July Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable.

1. A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes, USA, 1974)

2. Traveling Light (Telaroli, USA, 2010)

3. Silver Lode (Dwan, USA, 1954)

4. The Fury (De Palma, USA, 1978)

5. Edvard Munch (Watkins, Norway, 1974)

6. Tennessee's Partner (Dwan, USA, 1955)

7. If... (Anderson, UK, 1968)

8. The Big Trail (Walsh, USA, 1930)
9. Love Streams (Cassavetes, USA, 1984)

10. Ashes of Time Redux (Wong, Hong Kong, 1994/2008)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Fake It So Real (Greene, USA, 2012), Le Amiche (Antonioni, Italy, 1955), Brigadoon (Minnelli, USA, 1954), Kati With An I (Greene, USA, 2011), Slightly Scarlet (Dwan, USA, 1956), Escape to Burma (Dwan, USA, 1955), Gloria (Cassavetes, USA, 1980), Faces (Cassavetes, USA, 1968), A Child is Waiting (Cassavetes, USA, 1964).

Rewatches: L'Avventura (Antonioni, Italy, 1960), The Player (Altman, USA, 1992), Girl Walk // All Day (Krupnick, USA, 2012), The Straight Story (Lynch, USA, 1999), The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, USA, 1955)

Link Round Up: Quotable Lions

Firstly, a little self-indulgence. Anyone following my Twitter rants knows the amount I am obsessed with Jazmin Lopez's Leones, which I wrote about during New Directors/New Films and discussed on The Cinephiliacs. While the film still does not have distribution, they did cut a trailer for international publicity, and felt kind enough to include one of my heartfelt phrases. Watch the trailer here; I'll keep everyone up to date on if/when it returns to the States.

Also a cause for celebration is the other Argentinean marvel of the year, Viola from Matías Piñeiro. I liked the film when I also saw it at ND/NF, but have grown quite amorous with it since then as well as Piñeiro's other three films, which I wrote about at The Film Stage. I'll later be posting something about his previous film, Rosalinda, but read my primer on approaching his work here.

My Criterion pieces for The Film Stage also continues this week with a look at Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu. I use the opportunity to talk melodrama and bodies, with a little film theory as well, but mostly to talk about why you don't need a close-up to make great emotional movie. It also links to my favorite discovery of the week: Kent Jones's phenomenal piece "Do Movies Think?"

Finally, The Muriels have returned! This summer, we are counting down some of our favorite films from before 1962, and I was assigned to write about a little film called Vertigo.

On Letterboxd, my final posts on Allan Dwan and  If...

June Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable.

1. The Son (Dardennes, Belgium, 2002)

2. Tokyo Twilight (Ozu, Japan, 1957)

3. Hatari! (Hawks, USA, 1962)

4. Trail of the Vigilantes (Dwan, USA, 1940)

5. Umberto D (De Sica, Italy, 1952)

6. Manhandled (Dwan, USA, 1924)

7. Early Summer (Ozu, Japan, 1951)

8. Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Ozu, Japan, 1952)

9. One Mile From Heaven (Dwan, USA, 1937)

10. Drunken Master II (Lau, Hong Kong, 1994)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Paris Belongs To Us (Rivette, France, 1959), Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Ozu, Japan, 1947), The Munektata Sisters (Ozu, Japan, 1950), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (Meyers, USA, 1982), Birth (Glazer, USA, 2004), The Only Son (Ozu Japan, 1936), A Modern Musketeer (Dwan, USA, 1917), There Was a Father (Ozu, Japan, 1942), Stage Struck (Dwan, USA, 1925), Frontier Marshall (Dwan, USA, 1938), Brewster's Millions (Dwan, USA, 1945), They All Lie (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2009) Late Autumn (Ozu, Japan, 1960), Police Story 3: Supercop (Chan, Hong Kong, 1992), The Restless Breed (Dwan, USA, 1957), Driftwood (Dwan, USA, 1947), Rosalinda (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2010), Impolex (Perry, USA, 2009), The Iron Mask (Dwan, USA, 1929), Rendezvous With Annie (Dwan, USA, 1946), Dragnet Girl (Ozu, Japan, 1933), The Stolen Man (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2007), An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu, Japan, 1962)

Link Round Up: Shorts and Longs

When I saw the running time for Xavier Dolan's Laurence Anyways, my tolerance meter started ticking, as the film runs just shy of three hours. And seeing how Heartbeats already felt a tad too long at under 90, I was a bit concerned. However, Dolan is a strong filmmaker, and I was surprised by the nuance and emotion he brought to this latest film. I review it over at In Review Online.

On the shorter side of things, the new and wonderful Criterion Blu-Ray of Safety Last! has three newly restored shorts by silent clown Harold Lloyd. You can read about them over at The Film Stage. 

Over at Letterboxd, I have been going through the filmographies of Yasujiro Ozu and Alan Dwan. #Dwanmentum.