Festivids recs

[bironic]

It took a week, but I have made it through all 190ish festivids. Or at least the first 30 seconds of those I didn't like as much. A good year for character studies and girl power, I thought. These were my favorites of the lot:

ETA: Added vidders now that reveals are up. Nifty.


Multiple character/thematic studies

• Smoke and Mirrors (Mad Men) by obsessive24 – Absolutely masterful vid exploring the way three characters representing three stages of life are torn apart by their struggles between wanting to live the American dream they sell and being arrogant misogynists who can't seem to decide whether women are objects to use and toss or a source of maternal comfort and protection. At least, so it seemed to me, who only has a passing knowledge of the show. The sleek editing and remarkable visual parallels really pound everything home.
• Somewhere a Clock is Ticking (The Hollow Crown) by obsessive24 – Okay, number one, somehow I missed the fact that there was a miniseries with Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, Patrick Stewart and John Hurt that's based on the Richard II/Henry IV/V plays. Number two, wow. Look at the thread being woven here among the generations, the sensitivity to speed/action and motion, the flow with the music. Another standout for me this year.
• All the Rowboats (Godfather series) by jetpack_monkey – If I'd seen the Godfather movies, I'd have much more to say about what happens in this vid; but as it is, it feels like there's as much in here as there is in the previous two recs. Generation after generation falling prey to similar flaws. Again, impressive editing.

Character studies

• Cross Bone Style (Winter's Bone) by kuwdora – Oh, Ree, trying so hard, suffering so much, trying to protect the ones she loves. Like the song says, she's got diamond eyes and she's doing it cross-bones style, indeed. Also, winner for song I like the most. Didn't realize how much Cat Power sounds like Beth Orton. Her vocals suit the tone and region of the movie perfectly.
• Diamonds (Good Will Hunting) by rhoboat – Not sure what to say except that this worked really well at all levels: thematic, character, editing details like hitting three points on a triangle on a chalkboard to the syllables of "ecstasy." Or I could say that it made me like the movie more than I remember liking it. And despite the song's repetitiveness, the vid didn't feel long.
• This Night (Batman: Under the Red Hood) by dragonchic – Obviously I need to watch this movie/show/whatever, because this is the second Under the Red Hood festivid where even though I didn't quite know what was happening (is that Robin? are we looking at the same character as a boy and a man? etc.), I was engrossed in the story and, yes, Batman universe-sized angst.
• Holland (Case Histories) by barkley – Ooh, a Jason Isaacs murder mystery show. The vid is quietly powerful and affecting.
• Man Not A Monster (Attack the Block) by bingeling – Ha, here is what I put in my comment: Oh, that was great. I don't know the movie, so my internal monologue that was trying to build a narrative would probably amuse those who actually know what was going on (like, "There are some kids who'll end up gang members or something if they're not turned around, and now the sympathetic boy is possibly hallucinating gorilla monsters, except other people see the gorilla monsters too, so I guess it is a supernatural kids-from-the-streets-kick-monster-ass movie, and yay, happy ending!"), but whatever, it all made sense and I really enjoyed the ride!
• Not Afraid (Colombiana) by cupidsbow – Basically: Go, Zoe Saldana!
• And reccing my gift again: What No Angel Knows (Wings of Desire), which I know now was made by laurashapiro! Yay!

Relationships

• You Were A Kindness (Witness) by fan_eunice – I haven't seen the movie since I was a kid, but this vid definitely makes me want to see it again. The vid is sexy and emotional and beautifully edited (doing justice, as commenters said, to beautiful cinematography). Normally I wouldn't care for the song, but here, I hardly felt the four and a half minutes passing. One of the vids I keep rewatching.
• I've Just Seen A Face (We'll Take Manhattan) by purplefringe – a.k.a. that movie where Karen Gillan from Doctor Who played a model from the '50s. Super cute and impeccably edited from the opening shots that snap like the photographer love interest's camera shutter.
• If I knew more about the show (and weren't still measuring everything against fan_eunice's Vividcon vid), I'd be more certain about reccing Breathing Underwater by alba17 / Collage by joyo (both for Homeland) and explaining why, since all I can articulate right now is that the first one draws parallels between Claire Danes' character and Damian Lewis' and the second one seems more about chosen family. But I keep coming back to them to try again, so. *shrug*

Humor/Action/Horror

• Stayin' Low! (Alien series) by hollywoodgrrl is HILARIOUS. Just go watch it. If you're okay with blood and guts and exploding flesh being funny. Also, the Bee Gees.
• Under Pressure (Shaun of the Dead) by meddow – A well-edited and well-paced gamut of emotions in just a few minutes, enjoyable down to little moments like how the hordes of zombies closing in look like a concert crowd, and how beer + a Winchester = a new way of showing love.

