Parnassus was typically confusing/enthralling/heartbreaking--ie, standard Gilliam. The idea of story as the power of the universe delighted me.

And they dealt with the loss of Ledger in all those scenes very well, because the character had so many faces that he presented that it made perfect sense that he would be different people in the other universe.

I missed Parnassus in the theater, dammit, due to dating the hermit. Must rent. I hae the audio for Heath Ledger singing Can't Take My Eyes Off of You on my iPod, and I get so sad when it comes up. Don't know when I'll feel up to watching Brokeback again.

I was just about to put out a request for the hivemind while doing my homework for my Reference class tonight. I had to pull together a bunch of sources for teaching a little class to teenagers on HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist, and I was having a serious brain freeze on the name of the film about the performance of a 1930s musical which was banned due to the Red Scare and which was performed from the audience by the cast members due to union issues. Then I hit the right combination of search terms and figured out it was The Cradle Will Rock, which I still haven't seen but really want to.

"I have a job
Three days a week.
But other days
It's nice to eat."

I believe HBO ran a remake of The Cradle Will Rock back in the late '80s.

I looked that up, and it's already in my queue. Here's the trailer [link]

Was that HBO? I thought that was theatrical. I've always wanted to see that, too.

The theatrical movie that I was thinking of was from 1999.

For what it is worth, my Mom saw that performance (the one done from the audience), and was one of the people who posted mini-posters (then called "bills") to advertise it. A minor character in Salt of the Earth was based on her too.

Chris Gore mentioned commentary on Following, and I thought Memento had commentary. Did he stop doing them?

Starting with Batman Begins he hasn't done them, and I suspect that, post-Batman, nobody's going to make him. I found this in an interview from a while back:

I hate doing commentaries. I’ve done them on my other films because in each case they came up with a reason or an interesting way to do it. Insomnia was in production. For Following, I was just talking about how to make a film. As for talking about artistic interpretation, if you will, you can’t possibly do that until the film has had its wings—because the film is not complete until it’s had an audience. There’s nothing more mortifying than to watch these commentaries on movies they’ve done before the movie’s come out because you don’t [really] know what the movie was [and how it played before those it was created to serve]. The movie’s not finished until it’s in front of an audience.

Best. Behind-the-scenes. Photo. Ever. [link]