tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68127577805847575692012-01-29T19:36:43.980-05:00filmicability with Dean TreadwayDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.comBlogger3801100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-29094454090534425302012-01-24T02:18:00.003-05:002012-01-29T19:36:43.987-05:00The 2012 Oscar Nominations are...A pretty interesting morning! Here's the lineup, with the * denoting the nominations I was predicting (Dang, I wish I would have stayed with TREE OF LIFE in Best Pic and Von Sydow for Supporting Actor). Those nominees that are in boldface are the ones I'm predicting to win. Anyway, here we go:
BEST PICTURE
*The Artist Thomas Langmann, Producer
*The Descendants Jim Burke, Alexander Payne andDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-91259731597514474222012-01-18T21:03:00.048-05:002012-01-19T01:10:12.393-05:00My second go at 2012 Oscar Nomination predictions, with my own personal choices thrown inWith less than a week to go before the 2012 Academy Award nominations are to be announced, I felt I owed myself another chance at rejiggering my original predictions, posted so early on December 13th, 2011, which I refused to go back and change as things changed around me. Sites like Kris Tapley's In Contention, John O'Neil's The Envelope and Sasha Stone's Awards Daily readjust their findings Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-680970054258744732012-01-10T23:20:00.130-05:002012-01-17T22:26:41.854-05:00The Best Films of 2011As usual per the year in movies, I started off thinking this was the worst year ever. But, by the fall, I began to see an extraordinary collection of largely contemplative films that were, this year, in one way or another, pining for the past. Nostalgia is the dominant theme in 2011's movies: one could lump Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life, The Artist, War Horse, Hugo, General Orders No. 9,Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-13698850179181975302012-01-07T02:04:00.015-05:002012-01-07T03:59:49.790-05:00My Desert Island ChoicesYou and I know the game. These are my Desert Island choices. I've never definitively done this before, but Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz made me do it, so here it is, and I've taken it very seriously.
TV SEASON: DRAMA: THE SOPRANOS (Season 6, parts 1 & 2): Yes, I'm breaking Matt's rule here, I think, but I need as much of this series as I can manage. David Chase's final season of THE SOPRANOS wrapsDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-79236709556415216792011-12-13T13:26:00.003-05:002011-12-13T13:33:21.032-05:00My predictions for the 2012 Academy Award Nominations
BEST PICTURE
THE ARTIST
THE DESCENDANTS
THE HELP
HUGO
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
MONEYBALL
THE TREE OF LIFE
WAR HORSE
BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, THE DESCENDANTS
Jean Dujardin, THE ARTIST
Michael Fassbender, SHAME
Gary Oldman, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Brad Pitt, MONEYBALL
BEST ACTRESS
Viola Davis, THE HELP
Kirsten Dunst, MELANCHOLIA
Meryl Streep, THE IRON LADY
Tilda Swinton, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVINDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-13669697286822988082011-12-05T19:43:00.027-05:002012-01-19T01:20:53.655-05:00Review: HUGO
I was disappointed with Martin Scorsese's HUGO. I was ready to love it, too. I don't know why so many are saying this is the director's most personal film, just because half of it deals with the title character's last-minute love of movies. Scorsese's A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH CINEMA already did that (meanwhile, MEAN STREETS and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST are also infinitely more personal, Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-9164127704684543742011-12-02T21:46:00.022-05:002011-12-05T20:31:17.295-05:00NYFF Review #12: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
As ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA begins, we witness three police cars burning up a lonely, storm-swept road which curves through the Turkish contryside. The worn-out lawmen in these vehicles entertain themselves with Tarantino-esque talk about the merits of varied yogurts, while one chastened, paralyzed suspect sits in the backseat (there's another suspect too, but he remains largely unseen). Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-11547809768167726672011-11-22T03:25:00.014-05:002011-12-17T23:16:31.902-05:00NYFF Review #11: THE ARTIST
Sometime in mid-September, I was a call-in guest on Jason O'Brien's Oscar-related podcast, and I posited that Michel Hazanavicius' tribute to silent movies called THE ARTIST was going to be the winner of this year's Best Picture Oscar. Everyone made fun of me, and thought me insane, and I agreed that it seemed quite wacky that a movie like this could bewitch so many in this digital age. I Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-34761712489589812182011-11-20T20:38:00.001-05:002011-11-22T00:06:38.863-05:00NYFF Review #10: THE DESCENDANTSLike Alexander Payne's last three films, his newest is based on a book, this time Kaui Hart Hemmings' best seller called THE DESCENDANTS, and it has more of the circuitous feel of a novel than ELECTION, ABOUT SCHMIDT, or SIDEWAYS. All of Payne's movies deal with people who feel disconnected with their own lives, and here the focus is on Matt King (George Clooney), the pater familia of a clan Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-68916242489163996952011-11-12T03:26:00.033-05:002011-12-06T01:04:18.763-05:00NYFF Review #9: MELANCHOLIAThe grandiose opening to Lars Von Trier's newest cataclysm is an upfront shock (unlike most of his other films, which are loaded with climactic jolts). He and his able crew have crafted a nine-minute overture, set to Richard Wagner's urgently emotional prelude to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, and in this sequence, the story you are about to see is told fully in drowsy, lavish tableaus that floor the Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-67066138683186274672011-11-10T03:57:00.005-05:002011-11-10T21:22:00.229-05:00NYFF Review #8: THE SKIN I LIVE IN
After more than a decade apart, star Antonio Banderas and now-legendary writer/director Pedro Almodovar have revived their longtime collaboration with THE SKIN I LIVE IN, Almodovar's lurid take on the horror genre (which owes a lot, by his own admission, to George Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE). Here, though, the story we may already know is infused with the director's never-dying fascination Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-25240236236328688422011-11-08T21:03:00.001-05:002011-11-08T21:07:23.840-05:00NYFF Review #7: MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
A total crowd-pleaser (with integrity), Simon Curtis' MY WEEK WITH MARILYN starts off in a slightly ponderous manner with Eddie Redmayne's wide-eyed, well-backed Colin Clark determined to wind his way into the British film industry. The film's smart economy allows this upper-class maven to land a job with Lawrence Olivier's production company at once, just at the right moment to allow him to Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-90398548024618621422011-10-19T21:25:00.013-04:002011-12-02T20:27:28.308-05:00NYFF Review #6: SHAME
SHAME infuriated me. I can't blame this on the film's lead, Michael Fassbender, who delivers an undeniably physical performance as an NYC executive who's disinterested in anything that doesn't involve the stroking of his cock (and, in case you're interested, Fassbender has quite the member). I often blanched in fury at his blank stares, but I have to admit, Fassbender's quite good in this Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-115332545703243742011-10-19T19:39:00.010-04:002011-10-19T20:14:34.133-04:00NYFF Review #5: A DANGEROUS METHOD
There's a moment in David Cronenberg's A DANGEROUS METHOD in which Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (a transformed Viggo Mortensen) are on a steam ship approaching that longtime home of all things neurotic, New York City, where they will unveil their "talking cure," called psychoanalysis, at a prestigious doctor's conference. Freud puffs on his ubiquitously phallic cigar and, Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-9747583604323747092011-10-19T01:36:00.007-04:002011-11-08T19:14:10.216-05:00NYFF Review #4: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
The writer/director of my favorite movie title of 2011, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, is named Sean Durkin, and he's a newfound wunderkind of disorientation. In his debut feature, he puts us right in the dizzied headspace of his film's title character, played with giggly, goggled, shell-shocked charisma by Elizabeth Olsen. From scene to scene, he makes it difficult to determine where we are in theDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-85375927972048104922011-10-18T21:37:00.015-04:002011-10-19T18:21:58.930-04:00NYFF Review #3: WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN
Don't be fooled: Nicholas Ray's final directorial effort, 1976's WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN, is not really a Nicholas Ray film.
Yes, he's in it (playing himself), and yes, he spent too many minutes from his emeritus years trying to make sense of it in the editing room. And yet the film--largely shot and performed by some bombed-out film students of his at Syracuse's Binghamton University--is an Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-46227948905038299192011-10-18T20:28:00.002-04:002011-10-19T02:22:31.314-04:00NYFF Review #2: 4:44: LAST DAY ON EARTHThough the ominous title of Abel Ferrara's newest movie is partially self-evident, it's really a film about living fully in the present. Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh play a May-December (or at least November) couple, ensconced in their Lower East Side NYC apartment, making copious love, meditating, being creative, watching TV, and talking to far away loved ones via Skype as they await the Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-14228289596969620512011-10-18T19:43:00.000-04:002011-10-18T19:43:16.521-04:00New York Film Festival Review #1: PINA
Shot in a bright, vibrant 3D, Wim Wenders' tribute to the works of German choreographer Pina Bauch is suitably called PINA, and it's a real hoot. Wenders and Bauch closely collaborated on the piece during the years before her recent death, and it's not only the best 3D film out there, but also takes its place among the greatest dance films ever produced. It's only nominally a documentary, as Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-60990902587027386692011-09-13T07:00:00.001-04:002011-09-13T07:30:05.750-04:00CINEMA GALLERY: September 2011Another unusual set of frame grabs for my ongoing CINEMA GALLERY (which you can visit in full here--by now there must be at least 400 entries!). As always, click on the frame you want to see writ large. As always (at least these days), see if you can guess the movies from which these frames hail. The answers, corresponding to the numbered photos, are at the end of the post.
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7Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-28433793263959986272011-09-02T04:37:00.005-04:002011-09-09T05:53:04.772-04:00My Public, Volume 1Just to let readers know, this isn't for any kind of bragging rights. This post is just for me to refer back to. That said, I am thankful for the the visitors that stopped by--especially those that went on to look at some of my other posts!
Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-88274531019659573202011-08-23T21:35:00.001-04:002011-09-01T08:17:48.351-04:00CINEMA GALLERY August 2011--25 New FramesI tried to make a creepily unsettling entry here for the CINEMA GALLERY this month. These 25 frames just SHOULD NOT go together. But here they are. As always, click on the frame you want to see large-like. These make GREAT screen backgrounds. And remember to visit the entire gallery HERE. Have fun, film fans, and see if you can guess the movies these frames hail from. The answers are at Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-1662636639664488792011-08-18T03:37:00.001-04:002011-08-18T03:42:09.961-04:00GONE WITH THE WIND and its premiere: 1939, downtown Atlanta.See it...LIVE it. This is amateur filmmaker Russell Bellman's recently discovered Kodachrome 16mm footage of the premiere of what is still, adjusted for inflation, the biggest-grossing movie of all time. This footage (minus the Erik Satie soundtrack) needs to be in admitted in the National Film Registry's archives. I don't think it has been yet. This monumental event occurred within a 3-Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-67956571366917082412011-08-17T03:04:00.011-04:002011-08-17T03:49:24.459-04:00Cynical Girls on FilmThe truly excellent song is by Marshall Crenshaw, and it's from his self-titled debut album (which is a listen-straight-through must for anyone who doesn't already own it). The video was smartly compiled by Rick Thomas (and I would only make a few slight cutting changes). I just felt the immediate need to post this on FILMICABILITY, because it's so ultra-cool.
Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-72553402018638137352011-08-13T13:23:00.038-04:002011-08-13T19:52:57.210-04:00Happy Birthday, Alfred Hitchcock!
