#underappreciated cinema

[headlesssamurai]

‘‘There's something out there, waiting for us. And it ain't no man.’’

//predator_1987/ //dir_john_mctiernan/

[animationgirl89]

ANIMATION IS CINEMA. ♥️✨

[Animation Is NOT A Genre, It Is Art And A Method Of Storytelling! Animation Can Be Loved And Enjoyed By Everyone No Matter What! Animation Is So Damn Underappreciated And Deserves So Much More Love, Respect And Appreciation! Please Continue To Support And Appreciate Animation (+ Animators As Well) And As Guillermo Del Toro Said, "It'll Take Some More Years To Make People In Hollywood Believe And See That Animation Is Cinema. But, It's A Battle I'll Keep Fighting."]

[see-arcane]

Goncharov (1973): “Why an apple?”

I know Goncharov is drowning in so MANY themes. We have the Running Out of Time theme, the Cycle of Violence and Repression theme, the Can’t Fight Nature theme with all its animal motifs, we even have Ice Pick Joe’s criminally underappreciated arc about Humanity Doing Violence to Anything/Anyone Outside the Mold of the Cycle/What the Majority Says is Natural theme. Themes on themes on themes!

But the one that still keeps needling me in the heart is, of all things, the Fruit theme. Yes, really. 

Sure, right, the whole ‘Forbidden Fruit’ thing is extremely old hat to cinema now, especially within media dealing with gay romances (rather, gay romances that Almost Were and Ended Tragically). But the way it’s played with in Goncharov seems to hit just to the left of the cliché and lets something new grow.

Or, in the case of our various doomed characters, lets it get mowed down.

It starts with the fruit stand. Katya and Sofia, two wives shopping for two husbands. They come to the apples. Sofia, with her serpent bracelet twinkling, stoops to help Katya pick up the fallen fruit that escaped her basket. Is the meeting orchestrated? Accident? Neither woman would ever tell, considering where both stand--where they recognize each other from. The worlds of men and murder they stand so precariously within.

Still. It is so hard to make friends in their worlds. And they are in public. And just for a while, just here, in the sun, they can pretend they are just two women who know each other from somewhere. Just making friends. 

Apples segues to temptation, you know the drill--they even bring it up in conversation! 

...A conversation that the cut to the far end of afternoon reveals has stretched all the way out of the market and into a bistro. Just two women, just two friends, just talking (in public). They bring up Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Fruit and--

Sofia: I never got why it had to be an apple.

Katya: What do you mean? 

Sofia: I mean I don’t get it. Why an apple? 

Katya: I don’t know. Because it’s always been an apple, I guess. It’s easier to pull off in art. All the painters and sculptors and everyone else who makes those kind of calls, they all just got together and decided, ‘An apple looks pretty simple. Nice, smooth, round. Easy enough to draw in a tree.’ And boom, everyone sees nothing but apples in the Tree of Knowledge ever after. So it’s always apples.

Sofia: The dullest possible produce. The Forbidden Fruit is supposed to be something off limits, something special. All the knowledge of the world and of each other and of the realization that these two fools are running around the Garden with their asses bare in front of the Almighty. Apples don’t seem right for that. It’s dull. It’s a thing for pastry and postcards. 

Katya: ...What would you pick instead?

Sofia: Pomegranates. No question.

Katya: Why pomegranates? 

Sofia: It’s the fruit that the God of the Dead uses to trick the Goddess of Spring into staying with him in the Underworld. She tastes the seeds and she’s forced to stay down there for half a year, every year, forever. A fruit so powerful it can trap a goddess seems like the kind of fruit that could banish humanity from Paradise. 

(Cue that Very Telling pause. The unbroken eye contact. Then...)

Sofia: Tastes better than apples too. And it looks like a jewel when you split it open. 

(Of course, when it’s time to order dessert, they split a pomegranate panna cotta. The scene closes with Katya licking her lips.)

Katya: I do like apples. But this? This is amazing. I’d go to Hell for this.*

(*There’s a whole other essay in describing Katya’s bisexuality, her partaking of apples and pomegranates in equal measure, the genuine hurt she feels in knowing that Goncharov cares for her, but not beyond the presentation they put on for his peers. Arm candy with benefits (and constant threat to her life). And it wouldn’t be so bad, she knows, if they were at least still friends like they were at the start--but all of that has gone to Andrey. The friendship, the love, the care; at least as much as Goncharov is capable of beyond his own issues. But I digress.)

We see this whole undercurrent play out through the film, in parallel to the hammered-in fear and resignation that comes with the characters being crushed by the mantra of You Can’t Go On Forever, Can’t Fight the Cycle, Can’t Fight Nature, Can’t Step Outside the Norm/the Nuclear Family (of the Mafia/the Mob Or Else).

Because it doesn’t have to be an apple.

They never had to worry about the time burning away their lives one miserable day at a time, unhappy and cramped with violence and expectations that are a wholly self-perpetuating horror show that humanity inflicts on itself. The characters compare themselves to animals more than once in the film, all unable to fight the inevitable. But as Andrey and Katya point out to their respective paramours, it does not have to be that way. It never did--it doesn’t need to be now. Please. Please.

They can have the Forbidden Fruit and it can be whatever they want! Let it be a pomegranate! Let them glut themselves on it! And, hell, why do they have to buy into everyone else’s rules about what is and isn’t forbidden anyway? They’re none of them living within the law in the first place. Blood’s on everyone’s hands. Can’t they sin a little sweeter? Can’t they admit the sin they want most isn’t a sin at all, no matter what lies to the contrary they’ve swallowed in the caustic hell they’ve found themselves in?

