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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 3, 2021 11:02:43 GMT
The Black Tower (1987)
John Smith - 10 / 10 - Re-watch
Ingeniously odd, singular UK short film (23 minutes) that's a metaphor about depression and despair - its looming, lingering permanence.
Our narrator (unseen to us) sees The Black Tower following everywhere, constantly. No one else sees (or wants to discuss) it and when he tries bringing it up........well........."she ignored me completely"......
A perfect example of what a short can do - take a slight idea that at any longer length would be tiresome - adds a distinct visual component and narration POV - in this case it's quite precise (and dryly humorous) narration - while simultaneously being mocked by music (the ice cream man's) but mostly contextualized and defined by sounds - trees rustling, street traffic, birds chirping, the sound of our narrator "(physically) running", incidental sounds of washing up, water running, porridge being prepared..........tellingly, at one point......sirens......later, a train rushing by .......)
All of this balancing the line between an unreliable narrator and an all too revealing one.......the sound design is absolutely inspired.
There is a terrific sequence at around 13:25 of cars, children, a cat, mothers - everything - being shown as moving (cut off of the frame as the camera is still) against physical surroundings (street, buildings, brick walls, ominously there all the time) while nature (the tree) marks not only time passing (crucial, in the last line of narration too) but also those mesmerizing black holes ..........established and paralleled in several earlier fade to black shots........The Black Tower's visible "age and decay"........ that reveals itself .......up close.....
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 3, 2021 18:47:52 GMT
The Black Tower (1987)
John Smith - 10 / 10 - Re-watch
Ingeniously odd, singular UK short film (23 minutes) that's a metaphor about depression and despair - its looming, lingering permanence. Our narrator (unseen to us) sees The Black Tower following everywhere, constantly. No one else sees (or wants to discuss) it and when he tries bringing it up........well........."she ignored me completely"...... A perfect example of what a short can do - take a slight idea that at any longer length would be tiresome - adds a distinct visual component and narration POV - in this case it's quite precise (and dryly humorous) narration - while simultaneously being mocked by music (the ice cream man's) but mostly contextualized and defined by sounds - trees rustling, street traffic, birds chirping, the sound of our narrator "(physically) running", incidental sounds of washing up, water running, porridge being prepared..........tellingly, at one point......sirens......later, a train rushing by .......) All of this balancing the line between an unreliable narrator and an all too revealing one.......the sound design is absolutely inspired. There is a terrific sequence at around 13:25 of cars, children, a cat, mothers - everything - being shown as moving (cut off of the frame as the camera is still) against physical surroundings (street, buildings, brick walls, ominously there all the time) while nature (the tree) marks not only time passing (crucial, in the last line of narration too) but also those mesmerizing black holes ..........established and paralleled in several earlier fade to black shots........The Black Tower's visible "age and decay"........ that reveals itself .......up close..... Another one of Smith's famous works ^ but unlike the horror elements in The Black Tower - this short is much more expressly funny - Andy Kaufman could have made it...... This film - 11 minutes+ - is a riotous running gag of "direction" being given to oblivious passers-by a "director" or a madman (or both). As it goes on it becomes more and more frantic and absurdly funny..........but by the ending it is rather sad and contemplative too......... I don't think it sustains on a multiple watches like The Black Tower does (and almost invites)..........but that's holding it to a high standard .........and it's awesome on the first watch if you've never seen Smith's work........and I watched it today and still laughed.........today the specifics cracked me up "The Girl Chewing Gum........ from the left!" |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 4, 2021 6:56:09 GMT
The Lonely Water (1973) - 7+ /10
Jeff GrantJust in time for Halloween: This Public Service Announcement which I had never seen before is like The Seventh Seal for kids  with Donald Pleasance voicing Death - it works as horror and as snarky camp humor (here dumb little kid, grab hold of this shaky branch!). This is only 1:00 minute plus for short attention span little brats! - but I liked this a lot and I'd like to see more PSA's - George Romero's The Amusement Park being one of the movie finds of 2021. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 4, 2021 17:08:00 GMT
Hands of Purple Distances (1962) - The first 5 minutes a 7+ / 10.........but the last 5 minutes +...... a 10 / 10 Sava TrifkovićMattsby , Tommen_Saperstein , cheesecake #horrorlovers Has anyone seen this? Many of the shorts I've put up here in the last 2 weeks have been some kind of tangent of horror - and they're almost all excellent in that way ( The Black Tower, the work of Takashi Ito, Outer Space etc)........but this movie (~11 minutes) which I had never seen is the most overtly "horrific" one. In something that could only be called David Lynch-like - this film starts weird and mesmerizing in showing shots of a broken nature, disrupted and alive but decaying....... and then gets quite terrifying quite fast. Initially obscure it then comes into something like a shifting focus - at certain points (once the horse drawn carriage appears) this seems to suggest it's "about" approaching Death.....at others it appears to be a description of a breakdown, or a vision or even a sexual assault. The image at 9:00 of the woman's hand holding on to a tree is a fantastic horror film shot. The ending of this movie returns to an image at the start suggesting it's maybe a premonition but as for "understanding" it beyond that..........well what kind of surrealism is understood anyway..... Essential viewing for horror fans......aspiring filmmakers.....Lynch fanatics.....
