Resolutions?? Feh!!

So remember how on January 3rd of 2009 I, among numerous other film bloggers, put together a list of film-related New Year's resolutions? And how I was supposed to do, or complete, or not do, as the situation warranted, all of them before all the calendars of the world flipped over to 2010? I wonder how that turned out! Did I, in fact, stick to each and every one of my resolutions? Did I, indeed, stick to any of them? Perhaps now would be a good time to run through that list, one resolution at a time, and find out was has transpired over the past almost whole year...

Resolution #1 - I will watch both Satantango and Our Hitler this year.

Now, did I watch Bela Tarr's 33 hour, or whatever, long masterpiece? I did not. BUT! Did I watch Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's surrealist, psychadelic and kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria of German fascist history?? Also no. For all I know, Our Hitler is the furthest thing from psychadelic, surrealist, or the rest of it. I didn't watch any of it. I never even got disc one from Netflix. Disc one of either film. I didn't even try this one. I thought about it once or twice. I'd think, "Shit, it's only September. I got about four months to watch roughly a day's worth of movies. I got this one. In the bag!" More fool me. We're off to a bad start.

Resolution #2 - I will see more films in the theater this year.

If I only saw three or four movies in the theater in 2008, then yes, I squeaked this one through. Otherwise, I think I matched my record low. This one, frankly, embarrasses me, but I really only go to see films in the theater that I really want to see, and many of those don't hit my town. Plus we have an XBox now, so...

Resolution #3 - I will clean out my DVR.

I did not clean out my DVR. To be honest, this one was never going to happen anyway. The best I could have hoped for was to make a tiny dent in the thing, and that I accomplished, in a sense. I did watch Kenji Mizoguchi's The 47 Ronin, which I consider a major victory. I'd had all four hours of that thing in my DVR for well over a year, and one long weekend I knocked it out. Of course, I filled it back up with other movies, most of which I haven't watched (though some I have, so the tiny dent remains), but the main goal is to watch the oldest stuff. And The 47 Ronin (which, for the record, I liked well enough, but I probably won't be buying the action figures) took up a lot of room, having been aired on IFC or Sundance in two parts. In that same vein, I still have parts one through three of Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases floating around in the DVR. And if I'm being really honest with myself, like I sit myself down in a chair, spin another chair around backwards so I can fold my arms over the back and look myself straight in the eyes, I'd say to myself, "You are never going to watch all three parts of The Tulse Luper Suitcases. You should just delete them and free up the space. For Christ's sake, have you ever seen a Peter Greenaway movie?? Why don't you just put a gun in your mouth now!?"

So that's if I was honest with myself. But they're not available on DVD!! This is the only way I can ever see them! And what if they're really good and don't give me a giant motherfucking headache!? Because, you see, I'm of two minds about this.

Resolution #4 - I will watch more of the films I bought on DVD sight unseen.

I haven't done so badly with this one, actually. Of the examples I offered in the original resolutions post, I have watched Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, The Grissom Gang, Lisa and the Devil, Songs from the Second Floor, Army of Shadows and part one of the Pusher trilogy. I've also watched any number of second-rate horror films, and Performance (I'd rather watch the second-rate horror films again, by the way), Combat Shock, and a host of others. And all I resolved to do was "watch more" of them. So, yeah! Check this one off, bitches.

Resolution #5 - I will educate myself on the films of Max Ophuls.

Eh. Sort of, but not really. I finally saw The Earrings of Madame de..., and it was, as you probably know, brilliant. But that's as far as I've gone with this one. If anyone wants to give me advice regarding which Ophuls to check out next, drop a comment, and I shall heed it.

Resolution #6 - I will continue to give chances to Godard and Antonioni.

