Tag: Film History

Various and Sundry

Spare an Obol for Charon as you Shed Tears in the Rain: RIP, Vangelis

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

The ferryman guided a special soul across the river earlier this week. Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou, known to professionally as Vangelis, died this past Tuesday at the age of 79. You can read remembrances, appreciations, and obituaries from: Rolling Stone AP BBC NPR Variety The AV Club Many a cinephile will know Vangelis immediately, but for many of us, we came of age and found our love for both film and film music right when Vangelis…

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Various and Sundry

An Instrument Which, By Definition, Is a Blast to Play

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Okay, I was going to post something else today, but then thanks to Andrew M. Edwards of Blue Police Box Music, you’re getting a short, but so, so sweet video. There was an online discussion of the upcoming ultra-HD release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and conversation, quite naturally, turned to the iconic score by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Now, Goldsmith loved “esoteric instruments” as this article points out — and for the noise of…

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Various and Sundry

Film Genre Popularity Over the Decades

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Bo McCready has done every cinephile a solid by taking film genre data (as tagged on IMDb) and creating this visualization via Tableau. Now, considering that this is over 100 years’ worth of films… and thousands and thousands of films, this is quite interesting. However, if you look at the visualization above, you’ll see a given genre waxing and waning in relation to its maximum percentage of the overall number of films released that year…

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Various and Sundry

Historical Gold from the Silver Screen

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

As I’ve mentioned various times, my dad made sure we saw many of the classic and not so classic films from bygone ages. I mean, I’ve seen pre-Russian Revolution films using stop-action animation of insects for crying out loud! Now, besides such curiosities and rattling good stories, these films provided de facto period pieces: they were recording the here and now of an era long past –in human terms– with details quite unknown to me.…

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Acting Raves

Let’s Go Over the Bonus Situation: Remembering Yaphet Kotto

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

An actor whose magnetic presence matched or exceeded his six foot, four frame, Yaphet Kotto has died at the age of 81. Remembrances can be found across the internet, including: Variety Hollywood Reporter Showbiz 411 The Guardian New York Times While it’s almost certain I first saw Kotto in Alien, the performance that will always stick with me was seeing him on stage as Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences. Through all the power, fragility,…

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Various and Sundry

“Every [film] has to come to an end, sometime.”

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I think L. Frank Baum (the source of the amended quotation above) would understand. Like books, songs, and many other an enjoyable thing: all things come to an end. Thanks to one of my siblings, I have a glorious poster of assorted iconic film endings hanging in my house. Who doesn’t love a really solid ending to a film? Whether it’s funny, poignant, thought-provoking, or applause-inducing, a satisfying ending is what so often makes a…

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Producing

Bringing the Real and the Imagined Alive: Remembering Michael Apted

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

When you talk with your filmmaking peers, it comes as no surprise they have always have a few filmmakers they follow closely, perhaps someone who isn’t necessarily a household name… or even necessarily an art house movie theater name. Michael Apted was one of those filmmakers for me. He died at the age of 79, earlier in January (I’m just getting to writing this post now). You can read obituaries and remembrances from the BBC,…

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