Watchification » film

Snow Cake

roo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:29:41 +0000

A proper film with Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss. You may want to give up after 10 minutes. Don’t. It’s worth it.

Original score by the lovely Candian indie band, Broken Social Scene.

Between the Lines – Railways in Fiction and Film

russell — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:40:38 +0000

Only two days left. Watch it. Quick! (Thanks Matt)

London to Brighton in four minutes

antimega — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:54:57 +0000

A TV classic, these little films pop up on BBC4 from time to time, in far better quality than the youtube versions. Good to see iplayer access for them.

Springtime in an English Village (1944)

Steve Bowbrick — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:05:14 +0000

I heard about the BFI’s YouTube channel on the radio this evening and rushed over to have a look. There are dozens of short films and clips from a hundred years or so of British film, including some funky stuff from Germaine Greer and lots of themed material like these London films. I’ve chosen a strange and evocative propaganda film made towards the end of World War 2, in which school children somewhere in the English countryside celebrate May Day. The BFI archivists have provided lots of interesting notes for each video so be prepared to lose an hour or two…

Broken Flowers

Steve Bowbrick — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:48:10 +0000

Blimey. A Jim Jarmusch movie on iPlayer. I missed it when it went out so you’ve only got a couple of days to watch it. Still, it’s got to be better than Northern Irish tiger worriers. Jarmusch’s second proper movie, which was his big break, Down by Law, came out while I was (nominally) studying film and photography at Central London Poly in the mid-eighties. It made a big impact.

All my trendy friends thought it was the the best thing ever (some of them even went out and acquired elaborate quiffs) but I was suspicious. I thought it was all so much post-punk artifice. Really a phoney-baloney pseudo-existentialist non-story. I still think I’m right (tell me I’m not right). But Jarmusch has mellowed and now there’s real human stuff going on in his movies—albeit muted and kind of awkward.

I really enjoyed Broken Flowers (which came out in 2005) but I’m not 100% sure it’s not Bill Murray I’m enjoying. He’s got a real melancholy grandeur. About half-an-hour in, not long after his latest girlfriend has left him, he sits alone in his impeccably art-directed living room and tries to drink a glass of Champagne but just can’t. It’s beautiful. Anyway, I’d better shut up and save this post otherwise you’ll have no time to watch the thing. Over and out.