tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39613523255958279192024-03-12T19:35:21.734-05:00The Night EditorJake Hinkson's BlogJake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.comBlogger620125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-35969919815208804212024-01-12T11:45:00.006-06:002024-03-10T22:55:29.634-05:00At the Movies in 2024<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOuKidDzdiXvXwVkFno3m3LitLLzD9A8IwEf8xZcf5tc4dBEPE0CFoPD8wdedoCzrd2-cpKHX01Jdiv9L8_7KF8zYChTyySU-tg4UbhV36ujjyKiV3ZIu7DSIdCCkThHfd-BZKn3JocQc8a4uy8LwoPcl8vWOxIPI0QhyVO6tJb5vIR7NGGtlAPq4l_328" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="422" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOuKidDzdiXvXwVkFno3m3LitLLzD9A8IwEf8xZcf5tc4dBEPE0CFoPD8wdedoCzrd2-cpKHX01Jdiv9L8_7KF8zYChTyySU-tg4UbhV36ujjyKiV3ZIu7DSIdCCkThHfd-BZKn3JocQc8a4uy8LwoPcl8vWOxIPI0QhyVO6tJb5vIR7NGGtlAPq4l_328=w465-h279" width="465" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A running list of what I've seen on the big screen this year:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. House of Psychotic Women (1973)-Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. The Giant Behemoth (1959)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. Psycho (1960)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. All That Jazz (1979)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. Closed Circuit (1978)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. American Fiction (1923)- AMC NewCity 14</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7. Blow Out (1981)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">9. Night of the Living Dead (1990)- Thalia Hall</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">10. Night of the Creeps (1986)- Thalia Hall</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">11. The Strangler (1970)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">12. The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">13. My Bloody Valentine (1981)- Hollywood Blvd (Woodridge, IL)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">14. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">15. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">16. Belle de Jour (1967)- Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">17. Blacula (1972)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">18. Messiah of Evil (1974)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">19. Jeanne Dielman… (1975)- Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">20. Dream Scenario (2023)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">21. Dune 2 (2024)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">22. Drive-Away Dolls (2024)- AMC NewCity 14</span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-72406393240194358352024-01-09T11:19:00.000-06:002024-01-09T11:19:03.553-06:002023 at the Movies - In Review<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5pVuyveEGimkTXVo0MAYPDkJZUTcREFCjz2vdRL3CQvhHqN20_IuRYT9PKQSepTgzhiNib5l5ICt4VeC0zoRAyNCq_lXO1c_NVxdYHP31ucIboTiUZgnD8LDeZfaEJgxUzBSm7FVoydNpZYIUN8ZGiLe2tHQwTfHaejmbKnZe30bmetj_7wZEr9WoviV6/s378/Poor_Things_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5pVuyveEGimkTXVo0MAYPDkJZUTcREFCjz2vdRL3CQvhHqN20_IuRYT9PKQSepTgzhiNib5l5ICt4VeC0zoRAyNCq_lXO1c_NVxdYHP31ucIboTiUZgnD8LDeZfaEJgxUzBSm7FVoydNpZYIUN8ZGiLe2tHQwTfHaejmbKnZe30bmetj_7wZEr9WoviV6/s320/Poor_Things_poster.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I haven't really been on the blog this year because I've been busy with various projects. This blog itself, of course, is a relic of an older age, not just for me but for the culture at large. Online movie and book discourse loooong ago gravitated to places like Goodreads and Letterboxd, and personal blogging is more likely to be found on popular sites like Substack. Maybe I'll make it to those places one day. (I put the 'late' in late adoption.) </span>For now, this blog is little more than a place where I track my moviegoing (again, yes, I know about Letterboxd). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm not tracking my movie *watching* which would require a whole other list. This is all about seeing movies at the theater, in person, with an audience of (mostly) strangers. After the long drought of the pandemic, I've nearly bounced back to pre-Covid levels of moviegoing. My peak was 2018, when I saw 126 movies at the theater. During lockdown, of course, that shrank to next to nothing, and then slowly crawled back as theaters reopened and Hollywood started production back up. In 2022, I saw 85 films. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In 2023, I saw 108 movies. That's a lot. That's more than two movies a week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As always, it's a spread of classics and new stuff, art house and megaplex.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I saw 54 films at Music Box Theater, one of the best movie theaters in the country and the crown jewel of Chicago's robust cinephile community. I saw 14 films at Facets, Chicago's charmingly quirky hole-in-the-wall cinema/video rental collective. Through a work schedule fluke this year, I spent a lot of time in Skokie and ended up doing a lot of my new movie viewing at the AMC Village Crossing. I saw 11 films there. In Park Ridge there's an excellent classic film series at the historic Park Ridge Theater, and I saw 7 films there. The rest of my moviegoing was spread out among different theaters: Regal City North (6 films), the Davis Theater (4), Siskel Film Center (3), the Logan Theater (3), Regal Webster Place (2), Doc Films (2), NEIU-Chicago Film Society (1), and Landmark Century Cinema (1). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As is always the case with me, I saw more old movies than new releases, but I did see a lot of new releases this year. I saw 27 films released in 2023 (as well as 3 films released in 2022).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other films I saw were spread across the decades. (The only decades unrepresented were the 1910s--which doesn't surprise me--and the 1930s--which shocks me. How did I not see a film from the 1930s this year? Odd.) Here's the breakdown decade by decade: 1920s (3), 1940s (14), 1950s (11), 1960s (9), 1970s (10), 1980s (13), 1990s (10), 2000s (3), 2010s (4), 2020s (4), 2023 (27). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In terms of repertory, this might well have been one of the greatest years I've ever had as a moviegoer. It was great year for Orson Welles movies: I saw THE TRIAL three times, and I saw CITIZEN KANE, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, and FALSTAFF. I got to see HIGH NOON, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, PAPER MOON, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS and VERTIGO. I saw a lot of noirs at Noir City Chicago (including RAW DEAL and CRY OF THE CITY). Through the influence of my horror-fan wife, I've seen a steady increase of horror movies the last few years, and this year included highlights like RE-ANIMATOR, BLACK CHRISTMAS, and CURTAINS. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As for new releases, with the caveat that there are still things I want to see (like THE IRON CLAW and ALL OF US STRANGERS), I do not think 2023 was a great year for movies. Certainly, I didn't see a lot of new releases that I'm convinced will stand the test of time. There are some big exceptions: POOR THINGS was the best film I saw this year, a fierce, hilarious moving work of art. I don't how Yorgos Lanthimos or Emma Stone will ever top it. (Or Mark Ruffalo, for that matter.) THE HOLDOVERS was the other big highlight of the year, a film that's perfectly balanced between humor and pathos, between wit and humanity with a trifecta of excellent performances by Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da'Vine Joy Randolph. I think it's Alexander Payne's best movie since ABOUT SCHMIDT. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I loved KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, and I really enjoyed both OPPENHEIMER and BARBIE. One largely unheralded film I loved was the touching (but unsentimental) French drama LES ENFANTS DES AUTRES. And I really adored the cynical Jennifer Lawrence romcom NO HARD FEELINGS. I liked and almost instantly forgot THE CREATOR, enjoyed the uneven NAPOLEON, had a lot of fun watching the grisly THANKSGIVING on Thanksgiving, was delighted by the charming THEATER CAMP, and really liked the Willem Dafoe performance in INSIDE. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That's not a bad run of movies. But the disappointments were many, especially on the blockbuster side. The new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was the weakest entry in the series, which is a bummer for a big M:I fan like me. INDIANA JONES had a depressingly lackluster final chapter (after the *previous* lackluster final chapter; there's a series that should have gracefully bowed out in 1989 when they stuck the perfect landing with LAST CRUSADE). The superhero movie is out of gas, and I'm pretty much done with John Wick at this point (I felt my interest flip off, like a switch, about halfway through CHAPTER 3, and nothing that happened in CHAPTER 4 regained it. At this point you can more or less predict the action beats in those movies before you even see them.) While auteurs like Lanthimos, Payne, and Scorsese all had a triumphant year, elsewhere things were rougher for the big name directors. Ari Aster's BEAU IS AFRAID had a fantastic first act, a muddled second act, and a root canal of a third act. Paul Schrader wrapped up his Man In A Room trilogy (following his career-best FIRST REFORMED and the excellent THE CARD COUNTER) on a low note with the lifeless MASTER GARDNER. David Fincher's THE KILLER, a film I hustled to the theater to see during its ultra-brief theatrical, was hardly worth the trip.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Add all of that together, though, and it adds up to a hell of a year at the movies. Here's hoping 2024 is even better. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-71776913431038928142023-05-15T10:15:00.006-05:002023-05-15T10:16:30.687-05:00Live Event in Chicago<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYVhAXmyeVAKWxMNxm1TlIb9cTrxNaKy5gyE-fCr99kdF6CyOPy58MX8q0LgjS9aiSfeNh5KoySdIAWouKhnjqXsFgM_lqPgC7mwbB70O7ovD4kCyDgfTJcTfa_dijGHy7caUg6IImok-U9ZyGcpFrV3o5fP6XkCh6nLCMl3C3jvTXd8c4Fme3ur7wQ/s856/Simon%20and%20Jake.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="856" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYVhAXmyeVAKWxMNxm1TlIb9cTrxNaKy5gyE-fCr99kdF6CyOPy58MX8q0LgjS9aiSfeNh5KoySdIAWouKhnjqXsFgM_lqPgC7mwbB70O7ovD4kCyDgfTJcTfa_dijGHy7caUg6IImok-U9ZyGcpFrV3o5fP6XkCh6nLCMl3C3jvTXd8c4Fme3ur7wQ/w535-h301/Simon%20and%20Jake.jpg" width="535" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Hey Chicago people, this Thursday I'll be in conversation
