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

Saturday, February 1, 2025

L'Amour Fou (Jacques Rivette, 1969)

Cast: Bulle Ogier, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Josée Destoop, Michèlle Moretti, Celia, Françoise Godde, Maddly Bamy, Liliane Bordoni, Yves Beneyton, Dennis Berry, Michel Delahaye, André S. Labarthe. Screenplay: Jacques Rivette, Marilù Parolini, Cinematography: Étienne Becker, Alain Levent. Film editing: Anne Dubot, Nicole Lubtchansky. Music: Jean-Claude Eloy.

Friday, January 31, 2025

Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann, 2024)

Cast (voices): Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Phyllis Smith, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Lewis Black, Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan. Screenplay: Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein, Kelsey Mann. Cinematography: Adam Habib, Jonathan Pytko. Production design: Jason Deamer. Film editing: Maurissa Horwitz. Music: Andrea Datzman.

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Le Pont du Nord (Jacques Rivette, 1981)

Cast: Bulle Ogier, Pascale Ogier, Pierre Clémenti, Jean-François Stévenin, Benjamin Baltimore, Steve Baës, Joe Dann, Mathieu Schiffman, Antoine Gurevich, Julien Lidsky, Marc Truscelli. Screenplay: Bulle Ogier, Pascale Ogier, Suzanne Schiffman, Jacques Rivette. Cinematography: Caroline Champetier, William Lubtchansky, Film editing: Nicole Lubtchansky, Catherine Quesemand.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, 2024)

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Kurt Egiyowan, Jennifer Grey, Daniel Oreskes, Liza Sadovy. Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg, Cinematography: Michal Dymek. Production design: Mela Melak. Film editing: Robert Nassau.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 1979)

Cast: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Kathy Lester, Terrie Kalbus, Kenneth V. Jones, Susan Harper, Lynn Eastman-Rossi, David Arntzen, Ralph Richmond. Screenplay: Don Coscarelli. Cinematography: Don Coscarelli. Production design: Kate Coscarelli. Film editing: Don Coscarelli. Music: Fred Myrow, Malcolm Seagrave.

Monday, January 27, 2025

The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders, 2024)

Cast (voices): Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara. Screenplay: Chris Sanders, based on a book by Peter Brown. Cinematography: Chris Stover. Production design: Raymond Zibach. Film editing: Mary Blee. Music: Kris Bowers.