SCREENING LOG - 4/17/2006-4/23/2006

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Damaged goods

Bertolucci's THE DREAMERS is supposed to be his love letter to cinema, though it plays more like Penthouse Letters. Even in a moment like this he can't get it right -- anyone who's looked at the face of the person next to them during a screening knows that the face should be bathed in heavenly blue, glimmering tremulously like an apparition.

Blind Chance (1987, Krzystof Kieslowski)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084549/
TSPDT #841
With Kieslowski is it's hard for me to reconcile the genuine human elements with the schematic setups - I'm jerked between watching real life unfold and feeling like I'm reading a clinical dissertation on morality and fate. As always, great acting is a saving grace. The ending strikes me as totally cheap and unearned.
yes (#7 for 1987 between WINGS OF DESIRE and THE UNTOUCHABLES)

Thank you NYVG for
Bolivia (2001, Adrian Caetano)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301050/
yes

The Misfits (1961, John Huston)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055184/
TSPDT #842
Probably like it mostly for the three leads and all the biographical baggage associated with their appearance in this movie. But honestly I haven't cared more for Marilyn Monroe than I have watching her here. Huston's directing did little for me; Miller's script even less so.
yes (#10 for 1961 between WEST SIDE STORY and THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY)

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Sam Peckinpah)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071249/
TSPDT #843, Rosenbaum #570
Decidedly my favorite among the 4 Peckinpah films I've seen -- the trademark sexism has an equanimity and sensitivity that missing in shit like STRAW DOGS, making his psychosis more compelling than it probably deserves to be.
YES (#3 for 1974 between CHINATOWN and LANCELOT DU LAC)

Out I: Spectre (1972, Jacques Rivette)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066192/
TSPDT #844, Rosenbaum #571
YES YES for the first hour (arguably the most bracing panoply of collective and individual creative activity I've seen), YES for the second hour, yes for the third hour, mixed for the last hour, for an overall rating of yes

The Dreamers (2003, Bernardo Bertolucci)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309987/
mixed

La Cheinne (1931, Jean Renoir)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021739/
TSPDT #845, Rosenbaum #572
I wonder if any filmmaker at any time had as much social clairvoyance as Renoir in the 30s.
YES (#6 for 1931 between FRANKENSTEIN and TOKYO CHORUS)

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