Full length features on YouTube

Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios, better known as MGM, will be the first major movie studio to post full-length feature films on YouTube.

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New on Kamera: Samurai films

Kamera Books is back with yet another gem for film lovers. Roland Thorne's Samurai Films is a complete guide to all things samurai on the big screen and Thorne has told Kamera what to expect from his book. Enjoy it!

A taster of Samurai film: Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961)

New on Kamera: Roger Corman

Roger Corman epitomises everything that us Kameradas love: an unrelenting independent spirit, humour and amazing visual flair. Optimum recently released a DVD boxset with some previously unpublished Corman fare. Our dynamic duo Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc give us the lowdown on the box. En-joy it!

Roger Corman's 1967 The Trip

New on Kamera: Monster Movies

Monsters are one of the great cinematic motifs, heavy in symbolism and packed with fun. Australian author and journalist, a self-proclaimed monster expert, tells us all about monsters on the big screen. And we couldn't help but dig some Roger Corman stuff out of YouTube to go with this blog. Corman, besides making some of the most memorable monster movies ever, and one of Ms Westwood's interviewees, is also an icon of independent cinema. And what a voice!

New on Kamera: The Animals Film

Those who doubt the power of influence that cinema can exert should look no further than The Animals Film. The groundbreaking exposé of the cruelty involved in animal farming and other forms of humanity's tyrannical domination over most species on the planet is credited with turning thousands of people to vegetarianism when it first aired on Channel Four in November 1982. It celebrated its 25th anniversary last year and now the film has received a BFI release.
Kamera received kind permission from the BFI to reproduce an excerpt from the DVD booklet, written by Philip Windeatt, in which the researcher describes his visits to America's bleak factory farms.

Acclaim for The Animals Film is unanimous, including this glowing piece written by Ken Russell for the Times. And here, Julie Christie, the film's narrator, remembers the impact of this seminal documentary.

Trailer: The Animals Film

WATCH: Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

John Waters on Boom!

A new film blog was born this week and considering that its choice of an opening theme was exploitation cinema, I already like it. It hails from San Francisco (it's annexed to art magazine Fecal Face) and is edited by Caitlin Denny. One of the posts includes a lecture given by everyone's favourite trash king, John Waters, at the European Graduate School. Waters raves about a failed art film called Boom! starred by no one less than Elizabeth Taylor and directed by Joseph Losey. Waters once had the opportunity to say how much he loved the film to Taylor. Apparently she didn't like the turkey too much...

New on Kamera: our short guide to film events

Check out Kamera's editor's picks of film events around the world. One of the events included is a show of films in New York which use drawing as their basis. Luckily, Len Lye's A Colour Box, one of the films featured, is available on YouTube and it's a real gem. Check it out and be delighted.

Jonas Mekas in London

The founder of the iconic Anthology Film Archives in New York and a walking emblem of cinephilia, Jonas Mekas, will be in London on 17 and 19 July introducing films at Café 1001 and Curzon Soho respectively. At the former, there will be a screening of a selection of Mekas's own short films and at the latter the evening will include a screening of his 1997 Birth of a Nation (pictured) feature.

For those who can't make it, here is an edited version of a short film called Happy Birthday to John that Mekas made in 1972 featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The blog is back...from hospital

It's been a long time since the last post, due to some time off in hospital recovering from an appendicitis surgery (also known as appendicectomy). As a dedicated cinephile, I kept thinking about films set in hospitals while waiting away on my bed and also read the whole extent of 10 Bad Dates with De Niro, the list compilation to end all best-of lists. But going back to screen hospitals, I came up with two titles that I like most: Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions (2003) and Almodovar's Talk To Her (2002). Both films construct their quirky narratives around hospitals and illness to create compelling stories about life's big themes: love, death, friendship etc. Here's a sample of both films. Come to think of it, 'films set in hospital' may well make a good list for the aforementioned book. We've got two contenders already...

The Barbarian Invasions

Talk To Her

Horses and the City

With the opening of Sex and the City, the movie, a romantic vision of the Big Apple is back on the screen, with all the addictive banality of the TV series. But those who know New York City are also aware of a very sad element in the streets of the city: the horse-drawn carriage.

It is quite unbelievable that in 2008 a big, chaotic city like New York still allows sensitive animals like horses to be subjected to what can only be described as torture. But with the much-publicised deaths of three horses since 2006, the call for a ban on such carriages is getting stronger. And guess what? Even a documentary has been made to advertise the cause. Called Blinders, its trailer is on YouTube. It looks great and the cause is very noble so visit their website and add your voice to the movement to ban horse carriages in New York.

YouTube: the obscene phone call in Serial Mom

I think Serial Mom is one of John Waters' best films and this is one the best scenes in it. Enjoy it!

New on Kamera: Caramel and Earthlings

We have two great new items on the website: a review of a Lebanese film (that's right) called Caramel, which sounds just like the thing in the title. We also have a review of the amazing Earthlings, the documentary that has ignited a revolution in the way we look - and treat - animals. It is a revelation and I don't say that every day. Here's an excerpt of the Joaquin Phoenix-narrated film.

Vintage bird's eye view of Rio de Janeiro

Roberto Carlos is the most famous singer in Brazil, and the press often refers to him as 'the King'. The leader of a 1960s pop music movement in Brazil knows as 'Jovem Guarda', like Elvis Presley the singer used cinema as a vehicle to mould his feisty persona. The sequence below is taken from a 1967 picture called Roberto Carlos Em Ritmo de Aventura and shows an amazing helicopter ride across Rio de Janeiro. Enjoy it.

New on DVD: Lost Highway

David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), a favourite among Lynch aficionados, has finally been released on DVD. It is one of Lynch's most surreal and lush films; the soundtrack is also a treat for music lovers, going from Nine Inch Nails to Bossa Nova. Check out Kamera Books' recent title on David Lynch for further information.

Trailer: Garbage Warrior

Meet Michael Reynolds, who for over 30 years has been developing a sustainable living concept called Earthship Biotecture. Reynolds' incredible project is the subject of a documentary called Garbage Warrior, which will be screened on Sundance Channel on 01 April. Don't miss it.

Here's the trailer:

Trailer: Staircase

I've have always wanted to watch this Richard Burton and Rex Harrison-starred film, Staircase (Dir: Stanley Donen, 1969), although it seems to be hard to come by. Staircase was one of the films that Hollywood put out in the late 1960s to cash in on the new acceptance of homosexuality as an open topic, although from today's perspective it still looks very biased. Reflections in a Golden Eye, with Liz Taylor and Marlon Brando, is another example of this mini-crop of films. Brando plays a closeted major married to Taylor's slutty Leonora...hhmm).

Prejudices aside, Staircase does look fun, though, and I have heard good comments about the acting. The story? Charles Dyer (Harrison) and Harry Leeds (Burton) are a couple that have been living together for nearly 20 years. Both earn a living as hairdressers (what else?) in the West End of London and both care deeply for their mothers (surprise, surprise), but not each other as time apart takes its toll on their relationship when Harry has to care for his invalid mother who snips at him every chance she gets. The script was written by Charles Dyer.

Watch: Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula

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