A Compendium of Evil.

Over at The Playlist today, a well-executed 12-minute supercut by Diego Carrera on the history of horror, from 1895 (The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots) to the present (The VVitch).

I’m currently working on my own year-end list, as per GitM tradition, and be advised: I’ll probably give myself a few more weeks into 2015 since I have so many holes still to plug. (Even if I was in top movie-going form at the moment, which I’m not, DC is still a second tier town in terms of the release schedule.)

But in the meantime, and also as in year’s past, David Ehrlich has assembled another very impressive Best of the Year video with his choices. I disagree mightily with some of his picks — let’s just say Nymphomaniac won’t be cracking my list — but, once again, Ehrlich’s infectiously fun Super-Cut makes me wish I’d seen more movies this year.

Can It, Walter.

Found while digging up the Barton Fink trailer for the link below: A super-cut of large men howling in Coen movies. Note: There’s some grisly violence (and spoilers) from Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing included therein.

Stick the Landing.

The traditional superhero three-point-landing gets a supercut. If you haven’t broken your hand or legs on impact, remember to fling your head back for maximum cool.

Let’s Put On a Show!

Cause your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance, well they’re no friends of mine. Mental health break: An intricate supercut of famous dance scenes from the movies. But no Center Stage? C’mon now.

50 Hours a Cineaste.

“Anyway, this was a lot of fun to cut together. While I don’t expect that you’ll agree with all of my choices (given that this is a ranked list of 25 films, it would be really strange if you did), I hope you enjoy watching this all the same.”

As per last year, Film.Com’s David Ehrlich has once again spliced together an entrancing Supercut of his top 25 films of 2013. As always, my own year-end list will arrive at the end of the month, but I will say that I’ve seen most of Ehrlich’s (wide-release) choices, I generally agree with what he’s got going on here, my current top two films are in his top five, and I have very high hopes for his #3.

The Last Thing You See.

As seen at Slate, a haunting montage by Zack Prewitt of the final shots of famous movies. You’ll know ’em when you see ’em.

Them?

“Season four’s masterstroke – the element that welds the show’s extreme self-consciousness and (yes!) cornball sincerity — is its decision to build our fears and anxieties about a resurrected Arrested Development right into the master narrative…It’s all about elapsed time and lost opportunities, and how families grow apart geographically and emotionally, and make peace with their personal limitations (and their families’), or continue to live in denial, or force some kind of confrontation, or stumble into one, and end up taking baby-duckling steps toward enlightenment. That’s why so many people have described it as sad, or dark, or depressing: It has a heart, but you can see how bruised it is.”

At Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz sings the praises of Netflix’s Arrested Development revival. “Like The Godfather, Part II…season four of AD manages to be true to the spirit of the original while tinkering with its structure, rhythm, and themes. It’s very different from yet artistically equal to the show’s first three seasons.”

Having watched Season 3 (again) and Season 4 this past week, I’m much closer to Seitz’s awed appreciation of the Bluths’ return than, say Alan Sepinwall’s more disgruntled view. Although admittedly it takes an episode or three to vibe into what Hurwitz et al are doing, take away the rosy retrospection and Season 4 seems very much on a par with the first few seasons. I for one was increasingly impressed, and amused, by the recursive, Mobius strip intricacy of the whole proceedings, and, as you might expect, there are a lot of very funny lines throughout. (“Handcuff the King of the Jews!”) Also, since it’s already supercutted, the Sound of Silence bit made me laugh every time.

Now about those cliffhangers…don’t leave us with a Black Lodge situation, Netflix — do the right thing. You know there’s more money in the banana stand.

Update: “We couldn’t get Franklin. He was touring. He’s very big in Japan. He has a vodka ad that put him over the top.” Vulture post-mortems Season 4 with Mitch Hurwitz.

Secrets of the Supercut.

“Many supercuts provide hard evidence of the existence of tropes long suspected but never quite proved: imperiled characters fretting that they have no cellphone signal; high-tech investigators asking their imaging software to “enhance“; action movie toughs girding for battle by announcing, “We’ve got company.” But what motivates the supercutter to slog through hours of footage to compile these minute observations? And what distinguishes the masters of the form?“

In Slate, old friend Seth Stevenson surveys the practice and methodology of supercuts. At the very least it’s both funny and instructive to see how many times, to take the example of ST:TNG, Worf gets denied and bad things happen to Geordi.

RAAAAAAGE.

By way of my friend Alex of Tropics of Meta, the people in movies losing their s**t supercut, including everything from Charles Foster Kane’s slow burn to Jerry Lundegaard’s impotent ice-scraping rage from Fargo. NSFW if you don’t have earplugs, and highly cathartic if/when you find yourself of similar mind — which, this year, has been all too often.

Tag: Supercuts