Tag: gif

Riz Ahmed, “Encounter”: Film History Series

Riz Ahmed as Malik Khan in “Encounter”, Directed by Michael Pearce, 2021

“Encounter” is a 2021 drama-thriller film directed by Michael Pearce from a screenplay written by Pearce and British screenwriter Joe Barton. It is a story of a recently paroled man, suffering from a mental disturbance, who abducts his two sons and flees on a road trip. The film stars Riz Ahmed as Malik Khan as the parolee, Janina Gavankar as  his wife Piya, and Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada as the two sons, Jay and Bobby Khan. Misha Collins plays Dylan, the mother’s new partner, and Octavia Spencer plays Hattie Hayes, the federal law enforcer attempting to retrieve the children.

In October of 2018, Film4 Productions and Raw, both British film production companies, agreed to produce the film. The principal photography began in October of 2020; by November of that year, all the cast members had joined the production. Amazon Studios became the distributor. “Encounter had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and an international premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. It was later screened at film festivals in London, Chicago, and Philadelphia. “Encounter” appeared on Amazon Prime Video on the 10th of December in 2021.

Born in December of 1982, Riz Ahmed is a British actor and rapper. He has won multiple awards for his acting, including a London Film Critics’ Circle Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two British Independent Film Awards. He was also nominated for two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Ahmed appeared in the 2016 action film “Jason Bourne”, the Star Wars anthology film “Rogue One” as the character Bodhi Rock, the 2018 film “Venom” as Carlton Drake, and Ruben Stone in the 2020 “Sound of Metal”, which earned him his second Golden Globe nomination and his first Academy Award nomination.

Renaissance

Renaissance

“To a very strange lizard, found by the gardener of the Belvedere, he [Leonardo] fastened some wings with a mixture of quicksilver made from scales scraped from other lizards, which quivered as it moved by crawling about. After he had fashioned eyes, a horn, and a beard for it, he tamed the lizard and kept it in a box, and all the friends to whom he showed it fled in terror.”
-Girogio Vasari, The Life of Leonard da Vinci, The Lives of the Artists

Ray Harryhausen, “Twenty Million Miles to Earth”: Film History Series

“Twenty Million Miles to Earth”, 1957

Ray Harryhausen’s original design for the monster was a giant cyclops, similar to the one he later used in the 1958 “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”. He discarded the idea after making a clay model of it, and eventually settled on the reptilian Ymir. The Ymir roars in the film are variations of elephant roars sped up and modulated in pitches at different rates.

Since he planned to use a real elephant for some of the footage in the zoo, Ray Harryhausen asked for one that was 15 feet tall, but the film studio was only able to procure an eight-foot-tall one for him. In order to make the elephant look much bigger, a 4’6″ actor was cast to play the zookeeper.

Reblogged with thanks to http://ensalada-de-lengua-de-pajaritos.tumblr.com

Eadweard Muybridge

Gif made from Eadweard Muybridge’s “Animal Locomotion” Series, 1887, Plate 166

This series of still photographs was of a nude man jumping over a man’s back. The original vintage collotype measured 20 x 24 inches.

One of Muybridge’s main working methods was to rig a series of large cameras in a line to shoot images automatically as the subjects passed. Viewed in a Zoopraxiscope machine, his images laid the foundation for motion pictures and contemporary cinematography.

Akira Kurosawa, “The Hidden Fortress”: Film History Series

Akira Kurosawa, “”Kakushi Toride sn san Akunin (The Three Villians of the Hidden Fortress)”, 1968, Starrring Toshiro Mifune, Cinematographer Kazuo Yamasaki

A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity.