nicole nelch

the barefoot contessa

2012-01-18T22:03:00.000-05:00

"Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies, when everything fits too well - the beginning, the middle, the end - from fade-in to fade-out." - Harry Dawes

yeah yeah yeah went straight from africa to THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and was spun into an obsession so hard i spent hours looking for something i will never find - what else is new.

hard not to fall into that tender trap.

luckily this was a long enough film i got tired over the characters after awhile, especially Jerry, especially when my obsession for lost footage of my old rats nest took PRECEDENCE.

what's the lesson? like scorsese says of colonel blimp:

"growing and having to let go"

why?!?!?!?!?!

ps - i'm not a big fan of wearing shoes either.
ava - whatastar
"real" life: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16645/The-Barefoot-Contessa/articles.html

african queen

2012-01-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

the african queen
what a title
what a humphrey
like most of my loves i can't explain that je ne sais quoi
bogie
ah geez from this straight to the barefoot contessa...
walking/talking with friends tonight it was said about living in a home, wearing depends - i said what's wrong with that? can i have bogie 24/7?
geez...
really....
to me so long to visit this and with john huston i wonder why - my first time seeing him using color and it was offputting after first, so was hepburn but bogie took over...

NEW BRAIN: a gallery show by Jeffrey Shagawat

2012-01-17T21:59:00.000-05:00

SO HAPPY to report NEW BRAIN has met its goal and that Jeffrey will be having his show this year! 2012!!! 15 days left to be a part of NEW BRAIN!

&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;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please share and support!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffreyshagawat/new-brain-a-gallery-show
http://shagawat.com/
http://shagawat.tumblr.com/

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

2012-01-16T10:18:00.000-05:00

"I Have Been To The Mountaintop" "I HAVE A DREAM""Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"
photos from LATimes

http://www.thekingcenter.org/

The Nick Tosches Reader

2012-01-15T22:05:00.001-05:00

The Nick Tosches Reader | New York Public Library | BiblioCommons
the legend of nick tosches has been floating through the ether of my life for a few years now and when i was first really into the NYPL i borrowed his reader, still have it and can't believe i haven't posted it yet. i might return it tomorrow and gotta say i was really into, to the point i felt like i was becoming a scumbag again. perhaps that's a little harsh but i liked it. even texted my friend shagawat who but me on to tosches that it was so good even my hemorrhoids liked it...it took him a while to respond and i figured i grossed him out but anyone who has read the nick tosches reader will pick up what i'm putting down and what is most inspiring to me is his frank honesty and literary intelligence. raw. raw. raw. read. read. read.
more. nick on no reservations 4:50

Muddy Waters & Nick Tosches

Hotel room, NYC, ca 1972. by RONI HOFFMAN

The Quiet Sound of Disappearing

2012-01-15T21:29:00.003-05:00

The Quiet Sound of Disappearing
i find it hard to believe i haven't blogged cocaine cowboys...but if you liked that you'll probably like this. i read it like i was chasing white horses through the night - not sure how i feel about the cover or the end but can't imagine what it was like to go back and write all this down. wowzers. 1980s. capitol hill. cocaine.

interesting title and powerful reading. would love to see her photographs!
*not sure if articles posted are related to this case but they are from the 80s.

A Child Is Waiting

2012-01-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

A Child Is Waiting

JOHN CASSAVETES
BURT LANCASTER
JUDY GARLAND
WHAT?!
whoa
i wasn't sure judy was gonna make it through the film...
"An emotionally fragile woman takes a job teaching mentally handicapped children."

could not believe this thanksgiving crap!

from imdb: Director John Cassavetes (for whom this was his first major studio production) and Producer Stanley Kramer had many creative / economic differences and during the editing phase, Cassavetes was fired.

from tcm: In the end, the tense relationship between Kramer and Cassavetes came to a head during the final editing of A Child is Waiting. According to the picture's editor, Gene Fowler, Jr., in the aforementioned Gary Fishgall biography, "It was a fight of technique. Stanley is a more traditional picture-maker, and Cassavetes was, I guess, called Nouvelle Vague. He was trying some things, which frankly I disagreed with, and I thought he was hurting the picture by blunting the so-called message with technique." Fowler cited one instance where a scene was jumpy because the camera ran over a cable during filming so he replaced it with a smoother take, only to have Cassavetes complain, "My God, you damn Hollywood people. All you can think of is smoothness of camera. What we want is to get some rough edges in here." Subsequently, Kramer fired Cassavetes and finished the editing himself with Fowler's assistance, prompting the director to disown it. After the film's release, however, Cassavetes remarked, "I didn't think his film - and that's what I consider it to be, his film - was so bad, just a lot more sentimental than mine." For his own part, Kramer admitted, "My dream was to jump the barrier of ordinary objection to the subject matter into an area in which the treatment of it and the performance of it would be so exquisite that it would transcend all that. Somewhere we failed." Yet, many critics found things to praise in A Child is Waiting, such as Time magazine's assessment that "Lancaster has never been better" and Time Out's opinion that "Cassavetes elicits magnificent performances from his cast, making especially fine use of Garland's tremulous emotionalism."

liked the credit sequences

The Delinquents (1957)

2012-01-15T20:49:00.001-05:00

ROBERT ALTMAN
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

The Delinquents (1957 film)
as the film started i had to restart
start again
restart
WHAT?!
the opening scene knocked me out 1957 kansas city
alright i calmed down and the voice over started ala the wild one, etc.

this is robert altman?
wow, yep he went from industrials and docs to this and then to alfred hitchcock
love this and wish there was more of that opening throughout but can't really complain
Tom Laughlin *note: gotta check out billy jack

Cronaca di un amore

2012-01-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

Story of a Love Affair aka Cronaca di un amore

love this scene!

you could say i'm interested in antonioni's early work and hit jackpot with this one, his first feature! i've been dabbling with I VINTI but not focused enough yet to bring that here. Cronaca di un amore immediately struck me with its architecture and attention to style as well as camera movement...trademarks that antonioni would go on to perfect. the only difference between this film and his later work for me was its restraint and distance from the characters, of which i did not engage with, nor the story, but still kept on because of the way it was made and casting. i love milan.

LAURA dir. Otto Preminger

2012-01-07T22:12:00.001-05:00

2012! first film 1pm Sunday, January 1st at Film Forum

Otto Preminger's LAURA

what a blast!

gonna use this gift from Rabia this year!

the little otsu film diary

OTTO and this lineup: Gene Tierney , Dana Andrews , Clifton Webb , Vincent Price

delicious Waldo Lydecker cracked me up, Dana made me swoon and Otto hit it home.

before gameboys, iphones & blackberry, this kept Det. Lt. Mark McPherson
calm

typing from da tub

Waldo quotes:

How singularly innocent I look this morning.

I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.

In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.

some of my work

2012-01-07T11:17:00.001-05:00

Chadwick Bell Fall 2009Chadwick Bell Spring/Summer 2010Jeffrey Shagawat: New BrainQ-Tip The AbstractModest MouseThe Gaslamp KillerAdditional B-Roll on:"The Story Behind The Story" Life Support HBO Films 2006"The Hip Hop Project Documentary" Pressure Point Films 2006

frownland

2011-12-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

frownland

my friend once said to me with her thick, authentic argentinan accent, "you go to sleep with baby, you wake up wet, wet with PEE" she was referring to my experience with a younger guy who is a splitting image of dore man to my feeble memory. i've been holding on to this netflix (my last one!) for a while - had it on while i was editing and felt dismissive...but determined to give it a chance...so here i am and i appreciate it...or perhaps i appreciate my supposed ex did not have the characteristics of the main character...just a resemblance...soooo....i really appreciate watching FILM and this fits the bill nicely. check out roger ebert's review here.

Put up, show up, throw up.
GREAT LP/DVD + more combo!

how bout this guy

"you can rent robocop"

miami and the siege of chicago

2011-12-26T08:53:00.001-05:00

miami and the siege of chicago
p134
tom hayden of the new left
...the overdevelopment of bureaucracy and technology can lead to a breakdown.

---that's what i hope happens
BREAKDOWN!!!

p135
con't
...twenty-five thousand troops are being brought here not to stop "disrupters" - no amount of security can stop an assassin or bomber - because the rulers...are relying on coercion....We are forced into military style not because we are "destructive" and "nihilistic" but because our normal rights are insecure....

lilith

2011-12-21T17:45:00.001-05:00

lilith
i'm listening to jerry lee lewis sing crazy arms...

it's appropriate for this film and i have to thank nick tosches for putting me on...and subsequently my friend shagawat for letting me know that nick tosches has a reader....glad i can read it...good timing because i was feeling particularly lackluster about my posts...they are simply to help me remember and yet I DIGRESS how have i not heard of LILITH before?! when i edit i like to have a film on and this was the one - so difficult to not get distracted by these beautiful crazy people! black and white...glory this one gets full attention! finally gave it full attention on my first bolt bus ride which probably won't be my last even though it's a commitment picking one time it was a better ride than the fung wah...been riding the fung wah for over 10 years...AH!!! CRAZY!! Don't know how LILITH got in my queue, upon further inspection I think it had to do with Robert Rossen directing..he also wrote the screenplay and produced it and i fell for it all. the hustler was my favorite film for at least a decade and after seeing lilith it's no fluke, i like rossen's style - pacing, choices. hard to know which were from the book having not read it but that sparkling water effect is lasting for me. his last film and i really should see more of his. what a cast! even had ben carruthers! not to mention a young gene hackman, warren beatty, peter fonda, jean seberg...liked anne meacham's character too...big fan of mental films and watching this reminded me of shock corridor and shutter island and my own fear that insanity can be contagious.
&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;CRAZY &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

hugo

2011-12-21T17:44:00.003-05:00

hugo
shame must have triggered my own movie addiction because instead of joining my friend to visit some galleries in chelsea i made my way to union square to use my regal club member free ticket to see hugo. got there in good time and they wouldn't let me use it for a 3D movie so i got a ticket to young adult and pocketed some 3D glasses on my way in. apropos considering the film - snuck upstairs and sat near the front. i wasn't prepared to fall in love and cry sitting there watching the magic happen!!! scorsese TKO whoa this film is marketed crazy - had it been for the marketing alone i never would have seen it unless my brother showed me the scorsese interview on jon stewart and my friend who knows what a stinkpot i am promised i needed to see it.
i just may see it again!!!

woodstock

2011-12-21T17:44:00.001-05:00

Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese when they were editing Woodstock together in 1969.

