OHYAY: Leaving Antarctica

As the Terra Nova made its way up the coast of Victoria Land, out of the Ross Sea, they stopped a few times, to leave depots for future travellers, and to pick up the Northern Party's specimens. While they were at it they got a look at the ice cave in which Campbell and his men had suffered through the winter of 1912, which made quite an impression on all who saw it.

On January 26th they finally sailed out of sight of the White Continent:

... those who were on deck watched the familiar rocky, snow-capped shores fast disappearing from view. We had been happy there before disaster overtook our Expedition, but now we were glad to leave... When we left it was a good-night scene for most of us. The great white plateau and peaks were grimly awaiting winter, and they seemed to mock our departing exploring ship as though glad to be left in their loneland Silence.

– Teddy Evans, South With Scott

Then ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO YESTERDAY, Teddy Evans "called all the staff in the wardroom and read out my plans for the future, officially assumed the command and control of the Expedition." He appointed a committee "to assist me in satisfactorily terminating the Expedition," solicited suggestions from the rest of the staff, and as they sailed back to New Zealand they set about wrapping up and dismantling their endeavour of the last three years.

The Analytical Hulk

Film Crit Hulk, who brought us such classics as Hero's Journey is Crap and Five Act Structure Is Ace has turned his gamma radiation-enhanced film criticism powers on Les Miserables.

BUT BECAUSE OF THE CINEMATOGRAPHY FLAWS, YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CONNECT TO IT AS WELL AS YOU SHOULD. IT IS CONSTANTLY TRYING TO PUSH YOU AWAY FROM ALL THE THINGS THAT IT DOES WELL.

AND THAT IS TRULY HEARTBREAKING.

BECAUSE EVERYONE DESERVES A GREAT LES MIS.

Couldn't have come close to saying it as well as that, Film Crit Hulk!

You can find the whole long but very interesting article here, complete with all-caps and occasional cursing, but dangit, this is important.

Aside from pointing out specifically where Les Mis went wrong, this article is a really good primer for people who don't know much/anything about cinematography, and why it's so important to a film, why its weakness in this department made Les Mis a weaker film than it should have been by all other counts, and why film people get so huffy about this sort of thing come awards season. Someday I'm going to put together a post with screencaps and drawings that lays out what I thought was wrong with the cinematography, but Film Crit Hulk is vastly more informed on the subject, and this article is definitely prerequisite reading.


Yeah okay I like drawing Tom Hooper.

(A thousand thanks to Stephani for pointing me at this link!)