The Circle ......Who's 'running the Show'? A terrifying Social Media Prediction from 2017......THE 'CIRCLE' OF 'SOON TO BE EVERYONE ON EARTH'.......AS EGO- EXTENSIONS OF "THE FEW" ....THE DREAMS OF ELON MUSK, OF WORLD DOMINATION THROUGH OBEDIENT, WILLING COMPLIANCE......AKA "A WALK WITH THE NEEDY....ALL BEARING 'SMARTPHONES'......

THE "RED PILL" or "THE BLACK PILL"? or....A BILLION SPHERICAL CAMERAS and EMBEDDED CHIPS..... FEEDING TERABYTES OF 'DATA", EVERY SECOND, TO THE BOSS COMPUTER SERVERS?? SMILE FOR THE FACIAL-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE, PEOPLE.......'You're "ON"'......

KARAMOJA TO MAJOR LEAGUE FOOTBALL

I was in 5th or 6th Grade when downtown movie houses were inundated, usually....Saturdays....., with both Feature Films and Shorts (i.e. "Documentary Films"....with a grain of salt)........Some, especially at Warner Bros. and American International Theaters,  cashed in on low-budget racist exploitation flicks, as well as "White Men In Africa Stuff"....like Ramar Of The Jungle, Tarzan.....of the Jungle, and a dozen, now largely forgotten, Saturday Morning Racist Serials.....   "Karamoja" was, then, what would be, now, "XX"-rated, since it featured ebony-skinned Savages, glisteningly....Naked!  

.....Audiences, then....as now.....salivated, not only over all that nakedness, but also....the bloody slaughtering of wild animals......[Although, a few were 'turned off', preferring to envision their 'Meat' in neat packages, wrapped in plastic wrap, with a 'price-per-pound' label affixed].......I did, at 10, sneak into a downtown Movie Theatre....to recoil, terrified, at the sight of Spanish missionaries being devoured to the bone by Amazonian piranhas, to the delight of watching Natives.....and the viewing of 'NativeYouths'  being initiated into 'Manhood' by donning woven vests of stinging wasps or hornets.......ritual circumcision of both males and females.....and the bifurcation of boys' penises during their ceremonial 'Manhood' events....... Now,  for the more 'refined' audiences with sublimated instincts and repressed desires, there is Football, to displace their real constant cravings......  

FROM A NOSTALGIC DREAM OF SATURDAYS, ALONE, IN DOWNTOWN HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA......c. 1957, SQUANDERING MY WEEKLY CASH ALLOWANCE FOR WASHING MY PARENTS' VEHICLES, TAKING OUT THE GARBAGE, CUTTING THE GRASS AND RAKING THE YARD.....ON MOVIES, MAGAZINES AND SEVERAL MEALS......

Off to the Grand News stand to check out...i.e. 'stand and read...for free' the latest Classic Illustrated, Batman and Tales From the Crypt.....then to the Rexall for a CherrySmash , and a Banana Split.....a trip to Becker's to hang with my Grandmother, who took a break from her part-time job...selling shoes and sewing 'notions'.... for a 3-D movie with me....or two....then, off to Wilensky's Pawn shop to view 'old junk' and do some 'trading', I dreamed...last night....of a morning trip to the Krystal, on the town square, for a hamburger steak with fries, cooked in lard, then a 200 ft. walk to the Lyric for Flash Gordan, Sheena and Rocketman...and a live Stage Show, followed by a cheesy sci-fi movie, viewed from the first row of the balcony...as I snacked on chocolate-covered-cherries from the Erskine's confectionary store next door.....i remember when they were a nickel!...back when dinosaurs walked the Tennessee Valley! .....then, a chocolate sundae  at the Twickenham Drug Store, for a quarter,  and a cherry coke for a nickel, too! then over to the Grand Theater or The Elks Theatre,  where a quarter'd get you three cartoons, newsreels, previews, Flash Gordon, Sheena or more Rocketman, Bomba, Tarzan or The Bowery Boys/Ritz Bros/Three Stooges/Marx Bros. Shorts,  and yet another 'MGM' movie.....all preceeded by a talent show and a filmed horse race that kids could 'place' bets on to win prizes.....after shelling out 68 cents for a hamburger steak and french fries  and a quarter for a chocolate shake,  and a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland, and a couple of Classic Illustrateds,  my $4 was running out......however, if I had the 'leftover' dollar, I'd take a bus to The Central Theater, in West Hunstville, for even another double feature....and then the nickel ride home to watch my parents play bridge with friends.......while I watched Shock Theater with Jack Zacherle on 1 of the 3 available VHF TV channels...and drank the cardplayers' leftover booze, from a cocktail shaker.

