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In memoriam

I first met Rob on New Year's Eve, 1994, at Hollywood Express on Mass Ave in Cambridge. I had just inherited my parents' old VCR, and Hollywood was, and still is, the best video store in town. The idea was to prepare for a lazy New Year's Day after a night out by lining up something to watch. He approached me in the crowded store, suggested Russ Meyer and Twister. I parried in kind. We flirted: Two movie geeks identifying themselves.

[And I remember what I did start 1995 with--The War Room and the Brothers Quay. Go figure].

After that, I began to watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot. Nearly 1,000 in 1995. Night after night I would curse the VCR's slow rewind, then leap on my bike and pedal furiously to the store before it closed at eleven [so my movies would be returned on time].

We became involved sometime in February, after we'd gone to see his coworker Billy Coover's rockabilly band play at the Plow and Stars one night. As we walked, slightly drunk, down the dark Cambridge streets back to my apartment after the show, we sang "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" and the Mario Lanza Maurice Chevalier "If a Nightingale Could Sing Like You" bits from the Marx Brothers. I invited him up, and he stayed. From there, it got complicated, and was often painful, until it ended that December.

Rob Rivera was the first man I ever loved, and who I was then--a foolish, heartsick girl--is at the root of all I am now. And all of my memories, good and bad, of this man are tied up with the movies I watched, he watched, we watched.

A couple of years after he first broke my heart we ended up working together at the second location of the video store, in Central Square. I had dropped out of NYU and was pretty lost and slacking hard. He hired me and gave me a home. I stayed with that job much longer than I should have, even as I began making my life with the Fesser, out of a sense of loyalty to Rob. Everyone there did--Seaghan, Michael, Azeem, Pam, April, Maceo, darcy, Sarah, Lorenzo, Bryan, Seb, so many more. Ultimately, I was fired by the owner, and we stopped talking, again.

Rob and I hadn't spoken for years. Then in February we began a tentative correspondence. I now have seven emails from him. There will be no more. Last week he died, after battling primary progressive MS since 1998. He was 35 years old, and he's broken my heart all over again. I don't know if I ever had the courage to tell Rob straight out that I loved him, so I am telling you now.

Noir and stars

If you're in LA, hie thee to this Saturday's singularly dark offering from Cinespia, Edgar G. Ulmer's flinty film noir Detour, starring the aptly named Ann Savage.

Ann Savage stars as the most sultry and ruthless femme fatale ever on screen! When down on his luck chump Tom Neal is implicated for murder, Savage pulls out all the stops in blackmailing him for money and a whole lot more! Working with a shoestring budget, Ulmer improvised ingenious storytelling devices and created one of the most innovative film noirs. The script crackles with snappy dialogue, as Savage entangles Neal in a deadly web. Detour is undoubtedly one of the crown jewels of the genre. Bring blankets, drinks and picnic dinner for this special screening below (and above) the stars. DJ John Tripp spins before and after the screening.

Saturday, May 20th
Gates at 7:00 pm
Film at 8:30 pm
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
6000 Santa Monica Boulevard at Gower
No reservation necessary. $10 Tickets available at gate.
As a courtesy to other movie-goers: NO TALL CHAIRS!! 

Darkness (In)visible

Hey, New Yorkers: Get ready for #9, the last ever installmentof the INVISIBLE FILM SERIES, this Saturday, May 20, at Millennium Film Workshop, 66 East 4th St. Show starts at 8:00 P.M. and will run you $8.

Stars and suns wake photonic motion, precise love, and accelerated metamorphosis. Stirring deep within the unexplored dream, the butterfly breaks the cocoon. As the aerodynamics of the imagined and the unknown luminesce before the eyes, the theory of light is expanded. The luciphiles explore the invisible nature of photometric mysteries still to be discovered. Play with cinema and cinema will play with you . . .

film/video by:

UNTITLED FLICKER by Huckleberry Lain, 16mm, color, 2 min.

ARNULF RAINER by Peter Kubelka, 16mm, b/w, 10 min.

STORM DREAMS by Helki Frantzen, video, color, 2.5 min.

AERODYNAMICS OF THE BLACK SUN by Bradley Eros, video, color, sound, 5 min.

HAUNTED by Mike Kuchar, video, color, sound, 7 min.

A SONG FOR LEETE AND MARAQUAT by Edward Doty, 16mm, 9 min.

PERHAPS THE SINGER IS DEAD by Mary Billyou, video, color, sound, 7 min.

FATHOM by Valerie D'orazio, video, color, sound, 4 min.

DISCOTECH by Michael Park, video, color, sound 10 min.

THE JEWISH COWBOY (Episodes 3-7) by Marianna Ellenberg, video, color, 12

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH by Nisi Jacobs, video, color, sound, 11 min. min.

LUNGS by Melanie Chopko,16mm, silent, 5 min.

GHOST TOWNS OF ARIZONA by Robert Greene, video, color, sound, 10 min.

INTRO by Bill Poznanski and Janene Knox, video, color, sound, 4 min.