Yes, he was the Master of Suspense. But on 113th anniversary of his birth today, I prefer to focus not on his films, but on the man himself--particularly, his intelligence and indubitably dry wit. These aspects of his personality--coupled with his love of the macabre and the unending power of his films, of course--were what made him into a superstar. I believe that when informed people think Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-79957699285953661282011-08-10T03:51:00.014-04:002011-08-14T03:22:45.417-04:00Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Okay. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. The review is simple. The shots in which there were apes--and ONLY apes--were brilliantly directed (by someone named Rupert Wyatt, who hasn't done a film you or I are likely to see were it not for this movie). The shots in which ANY humans appeared were day-old-bread bland. Andy Serkis, playing the lead ape in its adulthood, was superb--so much so that I Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-86544851448139294132011-08-08T23:08:00.006-04:002011-08-18T22:16:50.839-04:00The 30 Day Cinephile Challenge: My Answers (Part 1)On Facebook, there are multitudes of 30 day movie challenges (which consist of one probing movie question a day for...well, you know). I wanted to participate, but most of them bored me. It wasn't until I encountered the 30 Day Cinephile Challenge, with its vastly more inventive queries, that I opted to take part in one. My cohorts on this challenge, by the way, are extra worldly and so, by Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-40507534039355185212011-08-07T01:51:00.004-04:002011-08-07T01:56:24.994-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #27: "Drifting and Dreaming of You" from WHITE LINE FEVERI finally got to watch Jonathan Kaplan's 1975 film White Line Fever again, for the first time since I was a kid watching it at the drive-in. It's an exacting, often exciting blue-collar drama from a terrific director who's made one of my top films of all time, 1979's Over The Edge. At the end of Over the Edge, we're treated to an unusually gentle tune--a cover of The Five Stairsteps' "Ooh Child,"Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-27894399888814999262011-08-01T20:49:00.010-04:002011-08-01T21:01:36.026-04:00Film #146: Cat on a Hot Tin RoofSurely, the recent passing of superstar Elizabeth Taylor is reason enough to check out Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Taylor’s sultry, skimpily-dressed Maggie The Cat is one of her most iconic performances, and is certainly the definitive filmed (or televised) portrayal of scribe Tennessee Williams’ cunning heroine. Still, the film version of Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1955 play could be better.Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-42315415235183827462011-07-25T21:18:00.008-04:002011-07-25T21:56:39.656-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #26: "Where Do I Go From Here" from THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOTThe other night, I took another look at Michael Cimino's directorial debut Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. I was as astonished at its easygoing but still action-packed pace as I was when I first saw it in 1974, at the drive-in. The friendship between the lead, Clint Eastwood (the titular Thunderbolt) and Jeff Bridges (Oscar-nominated as the extremely lovable Lightfoot, who says "Thunderbolt and Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-65949519732842935542011-07-20T01:41:00.004-04:002011-07-20T01:49:48.031-04:00Film #146: ShampooReleased in 1975, Hal Ashby’s Shampoo very well may rank as the great director’s most cynical film. Ashby had previously given us The Landlord, Harold and Maude, and The Last Detail, and would go on to deliver Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There before beginning a cocaine-fueled downward 1980s slump that would end in his untimely death in 1988 at age 59. It’s been years since I’ve Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-62097194436477522732011-07-17T04:17:00.002-04:002011-07-20T01:32:37.089-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #25: "Little April Shower" from BAMBIWalt Disney's Bambi is, officially, the only movie I ever saw alone with my father. It must have been re-released the theaters when I was ten or eleven. Even though my parents had been taking me to adult movies--rated PG, or M, or R--for years, I found myself drawn to the G-rated Bambi, probably due to TV commercials for the re-release. Back then, my family used to go to the drive-in a lot. We Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-71141674669933843232011-07-15T14:15:00.000-04:002011-07-15T14:15:19.697-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #24: "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" from RIO BRAVO
The first time I ever saw Howard Hawks' exciting, funny and wholly entertaining 1959 western Rio Bravo, I was immediately enchanted by the relationships between almost everyone in the picture. John Wayne is a staunch town sheriff trying to enforce the rule of law on to a murderous gang member (Claude Akins) who's about to be transported to another city for trial. Dean Martin is his drunken Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-50733762089797378522011-07-14T02:28:00.036-04:002011-11-08T19:19:14.083-05:00Film #146: Heartbeats (Les Amours Imaginaires)
Earlier today, I was embroiled in a Facebook mini-controversy when I posted this:
I hope this happens to Harry Potter at the end of that movie. I'm so tired of seeing this character's name I could puke my guts out. Never before has the public been hoodwinked into loving something so worthless.
I had people telling me to just "chill out," and I had others telling me basically that I needed toDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-13574100887732985122011-07-09T06:38:00.004-04:002011-07-16T02:44:01.841-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #23: "Nights Are Forever" from TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE
1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie was, like most anthology movies, a hit-and-miss affair. The first two segments, from John Landis and Steven Spielberg, didn't really make a mark. But the Dan Ackroyd/Albert Brooks wraparound (by Landis), and the final segments from Joe Dante and George Miller were real fun (especially the latter, an adaptation of Richard Matheson's "Horror at 37,000 Feet," with Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-72326688953762278932011-07-09T05:15:00.006-04:002011-07-16T02:43:42.533-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #22: "Hooked On Your Love" from SPARKLE
I've never seen the 1976 film Sparkle, directed by longtime Mike Nichols editor Sam O'Steen. But I just read that it's about to be remade, and I came across this great clip that instantly makes me wanna see it. It basically tells the same story as Dreamgirls--a barely disguised quasi-bio of the Supremes. This can be predictable stuff, I have to admit. But I've always been a Lonnette McKee Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-85902036630168287912011-07-05T02:21:00.003-04:002011-07-16T02:43:25.912-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #21: "I'm Picking Out A Thermos For You" from THE JERK
Carl Reiner's THE JERK is a brilliant movie. And it's even more brilliant as Steve Martin's (truly) debut film. But I'm not going to sing its praises here. I only wanna point out the song "I'm Picking Out A Thermos For You," which is staunchly hilarious. I couldn't find a clip of Steve Martin's Navin singing this in his soapy bathtub, to his flighty girlfriend (Bernadette Peters), so I'm Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-51258162225752826042011-07-03T05:04:00.005-04:002011-07-03T22:06:22.789-04:00CINEMA GALLERY--July 2011: 50 New FramesSee if you can guess the movies these 50 images hail from. Answers at the end. And, as always in the Cinema Gallery, click on the images you want to see big-time:
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1. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky,Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-64438433270421569752011-06-27T00:54:00.019-04:002011-07-02T15:00:32.874-04:00MASTER LIST #22: The 50 Best Animated Features
I'm not a huge animation fan but, dang it, I know what's good. And I was livid after seeing Richard Corliss's woeful list of the top 25 animated films for the pages of Time Magazine. Happy Feet? Horton Hears A Who? And The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie at #3? That was just a collection of shorts hastily cobbled together! Corliss' sloppy arrangement of the titles, and the list's lack of Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-79560873098954540492011-06-25T04:30:00.035-04:002011-09-09T05:55:33.215-04:00R.I.P. Peter Falk (1927-2011)What a great actor. I don't think I knew how much I loved him until now. I cannot say any more. I'm too choked up. Really, I am. So I'm letting the clips speak for me.
