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lazarus
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I guess a still of Grace Kelly driving in Monaco in To Catch A Thief would have been too meta, huh?
Why it's never a good idea to get into a sports car with a "film" person behind the wheel
Cyd Charisse and Kirk Douglas in Two Weeks in Another Town, Vincente Minnelli, 1962 Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance in Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard, 1963 Terence Stamp in "Toby Dammit," from Histoires extraordinaires or Spirits of the Dead, Federico Fellini, 1968
Those are nice, Glenn, but I thought you of all people would have put up some shots from Rivette's Merry-Go-Round.
Maria Schneider, 1952-2011
From The Passenger, with Jack Nicholson, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975. David Hudson is assembling links to updates and tributes at The Daily Notebook.
Nice to see some love for The Good Shepherd, but it should be noted that the theatrical cut was different from what De Niro had intended. He's mentioned a longer director's cut in interviews but god knows if that will ever come out.
I know many found it slow, but I still feel that added material would only benefit what's already there (which is mostly great).
The DeNiro perplex
As part of MSN TV's' run-up to the Golden Globes, I examine the mutating mystique of its 2011 Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, a face we all know.
I believe "Shut up and deal" would be the appropriate response there.
Here's to wilder New Year's!
Have a safe and happy one, you all. UPDATE: On examining this post, My Lovely Wife told me, "You should be thrown in prison."
Well that's not as good as the part when he calls Spielberg an asshole and claims that Titanic was a success because "plump, slovenly girls" saw themselves in Kate Winslet. MEOW!
Yes we "Cancan"
"WHAT is an award?" asked Dave Thomas as Richard Harris in an SCTV sketch I'm fond of. (What SCTV sketch am I not fond of, I sometimes wonder.) In today's Foreign Blu-ray Report, partially about this INCREDIBLE French disc of Renoir's French Cancan, I ask "WHAT is an auteur?" At The Daily Note...
Nrh, I've read that whole Rivette interview before, and it's wonderfully catty and times and also endearing I'm terms of how much of a film lover the man still is (or was ten years ago, at least). I find it odd that the line he draws between Walsh and Preminger on one hand, and Minnelli on the other is one of work with the actors, instead of how he's using his images to forward whatever perpective he has on the material. I think it's a little reductive to claim that Minnelli's primary consideration was with sets and design, and while all of his films may not seem like auteurist statements (the man was as dismissive of his decisions and intentions to interviewers as the cagey John Ford), a good number of them do, going all the way up to Nina a.k.a. A Matter of Time (a criminally unavailable title save for old VHS copies).
Yes we "Cancan"
"WHAT is an award?" asked Dave Thomas as Richard Harris in an SCTV sketch I'm fond of. (What SCTV sketch am I not fond of, I sometimes wonder.) In today's Foreign Blu-ray Report, partially about this INCREDIBLE French disc of Renoir's French Cancan, I ask "WHAT is an auteur?" At The Daily Note...
Why is Lapidus alive? Because he's the only one who can fly that plane off the island. And I'm speculating that the same people will get on a plane in each reality, and when they reach the same point during their flights geographically, the two worlds will reconcile. Most LOST fans seem to like Frank, and his comic relief is usually welcome, but he does seem extraneous otherwise. Miles joining Richard's team makes it even more likely that he's going to be the next one to go.
Like you, I also loved Demond's "C.S.I." moment. I said to my friends as he pulled away, "My work here is done, Brother".
'Lost': Hugo Reyes is a sad, sad man
See, here's a pretty big reason for why I don't think the answers we're going to get as the show ends are not the most important thing as we head into the end of "Lost." Because tonight, we got an answer to a big question that's been around since Season One -- just what are the strange whispe...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Walt Disney personally campaign to the Board of Governors (or whoever the Powers That Be were at the time) to give Baskett that Oscar? It's a little different than some group of people collectively deciding to patronize him with some kind of second-class prize.
Tales From the Warner Archives #3: "Wonder Bar" (Bacon, 1934) (UPDATED)
I don't think I've ever gone into my weird Al Jolson thing on this blog, or on my prior one for that matter, even when I was pondering Warner's controversial DVD release of The Jazz Singer a couple years back. I alluded to it here, but never really explained, say, just how I acquired it (whic...
Oh yeah, forgot to say, Glenn, that I'm surprised you neglected to mention Céline and Julie Go Boating in your write up. It's pretty clear that the film was inspired by Daisies, especially as Rivette was one of Chytilova's early cheerleaders.
Girls, girls, girls
"A feminist, psychedelic, surreal Eastern European answer film to... ...Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." That would be Daisies, Vera Chytilova's sui generis 1966 freakout, which I submit to a bit of the DVD Beaver treatment today at The Auteurs, for the weekly Foreign Region DVD ...
I randomly stumbled upon Daises when it was recommended by Amazon.uk of all places after looking up Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. My interest piqued, I "found" it online shortly thereafter and fell in total movie love. Over the last couple months I've been feverishly trying to hunt down the other Chytilova films floating around the ether, though only some have accompanying subtitles.
It was another nice surprise to see that Second Run was just in the process of releasing Daisies on DVD, so I picked that up; great purchase. Not too much in the way of extras but the semi-recent interview with the charming Chytilova was well worth it.
Showed the film to a bunch of friends and everyone loved it.
Girls, girls, girls
"A feminist, psychedelic, surreal Eastern European answer film to... ...Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." That would be Daisies, Vera Chytilova's sui generis 1966 freakout, which I submit to a bit of the DVD Beaver treatment today at The Auteurs, for the weekly Foreign Region DVD ...
