As you know, dears, I don't go to the movies much.  It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I like other things better, and (despite a game effort) it's not feasible to live all possible lives at the same time.  Still, we occasionally indulge when it looks as if a movie's going to be significantly better on a large screen than a small one ( Read more... )

1.  Great Art:  Peter Breughel the Elder's "The Procession to Calvary."

It's one of those magical paintings that erase time and space and physics to show us hard truths:  that religion can destroy divinity, that the status quo never tires of killing anybody that challenges it, that humanity endures.

2.  Art:  The Mill and the Cross.

A film by Lech ( Read more... )

Or, more accurately, Tim Burton's riff on Alice in Wonderland.  Because if you try to watch, think about, or review this movie as if it were an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's book, 1) you will probably hate it; 2) your head will explode.  And that would be a pity on both counts.  Because, judged strictly on its merits as a fantasy movie inspired by ( Read more... )

After the Great Avatar-Betsey Johnson blowout on Thursday, I don't have it in me to do a full-dress review of the two (!) things we saw last night.  But since one of them was a science fiction film that made very little logical sense and was full of eye candy (although of a very different sort), it would be remiss of me to pass over the evening ( Read more... )

We finally saw it.  We declared ourselves a day-after-the-snow day (since we carried on with life as usual yesterday, including guests for dinner, and some medium-heavy cooking), and walked down to 68th Street to the Super-Duper IMAX 3D theatre with the Biggest Screen Evar and comfy seats so we wouldn't be the only people in the known universe our ( Read more... )

Last night, we went to the Rubin Museum on 17th Street to see Paul Wegener's 1920 film Der Golem, with an original guitar score by Gary Lucas.

Wow.

I haven't seen a lot of early silent film, so I'm not sure whether what I noticed is a function of early German Expressionistic Fantasy, the work of Paul Wegener, or silent film in general.  But, for me, ( Read more... )

We wanted to do something different on New Year's Eve, something special, something we almost never, ever do.

So we went to see a movie in a movie theatre.

And, because I'm oddly helpless before Terry Gilliam and both of us are fools for fables and forlorn hopes (and because we didn't want to wait on line for blockbusters every review has fingered ( Read more... )

Thanks to keelieinblack , the Mystery of the Missing Sherlock Holmes Movie is solved.  It wasn't a movie at all, it was an episode (No. 35 in Season 1, to be exact) of the 1950's TV show.

If I can figure out how to imbed it, I will.  But I give you fair warning.  If you are 1) of Scots descent; 2) American; 3) a woman; 4) a man; 5) a rational being--YOU MAY ( Read more... )

Dear Brilliant LJers:

When I was a young sprout, I saw (or thought I saw) a movie that had a profound effect on me. I thought it was a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie, but I couldn't remember which one, and every time I found one on late-night TV, it turned out to be Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, which is fine, but not what I was ( Read more... )

My dear friend, conteurlisa, has made a wonderful 7 minute movie about Cletis and Apollo called The Sunflower and the Sun God.

Beautiful visuals, beautiful backgrounds by Connie Toebe, with a real mythopoeic/modern/romantic sensibility and style I can only describe as . . . Intersitital.