RIP Film Journal

Well some things have changed here in 2013.  I have decided, independent of anyone else to forgo my usual monthly film journal posts.  This is due largely to the fact that I'm a lazy bum and also I don't think anyone was particularly concerned.  Obviously if a huge outpouring of support for the film journal crops up I'll reconsider but otherwise consider it retired.  I will however be posting sporadic updates about what I've been watching which reminds me.

Catching Up on 2012

Here we are less than a month from the Oscars and I'm doing only moderately well on my research.  I've only seen four of the nine best picture winners thus far but I do have the remaining ones available.  In fact Argo is being released today on DVD/Blu-Ray so I guess I don't have to worry about catching that in the theater anymore.  I'll be fairly caught up with the actor/actress/director races once I get those last five films watched.

2011 was a year of massive disappointment in the world of music for me.  It seemed every band/artist coming off a great album put out a mediocre one in 2011.  Some of these ranged from passable to downright awful to the point where I just repeatedly lowered my expectations for everything I heard.  I'm starting to wonder if 2012 isn't in a similar boat when it comes to cinema.  Even some of the better films this year came from directors who were coming off of much better work.  Granted I'm sitting at about 30 films on the year so I'm a long way to making definitive conclusions but I can't help but feel like shrugging my shoulders at the whole year.

Of the underwhelming films I've seen this year would include one of the most recent ones I watched Les Miserables.  Granted my expectations weren't terribly high for the film, but that didn't stop me from praying for it to end.  I'm not sure when exactly it happened but there have been some recent trends in period pictures lately.  For starters there is more CGI in these films than the Star Wars pre-quels.  Even the first shot of Les Miserables starts with a bunch of prisoners pulling a boat that looks like it was straight out of the first God of War game, I mean almost identical really.  Maybe these effects are better hidden on a big screen but I couldn't help feeling like the film looked like a video game.  To be honest I don't understand how every single set looks fake and animated.  It isn't just Les Mis that's guilty of this, I suppose Gladiator probably started this trend but the human eye is incredibly good at spotting forgery.  How I long for the days when people built sets and shot in real locations.  This is one of the reasons why The Young Victoria looks even better by comparison.

The other thing I noticed is all of these films are cloudy.  I mean what gives, was the sun never shining in France?  I get that England is known for it's drab and rainy weather but even films that take place in other countries seem to adopt the British standard for historical pictures (same reason everyone in all these films has a British accent regardless of nationality).  Les Miserables is guilty of this as well, but maybe it's to show what a horrible time everyone was having. 

Most people look at the past as a time of smelly people who were plagued by disease and well the plague.  Remember when you'd see a film like Ben-Hur and there were some lepers?  Well they were pretty filthy right?  Well everyone else was clean, even when Ben-Hur was rowing those giant oars he was a bit unshaven but not terribly filthy.  Nowadays virtually everyone who isn't royalty is covered in shit like they just rolled around in raw sewage (which happens here as well).  You'd figure poor people living by the water would at least occasionally wash up and even the trashiest of prostitutes would at least take some time to make themselves look presentable other than wearing grotesquely comical makeup.  I mean I have no idea what they're basing their depiction of the past on, but personal hygiene wasn't THAT bad.  Well one of Les Miserables Oscar nominations is for best makeup so I guess people seem to like the whole rub dirt all over your actors style of makeup.

Anne Hathaway covered in dirt and nowhere near sunlight

Looking ahead

Well I've just stopped by my local library to rent a few movies and I'm excited about them.  Some of these movies I've been wanting to see for a long time but with the recent list research I had to put of watching anything for the first time.  I plan on tackling much more of Jonathan Rosenbaum's top 1000 which I deliberately put on hold for the last couple of months.  I'm also looking forward to catching Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World on a Wire.  So stay tuned for more of my witty and insightful commentary.