["Some qualities to look for in a wife." via]*
To quote Paul Reubens at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, "Heard any good jokes lately?"
No? Well, here's one. The cinetrix launched this here site a little more than six years ago. I know, right? Eh, what can I say? Apparently not much. Reaching this anniversary seems to have had an effect so paralyzing that I haven't been able to write a word since my brief jaunt to the opening weekend of the New York Film Festival two weeks ago.
Which is a shame. I saw four festival films, one press conference, and one repertory flick while in the city and two new releases since -- there should be plenty to say. Moreover, with the exception of the folks with whom I stayed and three film-y New York-based friends who date back to Boston, everybody with whom I spent time in New York I wouldn't know [either directly or circuitously] were it not for the blog. Iona with jmac turning into Freddy's with Carney and this is Krucoff, btw and assorted bloggerati [shorter in real life]. Milling about outside the Walter Reade with Filmbrain, Dobbs, and Glenn et al. Meeting Lichman and re-meeting Rizov. Bumping into Cullen, Paul, Kevin, Farihah, and spotting Nic from afar. Sitting next to Marcy a mere seven weeks after she and Juergen greeted Nina. Quick drinks with Alex. Yo La Tengo with Sam. Lunch with Rick [and meeting Amy & Hazel.] Slower drinks with Lisa and Scott. Even coffee with Dana.
There's something of a royal command performance element to a visit to the city if you play it right. During my short trip impossibly busy people carved out precious time to catch up, for which I am ridiculously grateful. I left feeling so rejuvenated, which is why the subsequent writer's block is so puzzling. So I am resolving to do here what my smart, generous friends did for me that weekend: engage in a wide-ranging and open-ended conversation, even if it's squeezed between obligations and stretched out over time.
[Christ, now I'm starting to feel like Charlie Kane in the offices of The Inquirer.]
OK, while I back up to take a running jump, here are a few tabs I've kept open. Read them, too, won't you, then we'll discuss.
- The Broad is back. Lisa Rosman returns in the guise of New Deal Sally.
- This aspect of cinema is the sort of shit I increasingly find fascinating: empty establishing shots, the visual equivalent of room tone; in this case, screen captures of Twin Peaks sets standing empty.
- A streamed version of the restored print of The Rose of Rhodesia (1918), by Harold M. Shaw, one of the earliest remaining feature films shot in Africa -- with new music by Matti Bye and Kristian Holmgren.
- So many goodies in Wholphin's new issue, which I wish I'd known when I was wandering around St. Mark's Bookshop in a post Momofuku foie gras stupor [thanks, Aronoff], overwhelmed by visual stimuli. Ah, well. Check out one of my favorite IFFB shorts: Film Makes Us Happy.
- What the hell? Filmbo reports that Warner is pulling 300 titles from DVD tomorrow, including all the non-Top Hat/Swing Time Fred & Ginger titles.
- Looker engages in some press notes close reading and discovers that Herzog claims he saw the financial crash coming: "I instantly withdrew money I had invested in stock of Lehman Brothers while a bank manager, ecstatic, with shuddering urgency, was trying to persuade me to buy even more of it."
- Finally, David Hudson nicely includes me among the Cinephiles in the Auteurs' roundup of Best Film Sites. His generosity had me so ashamed of my failure to write anything lately [although I am resolutely a hobbyist, not a careerist] that, well, here I am.
