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Yesterday we found out that it was the 50th anniversary of our favorite Godard movie, Band of Outsiders (Bande a part). We read a review of Band of Outsiders by our favorite film critic Pauline Kael. And we remembered that when we saw Band of Outsiders, it reminded us of our favorite book in high school, The Catcher in the Rye.

There was the age, obviously—their protagonists are young people. There was the dancing. In the Godard, the three leads suddenly dance the Madison in a cafe in Paris; in the Salinger, Holden meets three girls in a club in New York and dances with them. There was the rebellion against the grown-ups, the wanting to run away. There was the sense of being young and free in a big city full of possibilities.

And there was the nostalgia. What do young people have to be nostalgic about when nothing has happened to them yet? They’re nostalgic for something that didn’t really happen to them—for lives they experienced in the movies. In Band of Outsiders, Franz and Arthur are always pretending to be in a gunfight and acting like they’ve been shot. In Catcher, Holden gets punched in the stomach and staggers into his hotel room as if he’s been shot. Everyone constantly refers to old gangster movies and acts and talks like a tough guy. Holden recounts the plots of movies—he loved Hitchcock, and so did Godard and his cohorts in the French New Wave.

But as Kael points out, “The penalty of (this) fixation on the movie past…is that old movies may not provide an adequate frame of reference for a view of this world.”

Must remember that.

The running through the Louvre scene, which was imitated by Eva Green and the two guys in Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. The dance scene in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was an hommage to the Madison.

Hailed as a masterpiece by the world’s critics in the New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, The Telegraph, Total Film, The Independent, Film Comment, Grantland, The A.V. Club, Sight and Sound and many others, winner of the Gawad Urian for Best Picture, Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan finally gets a theatrical run in its own country.

September 10-16, 2014
Whole-day screenings at Glorietta in Ayala Center, Makati, and Trinoma in Quezon City.
Nightly screenings from 7pm to 11:10pm at Robinson’s Galleria and Robinson’s East.
We will post the complete schedules and other confirmed venues as soon as we can.

Norte is the perfect gateway to the work of the Filipino filmmaker long known among cinephiles as a master. An epic reimagining of Crime and Punishment, it is Lav Diaz’s most accessible work, and while the running time of 4 hours, 10 minutes may seem daunting, it earns every long take. Look at this.

The stunning cinematography is by Larry Manda. Norte features towering performances from Sid Lucero, Angeli Bayani, Archie Alemania and an excellent supporting cast. The screenplay is by one of our foremost playwrights Rody Vera, and Lav Diaz. Norte is produced by Moira Lang, with line producers Kristine Kintana and Maya Quirino, and executive producers Kaiyan and Jessica Zafra.

Yes, that’s us. As the instigator of world domination theory, we have a stake in making sure that Norte is seen by everyone who cares not only about Filipino cinema or international prestige, but about The Big Questions: Life, Death, Truth, Justice, Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Beauty and Ugliness. The first time we saw this movie, before we became officially involved with it, we remembered this line from Ernest Renan: “O God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.”

Apologies for bringing ourself into the discussion, but our culture demands the personal approach. Norte is an independent film without the massive resources with which to bombard the public with advertising and TV promotions. But we have something the movie factories don’t have, we have You, the Thinking Reader.

We are asking You to help us promote the Norte screenings from September 10-16 by reposting this announcement on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. We invite those who have seen Norte in our special screenings at Ayala Cinemas to post their thoughts on the movie or links to their blogs in Comments. And we will see you at the cinema from September 10 to 16 for the theatrical run of Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan.

Here’s the scene we keep quoting from.

And the really uncomfortable support group scene.

Hazel Orencio in Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan

Whole-day screenings at Glorietta and Trinoma.
Nightly screenings at 7pm at Robinson’s Galleria and Robinson’s East.
The film’s running time is 4 hours, 10 minutes.
Help us to spread the word on Facebook and Instagram.

Here are some of the reviews of Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysan in the foreign media.

New York Times
Guardian
NPR
Telegraph
Independent
Critics Roundup
A.V. Club
Grantland
British Film Institute
Film Comment
Total Film

From Time Out London.

via the A.V. Club

Where are our Star Trek fotonovels??

Watch them all morphing into each other, superheroes and their nemeses. Nemesises. Nemesi.

From I Raff I Ruse, via io9.

77. Bwaya. 78. Ronda. 79. Children’s Show. 80. 1st Ko Si 3rd. 81. Dagitab. 82. Separados. 83. The Janitor

Luc Besson’s Lucy takes off from the old canard that humans use only ten percent of their brain capacity. Some people would be lucky to have ten percent of a brain. It is silly, exciting and stylish (We’ll overlook the stock nature footage that is used to punctuate the obvious), and it works because Scarlett Johansson gives it her total commitment, and because we like to see girls beat the crap out of armed goons (though we wish there had been more beating). This is the year of the Scarlett.