(chris’s) blog

A new issue of ANTI is out. “ANTI Magazine aims to showcase outstanding visual content as an online magazine and also through future exhibitions all around the world.” They are open for submission into their next issue under the theme, “69.”

Four-Eyed Monsters is a film chronicling the beginnings of an actual artistic+love relationship between two Brooklyn youths whose initial connection was created within the artistic mediums, without speech.

The entire 71 minute film is available to watch on YouTube. It’s brilliant.

I saw a number of really good movies lately. The first is “Blow Up”, a 1960s mod style, London based film by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. The film presents the events of the day of a photographer who may or may not have photographed a murder in the park.

Originally based on a short story, Blow Up is very slow going and has a sparse plot, but it is dense stylistically. The cinematography is gorgeous and epitomizes the mod movement. Fans of literary criticism will also have much to chew on as uncertainty saturates the film, and a number of symbols and plot devices charge the film with enough intrigue to warrant multiple viewings.

The next film is was banned when it first came out in the 1960s. À bout de souffle (”Breathless”) from French director Jean-Luc Godard is perhaps the most well-known film from the French New Wave movement. While the plot of a French criminal and American ex-patriot being in love is interesting, the noteworthy features of this film is it’s revolutionary cinematography. Shot entirely on hand-held cameras with bits of improvised dialog, Breathless was shot on location in Paris on a very small budget. This is the sort of film that will either love or hate. Word of warning though, the beginning is rather slow, so give it a good 30-45 mins before making your judgment.

The last film is the Marc Forster/Zach Helm movie Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Farrel and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Stranger Than Fiction is the modern tale of a man named Harold Crick who begins hearing the voice of a narrator that seems to be telling his life story. Annoying and concerned, Harold tries to figure out what is happening after the narrator announces his eminent death. Like the recent offerings of children’s movies (Shrek, Cars, etc.), Stranger Than Fiction projects a movie of two layers: while the scene-to-scene story is enough to entertain anyone, scholars will be especially pleased to see the interacting layers of metafiction pulled off brilliantly as Harold participates in a story while aware of his own fictional nature. If you aren’t a fan of Will Farrel movies, give this one a chance; Will Farrel employs little, if any, of his slap-stick, ridiculous humor style and instead shows a refined self, employing his unique humorous tone only when appropriate. Indeed, one could point to this movie to demonstrate that Will Farrel has more to offer than just his wit.