WEEK 24

24. OPENING NIGHT, dir. JOHN CASSAVETES, 1977

"OH YEAH, AND WHERE DO YOU LIVE?"

CALIFORNIA SPLIT exhibits some sort of sneaky genius. it tells the truth about people trying to make it, about desperate people, normal people, extraordinary people, the people you notice, the people you don't. it's moving and terribly funny. elliot gould is number one.

so much of the power of this film, like others by robert altman, is owed to sound--the way the talking overlaps and fights for the floor, suggesting a universe of equally valid, individual, human voices. you pull for bill and charlie from the first moment of the first scene, and you never stop pulling for them, even as you wish desperately for them to stop while they're ahead. and i guess, eventually, they do--or at least one of them does. the ending is such a heartbreak, though the kind you find in real life at every turn. it's a perfect ending. i love this movie.

for the interested, a glimpse into how the film was meant to end here.

for this week, a no-brainer. a cassavetes film i am excited to finally see all the way through.

FILM ORGY UPDATE: sasha will be spending the next month in new york, and as such we're going to take a break from our usual back-and-forth posting until she returns. instead, we'll be updating a month-long film log, perhaps with some brief commentary to boot, to give you some insight into what we're watching and what we think. see you soon.

WEEK 23

23. CALIFORNIA SPLIT, dir. ROBERT ALTMAN, 1974

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i guess the thomas crown affair was not my all-time favorite
though i basically liked watching faye dunaway and steve mcqueen
the opening song drove me crazy (& the choral repeat 40 minutes in was nearly enough to make me cover my ears!), and the split screens and fade outs turning into hyper-detail and color were a little out of my thrill-zone. yeah, it felt dated.
glad enough to have seen the original, and was fairly entertained, but had quite a bit more fun watching the remake years ago. liked where they took the hats.
ahhhh. watching this made me think about writing. why good criticism is so hard to come by: it is easiest to write well about something that you hated or something that you loved, much harder to write well about something you didn't hate or love. most things are somewhere in the middle, or somewhere slightly more or less than middle, and to be able to write interestingly about the mediocre is a super-skill, one that i do not do not do not possess. watching something that doesn't fire me up in one direction or another, speaking to the things about which i felt not much, i sort of melt into not just an inability to say something new, but also a near inability to say anything at all, or to even maintain proper syntax-recall (i.e. "ahhhh.", run-ons, etc.)
watching the middle and trying to write is clearly an exercise to try out more often. so, for this rememberance if nothing else, good to have seen it.
never seen california split, but hear it's super. robert altman, for me, is a general do-no-wrong.

WEEK 22

22. THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, dir. NORMAN JEWISON, 1968

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the thing about warren beatty, besides his being easy to look at, is that he's totally winning. there's something very c'mon, guys! about him. also, he is a disconcertingly natural actor, which is to say it's hard to tell if he's doing anything at all...but then again i like him every time i see him, so he must be doing something. these are my thoughts about warren beatty.

i enjoyed heaven can wait, found it entertaining, though things work out alright in the end for everyone except jack warden, which left me feeling a little blue.

i am in the mood for something stylish and fast. and so, the thomas crown affair. enjoy.