![Screening Log: 2 July 2012
1. Vito (2011, Jeffrey Schwarz) My second doc on AIDS (in part) in as many days. Fest capsule forthcoming. [screener]
2. Savages (2012, Oliver Stone) I don’t know, guys, I had a (mostly) good time. Benicio will be receiving some Skandies points, likely. [advance screening]
3. Elliot Loves (2012, Terracino) Fest capsule forthcoming. [screener]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6liou4tGF1qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
[video]
Screening Log: 2 July 2012
1. Vito (2011, Jeffrey Schwarz) My second doc on AIDS (in part) in as many days. Fest capsule forthcoming. [screener]
2. Savages (2012, Oliver Stone) I don’t know, guys, I had a (mostly) good time. Benicio will be receiving some Skandies points, likely. [advance screening]
3. Elliot Loves (2012, Terracino) Fest capsule forthcoming. [screener]
[video]
![Screening Log: 28 June 2012
1. To Rome With Love (2012, Woody Allen) Review forthcoming. It’s fine. [critics screening]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6e4umbZMv1qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 28 June 2012
1. To Rome With Love (2012, Woody Allen) Review forthcoming. It’s fine. [critics screening]
![Screening Log: 25 & 26 June 2012
1. Magic Mike (2012, Peter Andrews) Review here. [advance screening]
2. The [redacted] [redacted]-[redacted] (2012, [redacted]) Not sure if I can talk about it or not, but on the Retarded 100-point Mike D’Angelo scale, this would be like a 41. Probably lower, now that I’ve had time to dwell upon it and dislike it more. [critics screening]
3. Take This Waltz (2012, Sarah Polley) Resisted this at first, but wound up quite liking it. Then again, I’m going through some shit. Review forthcoming. [advance screening]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6adc8mYN31qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 25 & 26 June 2012
1. Magic Mike (2012, Peter Andrews) Review here. [advance screening]
2. The [redacted] [redacted]-[redacted] (2012, [redacted]) Not sure if I can talk about it or not, but on the Retarded 100-point Mike D’Angelo scale, this would be like a 41. Probably lower, now that I’ve had time to dwell upon it and dislike it more. [critics screening]
3. Take This Waltz (2012, Sarah Polley) Resisted this at first, but wound up quite liking it. Then again, I’m going through some shit. Review forthcoming. [advance screening]
![Screening Log: Weekend of 22 June 2012
1. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012, Timur Bekmambetov) Review forthcoming, but short version: meh. Needs more thrown horses. [theatrical screening]
2. John Carter (2012, Andrew Stanton) As expected, deserves neither its miserable (American, anyway) fate nor some misunderstood-masterpiece reevaluation. The plot’s too much of a jumble, which is a shame as it starts off with the suggestion that it will be a clean, streamlined iconic narrative. Also, Carter, despite some effort by Taylor Kitsch, is not much more than an anonymous bohunk. I’m assuming the books’ appeal is the crazy fantasizing re: Mars, not the hero. Still, I have a big soft spot for these kinds of dorky, pretty looking monstrosities, and there’s enough fun set pieces — plus some amusing writing — for this to get a passing grade. [DVD]
3. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949, John Ford) Still catching up on Ford, who I basically ignored during most of my formative cinephilic literacy jag; this is only my 11th Ford. (Or 10th-and-a-fraction, since one of those is Mister Roberts, co-directed with Mervyn LeRoy.) Thinking I was smart to wait: I “get” these more now that I’m older and can more comfortably jibe with his modest — but very tricky — schtick. Here, he takes a very light story (set in the wake of Custer’s Last Stand, to extra-emphasize its relative insignificance) and infuses it with his effortless smooth blend of varied emotions. Like My Darling Clementine, its feelings are all over the map, but it’s even more of a hang-out movie. It’s generically similar to some of Howard Hawks’ westerns but in a way that’s purely Ford. Also, I’d be shocked if there’s a more laid-back and charming John Wayne performance out there, or maybe even a better one: he’s able to suggest his character’s fear of looming obsolescence without breaking a sweat. Also also, that bar fight scene with Victor McLaglen might be even better than the climactic tussle in The Quiet Man. The scene veers back and forth between joshing and punching, back and forth, back and forth, over and over, for several hugely lovable minutes. [DVD]
4. Bits of /Flash Gordon/ (1980, Mike Hodges) See: John Carter, above, although this is way nuttier. And having recently plowed through the first FG serial (from 1936), this isn’t that different. It’s obviously much more expensive, but the film still looks wonderfully artificial. [DVD]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m66f22434Y1qzoio3o1_500.png)
Screening Log: Weekend of 22 June 2012
1. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012, Timur Bekmambetov) Review forthcoming, but short version: meh. Needs more thrown horses. [theatrical screening]
2. John Carter (2012, Andrew Stanton) As expected, deserves neither its miserable (American, anyway) fate nor some misunderstood-masterpiece reevaluation. The plot’s too much of a jumble, which is a shame as it starts off with the suggestion that it will be a clean, streamlined iconic narrative. Also, Carter, despite some effort by Taylor Kitsch, is not much more than an anonymous bohunk. I’m assuming the books’ appeal is the crazy fantasizing re: Mars, not the hero. Still, I have a big soft spot for these kinds of dorky, pretty looking monstrosities, and there’s enough fun set pieces — plus some amusing writing — for this to get a passing grade. [DVD]
3. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949, John Ford) Still catching up on Ford, who I basically ignored during most of my formative cinephilic literacy jag; this is only my 11th Ford. (Or 10th-and-a-fraction, since one of those is Mister Roberts, co-directed with Mervyn LeRoy.) Thinking I was smart to wait: I “get” these more now that I’m older and can more comfortably jibe with his modest — but very tricky — schtick. Here, he takes a very light story (set in the wake of Custer’s Last Stand, to extra-emphasize its relative insignificance) and infuses it with his effortless smooth blend of varied emotions. Like My Darling Clementine, its feelings are all over the map, but it’s even more of a hang-out movie. It’s generically similar to some of Howard Hawks’ westerns but in a way that’s purely Ford. Also, I’d be shocked if there’s a more laid-back and charming John Wayne performance out there, or maybe even a better one: he’s able to suggest his character’s fear of looming obsolescence without breaking a sweat. Also also, that bar fight scene with Victor McLaglen might be even better than the climactic tussle in The Quiet Man. The scene veers back and forth between joshing and punching, back and forth, back and forth, over and over, for several hugely lovable minutes. [DVD]
4. Bits of /Flash Gordon/ (1980, Mike Hodges) See: John Carter, above, although this is way nuttier. And having recently plowed through the first FG serial (from 1936), this isn’t that different. It’s obviously much more expensive, but the film still looks wonderfully artificial. [DVD]
![Screening Log: 19-21 June 2012
1. /My Darling Clementine/ (1946, John Ford) [DVD]
2. My Darling Clementine [pre-release version] (1946, John Ford) [DVD]
3. Shortish doc on the differences between My Darling Clementine and the pre-release version, which is a bit closer to the original John Ford version, which ran 30-some minutes longer than the theatrical. The narrator points out, however, that while Darryl Zanuck manhandled this thing — arranging for music to put in where before there was none, hiring Lloyd Bacon to do the odd reshoot — that doesn’t necessarily mean that his moves were criminal. The pace could have dragged at 2 hours-plus — particularly for a film that, in its official form, is already wonderfully leisurely — while the film, as we know it, is still an imperfect masterpiece. In fact, it may be my favorite Ford, as it was when I first saw it ages ago. It has a rainbow of emotions, able to be miserable as well as joyful, and everything in between, all while feeling of a piece. Also, Walter Brennan: best villain ever? We only first realize how evil he is when he enters the scene where Fonda stops his boys from harming the drunken actor. He whips his boys, we assume (or I did) out of anger for causing a rucous. Then he says something to the effect (I’m paraphrasing) “When you aim a gun at a man, you kill him.” That said, Ford & co. afford him a moment — just a moment — of real humanity when, at the end (and SPOILER (I guess)), he weeps openly that all his sons have been waylaid by the Earps and Doc Holliday. Additionally, has anyone glared quite like Grant Withers, above? [DVD]
4. Night of the Demon (1957, Jacques Tourneur) [DVD]
5. They Were Expendable (1945, John Ford) [DVD]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m60z8mJo671qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 19-21 June 2012
1. /My Darling Clementine/ (1946, John Ford) [DVD]
2. My Darling Clementine [pre-release version] (1946, John Ford) [DVD]
