MOVIES MAKE GOOD http://filmbaker.posterous.com no one has to listen, but i have to talk posterous.com Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:20:12 -0800 Video: "I Miss You," 1996 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/video-i-miss-you-1996 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/video-i-miss-you-1996

Björk enlisted Canadian animator John Kricfalusi for the music video to the sixth single from her 1995 album "Post"; you're likely familiar with Kricfalusi's work via the seminal cartoon "Ren & Stimpy", as was Björk, but more recently Kricfalusi received attention for lending his distinctive style to a couch gag for an episode of "The Simpsons" and, in 2006, another animated music video for Weird Al Yankovic's single "Close But No Cigar".

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Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:45:00 -0800 Propaganda: "Food Will Win the War", 1942 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/propaganda-food-will-win-the-war-1942 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/propaganda-food-will-win-the-war-1942

Produced by Walt Disney with the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this animated short goes to great lengths to demonstrate the enormity of the U.S.'s food output, from enough loaves of bread to line the Suez Canal to a can of tomatoes taller and wider than the Matterhorn.

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Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:23:00 -0800 Propaganda: "London", 1940 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/propaganda-london-1940 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/propaganda-london-1940

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I've not seen much in the way of Italian propaganda art - it's a category usually dominated by the United States, the USSR and the most despicable of Germany's checkered past - but this is a particularly brutal poster direct from Mussolini's Rome circa 1940.

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Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:30:00 -0800 Design: The 1938 Phantom Corsair http://filmbaker.posterous.com/design-the-1938-phantom-corsair http://filmbaker.posterous.com/design-the-1938-phantom-corsair

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I'm no autophile but the bold design of the Phantom Corsair, a remarkable work of art deco futurism, is enough to give even the most self-righteous of vehicular Luddites pause.

The Corsair sprang from the industral design work of Rust Heinz, son of the namesake of the H.J. Heinz Company; in 1936, Heinz approached a coachbuilding firm to have a prototype fully-designed and constructed. The sleek, streamlined design won the cover of the March 1938 cover of "Motor Age" and was to be featured the following year at New York's hosting of the World's Fair but tragically, Heinz was killed at the age of 25 ... in a car accident.

The Corsair was far ahead of its time - perhaps too far - with electric entry buttons rather than door handles, the ability of seat six passengers (including one to left of the driver), a collapsible backseat to accomodate a beverage cabinet, a dashboard with an altimeter and compass and a console that informed the driver of ajar doors or lights left on.

This 4,600 pound beauty was intended to run buyers about $15,000, but that price was so exorbitant, orders were unlikely in addition to the rationing of metals for the war effort. Ultimately, the Corsair's design faded into obscurity, the prototype occasionally emerging from the garage of various private collectors. Thankfully, the Phantom Corsair now rests in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.

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Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:00:00 -0800 Music: "Cage of Freedom", 1984 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-cage-of-freedom-1984 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-cage-of-freedom-1984

Producer Giorgio Moroder released his unique version of the classic German silent film "Metropolis" in 1984, restored and bearing new, never-before-soon footage along with new intertitles, subtitles, select colorization and, of course, a contemporary soundtrack heavy on synthesizers that included performs such as Pat Benatar, Adam Ant and Freddie Mercury.

It was this version of Fritz Lang's 1927 film I first saw, a worn VHS tape on the shelf of a nearby Blockbuster when I was in junior high. "Metropolis" is a remarkable film, arguably the first of the science fiction genre, the product of a truly unique vision that combined the darkness of the German now with the strangeness of a future 100 years forward.

"Cage of Freedom" is a recognizable tune from the "Metropolis" soundtrack for its thematic content but also because composer Jon Anderson similarly created a recognizable tune from another genre mainstay of the '80s, Ridley Scott's gorgeous fantasy film "Legend" called "Loved by the Sun".

The entire Moroder soundtrack for "Metropolis" is absurd, but the juxtaposition is rather funny and, frankly, contributed greatly to my love of overly-romanticized nostalgia for the '80s, helped along greatly by "Drive".

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Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:01:00 -0700 Music: "A Real Hero," 2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-a-real-hero-2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-a-real-hero-2011

Saw "Drive" this weekend and, to say the least, it made an impression. An utterly fantastic movie with a fantastic script, fantastic cast, fantastic performances and a fantastic soundtrack.

Call it retrofuturistic '80s synth-ambient pop.

College and Electric Youth collaborated on this tune; I've no idea who either of them are, but I quite enjoy this track. I believe it's written about Sully Sullenberger, but I'll let you unravel that mystery.

