All Purpose NYC ILX Film Snob Thread

That's more about what Rialto distributes and at least they're showing prints. It's the IFC Center that just screens (or used to screen) Criterion DVDS at full price.

I was going to swing by to catch Bigger Than Life, but $11... that's a real chin scratcher there.

Well, it's probably healthy for you to vary what you scratch.

$11 is fine for a film that doesnt seem to be on the DVD horizon. Plis u shd be a member.

caveat: most of the under-40 FF audience will laugh all the way thru BtL.

James Mason here I come.

I'm glad the FF guffaws were mostly confined to "God was wrong!"

Anyone going to Playtime at Reade tonight? $15, $12 members.

i'm not, but you should: it's such a great film to see projected, both aesthetically and with the ambient sound design.

I've seen it projected at least 3x, and still may go tonight.

Jacques Tati's "Playtime" - restored print

since we're here: i was flicking through the anthology film archives catalogue for the next few months, and then for the last few months, and noticed that i'd missed a robert frank retro. so bummed out. i'd heard cocksucker blues was playing, which i've seen projected once, but i can't believe i missed me and my brother etc. did anyone go? is anything else momentous on the horizon? i moved here just after that total eustache run a while back and still kick myself ...

No, I missed all that Frank, incl Cksuker.

I'd call the Kuchar brothers' retro at Anthology from March 11-17 pretty momentous. I've seen just about everything of theirs that's been shown locally in the last 15 years, but this is probably the most of their work that's been shown in one place since George's retro at AMMI around '93. Their shorts, esp from the '50s and '60s, are indescribable... like a Kenneth Anger fan's ramshackle dream of John Waters?

oh cool. i really ought to get around to seeing those kenneth anger shorts dvds too. the next few months of anthology screenings kind of mystified me, but i might chance some of the new filmmaker nights etc.

i have a great copy of cocksucker blues at a friend's - it's an amazing film, a tapestry of well-observed short takes and moments, so identifiably by frank. you're welcome to borrow if i can retrieve my copy. i believe the retro preceded an expensive dvd release of some of his stuff.

btw, did silent light only just come out here? i saw it forever ago but keep thinking of it.

I saw Silent Light at the NYFF '07. Then it ran at MoMA for a week last year, and now this FF run.

I just remembered once back in more halcyon days Morbius was asking about some Kenneth Anger stuff and we were checking some of the now-defunct video stores like Evergreen to see if they had it. RIP, Bricks and Mortar.

yes, where am I going to rent with last week's demise of Mondo Kim's? Kim's West Village?

I had Vol. 1 of Anger out of the library last week.

i'll be at playtime tonight!

the handful of kuchars i've seen are awesome. john waters has credited them for inspiring him to make films

are you going at 6, joe?

I have a combo Waters/Kuchars book I bought at A Different Light in SF!

8:30

I had Vol. 1 of Anger out of the library last week.

cool beans. i've just reserved billy the kid from mid-manhattan, but am trying to get to the cinema rather than watch stuff at home right now.

i have an idea that park slope's good for renting stuff, but that may be based on copious video outlets rather than quality or selection.

yeah, I'd rather go to a store near work in Chelsea than hop off the F to rent in PkSlope, then get back on to go home! What's that place around 22nd & 9th that looks like a bomb hit it? is it even still there?

but the f has lovely views around smith

Yeah, that store on 22nd and 9th is still there.

is one westside, too, maybe on christopher?, betwixt sex and smoke shops. it has ozu boxsets in the window and stuff.

playtime = wow wow wow wow wow wow wow

is there a good production history of this movie anywhere? i really would love to know more about how eg the nightclub scene was handled by tati

The David Bellos Tati bio has a chapter on the production, it's not a great book though. There's some info in Stuart Klawan's Film Follies too. It's often referenced and hugely mythologized--Tati bankrupted himself making the film--but there doesn't seem to be much detail available in English.

I'm sad I missed the Walter Reed. I've seen it projected before, but not in 70mm.

^Walter Reed screening.

dr, there's also a 2-hr doc on Tati's career (made by his daughter) on the recent Criterion DVD of Trafic, which has some footage of the Playtime shoot and succinct history.

(didn't go last night, hemorrhaging $ this week)

i saw a documentary - i remember it as being specifically about playtime, but it may well have been an extract of a general bio. there was footage of them disassembling the set after shooting finished, walls falling buster keaton style. i'd thought there was a book too, i forget.

I have a combo Waters/Kuchars book I bought at A Different Light in SF!

I had this book, too. I bought it at the Compendium going out of business sale.

If you can tolerate pitch-black (as in rape and murder-flavored) comedies about pre-glasnost Russia, I highly recommend Cargo 200 at Cinema Village. (it goes to a late-night only sched after tonight)

I'm excited for Made in America at FF. Morbs, you were right about the crowd for Bigger Than Life. I actually
preferred the New Yorker article, which portrayed cortisone-induced mania, rather than Mason's peculiar brand of
insanity.

FF draws such a contemptibly smug demog to the revivals.

I like Masonmania. "You didn't want to go on living?"

I like that Mason got worked up in this one, even if it was just a side effect of the cortisone. Usually I find him a little bland, in a Herbert Marshall style.

Although I guess he was tough in North By Northwest.

They went w/ the stuntmen a really long time at the climax, plenty of time to see it's not Mason and Matthau.

Busby Berkeley / Carmen Miranda tomw night @Reade (new color print):

http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/doc09/thegang_sallhere.html

+ Eugene Pallette And Edward Everett Horton!

geez, I get outta work early today -- anyone for Made in USA at 4:40?

You still thinking about doing this?

YES

are you a FF member? Go in on my double discount card.

Thanks, but I re-upped this year so I got my own. Not quite sure I can make it though.

I went at 8:20; so crowded.

think i'm gonna catch some of these finnish melodramas at AFA today, one of which apparently has a "stella dallas" thing going on so i expect i'll be happy

(SD itself is screening at walter reade on feb. 13 for the lonely hearts club. i wonder if that'll be more crushing than seeing umbrellas of cherbourg on v-day at film forum like i did several yrs ago)

havent gone to MiUSA yet... i saw that Finnish SD! good.

thats the silent Stella Dallas!

Jeanne Dielman at FF for a week starting tom'w

isn't akerman having a retro somewhere? maybe not even in ny. but it sounds interesting; i've always wanted to see toute une nuit.

http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2009/01/q-with-chantal-akerman-jeanne-dielman.html