Can I tell how you all how excited I am? The following items finally shipped to me today:
–“Twin Peaks” Definitive Gold Box Set
–“Twin Peaks: Season 2” soundtrack
—O Lucky Man! 2-disc Special Edition DVD
If luck be a lady, I’ll get everything in time for next weekend.
The Godfather of Disco [2007]
1. Much overlap with the book I read on vacation, The Secret History of Disco. I’m glad I had read it before seeing this.
2. Tony Humphries looked/acted weird.
3. Ample Grace Jones photos but, alas, no interview.
In a great piece I found a few days ago Steven Soderbergh writes, “I think editing on a micro-level has never been better, and editing on a macro-level has never been worse.” In other words, the flow of cuts from shot to shot has never been better, but the overall flow/conception of a movie has never been worse.
I quite agree, especially when it comes to big-budget movies and ersatz “indie” movies. The flow of images from shot to shot, as well as hyperactive flash-cuts style editing, readily induces a visceral feeling that something is going on; something somewhere. But at the end of the movie all too often what we’re left with is a jumble of impressive vignettes that have not created any kind of residual effect. At the end of Network you feel something; when Mutual Appreciation is over you have an instinctual understanding of the characters and their environment, and it’s created through macro-editing.
It’s the kind of storytelling ability that’s very hard, if not impossible, to teach. Learning how to do match cuts is easy. Learning how to shape a narrative is a horse of a different color. A great filmmaker (David Lean, Lindsay Anderson, David Lynch and of course Hitchcock) has mastery of both; a mediocre professional (like Tony Scott, Michael Bay, etc.) thinks that micro is enough.
Anyone want to hang out at my apartment tomorrow? I need someone to be there in order to sign for a UPS package.
($#@%^&!! UPS)
Fresh Bait [1995]
1. The great thing Tavernier does in this movie is take a familiar, hackeyed plot and deglamorize it. Not in a Bressonian way, just in a matter-of-fact kind of way. And seeing it in this fresh light makes you really notice how pathetic and sad these archetypes are. As real human beings.
2. Nathalie putting on her Wallkman headphones during the first murder. She’s not able to hear what’s happening, but Tavernier makes us listen. But he refuses to show us the murder onscreen.
3. The homoeroticism that’s always subtextual … except during the brief moment when Bruno cradles Eric’s head in his hands after the fight.
Gee, all I ever post about anymore is film.
I’ve neglected to write about how happy, happy, HAPPY I am now that it’s finally autumn.
Shadow of the Thin Man [1941]
1. I want “Whitey” Barrows’ apartment from this movie. Andy is welcome to live across the hall.
2. When Stella Adler and William Powell are together, she always steals the scene. No small feat.
3. This is really the last movie in the series where Nick drinks a lot. Nora hardly touches a drop.
Yours truly (that’s me) will be presenting the Medusa sequence from Clash of the Titans … hope to see some of you there!
AN EVENING OF THE MACABRE
A collection of horrific shorts and clips on Halloween Eve
Tuesday, October 30 / Doors open at 8pm
– – – – – – – – – –
Films by
– – – – – – – – – – –
X
SEGUNDO DE CHOMON
BENJAMIN CHRISTENSEN
DESMOND DAVIS
WALT DISNEY
DAVE FLEISCHER
DAVID LYNCH
JEAN PAINLEVÉ
x
+ 16mm HORROR TRAILERS assembled by Brian Block
many other surprises!
$5 includes films, candies and wine (while it lasts)
Venue
– – – – – – – – – – –
X
XCHOPIN THEATRE LOUNGE
x
1543 W. Division St. in Wicker Park
x
www.chopintheatre.com
Song of the Thin Man [1947]
1. “Give me my pipe, slippers and a beautiful woman … and you can keep the pipe and slippers.”
2. Earliest use (that I’ve seen) of the tracking shot that Spike Lee made famous: the character/camera move as one and the background receeds or enlarges behind them.
3. “I’m halfway under the table already–and not in the way I usually like to be.”
Save the Green Planet! [2003]
1. First film I’ve ever seen where someone gets stabbed with a paper drink umbrella.
2. A man is shot in the leg, electrocuted, shot in the back two times–and then comes back to life.
3. Death by bee sting. Lots and lots of bees.
