All Purpose NYC ILX Film Snob Thread

we just announced our cinema festival lineup for the summer. do you ever come to the festival?

http://www.bam.org/programs/2015/bamcinemafest

lotsa cool stuff there, i like sean baker a lot & its amazing & delightful theres a uncle kent sequel

cool, i don't really know much about movies but want to go

the opening night party will be at the masonic temple right across the street from my house!

next Monday night at IFC Center, Paul Schrader and that Damn Helen Mirren in attendance for a 35mm screening of The Comfort of Strangers:

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/the-comfort-of-strangers/

that's my birthday! good birthday movie?

if you like sadistic house parties, i think? (haven't seen it, read the book)

Comfort of Strangers didn't seem all that special at the time - the Venetian setting and air of menace couldn't help but bring to mind Don't Look Now, to which it is markedly inferior - but I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually aged quite well. Pinter screenplay, iirc.

interesting. i'm kind of fascinated and want to go. might be a funny way to spend a bday.

last full day of Pather Panchali at FF (scattered screenings through remaining 3 weeks of the Apu series)

think i'm going to see Dior and I at Film Forum tomorrow night instead, followed by dessert and a martini

Nick Pinkerton on the current Anthology series of that writer (?) Philip Yordan (need to hit that Ryan-Ives western):

http://artforum.com/film/id=52176

i liked Dior and I a lot

foreign B&W scope at BAM

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/black-and-white-scope-international-cinema

and a 35mm fest at Anthology, from Borzage to V Gallo

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/44254

http://www.wsj.com/articles/classics-return-to-the-screen-at-celluloid-celebration-1432767565

two months of Technicolor at MoMA

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1583

last day for Gueros at FF

http://filmforum.org/film/gueros-film-page

Thought it was pretty good.

it was!

another key series at MoMA, on the Great Migration... good luck ever seeing these projected again:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1580

and theater 2 fills up quickly!

and the great DP Gabriel Figueroa (Bunuel, Huston, Siegel et al) gets his own retro at FF

http://filmforum.org/series/gabriel-figueroa-series

Yay! 16mm print of Maria Candelaria, though.

i've seen it there before

Print is from MoMA, apparently.

who has seen Victims of Sin, that is the question

and has the FF 2-for-1 admission disappeared?

Didn't notice.

Perf Arts Library, Sat at 2:30:

When sound arrived, the folks at Roach sometimes looked back at their silent output for ideas for new productions. Two fascinating side-by-side examples are films in which both Laurel & Hardy appear in both the originals and the sound remakes! Our line-up includes DUCK SOUP ('27) and ANOTHER FINE MESS ('30), plus CHICKENS COME HOME ('31) and LOVE ‘EM AND WEEP ('27)!

http://www.silentclowns.com/nowshowing.html

New screen name in honor of that Film Forum series

And this upcoming cine negro series:https://www.moma.org/m/calendar/film_series/1589

Hondo in 3D, also a rarities program

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1587

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/new-york-asian-film-festival-2015

!!

taking a quick breeze through city on fire and cold war are both great

NYAFF 2015 Schlump in Attendance

I would really like to see Chasuke's Journey. Yeah, City on Fire is good. Tokyo Tribe is a must see as well, batshit crazy, though I preferred Why Don't You Play In Hell.

city on fire w/ ringo lam q+a tomorrow night, got my tickets, psyched to see a 35mm print as i've only ever seen it on vhs

adam i might be at that!

House Party showing tonight at momi

do any of you have a subscription to the paper version of cahiers du cinema? if so i have a question.

i didn't realize aaron kwok was in town and at both last night and today's screening of port of call :(

i understand city on fire's influence but it's not a great film

'full alert' was full stop great and i hope a blu ray gets released at some point

couldn't make it to full alert, sadly. were you at city on fire? ringo lam sat right in front of me! until he bailed after the shower scene

i think the stuff that city on fire does right (stylish bits, danny lee) outweighs the bad stuff (tonal insanity)

tonal insanity kind of comes w/ that era of HK movies though. do you not like john woo either?

school on fire is even better than city on fire IMO.

speaking of tonal insanity, i just re-watched "8 diagram pole fighter." man, does that film have some mood swings. it's also kind of the ne plus ultra of one kind of kinetic filmmaking. i think i'll watch it again tonight.

i still am waiting for world film culture to catch up w/ HK action cinema. i know it's a big deal and has been for a while, but it still seems very "niche." maybe that's all it'll ever be.

for example on that sight & sound poll from a few years back barely any critics mentioned films by lau kar-leung, cheng cheh, tsui hark, etc. -- even king hu (the wu xia director who everyone likes) didn't really make a strong showing.

couldn't make it to full alert, sadly. were you at city on fire? ringo lam sat right in front of me! until he bailed after the shower scene

i think the stuff that city on fire does right (stylish bits, danny lee) outweighs the bad stuff (tonal insanity)

― adam, Monday, June 29, 2015 5:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Yeah I was 3rd row dead center

am i think the tonal insanity is part of the charm but i also think that may be stockholm syndrome after imprinting very heavily on hard boiled as a kid

tonal shifts are a feature, not a bug! Or at least, yes, you have to "put up with it" if you're interested in a lot of popular cinema. popular indian cinema will make your head spin. when i first encountered the so-called "masala" films from the 80s-90s (which are, self-consciously, even more tonally diverse than your typical 3-hour bollywood extravaganza), i was a little shocked, not to say outraged, by the way the films would seemingly turn on a dime from searing social critique to sadean violence (minus the graphic-ness of some HK films) to insipid romance. not to mention the musical numbers! i still find myself a little unsettled by it, but less so.

i always found it kind of interesting that john woo was the HK filmmaker who had the greatest success in Hollywood. obviously, as a stylist he's extremely accomplished. but the thematics and emotional appeals of his films are far from the most "sophisticated" (putting that in scare quotes b/c by saying this i don't mean to disparage them) in HK. i find that students sometimes laugh at the more over-the-top stuff in "a better tomorrow" and "the killer". woo cannily modulated that for his hollywood films... but not /that/ much. i would have thought that tsui hark would have had more success in hollywood but i guess he was just too much of a manic control freak to work easily within that system. (also, his filmmaking powers were already waning by the time he made it to los angeles.)

Village Voice (Michael Atkinson) assessment of NYAFF today was 'it aint what it used to be'.

MOMI does 'essential' Pappy:

http://www.movingimage.us/films/2015/07/03/detail/the-essential-john-ford/

had a dream that a few more of ford's early westerns at universal were discovered (most are lost). woke up really excited, then grudgingly went back to sleep when i realized it wasn't real.

still, too bad they aren't showing 'straight shooting'. i don't know if it's 'essential,' but it's fantastic.