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Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Review: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, 1962 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/review-the-phantom-of-the-opera-1962-22361 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/review-the-phantom-of-the-opera-1962-22361

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Since the publication of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, there’s been no shortage of adaptations. The most famous and – spoiler alert – still the best is Universal’s 1925 silent film, featuring the iconic image of an unmasked Lon Chaney in ghoulish make-up that remains one of cinema’s most enduring images. A remake soon thereafter starred Claude Rains of “The Invisible Man,” but extended scenes of operatic performances and a far more friendlier tone cause it to play like little more than a routine Technicolor musical. Still, nothing compares to the offensively dull, stupid version lensed by Italian giallo magnate Dario Argento in 1998 starring Julian Sands as an unscarred, telepathic phantom raised by rats.

So, in the late ‘50s, Britain’s Hammer Films had released their versions of Frankenstein and Dracula – “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957) and “Horror of Dracula” (1958), respectively – after some wrangling with Universal Pictures, who, through some sorcery my limited knowledge of law cannot possibly hope to comprehend, were unsettled by Hammer’s perceived grave robbing of their iconic (and wildly successful) horror films from the 1930s. During the production of both of the aforementioned films, Universal required agreements and reassurance Hammer’s versions would not infringe on any of the elements of Universal’s films, which is something of an explanation for the weirdly pickled appearance of Hammer’s Frankenstein – it was an attempt to get as far away from Jack Pierce’s make-up as possible. By the time both “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “Horror of Dracula” did gangbusters internationally, however, Universal was happy to reach a more comprehensive agreement with Hammer.

With the characters of Universal’s stable of monsters at their beck and call, they quickly moved forward with “The Mummy,” released in 1959, “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” in 1960, “The Curse of the Werewolf” in 1961 and, after many years of wrangling and false starts, “The Phantom of the Opera” in 1962.

There are inherent problems with adapting a film with such an emphasis on opera; Universal’s 1943 version slogs through extended scenes of opera rehearsals and performances so much so it’s impossible to build any suspense. Moreover, unless you’ve got a skilled songwriter or composer on staff, you’d better rely on some of the classics, because whatever original libretto gets dreamt up is very, very likely to distractingly awful. This “Phantom of the Opera” does indeed have a distractingly awful “Joan of Arc” opera – it includes the use of the pejorative “Frenchie” – but mercifully limits its screen time to a relatively negligible amount.

Fittingly, Hammer changed the milieu from Paris to a London in the final years of Queen Victoria’s reign; the debut of an operatic version of “Joan of Arc” opens at the London Opera House but is quickly undone, first by a formless voice’s foreboding curse that frightens the show’s star and then by the sudden appearance of a corpse on stage, the hanged body of a stage laborer. The show’s producer, Lord Ambrose D’Arcy (Michael Gough), is furious with the disastrous opening night and the departure of his leading lady.

The production finds a new leading lady in the form of Christine Charles (Heather Sears), who rejects D’Arcy’s lecherous advances and is taken under the wing of the opera house’s strapping young director, Harry Hunter (Edward de Souza). Though D’Arcy spitefully cuts both of them from the production, this allows Harry to devote his time to unraveling the identity of the mysterious Phantom (Herbert Lom).

Beneath the London Opera House, an errant tributary of the Thames’ brackish tides flows into a subterranean chamber where the Phantom hammers out sinister songs on his towering pipe organ. It has all the Gothic trappings – a rat-like, hunchbacked minion who does all of the Phantom’s dirty work (and seems to have a propensity for eye-stabbings … charming), tattered posters frayed to near nothingness and, of course, the Cyclopean stare of the Phantom. His mask, like a mud-smear of featureless clay, conceals all but a single, burning eye along with wispy, shock-white hair and a tatterdemalion suit powdered with dirt and grime. Gone are the romantic tragedies of Chaney and Rains; Lom is a deeply, deeply embittered composer who was so betrayed by the exploitation of a decade of work, he lost his grip on reality.

Harry discovers the Phantom was once Professor Petrie, who broke into a printing shop to destroy the copies of his manuscripts he’d sold to D’Arcy and was subsequently horribly burned. Christine is abducted from her bedroom taken to the Phantom, who demands he teach how her to sing properly. Eventually, Harry shows up to save Christine, but instead a compromise – the Phantom can have Christine for a week so that he may continue her lessons and perfect her voice. All parties agree.

