My primary motivation in posting this was the exquisite lighting used for the Jean Harlow fireplace pic, which was snapped in 1935 by George Hurrell. Then I happened to walk by the Britney Spencer photo inside the Sono Collection. And then Claudia Cardinale came to mind, followed by Paulina Porizkova.
"One big reason Bonnie and Clyde seemed exciting then and still seems contemporary fifty years later is that it was made in between two regimes of self-censorship -- the old Production Code, which dated from 1930, and the ratings system (G, PG, R, and X), which went into effect in 1968.
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Facebook reactions: (a) "Now that's offensive...can we not think for ourselves?"; (b) "Maybe cinema really is dead if you've lost the marketing team at TCM..."; (c) "Psycho is transphobic? Simon Oakland's wrap-up specifically shuts down any such connection"; (d) "How is the Hunchback of Notre Dame 'ableist'? Man, those Ted Turner guys are some smart cookies"; (e) "'Let's Movie' = worst advertising tagline IN HISTORY"; (f) "Norman Bates is a trans American?...TCM [is] here to help and educate."
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Cate Blanchett and Todd Field are brilliant, grade-A visionaries…film elites at the top of their game. But they haven’t the first clue about what it means to love movies in a Joe or Jane Popcorn way. Field especially. Listen to him go “oohh” and “aahh” over Mikhail Kalatozov‘s The Cranes Are Flying.
This is why Tar is a bust with the Joe and Jane crowd, and why it’s only made a lousy $2,516,138 so far. It is what it is, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t at least respect Tar. We all understand that Blanchett is favored to win the Best Actress Oscar, and that the film itself hasn’t a prayer. Because Field refuses to spread the mustard and relish on the hot dog.
To me a perfect film understands itself perfectly, embraces the virtues of self-discipline and doesn’t mess around.
It tells the truth (or at least its own truth), throws nothing but strikes, allows no opposing hits and leaves no dangling threads.
It’s always a step or two ahead of the average audience, but not too far ahead. It’s smart and perceptive, and yet it never bores even the dumbest audience member, and it understands pacing and story tension and how to deal the right cards in the right way, and at the right time.
It knows, in short, what beginnings, middles and ends are supposed to achieve, and it follows through like a pro. It presents a spherical, recognizable world that adds up no matter how you slice it.
In his new book “Cinema Speculation“, Quentin Tarantino lists seven 20th Century films that he regards as perfect:
I’m not disagreeing with Quentin’s choices exactly. I certainly agree with five of them, but if I was forced to select my own seven perfectos I definitely wouldn’t include Hi-Ho Steverino‘s Jaws (a very satisfying and finely crafted summer popcorn film but saddled with a few problems) and I certainly wouldn’t choose Tobe Hooper‘s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…please.
Here are more perfect or near-perfect films…50 of them….the top third from “HE’s 160 Greatest Films of All Time” (posted on 7.24.15). I believe with all my heart that these 50 are just as perfectly assembled as Quentin’s seven. There’s no way to make a convincing case that Quentin’s seven are more perfect than any of HE’s 50, whatever that could possibly mean. Everything is arbitrary, personal…there’s no formula.
HE’s Top Ten Greatest American Films: (1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, (2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (3 & 4) The Godfather & The Godfather, Part II (5) The Graduate, (6) Election, (7) Zodiac, (8) Rushmore, (9) Pulp Fiction, (10) Some Like It Hot.
Greatest American Films (11 to 20): (11) North By Northwest, (12) Notorious, (13) On The Waterfront, (14) Groundhog Day, (15) Goodfellas, (16) Out Of The Past, (17) Paths of Glory, (18) Psycho, (19) Raging Bull, (20) 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Greatest American Films (21 to 30): (21) Annie Hall, (22) Apocalypse Now, (23) Strangers on a Train, (24) East of Eden, (25) Bringing Up Baby, (26) The African Queen, (27) All About Eve, (28) The Wizard of Oz, (29) Zero Dark Thirty, (30) Only Angels Have Wings.
Greatest American Films (31 to 40): (31) Repo Man, (32) Heat, (33) Red River, (34) Drums Along the Mohawk, (35) Gone With The Wind, (36) Rebel Without a Cause, (37) Ben-Hur (38) The Best Years of Our Lives, (39) The Big Sleep, (40) Shane.
Greatest American Films (41 to 50): (41) Rear Window, (42) Bonnie And Clyde, (43) The Bridge On The River Kwai, (44) Casablanca, (45) Chinatown, (46) Citizen Kane (47) One-Eyed Jacks, (48) King Kong, (49) 12 Angry Men (50) The Informer.
HE’s choice for Best Celebrity Halloween Costume…seriously. Hats off to Heidi Klum and the people who helped her become (no slight intended) a perfect slithery worm. Imagine the feeling of confinement. It must be suffocating under all that latex crap. Hats off.
Every time I play a track from my Apple music library, the music does a fast fade-in. No more cold starts. This is a relatively new problem. Millions of Apple users prefer this feature apparently. They like the songs in their playlists to blend or cross-fade into each other.
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[Posted on 5.25.20] “For the first time in 17 or 18 years, I got rip-roaring stoned last night. By way of a single cannabis gummy bear, manufactured by CAMINO. It was a steady. bump-free high, but my God, the strength of it! It was like I was suddenly atop a galloping racehorse, but the horse knew the realm and was fairly cool about it.
