The Little Match Girl--A Disney/Pixar Film

This weekend is Bede's third annual GoPlay Northwest gaming convention, and while he's come home late at light, Lucia and I are pretty much on our own during the day. School's out, camp hasn't yet begun, so I decided we'd do something we don't normally do: watch movies!

Lucia saw Disney's version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid for the first time on Friday, and we found this short film on the DVD based on Andersen's The Little Match Girl directed by Roger Allers, with music by Alexander Borodin:



You may read more about the film, including an interview with Roger Allers, in an article by Ron Barbagallo called Shedding Light on the Little Matchgirl. I have written permission from the author to link it here.

"Please Forward" short film

Please Forward is a short film about the booming chain-mail industry, directed by William R. Coughlan, produced by Pam W. Coughlan, a.k.a. MotherReader and written by Robin Brande. This film was part of the 48 Hour Film Project. I enjoyed watching this film and laughed out loud. I also got a kick out of Chain Mail International, the joke site created for the film.

I'm sending a link of this film to all of my friends. ("I usually don't do these things, but I just couldn't resist.")

Disney (TM) can just deal with it

Video: Hijacked Disney Characters Explain Copyright

I wasn't able to watch the entire 10 minute film through because the spliced clips of different characters explaining copyright laws and fair use policies made my teeth rattle in my skull. Still, I'm passing along the article and link to you because copyright, fair use and public domain issues are important to me. You've probably noticed that I stretch the "fair use" clause quite a bit for my children's book parodies. My blog has a Creative Commons license, too. As long as you're not making a profit off of my work (though really, someone should), you're welcome to use the items knocking around in my virtual treasure-chest of stories and songs.

Stockstock

Scott Dierdorf, the sharpest guy in a fishsuit you'll ever meet, is co-hosting the Stockstock Film Festival online this year. If you've ever had an itch to make a film, here's your free chance to do so.

Every year, Stockstock producers compile a film reel of stock film footage that they've collected from the Prelinger Archives. Festival entrants download the reel and create a 2-minute digital film using that footage. You can add audio or graphics, design new treatments, cut it up, tell a story -- basically, you are encouraged to abuse the reel as much as you can. The one catch is that you can only use the footage provided -- you can't introduce any other footage.* Amateur and experienced filmmakers alike have participated in the festival in the past, but Stockstock producers are hoping to expand their entrants and audience this year by making the footage available online.

The film reel is now available for download from stockstock.org, and entries are due Feb. 11. You can view past entries here. I'd hoped to make a Stockstock film this year, but as you know, I am still in mid-production with my puppet show. Gadzooks. The good news is that I'm busy with work on launching my storytelling business (a hobby business, but a business nonetheless).

*Unless you're one of the producers of the Stockstock Film Festival, in which case, you can cheat like dogs playing poker.

"Minaret" at the Local Sightings Film Festival

The husband of a good friend of mine has his first film, "Minaret," featured in the Northwest Film Forum’s 9th Annual Local Sightings Film Festival. Matthew Cibelli's 11 minute film is about a woman, an old man, and a "grim promise." It's filmed on location in Portland, Oregon. "Minaret" has already played at two other film festivals, and it's one of eight short films up for an award. I've seen "Minaret" on the small screen (i.e. computer laptop), and it looks good. As if that weren't enough, it sounds good, too. It sounds like a real movie.



"Minaret" is screening on Wednesday Oct. 11, 2006, at 9:30pm. The film is part of the ‘Collected Stories’ shorts grouping. If you're local, come see "Minaret" on the big screen. Because Seattle is such a low-key city compared to Hollywood, tiaras and designer gowns are strictly optional. As someone once wrote in a guide-book, dressing up in Seattle means wearing the clean pair of khakis.

