Joseph Losey’s opening sequence makes the audience feel complicit in Van Heflin’s crimes in THE PROWLER (1950).
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
Death by nitrate fire is too good a one for Hitler, methinks. Here, the projectionist eyes the funeral pyre behind the screen—one lit cigarette and whoosh!
How could I not love that Quentin got almost everything right about the film screening scenes in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009): from an omniscient narrator stepping in to explain the special qualities of a nitrate fire, to depicting the bell, the mark, the douser lever of a perfect reel changeover. So what didn’t he get right? The insurgent’s reel (#4) went straight from the shipping case (above) onto the projector. Not to get into technicalities, but that probably wouldn’t have happened. Oh, yeah, and each reel does NOT get its own shipping case, as is suggested above. Yes, I may be as geeky as Q.T.
But first, some driver’s ed simulator films to put you into a trance…
And then…Gene Kelly in the making-of featurette for VIVA KNIEVEL (1977)?
Oh, sad day, Gene, that you were reduced to greasemonkey status in a film starring a stuntman.
And Dorothy Malone is wondering how the hell she got roped into THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (1954). Her character was trapped in an abandoned shack and got the bright idea to light it on fire to attract attention WHILE SHE WAS LOCKED INSIDE IT!
Director George A. Romero as a priest in MARTIN (1977)…
…and John Sayles as one of the Men in Black in THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (1984). Okay, this is Joe Morton below, of course, not John Sayles; I didn’t get a picture of the latter. But: <squeeeeeee>, that high-pitched noise he and David Straithairn made—ooh, I just about peed my pants with laughter.
How much of a coincidence is it that both directors of tonight’s films had amazingly well-acted cameos in their own films? Romero played a practical, sweet-liqueur-loving priest not about to put up with a lot of mystical guff. And Sayles? I didn’t even recognize him as the taller twin of the alien “slave”-hunters.
And, just ‘cos I’m a sentimental twit, a lovely dawn picture of the other twins:
Filmmaker Britta Sjogren was present at this screening of JO-JO AT THE GATE OF LIONS (1992), the culmination of the “Into the Vortex: Female Voice in Film” series at PFA. She gave an interesting talk about the different ways voice operates in this and the other films in the series; how voice is “slippery” and difficult to pin down, both in its origin and purpose; and how voice-over, diegetic, and mediated voices blur point of view, position, boundary, and subjectivity. A disembodied, omniscient voice, from a woman without a larynx, is associated with the crone’s hands on Jo-Jo’s face, above.
The female protagonist in this film—and most of the others in the series—waits: for the “right” man, the “right” time, an answer, her close-up.
So, I was going to go to a screening of EMPTY NEST at the Sundance Kabuki in Japantown. I hadn’t been there since it freed itself from AMC and got a makeover, so I was interested in checking it out. Chose my seat on a touchscreen layout, an unnecessary luxury on a Tuesday afternoon—whee!—but which involved my having to get advice from the disinterested teen cashier about the seat’s proximity to the screen. What popped up on the monitor next really disturbed me: $8.75 + $1.50 “amenity fee” = $10.25 ticket. I asked the guy, “What’s this amenity fee?” He answered with a potted reply citing the theater’s “independence” from sponsorship by Fandango and the like. Needless to say, this skinflint turned and ran. But I’m thinking of adding an “amenity fee” to this blog. What do you think?
Now, onto the show:
A sweet and sloppy doc about North Philly high schoolers competing for culinary arts scholarships, PRESSURE COOKER (2009) drew only two lonely souls to its 4:40 screening in SF. How many theaters are screening it, total? Probably fewer than 10 around the country. So the horrible scratches the Lumiere has inflicted on this print so early on in its run do not bode well (there’s one of the scratches, between the 2nd and 3rd lockers in this shot). And it is the Lumiere’s projector (theater one) that did it—the Stella Artois cycling ad had the exact same ones. Having said all this, please note the pleasing title design; in three paragraphs or less, compare and contrast to POST GRAD’s. End of lesson.
Alexis Bledel, I think you’re the cutest and possibly the nicest young actress out there, and I will forever be devoted to you for your work on Gilmore Girls. BUT your new film, POST GRAD (2009), stoops, makes others (like me) stoop, and could be termed “stoopid,” just so I can continue on this stooping theme. Please, young television stars, when making your bumpy transition into “adult” roles in “film,” please try to insert these clauses into your contracts:
1. The title design guy must not be a hack. Varsity letter font? Pls.
[Insert awesome image here of computer desktop with MySpace, video blog, and chat windows all opening and moving around, main character socially networking with all her apps, expositioning her little heart out—a screen shot of which I would've gotten had I set my camera to the "camera" mode when turning it on.]
2. Do not allow the director to insert a pre-opening credits sequence featuring technology that will make the film appear dated in a matter of months. Actually, this sequence ALREADY feels dated, given that it was edited together a couple months ago. Also, if you are interested in depicting technology of today, please do not allow director to depict main character job-searching using the classified section of the local newspaper and a red sharpie.
3. Dad character running over the neighbor’s cat and squishing it is NOT comedy. Neither is Michael Keaton burying said dead cat in a pizza box in a too-small hole in the neighbor’s yard. Also, the dad hated the cat in the first place because he stepped in its shit in the middle of the driveway. Did no one on set understand cats? The cat-lady in me does not hesitate to inform those who only know dogs that CATS DO NOT POOP ON DRIVEWAYS. That is, unless the driveway is composed of loose sand. You out there, with your dunebuggies parked in the garage, you have been warned.
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s YOUNG AMERICA (1932), not “Young Americans,” but that doesn’t stop my brain from singing this. Plus there’re a lot of young americans in this sweet, funny, stupid little film:
…a young Ralph Bellamy, and…
…a baby-faced Spencer Tracy. Oh, and a bunch of really cute juvenile delinquent kids. The print looked so rich and with just the right amount of shimmery contrast; the preservation team under Bob Gitt at UCLA filled in all the jumpy bits around the head and tail leaders with full audio and brief seconds of still image where the missing frames were. A brilliantly done—and not overdone—preservation.
Love and how it alters our subjective perception from rupture to rapture in THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE (1945). The lady “monster”…
…metamorphoses into the lovely woman whose clothes fit, whose hair is coiffed, and whose lips are rouged.
Watching this film with my sweetie made me wonder…should I be wearing more lipstick?
I now understand how this could be true.
Show me more of the cute Italian bows grooving to the new dance steps, plus another shot (why only one shot?!) of that beehived lady behind the counter at Bar Las Vegas! HAWKS AND SPARROWS (1965).