In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love
first seen @ Angelika Film Center, New York, NY
2000

I've been to lots of other art-house theaters in New York and beyond, but the Angelika Film Center is where I got an education on independent film, particularly during the mid-to-late 90s. I first heard about the place through an article in the paper about it. I remember thinking at the time how novel it seemed that a movie theater would also double as an upscale cafe (even though I rarely partake of it). I was working in video retail at this time, and I had taken it upon myself to attempt to learn as much as I could about film. Part of that, I knew, would inevitably include indy and foreign cinema, since our store was well-stocked in those kinds of films.

The Angelika always seemed a cut above most movie houses, especially in the first few years I started going there. It's not an old-school palace; it's relatively small, but the flight of stairs leading up to the box office gives it a slight sense of grandeur, I've always thought. The cafe is to the right as one enters, and the screening rooms are downstairs, where popcorn and other snacks are sold.

Long lines for opening-weekend shows are common - and you never know who you'll see there. When I saw In the Mood for Love opening night, there was the usual line wrapped around the center of the lobby - and who should be standing right behind me, happily chatting with a friend, but Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand! (It's a cliche, but it's true: she's shorter than I thought she'd be.)

Perhaps the biggest drawback to the Angelika is the one everyone always brings up: the rumble of the subway can be heard and felt while you're watching a movie. It can be annoying at times, but after awhile you get used to it. Anyway, it's not as loud as you'd think, and I don't see what they could do about it, so one has no choice but to accept it. I can't recall ever letting the muffled sound of the subway interfere with my movie-watching experience.

The Angelika is, of course, one of many art-house theaters in the Greenwich Village-SoHo area of Manhattan, and I consider myself fortunate to have gone to all of them at one time or another. In recent years, they've raised their ticket prices, as have theaters everywhere, which led me to the Kew Gardens Cinemas in Queens (where I saw Get Low). Of course, the trade-off means a longer wait for a cheaper ticket, but I can live with that. I've patronized the Angelika less, but I would never abandon it altogether. I've had too many good times there.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
second seen @ AMC Loews 84th Street 6
9.15.01

I was on vacation on September 11. I hadn't left town yet. I was working in a video store at the time, and I had taken that week off in order to attend a comic book convention in Maryland. I was planning to leave on Friday and spend the weekend there. I was looking forward to the trip, as I have a lot of cartoonist friends and many of them would be at the show.

It had been almost a year since I had gotten my desktop computer and the Internet still felt new to me. There were lots of things I still hadn't fully acclimated myself with yet, but I felt I could learn as I go. That morning I was online, surfing or something, when I got an instant message from my friend Tim, telling me to turn on the TV, quick...

It didn't seem real to me. As I watched it unfold, it seemed like some bizarre Orson-Welles-War-of-the-Worlds-style hoax. As the reality of it slowly started sinking in, I still had trouble processing it, accepting it as something that will affect countless innocent lives. I had to shake off thoughts about whether my vacation would be ruined.

I talked to my parents. I talked to Vija, who lives in Manhattan and works in Midtown, so I was scared for her, but she was alright. A little later on, I went to a comics website that many of my friends frequented and checked in with them on the message board. I don't remember too much of the rest of the day other than laying in my bed at night playing my Tori Amos CDs over and over again.

The rest of that week was excruciating, as you might imagine. The convention was cancelled, as I suspected. Talking on the phone to my friends at work, I was told that business actually picked up tremendously that day. The store apparently was jam packed that evening with customers coming in non-stop to rent movies - anything to get their minds off what happened, I suppose. I couldn't help but feel lucky to be on vacation. I'm not sure how I would've been able to handle working that day - and as a manager, I really would've needed to stay focused.

The customers may have had the right idea, though. The television, the papers, the 'Net, everyone everywhere was talking about the attacks and after awhile one needed some relief, some way to escape it all, even temporarily. My buddy John agreed, which is why we and a bunch of other friends went to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back that Saturday.

I had already seen it when it first came out weeks ago, me being a big Kevin Smith fan, but I had no problem with seeing it again. As I recall, the theater wasn't that packed, since the movie wasn't new anymore. We took up half a row near the front, bought our popcorn, and proceeded to laugh our asses off for the next 90 minutes or so... and it felt so good.

I was already predisposed to like this movie, having already seen the other "View Askewniverse" films - Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy - and this was kind of a reunion for all the familiar characters in those films. I already loved it - but seeing it four days after one of the worst days in modern history, when everyone was still struggling to bear the weight of this unimaginable tragedy... that made it special, at least for me. It made bearing that weight a little easier, if only for a little while. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back may not rank among the greatest movies ever made, but I'll always be grateful to Kevin Smith for it, because it was exactly what I needed at a time when I needed to laugh again.

