LUSH CINEMA

"Hugo," 2011, directed by Martin Scorsese, in 3D

2011-12-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

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HUGO

Scorcese's "Hugo"
was a mess, took forever to get to
the point. I went there to see
Georges Méliès, but the film
kept me waiting and waiting.
Why were the British so French?
Why was that urchin so sweaty?
Call me old-school,

but I really do not like 3D
unless people are vomiting on-screen.

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Fanny and Alexander: (1984) Director Ingmar Bergman

2010-07-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

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FANNY AND ALEXANDER

A vacuum formed in the core
of an actress
is too hastily filled
by a spiritual smile
attached

to a monstrous man.
Magic and the everyday,
finery and brocade,
nestled all together
like one big happy family
in a huge house, until the monster

had his way, and seduced
the actress away, along with
her hapless offspring
and tortured them.

In the end
family happiness is restored,
and very much in the family way,
when--with the aid of
smoke and mirrors,
and belief,
and theater--
the sinister smiler is slayed, yet

he does not die completely.
For he leaves behind
on the greasy underside
of reality

an unshakeable film

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Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso), 1964, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

2010-07-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

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RED DESERT

He sees a red door and he wants to paint it black.
He sees a green field and he has to paint it grey.
What are the colors of the
spaces in between?
What is the texture of the pain
that is unseen?

He points out something that is not quite yet a fact.
He does it openly and yet behind your back.
Can you really tell a caress
from an attack? At random, people
circle, interact.

Cool colors fight with warm,
opening a crack.
Poison plumes of yellow smoke
roil up to scorch the sky; little birdies
have to learn to
fly the other way.

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METROPOLIS (1927, dir. Fritz Lang)

2010-07-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

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METROPOLIS

Every bleak exciting city

emerging monochrome from the mist

owes a little debt

to Metropolis

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2010-02-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

SYLVIA SCARLET (1935) starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant

Early in their careers,
Cary conjures the crooked rogue
and Katherine the gender bender.

When the crooked rogue
and the gender bender
don't end up in bed together

you have nice sequences
but a misdirected picture,
and three times Grant and Hepburn

must couple up
to make up for this mistake:
once in 1940 and twice in 1938

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2010-02-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

If you were Katherine Hepburn
and labeled "box-office poison"
what would you do?

Get your newly-sober ex
and James Stuart
competing for you?

And what if, say, some guy
who used to be a miner
slipped a rock around your finger?

When you're in it, and the sun's
in your blodshot eye--
and people are calling you

"remote," "goddess" and "heartless"
left and right--
it's hard to know who'll win

but admit, it's elementary:

Dismiss the stiff with the diamond,
have a dalliance with young James,
and re-marry Cary--

just like in the play.

That's how you save
an acting career
and win the day--

not to mention, an Oscar

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2009-11-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

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Chungking Express (1994)

--If movies are to amuse us, must they always have conclusions?--

People disappear
and reappear

without meaning
or warning.

People retreat.
People repeat.

People are incomplete.
Stories do not conclude

interlude leads to interlude.
In the absence of love

objects may amuse us--
soap with an eating disorder

a dishtowel that weeps,
conspicuous sunglasses

and the mysterious comings and goings
of fish in a fishbowl

are witness
to an incomplete loneliness.

Daily life
like a shimmering flow

of incomplete brushstrokes
speeds round us, nonstop

yet if we slice that
open, isn't everyone

sealed in, alone, in slow-mo
with their troubles

which they love so

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view trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo_WlQ7OVSU

Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes' first film

2009-11-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

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Shadows (1959) , Dir. John Cassavetes

Simply the best

French New Wave cinema

ever to be made (in America)

--and all that jazz!!!

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clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-rv2Or3YE&feature=related

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Ecstasy (1933) (Czech)

2009-10-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

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Ekstase (1933), a/k/a Ecstasy

In The Most Whispered About Picture In The World
a marriage begins and ends
without dialogue.

When the young bride returns, still chaste, to
her father's home, he asks her what happened,
and she tells him: Nothing.

Soon enough something happens.
Clothes are minor discarded details
shed as easily as the need for words

and skinny-dipping naturally leads
to cunnilingus; the first non-porn female orgasm
on film; censorship; confiscation at the border, and burning.

The face of a Jewish princess in climax
is, by 1935, still too scandalous,
but eventually

scenes are inserted
to make Ecstasy more socially acceptable:
A pre-fling divorce, and a daydream of a baby--

because marriage and babies
are sacred, and not to be polluted
by pleasure

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Nude swimming clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TnmjEFYuc&feature=PlayList&p=2ACDADB31DD47921&index=3

Sunrise (1927)

2009-09-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

The fantasy of sin, hedonism, seduction
is never nearer
than when a snaky vamp gyrates wildly
glistening in the moonlight
held in your arms above you
inches from your jugular

Your troubled wife weeps
in a country cottage nearby, but at the moment
you don't care

because when the aggressive
woman from the city
kisses you, you swoon like a woman,
feel sleek and beautiful
for the first time

enraptured by your submission;
empowered by the sinister eroticism
of your own weakness;
that, you never knew.
But now, you know--your role
is to adore the bobbed-hair
goddess, at any cost.