“We can grow our own garden somewhere,” Katya pleads with Sofia, smiling through tears trying so hard not to fall--the first tears she’s allowed herself in years. 

“We can grow our own tobacco,” Andrey tries to joke with Goncharov, not joking at all. He still has that cheap scuffed lighter Goncharov gifted him years ago when they were both nobodies, and he grips it in his visible hand like a talisman.

Of course, we know the endings there. 

Katya lives to leave, without husband or lover or friend, and mourn the fact that her beloved Temptation cannot be tempted in turn. Not with where Sofia stands. Rooted by cold blood as much as fear. This is what she knows. This is her world, her Tree, her Devil she knows, her Underworld to rule as much as any queen can rule there, unhappy but resigned. Go, Eve. Grow your garden alone. 

Andrey pulls the trigger, and feels more pain in that instant than even Goncharov does with the hole in his heart. He walks away, mourning the man who is as much a victim of himself as the bullet; a stubborn Adam who spat out his fruit and insisted upon fighting the Serpent, who dies reliving a memory of two cigars, sharing a flame against a cold night--the light fading, fading, fading...

It never had to be this way. Not for any of them. Not really. But even with the Forbidden Fruits of their choice hanging in reach, free to take and run, it was not eating them that resulted in their respective tragedies. 

The Forbidden Fruit is there to be eaten. To be learned from. To force you to grow and go. To step outside the boundaries made to keep you in. 

But you just can’t make everyone eat.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Nostalgia is an often-underappreciated component in nationalism: a carefully crafted collective yearning for a lost idealised and often non-existent past, used in the service of contemporary political projects. The ‘glorious golden age’ serves to galvanise a particular form of collective social identity that stresses shared cultural heritage for a unified nation. At the same time, nostalgic visions exclude those deemed internal and external ‘others’ responsible for the downfall of this golden age (the Mughal era is currently being removed from the Indian school syllabus). This repurposing and ‘presenting’ of the past – a kind of heritage politics – not only mobilises support for political causes and commercial interests but also provides distraction from bad governance, through the promise and vision of a regenerated past-inspired future, associated with pride and dominance over enemies. Nostalgia, therefore, can be used to build hegemony by nationalist movements and parties, by articulating disparate individuals and groups into a nationalist political identity while marginalising others.

[astrology-bf]

Current coping mechanism is a rewatch of some masterpieces and personal favorites in animation, so I'd like to turn that into some positive energy with a few recommendations for any followers and moots wanting something to watch. ^^ Here's a little spoiler-free list.

5 Centimeters per Second (dir. Makoto Shinkai, 2005, ~63min) A romance and drama centered around two people in love drifting apart over time, fairly sad but in a cathartic way. This helped inform and inspire my own writings on relationships that simply don't work out.

The Iron Giant (dir. Brad Bird, 1999, ~87 min) The final fully animated film produced by Warner Brothers, which tells the story of a giant robot from space befriending a young boy in the USA during the Cold War. In addition to being one of the greatest works of western animation, the theme of having to make the active choice to be good remains a central one in my own writing and was in no small part influenced by seeing this film as a kid.

Angel's Egg (dir. Mamoru Oshii, 1985, ~71 min) An arthouse collaboration between the same powerhouse who would direct Ghost in the Shell and the artwork of Yoshitaka Amano. It's a beautiful piece that's rich in religious symbolism and has very little dialogue, making it a very visual experience, and as an art film it is much more focused on imagery and themes than having a real plot or explaining much of the worldbuilding beyond implication.

Sword of the Stranger (dir. Masahiro Ando, 2007, ~102min) A period drama and action film set during the Sengoku Period. Very much a homage to classic Kurosawa films which stands out for its stunning animation and visual choreography, and a stellar soundtrack. If you like swordplay, I'd definitely give this a watch. [CW: Graphic Depictions of Violence and Death]

Ghost in the Shell (dir. Mamoru Oshii, 1995, ~83min) An absolute classic and one of the pillars of the cyberpunk genre. I'd highly encourage even those who aren't anime fans to watch it simply because it's a stunning piece of cinema both visually and in terms of themes. [CW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Nudity]

Titan A.E. (dir. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, 2000, ~94min) A sci-fi action/adventure film telling the story of a young man inheriting his father's legacy against the backdrop of Earth having been destroyed by aliens. I wouldn't necessarily say this is a masterpiece as there are a lot of flaws , but what makes Titan A.E. stand out is its risk-taking by incorporating 2D and CGI elements and attempting to tell a more adult story than was the norm in western animated films at the time.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 2001, ~96min) A science fantasy action/adventure film centered around a quest to find the lost city of Atlantis. Another film with flaws (mainly its short runtime for the story it tries to tell) but a visual masterpiece with some incredibly nuanced voice work by the likes of Cree Summer and Leonard Nimoy. The other thing which I love is how it actively avoids painting Atlantis as just a copy-paste of Classical Greek culture, but instead is much more inspired by architecture you'd see in Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Русалочка [Rusalochka] (dir. Ivan Aksenchuk, 1968, ~29 min) A short animated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and honestly an excellent example of the very underappreciated genre that is Soviet animation. It's a rare version in which the tragic ending of the original is actually made more so, as it omits the deux ex machina in favor of telling a bittersweet but ultimately cautionary love story.

Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (dir. Tomoharu Katsumata, 1975, ~68min) Another adaptation which maintains the original ending, this one is very interesting because it incorporated several animated conventions which would most certainly inspire Disney's own crack at the story more than a decade later. It's not necessarily a stand out piece for anything other than some gorgeous animation, but it is an interesting comparison to the film that would set off the Disney Renaissance in 1989. [CW: Mild nonsexual nudity (boobs)]

Kirikou et la Sorcière (dir. Michel Ocelot, 1998, ~71min) This is an interesting and controversial film because while it is a French film and was directed by a French man, the focus is entirely on West African folklore and culture - even the voice cast is almost entirely Senegalese - and the large amounts of nudity is nonsexualized. Visually stunning, but keep in mind that it remains a foreign film about West Africa, not a West African story. [CW: Nonsexual nudity]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (dir. Mamoru Hosoda, 2006, ~98min) A sci-fi romance which tells the story of a girl gaining the ability to rewind time, and her dealing with the consequences of her choices. This is based on a famous series of novels from the 1960s and was very formative for me in terms of writing about the way in which choices can and cannot affect divergent outcomes. Plus the main couple is very cute.

Tokyo Godfathers (dir. Satoshi Kon, 2003, ~92min) Oh, what can I say about this film? There's comedy, there's tragedy, and it's just a wonderfully animated look into the lives of those living at the margins of Japanese society. The story is fundamentally optimistic and sentimental, but it takes a lot of turns along the way.

The Secret of Kells (dir. Tom Moore and Nora Twomey, 2009, ~75min) A fantasy film centered around the Book of Kells in 9th century Ireland, and the first of a trilogy of animated films delving heavily into Irish mythology and folklore. The visual style is extremely evocative of the same Insular Art used in the Book of Kells itself, and the voice acting adds another layer of richness to a very heartwarming story.

Kubo and the Two Strings (dir. Travis Knight, 2016, ~102min) Stop motion animation counts because I want to talk about this movie. The story is a fairly formulaic fantasy adventure drama and leans heavily into the tropes in a perfect way, combining stunning feats of stop motion animation with outstanding performances by the voice actors, and a score that takes the film to peaks of cinematic excellence. Go watch it, lol.

Treasure Planet (dir. John Musker and Ron Clements, 2002, ~95min) Finishing off with another formative piece from the last days of big-budget 2D animated films in the West. I love it because it's very obviously a passion project and because it's shameless in how it glosses over the mechanics of atmosphere in space simply to facilitate the visual coolness of having an Age of Sail drama IN SPACE. But more than that, the coming of age narrative and the relationship between the protagonist and villain just makes this a real classic. Only main problem with it is that f*cking annoying robot towards the end.

Do give one or some a watch, and feel free to ask if you'd like more thoughts or recs. 💕

[fibula-rasa]

Stunting Into Stardom

WINNIE BROWN, nameless and unknown, has doubled for all the stars, but now she’s to be a star herself

By Adela Rogers St. Johns

——— ——— ———

from Photoplay, December 1922 

Originally, I had planned for this short article by Adela Rogers St. Johns to be the basis of my recent “How’d They Do That” piece. But, once I started researching Winnie/Winna Brown, I realized that the films I was able to find evidence she worked on are either presumed lost or are inaccessible—so, her stunts are un-gif-able! 

To compound the lack of gif-ability, the Frances Marion project discussed in this article never came to fruition AND assertions that Rogers St. Johns made about Brown’s “discovery” are incorrect.

You can probably understand why I chose a different article about silent stunt performers to analyze!

Despite all that mess, Brown seemed like such an interesting character, I wanted to profile her anyway. My commentary on the article will be highlighted like so and following the article you’ll find a working filmography that I’ve compiled and annotated citations.

Let’s learn about one more of those overlooked, underappreciated dare-devils of silent cinema!

——— ——— ———

WINNIE BROWN!

——— ——— ———

First things first: Winnie Brown was also known as Winna Brown. Over the course of Brown’s career, which started sometime around 1913, she was variously referred to as Winna and Winnie (possibly shortened from Winona).

——— ——— ———

Maybe you never heard tell o’ Winnie Brown.

Maybe that name doesn’t come inside your recollection at all.

But I want you to know about Winnie Brown. For the days of the old west, the picturesque old west that held more color and more fascination than any part of this country has ever held, is disappearing.  And Winnie Brown is one of the last of its real inhabitants.

Winnie Brown, the greatest living cowgirl. The best stunt rider and broncho buster and horse wrangler that ever put on chaps. The idol of the real cowboys. The winner of rodeos and exhibitions from Cheyenne to Oklahoma.

READ on BELOW the JUMP!

——— ——— ———

I don’t know Brown’s rodeo record, but I do know that she competed in or performed at rodeos in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. One of which, in Los Angeles, was committed to film for When Quality Meets (1915). Yes, they did actually “shoot the rodeo.”

——— ——— ———

Winnie Brown, to whom the motion picture fans owe so many thrills and whose face has never been seen before a camera. Who has done some of the most daring and difficult scenes the silversheet has ever recorded but whose name has never appeared on the screen.

——— ——— ———

Brown’s film career may have begun in New Mexico or California—she was an active part of both rodeo scenes by 1913. Later in this article, Rogers St. Johns claims that Frances Marion “discovered” Brown. However, it was another woman film pioneer, Dot Farley, who most likely gave Brown her first break.

Sometime round about 1913, a film unit was formed by Farley and Gilbert P. Hamilton called The Albuquerque Film Company, associated with Warner. They produced shorts and features—most of them starring Farley and based on her original scenarios. From contemporary news items, it seems like Brown was part of the crew from the start—not solely as a stunt performer, but also as an actor and prop master.

In fact, in one of their 1914 releases, Reuben’s Busy Day, Brown is the feminine lead:

Production still featuring Brown in Reuben's Busy Day from Moving Picture World, 14 November 1914

It’s no great mystery why, if you were printing a puff piece repackaging a reliable woman stunter as a fresh, new star, you wouldn’t want to talk about how she had already been a featured player nearly a decade prior!

