My moviegoing: 2003

from Olivier Assayas' Demonlover (2002)

American movies, 1970-1979

from John Cassavetes' Opening Night (1977)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa (2003)

American movies, 1970-1979

from Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep (1977)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003)

American movies, 1970-1979

from Robert Benton's The Late Show (1977)

R.I.P. Peter Falk

Remember when an average guy with a lazy eye could be a movie star? What the hell is wrong with Hollywood now? Nobody has any character in their face. All we have are anonymous pretty people chasing CGI monsters and supervillains in front of a green screen for an average shot length of .05 seconds or smug bores falling in and out of love and back in love based on idiotic misunderstandings.
This kind of grumbling doesn't belong in a Peter Falk tribute, so I'll stop now. He was in two of the greatest American films, A Woman Under the Influence and Mikey & Nicky, and one of the greatest German films, Wings of Desire. He was in a near-great American film, Husbands, and a formative childhood film for most people my age, The Princess Bride. Columbo was a very entertaining show, and I'm glad he was in it, but he did plenty of other stuff, obituary writers. Big Trouble had an unhappy production and was very uneven (a dying Cassavetes took over when original director Andrew Bergman quit or was fired, depending on the source), but the scene where Falk gives Alan Arkin a sardine-flavored liqueur leads to the greatest spit-take in cinema history. I loved watching this guy.

My moviegoing: 2003

from Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville's Six fois deux/Sur et sous la communication (1976)
Austin Film Society's Godard/Mieville series
They showed the second episode of this French TV miniseries.

American movies, 1970-1979

from Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Jean-Luc Godard's For Ever Mozart (1996)
Austin Film Society's Godard/Mieville series

American movies, 1970-1979

from Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Jane Campion's In the Cut (2003)
This film fails as a thriller and has plenty of flaws, but succeeds in all kinds of interesting ways. A director's imperfections, failures, and partial successes can be just as illuminating and instructive as the masterpieces and major achievements. Sometimes, these failures are even more personal and formally interesting than the films that do everything right.

American movies, 1970-1979

from Don Siegel's The Shootist (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders (1964)
Austin Film Society's Godard/Mieville series

American movies, 1970-1979

from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Andy Warhol's My Hustler (1965) and Hedy (1966)
Austin Film Society's Warhol retrospective

American movies, 1970-1979

from Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Lau Kar-Leung's Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)
Austin Film Society's Chinese Martial Arts series

American movies, 1970-1979

from Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Paul Morrissey & Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls (1966)
Austin Film Society's Warhol retrospective

American movies, 1970-1979

from Elaine May's Mikey & Nicky (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

An image from Shohei Imamura's segment of the anthology film September 11 (2002), a hit-and-miss collection of 11 short films made by 11 prominent directors from 11 countries, given an 11-minute, nine-second, and one-frame time limit to respond to the events of September 11. Both an intriguing premise and a silly gimmick, September 11 is worth seeing just to get a sense of 9/11 as interpreted by mostly non-American sensibilities. Unfortunately, the American segment of the film, directed by Sean Penn, is the film's and Penn's worst effort. Here's the full lineup of directors and countries:
Youssef Chahine (Egypt)
Amos Gitai (Israel)
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Mexico)
Shohei Imamura (Japan)
Claude Lelouch (France)
Ken Loach (United Kingdom)
Samira Makhmalbaf (Iran)
Mira Nair (India)
Idrissa Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso)
Sean Penn (U.S.)
Danis Tanovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina)

American movies, 1970-1979

from Sidney Lumet's Network (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Sidney Lumet, 1924-2011

I forgot to write Elizabeth Taylor and Farley Granger posts, so here's my Sidney Lumet tribute before he's too dead to bother.
One of the last active American filmmakers who began his career in the 1950s is gone. Lumet was never in my top tier of favorite directors, possibly because he was more of a studio craftsman than the obsessively personal filmmakers I'm drawn toward. He made some bad movies, and he wasn't the most visually distinctive director, with some notable exceptions. He was a great storyteller and director of actors, enthusiastic, youthful, not pretentious, sharp, interested in people. His best films, though, were personal and visually distinctive, in addition to their other virtues. Dog Day Afternoon is one of the finest films of the 1970s and one of the best movies about America and American desperation. Even in Lumet movies I find lacking, great moments poke through. Running on Empty has a certain ordinariness to it that can sometimes push it toward TV movie territory, but the teenage romance between River Phoenix and Martha Plimpton is sweetly honest and affecting. Lumet just watches them and lets it happen without condescending to the characters or the audience. Treat Williams gives a hysterically overblown performance in Prince of the City, but Lumet manages to create a chilly atmosphere of pervasive corruption and paranoid fear and matches that emotional geography with a compatibly physical one. Jerry Orbach's very good in that movie when he's not ducking Williams' scenery-chewing. I also like that Lumet went out on a high note with two of his most critically acclaimed movies after a long string of mediocre ones: Find Me Guilty and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. The penultimate film was a commercial flop, but his last movie put him back in the spotlight.
Recommended:
12 Angry Men (1957)
Serpico (1973)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Network (1976)
The Verdict (1982)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Recommended, with reservations or for nostalgic purposes only:
The Wiz (1978)
Prince of the City (1981)
Running on Empty (1988)
Guilty as Sin (1993)

I need to catch up with some of his other films. He made a lot.

American movies, 1970-1979

from Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976)

My moviegoing: 2003

from Andy Warhol's Mario Banana #1 (1964), Mario Banana #2 (1964), Blow Job (1964), Poor Little Rich Girl (1965), and Outer and Inner Space (1966)
Austin Film Society's Warhol retrospective