3. Shortish doc on the differences between My Darling Clementine and the pre-release version, which is a bit closer to the original John Ford version, which ran 30-some minutes longer than the theatrical. The narrator points out, however, that while Darryl Zanuck manhandled this thing — arranging for music to put in where before there was none, hiring Lloyd Bacon to do the odd reshoot — that doesn’t necessarily mean that his moves were criminal. The pace could have dragged at 2 hours-plus — particularly for a film that, in its official form, is already wonderfully leisurely — while the film, as we know it, is still an imperfect masterpiece. In fact, it may be my favorite Ford, as it was when I first saw it ages ago. It has a rainbow of emotions, able to be miserable as well as joyful, and everything in between, all while feeling of a piece. Also, Walter Brennan: best villain ever? We only first realize how evil he is when he enters the scene where Fonda stops his boys from harming the drunken actor. He whips his boys, we assume (or I did) out of anger for causing a rucous. Then he says something to the effect (I’m paraphrasing) “When you aim a gun at a man, you kill him.” That said, Ford & co. afford him a moment — just a moment — of real humanity when, at the end (and SPOILER (I guess)), he weeps openly that all his sons have been waylaid by the Earps and Doc Holliday. Additionally, has anyone glared quite like Grant Withers, above? [DVD]
4. Night of the Demon (1957, Jacques Tourneur) [DVD]
5. They Were Expendable (1945, John Ford) [DVD]
![Screening Log: 15-18 June 2012
1. /Workingman’s Death/ (2005, Michael Glawogger) Saw this in prep for a piece on Glawogger’s Whores’ Glory. Still awesome. [DVD]
2. /Dune/ (1984, David Lynch) I’ve always longed to watch this as intended: with a mixed crowd expecting some exciting, fun, involving populist sci-fi. Becuase that’s what it was supposed to be: the next Star Wars, the next big space opera franchise. (Lynch turned down Return of the Jedi to helm this, although no doubt he would have been about 95% tied to George Lucas’ vision and probably not allowed to turn Jabba the Hut into, say, a brain-fish-thing with a vaginal mouth that secretes gas in graphic close-up (see above — this image played mall theaters, to teenage boys on dates)). Surprise surprise: almost everyone in my home viewing crowd of about twelve hated it. Moreover, almost no one could even follow the plot, despite the dialogue being 100% overly-expository. I get it: the theatrical cut of Dune — which is the only one with Lynch’s semi-approval; the “extended version” found on most discs is billed as “A Alan Smithee Film [sic]” — manages the feat of being too short and lugubrious. So much has been taken out to make sure Frank Herbert’s absurdly dense 500-page novel runs no longer than 140 minutes that characters disappear without resolution (e.g., funky-eyebrowed mentat Thufir Hawat), as do entire subplots. The rest seems like it was compacted with a garbage truck. The worst compressing trick is putting characters’ purely expository present-tense thoughts onto the narration as whispers. Is there even a single other film that’s used this trick? It’s awful, made all the worse with the “thinking faces” the actors put on. (Some dumb highlights: Jessica letting us know in an early scene “Tonight I might lose my son”; Max Von Sydow musing about Leto “I like this Duke.”) This wasn’t Lynch’s idea, apparently, although it’s such a whackadoo concept, one that no one would dream up, that I always assumed it was. THAT SAID, and I can’t totally defend this position, but I retain a huge soft spot for it, chiefly for its consistently batshit imagery. “[P]roducer Dino De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel’s L’Age d’Or,” Dave Kehr said of the film, and he’s right: the plot is so complicated that you’re best off just staring — staring at the aforementioned brain-fish, at the various gross-out gags in the hangin’-with-the-Harkonens scene, at the ham-off olympics between Kenneth McMillian, Silvana Mangano and Brad Douriff. It’s stiff and, for the uninitiated, incomprehensible, but, in visuals and in its unique interpretation of a major filmic catastrofuck, there’s nothing else quite like it. Again, this played in malls, to kids jonesing for the next Star Wars. It had a line of action figures. I’d pay a sizable chunk of cash to watch their disappointed and freaked-out faces. [DVD]
3. /Apocalypse Now/ (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) It had been awhile and I had just plowed through two Walter Murch books: In the Blink of an Eye, his slender tome on editing, and The Conversations, his incredible interview book with The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje. (Murch edited TEP: The Movie, as well as AN.) Anyway, although I was already in this group, lump me in with those who recognize this as a masterful tone poem, and don’t get hung up on the things that bug detractors about it. In any case, those are, in most cases, things that the film isn’t interested in being anyway (e.g., a political film specifically about Vietnam, beyond the notion of it as a drug-induced Ugly American Spring Break trip gone out of control; a character study about a well-drawn protagonist; a thriller that builds to a thrilling third act). I think, for what it is, it’s basically perfect. [Netflix Instant]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5vmjlOdNb1qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 15-18 June 2012
1. /Workingman’s Death/ (2005, Michael Glawogger) Saw this in prep for a piece on Glawogger’s Whores’ Glory. Still awesome. [DVD]