Months later, a new D’Arcy production is opening at the London Opera House with a new leading lady – Christine. The night of Christine’s debut, the Phantom reveals himself to a terrified D’Arcy and reminds him of his crimes. Strangely, despite Gough’s insufferably petulant characteristics, the Phantom does not hurt, threaten or assault D’Arcy in any way; this is a rare moment of restraint in narrative in general, to say nothing of the genre in which it finds itself. It’s not that I’m suggesting violence would be appropriate in that situation, and I’m certainly not bemoaning the absence of a needlessly bloody spectacle; rather, I think a fundamental element of producing objectively good narratives is to provide a deliberate sense of fulfillment by depicting the characters who have been structured to appear as an antagonist receive a degree of perceived “justice” wherein they are appropriately punished for their supposed crimes.

In other words, you have to show the bad guys get theirs. We all want desperately to be reassured heroism and rebellion beget reward while selfishness and maliciousness see only punishment; it’s a cultural thing. May seem minor, but it seems very strange considering the Phantom instead meets his end, selflessly leaping from his box to hurl Christine out from underneath a collapsing stage chandelier.

How is it the Phantom, who really seems to be an okay guy (if a little nuts) never actually killed anyone (his minion did all the work) and taught a willing Christine to sing despite his appearance – has to get the short straw here? Sure, it’s a redemptive death, but still – does he simply have to die because he’s the monster (read: he looks different)?

As a character, D’Arcy’s structured to be much worse; he mistreats and abuses every character in the film and is never shown to have any redeemable value. Our logic of narrative (and especially that of the genre) demand we harvest the deliberate pleasure in seeing a character, specifically coded to be unpleasant and unlikeable, meet their end; not only is it a form of catharsis, it is an act that completes the character arc of the protagonist which, I’d argue, is almost de facto the Phantom, though Harry’s purpose as white knight foil can overshadow that for much of the film’s running time.

The film acknowledges something must happen to D’Arcy, in this case, little more than a good scare. So why does it deliberately deny us a more satisfying comeuppance – again, not even necessarily a violent one – for the unabashed, uncontested villain of the piece?

I digress. Hammer’s “Phantom of the Opera” is uneven; it has a few moments of genuine atmosphere but is largely dominated by the two leading romantic roles which, unfortunately, don’t offer much style or substance. The film really comes apart in the final reel; the sudden and inexplicable death of the Phantom happens so quickly it’s utterly inexplicable. We do not see what becomes of D’Arcy nor do we see the repercussions of Petrie’s sacrifice to save his leading lady, Christine. Typical of Hammer movies – well, monster movies in general – the credits roll the very moment the monster meets his end. Normality returns and the lights come up.

“The Phantom of the Opera” supposedly went over budget, a budget that was already fat for a Hammer production. Perhaps the truncated finale was a casualty of budget constraints. Maybe it was written that way years before they began filming. Regardless, it’s poor and rather mean-spirited. Thoroughly unfulfilling, almost in a staunchly contrarian kind of way.

For what it’s worth – very little, by my estimates – “The Phantom of the Opera” was a financial failure when it opened in 1962. It remains, I think, one of Hammer’s missed opportunities, particularly with a strong actor like Lom in the title role and Terence Fisher behind the camera.

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Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Music: "Television Rules the Nation," 2005 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-television-rules-the-nation-2005 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-television-rules-the-nation-2005

From Daft Punk's 2005 album "Human After All," this apocalyptic song received a right proper video, but it was never released following MTV's alleged refusal to air it. It featured a sitcom family routine played out by clothed skeletons. *shrug*

I like the song, though, especially those insightful lyrics.

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Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Film: "The Night of the Living Duck," 1988 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/film-the-night-of-the-living-duck-1988 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/film-the-night-of-the-living-duck-1988

There were two things I specifically adored when I was a child: Looney Tunes cartoons and monsters. When, to capitalize on the success of "Ghostbusters," Warner Bros. cobbled together a few supernatural-themed Merrie Melodies, there was little to stop my eager young self from perpetually renting the VHS tape from the corner video store.

The movie itself is little more than a series of classic cartoons haphazardly strung together by a weak narrative that offers the only few moments of new animation in the film; the cartoons, however, include Bugs Bunny's Transylvanian encounter ("Transylvania 6-5000"), a Sylvester and Tweety yarn made much more interesting with the inclusion of Dr. Jekyll's genuine, bonafided monster potion ("Hyde and Go Tweet") and, as you can see above, a completely new short cartoon that preceeded the film featuring a slew of monstrous cameos and the Velvet Fog himself, singer Mel Tormé.

