Week 26.27 - Socials Roundup MAKING FACES
29 June - 05 July 2026: how to make exaggerated faces out of windows, antique bowls, lamps . . . and also Tim Curry's rubber smile
Week 26.27 posts include shots from Total Recall (1990); Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992); The Fall (2006); The Babadook (2014); Watchmen (2019) and La Chimera (2023).
La Chimera
This short, static shot where a character creates a ‘face’ by drinking from an antique bowl is fun, symbolic, gorgeous, and surprising all in a simple few seconds.
Home Alone 2
This incredible facial recreation scene transition actually sets itself up 20 seconds before the transition itself begins.
We’re primed for the scene transition by the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) playing on Kevin’s limo television.
When the scene cuts to a closeup of the Grinch (0:20), it feels as though we’re just watching the movie along with Kevin . . . until the crossfade starts, and superimposes the literally-animated smile over concierge Tim Curry’s deliciously nefarious smile.
The punch-line-cherry-on-top is cutting to a wide of still-smiling Tim Curry behind his desk: ding! the light turns on to give him an ironic glowing angel halo.
The Fall
Part of the joy of this crossfade is the difference in scope and scale.
It moves from a normal-everyday-sized face to the sheerly massive desert, where an eye maybe an inch wide in the first figure is represented by multiple camels.
I’m no mathematician, nor have I recently measured any camels, but you imagine the scale is at least 1000:1.
Watchmen
This series adapts a graphic novel famous for its smiley face, which it recreates with egg yolks, but it also uses stained glass windows to remind us of the surveillance state . . .
Total Recall
Our longreads last week took a closer look at all the shots around these classics faces from Total Recall.
The famous segmented head disguise.
And of course, the shudder-inducing nostril extraction.
The Babadook
The very opening sequence of this film (which we talk about in our “Opening Kills in Horror” series) uses Amelia’s body and the two mismatched bedside lamps to create a picture of the Babadook.