Godard, yes. Antonioni, no. And I still don't like Godard, other than Band of Outsiders and bits of Breathless, but that didn't stop me from picking up the Criterion of Pierrot le Fou, and I also have First Name: Carmen and Passion sitting in a white sleeve with "Netflix" on it lying around here somewhere. I bet I'll get around to it. Antonioni can just cool it for now. My interests lie elsewhere right now.

Resolution #7 - I will choose one month during which the only films I watch will be film noir.

This one was just stupid. I was never going to do this. I was flailing around, trying to come up with resolutions. I've watched a giant bagful of film noirs (films noir? Crime films?) this year -- The Sniper, The Lineup, The Big Steal, Crime Wave, Decoy, Mystery Street, The Racket, and so on -- so why put the pressure on myself to cram it all into one month? You're being a jackass, Bill. Quit being such a jackass.

Resolution #8 - I will invent a film-related meme.

Nope. I didn't even come close to this. Although it occurs to me that film-blog-type memes, after what appeared to be a never-ending flurry of them in late 2008, into early 2009, just sort of stopped. I guess everybody got fed up with them, and were getting annoyed because somebody tagged them, and then they felt obligated to take part, and who wants to write about dancers anyway?? So skipping this one was probably for the best.

Resolution #9*- I will...um...make a... or no! I'll write a book about...how movies can sometimes...if, you know, if, or I mean unless we watch them with...with, ah, more sophisticated eyes, then we, as a nation -- indeed, as a people -- will...as a people we will...ah...most likely, what will happen is...

Now that one I did.

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Okay, well, clearly, that was a roaring success. I'm very proud of myself, and of all of you. Fresh content for the new year is fast approaching, so be on the lookout for whatever that turns out to be.



*Number nine....number nine...number nine...

Meme Clearinghouse Part Two - Der Unenthüllte

Twice now, I have been sorta-kinda tagged for a new meme started by MovieMan, over at The Dancing Image. MovieMan wants those who take part to list their favorite books about film, and I feel that I've been tagged for this twice because Ed Howard and Glenn Kenny, in the section of their posts for this meme where they're supposed to tag five other bloggers, chose instead to tag everyone on the planet at once. Which means I'm in.

So, in essence, I took this particular bull by the horns all on my own, and I therefore have no one to blame for the subsequent difficulties I've suffered in trying to put together a post but myself. It's not that I don't read movie books, or that I don't consider any of the ones I've read to be "favorites" or "important. I do -- sure I do! But I actually haven't read that many film books, and those I have read tend towards the obvious, or at least they seem so when compared to the books listed by Glenn and Ed. This is Orson Welles. Danny Peary's Cult Movies. Harlan Ellison's Watching. That sort of thing. I mean, what, who's going to click over to this blog and shout "Stop the presses! This fucker's going to talk about Adventures in the Screen Trade!" Who needs that? Not me, I can tell you, and it's my blog!

But dry your eyes, my children, because there was one book that I always planned on placing at number one, a book that is, in almost every conceivable way, more interesting than any of those others. And I've decided to dispense with the whole list idea and just write about this one book, because it really is my favorite film book, and because rules and promises are made to be broken, and you have to follow your heart, and also individuality. All that stuff. The book is also a work of fiction, which I haven't yet seen represented on any of these lists, because remember what I said before about individuality.

I have no idea where or when I first heard about Theodore Roszak's Flicker. All I know is that whatever description I read immediately pissed me off, because I needed that book, I needed to read it now, but it was out of print, and I couldn't find the sucker anywhere. It was years before I finally got my hands on it -- thanks to a reprint by Chicago Review Press -- and when I did, I read it at once. It was everything I hoped it would be, while being quite different from what I expected.

