Céline Desrumaux‘s fantastic animated short “Countdown” details, as one might expect from the title, the launch of a rocket. The style here is a combination of flat colors and hard, almost architectural lines, as though it had leapt straight from the pages of Popular Mechanics circa 1958, along with some character animation by Florent Remize. Desrumaux (who is one half of Céline & Yann who produced the delightful series “The Giants”) cites Chris Ware as an influence and that is, indeed, the first person that comes to mind. “Countdown” has a heart-pounding, frenetic quality to it, combining almost abstract shots of dials, meters , and light; and shots of the rocket as it prepares to launch, cropped down into the square, vignetted look associated with, at least, the older exterior NASA footage. All of this is set to the harried pace of Apprat‘s “Granulard bastard”. It all makes for a gripping three and a half minutes.
Today The FAM presents 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone (El espinazo del diablo), directed by Guillermo del Toro and produced by Pedro Almodóvar. Set in 1939, during the Spanish Civil War, it tells the story of Carlos, a young boy recently deposited at an orphanage until, he is told, his father, a Republican war hero, returns. Unbeknownst to young Carlos, Franco’s Nationalists have a distinct upper-hand and his father is dead, making his stay permanent. The orphanage is run by the kindly Dr. Casares and and a curt headmistress, Carmen.
Carlos doesn’t take to the orphanage particularly well and while he makes a few friends — not the least of which is Jaime, the orphanage’s bully — all is not well. There is still the matter of Jacinto, the groundskeeper, I violent, brooding man who was an orphan himself, who is intent on stealing the gold rumored to be stored somewhere in the complex. Of course, there is also the ghost of the boy Santi, who disappeared mysteriously on the night the orphanage was bombed, and now haunts the orphanage and who tells Carlos “Many of you will die”. What happened to him and how is it connected to the cistern in the cellar?
His third film, The Devil’s Backbone features the same juxtaposition of childish innocence and dread found in his other non-Hollywood efforts: 1993’s Cronos and 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth; that latter film continuing the exploration of many of the themes found here. It’s a look at how the unblemished mind confronts the horrors of both reality and the supernatural — a Kids Save the Day movie in the Spielberg vein, forced through a horror movie meat grinder, though del Toro perhaps treats his young characters with a bit more respect.
The horror here is handled deftly as well, the ghost is more often heard than seen outright, softly, mournfully moaning its discontent, keeping it from veering into the territory of silliness that many films in the genre are wont to do. And war, always war. Its looming specter, too, haunts this film as well as Pan’s Labyrinth. War is the real evil in these films, man the main antagonist. Even the depths of del Toro’s imagination cannot eclipse their evil.
Yeah, admittedly, we’re a little late to the party re: this amazeballs Beauty and the Beast parody by Micah McCain. But it’s just too good NOT to post as a BTC, and surely, not all of you have experienced the spiffiness yet. Bonjour!
“Empty Rooms” is an independent thriller directed by Adam Lamas in which a single mother and her non-verbal autistic son are terrorized by mysterious intruders after they move into a new house.
In addition to being Lamas’ first official feature-length film, it’s also a another first for our own Meredith Yayanos: her first feature-length film score. Complete with strings, theremin, voice, synths, raw percussive elements and piano, the score is at turns terrifying, sad, atmospheric and eerie. You can hear some of the score in the trailer above, and listen to several low-res, unmixed clips of the score on Mer’s Soundcloud. Appropriately enough, Mer recorded the score over the course of “several cold, dark, occasionally terrifying months” last year, hunched over her laptop, alone in a large, unheated house in the middle of nowhere. Engineered in Dolby 5.1 Digital Surround Sound for the film, the score is “OFF THE HOOK!!!” according to the director.
In addition to working on Coilhouse, Mer is currently in the studio finishing up an album as The Parlour Trick, her similarly spooky “haunted chamber music” project with multi-instrumentalist Dan Cantrell. As she tweeted four hours ago, “cheerfully trapped in tiny room w/cacophony of bowed glockenspiel, pump organ, chamber strings, bodhrán, grand piano, typewriter, celeste.” Sounds promising indeed. More news about The Parlour Trick in the months to come.
From John Campbell, creator of the amazing/depressing/hilarious comic Pictures For Sad Children, comes “Cats”, a short film about Shannon Driscoll — screenprinter, teacher, cat enthusiast. The film explores Shannon’s love of felines and how they influence her art and, in doing so, hold up a mirror to her strained relationship with her father. A relationship in which the truly innocent suffer the most.
The lovely people at Ghost Pictures just sent us the link to their new official trailer for the upcoming Rowland S. Howard documentary Autoluminescent, which is slated for an Australian theatrical release of Oct 27, 2011.
“Autoluminescent traces the life of guitarist, songwriter and artist Rowland S. Howard. Rowland S. Howard was an influential figure in contemporary music, particularly renowned for his role in seminal post-punk bands The Birthday Party, Crime & City Solution, and These Immortal Souls. In a career spanning 30 years Howard worked with the best artists of his generation, including Nikki Sudden, Henry Rollins & Lydia Lunch. His was a singular talent, cut short by an untimely death in 2009.”
No word on further screenings yet, but if there’s any creative justice in this world, Autoluminescent will eventually be shown internationally and run the festival circuit. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Three day weekend coming up for us Americans, so this has to be a quickie, seeing as I have to amass the alcohol and ammunition that every holiday celebration here requires. Today’s FAM is “Inside the Labyrinth”, an hour long behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Labyrinth.
Labyrinth, for the one or two readers who don’t know, is the 1986 Jim Henson film starring pre-rhinoplasty Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, a whole mess of puppets, and David Bowie’s package. While short, the documentary does provide a look into the complexity of the creatures that Henson and company were building, exemplified by the image of a severed, yet moving Hoggle head speaking lines whilst perched on a wooden post. (Bonus for Star Trek: The Next Generation fans: Hey look, Dr. Crusher was also a choreographer.)
Thorough as it is, it does not address the decision to pour David Bowie into nut-hugging spandex for a children’s film; something that, for now at least, remains a mystery.
Via Morbid Anatomy/BoingBoing/Jessica Joslin, here’s the British Pathe‘s splendid ’65 tour of the now sadly defunct Walter Potter Museum in Bramber, UK, which, until recently, housed all of the famed anthropomorphizing taxidermist’s weird and whimsical work.
Apparently, this reel has not been shown anywhere since it ran the con circuit in 1982; not in screenings, not on any of the DVDs.* And… it’s… guh… braingasm.
*I’ve been informed it is, in fact, included on a recent Blu-Ray/DVD edition.
“One of the Blade Runner Convention Reels featuring interviews with Ridley Scott, Syd Mead and Douglas Trumbull about making Blade Runner universe. This 16 mm featurette, made by M. K. Productions in 1982, is specifically designed to circulate through the country’s various horror, fantasy and science fiction conventions. ”
