by ·Comments Off on Death Race 2000 (1975, Paul Bartel)

Before Schwarzenegger starred in The Running Man, before Stephen King even wrote it, Schwarz’s rival Stallone starred in a better movie about a deadly future game show (based on an Ib Melchior novel). In a totalitarian USA (I cannot relate) David Carradine is a clone puppet masked hero representing the establishment, targeted by the resistance but secretly also planning to destroy the president, as belatedly revealed to his navigator/spy Simone Griffeth. Stallone is his toughest competitor Machine Gun Joe – other quickly-dispatched competitors are Mary Woronov, nazi Roberta Collins (between Caged Heat and Eaten Alive) and Martin Kove (professional Karate Kid antagonist). Most get blown up, the nazi takes a Wile E Coyote detour off a cliff.

A familiar pose:

Frankenstein kills the president and so becomes president – is that really how it works? I’m not very smart now but I was even worse in 2012, so I won’t link to my review of the remake, which is probably fine though I’m not running out to rewatch/reassess it, and we’ll see if the rumored Running Man remake comes out. Am I hallucinating, or did Eric have an Amiga game based on this movie?

Bartel is protective of his creation:

by ·Comments Off on It’s Not Me and other Leos Carax shorts

It’s Not Me (2024)

Real Godardian (complimentary)

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Sans Titre (1997)

Possibly the genesis of the new film, a rare Cannes film made of short clips (magma, classic cinema, war, home movies, the in-progress Pola X) with voiceover, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker. At least one clip of The Crowd appeared in both films.

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Strangulation Blues (1980)

Mostly nighttime scenes, invisible under the low-res video murk. Collette’s occasional guy Paul comes home and everything he says is a cine-reference, then after fearing he might have strangled her in his sleep (he didn’t) Paul drives off again. I think it was mainly voiceover, but as I mentioned, I couldn’t see much.

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My Last Minute (2006)

Gag video, where he types onto his computer that he’s quitting smoking, puts out the last cigarette then immediately shoots himself.

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and a couple 2002 music videos he did for Carla Bruni – first a single take of her singing and playing acoustic on a couch while a guy carrying a candle stalks the next apartment over. The next one seems like it will be a single take of her walking through a cobwebby tunnel, until she stops during the guitar solo to dance with an old man who was walking the other way. Bruni is the sister of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi – these songs are from her smash hit debut album released six years before she married the president of France.

by ·Comments Off on Two by Mark Rappaport

Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992)

Would’ve been a neat essay film about Rock’s secret gay life as interpreted through his film scenes, but a few things lost me. Putting made-up words into Rock’s voice is one thing, but why show the Rock-voice narrator onscreen, who is that guy supposed to be?

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Two For The Opera Box (2021)

I prefer these 15-minute pieces – this one’s not as deep as Turhan Bey, just examining the reuse of props and sets in classic Hollywood, particularly a theater with distinctive opera boxes that showed up in different films for decades.

by ·Comments Off on The Room Next Door (2024, Pedro Almodóvar)

Decided this movie was very silly, but as death grew nearer, I upgraded(?) to “very uneven.” Opens with so-called good friends discussing their backstories for apparently the first time, all on-the-nose dialogue, real “foreign auteur working awkwardly in English” sort of stuff, then gradually accumulates a shockingly high number of The Dead quotes. Julianne Moore is a void of a character, agreeing to vacation with terminal Tilda but sneaking away with John Turturro, all three of whom are writers. I had no idea when watching some Buster Keaton the night before that they’d unwind in this movie by watching Buster Keaton. Novelist Nunez had a second movie adaptation come out the same awards season, The Friend with Naomi Watts, which hasn’t come out yet but sounds bad from early reviews.

by ·Comments Off on A Couple Keatons and a Tower

Convict 13 (1920)

Buster goes from incompetent golfer to escaped prisoner to prison guard via costume changes. He foils a one-off super-violent prisoner and a full-scale riot using makeshift weapons. More people get killed or injured by sledgehammers in this than in any other movie. His girl is the warden’s daughter, at least until he wakes up, the whole prison stint a dozing golfer’s dream. Running down the street from a horde of cops is always funny, as is the painter/bench bit.

When you are beginning to suspect that Joe Roberts is behind you:

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Hard Luck (1921)

These made a good double feature – from trying not to get hanged to trying to hang himself. Unemployed and suicidal (I cannot relate), Buster stumbles into a gig catching armadillos for the zoo. He never finds one – we get increasingly large fishes, a fox, some horse stunts, and Buster tied to a bear. As all movies must, it ends with him rescuing a woman from bandits. Pretty good shotgun shells-in-the-fire gags.

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The Black Tower (1987, John Smith)

Something completely different: male narrator is haunted by a tower appearing in all different parts of the city. He tries not going outside anymore, living on snacks from the passing ice cream van, then is hospitalized, then while recovering in the country he sees the tower again, walks up and steps inside. Story starts again with a female narrator who sees the tower while visiting his grave. Calm movie with various tricks and playing around, narrating over color fields later revealed to be closeups on household objects, editing back and forth in time to make buildings re/disappear, or masking the image so passing cars are swallowed by a mid-frame tree.

by ·Comments Off on Gimme Danger (2016, Jim Jarmusch)

Intriguing structure for a rock doc, skipping the band’s rise and opening with their downfall and breakup. When the opening titles hit, the band is over and all its members are living with their parents, then we restart the story from the beginning, leading to the triumphant reunion. Mostly just the band members talking, then when they get dropped from their label we get a nice montage of more popular groups covering their songs. So, no innovative film but it’s a pleasure to spend so much time with Iggy Pop (“In the Ashetons I found primitive man”).

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Strummer (1993)

SD handicam mini-doc covering Joe and team mixing the soundtrack for Sara Driver’s When Pigs Fly. “Computers have ruined the kind of music I like. Ultimate control, that’s what people want.” One scene is just Jarmusch recounting his favorite jokes from This is Spinal Tap.

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French Water (2021)

Fashion ad starring Julianne Moore and Chloe Sevigny, lost at a party after hours, and a randomly materializing Charlotte Gainsbourg. The music was good, at least.

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Jim Jarmusch & Jozef Van Wissem: The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire (2012)

People in frilly pajamas float in the river, while one guitarist plucks gentle melodies and the other plays feedback. The music was good, at least.

by ·Comments Off on Jean Painleve shorts

The Fourth Dimension (1936)

Right after I watch the movie Deja Vu there’s a “Deja Vu” title card in It’s Not Me, then the first Painleve film I find is showing time as an image flipbook and imagining that higher-dimensional beings can change pages at will. Pretty dry science film but it’s fun that scientists have always been excited about time travel.

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The Octopus (1927)

Pretty random assortment of live and dead octopus…
Great doc, because octupusus are great.

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Sea Urchins (1929)

More cool sea creatures which become increasingly disturbing as you learn more about them, zooming into their spiny surface to discover a horrid living forest of waggling suckers and claws

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Daphnia (1928)

Nothing cool or cute about the microshrimp “water fleas,” ghastly transparent insectoid monsters, silently battling their nemesis The Hydra by the million in every lake and pond.

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Freshwater Assassins (1947)

This one has sound – enjoy some swinging horn jazz while underwater insects munch on even smaller insects, 24 minutes of weird shrimpies chowing down on each other.