I thought this was not bad. My wife loved it. Thank You and Good Night Directed by Jan Oxenberg • 1991 • United States A lost-and-found revelation from indie film and TV maverick Jan Oxenberg is a docu-fantasy narrative focused on the filmmaker’s hilarious, messy, Jewish family as they prepare to say goodbye to someone they love. Narrated by a cardboard cutout of Oxenberg’s scowling child self, THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT takes us on a journey through the proceedings, attempting to defeat death and never say goodbye. An early Sundance hit but virtually unseen for decades, the film reemerges as a singular, uncategorizable exploration of the meaning of life, death, and the tangled stuff that is a family. In this poignant, hilarious, and complex reflection on letting go, Oxenberg innovatively transforms personal tragedy into universally resonant art that is now claiming its rightful place as a classic of independent cinema.
Same director as "Ashes and Diamonds" which I watched a couple days ago and loved. This was his second film. What a great director! Brutal film! Highly recommended. Kanal Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1957 • Poland Starring Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Wienczyslaw Glinski “Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives,” announces a narrator, foretelling the tragedy that unfolds as a war-ravaged company of Home Army resistance fighters tries to escape the Nazi onslaught through the sewers of Warsaw. Determined to survive, the men and women slog through the hellish labyrinth, piercing the darkness with the strength of their individual spirits. Based on true events, KANAL was the first film ever made about the Warsaw Uprising and brought director Andrzej Wajda to the attention of international audiences, earning the Special Jury Prize in Cannes in 1957.
A couple dozen 70s horror films popped up for Halloween. Watched Diana Rigg and Vincent Price in this last night. Hilarious if you're in the mood. Filmed entirely on location in London with a cast of venerable British actors. Familiar faces from World War II or swords & sandals Roman epics. Robert Morley in a terrible toupee, Jack Hawkins in his last film role, etc... Theater of Blood Directed by Douglas Hickox • 1973 • United Kingdom Starring Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Harry Andrews The one and only Vincent Price brings his inimitable flair for camp to this wickedly inventive horror comedy. He is perfectly cast as a scenery-chewing Shakespearean actor determined to wreak vengeance on the critics who fail to appreciate his genius, killing them in a series of spectacular set-piece murders based on scenes from the Bard. The elaborate killings—which include death by poodle pie—are miniature masterpieces of the macabre.
The Phibes films came first, but Theater of Blood has the same spirit. It is a delightful black comedy.
I haven’t been able to watch a full length film from beginning to end for a couple of months, however I did watch these two today The Headless Woman Directed by Lucrecia Martel • 2008 • Argentina Starring María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, Inés Efron A bourgeois middle-aged dentist named Verónica (María Onetto) drives alone on a dirt road, becomes distracted, and runs over something. Immediately she becomes disoriented, unmoored from her identity and reality, like a sleepwalker who’s actually awake. As the week goes on, she becomes obsessed with the possibility that she may have killed someone: a young boy whose body is found in a roadside canal. Veronica tries to piece together what happened while her husband systematically erases her tracks. A chilling parable about a woman in shock, Lucrecia Martel’s brilliant third feature explores the intricacies of class and the role of women in a male-dominated society.
Nostalgia for the Light Directed by Patricio Guzmán • 2010 • France, Chile Master documentarian Patricio Guzmán travels ten thousand feet above sea level to the driest place on earth: Chile’s Atacama Desert, where astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars in a sky so translucent that it allows them to see to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact, including those of political prisoners “disappeared” by the Chilean army after the 1973 military coup. Just as astronomers search for distant galaxies, surviving relatives of the disappeared search for the remains of their loved ones in a quest to reclaim their families’ histories. Melding the celestial and the earthly, NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT is a gorgeous, moving, and deeply personal odyssey into both Chilean history and the furthest reaches of space.
Just gets better with age, IMO. Shampoo Directed by Hal Ashby • 1975 • United States Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn SHAMPOO gives us a day in the life of George (Warren Beatty), a Beverly Hills hairdresser and lothario who runs around town on the eve of the 1968 presidential election trying to make heads or tails of his financial and romantic entanglements. His attempts to scrape together the money to open his own salon are continually sidetracked by the distractions presented by his lovers—played brilliantly by Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, and Lee Grant (in an Oscar-winning performance). Beatty dreamed up the project, cowrote the script with Robert Towne, and enlisted Hal Ashby as director, and the resulting carousel of doomed relationships is an essential seventies farce, a sharp look back at the sexual politics and self-absorption of the preceding decade.