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 4, 2021 19:03:18 GMT
The Lonely Water (1973) - 7+ /10
Jeff GrantJust in time for Halloween: This Public Service Announcement which I had never seen before is like The Seventh Seal for kids with Donald Pleasance voicing Death - it works as horror and as snarky camp humor (here dumb little kid, grab hold of this shaky branch!). This is only 1:00 minute plus for short attention span little brats! - but I liked this a lot and I'd like to see more PSA's - George Romero's The Amusement Park being one of the movie finds of 2021. “Showoffs are easy…” this was great! spooky and oddly funny? lotta interesting Brit PSA’s around this time… curiously a lot of electricity-awareness stuff…. Lonely Water works a bit as a prelude to another PSA, the fuller Apaches (1977) - nearly 30m, and the director’s next film was The Long Good Friday !! |
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Post by ireallyamsomething on Sept 4, 2021 20:16:01 GMT
The Black Tower (1987)
John Smith - 10 / 10 - Re-watch
I watched this recently and while I wouldn't claim to understand what it all means, it was quite disorienting and haunting. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 6, 2021 20:50:19 GMT
At Land (1944)
Maya Deren - sort of a rewatch but don't think I saw it "all"? .......8.5 / 10
I don't think I'd ever sat down and watched this all the way through - I've seen parts of this film at a museum exhibition and used in other work and I've seen The Psychedelic Furs use this along with Deren's masterpiece Meshes of the Afternoon in a live performance once ...........so I think I only know it from bits and pieces (?)
This film doesn't jolt like Meshes and is in some ways less vivid than that classic - this is more like a (sometimes pretentious) dreamscape in bright light where Deren seems to be losing herself in patterns of behavior that she is locked out of (or repeating or misunderstanding).
The film's last scene is a very famous one.... close to 15 minutes total
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 6, 2021 21:23:45 GMT
The Chorus (1982) 16min from Abbas Kiarostami, about the peace and price of tuning out, tho sweetly returned and harmless. One of nine shorts he made btwn '70-82 for the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children. Premise kinda reminds me of the very brilliant ending of the book Revolutionary Road. It had been available on YT in unwatchable quality for years, but a few weeks ago added in better qual... 
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Sept 7, 2021 16:09:12 GMT
I'm sure the last short film I watched was probably in front of a Pixar movie in the theater so thanks for the shoutout/rec pacinoyes I'll check that one out! Looks very intriguing |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 10, 2021 0:46:14 GMT
No Through Road (2009) 7.5 ++ / 10 rewatch
Steven Chamberlin
One of the little secrets in rating movies is a "1 to 10" scale doesn't show the range of disparity - I talk about This Transient Life (1970) or Demons (1971) being ~ 10's but they surpass mere "decent" movies (or 7's) by far more than "3" points.
This short is a perfect example of that - it's not a 10 - but you wouldn't know it by how I have responded to it for years - I watched this a million times, I watched it when it first showed up on Youtube (more or less, I was slightly late to the party) and because I didn't know what it was and couldn't look it up it seemed more frightening to me and my friends......you didn't fall for it being "real" or anything............. but it felt real.......and real mysterious.......
9 minutes
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 13, 2021 19:52:19 GMT
Passionless Moments (1984) 12m, great short - cleverly observed tiles of characters during downtime. How the young turn to games and wonder, and the older to shame and recollection. Written- directed- shot by Jane Campion. Available here and on Criterion too .
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 15, 2021 20:24:14 GMT
The Second Death (2000) 10m from John Michael McDonagh. Very haunting pic with sad clues all over it.... and a few Townes Van Zandt's on the soundtrack. Great bit perf from Liam Cunningham. I like this more than the other McDonagh's famous, Oscar-winning short Six Shooter (2004).