The plot, essentially, is this: in the 1960s, a young cinephile named Jonathan Gates spends much of his time at dingy movie theater called The Classic. He meets a budding, strong-willed film critic named Clare, who teaches him all she knows about films and life, and with whom he searches high and low for prints of classic movies. Over time, they come to hear about a forgotten director named Max Castle, who as an uncredited writer, co-director, or etc., worked on such films as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Nosferatu, Mad Love and Citizen Kane. He also made his own films, with such titles as Ghoul of Limehouse, Queen of Swords, Simon the Magician and Judas Everyman. Clare and Jonathan are able to track down some of these films, and the effect these films have on them is quite unusual. After they've watched Judas Everyman, Jonathan -- the novel's narrator -- reflects:

We had no name for what we'd seen. We couldn't be certain that we'd viewed the whole film or that we'd seen it in anything like its correct sequence. What we'd watched was obviously a rough cut with all the ragged edges still showing. Yet, we knew that none of this mattered, for, after several minutes of talk, it was clear that the film, just as we had seen it, had worked. It had left us all with exactly the same experience of absolute, numbing horror. Not the horror of fear, but of revulsion.

And such is the case with every other Castle film they're able to track down. The fact that the films burrow so deep into the viewer is actually a bit frustrating for Clare, because she can't figure out why the films get to her the way they do. Nothing she knows about the art, craft or mechanics of film seems to apply to Castle's work.

Add to this the fact that Castle is, of course, missing, and has some bizarre connection to a frightening religious cult called the Orphans of the Storm, and the reader might find him- or herself not minding so much that Roszak's novel is pushing 600 pages. Because while Clare grows up to be Pauline Kael, Jonathan keeps digging for answers, and what he finds is singularly unpredictable and exactly -- narratively and thematically -- right. Also, Orson Welles is in it.

It's hard to write about a 600 page book I read three or four years ago, especially as I didn't foresee that I would one day be writing this post, and therefore didn't mark passages I thought might be illuminating to others. But I've described this book to others as a metaphysical horror novel about the secret history of movies, and I'll be damned if that doesn't just about sum it up. Castle was in films almost from the beginning, and he understood a deep truth about the subliminal power -- the potential of the flicker -- of the artform. And he used that knowledge, and that knowledge has been passed on to a cult that doesn't worship Jesus or Mohammed, but what it worships I won't tell you, and what it hopes to do I won't tell you either, or where Jonathan's discoveries take him, or what the last line of the novel is. That line would be such a wonderful title for this post, but I wouldn't dream of doing that to any of you.

Also, not incidentally, this book is positively drunk on movies. Ultimately, one might wonder how in love with cinema Theodore Roszak really is, or if, possibly, he's renounced that love (out of fear, perhaps), but he sure as hell knows his stuff, and he needs to for the whole thing to work. This book was written for cinephiles, so that, in print, we can wallow in what we normally just stare at in the dark. And it might make you flinch a bit, by the end. You might wonder about some of the movies you've spent time with over the years, and how they effected you. Maybe a movie made you feel bad, beyond what the narrative, however effective it might have been, could reasonably be held accountable for. Maybe a film made you angry, and you've never been able to pinpoint exactly why. Maybe a movie ruined your day, and maybe you don't even know that it was the movie that did it. Well, you weren't supposed to know, so just move along, and forget I said anything.

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I'm going to actually tag some people for this meme, because I'd love to read their answers. So Greg, Fox, Arbogast, Dennis, Rick, Ryan...get to work. Then tag all the people I wanted to tag but couldn't.

Meme Clearinghouse Part One: These Things I Believe

Just today, my close personal buddy Greg wrote a post called Why Being a Cinephile Matters (enough with the links already!). In it, he talked about things he's learned about movies and cinephilia since becoming a reader, and writer, of blogs, and then asked that pretty much everybody he's ever met do the same. Since I am one of those people, I've been included.

Greg, as he tends to, kept the rules of this already pretty loose meme very open. You can write about whatever the fuck you want to (and I think you can even swear!). You can go on at length, or you can just write a sentence or two. I'm pretty sure the only rule is that you should probably make your observations movie-related. Other than that, you are as free as the hawk in the breeze.

