Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon
seen @ The Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens NY

I think I saw Flash Gordon when it came out, but I would’ve been  only eight, so I’m not sure. It probably was on my radar then; I was aware of comparable movies from around that time like the original Clash of the Titans and Superman, so if I saw it advertised on TV, I would’ve begged my parents to take me to see it.

It seemed every sci-fi/fantasy film in the 80s wanted to be the next Star Wars, and Flash was one of many pretenders to the throne. It had elements of both: outer space and alien planets mixed with sword fights and kingdoms—and no one cared that much about scientific or historical accuracy or making everything look “realistic” because they were too busy having fun with the subject matter.

Everything in Flash screams over-the-top—the costumes, the props, the sets, and especially the performances—but watching it again for the first time in decades, at MOMI, I realized as unlikely as it seems, it’s still watchable. More than watchable, in fact, even in an age where we demand a certain level of “realism” in our comic book movies, to the point where they’re almost ashamed of their four-color origins.

Not Flash, though.

QWFF 2019 part 2

Part two of my Queens World Film Festival report and while part of me feels a bit guilty over missing days, it's okay because I still saw some good movies.

QWFF 2019 part 1

I cannot believe this year's Queens World Film Festival is a week and a half long! While it's still not quite as huge as the Tribeca or New York fests, it has gained a whole lot of attention over the years as more and more filmmakers contribute to the event. Don & Katha Cato maintain the drive to keep it going, year in and year out, and they have a passion for film that has to be seen to be believed.

I, on the other hand, am not capable of keeping up for the whole eleven days, so this year's highlights are more abbreviated than usual. I still expect to find good stuff at the two venues, the Museum of the Moving Image and the Kaufman Astoria Studios, here in Queens.

This year I'm gonna try something different: because the majority of films at QWFF are shorts, I see lots of them. I think it'll be easier if I wrote about the ones that leave the biggest impressions on me. Trying to describe the more abstract ones is a pain in the ass and I don't like most of them anyway. Plus, I can say more about the ones I like most, and I'd rather do that.

QWFF 2018 part 2

Part 1

MARCH 21

What would QWFF be without snow? There was a hint of the white stuff as I came home last night, but this morning it started in earnest, and it went on all damn day, to the point where tonight's screening of Vincent Gagliostro's After Louie was cancelled. I was interested in that one too...

Here's an interview with Gagliostro from last fall about After Louie.

QWFF 2018 part 1

The Queens World Film Festival is bigger and better than ever this year, and as someone who has been coming to it ever since 2012, it's breathtaking to see. Don & Katha Cato both go to extraordinary lengths to make the show as inclusive as possible without sacrificing quality, and little by little, the rest of New York City is noticing. I'm grateful to be back writing about the movies here. Expecting some good stuff, as always.

Once again, the Museum of the Moving Image and the Zukor Theater at the Kaufman Astoria Studios are the venues. This year's report will be split into two parts, one for today and the other for next week.

QWFF 2017 All-purpose mega-post

It has snowed before during the Queens World Film Festival, but this is the first time I can recall the snow canceling a day of programming. Opening Night, no less! The Museum of the Moving Image opted to close last Tuesday, the 14th, meaning no gala first-night show, and I can hardly blame them for it, but I've seen worse blizzards than the one that hit New York last week. The roads in my neighborhood were clear relatively quickly. There was a party at a Jackson Heights restaurant, but I chose not to attend. Getting back home might not have been a problem, but I didn't want to take the risk. Besides, I'd see everyone during the week.

It was good to be back at QWFF after last year's hiatus. I've chosen to consolidate my report on the fest into one big post instead of a day-by-day account, to see if writing about it is any easier.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2015

I almost wasn't going to do a Top 5 this year, because I honestly didn't think I had enough to round one out - but then I realized that not every positive movie-going experience has to include something odd or unusual, though this list includes those too. Once again, I was fortunate to have seen some world-class films on the big screen, on celluloid, and those should be acknowledged too. So here you go:

5. Pather Panchali @ Film Forum. I wish I could've seen the rest of the Apu Trilogy at the Forum as well, but I can hardly complain about getting to see the first film in the series, on a big screen. It was as good as I remembered it.

4. Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at MOMI. It wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen, but seeing it on a big screen in 70mm was worth the trip - and it certainly increased my appreciation for seeing films on celluloid. Seeing it with an appreciative crowd always helps.