woodstock

TEXT MSG recieved sunday, december 11th, 2011 6:25am (i got it round 930am slept in!)
Getta get Woodstock - yer boy marty cut it - And those poucheS That jimmy had in that rats nest you lived in- He SOLD them there.

ya i totally read that as meet me in Woodstock now. wishful thinking!!

so nearing the end if my netflix discs i queued it up and prepared for my first straight viewing - woodstock is one of those films that often made it on as i was slipping into darkness - but now i'm a child of the sun, leo according to some astrologists...watching this i imagined seeing it with monkey nosotros but really i was in my little office working away on my nyfa fellowship application. i let the dvd play for 3 days just like woodstock and yearned for better bonus/special features. the one given was pretty poor but i suppose the documentary itself is a special feature with all the context it provides. really incredible to think of all that film!

it's true i did live in an underground tribeca rat palace that has since been vacated by the ny fire dept. my then room (which no longer exists) was known as the pouch room and my memories of that time are filled with sheer joy, my joy is laced with intense pain and fear too - it's taken me a while to get over it...alas, that pouch room is where leather pouches of various sizes were made and sold at woodstock. i really feel like a part of history - fleeting as it all is.

watching woodstock i kept trying to imagine its equivalent today and to no avail - there's no band today that moves me like the music of the 60s. i can't imagine any promoter or group pulling this off for numerous reasons but mainly everything has changed. i guess there's coachella which i've been to a couple times but uh yeah anyways - they just don't make anything like they used to! but i'm still happy because the stuff i do like was documented & recorded and there's so much left for me to discover. lifetimes. there's burning man too which i've yet to attend.

i love you monkey nosotros, i do. thank you for taking me to woodstock - it was perfect and right on time as always.

every band so good - and a good companion to levon helm's this wheel's on fire.

shame

2011-12-21T17:43:00.001-05:00

shame
i've tried watching hunger a few times it's beautiful just so intense but my kinda film. mcqueen strikes me as quite a filmmaker - i need to read up on him more. went with a friend to see shame and that was probably better than seeing it alone! definitely not a date movie!! i wasnt familiar with fassbender but hello that was intense. mcqueen allowed us to experience brandon's addiction without a solution i sure hope it was this guys bottom. ow. i guess that's thing about addiction - more and more yet still no satisfaction- that woulda been a good song for this film devo instead mcqueen went with lots of bach. carey is proving to be quite the thespian...

daddy longlegs (reprise)

2011-12-21T17:41:00.001-05:00

daddy longlegs (reprise)
wow! got this through zeigiest i think it was 40% off preorder and then it arrived nice packaging and excellent special features!! such a treat and so psyched red bucket films exist!

Zabriskie Point

2011-12-02T00:17:00.000-05:00

Zabriskie Point

continued effect from reading THE DREAM LIFE - this is required viewing and after having it on repeat for a few days what can i say? it goes really well with lentil soup, avocado & little tomatoes. beautiful, interesting, more of a meditation than what americans call a "film". antonioni forever.

documentary sunday 12.5

2011-12-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

documentary sunday 12.5
lee atwater
oliver north
the doors
nilsson

a day for arts & crafts con documentaries. what can i say? the lee atwater doc won. this sh*t was so crazy!!! such a contrast to how tame narrative political films are. the truth is outta control. the common thread between all of these docs was the way they painted their protagonists as horrible people. i really dislike american self-righteousness and hypocritical moral judgement. yet here i am american and just as guilty as anyone else. i suppose that's why i continually reference tamra davis' RADIANT CHILD because it didn't feel like it portrayed sides to me - it was an honest, straightforward, insightful story - so so so rare these days! not a fan of the marketing for RADIANT CHILD but hey.

back to lee atwater i really liked seeing mike dukakis which triggerred a memory of william weld. loved the contradictions and attitude of lee but alas it was misplaced and the ending was bad.

ollie north - pretty disgusting!!! but at the same time very real couldn't finish this one.

the doors - the narration was gag worthy at times and again failed to give much insight, just focusing on the addiction.

nilsson - interesting timing of this having had a conversation with a friend about how all your suffering is irrelevant unless you actually do something constructive about it.
need to finish this one but honestly kinda bored.

easy living

2011-11-30T00:21:00.001-05:00

easy living
leave it to preston sturges to lay the foundation for a good film. this was good fun and relevant to today's financial issues. jean arthur was great an ray milland what a star.

the next challenge

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

dear cindy, for over 15 years i've used your next challenge (first on vhs, now on dvd) but lately i've neglected you and radu to hang out with rodney yee and some other woman...feels great in a tiny amount of time...even took out a yoga book from the NYPL and liked this quote:

p5 all that you can do is to keep the room in order, which is to be virtuous for itself, not for what it will bring. to be sane, rational, orderly. then perhaps, if you are lucky, the window will open and the breeze will come in.
krishnamurti - freedom from the known

awakening the inner body

we're not done yet cindy!!

GO NOW

2011-11-29T22:42:00.003-05:00

ABOUT RICHARD HELL'S GO NOW and its protagonist "Billy Mud"

have you read richard hell's go now? not yet! looked over he had put it in my bag. started reading, couldn't stop, devouring the words like a word junkie. so visual, so emotional and yet i didn't know what a 1957 desoto adventurer looked like until now. what a trip, without the luggage!! wow. to be continued...

Saturday Night Live: The 1970s

2011-11-29T22:42:00.001-05:00

episode 16 of 103 more or less! addicted! can't stop! i'm nicole nelch and you're not!

Saturday Night Live: The 1970s 1975-1979

killer bees!!!

take me to the blaine hotel!

here i come to save the day!!!

c'mon!!! "George Carlin/Janis Ian & Billy Preston," "Paul Simon/Art Garfunkel, Randy Newman, Phoebe Snow""Richard Pryor/Gil-Scott Heron, Thalamus Rasulala,""Buck Henry/Bill Withers, Toni Basil,""Elliott Gould/Anne Murray."

Saturday Night Live - Samurai Delicatessen - Video - http://www.nbc.com

VIVA SAMURAI!!!!

GILDA!!!!!

the night they raided minsky's

2011-11-29T22:41:00.005-05:00


private impromptu screening at theatre 80

The Night They Raided Minsky's is a 1968 musical comedy film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Norman Lear.

Jason Robards & Elliot Gould on a saturday afternoon is just fine with me. watching this film i couldn't believe it was directed by william friedkin, the same man who was married to jeanne moreau for a couple years. the same man who directed TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. and THE FRENCH CONNECTION just to name two. interesting look at new york? i had to leave before the end! (not because of the material)

the fury

2011-11-29T22:41:00.003-05:00

feeling it!!!

strung out on a brined turkey and overdosing on Saturday Night Live: The 1970s and had to switch it up so why not some of this:

telekinetic teens Robin (Andrew Stevens, son of Stella) and Gillian (Amy Irving) become the target of a government baddie (John Cassavetes, who wants to exploit their powers for weapons of mass destruction), the boy's father (Kirk Douglas) is determined to stop him. Watch for Daryl Hannah and Laura Innes in their film debuts.

The Fury 1978

Two years after the debut of Carrie, director Brian De Palma delivers another bloody tale of psychic teenagers.

that's all cut and paste from netflix hard to lose with this one and i'd say it was perfect for coming off a SNL OD. amy irving is gorgeous, cassavetes & douglas all weird as heck. yes.

alice's restaurant

2011-11-29T22:41:00.001-05:00

i'd like to thank T.I. for taking my family to Alice's Restaurant for thanksgiving. my brother had told me a story where T.I.'s whatever you like had come to his mind and we kept referencing it, our mother overheard and thought we were talking about alice's restaurant. next thing you know we're streaming it on netflix and there's nothing like a mom commentary, especially on this film "about my roots" being a kid in the berkshires. i don't know much about arlo but he's certainly portrayed as a folk stud here. a google reveals he's supporting ows.
Alice's Restaurant (1969)
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree"

*special thanks cold stone steve austin

The Makepeace Brothers "Hero" by Amos Poe

2011-11-22T16:25:00.005-05:00

The Makepeace Brothers "Hero" performing live at Occupy Wall Street Zuccotti Park November 1st, 2011

Directed by: Amos Poe
Producers: Nicole Nelch & Rachel Goldstein
Stills: Gigi Stoll
Canon SLR: Oliver Anderson
HD Cam: Eric Newman
Super 8: Nick Poe
Editors: Jett Strauss & Amos Poe
Catering: Godiva

Vagabond Films

more of a smiler!

hunger by knut hamsun

2011-11-22T00:05:00.003-05:00

Hunger (Norwegian : Sult) is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun and was published in its final form in 1890.

Whoa!! My friend Jeffrey Shagawat aka Bill Shag is always Knut Hamsun this, Knut Hamsun that. He talks about Hunger and The Growth of Soil so thanks to the NYPL I got my hands on Hunger and thought I was losing weight just reading it (not true thanks to my jogging for sweets program). Reminded me of Notes From The Underground but way more real and this is because as it's mentioned in the in the intro/outro of the edition i read hamsun did not have self pity. remarkable account and looking forward to the growth of soil. the day i finished reading hunger i got in a conversation about global mental health issues and 'twas food for thought! gobble gobble

giant

2011-11-22T00:04:00.000-05:00

great link on giant: TEXAS’ OWN “GONE WITH THE WIND” | GEORGE STEVENS’ 1956 EPIC– “GIANT”
people just don't act like this on camera, hiding from the camera, mumbling, etc. at 201 minutes this film is a bit of a commitment and george stevens did some interesting cuts/coverage i wasn't too sure about but it was really all about dean for me. how after three films he continues tomake such an impact and remain such a visible icon. i'm not saying anything new here but i suppose what was new is that i could even watch a film like this and remain interested. dennis hopper and his character got me too. jett rink. so real.