Ho-kay then:

* When I started reading movie blogs a few years ago, I didn't even know what I didn't know. Now I do. This is progress.

* I learned that discussions about Lars von Trier can get pretty heated. Go figure.

* I learned that, in the world of film, there are some things called "mumblecores" and "joe swanbergs". The world, she is mysterious.

* I learned that pretty much every cinephile worth their salt, no matter how long he or she can go on about Rivette or Tarr or Ozu or Brakhage or Roehmer is, at heart, a genre hound. Which makes me happy.

* I learned that nobody doesn't like Werner Herzog. This is as it should be.

* I learned that with film -- and all art, really -- it really is often better to look back, rather than forward, and to wallow in the past.

* I learned that some people will exalt just about anything. I probably already knew this, but the Film Wing of the Internet Institute of Studies has really driven it home. It's okay to love movies, but can we stop pretending that Lucio Fulci was something he wasn't?

* On a more positive note, I've learned that the received wisdom about certain older directors, the kind of wisdom you find in actual, physical magazines, like the idea that Scorsese has lost it, The Departed was his first good movie in more than a decade, and so on, has not been as readily and blindly received by film bloggers.

* I've learned that it's okay if you think that David Lynch's films don't make sense. Seriously, I didn't know that before.

* I've also learned that a lot of people claim to have, say, Inland Empire figured cold, and if the film didn't play to you as clearly as Yankee Doodle Dandy, then you simply weren't paying attention. Those people are fools, by the way.

* Related to my earlier "genre hound" observation, the number of serious film critics or bloggers who are also full-blown horror geeks is off the charts.

* I've learned that film bloggers are like honeyed-sunshine dappling the seas of my...or no, the waters of my...ah, what I like about film bloggers, is that their discourse is of the rarest spun heaven metal...oh fuck it. I think I probably have enough.

Now you go!

Character

Fox has tagged me for a thankfully simple meme, the idea of which is to simply list your ten favorite film characters. I don't pretend this is actually my top ten, but they're ten that I really like, and also I cheated once, but that's my business. So let's do this thing.

Tom Doniphan

Father Karras

Danny Rose

Baron Victor Frankenstein

Kyuzo

Bennie

The Faun

Dave Moss

Tom Reagan

Sherlock Holmes (as portrayed by Jeremy Brett)

I tag Dennis, Brian, Glenn, Wings, Rick and Mariana. That's one more than I needed to tag, but what the hell.

The Mysteriously Tag-less 20 Actors Meme

Okay, so, a while back there was a meme where you pick your favorite 20 or 25 or however many favorite actresses and post pictures of them, without comment. Not so long ago, Marilyn sort-of-but-not-really started that meme's brother, and picked 20 actors. As is her habit, she tagged no one. But as the person who started the damn thing, that choice should have killed the meme right out of the gate, but here and there others have picked it up and carried it forward. They are also not tagging anyone, so this one is kind of a secret, underground meme, where only those in the know participate, and those who don't are revealed as the posers we always knew they were.

Or something like that. Anyway, I don't have anything to write about tonight, so here is a random asortment of pictures of twenty actors I like.

















I mysteriously tag no one.

Resolution Meme

Adam Ross at DVD Panache recently tagged me with a meme of his own invention. What you do is, you come up with nine New Year's Resolutions, all film related, and basically go on record with them, so that if you fail to live up to them you will have not only let yourself down, but, in a sense, the whole world as well.

Adam, wisely, kept his list short and to the point. I shall now attempt to do the same:

1. I will watch both Satantango and Our Hitler this year. Tarr's film is notorious for being 7 1/2 hours long (and for consisting of, what is it? Three shots?), and the slightly more obscure film by Hans-Jurgen Syberberg is just about the same length. Both have been floating around in my consciousness for a long time, and both are now available to rent. For years, I've thought "Man, being able to say you've seen those films is like being able to say you've read Ulysses. The mere act of sitting through them commands respect." Plus also they might be good. Really, I do want to see them for aesthetic pleasure, or whatever it's called, but I'll take respect wherever I can get it.

