Before delving into some highlights for my upcoming calendar film program, which has everything from singing cannibals and Robby the Robot to sex addicts and Pam Grier (in-person!)… I’d like to back-track a little. In my last post I wrote that the venues where I screen films were akin to a leaky rowboat. While this statement remains essentially true, especially when we are compared to any state-of-the-art dedicated film theater, I would like to amend the metaphor a bit. In retrospect, I feel it would be more accurate to say that the film series I program is more like the Orca boat commandeered by Robert Shaw in Jaws. It’s big enough to chase large game, but you still can’t help wishing you had a bigger boat – especially when you get a clear glimpse of the challenge ahead. When I previously said that we do a lot with very little, the “we” in that statement referred to the small crew that has kept this particular boat from becoming an artificial coral reef on the ocean floor, and this despite staying afloat long past its expiration date.  READ MORE

Since I’m not stinking rich just yet, my plan to go on a heavily medicated tour of international film festivals has been put on indefinite hold. Luckily, the Museum of the Moving Image has purloined 13 new features from all over the world, most without U.S. distribution, for their inaugural “First Look” series (Jan. 6-15), bringing the best of the fests to NYC. Since distributors continue to lose money on any film not in English (or, occasionally, French), it’s something of a miracle that any foreign titles reach our shores at all. This leaves a huge glut of films without any stateside release, left as rumors of masterpieces in the words of the few industrious critics and curators able to send word back to us in the sticks. “First Look” was programmed by some of these proud few: Dennis Lim, the editor of Moving Image Source, Assistant Curator of film Rachael Rakes and Chief Curator David Schwartz. It’s a small but impactful series, with invigorating entries from old masters like Chantal Akerman and enchanting young voices like Goncalo Tocha.

READ MORE

It’s been more than four and a half years since my first Morlocks blog on this topic, which is so long ago that Google no longer caches the page. While I’ve added a little bit to the original essay on my site (after watching Martin Luther (1953), A Man Called Peter (1955) – available via DIRECTV’s TCM on Demand this month, and One Man’s Way (1964) in fairly quick succession this fall), I haven’t written about the most deeply spiritual and openly Christian films I’ve seen, until now.

READ MORE

It’s been a little over a year since I debuted here, and in that time I’ve stirred up a handful of firestorms–but weirdly, not the ones I expected.  I posted a clip of Buster Keaton as a sympathetic Nazi general, and nobody chirped a word of protest.  I ran a whole blog about blackface comedians, and the comments thread it initiated was reasoned, intelligent and low-key.  I facetioustly pretended that The Thing was a Christmas movie, defended Popeye, and praised Charlie Chaplin imitators.

But the one time I provoked serious anger and acrimony was the time I suggested that William Haines–William Haines!–wasn’t all that funny (I got called “hateful” for that one!)

When I wrote last week’s post about the Muppets, I figured I was running a risk.  Critics say nice things about heavily hyped contemporary movies at their own peril.  But my positive thoughts on the new Muppets wasn’t what kicked up dust–heavens, no.  The vitriol came out in my offhanded reference to Orson Welles having appeared in the 1979 Muppet Movie!  Somehow, this prompted the comments thread to start to tear into F for Fake. (how?)

To be fair, it was just one lone voice, wailing into the ether about how much he hated the Muppets, and F for Fake.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a put-on, somebody simply trying to bait me.  But I’m not above being baited.  I won’t stand by and let anybody talk smack about F for Fake, one of my 10 favorite movies of all time.  Consider the battle joined.

READ MORE

Today marks the last day of my Fall calendar film program. Now it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get working on the next one. My goal is to find 50 titles that provide repertory programming, community and academic outreach, festival favorites, cult oddities, challenging cinema, quality docs, along with enough arthouse money-makers and crowd-pleasers to keep the whole damn thing alive. The ideal mix honors the past, is grounded in the present, and has an eye for the future. Like a good friend, it needs to have the temerity to confront you with uncomfortable truths, take you to new places, introduce you to new talents, provide a window to other cultures, feed the mind, feed the soul, provide catharsis, tears, laughter, and a wide variety of surprises.  A few directors come to mind who try to do all those things in one film, but this at risk of making you nauseous. (I’m looking at you Takashi Miike!) What follows are some of my top-picks (so far) as I consider titles to include in my Spring calendar. READ MORE