3. Son of the Sheik with the Alloy Orchestra at Celebrate Brooklyn. One thing I never mentioned about that summer night in Prospect Park is that after the movie, I happened to run into my old girlfriend as I was about to leave the ampitheater. It was totally unexpected; I didn't think she had any interest in old movies in general, much less silent movies, but she was there with a friend of hers, talking to some other people, and she was pleasantly surprised to see me, to say the least. The three of us hung out at a nearby bar afterward. It was the first time I had ever bought her a drink - strange experience, that. I had never seen her imbibe before. But it was a nice way to end a terrific evening.

2. Being at the Loew's Jersey City the night FOL won their court case. This is perhaps a bit of a cheat: being there was actually kind of anti-climactic given that I had found out the news while I was still in Hoboken, earlier in the day - but it was part of that thrilling eight hours or so where I was constantly on my cellphone, searching for news articles and updating my blog as I learned more about the story. It was fun to act like a real journalist for that day, especially when it involved a story I cared about. And even if this wasn't an "exclusive," at least I got video footage (however grainy) of the announcement at the theater, so there's that. Without a doubt one of the best moments in the history of this blog.

1. First-run movies returning to Forest Hills' Cinemart with American Sniper. If you saw my supplemental Tumblr blog, you might remember when I wrote about this from wa-a-a-a-a-y back in January: the Cinemart Fiveplex in Forest Hills, a second-run theater for years, resumed showing first-run movies with the release of American Sniper, and in so doing, gave their 90-year-old cinema a shot in the arm. It was quite exciting, in a small-scale way, to have been part of the festivities, and naturally, I'm pleased to see a neighborhood theater continue to thrive amidst the multiplex chains. I went back there this month to see Spotlight, and they look like they're still doing well.

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Previously:
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Lawrence of Arabia

The Blind Spot is an ongoing series hosted by The Matinee in which bloggers watch and write about movies they've never seen before. For a list of past movies, visit the home site.

Lawrence of Arabia
seen @ The Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria NY

In my writing group, there's this delightful woman named Jennifer who is not only a very good writer, but is a big old movie fan. As you can imagine, we've become pretty good friends. Hitchcock is her particular favorite director, but her tastes are pretty wide-ranging, from what I can tell so far. 

Anyway, I told her that MOMI was showing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm and asked her if she wanted to see it with me. She declined because it's not one of her favorite movies. She said she thought it was too long (she fell asleep at one point) and she couldn't identify with Peter O'Toole's character. This, as you might imagine, gave me pause, since I've come to respect Jen's opinion on movies. I had never seen Lawrence before, and while I wouldn't say I was pumped up for it, I had expected it to be worthy of a four-hour investment of my time, especially since I was seeing it in 70mm. Still, I bought my ticket and hoped for the best.

I could tell that the MOMI crowd on Saturday night was full of cinephiles. There were a lot of dudes wearing movie-related T-shirts. I overheard a conversation about Marvel movies. There was definitely a feeling of anticipation in the air for this multiple-Oscar-winning epic. People were saying it was a sellout, but there was an empty seat next to me, as well as a few other empty seats scattered around the auditorium - but not many.

Let's start with what I liked about the movie. First of all, O'Toole was robbed. I cannot believe he lost the Best Actor Oscar, not even to someone like Gregory Peck. Granted, they were both iconic performances, but O'Toole had so much more to do, physically and emotionally, and he had the burden of carrying a four-hour movie on his relatively unknown shoulders. 

Seeing it in 70mm made a tremendous difference. All those sweeping vistas of the desert and the mountains were breathtaking. Director David Lean apparently spent two years in pre-production and 14 months shooting the picture in multiple locations, including Jordan, Spain and Morocco. You could almost feel the heat in some of those desert scenes, and I suspect that was Lean's intention.

I knew that Maurice Jarre's score has become pretty famous as well, and while the main theme was certainly repeated often enough, it was certainly stirring. MOMI played Lawrence with the overture and the intermission music, so it was nice to hear it independent of the movie. It has a strong Arabian flavor to it. One can picture the rising of the desert sun as it plays. That said...

