenes films ever made (transforming Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970) with Christopher Lee into something genuinely otherworldly) - the 2015 festival also introduces a new strand: Berwick New Cinema. This section includes films such as Androids Dream (Ion de Sosa, 2014), Abdul & Hamza (Marko Grba Singh, 2015) and A Spell Of Fever.
- 9/11/2015
- by Rebecca Naughten
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Punishment Park
Written and directed by Peter Watkins
1971, USA
Images of the heavy-handed police response to protests of the fatal shooting of unarmed Missouri teenager Michael Brown have re-ignited discussion about the increasing militarization of U.S. police forces.
They are also reminiscent of this indelible image from Punishment Park, a powerful faux documentary that brought police militarization to its extreme but inevitable conclusion over 40 years ago.
While hardware is a large part of the Ferguson story, Punishment Park’s $95,000 budget (per the original press kit, which is included with a 2005 DVD release) perhaps precluded director Peter Watkins from equipping the cast with anything quite as threatening, but the film’s impacted is hardly blunted. The press kit insists “Punishment Park takes place tomorrow, yesterday or five years from now. It is also happening today.” And this can still be said of it.
Punishment Park is not only a prescient...
Written and directed by Peter Watkins
1971, USA
Images of the heavy-handed police response to protests of the fatal shooting of unarmed Missouri teenager Michael Brown have re-ignited discussion about the increasing militarization of U.S. police forces.
They are also reminiscent of this indelible image from Punishment Park, a powerful faux documentary that brought police militarization to its extreme but inevitable conclusion over 40 years ago.
While hardware is a large part of the Ferguson story, Punishment Park’s $95,000 budget (per the original press kit, which is included with a 2005 DVD release) perhaps precluded director Peter Watkins from equipping the cast with anything quite as threatening, but the film’s impacted is hardly blunted. The press kit insists “Punishment Park takes place tomorrow, yesterday or five years from now. It is also happening today.” And this can still be said of it.
Punishment Park is not only a prescient...
- 8/20/2014
- by Steven Fouchard
- SoundOnSight
With "The Act Of Killing," "Cutie and the Boxer" and "The Square" among the nominees, this year's Best Documentary Feature category is one of the strongest we can remember. But that doesn't mean that the Academy got everything right. Many of the year's most notable non-fiction films were ignored, most notably Sarah Polley's "Stories We Tell," a movie which managed to top many critical lists and was widely acclaimed as not just one of the best documentaries of 2013, but as one of the best movies of any kind. But Polley's in good company. Perhaps even more so than with the main Best Picture prize, the documentary branch have a long history of overlooking the towering classics of the form completely. Sure, some great docs have been recognized by the Academy — "The War Game," "Woodstock," "Hearts And Minds," "Harlan County USA," "When We Were Kings," "4 Little Girls," "Man On Wire...
- 2/18/2014
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
For a documentary to get noticed these days, it helps to have a fresh angle. But being creative with the form doesn’t necessarily result in an effective film, especially when it’s tackling a serious issue. Stunts occasionally work (see Super Size Me), as do innovative narrative devices (see 1965 Oscar-winner The War Game), but most docs with a gimmick unfortunately seem to hold that stylistic choice in front of the subject at hand. There’s no denying that How to Make Money Selling Drugs is a clever work of nonfiction, but we’re left thinking about the structure more than the film’s point. The real problem, however, might be that the film’s point is not even too clear anyway. Written, directed and heavily narrated by Matthew Cooke, the doc takes the form of, as the title suggests, an actual How-To guide to making money selling drugs. For a while it seems like an amusing...
- 6/26/2013
- by Christopher Campbell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Doc Talk is a biweekly column devoted to documentary cinema, typically featuring an essay concentrated on a currently relevant topic for discussion followed by critic picks for new theatrical and home video releases. This week’s focus is on two documentaries to watch on Halloween. Halloween may be best associated with the horror film genre, but there is an increasing amount of documentaries suited for viewing on the holiday too. Classic nonfiction works with related subject matter include Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 history of demon and witch superstition Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, and Peter Watkins’s Oscar-winning 1965 nuclear war hypothesis The War Game. More recently, doom-and-gloom films like Lucy Walker’s doc on current nuclear...
Read More...
Read More...