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 16, 2021 17:57:00 GMT
http://instagram.com/p/CTEb_I7jvoz Through the Looking Glass (2021) 9m from Morgane Polanski, thru the London Fashion Film Fest site. Her father often used mirrors ingeniously in his movies and this builds to a semi-predictable but chillingly played reveal with a hand mirror. Dame Siân Phillips (88y/o) stars as a lavishly rich old woman, bedridden and cared for by a young beauty who she scorns while trying on her most valued clothes. "You can't go out like that- you'll be attacked." Looking forward to more work behind the cam from Morgane... |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 16, 2021 21:08:01 GMT
There's A Man In The Woods (2014) - 9 / 10........ 4 minutesSort of suggestive of the (awesome) Kirlian Frequency and some of the work of Charles Addams - but drifting much more towards psychopathic than the mere effect of the macabre (um). The animation and the rhyming narration starts to achieve a cumulative power - this is an essential warmup for our Halloween horror crew ......... Mattsby , cheesecake , Tommen_Saperstein ........ Martin Stett may find some merit to the crude yet effective animation / illustrations here (maybe)........only 4 minutes .........with quite a reputation among alternative film types who know about such stuff.... Side note: Also reminiscent of the great PSH scene from Doubt where he tells the story about "Gossip" in the church |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 18, 2021 6:16:39 GMT
The Cabinet (2020) - ~ 7 / 10 .........3 minutesThese keep getting shorter and shorter.......soon I will be watching short films that are like 3 seconds long where someone just says "Boo" Slightly amusing comedy-horror short from the people at Grimmfest that is a good palate cleanser especially after the animated, greatish and deceptively dark "There's A Man In the Woods" reviewed yesterday above...... The difference was that one was a horror comedy - not a comedy horror (the order matters!)........still enjoyable, very British one joke thing that will make you smile.........sometimes that's just enough |
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Post by Mattsby on Sept 20, 2021 22:15:22 GMT
 The Letter Room (2020) 7.5/10. 33min Oscar-nominated short. W/ Oscar Isaac, Alia Shawkat, and underrated thespian John Douglas Thompson. Directed by Elvira Lind (Isaac's wife), at 8 months pregnant, in five days. She said "It was way too long at first" before editing it down and I think you can tell it'd make a good feature, it's close already! It's an uncommon prison movie in its likable, generous way. And an interesting, warmly felt character for Isaac... a romantic who has been slowly silenced finds his way out. I love some of the details....counting his calories, and taking off his glove to touch a letter and feel closer to the writer of it. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 21, 2021 0:17:08 GMT
The House Is Black (1963) - at least a 9 / 10
22 Minutesthemoviesinner who I suspect might know of this...... This movie - an excruciating and beautiful film set in a leper colony that both wrenches and achieves a kind of exquisite sadness and wondrous philosophical awe at the horrors of life and the simultaneous beauty of an open hearted faith. The director of this film - an Iranian female filmmaker and poet Forough Farrokhzad is the only film she made before her death in a car accident at 32 (she made this movie 4 years prior). I had never seen this before - but it's been on my watchlist forever .........and it's basically essential viewing - especially for young people who feel adrift and purposeless. At times you won't be able to watch the screen - it's an unflinching documentary. Full movie, on Vimeo below and Farrokhzad:  |
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Post by themoviesinner on Sept 21, 2021 8:18:48 GMT
The House Is Black (1963) - at least a 9 / 10
22 Minutesthemoviesinner who I suspect might know of this...... This movie - an excruciating and beautiful film set in a leper colony that both wrenches and achieves a kind of exquisite sadness and wondrous philosophical awe at the horrors of life and the simultaneous beauty of an open hearted faith. The director of this film - an Iranian female filmmaker and poet Forough Farrokhzad is the only film she made before her death in a car accident at 32 (she made this movie 4 years prior). I had never seen this before - but it's been on my watchlist forever .........and it's basically essential viewing - especially for young people who feel adrift and purposeless. At times you won't be able to watch the screen - it's an unflinching documentary. Full movie, on Vimeo below and Farrokhzad: I've seen it and I agree that it is an incredible film. It manages to achieve in 22 minutes what most documentaries fail to do so in 2+ hours. It's profundity and insight is astonishing. It's a very influential film in Iran and it's probably one of the biggest precursors of the Iranian New Wave. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 23, 2021 23:52:25 GMT
Mother's House (2011) - 6 / 10
I'm a big fan of Kathryn Erbe from L&O Criminal Intent and I say her play the original The Father on Broadway (in the Colman role).
This movie is very much an M. Night sort of thing - has several wtf moments that defy logic and has a performance from her that seems uncomfortable not in a character way but a "why am I doing this stupid short?" way.
Lots of people love this and it's highly rated - disappointing especially after "The House is Black" ^ the last one I had seen before this and which is an all-timer.
