I am the film program director for The Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth, Maine. Here’s some clips from films I like…
A FEW PERTINENT QUOTES…
“Mike Nichols is one of the most incisive wits in America today. His brilliance lights up the stage, his observations on the foibles of humanity rank with those of Jonathan Swift and George Bernard Shaw. He is, without exception, the world’s greatest comedian.” -Elaine May
“Elaine May is a heck of a sweet kid.”- Mike Nichols
“It begins to tell,
‘round midnight, midnight.
I do pretty well, till after sundown,
Suppertime I’m feelin’ sad;
But it really gets bad,
’round midnight.
Memories always start ‘round midnight
Haven’t got the heart to stand those memories,
When my heart is still with you,
And ol’ midnight knows it, too.
When a quarrel we had needs mending,
Does it mean that our love is ending.
Darlin’ I need you, lately I find
You’re out of my heart,
And I’m out of my mind.
Let our hearts take wing
‘round midnight, midnight
Let the angels sing,
for your returning.
Till our love is safe and sound.
And old midnight comes around.
Feelin’ sad,
really gets bad
Round, Round, Round Midnight"
-Round Midnight by Thelonious Monk
“Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what happens that is the mystery. It is whether it has to happen no matter what, whether it is ordered and ordained, fixed and fated, or whether it can be missed, avoided, circumvented, passed by; that is the mystery.” -Cornell Woolrich “For the Rest of Her Life”
“There’s a long goodbye
And it happens every day
When some passerby
Invites your eye
To come her way
Even as she smiles
A quick hello
You let her go
You let the moment fly
Too late you turn your head
You know you’ve said
The long goodbye …"
- from the theme song for the Robert Altman film “The Long Goodbye”. Music by John Williams, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
""Every idea I ever had is based on the fact that it’s 2:30 and there’s a production meeting at 3:00." – Ernie Kovacs
“Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away"
- Antigonish by William Hughes Mearns
“They say I have no hits and I’m difficult to work with… and they say that like it’s a bad thing.”- Tom Waits (from his acceptance speech for getting inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame)
“You Gotta Love Livin’ Baby, ‘Cause Dyin’ Is A Pain In The Ass!”- Frank Sinatra.
“It’s Sinatra’s World, We Just Live In It.”- Dean Martin
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean…”- Raymond Chandler
Michael O’Hara- “Once, off the hump of Brazil I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black and the sun fainting away over the lip of the sky.We’d put in at Fortaleza, and a few of us had lines out for a bit of idle fishing. It was me had the first strike. A shark it was. Then there was another, and another shark again, ‘till all about, the sea was made of sharks and more sharks still, and no water at all. My shark had torn himself from the hook, and the scent, or maybe the stain it was, and him bleeding his life away drove the rest of them mad. Then the beasts took to eating each other.In their frenzy, they ate at themselves.You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes, and you could smell the death, reeking up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse… until this little picnic tonight.And you know, there wasn’t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.”
Arthur Bannister- “George, that’s the first time anyone ever thought enough of you to call you a shark. If you were a good lawyer, you’d be flattered.” – Orson Welles “The Lady From Shanghai”
