this week has been Masculin Feminin, one of my all-time favorite films -- last chance to see it Thursday at 9.

I think they're picking up one more stray Godard next week (Two or Three Things I Know About Her) and then moving on... rumor is there's Altman or Fellini series in the works.

onetet wrote on 01/07/09 at 12:18pm:


i'd give anything to see short cuts in a theater!

I'M GLAD I JUST SAW THIS.  I LOVE ME SOME GODDARD!

terrasect wrote on 01/09/09 at 10:37am:

The very challenging Two Or Three Things I Know About Her ends tonight. Anyone down? I'm going to brave the 8-degree temps and head down there, I think.

the # of people coming out for the Godard films has been impressive. It's  quite a testament to him that he still remains a draw, and that seeing his films is stoll a challenge. he had so many ideas about new directions for film, new ways films could look and be, and so many of those ideas haven't been followed up on by others.

the large attendance for these Godards, coupled with the poster hanging in their lobby for his CONTEMPT, made me hope the Charles was going to keep going with a larger Godard series.

However, HOLY SHIT! I couldn't be happier about what they're showing next, it's a legendary (and legendarily hard-to-find) film I've wanted to see for years!

BALTIMORE PREMIERE
THE EXILES


Showtimes: SATURDAY, 1/17 (NOON); MONDAY, 1/19 (7 PM); THURSDAY, 1/22 (9 PM).


(1961 Kent MacKenzie) Mary Donahue, Homer Nish, Clydean Parker, Tom Reynolds, Rico Rodriguez. 72m. bw. Official Site Winner of a 2008 National Society of FIlm Critics Film Heritage Award.


"Kent Mackenzie’s miraculous independent film, made between 1958 and 1961 with scrounged film, borrowed equipment, donated services, and free labor, has, scandalously, not been released commercially until now. Mackenzie, while a U.S.C. film student, befriended Native Americans who had left their reservations and towns for Los Angeles, and he persuaded them to reënact scenes from their own lives for the camera. The resulting drama, a Pilgrim’s Progress of three characters through a night of urban loneliness and dissipation, has an epic grandeur and a monumental intimacy that belies its mere seventy-two minutes. Yvonne, who is pregnant and dreams of a better life for her child, drains away the hours watching B-Westerns in an all-night grind house while her layabout boyfriend, Homer, goes out to drink and gamble. Tommy, a smooth operator, hangs out in bars and tries to pick up women but likens his life to “doing time on the outside.” Mackenzie films the minutely incremental action (or, more often, inaction) in strikingly textured and composed images (the night photography alone would make the film immortal), balancing them with the character’s revealing, poignant voice-over monologues. Few directors in the history of cinema have so skillfully and deeply joined a sense of place with the subtle flux of inner life." (Richard Brody, The New Yorker)

Godard's back this week with CONTEMPT!

Sat noon, Mon 7, Thurs 9.

Contempt - some food for thought there. Pretty dense. I just let the whole Fritz Lang thing go over my head. I couldn't keep up with that. But it's an interesting (that is to say unbearable but true) look at love and marital relationships.

So, am I to understand that Bande A Part is showing next? No info on The Charles's website but a review in City Paper. I really wanted to save that movie for a special occasion but I guess if it's showing on the big screen I may as well see it.

Fritz Lang also goes into metaphysics or something. He quotes a lot but I really didn't understand what that was about.

I watched Contempt again recently and thought it was pretty good.  I thought about it alot after watching it but I can't remember everything.

I thought Lang worked on a number of levels.  First, obviously, he's there as a tribute.  The writer character is supposed to be selling out, like Lang (we would understand Lang to be a true artist selling out).  But the movie they're making, itself, is supposed to be a parallel to the writer's relationship.  Intentionally or not, 'Fritz Lang directs The Odyssey' is just kinda comic, so that works for me.  The actually scenes they are shooting I thought looked cool and weird.

Of course, I've seen other Godard stuff (can't remember off the top of my head) that has alot of intellectual rambling, so there you go.