Continuum Film Blog

archie & leena @ diane's circus!

We're as Pleased as Punch to be included in Diane's Circus tonight!

Lubitsch Projections: “Lebensbejahend" 2004 d. Ina Archer
Archie & Leena engage in affirmative acting!

 

 

"paris is small for those who share so great a passion as ours."

I had a crush on this film before I even saw it...

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) d. Marcel Carné

I'm going to see the restoration tonight.  It will be my 15th or 16th time seeing it--I've lost count. I would always cry at the end.  I saw it once at the theater in Paris that plays it continuously.  But I stopped seeing it long before it became available generally on DVD.  Before I had heard of a dvd. I've never watched a videotape of it.  I may have watched it on TV once.  You went to see it--if it was playing somewhere...like France. I had a book of the film. The cover is tattered and that's how I "saw" the film in between it's rare outings. But some time after college I saw l'Atalante by Vigo and fell in love with it instead. I would cry at the end but with delight. Still, I can recite whole scenes of Paradis in english and in french (well, at least the men's roles). Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) was my obessesion.  I tried to turn innocent young guys attempting to be my boyfriend into him--rather like crazed surgeon, Pierre Brasseur, in Eyes Without a Face.  Speaking of Pierre, I find him, as Frédérick Lemaître, much more alluring now than pining, pale, white-faced Baptiste. Black-faced-Othello, agressive, Frédérick!

Brasseur...

who always reminded me of...

Le Pew!

Anyway, can't say more now--I have to go and fight for a premium seat not in the "paradis" of Walter Reade--and take a trip down the "Boulevard du Crime" to my old days.

And cry?

It's a big movie at 3 hours+ but with a passion like ours...

 

hattie at bard college!

I'm pleased to be included in a Black History Month Film festival at the Difference and Media Project at Bard.

Just in time for the Academy Awards, I will be showing:

Hattie McDaniel: A Credit to The Motion Picture Industry 2004 6m

"I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry," McDaniel said as she accepted the 1st Academy Award given to an African-American for the film Gone with the Wind.  A continuity error in a clip of the 1939 Oscars suggests that the "documentary" footage and her speech were re-staged.

Here is the original version of the speech...

 

for the rest?  See you at Bard, tonight!!

ladies' choice!

sidney poitier in The Long Ships (1964)

happy birthday mr. p.!

 

"a very serious picture about death"

A gorgeous, irreplaceable trio...

"Those three dahk Noo Yawk fellas!"

Below is a clip of the opening shots of Husbands, my favorite Cassavetes film. Now all three fellas are gone and it seems like the end of an era. Or the end of something. I love this LIFE cover but it makes me sad.  And happy. That it makes me sad. Because all three worked so hard to make us feel...

 
Husbands (1970) d. John Cassevetes

“He just buried us!”

 

The Dick Cavett Show w/ John Cassavetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara

my review of pariah (2011) d. dee rees

The excellant Adepero Oduye plays Alike.  The Iron Lady herself gave her a shout out at the Golden Globes!

On the eve of the Oscar nomination announcements I thought I'd re-post my Film Comment review for this beautifully made film. It's still playing around town so be sure to go out and see it!

 

 

red tails opens 1.20.12

More about the film a little later but if you are planning to see RED TAILS (2012) d. Anthony Hemingway, consider supporting it this opening weekend. The film cannot begin to represent the incredible history and amazing stories of the Airmen (which I have had the fortune to hear all of my life) but IT IS exciting, action-packed, appropriate for young people and well-acted with an attractive cast! It's clearly a labor of love and deserves an (enthusiastic and critical) audience.

Red Tails Trailer

Above: "Ina The Macon Belle" restored P-51 by Kermit Weeks and Dad and the original, early 1940s

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happy birthday lucy!

 

Dance Girl Dance (1940) d. Dorothy Arzner

ny african film festival program satur"daaay-o"!

"Harry La Soculente" (2007) ina diane archer

Harry Belafonte is a panelist at the NY African Film Festival Program at the Museum of Art & Design.

If you liked the playful shots of HB in Black Power Mix Tape, you'll love Harry in actuality!

This is also a fantastic chance to see Soviet archival footage of First World Festival of Negro Arts from 1966.

See you there!