From A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE. His role was seemingly lesser against the searing Gena Rowlands, but it was nonetheless challenging; in fact, it was the heart of the movie. (John Cassevetes, 74).
As the husband in Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-64651819046127302932011-06-24T19:29:00.006-04:002011-06-25T05:55:17.680-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #20: "Car Wash" from CAR WASH
Michael Schultz's 1976 film Car Wash is one of those lovely, plotless comedies that arrived in the wake of 1973's American Graffiti. Covering one single day at an L.A. outfit, it ambles very ably in and out of a series of workaday pranks and dramas that engulf the title spot's workers. Schultz and his screenwriter, future blockbuster director Joel Schumacher, make everything look rather Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-87282183595436645032011-06-15T08:31:00.004-04:002011-06-18T19:54:04.956-04:00Major changes as far as the Academy Awards go:
The MPMAS shook things up, of course, a few years ago. They returned to a ten-tentpoled Best Picture roundup. Now, they're having second thoughts. Things are getting confusing here. Here's the press release:
June 14, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Academy Builds Surprise Into Best Picture Rules
Beverly Hills, CA – The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted on Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-76944044196684795862011-06-15T02:54:00.060-04:002011-06-15T09:55:10.631-04:00Film #145: Blue VelvetThis is a reprint of my first NYC-published review. It was first printed in a long-dead 1986 NYU film school magazine, right after I had seen Lynch's movie with a disbelieving audience partially comprised of unsuspecting 1986 film students. My fellow NYU film production cadets and I watched the film together at an East 28th street NYC theater upon its release (I, personally, had been looking Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-54405336081072572322011-06-09T22:00:00.006-04:002011-06-28T02:25:32.185-04:00Yet again, five MORE great new trailersIt's a shame that all the good looking movies are loaded to the back end of the year. But, then again, that's how it always is, no? I think each one of these movies look terrific, to varying degrees.
TABLOID (Errol Morris, 2011) (His movies are always eventful!)
THE FUTURE (Miranda July, 2011) (Love that cat as a narrator, and we get to see Ms. July dancing, too.)
CRAZY STUPID LOVE (Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-32640123655543219872011-06-08T06:06:00.079-04:002012-01-29T09:34:46.680-05:00Film #144: The Tree of Life
The most special special effect in Terrence Malick's ultimate, unrelenting, devout cinematic achievement occurs at its outset: a valuable jewel-like dalliance of light and dark, color and blackness. It lingers, morphs, disappears and then returns to us at key moments.
I cannot help but open this piece by considering these apparitions. They happen so importantly. Why are they there? Why do Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-42548800141587862742011-06-07T21:10:00.044-04:002011-06-08T15:58:13.437-04:00Film #143: Dead RingersThere was a time, in the 70s and very early 80s, in which David Cronenberg was (at least to me) one of cinema's crassest filmmakers. It wasn't that his films were bad; they were often elegant to look at and were always memorable. But the images I took from them left me with a sour taste: Marilyn Chambers frothing at the mouth in Rabid, the slimy slugs from They Came From Within; the famed Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-40327094117233315642011-06-06T16:43:00.000-04:002011-06-06T16:43:49.960-04:00Throw the bums out!This policy trailer is played in front of every screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX, where they take their movies VERY seriously. Good for them! I think their policy should be de rigueur in every major theater around the world. If you have to text--and if you have to take a crap--please do it outside.
Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-78507967945411885262011-06-05T02:07:00.032-04:002011-06-05T05:56:57.213-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #19: "The sun whose rays" from TOPSY-TURVYThis is, of course, not a song that was written for the movies, though it IS one of the cinema's most moving songs. Originally, it is the premier piece set smack dab in the middle of British librettist William S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan's magnum opus The Mikado, which opened in London in 1885 to astounding applause and then became the team's signature work. Mike Leigh's majestic, Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-76839291773202108962011-06-03T20:11:00.014-04:002011-06-05T00:25:54.225-04:00CINEMA GALLERY: 30 New FramesI'm taking a tip from a few other websites (including Only The Cinema and The Dancing Image) and avoiding commentary on the shots I've selected. I like how they look without the words splitting up the images. It also leaves the viewer to guess, at least initially, as to which movies these scenes hail from. And I believe that, subconsciously, these varied frames, shunted together, form a uniqueDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-13742585301376701262011-06-02T15:29:00.065-04:002011-06-10T01:58:37.565-04:00Another Bunch of Answers for the Good Professor!It's time once again for me to provide my replies to Dennis Cozzulio's seasonal movie geek quiz over at Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule (you can find past installments here and here; I like that this season's quiz is attributed to Bigger Than Life's afflicted educator Ed Avery). These are always extremely fun posts to do, and I find Cozzulio's always surprising questions (to which I Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-22322799508084692182011-06-01T19:06:00.005-04:002011-06-05T00:45:36.609-04:00The Bechdel Test for Women in MoviesThis is a pretty sobering video, reminding us all that most American movies consider female points-of-view beyond even being touched upon. I miss great roles for women in movies; they come about 5-10 times out of the year, and then the rest of the annum is pretty much devoted to purile male-oriented junk. I don't know when this hatred or outright dismissal of female concerns and character Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-44176333152073648232011-05-31T23:34:00.025-04:002011-06-01T22:20:15.304-04:00Bad projection and good ol' Roger EbertI went to the movies the other night with my friend Tim O'Donnell. We attended one of Atlanta's premier movie venues, The Tara (now run by Regal Cinemas). Great theater, the Tara--always has been. But even they have their woeful moments.
