Some Ingmar Bergman Links

1. Bergmanorama (tribute site)
   
2. Face to Face (official site)
3. Bergman at IMDB
4. Bergman at Wikipedia
5. Bergman at Wikiquote
6. BBC4 Profile of Bergman
7. Slant Magazine’s review of Winterlight (”imagine Robert Bresson directing a Buster Keaton feature and you’ll have an inkling of its brilliance”)

Songs that mention Marilyn Monroe

1. Hold On – Tom Waits
2. We Didn’t Start The Fire – Billy Joel
3. The Jean Genie – David Bowie
4. Action! Not Words – Def Leppard
5. Vogue – Madonna
6. Uncorrected Personality Traits – Robyn Hitchcock
7. From Hank to Hendrix – Neil Young
8. I Want Your Love – Transvision Vamp

Humphrey Bogart Films

Ten films I have watched:

1. They Drive by Night (1940)
2. High Sierra (1941)
3. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
4. Casablanca (1942)
5. To Have and Have Not (1944)
6. The Big Sleep (1946)
7. Dark Passage (1947)
8. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
9. Key Largo (1948)
10. In a Lonely Place (1950)

And ten films I haven’t yet watched:

1. The Wagons Roll at Night (1941)
2. All Through the Night (1942)
3. Across the Pacific (1942)
4. Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
5. Passage to Marseille (1944)
6. Dead Reckoning (1947)
7. The Enforcer (1951)
8. The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
9. The Desperate Hours (1955)
10. The Harder They Fall (1956)

I have Dead Reckoning and The Harder They Fall in my DVD collection – I will watch soon. Also there is a new collection due out on 3 Oct 2006:

Humphrey Bogart – The Signature Collection, Vol. 2 (The Maltese Falcon Three-Disc Special Edition / Across the Pacific / Action in the North Atlantic / All Through the Night / Passage to Marseille)

The Falls and The ‘High Sign’

This morning I was leaving Tesco, having bought a newspaper. I was approached by a man.

“What paper you got there?” he asked.

“Independent; why?” I said.

“Thank goodness, that’s the only one that cares.”

“About what?”

“About the big issues – you ever see another paper carry articles about the VUE?”

“VUE?”

“Yes, you know, the Violent Unknown Event.”

“What, are you for real? That is not real – that was never in a paper.”

“Shh!” This was when he greeted me with the sign from the Blinking Buzzards.

So here I am, approached by a stranger, who appears to know two of my favourite films. The VUE, as far as I know, is only referred to in Peter Greenaway’s The Falls; I have not seen the Blinking Buzzards sign anywhere apart from Buster Keaton’s The ‘High Sign’. So I begin to wonder who this stranger is: Is he a madman, struck lucky by his choice of victim? Is he an angel? Is he from the future? Is he Kirk? Is he me? Has he access to my television or DVD player or internet history?

The Falls and The ‘High Sign’

This morning I was leaving Tesco, having bought a newspaper. I was approached by a man.

“What paper you got there?” he asked.

“Independent; why?” I said.

“Thank goodness, that’s the only one that cares.”

“About what?”

“About the big issues – you ever see another paper carry articles about the VUE?”

“VUE?”

“Yes, you know, the Violent Unknown Event.”

“What, are you for real? That is not real – that was never in a paper.”

“Shh!” This was when he greeted me with the sign from the Blinking Buzzards.

So here I am, approached by a stranger, who appears to know two of my favourite films. The VUE, as far as I know, is only referred to in Peter Greenaway’s The Falls; I have not seen the Blinking Buzzards sign anywhere apart from Buster Keaton’s The ‘High Sign’. So I begin to wonder who this stranger is: Is he a madman, struck lucky by his choice of victim? Is he an angel? Is he from the future? Is he Kirk? Is he me? Has he access to my television or DVD player or internet history?

