WEEK 30

30. ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, WHITE PAINTING, 1951. **NO FILM POST THIS WEEK**

i am behind in film viewing. i feel a big white space. i've been developing blisters in the garden, i've had my nose in a book reading hazy and bone slicing descriptions of the bloody hallucinations and pits of war, i've been lazily staring at the wall semi-paralyzed at all that needs doing. it's time to catch up. i realized late last night that it was my week to post and rather than put another stone on the grand pile i've been collecting of things past due, i thought it better to re-up. i am watching too much of the wire. no, there is no such thing.
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WEEK 29

29. BLACK ORPHEUS, dir. MARCEL CAMUS, 1959

WEEK 28

28. THE LAST METRO, dir. FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT, 1980

i saw only 4 movies while i was away.
when i got home, we excitedly resumed & finished the 4th season of the wire.
last night we scurried around town, going to multiple video stores to find the disks containing the 5th season.
while looking at new releases, the box for the last metro caught my eye.
today i baked recipe-less cookies on a whim. they turned out pretty well, at least edible.
i'm posting the last metro on a whim, as well; i don't know much about it.
despite the whimsy contained in this first-post-back, i don't think the movie itself will be whimsical. it will likely far beat this post in quality to the degree that the post might beat it at whimsy. i must still be a bit jet-lagged, despite no time zone change. brooklyn - lagged. anyway, glad to be back to film-trading w. juliet!

WEEKS 25 - 27

MON. MAY 18
THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, dir. JIM JARMUSCH, 2009
another film in which the museum site is nearly a lead character as much as the lead character; preferred summer hours. --SASHA


SUN. MAY 17
SUMMER HOURS, dir. OLIVIER ASSAYAS, 2008
loved it loved it, and so perfect to have seen directly after an afternoon spent overwhelmed at the met. --SASHA

TUES. MAY 11
THE ORDER OF MYTHS, dir. MARGARET BROWN, 2007
an excellent documentary about mardi gras in mobile, alabama, which to this day remains segregated. remarkably even-handed and surprising. i'm still thinking about it. --JULIET


WED. MAY 5
ANOTHER WOMAN, dir. WOODY ALLEN, 1988
a low-quality image from a pretty high-quality woody allen film. just saw this one tonight.
--JULIET

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.