with the author Simon François about all things noir at <a href="https://www.af-chicago.org/events/perspectives-on-what-constitutes-a-noir-novel/?fbclid=IwAR2iHo1dwlDe-ykU29Z4MGlcTgqA9-iZw6RxVHAlvmrfAP6Pifh0SBVPx2s" target="_blank">The Alliance Française de Chicago</a>. Come check it out.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-38849160672790946712023-05-06T09:27:00.000-05:002023-05-06T09:27:04.565-05:00Architects of Illusion: Noir Greatest Art Directors<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyKkveMM7oIFFYlaMhPk6jy8D-tE-cvvlnZwggtqi0nhsT2sBBOyJW5WQXNcT7qfiYhowTINunrYZcbv44TxStE0Q8Gqoy8BCxTQU3GDa8z6Ckp61GpRiEI8CxrwbGXuooj_O3M5A813eKfKabR10xWP8mWcKaY3h6L4EifRHeFVC2fpj0PE5QQWymw/s475/Noir%20City%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="367" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyKkveMM7oIFFYlaMhPk6jy8D-tE-cvvlnZwggtqi0nhsT2sBBOyJW5WQXNcT7qfiYhowTINunrYZcbv44TxStE0Q8Gqoy8BCxTQU3GDa8z6Ckp61GpRiEI8CxrwbGXuooj_O3M5A813eKfKabR10xWP8mWcKaY3h6L4EifRHeFVC2fpj0PE5QQWymw/w303-h392/Noir%20City%20cover.jpg" width="303" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">A film noir obsession usually starts out with a focus on movie stars. When it begins to deepen, the obsession starts to focus on the director. When it gets bad enough, it spreads to an obsession with below the line talent, the names most people have never heard of. The writer, of course. The cinematographer. The producer. My own particular obsession is at the point now where I'm fascinated by the Art Director, the studio craftsperson during the classic era of noir who was in charge of designing and overseeing construction of the sets. They were as responsible as anyone for the unique visual aesthetic we call film noir. I spent a lot of last year researching and writing about these artists, and the result of my labors is a sprawling article in the new issue of <a href="https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymagazine.html" target="_blank">NOIR CITY</a>. It's another great issue--with a fun lead piece on "Stoner Noir" and a nice overview of the making and resurrection of one of my favorite films, Orson Welles's THE TRIAL. I'm proud that my art director article is in such fine company. </span><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-37071370008538737842023-01-12T15:50:00.071-06:002023-12-31T17:21:08.637-06:00At the Movies in 2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvpmTKQqbNrog0P11YEfzpBRrvsOBy-k0Cf4JvGHYoQXdE16iIziSJqqua4WF69zJM7Ag5Oncikc82reti0uAHVF5PcTW-9c8e-SfO93mp1Q_QS78kLAg1Y13PvILDnrx-d4IfT4_xtnzTlaXgkUVg7ZPdCSTO_W74jikk3t7PgJBcVYC6_v7ru2Jt_g/s500/Music%20Box.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvpmTKQqbNrog0P11YEfzpBRrvsOBy-k0Cf4JvGHYoQXdE16iIziSJqqua4WF69zJM7Ag5Oncikc82reti0uAHVF5PcTW-9c8e-SfO93mp1Q_QS78kLAg1Y13PvILDnrx-d4IfT4_xtnzTlaXgkUVg7ZPdCSTO_W74jikk3t7PgJBcVYC6_v7ru2Jt_g/w422-h253/Music%20Box.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> <span style="font-size: x-large;">A running list of what I've seen on the big screen this year:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. The Unknown (1927)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight) (1965)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. Ball of Fire (1941)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. So Sweet So Perverse (1969)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. The Fabelmans (2021)- AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. Roman Holiday (1953)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7. Tar (2022)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8. Ace in the Hole (1951)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">9. Bound (1996)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">10. Nekromantik 2 (1991)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">11. Marlowe (2023)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">12. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">13. Les Enfants des Autres (2023)-Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">14. The Trial (1962)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">15. The Trial (1962)-Music Box (2nd time)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">16. The Trial (1962)-Music Box (3rd time)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">17. Creed III (2023)-Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">18. Inside (2023)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">19. The Doom Generation (1995)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">20. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">21. The Hunchback of the Morgue (1973)-Davis Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">22. Beau is Afraid (2023)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">23. Runaway Train (1985)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">24. The Crow (1994)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">25. Return to Seoul (2022)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">26. The Conformist (1970)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">27. Citizen Kane (1941)-Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">28. From Russia with Love (1963)-Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">29. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)-Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">30. Master Gardner (2023)-AMC River East 21</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">31. Vertigo (1958)-Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">32. You Hurt My Feelings (2023)-Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">33. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)-Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">34. Sanctuary (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">35. Lynch/Oz (2023)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">36. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">37. Killer Clowns from Outer Space (1988)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">38. Alice in Wonderland (1951)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">39. Pour Don Carlos (1921)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">40. The Flash (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">41. Paper Moon (1973)-Gene Siskel</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">42. Red River (1948)-NEIU CFS</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">43. If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">44. The Burning Hell (1974)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">45. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">46. Mission: Impossible -Dead Reckoning: Part 1 (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">47. Puppet Master (2018)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">48. Hatching (2022)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">49. No Hard Feelings (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">50. Oppenheimer (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">51. Barbie (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">52. Theater Camp (2023)-AMC Village Crossing 18</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">53. Body Melt (1993)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">54. Accion Mutante (1993)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">55. Kaboom (2010)-Music Box Garden</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">56. John Dies at the End (2012)-Music Box Garden</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">57. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">58. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">59. ET (1982)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">60. Key Largo (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">61. The Lady from Shanghai (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">62. Force of Evil (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">63. The Spiritualist (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">64. Road House (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">65. The Big Clock (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">66. The Naked City (1948)- Music Box NCC </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">67. Chicago Deadline (1949)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">68. Blood on the Moon (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">69. Cry of the City (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">70. Raw Deal (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">71. High Noon (1952)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">72. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)- Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">73. The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)- Davis Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">74. Re-Animator (1985)- Davis Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">75. Black Christmas (1974)- Davis Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">76. Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">77. Near Dark (1987)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">78. Winter Kills (1979)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">79. The Crow (1994)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">80. Angel Heart (1986)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">81. Bride of Chucky (1998)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">82. Waxworks (1924)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">83. Aliens (1986)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">84. Don’t Open the Window (1974)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">85. Don’t Go in the House (1979)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">86. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)- Regal Webster 11</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">87. The Creator (2023)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">88. The Tingler (1959)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">89. The Killer (2023)- Landmark Century Cinema</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">90. Big Shark (2023)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">91. The Holdovers (2023)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">92. Thanksgiving (2023)- Regal Webster Place</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">93. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">94. Napoleon (2023)- Regal North City</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">95. The Night of the Hunter (1955)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">96. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">97. The Seven Year Itch (1955)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">98. Camilla Vive! (2023)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">99. Curtains (1983)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">100. 2046 (2004)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">101. Batman Returns (1992)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">102. All that Heaven Allows (1955)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">103. Die Hard (1988)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">104. Inside (2007)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">105. The Apartment (1960)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">106. Christine (1983)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">107. Poor Things (2023)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">108. Rear Window (1954)- Music Box</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-87808586645216512232023-01-12T15:47:00.001-06:002023-01-12T15:47:27.233-06:00Last Year at the Movies<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHo8YxfyuEEy9vBBK3Ub5TyaNKLZhEJW5dYA0_RGr00b0aU0YsYFCsFRjxNQUidCFk6xlOJzjvzpanz_BtDmEqLXKI8hunKFYKFsQ4UAVt6NhVYVPEFa7E2jItFLknk6EPQ2HkBbXN5sVAET7x14ZQh_lh6AIlJVU5yhQ4f3Yuy1jFNpv7DWYNQos3g/s3000/Tar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1257" data-original-width="3000" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHo8YxfyuEEy9vBBK3Ub5TyaNKLZhEJW5dYA0_RGr00b0aU0YsYFCsFRjxNQUidCFk6xlOJzjvzpanz_BtDmEqLXKI8hunKFYKFsQ4UAVt6NhVYVPEFa7E2jItFLknk6EPQ2HkBbXN5sVAET7x14ZQh_lh6AIlJVU5yhQ4f3Yuy1jFNpv7DWYNQos3g/w571-h239/Tar.jpg" width="571" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Last year marked my full return to in-person moviegoing. My numbers didn't reach the heights of 2018 when I hit a personal best of 126 movies, but in 2022 I did manage to see 85 movies at the theater. That's better than a movie a week, which is nothing to be ashamed of. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This was not a great year for the movies, I'd say. We continued to see the slow death of the midbudget film, the star vehicle, and the kind of bread-and-butter adult-skewing movies that used to keep Hollywood in business. My favorite new movies this year were mostly flops: I loved both TAR (my number one of the year) and THE NORTHMAN. I really liked BABYLON, a flawed film, sure, but the kind of flawed film that I go for--indulgent, over-the-top and fun. I also really liked smaller unsung films like RESURRECTION and SUNDOWN.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I didn't like EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE as much as other people did, and I thought BULLET TRAIN was mostly a waste of a good concept and cast. TOP GUN: MAVERICK was a lot of fun, though it's funny to see it touted as some kind of masterpiece. I'm more of an Ethan Hunt guy than a Maverick guy, I guess. (Very excited for the new Mission Impossible out this year.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As is always the case, the best movies I saw at the theater last year were mostly old movies. Highlights included favorites like THE MALTESE FALCON, EYES WIDE SHUT, BLAST OF SILENCE, CAT PEOPLE and more. Last year also marked the return of Noir City Chicago, which was a delight. The highlight of that was a showing of FLESH AND BONE, my first time to see the movie in a theater since it came out back in the 90s. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Here's a breakdown of my moviegoing last year by decade:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Total films seen on the big screen: 85<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2022: 20<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2020s: 4<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2010s: 1<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2000s: 8<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1990s: 9<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1980s: 9<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1970s: 5<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1960s: 6<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1950s: 9<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1940s: 8<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1930s: 1<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1920s: 5<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1910s: 0<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-88599269394860852132022-11-02T11:08:00.005-05:002022-11-02T11:08:48.602-05:00FIND HIM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKka81TkBlaW-zTGzTudtKe0-Pau1yW1Qb015qZskQJ13bdJIIw2JU3LtgwVLfLgJmmbTbhbUoYsI_eEtkBfd1RvxPZDEmUk4TJ7zbeLFmWiVnv3B6Ld0hFnHA_aMgeJCN1U7ZQ6xgpuNL0BODvBF3xIoTrpUmLJLLXexQrstDKuLUR-rkkAvL9hFCQ/s700/Find%20Him.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="453" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKka81TkBlaW-zTGzTudtKe0-Pau1yW1Qb015qZskQJ13bdJIIw2JU3LtgwVLfLgJmmbTbhbUoYsI_eEtkBfd1RvxPZDEmUk4TJ7zbeLFmWiVnv3B6Ld0hFnHA_aMgeJCN1U7ZQ6xgpuNL0BODvBF3xIoTrpUmLJLLXexQrstDKuLUR-rkkAvL9hFCQ/w258-h399/Find%20Him.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: large;">Happy to announce that <a href="http://www.polisbooks.com/books/find-him/" target="_blank">FIND HIM</a> is finally here. It's been a long road for this book, the last miles of which lead through Covid and supply chain chaos, but I'm thrilled that the book is out in the world and getting good notices. Find it wherever you get your books.</span></p><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-82168654928246036732022-07-24T16:24:00.003-05:002022-07-24T16:24:38.539-05:00Commentary Track on THE GUILTY<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEeEJ2oZ0xep5tQ3GXPz3VBiDF8FcdMLP00eb66xM8rlClNPGLW6jFWrYY55klMOmGisi_D5pytvnszlGzehsURdIuxku-izuLfryJrUr0WGztkwxo7o16wxtKwxDh4md4sqXX8L5-QHkCxCPWLjFlAXW1pAJqWXOhijZIq8s3sBg9JS0FVSuJbXYeMA/s1500/Guilty-HT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1208" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEeEJ2oZ0xep5tQ3GXPz3VBiDF8FcdMLP00eb66xM8rlClNPGLW6jFWrYY55klMOmGisi_D5pytvnszlGzehsURdIuxku-izuLfryJrUr0WGztkwxo7o16wxtKwxDh4md4sqXX8L5-QHkCxCPWLjFlAXW1pAJqWXOhijZIq8s3sBg9JS0FVSuJbXYeMA/w348-h432/Guilty-HT.jpg" width="348" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had a blast doing the commentary for Flicker Alley's restoration of John Reinhardt's great poverty row noir THE GUILTY (1947). The film is included in a new set with Reinhardt's *other* great noir from that year, HIGH TIDE. The package is fantastic, packed with extras, including a commentary by Alan Rode on HIGH TIDE, informative features on the stars, director, and producers--all with a nice intro by Eddie Muller. If you're a serious noir geek, then you really don't want to miss one. Check it out <a href="https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies-2/#!/The-Guilty-High-Tide/p/442246038/category=20414531" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-2488529668214432632022-06-25T17:24:00.003-05:002022-09-16T11:30:11.494-05:00Publishers Weekly (Starred) Review for FIND HIM <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixfx1hN3T5YWTJ_hfTFqmcigAVsSm7xcj0LajwMJ8Y_REYazgcJmli-zdmmtogs8WsX4dWCt85T0TLheNSt_AE1klhdsPqBgyuiWmRr31jER1DJjmit6PE0WnjhRU6PKUUaB7pUrBd2zcYGfcOaecj4TRGi4-_fU92ipsNhNt29muEgyJL6ldsDUhHKA/s700/Find%20Him.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="453" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixfx1hN3T5YWTJ_hfTFqmcigAVsSm7xcj0LajwMJ8Y_REYazgcJmli-zdmmtogs8WsX4dWCt85T0TLheNSt_AE1klhdsPqBgyuiWmRr31jER1DJjmit6PE0WnjhRU6PKUUaB7pUrBd2zcYGfcOaecj4TRGi4-_fU92ipsNhNt29muEgyJL6ldsDUhHKA/w257-h398/Find%20Him.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: x-large;">My new book FIND HIM will be out November 1st, and I'm thrilled about the rave review ("an exceptional tale of crime and courage") it just got in </span><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781951709754" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">Publisher's Weekly</a><span style="font-size: x-large;">. Pre-order the book </span><a href="http://www.polisbooks.com/books/find-him/" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-size: x-large;">. </span>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-64933842415425249492022-05-06T00:00:00.087-05:002023-05-17T04:16:13.928-05:00MOBY DICK - REHEARSED (1955)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUl5nVodZ5wQ_s29Q6gLbbKrIu16Eo-DWSeF6v6OK6tOBpQFtgWH6jmWsDjkdB_HHXyCqgQ1x5JJneRrZNnrpHdesAolV2NHcOAGO2NAfLwM5Wl77_LkDJ6_E7CRSuJb17jTR1Us7xQ_RnnnznK0xSHVnzDJUJXvbjp1g8FrLdrIj9midGhg2sEjumFQ/s420/Moby%20Dick%20Rehearsed.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="270" height="489" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUl5nVodZ5wQ_s29Q6gLbbKrIu16Eo-DWSeF6v6OK6tOBpQFtgWH6jmWsDjkdB_HHXyCqgQ1x5JJneRrZNnrpHdesAolV2NHcOAGO2NAfLwM5Wl77_LkDJ6_E7CRSuJb17jTR1Us7xQ_RnnnznK0xSHVnzDJUJXvbjp1g8FrLdrIj9midGhg2sEjumFQ/w315-h489/Moby%20Dick%20Rehearsed.JPG" width="315" /></a></div><br /><p>above: Welles directing MOBY DICK - REHEARSED in 1955.</p><p> <span style="font-size: large;">If you divide the career of Orson Welles into three periods--Early, Middle, and Late--then you will find his most prolific work in theater in the Early period. That was the period of rapidly successive experiments and triumphs--the time of the Dublin Theater, the "Voodoo MACBETH," the Mercury Theater, JULUIS CESEAR, and NATIVE SON. A heady time, to be sure.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But even in his Middle period, when he'd left America and was making his way as an independent filmmaker in Europe and Africa, he did not abandon the theater. (As he would, alas, in his Late period. Although he lived until 1985, he stopped working in the theater in 1960.) In some ways, his most significant production during this time was CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, by all accounts a failure as a play but one that functioned as a trial run for his triumphant 1965 film FALSTAFF, perhaps the single greatest work of his career.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Having said that, however, Welles' most lasting contribution to the theater during his Middle period was certainly his Melville adaptation MOBY DICK - REHEARSED. It was the highpoint of his career as a playwright and another piece of evidence that he may well have been the supreme literary 'adaptor' of the 20th century. (Other evidence would include his adaptations--on radio, stage, and screen--of HG Wells, Richard Wright, Booth Tarkington, Kafka, Isak Dinesen, and, of course, Shakespeare.) It also brings his experiments in self-conscious meta-artmaking to something of a boil, which would pay off in later works of extreme self-consciousness like his essay film F FOR FAKE and his unfinished THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">MOBY DICK - REHEARSED is a play in two acts. The setting is the backstage of a small theater. In Act I, we're introduced to an acting troupe getting together to rehearse a production of KING LEAR. Petty complaints and light teasing are exchanged, lines are run, a little time is killed. Then the troupe's Actor-Manager arrives and announces that they will be rehearsing a new play, an adaptation of Melville's novel MOBY DICK. The gang grumbles a little more but soon enough everyone snaps to, and the story of Ishmael, Starbuck, Captain Ahab and the great white whale begins to take shape. As it does, the story begins to take over. By Act II, we are fully in MOBY DICK, the story having subsumed the actors. Only at the very end, with Ahab and his mortal enemy confined to the watery deep, do the actors at last shrug off their roles and return to themselves. Then the curtain falls.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When Welles produced MOBY DICK - REHEARSED in June of 1955 at the Duke of York's Theater in London it garnered largely rave reviews, but it didn't draw a huge audience. (Welles, always a popular celebrity, was never a strong box office draw.) In the years since, the play has rolled on, taking on a life of its own in numerous productions (the most famous of which was the 1962 production starring Rod Steiger as the Actor-Manager/Ahab). The director of one such production in North Carolina, Robb Mann, told me that his actors played the early scenes as comedy and "then as the play progressed rolled it into drama, going from realism to hyper-realism." That strikes me as the natural progression of Welles' play, which develops from a half-hearted rehearsal to a deep immersion--with the actors playing actors who are at first playing characters until the characters finally become people who fully take over. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The adaptation itself is brilliant. With a nod to Shakespeare, Welles converts Melville's prose into blank verse. He takes the author's sprawling novel--itself a roiling compendium of styles (part philosophical meditation, part gothic comedy, part boy's adventure tale, part cetology textbook)--and pares it down to its fierce beating heart: Ahab's obsessive hunt for the whale. The crew's growing unease with their captain's obsession becomes the focal point of the play, with Starbuck's caution crashing against Ahab's mania like the waves beating the sides of the ship.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But, of course, there are no waves. There is no ship. Adapting a story like MOBY DICK to the stage is a fool's errand because you can't put the ocean or a whale inside a theater, and faking it would just look goofy. MOBY DICK works best as a novel because it works best in the theater of the mind, with Melville's incantatory prose casting its spell even when he's lecturing you about whale blubber. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Welles grasped this blunt reality and worked with it. At the start of the play, the Actor-Manager, who will transform into Ahab as the rehearsal progresses, explains to his actors that the production will involve the audience as cocreators in the evening's production. It's up to the audience to supply the ocean and the whale. This kind of stripped down theater is (to use a phrase the theater director Jerzy Grotowski would coin years later) pure "Poor Theater." It embraces economic constraints as an engine of creativity. It shows incredible faith in the audience. It also finds Welles working in direct opposition to the Brechtian notions of epic theater that characterized his Early period mega productions like FIVE KINGS (1939) and AROUND THE WORLD (1946). Both of those plays had been flops artistically and commercially, but with MOBY DICK - REHEARSED, Welles found the perfect vehicle for his particular brand of epic classical theater.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This last point is worth pondering a moment longer. As both a filmmaker and a theater producer, Orson Welles would have had a far easier time of things if he'd been interested in crafting small stories or intimate character studies. But, then again, he wouldn't have been Orson Welles, would he? He was interested in outsized personalities taking center stage on the largest possible canvas. And that never changed. FALSTAFF is as big as any movie he ever made, and he made it for a pittance. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Likewise, MOBY DICK - REHEARSED may be Poor Theater, but it's epic Poor Theater, a heedless adaptation of an unadaptable novel. It's Welles acknowledging, more than ever before, the importance of the audience as cocreators of a live performance, even for a text as iconic as Melville's book.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-5329491375213043012022-04-01T13:38:00.001-05:002022-04-04T17:04:43.144-05:00Some thoughts on the Longevity of THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujUYwuBADeziflp63M6icSIE4CTewEZ1u6LmkYXza7_V6VL0oD5YV4KzqXfBpKQJPhx2i2yANcW3SLLahAIS6ho4mOz2ROhj28-bAv86wRwUK4d7Y0rkLChGT6iXqX54vSXVIpQi9YQ9vdin5PBBapFg3AK-O0JqSOvAV-csXx-6pcaEfHfaH-eF3uA/s960/thewizardofoz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="960" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujUYwuBADeziflp63M6icSIE4CTewEZ1u6LmkYXza7_V6VL0oD5YV4KzqXfBpKQJPhx2i2yANcW3SLLahAIS6ho4mOz2ROhj28-bAv86wRwUK4d7Y0rkLChGT6iXqX54vSXVIpQi9YQ9vdin5PBBapFg3AK-O0JqSOvAV-csXx-6pcaEfHfaH-eF3uA/w558-h302/thewizardofoz.jpg" width="558" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other day in the film aesthetics class I teach, we watched THE WIZARD OF OZ. Everyone in class had seen it, but no one had seen it since they were children. The viewing made for a fascinating experience.