When Warner Bros. miraculously put "Daffy Duck's Quackbusters" on DVD in 2009, I tracked down a copy the first day it went on sale.

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Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Art: "The Shining," 2007 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-shining-2007 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-shining-2007

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Polish designer Leszek Zebrowski created this piece in 2007 in honor of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's "The Shining." Shelley Duvall never looked so nightmarish.

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Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:32:00 -0700 TV: Turner Classic Movies & Halloween Horror http://filmbaker.posterous.com/tv-turner-classic-movies-halloween-horror-21607 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/tv-turner-classic-movies-halloween-horror-21607

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It was a simple enough decision to entirely cut cable television. A few months back, I took the opportunity to relinquish my DVRs and finally live without the timesuck of television's omnipresence, the inundation of advertisements, marketing messages and culture-shaping corporate memes. I realized there were too few times in my life where I'd lived free of television's influence and, in retrospect, nothing was lost in its absence - in fact, the contrary was true.

There were three points of hesitation: the first was PBS' programming, the last bastion of intelligent TV, the second was access to local news - more specifically weather reports given the often dire and dangerous situations Oklahoma's climate spawns. The third, of course, was Turner Classic Movies.

Always erudite, TCM has provided many an introduction to heretofore unseen classic films, frequently films I'd never thought to see or never even knew of; J. Lee Thompson's 1965 drama "Return from the Ashes" and Anthony Mann's "Reign of Terror/The Black Book," a 1949 noir about the French Revolution both spring to mind. TCM's Friday night "TCM Underground" programming specializes in bizarre genre fare and is a yearly prelude to the splendid October programming that surveys some of the best of classic horror.

So, whether you have cable television and the opportunity to see some of these on TCM or simply find TCM's taste to your liking and allow their choices to direct your rental or streaming decisions, here are the genre films Turner Classic Movies will be showing during the month of October in honor of Halloween.

All are shown in Central Standard Time.

Monday, October 3
10:30PM – A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (2011)
01:15AM – MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)
02:30AM – THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919)
03:45AM – NOSFERATU (1922)

Tuesday, October 4
05:15AM – THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

Wednesday, October 5
07:00PM – THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)
08:45PM – IT! THE TERROR FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)
10:00PM – THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

Saturday, October 8
08:30AM – HOUSE OF WAX (1953)

Monday, October 10
05:00AM – THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1921)
07:00PM – THE WOLF MAN (1941)
08:15PM – THE UNINVITED(1944)
10:00PM – DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)
12:00AM – I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)
01:15AM – CAT PEOPLE (1942)
02:45AM – CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)
04:00AM – THE DEVIL BAT (1940)
05:15AM – DEAD MEN WALK (1943)

Friday, October 14
02:45AM – HEAVY METAL (1981)

Monday, October 17
07:00PM – HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)
08:30PM – HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)
10:00PM – THE TINGLER (1959)
11:30PM – HOUSE OF WAX (1953)
01:15AM – CURSE OF THE DEMON (1958)
03:00AM – TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
04:00AM – A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959)

Friday, October 21
07:00PM – SHE (1965)
09:00PM – PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1967)
11:00PM – THE VIKING QUEEN (1967)
01:00AM – THE GAMMA PEOPLE (1956)
02:30AM - VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS (1965)

Saturday, October 22
08:30AM – THE GHOUL (1933)
12:45PM – 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)
02:15PM – EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)
12:00AM – CRY OF THE WEREWOLF (1944)

Monday, October 24
07:00PM – CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)
08:30PM – A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (2011)
09:30PM – DEMENTIA 13 (1963)
11:00PM – STRAIT-JACKET (1964)
12:45AM – PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)
02:15AM – THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)
04:00AM – THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1968)

Friday, October 28
09:00PM – THE BLACK ROOM (1935)
10:15PM – THE OTHER (1972)
12:00AM – DEAD MEN WALK (1943)
01:15AM – MOTEL HELL (1980)
03:00AM – 10 RILLINGTON PLACE (1971)

Saturday, October 29
08:30AM – DOCTOR X (1932)
12:45PM – GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (1956)
07:00PM – CAT PEOPLE (1942)
08:30PM – VAL LEWTON: THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS (2007)
10:00PM – THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)
11:30PM – ISLE OF THE DEAD (1945)
01:00AM – BEDLAM (1946)
02:30AM – THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943)
04:00AM – THE GHOST SHIP (1943)

