Chicago #1

"Out in Chicago, the only genuinely civilised city in the New World, they take the fine arts seriously and get into such frets and excitements about them as are raised nowhere else save by baseball, murder, political treachery, foreign wars and romantic loves... almost one fancies the world bumped by an asteroid, and the Chicago river suddenly turned into the Seine."-H.L. Mencken

A Pitcheresque Game #1

Ed Walsh, RHP (1904-17)

Passing Attractions #1

Chimes at Midnight, aka Falstaff (Dir. Orson Welles, 1965)

National Film Registry's New Titles for 2006

Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, spent last year dumpster diving in world cinema's big ol' editing bin to rescue these dazzling gems from the countless turds. The following twenty-five titles were added to the National Film Registry in December 2006, bringing the total to 450 honest-to-god cinematic treasures. Chosen for their artistic merit, historic import, and cultural significance, these films will be forever preserved for your enjoyment, your children's bewilderment, and your children's children's yawning disinterest. I'm particularly appreciative of their avant-garde selections this year, especially the Harry Smith (Early Abstractions series), and spy with approving eye Halloween, Fargo, and Groundhog Day, as well. Siege sounds pretty incredible and I hope I get a chance to see it someday. Julien Bryan was stranded in Warsaw in 1939, where he documented Nazi Germany's blitzkrieg attack on the city. The subsequent film was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost on the technicality of having never been screened in theaters.

Anyhow, here they are in all their alphabetical glory:

1) Applause (1929)

2) The Big Trail (1930)

3) Blazing Saddles (1974)

4) The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916-17)

5) Daughter of Shanghai (1937)

6) Drums of Winter (1988)

7) Early Abstractions #1-5,7,10 (1939-56)

8) Fargo (1996)

9) Flesh and the Devil (1927)

10) Groundhog Day (1993)

11) Halloween (1978)

12) In the Street (1948/52)

13) The Last Command (1928)

14) Notorious (1946)

15) Red Dust (1932)

16) Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971-72)

17) Rocky (1976)

18) Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

19) Siege (1940)

20) St. Louis Blues (1929)

21) The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

22) Tess of the Storm Country (1914)

23) Think of Me First as a Person (1960-75)

24) A Time Out of War (1954)

25) Traffic in Souls (1913)

Supposedly, Peter Bogdanovich once asked Orson Welles what most disappointed him about film, to which he replied: "It's canned." Of course, he also said, "I hate television. I hate it as much as I hate peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts." And look where that got him.

Amazin' Team Logos #1

Seattle Pilots (1969-70)

Okay Bob.

Favorite moments from INLAND EMPIRE:
1. Hooker gang dance party.
2. Laura Dern--best performance(s) ever. She has more facial tics than Michael J. Fox.
3. Harry Dean Stanton can still light up a screen.
4. "They say I've got a way with animals."
5. Lynch's humor is fast and loose. People like to focus on the perverse and nightmarish elements, but the guy's sense of visual and verbal comedy are just as important to the film's success. This is why the almost humorless Lost Highway is one of his least regarded works.
6. Obsession. The guy knows what haunts him and he's not afraid to go back to it again, and again, and again.

Things I miss:
1. David Lynch has always had an impeccable sense of composition and timing. I miss some of the precise direction of earlier films and I won't pretend that it couldn't use a little editing (the film loses some gas about 2/3 of the way through--still finishes strong).

I noticed my photo link wasn't working. I don't feel like editing it now, so you can find photos here---> X

And just like that, the sun removes the darkness...

Last night Nicole and I caught the Chicago premiere of David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE at the Music Box Theater. After waiting in queue for an hour, in witch tit cold weather, there couldn't have been anything more welcoming than the theater's red velvet drop curtain(actually, I'm pretty sure it's heavy cotton drapery, but the effect...), a bag of warm corn, free coffee courtesy of the director and, looking evermore the ghost of Jimmy Stewart, the very charming Mr. Lynch. After a improvised pipe organ piece played by one of the Box's projectionists, Mr. Lynch took the stage, read a brief piece about life being akin to a web spun by a spider and how it is defined-and it turn defines-its creator. The next three hours were the most fun I've ever had at a David Lynch film. I was absolutely captivated.

Now, I have to cop to saying I have no idea as to what exactly happened in the film (or to me, for that matter). I've got threads of imagery and cryptic connections that lead to something, a kernel of a notion, but then it splinters off and... hell, it practically explodes, and I'm left blank. Most reviewers use the establishing scene between Nikki (Laura Dern) and her nosy neighbor (a delightfully arch Grace Zabrieskie) in their attempts to follow/establish a narrative. This leads to the making of On High in Blue Tomorrows storyline (or 4/7, the cursed film's original title), which gives you the film w/in a film (possibly w/in a television program being broadcast in a Poland that exists in the present and 1927) and some fine performances from Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons and Harry Dean Stanton. Now you can follow that adventure only so far. At some point, your theory will meet its untimely end (leaving 1/3 of the film out of the picture) and send you flipping back two or three chapters and on another course. To borrow from one of the ideas in the film, and classic pop surrealist fantasy, it's just one of many rabbit holes you can tumble down.

There are worlds within worlds in this very Lynchian metaverse (imagine all those fine moments from Elephant Man to Mulholland Drive (Twin Peaks being, perhaps, the most relevant touchstone) where dream invades film fantasy--strip the framing narratives from that, like pork off the bone, and you have IE), and I imagine I'll be going back several times with different eyes open to the many possibilities.

Here's some handy dandy Lynch for you to enjoy if if'n you can't get yourself to the movie:


And here are some photos other filmgoers snapped last night.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

I couldn't ask for a better birthday present than the Gene Siskel Film Center's Werner Herzog: Visionary at Large program in February. I was particularly thrilled to see that they'll be showing a new print of Cobra Verde--a lesser seen masterpiece. There is one glaring omission, however, and that is Stoszek. It's a shame, because Herzog always understood us Usonians so much better than his New German Cinema cohort (I'm pointing a finger at you, Wenders). Anyhow, I'm going to try and catch each film and maybe do a little recapping in this space.

Here's the video clip of Herzog being shot (with an air rifle) while being interviewed near his home in Los Angeles.

If I recall correctly, this happened within two or three weeks of his having pulled Joaquin Phoenix free of a car accident. If only he'd been at the Viper Room in 1993...

Still working out the Kinks...

It's nice to see Ray embracing a fine tradition of the British theatre. If the promo seems eerily familiar, it's probably because Oasis' The Importance of Being Idle video is lodged somewhere in your memory. They essentially made use of the same look, wardrobe and scenario. Not the first, nor the best, thing they lifted from thee greatest English rock band of all time.