Welcome to the main reason we love the Internet. Fans. We love all those fan fiction sites where Harry Potter and Ron Weasley indulge in sweaty, sparky magician lovin’; we love all those YouTube covers where earnest teenagers in their bedrooms whip out their vibrato; and most of all, we love the lengths to which film fans go to in order to honour their favourite directors.

Kogonada is such a film fan. He/She has spliced together a video titled Sounds of Aronofsky, where Darren Aronofsky gets the soundscapes ripped out of his films and montaged together in a beautiful filmic offering. The significance of small, everyday sounds is evident — most pertinently those delicate artistic ceremonies such as spliff creation and cocaine snorting. Yeah, because you watch Aronofsky for the social critique.

Also worth checking out are kogonada’s earlier videos Tarantino From Below, Wes Anderson From Above and Breaking Bad POV.

[via Kottke.]

Sometimes the aim of a film is to distract we the audience from the fact that quite often, none of it makes sense. But just as often, events unfold within a film’s narrative that remind us of this, and of the reasons why we the audience don’t often bother trying this sort of nonsense at home.

This nonsense often takes the form of a plan formulated by the characters to achieve their desired goal. It could be a rescue mission, or a group banding together to fight a common enemy. It may be a survival strategy. Or they could just be stealing shit. While some plans are ingenious, others are poorly thought out. There’s ‘just crazy enough to work!’ and then there’s ‘that shit cray!’

The following plans fall into the latter category and comprise the Crème de la Crème (or Cray de la Cray, if you will) of the worst plans ever.

We’re not talking about wet t-shirt competitions (sorry to all those on Spring Break) or anything Girls Gone Wild-ish (except for maybe in Wild Things, where girls do, indeed, go wild). That being said, a wet t-shirt is a very sexy thing, even when it appears unassumingly in a movie rain scene, or to add humor to the narrative, and especially where it’s intended to exacerbate a characters breasts (see above: Wild Things). So here we are, gentle reader, appreciating our favorite wet t-shirts in film, and the boobies that lie beneath.

As Good As It Gets (1997)

We couldn’t find a compatible video to embed, so click here to watch Helen Hunt‘s endearingly unintentional wet t-shirt. We’re going to go out on a limb and say this scene is the Emperor Of All Wet T-Shirt Scenes, Ever.

Next time you see a skinny male with a moustache, a North Face jacket when it just really isn’t cold enough to warrant one and thick rimmed, lensless glasses — worn with a sense of irony of course — resist the urge to pigeonhole. Indie, alty, trendoid — we’re all human.  Have a heart, throw them a bone and whatever you do, don’t call them hipsters. According to Destin Daniel Cretton, director of the debut feature film I Am Not A Hipster, underneath that artfully positioned maroon beanie lies “A multi-layered human not so different to yourself’; just with a richer understanding of the local folk music scene and better 90s pop-culture references. Who knew?

Although the film’s title elicits a barrage of questions and contentious debate around it’s scandalous starring term, Cretton insists I Am Not A Hipster runs deeper than a silly parody of a “weird and confusing” label. What differentiates the film (apart from fixies) is it’s authenticity — made by the indie musicians and artists it depicts, the journey of depressed musician Brook Hyde is achingly real. After premiering in January at the Sundance Film Festival and appearing in festivals across America (including Cleveland, Nashville, Newport Beach, Philadelphia, and Seattle), Cretton and his team have decided to release the film in the same fashion they made it; entirely on their own. In order to allow this they have created a Kickstarter campaign where financial pledges can be made in return for exclusive blog content, downloads and even a home screening (you’d better have milk crates for chairs). We spoke to Destin Daniel Cretton about going his own way with the film below…

Portable: The term “hipster” has obviously been bandied about a bit in popular culture of late — sometimes as a term of endearment and often with a sense of derision. What is a hipster to you? Would you identify as one? Are you being ironic right now?