ON WATCHING 'WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN' (1916).....A FILM THAT WAS DIRECTED BY A WOMAN.....ABOUT ABORTION......OVER A CENTURY AGO!

This Film.....in advance of it's time....and before the dreaded Hayes Code went into effect, later.......  Features, in the edition that I just watched on TCM,  the best improvisational piano accompaniment that I can remember having heard, as well as some avant guard costuming by Peggy Hamilton {?} in advance of Paul Poiret and Adrian....   

https://trettleman.medium.com/lois-weber-films-ranked-acceeda8054d

https://www.popmatters.com/pioneers-first-women-filmmakers-2638652295.html

https://mancunion.com/2022/03/25/history-of-film-the-first-female-filmmakers-and-their-feminist-message/

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/women-in-hollywood-timeline

SOUVENIR "TIME SHIFT KNOB' FROM "THE TIME MACHINE" (1960)

THE MUTILATION OF POTENTIAL GOOD BY GUILT AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SOLUTION VIA REACTION FORMATIONS

 

Just having watched Brad Dourif's journey into 'Preacher Madness', in WISE BLOOD, and Ryan Reynold's equally disturbing journey through repression and guilt in THE VOICES.....I just watched the previews of  Antonio Campus's latest installment in Sinister Cinema, THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME.....yet another vehicle for Robert Pattison's Dark Passenger........and the first 3 installments of the remake of AMERICAN GIGOLO; I'm feeling some concern about the Persistent Dark Direction of American Cinema......reflecting the increasingly psychotic fare that seems to be emerging from flat screens

Even though its special effects and production design were more cerebrally satisfying than a dozen Super-Powered Caped Hero MARVEL/DC Mall Movies........

 

... I wasn't enthralled with the new DUNE.....it was just, like the book upon which all the Dune Films are based....just too Religious.......Hey, isn't this supposed to be 'happening' waaay in the future....10,000 years or so......with these humans and human-ishs......still, observing all the ritualized devotion to a  rather Muslim conceptualization of Universal Order and Ritualized Obedience to Royal Hierarchy......I wanted to hitch a ride on a flying, mechanical dragonfly-copter....and do the Time Warp to some other Imaginary, less dusty,  Theme Park.......in another dimension.....but a giant sand worm must have swallowed my plastic transporter pin........At least this viewing was free (free weekend of HBO) and there were no teenagers, digging into those tubs of greased salty popcorn.......  There was some Irony,  I thought, as I watched a few minutes of the hullabaloo of QEII's death and formal transfiguration into History Books........all that Pomp & Disingenuous Ceremony brought to mind the arrival and death of Duke Leto, after his family's installation as Royalty...on Arrakis.....

2:46 AM.......AWAKENING, WITH A TORRENTIAL OUTPOURING OF MEANINGFUL IRRELEVANCES, JUMBLED...WITH LITTLE PRE-FRONTAL INTERFERENCES