... did this movie really need to be four hours long? Jen was definitely right about the length! I didn't fall asleep, but I did a lot of twisting and turning in my seat, trying to stay comfortable and awake. Normally, I have no problem with the seats in MOMI's theater, but sometime around the hour and a half mark, I think, it began to be a chore to sit still. And while there were exciting moments in the film, especially in the first half, there were also long-ass shots of the desert landscape and the sun that slowed the action down for me to the point where I kept anticipating the intermission. 

Was T.E. Lawrence hard to relate to, like Jen said? Well, I more or less understood what he was doing and the stakes involved, but I couldn't quite grok what made him go from a nebbish in the very beginning to a badass soldier busting caps in dudes like he was the Punisher. I liked that we saw him struggle with his feelings about violence, being both attracted to and repulsed by it, and that he goes through what looked kinda like post-traumatic stress at one point, which probably had a lot to do with some of the people he's forced to kill. 

At the same time, it kinda looked like he was getting a big head, thinking that he was the one who was gonna lead the Arab people into freedom all by himself. When you strip away all the spectacle, Lawrence is ultimately one more white-man-saves-the-darkies movie, which Hollywood has and continues to specialize in for generations, but one would think that in devoting four hours to a film about one man's life, I'd be able to pin him down a little better.

It was hard to care a great deal about Lawrence. In Gone With the Wind, another marathon movie with a difficult main character, I could at least get into Scarlett's love affairs if I didn't want to think about the racial politics of the film (not that the racial politics were all that easy to ignore). Lawrence's story was interesting, but it was difficult for me to feel for him as a person, PTSD issues aside. So is he hard to relate to? I'd say yes and no.

So maybe I was better off not seeing Lawrence with Jen. Next time I'll have to think of a comedy instead!

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Previous Blind Spot movies:
Gone With the Wind
Charlie Chan in Paris
Jaws

Kaufman, MOMI to be part of Queens art district

A new arts district in Queens will promote Astoria to visitors and potential new venues, local elected officials will announce Friday at the Kaufman Astoria Studios.

The 94-year-old film studio, which once set the stage for classic Marx Brothers movies and the Cosby Show, will partner with the Queens Council on the Arts and the Museum of the Moving Image to promote art in the 24 block zone.

This is wonderful news. To anyone who has been aware of the changes taking place in the Astoria/Long Island City area over the past decade or so, this is something that the neighborhood has been building up to, although I doubt anyone could've predicted that this might happen. Still, between the Kaufman and MOMI, the Queens Council on the Arts' recent move to Astoria, and Sinatra High School, not to mention the revived literary scene thanks to the presence of two new bookstores in the area (just outside of this district, though), plus an actual movie theater, there's a definite arts-related vibe that has intensified in recent years. This proclamation simply confirms to the rest of New York what Queens natives have recognized all along.

Of course, the joking(?) quote near the end of the article about the fear that Astoria will get too expensive as a consequence reflects a growing city-wide trend. Articles like this one, or better yet, this one, by musician David Byrne, are indicative of how New York (read: Manhattan) is perceived as stifling creativity due to its increasing expense. As a result, the arts scene is no longer centered around one borough, but is now spreading outward, and Queens, among other places, is a beneficiary. Hopefully, the benefits that come from this arts district will apply to all of Queens, and not just the elite.

QWFF Day 1: Love is in the air

To know the Queens World Film Festival (QWFF) is to know Don & Katha Cato. It's as simple as that. I've been to other film festivals, and before that, when I wrote a comics blog, I had been to comics conventions, and in both cases, one could see great respect and admiration expressed for the administrators who put these shows together, but I can't say for a certainty that I'd ever seen love, in quite the same measure, as I have seen, and continue to see, for Don & Katha.

It's not even like they've been at this for that long a time. This is only the fourth year of the festival, but in that time, they've built up a constituency in support of their show that starts in their home neighborhood of Jackson Heights and radiates outward to encompass all of Queens and beyond. And why? Because movies are their raison d'etre. You only have to hear them speak, especially Katha, to see what this means to them and just how much.

Don's the one in the glasses; Katha's right next to him.

And it's not just about movies, it's about Queens: filmmakers from Queens, films set in Queens, films shown in Queens. The "world" in Queens World Film Festival means that they get movies from all over the globe, but it also alludes to the great multiculturalism that this borough embraces. You've probably heard a great deal of hype in recent years about Brooklyn as hipster central in New York, how it's become almost a city unto itself and so on, but I'm here to tell you that we got a lot in Queens to be proud of too, and this film festival is one of them.