——— ——— ———

But who at last is to come into her own and play not only the “stunt scenes” but the whole star part of a real cowgirl in a real western story.

You remember, maybe, times when you’ve seen the serial star race her horse alongside a train going 40 miles an hour and then leap from her saddle to the rear rail of the observation car—or maybe jump her pony down a 100-foot cliff. 

Ten chances to one, that was Winnie Brown.

Perhaps you have sat in your comfortable theater seat and seen the persecuted ingenue jump from the ninth story of a burning building—actually jump right out into space where no net was visible.

Winnie Brown!

And the lovely star who rode, perhaps, a whirling, threatening jam of logs down the dark and dangerous rapids of a great river—

That, too, was Winnie Brown.

Photo caption: Frances Marion, who discovered Winnie Brown, is shown at the right, discussing stardom with the stunt girl. Miss Marion is now making the first Winnie Brown picture

The most daring, reckless, skillful double, the movie game has ever known, that’s what, Winnie Brown has been.

There’s hardly a great star in the game today for whom Winnie Brown hasn’t doubled. There’s hardly a piece of wild and death-defying business that Winnie hasn’t performed.

Yet to her audiences she has been nameless, faceless, unknown.

When she has gone to see herself upon the screen it has been in the clothes and under the name and mask of some other woman. The credit for her work has gone elsewhere.

——— ——— ———

There’s a charming news item that floated around in 1923 of Brown being an unexpected double for the uber-glamorous Pola Negri in Bella Donna (1923). While Brown was very well-suited to perform the horse stunts, she struggled with the fancy costume. She supposedly remarked:

“I’m more scared o’ them dresses ‘n I ever was o’ any stunt.” from Photoplay, May 1923

Pola Negri in a production still for Bella Donna

——— ——— ———

“That don’t matter none,” said Winnie Brown, turning her fine, dark eyes on me, “I got the mazuma. An’ don’t say too much about the doublin’ part. Most o’ these here stars don’t like for folks to know they use a double. An’ o’ course it ain’t their fault most o’ the time they do—it’s the company makes ’em. If I bust a coupla o’ ribs or a laig or two, it don’t make no difference. I got a swell doctor and he fixes me up cheap. But if one o’ them fancy stars gits mashed up or her face scratched, it costs the company a whole wad o’ spondolicks.

“Most o’ the girls I’ve doubled for would have been willin’ to tackle it themselves all right, only the company wouldn’t hear to it, and besides, those skirts ain’t got the trainin’.”

——— ——— ———

Some of the stars Brown was reported as doubling for in addition to Negri are Priscilla Dean (in Siren of Seville (1924)), Norma Talmadge, Lois Wilson, Colleen Moore, Bebe Daniels, Corinne Griffith, and Marie Prevost. So far, which films starring most of these women Brown doubled for are still a question mark for me. Horses were Brown’s obvious specialty, but she also performed automobile and train stunts as well as the odd aquatic bit. That cowpoke had the range!

Siren of Seville is extant but not easily accessible at the moment, but these production photos on alamy caught my eye. Unfortunately, Brown and Dean actually resembled each other, so you add that with the fact that Brown would be made up as Dean to double for her, and it’s honestly kind of hard to tell if it’s Dean or Brown in these photos. So, Imma include them nonetheless.

Behind the scenes photos from Siren of Seville

——— ——— ———

Winnie has donned the grease-paint and become a western leading lady. 

Winnie is going to play the leading role in a real western picture, written specially for her. You are going to see a real cowgirl in action. And there are more real stunts in this picture than were ever written into one script before. 

“Reckon she’ll have to have a double herself, ‘fore she gits through,” said Soupstrainer gravely.

Frances Marion is the discoverer of Winnie Brown. Miss Marion, for a number of years scenario writer and director for Mary Pickford, and now scenarioist for Norma and Constance Talmadge, discovered Winnie when she went to look at some horses. And she decided to give her a chance on the screen.

——— ——— ———

As I mentioned earlier, it was more likely Dot Farley who “discovered” Brown, so this doesn’t necessarily have the ring of truth to it. Marion’s husband was Fred Thomson, who was also a cowboy stunter. It’s likely Brown and Thomson worked together before 1922. Marion herself had given Thomson the boost to stardom while she was collaborating closely with Mary Pickford in 1921. The project hyped in this article was intended to co-star Brown with Thomson. It was to be titled “The Law of Life” and was initially slated to be directed by George Hill.

——— ——— ———

So Winnie Brown has become a motion picture actress.

“Do you like it?” I asked, when I had climbed to a seat beside her on the rail fence.

“Reckon I do. Course I’m scared plumb to death. Long’s I can stay by a hoss, I’ll git by all right. I’ve always wanted to take a chance on actin’.” 

——— ——— ———

☕ Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

——— ——— ———

Working Filmography for Winna/Winnie Brown:

The Prairie Trail (1913, short) [source(s): Variety, 31 October 1913]

Campaigning with Custer (1913, short) [source(s): Motion Picture Story, December 1913]

Reuben’s Busy Day (1914, featured role) [source(s): Moving Picture World, 14 November 1914]

Captain Courtesy (1915, character role: “Indian Servant”) [source(s): The Billboard, 10 April 1915; Variety, 16 April 1915; Moving Picture World, 17 April 1915; Motography, 24 April 1915; Moving Picture World, 25 January 1919; Motion Picture News, 1 February 1919]  

Aunt Matilda Outwitted (1915, possible character role) [source(s): Moving Picture World, 5 June 1915]  

When Quality Meets (1915, character part) [source(s): Motion Picture News, 5 June 1915; Motion Picture News, 19 June 1915; Moving Picture World, 10 July 1915]

