Films

Some Scandinavian Films

~ beetleypete ~ 20 Comments

A reblog of a post from 2013 that not many of you will have seen. I recommend some foreign language films from the Scandinavian countries. With trailers.

beetleypete

I may be taking liberties with what is officially Scandinavia here, as I have included a film from Finland, which is not normally included in this region. As they say in America, ‘so sue me’. Sweden has a claim to the crown of Scandinavian Cinema to some degree, as the home of the critically-acclaimed, and much-loved director, Ingmar Bergman. Accordingly, I have decided not to include any of his films. Two of the choices are films set during a war, again reflecting my own love of war films, but also to show conflict from a different theatre of war, making a refreshing change.

Ofelas. Not to be confused with the later film, ‘Pathfinder’, a poor remake, this Norwegian film from 1987, is little known, despite an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. It was shot in the Finnmark region of Norway, part of what is generally known as Lapland, and…

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Thank you, Mr Welles

~ beetleypete ~ 12 Comments

Reblogging this personal tribute to Orson Welles from 2013. Not many of you will have seen it before.

beetleypete

Orson Welles is considered by many to be the greatest film maker in history. I do not necessarily agree with that, although I do consider him to be one of the greatest actors of all time. His voice alone is worth a career, let alone his charismatic presence in a film.

As a very young man, I was captivated by him on film at the cinema, and on TV, when his films were shown there. His brief appearances in ‘The Third Man’, lift the film totally, and his wry grin steals every scene that he is in. Whatever you might think of him, his talent is surely indisputable, and from an early age, he showed the touch of genius that would characterise his life in cinema. The ensemble cast of his best known films, ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’, and ‘Citizen Kane’, was to follow him throughout his all too short film…

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More online publication

~ beetleypete ~ 37 Comments

Further to my non-fiction articles being published by Mythaxis online magazine yesterday, they have also decided to publish two of my book reviews, and two film reviews too.

Welcome

Here are some links to those reviews.

Films.

Peeping Tom

1917

Books.

The Three

The Dry

Many of you will have read these before, but I would be very grateful if you could take time to click on the links, and leave a ‘Like’.
There are lots of other good reviews there too. You might enjoy them.

Finally Cracked it!

~ beetleypete ~ 42 Comments

For more years than I care to remember, I have attempted Chandler Swain’s notoriously difficult 25-question film quiz. His challenges are themed, and incredibly hard. They have given me genuine headaches in the past, and the often dark stills he uses have made my eyes ache too.

Until today, I tried my best. But I think my previous best score was 22/25. And that was on a ‘good day’.

Imagine my delight, to receive this notification today, after so many years.

Yes! I got 25/25, for the first time ever!

Strange how something so apparently insignificant can make a wet Friday come alive!

If you feel up to the challenge, or just want to read about films that he has seen, so you don’t have to watch them, then visit his unparalleled blog via this link.
https://chandlerswainreviews.wordpress.com/

Be prepared to be entertained!

(I won’t be adding his ‘award’ to this blog. I am far too self-effacing for that)

Watching Films, and Writing Fiction

~ beetleypete ~ 64 Comments

Ever since I started to publish fictional stories and longer serials on this blog, many readers have asked me where I get the ideas for them. I usually answer that I get the idea for a title as I am walking around aimlessly with my dog Ollie, lost in thought.

That is the truth, in most cases. The title appears in my head for some reason, and I then begin to construct a story, working back from an ending that I imagine suits that title. I have no idea if this is unique to me. For all I know, many of the better-known writers may well have discovered their own inspiration in a similar fashion.

I started to regularly watch films at exactly the same time I began writing short stories. That was a long time ago, when I was around eight years old. Not that I copied the plots of those films for my stories, you understand.
What happened was that I would see the stories in my head, not unlike the way I had just been immersed in watching a film for two hours. My characters would come to life in my mind, with their clothes, faces, expressions, and actions as real to me as if they were on a screen in front of my eyes.

I soon learned that you cannot just transcribe what you see, and make that into a short story, or longer serial. It would be a huge volume. Imagine trying to write down what you saw in just one long scene in your favourite film. Think of how enormous film scripts are, with their movement directions, and descriptions of scenery, reactions, and close-ups.

By the time I had started to work out how to whittle all this down to a readable story, I had grown up, left school, and started work. I had no time to write fiction any longer, and I was eventually married, and embarking on a career as an EMT.

In 2012, I retired, started to blog, and later tried my hand at fiction again, after a gap of more than forty-five years. I had many misfires, and wondered if I had lost any talent for story-telling. Then I remembered how I had seen those stories like films in my youth, and went back to that method. That definitely improved my writing, and resulted in the long serials and short stories that I was publishing by the early part of 2018.

I conclude that I have to thank a lifetime of watching films for enabling me to rejuvenate my love of writing.

Astaire and Rogers

~ beetleypete ~ 26 Comments

An old post from 2013, remembering my love of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire films. Most of you have never seen this one.

beetleypete

Even when I was still a small child, the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were already thirty years old. Their last film together, after ten years apart, was made some years before I was born, and their earliest collaboration was in 1935. Despite this, I always loved those films. The Art Deco sets, the snappy scripts, and of course, the wonderful music and dancing. Only ten films, nine in black and white, one in colour, yet they achieved an iconic status as an on-screen pairing, and nobody has ever matched their style since. Last week, I discovered that the BBC were showing two of their films, early on a Saturday, and I taped them. Although I have seen them all many times, and as recently as last year, the prospect of watching them always fills me with delight.

I agree that both Fred and Ginger were not the…

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Writers Wanted!

~ beetleypete ~ 29 Comments

Daniel of Longshot Press and Thinkerbeat has contacted me. He is looking for writers from the UK and Canada to work on projects.

Here is what he sent me.
As you maybe know, I have lived in Taiwan for a long time. Almost 15 years. Recently the Chinese government put a ban on Hollywood movies, due to the trade war. They also issued a new fund to build the sci-fi market. I’ve got connections (friends) in both Taiwan and China who are applying for the money. We’re also working with the copyright office to protect the stories, because the money is big enough that people will take your content, given the chance.

So here is a genuine chance to work with him on projects for the movie market in the Chinese-speaking world.

He is looking for writers with some interest in the following genres.

Artificial Intelligence.
Robots and Romance

If you think you fit the bill, please contact Daniel Scott White at this email address.
contact@unfitmag.com