CINEMA ART

MARTIN SCORCESE'S

85 FAVORITE FILMS

BAZ

The thrill of pure visual cinema, giving much deeper, long-lasting aesthetic echoes than Disneyland. Nothing much to do with the book as great written literature, but who cares (except suffering English teachers, who shouldn't watch screen adaptations of anything written). Not useful for subtle people. But thrilling for introverted depressed viewers who still feel the magic of cinema, without CGI sadism. DiCaprio can act, even though he was too pretty as a boy. Rap music slaps Fitzgerald in the face, but he may enjoy being slapped. If you hated "Moulin Rouge," don't see this. If you loved "Moulin Rouge," see it. There's only 2 kinds

RAY HARRYHAUSEN

Ray Harryhausen, a nice man, legend of creative, hand-made, non-digital special effects in movies, died. Age 92. He learned from Willis O'Brien, and added art, humor, and warmth to his mentor's visual inventions. Low-cost, humanly imperfect, Ray's effects made the films accessible to kids and adult audiences in way that perfect photo-realism can never do....

Now that film, film pioneers, and hand-hewn story-telling are virtually extinct, it is sad, but fitting, that Ray goes on to have fun in imperfect Heaven. He leaves new scientific technology to more greedy, less talented, and certainly less charming Hollywood feature videogame entrepreneurs.

ANOTHER ARTIST GONE

LES BLANK, one of the greatest documentary film directors, just died....We are losing so many heroes of cinema !

Born 1935 in Florida, Les Blank graduated Tulane University (BA, English literature; MFA, theatre), Ph.D. film program at USC, and five years freelancing in Los Angeles. To finance his own films, Blank made industrial films from 1967-1972.

DARKENED SCREEN

ROGER EBERT...the passionate, sensitive writer who inspired an army of young film directors to care about cinema as art, and have the courage to make their own personal creative films, has died of cancer. He leaves a gigantic unfillable hole in non-academic serious film criticism, cinema history, and critical awareness....Roger did not inspire me to direct films - Kurosawa, Bergman, and Fellini did - and I didn't always agree with his critical opinions (who cares), but Roger was the eyes and perception that kept me making films, despite the socializing politics and cold greed of Hollywood. Every director I ever talked with, from English-speaking countries, all cited Roger as their "guiding light". He was especially caring of film students and first-time directors who had talent but had no network of support. Now we all must continue to struggle forward, without a kind mentor, but with his powerful spirit by our side.

ART & ILLUSTRATIONS

Artists, illustrators, filmmakers, children's book designers, advertisers, and art students: This might be interesting and useful....effective and not effective examples of book covers,
art, and film posters for "Life of Pi".

MIYAZAKI JR.

Scenes from the new gorgeous hand-drawn animated feature film - "From Up on Poppy Hill" [Studio Ghibli] - by Miyazaki Goro (son of legendary Japanese animator, Miyazaki Hayao)....

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/03/10/movies/20130310-POPPY.html

TO OUR GRADUATES

Life, as told by Lee Ang

FILM DIRECTOR FRED TAN

Personal antagonism by certain key Western Taiwanologist film writers have made Fred Tan Han-chang semi-disappear from film history....It is time for Taiwanese and International cinema lovers to rediscover this unique director, who was as important in the 1980s as Ho Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang Teh-chang.

1st ENGLISH TAIWAN FILM DICTIONARY-ENCYCLOPEDIA

TONY SCOTT. FILM DIRECTOR

Personal Quotes.....

[on Ridley Scott] Nobody does toga movies like my brother.

[on Tom Cruise] A magnet for women.

[on Days of Thunder (1990)] The problem was, we started on the movie without a script. Tom [Cruise] was already part of the line-up when I arrived and they said: "Tom can sit behind the wheel of a race car and smoke a cigarette and this movie will make a fortune." And that was the attitude we went in with. Robert Towne would be writing the scenes at night, we would shoot in the morning. It was a dangerous way to work. But we really thought, "Look - it's racing cars and it's Tom Cruise!" But you always have to get a story and you've got to get character first, and we hadn't.

