I watched three films on the first day of 2009.
Alexandr Sukorov’s The Second Circle
Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband
George Sluizer’s The Vanishing (1988)
But out of the three, i actually watched The Vanishing first.
Tremors. Hellz yeah.
I was watching Dario Argento’s Inferno at midnight. 4 / 4 stars
A great beginning to another year of movie nerding it up.
I was in a theater watching Synecdoche, New York at midnight.
I randomly woke up early and caught Howard Hawks’ “Twentieth Century” on TCM
Lily Garland : “That’s the trouble with you, Oscar. With both of us. We’re not people, we’re lithographs. We don’t know anything about love unless it’s written and rehearsed. We’re only real in between curtains.”
The Wrestler – Soooo Good.
Rules of the Game – a new favorite.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – great.
Macunaima – meh.
Revisited Welles THE TRIAL, for the first time in maybe forty years. I find that it more than holds up. And find myself wondering if, as pure cinema, this wasn’t his best work …
Slumdog Millionaire, It looks as though its going to be a good year for the movies.
viewing #1
The Double Life of Veronique (was dragged out half way through, had more important things to do)
Army of Shadows (masterpiece)
repeat viewing (loved them again, to say the least)
Apocalypse Now
In the Mood for Love
buddies gifted me with 3 criterions this birthday.
Balthazar
First film viewed in 2009 (at home): Luchino Visconti, Conversation Piece (Region 2 DVD). Viewed January 1, 2009. Visconti’s second-to-last film, and possibly his greatest. Made in the period in which the ailing Visconti had hoped to make a film of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, this never realized dream project got displaced onto a series of other works: Death in Venice, Ludwig and especially this one. A sublime elegy to art, memory, and life.
First film viewed in 2009 (theatre): Nicholas Ray, Bigger than Life (new 35mm print). Viewed January 2, 2009. I own the Region 2 DVD of this, but wanted to see it again on the big screen (or semi-big screen that they have at Film Forum in NYC). Terrific melodrama, with real insight into the trap that was (or is) the American “dream.”
First NEW film viewed in 2009: ?