2. I will see more films in the theater this year. Last year I saw possibly fewer than I have during any other year of my life, and quite a few that I genuinely wanted to catch passed me right by. Laziness played a part, but so did the sheer volume of older films available to me through a wide variety of resources. In order to watch any number of genuine works of cinematic art, I not only don't have to leave the house anymore, but I barely need to even stand up. Well, that's going to have to end this year. Or, at least, happen less.

3. I will clean out my DVR. My wife and I have only had a DVR for a little over a year, but I still have movies sitting in their from 2007. Louis Malle's Black Moon, for instance, and several Coffin Joe films. My problem is that I record them, and then think, "Well, now I have that movie!" The problem is that having a film makes it much easier to not watch it.

4. I will watch more of the films I bought on DVD sight unseen. I didn't used to buy films I'd never seen very often, but last year I raked in a whole pantload of them. The closing of our local Hollywood Video and subsequent selling of their stock at rock bottom prices, and the opening of a pretty good used DVD place near my apartment, as well as various other sales I've stumbled across, have caused me to load up on the following films I still haven't watched: The Professionals; The Grissom Gang; Mississippi Mermaid; White Dog; Fanny and Alexander (theatrical version); Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell; Rampo Noir; Johnny To's Throw Down; Clash by Night; Nightmare Alley; The Bride with White Hair; Kill, Baby...Kill!; Lisa and the Devil; Songs from the Second Floor; Tess; Lust, Caution; Army of Shadows; Nicholas Winding Refn's Pusher Trilogy; and quite frankly, many more. Time to get on those, I think.

5. I will educate myself on the films of Max Ophuls. Pretty self-explanatory.

6. I will continue to give chances to Godard and Antonioni. These are the two big guns that I probably like the least. I think Godard is obnoxious, and Antonioni is dull. I've given Godard a fairer shake than Antonioni, in that I've seen probably twice as many Godard films, but I feel obligated to push forward with both of them, if for no other reason than to become better able to explain why I hate them.

7. I will choose one month during which the only films I watch will be film noir. Okay, not quite "only". If the wife and I feel like throwing on Shaun of the Dead again, then that's what we'll do, damn it. Also, TV. Lost is coming back, and do you guys watch those cooking contest shows, like, what's it, The Next Chef at the Top, or whatever? Those are crazy! One chick didn't know how to make pie crust. I said, "You're a chef! How do you not know how to do that!" Another one didn't like fish. But whatever, anyway, the deal is, any time I want to watch something I haven't seen before, it will be film noir. I'm certainly not ignorant of the genre, but it's a favorite, and there's still so much out there, so I just want to play a little catch up. I just don't know which month to choose. Any ideas?

8. I will invent a film-related meme. You know, like this one. Something with which to annoy my fellow bloggers. Or maybe I'll host a blog-a-thon. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not doing either of those.

9. I will...um...make a... or no! I'll write a book about...how movies can sometimes...if, you know, if, or I mean unless we watch them with...with, ah, more sophisticated eyes, then we, as a nation -- indeed, as a people -- will...as a people we will...ah...most likely, what will happen is... Fuck it, I can only come up with eight.

I tag Dennis, Ed Howard, Rick, Marilyn and Arbogast.

25 Super Ladies

I am a male chauvinist. Either that, or I'm gay. I say that because this meme, started by Nathaniel R. and sent my way by Rick, was very difficult for me. The idea is that you simply pick your 25 favorite actresses, and I would have had a much easier time picking my 25 favorite actors. Make of all this what you will, but I do genuinely like all of the following actresses, even if "favorite" might be stretching it on occasion. And that's the end of the commentary on this post, because I have a cold.

I tag Dennis, Arbogast, Adam, Krauthammer and Fox.