“And it was like I’d been shot…shot with a diamond bullet, right through my forehead. (Kidding.) Seriously, I was scared that it might be too much for my psyche to handle, and I think this may have been why I decided to drop a Tapentadol to mellow things down.
“All I know is that my senses and my free-associating mind and especially my imagination became more and more alive and attuned, and yet I was concurrently sensing how frail and delicate everyone is, myself included. I was doing everything I could to speak as softly and gently as possible. Music, colors, aromas, our Siamese cat…everything suddenly had an extra quality. If you’ve ever galloped on a horse, you know that it’s all about becoming one with the charging steed and not fretting about falling off…you have to be fearless and go with it.
“Last night I was half-fearless and half ‘uh-oh’, at least until the Tapentadol kicked in.
“I’m basically saying that the THC in my system felt, from my vantage point at least, very, VERY strong for a while. I was half amazed that I’d allowed myself to get this ripped (which was actually Tatiana’s fault — she popped one of the candies into my mouth and I meekly went along with it), and half intrigued that this kind of cannabis high was a lot smoother and stronger than the pot I used to suck down in the ‘70s. It was quite the ride — lemme tell ya.”
[Originally posted on 2.17.15.] There was a period between my 20th and 21st birthday when I had no job or goals or academic engagement…nothing. I was in my Bhagavad Gita mystical phase, no fooling, except the constant urge to party and frolic and basically pursue the spiritual pretty much dominated everything. Partying and then recovering the next day so I could party again the next night…well, there was actually more to it than just that.
It’s not that I didn’t try to have a kind of “life.” I would land a job I hated and then lose that job. I read the New York Times every day but I ingested a lot of substances and did a lot of sleeping and day-dreaming. I dabbled as a dealer of pot and hallucinogens. Occasional tripping, hitchhiking, chasing girls, wherever the day took me…bars, parties, music and especially (this was huge) lying totally ripped on a floor with two smallish Marantz speakers on either side of my head.
At some point my parents decided to strongly communicate their disfavor. They wanted me to understand that this lifestyle had nowhere to go but down so they kicked me out of their comfortable Cape Cod-style home in Wilton, Connecticut. I would crash here and there but occasionally I’d have nowhere to go. So I’d show up at the Cape Cod around midnight or 1 am and throw pebbles at my sister Laura’s window. To keep me out every night my father would lock the garage basement door plus the dining-room door that led to the basement stairs, so I needed Laura to let me in. After a couple of taps she’d come to the window and then meet me downstairs. I remember I had to raise the sliding garage doors one inch at a time so as to not make any noise. Laura and I would tiptoe upstairs in pitch black and I’d sleep inside the closet in my room. My parents both worked during the day and gone by 9 am so I’d come down around 10 am or so and get some breakfast, etc.
I forget how many times this happened but I’d say at least 15 or 20. Laura was there for me every time. I’m not saying she acted in some extraordinary fashion but she did the good, kind thing.
Laura’s schizophrenia became pretty aggravated around then, and the truth is that we didn’t have very much to say to each other through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. She had a much higher IQ than I (or so I was told) but she was pretty much off the rails. Laura had a hard life. I took her to Italy (San Donato, Rome) with me in ’03 — that was pretty much the summit of our adult bonding. Laura died of cancer in April of 2008, and it just hit me this morning that I never told her how extra double thankful I was for all those times she gave me the gift of a warm, snug sleep on the floor of my bedroom closet. If she could read this or perhaps hear me on some level…
Chance Browne painting of Seir Hill Road (where I spent my high school years) in Wilton, CT. — my parents’ Cape Cod home (45 Seir Hill) was just down the road.
Panzano, Italy — May 2017.
Rome, last May.
There are three kinds of excellent horror film endings, but they all put the chill in and stay there after the closing credits.
One, those that add something totally unexpected at the very end, a la Carrie White‘s bloody hand poking through the burnt embers and grabbing Amy Irving in Carrie.
Two, those that double down by adding a dash of surreal, rule-breaking creepitude a la Anthony Perkins‘ demonic grin blending with his mother’s rotted skull in Psycho.
And three, those that allude to real-world concerns or social tremors, as in The Thing From Another World when a news reporter warns the world to “watch the skies…keep looking, keep watching the skies“, the notion being that James Arness‘s Mr. Clean is actually out there in some form.
What late 20th Century or 21st Century horror films deliver one of these variations?
What is actually being said here? Ask yourselves that.
The message seems to be “unless you’re a person of color and even if you’re Robin D’Angelo, stay away from Wakanda Forever on its opening weekend. Seriously. If you know what’s good for you. Because any whiteys who show up regardless…well, you’ll be branding yourself as anti-black, in a sense.”
I’m not saying this would happen, but imagine if some deranged cracker were to tweet that Black people need to avoid opening-weekend screenings of some all-white movie…The Fablemans, say, or next summer’s Oppenheimer. Imagine if the corresponding slogan was “Black people need to stay away from The Fablemans so white people can enjoy that movie in peace.”
If you go to see Wakanda Forever on opening weekend, you are anti-black.
White people need to stay away so that black people can “enjoy that movie in peace”. pic.twitter.com/QTieYLjfwA
— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) October 30, 2022
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