- 11/1/2012
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
London Spanish Film Festival
This year's festival includes a separate focus on Catalan cinema, just weeks after Catalans came out in droves to campaign for independence. Partisan or not, Spanish cinema still looks to be in decent shape. There are accessible commercial movies here – Los Pelayo is a sort of Mallorcan Ocean's Eleven; A Game Of Werewolves is a Galician horror. But there's also more pensive cinema, such as Los Pasos Dobles, a Mali-set meditation on art and memory.
Ciné Lumière, SW7, Fri to 10 Oct
Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema, London
Call yourself a global cinema aficionado? If names like Soad Hosny or Adel Imam mean nothing to you, you're still a few regions short of all-encompassing movie omnipotence. So here's the place to quickly fill that gap. Despite the title, what we're mostly talking about here is Egyptian cinema – the biggest player in the region. Hosny, who...
This year's festival includes a separate focus on Catalan cinema, just weeks after Catalans came out in droves to campaign for independence. Partisan or not, Spanish cinema still looks to be in decent shape. There are accessible commercial movies here – Los Pelayo is a sort of Mallorcan Ocean's Eleven; A Game Of Werewolves is a Galician horror. But there's also more pensive cinema, such as Los Pasos Dobles, a Mali-set meditation on art and memory.
Ciné Lumière, SW7, Fri to 10 Oct
Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema, London
Call yourself a global cinema aficionado? If names like Soad Hosny or Adel Imam mean nothing to you, you're still a few regions short of all-encompassing movie omnipotence. So here's the place to quickly fill that gap. Despite the title, what we're mostly talking about here is Egyptian cinema – the biggest player in the region. Hosny, who...
- 9/21/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Punishment Park
When this film was released in 1971, the events that inspired it (such as the Kent State shootings and the Vietnam war) were still fresh in the audience's minds.
When it arrived on DVD a few years back, it was the incarcerations at Guantánamo Bay that drew obvious comparisons. It's only fitting that this latest release, on Blu-ray (and DVD again) arrives soon after rioting and general unrest in Egypt, London, America and, sadly, plenty of other locations. Highly influential director Peter Watkins again uses the documentary style he developed with earlier classics The War Game and Culloden to great effect. A collection of student, arty types and suspicious-looking longhairs are paraded in front of a community tribunal (more a kangaroo court) for various crimes against society (some no more than daring to question the status quo). They are told they can have their long prison sentences commuted to...
When this film was released in 1971, the events that inspired it (such as the Kent State shootings and the Vietnam war) were still fresh in the audience's minds.
When it arrived on DVD a few years back, it was the incarcerations at Guantánamo Bay that drew obvious comparisons. It's only fitting that this latest release, on Blu-ray (and DVD again) arrives soon after rioting and general unrest in Egypt, London, America and, sadly, plenty of other locations. Highly influential director Peter Watkins again uses the documentary style he developed with earlier classics The War Game and Culloden to great effect. A collection of student, arty types and suspicious-looking longhairs are paraded in front of a community tribunal (more a kangaroo court) for various crimes against society (some no more than daring to question the status quo). They are told they can have their long prison sentences commuted to...
- 1/21/2012
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
Punishment Park (Masters of Cinema) is to be released in the UK in a new Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD edition on 23 January 2012. We have three copies of the Blu-ray to give away.
Both controversial and relentless in its depiction of suppression and brutality, Punishment Park was heavily attacked by the mainstream press and permitted only the barest of releases in 1971. However, like Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) and Robert Kramer’s Ice (1969), Peter Watkins’ film has established itself as one of the key, yet rarely seen, radical films of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Giving voice to the disaffected youth of America that had lived through the campus riots at Berkeley, the trial of the Chicago Seven and who were witnessing the escalation of the Vietnam War, Punishment Park was named by Rolling Stone as one of their top ten films of 1971 and has earned many admirers in the four decades since its release.
Both controversial and relentless in its depiction of suppression and brutality, Punishment Park was heavily attacked by the mainstream press and permitted only the barest of releases in 1971. However, like Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) and Robert Kramer’s Ice (1969), Peter Watkins’ film has established itself as one of the key, yet rarely seen, radical films of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Giving voice to the disaffected youth of America that had lived through the campus riots at Berkeley, the trial of the Chicago Seven and who were witnessing the escalation of the Vietnam War, Punishment Park was named by Rolling Stone as one of their top ten films of 1971 and has earned many admirers in the four decades since its release.