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For one thing, the movie doesn't just hold up well, it possibly holds up better than any movie ever made. If that seems like an outsized claim, consider the following:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. What other film from the 1930s would a room full of teenagers in 2022 already have seen? (I recently learned that in this same class, about a third of them had never seen the original STAR WARS.) They'd all seen OZ, and they'd all seen it around the same age, between 5-10 years old. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. Because it's a kids movie, it doesn't really age. The reason that most movies from the 1930s or 40s have trouble connecting with modern audiences is they're time capsules of old attitudes and styles. (I've found some of my students to be resistant to the pre-Method style of movie acting, as well as black and white cinematography.) THE WIZARD OF OZ, though, was created to be a live action cartoon, a storybook come to life. It's artificial from start to finish, with a mythic context. The acting, music, dancing, art direction--it's all integrated and pitched at the same level of unreality. This separates it, even from most kids movies of its time, which tried to at least wink at the parents or teens in the audience. Not OZ. It knows who it's for: kids. The irony is that, because we were all kids--because we wanted to run away from home at some point, and then wanted to return, and because we were scared of adults, and loved our pets, and because we felt misunderstood--it's for all of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. Look, I'm a Judy Garland obsessive, so of course I'm going to say it's all because of Judy, but it's impossible to imagine anyone else doing what she does in this film. She's a teenager playing a little girl (which, like everything else, adds to the movie's air of otherworldly weirdness). She's plucky without being annoying, scared of evil witches and flying monkeys but always able to rise up and defend herself and her friends. And, of course, she's the greatest musical comedy performer in movie history. That helps, too. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">MGM originally wanted Shirley Temple as Dorothy, but Temple, though talented and adorable, was an actual child and would have grounded the movie in a reality at odds with its aesthetic. And while she could sing, she sang, well, like a kid. She would have been, in a word, cute. Judy isn't cute in OZ, she's touching, and that's the difference.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. That brings us to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Famously, the scene of Judy singing her signature song was almost cut for fear that the Kansas opening was too long. But it is, of course, the heart of the movie. The song, melodic and simple, and imbues the movie with a strange sense of melancholy. The more you know of Judy's life, of course, the more meaning the song has. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. The level of craftsmanship here is exemplary across the board. The makeup and costumes of the Wicked Witch, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion are still impeccable. The Technicolor still pops. The sets by Cedric Gibbons still enchant. It's all great. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm tempted to say that THE WIZARD OF OZ is a perfect movie, but I can't because I hate the Lion's song "If I Were King of the Forest." It slows us down right when we want to get to the Wizard himself, and the song itself is a dud, a three-minute slog through Bert Lahr's mugging. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That one quibble aside, though, OZ really is pretty close to a perfect creation. It shows the studio system operating at its zenith, all the parts working in concert to create a masterpiece, one of the true works of cinematic art. </span></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-55026605602566604012022-03-22T13:51:00.004-05:002023-05-17T04:49:26.411-05:00Orson Welles On Stage<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOQ2_wb-ZbJBo-U6_wPA0LM2FsiUocwT7Ttp0BWwm8jxBZUMGTzVoq41zV6BaG4YHhq4oe3bMxiaA31ss1h5fVfmRYKjC6P-9mWr66rr8yWKC6a_aqFdpWsd_eCYRwcW76m_C7LZq-OySqwS-GnzceHprG_wURP_6CO-YWhVvTU5sD1XLF-AtARvlag/s553/Orson%20Caesar.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="553" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOQ2_wb-ZbJBo-U6_wPA0LM2FsiUocwT7Ttp0BWwm8jxBZUMGTzVoq41zV6BaG4YHhq4oe3bMxiaA31ss1h5fVfmRYKjC6P-9mWr66rr8yWKC6a_aqFdpWsd_eCYRwcW76m_C7LZq-OySqwS-GnzceHprG_wURP_6CO-YWhVvTU5sD1XLF-AtARvlag/w398-h266/Orson%20Caesar.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If Orson Welles had never made a single film or spoke a single word over the radio, he'd still be a legend: a legend of the theater. His accomplishments in this realm are as fascinating as anything he did elsewhere. There have been books written about his theater work, most notably Richard France's THE THEATER OF ORSON WELLES, which covers Welles's theatrical activity from 1931 to 1940, but I really hope someone somewhere is laboring on a magisterial deep dive into his entire career in theater. Although he shifted his focus to filmmaking in 1940, he dipped in and out of the theater for years, and his work, from start to finish, makes for absorbing reading.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here are some highlights of his theater work:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. <b>Childhood productions</b>: Welles made his first brief appearance on stage in a Chicago Opera production of MADAME BUTTERFLY when he was about 3 years old, and in some respects he never looked back. At ten years old he adapted and played the title roles in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE for a state park production in Wisconsin, followed by a turn as Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL. After his mother's death, he was sent to Todd's School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, where he more or less took over the theater department. He adapted, directed and acted in productions of Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, as well as performing in some musical theater composed by his friend and headmaster, Roger Hill.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. <b>Dublin</b>: After graduating from high school at 16 (shortly after his father's death), Welles skipped college and headed to Ireland instead where he talked his way into the Gate Theater run by Hilton Edwards and Micheal MacLiammoir. There his professional career began with a role in JEW SUSS, an adaptation of a Lion Feuchtwanger novel by playwright Ashley Dukes. Welles did more work at the Gate (including a turn as The Ghost in a legendary production of HAMLET), but he also branched out to take roles at other theater companies (like the Abbey Theater and the Peacock) and mount some productions of his own around Dublin, including productions of Lewis Carroll, Ibsen, Chekov, Eugene O'Neill, P.G. Wodehouse, and, of course, some more Shakespeare.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. <b>New York</b>: After returning to America and mounting some productions at his alma mater (a period which I'll skip here, but which is fascinating all on its own), Welles headed to New York to try to sell some plays he'd written. Success as a playwright never came but he landed roles as an actor, first as Tybalt in ROMEO AND JULIET for Katharine Cornell's rep company, and then a breakout role in playwright Archibald MacLeish's PANIC. The play only ran a few performances but it got Welles noticed, not least of all by producer John Houseman, who recognized the young man's talent and ambition.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. <b>The Federal Theater Project</b>: The first project Welles and Houseman launched was the all-Black cast "Voodoo MACBETH" set in Haiti. The production was a landmark success, and the crown jewel in the Federal Theater Project run by Hallie Flanagan (a part of the New Deal's WPA). Welles followed it with an adaptation of a French farce which he titled HORSE EATS HAT, a smash hit comedy which he regarded as some of his best work as a writer and director. Then he issued a dramatic turn as the title character in DOCTOR FAUSTUS, another success that also lifted his profile as an actor as well as a director. Welles and Houseman had a falling out with the WPA over their next production, the radical agitprop musical THE CRADLE WILL ROCK. When they were barred from the theater (locked out with an actual chain fastened to the doors), Welles, Houseman and their actors led the audience twenty blocks up Manhattan to another theater. Forbidden by labor laws to take the stage, they sat in the audience and performed the musical from their seats while the composer Mark Blitzstein played piano, an act of defiance that became the stuff of legend.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. <b>The Mercury Theater</b>: With their association with the FTP at an end, Welles and Houseman started their own theater, The Mercury. Their first play, which Welles adapted, directed and starred in, was the anti-fascist CAESAR, a resounding commercial and critical success that might well be the most important production of Shakespeare ever done on the American stage. Stylistically daring, emotionally resonant, and unapologetically political, it would influence countless Shakespeare adaptations to come. Orson Welles was barely 23 years old. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Mercury followed CAESAR with another comedy in the mold of HORSE EATS HAT, this time a racy production of Thomas Dekker's THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY. The show was a smash hit, but it would also be the highwater mark for the theater. The troubled productions that followed--Shaw's HEARTBREAK HOUSE, TOO MUCH JOHNSON (for which Welles shot some footage intended to be shown within the context of the play) and the German drama DANTON'S DEATH, failed to catch on with audiences or critics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Two important productions remained, however. Welles directed Richard Wright's adaptation of his own novel NATIVE SON for Broadway, a landmark of African American theater. The play was a critical and commercial success, and, along with his other left leaning works, would contribute to the FBI labeling Welles a Communist in later years. His other important production was FIVE KINGS, Welles's first attempt to do the story of Shakespeare's Falstaff, a story culled from several different plays featuring the character. The production was not a success, but it laid the groundwork for a masterpiece to come.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Welles and Houseman split up after NATIVE SON and went their separate ways, and spent the rest of their lives shitting on each other in interviews. Still, Welles kept the Mercury going (mostly in name) for a few more years, but he really needed a producer to watch the bottom line. What drove the nail into the Mercury Theater's coffin was the epic disaster of Welles's 1946 AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, which featured music by Cole Porter and boasted enormous, costly sets. The production bombed with audiences and was savaged by critics. It also rendered Welles all but unemployable in New York theater.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. <b>Europe</b>: By the 1950s, Welles was concentrating primarily on independent moviemaking, but he kept working in theater off and on over the next ten years. He did OTHELLO in New Castle and London as prep for making a movie of the play (he'd done the same thing on stage in Utah in 1947 while working on his film version of MACBETH), he did a one-man show AN EVENING WITH ORSON WELLES in Germany, and in Paris he directed THE LADY IN THE ICE, a ballet, for which he wrote the libretto. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After a brief disappointing return to New York for short lived production of KING LEAR, he produced one of the most fascinating works in his oeuvre, MOBY DICK REHEARSED a meta play he wrote, directed, and starred in at the Duke of York's Theater in London in 1955. With minimal sets and props, the play begins with actors hanging out, talking, joking, complaining, and then gradually morphs into a rehearsal of a play of Melville's story, before morphing into the the story of Ahab and the White Whale itself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In 1960, Welles mounted a production of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT in Dublin with his old Gate Theater pal Hilton Edwards producing. The play was the next evolution of Welles's Falstaff project, which he'd tried with FIVE KINGS back at the Mercury, and which he'd been working on, in some form or fashion, since he was a boy in Woodstock, Illinois. The play helped him clarify his ideas for the story and it also helped him find the final piece of the puzzle, the actor who would play Prince Hal to Welles's Falstaff, Keith Baxter. Five years later, Welles and Baxter brought the play to the screen with the movie FALSTAFF, which many Welles fanatics, including your humble correspondent, consider his finest film.