OCCASIONALLY I THINK OF HOPE by Tim Reardon, 16mm, 5 min.

EUROPEAN DIARY SERIES by Howard Guttenplan, 16mm, 8 min.

Organized by Jennifer MacMillan and Michael Park

Tres bien

Grad school dropout* and former book reviewer A.O. Scott makes with the close reading in his Da Vinci Code review, and the effect is as subtle as a sitcom's product placement:

To their credit the director and his screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman (who collaborated with Mr. Howard on Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind), have streamlined Mr. Brown's story and refrained from trying to capture his, um, prose style. "Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair." Such language — note the exquisite "almost" and the fastidious tucking of the "which" after the preposition — can live only on the page.

Indeed. Also note the exquisite, faux plebeian "um."

Lest we forget: " A. O. Scott is a film critic at The Times. He is writing a book on the American novel since World War II." This Dan Brown shit is beneath him, people. He's been reading lit-tra-chure. To quote the lovely ladies of Le Tigre: "I get it. I get it. I get it."

*Confidential to Times copyeditors: I'd leave "grad school" open as a modifier of "dropout," especially given your readership.

A truth universally acknowledged

Readers, I watched it.

The backstory: I taught Pride and Prejudice last fall, but somehow I missed the latest version of Austen's novel in the theatres completely. Then I allowed the dvd of the latest cinematic iteration to languish atop the television since late March. Bad cinetrix. Shame finally got the better of me the other night, so I sucked it up and watched Keira Knightley assay the Lizzie Bennet role.

Meh. P&P wasn't bad, but it wasn't the second coming, either, despite the big liquory kiss the nation's critcs bestowed upon it on release. The film, on the whole quite sprightly, felt almost too headlong and rushed in a few places that really do warrant a pause for breath. For example, I didn't miss Bingley's married sister and her buffoon husband an iota, but I did feel something was lost by having Lizzie's aunt and uncle present-- rather than just Mr. Darcy--when she receives Jane's letter saying their idiotic sister Lydia [the always saucy Jena Malone] has run off with Wyckham. See, the star-crossed lovers are meant to be complicit in their shared guilt, not part of a freakin' posse.

And then, of course, there's the controversial "Americans are such simps/The Brits would never stand for such a travesty" final two minutes of the flick. Astute reviewers for the Chicago Reader and the LA Times were right there with the cinetrix, calling out P&P for shamelessly quoting the blocking at the end of Sixteen Candles.

Here's Elizabeth M. Tamney of the Reader:

The scene is beyond sappy, not to mention distractingly similar to the ending of Sixteen Candles: Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) and Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), newly married, sit facing each other on a table overlooking the grounds of his ancestral home, exchanging sweet nothings, with the camera slowly moving in on them until they kiss.

And Carina Chocano chimes in:

The film's single false note comes in a post-wedding scene on a balcony at Pemberley Hall that's unfortunately reminiscent of "Sixteen Candles."

But that's not the only 80s movie this adaptation is biting. The cinetrix recommends you dial the way-back machine to the final moments of Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View,* where Helena Bonham Carter's Lucy Honeychurch and Julian Sands' George Emerson, newly eloped, murmur sweet nothings at each other in front of their window at the Pensione Bertolini. Hey, steal from the best, right?

*Plus, Dame Judi is a delight in both.

Do the strand

Kiddies, it's the most wonderful time of the year! Why? Well, Manohla and Tony are laissez-faire-ing the strand--La Croisette--and revving their engines for the start of the Cannes film festival. Yay!

Was it only a year ago that 'Nohla was belly-aching about being shut out of a morning screening of Broken Flowers in that ill-considered NYT "Cannes blog"? Good times.

This year, the Gray Lady's co-chief film critics wisely dispense with all the folderol and submit a joint bylined preview [though it'd be fun to run it through that gender-detecting computer program]. Here's the lede:

Every year you hear the same complaints: from purists who accuse the Cannes Film Festival of selling out its tradition of artistic prestige for the glamour and lucre of Hollywood, and from the more commercially minded scenesters [ed.--totally Manohla] who wonder why Cannes lavishes so much attention on esoteric, difficult films bound for an ever-shrinking audience of cognoscenti.

But both forms of grousing miss the point and the glory of this festival, which since the beginning — this is its 59th edition —has mingled the lofty and the crass with particular Gallic flair. Way back in the 1940's, for example, the competition found room for both Walt Disney and Roberto Rossellini, and it continues to hold a place in its heart for blockbusters as well as potential masterpieces [ed.--and there's A.O.].

Well and good, but the cinetrix would argue that the star of the Times' Cannes coverage thus far is International Herald Tribune film critic Joan DuPont, who reveals herself as--wait for it--an old-skool royalist in the festival video preview, where she describes Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette as a

vision of a young queen in the wrong job, and certainly at the wrong time, poor thing.

Indeed! Comment dit-on "Let them eat cake" again?

The snow was too loud

Inspired by the recent AmEx spot, critic Armond White asks why it takes filmmakers like Wes Anderson and the other so-called American Eccentrics so long to make a movie.

