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

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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)

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METROPOLIS


Every bleak exciting city

emerging monochrome from the mist

owes a little debt

to Metropolis


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Children of Paradise (1946)

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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)

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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

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Clip from "The Freshman" with commentary:

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

Rain (1932) starring Joan Crawford

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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)

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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

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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

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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'

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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

Careful (1992)

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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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Catch-22 (1970)

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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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