The Law of Life (1923, unfinished) [uncompleted Frances Marion, Fred Thomson, George Hill production. source(s): Motion Picture News, 5 August 1922; Photoplay, May 1923]

Bella Donna (1923, double for Pola Negri) [Photoplay, May 1923; Pictures and the Picturegoer, June 1923; Picture-Play Magazine, September 1923]

The Eagle’s Feather (1923, character role) [Camera, 23 June 1923]

The Siren of Seville (1924, double for Priscilla Dean) [Le Film, April 1926]

Maybes:

Even Unto Death (1914)

Any of the films made by the Albuquerque Film Company involving Dot Farley between 1913 and 1916 likely featured work from Brown in some capacity. While this film  is noted on Brown’s imdb page, I couldn’t locate a contemporary source that named Brown or described a feminine role of Brown’s type.

Hearts and Saddles (1917) and/or A Roman Cowboy (1917)

When Tom Mix left Selig and signed a contract with Foxfilm in 1917, some of his first films there were reportedly shot at Brown’s ranch in Silver Lake, California. These were Mix’s first two films for Foxfilm and may have been fully or partially shot on her property. Whether or not Brown contributed to the films beyond leasing her property to Fox remains to be seen, but it’s probable. Brown is quoted in an article in Photoplay from November 1927 stating that she stunted for Mix in the past, though the stunt she mentioned involved a train trestle and neither of these films contain train stunts (based on their copyright descriptions preserved by The Library of Congress).

Also potentially filmed on Brown’s ranch:

One Touch of Sin (1917) Moving Picture World, 20 January 1917 [implies this was shot at one of Fox’s “west coast studios,” followed by the news item about Mix moving in]

Fires of Conscience (1916) Motography, 23 September 1916 [mentions Silver Lake locale]

As yet unidentified work:

A Tom Mix film where a woman performs a stunt on a train (potentially jumping from a horse onto a moving train). Since Brown previously worked in New Mexico and Mix was working all over the west (including NM) before 1917, there are a lot of possibilities here. [Photoplay, November 1927]

Double work for Norma Talmadge, Lois Wilson, Colleen Moore, Bebe Daniels, Corinne Griffith, and Marie Prevost

——— ——— ———

Citations Chronologically (with minor annotations):

“Film Flashes” in Variety, 31 October 1913 (The Prairie Trail)

Motion Picture Story Magazine, December 1913 (Campaigning with Custer)

“Warner’s to Inaugurate New Service” in Moving Picture World, 14 November 1914 (Reuben’s Busy Day)

“United Film Service Is Now Well Under Way” in Motion Picture News, 12 December 1914

“New Combination of Producers” in Motography, 12 December 1914

“The Albuquerque Company” in Moving Picture World, 10 July 1915

Moving Picture World, 13 February 1915 (listed as part of United Film Service’s roster)

“Farnum in Capt. Courtesy” in The Billboard, 10 April 1915 (Captain Courtesy)

“Dustin Farnum in Captain Courtesy” in Moving Picture World, 17 April 1915 (Captain Courtesy)

“United Film Service” in Moving Picture World, 5 June 1915 (Aunt Matilda Outwitted)

Motion Picture News, 5 June 1915 (When Quality Meets, shot the rodeo)

“One-Reeler Features Messenger Boy” in Motion Picture News, 19 June 1915 (When Quality Meets)

“The Albuquerque Company” Moving Picture World, 10 July 1915 (When Quality Meets)

Motography, 23 September 1916 (Silver Lake ranch mentioned)

“Tom Mix Will Make Foxfilm Comedies” in Motography, 6 January 1917

“Tom Mix Joins Fox Films” in Moving Picture World, 6 January 1917

“Tom Mix Is With Fox Comedy Company” in Motion Picture News, 13 January 1917

Moving Picture World, 17 January 1917 (also Tom Mix)

Moving Picture World, 20 January 1917 (Tom Mix and Gladys Brockwell films on her ranch)

“The Corral” in Billboard, 1 March 1919 (short news item about relocating to Nogales, Arizona)

“United” in Motion Picture News, 5 August 1922 (“The Law of Life”)

“Stunting Into Stardom” in Photoplay, December 1922

“Questions and Answers” in Photoplay, May 1923 (“The Law of Life”)

Photoplay, May 1923 (news item about doubling in Bella Donna)

Pictures and the Picturegoer, June 1923 (Bella Donna) 

“Who’s Who and What’s What in Filmland This Week” in Camera, 23 June 1923 (The Eagle’s Feather)

Picture-Play Magazine, September 1923 (Bella Donna)

“Girls Who Risk Their Lives” in Picture-Play Magazine, March 1925 (article about women stunters, does not cite specific Brown films)

Le Film, April 1926 (article about prominent stunt doubles)

“Risking Life and Limb for $25” in Photoplay, November 1927 (Tom Mix anecdote)

[scavenger-cinephile]

With just over a week left of March, I thought I'd share your April challenge in case you'd like to look to the month ahead. Happy watching!

April always kicks off with April Fools' Day, so why not start the month with a comedy? Some suggestions.

It's World Book Day is this month! Watch a movie about an author, or one adapted from a book.

It's also International Record Store Day! Watch a movie starring or about a musician, or about music in general. Some suggestions.

New to classic cinema? Watch a movie off this list of classic films for beginners.

The Fall Guy comes out this month! Watch a movie famous for its stunts. Some suggestions here and here.

Watch a coming of age movie.

Challengers comes out this month too! Watch a movie about a love triangle or throuple. Some suggestions.

Watch a movie under 90 minutes. Some suggestions.

