'Potential'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Salon has an article about OK Go's latest video and the author proposes that they could save the movie musical. Interesting premise and thesis of the article, but OK Go's video is really awesome.
I am not a dog owner, but I marvel at how much time and training was involved to do this choreography:
Salon article:
Oh wow! That was awesome! In the actually filled with awe way!
I was filled with AWWWWWWWW.
That choreographer must really love dogs to have come up with everything they can do that is cool to watch. I loved how it sometimes looked like the men were looking for cues from their trainers.
...was there a goat?
I'm currently watching and Tivoing Altman's whackadoo rarity Brewster McCloud off TCM.
I watched this on late night commercial TV some years back - probably home from college after I'd seen Harold and Maude.
I recognized Margaret Hamilton in the opening just from her voice.
Bud Cort is awesomely Bud Cort-like. He is a singular cinematic presence, but he seems to presage a whole universe of gloomy/charming indie rock boys.
Sally Kellerman never looked better. Shelley Duvall makes her debut here and is quirky cute.
Songs written by John Phillips, and a few sung by Merry Clayton (the singer on the Stones' "Gimme Shelter").
This movie was picked by guest programmer Bill Hader, who also picked the lesser-known Billy Wilder film Five Graves to Cairo.
What three movies would you pick if you were guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies?
I'm tivoing Brewster McCloud, which I've never seen. But I'm still up, for some reason, too.
My three movies as guest programmer for TCM would be: F For Fake, Los Angeles Plays Itself, and The World Of Apu (the last because it is sadly unavailable on DVD in this country).
It's odd, I'm looking through reviews of Brewster McCloud (and there are a bunch of newish ones since it just debuted on DVD via Warner Archives) and they all emphasize how strange and weird it is.
Which, it's not particularly, if you know anything about theater (like, I don't "Rhinocerous" or "Tooth of Crime" or "Travesties.") or any three episode run of Arrested Development.
And certainly by the standards of early seventies film it's not so astonishingly outre.
It's just a bit whacky, and a bit easy with the metaphor. It parodies Bullit for chrissake, how hard can it be to follow?
Sure Sally Kellerman has scars where her wings used to be, but c'mon Wings of Desire, and Kevin Smith already covered that. Not to mention Constantine.
(the last because it is sadly unavailable on DVD in this country).
Huh. Seems like Criterion would be all over that shit.
What three movies would you pick if you were guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies?
"Der Letzte Mann / The Last Laugh" - classic F.W. Murnau from 1924, at a time when the German film industry was a serious rival to Hollywood, and the biggest film studio in the world was in Berlin. Pure cinema: manages to tell its story with virtually no intertitles, and famous for its use of subjective and "entfesselt" - literally, "unchained" - camera, 50 years before the invetion of the Steadicam. Towering performance by Emil Jannings. Murnau also manages to make the best of the silly happy ending forced on him by the studio (some things never change) by exposing it for what it is.
For a bit of levity in between:
"Gold Diggers of 1933" - Busby Berkley does the Great Depression; a blast of joy, ridiculousness and sadness all rolled into one. I've been having a hell of a time trying to get my hands on a Region 2 DVD to show this to my class, but finally managed to locate a copy with Spanish subtitles. Better than nothing. Marvel at the gorgeousness of Ginger Roger's face in extreme close-up singing, "We're in the Money" (also a good corrective to anyone who claims that Americans don't understand irony).
"Ace in the Hole" - also still absurdly hard to get hold of, one of the best Billy Wilder movies and Kirk Douglas performances there is. I've only ever seen it once (on TV years ago) but remember being amazed by the depth of its cynicism and the prescience of its message.
Thanks, David, that was fun!