The Studio

(wait 10 seconds for trailer to start)

If you missed this in the theater, the library has it ordered.

It is a sweet – more ways than one – movie!

If anyone watched the Masterpiece Theatre version of A Room with a View please comment.

I usually like classics re-imagined, but this one really missed the mark as far as I am concerned. I did like watching “new” actors, the scenes of Italy, and I like the 90 minute length. But … screen writer Andrew Davies added a thread that is not in the book –which I highly object. The Masterpiece Theatre version is ordered for the library collection.

I think it is time to re-watch the very excellent Merchant Ivory production.

A while back when we were having our Film Noir discussion/chats, The Maltese Falcon kept coming up as being one of the first/best of the genre.  That was what….LAST October?  Well, I finally got around to re-watching it.  And…here’s my assessment…which also is a review I posted on the film annotations site…

 For film noir-philes, this is as close to the Father of the genre as you can get. For a genre that came into its own AFTER WWII, this 1941 film still fits the “noir” bill even though it was made before we even entered into the War. Like other noir titles made before the end of the War, specifically Otto Preminger’s 1944 classic Laura and Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (also from 1944), The Maltese Falcon did a good job of molding what the noir genre was to become in its heyday…the 1950s. The first appearance of Bogart as legendary Hammett private dick Sam Spade, this also is the first pairing of Bogart with director John Huston, with whom Bogie made five subsequent films. Mary Astor plays possibly the first ever true femme fatale on screen…she’s cold, seductive and very conniving. Plot wise…Spade gets entangled with Astor after his partner dies investigating something for her. Astor turns out to be much more than an innocent victim. What Astor needed Spade’s partner to investigate was bogus and the true crime involves a golden falcon…which those who want are willing to do ANYTHING to get. A true noir classic!

I’ll jump right out with it: Lately, I’ve had no desire to see anything in the theater.

March seems to be the new January, in terms of being the new dumping ground for all those movies that somehow got made but no one really wants to see. Since the end of my annual Oscar binge, I’ve been feeling a general sense of cinematic ennui. Until recently, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I hadn’t gone to the theater in over a month.

Hopefully, things may be turning around this weekend. Leatherheads looks promising, and I rather enjoyed the novel The Ruins is based on. With any luck, we’ll break out of these cinematic doldrums soon enough.

How do you cope with these filmic dry seasons?

I was going to talk about Wet Hot American Summer in my comment to the previous post, but since I found my favorite scene online, I had to share it on the blog.

For those who don’t know, WHAS (as “the kids” call it) is a parody of the 1980’s camp movie, a genre which is arguably a parody of itself already. Paul Rudd, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, and assorted other twenty- and thirtysomethings play 17-year-old counselors at a summer camp. Hijinks inevitably ensue.

Paul Rudd plays Andy, the camp rebel. His reaction to an order from Janeane Garofalo’s camp director is priceless:
This is pretty much how I react any time my wife asks me to take out the garbage or clean out the cat box.

Unfortunately, the Library does not currently own a copy of the film. Sharon, if you’re reading this….