Destin Daniel Cretton: With a title like ours, we obviously get questions like this a lot.  Surprisingly, there’s nothing really ironic about it. It was just something our main character said in a scene that ended up getting cut from the film. Try not to judge it from its title. It’s not quite what you’d expect.

P: We were really blown away by the responses of the audience members who were interviewed after the Nashville screening — partially because we didn’t think people would be so eloquent in that neck of the woods (just joking!), and partially because of the emotional resonance these people seemed to feel with I Am Not A Hipster. What do you make of it?

Destin Daniel Cretton: It’s always really humbling when people talk to us after a screening to say how much the film touched them on a personal level. It’s a really fun movie, but it also deals with some real issues that I think most people can relate to. Though it’s a story that takes place in San Diego’s indie scene, you don’t have to know anything about it to enjoy the movie. It’s a film for our generation, but also happens to make my mom tear up.

P: What do you ideally want audiences to take away from the film?

Destin Daniel Cretton: It’s a film that gives something a little different to everyone. Some people laugh along with Clarke’s absurd and endearing positivity. Other people feel Brook’s pain as he learns to deal with the loss of a loved one. When I watch the movie, I see the fingerprints of all the amazing people who worked their butts off to create this thing. I just hope audiences enjoy watching it as much as we loved making it.

P: Obvious question but why a Kickstarter campaign rather than commercial release?

Destin Daniel Cretton: We made this little movie completely on our own, thanks to the incredible community that came together to support it. We think it’s only natural to use that same DIY/grassroots idea to push the film out into the world. So, we’re simply asking people to check out the Kickstarter page, and support us if you think it’s something you find interesting. It’s the only place to pre-order the DVD and get a bunch of other pretty cool stuff, but even donating a dollar is a HUGE help.

P: Parting words?

Destin Daniel Cretton: I just want to say thank you to any of you who have watched our trailer, sent us messages, or supported us this far. We’re doing our best to take the final steps to complete this project and can’t wait for you to see the film!

Forget Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry. You can even forget Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier and David Lynch (keep the sexy bits from Mulholland Drive though. That is irreplaceable). The director you really need to know is D.W. Griffith. The man invented a crucial filmmaking technique that is now taken for granted right across the medium. You know how an actor walks off screen to the right and then walks on in the next frame from the left and you know he’s entered another room? Griffith was the first to do that. He invented that shit.

D.W. Griffith is probably most famous for his 1915 film The Birth Of A Nation which is an incredibly long epic about the American Civil War and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. However, in 1912 he made a short film called The Sunbeam, a film about the shenanigans of the residents of a tenement building and an unlikely romance which serves as a neat warning not to get locked up somewhere with a repulsive member of the opposite sex for too long.

Now — one hundred years after it’s creation — The Sunbeam has been deftly re-edited by Spanish Documentary Film student Aitor Gametxo. Gametxo realised that Griffith’s camera was static and had a set number of entry points into the world of the tenement. He then used this to edit it showing the action in a split screen style rather than as a single screen. It shows perfectly how the world of the tenement is laid out and also how Griffith’s pioneering technique came about.

Gametxo has re-imagined the old film beautifully. It is captivating to see characters move from one scene to another and to see how the space of the film has been enlarged by this very tidy bit of editing.

Johnny Depp‘s new film Dark Shadows, out this Friday, marks Depp’s 8th collaboration with director Tim Burton. And where these collaborations were once anticipated with bated breath, recent efforts have more likely been met with sighs and groans both inward and outward (Editor’s note: DO NOT WANT Dark Shadows).

Depp has built a solid career with roles in a diverse range of films. His strength lies in exploring flawed human beings whose emotional frailty is often reflected in their physical appearance, and he’s an actor who fully embodies all of his characters. But like most actors, he doesn’t always make the right film choices, resulting in roles that are less fully realised, bordering on caricature.