It seems that the Eccentrics' own egotistical indolence has resulted in self-imposed limits to their skills—at the very least it deprives the world of more of their unique cultural prognostications. If they are ever to truly change film culture, their maneuvers have to increase. When Anderson casually pays for extra production expenses in the AmEx ad, he pokes mischief at the '80s archetype of a hungry filmmaker using credit cards to see a film to completion. (The ad opens with typical Anderson piquancy: Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman onset in a new guise shouts, "François!" at the sight of an auto accident—a Day for Night in-joke as well as a mournful cry for Truffaut, who died in 1985.) But it's not really the way Anderson works—he pretends to be making a gimmicky action movie such as he never really has. My Life, My Card is insistently money-conscious, but its charm comes from envisioning a paradise of art-making, where all problems are immediately solved and where instinct flies with nature. Indeed, while riding a floating crane, Anderson is attacked by a flock of Hitchcock's birds. It bemuses him. (You have to be a real cinephile—perhaps own a certain Truffaut-authored interview book in your library—to appreciate such delicious free association.)

It's a fun read, and White gets all the way to the ninth graf before invoking Steven Spielberg, which must be some kind of personal record.

Speaking of ads, I'll admit it, Sofia Coppola had me at the snap of Marie Antoinette's fan. Christ, what's happening to me?

Elvis is everywhere*

FOC Mrs. Tingle e-mails with the question on everyone's lips:

Did A.O. have an Elvis transplant under cover of his sabbatical?

As evidence, she offers the following from today's paper:

"Just My Luck is a bit of lukewarm cappuccino froth confected to float Lindsay Lohan to the next stage of her career."

True, it does smack of Mitchell metaphors of yore, but the cinetrix suspects that NYT Movies copyeditors might keep a slush file of Elvisisms culled from the former Times critic's notoriously splayed out reviews just so they can punch up Scott's prose now and again.

*Indeed, Skid and Mojo might have to update their song: I'm pretty sure that, like Michael J. Fox before him, A.O. Scott has no Elvis in him.

Have a good weekend, kiddies, and remember: Elvis need boats.

Reading is fundamental

Back when the cinetrix started this blog--you know, when dinosaurs roamed the earth--I mused about who might play Cayce Pollard in the inevitable movie version of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

I was reminded again of the fraught intersection of literature and film while reading the latest from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's inestimable film columnist Alan Smithee:

Dear Mr. Smithee,

Over the years, people have made a big stink over which was better, the book or the movie. In most cases, the book is better. There, it's been stated. But, I sense, in some cases, people are just being snobby by always putting down the movie because they read. Well, most of us do read.

My question, other than are you still awake, would be: Have you ever seen a movie where you thought it was much better than the book? If so, what movie?

R-- B-------, Doraville

Dear Novel Idea,

You presume I read. How can someone who watches hundreds and hundreds of movies a year have the time to open some long-winded tome? Like "The Da Vinci Code."

But I read the book. Every preposterous word. All I know is that if Ron Howard, who had the talent to make the wonderful "Splash,”"the credible "A Beautiful Mind" and, especially, the outstanding "Apollo 13," cannot muster up anything better with "Da Vinci Code" than that nattering book did - then somebody will need to rethink the concept of Hollywood blockbusterism.

I should say to all the book snobs that movies can indeed surprise you. I finished reading "Sophie’s Choice" mere hours before seeing the movie version for the first time in 1982.

My thought was: There is no way the movie can capture the sheer horror of Sophie making her forced choice. But you know what? Meryl Streep and director Alan J. Pakula magnificently matched the emotional force and dark depths of William Styron's words.

If, good R--, you are looking for a list, here’s a few examples where films are better than their counterpart books: "Paper Moon" (I never even finished "Addie Pray"), "The Godfather" (most definitely), "Jaws," "The Exorcist," "The Silence of the Lambs," "Planet of the Apes," "The Hours" (some probably consider this selection heresy) and "Coal Miner's Daughter."

And read on, because here's a list of movies that are so good, I suspect that, while I have not been privileged to read the original tomes, they are at least equal to, if not better than, the wordy versions: "Raging Bull," "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," "Schindler’s List," "L.A. Confidential," "Field of Dreams," "Psycho," "The Graduate," "The Wizard of Oz," "Double Indemnity," "Goodfellas" and "Midnight Cowboy."

Alan

P.S. You get an "RV" road emergency kit and an "Ask Alan Smithee" T-shirt.

At some point, the cinetrix would like to teach an adaptation course [mostly likely using this book as one of the texts]. So what are your favorite page-to-screen leaps and which ones fall short?

Boys will be boys.

Don't get me wrong, I love Criterion as much as the next cinegeek, but does it have to self-identify as "male" on its MySpace page?

To quote from one of its out-of-print titles: "Boring, Sidney. Boring!"

The Criterion Collection

                                       

"Purveyors of DVDs and laserdiscs since 1984    "         Male         22 years old         NEW YORK CITY,          United States