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Welles could have hung it up after CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, but he directed a final play, 1960's surrealist headscratcher RHINOCEROS, starring Laurence Olivier. Welles and Olivier clashed during rehearsals, and enough drama ensued that forty years later, in 2000, the Steppenwolf Theater mounted ORSON'S SHADOW, Austin Pendleton’s play about the chaotic production.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Happily, though, RHINOCEROS was a hit with both audiences and critics, and it sent Welles's career in theater out on a high note. Though he lived another 25 years, and though there were still cinematic masterpieces like FALSTAFF and F FOR FAKE still to come, he never worked in the theater again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But, god, what a run. From his childhood, well into his middle years, Orson Welles was one of the theater's great interpreters and innovators. I hope someone out there will give us the book that this part of his career deserves.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-48045357195998033352022-02-20T13:17:00.007-06:002022-02-20T13:17:49.007-06:00It Was Always Personal: A Brief Appreciation of Peter Bogdanovich<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCI4Iufl5pbvV5jwtdQkDb55Mlk1pTdB5-jB3oS4s5bB3TvpR4rYGztHi_xwVZL7obmMhz3WZoiq126T2ZcM-GwIL9ez10oPgPZuNjGyGvPv3lGRtQP8_3kD-SmNDprSN0StFNFBtyPO4mE5QkvPBLyPSK4I5vDDL3VWmPxqE5W4IdcFJ7phFGmAJsqw=s1600" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCI4Iufl5pbvV5jwtdQkDb55Mlk1pTdB5-jB3oS4s5bB3TvpR4rYGztHi_xwVZL7obmMhz3WZoiq126T2ZcM-GwIL9ez10oPgPZuNjGyGvPv3lGRtQP8_3kD-SmNDprSN0StFNFBtyPO4mE5QkvPBLyPSK4I5vDDL3VWmPxqE5W4IdcFJ7phFGmAJsqw=w553-h311" width="553" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: large;">Last month, on January 6th, Peter Bogdanovich passed away. He was 82 years old, which is a nice long run, but it still seems like he was taken too soon. If you listen to almost any interview he gave over the last couple of years you'll hear him talk about the movies he still wanted to make, particularly a ghost story he wanted to film about a movie director haunted by his lost loves. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One doesn't have to dig too deeply into that plot to find the spirit of Bogdanovich himself. He was among the most personal of filmmakers, not because his life details are reflected in most of the stories he filmed (his most famous film, for example, was about growing up in Texas, an experience far removed from the life experience of a New York kid like Bogdanovich). No, his movies were personal because of his experience of making them. Like his hero and sometimes-friend Orson Welles, Bogdanovich put his passion for filmmaking onscreen. The filmmakers who most revere Bogdanovich himself--Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach--all resemble him in this respect: the passion for the medium is the de facto subject of their work. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">With Bogdanovich, of course, this stretched into his other job, that of film historian, writer, and critic. He didn't like being called a critic, and it's true that he only very occasionally functioned as one. He preferred the term "popularizer" which does seem more fitting. He rarely wrote, or even spoke on the record, about films or filmmakers he didn't like. He had a wealth of knowledge about old Hollywood, but his knowledge was idiosyncratic. He knew many of his favorite directors--Ford, Hawks, Renoir, Hitchcock, Ulmer--so he had opinions and stories about them to spare. But what about someone like Billy Wilder? Indisputably one of the great directors, Wilder and Bogdanovich had some bad blood back in the 70s, so there's barely a mention of him in any of the volumes of work Bogdanovich published on classic Hollywood. Likewise, Bogdanovich always had to be forced to say anything at all about any of his contemporaries (even ones like Francis Ford Coppola or William Friedkin with whom he had a short-lived production company). He wrote about what (and who) he liked, and pretty much ignored the rest. It was always personal with Peter Bogdanovich.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Likewise, his focus (obsession really) on directors and stars pretty much eclipsed his interest in any other area of filmmaking. Writers, cinematographers, art directors, producers (especially producers) get short shrift in his books and articles, and rarely got much mention when he was discussing his own films. The "Invisible Woman" season of the podcast YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS focusing on Bogdanovich's ex wife-and-collaborator Polly Platt is a nice corrective to the director-centric view of filmmaking that defined Bogdanovich's film histories and his interviews about his own films.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Having said all that, Bogdanovich was an auteur's auteur. The interviews he did with Welles in the book THIS IS ORSON WELLES is a primary text for any appreciation for Welles, and his interviews with classic directors in his book WHO THE HELL MADE IT? is invaluable. (One example, he conducted what might very well be the only surviving interview with DETOUR director Edgar G. Ulmer.) As a filmmaker, he was frequently brilliant, and always himself. His movies are stamped with his wit, his humanity, his passion for film, and his sensitivity to both love and the loss of love. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I hope the next year or so will bring retrospectives of his work. We need PAPER MOON, WHAT'S UP DOC?, SAINT JACK, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, and THEY ALL LAUGHED back in theaters. I'd love the chance to see something like AT LONG LAST LOVE on the big screen, and I've always had a warm place for his expertly wrought version of NOISES OFF. Bring it all back, you art house cinemas, and let us sit in the dark and enjoy the work of one of the greats. </span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-58338230000846102582022-01-11T17:08:00.059-06:002022-12-26T07:51:23.804-06:00At the Movies in 2022<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQfYAA32vk6SKdjMPhpMrMboN4WNPvkQ19yds1ah6sV5monFvMOzfjMWoBX-EzYGvAASq6n1MAtMWFMiFqvX_SACExV5XTaBKfr_YitjVOzzooFylv9nW6zILQLCM9KobakRexV1y5fTh1YpBWElHIpESG8oLulqHP4T8hDRDEqtmAL08kSq81djO46Q=s500" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQfYAA32vk6SKdjMPhpMrMboN4WNPvkQ19yds1ah6sV5monFvMOzfjMWoBX-EzYGvAASq6n1MAtMWFMiFqvX_SACExV5XTaBKfr_YitjVOzzooFylv9nW6zILQLCM9KobakRexV1y5fTh1YpBWElHIpESG8oLulqHP4T8hDRDEqtmAL08kSq81djO46Q=w458-h275" width="458" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A running list of what I've seen on the big screen this year:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. Nightmare Alley (2021)- Landmark Century Cinema</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. In Cold Blood (1967)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)- Music Box Theater </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. The Apartment (1960)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. Scream (2022)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7. The Scary of Sixty-First (2021)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">9. The Conversation (1974)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">10. Hud (1963)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">11. Out of the Blue (1980)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">12. Sundown (2022)- Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">13. Strawberry Mansion (2022)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">14. The Batman (2022)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">15. Air Mail (1932)- North Eastern Illinois University (CFS)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">16. The Sting (1973)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">17. X (2022)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">18. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)- Landmark Century Cinema</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">19. Bigger Than Life (1956)-Music Box Theater (CFS)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">20. Mask (1985)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">21. Desire and Hell at the Sunset Motel (1991)-Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">22. Lost Highway (1997)-Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">23. The Outfit (2022)-The Quad Cinema (New York)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">24. The Lady From Shanghai (1947)- Music Box Theater </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">25. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">26. The African Queen (1951)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">27. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">28. The Northman (2022)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">29. 28 Days Later (2002)-Music Box </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">30. Pontypool (2008)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">31. Unforgiven (1992)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">32. Inland Empire (2006)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">33. Marcel the Shell with Shoes on (2022)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">34. Doc (1971)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">35. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">36. Light Sleeper (1992)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">37. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">38. Crimes of the Future (2022)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">39. Sudden Fear (1952)- Northeastern Illinois University (CFS)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">40. A Star is Born (1954)- Gene Siskel Film Center</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">41. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">42. Nope (2022)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">43. Mad God (2022)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">44. Resurrection (2022)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">45. Seconds (1966)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">46. The Cameraman (1928)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">47. The Marriage Circle (1924)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">48. Roy’s World: Barry Gifford’s Chicago (2022)- Music Box </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">49. Bullet Train (2022)- Regal Webster Place</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">50. Ratatouille (2007)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">51. Friday the 13th Part III in 3D (1982)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">52. Thief (1981)- Music Box Noir City Chicago (NCC)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">53. Flesh and Bone (1993)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">54. Among the Living (1941)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">55. Street of Chance (1942)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">56. Smooth as Silk (1946)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">57. So Dark the Night (1946)- Music Box NCC </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">58. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">59. Playgirl (1954)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">60. The Cruel Tower (1956)- Music Box NCC</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">61. Stand By Me (1986)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">62. Rio Bravo (1959)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">63. Within Our Gates (1920)- Music Box (CFS)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">64. White Line Fever (1975)- NEIU (CFS)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">65. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">66. Stir of Echoes (1999)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">67. Cat People (1942)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">68. Cemetery Man (1994)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">69. Tar (2022)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">70. Personal Shopper (2016)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">71. Demonlover (2002)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">72. House of Wax (1953)- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">73. The Maltese Falcon (1941)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">74. The Wind (1928)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">75. Malcolm X (1992)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">76. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari- Pickwick Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">77. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)-AMC Fiesta Square Fayetteville AR</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">78. Silent Night Deadly Night (1984)-Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">79. 36.15 code Pere Noel (1989)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">80. The Beyond (1981)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">81. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">82. Blast of Silence (1961)- Facets</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">83. Santa’s Slay (2005)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">84. The Children (2008)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">85. Babylon (2022)- Regal City North</span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-64168878538025152852022-01-07T10:10:00.002-06:002022-05-14T23:16:30.188-05:00FIND HIM<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1Ldti8fjqIHzOTGEh5MIvbI68ymYFhLSrSVTW9FlGPSkVFKcJ1YsBct49b-BmC2yf5IS8rP7Xpw1Jk5GKqtjzZCwTvBw2MVh1q9BneNLPDR2Di7rcpCiJbfaFBuDNAJlLBcDuIS_p4XHB0O7C-9AYB2IgU2mF3VHv6YfGwRXsH7HDLoRc5kK6r70Vfw=s700" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="453" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1Ldti8fjqIHzOTGEh5MIvbI68ymYFhLSrSVTW9FlGPSkVFKcJ1YsBct49b-BmC2yf5IS8rP7Xpw1Jk5GKqtjzZCwTvBw2MVh1q9BneNLPDR2Di7rcpCiJbfaFBuDNAJlLBcDuIS_p4XHB0O7C-9AYB2IgU2mF3VHv6YfGwRXsH7HDLoRc5kK6r70Vfw=w290-h448" width="290" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: large;">Coming August 30th from Polis Books. <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/find-him/9781951709754" target="_blank">Preorder it here</a>!</span><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-45657042327257451552022-01-02T14:45:00.002-06:002022-01-02T14:45:14.434-06:00Consider The Cab Driver<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjinjUb91_30dg-N_M0w9BIvdkiD1nCuxgPvzLtweEXgDp4acd1FNDbkeTVvjJlUqIjKlkXVF0moB0w5zMinUK_yygysvYQYYAWWdhDsWQlIQb-UFSpWYZtIJ8sFix7mrbF6sIIXoswPC4veBqoDTyTRD5_ohq96O0JP-yv_oCWWGEXdk2pgTyk8hJF8A=s2550" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1650" data-original-width="2550" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjinjUb91_30dg-N_M0w9BIvdkiD1nCuxgPvzLtweEXgDp4acd1FNDbkeTVvjJlUqIjKlkXVF0moB0w5zMinUK_yygysvYQYYAWWdhDsWQlIQb-UFSpWYZtIJ8sFix7mrbF6sIIXoswPC4veBqoDTyTRD5_ohq96O0JP-yv_oCWWGEXdk2pgTyk8hJF8A=w477-h308" width="477" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: large;">The new issue of NOIR CITY features my overview of the surprisingly rich history of the cab driver in noir, from 99 RIVER STREET and JOHNNY EAGER to TAXI DRIVER and COLLATERAL. <a href="https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymagazine.html" target="_blank">Get the magazine here</a>. </span><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-76411602300109044372021-12-27T14:53:00.002-06:002022-01-02T14:37:54.445-06:00At the Movies In 2021<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3cRqNCYlmLGWHyMqUFD3Tosl_yQn-hFTvKnBOUjyH18LJBroIGyKbMlCzfwYumnuZGAv0IpR380BKxr1K7nJV3vSC8p_93J_c5ozfWXlOT250LnCbN9sGZW8riioNDHUqMuXGb1f60F0/s500/Music+Box.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3cRqNCYlmLGWHyMqUFD3Tosl_yQn-hFTvKnBOUjyH18LJBroIGyKbMlCzfwYumnuZGAv0IpR380BKxr1K7nJV3vSC8p_93J_c5ozfWXlOT250LnCbN9sGZW8riioNDHUqMuXGb1f60F0/w508-h305/Music+Box.jpg" width="508" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As theaters reopened, I got to return to seeing movies at something approaching my old pace. The year started out with trips to the drive-in, and then the occasional special showing at the Music Box. Slowly, weekend matinees and regular screenings have returned. No one knows what the future holds, of course, even in the short term, but here's hoping I get to spend even more time at the movies in 2022.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here's a list of what I saw on the big screen in 2021:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. Jaws (1975)- ChiTown Drive-In</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. Night of Kings (2021)- Music Box Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. The Human Voice (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. Heat (1995)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. Ocean's 11 (2001)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7. Rififi (1955)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8. The Story of a Three Day Pass (1967)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">9. The Navigator (1924)-Pickwick Theater (Park Ridge)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">10. The Lucky Dog (1921)- Pickwick</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">11. Shoulder Arms (1919)- Pickwick</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">12. Playtime (1967)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">13. The Amusement Park (1973)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">14. Jerry Maguire (1996)- Regal City North</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">15. A Quiet Place Part II (2021)- Regal</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">16. Summer of 85 (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">17. Mama Weed (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">18. Stillwater (2021)- AMC River East</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">19. The Return of Boston Blackie (1927)- City News Cafe</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">20. Black Widow (2021)- Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">21. The Green Knight (2021)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">22. The Suicide Squad (2021)-Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">23. La Piscine (1969)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">24. The Third Man (1949)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">25. Le Cercle Rouge (1970)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">26. Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">27. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings (2021)-Logan Theater</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">28. A Foreign Affair (1948)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">29. Greed (1924)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">30. A Corner in Wheat (1909)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">31. Dimland (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">32. The Card Counter (2021)- Landmark Century Centre Cinema</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">33. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">34. Titane (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">35. The Shakedown (1929)- Music Box </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">36. In a Lonely Place (1950)- Doc Films</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">37. Dune (2021)- Regal IMAX</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">38. No Time to Die (2021)- Regal IMAX</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">39. The Magnificent Seven (1960)- Pickwick</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">40. The French Dispatch (2021)- Logan</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">41. The Power of the Dog (2021)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">42. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)- Logan</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">43. Suicide Club (2001)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">44. White Heat (1949)-Music Box "Noirvember"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">45. Too Late For Tears (1949)-Music Box "Noirvember"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">46. Arrebato (1979)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">47. Pavement Butterfly (1929)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">48. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">49. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)- Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">50. Superman: The Movie (1978)- Pickwick</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">51. Hardcore (1978)- Los Feliz Theater (Los Angeles)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">52. Licorice Pizza (2021)- Logan</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">53. Cure (1997)-Music Box</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">54. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)-Logan</span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-62784559453096318662021-11-25T16:51:00.006-06:002021-11-25T16:53:24.059-06:00CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyK1V2WqThKMs3cn-kdJeOML4bF6cjWTPb-tBEny10UahTVJIMB4fSnj2THlExaBw9XH4nwcXgoDxasE8UOP-vYEWy4sL3PKiiC0hHXsgRvD74KGgT_He481IaPOzv-Rg4AvsQ5uum_XYZ/s500/christmas_holiday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="500" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyK1V2WqThKMs3cn-kdJeOML4bF6cjWTPb-tBEny10UahTVJIMB4fSnj2THlExaBw9XH4nwcXgoDxasE8UOP-vYEWy4sL3PKiiC0hHXsgRvD74KGgT_He481IaPOzv-Rg4AvsQ5uum_XYZ/w437-h332/christmas_holiday.jpg" width="437" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">The holidays can be a depressing
time, so it’s somewhat ironic that more film noirs haven’t been set during the silly
season. The manufactured cheerfulness of Christmas—with the lights, incessant
music and forced religious observance, not to mention the legitimate
celebrations of faith and family—make for a rich contrast to the subversive
world of noir. Capra employed some noir touches in MEET JOHN DOE and IT’S A WONDERFUL
LIFE, both of which are centered around long, dark nights of the soul. Allen
Baron utilized New York’s Christmas celebrations in BLAST OF SILENCE, using the
decorations and cheer as a backdrop for his ode to existential nothingness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">Perhaps the clearest example of a
“Christmas noir” is Robert Siodmak’s CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY starring Deanna Durbin
and Gene Kelly. Adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz from a novel by W. Somerset
Maugham, it tells the story of a young solider, Lt. Charles Mason (Dean Harens)
who is dumped by his fiancée (via telegram!) on Christmas Eve. He jumps on a
plane to San Francisco to confront her, but when the plane hits a storm, the
flight is rerouted to New Orleans. Mason is drinking his problems away in a bar
until he can get another flight when he’s approached by a drunk reporter
(Richard Whorf). The reporter takes pity on Mason and drags him to a nightclub
(a thinly veiled brothel). There Mason meets a beautiful-but-sad young singer
named Jackie (Deanna Durbin). They spend the night talking, with Jackie telling
Mason the story of her life. Turns out her real name is Abigail Martin and her
husband Robert (Gene Kelly) is in prison serving a life sentence for murder.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">At this point, the film switches
gears and tells the story of Abigail and Robert’s doomed romance. After the
back story is filled in, we come back to Abigail and Mason just in time to find
out that Robert has escaped from prison and is making his way to his wife. He’s
not pleased that she has changed her name and taken a job in a whorehouse.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">What an odd film this is. It takes
a curiously long time to get to the story of Abigail and Robert, and Mason
never comes into focus as a real character with real problems of his own (the
film forgets about his two-timing fiancée pretty quick). Yet the story of
Abigail and Robert also feels undercooked. Theirs is an extremely dysfunctional
relationship, with Abigail assuming the responsibility for Robert’s gambling
and murder, and Robert letting her feel that she’s to blame. The film never
confronts this imbalance of power in the relationship, and then at the end
segues into a hasty bit of self-empowerment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY came at an interesting
point the careers of its stars. After MGM dumped her in favor of Judy Garland in
the mid-1930s, Deanna Durbin had gone over to Universal and become one of the
biggest movie stars in the world. By 1949, she would be done with films, living
happily secluded in France, refusing film roles and interviews. When she made
this film in 1944, she was attempting to show that she had a range beyond light
comedy and musicals, and she does a perfectly fine job as the conflicted Abigail.