We take a look at Depp at his best and at his worst…

Ah, the good old finger bang. It doesn’t show up on screen as often as say, sex or blow jobs, but when it does, BOY, does it make an entrance. Often violent and/or ominous, fingerbang scenes, probably for their rarity, lend themselves a certain salaciousness, and indeed the five on our list have become icons of the screen. Watch some of the most awkward, racy, and giggle-inducing fingerbang scenes in cinema after the jump. This is definitely and unequivocally, not safe for work, unless your work involves soft core porn, is ruthlessly sex positive or you’re just a giant pervert who doesn’t care if they’re caught watching women getting fingered from the comfort of your cubicle.

“Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We’re gonna have to earn it.” - Blondie

Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy was neither the beginning of the Spaghetti Western movement nor was it the sum of its parts, yet somehow they are the films of the era that stick in a casual filmgoer’s mind. Leone’s Westerns have become so ingrained in pop culture that today it wouldn’t be odd for someone to whistle the main tune from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) without even knowing where it’s from and how they even know it.

By the time Michael Carreras’ The Savage Guns (Tierra Brutal) came along in 1961 to herald the beginning of the Spaghetti Western era, the Hollywood Western genre had long since entered a rapid decline in popularity. The films dominated by figures such as John Ford, Howard Hawkes and John Wayne had lost their audience. The appeal of the frontier, the lone rangers and the raiding Indians had vanished. The Western genre needed a revision and it was the Italians who decided to take up the challenge.

Film production all over Europe had been booming since the end of World War 2, particularly in Italy where sword and sandal epics were cheap to produce and popular among audiences. Young directors were beginning to carve out a career and make a name for themselves in the industry. Sergio Leone himself began as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica on the Italian Neorealist film The Bicycle Thieves (1948).

Spaghetti Westerns emerged as a European review of the classic Western. There were still saloons, gunslingers, sheriffs and shootouts, but it wasn’t the same Wild West that Gary Cooper and John Wayne had ridden out into. Indians were abandoned in favour of Mexicans and Latin Americans and the dominant language in most of the films was Italian. And the films were violent. The gloss of earlier Westerns had vanished; men died face down in the dirt.

Leone officially oversaw seven films in total, although he would come to be defined by his work in Spaghetti Westerns. Per un Pugno di Dollari (A Fistful of Dollars) was released in 1964, the first collaboration between Leone, Clint Eastwood and immortal composer Ennio Morriconne. It was an unsanctioned remake of the Japanese samurai classic Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Over the years, Kurosawa’s films have provided the blueprints for a number of remakes, perhaps most notably Shichinin No Samurai (1954) being remade as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and later Kakushi toride no san akunin (1958) being remade as Star Wars (1977).

A Fistful of Dollars was a colossal success, particularly in Europe, and would be followed shortly after by a superior sequel Per Qualche Dollaro in Piu (For A Few Dollars More/1965). These two films would be enough to establish Leone as a financially viable director and secure him a far greater sum of money to back his third film, almost titled ‘The Two Magnificent Tramps’. Luckily, screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni came to his senses and suggested The Good, The Bad and The Ugly just before production commenced.

We know that everybody has been wringing their hands anxiously in anticipation for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, and while we’ll acknowledge that Wes is the undisputed King of indie on screen, let’s not forget that Michel Gondry is most definitely royalty. And yes, that French wizard has something awfully tantalizing in the works; a film including but not limited to: Paris, Audrey Tatou, puns on Jean-Paul Sartre and backwards cars. Oh boy.

Foam of The Days is the english translation of L’ecume de jours – the 1947 novel by Boris Vian which Gondry is adapting to film (It will most likely be titled Moon Indigo for english speaking audiences) and centers around a wife who has contracted an inexplicable disease — water lily of the lung — by which the only cure is to be surrounded by flowers at all times, dutifully supplied by her husband: a lifestyle which is teetering him into bankruptcy. It’s begun filming in Paris, and dotting those cobble-y streets are a bunch of these cars, meshed together and flipped around, with the kind of perfect absurdity that makes the inevitably tortuous wait for Moon Indigo too hideous to bear. Presented without commentary — because their sheer insanity does themselves sufficient justice — are some of the vehicles set to feature in Gondry’s film, after the jump.

[via blenheim gang]