Too, the city itself tempts you--
streetcars, traffic, searchlights,
nights awash in colored neon,
sophisticated flappers with dark lips and
kohl lids, artists, dance halls bobbing with
ecstatic jazz, impossibly evil,
an orgy of sound and flesh
anonymous and stylish.

But then again, love never seemed so real
as the earth under you nails that nourishes the seeds
and feeds you; the sunshine yellow of an innocent's hair;
sharing simple joys and memories with
someone trusting and open, entrusted
to your care--

and so you come back
to earth

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"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
view clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zbEoyG02Hw&feature=related

Children of Paradise (1946)

2009-08-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

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Children of Paradise (1946)

In the finale, isn't life

just like a

screaming mime

torn violently from his

spiritual bride?

Further and further

from his goddess

the bobbing horde pushes

him. They

are a violent sea of
white-clad revelers
whose ironic costumes proclaim:

If we sweep you in the wrong direction--

Too bad but don't blame us!

We are innocent, because we, too

are pure--!
We too, are spinning!
We too

love life while spinning dizzily

in the the wrong direction--

we, too--

are

French--!

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The Freshman (1925)

2009-08-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

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The Freshman (1925) (starring Harold Lloyd)

If the pur-suit of happiness turns out to be so poorly sewn

it falls off your body in pieces

as you dance your Jazz-Age ass off

at the party, don't worry;

it doesn't matter that you

haven't read a book, or attended a class, other

than football practice--and that

your newly-bought friends laugh at you

behind your back; all that matters in the end

is that you learn one lesson well--that being:

how to pick the right girl

Clip from "The Freshman" with commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGDNyj7VyY

Rain (1932) starring Joan Crawford

2009-08-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

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Rain (1932)

Joan Crawford's drama-drenched
kinda street, kinda sweet Sadie
deconstructs morality

as the camera flows
with the liquid wit
of a lit sailor.

This "flop" was pre-code and
precocious; it's natural audience
wasn't born yet

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Homage to "Rain" on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k9wjqUtXm0&feature=PlayList&p=E04019D977A8B540&index=1

College (1927)

2009-07-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

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COLLEGE (1927)

The brilliance of Buster Keaton
in this role
is making complete failure
at absolutely everything
look like only slight
exaggeration

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Accatone! (1961) (Italy) Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini

2009-07-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

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ACCATONE! (1961)

Some pimps should just stay home.
Some pimps ain't got no luck.
This one hangs around in a slum
with his chums--so in fact

he doesn't leave home.
One day broke luckless Accatone
sees a nice girl
and is stunned.

He wants her
as she is, but he needs her
to making a living, so
to the streets she goes.

Disenchantment with his niche
leads Accatone to take a radical step
toward a more honest profession:
stealing.

but pimps aren't meant
to work
and it is
his undoing.

Everyone in this,
Passolini's first
movie,
is hungry, yet

their specific charm lies
in the inability
to imagine
food

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Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959); short; director Stan Brakhage

2009-07-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

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Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959)

Since seeing this film
it strobes in a private
fold in the crevices of my brain;
a sexy scary and
almost nauseous depiction
of intimacy and forces
bigger than shadows darting and
coffee cups lifting
in throbbing repetition
to lips and the
silent in and out of everyday

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Entire film can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YkOBLj9NYY&feature=PlayList&p=5175804071EF730C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=36

L'éclipse du soleil en pleine lune (1907); Director Georges Méliès'

2009-07-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

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The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon (1907)

Part of Georges Méliès' oeuvre

of "Artificially Arranged Scenes"

this film is overlooked

for what it really is:

the first depiction of gay sex

on the big screen

That the celestial act happens

between the sun and the moon

does not make it any less

queer

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A clip can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqgSZ6ZNGAM

Desistfilm (1954); short; director Stan Brakhage

2009-07-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Desistfilm (1954)

It's just a party arty

then it's just rhythm isn't it

The Love Parade (1929)

2009-07-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

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The Love Parade (1929)

A man must prove

that he is strong

and that he is King

in his own home-- even

if his wife

sits on the throne.

And if he happens to be

a young

Maurice Chevalier

he does it with

aplomb,

wit, swagger, and

but of course!--

with song

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Movie Clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzQ1jqN2s_E

Careful (1992)

2009-07-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

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Careful (1992)

Shhh--careful!
Why do you crunch so loudly
on that apple?

See the tall transparent ladies
wearing bonnets and long dresses?

They are the victims themselves
of avalanches. They guard
this mountain town, where daily life

is muffled in yellow brocade
and the air is velvet with fear
of one excess note. Only

sincere sound carries here,
like true lovers' words, yet
one stray reverberation

can kill us all with
a sudden downpour of
clean snow, or how about

we kill each other first?

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Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

2009-06-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

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Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

Faces belie words;
looks undermine gestures;
such a dance ensues
between lovers and strangers
within a block of
crowded tenements.

