A great showcase for Neapolitan Pizza representation in cinema.
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The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg 1910
Discussed with pioneering film scholar Jane Gaines, creator of the Women Pioneers Film Project, on the latest episode of the podcast.
You can watch the EYE's restoration of the film here, though it features Dutch subtitles.
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Old Boyfriends 1979
Desperately in need of restoration! This is a film directed by the writer of Nashville, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Talia Shire, Keith Carradine, and John Belushi in his prime! Discussed on the podcast with Maya Montañez Smukler, who explores this film and others in her great book Liberating Hollywood, about the 16 women directors of New Hollywood. The print we saw was red-tinted in every moment, but you could see what an oddball of the era this was, and one that was thrilling to watch.
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Happy Death Day 2U 2019
A lot of promise in the first 20 or so minutes, kind of like pulling back the onion on the original in an interesting way that's acts as a bizarre but worthwhile retcon. The first reveal of the killer offers up so much in terms of the film offering to go full Duck Amuck (or more precisely, Futurama's "The Farnsworth Parabox") but then it ends up just wasting it all away, using it as an excuse to put our protagonist…
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Dodsworth 1936
Just a really good case for evaluating "realism" in Classical Hollywood Cinema. The narrative doesn't really motivate between scenes as much as drop in with seemingly abrupt slices displaying the dynamic between Huston and Chatterton. We never get to see the romance with Astor develop; by the time we return, the film shows Huston building a motor and then the dialogue fills in the details without ever screaming exposition. The amount of brutal and honest literal screaming Huston and Chatterton…
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Downsizing 2017
Discussed with Keith Uhlich for our Top Films of 2018 Countdown. This was my "Last!" pick in response to everyone who likes to go to film festivals and get the First!! take on a movie. I decided to do the opposite.
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Harper 1966
Honestly would teach an entire class using this movie's frankly embarrassing direction in a film school. There's actually a really interesting history here of studio-produced movies and what Hollywood has always coined as "excessive obviousness." But where that acted as a value in the Classical Hollywood era of 70-minute fillers where it helped to modulate an economy of narrative, this is a 2 hour slog where obviousness is now meant to be some sort of marker of "style."
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Welcome to Marwen 2018
"What I did learn though doing digital cinema is that when all the actors have gone away, and you now have unlimited choices, how do you make a decision? In live action, there are certain walls you can’t tear down. There are certain realities...You have very real world limitations, whereas in digital you don’t have any. So that very much dictates the cinema for you. I could do anything I wanted.
And you know what? [I decided] I’m just going…
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Sink or Swim 1990
Discussed with expert experimental film thinker and all around good person Michael Sicinski on the podcast. As I discussed, I started this thinking it was a great playful work alongside my favorite Hollis Frampton, and instead ended the film devastated and in tears. Just a major accomplishment.
You can watch this and many other Friedrich films via Kanopy.
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