screenmachineblog

ISSUE 4 OF SCREEN MACHINE IS NOW ONLINE!

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:18:26 +1100

ISSUE 4 OF SCREEN MACHINE IS NOW ONLINE!:

From the editor — By Brad Nguyen

Special Article

The best films of 2012 — By Screen Machine contributors

Essays

Taking in Mike — By Huw Walmsley-Evans

Is The Hobbit even a film anymore? — By Robbie Fordyce

Reviews

Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” — By Brad Nguyen

Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” — By Elliott Logan

“Inside Nature’s Giants” — By Melanie Ashe

Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” — By Andrew Gilbert

Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” — By Whitney Monaghan

SCREEN MACHINE’S BEST FILMS OF 2012 11. The Extravagant...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:03:21 +1100

SCREEN MACHINE’S BEST FILMS OF 2012

11. The Extravagant Shadows
12. Barbara
13. Zero Dark Thirty
14. Headshot
15. Wuthering Heights
16. Back to Stay
17. Dark Horse
18. Himizu
19. Neighbouring Sounds
20. Marfa Girl

The whole list is available here.

SCREEN MACHINE’S 20 BEST FILMS OF 2012 Holy...

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 15:55:56 +1100

SCREEN MACHINE’S 20 BEST FILMS OF 2012

Holy Motors
Moonrise Kingdom
In Another Country
The Master
Tabu
I Wish
The Queen of Versailles
Cosmopolis
Prometheus
No

The whole list is available here.

“The question is: What is the function of the horror...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:22:00 +1100

“The question is: What is the function of the horror element in relation to this element of ordinariness? In Buffy, the horror functions fairly conventionally: the ghoul is a metaphor for something that threatens to upset the ordinary course of things (the overbearing mother who lives vicariously through her daughter, the teacher who seduces students, Internet predators, school bullying). It is Buffy’s function to “slay” these threats to ordinary life and return Sunnydale to a state of equilibrium. In Twilight, the horror functions differently. Though Edward warns Bella that his vampire-passion might cause him to destroy her, she nevertheless pursues him. When she becomes pregnant to a half-vampire baby that threatens to crush her body from within, she stubbornly refuses an abortion despite the protests of her family. The horror is not an external threat to Bella’s existence; it is an inherent part of her romantic utopia … Love in practice and as it is to be defended is always marked by a minimum level of risk, the danger of losing one’s self. To the extent that the penultimate film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn – Part 1, is alive to this dark underside to love, it must be defended as a bold piece of popular art.”

— Brad Nguyen, “LOVE IN ALL ITS HORROR,” Screen Machine 3.

Read the whole essay here.

“This scene is totally narratively isolated from all the...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:11:00 +1100

“This scene is totally narratively isolated from all the other scenes in the film, pays homage to concerns that are entirely external to the film, and engages in direct criticism of a number of cultural objects: star persona, pop music, masculine heterosexual objectification of women, and the drug-addled veterans of US military engagement … Yes, the narrative is bad, but it doesn’t matter. Kelly cuts to the core of character actors and generic styles in order to expose their radical potential for experimentation, and Southland Tales should be appreciated for this reason.”

— Robbie Fordyce, “TEXTUAL PROMISCUITY IS NOT A CRIME,” Screen Machine 3

Read the whole essay here.

"The task of the writers for this issue was to write on films they felt could not be categorised as..."

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:36:31 +1100

“The task of the writers for this issue was to write on films they felt could not be categorised as “good films” but that, nonetheless, had a redeeming quality or feature. The goal was to write positively about these “bad films,” not for the purpose of celebrating trash, but to identify points of possible resistance, those discrete moments when our commodity culture is beautiful in spite of itself.”

- “FROM THE EDITOR,” Screen Machine 3

THE LATEST ISSUE OF SCREEN MACHINE IS NOW ONLINE

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:51:25 +1100

THE LATEST ISSUE OF SCREEN MACHINE IS NOW ONLINE

Illustration by Badra Aji

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:25:43 +1100

Illustration by Badra Aji

Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:23:00 +1100

Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)

"The effort of the television crews to document for the live television audience every moment of the..."

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:20:46 +1100

““The effort of the television crews to document for the live television audience every moment of the Grand Prix allows the makers of Senna to do more than present the moment of the crash. The television crews’ footage provides enough material so that the filmmakers can deploy the grammar of reaction shots native to fictional filmmaking. Their use here of this grammar allows the movie to go beyond a mere presentation of the fact of the crash: it enmeshes us in the immediate experience of the present unfolding of the onlookers’ fear, hope, and then grief””

- Elliott Logan, “GHOSTLY PRESENCE”, Screen Machine, Sep-Oct 2012

Illustration by Badra Aji

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:50:00 +1000

Illustration by Badra Aji

"This is, and I know from personal experience, the great appeal of cinephilia for those who are..."

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:48:24 +1000

“This is, and I know from personal experience, the great appeal of cinephilia for those who are fundamentally lonely or sad or just generally disenfranchised in whatever way. People call it escapism, but I don’t think that’s right … The reason that lonely or sad or generally disenfranchised people chronically go to the movies is that it allows them to see a world full of excitement and beauty and love that’s only a tiny remove away from their own. Cinephilia as such is both symptom and cure, an expression of discontent with one’s world and a desire to find a way back to really living in it.”

- Phil Coldiron, “DESIRE: NOTES AND SKETCHES”, Screen Machine, Sep-Oct 2012

Illustration by Badra Aji

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:36:00 +1000

Illustration by Badra Aji

Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:28:00 +1000

Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:27:00 +1000

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)

"One of the alarming ideas of these films is that love does not conquer all. There are more powerful..."

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:25:08 +1000

“One of the alarming ideas of these films is that love does not conquer all. There are more powerful forces in the world capable of crushing it. Although the third act of Umbrellas of Cherbourg is titled “The Return”, we learn that Guy returns too late to reignite his love with Geneviève who has already married her older, richer suitor. In Tropical Malady, Keng dies in the jungle giving to the monster his “spirit, flesh and memories”. Love can be destroyed; memory is no guarantee for its endurance.”

- Brad Nguyen, “AFTER THE FILM”, Screen Machine, Sep-Oct 2012

SECOND ISSUE OF SCREEN MACHINE NOW ONLINE!

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:43:00 +1000

SECOND ISSUE OF SCREEN MACHINE NOW ONLINE!

Photo

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:25:23 +1000

"In Chronicle’s consumerist logic, Andrew’s burgeoning supervillainy is implicitly tied to his..."

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:23:47 +1000

“In Chronicle’s consumerist logic, Andrew’s burgeoning supervillainy is implicitly tied to his poverty. His difficult socio-economic circumstances, and his social neuroses derived thereof, resign him to existing outside the bourgeois cycle of planned obsolescence and upgrade: he cannot afford our metaphorical iPhone 4S.”

- James Douglas, “A NEW VERSION OF LIFE IS AVAILABLE. DO YOU WANT TO UPDATE NOW?” (review of Chronicle), Screen Machine, Jul-Aug 2012

Photo

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 13:40:12 +1000