Sometimes Just Pretzels and Beer

An obnoxious corneal syndrome has limited my computer use, but I will be back shortly... stay tuned.

The Whipped Cream June 2009

Top 5 of the Month

Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People

Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes

Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror

Otto Preminger's Porgy and Bess

Hou Hsiao-hsien's A Summer at Grandpa's

ALL FIRST-TIME SCREENINGS
24 Hour Party People (2002, Michael Winterbottom)
500 Days of Summer (2009, Marc Webb)
Alice or the Last Escapade (1977, Claude Chabrol)
The Anderson Tapes (1971, Sidney Lumet)
Away We Go (2009, Sam Mendes)
Bigger Than Life (1956, Nicholas Ray)
The Blue Gardenia (1953, Fritz Lang)
Casa de Lava (1994, Pedro Costa)
Clash by Night (1952, Fritz Lang)
College Life (2009, Various)
Departures (2008, Yojiro Takita)
Directed by John Ford (2006, Peter Bogdanovich)
Frontier of Dawn (2008, Philippe Garrel)
The Hangover (2009, Todd Phillips)
The Hit (1984, Stephen Frears)
Human Desire (1954, Fritz Lang)
The Human Factor (1979, Otto Preminger)
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!: Season 2 (2009, Ingmar Bergman)
Mickey One (1965, Arthur Penn)
Mirror (1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Next (2007, Lee Tamahori)
Night Moves (1975, Arthur Penn)
The Ninth Gate (1999, Roman Polanski)
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009, Steve Carr)
Porgy and Bess (1959, Otto Preminger)
Sex and the City (2008, Michael Patrick King)
A Song is Born (1948, Howard Hawks)
A Summer at Grandpa's (1984, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009, Tony Scott)
Up (2009, Pete Docter)
Year One (2009, Harold Ramis)

Cover Art: Warner's De Palma and Preminger

As promised:

Both Get to Know Your Rabbit and The Moon is Blue are available to pre-order from the Warner Archive today.

Warner and Preminger

Along with Brian De Palma's Get to Know Your Rabbit, the Warner Archive will also be unveiling Otto Preminger's rare The Moon is Blue. Details forthcoming.

Please think about this for a second...

Calls for Google to change their logo to the following image have begun (courtesy of the Chodey McChodester):

Seriously, the blood? The dove? (Is it John Woo's birthday or something?) This is an actual petition. The opposition movement and its supporters actually want their cause to associate itself among the likes of Google's playfully animated holiday logos such as Halloween or Valentine's Day. Do the Google animators really mean that much to people? What's next, Starbucks starts brewing a Green Roast?

But let's assume that it does carry a weight of meaning, and that Google accepts Mousavi's plea. The first time Google endorses an international political candidate would make Mousavi, hands down, the greatest politician in the world.

Warner Archive to Conjure De Palma

Get to know Get to Know Your Rabbit later this summer.

Happy Birthday, Gena Rowlands!

Here's Jacques Rivette circa 1982. Total badass.

In 2006 my sister cooked the following for me when I moved back to the East Coast and took the bus up to NYC for my birthday.

That summer I was still immersing myself with the films of Eric Rohmer and Michael Haneke, I had yet to discover Jacques Rivette, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsiao-hsien, or Jose-Luis Guerin, and I was the mutha fucking champion over at Aaron Hillis's Cinephiliac (and while we're at it, that blog was still alive). Now, three years later, I fine myself moving back to the midwest.

Sullivan Award Nominee

As Mousavi supporters protest last weekend's election results, easily the smuggest, most sanctimonious tool on the internet (and yes, one of my co-workers) does not disappoint.

Remember Wayne Gale, anyone?

Death of MSM? Hopefully not.

Yes, Bogdanovich Ruined Directed by John Ford

Having only seen the 2006 re-edit of Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 documentary Directed by John Ford, I could only see a hint of what the old footage might have looked like: Orson Welles's playful narrations over footage of Ford's memorabilia, Bogdanovich interviewing John Wayne or Henry Fonda as they attempt to explain who John Ford was to them, Bogdanovich interviewing John Ford in the same desert that stood as the set for many of his films.

The original Directed by John Ford was a mystery. Just as we once wanted to know "Who is Rosebud?" Peter Bogdanovich asks "Who is John Ford?", a point emphasized by Bogdanovich's presence during his interviews (maybe a deliberate mise en scene homage to the Welles).

But you can only see traces of the 1971 film within the 2006 re-edit. The mystery and playfulness is gone, even if the original footage remains. What was the murder weapon? Shallow interviews with Walter Hill, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and yes Peter Bogdanovich, who all offer nothing but bumper stickers, exaggerations, and shallow anecdotes. The mystique of the 1971 film is gone.

I love Peter Bogdanovich, but this event warrants another point for the Polly Platt auteur argument.

Hou Hsiao-hsien in DC!

Attention DC Cinephiles:

On Friday, June 26th The Freer Gallery will host a free screening of Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1984 film, A Summer at Grandpa's. The 7 pm screening is part of Le Festival des 3 Continents, which purportedly was the very first American festival to endorse Hou's work many years ago -- for what it's worth.

"There is no Dana..."

Easily in their top five.

Shtick and Aww

Up is a fierce rock in my shoe. On one hand I hated every shameless piece of manipulation Pete Docter (Pixar's new 'it' auteur) threw at me, from the fat kid without friends, to the five minute death montage that rivals the artificial sentimentality of late Puccini. (If the lights weren't so dim in the theater, I'm sure we could all make out Docter's the doctor's hammer at work testing the reflexes on our knees, and now, our tear ducts.) But on the other hand, I can't dismiss it as easily as I toss away the recent works from Fox Searchlight. Maybe the playful score that's reminiscent of Georges Delerue's Jules et Jim or Nino Rota's La Strada or the script's nonstop absurdity is to blame for this ambivalence that did not exist with Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine.

Is anyone else having issues with Pixar's Up?

Betty Blue Back in Theaters

Say it! L'amour fou!

Cinema Libre is sending Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue (aka 37.2 Degrees in the Morning or 37°2 le matin) back into theaters to help advertise its upcoming DVD release next year. The 185-minute cut is not to be missed, as it's maybe the only Beineix film I was able to sit through without groaning once.

Though for those who are bigger Beineix fans than moi, Cinema Libre will eventually release his entire catalog onto DVD, save for the already available Diva.

Question of the Day

What will happen first: Al Franken becomes the next Senator from Minnesota, or The Weinstein Company goes under?

Sony's Fuller Box, Full Specs

According to Movies Unlimited, the following Fuller penned/helmed films will be included inside the upcoming Sam Fuller box set from Sony:

It Happened in Hollywood (1937)
Adventure in Sahara (1938)
Power of the Press (1943)
Shockproof (1949; directed by Douglas Sirk)
Scandal Sheet (1952)
The Crimson Kimono (1959)
Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

Sing it.