Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 05/17/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, May 17, 2024

Artists and Models (Frank Tashlin, 1955)

Shirley MacLaine, Jerry Lewis, Dorothy Malone, Dean Martin in Artists and Models

Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone, Eddie Mayehoff, Eva Gabor, Anita Ekberg, George Winslow, Jack Elam. Screenplay: Herbert Baker, Hal Kanter, Frank Tashlin, Don McGuire, based on a play by Michael Davidson and Norman Lessing. Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp. Art direction: Tambi Larsen, Hal Pereira. Film editing: Warren Low. Music: Walter Scharf; songs: Jack Brooks, Harry Warren.

The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)

Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story

Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Everett McGill, John Farley, Kevin Farley, Jane Galloway, Joseph Carpenter, Harry Dean Stanton. Screenplay: John Roach, Mary Sweeney. Cinematography: Freddie Francis. Production design: Jack Fisk. Film editing: Mary Sweeney. Music: Angelo Badalamenti.

Go (Doug Liman, 1999)

Timothy Olyphant in Go

Cast: Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley, Desmond Askew, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr, Timothy Olyphant, William Fichtner, Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer, Jane Krakowski, Melissa McCarthy. Screenplay: John August. Cinematography: Doug Liman. Production design: Thomas P. Wilkins. Film editing: Stephen Mirrione. Music: BT, Moby.