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Saturday
Apr092011

April 2011 Screening Log

1 Too busy having nervous breakdown to watch movies.  Went to bed early, comatose.
2 WEEKEND (2011) the gay film that won SXSW. It's part of the Nashville Film Festival as well. Good stuff.
3 Third episode of Mildred Pierce. Watched the slapping scene with Vida and the sex scene with Guy Pearce twice. I'm only human. But the part of the episode that I loved loved loved was Mare Winningham taking control in the restaurant.
4-5 Watched the season finale of No Ordinary Family and dear god let it also be a series finale because I can't stop watching this show and it's not even a guilty pleasure because it's straight up T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E from the writing to the acting to the. argh. put it down. put it down. Also watched RuPaul's Drag Race which continues to delight.

6
HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994) for the Hit Me With Your Best Shot episode.
7 Watched the trailer for Crazy Stupid Love an embarassing amount of times. Later that night started to watch Bride Wars (2009) and quickly said to self: "self, what are you doing? what-what-what are you doing?" Instead put in a screener for a French Canadian Nashville Fest movie called CURLING. Which was odd to say the least.
8 SOURCE CODE and ARTHUR which I reviewed.
9 POTICHE with Catherine Deneuve. I'm telling you. Just seeing her fills my heart with joy... and the factory goods they were producing? Hilarious in-joke. Fun movie. Also: Depardieu is now gargantuan. We're talking legendary Brando sized weight gain.
10 Watched the finale of Mildred Pierce in which Kate's performance really did improve and Evan Rachel Wood totally turned it out and up. And then Sex and the City 2. I really didn't mean to watch it again as it's not a "good" movie abut once Carrie starts being her neurotic self in sky high shoes in all the colors of the rainbow I have trouble denying her. 

11 Penultimate RuPaul's Drag Race Season 3 episode. Byebye Yara. It's Raja, Manila & Alexis for the finale. Rooting for Raja or Manila but Alexis has had her moments.
12 An amnesia mystery called PIG, a Canadian comedy called WHIRLIGIG and a first feature from Sam Jaeger from TV's Parenthood who wrote, directed and starred in it called TAKE ME HOME, a road trip dramedy co-starring his wife. It's actually pretty good.
13 nada. having depression today. it happens. But I'm about to leave to see "Catch Me If You Can" on Broadway so hopefully that'll cheer me up. UPDATE: It was good. I briefly buzzed it at Towleroad.
14 The Summer of Goliath, another film I needed to watch for my Nashville jury. Now I can attend the festival and just see whatever I want :)
15 South Pacific on my laptop on the plane. No, I don't know why. Bali Hi possessed me?
16 Sons of Tennessee Williams, a Southern gay civil rights doc and One Lucky Elephant, the story of an orphaned elephant raised by a circus ringmaster (discussed here). This was a big movie day as I also finished the two remaining features I needed to see for the jury deliberations: The Last Summer of La Boyita an interesting coming of age film from Argentina about two kids entering adolescence and Septien which is difficult to describe. Next!
17 I hadn't heard anything about Aardvark or Stranger Things going in but I liked them both. Ended the evening with the documentary Project NIM from the man who directed Man on Wire. The crowd seemed to love it. We also had our jury meeting for the Narrative competition. The decisions were not entirely easy but for Best Picture. We all agreed on the same two films being ahead of the pack so they easily took Best Pic and Honorable Mention. But more on that later.
18 Nénette (discussed here) and The Arbor.
19 Business/Travel day.

20
Back in NYC. Yay! Regular posting/blogging to resume Thursday I'm sure. Need day to unwind / plan.
21 A Walk on the Moon selections.
22 Friday Night Lights is back. Whoooooo
23 Water for Elephants -- even convinced three of my friends who always turn movies down to join me. Here's my review.
24 Ratatouille (2007) It holds up. It's still a spectacular nervy combo of appetizing (food) and revolting (rats). Maybe it's slightly overappreciated (as many Pixar's are) but damn if that ratatouille serving finale with Anton Ego isn't one of the best climaxes in any animated film. And it doesn't even need a "chase" sequence. Also watched Game of Thrones episode 2. We should discuss but let's wait until episode 3 hits.
25 RuPaul Drag Race finale

26-28 I really must keep better track. At some point in here we watched Tacwaquore which was an interesting film on punk rock Muslims.
29 Carol Channing: Larger Than Life at the Tribeca Film Festival. Carol was there! Good Christ she is old (in her nineties now) but she was hilarious about it.
30 Last night we had a fun double feature: TV's Beauty and the Beast (with Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman) and then the Disney classic. I didn't remember the former at all so it was a flashback to the 80s. My mom was really into that TV show. Television has definitely improved since then.

