WALKING DEAD - tv series from the American Movie Channel

WALKING DEAD, or: EPIPHANY ON DEATH: A SIMPLE REQUEST

In NYC, lots of infrastructure
already looks abandonned.
It's not hard to imagine
the zombie apocalypse
envisioned on so many channels--

But the apocolypse
comes quickly, so there is actually
less time for rot and decay;
Things will still be shiny.

However I go, however I die,
let me lie down first
and look at the sky.

That's all I want
it's all I ask
a simple request.


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From Wikipedia:

The Walking Dead is an American television drama series developed by Frank Darabont. It is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The series stars Andrew Lincoln as sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, who awakens from a coma to find the world dominated by flesh-eating "walkers", resembling the zombies of George A. Romero's horror movies. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way.

The Walking Dead premiered on October 31, 2010 on the cable television channel AMC in the United States.^[Based on its reception, AMC renewed the series for a second season of 13 episodes, which premiered on October 16, 2011. Two episodes into the second season, AMC announced that the show would return for a third season, which began airing on October 14, 2012.

AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD

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Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (original title)
German
Director: Werner Herzog


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AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD

Rain that is
not rain
is not rain.

An arrow that is
not an arrow
can kill you.

A ship that is not
a ship
is actually a ship

adrift in a tall tree.

A bible is
the words of God
but does not speak.

Malaria and enemies
unseen, destroy
from without

and from within
all but Aguirre:
A horror film.

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W.

Welcome to my first attempts to add MOVIE TRIVIA.

Quote from the film: Don Lope de Aguirre: "That man is a head taller than me. That may change."

Using minimalist story and dialogue, the story of Aguirre, the Wrath of God follows Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. Some of the people and situations may have been inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal's account of an Amazonian expedition, but it is mostly a work of imagination and improvisation.

Aguirre was the first of five collaborations between Herzog and the volatile Kinski. The director and the actor clashed throughout the film. Kinski's tantrums terrorized both the crew and the natives.The production was shot entirely on location and was fraught with difficulties. Filming took place in the Peruvian rainforest and on the Amazon River during an arduous five-week period. Cast and crew climbed mountains, cut through jungle and rode treacherous river rapids on rafts.

Aguirre opened to widespread critical acclaim, and quickly developed a large international cult film following. It was given an extensive arthouse theatrical release in the United States in 1977, and remains one of the director's best known films. Several critics have declared the film a masterpiece, and it has appeared on Time magazine's list of "All Time 100 Best Films".

 

The film was made for US$370,000, on a stolen 35 mm camera, with one-third of the budget paying for Kinski's salary.^[

MELANCHOLIA (2011)

 Director: Lars von Trier;  Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland
 
 
 
MELANCHOLIA
 
If Tarkovsky
made a chick-flik
this would be it

"Hugo," 2011, directed by Martin Scorsese, in 3D

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HUGO


Scorcese's "Hugo"
was a mess, took forever to get to
the point. I went there to see
Georges Méliès, but the film
kept me waiting and waiting.
Why were the British so French?
Why was that urchin so sweaty?
Call me old-school,

but I really do not like 3D
unless people are vomiting on-screen.

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Fanny and Alexander: (1984) Director Ingmar Bergman

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FANNY AND ALEXANDER

A vacuum formed in the core
of an actress
is too hastily filled
by a spiritual smile
attached

to a monstrous man.
Magic and the everyday,
finery and brocade,
nestled all together
like one big happy family
in a huge house, until the monster

had his way, and seduced
the actress away, along with
her hapless offspring
and tortured them.


In the end
family happiness is restored,
and very much in the family way,
when--with the aid of
smoke and mirrors,
and belief,
and theater--
the sinister smiler is slayed, yet

he does not die completely.
For he leaves behind
on the greasy underside
of reality

an unshakeable film


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Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso), 1964, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

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RED DESERT




He sees a red door and he wants to paint it black.
He sees a green field and he has to paint it grey.
What are the colors of the
spaces in between?
What is the texture of the pain
that is unseen?

He points out something that is not quite yet a fact.
He does it openly and yet behind your back.
Can you really tell a caress
from an attack? At random, people
circle, interact.


Cool colors fight with warm,
opening a crack.
Poison plumes of yellow smoke
roil up to scorch the sky; little birdies
have to learn to
fly the other way.


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METROPOLIS (1927, dir. Fritz Lang)

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METROPOLIS


Every bleak exciting city

emerging monochrome from the mist

owes a little debt

to Metropolis


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SYLVIA SCARLET (1935) starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant


Early in their careers,
Cary conjures the crooked rogue
and Katherine the gender bender.

When the crooked rogue
and the gender bender
don't end up in bed together

you have nice sequences
but a misdirected picture,
and three times Grant and Hepburn

must couple up
to make up for this mistake:
once in 1940 and twice in 1938

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The Philadelphia Story (1940)


If you were Katherine Hepburn
and labeled "box-office poison"
what would you do?

Get your newly-sober ex
and James Stuart
competing for you?

And what if, say, some guy
who used to be a miner
slipped a rock around your finger?

When you're in it, and the sun's
in your blodshot eye--
and people are calling you

"remote," "goddess" and "heartless"
left and right--
it's hard to know who'll win

but admit, it's elementary:

Dismiss the stiff with the diamond,
have a dalliance with young James,
and re-marry Cary--

just like in the play.

That's how you save
an acting career
and win the day--

not to mention, an Oscar

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Chungking Express (1994)


--If movies are to amuse us, must they always have conclusions?--



People disappear
and reappear

without meaning
or warning.

People retreat.
People repeat.

People are incomplete.
Stories do not conclude

interlude leads to interlude.
In the absence of love

objects may amuse us--
soap with an eating disorder

a dishtowel that weeps,
conspicuous sunglasses

and the mysterious comings and goings
of fish in a fishbowl

are witness
to an incomplete loneliness.

Daily life
like a shimmering flow

of incomplete brushstrokes
speeds round us, nonstop

yet if we slice that
open, isn't everyone

sealed in, alone, in slow-mo
with their troubles

which they love so



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view trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo_WlQ7OVSU

Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes' first film

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Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes

Simply the best

French New Wave cinema

ever to be made (in America)

--and all that jazz!!!


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clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-rv2Or3YE&feature=related

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Ecstasy (1933) (Czech)

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Ekstase (1933), a/k/a Ecstasy

In The Most Whispered About Picture In The World
a marriage begins and ends
without dialogue.

When the young bride returns, still chaste, to
her father's home, he asks her what happened,
and she tells him: Nothing.

Soon enough something happens.
Clothes are minor discarded details
shed as easily as the need for words

and skinny-dipping naturally leads
to cunnilingus; the first non-porn female orgasm
on film; censorship; confiscation at the border, and burning.

The face of a Jewish princess in climax
is, by 1935, still too scandalous,
but eventually

scenes are inserted
to make Ecstasy more socially acceptable:
A pre-fling divorce, and a daydream of a baby--

because marriage and babies
are sacred, and not to be polluted
by pleasure

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Nude swimming clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TnmjEFYuc&feature=PlayList&p=2ACDADB31DD47921&index=3

Sunrise (1927)

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)


The fantasy of sin, hedonism, seduction
is never nearer
than when a snaky vamp gyrates wildly
glistening in the moonlight
held in your arms above you
inches from your jugular

Your troubled wife weeps
in a country cottage nearby, but at the moment
you don't care

because when the aggressive
woman from the city
kisses you, you swoon like a woman,
feel sleek and beautiful
for the first time

enraptured by your submission;
empowered by the sinister eroticism
of your own weakness;
that, you never knew.
But now, you know--your role
is to adore the bobbed-hair
goddess, at any cost.

Too, the city itself tempts you--
streetcars, traffic, searchlights,
nights awash in colored neon,
sophisticated flappers with dark lips and
kohl lids, artists, dance halls bobbing with
ecstatic jazz, impossibly evil,
an orgy of sound and flesh
anonymous and stylish.


But then again, love never seemed so real
as the earth under you nails that nourishes the seeds
and feeds you; the sunshine yellow of an innocent's hair;
sharing simple joys and memories with
someone trusting and open, entrusted
to your care--


and so you come back
to earth

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"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
view clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zbEoyG02Hw&feature=related

Children of Paradise (1946)

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Children of Paradise (1946)


In the finale, isn't life

just like a

screaming mime

torn violently from his

spiritual bride?

Further and further

from his goddess

the bobbing horde pushes

him. They

are a violent sea of
white-clad revelers
whose ironic costumes proclaim:

If we sweep you in the wrong direction--

Too bad but don't blame us!

We are innocent, because we, too

are pure--!
We too, are spinning!
We too

love life while spinning dizzily

in the the wrong direction--

we, too--

are

French--!

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The Freshman (1925)

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The Freshman (1925) (starring Harold Lloyd)

If the pur-suit of happiness turns out to be so poorly sewn

it falls off your body in pieces

as you dance your Jazz-Age ass off

at the party, don't worry;

it doesn't matter that you

haven't read a book, or attended a class, other

than football practice--and that

your newly-bought friends laugh at you

behind your back; all that matters in the end

is that you learn one lesson well--that being:

how to pick the right girl

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Clip from "The Freshman" with commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGDNyj7VyY

Rain (1932) starring Joan Crawford

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Rain (1932)


Joan Crawford's drama-drenched
kinda street, kinda sweet Sadie
deconstructs morality

as the camera flows
with the liquid wit
of a lit sailor.

This "flop" was pre-code and
precocious; it's natural audience
wasn't born yet


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Homage to "Rain" on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k9wjqUtXm0&feature=PlayList&p=E04019D977A8B540&index=1

College (1927)

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COLLEGE (1927)


The brilliance of Buster Keaton
in this role
is making complete failure
at absolutely everything
look like only slight
exaggeration

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Accatone! (1961) (Italy) Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini

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ACCATONE! (1961)


Some pimps should just stay home.
Some pimps ain't got no luck.
This one hangs around in a slum
with his chums--so in fact

he doesn't leave home.
One day broke luckless Accatone
sees a nice girl
and is stunned.

He wants her
as she is, but he needs her
to making a living, so
to the streets she goes.


Disenchantment with his niche
leads Accatone to take a radical step
toward a more honest profession:
stealing.

but pimps aren't meant
to work
and it is
his undoing.

Everyone in this,
Passolini's first
movie,
is hungry, yet

their specific charm lies
in the inability
to imagine
food

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Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959); short; director Stan Brakhage

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Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959)


Since seeing this film
it strobes in a private
fold in the crevices of my brain;
a sexy scary and
almost nauseous depiction
of intimacy and forces
bigger than shadows darting and
coffee cups lifting
in throbbing repetition
to lips and the
silent in and out of everyday

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Entire film can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YkOBLj9NYY&feature=PlayList&p=5175804071EF730C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=36