- 12/2/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
Wow, the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis gave a really incredible write-up on Ernie Gehr and his films, and includes a lovely slideshow of film stills. (Isn’t Serene Velocity one of the best names for a movie ever?)Superstar blogger Mark Evanier has been writing obsessively about the Lambeth Walk song for the past week or so. One of those posts, though, was all about the classic Len Lye experimental film using that music.Jonas Mekas has a new documentary, entitled My Mars Bar Movie — about an actual bar in NYC, not the candy bar — which opened the first ever Greenpoint Film Festival. The Local East Village website has a write up on the film and the screening.By the way: Did you know the “real” Jonas Mekas is now putting his videos on YouTube? I didn’t, but he is.Rick Trembles gives Peter Watkins’ controversial, Academy Award...
- 11/20/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Long time readers of the site will have seen this before as I’m reposting my love letter to Stephen Volk’s Ghostwatch on the occasion of Hallowe’en. A year shy of its twentieth anniversary it remains a landmark of paranormal drama and has just been reissued on DVD at a ridiculously low price.
Things have changed since the initial (and only) BBC broadcast. Reality TV has infected almost every aspect of television and Most Haunted and the recent Paranormal Activity films simply would not exist without it. Familiarity with the presenters may have made he suspension of disbelief a little difficult initially but nineteen years on there is no such problem.
Ghostwatch joins The War Game, Orson Welles’ Hallowe’en broadcast of War of the Worlds, and the Us TV programmes Special Bulletin and Without Warning as moments in broadcast history which signalled a shift in what was possible,...
Things have changed since the initial (and only) BBC broadcast. Reality TV has infected almost every aspect of television and Most Haunted and the recent Paranormal Activity films simply would not exist without it. Familiarity with the presenters may have made he suspension of disbelief a little difficult initially but nineteen years on there is no such problem.
Ghostwatch joins The War Game, Orson Welles’ Hallowe’en broadcast of War of the Worlds, and the Us TV programmes Special Bulletin and Without Warning as moments in broadcast history which signalled a shift in what was possible,...
- 10/31/2011
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
0:00 - Intro / Jay's Flyway Film Festival Report 13:35 - Headlines: Ben Affleck to Direct The Stand and Whitey Bulger Movie, The Punisher Coming to TV, Disney Bans Press for The Rum Diary, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Talks for Django Unchained 28:00 - Review: Paranormal Activity 3 52:40 - Trailer Trash: Chronicle 1:00:15 - Other Stuff We Watched: E60: The Scott Hall Story, Catching Hell, Charismatic, Jordan Rides the Bus, Unmatched, June 17, 1994, Crazy Stupid Love, 102 Minutes That Changed America, The War Game, A Night to Remember, Harakiri, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Revenge of the Electric Car, The Captains, Insidious, The Walking Dead 1:42:10 - Junk Mail: Worst Cinema Experiences, Memorable / Creepy Autopsies in Movies, How Licensing Music Works, Letting Kids Watch Horror Movies, Kill-Fuck-Marry? 2:12:30 - This Week's DVD Releases 2:14:05 - Outro 2:17:15 - Spoiler Discussion: Paranormal Activity 3...
- 10/26/2011
- by Sean
- FilmJunk
Patton Oswalt is not only a funny comedian, but a is a fellow Geek! Here are two Batman storylines that he wrote and pitched to DC Comics. Both stories were never published, but they are still cool and worth a read.
Check out the two stories below, as well as Oswalt's commentary of each:
"J"
The Joker once again breaks out of Arkham Asylum, and Batman - along with the Justice League - tears apart Gotham to find him.
And who feels the heat the worst when the League is cracking down hard? Gotham's criminals.
And because Batman works his way up from minor street thug, higher and higher on the chain, it's the "C" list criminals who suffer first.
Barely escaping a beatdown and capture, The Cluemaster (who I'm going to make a much younger, inexperienced criminal) gathers a literal "C"-list of other, frightened criminals - Crazyquilt, Crime Doctor,...
Check out the two stories below, as well as Oswalt's commentary of each:
"J"
The Joker once again breaks out of Arkham Asylum, and Batman - along with the Justice League - tears apart Gotham to find him.
And who feels the heat the worst when the League is cracking down hard? Gotham's criminals.
And because Batman works his way up from minor street thug, higher and higher on the chain, it's the "C" list criminals who suffer first.
Barely escaping a beatdown and capture, The Cluemaster (who I'm going to make a much younger, inexperienced criminal) gathers a literal "C"-list of other, frightened criminals - Crazyquilt, Crime Doctor,...