 Both exhausted and stimulated by the bites of hatching, blood-sucking black fleas that had incubated in an old Persian rug that I dragged home from a yard sale......I escaped to my Fortress of Solitude in the Attic, clawing at my ankles and feet and crushing some of the armored vampires  between my fingernail tips.  Requiring some distraction, I turned on the satellite receiver and monitor, just as a Jim Jarmusch Film  THE DEAD DON'T DIE, was beginning.....noting its Cast 'n' Credits.......[and having, previously, appointed one of his earlier films, ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE to my personal Pantheon of Late Night Weird Cinematica.....] It devolved into a mess of referentialities;  George Romero, scribbling furiously in a lined Blue Horse tablet, in red,  colluding with David Lynch, holding a spiky copper scouring pad between his butt cheeks. while re-directing Spielberg's Alien Saucer-ship from its landing, without being observed by Francois Truffaut, whose Bolex formatting cameras tumble to the desert floor and are gathered up like the possessions of Lila Kedrova in ZORBA THE GREEK...and taken off for taste-testing by the native cast of CAT PEOPLE..... So...the zombies plod through the streets of Centerville, with all those referential cues from 200 MOTELS,  to a recreation of the Bates Motel, where, late in the stupid film,  the three City Kids get devoured by zombies, then have their heads demolished by Officer Petersen, who...minutes later.....is also devoured, along with Chloe and Bill's deadbeat cop characters..........During all this,  Tilda'a character, Zelda Winston, channeling..simultaneously,  Legolis & Beatrix Kiddo....meets the Intergalactic Cruiser ship, as it is surrounded by flesh-eating zombies, and is taken aboard in an anti-gravity ray beam and whisked away from this mess of rednecks and walking dead.....Did I miss anything of any importance, whatsoever?   My 'takeaway' was only the sad memory of Hermit Bob, cooking the blood-drained corpse of Anton Yelchin, while having some juicy spider appetizers as they struggle between his fingernail tips.....

THE 'BEST' ACCEPTANCE SPEECH EVER GIVEN BY AN ACTOR?

In accepting the  award, at the 48th AFI Life Achievement Awards Ceremony, Julie  Andrews said, “This night reminds me, with great clarity,  how many people are involved with making movies. What a huge collaborative effort it takes to bring film to the screen. My husband Blake never liked when people referred to filmmaking as the business or an industry. He insisted that film was an art form and should always be called that. And I know that is exactly the way the AFI feels also.”  Her entire 'speech' was beautifully crafted and delivered......with humor, humility and honest Genius!    

The Devon and 'Madame Mandelip'

 Watching Todd Browning's 1936 film, The Devil Doll, today......I freeze-framed a couple of stills.......One was from a scene wherein Lionel Barrymore is digging an emerald from a platinum ring........."Hmm"....I thought.....I have a ring that's almost identical.......and have renamed it The Devon Ring......Obliquely, "Devon" was sitting next to a cluster of a dozen old German figurines.......In the film, the ring mount and it's emerald, removed, is placed in a 'doll', on a table with a dozen other dolls......And, even more coincidentally, Barrymore plays a character, in drag, wearing a pair of earrings that are exactly like a pair that I have and have worn........Go figure!

This film, a sub-text being the sub-miniaturization of creatures.....to make the Earth more capable of feeding the exploding populations of 'everything'......was created shortly after Einstein's having published his then Science-Changing Theory of General Relativity and the introduction into Art of the Physics of matter and energy.......Early in the film, the Scientist, Marcel, lectures, briefly, on the Theory... that, if the space between atoms were reduced, miniaturization would be possible.... Levond comments, in The Devil Doll: "if most men were reduced to the dimensions of their mentality, Marcel's plan wouldn't be necessary."

I sorta and regrettably watched the worse guns, bombs, knives and ninja-kickfighting, cellphone-obsessed, closed-space action film...."NON-STOP"..from the too-young producer of KICKASS 2, Jeff Wadlow.....Even with great actors...in this drivel for the bucks Mall movie...... The cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Lupita Nyong'o and Linus Roache should turn their "serious" acting shingles to the wall~! This movie makes even Marvel and D.C. Comics junk seem intellectually valid and plot-perfect......I should have taken a clue, since it was double-billed with a billion buck comic book adaptaflic, CAPTAIN AMERICA....something or another capeless men-in-lycra movie.......

BENEDICT REDOES ST. AUBYN

I'm eager to rewatch Benedict Cumberbatch's brilliant....as always.... undertaking, PATRICK MELROSE......Each of the Five-part installments adapts a single St. Aubyn novel.....in the ongoing tradition of simplifying complex material into less than anti-Tolstoyian or anti-Dickensonian abbreviatorialness...following the cocaine and heroine trail conceit of the novels, unravelling the word-fabric of the protagonist's tale of compulsive addictions, by depicting ....in 'days'....the "new, out of order, style" that permeates television series, manufactured for the shorter attention spans of the ADD Generation.....Stylistically, this 'technique' is also being employed in the "Genius: Picasso" series....Piece it all together for a succinctly artistic adaptation of largely overlooked writing ...with the brilliant Benedict!......."Bad News" may be "Good News" for Serial Showtime....

All I Owe Ioway - State Fair 1945

DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK....THERE"S NO ONE HOME

 Having written my review of "ELYSIUM"......while adding a photo, I navigated away from the page...losing my 'script'....yet, why bother to write it again.....the undeserving film was practically as dumb as DISTRICT 9.......with the illogical sameness of just about all popular sci-fi films, role-playing video games, graphic novels and other teen-male mindlessness...... Matt is exposed to radiation, goes through the procedure pictured in this post......has an action-packed few hours, modifying....miraculously......the scenario of a tiny Latino plot of L.A. slum property.......diverting power and hostel indifference into.......well, you get the picture.....just watch TOTAL RECALL..........why is Jodie Foster blushing with shame?

COUNTESS VERA VON LEHNDORFF-STEINORT'S IN THE OLD MANNEQUIN CLOSET AND JACKIE'S IN A BOX UNDER THE FLOOR..... OR IN A JAR......WITH LAUREN HUTTON'S 'SPACER' TOOTH......."GET OUTTA THAT UNDERFLOOR HIDING PLACE AND GET THOSE PANTS AND THAT SKIRT HEMMED TO FASHIONABLE APPROPRIATENESS!"

Viewing Natalie Portman's very Darren Aronofsky-inspired portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy.....as 'Jackie' Kennedy......in Pablo Larraín's Film, JACKIE.......many emotions that I felt, still an 18-year old......even remembering where I was seated and the shoes I was wearing....Pat Boone suedes with inlaid leather dice....."Life Is A Gamble" written on their innersoles...... during Dr. Alexander Marchant's very philosophical history lecture, attended by my entire freshman class.....800, during orientation......and, by mid-term, to be honed to 300 by attrition, by inattention, immaturity and sybaritic social immersion.......As our lecturer was predicting, in 'today''s handing down of Wisdom, based on his familiarity with the perpetual tides of aspirative mediocrity......Two days later, the school was abandoned for disinfecting, as it's cast of 'we know it all, already' students, by habituation and under the boots of cultural and social pressures, both real and perceptual, left for their various holidays of feasting and gift-giving.....seemingly, oblivious to what had happened in Texas, just a few days before.......Watching "JACKIE" jolted my aging memory banks that still seem to be packed with details....both visual and emotional......that were now recombinant chemical restructuring, unconscious constructs....pulling my mind and behavior, conceptualizations and unprocessed Art......as my mind's painting and re-painting the details of memory, that it remain...for reconsideration....for further-processing......even to introduce cautionary avoidance sub-routines like avoiding traveling in a downtown 'street parade', 20 years hence.....looking into the upper windows of Macy's and The Polaris Room for the glint of sunlight on a steel barrel.......Dr. Marchant wept, with a countenance of hopelessness, as he broke from his Nov. 1963 'lecture' to inform the mostly oblivious 'freshmen' of the tragic event..........Why do I remember what I was wearing that day, and where and by whom I sat? I have forgotten, already, entire months of my Life, that my brain has super-glued, re-stitched and edited-for-content; and, I've forgotten, already, what I was wearing 72 hours ago........I remember all those Oleg Cassini pill-box hats that, by the day after Thanksgiving, covered the heads of Jackie mannikins across the World.........The black 'netting' on sculptures at MOMA........The Pink womens' suits with bright red 'accents'.......then, suddenly, Twiggy, in platform heels and a dozen pair of lashes, looks into the camera....her eyes telling us, "'forgetaboutit', have you heard about the Maharishi?" It seems like yesterday, that Saks ditched it's Mod Mannikins for some Veruschkas.... with backorders for 'Lauren Huttons'.......Oh, here are some obsolete models, under the flooring planks! Anyone have their phone? Let's 'get' a photo........

