Perfect Things Which Are Perfect. "Rear Window" Edition

by Nathaniel R

This past weekend Jason and I went to a big screen showing of Hitchcock's masterpiece Rear Window (1954). Or one of his masterpieces that is; has more than his share, that one. We went just because it was playing (bless you rep scene) and it was the absolutely best thing to see during an actual heatwave in NYC because it's set during one yet it's its own air-conditioning. It's utterly cool...

I love that so many characters in the picture but especially LB (Stewart), eternally in pajamas and broken leg cast, come across like the heat is wearing at their nerves, temper, and clothing. Except Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont, who just floats onto the screen in a cocktail dress, in slomo no less in one of the cinema's all time greatest entrances. Lisa always looks like she is immune to common people concerns like the weather. This only benefits the film because it plays deliciously to L.B.'s (James Stewart) conflicted perception of her as somehow both above the mortal world but also too fragile for it. He thinks his rough and tumble travelling photographer existence too much for her. But isn't the rich dichotomy of the film that she's actually braver than he is when all the dangerous seeds the picture so gleefully places, eventually bloom? 

I've seen Rear Window several times but somehow I always forget big chunks of it. Like that it was set during a heatwave -- how did I forget that? But the heatwave ready to melt me again once I left the theater is beside the point. As I sat there totally engrossed and then delighted and then tense and then elated, I was reminded of a simple fact: Oh riiiiight, this perfect thing is perfect.

COMMENT PARTY ☛ So my spread-the-good-vibes question to you is this. When was the last time you saw an old favorite only to be surprised anew at its total perfection? 

Last Chance Filmstruck: Unzipped, High Noon, Metropolis, Etc...

by Nathaniel R

Are you going to wait for the train downstairs? Why don't you wait here?"
     -Katy Jurado to Grace Kelly in High Noon (leaves Filmstruck May 31st)

Y'all. I have a really really hard time with how quickly titles come and go on so many different streaming services. Ugh! I do not like other people curating my movies for me. I'm too much of my own cinephile for that. I want to see what I want to see when I want to see it and usually for highly specific reasons that don't go well with the timetables of corporations! Nevertheless the world is not made to cater to my personal whims (imagine that!?) so I've had to adapt. I have ponied up for FilmStruck and its Criterion Channel entirely because they have more classics than other streaming services. This still hasn't remotely solved all the "where to find things" woes. Though Hulu, Prime, and Netflix are okay for the majority of movies that aren't more than 5-10 years old, everything else remains super-patchy at best and you're stuck with whatever any of these services feel like streaming for you in a given month. This is ESPECIALLY true of movie musicals which literally no service does a good job with. The lack of musicals has always been my primary beef with the Criterion Collection

Enough complaining! Filmstruck/Criterion does have plenty of goodies. As with all the other streaming services they play peek-a-boo with the titles, though. So let's play Streaming Roulette for everything that's LEAVING the service shortly...

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Michael Anderson (1920-2018)

by Nathaniel R

We lost one of our oldest Oscar nominees this weekend. 98 year old film director Michael Anderson passed away of heart disease. The quadrilingual reportedly very amiable director had a long career stretching from a couple of acting gigs in the 1930s through directing The New Adventures of Pinnocchio in 1999. His two biggest claims to fame were the Best Picture winning blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (1956, one of the biggest hits of its decade) and the sci-fi hit Logan's Run (1976). People keep referring to Logan's Run as a cult hit online but it was actually just a regular sized success ("cult" is a really strange term in the modern vernacular which doesn't seem to mean what people think it means when referring to the fanbases of films. I've even heard Mean Girls described as a cult-classic. Child, that is mainstream!)

His two most famous pictures were both naturally eyed for remakes...

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William Holden in "Picnic"

Our mini William Holden Centennial celebration continues with Eric Blume...

Picnic, the 1955 film version of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, came two years after William Holden won his Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 and one year after his dashing role in Sabrina.  Holden was at the height of his stardom when this film released, and he’s smartly front and center through most of the picture...

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