I am the Pino from Nantucket

WHEW!

Wow, it's been a little while for me.  As my title says, we just got back from Nantucket for a long weekend on the island with my parents.  But I'm not really here to discuss my vacays and life in general... let's talk movies!

So before I left for the east coast, I finally go the opportunity to watch Battleship Potemkin.  The next day I was supposed to watch Man With A Movie Camera.   Both of which I think are those necessary movies to watch and appreciate early cinema.  Before watching Potemkin my TA had us watch another Eisenstein movie clip called Strike!... upon which part of the montage incorporated animal slaughter... geehhhh. 

I really enjoyed Potemkin.  It's sometimes hard to watch early cinema with the state of mind of an early cinema goer.  Part of the innovative techniques Eisenstein uses is the use of montage... or as something I think people today would understand is metaphor.  I think this old Chaplin movie, Modern Times, would kind of get the point across... you need to start the video at 1:11 with the sheep:

Where the cross fade or even if it were a straight cut from the sheep to people we get the impression that the people are herded or treated like sheep.  Ta freakin' da. 

When I got back to Iowa City, I checked out Man With A Movie Camera... wow I got that big overwhelming, surreal feeling just watching it.  Just because it has no story line really, and there's no one character to focus on for a period of time (except for maybe the man with the movie camera).  Interesting to me though was the version I got was accompanied by a score that was written about 10 years ago.  However, the images pretty much switched in que with the music.   So it must have been Vertov's purpose to have a rhythm.  Ok, let me back that up... I know that he purposefully had a rhythm, but I didn't think it would be that purposeful. 

Other than that, I didn't get a lot of movie watching done.  I am however reobsessing over Castle.  Wow I love Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.  As well as getting into Modern Family and absolutely FALLING IN LOVE WITH Arrested Development.  mmmmmm Portia DeRossi. 

Seriously... please have babies...