Humor/Antics

• Zoolander and I Know It (Zoolander) by cherryice – Hee. In retrospect, Zoolander and LMFAO were made for each other.
• Amusements in Tights (Robin Hood: Men in Tights) by Heather – Never realized how much this movie doubles as dance choreography. A fun few minutes of what cinco would call hijinks.
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are (Still Alive) by airawyn had a good concept but I think the song (Jonathan Coulton's, sung by a lady to sound more like the Portal character) was too slow and therefore the clips were too long to pull it off as well as it could have been done.

Pure Fannish Joy

• Wild One (Channing Tatum) by sisabet – Channing Tatum, whatever, muscles, yawn. Except, no! Somehow this vid is amazing! It's an unabashed celebration of an actor somebody loves, which to me became a celebration of all of us who have gone through that period of loving a celebrity('s body :)) and watching all their stuff and not caring about quality because there are hearts in our eyes. Like the anonymous vidder was saying "Hey, I heard you like the wild ones" to the recipient and we are all saying it to each other and making and rejoicing in gifts that recognize that. I thought of myself in the recipient's seat with some other person inserted in the vid and my heart just felt full. At some point it stopped mattering that we were watching Channing Tatum in particular, you know? Even though at the same time it worked on that level too, the pace and editing and action all fitting together effortlessly.
• (This worked way more effectively for me than Cosmic Love, which, I had to read around to figure out, wove together a bunch of fanvids that use Florence + the Machine songs, framed by one Florence + the Machine music video [whereas the recipient just requested Florence + the Machine music videos, but I guess that's another story] as a tribute to vidding culture? Dunno, I was bored, but it's popular.)

Horror/Thriller

• Mayhem is Coming (Allstate TV "Mayhem" ads) by sabaceanbabe – I hate these commercials. I think the guy is smarmy and unfunny and ugh. And yet. This vid weaves the ads together so well that they are actually creepy and the guy seems like a legitimate villain who worships chaos! Set to a cool song! Awesome.
• Layers (Cabin in the Woods) by milly – Having not seen the movie yet (I know), this mostly washed over me as a series of impressions, and what an impression it made. Creepy and confusing and stylish. (The first bit of Feel Dead Inc. that I watched implies that it is similarly excellent, but it seemed to follow the plot of the movie so I stopped at the risk of being spoiled.)
• Angel (Splice) by kuwdora – Super disturbing, in the can't-look-away sort of way. Heed the warnings, for sure. Only marred IMO by a blip or two in the audio editing and by what felt to me like a rushed ending.

Girl Power

• Titanium (Wonder Woman, 1975) by giandujakiss - I came into this unsure since I don't know Wonder Woman, but it held me the whole way through and brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful progression of motion and strength, especially toward the end, when there's an expansion of feminist power from Wonder Woman to the girls around her.
• To be fair, it might be a result of this having been the first of the three A League of Their Own vids that I watched, but Va Va Voom by rhoboat is my favorite. Baseball and teamwork/friendships to a driving beat.
• (Of course, Cross Bone Style, Not Afraid and a few vids that waver on the rec vs. honorable mention list, like Devil's Tattoo (True Grit) by lilly_the_kid, fit here too.)

Spot-on Music Choice

• Mshini Wam (District 9) by kassrachel – The choice of song strengthens and complicates the comparison the film made between the suppressed alien colony and the lingering effects of apartheid.
• The Good Book (Black Books) by mithborien – "Like all good gifts… it was a book." Hee.

Good Pimping Job

• Getaway (The Black Cat, 1934) by thirdblindmouse – I'm sorry, where was I when they made a film with Boris Karloff in makeup tied to a cross? Not born yet, okay, but whatever, somehow I missed this one and need to see it. Bela Lugosi's there too.
• We're Here Because We're Here (Journey/video game) by violace – Gorgeous and eerie. I have no idea what the game is about, but I don't care; it's pretty.