G I A N T

Composer Dimitri Tiomkin Directing the Musical Score for the Last James Dean Movie Produced 'Giant'

coogan's bluff

2011-11-22T00:03:00.009-05:00

i'd be smiling too

COOGAN'S BLUFF
heavily influenced by j. hoberman's the dream life i queued this up and whoosh thinking of being in the midst of 1968 and here we are with coogan what a great escape. and seeing the cloisters my old hood looking so good, not much has changed up there. this film provided a major paradigm shift for me on clint eastwood and has ignited a whole new interest in this guy. i kept thinking if i was a guy i'd probably be like coogan or want to be which is to say i'd be a jerk, a simple film, a simple man and i liked the arizona/texas bit. entertainment.

the dream life

2011-11-22T00:03:00.004-05:00

p355
hunter s. thompson on democratic convention 1972
all over the floor i saw people caving in to the lure of booze, and in the crowded aisle between the california and wisconsin delegations a smiling freak with a bottle of liquid thc was giving free hits to anybody who still had the strength to stick their tongue out.

p359/360: hunter s. thompson on republican convention 1972
with the lone exception of the vietnam veterans against the war, the demonstrations in miami were a useless mob of ignorant chicken-shit ego-junkies whose only accomplishment was to embarrass the whole tradition of public protest. they were hopelessly disorganized, they had no real purpose in being there, and about half of them were so wasted on grass, wine and downers that they couldn't say for sure whether they were raising hell in miami or san diego.

democratic convention 1968
march on washington: poor peoples campaign 1968
weathermen/weather underground
assinations

the dream life: movies, media, and the mythology of the sixties

a couple years ago i bought this on half.com and read the first couple of chapters: intro "suddenly...it's 1960!", making pre-history, a.d 1960 and glamour and anxiety: the kennedy scenario, 1961-63. before life took me away from the book i was enthralled with the context of film/media with the current events of the time. so great to finally read about goldwater and the kennedys hollywood connection. politics and celebs so intertwined it's no wonder there's so much politics in h-wood. ego-trips galore!

was recently visiting my friend marge and she was saying how ae wished she could read a book about the sixties and media. i lent her my copy and rented one from library thinking maybe we could read it together. in light of ows the timing couldn't be better!

i've been at odds with a friend of mine who's 72 years old and thinks poorly of ows. i said well you've seen a lot of protests what's your beef. she went on to talk about the appearance of the protesters and make derogatory comments about their intent and the hangers on. she asked me what i thought and i said i was impressed with what i've experienced so far having been spent time at zuccoti and marched but i would need more information. this conversation took place the morning of the evacuation. i did my research online and wondered where my friend waa getting her information from. i'm inspired by the passion and commitment i see. writing this now as i'm on my way to the area on the mornin of the 17th. it's 619am and i'm on the 4 train. all is calm. the more i marinate on it all ows becomes a symbol for all thr unrest and dissatisfaction i feel about our country. there's so much room for improvement. and when i hear people ask what the protest is about i wonder how complacent the rest of the country has become about war, education and the endless issues that exist.

Still love this from J. Hoberman's review on SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER:

Shoot the Piano Player not only reconfigured the Hitchcock slapstick romantic thriller but also popularized a number of the innovations—arcane references, shock editing, narrative asides—tossed off by Jean-Luc Godard in the original nouvelle vague neo-realist noir fairy tale, Breathless (a movie for which Truffaut supplied the premise). Unlike that of his onetime pal, however, Truffaut's form of self-reflection is ultimately a way of playing the audience. The difference between his movie and Breathless is the difference between talent and genius.

the difference between talent and genius!!!

ps - this got me inspired to write a short screenplay and watch lots of youtube on the rep & dem 1972 conventions and the 1968 protests. great stuff.

the life and death of colonel blimp

2011-11-19T14:56:00.003-05:00

the life and death of colonel blimp

i didn't believe my eyes when i got the email from film forum that martin scorsese would be introducing this gorgeous restoration of the film or believe that i got a ticket. but there i was second row and excited. marty's mood struck me as a bit reserved as if he had some bad news or maybe he was just tired, it was his birthday the day before. i would have loved to hear thelma's intro too but you know, the economy and all. sooooo marty had great stories about this film and how much it influenced the making of raging bull. i recorded it, but i'm sure film forum will put up a nicer podcast of it. my tweet post-screening: "growing and having to let go" scorsese on the life and death of colonel blimp @FilmForumNYC i liked it very much! yep. reminded me a lot of Il gattopardo / Luchino Visconti / 1963. beautiful film and thank goodness it was saved!

Angel Face

2011-11-16T08:46:00.005-05:00

ANGEL FACE
aw man! i'm in suspense - netflix delivered another damaged disc and after 28 minutes i was cut off. as the film started it seemed a perfect pickup to where i left off reading raymond chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. the dialogue not as sharp but each scene propelled itself nicely into the next thanks to otto and mitchum. that's the thing about vhs & vinyl even when it's scratched you can sometimes get through it. to be continued...

12/5 angel face took a couple of weeks thanks to the usps but i finally got it and watching it with the commentary was great! who knew it was one of godard's favorite films from the sound era. howard hawks madness, robert mitchum's brawn, otto's steez and the ending is incredible. worth the wait but still changing my subscription to streaming and gonna utilize the nypl more....

Flora's Garment Bursting Into Bloom by Kevin Baggott

2011-11-16T08:45:00.003-05:00

Flora's Garment Bursting Into Bloom by Kevin Baggott

wow. what i liked most about this film was seeing a guy go for a transexual which i'm pretty sure happens all the time.

carnal knowledge

2011-11-16T08:44:00.011-05:00

carnal knowledge
it seems to me i see this film referenced quite a bit, and now having seen it - i wish i could remember in what context because watching it felt parallel to the feeling i have seeing a car accident. frame after frame i kept hanging on, waiting for redemption that was never granted. nostaglia for bad timing is what brought me here and it pales in comparison. compare and despair.

the original poster.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011-11-16T08:44:00.010-05:00

Martha Marcy May Marlene
whoops i forayed into the year 2011 again! this is not a date movie, nor would i recommend seeing it alone. cult style. so i'm reading, or rather finally finishing reading THE DREAM LIFE where the manson family is of course mentioned and i bring that up more because i'm uncomfortable talking about martha marcy may marlene than anything. i'm also not inclined to post any images related to the film. i thought it was a well made film, creepy creepster and all - i loved how it provides more questions than answers. also thankful i caught the 210pm at bam because watching this before bed would not have been a good idea at all. jody lee lipes is killing it!

Paul Bowles: A Life

2011-11-14T09:11:00.004-05:00

so bowles over here.

Paul Bowles

A Life

p300/301
On our way out we used the path that goes around the swamp.
When we started back the tide had risen.
There were many things I wanted to say to you before you left, and now I shall never say them.
Though the light spills onto the balcony making the same shadows in the same places, only I can see it, only I can hear the wind and it is much too loud.
The world seethes with words. Forgive me.

Travels : collected writings, 1950-93 / Paul Bowles

2011-11-08T19:44:00.005-05:00

paul bowles in front of an abandoned brothel (southern morocco)

"one can't always win - but one can always remember." - paul bowles (p458)

Travels: Collected Writings, 1950-93, By Paul Bowles

sara driver's you are not i was my introduction to bowles and 508 pages later i'm now going for more with virginia spencer carr's biography on him

Paul Bowles: A Life

his writings of paris in the 30s got me straightaway - then he lost me somewhere in morocco and got me back on track in sri lanka. this guy was REALLY into morocco to put it mildly. why did i go the distance with this book. it was the stories, he talked about the sorts of things i notice and had the patience and attention to write them down. funny, on the back cover edmund white says, "as these startling, sober travel pieces show, paul bowles was able to enter into the inner truth of even the most remote places and peoples." his travels seem anything but sober to me! so far from glamorous too (with a few exceptions) - the ardous travels are beyond my desire but not my imagination and it was pretty fun mindtraveling along and also realizing what a different place the world is today.

p.263
"truth is not what you perceive with your sense, but what you feel in your heart." (moslem lawyer in africa minor late 50s)

La Notte

2011-11-06T16:21:00.016-05:00

La Notte
Borrowed this a few weeks ago and the timing couldn’t have been better. Not sure if I was getting sick or what but I put it on and the love sickness took hold. How does Antonioni do it!!??? There wasn’t a frame I didn’t love. Was thinking how the intro credit sequence, the way it was shot was like a film strip made out of a city and it’s buildings. The whole film EXQUISITE architecture and further confirmed my affinity for the city of Milan. Talk about dreams and surrealism. Love. This film is a manifesto for me at this point. Kind of insane. So wild when you’re in such a state and watch something like this that perfectly captures it all and shows you how all of it is art. The art of life. More. More. More. The hardest part was not knowing Italian, I could just tell the translation missed so much. Jeanne’s character reminded me a lot of her’s in ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, the way she moved and the camera with her. How do women live in those high heels, running, walking through such terrains at such length? Antonioni certainly had a way with women.

Michel Gondry!

2011-11-06T16:21:00.014-05:00

Michel Gondry
Luck strikes again! Do I even believe in luck? Hard not to. So the morning of Tuesday, November 1st was spent at NYU watching Michel Gondry music videos, commentary, interviews and then he appeared. Something was happening. Was I tripping? Was his hair turning purple and his face going in and out of focus? Was that his aura – I don’t know, but it was one of the moments when you know you’re really experiencing something. LIFE! ALIVE! And he spoke candidly, openly, honestly. His visit spanned an assortment of emotions (mostly bliss). His mother, working with actors, ideas, projects, the spectrum and it was like a dream and extension of one of his films. Someone I used to know, would give me laced brownies and leave me – leave me thinking I was in THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (French: La Science des rêves, literally The Science of Dreams) and one brownie bite away from Belleview. To have made it through all that to this is remarkable to say the least, especially when Gondry’s visit was experienced with new friends that were there for the whole day and not only that but gave so much. Absolutely one of my favorite days ever. The walk from NYU to Chinatown was like a living dream I keep reliving and that’s what I kept thinking about with the whole Gondry experience was dreams and how great to get to talk about dreams, surrealism and all that jazz. Thank you!

i will watch this.

to be continued...
**hard to come down from that!

A Coffin For Dimitrios

2011-11-06T16:21:00.007-05:00

A Coffin For Dimitrios
What do you read after THE BIG SLEEP?! I was scavenging through AP’s books looking for one to take on a journey to 105th Street (near Humphrey Bogart Way) and he presented this – Eric Ambler’s A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure – I’m not too keen on the whole English thing – a lot of it is over my head (I’m only 5’3”) – but this got me. I kept having questions all the way through. Hard to write them hear without giving anything away, but alas – this is more for me than you. Why did he never call Colonel Haki? Why did Peters not think about signing his death warrant?? So not over my head. What I enjoyed most was Latimer bumbling obsession. Something I identify with strongly. Pretty fascinating intertwining of events and characters.

Cape Fear

2011-11-06T16:20:00.016-05:00

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas WHO LOVES YA BABY

CAPE FEAR
Over Halloween weekend, which I somehow completely missed. I watched this exceptional piece of Robert Mitchum. I thought Gregory Peck was a little stiff which is strange considering he was a producer on it and so instrumental to its making. Watching it, I couldn’t help but think of Scorsese’s production and how it’s so hard to top an original – so why even try?! Yet, it happens all the time. Is it homage/ode? I don’t know. But this is a great piece of cinema. Watching the bonus features which we horribly made was great to hear some of the inside tips, always reiterating Mitchum’s Mitchumness. How he managed to live so hard and so long!

