History of SCFZ

[wba]

ymdb (and the ymdb forums)?

YMDB!!! Fuck, I totally forgot all about that! And that it ever existed!!!
Throw me some crumbs of information, please. I recall I used to hang out there as well, but nothing else.
Was this maybe THE LIFE CINEMATIC's former name? *headscratch*

[wba]

anyone remember listology.com?

I did like all of my lists there for what felt like a decade, till it imploded a few times (robots, bugs, too old html, Putin and the KGB?) and/or the guy who ran it just stopped caring after that.

[augusto]

if mubi was coffee, then scfz is espresso

does that explain why i drink coffee more than espresso? but no, just feel mubi theauteurs was chaotic good, this is closer to neutral good (if i'm understanding these terms correctly, though more likely i'm just being *steve buscemi meme*). miss it a lot, but it's equally i miss that time in my life where i could watch so much wonderful (often obscure) cinema with a truly international community. too many posters i recall fondly, laali certainly comes to mind right away.

intros to ghatak films when he represented him in a cup way back when.]

i was thinking about this cup while watching his infamous lenin doc recently! it was when i first started posting there regularly, found it a tad too intimidating before that. honestly was initially using it as a way to distract from writing my dissertation (and sure enough, i was soon getting nightmares with scenes from titash instead, so mission accomplished). but a few then posted on my wall/dm'd -- one asked if i was going to show *his crazy herbie movie*, and i had no idea who herbie was then -- it was fun. heady stuff. (also, one article/essay on ghatak many years later cited one of those intro posts on subarnarekha with "as an anonymous user on the mubi forum said...". i'm definitely including that in my file when i'm up for tenure.)

also speaking of people i miss! my favorite, most withering putdown during the directors cup was due to manas (chasing butterflies, one of the few regrets of deleting facebook for good was losing touch with some of the older mubi members like him), whose response to a comment that went "as a leftist cinephile, my issues with ghatak are..." was (paraphrasing): "if by leftist cinephile, you mean turning one's head leftward, away from images of great power and beauty, then i agree with you."

i never had a talent for this. i just deactivated my account instead.

[roujin]

I know a lot of YMDB people came from there and started TLC. Some are on twitter and letterboxd now (wigwam is hirtho, jake aesthete is there, so is ally).

But, yes, olof was a sweet prince.

[rischka]

ally the maniac listmaker. i think she's a Qanon now. she blocked me cuz i didn't believe in 'spirit-cooking'

[wba]

Ally, forgot all about her!!!
Last thing I did was contribute something to one of her films about feminism or feminism in silent movies or such like 10 years ago?
Ha, twitter, haven't used it in ages (maybe somewhere around 2013 the last time). Don't even know if I could log in anymore...

care to give me some links? Or can twitter be google'd...

[roujin]

Ally was always insane. i remember wigwam coined the term ally-watching whenever she would say she "watched" something but was really doing something else. That and "comfy towels" movies (applied to like nancy meyers? The stuff that sticks to you...

[wba]

Ha, yeah, I remember that phrase now!
I always wondered how she managed to watch so many films back then....
And I always thought it was "Ally the manic listmaker".

[MrCarmady]

I know a lot of YMDB people came from there and started TLC. Some are on twitter and letterboxd now (wigwam is hirtho, jake aesthete is there, so is ally).

But, yes, olof was a sweet prince.

the james that people were mentioning in this thread isn't formerly fat canadian james, right? do you know what became of him?

[rischka]

no it's this james: https://letterboxd.com/james_/

he's a musician. you can tell he's one of us "wewontgrowold2gether at gmaiI dot com"

The weirdest thing I recall personally from arsaib, is that he sent me a few(!) PMs telling me James (I believe) was dangerous and I should be careful with him, and that he might write to me under various aliases and such.

this is too weird! i seem to remember pabs thought james might secretly be arsaib when we moved to letterboxd! as far as i know they didn't even know each other (altho arsaib blocked nearly everyone who spoke to me by that point)

edit: this could indeed be two different james

[MrCarmady]

It's weird, I loved the three Pialat films I saw and yet I never continued exploring. Will grab it for when I'm feeling like having my soul destroyed.