The same can’t be said for Gene Kelly, only a couple of years into his movie career
and still finding himself onscreen. Could anyone be more out of place in a
story like this? Kelly was a man with a spring in his step and music in his bones,
a performer born for light musical comedy. The final moments of CHRISTMAS
HOLIDAY fail to work in large part because Kelly, at least as an actor, has no
dark depths to plumb.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">It’s too bad, too, because CHRISTMAS
HOLIDAY has its virtues. Don’t let the title and the cast fool you; this is a
full-fledged film noir. Set almost entirely at night—and photographed by the
superb Woody Bredell—it’s a gorgeous-looking film with a good supporting cast.
There are nice character parts for Gale Sondergaard as Kelly’s creepily devoted
mother (the film should have made room for a showdown between Sondergaard and
Durbin), and Gladys George as the proprietor of the “nightclub” where Durbin
works. If anyone was born to play a Madam in a whorehouse, it was Gladys
George.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY is ultimately a
failure of a film, but it is a fascinating example of how noir worked. Here’s a
film starring two naturally ebullient singers, set during Christmas time, but
through the handling of the material it paints a pretty bleak picture. In this
film, love is some-thing to be overcome, something that always gives way to
heartbreak and pain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;">Happy Holidays from the city of
perpetual night.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0in;"> </span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-23779116130049656392021-10-19T16:19:00.003-05:002021-10-19T16:20:41.060-05:00Commentary Track for WOMAN IN THE DARK<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiWLxbjMzenP2IEF4h6fgRa4mSWQS-ZOYhOSIETZOftH85QaeBwdVHA96yN9gj9nn3Vd3EfrFyIvU16Oqa1k1WYsboeAC8mGE-BFGxamd6wN2Ew1Ubmm0WlcyQVZZT8vLPuBaroxcjucD/s441/woman-in-the-dark-movie-poster-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="297" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiWLxbjMzenP2IEF4h6fgRa4mSWQS-ZOYhOSIETZOftH85QaeBwdVHA96yN9gj9nn3Vd3EfrFyIvU16Oqa1k1WYsboeAC8mGE-BFGxamd6wN2Ew1Ubmm0WlcyQVZZT8vLPuBaroxcjucD/w251-h372/woman-in-the-dark-movie-poster-md.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><p>Well, here's some fun news. I had the opportunity a few months ago to record my first commentary track, for Flicker Alley's Blu-Ray release of the Dashiell Hammett adaptation WOMAN IN THE DARK. The film is included in a box set called <a href="https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies-2/#!/In-The-Shadow-of-Hollywood-Highlights-from-Poverty-Row/p/386348686/category=20414531" target="_blank">IN THE SHADOW OF HOLLYWOOD: HIGHLIGHTS FROM POVERTY ROW</a>. </p><p>It was interesting to try something new, to work in a entirely new medium. I've been teaching film studies for a couple of years now, and I've been writing about film for much longer, but recording audio commentary is a whole other animal. Trying to juggle historical context and shot-by-shot analysis while also trying not to jumble my words or repeat myself was a fun challenge. I can tell you one thing: it certainly gave me an even greater appreciation for guys like Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode who make this shit look effortless. It is tricky, damn tricky.</p><p>Go check out the box set and support Flicker Alley, which is doing excellent work cleaning up and releasing works that fall through the Criterion cracks. </p></span><p></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-85852946240582857422021-09-28T14:44:00.000-05:002021-09-28T14:44:02.416-05:00Back at the Movies in Chicago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXlx6uTqRIaXMJRiMhyphenhyphenzMFzkGGEv5FQXbR5jVRX8SPx0Pnf-g0oRlBu6B8cH8R3EeZZY3w_NtAnocnJQZ3rhpMObSVgEyV51Fdnj55opqVo_hdr2XDbTXNTBFV0Tg7M8T3kU9VnTY6KVTh/s557/Greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="350" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXlx6uTqRIaXMJRiMhyphenhyphenzMFzkGGEv5FQXbR5jVRX8SPx0Pnf-g0oRlBu6B8cH8R3EeZZY3w_NtAnocnJQZ3rhpMObSVgEyV51Fdnj55opqVo_hdr2XDbTXNTBFV0Tg7M8T3kU9VnTY6KVTh/w243-h387/Greed.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><br /><p> <span style="font-size: large;">Obviously we're not out of the pandemic yet (and won't be anytime soon, I fear), but lately things have returned to a peculiar kind of normal. Case in point: the movies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's not as if we can just stroll into a theater like it's 2019, of course. There are safety protocols--masks, proof of vax, ect--that must be observed. But after the dismal cultural wasteland that was 2020, I am happy to report that, in Chicago at least, moviegoing has regained a least a little of its former glory.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Music Box Theater (the jewel in Chicago's cinema crown) is back up and running, programming new indie films and classic oldies, as well as midnight showings for the night owls, weekend matinees (first up, a series of Marlene Dietrich movies!), and silent films for the hardcore cinephiles (which kicked off with a glorious showing of GREED a few weeks back).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Siskel Film Center is also back, with, among other things, a Fellini series (a nice way to celebrate the pure joy of cinema). The <a href="https://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/calendar/current-season/" target="_blank">Chicago Film Society</a> is back with a truncated (though characteristically eclectic) season, which will culminate with a showing of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS in December. And after the longest hiatus of them all, Doc Films is back with a <a href="https://docfilms.uchicago.edu/dev/calendar/index.shtml" target="_blank">shortened weekly schedule</a> (only Thursdays to Sundays). The Park Ridge movies series is back at the Pickwick Theater, the Chicago Silent Film Society is booking showings, and <a href="https://facets.org/cinema/" target="_blank">Facets </a>is still going strong. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In addition to all of that, the multiplexes have reopened with the superhero/franchise/blockbuster stuff.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All of this makes me exceedingly happy, and I hope it all reinforces the need for in-person cinematic experiences. I am grateful for all the technology that made it possible to watch movies, stream concerts and other "live" performances during the pandemic, but let's pause for a moment to appreciate just how nice it is to go out, grab dinner, and go to the movies. </span></p><p><br /></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-55152132847365898832021-08-27T16:47:00.002-05:002021-08-27T16:47:50.796-05:00French Summer: LA PISCINE and MONSIEUR HULOT'S HOLIDAY<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUzLXL7Hygfegh8naFgTPDnfGYtBK4xDlrl_DZCzZQvnGIFYvHmQRLxQ5DUMx2YV_ox38aMSqhyT33ujPcr8sc2w6f-2jl_di1DPDWv0xW4gXw-UMZ4ck3odL7Mc2Dqicu_t7X54B1w3u/s1200/La+piscine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="1200" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUzLXL7Hygfegh8naFgTPDnfGYtBK4xDlrl_DZCzZQvnGIFYvHmQRLxQ5DUMx2YV_ox38aMSqhyT33ujPcr8sc2w6f-2jl_di1DPDWv0xW4gXw-UMZ4ck3odL7Mc2Dqicu_t7X54B1w3u/w400-h264/La+piscine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As we stagger out of August into an uncertain September, I'd like to report on the unintentional gift I gave myself this summer. I watched LA PISCINE (1969) a few weeks ago at the Music Box Theater, and it was the perfect mid-summer movie--sunny, sexy, and languorous. The film has just been released in a restored print, and it was a surprise hit this summer in New York, inspiring repeat viewings from enraptured audiences and a predicable high brow backlash from the NEW YORKER. Why a 52 year old French film should suddenly be thrust back into public consciousness and discourse is up for debate, though most people seem to agree that the carnal beauty of stars Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, both of whom are worshipped by director Jacques Deray's camera, is reason enough.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0cM_akxyIVZM6X_yYs16BlK9BlEY-x-rz2q1krA7jNWa-0pri21C49RXC8xyTQB0ARlB5u89bq5T6VAJH2tzMXGjfkT3l2KEENq82EhF1HD73-NNh6wmc2JlqRunKnQexyJJ_rQXD9lMA/s1600/Hulot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0cM_akxyIVZM6X_yYs16BlK9BlEY-x-rz2q1krA7jNWa-0pri21C49RXC8xyTQB0ARlB5u89bq5T6VAJH2tzMXGjfkT3l2KEENq82EhF1HD73-NNh6wmc2JlqRunKnQexyJJ_rQXD9lMA/w400-h225/Hulot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">But back to me for a moment. The gift I gave myself wasn't just LA PISCINE at mid-summer, it was also a viewing of MONSIEUR HULOT'S HOLIDAY (1953) a couple of nights ago. Jacques Tati's film is a gentle comedy about a group of people vacationing at a seaside resort. It was Tati's first film featuring his greatest creation, Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati himself) a well-meaning bumbler who makes quiet comic havoc of everything he touches. The film, like all the Hulot films that followed this one, is nearly dialogue free. The comedy comes from smartly observed details and tiny gestures (the repeated creak of a door, the way an elderly couple go for a stroll as if on promenade) rather than big set pieces (though there is a fireworks display at the end). At the end, everyone says their farewells, packs up and goes home.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't plan this French bookend to the summer, with Deray's sexy, sweaty thriller on one end and Tati's sweetly humanist comedy on the other, but the combination turns out to be perfect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Try it next year. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-82101631911266273562021-07-01T00:00:00.002-05:002021-10-20T15:11:24.279-05:00VERDORRTES LAND<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqHGZYxUAJB50XlJlEvO1sosqpYE_H-lFC807TYpf0SFWijUCDND0X0PDgQYhQ6VF68orLqd5g-usoMkOF3BHp-7-QKwbqVBfewkUwyPiPBCuWaWgx_2D98ZZZa-OkUlldtf_qBfGPDBAf/s2048/Verdorrtes+Land.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1294" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqHGZYxUAJB50XlJlEvO1sosqpYE_H-lFC807TYpf0SFWijUCDND0X0PDgQYhQ6VF68orLqd5g-usoMkOF3BHp-7-QKwbqVBfewkUwyPiPBCuWaWgx_2D98ZZZa-OkUlldtf_qBfGPDBAf/w274-h434/Verdorrtes+Land.jpg" width="274" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: large;">The <a href="https://polar-verlag.de/my-product/jake-hinkson-verdorrtes-land/?fbclid=IwAR36d_CnC_lxIkce8YpNyAm5BayC1065fyvcoDrMhLjyYmD8j-m9tM6yOkY" target="_blank">German edition of DRY COUNTY</a> will be released in October, and I am in love with the cover. Love love love it.