4/23/22 (Sat)
When you hear that an Orthodox Jew, played by Zero Mostel, is visited by an angel named Levine, you don’t expect to see Harry Belafonte. But that’s the premise in this oddball 1970 work adopted from a Bernard Malamud story about a modern-day Job and an emissary from Heaven sent to save him.
9/3/21 (Fri)
Truffaut’s fantastic 1959 film about a boy effectively pushed into delinquency was his first full-length feature but already feels like the work of a master. It is not a story so much as a slice-of-life sequence of events that follow events in the adolescent’s life. The curious title comes from a French idiom, faire les quatre cents coups, that apparently means “to raise hell”. The film was reportedly released initially as “Wild Oats”, which fits the meaning better, but the title soon reverted to the direct translation, where it has remained since. Still, the English title does work in its own way even devoid of context as a symbol of the seemingly endless vicissitudes that the boy is subject to, the blows being psychological as well as physical. And it sounds better than “The 400 Vicissitudes”.
11/23/21 (Tues)
Elia Kazan’s 1949 film about a light-skinned black returning to her roots. Continue reading
11/23/21 (Tues)
Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 film is widely characterized as a gay flick, but the truth is as usual a bit more complicated. Continue reading
11/6/21 (Sat)
Frank Perry’s hallucinatory 1968 diary of a mad has-been. The main character’s precarious mental state is reflected in the odd structure of the film and some bizarre editing. While inevitably a product of its time – not sure if the white, Waspy, nouveau riche setting would be possible today, whether true to the era or not, not to mention a passing reference to “stylish fags” – its unconventional setup has evidently given it a cult following.
11/8/21 (Mon)
Frank Perry’s 1981 gothic portrait of the late Joan Crawford as the mother from hell is well deserving of its reputation as a camp classic. Continue reading
3/16/22 (Wed)
Imamura Shohei’s directorial debut of 1958 is a rather silly comedy about a traveling theater group. Not much of the later provocative Imamura on view here, though he does concentrate on the lower classes in a struggling troupe that mixes popularized versions of classical pieces like Chushingura with titillating girlie shows to bring in unsophisticated rural audiences. In a sign of the future Imamura, it features numerous loud outbursts among the actors and crowds, leering audience members and peeping Toms, pilfering of money and geese, a reference to eating dogs, actors picking their noses, and an impressively vicious catfight between two actresses, among other delights. But this was all in a broadly comic mood.
3/5/22 (Sat)
Imamura Shohei’s hard-hitting 1979 film is based on the case of an actual serial killer in Japan active in 1964 just before the Olympics. The title is taken from Deuteronomy, where it is God who insists on that honor (“Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord”). But it is not clear here what the main character is taking vengeance against. Continue reading
2/17/22 (Thurs)
The original French version of the big Sundance hit Coda. Continue reading
2/6/22 (Sun)
An entertaining if by-the-book feel-good story about the only hearing child of deaf adults (= CODA). Ruby (a superb Emilia Jones) is literally the ears and mouth of her parents and deaf elder brother, who run a fishing boat. Interpreting for them in their business dealings and accompanying them on the boat, she makes it possible for them to maintain their independence. But it also deprives her of a normal life. Their idea of family experiences includes farts and dating-site photos, which engage senses that they can share. She joins the choir at school on the spur of the moment when she notices a certain boy putting his name in. There she finds that she has talent, discovering her own voice in a way. She wants to break free and become a singer, especially when she gets an offer to audition for a major music university, but that would mean leaving the family without a voice of their own just as they are attempting to rally other fisherman to oppose the greedy fish brokers. The story is thus not only about her need to break free but theirs as well.
2/2/22 (Wed)
Lucy doesn’t come out looking too good in this portrait of a shaky marriage. Continue reading
8/27/21 (Fri)
George Cukor’s all-star 1933 comedy based on the Kaufman/Ferber stage play of the previous year. It seemed odd to see a play set among the rich and their swanky dinner party at the height of the Depression. But it turns out that there was more than meets the eye.
sekenbanashi 