There are four houses at the Tara. The two over to the right of the ticket taker are the bomb. The first one to that side is a gigantic, many-rowed but Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-16385366369349694862011-05-30T15:33:00.009-04:002011-05-30T23:59:33.425-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #18: "Benson, Arizona" from DARK STAR
Recently I watched a nifty little fan film called Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star. Though its obviously dedicated maker, Daniel Griffith, couldn't get on-screen interviews with the key figures behind this history-making 1974 cult movie, he still managed to construct a detailed and dramatic saga of Dark Star's history by talking to nearly everybody else connected with the movie (andDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-81849932287331802762011-05-30T12:05:00.015-04:002011-05-31T07:32:31.041-04:00MASTER LIST #21: The 50 Best Sequels
Another difficult list to compile. First off, I had to decide which sequels actually surpassed their originals in quality and influence (the first twenty entries make this cut). But, before this, I had to reconcile myself to whether or not entries in long-running series like the James Bond movies, the Hannibal Lecter series, and the Hope/Crosby "Road" movies counted as sequels. I decided the Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-38552396718851816912011-05-29T12:28:00.002-04:002011-06-09T22:03:37.464-04:00Five more terrific new trailers...The revolution in movie trailer construction, last commented here on this post, continues:
TAKE SHELTER (Jeff Nichols, 2011)
"GREEN WITH ENVY" (James Bobin, 2011)
MELANCHOLIA (Lars Von Trier, 2011)
SUBMARINE (Richard Ayoade, 2010)
50/50 (Jonathan Levine, 2011)Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-76898063442094937462011-05-29T00:53:00.023-04:002011-05-29T18:38:14.825-04:00Film #142: Theater of Blood
When I was a kid in the 1970s, I spent much of my time at my grandmother's modest yet spectacular post-war house on Franklin Circle in Atlanta, GA. It was located only about two minutes away from my elementary school, so I'd amble down the hill when school was out and she'd watch after me until my parents came to pick me up. My grandmother was a funny, sweet, unique individual--I really loved Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-82259047171541473642011-05-25T21:30:00.097-04:002011-05-30T12:50:21.848-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #17: "My Name is Tallulah" from BUGSY MALONE
Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone is one of the few films from my childhood that I still look at with the same adoration I first felt for it. Its melding of the adult and juvenile worlds seems now seamless. It stands as perfection, in its own odd way. When, as children, we all play at the grown-up games of rampant violence--whether it be cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, superheroes and Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-2579385835973288192011-05-25T18:54:00.016-04:002011-09-18T01:21:08.689-04:00MASTER LIST #20: The 50 Best Remakes
It was a little difficult, compiling this list. I had to decide what deserved to be a remake and what didn't. Did remaking TV series, or TV-produced teleplays count? (They do.) And did musical remakes, having been made for stage originally, count? (Yes, they do, too.) How about remakes of historical dramas and classic stories by Shakespeare and the like? (I decided against this; these Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-45353759882394665022011-05-21T02:47:00.006-04:002011-05-29T11:06:03.775-04:00Film #141: The RaptureSharon, don't you understand what's going on? The world's a disaster. We have no power to make it better. You hate your job; you hate your life; but you want to feel special. Instead of letting me do that, you're rushing off to something that's not even there.
Here in America, at least, the Facebook pages are a-twitter over radio preacher Harold Camping's well-publicized predictions about JesusDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-26796523854813802592011-05-19T09:27:00.007-04:002011-05-30T12:51:04.955-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #16: "Da Butt" from SCHOOL DAZEI felt like hopping up the pace of the songs featured in this series, so I thought of this wild number from Spike Lee's 1988 quasi-musical School Daze. Filmed partially at Atlanta's Morehouse College, the oldest black university in the nation (where Lee attended before moving on to NYU's film school), this free-wheeling picture charts a few days in the lives of students pledging fraternities, Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-82161133878734856152011-05-18T17:59:00.013-04:002011-05-19T07:48:54.883-04:00Who Should Win the 2012 Honorary Oscars?I chime in every year on filmicability in regards to this yearly question, which these days is usually arrived at around the end of August. It was a bit controversial, the Academy's recent decision to fete the Honorary Oscar winners with the separate Autumnal ceremony prior to the February/March competitive Oscar show. But, in many ways, I kind of like how they're handling the Honorary Oscars Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-11756251394703265932011-05-13T15:31:00.010-04:002011-05-31T07:13:38.744-04:00Happy Birthday, Burt Bacharach!
To me, he's the essence of cool. I could listen to his music 24 hours a day, even if it weren't required of me. Whether his impeccable notes are ringing along with the words of longtime writing partner Hal David or with lyrics provided by wife Carole Bayer Sager (or anyone else), Burt Bacharach's way with an orchestra or even with a simple piano is astoundingly delicate yet powerful enough to Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-82358060658512982372011-05-10T23:45:00.006-04:002011-05-30T12:56:09.412-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #15: "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?" from FAMEIt's a tiny little scene in a sort of great big movie. It stars only one character--not the scads of kids we remember pouring out of the front of New York's High School for the Performing Arts during the performance of its #1 Oscar-winning title song. And, yet, Paul McCrane's single solo musical performance seen in 1980's Fame remains a fan favorite in a picture filled with great music. The Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-50000114681452022302011-05-10T21:35:00.009-04:002011-05-30T12:56:43.545-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #14: "Tell Me" from ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE
The ending to James William Guercio's Arizona highwayman cop film Electra Glide in Blue has cinematographer Conrad Hall's camera performing an awe-inspiring pull-back from the final image, thus dwarfing our film's hero, Robert Blake, by having the valley's buttes swallow him up with their majesty. When paired with the epic ode to a lost America, called "Tell Me," the shot--in spite of its Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-81928187225543124382011-05-08T00:40:00.044-04:002011-05-30T12:57:06.486-04:00Film #140: Disabled But Able to Rock
14 years in the making, Blake Myers' Disabled But Able to Rock packs a surplus of emotion into telling the unusual story of Betsy Goodrich, a highly-functioning autistic woman living in Atlanta, Georgia. Betsy has made a name for herself in that city (and perhaps internationally) by masquerading as a superhero named Danger Woman, who takes as her prime directive the fight against what she callsDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-17502206440534833672011-05-06T21:49:00.024-04:002011-06-04T18:18:51.731-04:00CINEMA GALLERY: 50 New FramesAs always, click on the photo you love to see it full screen:
A telephone call rushes through the wires and connects two distant people at the beginning of Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 94).
