Watch This: 35 Movies in 2 Minutes

By Christopher Campbell (Subscribe to Christopher Campbell's posts)

Posted Jul 20th 2010 7:32PM

Filed under: Classics, Trailers and Clips, Trailers and Clips, Cinematical

What film fan doesn't like video montages that compile scenes, shots, titles, dialogue or what have you? They're always a fun test of our cinephilia to see how many we can name, if not all. The latest is from German design students Felix Meyer and Pascal Monaco (Sarah Biermann and Torsten Strer are also credited) and is called "35 Movies in 2 Minutes." Or "35MM" for short. It's a motion graphics animation that breezily takes us through minimalist images representing 35 classic films, including many by Hitchcock, Chaplin and Kubrick. I'll be honest and say that I couldn't get a lot of them. I don't know if that makes me a bad cineaste or simply not good at identifying simple deconstructions of film iconography.

I should be better at this stuff -- we all should be -- given that minimalist posters, t-shirts and redesigns of book covers have been all the rage lately (just last night we saw more). It's like design programs are only teaching classes on Saul Bass and Paul Rand. I asked my brother who's a designer, why this is, and he said the reason might be that "everything was too messy for too long and it's the only way out."

Well, it's not the worst trend ever, I'm just embarrassed at my inability to ace this particular game. How many can you spot? Some of the easiest to make out include Star Wars, The Terminator, Taxi Driver, Psycho and Jaws. Watch the video after the jump and provide your list in the comments. And if you want to check against our own guesses (most we're sure about, though some are still being debated amongst our team and the artists haven't provided a cheat sheet), check our list below the video box.