Film

1991, directed by Zhang Yimou

For the final film of the 2021-22 series, the lockdowns had finally ended (technically they ended in March, but I film these a month or so in advance), and I got to film from a different rooftop, next-door to my apartment building. Not having learned my lesson from my David Lean montage, I decided to try it again, summarizing the work of director Zhang Yimou by compressing about 10 hours of footage into about three minutes. The Rainier Club had a competing “Chinese Film Festival” as well, and I was a little worried that by selecting this film I was stepping on some toes. But, I think it worked out okay in the end.

2012, directed by Wes Anderson

For this film’s movie intro, I was lucky to have a lot of interesting video material to work with. Opening with Bill Murray introducing the film and the actors (instead of having me do it) was a fun twist. Discovering that a lot of it was filmed in abandoned “Linen & Things” big box store completely blew my mind. And, finding the “Centered” montage by the Korean filmmaker Kogonada was a lucky break, since it was a far better montage than I could’ve cobbled together.

2002, directed by Phillip Noyce

I had never previously seen this film, but kept it in the back of my mind for years, after reading a review by Roger Ebert who thought the story was devastating, and the filmmaking astonishing. It is a great film, but it’s ironic that the thing that so “devastated” Ebert in 2002 (namely, the forced separation of minority children and parents) would become US government policy in 2017 under Donald Trump. I was always conscious of my audience at The Rainier Club (figuring that at least half of them probably vote Republican), so I tried to stay politically neutral in my intros. Sometimes, the film speaks for itself.

1955, directed by David Lean

This and “The Muppet Christmas Carol” were my two longest videos, each clocking in at nearly 18 minutes. To summarize the work of David Lean, I had to create a montage, which meant watching all of his (very long) movies and clipping out about 30 seconds from each that would convey the story and be visually interesting. Outside of my Eurovision presentations, it was the most editing and paring down (going from 12.5 hours of footage down to two minutes) I’ve ever done. I still probably should have trimmed it further. I had more fun making a montage of the different recordings of the movie’s theme song.

January 21, 2021

2016, directed by Mira Nair

Finding a film set in Africa that wasn’t about war or apartheid was a bit of a challenge. I remembered seeing posters for this movie outside the (since demolished) AMC multiplex outside Disneyland in 2016, but I didn’t really know what it was about. It was only when I was looking at Mira Nair’s filmography for a possible Indian film selection that I realized she directed this too. And, only after researching the true story it’s based on did I discover that the film’s subject (chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi) was attending college near Seattle. Had the Rainier Club reopened by this time, we might’ve had her come and speak.

1992, directed by Brian Henson

Like many people during lockdown, we got a lockdown puppy. Our loveable bundle of fluff, a Pomeranian named “Puck” (after the character from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) made his film debut in this movie intro. This was also the first time I made a video montage (to showcase some of the songs of Paul Williams), and I think it worked out pretty well. I don’t know why, but I always get a little choked up when I hear the first banjo notes of “Rainbow Connection”.

2012, directed by Pablo Larrain

With the lockdowns continuing, I decided to make this season about the one thing we couldn’t do: travel internationally. I put together a list of films that took the viewers across every continent on the planet. For a while, I thought about including John Carpenter’s “The Thing” so we could also have a movie set in Antarctica, but ultimately decided against it. I had to give myself a crash-course in Chilean history for this intro. When I discovered that the vote on ending the Pinochet dictatorship coincided exactly with the famous “You’re no Jack Kennedy” Bentsen/Quayle vice-presidential debate, I knew I had to include that too.

October 29, 2020

1973, directed by Herbert Ross

Now, we are in full lockdown mode, and I can’t even leave my building. Luckily I lived in one of the tallest buildings in Lisbon, and we had a great view from the rooftop terrace. This was also around the time that I stopped editing these movies in iMovie on my iPad and switched to using Movavi on my Windows laptop. It allowed me a lot more precise control over crossfades and sound editing, but you can still see some errors (like my cutting off Leslie Bricusse’s last name). The Rainier Club was also closed for most of this season, so everything was done over Zoom.

1942, directed by Preston Sturges

Ah, the Covid season! I recorded this after the first lockdown, when things were starting to open back up, and I had a grand plan to film each of my intros in a different historic location around the city of Lisbon. I started with the Gulbenkian Museum, where I arrived at opening to have the place mostly to myself and try to film some (completely unauthorized) footage for a “tour” of the museum. This was the original plan for this season: spend five minutes talking about something historic, and 5 minutes talking about the movie. Sadly, the next (much longer) set of lockdowns put an end to that.

2014, directed by Damien Chazelle

I remember that I was a little worried about showing this film. Most of my movie selections were family-friendly and relatively upbeat. This was the first R-rated movie I screened for The Rainier Club, which I why I added some warnings to the end of the intro. Once again, Derek is serving as cameraman, and once again, I’m using my iPhone microphone to record the sound (trying not to have too much wind on the track). As far as I know, people enjoyed the film. I enjoyed getting to show a clip of the infamous Oscars “wrong envelope” debacle.