The scam is on in Grand Slam (Giuliano Montaldo, 67).
Mrs. Dalton appears behind the movie screen, with Everett Sloan making a cameo via Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai, in Manhattan Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-54851566836735985862011-05-05T03:33:00.009-04:002011-05-30T12:57:26.652-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #13: "Truck Turner" from TRUCK TURNERIsaac Hayes wanted desperately to play John Shaft in Gordon Parks' landmark 1971 actioner Shaft. But Parks went another way. Instead he tapped Hayes to write the songs and score for Shaft, and for that effort, Hayes became one of the first black artists to ever win the coveted Academy Award, for his blazing title song (which went on to also win a Golden Globe and four Grammies).
It would beDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-80386925828330824552011-05-05T02:43:00.013-04:002011-05-30T12:58:08.254-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #12: "I Will Always Be With You" from VOICESJimmy Webb deserves a medal for being one of America's great songwriters. Though he's a musician and performer, he's not someone you can recall seeing play live. He's mainly become famous for his radically dramatic songs alone. You know his smash hits, even if you think you don't. Here's a sample:
**"MacArthur Park" (performed by Richard Harris and Donna Summer)
**"By The Time I Get To Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-10154676051273598772011-05-04T18:50:00.016-04:002011-05-30T13:08:04.205-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #11: "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" from A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWNI've always been a fan of Charles Schulz's barely-veiled version of himself, Charlie Brown. Of course, Charlie first came to life on television in 1965, via the holiday perennial A Charlie Brown Christmas. But it took four years for this success to hit the big screen. In 1969's A Boy Named Charlie Brown, our hero dares to take on the challenges of the school spelling bee, making it all the wayDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-45943850940525262372011-05-04T18:06:00.005-04:002011-05-30T12:58:52.325-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #10: "A Friend" from W.W. AND THE DIXIE DANCEKINGS
I haven't seen John G. Avildsen's W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings since it played on cable back in the early 1980s. Before that, it made an impression on me as a fun, very Southern-flavored musical romp. I watched it first at the Southeast Expressway Drive-In in Atlanta, GA, in 1975, probably on a double bill with another Burt Reynolds movie (my recollection is the second feature was Reynolds' Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-44605140807100600212011-05-03T17:17:00.017-04:002011-05-30T13:06:37.106-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #9: "O Willow Waly" from THE INNOCENTS
At the beginning of Jack Clayton's elegant but shocking 1961 horror film The Innocents, the audience sits in a darkened theater, listening as a song sings out, seeming as old as the film's central location--a maddening, decrepit manor isolated on the rainy English countryside. This macabre ditty is delivered a capella by a little girl--presumably Pamela Franklin, who stars along with Martin Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-55038374179230088092011-05-02T06:15:00.005-04:002011-05-30T13:01:34.355-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #8: "Moondust" from MEATBALLSIn the late 70s and way into the 80s, composer Elmer Bernstein was the comedy filmmaker's go-to guy. The legendary composer had been providing music for movies and television since the early 50s, and most of the titles were serious affairs like The Tin Star, Sweet Smell of Success, Walk on the Wild Side, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, Summer and Smoke, Hud, Birdman of Alcatraz Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-10684260084889199212011-04-30T11:20:00.023-04:002011-05-30T13:28:50.815-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #7: "Long, Long Day" from ONE TRICK PONY
Robert M. Young is an unsung director who contributed many near perfect yet certainly idiosyncratic films to cinema in the late 70s/early 80s, including the odd prison picture Short Eyes, the Robert Altman-produced latchkey kid dramady Rich Kids, the culturally detailed Edward James Olmos vehicle The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, the Farrah Fawcett rape thriller Extremities, and the moving DominickDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-45569444681839981502011-04-28T22:53:00.014-04:002011-05-30T13:31:08.448-04:00Happy Birthday, Ann-Margret!
