The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Alexa here. Although they were an 18th Century craze, silhouettes are a familiar sight in our collective film memory (James Bond openers, Elliott and E.T., even Mystery Science Theater 3000). Cut paper silhouettes that harken back to the history of the medium are making a crafty comeback, so it seems silhouette designs are popping up everywhere from posters to porcelain. Here are some particularly nice backlit movie icons that follow the trend.
Jack and Rose, Jack and Sally, Hiccup and Toothless, handcut by Isabel Talsma.
A little Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Luc Godard and All About Eveafter the jump...
Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we continue the admittedly pointless but always fun Keaton vs. Chaplin debate and contrast it with the Dreamworks vs Pixar animation debate. The important thing is to remember that you can love all of these films and it's not a competition.
Last week I started off with Modern Times representing the Chaplin collection and WALL•E as the Pixar film and declared them the "frontrunners" in our non-competition based on the fact that more people could identify Chaplin's Tramp and WALL•E than could Keaton or Dragon's protagonist Hiccup, which seems like a fair assessment. But that's about as far as I and many others are willing to go. Quality is a different question. Indeed the days of Chaplin towering over Keaton as a matter of fact are long gone, and probably were never really that significant to begin with (indeed Keaton was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar before Chaplin). And let's not forget that the first Best Animated Feature Oscar wasn't awared to the Pixar powerhouse, but a Dreamworks film. If Chaplin and Pixar represent old-fashioned, sentimental storytelling, then Keaton with his stone-faced subtlety and Dreamworks with it's clever revisionism (think twisted fairy tales in Shrek or villian protagonist in Despicable Me) are, and have frequently been declared the more "modern" sides to this debate.
Men with Certain Talents
One immediate difference that viewers of The General and How to Train Your Dragon will notice from their Chaplin/Pixar counterparts is that these films' heroes, Hiccup and Johnny Gray have serious talents. They're not just characters of coincidence. Nor do they have only their determination to guide them. Oh, they have determination but their possession of a singular specific talent that elevate them above others in their world is a characteristic simply not found in last week's films. These abilities are thus: Keaton's Johnny Gray is a train engineer, and clearly an industrius one at that. Hiccup is something of a Dragon engineer, possessing the ability to train and ride the creatures that his people are at war with.
In fact, both films are set during a time of war, In Dragon it's a war between those mythical monsters and Hiccup's people, the vikings. In The General, it's the American Civil War.
The quickest thing you learn once you become obsessed with awards is that they never end; someone is always handing out prizes for something. And since the eligibility periods are different for everything it takes forever for a single year's entertainment to finally be "old" aka ineligible. Such is the case with 2010 entertainment (mostly the second half of it) which is still eligible for Emmy nods (July 14th), Tony nods (May 3rd)... and The Hugo Awards, which are science fiction based, and newly announced today.
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 How to Train Your Dragon Inception Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Toy Story 3
Inception and Toy Story 3 can breathe a sigh of relief that The King's Speech featured neither threatening alien invaders (Wallis Simpson does not count) nor superpowered heroes (Helena Bonham Carter does not count, her super powers being off screen).
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT Doctor Who: ‘‘A Christmas Carol'' Doctor Who: ‘‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang'' Doctor Who: ‘‘Vincent and the Doctor'' Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury The Lost Thing
I've embedded this "Ray Bradbury" vid once before on the old blog but it made me LOL so here it is again. With Doctor Who cancelling itself out (one assumes) Will The Lost Thing, the animated short, repeat its Oscar win at the Hugos?
Here's an awards curveball for ya. We don't often hear about the Genesis Awards but this is their 25th year. They award media that promotes fair and kind treatment to animals. There are categories ranging from traditional news segments, to magazines articles, up to feature films and documentaries. Here are three major categories I thought might interest you, whether you're an animal lover, a committed vegan or just an awards junkie.
Feature Film How To Train Your Dragon The Switch
It's easy to see why Oscar nominee How To Train Your Dragon figured in as the whole plot revolves around learning to leave peacefully with another species. But the sperm donor comedy The Switch starring Jennifer Aniston? Is Jason Bateman turning into a wolf again? Goddamnit. I thought we were done with that in the 80s.
I guess you have to have seen that one to know why it's so honored. But I don't want to have to have seen it. Please explain in the comments if you have.
Feature Documentary The Elephant in the Living Room Oceans
I guess Banksy's Pink Elephant in the Gallery from Exit Through The Gift Shop was not a smart move if he wanted to win a Genesis. Painting or dyeing animals is usually not a good idea. I loved the "horses of a different color" in The Wizard of Oz but I'm guessing they didn't consult with them on how they were dealing with their makeup the way they had to deal with actors with skin rashes.
Television Series Law & Order: Criminal Intent "Inhumane Society" -USA Network Law & Order: Special Victims Unit "Beef" -NBC True Blood "Hitting the Ground" -HBO
Okay. Someone who is up to date on True Blood (I'm behind since I don't get HBO) will have to fill me in on how this qualified. From what I've seen of the show don't animals get brutalized along with the humans in its dangerous swampy world? Last time I watched [Season 2 spoiler] Marianne, who liked to travel with a giant pig and was all into animal and human sacrifices and cannibalism was finally dispatched by the horns of a deified bull (not really. But she was ecstatically confused).]
And Kristin Davis of Sex & the City fame is getting a special prize.
Screen capture from the 20th minute and 10th second of How To Train Your Dragon (or thereabouts. I'm not so sure this VLC time counter works properly grrrr)
"How many does a Gronkol have?"
It's less than 19 hours until Oscar nominations!!! Which animated feature do you think will place alongside How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3? It seems like a coin toss doesn't it between Tangled (the commerce and corporate tradition votes), The Illusionist (the art and international votes) and Despicable Me (the scrappy upstarts, comedy votes)? Well, a coin toss if you have a... uh... three sided coin.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 4:31PM 
Jack and Rose, Jack and Sally, Hiccup and Toothless, handcut by Isabel Talsma.