Palindromes

Some time ago Stephen Fry set a competition in the Daily Telegraph for readers to come up with some original palindromes. (Of course, I do not read that paper – the article is included in his Paperweight book.)

He announced the winner as Mr V. Miles of Bracknell who wrote this one:

It’s Ade, Cilla, Sue, Dame Vita, Edna, Nino, Emo! Come on in and eat; I’ve made us all iced asti.

This palindrome of unknown origin remains one of my favourites:

Doctor Reubenstein was shocked and dismayed when he answered the ringing telephone, only to hear a strange, metallic, alien voice say, “Yasec iovn eilacilla temeg! Nartsa raehoty lnoenoh pelet gnig, nirehtde rewsnaehn ehw. Deya! Msid! Dnadek cohssaw nietsne buerro, tcod?”

Hand gestures

A new version of Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me is released in the UK tomorrow. I have a copy on VHS but both the sound and picture are pretty bad, so I’ll probably buy this transfer. I like this film; I like what David Lynch does with his hand:

Yesterday I watched The High Sign, a fairly good Buster Keaton short film. I like what he does with his hands:

Woody Allen’s best film since…

Match Point was premiered at Cannes this year. Another Woody Allen film, another opportunity for critics to tell us it his best since… 1999’s Sweet and Lowdown and 1989’s Crimes and Misdemeanors are the comparisons I have heard so far. It is his first film to be set in the UK and he apparently enjoyed the experience so much he is making a second film here this summer.

Some other comparisons found via Google:

Manhattan Murder Mystery: “the casual masterpiece that may be Allen’s best movie since Annie Hall“

Deconstructing Harry: “In a lot of ways it’s Allen’s best movie since Crimes and Misdemeanors“
Deconstructing Harry: “Woody’s best movie since Shadows and Fog“
Deconstructing Harry: “perhaps Woody Allen`s best film since Manhattan“
Deconstructing Harry: “I consider it his best film since Husbands and Wives“

The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion: “this is his best movie since Everyone says I love you”

Hollywood Ending: “Probably Allen’s best film since Deconstructing Harry“
Hollywood Ending: “easily Allen’s best film since Sweet and Lowdown“

Anything Else: “Woody Allen’s best film since Mighty Aphrodite“
Anything Else: “This is Allen’s best movie since Sweet and Lowdown“
Anything Else: “Woody Allen’s best film since 1994’s Bullets Over Broadway“

Melinda and Melinda: “probably his best film since Bullets Over Broadway“
Melinda and Melinda: “his best film since 1999’s Sweet and Lowdown“

Many of his films are great (particularly the early, funny ones), but Melinda and Melinda is pretty awful. There are two stories being played out here, one a romantic comedy and the other an urban tragedy, both featuring a character called Melinda. While the premise may or may not be flawed, the script and direction certainly are and as a result the comedy does not amuse me and the tragedy does not move me. But, then perhaps that is the point: life is neither comedy nor tragedy, life is humdrum; and Woody Allen, insightful and intelligent as ever, has created his most humdrum film to date.

Amaztype

The above text was created by using images of Pixies’ album covers. Amaztype did this for me. Type in a phrase and it will display it using the covers of books, CDs or DVDs that relate to it.

The Marx Brothers

I had a quick look on the net to see what people cited as their favourite Marx Brothers’ films. Here are the results of the first 50 that I found:

Duck Soup x19
A Night At The Opera x12
Animal Crackers x10
Horse Feathers x5
Monkey Business x2
A Day At The Races x1
The Cocoanuts x1

My favourite Marx Brothers’ film is Animal Crackers. “Make a slam. Make a big, big slam!”
Big Rob sums up the genius of Animal Crackers:

It’s a testament to controlled, pointed absurdity, a textbook example of how to insert yourself into ordered elegance and drive it straight off the tracks. Like most of my favorite comedies, the humor is all over the place: highbrow, lowbrow, musical, verbal, slapstick, parodistic, absurd.