Bernard Herrmann!

Étude in Black

2011-11-06T16:20:00.015-05:00

Étude in Black
Columbo! A friend loaned this to me on a flash drive and when it began I was hooked. So well made! John Cassavetes as I would imagine a murderous Leonard Bernstein. You could just tell John and Peter were having a ball. The moment tha keeps replaying for me is when John sees the flower and what happens to his sunglasses – so psychedelic!

*note cassavetes & falk are uncredited directors on this. wonder what colasanto would have to say...

columbo streaming on netflix.

Nick Poe | Tablets

2011-11-06T16:16:00.006-05:00

TABLETS
I loved this show! The simplicity of it all, profound. High contrast from the crazy weather outside to the heaven like experience of the show. The ladder, tree…TABLETS, so complete and cohesive. Before I was ten, I learned about different woods, their grains, craftsmanship, etc and have appreciated them ever since. Experiencing Nick’s show was so filling, going back to the idea of tablets and his interpretation of via two-dimensional sculptures – it’s literally like a clean slate. From the ladder to the tablets, the clock, all of it inspires a return and at the same time a fresh approach.

had to desktop it!

Bob Dylan's "Love Sick" by Amos Poe

2011-11-06T16:12:00.004-05:00

Amos Poe's Music Video for Bob Dylan's "Love Sick"
directed by AMOS POE produced by NICOLE NELCH with GIGI STOLL & NICK POE shot by AMOS POE with Nizo Super 8 New York City October 19th, 2011 VAGABOND FILMS

really i was way more of an umbrella wrangler! this was the first time amos, nick, gigi and i all came together!

MoMA | de Kooning: A Retrospective

2011-11-06T16:07:00.006-05:00

rosy-fingered dawn at louse point (detail) deKooning

deKooning
My first invite to the show was when Mahfood was in town but the stars were not aligned. Then my Dad came into town on a Friday and what do you know, we were there in the queue for free Fridays which was way less of a mob scene than I expected. What a show! Ringing through my head was how when I was in Marco Williams class he told me I had to learn the standards before I could get abstract – he used Sir Roland Rahsaan Kirk as an example. Seeing deKooning’s early work, still life’s this came back to me and to chronologically experience his pieces and see the whole trajectory was powerful to say the least. The greatness. The light. I fell into them. Subsequently, had a conversation with AP and he shared a story about visiting deKooning in the late stages of his life and how he would work and communicate with his assistants. Really beautiful.

more at MoMA:

the vertigo of eros: roberto matta (detail)

rebus: robert rauschenberg (detail)

masks confronting death: james ensor (detail)

tribulations of saint anthony: james ensor (detail)

DRIVE

2011-11-06T16:04:00.004-05:00

drive! weekend with ryan gosling. although i preferred his vulnerability in blue valentine i did appreciate the taciturn ways of his character in drive. and what a nice surprise of a picture drive was! my kind of movie that i rarely get to see in a mainstream movie house. slow pacing, long moments, not that i liked many of the characters but it was entertaining and reminded me so much of the excitement i felt watching let the right one in. love the rhythm and the way drive was shot. lots of style but within the parameters of cinematic language. i could have done without the use of slow motion her but the violence was exciting and as film becomes less like cinema and more like a video game i get it. there's energy in this post only because drive was not what i expected, not that i expected much - but i appreciated the film noir aspects, touches of contemporary hard boiled meets camp. and the music. b-movie glory! i would probably see more new films if they were like this or legion. nice casting of albert brooks and ron perlman. go make a movie.

THE BIG SLEEP

2011-11-06T15:56:00.007-05:00

THE BIG SLEEP
Trying to utilize my library card brought me to Raymond Chandler’s THE BIG SLEEP and I’ve seen Humphrey Bogart play Phillip Marlowe and having seen THE LONG GOODBYE and
SHORTCUTS as well I was roughly familiar with Chandler’s work. The Chandler bonus feature on SHORTCUTS was life altering for me.
Alas, none of that could prepare me for reading THE BIG SLEEP. I don’t know who Carolyn See is but she’s quoted as saying “[Chandler]’s the perfect novelist for our times….He
takes us into a different world, a world that’s like ours, but isn’t.” I want to live in that world. As the words jumped off the page I couldn’t help but want to speak like one of his characters. Reading this and co-existing with the “real” world presented some Twilight Zone-ish moments. For example, being in a waiting room where a guy named Marlowe walked in. How many dudes are called Marlowe and spell it like Phillip Marlowe? Yes, reading Chandler altered my mind and had me longing for a Chandler world full of words that reek character versus the cutesy slang I hear now which makes me wonder if some thought Chandler was too cutesy back then – however it appears so many champion him that he was no gimmick and produced such a consistent body of work and aura of a world that he was undisputable. His descriptions of feelings, seeings and beings have me hook, line and sinker.

IDES OF MARCH

2011-11-06T15:46:00.004-05:00

nice use of folding chairs!

IDES OF MARCH
I’ve made a vow of sorts to watch more pictures that were made before the advent of internet,
television, cell phones, etc. but made an exception for IDES OF MARCH since my Dad was in town and Ryan Gosling’s in the movie. Well, it was refreshing in some regards and depressing in
others. It really disheartens me how the more we get the more the artform deteriorates. Not unlike the phenomenon of paying more for worse MTA service. What did I like about IDES OF MARCH? Not sure how to answer that, it was so expositional – but considering it’s based on a play I guess it’s understandable. It’s unfortunate that everything needs to be so spelled out for audiences and nothing left to the imagination. I had trouble believing the performances, with the exception of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Despite my affinity for Gosling – he came across as a snot nosed punk, but I suppose there’s a plethora of those in politics. So maybe it was all on the nose in every point. We are talking politics here.

DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH

2011-11-06T15:39:00.008-05:00

DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH

“Cinema is a way of life.” – Nicholas Ray

I agree. And I admire Susan Ray’s work on this documentary; it was as if she brought Nick back to life. Tickets were only available at the box office, so I called ahead and the woman who answer assured me I would be able to get into the 8:50pm show, she even said, “Why don’t you just come to the 7pm WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN?” I replied, “I already saw it.” Like a dream, I burst into Film Forum at 8:54pm and was greeted by a sign that DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH
was pushed to 9pm and Susan Ray would be introducing it. I got my ticket, popcorn and a coca cola and the ticket taker said I was welcome to go in and catch the end of the WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN Q&A with the cast. So kind! The theater was full and I was impress with the audience, knowing they just experience quite a trip and it was great to hear their comments and see the kids up there, now in their 60s and still not quite recovered from the whole Nick Ray experience. I wish I could remember all the nitty gritty but I just remember laughing and nodding my head along with the comments.

As the theater cleared out I bum rushed the show, pretty much losing any sense of manners and practically knocking over the lead of WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN. When Nick’s voice and image came alive in the theater it was full body chills and again that feeling of being so beyond grateful to be alive at that very moment. I love the love Susan Ray put into it and could feel it and couldn’t imagine how much footage and audio she had to go through to make it so seamlessly.

Nick’s addiction for life, for cinema, for illicit substances and who knows what else inspires me to live. Live hard.

YOU ARE NOT I !!!!!

2011-10-07T16:52:00.004-04:00

YOU ARE NOT I, SARA DRIVER, 1981.

WHOOSH I PRAY THIS ONLY MY FIRST POST OF MORE SARA DRIVER FILMS
i feel like i saw a short of hers when i was in film school i could be wrong but i'm not wrong about my desire to see her films and when i saw this was playing at NYFF the excitement level was pretty high but you couldn't have told me that it would be one of those nights that will go down in my little history book (not like other nights at the walter reade theater). wow. late - installing FCP took WAY longer than i anticipated missed my stop so engrossed in FCP manual lost in the catacombs of lincoln center
ticket
seat
"nicole!"
reunited with a dear friend
watching the film was what felt like a family affair thanks to those in attendance
not my family, but maybe you know what i mean
i was so aware of the act of experiencing cinema it was glorious
what i saw was so unique and profound in terms of audio/visual/voice
fell in love
beautiful intrepretation that will lead me to become familiar with paul bowles work
the q&a after i did not record
but i will always remember how francis poole said that paul bowles spirit was in the theater -
that paul was the kinda of guy who could orchestrate or provide the proper environs for people to cosmically or as suzanne fletcher might say "atomically" align *i'm really paraphrasing here but the feeling gave me chills of being exactly where i was supposed to be
which is interesting to me given the story of the film on the screen

the reception afterwards was close to heaven, or a slice of it
friendship that grows
seeing the faces of so many people's whose work i admire and they are still alive and supporting each other with so much love it
can't take the grin off my memory
it's on

from NYFF: A haunting adaptation of a 1948 short story by Paul Bowles about a woman who escapes from an asylum, You Are Not I played widely in the international film festival circuit in the early Eighties. Then, a leak in a New Jersey warehouse destroyed the negative, leaving director Sara Driver with only a battered, unprojectable copy. Miraculously, a print was found among the holdings of Paul Bowles in 2009, and now the film has been restored and is available once again. Undoubtedly one of the most impressive works to emerge from the post-punk downtown scene, the film was beautifully shot by Jim Jarmusch (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and features Suzanne Fletcher, Nan Goldin and Luc Sante.

You Are Not I was preserved with The Lois Bianchi Award, a grant from The Women's Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television.

Film of Paul Bowles Short Story Rediscovered

Sara Driver [from FILM: THE FRONT LINE 1983]

we can't go home again

2011-10-07T16:22:00.006-04:00

WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN
WOW
SUNDAY 9PM
october 2nd, 2011
my first time at this theater and after 10 years of nyc living i can see people i know even at things like this! crazy...getting deep in the archives here for eternal badass nick ray's unfinished WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. thank you New York Film Festival for the programming and thank you Susan Ray for your inspiring dedication to Nick's life and work.
i did not recognize susan ray in the crowd prior to the screening but once she was on stage and speaking her poise and articulate grace lit up the night.
this film is really on another level and i agree he's 40 or 50 years ahead of his time
a synthesizer expressionistic moving painting multiple projectors filmed formats super 8, 16mm and 35 holy moly opening shots of chicago 7 in an occupy era giving a face to the voice of justiceseekers
listening to my recording of the q&a and the ipod did a pretty good job (thanks steve jobs)
watching this film may well be the closest i will get to taking acid
not sure if it was the film itself or my fever breaking
possibly the combination
way past my bedtime uptown this was a night to remember and i really wish i could have made it back for DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH but will catch it at film forum.
inspiring experimental cinema lives!
BIG KUDOS to Oscilloscope Laboratories.

i keep singing WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN to this tune:

this wheel's on fire: levon helm and the story of the band

2011-10-02T19:20:00.003-04:00

This Wheel's on Fire

Levon Helm and the Story of The Band

wow i didn't want to talk to anyone until i finished reading this but then and the end neared i of course did not want it to. levon helm forever emblazoned on my mind and this music ignited to a beastly blaze. endless.

phil murphy and i made an exchange i gave him greil marcus' mystery train and he gave me this...it would be months before i understood the reverence in which he passed this along to me. i still have a lifetime to go.