Sunday, October 30
05:15AM – THE LEOPARD MAN (1943)
06:30AM – WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)
07:45AM – THE DEVIL DOLL (1936)
09:15AM – THE UNINVITED (1944)
11:00AM – BERSERK (1967)
01:00PM – DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954)
03:00PM – THEM! (1954)
05:00PM – FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)

Monday, October 31
06:15AM – THE REPTILE (1966)
07:45AM – THE GORGON (1964)
09:15AM – DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966)
11:00AM – DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1969)
12:45PM – THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
02:15PM – FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1966)
04:00PM – THE MUMMY (1959)
05:30PM – THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1964)
07:00PM – VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)
08:30PM – NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
10:15PM – A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (2011)
11:15PM – THE INNOCENTS (1961)
01:00AM – THE HAUNTING (1963)
03:00AM – REPULSION (1965)

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Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Music: "Hammer Horror," 1978 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-hammer-horror-1978 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-hammer-horror-1978

Happy October, friends, one of - if not the - most glorious of months. Fall is here, but autumn will soon creep in, taking the form of slate grey skies, the skittering of dead leaves, dying daylight hours giving way to a flesh-crawling chill that spreads through the night skies like the translucent wings of a bat. And as much as I love October, I love Halloween even more.

Since I was a child, I've been drawn to monsters. The fog-drenched, grave-strewn fields of a mysterious Europe still scourged by the specters of the Old Ways were Gothic doppelgängers to the fluffy, friendly, color-festooned realms of cherished childhood artifices like the Disney ouerve; the cycle of black-and-white horror films from Universal Pictures over the '30s and '40s were themselves inspired by the chiaroscuro aesthetic that emerged from Germany in the tumultuous period between the two World Wars, a period marked by economic failure, government instability and civil unrest; isolation and alienation, the themes of daily life in the Germany of the Weimar Republic, seeped into an Expressionistic body of culture and art reflecting the utter madness of a failed, crumbling society. As the Nazis ascended to power, many of Germany's intellectuals and artists fled, including more than a few that found themselves in Los Angeles, lensing chillers for struggling, neophyte studios like Universal Studios.

Those early films - made at the height of the Great Depression - are rooted in literary tradition, adapted from books, stories and plays; they're archetypal tales of the clash between modernity and tradition, hedonism and repression, religion and humanism. Figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster were at once horrifying, repulsive - yet strangely alluring, sometimes vulnerable. It should come as no surprise the decades have seen counterculture adopt the visages of these phantoms, as they are the ultimate embodiment of the outcast, figures of rebellion against the status quo. For the disenfranchised, they are power fantasies, totems of non-conformity around which those outside the mainstream can rally.

Of course, I didn't know any of this as a child. I just thought capes were cool.

Well, I can't think of a better way to begin October than Kate Bush's music ode to Hammer Films, a British production company that remade the literary Gothic horror film in the late '50s, '60s and '70s. Though Hammer adapted many of the same stories Universal had covered in their horror heyday, the small British studio's approach was markedly different, producing almost strictly period pieces peppered with then-controversial teases of titillation and blood.

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Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:54:00 -0700 Music: "Somebody's Watching Me," 1984 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-somebodys-watching-me-1984 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-somebodys-watching-me-1984

That's Michael and Jermaine Jackson on back-up vocals for Rockwell's 1984 single. Rockwell himself was the estranged son of Motown CEO Berry Gordy Jr., but managed to get back into his father's good graces with this song, one of the biggest hits of 1984.

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Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:27:00 -0700 Art: "Threadless Loves Horror III," 2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-threadless-loves-horror-iii-2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-threadless-loves-horror-iii-2011

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For the third year in a row, the apparel design community Threadless has held their "Threadless Loves Horror" competition asking designers to submit their horror-inspired tee-shirt designs for prizes and the chance to be produced and featured as products on Threadless.

With just a little over 800 entries, not all are good - in fact, there are quite a few dogs - but there's the occasional brilliance that makes combing through the entries worthwhile.

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Sat, 17 Sep 2011 17:46:00 -0700 Art: "The Gorgon," 1964 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-gorgon-1964 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-gorgon-1964

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The 1957 and 1958 theatrical releases of "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula," respectively, saw Britain's Hammer Films become legendary; by returning to the sources of cultural horror that propelled Universal Pictures to eminence during the Great Depression, Hammer found great financial success in the U.S., so much so Universal, who had previously threatened voluminous lawsuits should Hammer's interpretations tread too closely to their own, offered up the remake rights to their library of creepers.

