Buñuel on DVD

We totally dropped the ball on this, which both is and isn't surprising...

It's surprising because it gives us a chance to promote the announcement of our Luis Awards- this Friday, February 20th, right here on this very blog. But it's not surprising because we're not very good at blogging.

Anyway, last Tuesday Criterion released two of Luis Buñuel's best films on DVD.

The Exterminating Angel might be my favorite of Buñuel's films- of course it's so hard to pick a favorite, it would be like picking out which of his kids I like the most (which, for the record, is Juan Luis...). Criterion gives it the two-disc treatment and includes interviews with Silvia Pinal,
Jean-Claude Carrière, and- hey!- Juan Luis Buñuel. Check it out at Criterion's website.

Simon of the Desert is also great. These two films come from my favorite period in Buñuel's filmography, the winning streak that started with Viridana and ended with Belle de Jour this might be the weakest film within that streak, but that would be like saying it's the weakest player on some sports team that's really good (note to self: avoid sports metaphors). Anyway, more on Criterion's website.

Hopefully by posting this today, with the knowledge that most record and video stores reset their sales on Tuesdays when new items come out. You, our faithful readers, can make it to the store and buy these items.

Tell 'em Dan and Vince sent you.

Actually, don't do that. That would be awkward.

Dan

ART WE LIKE: Foreign Movie Posters

ART WE LIKE is a weekly column where we, Dan and Vince, present art that doesn't suck.

Movie Poster Floating Heads - watch more funny videos

In keeping with last weeks post, we figured we'd pay homage to some cool movie posters. But not American Posters, not since Drew Struzan stopped being Hollywood's go-to guy. Sorry, guy-from-the-Sonic-commercials but I'd stick to what you know best, which is eating food and talking about eating food. Making posters, not really your thing.

In fact as I write this, Catherine Deneuve is staring down on me from a Belle de Jour poster. And no, not the lame Photoshop 101 American poster- a very cool Japanese version- okay, a reporduction of a very cool Japanese one, but still...

Click around here or here or here. You'll see some cool stuff. One of Vince's favorites is this Hans Hillman poster for The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, where the poster itself manages to be surreal.

Some of these are really cool. However, sometimes foreign posters are crazy. Like did you know that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is actually a sequel to the Shining? Well in Turkey it is!


Anyway, for more odd- just plain wrong (but still better than American) foreign movie posters go over to Cracked.com.

End of Post!

Dan

Post-post wrap up: I think this post was pretty good. I probably could have included more actual images of the posters I was talking about, but whatever- I'm lazy. Also, I had a really hard time finding a copy of the Belle de Jour poster I have. God, so lazy... Oh, and I'm really worried that 'foreign movie posters' sounds like posters for foreign films, which isn't really what I'm talking about. It's the posters themselves that are foreign. I don't know, I give this post like a 4/10.

Porn During the Super Bowl and Why It Means Surrealism is Alive and Well

Okay- I'm going to blame this on poor research on my part. But at one point in time, Luis Buñuel (I think- correct me if I'm wrong) said (and I'm paraphrasing) that a truly surrealist gesture would be to lock people in a theater and inflict a pornographic movie on them... (If I could somehow Google through the books on my bookshelf I could get an exact quote- but alas, I can't).

Anyway, cut to last night's Superbowl- then Cut to Pornography.

Here's the story:

TUCSON, Ariz. — A cable television provider has apologized to Tucson-area customers over a 30-second porn interruption during the Super Bowl. Philadelphia-based Comcast issued a brief statement Monday saying the company is "mortified" and is conducting a thorough investigation.

Check out NSFW video of the event here. The story continues...

Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury says the initial investigation suggests that the interruption was an "isolated, malicious act."

So, whichever master control operator pulled this off, technically, did something very surreal. Very surreal. Think about it, how many people can you fit in a movie theater? 200 these days- if you're lucky, though the number in the old days. Now, how many people watch the Super Bowl? I don't know (again, poor research) but way more than 200. So not only did this guy perform a surrealist act, he performed a surrealist act on a scale far greater than the original surrealists ever imagined!

In conclusion, should the culprit chose to come forward they would definitely lose their job, possibly face jail-time, and be welcomed with open arms here at P.S.U.A. - the surrealists union.

Dan

ANNOUNCING: The First Annual Luis Awards!

So we've been thinking about it and we've decided that 2008 was a pretty good year for surreal movies... So maybe we, as surrealists, should reward them, therefore we introduce the first Annual Luis Awards, recognizing surrealism in film.



We're thinking of the following categories:

1. Most Surreal Film
2. Most Surreal Performance
3. Most Unintentionally Surreal Movie



However, we're really worried about missing maybe some of the smaller films that came out in '08, so if you can think of anything that would be appropriate please post it in the comments below.

We'll announce the nominees soon.

Dan

UPDATE: Fixed the 'Ben Button' trailer...

Mr. Oizo d'Andalou

We've never been big fans of electronic music, but we do remember liking Mr. Oizo. He was in a few Levis commercials...



