Link Dump

Well, tonight was beer club, so I’m not quite in shape to do anything particularly detailed. Here are some interesting links I’ve run across of late:

  • Titles in search of a script – So apparently Stanley Kubrick used to keep a running list of potential ideas for movies called “Titles in Search of a Script”. Some examples:

    PARTITION MAGIC

    (Five vehicles for Sharon Stone. Partition Magic was the name of a software package in the days of DOS that almost allowed you to run two programs concurrently.)

    ONLY MINISTERS OF THE THIRD REICH MAY USE GREEN INK

    (Stanley read somewhere that this was, in fact, true. He thought it would make a great art house double bill with Wim Wender’s 1971 film, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.)

    COFFIN NOT INCLUDED

    (A 1940s noir thriller. When I was researching props for the morgue scene in Eyes Wide Shut I had a catalogue from a company that supplied funeral parlour equipment. One of the illustrations showed a bier with a coffin on it. The caption read: “The Excelsior Bier (coffin not included.)”)

    SOME LIKE IT COLD

    JACK THE SNIFFER

    (An intriguing double-bill for forensic science buffs.)

    And lots of others. I would totally see all of these movies.

  • Martin Scorsese’s Film School: The 85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film – I’ve only seen about 20 of these movies, which I find represents about an average percentage of movies I’ve sen when it comes to lists like this. Still an interesting list.
  • Weyland Industries – Not a lot of stuff her just yet, but fans of Aliens will get a kick out of this website, which features, among other things, a spoof of a TED Talk given by Sir Peter Weyland.
  • Future Doorknobs or Lack Thereof – John Scalzi does this thing every year where he answers reader questions, and this guy asks him a hysterically funny question:

    It appears to be a near-universal assumption by science fiction writers, directors, and producers, that there exists a set of precipitating events leading to our complete abandonment of doorknob technology. Do you share this assumption? Would you be willing to speculate on the reason for this assumption, or on the nature of the developmental pathway? Do you foresee any significant downsides, should this eventuality come to pass?

    Awesome question and Scalzi comes up with a decent answer.

  • Filmmakers weren’t always gibbering idiots when it comes to ratings – An interesting counterpoint to the likes of documentaries like This Film Is Not Yet Rated, based on a DVD extra. Some interesting quotes from filmmakers, like this gem from David Cronenberg:

    Well, every picture that I’ve done has originally gotten an ‘X’ here in the States. But you have to understand that I live in Ontario, Canada, which used to be the most liberal province and now is the most restrictive. So I have to agree, or let me amplify what John [Carpenter] was saying. When I came down here to talk to the MPAA about ratings, it was still a relief compared with what happens in Ontario, which is where they take your picture. They take every print. And they cut it. And they hand it back to you and they say this is your new movie. They keep the pieces that they’ve taken out—and you go to jail for two years if they’re projected, if you put the pieces back. And that’s real censorship.

    Interesting stuff.

That’s all for now!