Garlic is Better than Ten Mothers: 1980, dir. Les Blank.
and
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe: 1980, dir. Les Blank.
Both seen at Alamo Downtown (Jan. 5) as part of Alamo’s “Ultimate Garlic Experience.”
The Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters in Austin always seems to be offering the Ultimate Experience of something or other. They have a portable movie screen and have shown movies in bowling alleys, lakes, the middle of the woods, and other wonderfully bizarre locations. When they do have Ultimate Experiences in a theater, the evenings include themed meals, silly contests, appearances from the director or a star in the film … you get the idea. Sometimes I wonder if Tim League, founder of the Alamo franchise, is related to William Castle, and I mean that as a compliment.
Last night I went to the Ultimate Garlic Experience at Alamo Downtown. Two short documentaries from Les Blank were shown, Garlic is Better than Ten Mothers and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. Since Les Blank’s movies are not available on DVD, and are difficult to find on VHS, that alone seemed like a good reason to attend.
Month: January 2005
film geek wish list, 2005
I’ve been thinking about things I would like to happen in 2005 related to movies, DVDs, etc. I’ve created a little wish list. These are things over which I have very little control, but they would make me very happy. So if any of the deities whose responsibilities include the DVD market or film programming are listening, here’s a list of things I’d love to see this year:
- Holiday (1938) and A Foreign Affair (1948) released on DVD—Of all the films pending on my twenty gaps list, these are the ones I want the most. I would rush out to buy the DVDs in a heartbeat. I don’t care about special features. Just release them, please.
- A Terry Gilliam movie released in U.S. theaters (specifically Austin)—And I don’t mean a documentary about one of his films failing, either. The Brothers Grimm is in post-production with a November 2005 release date, and Mr. Gilliam is currently filming Tideland, so the odds are good … but I am still wary.
where I’ve been lately
I don’t have a Links or a Bookmarks page on this site, although I will occasionally remember to stick a link to a movie-related site in the right-hand sidebar. Probably that list of links to film sites ought to be bigger, and it ought to include some of the sites I’m about to mention.
But I prefer to add a short explanation about why I enjoy reading a particular site, which I think is more useful and interesting than just slapping a bunch of links on the side of the page without telling you why you should visit them. (Obviously, some are self-explanatory, such as links to local movie theaters I like. But not everything is that straightforward.)
It’s only been in the past six months or so that I’ve discovered a number of film-related weblogs, which are great for tracking news about upcoming theatrical and DVD releases as well as other special events and news. I currently use Bloglines to keep track of my favorite sites that have RSS feeds. Fortunately most frequently updated film-related blogs and sites do have RSS feeds now. My account is publicly accessible and if you are a curious person who likes to see what other people read every day, you can view my Bloglines list here.
Here’s a list of some weblogs, articles, and sites I have enjoyed lately, most of which are about movies in one way or another.
Atlantic City (1980)
Atlantic City: 1980, dir. Louis Malle. Seen on DVD (Jan 2).
For some bizarre reason, I had Atlantic City mixed up with Nashville in my head, and it took me a minute during the credits sequence to realize that this was a Louis Malle movie, not Robert Altman. I know, sometimes I feel like I’m not worthy to be a film geek.
Atlantic City is an odd and interesting little movie, which almost got lost between the other movies I saw last weekend, which were bigger and flashier and sillier and funnier.
For example, it is odd to see Susan Sarandon so young, and Burt Lancaster so old (although I’d recognized him in Local Hero when I saw it last year, so it wasn’t as surprising to me as it was to my boyfriend).
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
House of Flying Daggers: 2004, dir. Yimou Zhang. Seen at Dobie (Jan. 4).
I am a terrible, cynical person. Some of the first words out of my mouth when this movie ended were, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Later on, I was heard to say, “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”
You have to take your cynical hat off if you are going to see House of Flying Daggers, which is a terribly sentimental and melodramatic love story disguised as a martial arts movie. I think this movie works only if you view everything in it as an allegory for love.
The Stepford Wives (2004)
The Stepford Wives: 2004, dir. Frank Oz. Seen on DVD (Jan. 3).
Last year, I bought an old library copy of the novel The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. I wanted to read the source.
Wait, we need to go back even further. When I was junior-high age, I saw the 1980 made-for-TV movie Revenge of the Stepford Wives one night on TV. I don’t remember much about it except for Julie Kavner (remember when we used to see her as well as hear her? hee) … and the fact that the Stepford women were drugged, not robots. They all had to take little pills. At the end of the movie, the women all go crazy and stomp on the nasty man who’s been behind the whole scheme.
Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Ocean’s Twelve: 2004, dir. Steven Soderbergh. Seen at Galaxy Highland (Jan. 1).
If I hadn’t seen the SpongeBob movie recently, I might well say that Ocean’s Twelve is the silliest movie I’ve seen in a very long time. So that’s my verdict: this movie is not as silly as an animated singing sponge. But it’s pretty close.
I liked Ocean’s Eleven (the 2001 one, not the 1960 one) quite a lot. I thought it was a very smart movie with a good cast. I was particularly fond of George Clooney, although I liked just about everyone except Julia Roberts, and at least she didn’t annoy me. I own the DVD of Ocean’s Eleven, because I like watching a clever caper movie, and you know it just about broke my heart when I found out that the Bellagio doesn’t really look anything like it did in the movie.
Ocean’s Twelve is fun, and it’s entertaining, and we had a good time watching it. But it is more like the original Rat Pack Ocean’s 11 than it is like the remake. It’s a bunch of guys (and a couple of chicks) all having a whole lot of fun making a movie together, without much worry about details like the storyline. The dialogue is often quite good, the acting is fine, the direction is stylish and fun. But the story is a mess.