Blast of Silence

2011-10-02T17:59:00.003-04:00

it's been a long time since i've repeated a film so many times in a row.
don't know how this got in my queue but thankful it did.
B L A S T
O F
S I L E N C E
amazing!
criterion with nice story behind the movie
allen baron was once touted as being perhaps the next orson welles and even though his filmography doesn't convey that he is still kicking. i was in awe of everything about this film and shocked when boom! allen wrote, directed and starred in this. it's beautiful - new york city.

tiny furniture

2011-09-27T17:21:00.002-04:00

i haven't done it in a pipe.

women. marianna palka, kelly reichardt and lena dunham all doing it!!!
so rad...recently watched TINY FURNITURE in amos poe's media mavericks where she joined for a q&a afterword. really well done, it was great seeing her work in front and behind the camera.. fresh and impressive her trajectory into a tv series and hollywood. so much poise and personality. 24yrs old. gogogogogo

the lovers

2011-09-25T15:02:00.007-04:00

THE LOVERS
my queue is out of control and my future with netflix is uncertain.
how can they double their rates without telling their customers?
not sure what to do, i tried facets but it was just too frustrating.
ugh...i miss the theater, but love the special features.

cinema nolita...i miss you.

the lovers, honestly i thought she was a bit of a hoe, not that there's anything wrong with that but i didn't get swept up in this, care or believe what she did. after the perfect elevator to the gallows with miles davis' score what do you do if you're 25? louis malle did this adaptation of a 18th century story that was a personal, grown up fairy tale to him. that's cool, it's beautiful french countryside and interesting use of day for night shooting.
my favorite part? the 1963 interview with louis malle, "but i think it's true that filmmaking makes me feel like i exist." he's self aware and then the contrast to his 1994 interview...there's something about him as a person that i like more than this film.

The Lovers (Les Amants) is a 1958 French film about adultery and rediscovering human love, directed by Louis Malle and starring Jeanne Moreau . It was Malle's second feature film, made when he was 25 years old. The film was a box office hit in France when released theatrically gaining 2,594,160 Admissions in France alone. The film was highly controversial for its depiction of allegedly obscene material when released in America. *wiki

walking through clear water in a pool painted black

2011-09-18T17:08:00.005-04:00

walking through clear water in a pool painted black

love this title. my first foray into mueller's writing and i couldn't put it down. read it in one shot. if only the rest of her books were less expensive to get my hands on. impressive how conscious she was in situations where i would have been out of my mind. wonder if she kept a journal to remember this stuff or pulled it all out at once. so coherent. i'm a fan.

the part that's sticking with me is in the last letter, page 149:
"all we really need is bread, water, love, and work that we enjoy and are good at, and an undying faith in love and love of ourselves, our freedom and our dignity. all that stuff is practically free, so how come it's so hard to get - and how come all these assholes and "professionals," friends and foes, family and complete strangers are always trying to convince us to follow their dumb rules, give up work in order to be a client of theirs, give up our freedom and dignity to increase their power and control?"

an excerpt from gordon stevenson's letter, who died in 1982 to AIDS.

Cookie Mueller (March 4, 1949 – November 10, 1989)

“Nan Goldin on Cookie Mueller”

subway riders

2011-09-17T19:33:00.004-04:00

phew! after scouring the earth to get my hands on this i was fortunate enough to borrow it from the source. lady luck strikes again!!!! john lurie, cookie mueller and glenn o'brien as a police captain.
SUBWAY RIDERS
the trilogy of unmade beds, the foreigner and subway riders inspire me greatly - no limits, no control - stay tuned big tuna!

"The most direct attempt to switch off mainstream expectations I have seen in U.S. alternative cinema occurs in SUBWAY RIDERS, made by Amos Poe and Johanna Heer in 1981. The opening sequence shows Poe rejecting an offer to sell his script to Hollywood. The story then gets ultra-low-budget in look and sound, but also introduces a color-coded stylization, in which each main character's mood is shown by tinting the image. This stylization is pushed further by double casting the main character, a schizophrenic saxophone player who regularly tries to murder whoever hears him play. Poe and Heer made a film fully within German Expressionist terms and at the same time one that has the feeling of documentary realism. That Poe deliberately disconnected viewer expectations for a normal movie is part of the reason SUBWAY RIDERS became a cult classic, especially in Europe. -- "Technology and film practice: Hollywood and low-budget alternatives" by Charles Eidsvik, from Jump Cut, no. 36, May 1991, pp. 36-42, 73 Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1991, 2006

Brooklyn Boheme (world premiere)

2011-09-16T10:00:00.005-04:00

Brooklyn Boheme / Nelson George / 2011

it's already here from an early cut this year, but the latest cut seen last night as the opening night film and world premiere at the 15th annual urbanworld film festival it further reinforced my nostalgia for the world pre-internet & cellphones and made me even happier my blackberry storm crashed the other day.
the only thing constant is change.

Brooklyn Boheme - First 5 mins TEASER 2011 from Diane Paragas on Vimeo.

congrats nelson & diane, and as always thanks for the ♥!

A Constant Forge—The Life and Art of John Cassavetes

2011-09-16T09:46:00.004-04:00

john cassavetes & gena rowlands married 1954-1989

A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes

seems the life and art of john cassavetes are one in the same, don't know much but after 3 hours and 20 minutes of this it's clear that john cassavetes loved people and cared more about them than money. i appreciate his plotless films and this nearly plotless documentary, both so repetitive like life. in some sense i wish life was more like a john cassavetes film, so raw and honest. wish i had the courage to live like a cassavetes film. got me fiending for more.
not done yet!!

notes from the underground

2011-09-16T09:16:00.003-04:00

Notes from Underground Записки из подполья, Zapiski iz podpol'ya
so fresh it could have been written in 2064 for all i know! dostoevsky, been sitting on my shelf for some time and finally dove in, was a little treacherous, since books seem more powerful than music, movies, food or whatever to change my mood and walking around like the nameless dude in this book is not a good way to win friends. alas, makes for good conversation this book and has got me ont he dostoevsky track.

I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, and it was all from ennui; inertia overcame me. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded.

Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything.

Hi, Mom!

2011-09-10T13:29:00.006-04:00

deniro looking great in corduroy, even a corduroy tie at an adult movie theater.

be black baby

HI, MOM!
missed the recent screening at mayseles for the i see white people series but caught it on netflix - pretty fun to a certain point then it gets pretty hardcore and stays there. two for one! deniro was making films well before mean streets and this is a good peek at his range. enjoyed the use of super 8, the locations - houston street nyu housing & deniro's apartment. de palma's energy, titles. deniro's joe rubin was a contiuation of a previous film character in De Palma's Greetings (now queued). kinda bugging out because i'm not sure if i actually saw De Palma at nyu the other day, i walked by this guy who certainly looked like him and he was saying, "i was in europe working on this film called black dahlia"...sure enough black dahlia had some production in bulgaria (a film i did not particularly care for). well, i believe when i walked by him i had Hi, Mom! at home waiting to be watched - would have really like to heard more about what he had to say about it and his early films...

La Chamade

2011-09-04T17:30:00.005-04:00

LA CHAMADE
Parlez-vous français?
LA CHAMADE = HEARTBEAT

bookshelf porn

again not in the bourgie bourgie films but this one got me good. The last time i saw Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli together was BELLE DU JOUR and this La Chamade encounter was quality to say the least. sigh...really great film, beautiful, the camera just adores it's characters and i absolutely love how faulkner articulates lucille's (deneuve) reason for living for her and that last scene or moment reminded me so much of nights of cabiria, yet instead of being abandoned and abused. lucille makes a choice...a choice to live..both films though with this hope. Enchanté!

piccoli and deneuve playing scrabble on the riveria.

deneuve and piccoli listening to some mozart.

Hollywood Screen Tests: Take 1

2011-09-04T17:16:00.003-04:00

HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TESTS: TAKE 1
got this one for brando of course and of course the disc was damaged from sean connery to him - what did i get ann margret, mia farrow, sharon tate and patty duke. pretty fierce!

once, wim wenders

2011-09-04T16:18:00.003-04:00

this guy...geez a gift from mary reilly this was bestowed on me and incited awe - it's wild when kindred spirits meet, however they meet via an image, a word, a page, flesh, mind, heart, soul and a book like this, so simple and sweet...full of passion for life, lust for life it's like POW! BAM! BOOM! right to the ticker.
a quick read i love wim's perspective and hello..can you imagine, driving through monument valley and running into martin scorsese who's under a car trying to fix it and isabella rosselini? geez. wim's knack for being in the right place at the right time is akin to his staying in tune, staying tuned...kazan, ray, powell, kurosawa, coppola...giants and the giant unknown hereos featured in this book, both flesh and landscape..ONCE...

a season in hell & illuminations

2011-09-04T16:10:00.003-04:00

this has long been in my shagawat library queue and the timing could not have been better when it came time for me to read...for the last few seasons have had a twinge of hell to them and simultaneous illumination.

my eternal soul,
stick to your desire -
despite the nights alone
and the day on fire

i'd put the whole book on here if i was really gonna go for it...maybe someday i will - i loved the book had french on one side, english translation on the other - someday, if i really go for it maybe rimbaud will teach me french.

...someday i'm really gonna go for it!

H O U S E OF B A M B O O ! ! !

2011-09-03T20:50:00.006-04:00

to shoot on location in tokyo, 1955!