I'm certifiably nuts about this lady. I have been since I was a kid, endlessly rerunning Ken Russell's Tommy, Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge, and George Sidney's Bye Bye Birdie (these are her three signature roles, to me). She's always possessed the perfect combination of cute and sexy, and has held on to it even in her later years (in movies like 1993's Grumpy Old Men). She's a two-time Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-583373159975196062011-04-28T05:29:00.018-04:002011-05-30T13:32:53.283-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #6: "In My Own Way" from SHOCK TREATMENT
In 1981, I was just discovering pop music, having been a classical music fan up until I was about 12. I was about to reach my 15th birthday when I was thumbing through LPs at my local Turtle's Music and heard this rocking, magnificent song playing over the store's PA. As we are all likely to do when we hear music we love, I asked for the tune's source. And I found it was being sung by Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-23170069075255173932011-04-24T21:34:00.016-04:002011-05-30T13:39:31.970-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #5: "At The Ball" from WAY OUT WEST
Who doesn't love Laurel and Hardy? Even with their often acrimonious doings on-screen, the audience instantly gets that these two are great friends, no matter what Stan accidentally drops on Ollie's round head. Never was this more apparent than with the little dance they do together when, in 1937's Way Out West, they enter a gold prospecting town and come upon The Avalon Boys (with a later Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-61466226905682589632011-04-24T19:55:00.004-04:002011-05-30T13:40:42.051-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #4: "The Maker" from SLING BLADE
Super-producer Daniel Lanois had twisted the sound knobs for artists like U2, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel long before he composed the thoughtful, isolation-flavored score to Billy Bob Thornton's 1996 directorial debut, Sling Blade. As a capper to this movie about the long-hospitalized Karl Childers and his loving and violent adventures outside institution walls, Lanois offered up a forceful Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-48397356353924157472011-04-23T06:22:00.004-04:002011-04-24T01:38:09.937-04:00CINEMA GALLERY: The ABCs of Cult MoviesIn the interest of the recent worldwide blogger call to contribute the ABC's of any given category, I offer now a possible lexicon of cult movie magic:
A is for The Apple. (Menahem Golan, 80)
B is for Belle Du Jour. (Luis Buñuel, 67)
C is for Cutter's Way. (Ivan Passer, 81)
D is for The Devil Rides Out. (Terence Fisher, 68)
E is for Eating Raoul. (Paul Bartel, 82)
F is for The Fall. (Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-9387767329157310002011-04-23T00:45:00.120-04:002011-12-02T23:43:44.691-05:00I Hate, Hate, HATE Morgan Spurlock
When Morgan Spurlock's desperate, I'm-dead-broke-and-this's-my-last-chance-to-succeed "documentary" Super Size Me erupted in 2004, it seemed to many as if the film was an homemade, impassioned outcry to the world. "This corporation called McDonald's," the movie appeared to say, "is exploiting the poor, the uneducated, the underfed. And I'm here to condemn it." That is, as long as you guys in Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-43388364927625104662011-04-21T01:11:00.008-04:002011-05-30T13:43:28.840-04:00RIP Michael Sarrazin (1940-2011)With an unassuming face, not so unworldly and yet not so evil, he sometimes seemed like a blank slate, and was often used as such. But Michael Sarrazin remains an interesting icon from the 1970s, even if he'd faded from view by the 1980s. For me, he'll always be the wide-eyed innocent caught in the middle of Depression-era misery, often at the mercy of the suicidal Jane Fonda, in Sydney Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-11937280365443365722011-04-20T20:16:00.092-04:002011-05-30T13:44:42.084-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #3: "Take Off With Us" from ALL THAT JAZZOne of the biggest gob-smacking scenes from any movie I've even witnessed takes place at a crucial juncture for Joe Gideon (played by Roy Scheider). He's a director and choreographer, working at once on a new musical called NY/LA and a new movie about a troubled comedian, played here by Cliff Gorman. The musical he's toiling away at is a veiled version of the now world-famous Chicago, and Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-34587217615618843212011-04-20T18:22:00.015-04:002011-05-30T13:45:44.846-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #2: "Something in the Air" from THE MAGIC CHRISTIANSIR GUY GRAND (over an image of a 10-pound note): Ladies and gentlemen, this is what is commonly known as money. It comes in all sizes, colours, and denominations - like people. We'll be using quite a bit of it in the next two hours... luckily I have enough for ALL of us.
First off, you have to love a movie that gathers the talents of so many far-flung geniuses. Even if it seems too 1960s forDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-40477934526130149252011-04-17T04:33:00.014-04:002011-05-30T13:53:27.742-04:00Forgotten Movie Songs #1: "Je T'aime Tant" from BEFORE SUNSET
Welcome to the first in what is meant to be a very long series of short posts dedicated to my favorite forgotten songs in movies--that is, the songs that did not become hits or get nominated for Oscars. In my heart, I'm as much of a music fan as I am one of the movies. In fact, one of the things that helped me LOVE movies is that they combined so well with music. The two loves have gone roundDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-41298491726731788122011-04-17T00:01:00.006-04:002011-04-18T22:55:28.793-04:00The 200 Best Insults In Movie History
Courtesy (and that is definitely a misnomer here) of the supremely talented Harry Hanrahan, here is an absolutely stunning collection of the 200 best insults ever heard in motion pictures. Though in this overview I wish there were more classic-era put-downs achieved without the use of vulgarity (which, I warn now, is plentiful hereforth), I cannot deny that these are, indeed, some of the most Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-76796248725456532022011-04-15T15:25:00.013-04:002011-04-16T05:02:13.360-04:00Happy Birthday, Charlie Chaplin!In celebration of Charlie Chaplin's 122nd birthday on April 16th, here are ten of my favorite Chaplin clips. Of course, his genius needs no explanation other than what you see here:
(from The Circus, 1928; Chaplin did over 200 takes inside the cage with the lion, and never trembles once. My favorite moment: when the dog comes up barking, and Chaplin puts his fingers in his ears as if that'llDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-29963773637250068352011-04-14T20:28:00.014-04:002011-04-15T13:28:34.421-04:00My Movie Poster Collection: The Rarest of the RareFinally, we arrive at the final entry in my 29-part series covering my movie poster collection. It's a project that's taken 6 months to complete, and now I must move on to other subjects. But I'm extremely glad to have finished this project. There are a LOT of unusual things to see here, and I have to thank, again, the estimable Tim O'Donnell for taking photographs of these extremely rare Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-56694066343169216432011-04-12T00:22:00.127-04:002011-05-25T19:49:00.975-04:00Elizabeth Taylor and Film #139: Cleopatra(Herbert Ritt's stark capture of Taylor after she had undergone surgery for a brain tumor.)
The recent passing of that movie icon known as Elizabeth Taylor got me musing on her place in my love of film. I never thought of her of one my favorite actresses per se but I definitely regarded her as one of my favorite cinematic faces. This chiefly arrives as such: throughout my life I think I've Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-21754705293284745432011-04-09T19:42:00.050-04:002011-04-12T00:06:55.943-04:00A Farewell to Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)Sidney Lumet died today. Sidney Lumet was one of the greatest filmmakers on the planet and he died this morning and, woe is us, we're in a lotta trouble.
The first time I ever saw a Sidney Lumet movie was in the fall of 1975. I was 9 years old. The film was Dog Day Afternoon and it marked one of the rare instances that my parents and I went to a four-walled theater (we were drive-in mavens at Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-7068587148789130732011-04-08T01:44:00.010-04:002011-04-08T02:14:04.387-04:00My Movie Poster Collection: Odds and EndsThese are the odd-sized posters in my collection. None of them conform to the American standard of 27 X 41 inches (or 40 inches, post 80s). They are all either half-sheets (22 X 28 inches), inserts (11 X 17 inches), TV-related posters, or odd-sized indie or foreign posters. I haven't measured each piece, as of this posting, but will do so soon. As far as I can tell, this is the first Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-59566562876027441832011-03-26T21:34:00.005-04:002011-04-08T23:34:57.420-04:00My Movie Poster Collection: The Autographed OnesI've never been one for autographs, UNLESS said autographs rest upon a movie poster, in which case I'm freakin' in! This is my small collection of signed posters, accompanied by my comments. Many thanks go out to estimable Tim O'Donnell for taking the photos!
