The 2006 Kimberlys

I am proud to announce the inaugural year of The Kimberlys®. Having nothing to do with the Oscars, this award show was created to actually give out awards that mean something and don't go to a bunch of rich people who just want to put something else on their accomplishment shelf. These awards go to the brightest of the bright and the best of the best in the film world of all ages and time.

THE 2006 KIMBERLYS

*Nominees are listed with the winner in italics and noted as winner.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Anthony Perkins (Psycho)

Max Schreck (Shadow of the Vampire)
Winner: John Malkovich (Shadow of the Vampire)

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Christina Ricci (Buffalo '66)

Natalie Portman (Garden State)

Winner: Janet Leigh (Psycho)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

John Russell (Psycho)

Lou Bogue (Shadow of the Vampire)

Winner: Daniel Pearl (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974])

BEST COSTUMES

Shadow of the Vampire
Nosferatu
Winner: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

BEST DIRECTOR

Nicholas Roge

Fritz Lang

Winner: Alfred Hitchcock

BEST FILM EDITING AND USE OF TECHNIQUE

Citizen Kane

Frenzy

Winner: Don't Look Now

BEST SET

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Nosferatu

Winner: Citizen Kane

BEST MAKEUP

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Nosferatu

Winner: Shadow of the Vampire

BEST CAST

Shadow of the Vampire

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Winner: Psycho

BEST STORYLINE

Buffalo '66

Rope

Winner: Frenzy

BEST PICTURE

Buffalo '66 (directed by Vincent Gallo)

Garden State (directed by Zach Braff)

Runner-Up: Don't Look Now (directed by Nicholas Roge)

Winner: Rope (directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

©2006 Fiya Guillory, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Kimberlys® is a registered trademark and service mark of Fiya Guillory, Inc.

-Kevin

1st Semester of Film Studies

I must say that it has been a blast in the first semester of Film Studies. I have learned numerous things about film, things that I never even knew about. It has been a cool half year with a lot of interesting things both in film and in the classroom. The movies have been awesome, the teaching has been great (although this instructor is crazy...), and what I have gotten out of Film Studies is really neat. I look forward to another fun semester of this class come January.

-Kevin

Rope

I don't think there was a better way to end the year than with the film, Rope. Not only did this movie become my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie, but it also became one of my favorites from this year of class. Hitchcock once again hits the thumb on the nail with the film and his directing technique within it. He does his name well with a really neat movie.

I think a lot of my liking of this movie came from the fact that it had the simplest storyline of any movie we have seen this year, but it was presented in the most unique way. Hitchcock took a simple murder story and added so many factors to keep the viewer, especially me, very interested. This is contributed to a lot of things he did so perfectly in this movie.

On the contrary, I thought the actors and actresses and the acting fit really well with the movie. I can see where someone would be coming from thinking the acting, especially the two main characters, is a little absurd, but I think that it is done on purpose to overemphasize the absurd thinking they did in their shananigans. So, I thought that they did a good job in playing their suspicious yet high class attitudes. As for the other characters, I thought they fit in just perfect as well. James Stewart did a way better job in Rope than he did in Rear Window. He was very interesting in Rope and really did a good job in keeping the suspense rolling throughout the film. A few other good actors and actresses were Janet and Kenneth, both of whom the storyline relied on in reference to being closely associated in some form with the person killed in the film, David. These two really keep a lot interesting enhancing the story to a higher level. Overall, though, this could be one of Hitchcock's best casts.

This movie was a big leap for Hitchcock in the film world. While it was his first color movie, coming out in 1948, it was also a new technique use for Hitchcock. While he still did use the basic film technique everyone knows about very well, he used this new technique of very few cuts. He filmed and filmed and filmed and stopped rarely. Although this was probably a pain with mistakes and things like that, the film itself looks great all together.

As I stated earlier, this is definitely one of my favorite storylines. Hitchcock uses this simple murder story about two guys strangling a friend so that they can commit the perfect murder and satisfy their intellectual self and lets it branch out into all of these crazy and sick, yet awesome things. The way he did this well was his perfect way of connecting the set with the characters, the characters with each other, and the whole cast with the basic murder storyline. Because of his execution of this, the simple plot was turned into an exciting one.

Although it is deemed as one of Hitchcock's weirder movies, I think it represents him a lot and was obviously a big step for him in many categories of film. Rope was a very well-done and intriguing movie from start to finish that lets one wonder at the next party what the chest in the room contains.

-Kevin

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

I have finally figured out my true problem with the German Expressionist movies - it takes me years to figure out what is going on. Once I figure that out, I have no problem and enjoy them. This holds true for the final German Expressionist movie we watched, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Although it took me less time to get to the point and direction of this movie, I had a hard time being interested in it until that came somewhere in the middle.

Fritz Lang, director of this movie, was basically what kept me attempting to figure out the movie. With such a popular name, I knew something was there to be seen and something with quality, and although it took me a little while, I eventually got it. Lang seems to be like Hitchcock in the fact that they are big utilizers of the auteur theory. As we discussed in class, Lang's auteur focus seems to be on how the law was so un-effective and dysfunctional. This seemed to be his main motif in his use of the auteur theory and you can easily see this through the The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

This movie was definitely the best German Expressionist movie we watched because I think that Lang does a better job than Wiene and Marnau in using the resources available during that time. Although they were limited, and maybe resources Lang used weren't accessible by the other two, but Lang seemed to put more into the movie and the result showed it. Even to the point of taking resources out of the picture, Lang seemed to do like some future (then) directors would do - put many storylines together into one story to add to the total effect. With this, Lang gets the better film.

I did like a few things from the movie. As I mentioned, the multi-storyline effect is always really cool. It was neat to see a German Expressionist sound movie since we had watched two silent ones. As well, Lang was understandable through his film. Even though you had to search for it, as you need to in many movies, I could see where he was coming from or trying to get across, or at least what I thought and got out of it. I also thought the acting wasn't half bad, especially considering those times when very few options were probably available.

To end the German Expressionist unit of Film Studies, I think Fritz Lang is a great example of a great expressionist who took it to the full level. He did so through The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and I'm sure he did the same in many other movies.

-Kevin