"While Fuller and his crew were sensitive to anti-American sentiments during shooting, the production encountered no serious setbacks (apart from the chilly winter climate) and even charmed a free location out of the department store magnate who owned Nikkatsu Studios for House of Bamboo's climactic shootout." [tcm]

the pieces fit - this was the film before tigrero: the film that was never made.
cinema glory, 2nd row, film forum. robert stack, i had no idea all those years of unsolved mysteries that he had such a career - here cast as a man with "romantic eyebrows".

love the tubs, the location, eggs and bacon with chopsticks. brad dexter. the treatment of women...seeing more films with brutality towards women, smacking them around, etc. and found this one interesting, when stack tells his kimono girl to go and she just can't. she falls in love with him..there was something about seeing her vulnerability that i don't see so much these days full of cold bitches. it reminded me how little vulnerability i see onscreen today. one of those moments you could call horrible but somehow i really felt for her. HER is Mariko played by 李香蘭 Yoshiko Ōtaka. "She was elected as a member of the Japanese Parliament in the 1970s and served for 18 years."

hook, line and sinker - one of the most stunning shootout scenes i've ever seen!

don't be fooled by this black and white still it's all glorious technicolor.

and here's a nice song recorded in 1958:

1964, Woman in the Dunes, Hiroshi Teshigahara

2011-08-28T21:32:00.003-04:00

i'm about as familiar with streaming films online as i am with japanese cinema so hey why not throw the two together! i'm pretty good with the roku and netflix instant and even watched coppola's You're A Big Boy Now on youtube but this was group screening of WOMAN IN THE DUNES via Constellation.tv's Quality Films with Amos Poe every Sunday at 8PM EST. Next week is Knife in the Water.
I stumbled around a bit trying to get in the theater, couldn't find my ticket. Once i got in i was impressed with the images but missed the beginning and also there was some skipping due to damage which i'm not sure about but it seemed to work out okay. it was cool to have a running commentary even though i was taciturn (not used to talking during films). A great way to collectively geek out on cinema. Pretty cool!
gorgeous film, and i'll never look at sand quite the same way again....the sound design reminded me of the shining...isolation. delicious.

*based on a book

the hurricane. john ford. 1937.

2011-08-28T17:15:00.004-04:00

WOW! after all that melville it was time for some john ford and timely netflix had
THE HURRICANE available for instant. really brilliant storytelling and phenomenal special effects!

"strange, the wind gives the island a different smell."
exactly what i was saying!

Terangi & Marama, what a gorgeous couple tackling love, racist injustice and even a hurricane. Now I know to jump on a big tree if I'm ever in danger.

*Based on Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall's (Jon Hall's uncle) novel which was first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post

Le Doulos

2011-08-28T13:06:00.004-04:00

glory glory melville!
holy cinema!
must learn french.

In slang "doulos" means "hat" but in police terms and the language of outlaws doulos is the name of a man what wears one...an informer.

THE FINGER MAN
LE DOULOS

irene is an embarassment...too bad the same wasn't done for katrina...corresponding with chile where they know about real disaster. america is not doing much to change our obnoxiousness.
anywho!

back to melville - what a cast, i would have enjoyed a few more moments with Michel Piccoli alas, that's why i love melville because he can use him so sparingly.

adored the locations and moments and the time, silences, shot selection all things i don't experience so much in contemporary cinema yet love.
thank you JPM.
*based on a novel by Pierre Lesou

LE CERCLE ROUGE

2011-08-27T23:08:00.004-04:00

feeling french and in the mood for an alain delon/paul crauchet double feature brought me to
LE CERCLE ROUGE
melville precision which is a misleading word twosome - for, as precise as melville is there is a touch to his editing wipe style that adds a touch of contrast that feeds beautifully into the experience. YES.

ala "There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle...perhaps" from Le Samouraï
Le Cercle Rouge begins with a quote:
siddhartha guatama, the buddha drew a circle with a piece of red chalk and said: "when men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever their diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle."
- no idea how poor that translation is but hey the film is sheer melville joy, never disapoints. i particularly like the train sequence, how the camera pulls away from the train window up into the sky and the glorious wide shots throughout. not going to nitpick every little detail i loved but i will say i love heist films for their long, silent sequences. good hallucination moment too!
shhhh!

La Piscine

2011-08-27T20:57:00.005-04:00

can't think of a hurricane film at the moment so i jumped in LA PISCINE in preparation for irene. swept away to the south of france with alain delon and romy schneider.
not bad.

i'm actually new to romy. last i saw her was in Le Combat dans l'île which i enjoyed very much. this was perfect fare for a sleepyhead like me took a nap intermission and had wonderful dreams. not one for bourgeois and can't say delon is my "type" but this was just done so well. ready for a swim!

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye

2011-08-27T10:51:00.003-04:00

i tried! after experiencing
henri cartier-bresson: the modern century / moma / 2010
i thought it was time to fill more of the holes in my head.
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
can't remember seeing a good documentary on a photographer yet - this was over-the-top on the snooze factor, talk about an unpassion. my thought was maybe i could have hung in there if it had been subtitled vs. voice-over translation.

STILL LOVE HENRI!
"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life."- HCB

the ugly american

2011-08-21T14:21:00.005-04:00

was more than eager to see this after reading about it so much...released in 1963 but only recently available on dvd THE UGLY AMERICAN is based on a novel, like most films used to be. brando is powerful as always and it was interesting to read in a netflix movie review: "Rumor has it Brando would start each movie by doing the same scene twice - once using his skills and once not trying. If the director couldn't tell which was which, Brando would not try for the remainder of the film. Apparently Englund could tell because Brando does a fabulous job in The Ugly American."

b-b-b-b-b-rando!

True, Brando seems to give his all to this performance - I'm completely biased in that regard being the huge fan that i am, but even so, the film failed to hold my attention...now as i blog listening to bob seger i wonder if this might be one of those "the book is better" deals - more than likely the book is better. back to the books! great title.

TV Party: The Heavy Metal Show

2011-08-21T14:08:00.005-04:00

T U N I N G into
I N S P I R A T I O N
S T A T I O N

ah 1981 the drugs had to be better, society not yet so crippled by ADD and instant gratification. what do i know? not much. but i do know this impressed the heck out of me and that's what i love about this era and the no wave movement - no excuses not to be creative. the racist callers made me sick but i love how FAB 5 FREDDY handled them. Class act all the way.

From BrinkDVD:
There were two TV Party Heavy Metal Shows: one taped at the Mudd Club, now lost, and this live studio sequel. At Mudd the TV Party Orchestra featured ten guitars and Charles Rocket on heavy metal accordion. This show, with a “Mock Penis Envy” backdrop by Jean-Michel Basquiat, features a guitar line up of Chris Stein, Lenny Ferrari, Patrick Geoffrois of the Contortions, plus Glenn, Basquiat, Snuky Tate and Walter Steding on guitar and vocals and Bradley Field on electronic drums. As Glenn and Walter send up rock clichés and discuss the nature of electricity, the band churns out a harrowing electronic miasma somewhere between the Velvets and static interference, deconstructing Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Writer Cookie Mueller appears discussing heavy metals that a medical lab found in her blood. Other guests include the editor of Heavy Metal Magazine, and graffiti artists Futura and Ali. Diego Cortez appears as guest cameraman. Five years before Spinal Tap, TV Party hailed this incipient folk movement. Actually the term Heavy Metal was originated in the sixties by William S. Burroughs and the TV Party Orchestra was probably the only heavy metal band to know Burroughs personally. Highlights include an actual fight between Fab Five Freddy and Jean-Michel Basquiat over a guitar and Walter Steding destroying his “extra wide deluxe” guitar.

marty

2011-07-31T18:48:00.006-04:00

when i say or think marty i usually always mean martin scorsese. now in addition to scorsese i will think of this film:
MARTY

perfect timing tcm and thank you ben mankiewicz for letting me know how ernest borgnine got the role of marty and got everyone all teary-eyed when he read for the part. i got a little teary-eyed myself at moments. i really felt for marty.

at first i thought betsy blair was julie harris but saw the differences as the film went on. love love love new york in the 50s and though it's no morris engel picture marty still hits me in the heart. real people. my favorite quote was the one about there being a lotta fresh tomatoes at the stardust ballroom.

À nous la liberté

2011-07-31T15:30:00.007-04:00

À nous la liberté

this came recommended to me on my other blog watchingthewheels99! took me over a year to get around to it but it was right on time when i did late friday night settling down to this was just what the doctor ordered and i was blown away by all the phonographs! PALACE OF RECORDS!!!

À nous la liberté means "freedom to us" and holy moly was this full of metaphors, somewhat propoganda for the industrial revolution in my mind and was so interesting how they sold industry as this way for people to have more free time. got me thinking about a lot of things, not too deep or anything but just refreshing to think about after being inundated with so much mumbo jumbo. sorta like the way the infamous "they" sell the internet as this way to increase and strengthen communication when i think it's all a ruse, communication has never been worse in my opinion. finding the 30s particularly exciting these days...always looking for more recommendations! absolutely loved À nous la liberté and it's many messages packed under the guise of entertainment and playfulness. i love how clair and antonioni's red desert, fritz metropolis and even godard in two or three things view industry.

"Industry rule number four thousand and eighty: record company people are shady."

two-lane blacktop

2011-07-31T15:13:00.002-04:00

big roadtripper in my time i've spent more than a few hours on route 66 and was really looking forward to this movie that has such a cult-status and seeing what james taylor and dennis wilson brought to the big screen. i figured with monte hellman and harry dean stanton this would be a slam dunk for me, but it was more like an airball. i kept trying but just could not get into it. held on to it for about 10 days, trying, trying, trying but to NO avail. win some, lose some i guess, just too flat for me... might have to revisit this one further down the road, until then much more fun for me to read about it than watch it!

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP

SCARFACE!

2011-07-23T21:59:00.006-04:00

SCARFACE!
it does not get better than this. the lights dimmed. "turn off your f***in cell phone" "don't talk to me that way" howard hawks name flashes on the screen. applause. SCARFACE! truly life changing - i bet a few guys with last names like scorsese and coppola wanted to make films after seeing this one and they could probably live their whole lives without touching it! even though they are masters in their own right HAWKS really spits this one so hard. great to see in a theater and walk out hearing "it just gets more powerful with each viewing"! Y E S. when the calendar and the gun went people erupted. so fun. yesyesyesyesyes

"Listen, Little Boy, in this business there's only one law you gotta follow to keep out of trouble: Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it."

