Category: Cinematically Speaking…

Trailer for the PBS Documentary Oswald’s Ghost. Ever since I saw JFK as a high school student I’ve been fascinated by this story. Will be Tivoed this January along with the return of PBS’s American Experience program.

The Pink Panther (1963): "Is it me or did nothing happen for the first hour of the this movie?"

Seen: As part of my mission to see the entire AFI 400. Thought it would be as zany and madcap as A Shot in the Dark. It is not.

Gentlement Prefer Blondes (1953): "As the real star of this movie, Jane Russell wuz robbed!"

Seen: As part of Smokler’s Sunday Cinema’s salute to the great women of Hollywood.

Feast of Love (2007): "Love is about courage, the courage to feel pain and the acceptance that it will occur."

Seen: At the glorious Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California.

Ninotchka (1939): "Rigidity is among the best fodder for comedy."

Seen: As part I of Smokler’s Sunday Cinema’s month-ling salute to the great women of Hollywood.

Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator (2002): "Skateboarding has and will survived its brightest star being convicted of murder."

Notes: Few things compel me like a "dangerous allure of southern California" movie. I think Alpha Dog  may be next. 

Color Me Kubrick (2005): "A great performance in the midst of a lightweight movie feels like a $1000 bottle of wine at a backyard picnic."

The Thin Blue Line (1988):  "Our justice system’s tragic human frailties can have tragic, human consequences"

Seen: At this week’s edition of Smokler’s Sunday Cinema, my weekly household movie screening. 

A Prairie Home Companion (2006): “How you best say goodbye to the people you love is dictated by how you best lived with them.”

Notes: Sweet, sad, and perfect as Robert Altman’s last film. I once heard an interview where he said “I always saw making a movie as a good excuse to gather a group of friends” or something like that. Now I see what his attachment to PHC was, a repretory company surrounding a benevolent father figure in the truest sense. Just as it’s difficult to imagine to imagine public radio without Garrison Keillor, I never thought there wouldn’t be another Robert Altman movie. Keillor will be gone someday to, we all will. It’s why this movie ends, quiet and beautiful, with these lines.

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

Roll Bounce (2005): “House Party for this generation”

Notes: I loved it.