All year, as more info came out about the third season of Black Mirror, I’ve been worried.
My question: is it possible to maintain the previous quality after doubling the length of a season with the move to Netflix?
Even if it turns out that every episode isn’t a winner, the trailer for the new season has gone a long way in calming my fears.
Sing it with me!
/ It’s the most wonderful tiiiime of the year. When the zombies are lurching and vampires and slurping so we live in feeeeaaar. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. / It’s the hap-happiest season of all. With the slashers all stalking and spirits all walking down your bedroom haaaaallll! /
Absolutely terrible adaptations of Christmas songs aside, October is back and the Halloween season is upon us. For my money, it’s right on time. I mean, it’s always right on time, but this year it’s even righter on time. Yup, it’s so perfectly timed I’m not even using well constructed phraseology anymore.
It’s been such a crazy year for me since Halloween Movie Fest 2015. We live in Brooklyn now, a very recent development, and I miss Seattle terribly. I’m surrounded by strange new things, thousands of miles from my friends and the home I grew to love over the course of nearly a decade.
What better way to feel something familiar than to slip into the tradition of Halloween Movie Fest? I hope it will be the movie-watching equivalent of putting on a perfectly aged sweatshirt on a chilly, rainy afternoon.
This year, there will be an ‘Another Day, Another Movie’ (ad,am) festival within HMF16. Some Inception-level shit. The first 10 of the 20 nights of HMF16 will be a vampire themed version of ad,am. More on that in the post for the first portion of the (mostly) one man movie festival. For now, the important thing is that bloodsuckers will make up half of this year’s list.
Here are the movies:
Movement 1 – The Vampires
Movement 2 – Everything Else
A little bit of Amblin. A little bit of Stephen King. Hopefully this will be as great as it has the potential to be,
This close attention to the craft of of emceeing is so great, and everyone should watch it.
METAL FACE DOOM FOREVER! /Just remember all caps when you spell the man’s name/
Also, here’s a bonus music video.
My love affair with “Every Frame a Painting” is no secret. I mean, I’m writing about it on the internet for like the sixth time, so it’s the opposite of a secret. Tony Zhou’s most recent installment is centered on Joon Ho Bong’s Memories of Murder. After watching the video last week Emily and I ended up watching the movie later that day, because obviously.
The film’s story is closely inspired by the first recorded serial killer in South Korean history. It’s my third of Bong’s films following Snowpiercer and The Host, and while I still have plenty of his films to work through I would be really surprised if this doesn’t end up being my favorite. Even this early in the year I would actually be surprised if this wasn’t in my favorite ten films I saw for the first time this year, if not top five.
Memories of Murder is so visually competent, so beautifully acted, so haunting and powerful. It’s one of those films that I just couldn’t stop thinking about after it ended. It’s amazing that Tony Zhou can show six and a half minutes of a film in a video showcasing its brilliance and still barely scratch the surface. “Every Frame” was showcasing how Bong handles blocking and character positioning in a frame, but that’s just one small part of the amazing technical prowess on display here.
There were probably a dozen scenes I immediately wanted to back up and watch all over again immediately. Roger Ebert used to do this thing with auditoriums full of people where he would watch a movie and freeze it over and over to talk about a given scene or moment, and anyone could yell “freeze” and they would all dissect what was going on. This would be a really great film to do that with.
Also, Kang-ho Song is a fucking international treasure. All the acting in Memories was great, but Song is the highlight. He actually reminds me a lot of Toshiro Mifune. Although Song is physically more of an everyman to Toshiro’s handsome movie star looks, both actors display(ed) an amazing electricity as performers. Understated moments are imbued with an extra intensity and depth; large, crazy performances are layered with an impressive heart and wisdom. Watching either of these guys is a masterclass. I suppose that’s why each man stars in a disproportionate number of my favorite films from a particular country over a certain era.
Also, here is that installment of “Every Frame a Painting”:
It’s a big day for Taika Waititi fans. First, the spinoff/sequel for What We Do in the Shadows got an official title: We’re Wolves (Get it? Werewolves… We are wolves). He’s apparently going to do that as soon as he wraps on Thor: Ragnarok. Then, the teaser for his Sundance film Hunt for the Wilderpeople came out, and the bit of footage we’ve been gifted looks as great as one would expect.
Yup. Yup yup yup.
I already would have been excited/intrigued by what Key and Peele would do for their first big film, but that kitten, though!
Also, two different George Michael songs. That’s my guilty pleasure jam right there.
Put the pussy on the chain wax!
More Key and Peele references, etc. etc.
Recently, two friends of mine were discussing how much they hate end of year lists. As is obvious from this blog most years, when I actually get around to making my own year end lists, I have to respectfully disagree.
My favorite thing about end of year lists is that I inevitably miss a bunch of stuff through the year, now more than ever. When other folks share their favorite stuff from the year, it makes it easy for me to discover great things from the year that would have otherwise slipped through the cracks. I can adjust my must-watch and listen and download lists accordingly. I love it.
Case in point. Last April, Chance the Rapper gave me a really great belated birthday gift. I’d already experienced and loved the album, but the music video for “Sunday Candy” I’d missed entirely.
Then Stereogum’s “50 Best Music Video’s of 2015” remedied that.
This single take music video of a fake high school musical is a delightful companion to the unabashedly joyful song Chance wrote for his grandmother.
Maybe you can make it through watching this video without smiling, but I definitely can’t. After we watched it I made Emily watch it again immediately. I’ve watched it another time since then. I’m going to go watch it again now.
