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Fish and Octopus (Colourful Realm of Living Beings) (circa 1765) by Ito Jakuchu.
• At Aeon: “Could extraterrestrial technology be lurking in our backyard—on the Moon, Mars or in the asteroid belt? We think it’s worth a look.” Ravi Kopparapu and Jacob Haqq Misra explain.
• At Smithsonian magazine: The first confirmed footage of the Colossal Squid. Only a baby one, however, so not very colossal.
• The eighth installment of Smoky Man’s exploration of The Bumper Book of Magic has been posted (in Italian) at (quasi).
Less than six months later, Lindsay signed an executive order that effectively turned the city into a movie set. The new Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting was designed to cut through existing red tape and facilitate location filming. Script approval was centralized in a single agency. A production now needed but a single permit to shoot on the streets; a specific police unit would remain with the filmmakers as they moved from location to location. Thus, Lindsay created the necessary conditions for the tough cop films, bleak social comedies, and gritty urban fables that captured the feel of New York in the late sixties and early seventies—the cinema of Fun City.
J. Hoberman explores New York City’s popularity as a film location
• Mixes of the week: A mix for The Wire by John King; and DreamScenes – April 2025 at Ambientblog.
• At Colossal: Water droplets cling to fluorescent plant spines in Tom Leighton’s alluring photos.
• At the BFI: Alex Barrett on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s unmade film about Jesus.
• Anne Billson ranks 20 films starring Julie Christie.
• Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (1964) by Paul Sawtell | Das Boot (1981) by Klaus Doldinger | Ambient Block (Sequenchill/Mission Control #2/Lost In The Sea) (1993) by Sequential
It is a shame that Dreyer didn’t make his Jesus movie. It would have joined the handful of movies distinct from the “piety” of the Hollywood sword and sandal epic. I don’t know how it is elsewhere but in these United States, Easter is the occasion to broadcast all the warhorses – Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth with Robert Powell’s near iconic turn as JC, and my favorite of all, the astoundingly crazy The Robe, with Richard Burton and a cast of thousands.
I think the best Jesus movie remains Jésus de Montréal, from 1989, written and directed by Denys Arcand. The movie portrays a group of actors performing a Passion Play and describes how the events of the Bible story begin to bleed over into their personal lives.
Britain is a very secular nation so there’s little incentive to pander to Christians at Easter. You’re as liable to get The Life of Brian being broadcast here as anything else.
I’ve always liked Scorsese’s film even though some parts of it are absurd–guys with pronounced New York accents grumbling about getting back to their sheep. It’s the only major Jesus film in which the message and the intellectual meaning of Christianity are debated. There’s seldom any debate at all in religious films, everything is taken as given from the outset.