Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 07/21/24

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

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)

Cast: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Susan Clark, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin, Kenneth Mars, Melanie Griffith, James Woods, Janet Ward, John Crawford. Screenplay: Alan Sharp. Cinematography: Bruce Surtees. Production design: George Jenkins. Film editing: Dede Allen. Music: Michael Small.

In the twisty, satisfying noir Night Moves Gene Hackman shows once again what a terrific actor he was, even though he seems to me a little miscast as a retired professional football player. He brings it off anyway, even managing to be sexy despite a pornstache and one of those '70s hairstyles that looked like a toupee even when they weren't.