Meant to say that Tim Carey's "opiates are the religion of the masses" is worthy of Norm Crosby.
I sort of contradicted myself with regards to stuff I wrote on another thread (Tree of Life?), where we got into the idea of "immersing" yourself in a film. To clarify: when I go into a film, it has to win me over before I start letting down my guard. How much I'm ready to "just enjoy where the director wants to take me," as JacobSanders wrote, is directionally proportional to how effectively it draws me in. So yes, if a film has completely drawn me in and I'm loving it, I'm sure my brain shuts down a little bit too, and I let stuff go that I'd question in a film I'm not enjoying.
Stayed for The Dirty Dozen last night, and thought the first half was terrific, before it got bogged down in the two big action set-pieces that were well executed but familiar. I was very happy that 17% of the Dozen was Greek.
― clemenza, Saturday, 23 July 2011 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
I'm sorry Clemenza, that remark was unnecessary. I'm just not very critical of film as a whole. There are movies I lose interest in and don't like, but most often I like 90% of what I watch. I close my eyes during trailers so when I watch a movie I'll be surprised. I like surprises.
― JacobSanders, Friday, 29 July 2011 03:41 (twelve years ago) link
bunch of these expire on netflix streaming 8/3. just watched 'killing of a chinese bookie'
― № (am0n), Friday, 29 July 2011 04:46 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvhFsCpfrWw
XD
― № (am0n), Friday, 29 July 2011 04:58 (twelve years ago) link
: )
absolutely love cassavetes despite all the "flaws"
― buzza, Friday, 29 July 2011 07:43 (twelve years ago) link
!!!!!!
― *tera, Friday, 29 July 2011 15:02 (twelve years ago) link
??????
― № (am0n), Friday, 29 July 2011 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
I'm done--I won't have John Cassavetes to kick around anymore. No problem about your post, Jacob. I'm lucky I get to see so much where I am.
I held off posting till I saw my final two films: Minnie and Moskowitz, and today Opening Night. The first was tough. Rowlands was good, but it felt like two hours of Seymour Cassell yelling. He was a beacon of normalcy in the other films, so that was a surprise. I thought Opening Night was pretty good up till opening night--somewhat farfetched (wouldn't they have fired Rowlands fairly quickly?), but interesting and low-key like Chinese Bookie. And then it was nuts.
In the end, I'm going to think of him like Captain Beefheart. CB's music is not for me, but I'm aware of how much he influenced Wire and Sonic Youth and lots of stuff I do love. Ditto Cassavetes--his influence looking ahead was all over these films. Even in Opening Night, in the frenzy as they left the theatre early in the film, there was an shot--the girl placing her hands on the car window--that Scorsese copied exactly in King of Comedy.
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 July 2011 05:06 (twelve years ago) link
but it felt like two hours of Seymour Cassell yelling.
haha i watched faces last night and i half liked it and half found it tortuous cuz it was 2 hrs of drunk ppl cackling @ stupid shit
― (am0n), Saturday, 30 July 2011 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
shadows is great
― (am0n), Monday, 1 August 2011 15:17 (twelve years ago) link
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2714/4220045140_817548d6a0_o.jpg
― (am0n), Monday, 1 August 2011 15:34 (twelve years ago) link
Mikey and Nicky? (Cassavetes looks older than in Husbands.) I liked Shadows, and liked seeing Ben Carruthers turn up in The Dirty Dozen.
― clemenza, Monday, 1 August 2011 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
Just got done w/the "Johnny Staccato" complete series box--goddamn what a tv show! Kind of amazed it got made in '59-'60. Heavy noir influence, with a great feel for genre outer limits.
― Mike Love Costume Jewelry on Etsy (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:55 (twelve years ago) link
Brooklyn retro of the acting and directing:
http://www.bam.org/film/2013/cassavetes
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 6 July 2013 15:42 (ten years ago) link
saw the 108-minute cut of ...Chinese Bookie. Admired about a quarter of it. Cassavetes and I don't mix -- and I've tried.
― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 6 July 2013 17:04 (ten years ago) link
try the Elaine May version!
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 6 July 2013 17:41 (ten years ago) link
Elaine May version?
