|
|
Monday, August 27th, 2007
It caused me a little distress during the movie that I kept thinking, no way could he have such a wide range of view -- he's like 4 or 5 feet back from the window and not able to stand up or crouch down. When I could ignore that -- which was just about all the time starting about halfway through -- it was a fantastically good movie. (I was a little surprised, on looking it up, to find that Rear Window preceded The Wrong Man by 2 years -- my thought while watching them had been, maybe Hitchcock was trying out a sort of sardonic kitchiness in The Wrong Man but not quite getting it, and his style was more fully matured in Rear Window, or something like that; but apparently not.) When I left the theater I was sizing up everyone I passed on the street, trying to figure out their backstory and whether they were up to no good... Catching snippets of conversation and fleshing them out. Greenwitch Village is an absolutely great neighborhood to be walking around in after watching this film.
posted morning of August 27th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Rear Window
|  |
Sunday, August 26th, 2007
I was lucky enough to make it out to NYC this afternoon to the Film Forum's NYC Noir festival. Watched The Wrong Man (which was just so-so, kind of corny for Hitchcock), and Rear Window, which was amazing -- I either haven't seen it before or it was long enough that I had forgotten most of the bits of the plot. This was (I think) a newly restored print and it was just amazing to look at -- it took me a couple of minutes of just goggling at the scenery before I could start getting into the film. (Rather like Jimmy Stewart's character I guess).
posted evening of August 26th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about The Wrong Man
|  |
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
I don't get out to the movies as often as I'd like; one of the things I'm looking forward to about next week (when Ellen and Sylvia are going to be on vacation, in London, and I'll be on my own), is getting the free time to see some movies. Well, imagine my delight when I went to look at The Film Forum's web site, and found that they are screening a film noir festival all week! Looks like I will see Klute and Born to Win on Tuesday evening, and Midnight Cowboy and The Panic in Needle Park on Wednesday evening.
posted evening of August 23rd, 2007: Respond
|  |
Thursday, August second, 2007
Bergman died recently. I have only watched Wild Strawberries, which I absolutely loved, and The Seventh Seal, which I thought was very beautiful but way too static for it to draw me in, and Fanny and Alexander, which I just couldn't sit through for want of any plot line that I could see. I have The Virgin Spring and Smiles of a Summer Night on my Netflix queue and am looking forward to watching them. But that's not what I wanted to blog about; instead I wanted to mention this mashup of Bergman and Kurosawa, which I thought of while I was reading Roy's post on Bergman: The Seven Seals: The story of a lonely Norse marine biologist in mediæval Sweden, and his quest to repopulate his aquarium -- decimated by the black death and rogue warlords -- along with his bumbling furry sidekicks.
posted morning of August second, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Wild Strawberries
|  |
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
There's something in music I like, a quality I can't identify, that gives me this rush of pleasure that is strongly associated with wanting to sing along. I've talked about this before in relation to Perspex Island, and this afternoon when I was mowing the lawn and listening to Nextdoorland it hit me -- Robyn sings "Can you make it rain,/ Can you make it rain tonight" and I can't help it, singing along is just an instinctual reaction to the pleasure I feel. And then, just now I was sitting and listening to the Band playing "Up on Cripple Creek" and the same thing happened to me when Levon sang "If there's anything she can do --"... (A few nights ago Ellen and I were watching The Last Waltz and together we sang along with the whole song when they were playing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and that was a beautiful thing.) I want to know what this quality is.
posted evening of June 27th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about The Last Waltz
|  |
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Last time I watched The Last Waltz -- which must have been 15 years ago -- I did not appreciate it. I think I was watching it for the Dylan appearance, which is only a few songs at the end, and wasn't really paying attention to the greatness of every song in the movie (well except "Dry Your Eyes", I wouldn't count that as a great song, though I do think it might have some possibilities if someone besides Neil Diamond were singing it). Ellen and I watched the movie last night; what a wonderful thing it is.
posted morning of June 23rd, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Music
| |
Monday, March 26th, 2007
I just did something I have never done, which is to call my cable provider and order a channel. To wit, I ordered the Sundance Channel, because tomorrow night at 10 they are premiering John Edgington's documentary, "Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Death, Food, and Insects". This looks like it will be really good -- you can see some trailers at the Sundance web site, although the rest of the internets seem not to have heard about it yet. This anecdote made my day. ...The reason the rest of the internets have not heard about it, is that the title is actually "Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death, and Insects". Here is the press release.
posted morning of March 26th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Sex, Food, Death, and Insects
| |
Monday, February 26th, 2007
Watching Wild Strawberries tonight for the second-and-a-half time. At the opening scene I am hit by the realization that Dr. Borg is based (in part) on the same archetype which underlies Moominpappa's character. (I am rereading Comet in Moominland to Sylvia for bedtime stories this past week or so.) Also Sara reminds me of the Snork Maiden. Funny... I wonder how much Bergman and Jannsen are coming from the same place culturally.
posted evening of February 26th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Ingmar Bergman
| |
Sunday, January 14th, 2007
More thoughts on Vagabond -- I kept coming back to wondering how closely the events of the movie matched the events of Mona's final days, and what Varda's research had looked like. I have an image of her conducting interviews with the people portrayed, and then building on those interviews to create dialogue. I felt so strongly the spectre of death hovering over Mona! Especially starting around the time she hitched a ride with Mme. Landier -- who seemed downright creepy on the second viewing. The final sequence, from when Mona flees the fire, to when she is assaulted by the wine-makers, to her wandering into the field and falling, had me crawling out of my skin. How true to life is that image of the wine-makers carousing and chasing random pedestrians around, dowsing them with dregs?
posted evening of January 14th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Vagabond
|  |
Tonight I am watching Vagabond again -- having seen it yesterday is really helping with the comprehension. So I don't have to pay as much attention to the subtitles and I'm catching more of Varda's visual genius. Also, some plot elements that didn't quite click for me last night are coming together, though there are still a few scenes that don't make sense -- like I'm not sure who the woman is that is saying, 40 minutes in, (approximately) "She's got a good head on her shoulders -- if I'd have thrown you out at her age, my life would have been better", or whom she's talking to, or whom she's talking about.
posted evening of January 14th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Agnès Varda
| Previous posts about The Movies
Archives  | |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
