Splendid early film choreography by Jack Cole for ‘Kismet’ (MGM, 1944) 2
This YouTube bundling of two lengthy harem numbers choreographed by Jack Cole for KISMET (MGM, 1944) displays the young choreographer’s mature grasp of his craft in staging, and in creating beautifull and unusual framing of dance for the eye of the camera. The first sequence has rare footage of The Kraft Sisters, in particular Beatrice ...
Glitches and snafus: arts-writing errata that drives us crazy
As the Internet has expanded opportunities for all kinds of people to be published (including riff-raff like artsmeme!) with bylines, so too has spread misinformation, glitches, and snafus, the kinds of mistakes that an editor used to safeguard from readers. I myself am in this situation; I self-publish without editorial oversight. I am always grateful ...
FILM NOTE: Finland’s delicate, deep and droll ‘Fallen Leaves’ up for Oscar
Dec
2
2023
A very affecting movie is Finland’s official entry for Best International Feature at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards, FALLEN LEAVES. In his seventeenth feature film, Director/Auteur Aki Kaurismäki, a master of distanced and deadpanned but ultimately humanistic storytelling, shines a light on working-class people struggling to live with dignity in a world set up to ...
FILM REVIEW: ‘Eileen,’ a movie to haunt you on a cold night
One of the rewards of watching Eileen, directed with a pitch-perfect noir sensibility by William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth) and presented by Neon, is embracing the unknown. Are we watching a prison break film with an unlikely accomplice? A repressed lesbian love story set in the 1960s? Or is it a violent revenge fantasy fueled by ...
An omelet with Juliette Binoche: ‘The Taste of Things’ 2
Nov
17
2023
Juliette Binoche is a film goddess. That we know from her 86-plus movie credits in which her luminous presence — think Garbo — is but a point of departure for a vast range of fascinating performances. But did you know she makes a mean omelet? You’ll learn that while watching La Binoche, as Eugénie, an ...
To rise again in Rome: Malcolm McDowell & pals in ‘Caligula’
Nov
7
2023
Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) is an anxious young man. He seems to have lost his moral compass. But that’s understandable. He’s seen his family murdered; then, he himself adds to the bloodshed by offing his adoptive grandfather, the mad emperor Tiberius (Peter O’Toole). He’s conducting an unsavory relationship with his fetching sister Drusilla (Theresa Ann Savoy), ...
Mini-Review: Wedding bells for PRISCILLA
Nov
3
2023
arts•meme recommends Leave it to filmmaker Sofia Coppola to make a woman’s story with a foil who is half moving target/half stick in the mud. That is Jacob Elordi playing the charmingly dumb, thick on the empathy, maddeningly faithful until he’s not, and meltingly sexy Elvis Presley, in the marvelous new bio-pic, PRISCILLA. Actress Cailee ...
Oh, to be as ‘Driven’ as Tony Pearson
Oct
17
2023
I very much enjoyed Driven: The Tony Pearson Story, a documentary that is the labor of love of its director Andrew Menjivar. It details the life and career of legendary bodybuilder Tony Pearson, a product of several seminal training gyms up to and including Venice’s Muscle Beach and Gold’s Gym, where, ahem, I am a new member~! ...
Trio of ‘Priscilla’ female creatives take time-out from The King at movie opening
Last night at the Academy Museum’s Ted Mann Theater, film distributor A24 hosted the Los Angeles premiere screening of Priscilla, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. Writer/director Sofia Coppola and executive producer Priscilla Presley were in attendance. The plot of the movie, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, goes like this: When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu ...
REVIEW: Hanging out with ‘The Holdovers’
“There are certain movies that you hang out with the characters so much that they actually become your friends. Those movies are usually quite long, because it actually takes that long of a time to get past a movie character where you actually feel that you know the person and you like them.” That now-famous ...