Every week I seem to have a conversation with someone about the rapid passage of time. Where did the summer go? The month of September? This week? Enjoying anything at a leisurely pace or taking time to ensure that a task is well done have become casualties of our fast-paced, urbanized lifestyles: The immediate delivery of services, information, and goods is more important than their quality; overworked employees in a downsized job market multi-task and work overtime to compensate for the loss of coworkers. Taking eleven years to create and produce a film seems out of sync in the new millennium and the new economy, but then everything about Robert Persons’ General Orders No. 9 goes against the grain of our contemporary world.

General Orders No. 9 is almost impossible to describe and categorize, which makes it difficult to market—a strike against it, according to conventional wisdom.  Various reviewers have described it as “a tone poem,” “an experimental documentary,” and “an essay film.” None of those phrases sound particularly inviting; neither do they adequately convey what General Orders No. 9 is about. Not that I blame the reviewers. I doubt if anything I come up with is going to do justice to the film either.

READ MORE

Each month, my film-discussion group meets for a lively brunch to discuss a topic agreed on in the previous meeting. At the end of September, we will meet to talk about the films and careers of selected female directors. One of the films on the suggested viewing list is the early indie film Wanda, which will make its TCM debut this evening at 7pm CST/8pmEST. An uncompromising portrait of a working class woman born and raised in a Pennsylvania coal town, Wanda is the only film written and directed by actress Barbara Loden, who died of breast cancer in 1980.

Loden also starred in the title role as Wanda Goronski, whose choices in life are limited by her lack of education and economic opportunity. In her world, a woman’s only hope for a better life rests on the shoulders of a miner willing to marry her. But, it’s too late for Wanda, who has failed at marriage, so she lives on the fringes of an already marginalized region. In court to finalize her divorce, Wanda willingly gives up her two children to their father noting that they are better off with him. “I’m just no good,” she tells the judge. With no personal ties or job responsibilities, Wanda drifts with the wind, becoming further alienated from mainstream society with each misadventure. She goes with any man willing to pick up the tab, matter of factly putting up with their callousness and cruelty as though it were expected. Eventually, she stumbles across a thief in the process of robbing a beer joint, though she doesn’t realize the trouble she’s stepped into. Wanda joins the thief, whose name is Mr. Dennis, on the road for no other reason than she has no place else to go.

READ MORE

I became a fan of John Sayles when I discovered that he was the screenwriter for The Lady in Red (1979) and Alligator (1980). Lady is my favorite interpretation of the John Dillinger story, told from the perspective of the femme fatale who betrays the gangster, while Alligator is a tongue-in-cheek addition to the animals run-amuck genre inspired by Jaws. Each film expanded on the genre or cinematic myth that they belonged to without resorting to the heavy irony or self-consciousness that contemporary directors tend to abuse. Later, I saw The Return of the Secaucus Seven, his first feature, which was produced  independently of mainstream Hollywood, for  a class in college, and I have been following his career ever since.

READ MORE

I’m in the process of assembling a spreadsheet of films that I’d like to bring to my fall calendar program. As an exhibitor, I wish I could give all (or, at least, most or many) of these films a home. But as the market place keeps shrinking the theatrical windows, and as V.O.D. becomes more rampant, the harsh reality is that a balance has to be struck between viable money-makers and smaller niche titles that are very interesting and compelling but lack high-profile visibility, this despite being top-shelf items. In the former category are titles such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the latter category are movies like Marwencol or Bill Cunningham New York. I never need to see advance screeners for films in the former category as, for the most part, it’s pretty obvious what the big hitters are. In the latter category, however, it’s essential to watch the preview screeners sent to me by distributors because I really need to know if the material stands a chance of connecting with the audience in our area despite a low profile. Or, at very least, whether it resonates so strongly with me that I’m willing to champion it personally in the hopes that I might, despite long odds, find it an audience. Here’s what I’ve got queued up for the coming week. READ MORE