americana

Again in honor of gift-giving times, here’s a book that was given to me by the lovely Africia H. Before I even got to reading the film history inside, I was struck by the layouts of its pages:

  

    

 

Thanks again, Africia! There are some great stills in the book, little works of art in themselves.

Everett Aison, its designer, was also a screenwriter and director, an author, a designer of title sequences and film posters, and co-founder of the School of Visual Arts Film School.  That’s just the kind of multifaceted involvement in media, and film in particular, that I admire…

bleak house

I’m not often faced with the prospect (good or bad) of a book I’m fond of being made into a movie, so the two media remain clearly separated in my mind.  It was a unique and confusing experience, then, to see stills from the upcoming film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  Director John Hillcoat’s vision looks a hell of a lot like the images in my mind of the story. Thinking logically, it’s not really surprising, given McCarthy’s clear & in-depth descriptions, but somehow it is still surprising, as if someone staged photographs from some creepy dream you had once that haunted you for a while.   They gave me goosebumps.  How often do physical images, not those in your mind, actually give you goosebumps?

It seems strange to say you look forward to seeing a film that’s bound to be thoroughly bleak and terrifying, but the people involved make me intrigued, as do these: