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This week's Staff Pick is: Stalker (1979)  Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky Written by: Arkadiy Strugatskiy, Boris Strugatskiy and Andrei Tarkovsky Cinematography by: Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy, Georgi Rerberg (1977 crew) and Leonid Kalashnikov Edited by: Lyudmila Feyginova Music by: Eduard Artemev IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/ Summary: A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes. Stalker is my favorite movie ever, and it recently has been given a much needed full fledged restoration for home release. Past DVDs have had weird wobbly tracking issues and some editions had different scores because of conflicts over rights holders or something. Now this absolute classic can be enjoyed in a whole new light! If you haven't seen it, the film is a slow, methodical sci-fi exploration of the conflicts between theology, scientific pursuits and artistic endeavors, as embodied in the three main characters. The cinematography is second to none in my eyes; every composition is beautifully pieced together and given huge chunks of time to simply exist in your eyes. The contrast between internal and external, the natural and the urban are built into the film's color scheme, set design, music direction, etc. When I first saw this movie it caught me totally off guard and engrossed me in a way few films have before or since. I rewatch it relatively frequently and was even lucky enough to catch a projection a few years ago. I'm extremely excited to see this new restoration! Sadly, the new restoration is not seeing a home release until July. The "print" (aka 80 gig hard drive with a copy of the movie) is touring currently, and the theater near me is screening it starting this weekend. Even if you haven't seen the film before, please check out the existing copy, or you can watch it for free on youtube (without subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZv-Zeo13XM There's also the usual illicit methods to acquire it if you want. I've got screengrabs from past viewings, and Ill pull out my old DVD and scrub through it again after I watch the new restoration and see what new elements caught my eye. --- From the Staff Picks Archives January 31st, 2017: Cure February 7th, 2017: Westfront 1918 February 14th, 2017: John Wick February 21st, 2017: Red Sorghum February 28th, 2017: God of Gamblers March 7th, 2017: The Autopsy of Jane Doe March 14th, 2017: Perfect Blue March 21st, 2017: Spring Breakers March 28th, 2017: Cemetery of Splendor April 20th, 2017: Parallax View April 27th, 2017: Right Now, Wrong Then
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May 4, 2017 19:42
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It was sold out two evenings in a row oops.
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May 7, 2017 00:22
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I saw this on Sunday, and the new restoration is wonderful. Stalker's apartment is one of my favorite spaces in film and they fidelity makes it feel even more oppressive. you can practically count every little brush stroke of the rust and decay of the set. I was also struck by some details I overlooked in the past, like the carefully place detritus they pass throughout the zone; lightbulbs, straws, frames, etc. There are scenes where the camera pays special attention to them, like the slow pans over slightly submerged technologies of war, but I never really noticed how ubiquitous the trash was
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May 11, 2017 02:17
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I didn't make a new thread because Plutonis said he would make for this week. So keep your eyes peeled or I'll make a belated one this weekend.
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May 12, 2017 13:51
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