I program an art-house calendar film series in Boulder. The auditorium we screen films in has 400 seats and our projection booth is outfitted with two Century SA projectors from 1983. Aside for the occasional specialty event that requires digital projection, all our shows are reel-to-reel 35mm gigs operated by a Union Projectionist (John Templeton, the head projectionist, has over 35 years in the business). While we have many success stories, we also have our fair share of experiences that still make me cringe to think about. Here are just a few: READ MORE

Ay Carumba!  He’s been compared to Casanova and Don Juan, and during his lifetime romanced a slew of the most gorgeous — and frequently wealthiest — females around, yet he’s far from a household name today.  He’s been dead for over forty years, but scandalous tales of his legendary erotic prowess live on.  Such is the legacy of Porfirio Rubirosa, sometime government attache, much-in-demand man-about-town, ace polo player, daredevil racecar driver and the quintessential Latin Lover, for real.  Many women fell under his powerful romantic spell, but only five women walked down the aisle with him, beautiful French movie actress Danielle Darrieux among them.

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Amid the avalanche of overproduced, overmarketed summer films flooding the local cineplexes is a retro import that flew in under the radar and is delighting any moviegoer willing to give in to its droll Gallic humor and fond appreciation of the spy thriller genre of the sixties. OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES was a huge boxoffice hit in France (and Europe) in 2006 and is just making it to these shores now but you’d better hurry and see it fast because it doesn’t have Indiana Jones’ legs or Iron Man’s robust constitution. READ MORE

Even as a pre-teen in Richmond, Virginia, I always
had a keen interest in movie promotions in the newspapers. I would study
the poster image, the featured actors, the taglines and slogans, the
title treatment, even the font style if it imparted any kind of
information about the movie’s essence. Consider, for example, the
title treatment for A Man Could Get Killed in
which the two L’s in Killed are represented by dead men with their
legs up in the air. READ MORE

How often do you see a movie that won’t leave you?

The minimalist outlines of Journal d’un curé de campagne or Diary of
a Country Priest (1951) are deceptively simple, telling the story of a man whose life appears to be a failure through his diaries. Yet the power of the movie seems to grow after seeing it and it is hard to shake its spell. In a medium that mostly glorifies and relishes the lushly beautiful as it documents our material existence on film, this movie pares down the merely visual, leaving every concentrated physical gesture such as opening one’s eyes, the feeling the sensation of the wind on a motorbike, the sound of a pen scratching on paper, of leaves being raked and the depth of feeling conveyed in a seemingly blank expression to remind us that so much of everyday life is filled with a not so prosaic significance. To feel this film’s full power, it should probably be viewed more than once. READ MORE

Yesterday morning I read in the paper the obituary for director Jules Dassin. Several years ago I was able to screen the new 35mm print of Rififi (Du rififi chez les homes, 1955) that was re-released by Rialto Pictures at my film series, and an absolute pleasure to see. Rififi (argot French slang for “a brutal show of force” in reference to “macho tough guy posturing”) is a beautifully orchestrated heist film that is famous for a pivotal sequence just over a half-hour long that has no music or dialogue – and which has, in many ways, become a template for many of the heist films that followed. On IMDB (where, if you click on Jules Dassin you instead, and curiously, get a picture of only his nose and all of Sophia Loren!) there’s lots of fun trivia associated with Rififi, but one particular nugget bears repeating in its entirety: READ MORE

In a rare meeting late in the lives of the stars of Leo McCarey’s Love Affair (1939), (which can be seen on TCM this Thursday, March 20th at 4: 30PM ET), Irene Dunne reportedly mentioned to Boyer that she had recently seen the film once again. Unexpectedly moved after so much time since the production, Ms. Dunne was said to have commented to to her co-star, “You know, Charles, you were really good.” With what may have been one of his characteristic Gallic shrugs and a small smile, his reply was said to have been “Ah, so you finally looked at me.” Maybe it’s time we all looked a bit more carefully at him again. READ MORE