</span><p></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-58189500725102934782021-06-04T14:47:00.004-05:002021-06-04T14:49:31.191-05:00DRY COUNTY at Southern Literary Review<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8viCvqPOFClAGjijm1NlyLgKMpRVRjdBBgn3r6JI5U8NPdwc2DRBWXcQ217A9letO9HsGpv6q-lCGFDpic1HCNs5rs_hhkqgay2OubEJ_sv2fvvKoXE4aeXcSTGG8nQkGL4ZTc9YP65YG/s2048/Dry+County-AD.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8viCvqPOFClAGjijm1NlyLgKMpRVRjdBBgn3r6JI5U8NPdwc2DRBWXcQ217A9letO9HsGpv6q-lCGFDpic1HCNs5rs_hhkqgay2OubEJ_sv2fvvKoXE4aeXcSTGG8nQkGL4ZTc9YP65YG/w245-h368/Dry+County-AD.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There's a nice piece by Thomas O'Grady </span><span style="font-size: large;">up over at Southern Literary Review that looks at my novel DRY COUNTY alongside Chris Offutt's COUNTRY DARK, contextualizing them both within the genre of "country noir." It's a smart look at both novels, so go check it out <a href="https://southernlitreview.com/reviews/country-dark-by-chris-offutt-and-dry-county-by-jake-hinkson.htm?fbclid=IwAR0MiPmMQ-JZJg1Z-mD9xZsiWHlSMBt3OUsc5E4PyipZ8nGp1Y0ctFeWRKw" target="_blank">here</a>.<span> </span></span> </p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-46390510072518460162021-05-14T12:43:00.000-05:002021-05-14T12:43:37.883-05:00Heist Films to Soothe the Troubled Soul<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50mQ_C5Ols4zHtM9n95lNYB6uxVleJTR5ocdusBBm8NUcGT4s9yn3Fh5pML8i9YnKgEWQEN3gV25JpEmt4v0tsPKZcQq-odsMMXYbvWZemhd5e3lFWok1irJLREzbXjQ-Z3m-PDN9oG4b/s800/Heat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="800" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50mQ_C5Ols4zHtM9n95lNYB6uxVleJTR5ocdusBBm8NUcGT4s9yn3Fh5pML8i9YnKgEWQEN3gV25JpEmt4v0tsPKZcQq-odsMMXYbvWZemhd5e3lFWok1irJLREzbXjQ-Z3m-PDN9oG4b/w449-h250/Heat.jpg" width="449" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Man, it's good to get back into the theater. After averaging about two or three visits to the cinema per week for the last few years, 2020 was brutal for me. In March of last year, my weekly habit came to and end. Which was a bummer. I don't just like going to the movies. I don't just love going to the movies. I NEED to go to the movies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I managed to piece together a few visits to drive-ins last year. I saw JAWS and A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. It was fun, but drive-ins are more about the experience of going to a drive-in than the experience of seeing a movie (if you follow my meaning).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Music Box Theater opened up with reduced capacity earlier this year, and I saw a handful of films (NIGHT OF KINGS from the Ivory Coast, and Almodovar's new short film THE HUMAN VOICE along with his classic WOMAN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN). All of this was good for me, a nice gentle return to the warm refuge of the movie theater.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This week (ironically, the week that the CDC dropped their big announcement that vaccinated folks could go maskless in public) I returned to the Music Box for their series on heist films. I saw HEAT, OCEAN'S 11, and RIFIFI.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">These were movies to soothe the soul, at least if your soul is as weird as mine. HEAT (1995) has achieved the level of beloved classic for a lot of people, a status it deserves. It's such a precise movie, so careful in its construction and deft in its execution that it is easy to overlook that it's a flawed film. Its handling of the love interests of the two leading characters is unconvincing and burdened with cliche in a way that the rest of the film is not. For most of its running time, though, HEAT is able to transcend the cops and robbers conceit by leaning into it, by seeming to gather the entire crime genre into its loving embrace. It's the modern crime film by which all others are measured, for good reason.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">OCEAN'S 11 (2001) is a lark, a fluffy confection of handsome men (and one pretty woman) running around Vegas in nice clothes, exchanging witty banter, while the director sets up an amusingly convoluted switcharoo. Funny enough, the Vegas pastime that the movie reminds you of isn't gambling, it's magic. Watching the film is like watching a slight of hand trick. It takes you in, diverts your attention, and you forget about it as soon as it's over.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">RIFIFI (1955) is about as far away from OCEAN'S as you can get, considering the surface similarity of their plots: an ex-con puts together a crew for one last big job. But OCEAN'S does what most big budget heist movies do these days: it sets up an impossible fortress to penetrate and then unveils vaguely explained technologies that make it possible to penetrate. (This is the plot of every MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie so far.) RIFIFI on the other hand gives us hard work in place of gadgets. This gang of crooks has to do hard manual labor to break into a jewelry store, bypass the alarm, and break into a safe. (All done in a long masterful sequence with no dialog.) No one in OCEAN'S ever breaks a sweat. In RIFIFI they sweat their asses off. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> RIFIFI is preeminent among heist films, for good reason. It does everything a heist film is supposed to do and does it better than most, but it also dramatizes the underlying ethos of the whole genre. Heist films are working class films. They're rarely about passion (the way, say, the femme fatale plot is always about passion). They're about people trying to earn a living, any way possible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">It was such a joy to be back in the theater, watching these films. Here's hoping we can all get safely back to going to the movies soon.</span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961352325595827919.post-54218612380154452112021-03-28T13:04:00.005-05:002021-03-28T13:22:53.029-05:00Joan Bennett and the Post-Sexual Femme Fatale: HIGHWAY DRAGNET (1954)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgctSHI5nJljaRgAJBSTJi3WCP_MrunlY0uVNt04foSxEKR-tM7tllb297ADvlzdewd4W0mPvMIEVzAVQaMsze_gBMco2l5PJ31ZhfuGJSU47U-2IPJTLeX33ctQsLAVuTAP8XOWGamTAlJ/s400/Highway+Dragnet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="400" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgctSHI5nJljaRgAJBSTJi3WCP_MrunlY0uVNt04foSxEKR-tM7tllb297ADvlzdewd4W0mPvMIEVzAVQaMsze_gBMco2l5PJ31ZhfuGJSU47U-2IPJTLeX33ctQsLAVuTAP8XOWGamTAlJ/w400-h393/Highway+Dragnet.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The main reason to see HIGHWAY
DRAGNET is to get a glimpse of something you don’t see in a lot of classic
Hollywood cinema, a great female movie star in her middle age. Many of the great male
stars of the golden age were allowed to age onscreen. People like Bogart, Gable, Cooper,
and Stewart did some of their best work in their forties and fifties. John
Wayne didn’t really become John Wayne until he’d shed his youthful beauty and
became an autocratic authority figure. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Actresses, however, had a
tougher go of it. Even more than their male counterparts, they were valued for
their youth and beauty. They were symbols, above all else, of vitality. Middle-aged
actresses, on the other hand, were usually accorded no sexual identity. As they
entered their forties and fifties, they were often turned into mothers or maids,
even while their old costars like Bogart and Cooper were paired with younger
and younger women. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford delayed this demotion longer
than most, but even those two titans finally made some kind of peace with the grim reality that
they’d lost their prized commodity—their youth—and became grotesqueries for hire
in horror movies like WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Joan Bennett had a
tougher time than most. She’d been a huge star in the early forties—and was
particularly adept at playing bad girls in films like SCARLETT STREET—but when
an adulterous affair ended with her husband shooting her lover, Bennett’s
career came crashing down. A sex scandal and middle age were a bad combination
at the box office. Bennett’s days as a star were over. She didn’t find steady
work again until the late sixties when she nabbed a supporting role on the hit
show DARK SHADOWS. (Later, she would take her own BABY JANE-like turn toward
the grotesque in 1977’s SUSPIRIRA).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In 1954, however, Bennett
appeared in an interesting little sunbaked noir called HIGHWAY DRAGNET. The
film stars Richard Conte as Jim Henry, a Korean war vet who gets into an
argument with a blond barfly (played by Mary Beth Hughes) in a Vegas casino. The
next morning, the girl turns up dead. Implicated in the murder, Henry escapes
the cops and hitches a ride with two women, a pretty young model named Susan
(Wanda Hendrix) and a surly photographer named Mrs. Cummings (Bennett).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Movie logic dictates that
one of these three people is the killer. Since we know it’s not Conte, and
since Wanda Hendrix exudes a purity as fresh as newly fallen snow, that pretty
much leaves us to watch Bennett. The plot twists in the final act of the film
are outlandish, but Bennett remains as fascinating a presence as ever. What’s
most striking about her here is how she operates outside of the sexual arena
she used to dominate. Writing for the journal NOIR CITY, the scholar Foster
Hirsch pointed out that she “is cast here as a post-sexual character, a woman
pushed to crime because she has been romantically ostracized.” What Bennett
brings to the role is the cumulative weight of her screen persona—the danger she embodied in her Fritz Lang films, the world-weariness she exuded in HOLLOW TRIUMPH
when she told Paul Henreid “It’s a bitter little world.” In HIGHWAY DRAGNET we
get to see that persona further down the road, the post-sexual femme fatale, a little worse for wear but
still pissed off and still defiant.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Jake Hinksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959106997436699346noreply@blogger.com0