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 68); signed by Keir Dullea.
I met Keir Dullea at a screening of Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake IsDean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-26828259080228208252011-03-21T23:47:00.011-04:002011-06-09T22:15:31.436-04:00The Five Best Recent TrailersThis is saying a lot, since trailers blow these days. Hell, I've been waiting literally TWO DECADES for movie previews to change. Finally, there's a glint of light on the horizon. Each of these pieces signal inventive new voices in movie marketing--SMART voices, finally:
Intriguing. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick, 2011)
Chilling. RED STATE (Kevin Smith, 2011)
Moving. BLUE VALENTINE (Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-19632843842599836632011-03-14T17:24:00.010-04:002011-03-14T19:46:54.864-04:00Hitchcock Reexamined, All At OnceI was alerted to this TRULY amazing bit of cinema academia via movie geek extraordinaire Ron Salvatore on Facebook. Here, courtesy of the fantastically talented ultraculture, we have 30 murder scenes from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, all synched up perfectly (and all climaxing with the requisite death knells). Their sound, images and especially their editing rhythms clash wonderfully on one Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-18949321635700814242011-03-13T18:41:00.041-04:002011-05-06T23:42:29.190-04:00Cinema Gallery: 200 MORE Movie Images: DARKNESS (Part 3 of 5)I have to admit: I love a blackened frame. These are some of my favorite hard-to-see moments from movies. I think I love the dark on film because that's where we can catch the most abstract images, if only for a brief moment. By the way, I just want to be clear: these are actual frame grabs and, in that way, they are completely unique. I say this only because these image-only posts of mine Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-42043265949579672442011-03-07T00:24:00.037-05:002011-05-20T11:33:49.995-04:00Cinema Gallery: 200 MORE Movie Images, Part 2 of 5For my 300th post on filmicability, I present the second part of my newest Cinema Gallery collection. As always, click on the photo to see it writ large.
Punk rock arrives in American Pop. (Ralph Bakshi, 81)
One unhappy army recruitment center. Drive, He Said. (Jack Nicholson, 71)
The chilling final image from Blue Collar. (Paul Schrader, 78)
The wrecked bus is raised to the heavens Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-25058109680095305912011-02-28T12:04:00.016-05:002011-03-23T01:23:23.219-04:00Oscar Aftermath: The Winners and 15 observations about the showI'm a movie nut, of course, so I like the Academy Awards simply as an awards-delivery device. But that doesn't necessarily mean I always delight in the ways said device operates. Usually, the day after an Academy Awards show, I'm the only one defending it as nothing more than just such an operation. But last night's show displayed so little real entertainment that I'm forced to make these Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-85389470050694914812011-02-23T13:01:00.011-05:002011-03-02T14:14:25.254-05:00My predictions for the 2011 Academy AwardsGiven that you know from my Top 40 Movies of 2010 article what I thought were the best movies of last year, I'll contain my griping and complaining about what was left off this year's Oscar nomination roll. I will say this: as much as I like The King's Speech, we all know that The Social Network is the better, more important film. Nevertheless, Fincher's film will probably lose out to the more Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-21832005477570505412011-02-23T11:32:00.007-05:002011-02-23T12:51:03.399-05:00My Movie Poster Collection: AAs always, click on the poster you like to see a larger image: THE ABDUCTORS (Don Schain, 72). Folded, GI don't have posters for The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, but I do have one-sheets for both Ginger and its sequel The Abductors. So that shows you where my priorities are. THE ABYSS (James Cameron, 89). Rolled, GGodawful, boring poster for perhaps James Cameron's best movie. With Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-2183195775047794682011-02-11T18:45:00.011-05:002011-02-12T01:26:54.282-05:00My Movie Poster Collection: BAs always, click on each image to see them larger: B MONKEY (Michael Radford, 98). Rolled, G I've never even seen this movie, but I sure do love me some Asia Argento. This is the best American poster featuring her magnificent visage. BABY LOVE (Alastair Reid, 68). Folded, GSure would! Why not? Especially if she wears that little skirt all the time. BAD COMPANY (Robert Benton, 72). Folded, Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-9288047242518880222011-01-18T01:55:00.026-05:002011-03-07T03:56:50.518-05:00Cinema Gallery: 200 MORE Movie Images, Part 1 of 5I am doing this only because (a) I enjoy it and (b) Movieman over at The Dancing Image let me know that I had a particular talent at this frame-grabbing business (he said that my previous 200 images in my Cinema Gallery were among his favorite movie blog posts ever, which is quite a compliment, coming from him). So, for 2010, I'm contributing 200 more entries towards my CINEMA GALLERY. I hope Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-86855263510112972302011-01-17T18:38:00.019-05:002012-01-13T19:51:57.793-05:00Three movies on the ball field, in one minute flatI've been wanting to post these athletic film pieces for months now, and now that I have very little time to compose a preferably detailed new post on filmicability, it seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Will Tribble has a blog here and these three movies I include here are among his many film outputs (which I have yet to delve into, in all honesty, even though he recommends on his You Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6812757780584757569.post-57315096347078655872011-01-10T05:51:00.008-05:002011-01-10T13:07:55.799-05:002010 Directors Guild Awards -- Predictions and nomineesI think I'll do this just like I'm doin' right now: hours before the announcement's made, I'll release my predictions. And then, afterwards, I'll dip in and include the eventual selections. Yep. This is what I'm doing for my predictions for 2010's Director's Guild Awards, to be announced later on today. These are, of course, the progenitors to the Oscar nominations. 'nuff said. My Dean Treadwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106829300132326368noreply@blogger.com0