― The Butthurt Locker (cryptosicko), Saturday, 6 July 2013 20:14 (ten years ago) link
i love that cassavetes' favorite director was frank capra.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 6 July 2013 20:15 (ten years ago) link
Big Trouble playing this weekend in NYC. I'll finally cover the Falk-Arkin diptych.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 May 2014 14:24 (ten years ago) link
Just read the Ray Carney BFI monograph on Shadows, after watching the movie for the first time. Carney confirms what Tracer Hand said way upthread and a lifetime ago, that the second, longer version (the one that's in circulation today) was almost entirely scripted, although the film did initially have its roots in an improvisation.
I like the fact that Cassavetes would constantly rework his movies, so that a number of them - Shadows, Chinese Bookie, Husbands - exist (or existed) in markedly different versions, because the films themselves often give off the sense that they're as much about process and play as they are about arriving at any kind of fixed, permanent statement or narrative. Flux cinema.
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 1 May 2014 15:21 (ten years ago) link
Big Trouble might be the worst movie I've ever seen by a director I otherwise love.
― Funk autocorrect (cryptosicko), Thursday, 1 May 2014 16:34 (ten years ago) link
well even ppl who like it agree it's only partly "his"
http://www.avclub.com/article/my-year-of-flops-case-file-37-ibig-troublei-14928
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 May 2014 18:35 (ten years ago) link
Yale-pajamas!
― Ludo, Thursday, 1 May 2014 19:31 (ten years ago) link
last half hour of Big Trouble in partic is an unholy mess, but early peaks of Arkin's "sardine liqueur" take and Falk "heart attack" in drug store are LOL.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 May 2014 14:56 (ten years ago) link
"Shadows" June 15th at Nat. gallery of Art in DC
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 3 June 2014 16:31 (nine years ago) link
Finally saw Love Streams.
I've undoubtedly had my expectations inflated by the years of the film's inaccessibility and its status as the last real Cassavetes film, going into this unable to accept anything less than an flat-out masterpiece. The shift towards surrealism in the final act were startling, to say the least, but I'm not sure how successful they are--Rowlands's joke-shop pranks on her family are every bit as hilarious/sad/unhinged as her on-stage breakdown from Opening Night, but the ballet sequence feels like a bit of an overreach, and the dog/man bit towards the very end (an in-joke stemming from the director's staging of the source play, the Criterion essay informs) is a bit of Bunelian whimsy that doesn't quite work. Other attempts at symbolism are outright ham fisted--Rowlands literally travelling around with too much baggage feels like a rookie's touch, not a veteran's. I also thought Cassavetes offering his eight-year-old son a beer put too fine a point on the scuzziness of the character; his later abandonment of the child in a Vegas hotel room felt more like something the character would do (negligence, rather than willful corruption).
There's still a lot that's great here, though: I think Rowlands was supported by stronger scripts in both A Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night, but no one ever offered her better roles than her husband (Minnie and Moskowitz needs to become available next), and any moment she's on screen here is captivating. The minor character of the lounge singer's mother was a nice touch; I don't know that Cassavetes's work was intended as a diagnosis own generation as broken and rudderless, but the occasional inability of his characters to comprehend the ambitions and responsibilities of of the younger generation emerges as a subtle thread (see also, Faces). The presence of children in the film--one unwanted by his parent, another rejecting the emotional neediness of hers--probably alludes to enough of a backstory for the two main characters that we don't need the script to fill in the details of how they got to where they are.
OK, I'm liking the film better already...
― MaudAddam (cryptosicko), Saturday, 3 January 2015 23:35 (nine years ago) link
Minnie and Moskowitz is available as a Region 2 DVD:
http://www.mrbongo.com/products/minnie-moskowitz-1971
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Monday, 5 January 2015 07:26 (nine years ago) link
nice review, crypto. I watched the Criterion edition. The continuity in places is still baffling, and in eight places out of ten Cassavetes will put the camera in the wrong spot.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 11 January 2015 00:00 (nine years ago) link
Thanks!
The film has been lingering in my mind quite a bit since I watched it last week, my initial objections feeling less and less relevant.
