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Quando, quando, quando

Please forgive the silence. Real, not reel, life intervened and the cinetrix had to hit pause.

[Unrelated unless you know my family: a little trainspotting.]

They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece.

Happy International Talk Like Daniel Plainview Day. Say it like it's your sermon.

Jollies

The cinetrix must dash through the pissing rain to see Guy Maddin present My Winnipeg. Fingers crossed the T doesn't fuck her over. More later.

Growing up

Adolescence, real and suspended, is developing as a theme.

And then there's Frownland, which gave me flashbacks to Lodge Kerrigan's Clean, Shaven. I'm not sure yet if that's a compliment.

Just a normal girl who hates herself

Wow wow wow. The Tracey Fragments. So very good.

Also? Tom Kalin is a sweetheart. If you're in New York, Savage Grace plays Tribeca tonight.

OK, as you were.

How is it that a nun can fly?

The cinetrix had resisted the whole Harmony Korine cult ever since seeing Kids at the Harvard Square way back when. You know how it goes. You just hear so fucking much about a thing that you dig in your heels and resist the cultural riptide pulling you out to sea.

Last night, though, I succumbed to Korine's latest, Mister Lonely, screening at the Somerville Theatre, just up the road from where I saw his first. A commune of celebrity impersonators. Werner Herzog playing a priest. Oh, all right. And I'm so so glad I did.

The images will haunt my dreams.

The memories of the Q&A, however, will haunt my nightmares. More about that later, over at Green Cine, where I'll be posting intermittently throughout the Independent Film Festival of Boston.

Latin vulgate

OK, kids. This post goes out in honor of Sr. Rita, S.N.D., R.I.P., who taught me Latin sophomore year and was ready to have me kicked out of school. [Then I got a silver in the National Latin Exam, which is neither here nor there.]

I've caught the same grievous error on three different film blogs in the past week. Have we forgotten our declensions? It's ad nauseam not ad nauseum. Accusative case, people! Seeing the latter makes me nauseated [and not nauseous].

Dominus vobiscum. Class dismissed.

Big Screen Boston

Forget getting a MacArthur. Turns out house arrest is the new secret to getting work done. At least in fallen critic Paul Sherman's case.

You may remember the sad tale of the Boston-based critic who was busted in a FBI sting operation for selling screeners online. Brother lost his reviewing job at the Herald, but, according to a Phoenix article by fellow Boston critic Gerald Peary, Sherman spent his time at home wisely, writing Big Screen Boston: From Mystery Street to The Departed and Beyond.

Pissah!

Celebrate the May 1 release of what Peary calls "an indispensable history/dictionary/catalogue/critique of local feature filmmaking through the years" at one or more of the following area screenings taking place over the next month and change.

• April 30: Kate Davis' Girltalk, Brattle
• May 1: Jan Egleson's Billy in the Lowlands, Brattle
• May 3: Fred Wiseman's Titicut Follies, MFA
• May 21: Jan Egleson’s The Dark End of the Street, West Newton
• June 5: Peter Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle [ed: squee!], Coolidge Corner

Eddie Coyle? Seriously?

Dancing about architecture

Forgive the eerie silence. The cinetrix is battling a sore throat and trying to finish work before heading to Boston.

I'd been done seen about ev'rything*

What a week, eh? Feathers ruffled and flying. Kerfuffle upon kerfuffle that had the cinetrix feeling downright relieved she was not selected to take part in this year's Moving Image Institute in Film Criticism and Feature Writing. Really.

Yeah, that's right. The cinetrix applied and was dinged,** if by dinged you mean not even a "polite" form letter in the mail. [Classy.] Thing is, she's thankful, and not in a Groucho way. Thankful she didn't have to pay out of pocket to schlep to Manhattan and back. Thankful she didn't have to stay in a midtown hotel for days on end. [Related: Siberia open these days?] Thankful she didn't then have to schlep from midtown to Queens and back each day. Thankful most of all for the reminder of what a venal, striving, grasping little glacier-shit island New York can be. [Seriously, people. Get a life. There's a war on.]

In the application, you were asked to describe what would be a likely/hoped-for outcome of your participation in the institute. The cinetrix said "access." Ha. When she saw the list of participants, well, she's in email contact with most of them already, and the speakers she's either heard speak before [Haskell], has e-mailed with, already counts as an old friend [Peary], or they can't do a whole lot for her [most publicists] living outside a major market. Oh, and Sam Sifton, Lorne Manly, and Ann Kolson. [One degree, she's guessing, is all that would take.]

So, yeah. I don't need the magic feather to fly. Thanks, unwieldily named Institute!

But I do have two questions.

1. Who was lucky number 13? As Stu posted back in February, "Twelve applicants will be selected. In order to encourage geographic diversity,*** hotel accommodations in midtown Manhattan will be provided for five nights for fellows living more than 50 miles from New York City." However, when you visit the 2008 Introduction page, it reads, "Thirteen print and on-line journalists from around the country will take part in an intensive program designed to offer an expanded appreciation of the art, business, and history of film, and a global view of the complex and rapidly evolving nature of the film and entertainment industry."
2. When, if ever, will the Institute post the participants' Assignments and  Conversations, the way it did last year? Again, citing the Introduction, "Each institute is supplemented with a Web site where lectures, materials, and conversations are posted. This online venue creates a place for participants and alumni of repeating institutes to exchange experiences, ideas and sources. The sites also permit journalists who are unable to attend to listen and learn."

Ahem, I resemble that remark. While she's waiting, the cinetrix will keep busy watching films, teaching films, and, yep, reading and writing about films.

*Yes, it's racist. Also not so PETA friendly. And carnies get a bad rap. Tell me something I don't know. Better still, go watch The Three Caballeros and It's All True back to back and then we can talk about something constructive, like the Good Neighbor Policy and the Global South. It's cool. I'll wait.

**The make-up of the selection committee is unknown, but do feel free to make unsupported, wild guesses as to who put the kibosh on the cinetrix's candidacy in the comments.

***Defined, apparently, as having some connection to the great state of  Texas or George Mason University, as far I can can reckon.