- 7/4/2011
- by Tiberius
- GeekTyrant
A new documentary, Countdown to Zero, highlights the many reasons why nuclear annihilation remains our biggest threat
We never loved the bomb, but we did at least learn to stop worrying about it. According to new documentary Countdown to Zero, though, we shouldn't have. As Lucy Walker's film details, there's even more to worry about today: terrorists seeking to acquire nuclear materials, former Soviet countries trying to sell them, nuclear stockpiles, the club of nuclear-capable countries expanding to include states such as North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Countdown to Zero has been described as the Inconvenient Truth of nukes, though judging by its terrifying revelations, our species is destined to destroy itself by nuclear means long before climate change gets a chance.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing I learned making this film that made me less worried," says Walker. Like most British children of the 1980s, she remembers what it was...
We never loved the bomb, but we did at least learn to stop worrying about it. According to new documentary Countdown to Zero, though, we shouldn't have. As Lucy Walker's film details, there's even more to worry about today: terrorists seeking to acquire nuclear materials, former Soviet countries trying to sell them, nuclear stockpiles, the club of nuclear-capable countries expanding to include states such as North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Countdown to Zero has been described as the Inconvenient Truth of nukes, though judging by its terrifying revelations, our species is destined to destroy itself by nuclear means long before climate change gets a chance.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing I learned making this film that made me less worried," says Walker. Like most British children of the 1980s, she remembers what it was...
- 6/16/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Updated.
"In the crawlspace between the mockumentary and the documentary, there exists a group of movies that can tentatively be described as 'false cinema,'" suggests Jaime N Christley in Slant. "They look exactly like fly-on-the-wall documentaries, but they are, from the ground up, total fabrications. Recent examples can include Catfish and (as it has been suggested) Exit Through the Gift Shop, though the real point of origin is either Peter Watkins's The War Game (which won the documentary Oscar for 1967) or Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread, depending on where you draw the fault lines. The group, which also can be said to include The Blair Witch Project, most of Watkins's other films (up to and including La Commune (Paris, 1871)), and a handful of others, is barely large enough to form a cohesive unit, yet a few distinct tendencies bind them together. They favor a cinéma vérité, you-are-there approach and,...
"In the crawlspace between the mockumentary and the documentary, there exists a group of movies that can tentatively be described as 'false cinema,'" suggests Jaime N Christley in Slant. "They look exactly like fly-on-the-wall documentaries, but they are, from the ground up, total fabrications. Recent examples can include Catfish and (as it has been suggested) Exit Through the Gift Shop, though the real point of origin is either Peter Watkins's The War Game (which won the documentary Oscar for 1967) or Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread, depending on where you draw the fault lines. The group, which also can be said to include The Blair Witch Project, most of Watkins's other films (up to and including La Commune (Paris, 1871)), and a handful of others, is barely large enough to form a cohesive unit, yet a few distinct tendencies bind them together. They favor a cinéma vérité, you-are-there approach and,...
- 6/15/2011
- MUBI
As the mighty Monsters arrives on DVD and Blu-ray, we caught up with director Gareth Edwards for a chat about filmmaking, mockumentaries and Godzilla…
One of last year's very best sci-fi movies, Monsters gained a great deal of attention, thanks to its stunning acting, direction and special effects. On a shoestring budget, filmmaker Gareth Edwards acted as writer, director and effects creator, with actors Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy largely improvising their dialogue on location in Guatemala.
The result was a low key, tender sci-fi drama, a touching journey through a near-future Central America that has become a war zone, with the Us army engaged in a perpetual war against vast, octopus-like creatures from outer space.
Monsters' critical acclaim has propelled Edwards into the movie industry's attention, and over the past few months, he's been developing a sci-fi project with Russian filmmaker, Timur Bekmambetov, and most excitingly, developing a...
One of last year's very best sci-fi movies, Monsters gained a great deal of attention, thanks to its stunning acting, direction and special effects. On a shoestring budget, filmmaker Gareth Edwards acted as writer, director and effects creator, with actors Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy largely improvising their dialogue on location in Guatemala.
The result was a low key, tender sci-fi drama, a touching journey through a near-future Central America that has become a war zone, with the Us army engaged in a perpetual war against vast, octopus-like creatures from outer space.
Monsters' critical acclaim has propelled Edwards into the movie industry's attention, and over the past few months, he's been developing a sci-fi project with Russian filmmaker, Timur Bekmambetov, and most excitingly, developing a...