Thursday
Mar312011

March 2011 Screening Log

my write up of THE BLACK SWAN drove Ty Power to drink!1-2 Parts of East of Eden but mostly sleeping with flu.
3
Can't recall. I think I went back to reading while super ill with flu.
4 The Sundowners (1960) with Deborak Kerr and "Bob" Mitchum and in a perverse double feature Crank (2006) with Jason Statham. The sight of Kerr with a Kangaroo amused/horrified me.
5-9 Somewhere in here I watched The Black Swan (1942) and Where the Boys Are (1960) on TCM, spurred on by that reader contest. I recorded a few more but haven't gotten to them yet. Also the normal television shows including Glee and RuPaul's Drag Race, which I just wrote about.

10-11 Skimmed through The Black Swan (1942) again for the write-up. Skimming Law of Desire (1987), too, which is one of my all time favorite movies (Viva Pedro!) and prompted this and this. I should also note here that Southland concluded its season and now I am sad. I just really like that show and Regina King is more and more impressive in the lead role.
12 A French flick, Patrick Chiha's Domaine with freaky Beatrice Dalle which I had on screener. It's part of the upcoming Nashville Film Festival which I'm doing Narrative Competition Jury for. More on that movie and the other Nashville films next month, obvs, when the festival takes place. Also on this day I ended up watching lots of YouTube videos. Not by choice exactly. One of my friends has this complete YouTube addiction -- that's his viewing diet -- so ended up watching several of those. He's currently obsessed with this guy Chase who does sign language music videos. Like so...

Hold It Against Me from Michael Chase DiMartino on Vimeo.

Hey, that beats Britney's own terrible music video for this song ;)

13 Spectre (1977) a horrible cheapie occult movie with Robert Culp.
14 The 29th version of Jane Eyre - quite good. I almost went to I Am Number Four the second it ended on account of I was right there but I didn't want to spoil Jane Eyre with something infinitely inferior piggybacking. [HERE'S OUR PODCAST ON JANE EYRE]
15 Copacabana with Isabelle Huppert, Hit So Hard a documentary on the drummer of Hole, and Toy Story (1995). Plus the "Original Song" episode of Glee. It was the first episode I've thoroughly enjoyed without a lot of disclaimers in some time.
16 Tyrannosaur from Paddy Considine. I wish he also acted in it -- love him as an actor. I'm already worried about reviewing this. The performances were incredible but how to recommend something so grim it might even give Inñaritu pause, or turn him green with envy?

17-18 Bits of 9½ Weeks. God, Basinger and Rourke were both perfect physical specimens in 1986, weren't they? Got caught up on Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, the former of which gets better all the time, the latter has better single moments than any other sitcom but as an overall show it ain't what it used to be.
19 Tom Hardy's introduction scene in Inception just because.

You can rub them together all you like, they're not going to breed.

Later I was trying to drag my bestie to Certified Copy on account of he'd love it and I also want to see it again but timing didn't work out and we ended up at Rango. You know how that happens: Kiarostami vs. Dreamworks Animation. Just your typical weekend box office battle.

20-25 This week was filled with watching pieces of Elizabeth Taylor films (for obvious reasons). I also watched the original Arthur (1981). I think I'd seen it sometime in the 80s but the memory was so foggy it was totally like watching it for the first time. Who knows maybe it was. I know that readers know that I love me some Liza Minnelli but what you might not know is that I think she is a terrific actress, her musical prowess aside.
26 Two Nashville Film Festival screeners: The Wolf Knife and The Last Ride.
27 Mildred Pierce on HBO.
28 Pieces of Mildred Pierce again.
29 n/a
30 Two vignette filled interlocking ensemble dramas, Dogsweat (2011) about troubled young adults in Iran and Kinyarwanda (2011) about the Rwandan genocide. In other words: cheerful night!
31 Psycho (1960) for the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. I started watching it the night before but got too scared and thought. Don't watch this in the pitch black while the world is sleeping. Don't do it. It scares me like crazy every time.