Plenty of Nothing

Chin Tsi-Ang

Chin Tsi-Ang was the first female martial arts film star. When she appeared in The Swordswoman of Huangjiang (1930), the first of a thirteen-part series, she had already been in the biz for five years. She worked right into the new millenium, and had a role in In the Mood For Love (2000) at age 90.

1966 Hobbit Animation

This 1966 Gene Deitch adaptation of The Hobbit owes as much to Rocky and Bullwinkle's Fractured Fairy Tales as to Tolkien. You could think of it as the film of the Ballantine paperback cover illustration -- the one with the emus.

Snow (1963)

Enjoy this wintry train film from 1963.

Summer of Murray

Paprika As Monkey

Satoshi Kon's 2006 anime Paprika is Inception four years before Inception, plus a lot of film history (The Collector provides an important scene) plus a huge trundling mountain of Asian and Western cultural reference.  Here is Paprika cloud-hopping over Tokyo in the guise of Monkey.

Anhalter Bahnhof

Peter Falk in Wings of Desire. In this scene Falk pauses to look at the ruined facade of the Anhalter Bahnhof, where Berliners used to catch the train in the direction of the state of Anhalt. There's a pun on the verb anhalten, "to stop", which leads to the line "Not the station where the train stopped, but the station where the station stopped."

Gratuitous Millennium Actress Still

Obsessive love, snow, and wood grain. Millennium Actress has moved up into my top ten films. D

Asteroid 7345 Happer

7345 Happer is a Mars-crossing asteroid discovered in 1992 and named after Felix Happer, Burt Lancaster's astronomy-obsessed oil baron in Bill Forsyth's 1983 comedy Local Hero.

Just Another Job (1972)

Given the buzz around the idea of a new coliseum in the Old Capital, now is a good time to go view the documentary Just Another Job, filmed during the run-up to the 1972 WHA season, when the Nordiques were just beginning. In this film there's an mood of disappointment hanging over the whole project, aided by an introspective oboe score, and many of the interviews concern trying and failing: the players who talk about having a bad game and losing their job, the former superstar who's trying to make it as a coach, and even the graphic designer who wanted to leave the colour red out of the Nordiques' uniform.

Battle of Stepney Centenary

Today is the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Stepney, a gunfight between London police and a gang of reputed immigrant anarchist burglers, perhaps most famous for the fact that when he heard it was going on Home Secretary Winston Churchill dropped everything to run out to see the fun, leading to questions in Parliament about the quality of his judgment. Here is some footage of the event. And here is the Alfred Hitchcock version. That's Winston in the top hat below: