Summer sloth

Jeez Louise. Unless you’re presently in New York or Cannes, this is a brutally slow stretch for the aspiring film blogger. Lacking anything substantial to sink my writerly teeth into, it seems a good time to roll out the miscellany:

Otto Preminger’s “Angel Face” (1953), starring Robert Mitchum and the late Jean Simmons, will be playing on TCM this afternoon at 3. “Angel Face” is, in my humble estimation, Preminger’s best (that I’ve seen, at least). It’s so perverse and attitudinal and magnetically tense, really a must-see for anyone interested in the darker side of Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age. I’ve linked to this at least once before but here’s Jacques Rivette’s wonderful essay about the film and its subtly ingenious form.

The new Eclipse box set of films by Nagisa Oshima, “Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties,” looks to be vital viewing. Three of the films included—“Pleasures of the Flesh” (1965), “Violence at Noon” (1966) and “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” (1967)—screened in Madison last year during the Cinematheque’s excellent Oshima retrospective; all three are extremely (key word) worthwhile for anybody interested in Japanese cinema beyond jidaigeki and Ozu-style studies of ephemeral everydayness.

I’m particularly excited to see the bifurcated “Three Resurrected Drunkards” (1968), which wasn’t included in the aforementioned ‘theque retrospective. The omission of “Diary of a Shinjuku Thief” and “Boy” (1969) from the set is a slight shame, but whatever. I wonder whether a full-blown Criterion treatment of “Death By Hanging” (1968) is in the cards? Here’s Dave Kehr’s review of the box set.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Go play in the sun.

Heads-up re: TCM, 4/22

If you don’t have any more glaringly important obligations tonight, you could definitely do worse than to park yourself on the futon and tune in to TCM. Ted Turner’s personal repertory theater will be showing four attention-worthy films: Powell & Pressburger’s recently restored “The Red Shoes” (1948; here’s Manohla Dargis’s take on the restoration, which attracted quite a bit of buzz late last year when it ran at my old stomping grounds, NYC’s Film Forum) at 7, Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1969) at 9:30, Jean Renoir’s “The River” (1951) at 12:30 and, last but certainly not least, Otto Preminger’s Françoise Sagan adaptation and Jean Seberg showcase “Bonjour Tristesse” (1957) at 2:30. Again, I scarcely think you’d go wrong with any of these four; “Tristesse” is particularly fun, an oddly satisfying blend of the sweet and the ecliptic.

(Visual) Quotes…, 3/4

“Whirlpool” (1949).

On Demand, Adjective

If you’re lucky enough to have IFC On Demand on your [parents’] TV, you should seriously consider ordering “Police, Adjective” (2009) at the modest price of $6.99. It’s last year’s most charmingly philosophical film, which isn’t an easy song-and-dance. If I could have my ballot for 2009’s best back, this movie would definitely be a legitimate contender for the tippy-top spot. Romania does it again, etc.

Oh, and here’s the trailer:

On a kinda-sorta related note, TCM will be showing Otto Preminger’s legal epic “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959)—which would actually form a solid double feature with “Police, Adjective,” come to think of it—at 2:30 PM (central time). If you’ve got the 150 minutes to invest, you won’t be sorry you did.

Heads-up re: TCM, 11/2

A real doozy of a night: Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) at 8:00PM, followed by North by Northwest (1959) at 10:15PM, then there’s Otto Preminger’s ridiculously awesome Anatomy of a Murder (1959) at 12:45AM, and then—because I’m so sure that you’ll still be awake by this point—Preminger’s Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) at 3:30AM. Of these four films Anatomy of a Murder is the only one that I’d gladly blow off jury duty or a funeral to see, but I’m hardly willing to underestimate my readership’s collective insomnia. From where I’m sitting it seems as though you really can’t go wrong with TCM tonight, that is, if you’re still shelling out the greenbacks for cable (which some of us can’t believe we’re still doing).

Also, a preemptive “Heads-up re: TCM” for tomorrow morning: Nicholas Ray’s The Lusty Men (1952) is playing at 11:00AM. Yeah, a bit of mid-day Ray (complemented by a morning cocktail or four) will have you swaggering down State St., eyepatch-clad, carefree, full of romantic impulses and hair-trigger temperament. Why bother going to lecture when you can throw yourself a free master-class in the strange, often excruciating art of being human? Professor Ray will show you how.

(Visual) Quotes of quotes of quotes of quotes, 10/13

I am the impulse poster par excellance.

From Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (1959).