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

Friday, July 19, 2024

The Return of Godzilla (Koji Hashimoto, 1984)

Cast: Keiju Kobayashi, Ken Tanaka, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Shin Takuma, Yosuke Natsuki, Taketoshi Naito, Eitaro Ozawa, Nobuo Kaneko, Takeshi Kato, Mizuno Suzuki. Screenplay: Hideichi Nagahara, Tomoyuki Tanaka. Cinematography: Kazutami Hara. Production design: Akira Sakuragi, Mutsumi Toyoshima. Film editing: Yoshitami Kuroiwa. Music: Reijiro Koroku.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

The Deep End (Scott McGehee, David Siegel, 2001)

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker, Peter Donat, Josh Lucas, Raymond J. Barry, Tamara Hope, Jordan Dorrance. Screenplay: Scott McGehee, David Siegel. Cinematography: Giles Nuttgens. Production design: Kelly McGehee, Christopher Tandon. Film editing: Lauren Zuckerman. Music: Peter Nashel.

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (Kazuki Omori, 1991)

Cast: Kosuke Toyohara, Anna Nakagawa, Megumi Odaka, Katsuhiko Sasaki, Akiji Kobayashi, Tokuma Nishioka, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Chuck Wilson, Richard Berger, Robert Scott Field. Screenplay: Kazuki Omori. Cinematography: Yoshinori Sekiguchi. Designer: Shinji Nishikawa. Film editing: Michiko Ikeda. Music: Akira Ifukube.

Monday, July 15, 2024

Good Neighbor Sam (David Swift, 1964)

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, Dorothy Provine, Mike Connors, Edward G. Robinson, Edward Andrews, Louis Nye, Robert Q. Lewis, Charles Lane, Linda Watkins, Joyce Jameson. Screenplay: James Fritzell, Everett Greenbaum, David Swift, based on a novel by Jack Finney. Cinematography: Burnett Guffey. Production design: Dale Hennesy. Film editing: Charles Nelson. Music: Frank De Vol.

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Love's Labour's Lost (Kenneth Branagh, 2000)

Cast: Alessandro Nivola, Alicia Silverstone, Natascha McElhone, Kenneth Branagh, Carmen Ejogo, Matthew Lillard, Adrian Lester, Emily Mortimer, Richard Briers, Geraldine McEwan, Stefania Rocco, Jimmy Yuill, Nathan Lane, Timothy Spall. Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography: Alex Thomson. Production design: Tim Harvey. Film editing: Dan Farrell, Neil Farrell. Music: Patrick Doyle.

Friday, July 12, 2024

So Fine (Andrew Bergman, 1981)

Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Jack Warden, Mariangela Melato, Richard Kiel, Fred Gwynne, Mike Kellin, David Rounds, Joel Stedman, Angela Pietropinto, Michael Lombard, Jessica James. Screenplay: Andrew Bergman. Cinematography: James A. Contner. Production design: Santo Loquasto. Film editing: Alan Heim. Music: Ennio Morricone,

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Godzilla vs. Mothra (Takao Okawara, 1992)

Cast: Tetsuya Bessho, Satomi Kobayashi, Takehiro Murata, Keiko Imamura, Sayaka Osawa, Saburo Shinoda, Akiji Kobayashi, Megumi Odaka, Akira Takarada. Screenplay: Wataro Mimura, Akira Murao, Yukiko Takayama, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Minoru Yoshida, Kazuki Omori. Cinematography: Masahiro Kishimoto. Art direction: Takashi Sakai. Music: Akira Ifukube.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Phffft (Mark Robson, 1954)

Cast: Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Jack Carson, Kim Novak, Luella Gear, Donald Randolph, Donald Curtis. Screenplay: George Axelrod. Cinematography: Charles Lang. Art direction: William Flannery. Film editing: Charles Nelson. Music: Friedrich Hollaender.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Obsession (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Cast: Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams, Wanda Blackman, J. Patrick McNamara, Stanley J. Reyes, Nick Krieger, Stocker Fonelieu. Screenplay: Brian De Palma, Paul Schrader. Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Art direction: Jack Senter. Film editing: Paul Hirsch. Music: Bernard Herrmann.