The persistent winter weather failed to keep a nice crowd from turning up for Walter Hill’s cult classic! A small, Coney Island street gang suddenly finds themselves in a whole lot of trouble, and a long way from home. The Warriors played well at MovieNight, and our audience was pretty much evenly split between those who had somehow never seen it, and those who couldn’t wait to see it again.
Nice.
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This masterpiece from the late Alain Resnais (who passed away last Saturday in Paris at a respectable 95 years old), was not easy to sell to our MovieNight peeps. Ultimately, though, we did get enough guests to make it a fun evening (thanks to the Barcelona crew!). Last Year at Marienbad is stark, obtuse, and repetitive… perfectly bizarre. I was actually contemplating showing it again next week, without any explanation, or acknowledgement that I had shown it this week, just to play along with the surrealist theme, and the film’s unresolved plot. Did they in fact meet last year? We will never know.
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Thirty years later, it was a pleasure for me to revisit this treasure from British Cinema’s New Wave of the sixties, and a privilege to bestow upon the MovieNight family! Most British folk of a certain age will be familiar with The L-Shaped Room, but for the large part it remains an obscure relic on this side of the pond.
After finding and watching a DVD, the thing that struck me was the courage of a young, unmarried, immigrant mother-to-be, played so well by Leslie Caron. At every turn, she faced pressure get rid of her baby. No spoiler alert here, just in case you do get a chance to see it, but the official trailer, however quaint, focused on the scandal of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and left Ms. Caron looking rather feeble. In fact, she was rather fierce, and quite witty in her role. I felt that I should make my own trailer, and if you’re interested you can see it here.
Thanks to all who came out on another cold cold night. When will it warm up again?
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I really wanted to show this movie, but thought it would be fun to show it somewhat spontaneously on a Satuday night. Of course, there was yet another snowfall, and since the email didn’t get sent until early afternoon, the audience was quite small. Still… the movie was liked. There has been all manner of talk about Blue is the Warmest Color, along many subject lines: It’s pornography. The sex scenes are gratuitous. The director took advantage of the young actresses. There were no actual Lesbians involved. (What next? Real serial killers in murder stories? Real doctors in medical dramas? Bollocks!) Some complain that there are too many close-up shots of Adèle’s drooling mouth. (We did have a bit of fun counting how many shots of her ass there were!)
After my second viewing, I stand by my opinion that this is a great movie, and a wonderful coming-of-age tale.
As the reviewer A.A.Dowd wrote in the A.V. Club review:
“As for the sex scenes, they’re as insanely erotic as advertised; it’s not just their frankness and duration that counts, but their emotional intensity too. While many movies make sex look either sleazy or pantomimed, here’s one that depicts it honestly—as a messy, sometimes ungraceful act of connection. For some, it may be impossible to separate these prolonged simulations, which were surely no picnic to film, from the allegations of unprofessionalism the actresses have leveled against Kechiche. But only a hopeless prude could confuse any of it for pornography. There’s too much raw emotion, too much fierceness and beauty, in the way Exarchopoulos and Seydoux embrace. How, in this day and age, could two women fucking inspire such hysteria, especially among otherwise enlightened cinephiles? It’s just sex, after all. The heavy stuff comes after, when passions cool and two people, once united in amorous appetite, have to figure out how to keep what they have alive.”
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This week we remembered actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, showing the lesser-known gem Owning Mahowney. Even though the weather outside remained brutally cold, we managed to keep our MovieNight family feeling comfy and warm, and it felt great to be able to bring you something you would otherwise have missed. [Insert pat on back here]
In other news, the great Broker’s Gin shortage of 2014 continues. As a consequence, Martini Mike has temporarily renamed himself Manhattan Mike. Hey. Change is good?
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We ended our 3-part mini season, Woody on Blu-ray, this Thursday with Annie Hall; a movie many believe to be Woody’s best work. As was to be expected, of the three (which also included Sleeper), Blue Jasmine drew the biggest crowd. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed each of them.
In light of recent allegations of child molestation made in an open letter from his adoptive daughter, Dylan, Woody will not be returning to the MovieNight screen any time soon. I want to believe that she is somehow mistaken, but the letter is pretty convincing, and utterly heart-breaking. Of course, we will never know what really happened. Mr. Allen denies any wrongdoing.
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