by Sam Juliano
For the first time ever, the much admired and successful Film Preservation Blogathon -the brainchild of Ferdy-on-Film’s Marilyn Ferdinand- has set up camp here at Wonders in the Dark, a few months after this astounding honor was set in place after a series of e mail exchanges with my dear friend from the Windy City, Ms. Ferdinand. Our site replaces the previous third position occupied by the venerated Farren Smith Nehme, “the Self-Styled Siren,” a New York Post film critic, who has written numerous essays for Criterion’s DVD booklets, and has delighted the film community with her lovely personality and incomparable erudition. Those are shoes impossible to fill, but the very idea that we at this six-year-old cinematic outpost have been selected to serve as host for the final day provides us with one of the greatest honors we’ve ever been graced with. The previous four days of the renowned venture were staged at Ferdy and at This Island Rod (with the redoubtable Roderick Heath as host) for two days each. Many banner science-fiction film reviews were linked up on the home posts at both sites, and here at Wonders in the Dark we are really hoping to maintain the torrid pace. Please remember to link up the donation icon (to be found on the sidebar here) at the end of your reviews.
Marilyn Ferdinand beautifully offers these specs: “Our film is Cupid in Quarantine (1918), a one-reel Strand Comedy that tells the story of a young couple conspiring to stay together by staging a smallpox outbreak. The amount we’re shooting for is $10,000 to go to the National Film Preservation Foundation to cover laboratory costs for the film’s preservation as well as a new score for the film’s web premiere. The streaming film will be available free of charge to everyone online at the NFPF website.
Donors, we have a number terrific prizes that will be awarded through random drawing at the end of the blogathon. They include Farran Smith Nehme’s outstanding screwball novel Missing Reels, Mike Smith’s fascinating Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry, three DVD sets of American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive, a collection of 3-D rarities from Flicker Alley, and more.
According to estimates, at least 50 percent of all films made for public exhibition before 1951 have been lost. Move into the silent era, and the estimate shoots up to about 90 percent. We are very lucky to have this opportunity to restore this irreplaceable part of our history. Please join us in having fun and help us reach our goal by donating today!
https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1397805?code=Blogathon%202015
Here are the blogathon entries for today:
Over at Noirish, the tireless author and very good friend John Grant has posted as grand, exhaustive and wholly riveting review as any blogathon could ever hope for, and it considers 1972’s The Groundstar Conspiracy:
https://noirencyclopedia.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/groundstar-conspiracy-the-1972
Lesley Gaspar at Second Sight Cinema offers up a dandy treatment of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville in honor of the classic’s 50th anniversary: http://secondsightcinema.com/joyeux-anniversaire-godards-alphaville-at-50/
Jamie Uhler has written a brilliantly argued essay of exceeding scholarship titled “Concerning the Production Value Derived Opinion in the Science Fiction Film” that is surely essential reading for science-fiction mavens. Some of Uhler’s points are eye-opening to say the least, and certainly sobering for genre adherents. The extensive piece is leading the way at Attractive Variance: https://attractivevariance.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/concerning-the-production-value-derived-opinion-in-the-science-fiction-film/
My own review of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence is a re-boot offered again for this blogathon:
Allan Fish’s brand new review of the Czech film Ikarie XB-1 (1963) by Jindrich Polak was published today at Wonders in the Dark. Brilliance incarnate:
https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/ikarie-xb-1-1963-jindrich-polak/
WB Kelso has a set of newspaper ads posted for 2001: a Space Odyssey, Destroy All Monsters, a fantastic drive-in double-bill of Fantastic Voyage and Batman, another double-feature of The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas and The Ghost Diver, Tarantula, The War of the Worlds, Beast from 20000 Fathoms, The Thing from Another World, Chaplin’s Modern Times and James Whale’s Frankenstein ready for viewing at Scenes From the Morgue. It is truly great stuff!
https://scenesfromthemorgue.wordpress.com/tag/for-the-love-of-science-fiction/
Jim Clark’s magisterial review of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a glorious re-boot here at Wonders in the Dark:
My own re-boot of 1956’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” has been published here at Wonders in the Dark:
Bob Clark’s awesome review of “Attack of the Clones” is a re-boot of a review that previously published at Wonders in the Dark:
Clark states: This essay is being reposted both for the Sci-Fi blogathon, and to help promote a documentary I’m being interviewed for, The Prequels Strike Back , whose IndieGoGo funding page can be found here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-prequels-strike-back . My other sci-fi articles can be found in the side-bar, and my ongoing webcomic Neo-Westchester can be found here: www.neowestchester.com
Bob Clark’s astounding, previously published review of “Duel of the Fates” is another in the Wonders in the Dark archives, but is given another go round:
https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/notes-on-the-duel-of-the-fates/
