Enjoyably scathing. Go Mark Peranson.

Finally. October 2, 2012. Blu-ray.

World on a Wire v Serene Velocity

I was pretty blown away when I saw this juxtaposition of images in the most recent issue of Cinema Scope. It’s been almost two years ago since I have seen World on a Wire, but Serene Velocity has been omnipresent the few months. (We recently had out 16mm copy digitized at the Walker for an upcoming show where it will be highlighted.) Check out Chuck Stephens’ fascinating article here.

Fat City (1972) dir John Huston

After years of vicious cajoling and harassment, I have finally watched Fat City. A young Stacy Keach plays Billy Tully, a down and out boxer who traded in his gloves for a bottle and migrant labor. A young Jeff Bridges plays a young upstart who gets a taste of boxing but gets sidetracked with a family plan. Call it a boxing movie, but this is a rigorous character study of the lower stratosphere where even the successful are doing the dog-paddle. Keach is amazing even in his physical portrayal of loser losing. But the real glow of this diamond in the rough is when the script flows like hard liquor between Keach’s drunken teddy bear of a character and his sassy equal played by Susan Tyrrell. Those moments, especially the first one between just the two of them when they walk home from the bar together, are touching, funny and incredibly genuine. The final scene where Tully judges in one breath and then realizes he has no room to judge in the next is a kicker. The film’s dark epitaph comes out of Keach’s mouth in those final scenes: “Before you even get rolling, your life makes a b-line for the drain.” Fat City isn’t that b-line but the slow spiral downward.

Pina! Better than 3D

Although it would be great to catch part of the Summer Olympics, if I were in London, I would be most excited about seeing the staging of Pina Bausch’s dance pieces, one of her final projects before she passed away in 2009, as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. As reported in the New York Times yesterday and The Guardian last year, this massive project reflects Bausch’s response to 10 locations around the globe - India, Brazil, Palermo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Budapest, Istanbul, Santiago, Rome and Japan - created between 1986 and 2009. Maybe Wim will be on hand with his 3D camera for those of us unable to attend.

Crazy for Carax

The Cannes Film Festival exploded yesterday with reaction to Leos Carax’s new film Holy Motors. Carax was in the Twin Cities at the Walker Art Center in 2000 for a Regis Dialogue and Retrospective that included the regional premiere for Pola X. Will the Walker or someone be crazy enough to bring Holy Motors to Minneapolis? Let’s hope so.

Sony Pictures Classics picks up Pablo Larraín’s No. It’s one thing for SPC to nab Haneke’s new film, but this news is huge and will no doubt bring Larraín’s films to a much larger audience.