Runners Up

• The Adventures of Lilo by settiai and 'ōlelo ho'ohiki by lithiumdoll (Lilo & Stitch); Blackbird (Nowhere Boy) by blithesea; New York is Safe (Save New York) (The Unusuals) by feochadn; If I Was a Great White Shark (Jaws + misc.) by deejay; Another Code Against the Gone (Moon) by cherryice; Sons and Daughters (Whale Rider) by frayadjacent; Bones (Wallander) by dkwilliams. And people really like by anoel's Give Me Everything (Parks & Recreation); I enjoyed it fine. ETA: And enjoyed it more in a group setting at the festivids party last weekend.

Okay, have to stop! Check out the masterlist on DW and LJ.

My vids (which may or may not be listed above, HA) have been doing fine, hooray. I'm also pleased that this year, a few people actually guessed me for stuff in the Guess the Festividder post! (And some of the guesses were for kink vids, which makes me happy twice over.) And someone suggested an excellent vidder for one of the ones I made. Slowly, slowly, year by year...

And tomorrow, our local festivids-watching party. \o/

Comments

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Re: Journey -- the game is exactly the vid, pretty much. It's a game driven by visual wonder. It doesn't have much of a plot. You just move through a world and fly sometimes and fail sometimes and sometimes there's a friend along the way.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Hi, I really can't resist leaving all the Jason Todd backstory in a comment, so here it is. (I actually have not even watched the vid in question yet because I don't know if I could handle ALL THE FEELS, so I don't know how much of this is covered, but anyway.)

Jason was the second Robin, and he had a lot of issues from basically being adopted off the streets from a life of crime by Bruce, and then being expected to be the perfect soldier according to Bruce's ridiculous standards, and being compared to the first Robin by basically everybody. And Bruce dealt with this troubled teenager and his issues with all the emotional intelligence and caring that you would expect, ie none. I think he fired him, actually. So then in his darkest hour, Jason was lured away from Gotham by the hope that his mother might be alive, but instead he got beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker, and then blown up, and you get that iconic shot of Bruce cradling his dead body, the end. And this was the state of affairs for years and years, and it was pretty much a rule that whatever other comic book characters you killed off and then brought back, that would never happen to Jason.

BUT THEN, it was retconned, another character had dug up Jason's corpse and took him to the Lazarus Pit, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and brought him back to life again. Except the drawback of the Lazarus Pit is that it makes you violently insane (and possibly more and more evil the more you use it, or maybe you're just more violently insane based on how *much* you use it-- ie to heal a scratch you're probably fine, to revive a ten year old corpse, you're in trouble. I forget if that is still canon.) ANYWAY, so this mysterious Red Hood shows up in Gotham, and he starts killing bad guys... and the *really* creepy part is that "Red Hood" was one of the Joker's aliases way back when he was just a regular masked criminal, before *he* got his Joker facial scarring and went insane. So, literally Jason has taken on some part of the Joker's identity. Once he finally faces down Bruce, his big issue is why, after the Joker killed Jason, Bruce didn't even kill the Joker-- ie, his stupid high standards are more important than actually saving lives or avenging Jason. (And it's sort of hard to argue with Jason, since after all the Joker escapes from Arkham or wherever ALL THE TIME and kills dozens of people every time.) And Bruce feels incredibly guilty and conflicted, and then after that I have no idea what happened because continuity exploded.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

OH. Oh, that is awesome and terrible. Thank you!

Confirmed: I really need to watch it.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I tried for a second while writing the rec to come up with an "I could listen to it read the phone book" equivalent for a video game/vid. Sounds like that's sort of the case with Journey after all! Cool.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't always like the animated DCU movies because they often have to simplify and leave out a lot of things in order to make years and years of rambling complicated comic book storyline fit into 90 minutes of cartoon, and I always feel like they leave out the good stuff. (There is a horrifying story from one creator about how he actually had to fight to keep ANY female characters, including Lois Lane and Wonder Woman, in the adaptation of one particular graphic novel.) But I feel like in the case of "Under The Red Hood," the streamlining actually improves things, because it's just 90 minutes packed full of OH MY GOD MY EMOTIONS.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hm, yeah. That would help explain the attraction to vidding it and the power the resulting vids have even on someone like me who doesn't (didn't) know what's going on.