The art of hair and make up is often underappreciated in cinema. Watch a movie where hair is a character.

Watch a film with a place in the title i.e. Sunset Boulevard, Rye Lane, Central Station, etc.

[rokhal]

College is a Scream

All-New Ghost Rider meets Scream, set when Robbie is like 20 and Lisa is in college. Part 1 of ? Posting this now in case I don't finish the rest. Thanks @wazzappp for troubleshooting this!

The first time Lisa O’Toole narrowly escaped being stabbed to death, she was walking alone across the UCLA campus on a breezy October night, chatting on the phone to a member of the student advisory committee doing a survey.

“Again, sorry to bother you so late,” the other student was saying. He cleared his throat and Lisa heard a wuffling sound, like wind across a microphone. Maybe that was from her end. “We’re just trying to take everyone’s preferences for activities into account. Uh, do you like movies?”

Lisa laughed. The guy on the other end seemed so earnest, and she could picture him crouched in his dorm room by the light of his desktop, working his way through a script and a list of numbers. Had to be such a drag. “Pretty sure everybody likes movies.”

“Any movies?”

Lisa was getting better at catching sexual innuendo. “Most movies.”

“How about scary movies?”

“Oh, you bet your bottom I do!”

She could practically hear the other student grinning back at her over the line. “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

Lisa bounced on her toes as she crossed a courtyard and approached the gap between the art building and the theater building. “Omigosh. That’s so hard. That’s a hard choice. Like, what’s my favorite good scary movie, or which do I watch the most, or what do I recommend to a friend or what’s the best one for a party? A party, you know, I think you want late eighties/early nineties pop-culture schlock. Like Chucky. It’s not too hardcore for a large audience, and the effects hold up, and there’s a lot going on, like with the serial killer practicing hoodoo to tie himself to the living world. Or, maybe? Elm Street II. Nightmare. If you know the behind-the-scenes story before you start, the queer cinema story, it like blows you away, and the body horror? The transformation scene where Freddy Krueger tears his way out of Jesse’s body and possesses him? Umph. Haunting. And his kinda-girlfriend has the same name as me, and she survives. Or, wait, did you mean the movie that scared me the most? I’ll be honest...you still can’t beat The Brave Little Toaster.”

“How about the Stab franchise?” the student prompted, his voice going a bit growly.

Lisa squeaked. “I love Stab! They’re so cheesy. Stab V is my favorite, it’s like the best take on time travel in cinema, it’s totally underappreciated.”

The line fell silent for a bit and Lisa checked her reception as the tree-lined walkway narrowed between the massive theater building and a freestanding wall that cupped a little wooded park at the end of the art building. “Every Stab movie starts with a phone call. A stranger calls a woman alone, seeming friendly until he suddenly ropes her into a sadistic game. So...Lisa—”

Was that movement beyond that stupid cinderblock wall up ahead? Lisa slung her purse off her shoulder and let it dangle low and heavy from her free hand. “Gotta-go-nice-chatting-call-you-back-bye!” she hissed, hanging up. It was awfully narrow between the little park and the theater building. Awfully dark, with the security lights casting harsh shadows in exactly the wrong places.

There was no law against hanging out in parks. Could be somebody sleeping rough, shooting up, waiting to meet somebody for a deal—but this wasn’t Hillrock Heights, Lisa reminded herself. On campus, nobody should have any business lurking around in the dark.

The brightly lit street was less than fifty yards ahead. Turning back would mean turning her back on whoever this was. It was probably just a couple students making out, anyway. “Hey,” Lisa called, so as not to startle whoever it was. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she silenced it, wishing she’d worn something with pockets today. She backed toward the theater building, watching the wall as she went.

No one there as she started to round the corner, just darkness and trees. She kept watching over her shoulder as she passed by, and just as she was about to look away toward the street, someone dressed in black with a shining, twisted face charged out from behind the wall. Lisa shrieked and swung her purse and struck the figure with a crack. They dropped slacklimbed to the pavement and lay still.

It was a person in a Ghostface costume, with the screaming mask and black robe and mall-ninja hunting knife and the whole bit. Not a monster, not La Leyenda, not a gang member on steroids, but a fellow student. “Oh no.” Probably some twisted fraternity prank. “Oh no!” And Lisa had gone and gotten herself involved.

She could just leave the guy there. But he’d been unconscious for thirty seconds already. That was bad. If she left him here and he died, no-one would know, but she’d know, and that would set a bad precedent. She called campus security as she kicked the knife away from the student’s slack grip.

“So, like, I was walking to my bus stop from the library and there’s this guy just lying there in a Halloween costume,” Lisa explained after greeting the dispatcher. “He’s not answering me? I think somebody needs to check on him.”

“Is he breathing?” the dispatcher demanded.

Lisa crouched behind the student’s back and watched it rise and fall. “Yeah. Like, can I go? It’s kinda creepy out.”

“Please stay with him until first responders arrive,” the dispatcher requested. “Clear any obstructions away from his nose and mouth. You need to be ready to answer questions.”

Crap, crap, crap. Lisa pulled the mask off the student’s face; it was a guy, looked like an upperclassman, white, eyes open but unfocused, blood dribbling down his scalp. “But my bus is coming!” she lied. She turned on her phone flashlight and checked the outside of her purse for blood: nothing. Looked like the guy’s hood had caught it all; small favors. This was really bad.

“You have to stay with the unconscious person!” the dispatcher insisted. “You could be legally liable for abandonment if you walk away!”

“Okay, okay,” Lisa said, stepping around to the non-staring side of the man’s face. “I’ll stick around. It’s just really creepy here, okay?”

“You’re doing the right thing. Paramedics are on their way.”

