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One off

Nicholas Campbell in Knights of the City (1986, dir. Dominic Orlando)

Adventures in cinema: last-minute lollipops

Lovers and Lollipops (1956, dir. Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin)

Every frame of this film is gorgeous. Even in my cruddy oblique, cropped screenshots you can see that. The placement of the camera and the performance of the juvenile lead Cathy Dunn as Peggy are frequently astonishing. Her single mother's fits-and-starts romance feels equally real. And the damn thing is a documentary of a specific moment in New York history, too. I finally watched Lovers and Lollipops on its last day on the Criterion channel and couldn't stop kicking myself. See, I still remember when we got all three of Engel and Orkin's feature films--Lollipops, The Little Fugitive, and Weddings and Babies--at the video store. On VHS. Why did I waste so many years of my life in a Lollipop-less state?

Adventures in cinema: eastern, promises

Center Stage (dir. Stanley Kwan, 1991)

BUYER WALKER ROVER (YIWU) AKA. THERE THEN (dir. Amalia Ulman, 2019) 

A Short History (dir. Erica Sheu, 2017)

Adventures in cinema: education and adaptation

Some digital artifacts (expanding on their final papers) from students in the adaptation class that I taught for the first time this semester. 

Short and sweet on Sesame Street

Put it all together and what do you get? Ding dong clap clap stomp stomp hot dog
(wish there were credits for this, or even an original airdate. the only clue is the little girl's sneakers have Velcro, not laces)

Adventures in cinema: the freaks come out

Thanks to my friend Maura, I recently experienced 1980's The Apple.* Or as I like to think of it, what happens when you watch All That Jazz, Xanadu, and Freak Orlando at the same time. Like, layered over one another with all three audio tracks at top volume. But with the least sexy sexiness and kink ever, somehow. Even the pelvic pops fail to pop.

(Speaking of the divine Ulrike Ottinger, she has a new film out, Paris Calligrammes, available here with French, English, or German narration.)

But seriously, WTF was going on in 1979 to yield so many hallucinogenic music films maudit in 1980? Popeye, Flash Gordon, Times Square, Can't Stop the Music, The Great American Rock 'n' Roll Swindle... (spoiler: cocaine, speeeeeeed, benzedrine, poppers) Out of the Blue, Christiane F.... (spoiler: heroin)

*The reviews on Amaz*n are a fun read. BIM!

Adventures in cinema: black and white France

Under the Cherry Moon (1986, dir. Prince)

Last weekend, I "went" to Pop Convergence 2021, and this panel was revelatory:

Prince: Disrupting Notions of Blackness

Prince’s legacy as a Pop music icon is undisputed. His influence on popular culture is endless. In addition to being one of the greatest entertainers of all time, he was a groundbreaking songwriter, musician, arranger, composer, producer, and entrepreneur. Prince was also the ultimate disruptor. In a career that spanned five decades, Prince challenged systems, spaces, and sounds. In the process, he disrupted widely held notions about what it meant to be a black artist, activist, and, ultimately, a black person in a society that remains at odds with its own concepts of blackness, freedom, and equality. Through analysis of his music, lyrics, and individual acts of protest, this panel seeks to expand the discussion of Prince’s legacy by examining his role as a disruptor.

Adventures in cinema: black and white Finland

Finland looks fun.

Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (1994, dir. Aki Kaurismaki)

Seventh art amuse-bouche

via

Adventures in cinema: DDL + Wino Forever = ?

Happenstance put ongoing movie club and classroom watching in fruitful collision. Last of the Mohicans teed up The Age of Innocence, previewing next week's A Room with a View. In hindsight, the Merchant Ivory seems much less mannered/overdetermined than the contemporaneous adaptation work of our two homegrown auteurs.

And how to communicate to those not yet born the 90s essence rare of Ms. Ryder onscreen and in the culture?