Unsurprisingly, Hammer took full advantage, their own adaptations of "The Mummy," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "The Wolfman" and "The Phantom of the Opera" following soon thereafter - 1959,1960, 1961 and 1962, to be precise. Like Universal before them, Hammer likewise turned the Frankenstein and Dracula films into franchises, spawning 14 sequels between them, as well as four additional (but unrelated) "Mummy" sequels.

Gradually, Hammer diversified their genre offerings outside of the traditional but familiar literary characters; 1964's "The Gorgon" is just such an example, based on a script by director John Gilling that drew inspiration from the mythology of ancient Greece. Gilling would also be responsible for writing and director several other notable original Hammer films including "Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile" (both from 1966, shot back-to-back with the same sets and locations in England's rural Cornwall).

Interestingly, however, "The Gorgon" was not the sole creation of Gilling nor even Hammer. After two underperforming films, Hammer solicited input from audiences, asking moviegoers to submit ideas for upcoming Hammer films they'd like to see; one entry touched upon the combination of Greek myth and Hammer's usual Gothic setting and Hammer began to develop the idea into a full-fledged script, first called "Supernatural" and finally taking up the title "The Gorgon."

The film concerns itself with a quaint German village set upon by one of the mythic Gorgons, the half-serpent, half-women monsters kin to Medusa, whose gaze  can turn any living thing to solid stone. Hammer's two leading men, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, star alongside "scream queen" Barbara Shelley and Prudence Hyman, formerly an extra on Hammer's "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" from 1964, wearing a snake-hair headress as the titular creature. Each of the headress' latex rubber snakes could move independently thanks to cables running through each one.

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Fri, 02 Sep 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Art: "The Prestige," 2006 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-prestige-2006 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-prestige-2006

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It's a shame when visually interesting movie posters feel like the stuff of alternate universes.

Truthfully, you'd often be hard pressed to find dull poster art outside of the U.S.; there's something uniquely frustrating about the formulaic, all-too-familiar patterns of overbearing brand name actors accompanied by their floating, disembodied heads, reminders that film entertainment - like virtually all else within this consumerist society of ours - is as much a commodity, shaped by the concensus terrorism of audience testing, as any consumer packaged good choking the the shelves of big box retailers.

The domestic art used was pretty pedestrian, especially in comparison to the above.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:53:00 -0700 Music: "Somebody That I Used to Know," 2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-2011

Australian singer-songwriter Goyte's collaboration track with New Zealand's Kimbra, off Gotye's 2011 album "Making Mirrors."

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Fri, 26 Aug 2011 06:00:00 -0700 Art: "The Haunting," 2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-haunting-2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-the-haunting-2011

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More artwork from Toronto's Phantom City Creative, this time a glorious tribute to Robert Wise's 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel "The Haunting of Hill House." An incredible and terrifying novel became remains one of the crown jewels of the horror genre, an exquisite and frightening film without monsters - except, of course, Hill House itself ... or at least whatever walks there.

Best known for classics like "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story," Robert Wise seemed to have produced and directed "The Haunting" as an ode to his former mentor, a man for whom Wise served as editor and ultimately went on to direct his first feature films for while at RKO (sequel "Curse of the Cat People" and "Mademoiselle Fifi," both in 1944, and the Karloff/Lugosi period horror film "The Body Snatcher," based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story). Lewton's largely credited with the creation of cinematic psychological horror and Wise certainly put that approach to use in "The Haunting."

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Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:17:00 -0700 Art: "Time," September 5, 2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-time-september-5-2011 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/art-time-september-5-2011

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An amazing cover to the forthcoming issue of "Time" by artist Tim O'Brien, whose blog contains examples of his work as well as his words.

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Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:00:00 -0700 Music: "Luv Deluxe," 2009 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-luv-deluxe-2009 http://filmbaker.posterous.com/music-luv-deluxe-2009

Winner of the 2010 Saatchi & Saatchi Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, the 2010 Outstanding Music Video award at South by Southwest, the 2010 Future Shorts Global Best Video award and a 2010 honorable mention by the Hammer Museum of Art and Culture in Los Angeles, "Luv Deluxe" has earned more than 8 million views across the Internet and played at more than 30 film festivals worldwide.

Cinnamon Chasers describe themselves as "exploring the colorful world of fluro-electro beats, warm melodiums and tripped out italo" and "a mind-blending explosion of mutant italo and electrofied disco house." I am not entirely sure what much of that means, but I admit, I do quite like the song.

There's a definite narrative/concept to the video; the question is, can you suss out what it is?

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