As sirens wailed in the distance, Lisa fished her lucky brick out from the bottom of her purse and threw it as hard as she could into the park. “Crap.”

[frogayyyy]

10 and 13 for my prompt list?

thank u for making this cool prompt list!! :D

10. character you relate to

i know it's cliché (for a good reason!!!) but

jo march 🥰

i read little women when i was younger and immediately wanted to cut my hair off and wear boys clothes and read a million books and and and

i actually relate to beth (rip) more than jo tbh but i chose jo because i was thinking just the other day about That Scene in this movie adaptation where she talks about her loneliness

that scene always hit me hard, i cried when i watched it at the cinema (coincidentally just a few hours after i came out to my sister) and it just always sticks in my mind :]

13. underappreciated character

literally any woman on star trek 😔 but i'm going to choose.......

GUINAN!!!!!!!!

she is literally the coolest person on that entire ship. she just swoops in every other episode, gives better advice than the actual counsellors (sorry deanna troi i love you it's not ur fault <3), and then mixes you the most beautiful cocktail you've ever seen. i love her.

also i love her relationship with ro laren (another underappreciated character!!)

(also i think el-aurians are cool and i want to see more about them)

send me a number from this female character appreciation prompt list and i'll answer with a character i love :]

[nicki0kaye]

I RB'd that matt painting post like two hours ago and several ppl have since reblogged it and added tags about how blown away they are by those paintings and it just

it brings me such joy

look at that beautiful art, all the hard work put into this absolutely crazy achievement of cinema. regain a bit of knowledge of the craft that's been lost to time and obscured by CGI (which is still extremely hard work, underappreciated and routinely and systematically exploited by studios).

appreciate how far we've come and what we take for granted

movies are magic

[madhogthymaster]

Brain Bubble: That Time Willem DaFoe Klaus Kinski'd The Nosferatu!

One night, I was in a F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens mood. As such, I watched Shadow of the Vampire (2000), directed by E. Elhias Merhige, which is about the making of the original 1922 German Expressionist film movement's masterpiece. John Malkovich plays Murnau and Willem DaFoe is Count Orlok actor, Max Schreck. There's a smaller yet almost show stealing role for a young Eddie Izzard as Gustav von Wangenheim, the lead in Nosferatu. The hook is that Schreck is an actual vampire who's pretending to be playing a vampire.

Aside from the obvious (and extremely self-indulgent) commentary on the idea of Cinema as the art form that captures, twists and reimagines Reality, film school's "The Camera is a Weapon" drivel, as well as a century's worth of Male Gaze rhetoric, this was a fun watch. Good cinematography, clever use of transitions between coloured and B/W footage, along with exceptional acting performances from everyone involved, carry it to the finish line. It has the distinct veneer of what used to pass as *pretentious* in festival circuits back in the day, which seems all rather cute by modern standards, but it does strike true on the subject of Auteur culture and its harmful implications. Incidentally, did you know that notable life-endangering "Artìste" Werner Herzog directed his own remake of Nosferatu in the 1970's and that it starred Klaus Kinski, one of the most infamously difficult actors of all time? My, what an interesting little fact! You cannot see me but I am winking.

Anyway, it's a treat to revisit Shadow of the Vampire as it is an underappreciated gem from a time when movies used to run elaborate credit sequences at the start instead of the end. Also, I deliberately buried the lead on DaFoe as The Nosferatu: a play ranging between farcical, creepy and melancholic. I would say it is worth your time and I did enjoy the climactic final scene regardless of how "clever" it tried to be. There aren't many works of fiction out there specifically about Nosferatu and German Expressionist cinema. I'll take what I can. As an addendum, I am looking forward to Robert Eggers' own take on the original bootleg vampyr and I do find it extremely funny that Willem DaFoe will also be in it... in a role that's not the actual vampire. You've got to love 24 years old in-jokes.

[quarkslobes]

deep space 9!

ok here we go:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

it used to be odo but now by far sisko, mainly because the benny russell plotline is my absolute favorite star trek plot ever. is he sisko or benny.... if he ascended to the prophets or whatever did he create benny?? if benny russell was a real author in strange new worlds... what does that mean. "you are the dreamer and the dream" is rotating in my microwave brain constantly. odo is still my emo repressed babygirl though.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

if couples count, worf and jadzia. yes they can and have gotten away with murder yes i still want to put them in a little jar on my desk. they're legitimately one of the best written tv couples ever. worf is the wife and jadzia is the husband though

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

damar, im not saying hes a good person or anything but his arc was so interesting to me and he did have his very good moments at the end

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

rom and leeta. roms development was also SO good and leeta is the cutest side character ever i love her. like star trek does not get better than wimpy alien man finding his passion for engineering and falling in love with his hooters waitress wife who helps him form a union. that was peak cinema

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

i cant think of a character that's necessarily unpopular... maybe lwaxana?? i know she was like a minor villain in tng but i loved her in that ep where she hung out with alexander, and her friendship with odo later on in the show was actually super cute to me. she is a queen idc what tng says. headcanon she's still like alexanders cool aunt and worf is very tired.

also near the end... kai winn?? i do not like her or think she was a good person at all but i did feel bad for her for maybe two seconds near the end. i dont know she spent her life wanting to talk to god only for some alien guy to become emissary so while shes evil and i hate her i kinda have pity for her so shes my meow meow idk

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

dukat for sure. i would drop dukat in hot soup. definitely the best written star trek villain though and marc alaimo is such a good actor, every time i watch a dukat ep im like how does alaimo act so well that i genuinely hate this man with a passion

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

kai winn. i know i just said shes my meow meow but i hate her i hate her. same thing with marc alaimo though, louise fletcher was such a good actor that for 45 minutes i hated her like she was real dude