- 4/7/2011
- Den of Geek
Peter Watkins' The War Game The War Game Review: Part I Given the spate of nuclear Armageddon films made in the 1960s — e.g., Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe, Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes — and up through the early 1980s television production The Day After, it’s remarkable how such a low-budget effort like The War Game retains its effectiveness when almost all other films on the topic seem corny. In fact, it’s likely that the timelessness of Watkins' film is the very reason it was banned for nearly two decades. Scenes of British police shooting civilians were probably deemed too disturbing. Worse yet, the film’s realistic feel and unflinching look at the total inability of the U.K. government to protect its citizens from a nuclear attack — or to care for them following one such attack — surely caused waves. When The War Game was delayed for broadcast,...
- 3/28/2011
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
The War Game (1965) Direction and Screenplay: Peter Watkins Narration: Michael Aspel and Peter Graham Oscar Movies Peter Watkins' The War Game By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: For anyone who thinks that those 50-pack mega-dvd sets of public domain films put out by several different video companies are worthless, I would argue that the amount of films you get for the money is worth it, even if all were mediocre. I would also add that each DVD package comes with at least 8-10 enjoyable films, a few true classics like Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead, and every so often a great little film will pop up that makes the package a total steal. One such 50-pack I got, "Nightmare Worlds," features one such film: Peter Watkins' 1965 BBC documentary (not broadcast until 1985) The War Game, winner of the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 1967. Granted, film...
- 3/28/2011
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
This Friday marks the 65th anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb against a large city. Since that day, creative artists of every variety have made incisive, satiric or powerful statements about nuclear threats. They have offered cautionary works that depict the horror of the bomb or its meaning in our society. What these artistic statements share, however, with rare exceptions, is an avoidance of the specific subject of Hiroshima. Since August 1945, hundreds of "nuclear" movies have appeared. At least one American "nuclear" film was a work of genius (Dr. Strangelove), and several others explored the issue thoughtfully (Fail-Safe, The War Game, Testament and Desert Bloom come to mind). But more often the fear of nuclear war in Hollywood spawned survivalist fantasies, irradiated-monster films and post-apocalypse thrillers. What is striking is that few of...
- 8/4/2010
- by Greg Mitchell
- Huffington Post
Close-Up Directed by: Abbas Kiarostami Written by: Abbas Kiarostami Starring: Hosein Sabzian, Hassan Farazmand, Mehrdad Ahankhah Abbas Kiarostami's 1990 docudrama Close-Up completely buries the defining line between documentary and drama. It's a subversive piece of meta filmmaking that comments on the value of art and cinema through the trial of one overzealous man whose desire to live vicariously through the films -- and filmmaker's -- he loves drove him to deception. The opening ten minutes of Close-Up manages to lay out the entire plot of the film while still keeping the audience completely in the dark. Two dashboard mounted cameras capture a taxi ride -- in what seems to be real time -- as a journalist and two police officers arrive at the home of an upper-class family to arrest a man who's been fraudulently impersonating Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. We slowly learn that the suspect, Hosein Sabzian, had told the family he was Makhmalbaf,...
- 6/22/2010
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Documentary filmmaker Chris Smith and investigative reporter Michael Ruppert have a story to tell. The truth here is as far beyond inconvenient as a modern BMW is beyond the pony express. If there is ever a film that makes you want to bunker down with gallons of fresh water and a million cans of baked beans it is not The Day After, or even The Day After Tomorrow, it is Collapse.
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
- 12/17/2009
- Screen Anarchy
Let me just begin with the fact that I am loving the ‘re-discovery’ of Peter Watkins‘ filmography on DVD. A good number of his films seemed to have skipped both repertory cinema and VHS (outside of rare and ratty VHS dubs) and remain only vaguely remembered, excluding of his Oscar winning The War Game, until the touring retrospective in 2005 which made stops in New York and Toronto. As Terry Gilliam seems to amass a number of failed projects via large ambitions and curiously bad karma, Watkins seems to court distribution roadblocks with the combination of innovative narrative techniques (off-putting to mainstream acceptance) and confrontational up-to-the-minute politics (off-putting to conservative distributors). To say that Watkins‘ films were ahead of their time is an understatement. A gross one. It is interesting that cinephiles are only catching up Watkins‘ work while the themes captured in his films are just as resonant and relevant today,...
- 8/1/2008
- by Kurt Halfyard
- Screen Anarchy
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