Friday, August 6, 2010

Cinema Within Cinema

There's the image based meme making the rounds on ye olde film blogosphere. And while I was never officially invited to play along (or "tagged" in internet speak), two of my favorite blogs, The Exploding Kinetoscope and Hugo Stigilitz Makes Movies sent an open invitation to anyone reading. So I put on my best lamp shade and joined the party.

Here are the rules of this meme:

1. Pick as many pictures as you want - but make them screencaps. These need to be moments that speak to you that perhaps haven't been represented as stills before.

I have to confess that the first one was stolen from a Google search since I own the film on Blu-Ray only, a format which is not compatible with my laptop.

2. Pick a theme, any theme.

It should be obvious from the stills and the title of this post, but I will discuss my parameters for this project in further detail below.

3. You MUST link to the original gallery at Checking On My Sausages and the gallery at The Dancing Image.

Consider thee linked.

4. Tag five blogs.

Since I was a party crasher, I would consider it unbecoming to invite a bunch of my unruly friends, but if you're reading this, have a website/blog and are interested, I can get you in through the back door. That means you President Obama!

FBI Warning: It gets a little NSFW up in here.

























So, obviously, the theme here is screencaps featuring a film being watched within a film. My two rules were that the film being watching needed to be framed within the frame of the film or have something occurring in the foreground of the frame so that you didn't think I just got lazy and screencapped Problem Child instead of the scene in Cape Fear where Max Cady watches it in hysterics (this eliminated 8 1/2, True Romance and Crimes and Misdemeanors), also it had to be projected, no TV. My other rule is that it had to be a film in my DVD collection. Which sadly eliminated Sullivan's Travels, Matinee and Spirit of the Beehive (note to self, pick up all three DVDs).

Here are the films that were screencapped

Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino)*
The Monster Squad (1987, Fred Dekker)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson)
The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bogdonavich)
Gremlins (1984, Joe Dante)
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985, Tim Burton)
Friday the 13th-The Final Chapter (1984, Joseph Zito)
Ed Wood (1994, Tim Burton)
Twelve Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam)
Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly)
The Player (1992, Robert Altman)
Day for Night (1973, Francois Truffaut)
CQ (2002, Roman Coppola)
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999, Trey Parker)
Cape Fear (1991, Martin Scorsese)
Stardust Memories (1980, Woody Allen)
Bowfinger (1999, Frank Oz)
Boogie Nights (1997, Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Sugarland Express (1974, Steven Spielberg)
Blow Out (1981, Brian DePalma)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
American Werewolf in London (1981, John Landis)
Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)
Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder)

*surprisingly for all the discussion of film and pop culture in his movies, this is the only Tarantino film that I believe shows someone actually watching a film in a theatre. Jackie Brown shows Robert Forester leaving the Del Amo theatre and many films are watched on TV in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, but no scenes inside a theatre.

6 comments:

Stephen said...

Very nice indeed.

It's a strange sensation for them to be an extension of us as a cinema audience.

Joel Bocko said...

This is one of my favorite responses. And while I usually just take the pictures in isolation here I was eager to find out which images belonged to which films (let alone the films being watched...).

Your sidebar is fantastic by the way - any film universe which can contain and celebrate the Muppets alongside Jaws alongside Killers of Sheep alongside Deep End is my kinda place.

P.S. Looks like there's one identification missing, though - the one between Day for Night & South Park.

vision said...

That one looks to be CQ.


Wonderful collection of stills! I will have to add Gremlins watching Snow White to my collection of such devices.

Colonel Mortimer said...

Thanks everybody for the nice feedback, I really enjoyed this project.

And yes, vision, is correct that was CQ, I will edit the post to correct it.

Mummbles said...

whoa you are a popular blog! keep up the good work!

KineticFrames said...

Very inspired idea! Found your blog via The Dancing Image and have been impressed with your posts. I'll be returning to your blog frequently!

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