THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021).
TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985).
GOYA IN BORDEAUX (1999).
LIFE LESSONS (1989).
Wednesday
LET’S GO! (2011).
LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (2003).
I SAW THE DEVIL (2010).
BITTER MELON (2018).
Tuesday PM
Oh, how I adore GIU LA TESTA aka DUCK, YOU SUCKER aka A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE aka ONCE UPON A TIME … THE REVOLUTION, Sergio Leone’s 1971 western with deceptively fun performances, some great pyrotechnics, and a lot of sweat.
Tuesday
AFTER THE FOX promotional art.
Disney’s Haunted Mansion: original (?) paintings.
PADDINGTON 2.
“They’ll never clone ya.”
Monday PM
ALTERED STATES (1981).
Monday
EVENT HORIZON.
THE CELL.
THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
GOOD TIME.
Sunday PM
Favorites.
Radiohead, “A Punch Up At A Wedding” on Hail To The Thief.
Pet Shop Boys, “Love Is A Bourgeois Contract” on Electric.
Lou Reed, “Oh Jim” on Berlin.
Gil Scott-Heron, “New York Is Killing Me” on I’m New Here.
Sunday
Bruno.
Bunta.
Brimley.
Busey.
Saturday PM
Oh, how I adore Eugenio Martin’s HORROR EXPRESS (1972). It is a fun, fun, fun film, with a wonderful cast, some great dialogue, a plot loosely adapted from John W. Campbell, and it takes place on a train! (And you should know by now, films about painters and films that take place on trains, I’m all in. Some day they will make a film about a painter on a train and I will expire from ecstasy.)
All aboard!
Saturday
Malcom McDowell, IF….
Joan Crawford, JOHNNY GUITAR.
Toni Servillo, THE GREAT BEAUTY.
Karen Allen, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.
NorwoodEar 2023
My favorite songs of the year.
The eternal emperor of progressive rock and world music, Peter Gabrial returned this year with the warmly familiar and pop-ethereal “Road to Joy”, my #1 choice of the year.
The Golden Dregs: “Dealer”.
Two from Quasi: “Gravity” and “Last Long Laugh”.
Big Thief: “Vampire Empire”.
Ulrika Spacek: “If The Wheels Are Coming Off, The Wheels are Coming Off”.
Sunny War: “No Reason”.
Lonnie Holley (with Sharon Van Etten): “None Of Us Have But A Little While”.
Iggy Pop: “New Atlantis”.
…And one retro choice I embraced more fully than in 1982: The Waitresses’ “Square Pegs (Theme Song)”. How did I miss this banger when I was 18?
Friday PM
From the poster files.
The marketing team just said, “Go nuts.”
I still don’t understand the artist’s placement of Connery in this image.
Spoiler alert.
Friday
1979 was a hell of a year for horror…
ALIEN.
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR.
THE BROOD.
DRACULA.
NOSFERATU.
PHANTASM.
PROPHECY.
SALEM’S LOT.
TOURIST TRAP.
ZOMBIE.
R.I.P. Frances Sternhagen
I love that in her broad and varied career, one of the many accolades she received was a Saturn award for her terrific supporting role as a no-bullshit medical officer in OUTLAND.
Thursday PM
Esa película en la que todo el mundo cantaba y lloraba: MAGNOLIA.
Thursday
Start to finish, one of the best bits in one of the funniest films of the past 20 years. The Christinith Affair: THE OTHER GUYS.
Wednesday PM
A very brief, very advanced note of negativity about my year in film: these were the 2023 releases that disappointed me the most.
Unpleasant, dull, shrill, irritating. Or, in some cases, just bizarre: how do you make a film about a Cocaine Bear that isn’t a lean 90 minutes of absolute batshit thrills? (Narrator: It wasn’t.)
BEAU IS AFRAID.
SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS.
FAST X.
INFINITY POOL.
THE FLASH.
INSIDE.
65.
COCAINE BEAR.
Wednesday
Oh, how I love Akira Kurosawa’s DREAMS (1990).
Tuesday PM
JODOROWSKY’S DUNE (2013).
Tuesday
BELLADONNA OF SADNESS.
THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO.
WORLD OF TOMORROW 2.