Any fans of this one? I’ve seen it before but just watched it again. Got to love the 70s. I need to watch more DePalma. Margot Kidder is Danielle, a beautiful model separated from her Siamese twin, Dominique. When a hotshot reporter (Jennifer Salt) suspects Dominique of a brutal murder, she becomes dangerously ensnared in the sisters’ insidious sibling bond. A scary and stylish dissection of female crisis, Brian De Palma’s first foray into horror voyeurism is a stunning amalgam of split-screen effects, bloody birthday cakes, and a chilling score by frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann
Everything Goes Wrong Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1960 • Japan Everything goes wrong when Jiro tries to break up his mother's relationship with a business man.
Tonight....The Killers ‘64 version w/ Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson & Ronald Reagan FYI leaving on 10/31
I’m a fan of the movie (and DePalma, generally). Some critics have accused him of copying Hitchcock with some of his films, but I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s more accurate to say that DePalma is critiquing Hitchcock’s films, from a (sometimes) feminist perspective.
We watched Herzog's Nosferatu (1979) last night. Klaus Kinski's eyes...they were somewhere between animal-like and dead. Incredible performance.
Fountainhead Directed by Masaki Kobayashi • 1956 • Japan FOUNTAINHEAD (1956, aka IZUMI) is one of Masaki Kobayashi's "comeback" films into the Japanese studio system, a mainstream lyrical romantic drama that proved the commercial appeal of his work. It was also the place where he started setting the stage for his later career, assembling the cast members who would populate his more personal movies in the years to come: Fumio Watanabe (in his screen debut), who would star in Kobayashi's BLACK RIVER and work in the director's THE HUMAN CONDITION II; leading lady Ineko Arima, who had previously been associated with the films of Nikio Naruse, and who would later also star in BLACK RIVER and THE HUMAN CONDITION I; and Keiji Sada, who would work in THE HUMAN CONDITION I. This was the director's second film with a screenplay by Zenzo Matsuyama, who would be a close collaborator with him across this period of his career up through THE HUMAN CONDITION.
Don P, Thanks for the heads-up on "Fountainhead"; I have "The Human Condition". I want to see this one to broaden my view of Kobayashi. C.
Kobayashi is great, second only to Ozu in my eyes, but my favorite film of his will always be Harakiri. There is also an Eclipse box set called Against The System and all of those films are available on the CC as well. Happy hunting as there are many very fine films in Kobayashi’s body of work.
Imagine the Sound Directed by Ron Mann • 1981 • Canada The first feature documentary by counterculture chronicler Ron Mann is an eloquent tribute to a group of highly celebrated artists who helped forge the once-controversial free jazz movement of the 1960s. Bringing together interviews with and performances by legendary musicians like pianists Cecil Taylor and Paul Bley, tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, and trumpet player Bill Dixon, this vital record of jazz history pays tribute to the innovators whose fearless artistic vision brought forth a revolution in sound.
Trances Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic subject of this captivating musical documentary. Storytellers through song, with connections to political theater, the band became an international sensation (Western music critics have often referred to them as “the Rolling Stones of North Africa”) thanks to their political lyrics and sublime, fully acoustic sound, which draws on the Moroccan trance music tradition. Both a concert movie and a free-form audiovisual experiment, Ahmed El Maânouni's TRANCES is cinematic poetry. Restored in 2007 by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Ahmed El-Maanouni, and Izza Genini. Restoration funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways, and Qatar Museum Authority.
Take Aim at the Police Van Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1960 • Japan At the beginning of Seijun Suzuki's taut and twisty whodunit, a prison truck is attacked and a convict inside murdered. The penitentiary guard on duty, Daijiro (Michitaro Mizushima), is accused of negligence and suspended, only to take it upon himself to track down the killers.
Black Christmas Directed by Bob Clark • 1974 • Canada Starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder In 1974, a low-budget nightmare filmed in Toronto was unleashed upon theaters and revolutionized horror cinema. A now-legendary film among genre aficionados, the groundbreaking BLACK CHRISTMAS was not only the first slasher film, it also remains one of the most terrifying. The college town of Bedford is visited by an unwelcome guest this Christmas. As the residents of the Pi Kappa Sigma sorority prepare for the festive season, a stranger begins stalking their house. A series of obscene phone calls makes it clear that a psychopath is homing in on the sisters with nefarious intentions. And though the police try to trace the calls, they soon discover that nothing is as it seems during this horrifying holiday. Supposedly inspired "Halloween" and is one of the early films in the slasher genre. I watched it because it also features Margot Kidder whom I loved in "Sisters". This was interesting and not bad, but not really my style of horror. Fun fact is that the director also went on to make "A Christmas Story". I'd say those are the complete opposites for a holiday movie!
