Various and Sundry

TCM Remembers, 2023

Earlier this week, I did a post about the what we’ve gained in the public domain as of January 1st, “Public Domain Day” becoming something I post on. Thinking of annual posts, I meant to do this last month, so here goes: TCM does a great montage of folks we’ve lost in the previous year (see examples from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 for the most recent entries). This time around, I decided to do…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Animation Break… with Pizza

Apart from contemplating whether to see any component of Barbenheimer in the theaters, I didn’t have anything I was planning to see until my kids announced they were unanimous in wanting to see the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film aka “Wait, there’s another TMNT movie?!?” This was a surprise because, to the best of my knowledge and theirs, they have not seen any previous TMNT movie. They also have not been around long enough…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Short (& Long) Suggestions for Your Reading and Viewing Pleasure

Finding time to read, or catch up with films, seems all the more difficult these days, so I pored over this list from various critics at The Guardian, who apparently are annoyed at the increasing length of films and heft of novels and have a slew of suggestions of how to get all the artsy goodness you want in a smaller package. I haven’t seen all the films nor read all the novels listed. In…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

I like Master and Commander and, yes, I’m a dad. Why do you ask?

Thinking of my biennial “Favorite Films” post this past December, it’s clear from last night’s Oscars, I’m not the only one who was bowled over by the bagel that is Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s definitely due a rewatch… but actually, I’m here to point out a recent article by Gabriella Paiella for GQ about how my top pick, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, was made and is now an…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

My 50 Favorite Films, 2022 Edition

It’s that time of [even] year where I reflect on the many films I’ve seen and perform that most Internet of activities: ranking them. I mean, I’ve done an offline sort of my favorite films for about 30 years, but the past 10 year online have been right at home here on the Intertubes. You can see my previous entries here (including how I do the sort by pairwise comparison). This year, the total of…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

TCM Remembers, 2022

TCM does a great montage every year of the film folks we’ve lost. It never fails to make me want to rewatch a film or three. This year, we lost a couple actors particularly dear to my cinemania, David Warner and Angela Lansbury. They’ve gotten better about making sure their videos are on YouTube, so you can check out past editions, including the recent 2021, 2020, and 2019 — the last of which I find…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

GIFs Out of Balance

Earlier this week, I mentioned doing the sort of my biennial favorite films list. My favorite film for a few years back in the pre-Internet era (well, pre-Netscape Navigator for sticklers) was the experimental, non-narrative film Koyaanisqatsi. Technically a documentary, I suppose, but really more of a visual essay. It uses a variety of slow-motion, time-lapse, and regular speed, but breathtaking, cinematography resulting in a film unlike anything I had seen before. It may also…

Continue reading

Rants Raves Various and Sundry

Patton Oswalt: Galactic Cinema Scoundrel

I’m going to save some of my posts for Banned Books Week for, well, the week itself, but I mention it here in order to spur you on to make a reading selection, possibly from the website, possibly from visiting your friendly local library. Instead, we have Patton Oswalt rating his top 5 and bottom 5 films with the zeal and wit you have likely come to expect. Now, knowing that Oswalt is a total…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Film Genre Popularity Over the Decades

Bo McCready has done every cinephile a solid by taking film genre data (as tagged on IMDb) and creating this visualization via Tableau. Now, considering that this is over 100 years’ worth of films… and thousands and thousands of films, this is quite interesting. However, if you look at the visualization above, you’ll see a given genre waxing and waning in relation to its maximum percentage of the overall number of films released that year…

Continue reading