If I sound like a shill for QWFF, well, maybe I am... but it's only because I, too - a lowly film blogger who had no reason to expect any kind of personal treatment when I first contacted them in 2012 - I, too, have been made to feel as welcome by the Catos as anyone else. I'll tell you a story: several months after the 2012 show, I was invited to a dinner party by Don & Katha and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. Did they want something from me? I couldn't possibly imagine what I could give them that bigger media outlets in New York could. I went to the party prepared for some kind of business offer.

There was no hidden agenda. They simply wanted me to come and have a good time like everyone else they invited. And I did. I made some good friends at that party, whom I've seen at every QWFF since. 

Hal Hartley, accepting the
Spirit of Queens Award

So, no, when I write about QWFF, I'm not in "objective journalist mode." For one thing, I'm not a journalist and this isn't that kind of blog, but even if it were, I still couldn't approach it that way because QWFF has come to mean a great deal to me... and that's because of Don & Katha.

Last night was opening night, held once again at the Museum of the Moving Image, and it was a sellout. Among those who spoke prior to the film screenings - and who expressed their great affection for the Catos and QWFF - included borough president Melinda Katz, local Councilmen Daniel Dromm and Jimmy van Bramer (who said he loves Katha "as much as a gay man can love a woman," to big laughs), and a representative from primary sponsor Investors Bank. 

Don & Katha were the hosts, of course, and among the festivities included special Spirit of Queens awards presented to MOMI Executive Director Carl Goodman, and filmmaker and New York (by way of Long Island) native Hal Hartley.

Five films played at MOMI last night and they were all impressive:

- My Art is Not Dead. A stop-motion animation short in the spirit of Tim Burton about an artist who would die for his art... but he'd much rather kill. The Poe-like voice-over verse and the dark, faux-Gothic-looking characters make for a creepy-fun story. Here's the home page for it.

- Shift. A visually splendid short which appears to combine stop-motion with time-lapse photography, using actors and sculptures and elaborate, artistic costumes to present an abstract, experimental narrative. Definitely never seen anything like this one before. Here's a trailer.

interior of the MOMI main theater

- Opera No. 1. A musical short from early in Hartley's career, featuring Parker Posey and the late Adrienne Shelly. Hartley also wrote the music for it. Basically, it's a funnier Xanadu. Here's the IMDB page for it.

- Heshtje. From Kosovo comes this near-wordless short in which silence means the difference between life and death for one young girl and her protector. It feels like a tiny slice of a larger narrative and it will definitely leave you wanting more once it's done. Here's the trailer.

- Recursion. My favorite of the night - and I suspect I may not be alone in that regard. Imagine the Wachowskis' version of Groundhog Day and that'll give you an idea of what this very unique time travel story is like. To talk too much about it would spoil the fun; it simply needs to be seen (and re-seen). Cleverly plotted, with outstanding editing, nice use of the Queens and Manhattan location shots, and just enough in the way of visual effects to sell you on the story. I'd argue it works best as a short film instead of a feature-length one. This is a real find. Here's the teaser trailer.

More to come throughout the week; look for additional photos on my WSW Facebook page.

Links, a book review, and blog news

Last things first: I have decided to take part in National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) this year. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it's a literary event in which a bunch of writers around the world get together and attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Well, 50,000 is the minimum, anyway; I'm told that this number is a relatively small one for the average novelist, but the challenge, obviously, comes in putting together a draft of a novel in such a constrained time period. 

I'm gonna devote a significant amount of time towards doing this, therefore I likely won't be around here as often as I normally am. I won't be completely absent, though. I've got two blogathon posts on deck in November, for one thing. Also, I plan on writing smaller, capsule reviews on any and all current movies seen in November, including Nebraska and Dallas Buyers Club (and possibly All is Lost too, if I don't get to it this month). If anything major happens in the movie world that I feel like commenting on, I may say a few words about it, but don't count on that. Basically, it's gonna be light around here while I compete in NaNoWriMo, but I will have stuff for you, so keep checking in. Things will return to normal by December.

Next: I've sung the praises of my friend and fellow film blogger Jacqueline and her blog, Another Old Movie Blog, in the past. If you've been there, you know that she is also an accomplished author, with a handful of novels to her credit. She recently held a contest where the prize was one of her novels, and yours truly won, so I got a free copy of Meet Me in Nuthatch.

Think Cold Turkey meets Midnight in Paris: the residents of a dying Massachusetts town called Nuthatch, in a desperate attempt to keep their community alive, adopt a scheme in which they makeover their town and themselves as if it were the year 1904, just like the film Meet Me in St. Louis, which is set during that year. Unexpected complications, however, ensue.

I've always enjoyed Jacqueline's witty and playful style of writing in her blog, and I'm glad to state that it's also on display here. She knows New England well, and she brings Nuthatch to life with little details as well as larger ones. It sounds like the kind of small town you might encounter while on your way to or from Boston or Hartford or Providence. The characters are distinctive without being stereotypically eccentric, like you might expect in a novel like this, and she's got a good ear for dialogue. It's not a nostalgia-fest, nor is it maudlin. It's light, but it's deep enough that you'll care about the characters. It's a nice story, and it's just under 200 pages, so it won't even take you long to read. Give it a try.

Your links:
Aurora has the news that one of the old Loews movie palaces in New York is set to show movies once again.

From the New York Comic-Con, Will reports on a panel about old-school action cartoons from Hanna-Barbera.

Danny from Pre-Code.com has been writing about horror movies from the pre-code era this month. Here's one example: White Zombie, with Bela Lugosi.

From Brazil comes the blog Critica Retro. This is a recent piece on watching English movies dubbed into Portugese. If you have Google Translate, it should automatically translate the blog into English for you.

Another blog I've been following recently, called Virtual Virago, has the story of a gay actor from the Golden Age named Laird Cregar.

Next month will see the release of the first of two massive volumes of what's being called the definitive Barbara Stanwyck biography. Here's an interview with the author.

The Museum of the Moving Image has an exhibit featuring photos of film projection booths.

PJ Soles remembers the original Carrie.

QWFF 2013 Day 1: The old neighborhood

**600th POST**

The Queens World Film Festival is a six-day event which showcases films from around the world at venues within the New York City borough of Queens. Throughout this week, I'll write about select films from the show. For more information about the festival, visit the website.

So QWFF began a little differently for me this year. I arrived at the Museum of the Moving Image sooner than expected, even though it was around a quarter after seven. The front door was closed, so I, along with a couple of other media types, went in through the side, which led to a lot of standing around waiting for the ticket-holders to be admitted. Last year I entered with the ticket-holders, having little idea what to expect and knowing no one. This year, I was greeted by QWFF head honchos Don and Katha Cato, who had my press badge ready for me; plus, my friend Cat was one of the volunteers (hi Cat!), so I got to talk to her while we were all waiting for the doors to open.

The Museum of the Moving Image,
the site for QWFF's opening night

Film festivals are still a relatively new experience for me, but one thing about QWFF that I really dig is how comfortable it's beginning to feel. As I told someone at the after-party (I think it was Cat), my limited experience of film fests is that it's not unlike a comics convention: hobnobbing with the talent, checking out their work, and partying afterwards. And as I'm becoming more familiar with QWFF, the way it's set up, and the people associated with it, I find it's a good fit. 

The fact that it's in Queens, my home borough, certainly helps. Last year, I talked at length about the neighborhoods hosting QWFF and what they meant to me growing up. Everyone regards Brooklyn as the hip, hot, happening borough now - for better and for worse - but part of me kinda hopes Queens never gets the same kind of media overexposure. (Seriously, the mass commercialization of Brooklyn, as well as its wider implications, is something you can't fully understand unless you live in New York.) It's far from perfect, but those of us who live here know what it has to offer and love it for that.

Councilman
Jimmy van Bramer

A lot of that love was on display at last night's QWFF grand opening. In addition to the Katos, who hosted the affair, there were guest appearances by reps from sponsor Amalgamated Bank and the Mayor's Office of Film and Television, as well as local Councilman Jimmy van Bramer, one of the recipients of the Spirit of Queens Award. As chair of the city's Cultural Affairs Committee (along with last year's recipient, Councilman Daniel Dromm, who was also in attendance), he's a major supporter of the arts. 

Another Spirit of Queens winner was actress Karen Black, who you may remember from such films as Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider and Nashville, among others. She's had a huge career, spanning over fifty years, with a large chunk of it spent in independent films (including one directed by Don Cato himself!). She wasn't able to make it in person, but she sent a thank-you video.

Karen Black

And of course, there were films, a sampling of the fare offered by QWFF this year:

- Heads Up. A Tarantino-esque piece in which a poker game goes seriously awry and tests the friendship of a couple of seedy crooks. Liked this one a lot. The dialogue was a little bit on the precious and self-aware side, but the actors sold it well.

- Lonely Eros. A ridiculously-brief (less than a minute) vignette from Belgium of a suicidal teddy bear. Not sure what the point of this was...

- The Tits On an Eighteen-Year-Old. The title alone should tell you what to expect here. Shot on an iPhone in Italy.

- Planet Utero. Trippy computer-animated piece. Don't expect Pixar-level work here, but for what it is, it's worth watching, and the music fits the sci-fi premise (something about a renegade clone).

- At the Formal. Awesome Kubrickian piece from Australia about the world's creepiest backyard party. It begins with an amazing slow-motion, single-take tracking shot that weaves in and out of the party with a masterful fluidity and sense of timing.

- UH LA LA. A homeless (?) Spanish couple dream of going to Paris. This one kinda grows on you. In the end, I found it sweet. These social misfits clearly love each other.

- Pollicino. Remarkable Italian film about an Alzheimer's victim with no long-term memory and how he has to make his way in the world. Left me wanting more!

Katha & Don Cato,
from last year's QWFF

The after-party was at a nearby bar and grill, which set up a room in the back for everyone. I went there with this girl named Jules, one of the exhibiting filmmakers, whom I met at MOMI (apparently she recognized me from when I worked at Kim's Video in the city). She introduced me to some of her friends, we talked about film festivals and movies in general (she's got a thing for Michael Haneke). Her film plays Saturday afternoon.

At the bar I asked for a beer and got this HUGE stein that you have to hold with two hands. Apparently, according to the bartender, this was their equivalent of a two-drink minimum. No, I couldn't get any other size. Seven bucks and it took me all night to even knock off half of it! I could tell Cat was amused by me sitting with this mini-keg in front of me and babbling half the time. I was glad I went, though. Even got to speak to Katha Cato for a few minutes. Now if only I didn't have a sore throat...

Sparkly links... and another award

So summer's winding down and I promised myself I'd go back to the beach. The past few weeks, the weather's cooled off a little bit, but I'm still hoping for some real beach-appropriate weather. This summer hasn't been too bad. I've seen my share of outdoor movies, got involved in some great blogathons, and made some new City Mouse strips. I'd like to make some more strips, and hopefully I will, once I come up with a new idea or two.

I don't know what to say about the death of director Tony Scott beyond the obvious platitudes. I was never a huge fan of his, but I did enjoy True Romance, Crimson Tide, and Enemy of the State. And of course, Top Gun gave us one of the most awesome movie soundtracks ever, though I'm not sure how much of that can be credited to him. For someone who seemed to have everything one could want in life to cash in his chips is an undeniable tragedy.

I gladly accept this Liebster Award from my friend Alan over at The Great Movie Project, but I'm sorry... I am not passing this along to eleven more people. I'm just not.

Alan's questions:

What are your top five favorite movies of all time? They change fairly often, but today I'd say they are: Sunset Boulevard, Die Hard, Breaking the Waves, The Apartment, and Krush Groove. How's that for eclectic?
In your opinion, what is the best film translation of a book? There are a lot of books turned into movies that I've never read, but to pick one example among many that I have: I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn after seeing the movie and I thought the latter captured the spirit of the former very well.
What is your favorite movie moment? Again, far too many to choose one above all, but to pick one recent example: the climax of Toy Story 3.
What's the strangest movie you've ever watched? I dunno. Andy Warhol's Empire? Not that I sat through all of it, of course. 
Has it ever embarrassed you to watch a movie in the theater? If so, which one(s)? I'm sure there must have been at least one, but I can't recall which.
Are movies still relevant as an art form or has Hollywood's mass production strategy made them something else? There's a hell of a lot more to movies than Hollywood, so I'd have to say the answer to that is a big fat yes.
Which of the four Hogwarts Houses would you want to belong to? Pass. Never seen any of the Potter films nor have I read the books.
Who's the best movie villain?

You're sitting in a quiet theater during a horror movie, watching the killer creep up on the unsuspecting babysitter on the screen. What flavor of ice cream are you eating? Scare-amel, of course! Haw!

Who is your favorite movie hero/superhero? If we're going with superheroes, I gotta say the Christopher Reeve Superman.