2. /Dune/ (1984, David Lynch) I’ve always longed to watch this as intended: with a mixed crowd expecting some exciting, fun, involving populist sci-fi. Becuase that’s what it was supposed to be: the next Star Wars, the next big space opera franchise. (Lynch turned down Return of the Jedi to helm this, although no doubt he would have been about 95% tied to George Lucas’ vision and probably not allowed to turn Jabba the Hut into, say, a brain-fish-thing with a vaginal mouth that secretes gas in graphic close-up (see above — this image played mall theaters, to teenage boys on dates)). Surprise surprise: almost everyone in my home viewing crowd of about twelve hated it. Moreover, almost no one could even follow the plot, despite the dialogue being 100% overly-expository. I get it: the theatrical cut of Dune — which is the only one with Lynch’s semi-approval; the “extended version” found on most discs is billed as “A Alan Smithee Film [sic]” — manages the feat of being too short and lugubrious. So much has been taken out to make sure Frank Herbert’s absurdly dense 500-page novel runs no longer than 140 minutes that characters disappear without resolution (e.g., funky-eyebrowed mentat Thufir Hawat), as do entire subplots. The rest seems like it was compacted with a garbage truck. The worst compressing trick is putting characters’ purely expository present-tense thoughts onto the narration as whispers. Is there even a single other film that’s used this trick? It’s awful, made all the worse with the “thinking faces” the actors put on. (Some dumb highlights: Jessica letting us know in an early scene “Tonight I might lose my son”; Max Von Sydow musing about Leto “I like this Duke.”) This wasn’t Lynch’s idea, apparently, although it’s such a whackadoo concept, one that no one would dream up, that I always assumed it was. THAT SAID, and I can’t totally defend this position, but I retain a huge soft spot for it, chiefly for its consistently batshit imagery. “[P]roducer Dino De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel’s L’Age d’Or,” Dave Kehr said of the film, and he’s right: the plot is so complicated that you’re best off just staring — staring at the aforementioned brain-fish, at the various gross-out gags in the hangin’-with-the-Harkonens scene, at the ham-off olympics between Kenneth McMillian, Silvana Mangano and Brad Douriff. It’s stiff and, for the uninitiated, incomprehensible, but, in visuals and in its unique interpretation of a major filmic catastrofuck, there’s nothing else quite like it. Again, this played in malls, to kids jonesing for the next Star Wars. It had a line of action figures. I’d pay a sizable chunk of cash to watch their disappointed and freaked-out faces. [DVD]
3. /Apocalypse Now/ (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) It had been awhile and I had just plowed through two Walter Murch books: In the Blink of an Eye, his slender tome on editing, and The Conversations, his incredible interview book with The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje. (Murch edited TEP: The Movie, as well as AN.) Anyway, although I was already in this group, lump me in with those who recognize this as a masterful tone poem, and don’t get hung up on the things that bug detractors about it. In any case, those are, in most cases, things that the film isn’t interested in being anyway (e.g., a political film specifically about Vietnam, beyond the notion of it as a drug-induced Ugly American Spring Break trip gone out of control; a character study about a well-drawn protagonist; a thriller that builds to a thrilling third act). I think, for what it is, it’s basically perfect. [Netflix Instant]
[video]
![Screening Log: 12 & 13 June 2012
1. Things I Don’t Understand (2011, David Spaltro) Writing about this, if briefly, for a piece on a local film festival. So, words forthcoming. [screener]
2. Lola Versus (2012, Daryl Wein) Didn’t hate this quite as passionately as some, but, you know, no. Review forthcoming. [advance screening]
3. A.L.F. (2012, Jérôme Lescure) See #1. [screener]
4. Inside the Perfecet Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome (2011, Chris Pepino) See #1, too. [screener]
5. The eighth episode of Veep, which is also (sadly) the season finale.
6. Whores’ Glory (2011, Michael Glawogger) Review forthcoming. [screener]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5m6bh7W0s1qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 12 & 13 June 2012
1. Things I Don’t Understand (2011, David Spaltro) Writing about this, if briefly, for a piece on a local film festival. So, words forthcoming. [screener]
2. Lola Versus (2012, Daryl Wein) Didn’t hate this quite as passionately as some, but, you know, no. Review forthcoming. [advance screening]
3. A.L.F. (2012, Jérôme Lescure) See #1. [screener]
4. Inside the Perfecet Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome (2011, Chris Pepino) See #1, too. [screener]
5. The eighth episode of Veep, which is also (sadly) the season finale.
6. Whores’ Glory (2011, Michael Glawogger) Review forthcoming. [screener]