[searchforgeek]

Dark City: An Underappreciated Neo-Noir Classic

🎬 Discover the hidden gem of neo-noir cinema! "Dark City" is an underappreciated masterpiece that blends sci-fi and film noir like no other. Check out our article on this atmospheric classic. 🔍🌆 #DarkCity #NeoNoir #CinemaGem

Memories of a gem In the realm of neo-noir cinema, a genre characterized by its dark, atmospheric storytelling and morally ambiguous characters, one film often finds itself overlooked despite its undeniable brilliance. “Dark City,” directed by Alex Proyas and released in 1998, stands as an underappreciated gem that deserves a closer look. With its mesmerizing blend of science fiction, film noir…

[filmyfriction]

5 Underrated Original Movies Of 2022 You Shouldn't Miss

A look back at the old year that once was new.

The landscape of cinema has been changing with the emergence of OTT platforms. With the audience and the filmmakers both still adjusting to the new ways, several of the gems are going underappreciated for one or the other reasons. Below are the five original films that stood out for their novel storytelling, but went unnoticed by many in the huge line-up of films. (In the order of their…

[msclaritea]

Directors, stop saying there's no CGI in your movies | Creative Bloq

"There was no CGI in Oppenheimer, right? Nor in Barbie. That's the impression that's been given about two of the biggest movies of the season. There's been a reaction against visual effects and it seems to have become something of a fashion for filmmakers to boast that they made their films the 'old-fashioned way'. 

It's perhaps understandable that, amid the explosion of AI image generation, the idea of making something without computer assistance is becoming attractive again. But it's not true, visual effects artists say. If Barbie used no CGI or VFX, why does the film have such a long list of visual effects artists in the credits? (and those are just the ones that got a credit).

This tweet is for @guardian and Shaad D'Souza: If you bothered to watch Barbie until the end credits you would have discovered that the film, which you claim has ‘almost no CGI or VFX’ has a credit list of 207 VFX artists and 5 VFX companies. Please also note that 3 out of the 5… pic.twitter.com/5bodtvGuPHAugust 3, 2023

The filmmaker and VFX supervisor Hugh Guerra wrote a post on Twitter in response to a Guardian article that was headlined '"It’s exactly as they’d have done it in the 1910s": how Barbenheimer is leading the anti-CGI backlash'. The article had commented on a spate of recent films using practical effects and prosthetics instead of CGI.

"If you bothered to watch Barbie until the end credits you would have discovered that the film which you claim has 'almost no CGI or VFX’ has a credit list of 207 VFX artists and 5 VFX companies." He said that three out of five companies listed had missing credits, so the complete number of artists would be longer. "Just like Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible, these films have hundreds of invisible VFX and CGI," he added.

Guerra's tweet provoked comments from VFX artists who worked on the film, including some who didn't get a name check in the credits. "People have no idea how broad the term 'VFX shot' is. There is no movie made today without VFX," one person replied. Someone else suggested "'Almost no CGI' tends to mean 'good CGI'. 'Almost no VFX' just doesn’t even really mean anything."

I watched it a few days ago, it's full of vfx 😂 The virtual production LED counts also as VFX, artists worked in Maya for the environment and I don't know how many used unreal 5. "Almost no CGI", really sad August 4, 2023

Some have suggested that it's a great compliment for the quality of the visual effects in the films if reviewers can't tell that they aren't real. However, others raise concerns that the so-called 'VFX-backlash' downplays the importance and contribution of VFX artists to film, which can provide an excuse to cut budgets, leading to poor VFX, which ends up being what people think VFX is.

"It's so sad to see how underappreciated VFX artists are. Especially since studios are being sucked dry and then when the effects are “subpar” they blame it on the artists without having any context," one person wrote. "VFX artists have given us some of the most iconic moments in cinema."

You all know how this started, don't you? It came from competing studios like Warner Bros Discovery just to use against Disney, as an attack on the quality, and an attempt to downgrade the value of superhero films...at least, the ones that came from Disney. Heaven forbid you find anything wrong in Snyderverse 🙄

The psychological effects to fans everywhere, to look forward to a film, only for a horde of corporate trolls online, tearing it apart, piece by piece is not fun, not cool and shouldn't even be legal. That damages a competitor's film in such a scummy way. I'll say again, it wasn't like that when I was younger. We could like what we wanted to. There weren't a bunch of raving lunatics trying to spoil a good time. As an aside, I'm sure the inevitable damage to the special effects industry was also a very big consideration.

[rockislandadultreads]

Read-Alike Friday: The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks

American Mermaid by Julia Langbein

Penelope Schleeman, a consistently broke Connecticut high school teacher, is as surprised as anyone when her sensitive debut novel, "American Mermaid"—the story of a wheelchair-bound scientist named Sylvia who discovers that her withered legs are the vestiges of a powerful tail—becomes a bestseller. Penelope soon finds herself lured to LA by promises of easy money to co-write the "American Mermaid" screenplay for a major studio with a pair of male hacks.

As the studio pressures Penelope to change "American Mermaid" from the story of a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clam bra, strange things start to happen. Threats appear in the screenplay draft; siren calls lure people into danger. When Penelope’s screenwriting partners try to kill Sylvia off entirely in a bitterly false but cinematic end, matters off the page escalate. Is Penelope losing her mind, or is Sylvia among us?

Antkind by Charlie Kaufman

B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, film-maker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he's convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.

All that's left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to recreate the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of "likes" and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bete noire and his raison d'etre.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

A #1 New York Times bestseller, this is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in Hollywood. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, this is a dazzling, yet deeply human roller coaster of a novel.