Penultimately,
sophisticated sound
ricochets like bullets

off an even more
sophisticated silence;
classy shadows

beguile the eye, as
adult urchins wrestle
within rolling puffs

of smoke
obscuring the gaze--
first artfully,

then almost completely;
as the sound-scuffle plays
against a black screen, you

wait

in darkness

for an ending

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Opening scene of the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf4wUmBM6gk&feature=PlayList&p=757ADA8136927443&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=94

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

2009-06-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, Starring George Lazenby and Diana Rigg)

Thanks to barely 1970
space-age technology
the new actor playing 007
gets the ultimate
Bond Gadget:

A fully functional heart.

Now, a heart is a thing of wonder
given all the time in the world
to romp with the Goddess Diana

but turns into a gory story
when suddenly
Unpeeled

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Code 46 (2003)

2009-06-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

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Code 46 (2003)

The middle-aged married man
cheating with the subversive waif
knows the system well, and expects
to be caught.

He lives in a bubble of time
soon to be smoothed out
and forgotten.

The waif says, "You have a kid?
...I bet he is special.
...Everybody's children are so special--
it makes you wonder where all the ordinary grown-ups come from."

In this future that looks almost like now
you can have
an ordinary life

with sanitized memories and desires
safely inside the Sphinx.

Or, make your own story, living dangerously
outside it. Both are valid choices
if a state-induced virus
can correct antisocial behaviour.

What is most interesting in this picture
is what is absent:

Prison.

Punishment.

In a society without brutality
how do you define violence?

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clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6Eo1nGsXI

The Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen)

2009-06-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

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The Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968)

The blackest blacks you've ever seen
float up to the surface of the screen

and swim there, rippling the membrane
between reality and gothic beauty

then dart out dagger-like from the movie
across the space you thought was safe

and bat-like
bite into you

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clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq7OM-wi1AY&feature=related

Catch-22 (1970)

2009-05-29T23:11:00.001-07:00

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Catch-22 (1970)

This version should be called "Catch-2:15"--
the only time of day with light worth filming
according to cinematographer David Watkin.

Mike Nichols' adaption is fairly true to the book
and adds a coherent look,
costly and never to be repeated;

real planes, real stone buildings, real explosions,
real Orson Welles flown in
and real actors who spent most of their time
waiting, in boredom and confusion

for the hands of the clock and the sun in the sky
to reach up just so high

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L'Avventura, L'Eclisse, and Il Grido

2009-05-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

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L'Avventura (1960) and L'Eclisse (1962)

These movies are about intersections.

Some intersections have people
shuffling through, exuding passion, disappointment, confusion or
just sitting in a cafe, doodling, taking up space

some intersections are "empty."

The camera follows
some people, not others.
The camera lingers
on a corner after a "scene" is over.

What are we looking at?
What do we WANT
the camera to do?

To go there, or...
--there...or--

anywhere!-- but here.

What if the camera doesn't comply?

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Il Grido (1957)

This is a film about dislocation.

Woman rejects man.

Man rejects town.

Man, brooding, is handsome, and useless.

Other women want to use him.

Man runs from them.

Rootless man

runs from self.

Life is ended.

Repeat story, for several generations.

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Kiss Me Deadly

2009-05-24T19:56:00.001-07:00

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KISS ME DEADLY (1955)

In 1955, fully aware classic film noir
fucks itself for the final time.

In the first scene a woman running barefoot, crying
gasping for air contains the key, literally,
as the credits roll up from the wrong end of the screen.

Soon she is tortured, she screams and screams
but we see
only her knees.

Sound betrays image, the image
of the big wisecracking man is shorn and shorn again
by Woman--who sweats, lies, dances, opines--
Woman is more than hole

in this film it's the men that are only parts
lusting after the "great whatsit"
a/k/a Pandora's box. When it's opened--

hide in the ocean!--
from the apocryphal climax of so much sleazy
over-the-top bizarre dreaminess.

Perhaps Hammer really died in the opening sequence?

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To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question

2009-05-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

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The Passenger (1975)

A blue sky, a bluer truck, a swath of plaid shirt, an identity shed.
Electricity in the dessert, not much said.
What is the sound of one man escaping life twice?
Like half

of the last tango in Paris
reading quietly in a Gaudi edifice, only less...

music. Antonioni at his best momentarily
confuses, corrupting expectation's conventional usage

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Early innovation in camera movement

2009-05-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

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The Last Laugh (1924)

Mocking laughter and ironic laughter
are soundlessly the same
in this film where nothing is spoken and
nothing need be said to make it better; it's all

in the motion--of the camera! whose famous fluidity
gave birth to cinematic innovation
in 1924, in Germany, the lens

of F. W. Mirnau is unchained, to fall
down as a man's dignity is dashed, and then
to swoop up again as he becomes
the most unlikely Master of the Universe

and only the night watchman gives a damn
in this important silent gem.

The Cult of Joan. Saint or witch?

2009-05-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

God works
in silence.