Voir: Die Filmkunst in der Moderne

Didn't know much about this when looking through new Netflix content. Watching episode one, I enjoyed a Cinephile's musings, coupled with familiarity and shared experiences, such as the thrill of watching Jaws as a young girl. My interest picked up and I became tachycardia when in episode two I suddenly recognized a familiar voice... Could it be? Yes it could... TONY ZHAO!! From the still terrific "Every Frame a Painting" webseries along with his equally talented partner and co-creator of EFAP Taylor Ramos (who is a also a skilled animator), they now helm a new series continuing dialogue on cinema while also narrating two episodes, spanning 6 separate segments. An enjoyable and informative series of video essays on wide ranging topics. The topics are not always ones familiar to me, and the opinions differ from mine, which is why I enjoyed this so much--opens up my internal dialogue a bit and provides me with wider perspective.

While decent in concept, I would rather hear from directors rather than critics because it all just kind of sounds like semi pretentious ramblings from a critic, heck I can get more nuanced thoughts from YouTuber film fans.

This has 5 entirely different episodes done by 5 different people on 5 different film topics. A montage. Oh - they are shorts in the literal term. Around 17 minutes each, so easy to watch.

Some are thoughtful and thorough. Others seem to thing you need to be bombarded with titles and clips. And their opinions. Well, they all give you their opinions, but some do it more forcefully than others.

Some I likes a lot, some better than others and one - not at all because I needed Dramamine to watch it. BUT - that's me.

You need to watch and listen and decide for yourself. No matter what you decided, I bet you will learn something from this quick study.

Billed rather grandly as a series of video essays some offer genuine insite into movies and some are just an axe grinding excercise or a requiem for disfunctional childhoods. Skip the first episode. My favourites were episode 2 which examines revenge movies, episode 3 which looks at unlikeable protagonists and episode 5, a discussion of the difference between movies and TV. Episode 4 is about animation, so kid's stuff.

I wanted to love this. I easily could have if it wasn't edited so choppily. The clips are rammed together so quickly I can barely follow. It's highly irritating and is a disservice to the content. Moving at a breakneck speed has its place, but a documentary about film isn't the place for it. For crying out loud let us savor what we're watching.