The Big Store - Piano Scene - The Marx Brothers

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS – Extended Preview

A FEW MINUTES OF OBSERVATORY DETAILS ........or DIRECTORIAL PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL CHAIN-SMOKING

 

Wide awake early this morning, but too sleep-deprived to 'get going', a lazy button on the 'remote' pulled up a 1950 Film, directed by Ida Lupino, the first 'woman director' whose television work I'd been 'glued to' in my early teens, when I was fixated on "Four Star Playhouse"'s Adult-themed Series....which preceded the wonderful PLAYHOUSE 90, ten years or so, later......This morning, I noticed Lupino's early directorial effort, NEVER FEAR, and began, in Film Comment Mode, to dissect the movie....stopping....love that 'pause' button....to examine single frames, contextual imaging, props, jewelry, shoes, ...details of production and editing......well, all those minutia that hypervigilants seem to notice......the patterns on men's ties....the subtle expressions of sub-conscious motivations; lapel width in relation to the age and stylishness of the characters.....Hugh O'brian, later Wyatt Earp, as a polio victim in his wheelchair, rolling into an elevator, smoking a Camel and cruising Keefe Brasselle, as the obviously gay Guy Richards, wearing a tie with cute little hearts, alternating right side up and right side down....."Guy" had just left the pulmonary doctor that had, moments before, diagnosed his wife with Polio....while the 'Jewish', of course, doctor is consulting with another doctor, he picks a cigarette from a full ashtray of butts......I thought of those doctors in Ben Casey, that would take a break from lung surgery for a 'cigarette break' in the hall....(after all, the program was financed by tobacco companies, then).....So......just minutes into this Lupino Melodrama......I'm already loaded with images and dialogue to process...with some sarcasm and dark humor..... even drawing a parallel with the latest 'contagion'......the film was made during the polio epidemic that killed many Americans and crippled many more......childhood friends in 'Iron Lungs'....the introduction of the Polio Virus that had every 1st Grader in 1951 line up for the new 'vaccine'.....just as we had done for the obligatory smallpox, typhoid and tetanus shots.....then measles, mumps and other 'inoculations' and vaccinations.....all this rambling....and I'm still on 'Pause' only minutes into the Film......It's not just Entertainment.......It's a challenge to OCD.......

 POSTSCRIPT.....MOMENTS LATER:    

when Sally Forrest's character, just having been diagnosed with polio, is rolled into her 'private room', decorated with depressing paintings of Vacation Retreats, another doctor comes by to chat with her, as he smokes a cigarette and even offers one to his patient who is having difficulty breathing.......more production 'funding' from R.J. Reynolds, I'll wager......even a nursing assistant hesitates, while working in the Ward, to make sure he hasn't lost his pack of Camels........Oh, the 1950's....certainly, the Age Of Denial......

after her doctor leaves her room, Hugh O'brian's character stops by to bum a cigarette from the pack that 'Carol's doctor left for 'when she needs one'.....and 'Guy' drops by the "Happy Homes" real estate office to witness it's owner, threatening to evict a 'customer' for not having the 'payments'......and, of course, the owner's secretary offers Guy yet another cigarette......cut to scene of polio victims being assisted during their morning swim at the hospital's pool while..by the poolside, an aide delivers some sexist indoctrination to a little girl, implying that she should be submissive to men when she 'grows up'........and, in the next scene....some racism, as a Mexican guitarist/singer sings a ballad about wetbacks.....then, back in her hospital room, our 'heroine' is dolled up with hope of being a sexy 'man's woman', then stabs a clay sculpture that she's 'working on' with a sculpting tool......This movie doesn't go 'a frame' without this crap.....And, of course...after our 'victim' freaks and destroys her sculpture, Hugh rolls by in his wheelchair to offer her another cigarette.....As they smoke, she says "I have plenty of Time"......Back in her room, the art work has magically been replaced with more urban scenarios.......Then, the first wheelchair square dance....(now a Special Olympics 'Sport').....

COPY AND PASTE INTO TOMORROW, THE GLUED-DOWN YESTERDAYS WITH IRREGULAR RIGHT MARGINS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkl92oV1kMc

