Sometimes I just feel like…
Waves of The Cinema + National Identity – Introduction
I am a cinefile. I was born a cinefile. My formal college education was in critical film theory, with an emphasis in production. Film academics presented me with the fascination of deciphering various interpretations of society, emotion, and self-reflexivity within the human condition. I actually spend most of my time studying the craft by doing what is best: watch, interpret, and give back. It’s all about the process by which a situation unfolds (or unravels). Film is my passion, my pleasure, and my greatest hobby.
Good cinema is only presented when design, story, and performance are all together in a steady waltz that thumps the floor of the viewer’s heart. I will admit that simple cinema will easily receive my basic childlike enjoyment, but if I view a film that crosses boundaries or attempts innovation, I will lay a harsh critical eye upon it. Although there are many elements in film theory that fascinate me, there is one field of study that gets me beyond all: the categorization and identification of ideologies, diaspora, and form of World Cinema. No era, movement, or country can be exactly alike in storytelling, and the same follows in doing so on film. Treat it like an index of the periodic table of elements. The only strong elements in which one can identify a film is by where it comes from, and when.
Many countries are individually known for the unique styles in which their filmmakers interpret how stories are told. Although the Classical Hollywood (for the west) or Modern Bollywood (for the east) movements are dominant in popular world society, there are many other movements or genres that hold their own special identities around the world.
From here, I would like to praise other important movements in World Cinema. Follow me, as every week I will post a different country’s key cinematic traits that separate it from the rest. I shall explore their joys, their fears, their structures, and most importantly, their part in telling how different cultures interpret storytelling. I know I’m a geek, but this is super cool…Stay tuned!
Bro Me a Penny
I decided to face the music and check my balance today. Something that always scares me, It’s never nice to see how broke you are. Alas, my impecunious situation is at an all time worst. I think I’ll join the circus. I hear peanuts are more profitable than pennies in the mid-west farm country, and I’ve always been delighted by contortionists. They say to follow your dream, but my dreams don’t bare much profit.
Seems as though everyone down here wishes to migrate north, to the place where I was born and raised; the place where it costs even more to hold a roof over head and to fill the mouth with small teases for the stomach. I played along with my thoughts and looked up what kind of business could have my kind, the cinematic kind. There is little to bare for a child who has yet to walk tall on the celluloid road all by his own.
Give it TIME… GIVE it time… Give IT time… and when time gives me, I’ll be all over IT.
We Played Dress-up in Their Basement…
The Palisades soiree was one thing that I needed all summer long. Everyone can appreciate a nice break in routine. For a while, I felt like we were salesmen on conveyor belts to the circus yard. We had expended our hopes and dreams for variety. And, sure enough, we got even with such a burden. We loaded a car, drifted into a pocket of wealthy greenrock, and tumbled all throughout a giant dollhouse cradling secret passageways, spiral staircases, and remnants of relics only found in romantic frontier tales. Peace at last. I planted myself on a patch of grass when no one was looking. I listened to what the trees had to say about us visitors. I didn’t mind the time passing, nor much of anything at such a great and defining moment. I climbed into the basement to find my fellow travelers dressed up as what would only suit them if time had stopped indefinitely. We expanded shoulder muscles with gratis matchpoints. Solids got even with stripes. Long sticks got aquainted with short sticks. We were told of fingercuffs ruining the felt, but we didn’t mind it much. We came to play, rain or shine.
Art, Colt 45’s, and Shoulder Muscle.
Well, Crazy 4 Cult was good…or at least I remember it that way. We showed up, skipped the line, and made our way through the 108 degree studio. The work was amazing. I definitely should have brought the camera.
Next, we wandered next door to find a comic book shop where a marine was handing out Colt 45 tall-cans (they gave me 2 because I had “donor” written on my ID. “So they can’t have your liver,” one of them chuckled.
The backyard atmosphere of the comic shop gathering was one of anxiety, distraction, and cheap thrills. We settled our debts on the 45’s and continued off, but not before having a photo moment with the beloved girl and having an upstream alley accident with a homeless man.
We ended our travels at Footsies, where the girls were flexing their shoulder muscles on lightly hustled pool games. I lost my appetite for polite drinking at some point and came down with a case of the hiccups. looking around in my disconnected and gulping state I found that the bar had closed, our friends remained: kissing, pushing, playing, drinking, stumbling, and quite so…last resorting.
Somehow, I came to. All clothes still on, the crisp morning air creeping in through the closet window, bad headache, and above all…a serious and threatening craving for pancakes. Despite, that I am still left without a romantic ending, I found the bisquick to be a spiritual healer of sorts.
On to the soiree…
Anybody Thirsty?
Taking Steps
Project Idea – Comedy Nostalgia
Thinking about writing a comedy for my next film exercise…
It could actually be a really bad idea, considering that the only films I’ve made are dark and strange, but I think I’m funny sometimes…
I’ll need ideas. . .Thinking about how I grew up. Small town, full of idiots and idiot savants. I’d like to paint their portraits and insert tape recordings that I made while pestering them in the halls of the history wing during freshman year. Fuck it…I guess I’ll make tyranny out of my treasures.
Movie Craving – Badlands
EDEN
Here’s a little project I cranked out lately. Hot off the presses…
You can get the HD version HERE.