I'm a huge Mann fan who loves Miami Vice AND Ali (though I'd only rate Collateral as "good"), but I'm not very excited for Public Enemies either. I don't necessarily want him locked in the modern urban setting, but seeing him try to top The Untouchables (not much of a challenge) isn't something I'm interested in. It also may have something to do with my distaste for Disney's newest whore Captain Jack Tonto, whose mannered acting style does nothing for me.
Something new at The Auteurs
For the past couple of weeks I've been contributing a new column, a sort of that-was-the-week-that-was (in miniature) in film and blogging, in the interest of fostering discourse. Not, I am quick to point out, discourse of the lowest kind, but also not, given my occasional tendencies towards imp...
An idiot would be someone who made either the Gallo statement OR the Coppola one. Putting both in one post? That's deserving of something far worse.
"Tetro," Francis Ford Coppola, and the mystery of the non-existent hot tub
Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro is nuts. I should be quick to point out that I mean that in a good way—I was engaged by it, entranced by it, and finally even moved by it. But it's nuts nonetheless. It begins, as some critics and even the maestro himself have noted, in a relatively normal mode not...
Daniel, I'm assuming that's a photo book featuring Swanberg repeatedly trying to blow himself?
We have a weiner: Results of the first—and now absolutely definitely for sure LAST—"Some Came Running" contest, with bonus photos for (non-rewarded) captioning!
As no less a personage as Mr. Kevin Smith recently pointed out to me in an interview, humor is really fucking subjective. So when judging the entries for the first, and last, "Some Came Running" contest, the sole criteria was, did it make me laugh? Okay, how much it made me laugh was also taken ...
And in other news, the official Criterion website just posted Joe Swanberg's Top 10 from the label.
When I saw the inclusion of "The Harder They Come", for a second I thought Glenn's commenters here had humorously compiled the list themselves.
An art film Blu-ray bonanza...
Holy cow. Under my transom, in the space of a week, come Criterion Blu-rays of both Bergman's 1957 The Seventh Seal and Resnais and Robbe-Grillet's 1961 Last Year At Marienbad. These pictures are so widely known, so hugely influential, and, perhaps more to the point, so often parodied and/or...
Problem is, Jim, some of those hacks aren't perfect. I had one that only played about half the Region 2 discs I tried. And if you have a Panasonic you're shit out of luck as there are supposedly no codes.
I found a new region-free Philips player on eBay for $50 including shipping, and it also has a USB jack to so I can hook up portable drives to play media. That's not really a lot to spend.
As for Eureka, I only have Fritz Lang's Spies but it's a very nice disc. Glenn is also correct that BFI has been putting out some damn good releases, though the R2 company Second Run should be mentioned as well. Among other things, they have a good selection of Czech films, including Marketa Irglova and Vera Chytilova's Daisies, the latter of which just came out last week and is ESSENTIAL viewing.
In Praise of Eureka!/Masters of Cinema
I've told this tale before, but it bears repeating here, I think. A few years back I had lunch with a veteran distributor who was starting a new DVD label. Excited about his plans, he stated his ambition plainly: "I want it to be Criterion with attitude." Now as it happened, the label did not ...
Swanberg distinguished himself from his contemporaries when he started the groundbreaking "Lispcore" movement in 2009.
The first ever (and probably last) "Some Came Running" contest: Caption That Screen Grab!
I like to consider myself a reasonably open-minded, live-and-let-live kind of guy. I figure, if Noah Baumbach, whose films as a writer-director I like a good deal, wants to play patron to Joe Swanberg, a filmmaker I consider pretty much to be a supurrating wound on the face of cinema, that's pre...
Doesn't "Ellie" look EXACTLY like the cowgirl in Toy Story 2? Just sayin'.
Also, I remember reading about that cave-tubing excursion when planning my trip to Belize. It looked like a hell of a lot of fun, and I'm bummed out I passed it up, but I think it involved having to take a small plane to that area, which is pretty high up on my list of Things Not To Do.
"Up"
Movie reviewers tend, at least in private, to get ever-so-slightly blasé about the output of Pixar, Disney's computer animation arm. From Toy Story to A Bug's Life to The Incredibles to Ratatouille to, well, you get the idea, the stuff functions on such a high level of quality, from a certai...
Not this Army of Shadows as a recent release nonsense again. Hey, if they sort out that recently-found Metropolis footage before the end of the year, maybe that can take over the top spot!
All snark aside, I like the rest of your list, Robert, save for the Zhang Yimou. A few of those films/directors would be on mine as well.
And Glenn, nice to see a mention of Marie & Julien. I wasn't too sure how Rivette fans felt about it; personally I thought it was phenomenal, and does much to remove fantasies of the aborted Finney/Caron version. Also, your praise of Red Cliff has me intrigued and surprised, to say the least. Are we talking a Bullet in the Head level of greatness?
Today, I got nothing...
...except for maybe, I dunno, my "interesting" (I hope!) sensibility. Talk among yourselves. Or, if you're in the tri-state area, get the hell outside! It's supposed to be bee-yoo-tee-full today.
Well, he did compose "additional music" for Reds. Sondheim wrote most of the score, but I don't remember anything bad in the film.
That's all I got.
Funnily, I remember way back when The Firm came out and a friend was complaining about Grusin's score afterwards.
Fear and loathing, film music division
Seriously. It's funny, I was thinking as I was writing up the new Criterion disc of Peter Yates' 1973 The Friends of Eddie Coyle, that Coyle could actually have been that rarest of things, a perfect movie, had it not been for the overstated and thoroughly dinky electric piano-driven "jazz co...
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