Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings

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

Monday, June 3, 2024

School Daze (Spike Lee, 1988)

Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Tisha Campbell, Kyme, Joe Seneca, Ellen Holly, Ossie Davis, Bill Nunn, James Bond III, Branford Marsalis, Kadeem Hardison, Samuel L. Jackson. Screenplay: Spike Lee. Cinematography: Ernest R. Dickerson. Production design: Wynn Thomas. Film editing: Barry Alexander Brown. Music: Bill Lee.

Sunday, June 2, 2024

Affliction (Paul Schrader, 1997)

Cast: Nick Nolte, James Coburn, Sissy Spacek, Willem Dafoe, Brigid Tierney, Jim True-Frost, Holmes Osborne, Mary Beth Hurt, Marian Seldes. Screenplay: Paul Schrader, based on a novel by Russell Banks. Cinematography: Paul Sarossy. Production design: Anne Pritchard. Film editing: Jay Rabinowitz. Music: Michael Brook.

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Pretty Poison (Noel Black, 1968)

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, Beverly Garland, John Randolph, Dick O'Neill, Clarice Blackburn, Joseph Bova, Ken Kercheval, Don Fellows. Screenplay: Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on a novel by Stephen Geller. Cinematography: David L. Quaid. Art direction: Harold Michelson, Jack Martin Smith. Film editing: William H. Ziegler. Music: Johnny Mandel.

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964)

Cast: Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, Julius Harris, Gloria Foster, Martin Priest, Leonard Parker, Yaphet Kotto, Stanley Greene, Helen Lounck, Helene Arrindell, Walter Wilson, Milton Williams, Mel Stewart. Screenplay: Michael Roemer, Robert M. Young. Cinematography: Robert M. Young. Film editing: Luke Bennett.

Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, 2023)

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling. Screenplay: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, based on a novel by Frank Herbert. Cinematography: Greig Fraser. Production design: Patrice Vermette. Film editing: Joe Walker. Music: Hans Zimmer.

Saturday, May 25, 2024

Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese, 1999)

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt, Cliff Curtis, Nestor Serrano, Aida Turturro, Sonja Sohn. Screenplay: Paul Schrader, based on a novel by Joe Connelly. Cinematography: Robert Richardson. Production design: Dante Ferretti. Film editing: Thelma Schoonmaker. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

Summer of Sam (Spike Lee, 1999)

Cast: John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Rispoli, Saverio Guerra, Brian Tarantina, Al Palagonia, Ken Garito, Bebe Neuwirth, Patti LuPone, Anthony LaPaglia, Ben Gazzara, John Savage, Jimmy Breslin, Michael Badalucco, Spike Lee. Screenplay: Spike Lee, Victor Colicchio, Michael Imperioli. Cinematography: Ellen Kuras. Production design: Thérèse DePrez. Film editing: Barry Alexander Brown. Music: Terence Blanchard.