Oh yeah, he's a puppet. Which I guess makes this pretty surreal. Surrealer still, and the real reason I'm bringing this up is the cover of his (I assume... if I'm wrong, I apologize... ma'am...) new album Lamb's Anger features this very cool, Buñuel-inspired cover:



Along with a very cool commercial:



That cover is so cool, it earns him free promotion. The album came out- uh, "dropped" on November 17th, so go get it!

Check out Mr. Oizo's MySpace for more info...

Dan

Winslet as Deneuve...

Surrealist films don't get a lot of attention from the general public, so we've lowered our expectations as to what qualifies as press for surrealists films. Case in point, Kate Winslet's Belle de Jour-inspired photoshoot for Vanity Fair.

See the rest of the article at Vanity Fair's website (or see a picture of Kate Winslet's butt here.)

While this is very cool, it's nothing new. Diora Baird channeled Catherine Deneuve in Playboy a while back... It's NSFW, but we'll link to it here.

Dan

Vote Today!

Vote Today- and vote twice.

First, you've got our much-anticipated Presidential Endorsement, so do that...

Then, do what you (apparently) didn't do last time we asked you to and vote in GQ's 25 Sexiest Women Poll. Ms. Catherine Surrealism Deneuve (it's her middle name- blah!) is sitting at 1% which is a travesty. Equally travese (traveste?) to our film geek hearts is that Ms. Anna Godard Karina (Godard is her middle name- wait- no...) is sitting at 0%. ZERO PERCENT! Have none of you bastards ever seen Alphaville?



You guys better do something about this or we are no longer on speaking terms...

Dan

Happy Halloween! (VIOLENCE!)

Patton Oswalt on Halloween (Skip to about the 3 minute mark...):



Halloween is a time for "normal" people to dress in terrifying costume and decorate their usually nice houses with horrific scenes of violence and death. Which, you know, we support. And so in that spirit, we'd like to share some ridiculous, over-the-top, dare-we-say surreal, cinematic violence. Consider it candy- for your eyes... Gross candy. Like that rogue whopper that manages to find its way into every box. It's sort of hollow and just doesn't taste right. This post is like a whole box of those...















This is the worst post ever.

I am so sorry.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Dan

Movies Lie.

Movies lie. They're lying to you right now. Okay, well, maybe you're not like me and you don't multi-task- so you're not currently listening to the new Extreme Animals albums, watching Suspiria, and typing a blog all at once. Fine. Whatever. But I guarantee your DVD shelf is sitting there just thinking of all the crazy crap it can tell you tomorrow. And you'll believe it.

For example, the movie prostitute. In the movies prostitutes look like Jane Fonda, Mira Sorvino, or Elizabeth Shue, in the real world, not so much.

Luis Buñuel cast Catherine Deneuve as a prostitute... because he was a surrealist.

Great now you're thinking 'this dude just hired a prostitute- and now he's ranting and raving on his blog because she wasn't pretty enough. creepy.' No. That's not what's going on here, but I am ranting and raving because I was mislead by movies.

In the movies, if you go out at night and solve crimes, you're a hero. In the real world, not so much. Well maybe people appreciate it if you're a cop or a detective. But if you're just some dude in a mask with a cape...

You know, I didn't even get a chance to do anything- I was just walking around, just seeing if crime was going on, just looking, hoping I could find it. Stop it. Then go home. See, but movies, and their lies, don't tell you that it's sort of hard to just stumble upon crime (especially in the suburbs), so you've got to look. I'm sure Batman, Spider-man, etc. do this, but, you know... narrative economy- it gets cut out of the movie.

Anyway, after walking around in this mask and cape for a couple hours I got real sweaty and tired- but I decided to dedicate myself to this so I'm going to stop some crime tonight, damn it! I don't want my superhero costume gathering dust in the corner next to my pan flute.

But I needed a new approach. "Where are the local criminals?" I ask some local residents. They just sort of stared and kept walking. Now keep in mind that I wasn't really expecting to talk outside of a few witty one-liners, so I didn't really have my superhero voice down. But I knew I couldn't talk in my regular voice, unfortunately the only "fake" voice I could think of is the one I use when impersonating my ex-girlfriend- it's sort of high-pitched and I pretend to be playing with my hair when I do it, also I sort of stick my ass out and shake it around. Unfortunately all of those aspects carried over to me asking this question. Hence the reason they probably didn't answer.

Anyway, at this point I start thinking about how movies lie. Then I start thinking about prostitutes. Then I remember prostitution is illegal. Bingo.

I see two more citizens. "Where are the prostitutes in this city?" I ask them in my ex-girlfriend's voice. "Aw crap!" I then yell in my own voice. The citizens point to the corner where a gaggle of prostitutes are standing. Of course I hadn't noticed them because of the poor vision I was experiencing due to the combination of a cheap mask and sweaty eyelids.

I approach the prostitutes. I cleared my throat and said "I don't want to sound like my ex-girlfriend, so I'm not going to say anything, but I think you ladies should come with me."

Anyway, this post is already too long. But that's the story of me punching the prostitute. I just didn't want you to hear it from someone else.

Glad I could clear this up,

Dan.