THE MALTESE FALCON

2011-07-23T21:43:00.006-04:00

1931, Roy Del Ruth, THE MALTESE FALCON

july 23rd is the date of my birth and what better than a little pre-code double feature! uncanny how much ricardo cortez's portrayal of sam spade reminded me of draper! amazing fun. thank you film forum!!!!!!

the pleasure of being robbed

2011-07-22T21:47:00.006-04:00

the pleasure of being hot...THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED is staying with me and that's a testament of a good film for me. it's as if the entire film replays in my mind from time to time, gives me hope for film, regardless of the shaking camera it's just refreshing to see film with eyes laden by the sheer intensity of images these days i really enjoyed pleasure's moments. glad i got to experience cinema nolita before it closed!

it was a hot day on the bike and this was perfect, couldn't hang for tokyo story or fanny & alexander - all i could do was enjoy the pleasure of being robbed - but felt the opposite of robbed. looking forward to watching the careers of hendricks & safdies' always grateful for the safdie's BAM curation that put me on to MIKEY AND NICKY. see. it. now.

like: Eléonore's site! http://www.eleonorehendricks.com/

beats, rhymes & life: the travels of a tribe called quest

2011-07-16T07:30:00.010-04:00

(animation by JAMES BLAGDEN!)

one of my favorite memories, and yes, there's more than a few...was an over capacity night at table 50, pure pandemonium and squeezed my way through the crowd to see if the fellas needed anything...mark ronson said, "a tribe called quest reunion!" i smiled big because they were all there that night: q-tip, phife, ali and jarobi. i have a recording of it and the electric energy is undeniable. more than a couple years of my life were fueled by hip hop, without it i don't think i would have survived. while it allowed me to survive, i didn't have the tools to grow.

the last few years i've grown away from it all but last night, at BAM's 930pm screening of Michael Rapaport's Beats Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” “ it felt as though i'd never left. the pendulum of my emotions watching it swung from bliss to heartbreak. the part that's sticking though, is while i didn't grow, i was really blessed, having met so many of the folks on the screen during my own travels did shape and influence me. the theater was packed and all in attendance responded as if all the heads on screen were old friends from the neighborhood, it unanimously struck so many chords.

all the people featured onscreen i'd seen at table 50, they came religiously...throughout it all i was making my own documentary of sorts...a work in progress:

i never walk the streets, think it's all about me
even thought deep in my heart, it really could be
to be continued!

The Bad and the Beautiful

2011-07-16T06:44:00.006-04:00

"I took you out of the gutter...I can fling you back!"

Rich in the details of moviemaking, visually inventive, superbly scripted and acted, The Bad and the Beautiful is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the end of Hollywood's Golden Era. In his analysis of Minnelli's films, Directed by Vincente Minnelli, Stephen Harvey explains the enduring seductiveness of the film: "The Bad and the Beautiful aspires neither to high art nor newsreel naturalism. By its own example, this black-and-white fantasia celebrates the energy and showmanship that made the studio system flourish."

wow what a treat this is to be blogging/hacking at 646am on a saturday!
about THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL nonetheless!
i say hacking because tcm's database on this film is so good i've done cut & paste here with my favorite points.
watching the special feature "the lana turner story" with clint eastwood on the narration. i can't keep up with her marriages, arithmetic is not my forte, just ask the irs!
however, she does have quite a story and what a beginning in life - her father won some money at a traveling craps game, stuffed his winnings in his left sock, and headed for home. He was later found dead on the corner of Minnesota and Mariposa Streets, on the edge of Potrero Hill and the Dogpatch District in San Francisco, his left shoe and sock missing.The robbery and murder were never solved. (wiki)

THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL came recommended to me by a friend and it did not disappoint.
especially with a performance from gloria grahame!
Gloria Grahame learned the Southern accent required by her role by studying with African-American disc jockey Joe Adams. To keep the dialect consistent, she used it around the clock during filming.

again, love Vincente Minnelli's intelligence.

from tcm archives:
Made just two years after Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful helped spearhead a '50s re-examination of Hollywood on screen. Where earlier films had dealt with filmmaking from a comic or romantic perspective, these two movies pointed the way toward more critical and vitriolic views of the movie capital.

After years of musicals and comedies, The Bad and the Beautiful presented director Vincente Minnelli the first chance to explore one of his central themes, the frustration of dreams, in a serious context.

Minnelli had previously lost out on two chances to work with Lana Turner. He had wanted to cast her in his film version of Madame Bovary (1949), but acceded to executive demands that he use an established dramatic actress like Jennifer Jones. He also was briefly assigned to direct her in A Life of Her Own (1950) before the project went to George Cukor.

"Maybe I like to be cheap once in a while. Maybe everybody does, or don't you remember? Get that look off your face! Who gave you the right to dig into me and turn me inside out and decide what I'm like. How do you know how I feel about you, how deep it goes? Maybe I don't want anybody to own me. You or anybody. Get out! Get out! Get out!" -- Douglas, rejecting Turner.

"I dare say I am getting too big for my britches."
"They're pretty britches."
"James Lee, you have a very dirty mind, I'm happy to say." -- Gloria Grahame, as Rosemary Bartlow, making up after a fight with husband Dick Powell, as James Lee Bartlow.

"Jonathan is more than a man. He's an experience, and he's habit-forming. If they could ever bottle him, he'd out-sell Ginger Ale." -- Turner, warning Powell, as James Lee Bartlow, about Douglas.

The Bad and the Beautiful, an acknowledged bow to F. Scott Fitzgerald's story "The Beautiful and the Damned."

The scene in which Turner drives off into the rainy night after discovering that Douglas has been cheating on her was so complicated it took weeks after she had finished the rest of her scenes before she got to film it. Minnelli put the car's interior on a turntable, then choreographed the cameras moves in and out as the turntable shifted position. He then instructed Turner to build her emotions to hysteria throughout the complicated take. It took a day to get all the angles Minnelli wanted, by which time Turner truly was hysterical. The scene was one of the most memorable in The Bad and the Beautiful.

Wim Wenders: On Film: Essays and Conversations

2011-07-10T19:59:00.007-04:00

ah yes, it was just a week ago i was sitting in the backyard of gramps' place reading this book - my feeble mind simultaneously vacillating between thoughts of whitey bulger and rickie fowler.

finally finished reading all 493 pages of this book today and what a goody it is. has me wanting to get all german...having recently seen wim's the land of plenty i would like to read some of his writings post-9/11. like several other great filmmakers, wenders started out a critic more out of urgency than criticism. he was a cinema fiend and seeing so many films in one day, he couldn't keep track so began taking notes out of a need to remember. not too dissimilar from my reason for this blog, for it to trigger my horrendous memory. i've seen a lot of the same films he wrote about and it was great to read his perspective, his first encounter with american television, his comments on image assault, storytelling, his relationship, ideas of home, how he got news of the wall coming down, Ozu, identity, architecture, the american friend, chambre 666, lightning over water, wings of desire, paris texas...and his contradictions - to echo jim jarmusch, "I believe only in contradictions."

p.213
i think stories are actually lies. but they are incredibly important to our survival. their artificial structure helps us to overcome our worst fear: that there is no god; that we are nothing but tiny fluctuating particles with perception and consciousness, but lost in a universe that remains altogether beyond our conception. by producing coherence, stories make life bearable and combat fears....
stories do just that: they become your roads in a strange land, where but for them, you might go to thousands of places without ever arriving anywhere.
p.218
i totally reject stories, because for me they only bring out lies, nothing but lies, and the biggest lie is that they show coherence where there is none.
p.220
just looking out of the window did me good. if only it were possible to film like that, i thought, the way you sometimes open your eyes. just looking, not trying to prove anything.
p.223
werner herzog: the simple truth is that there aren't many images around now.
p.327
yes, and in my opinion that's one of the worst diseases of our civilization, being exposed to such an inflation of images.
p.338
...how affection or love become impossible if you concentrate too hard on an image of yourself or of someone else.

the german word einstellung: a 'shot' or an 'attitude'

the pace and content of the book kept my attention throughout but the climax for me was reading the conversation with jean-luc godard while i was brunching by myself at smith&mills and the only customer which fulfilled some kind of strange fantasy for me!

on painters, montage and dustbins
p.452
JLG: i don't want to think like spielberg, say. i have to say i admire him, because he doesn't make many mistakes. if he makes a film for 20,280,418 people, then you can bet between 20,280,416 and 20,280,420 will turn up to see it - you get the idea. he knows how to plan something like that. but i don't think like that. i don't like being in a room with a lot of people. i don't like being in a crowded subway car. when i go to a bakery, i don't like having to wait. so why should i want loads of people huddled in a cinema? absolutely not: i like it when there are few people in many places. in literature, there are books with large print-runs and others with small print-runs. samuel beckett wrote a lot of small books that came out in tiny editions.
Wim Wenders: On Film: Essays and Conversations

the gerry todd show (Second City TV)

2011-07-10T19:36:00.007-04:00

in a rare solo brunch moment at smith&mills where i was the only patron (more about that in my wim wenders post) this song came on and lead to some youtubing today:
RIDE LIKE THE WIND
which lead me to The Gerry Todd Show

SCTV 3 Gerry Todd and Michael McDonald

embedding disabled so click above!

more

thanks jimmy!

ok, see ya!

the eyes of laura mars, tommy lee jones & raúl juliá

2011-07-10T18:34:00.009-04:00

I've never been wrong
But you're the the only one I trust to show me the way
I always hear your voice
And in my dreams I hear you calling my name
What is it about you?
Some kind of light shines from your face
And I can't turn away.
I'm like a prisoner
Captured by your eyes,
I've been taken
And I've been hypnotized.

the eyes of tommy lee jones

the eyes of raúl juliá

the eyes of laura mars

it was lurking around on the internet blogscene that brought this film to my attention. from the first frame i kept thinking it was striking an excitement chord in me i hadn't felt since seeing tobak's FINGERS which was also released in 1978.

glad barbara streisand turned this role down and faye dunaway took it! great casting, confident style and directing. really knocked out by tommy lee jones' performance, helmut newton's photographs and on the commentary kershner mentions also using rebecca blake's images. solid bonus features and subtitles in more languages than you can shake a stick at.

bedroom! bedroom!

the land of plenty

2011-07-04T14:50:00.004-04:00

Don't really have the courage
To stand where I must stand.
Don't really have the temperament
To lend a helping hand.
-Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen wrote The Land of Plenty before Wim Wenders made the film and i tend to stay away from post-9/11 films but streamed this. reading a Wim Wenders book that was published in 2001 does not discuss this then unmade film. being a sucker for michelle williams and having lived with people that remind me of john deihl and richard edson's characters i enjoyed the color palate and portrayal of Los Angeles' skid row. nice casting of wendell pierce and i wish i had seen this before the filming of life support so i could have asked him what it was like working on this film. also a fan of burt young. loved how wim made lana's world like a third world country and a film about los angeles that shows a side i don't see in films. this is sitting with me and i loved his use of green and how he said that he didn't notice green as a color until Antonioni's Blow-Up. Michelle sure has grown up a lot in the last few years! it's an ambitious film that manages to keep its soul. interesting also to see him work with a Panasonic AG-DVX100....

the visitors...