[flip]

it's possible there's more than one james, the one i was talking about was james• (with a dot), who is a really good contemporary composer, and who i think everyone here really liked (so i think the one wba mentions might not be the same person, not sure though), he was part of the group of people who i'd say defined the scfz aesthetic in the early days (along with jerry/m penalosa) but who have since moved on.

[flip]

no it's this james: https://letterboxd.com/james_/

i think our forum is truncating the actual url there, so if you just click on the link, it goes to https://letterboxd.com/james (from auckland) and not to our old friend james. i had to copy/paste the link or manually type in the underscore character to get to the right profile (from athens ga)

[rischka]

yes you're right how annoying ty flippers

[Lencho of the Apes]

nearly everyone who spoke to me

It puzzled me mightily when I saw that Arsaib had blocked me, since I didn't recall ever having interacted with him in any way. I appreciate all this backstory on him that I'm reading and I'll never need to give him another moment's thought. [Me twirling on a hillside like Julie Andrews]

I miss Jiri.

[rischka]

i also miss jiri, he's still at kg afaik, maybe i should drop him a line. a unique character!

[wba]

it's possible there's more than one james, the one i was talking about was james• (with a dot), who is a really good contemporary composer, and who i think everyone here really liked (so i think the one wba mentions might not be the same person, not sure though), he was part of the group of people who i'd say defined the scfz aesthetic in the early days (along with jerry/m penalosa) but who have since moved on.

Yes, that's the one I meant, great guy! As I said, I don't know what arsaib tried to suggest (but there's still a slight chance he meant somneone else, cause my memory...).

[wba]

Yeah, jiri, drop him a line rischka, maybe he'll come and have a look here again.

[therouxxx]

no it's this james: https://letterboxd.com/james_/

i think our forum is truncating the actual url there, so if you just click on the link, it goes to https://letterboxd.com/james (from auckland) and not to our old friend james. i had to copy/paste the link or manually type in the underscore character to get to the right profile (from athens ga)

You can wrap the link in urls tags to avoid this https://letterboxd.com/james_/

[roujin]

I know a lot of YMDB people came from there and started TLC. Some are on twitter and letterboxd now (wigwam is hirtho, jake aesthete is there, so is ally).

But, yes, olof was a sweet prince.

the james that people were mentioning in this thread isn't formerly fat canadian james, right? do you know what became of him?

I know he was doing stand-up in Toronto and lost a lot of weight. HE posted some on criterionforum and corrierino under tarpilot. I lost track of him unfortunately. He is responsible for so much of my taste!

[wba]

Hmmm, now I'm not sure which James arsaib was referring to. Maybe HE meant another James than I thought of. Haha!

[roujin]

I did recently learn that the Eli Fox who posted on TLC was the Eli Hayes who recently passed away, which blew my mind.

[wba]

I did recently learn that the Eli Fox who posted on TLC was the Eli Hayes who recently passed away, which blew my mind.

WHAT THE FUCK!!! YES, I remember that face!

[sally]

this thread is simultaneously warm-fuzzy and terrible-sad.

do you think arsaib googles his name? i could never square his articulate writing on film with how suddenly he went psycho on us. now it seems it was a cycle. poor guy.

ultrakebab was really nice. oh and don't quote chasing butterflies (just seeing his name, manas!) i secretly adored him i think (but then i adored vikram as well, who could write as well, don't tell him) and his partner was lovely too.

i didn't mention jiri because technically he was on here, but yes, it's a loss, his every letterboxd review is still a treasure tho

i remember ioana also from romania, she made me a list of male nudity in films i think. bless her.

also sir douglas, but fuck him.

[sally]

rishcka, have you ever told anybody your real name?

[sally]

ZACHARY PHILLIP BRAILSFORD!

[rischka]

hey! sir douglas got me into kg. no i don't tell people my real name even in real life and i've never met anyone here irl altho lencho and i occupy the same time zone

i dropped jiri a note telling him he came up in conversation and giving our current location

[sally]

also i forgot house of leaves too

[sally]

ok sod it, i'm spending the evening crying into the way back machine

[rischka]

house of leaves aka JR was here briefly i think. brian risselada is the one i can do without. taking the side of MRAs then come to find out belongs to some religious sect that believes women are inferior! and he was a moderator!!