Movie below and like I said you might like it if you like M. Night type "horror".......it does have its fans........just not me......
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 25, 2021 11:04:00 GMT
Beneath the Skin (1981) - 9 / 10; 11 and 1/2 minutesI'd recommend this film not just to the usual horror crew ( Mattsby, cheesecake, Tommen_Saperstein) but also people who have spoken eloquently about female related cultural issues or female assaults by extension ....... @tyler, HELENA MARIA, LaraQ ........even if you can't watch the whole thing (it makes its point right away and repeats it) - it's important just to see it for a few minutes I think. This movie was made by a woman who dated a famous real life serial killer - Cecelia Condit - she dated Ira Einhorn, he's on on Wikipedia - photo below) and what Condit does here is dare you to hate the woman narrating this over images of females dead, fleetingly alive, mummified.......the narration is stupid and annoyingly delivered in a dumb, grating voice and it's banal too ..............over images that shake you in their finality, and are the cold truth. This is basically a film that indicts everyone for "liking" horror - or at least murder stories - at all (Happy Halloween Everybody  !), and specifically for being a "true crime fan": She sort of blames her own gender even for sort of enabling a culture of murder of women too through gossip and in an odd way sympathizing with killers over victims......it basically says we're all gossiping, horrific, petty ghouls not for not "really" caring about murder - but more in how we drift away from the murder(s) itself........and in our own stupidity. This film becomes repetitive at 11 minutes .......... but some of the most jarring contradictions between what you hear spoken and what you actually see come later in the run time too. This is a feminist work of Art in many ways ..... 
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2021 15:28:45 GMT
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 28, 2021 21:28:04 GMT
Zone (1995) - Takashi Ito 7.5 + / 10
~12 minutesA lot of stuff I've put in this thread is perfectly suited for Halloween - and this one is in a way too. Not the equal of his earlier trio of great films Thunder/ Ghost / Grim - reviewed earlier here - this one is later and a bit odder and for him less dazzling. This is the first film I've seen with a "real" man but not of course "real" - he has no face........what happens in the room is odd and disturbing but strangely it's weirdly believable and "normal"..... I wouldn't start with this one but it worth a watch if you like his big 3 ^ ............and you'll never look at an electronic train the same way. Like all his work, he's fascinated with spaces, trauma, the inability to hide anywhere ......and where thought and memory intersect.... |
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 24, 2021 23:29:53 GMT
Le Horla (1966) - can be seen @ rarefilmm.com/2020/11/le-horla-1966/ - 38 minutesPretty marvelous French mystery film - little seen it seems - less than 150 people rated this on IMDB (really?) - and very much my kind of thing. This is essentially only interior monologue, then acting to the illustrations of that dialog with a subtle sound design (ominous wind, waves, creaks, liquids pouring, clicks and clacks, louder than expected footsteps in one scene ......and very occasionally gentle music) that reminded me in style very much of the great movie The Man Who Sleeps (1974) but done as a mystery. It's very inventive in how it shows this - the narrations are on 3 different timelines - and the colors are quite striking too - I don't know what "yellow" represents here, but it means something defintely The lead here - Lauren Terzieff - is kind of amazing - he has to act to his interior monologue and not become repetitive or lapse into a readable acting pattern. He also can't often look into the camera (he does once on purpose noticably to great effect) or overplay it or he'd look foolish. You could imagine Polanski or Chabrol making this actually - and I'm pretty sure they are familiar with this short story - since it seems so up their alley. Could also be read as a "William Wilson" like horror for Halloween too. Exemplary work here - well conceived and executed short ....the closer you watch and listen to it the more you'll get out of it.... 
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 15, 2021 1:12:10 GMT
Haven't watched this yet................. but a NEW short film from Luca Guadagnino (@tyler )
O Night Devine
43 minutes
John C. Reilly, Alex Wolff, Hailey Gates, Samia Benazzouz, Chloe Park, Valerio Santucci, Francesca Figus, Tania Hanyoung Park and Shi Yang Shi
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 15, 2021 7:11:26 GMT
Haven't watched this yet................. but a NEW short film from Luca Guadagnino (@tyler )
O Night Devine43 minutesJohn C. Reilly, Alex Wolff, Hailey Gates, Samia Benazzouz, Chloe Park, Valerio Santucci, Francesca Figus, Tania Hanyoung Park and Shi Yang ShiThis was very sweet..........not sure what I'd rate it but it was nice to watch and some really lush and beautiful wide shots....... |
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with Donald Pleasance voicing Death - it works as horror and as snarky camp humor (here dumb little kid, grab hold of this shaky branch!).
!), and specifically for being a "true crime fan":
