Month: November 2009

I was in a mood for Italian cinema after last night’s showing of Rob Marshall‘s Nine (which of course is primarily based on Federico Fellini‘s 8 1/2) so I went up to the Lincoln Plaza cinemas to catch Vittorio DeSica‘s The Bicycle Thief (1948). I assumed I’d be seeing it in pristine form, based on a claim by the distributor, Corinth Films, that a new print was being shown. I should have also figured on the projection and sound standards at the theatre, of course.

The fact is that the Lincoln Plaza’s presentation of this beautiful film is a rip — an insult to anyone who understands that old classics don’t have to look in any way compromised or underwhelming any more. Or sound murky. DVD and Blu-ray technology has totally transformed our common old-movie viewing standards. Last night’s Bicycle Thief experience was like watching a movie at the rundown Bleecker Street Cinema again — pallid-looking print (no scratches but grayish murky tones, no decent blacks), moderately squawky sound, and a way-too-small screen.

My first thought when I walked into the LP’s tunnel-like shoebox theatre and saw this economy-sized image playing on the far wall was “Oh, no!” The screen was bigger than any plasma or LCD I’ve seen in a Best Buy, but nowhere near large enough for a proper theatre-viewing experience with 30 or 35 people watching. Movie screens have to be a certain height and width in proportion to the seating area or you feel ripped off. On top of which the image has to be projected at SMPTE-recommended foot-lambert levels and the sound has to be strong, sharp, bassy and clear. None of these conditions were part of my Bicycle Thief experience last night, and all I can say is “never again.”

I should have gone down to Kim’s Video and bought the Criterion Collection DVD version and watched it on my 42-inch plasma instead.

I stuck my head into another LP shoebox playing An Education and thought, “Oh, my God!” Another bedsheet-sized screen, soft-focus image, sound that was far too muffled, etc. If I had seen Lone Scherfig‘s film under these conditions for the first and only time it would have been quite possible to be under-impressed.

Before last night I had only seen The Bicycle Thief once. I can’t remember if it was at the Bleecker in the late ’70s or on VHS during the mid ’80s, but I know it wasn’t great looking. So I still haven’t seen it in any kind of decent form.

Sidenote: DeSica’s 1948 classic should always, always be called The Bicycle Thief and not The Bicycle Thieves. I don’t care if DeSica favored the plural. The point is that the singular title is either (a) ambiguous or (b) presses the viewer to decide which character — Lamberto Maggiorani‘s desperate-for-work father or the guy who’s stolen his bicycle — is the one referred to by the title. (I’ve always thought the singular reference to Thief referred to Magiorrani, although it would be perfectly fine for someone to presume it refers to the the other guy.) One could just as easily shift between the two and never finally decide. The term “thieves’ is, for me, way too literal-minded.

All kidding aside, the slogan — “the harder the life, the sweeter the song” — isn’t half bad. There’s a vein of truth in that. Unless, of course, your definition of a hard life is one poisoned by constant slurps of bourbon and 40 to 50 cigarettes daily, which isn’t so much a “hard” life as much as a slow, drawn-out attempt to extinguish life altogether while making difficult if not miserable the lives of family and friends.

As the son of an emotionally curt, often grumpy alcoholic for my first 28 or 29 years of life, I have a certain understanding.

Legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis (a.k.a., “the Prince of Darkness”) is being handed a Lifetime Achievement Award sometime this evening by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — after decades of not honoring the guy. As Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale wrote yesterday, “Very few would argue against Willis being the best American cinematographer to never win an Oscar.” Stu’s piece includes six famous Willis clips, including my favorite — the killing of Fanucci in The Godfather, Part II.

Collapse star/doomsayer Michael C. Ruppert discussed Chris Smith’s film last night (Friday, 11.13) at the Laemmle Sunset 5. He should continue to speak out and play in the band — it’s called multi-tasking.

In his 11.12 “Notes on a Season” column, Pete Hammond reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is premiering a digital restoration of From Here to Eternity (1953) on 11.18 at 7:30 pm in the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre. Which means not just a new DVD but a Bluray will be issued before long. I’m profoundly and eternally queer for any and all Blurays of monochrome classics. (Unless it’s Criterion’s The Third Man, a grainstorm horror.)

Taken in May 2001 at Halona Cove/Blowhole beach on the southeast coast of Oahu, where Eternity director Fred Zinneman shot Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, etc.

The big Nine buzz starts this weekend with the junket screenings, MCN’s David Poland wrote yesterday. (There are two this evening in midtown Manhattan.) He presumably means private buzz. Journos are being asked to pledge (or sign statements) that they won’t write about it until the embargo-release date in early December. Fair enough.

Nine costar Kate Hudson (seated), star Daniel Day Lewis (lighting up)

This is a great time for local fans of Italian neo-realism with the ongoing Film Society of Lincoln Center program (now through 11.25) at the Walter Reade, where one of the upcoming films is Vittorio DeSica‘s The Bicycle Thieves. As well as the recent (still current?) booking of DeSica’s The Bicycle Thief at the Lincoln Plaza.

I realize that Gina Lollobrigida first caught on in the early ’50s with two films (also included in the LCFS series) — Attention! Bandits! (’51) and Bread, Love and Dreams (’53). And I enjoyed her in Beat The Devil. But her legend has always rested upon that pagan-cheesecake dance sequence in King Vidor‘s Solomon and Sheba (1959), which is still fairly smoking even by today’s standards. It just hit me that this sequence could be read as a kind of summation of the erotic and atmospheric aspects of the Woodstock Film Festival, complete with thunder and rainshowers.

“I saw Precious last night,” a regionally-based critic friend wrote this morning, “and Mo’Nique is a surefire Oscar nominee.” Probably, I said, but the fact that Mo’Nique plays the devil in that film gives me pause. She’s playing a monster like the Wolfman or Gorgo or Hannibal Lecter, only without Lecter’s charm. Great demonic figure, embrace the great lady, shower her with awards, pop the champagne…yaaay! No offense but I’ll have mineral water.

Steve Mason is reporting that Roland Emmerich‘s 2012 made $25 million yesterday and is looking at a $60 million weekend total. Variety said it might go well over $40 million, and I predicted the high 40s and maybe a nudge over $50 million — and we were both too cautious. Everyone was.

Robert Zemeckis and Jim Carrey‘s A Christmas Carol took in $5.5 million yesterday — a “decent” hold — with an expected $20.4 million weekend tally and a 10-day cume of just under $50 million. The big indie story is Lee Daniels‘ Precious (Lionsgate) taking in $1.75 million yesterday from just 174 screens and a likely $5.3 million by Sunday night, for roughly a $30,000 per screen average.

“I went to sleep dreaming life was beauty — I woke up knowing life was duty.” — written by David Mamet for a 1987 Hill Street Blues episode called “Wasted Weekend.”

I heard the line once during the original broadcast. I watched it from a cool little pre-war studio I was renting at the time, located on High Tower Drive in the old-time Hollywood hills, close to the Hollywood Bowl and just down the street from Elliott Gould‘s deco-moderne Long Goodbye apartment. Reanimator‘s Jeffrey Coombs lived in the same complex.