What's a movie that surprised you by how much you enjoyed it? The Matrix. Got dragged to see it and I thought it was gonna be just another shoot-em-up.

Eleven things about me:

I'm a Pisces.

I'm left-handed.

I have a Worf T-shirt that I first bought back in the mid-90s and I still wear it!

I used to edit a short-lived comics magazine.

The first concert I ever went to was Rick Springfield at Radio City Music Hall with my sister.

I can recite the first few verses of Poe's "The Raven" from memory.

I went to college with The Tick creator Ben Edlund.

In junior high school, I used to draw portraits of my friends for money during lunch.

I once waited on Chloe Sevigny when I worked in video retail.

I taught a life drawing class when I lived in Columbus.

I prefer cats over dogs.

A reminder: my photos from the Red Hook waterfront (like this one) are up on the WSW Facebook page. Just click on the banner to the right - and 'like' me too, while you're at it!.

And now the links:

Ted from FlixChatter has some bad movies for you. (I've gotten away from bad movies lately; I should try and find one to write about again.)

Props to John for including Carol Burnett on his list of ten people who helped make him funny.

I am totally jealous of Alex for making this super awesome poster of every live-action Catwoman who has ever been.

The Master, the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, filmed in 70mm, secretly screened at MOMI last week.

Here's a nice piece about how critical opinion on movies can change over time, using, of all things, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as an example.

Finally, speaking of Alex, I found this on her Twitter feed: now let me ask you... what are the odds that two film bloggers would celebrate their 500th posts on the same weekend? Even more, what are the odds that both of them are also visual artists, and that both would choose to commemorate their 500th posts with original art? Behold!

QWFF Day 1: Things to come

The Queens World Film Festival is a four-day event which showcases films from around the world at venues within the New York City borough of Queens. Throughout this weekend, I'll write about select films from the show, as well as highlights from the presentation. For more information about the festival, visit the website.

I've written before about how Queens in general, and the Astoria/Long Island City area in particular, is a venue for film and television production. The Queens World Film Festival sets out to prove that Queens is also a great place to see films as well, and no place in the borough is better for that than the Museum of the Moving Image, which hosted the QWFF opening night.

The impression I got is that this year's show is bigger than last year's. Last night's films were a sampling of the ones to be screened this weekend, and they were a highly diverse selection indeed. The near-full house in MOMI's main auditorium included a large number of the filmmakers with movies in the fest, who all got up on stage at the end of the night (I estimate there were about at least fifty, spilling off the stage and into the aisle).

Councilman Daniel Dromm

QWFF co-directors Don and Katha Cato were the evening's hosts. How best to describe Katha Cato? Enthusiastic? Exuberant? When I arrived at MOMI, she was right there at the inside front door, shaking hands and greeting everyone as they came in. When she first stepped up onto the stage, she waved her arms to pump up the crowd's excitement - not for her, but for the fest, and the audience happily complied. The podium had a microphone, but as you might imagine, she did not need one. Several other speakers that evening marveled at her energy and excitement, and I suppose you can't blame her for it. Don Cato, by contrast, is the quieter one, though he also seems to be the one with the eye for the talent.

 In addition to the films, QWFF presented a couple of festival awards last night. One went to Councilman Daniel Dromm of Jackson Heights, where the rest of QWFF will take place; a man who, among other things, has done much to improve pedestrian space in his district. The other award went to Troma president Lloyd Kaufman, Troma being based here in Queens. While I can't say I care a great deal for most Troma films, Kaufman himself was a lively presence, dissing The Artist and appearing on stage with a model dressed as Troma's star character, the Toxic Avenger. Kaufman, in turn, presented the Catos with awards of recognition of his own - "Troma diplomas," he called them. A new Troma film, Mr. Bricks, will debut here tonight.

