“I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.” – Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis, who died on September 29th at age 85, never seemed to be at rest. Even in repose and in old age, he appeared to be an eternally restless spirit. Sometimes that drive got him into trouble, but it often spurred him to keep trying to be something more than he was at every stage of his existence on earth. He was a rascal, one of the last of his breed, and he became his life’s ambition since childhood: a very big movie star. He was also a good actor.

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The Social Network, the opening night selection at the 2010 New York Film Festival (and opening nationwide October 1st), consists of men (and one girl) talking in rooms and around tables. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg)  is the reluctant participant in these discussions, hunched over and bristling, much preferring the inscrutable company of his own mind. The essential opacity of these thoughts to his friends and foes, Zuckerberg’s intractable isolation, is the nexus around which director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin spin their tale of mis-communication and betrayal.

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Five Easy Pieces, a seminal work of the Film School Generation, was originally released 40 years ago this month. In recognition of its anniversary, a restored 35mm print is making the rounds of art houses and special venues. Facets’ intrepid programmer, Charles Coleman, snatched it up, and Five Easy Pieces will be showing at our Cinematheque October 1 – 7.

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I’m visiting Portland for the weekend and was originally planning on interviewing the TCM V.P. of New Media about his erotic fantasies involving Joe Eszterhas, but he decided to stay in Atlanta instead. (Something about a wife, a birth, and a child – but I bet what he’s really doing is hiding out in his man-cave playing Halo 3 instead.) To be fair to him, it’s not so much Eszterhas as Showgirls which gets him excited. In his words, Showgirls is “a brilliant political commentary on the moral bankruptcy and depravity of American culture.  It’s film negative should dipped in gold and displayed next to the Constitution on Capital Hill with a permanent 24hr angel choir stationed nearby.” His words, not mine. Me? I’m in Portland enjoying the offerings of a vibrant film community that honors both the past and the present – no angel choirs needed, just some good beers to accentuate the good cheer. READ MORE

I’m a big admirer of John Frankenheimer’s early work from such live TV dramas as The Comedian (1956) and Days of Wine and Roses (1957) to All Fall Down (1962), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seconds (1966). I’ve also enjoyed several of the more commercial projects he helmed throughout his career such as Seven Days in May (1964), Black Sunday (1977) and Ronin (1998). But he’s also had his share of boxoffice bombs and critically maligned movies over the years – The Horsemen (1971), Story of a Love Story aka Impossible Object (1973), 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974), Dead Bang (1989), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), to name a few.  Yet the most notoriously panned film of his career is easily THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN and in Frankenheimer’s own words, “It was the only movie I’ve made which I would say was a total disaster.”  So I finally decided to see for myself if it lives up to its notoriety.

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Now that it’s officially Fall, the Halloween Countdown can begin in earnest.  Mind you, we weirdos begin our Halloween Countdown beginning on October 32nd but we keep that clock watching to ourselves lest the rest of the world start piling sticks at our feet.  ‘Round about this leafy time o’ year, I’m often asked by folks who don’t subsist on a steady diet of fright films what spooky thing they should watch for All Hallows.  I’ll get the jump on them this year and suggest something most of you probably haven’t seen, in hopes that you might give the John Carpenter classic a rest this year and try something more obscure. READ MORE

I grew up with parents who loved music and many of their favorite records were film soundtracks. On any given evening you could hear popular songs from movie musicals like West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), Hello Dolly! (1969) and Camelot (1967) coming from my home. Ennio Morricone’s score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) was one of my father’s favorites while my mother loved listening to Maurice Jarre’s score for Doctor Zhivago (1965). Title tracks like Gene Pitney’s’ (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance (recorded after the film was released) also got a lot of play at my house and both of my parents were big fans of Simon and Garfunkel’s soundtrack for The Graduate (1967). When I was a kid we didn’t have access to videos or DVDs so records provided my parents with a wonderful way to share some of their favorite movies with me. I heard the soundtrack recordings for many of these films long before I ever saw them.

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The 48th New York Film Festival begins this Friday night, with David Fincher’s The Social Network, and I’ll be hemorrhaging words about it for the next few weeks. J. Hoberman finished his term as a programmer last year, and the more populist-oriented Todd McCarthy (formerly of Variety, now at Indiewire) took his spot on the team, chaired by Richard Peña, and rounded out by Dennis Lim, Melissa Anderson and Scott Foundas. Since Hoberman is one of my favorite humans, I was prepared for an ever-so-slightly less challenging slate this time around. But no! This year’s titles look awfully impressive sight unseen, a mix of savvy veterans  (Godard! Oliveira! Kiarostami!), peaking  auteurs  (Apichatpong, Reichardt, Puiu) and the promise of relative unknowns (Frammartino,  Grau, Heisenberg, Loznitsa).   Even the sidebars look bountiful, with the NY premiere of Joe Dante’s The Hole and Frederick Wiseman’s Boxing Gym.  With the addition of the oft-overlooked but stacked Views From the Avant-Garde section, the NYFF will gently dominate my life for the next month.

The first festival titles I viewed this year are two Romanian tours-de-force about ordinary men and what may lie behind their vacant stares (yes, Romanian cinema continues to astound). The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, part of the Special Events sidebar, is a triumph of archival research and editing. Director Andrei Ujica and editor Dana Bunescu compiled footage of the deposed Romanian president from the National Television and National Film Archives in Bucharest. They found home movies of his vacations along with propaganda footage shot at home and abroad. Ujica and Bunescu edited this footage together to create an unintentional “autobiography”, and built up a complex soundtrack for the almost entirely silent footage.

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October at Facets brings out the dead, the demon cats, and the devil-possessed nuns as our second annual Fright School begins on the first of the month. Fright School, our Halloween edition of Night School, features horror films every Friday and Saturday night at midnight for the month of October. Each film is introduced by a brief lecture, presentation, or performance by one of our knowledgeable staff of cinephiles.

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