2011-07-03T13:57:00.007-04:00

i was supposed to be born around this time of year but i wasn't ready and waited for the cusp.

today i streamed ELIA KAZAN'S THE VISITORS an otherwise hard film for me to get my hands on. if i had been tested by viewing the film and asked who directed it, i would say Barbara Loden, and even that has a lot to do with Nicholas Proferes' touch. made two years after wanda, this film has little pretense and was predictable yet i had to keep watching. mainly because i knew kazan did direct it and james woods' character was pretty interesting to me. reminding me of Henri Serre's character in Le Combat dans l'île, what would drive a non-violent man to violence? also, as many of kazan's films do, it dealt with a quasi-father/son relationship.

the way proferes' shot it - it's a mixture of b-movie horror and...WANDA. so unpolished for kazan, so unlike his other pictures, but not unlike in THE LAST TYCOON sort of way - this is the other end of the spectrum. reminiscent also of his book THE ASSASSINS.

T H U N D E R. R O A D ! ! !

2011-06-28T20:48:00.007-04:00

do you prefer thunder road or holiday road?

lying out there like a killer in the sun
hey i know it's late we can make it if we run
oh thunder road, sit tight take hold
thunder road

-bruce springsteen
*inspired by a movie he never saw but his lyrics are beast!

funny to blogging this after finally starting to read wim wenders: on film essays and conversations where so far, on page 24 of 493 he intertwines music, film and writing with pretty cool style (not surprised). i knew thunder road sounded familiar aside from this film - what a killer line-up with Robert Mitchum, his son and even Keely Smith who I know of through Louis Prima.

NEVER doubted Robert Mitchum's star power but this is one of the worst films I have seen in a very, very long time and I, like Wim Wenders, rarely blog about a film I don't like but the thing about this film was how amazing Robert Mitchum is even when he's in a Titanic of a film like this - horrible camera and editing - yet the car crashes were not too bad.

redeeming moments - robert and his son in the garage reminded me of eric mitchell & chris parker in PERMANENT VACATION.

T H U N D E R
R O A D ! ! !

i prefer the moonshine of puerto rico.

*the just getting warmed up here part is worth it!

GO LOUIS!

That Old Black Magic

what kind of movie ends with a title card like this?!

The Girl from Manhattan

2011-06-19T23:47:00.006-04:00

The Girl from Manhattan
Featuring Charles Laughton, the man who brought us THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER!
had to see this and was shocked to see it featured pittsfield, which pittsfield i don't know but could have been pittsfield, massachusetts! yes, life before television here, wanted to call monty's taxi and stay at purdys..wonder if this increased tourism.. (netflix on demand)

from TCM:
Working titles for this film were All's Well That Ends Well and All's Well. Although the film was not viewed, credits were obtained from a cutting continuity deposited in copyright records. The Hollywood Reporter production chart includes Charles Winninger in the cast, but he was not in the final film. A March 1949 New York Times article states that the film came about because producer Benedict Bogeaus had an episode left over from his previous picture, On Our Merry Way, which involved the Charles Laughton character of the Bishop. Because that episode cost $200,000, Bogeaus hired writer Lou Breslow to use it as the basis of a new film.

these are the breaks!

2011-06-19T23:35:00.004-04:00

the missouri breaks! gramps says all the bad guys came from missouri - with the lineup on this it looks like a winner but i could barely see it. it was so dark, darker exposure than godfather. and the "slapstick" didn't stick!
yes, it could have used more exposure...

the montaukett indians of eastern long island. john a strong. 2001.

2011-06-19T23:13:00.008-04:00

congratulations, Rory McIlroy!!!
has me watching sportscenter and i'm predicting i'll get into golf the way i was into early 90s NBA basketball. what better way to watch the open than on a golf course where i can even work on my swing.
yes, a good weekend to finish reading John A. Strong's THE MONTAUKETT INDIANS OF EASTERN LONG ISLAND.
i enjoy reading about the history of places, i.e. Luc Sante's LOW LIFE and now this. not particularly uplifting or insightful but more a piecing together of not so well documented history sewn together by library legal documents which is an impressive undertaking. bottom line, the Montaukett's still exist and our country is still founded on incredible moral deficiencies and deficits which make any self-righteousness all the more disgusting!
some of the points that jumped out at me were the sexist and racist laws in place and the draw to commercialism.

to RT PASEROCK: "everybody f*cked everything up." - Brent Rollins

I AM IRON MAN!

2011-06-15T21:27:00.005-04:00

Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant, painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1786

SORTA LIKE...REMINDS ME OF...

i'm a little mohawk, myself...

Film Socialisme. JLG.

2011-06-12T19:13:00.010-04:00

room 666. james greer. http://nicolenelch.blogspot.com/2010/07/chambre-666-wim-wenders-1982.html

Archos 404 cam., Samsung Nv24HD, Canon 5d mk2, Sony Ex1, Sony TG1E, Panasonic snap shot, JVC Everio

WELL - with bated breath i finally saw this today. much to my dismay some people do not know that jlg is still kicking and not accepting honorary oscars.

this movie is another reason for me to learn french. i was a little off put by the spike jones short and previews before the film and the "technical difficulties" at the start...but now that i blog i wonder if the "technical difficulties" are all part and parcel of the experience.

set on a nightmarish cruise ship, i would like to see the "dailes" from the patti smith segment. a series of teases and voyerism, godard's commentary of life and creation of film language is strong as ever. the theater was so teeny tiny. i fell asleep. the "film" could have ended a million times, i lost all track of time and it's just like - what! what! WHAT! does a Godard do in these times?!

as i become another F A T american working 8am-8pm i really needed some godard...reading about native americans and the insidious, digusting, violent ways of this country. ...feeling all out of sorts, discontent and frustrated was the prime condition to see this and actually feel better afterwards. only godard could make me not feel so alone today. i was so relived to have seen this by myself. thank Godard. S O M A N Y I D E A S !

KILLER'S KISS - STANLEY KUBRICK - 1955

2011-06-12T18:56:00.005-04:00

TKO!!!!!

KILLER'S KISS - STANLEY KUBRICK - 1955!!!

The working title of this film was Kiss Me, Kill Me.

dare i say this really gives raging bull a run for it's money, not only financially but technically - kubrick K I L L S it!

haven't fallen so hard since experiencing morris engel. is it new york city in the 50s?? maybe. but this is sheer art - every frame so killer!

STANLEY!!!!!!!!!!!

repeat.

stanley such a funny smarty pants in this and THE KILLING. so many of the images, auras from his still photography set in motion..building a body of work.

The Man in the Net. Michael Curtiz. 1959.

2011-06-12T18:26:00.008-04:00

my cinematheque

a few months ago i was listening to this guy talk about living in paris and going to the cinematheque, watching alan ladd films and being miserable. it really offended me the way he said that...like that was a horrible activity or something...sounds pretty romantic to me.

love this excerpt from the tcm article on the film:
By the late 1950s, Michael Curtiz was having a difficult time finding worthwhile projects. The director of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), and Mildred Pierce (1945) often undertook projects for the money to meet the maintenance agreements he had signed in 1954 to support illegitimate children he allegedly fathered. He may have considered The Man in the Net (1959) one such film, and it remains little more than a footnote to an illustrious career.

netflix instant! carolyn jones of morticia fame is amazing! this film was right on time because i've been missing new england and the way carolyn jones' character wants to get back to nyc reminds me of how i felt when i was actually living in new england. nice use of kids and worth watching just for carolyn jones' style alone. more!

not sure where the title comes from...

suddenly, last summer

2011-06-11T22:38:00.007-04:00

suddenly, last summer!

DR. SUGAR! take me back to 1937! a long, long time ago i caught the end of this on tcm and recently netflix'd this to catch the whole thing. seemed like a surefire hit with tennessee williams, hepburn, taylor and clift! wrong! there's some good dialogue - but word is williams did not endorse this film. vidal did the adaptation. clift plays more strung out than brain surgeon and liz is great hepburn...well...reading the behind the scenes antics her performance makes a lot more sense. she spat in mankiewicz face at the end for the way he treated clift. wow. all that being said i would have rather watched the movie behind the movie rather than the movie - no matter how much i love lobotomies and insane asylums! wonder if this film inspired the motels....

Paper Moon. Peter Bogdanovich. 1973.

2011-06-05T22:17:00.004-04:00

back to bogdanovich, or Петар Богдановић, Petar Bogdanović if you're proper. holding my breath until i'm able to catch JLG's Film Socialisme at ifc! anyways, the commentary on this is killer, not for a film pro, but for an aspirer like me - to hear him talk about depth of field, wide angle lens, red & green filters, all the light...yessir. very exciting. black and white and so many special features. i love hearing PB name drop john ford, orson welles, mel brooks - really ever since the dick cavett show i saw with PB, robert altman, frank capra & mel brooks i've been wanting to re/visit his films. he seemed to give capra so much respect and be so knowledgeable and yet willing to learn and to hear him talk about the making of this film...well. let's say i'm having a good run. still savoring scorsese's letter to elia. pretty fun to pop into mercer books to see if they had any of kazan's fiction, they didn't but i let them know he wrote fiction too! paper moon, laslo kovacs on the lens! aside from the aforementioned dick cavett episode - it was also a recent viewing of an american friend with wim wenders commentary that prompted me to queue paper moon. on the commentary, he talks about how devastating it was for him to see paper moon, because it was a film he wanted to make and after many long talks with samuel fuller he came around to making an american friend...

trivia: tatum the youngest to win an oscar and now she and her dad will have a reality series on oprah's OWN channel, debuts on father's day. she also dated michael jackson before marrying john mcenroe.

OUT OF THE BLUE by Dennis Hopper USA, 1980, 94 minutes, 35mm

2011-06-04T20:05:00.005-04:00

DENNIS HOPPER'S OUT OF THE BLUE
i love being a go-to person for people to think of when they see a film like this is playing. and by that i mean two people saw this was playing and said something about it to me and i was pretty excited to see it! it's been so long since i can remember visiting a darkened theater and what better than the maya deren theater at anthology. i sorta cringed walking up to the theater, remembering what a slimebag i was last time i was there when kitten with a whip was playing and i tried to buy my way to the front of the line. ewwww! instead of scowls i was greeted with understated smiles. whew. fyi: cool people go to catch the 515pm of this on a beautiful saturday. enjoyed this! linda manz was like an american mouchette [bresson] and there were all kinds of good moments which may make me appear as a sicko but hey, what can i say. i mean good moments, like i was impressed with hopper's raw talent and ability to pull this film off, what a talented fella.