Lambs of the Silence

I’ve only ever seen “Silence of the Lambs” once. After resisting it for years, I finally agreed to see it on a small screen with the understanding that I’d hide my eyes during all of the violent parts. (I practiced this method of movie-watching also with Friday the Thirteenth Part I, and was the only person at the birthday party who could get to sleep when the movie was over. After all, I did miss ¾ of the movie.) When Friday wrote in the comments section of my Backwards Films post, “I'd love to hear your take on the backwards version of something ghoulish, like Silence of the Lambs,” I knew I would need the help of a plot summary. Here, then, is my best shot:

The Lambs of the Silence

In a strange, alternative-futuristic world, Clarisse Starling, an FBI agent, gets demoted after letting anti-L'Oreal skin-care specialist “Buffalo Bill” get away to continue practicing his holistic treatments upon young women who are trying to shun the mainstream cosmetics market. She comes into contact with Hannibal Lector, a psychiatrist who is infamous for actually curing his patients instead of bilking them for all they’re worth. Hannibal Lector has been put in a maximum security prison, and yet he is constantly found to be healing the sick in mind and body. Clarisse has gone to Hannibal Lector to get help in finding Buffalo Bill again, because the senator’s daughter is in dire need of a chemical-free makeover. At last, the senator’s daughter finds Buffalo Bill, but despite all that Clarisse has tried to do, spurns Clarisse’s help. Clarisse is despondent, because she knows she will never be re-promoted to FBI agent, but she finds solace in moving out to the farm of her childhood. There, in a pastoral setting, Clarisse looks up into the clouds and finally finds peace and serenity in “the lambs of the silence.”

Backwards Films

Back in the olden days, if you played lps backwards (a.k.a. "records" for those of you born after 1988), you might hear some secret messages. However, if you play films backwards, you get totally different movies. Welcome to Backwards Films!

Here are a couple of my own contributions:

Flashdance
A dancer with the Pittsburgh ballet school tires of her prim, confining schedule, and decides to explore the realm of exotic dancing in nightclubs. Eventually, she discovers her true calling as a steel welder.

Grease
Sandy, a wild, spandex clad girl from Australia decides that a future with John Travolta is no future at all, and spurns him after watching him recklessly race his car backwards down Thunder Road. She straightens her hair, removes her make-up, and starts wearing dresses with Peter Pan collars. Rizzo, her best friend, feels betrayed by the change and gradually becomes more hostile toward her increasingly "square" friend. When all hope seems lost, Sandy and John Travolta meet upon a beach and kiss passionately. However, when John Travolta says, "This is only the beginning," Sandy responds that it is the end. And so it is.

Little Red Riding Hood: the short film

At last, Little Red Riding Hood starring Christina Ricci, Timour Bourtasenkov, and narrated by Quentin Crisp, is available for download. [2010 pdate: It's no longer available for download. This is what irritates me about the internet.] This short, creepy, non-rated film is based on an old, subversive version of the fairy tale. It's eleven minutes long, which was about the time it took me to download it onto my computer. I originally saw it when I lived in New York, just after my group house got basic cable. For three days, we had access to the Sundance Channel as part of an advertising effort to get us to upgrade our cable consumption. Although I was not an avid television watcher, I was indeed tempted.

Just so you know, I would recommend this film to adults (including young adults) who enjoy Tony DiTerlizzi's The Spider and the Fly and Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies. If you watch the film anyway, and feel icky afterward, you might want to watch the Nature Anthem video as an antidote. Then again, perhaps you'd rather shut down the computer and read a good book.

Arithmetic is where numbers fly

Throughout my childhood, I had seen Carl Sandburg from time to time. He had white hair, a craggy face, and under his arm, he carried a book about Abraham Lincoln. He was a well-known eccentric poet. I didn't pay him much mind. We didn't become properly introduced until my first professional library stint in New York City. For my children's services speciality seminar, we watched the six minute film "Arithmetic," animated by Lynn Smith. Carl Sandburg narrated it. In six minutes, I was smitten.

I have mixed-feelings about sharing the link to the film "Arithmetic." It is a rare film and I'm surprised that the "clip" is actually the entire film (via RealPlayer, alas.) As a librarian, I want to share the film with everybody, but I am also a little bit shy about doing so. "Arithmetic" is the film that made me starry-eyed over Carl Sandburg. It may tickle your fancy, or it may do nothing at all for you. That's fine.

I love it.

If you can't see the film or listen to Carl Sandburg's voice, here at least is the poem for you to read:

Arithmetic

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.

Arithmetic tell you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before you lost or won.

Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven -- or five six bundle of sticks.

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky -- or the answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again and see how it comes out this time.

If you take a number and double it and double it again and then double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.

Arithmetic is where you have to multiply -- and you carry the multiplication table in your head and hope you won't lose it.

If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?

If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is better in arithmetic, you or your mother?

--Carl Sandburg

01/04/08: The video link no longer works. Regrets.