Troma's Lloyd Kaufman, w/Don & Katha Cato (l), Kaufman's wife Pat (r) and Toxie

QWFF screened eight short films last night, half of which were world premieres (WP):

• War Story (WP), an Iranian film about two soldiers facing off in the desert sands. Very Sergio Leone-like in its use of its landscape, the elements, and music.
• Andrew: Story of a Closet Monster, a stop-motion animation story about an ineffective bedroom monster. Funny, but I thought the kid looked creepier than the monster (something about the material used to make him), but then, I've always found stop-motion slightly disturbing.
• Model Rules, featuring long-time TV actress Marlyn Mason, whose career goes back to the early 60s, in a character study about a nude art-class model (and yeah, she still looks pretty good at her age!).
• Easy Street, about an unusual job interview between a law student and a judge with political implications.
• Something Left, Something Taken, a computer(?)-animated piece about a couple who may or may not be getting taken for a ride by a serial killer. It looks computer-animated, but the way it's done makes everything look like it's made out of fabric, or cardboard, or things like that. Quite eye-catching.
• Can't Dance (WP), about a widower who is spurred towards finding love again by the ghost of his late wife, directed by a Queens native.
• There Is No Goodbye (WP), a Spanish film. Unfortunately, this was shown without subtitles, so I can only guess at the story. I thought it was about two characters at three stages of life - as kids, as young adults and in old age - but I'm not certain about that. It looked nice, though.
• Queen (WP), the one that got the biggest cheers, and deservedly so, because this one totally rocked. It's about a drag queen trying to adopt a child, and it was awesome. I'll talk more about it on Sunday.

All in all, QWFF got off to a great start.

The Lady Eve/Forty Guns

The Lady Eve
Forty Guns
seen @ Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens, NY
2.19.12

It's been a rather dull holiday weekend for me, at least the first half of it. I've mostly spent it catching up on my art and watching TV. (ironically, I just got rid of an older TV earlier in the week). Most of the time, I try not to get distracted by the boob tube because it's so easy to become addicted to it. I still haven't decided if I'm gonna bother watching the Oscars this year. There's only one race I care about and I can always YouTube the acceptance speech the next day. As for the art, I was up against a deadline, so I really had no excuse to sit enslaved by the idiot box for too long anyway.

The rest of the weekend, though, is different. Later today I'll hang out with Vija and friends. This will be the first time I've seen her this year and I've missed her, and besides, I'll get the opportunity to show her what I've been up to art-wise. She's currently in the midst of a long series of paintings of notable women in world history, and she's been posting them on Facebook. I hope she finds a gallery willing to exhibit them, so I can see them all at once.

Also, I had the great pleasure yesterday of returning to MOMI to catch a Barbara Stanwyck twin bill: The Lady Eve and Forty Guns. There's a new biography of Stanwyck coming out which examines her career in great detail. I'll review it tomorrow, but let me just say here that it's always a bit of a letdown to discover your idols are human after all, but reading about her life hasn't diminished my affection for her as a great actress.


Eve, with Henry Fonda, is a Preston Sturges joint about a con artist who falls for her mark. I own this film on DVD. Sturges has always been a favorite director of mine for his witty writing and the great comic performances he got out of his actors, and Stanwyck's is one of his best. Guns, a Western written and directed by Samuel Fuller, was Stanwyck's last film as an A-list movie star before she transitioned to television. I had never seen this one before, but unfortunately, I went to bed really late the previous night and the lack of sleep finally caught up to me while watching this one, so I can't tell you much about it. Stany rides around on a white horse a lot. There's a tornado. People get shot. (It does make an appropriate spiritual predecessor for her TV role in The Big Valley, though.) There's also a singing cowboy-type character who, every time he appeared, I kept wanting John Belushi to come along and smash his guitar against a wall and say "Sorry."

I don't think I've talked about MOMI's main theater. It's really nice - stadium seating facing a screen with a fairly wide stage that includes a podium off to one side. The curtain has an unusual trompe l'oeil pattern of elongated, multi-colored pyramids radiating outwards in all directions from the center. It looks like something you'd see in a modern art museum, which I suppose MOMI is, after all. The walls are a deep cobalt blue, curving upwards to the ceiling, with spotlights on both sides. The ramp leading up to the main door is also back-lit in blue. The aesthetic value of a place like MOMI cannot be underestimated; a lot of thought went into its architecture and it's a big part of its appeal.

At both screenings, there were a lot of people shushing each other in the audience, especially during Eve, which was a bit surprising. One would think that a MOMI crowd would be more respectful of the movie than your average multiplex audience, but maybe this was a fluke. Then again, unruly audience members have been popping up in unlikely places, and more and more people are demanding that theaters do something about it. I didn't think it was out of control yesterday, but this is a general problem that could kill the theater-going experience for good unless it's seriously addressed, and soon.

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Related:
Books: Barbara Stanwyck - The Miracle Woman