[over a century ago.......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBnxWQct24.. ]      So, Now.....with WWIII in the 'Works', already........   How will Cinema Art be transformed?     Someone, Somewhere...is already penning the libretto for a made-for-Peacock Opera/Ballet/Musical, based on the torture and imprisonment of  Marina Ovsyannikova, I reckon....   After a restless night of pondering the relative  unimportance of 'words' subtitling... directed/redirected observations,  and the constructs that emerge like painted leaden toy soldier figurines....I watched an old VHS of PARADE  (1917)....passed out for a couple of hours...then...awakened, early, from an anxious sleep... that must have been directed by Francis Dolarhyde.....  to a 'press the "on" button DIRECTV double feature of The English Patient and  White Crow..... thinking....thinking....of the 'not quite random juxtapositions' that seem to 'direct' my own outpourings of creative jabberwocky........Then, 'thinking' that I needed a 'redirection',  watched an old Fred Astaire/Judy Garland musical....but could only focus on the ugly IRENE costuming and Judy's 'two left feet'........switched channels....and.....who'd have believed it!.......    My Left Foot, Jim Sheridan/Daniel Day-Lewis's genius 'take' on the formative life of Christy Brown was just starting......   I felt fortunate that all these 'Oscar/nominated/winning' Films are being shown......At least, I have some 'good' Cinema  to distract me.......rather than an avalanche of 1950's  'Outer Space'  Films, 60's Hammer Horror,   and the even more gratuitously bloody excretions from new century's digital camera movies that inundate the fallow 'run-off' grounds of quasi-highbrow 3rd tier celebrity farming......   Perhaps, last night's Dreams are, already, filmfodder for "Amateur Director Night" on SHORTS, or  one of those 'high thousand' Satellite Channels.....Old celluloid crumbles to dust....  the digital 'servers' may last for centuries...with their trillions of hours of 'watch this/watch me's ....forever importuning what's left of The World...

FIRST COW

Yesterday, I watched a remarkably beautiful, tender, subtle Film by Kelly Reichardt.............  The film touched me, emotionally, at a very deep level......If you haven't seen it.......please do so.....

However.... approach its viewing without reading any 'plot reveals    or any analysis/critiques of it................  I felt transformed by its nuanced beauty......its structure, its elegant cinematography and acting....well....everything about it.......although it took a few minutes 'into the film' to appreciate its musical soundtrack......and there were some glitches, not 'taken care of' in the sound editing, that took me away for a few seconds...three times.....John Magaro (also in the Todd Haynes Film, CAROL) should have, in my opinion,  received an Academy Award Nomination for his nuanced, sensitive portrayal of 'Cookie'......I'd like to hear/read your 'take' on the movie.....   Kelly Reichardt is, now, on my Radar...

On finding a photo of "Antonius" in a box, beneath a VHS copy of INTACTO .......

 

Sic Transit ...........The first 'serious' actor that I remember, as Antonius Block in The 7th Seal, when I was too young to 'get it' but old enough to know I 'wanted to "get it"'........I've seen all of his films..to 2010....and even watched one that was in Swedish, with German subtitles.....His face told his tale...... INTACTO may be my favorite, however......although I know not a soul that has seen it, other than me........The first week of 'University', in Nashville, oddly enough, I had made friends with 4 other students....film buffs, of course.....; we went to the VUT screening of THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, double-billed with Polanski's KNIFE IN THE WATER.......Over late night burgers and fries, we had our first 'serious' discussion about 'Art Films'......The very next day.....a Saturday....some students in my dorm....Vanderbilt Hall....known for its anti-intellectual jocks......were getting a group of 'guys' to see BLOOD FEAST.......thinking I shouldn't be such a 'nerd', I headed to Blood Feast, but seeing its Poster, framed by the ticket window.....I was overcome with "ART FILM ADDICTION".....already....and took a bus, down West End Avenue, to see THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER,,,, Who wouldn't want to see Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in 'Drag'? The next week, my best friend, Bert Bottorff, whom I'd known for a full month or two, snagged me from a Rand Hall dinner symposium on Alexander Pope and the entire group of 'would-be poets' journeyed, again, to the VUT ....for THE MAGICIAN and VIRGIN SPRING.....Still 18, I was certain that I 'had arrived' in Adulthood......and Max had 'brought me out', for certain!

Ingmar’s Actors: Max von Sydow - YouTube

THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF JEAN-JACQUES BEINEIX......

Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson and Leos Carax, the auteurs of the 1980's Cinema Du Look, are three of my favorite Directors.......I was saddened, moments after noticing that my DVD of DIVA had fallen from a stack of 'to watch again' Films........and, perusing the Internet to find out 'if he had made a recent Film'......eerily, discovered his recent death!“

MODESTY BLAISE (1966) FULL MOVIE IN MEMORY OF MONICA VITTI, WHO DIED YESTERDAY....AT 90.....AND TERENCE STAMP.

