"Do you watch any of the film breakdown vids on YouTube?"
For some reason I happened on a video clip about Akira Kurosawa by Every Frame a Painting, a YouTube channel which features film analysis of cinematography and editing and visual storytelling, about three weeks ago.
Now I'm hooked on these types of videos. There's another channel called The Film Guy and another one called Lessons from the Screenplay.
Gossip mags and most film criticism doesn't do it for me because 1. I don't really care about the personal lives of artists and 2. Most film critics are too limited in their tastes and don't talk about filmmaking in their reviews. But I'm a sucker for technical breakdowns of art, especially movies, so these videos are like catnip for me.
Do any of you view these types of videos? If so, which channels are your favorite?
Reading Mad Men recaps were fun back in the day, but I like the one video I saw well enough to go back and look through some of their archives.
I never thought to look for TV recaps tho... Instead of listening to podcasts, I'll blow through my dataplan combing through YouTube while commuting to and from on the bus. There goes my data stash.
4. "Awesome post and thanks for sharing these channels." In response to Reply # 0 Tue Feb-21-17 07:36 AM by denny
This is my lane too. Like you said....I get consistently disappointed by documentaries that focus on artist's personal lives. Same complaint with alot of biographies (books). One of the reasons I was so pleased with Spike Lee's recent flick about Michael Jackson. FINALLY someone wanted to talk about his actual art instead of his eccentricities. Every frame a painting looks really promising to me.
If you haven't seen it yet....there's a great doc about Brian De Palma simply called 'De palma'. It's just a 90 minute interview and it's all shop talk interlaced with the specific scenes that are being addressed. Lots of technical focus with a little bit of industry politics on the side.
12. "RE: Awesome post and thanks for sharing these channels." In response to Reply # 4
> One of the reasons I was so pleased with Spike Lee's recent flick >about Michael Jackson. FINALLY someone wanted to talk about >his actual art instead of his eccentricities. Every frame a >painting looks really promising to me.
Yeah, our artists are such celebrities now that as media consumers we overlook that they made their name by being great artists and thinkers and don't pay attention to the craft and skill and technical knowledge behind their art.
>If you haven't seen it yet....there's a great doc about Brian >De Palma simply called 'De palma'. It's just a 90 minute >interview and it's all shop talk interlaced with the specific >scenes that are being addressed. Lots of technical focus with >a little bit of industry politics on the side.
Mostly focuses on film, but has also been branching out into other random topics like Renaissance art, Jamaican music, the psychology of the way Donald Trump talks in public, Steely Dan, etc.
13. "RE: Every Frame a Painting is GOAT" In response to Reply # 6
Every Frame a Painting is probably my favorite channel out of the film essayists, although Lessons from a Screenplay is quickly gaining ground. I'm kind of struck at the level of quality of the analysis but also the production quality of a lot of the videos. I don't know if the channels make much money for the content producers, but I definitely appreciate their work.
>Channel Criswell has a dope one on Yasujirô Ozu > >i think it was Nerdwriter that had an ill one on "In The Mood >for Love"
Hadn't heard of Channel Criswell until now. I'll try and get to these over the next couple of weeks.
He's done analysis videos for Enemy and Only God Forgives that really break down the symbolism found in those films. ---------------------------------------
14. "RE: Also, check out Chris Stuckmann's analysis videos...." In response to Reply # 9
I just saw the intro to the What's Wrong with Horror Movies Today and I'm going to end up down the rabbit hole on this guy's channel. Looks like really dope stuff on here.
Some of my favorite essayists: Tony Zhou Adrian Martin Film Scalpel Nerdwriter1 Matt Zoller Seitz David Bordwell (doesn't make many videos but he's the GOAT for stylistic analysis. go to his blog and click any of the film technique tags.)
Anyway, this is really refreshing to see OKPs enthusiatic about stylistic analysis.
16. "Thanks for the links" In response to Reply # 10
I'm able to carve out an hour or so every other day to look at the essays, but I can tell that I'm going to run out of videos at some point, at least on YouTube. But the lists of various essays released over the last few years will help me spend more time surfing around if I run out of videos on the channels which I currently watch.
19. "Ha. I knew what that was going to be before I clicked the link." In response to Reply # 17
Watched it yesterday. A lot of it is eaten up by the lengthy disclaimer (Synder isn't a bad person, he just made a shit movie) and then by his point by point arguments of why all the defenses of the movie are bullshit and why he can argue certain things. After that, there's only like a quarter of it left to discuss the problems with it's story structure and the technical issues. I assume Pt. 2 is going to have the real meat.
I really enjoy his "Really That Good" series. The entries on "Ghostbusters" and the O.G. "Transformers Animated Movie" were great. In general, he's just really good at commentary.
24. "let us know please if any of the filmmakers/cast respond to these" In response to Reply # 23
it's listed as part 2 of 3, so by the time he's done it will probably be about 4 1/2 hours of criticism against a 2 1/2 hour movie. i think if i worked on it, i would be at least curious what he has to say to go such lengths, patreon funded or not.
33. "Every Frame, Lesson From, RedLetterMedia, sometimes Patrick H Willems" In response to Reply # 0
Sometimes I feel guilty for liking RLM, which I only just got into over this long winter, because I can't tell if they're in on the joke when they stereotype the angry nerd boy or feeding the mob, but I do find them funny and mostly seem to agree with their specific thoughts about the movies they cover.
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