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Performance

Performance
seen @ 25 Kingsland Avenue (backyard), Brooklyn NY
9.8.10

I almost wasn't going to go see this. I'd heard about this film before, but from the reviews I'd read on IMDB - which were glowing, but also made clear that this was unconventional - I wasn't completely sold on it. I almost went to see Inception a second time (which I'll probably do anyway). Plus, I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the previous night and wasn't looking forward to coming home late. I decided to give it a chance, however.

The screening was presented by a local film-lovers club called the Kings County Cinema Society. The screening of Top Hat I went to last month was theirs. At first I thought the website was just a resource for free screenings - which of course, it is - but it wasn't until after the fact that I realized that they're the ones that show these films they list.

The screening was also being presented by a local filmmaker named Jason Tallon. The apartment we were watching Performance at belonged to some friends of his and the movie was projected on one wall, through a laptop computer with separate speakers, as was the case at the Top Hat showing. In addition to the main event, Tallon showed a couple of his shorts. While visually stunning, they didn't have much in the way of narrative, but I suspect that was probably intentional.

This felt more like a private party that I had crashed rather than a film screening. I talked to a few people, but I couldn't help feeling more than a little anxious and out of place - which wasn't anyone's fault really, but that's how it is when you're surrounded by total strangers. The hosts made cookies and other snacks and offered wine, and the audience, many of which looked like friends of Tallon, congregated either outside in the backyard or in the kitchen. The backyard was terrific - a concrete patio with a garden off to one side and a tree swaying in the chilly breeze. Christmas lights ran like runway lights along one side of the patio, with 70s-ish canvas-and-wire chairs mixed with wooden ones. I'm somewhat large, and I had to settle into the canvas chair slowly, for fear of busting right through it. It held, but it made me fearful of getting up again!

While the editing, cinematography and especially sound was remarkable and must have seemed cutting-edge in 1970, I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of Performance. It didn't help that it was getting colder as the night progressed. At one point I slipped my arms out of my short sleeves in an attempt to keep warm. The wind was steady and at one point it blew hard enough to sway the branches on the tree considerably. I was yawning off and on, though I never fell asleep. I switched from the canvas-and-wire chair to a wooden one and I kept shifting back and forth in it, desperately trying to maintain a level of comfort. Some people were laid out on the concrete in the front. One chick sitting next to me was fiddling with her Blackberry. I suppose I couldn't blame her if she was bored.

This must sound like I had a terrible time, but I want to make clear that I think the KCCS does a good job at organizing these screenings. I'm certainly grateful to have the opportunity to see free movies, especially now that summer's just about over.

Waiting to Exhale

Waiting to Exhale
first seen @ Roosevelt Field Mall, Garden City, NY
1995

I happen to be black. As a result, being a movie fan can sometimes be an exercise in frustration, because the few films with black stars and/or themes that permeate the mainstream tend to conform to a very narrow preconception of the black experience in America. This has begun to incrementally change within the past decade or so, and I try to support the films that appear to be quality, but one aspect in particular appears to have stagnated completely, and this has been a major pet peeve of mine: the dearth of mature black romantic films.

The overwhelming majority of black romantic comedies tend to be of the lowbrow variety - bawdy jokes and two-dimensional characters in the silliest of situations. There's nothing inherently wrong with material like this, but when it's all we get, time and again, that's a serious problem. Almost no one is willing or capable of making a black romantic drama on a grand scale. Love him or hate him, Tyler Perry has valiantly attempted to fill this void, but he seems to stick to a comfortable pattern with his films that he may only now be beginning to break. Still, I have difficulty seeing him make something comparable to, say, Shakespeare in Love or Moulin Rouge.

I remember the excitement over Terry McMillan's book Waiting to Exhale, although I never read it. When the film came out, though, I decided to take a leap of faith and see it, as a show of solidarity more than anything else (it was directed by a black man, Forest Whitaker). I was working out on Long Island at the time, and I saw it opening night at the theater at the Roosevelt Field Mall (it's now the AMC Loews Roosevelt Field 8; I'm not sure if that's what it was then).

The place was packed, and there was a strong vibe of eagerness present. I was certainly looking forward to seeing Angela Bassett, whom I adored in What's Love Got to Do With It and Malcolm X. From the beginning she was fierce, and the crowd responded with enthusiastic whoops and hollers, particularly in the famous car-burning scene.

Of course, I got caught up in it as much as everyone else - with a pumped-up crowd, it's hard not to - but I also recall a sense of detachment to the film in general that had nothing to do with its quality. I didn't think it was man-hating, but it was hard not to squirm a little in the presence of so much estrogen-fueled righteous rage.

I freely admit, most contemporary chick flicks are not my thing, though naturally, there are exceptions. I think Exhale is as much about friendship between women as it is "looking-for-Mister-Right" - indeed, I think a comparison between this and Sex and the City could provide some useful insights. But Exhale is more relevant to me as a mainstream black romantic film that found a wide audience, a feat that has been duplicated so rarely as to be almost non-existent - and that's sad.

Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot
seen @ "Movies With a View," Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn NY
9.2.10

The first time I saw a Billy Wilder film was when I was in college. I took a Film History class on a whim, and it was there that I gained a true appreciation for classic cinema. The teacher screened Sunset Boulevard. I'd never seen anything quite like that before; an old movie with such a bleak, cynical sense of humor, and complicated characters that aren't entirely likable, yet still strangely sympathetic. And such dialogue!

After college, I worked in a video store with an extensive catalog of titles dating back to the silent era, and I was able to watch more Wilder films on my own, including his earlier work as a writer only, before he became a writer-director. His ability to mix comedy with drama in the same story, even to the point of mixing genres, is remarkable. Some Like It Hot is part screwball comedy, musical, and gangster action, and yet it somehow fits together, even if the seams show in places. Wilder's dramas plumb the depths of human frailty in unsettling ways, while his comedies draw much of their humor from the characters themselves, to the point where even those on the periphery are memorable. And of course, the array of acting talent he assembled can't be beat: William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Matthau, Shirley MacLaine, Kirk Douglas, Fred MacMurray, Jimmy Cagney, and so many more. I don't love everything he did, but his overall body of work makes him my all-time favorite director.

Last night was only the second time I'd been to the expanded Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's nice. The lawn on which the film was shown was dog-free this time, but that's by design, and because it was a lawn and not just a grassy knoll strewn with dirt and rocks, I could lie back on my side and relax. There were lampposts as well, so after the movie ended we weren't all stumbling through the dark, which I find a bit disorienting after watching a film outdoors. I saw one group of people from far off who were simply chatting with each other throughout the film. One woman actually had her back to the screen. Why come to an outdoor movie if you're not even gonna watch it?

Olivia de Havilland interview

"...I feel like a survivor from an age that people no longer understand. I want to try to explain what the 1930s – the golden age of Hollywood – was truly like. People forget that America was such a different place then, not yet the dominant force in the world. I also want to explain how different the sexual mores of those times were.

"And to recall what it was like to be a star in the studio system. How you were a great celebrity but also a slave. How I had to present myself to make-up by 6.30 am and work until late in the evening. How I had to make five movies in my first year. How whatever private life you had left to you didn't belong to you but the studio publicists."

Every once in awhile I'll post some interviews I like. Here's an absolute must-read conversation from last year with one of the last silver screen legends from the Golden Age, Olivia de Havilland, as she talks about, among other things, the studio system, the making of Gone With the Wind, and her relationship with Errol Flynn.

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Batman (1989)

Batman (1989)
first seen in New York, NY
1989

Times Square started going through its dramatic overhaul during my teen years, approximately, but I'm old enough to remember how it used to be. I was way too young to appreciate it - if that can be the proper word - during the Taxi Driver-era 70s, but one thing I remember well about the neighborhood was the greater amount of movie theaters - and not just the X-rated ones.

You can see them in lots of old black and white Hollywood movies, of course - the ones that lined Seventh Avenue and Broadway. When I was in my pre-teens, the porno houses on West 42nd were still around, but I recall with greater clarity the ones on Seventh, about where the Toys-R-Us is now. Since I went to high school in Manhattan, my friends and I often saw movies here, among other places around the city, and it was here that we saw Tim Burton's original Batman film on opening day in 1989. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the name of the theater itself. I believe it had only two screens but was quite big. We went to see Batman after school, of course, and I vividly recall the line that was wrapped around the corner on which we gleefully waited.

Of course, Bat-mania was everywhere that year, and we knew this movie was not to be missed, even though I hadn't read comics in years to that point - and I had never even collected the actual Batman comic. It's strange; I loved the first two Superman movies and the first two Batman movies passionately as a kid even though I never read the comics. Marvel, the home of Spider-Man and the X-Men, made the only comics for me growing up, and everything else might as well have not existed. That's how it was back then - you read either Marvel or DC, and once you made your choice you were loyal to a fault. (It still is this way to a lesser extent, but that's another post.)

Getting back to Times Square, though - I can't deny that the renaissance it has undergone has been striking, to say the least. I speak not so much of the mega-retail businesses and the family-friendly tourist attractions and Broadway shows as I do of the pedestrian plazas and the reorganization of traffic lanes. While I certainly have done my share of shopping in the new Times Square, I can't recall ever thinking of the area as a place to simply hang out and relax until now. I'm still unused to the feeling of sitting in the middle of what once was a street full of cars. Similar changes are being made city-wide now, and it's an idea whose time has come. Cars have dominated the cityscape for far too long, and when some drivers get out of control, the consequences can be, and often are, fatal. It's good to see that places like Times Square have become safer to walk around in.

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