Our friends at Grolsch Film Works have a website where you can find out what they’ve been up to and read/watch interesting stuff about films. Every week we’ll be plucking the highlights. This is that.
TOP TEN BLUE HAIR ON FILM
Videos by VICE
Changing one’s hair style has long been a trope of the make-over sequence (look at poor “tragically unhip” Tai in Clueless or Sandy’s godawful poodle perm in Grease). Blue hair in particular symbolises an act of rebellion, with its roots in punk culture and DIY. Just think of Enid Coleslaw (Thora Birch)’s blue-green botch job in Ghost World (“it’s not like I’m some modern punk, dickhead! It’s obviously a 1977 original punk rock look”). But blue hair can also be a cliché; as the most popular colour used in advertising, it also suggests an over-the-counter counterculture, the go-to colour for the wannabe rebel. Brandy in SLC Punk! (1998) has the wisest words to say about this: “Wouldn’t it be more of an act of rebellion if you didn’t spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? You look like you’re wearing a uniform… That’s not rebellion, that’s fashion”.
THE TEN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHERS OF 2013
If you’re a regular cinema-goer you’ll know how ridiculously spoilt for choice we’ve been this year. And of course, with great films comes great cinematography. So while everyone’s pulling their hair out over who they think the Cinematography Oscar should be handed to, first, let’s step back and feast our eyes on 2013’s finest crop.
CHARTING THE DECLINE OF ROBERT DE NIRO
There is perhaps no finer screen actor than Robert De Niro. The guy has unarguably starred in some of the greatest films ever made (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, to name but two) and possesses an astonishing ability to immerse himself in the roles he plays with incredible depth and intensity. HOWEVER, as much as I love ol’ Bob, and I really do, the quality of the films he has appeared in and the intensity of his performances over the years have, like the skin on his body, began to lag and sag.
PHOTOGRAPHERS MARY ELLEN MARK AND MARTIN BELL TO FOLLOW UP DOCUMENTARY ‘STREETWISE’
Remember the brutally hard-hitting 1984 doc about Seattle street kids, Streetwise? Well, now director Martin Bell is returning to the subject of his Oscar-nominated documentary, along with his wife (legendary street photographer and co-producer Mary Ellen Mark), for a new intriguing-looking film.
THE WEEK IN GIFS
Gravity Is One Step Closer to Winning All the Oscars
This week, Gravity‘s companion short, Aningaaq, hit the interwebs so we can all get a peep at its wonders. It essentially fills in one of the film’s sequences in which Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) makes contact with a man on Earth, a man who doesn’t speak a word of English and so doesn’t hear her cries for help. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron’s son Jonas Cuaron, it’s basically super amaze and gives Gravity a good chance of being the first movie ever to get a spin-off short film nominated for an Oscar. YOU DID DADDY PROUD, JONAS.
Keep your peepers peeled for more Grolsch Film Works updates next week. Go to grolschfilmworks.com to see what’s happening right now.