― MaudAddam (cryptosicko), Sunday, 11 January 2015 00:10 (nine years ago) link
I'm still thinking about it
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 11 January 2015 00:18 (nine years ago) link
Those kids in Love Streams are pretty terrible actors.
Late JC just makes me think of that story of Bette Davis stomping out of a Broadway rehearsal of Night of the Iguana, screaming "I'm sick of this Method SHIT!"
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 October 2015 01:02 (eight years ago) link
what is the point of that ballet/opera dream sequence, when the camera is miles away from anything interesting?
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 October 2015 01:04 (eight years ago) link
I was unsurprised to learn that JC threw out the last third of the play script... a shame he didn't replace it with anything, perhaps.
(Diahnne Abbott looking lovely in the CC supplementary interview btw)
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 October 2015 18:25 (eight years ago) link
Lots of LS is pretty terrible.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 5 October 2015 18:46 (eight years ago) link
love streams is really hard to get through, but im glad he made it. godbless cannon films.
― chaki (kurt schwitterz), Monday, 5 October 2015 18:53 (eight years ago) link
the kid slamming his head against the door til it bleeds!
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 October 2015 18:57 (eight years ago) link
i think minnie and moskowitz is a really special, magical film. wish it was held in better regard. also his son stole a lot of it for the notebook!
― chaki (kurt schwitterz), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 00:11 (eight years ago) link
Trying to to reconcile the first and last halves of that post.
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 00:17 (eight years ago) link
he stole it from a notebook -- presto!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 00:22 (eight years ago) link
ok i was being hyperbolic when i said he "stole" a lot of it, but in a way the notebook can be looked at as the story of john and gena and so can m & m.
― chaki (kurt schwitterz), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 00:28 (eight years ago) link
Saw Gloria for the first time, beautiful 35mm print (intro'd by the guy who wrote that City on Fire novel). Great Rowlands, and goofy genre wears better than the late-era endless improv stuff of Love Streams et al.
Lots of NYC street scene madeleines from the summer of '79, oh man.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, 11 December 2015 05:29 (eight years ago) link
Garth Risk Hallberg suggested after the screening that Gena's squalling 6-year-old co-star could've been an inspiration for the dancing dwarf of Twin Peaks.
http://www.filmlinc.org/page/-/uploads/comment/archives2010/marapr/gloria.png
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, 11 December 2015 15:08 (eight years ago) link
i do not enjoy gloria.
― kurt schwitterz, Friday, 11 December 2015 16:32 (eight years ago) link
Haven't seen this one either. Figure its gotta be better than Big Trouble, though.
― Fetty Wap Is Strong In Here (cryptosicko), Friday, 11 December 2015 18:35 (eight years ago) link
just saw The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and when I was walking out of the theater I heard some guy say "it was great...I gave up on following the plot, though."
...
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 13 June 2017 02:08 (six years ago) link
entirely fair assessment
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 13 June 2017 02:23 (six years ago) link
sorry, he said "i gave up on trying to follow the plot." dude it's the title of the movie
it was the 108 minute cut... i'd like to see the longer one, what are the differences besides the strip club routines?
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 13 June 2017 02:41 (six years ago) link
i don't know bcz i think i've only seen the extended (original) one.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 13 June 2017 02:50 (six years ago) link
Andrew Bujalski seems surrealism in Opening Night
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5876-john-cassavetes-underrated-surrealist
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 August 2018 19:16 (five years ago) link
i watched "minnie & moskowitz" having never seen another cassevetes(-directed) movie before. i think i enjoyed it but also had one of those "the past is a foreign country" things that i sometimes have with '70s independent movies where not only are the decor and fashion and street scenes so different from how things are now, the people don't behave or talk like any person i've ever met. from what i know about cassavetes movies, the constant yelling and anger and fucked-up relationships seem to be more about him than about actual human behavior, i'm guessing? anyways, the acting was all good, i loved the bit with timothy carey accosting cassel in the diner near the beginning and the monologue by the loser who takes gena on the lunch date, and the scene near the end with the two moms was funny.
― na (NA), Wednesday, 12 May 2021 20:00 (three years ago) link