Chafed Elbows -- "Black Leather Negligee"

Beat Surrealism......Ready to Roll Inanity or, just some more 45RPM Hay Hay Hay from Robert Downey Jr.'s Dad's stable of intentionally stray actors.... Of course there's both correlance and the intention of sequential happenstance.....right?

DRESSING 'UP' FOR SUCCESS........

Watching a few minutes of the 1947 melodramatic adaptation of GREEN DOLPHIN STREET, this morning, in which...if my memory serves me correctly, with oblique associations.......Lana and Donna's characters 'doll up' in Hollywood costume department's fashionable post WW2 Pastel tropical bird Couture, and are greeted by their mother's childhood beau...having cruised, with some "sexual/he's got some money" bent, his young hottie son.....and arrived, unannounced (Edith Wharton grimaces!), over-dressed for this early in the morning social call....only to be greeted by Mom's 'ex', who makes sexist remarks, immediately.......calling them 'colorful fish'.....Everyone's 'manners' are pretentiously Nouveau Riche Bourgeoisie, posturing as 'our shit don't stink' upper class gold diggers......Some of the dialogue from this scene was lifted by Melvina Reynolds, for her tongue-in-cheek song about American Suburbanites, 'Little Boxes'...... This 'not quite random association' was a new observation....as was the instant referential, if 'really oblique', with Miles Davis' track, 'On Green Dolphin Street', from his Album, 'Kind Of Blue'.......Every 'association' is with the largesse of stored 'data', within the resources of our 'Inner Sanctums'........Even Lana's character, Marianne, seemed right on the heels of Cora Smith, from the year before.......with a Lux Radio Theater 'costuming' upgrade by Walter Plunkett.......

THE "CANCELLATIONS" ......THE 'RESURRECTIONS"

It's been over 25 years since the end of QAF's run on Showtime...........I'd really love to see a continuation of the unwinding, convoluted story.....now that the characters are middle-aged.............What about it, Showtime....or LOGO, {it will be PEACOCK, of course...the latest Gay Interest Purveyor} a more likely candidate to do this..........Cucumber & Banana will have to do, I suppose....but what's happened to that series! {cancelled, of course} I wanted UNITED STATES OF TARA, SHAMELESS, QAF, DEXTER and a few others to just go on until the cast were at the end of their stories..........SIX FEET UNDER, so far, demonstrated the most satisfying Conclusion of these.........Shows remain only until their ratings drop....yeah, I know......It's all about the numbers....the ratings game.......I've heard that a 'reboot' of Queer As Folk is in 'next season's Lineup.....with fresh, young faces, naturally. I'm a bit surprised that Luca Guadagnino hasn't , yet, serialized CALL ME BY YOUR NAME...with Charlie Hunnan the "Oliver" role, full circle....to exploit the New Gay Sensibilities, so fashionable now.....That would be a 'bigger splash' for Peacock's streaming services, I'm sure....

DISAPPEARED FILM PROJECTS.........LOCKED UP IN MORE SCIENTOLOGY SCANDALS......JUST LOOK AWAY.......AND GET THAT "LOOK" OFF YOUR FACE.......IT'S JUST A CRASH IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH ..IN THE LARGER PERSPECTIVE OF YESTERDAY'S FORGOTTEN NEWSWORTHYNESS

What will happen with "The Juliet", Paul Haggis' proposed adaptation of the Alfred Bester short story, "Fondly Fahrenheit"? The movie's production was tossed around producers and directors for years....finally ending with Haggis as director.........Now, that Haggis is being placed on the 'noli me tangere' list...you guessed it.....for forcing women to their knees to service his knob..... will this production go South? Or, get another last minute director? Or, just be abandoned for it's infantile comic book plot line? I'm sure the last reason wouldn't be a consideration, as movie goers love Marvel Comics' film adaptations.......Maybe, if it were made, with it's principal female android wearing all black, to support current feminists' political correctness.........and ended with the male protagonist being decapitated by his 'step-down' androidess.....everything would be just hunky-dory....justice served to a populace that thrives on guilt and punishment......Caravaggio, get your hands off that boy's butt! Who do you think you are.......Leonardo DaVinci?