POSTERS & PUPPETS

 Great classic Taiwan films and puppets.....

LIFE OF PI

สมาคมนิยมสาวม.ปลาย

AMERICAN "ART" FILMS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                            by A. O. SCOTT and MANOHLA DARGIS

When Do We ‘Get It’?

LOOK past the award-season hype and the current bounty of decent, good, great movies, and one thing becomes clear: We live in interesting narrative times, cinematically. In “Cloud Atlas” characters jump across centuries, space and six separate stories into a larger tale about human interconnectedness. In “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy’s doomed heroine suffers against visibly artificial sets, a doll within an elaborate dollhouse, while in “Life of Pi” a boy and a tiger share a small boat in a very big sea amid long silences, hallucinatory visuals and no obvious story arc. In movies like these, as well as in “The Master” and “Holy Motors,” filmmakers are pushing hard against, and sometimes dispensing with, storytelling conventions, and audiences seem willing to follow them. The chief film critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, consider this experimental turn.        

ADDICTION TO PRAISE

GOLDEN RABBIT FOR BEST HUMAN BEING

Oscars, Golden Globes, Golden Horses, Golden Bears, Golden Palms, 10 Best, 100 Greatest. The addiction, greed, and starving spirits of those who not only need to be rich, famous and powerful, but also crave the continuing reassurance of co-workers, critics, and fans, is so human, sad, and…silly.

There IS no “Best” in any field, especially not in art or  entertainment. There is only personal taste and effective marketing. Comparisons of creators’ unique visions and styles is useless, and worthless.

MOVING MASTERPIECE

 New York Times - August 16, 2009

Familial Loss and Proustian Tempura    By DENNIS LIM

DEATH looms large in the films of the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. The young heroine of his feature debut, "Maborosi" (1995), is haunted by the inexplicable suicide of her seemingly happy husband. In the metaphysical fable "After Life" (1998), the newly dead are asked to pick a single earthly recollection to keep for eternity, displacing all other memories. "Distance" (2001) observes the grief and shame of the relatives of cult members who killed themselves after carrying out a bio-terrorist attack.

HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER

The most popular money-grabbing movie Hollywood could make is to show China as leading the world in business, culture, philosophy, social services, tourism, diplomacy, and concern for it's citizens. America would be portrayed as violent, selfish, condescending, Colonialist, deteriorating, and self-delusional. Chinese would be the heroes, Americans the villains....There's a pitch that guarantees a billion dollar box-office.... distributed worldwide by 21st Century Panda.

(AMONG) ESSENTIAL NEW FLMS TO SEE

AMOUR….(France) Director: Michael Haneke. Act: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert. Genre: Romance/Drama. 80-year old lovers.

THE ANGEL’S SHARE….Dir: Ken loach.

ARGO….(USA) Dir: Ben Affleck. Act: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin,

Victor Garber. Genres: Modern history/war drama/thriller. Location: Iran.

BEASTS OF THE SOUNTHERN WILD….Dir: Benh Zeitlin (1^st feature). Act: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly. Fantasy/Drama. 6-year-old girl tries to save her father; Nature rebels.

USEFUL FILM WEBSITES

http://www.indiewire.com

For independent filmmakers. Articles, reviews, interviews, links, discussion, and daily news.

http://www.snagfilms.com

Watch newest fiction, shorts, and documentaries films & trailers free online.

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS AT TNNUA

Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA) once had some of the best documentary filmmakers (students), from 1998-2006. The Department has been destroyed by the worst of Taiwan educational politics, power addiction, professor's ego, misguided academia, and fear of creativity. This is a major loss to Taiwan, truth-seeking, serious filmmaking, and to international audiences, who will forever miss the vital opportunity of experiencing powerful documentaries that matter.

Among the superb and good documentarians from TNNUA, 1998-2006: