starlite is for lovers

our starlite cinema series returns in february with a special valentine's program for you.

the first film of the evening will be bill forsyth's gregory's girl (1981). it's an old favorite of mine and one of the most genuine and smart films about adolescence i have ever seen. i wrote a bit about it here a few months ago if you'd like to take a look. it has a charm its american contemporaries could just never get right.

the second film in our double feature is going to be jean cocteau's beauty and the beast (1946).

it is cinematic magic of the highest order and one of only a handful of films that i truly think everyone ought to see. i am especially pleased to offer this one to you guys. it is a film i never tire of and i cannot think of a better way to see it than out under the stars with my friends.

the program will begin at 7 p.m. on friday, 2.18.11. the facebook event page is here if you would like to rsvp or get further details. if that's not an option for you and would like to attend just send me a note and i will make sure you get the particulars. we're looking forward to this one a great deal. hope you can make it out.

queue de grâce returns

the second installment of queue de grâce is on the horizon. ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for the...

the bar was set so incredibly high by miss chelsea george during apocalypse chelsea that i was afraid there would be the inevitable letdown. not to worry, though. our second guest programmer is a badass in her own right.

in case you missed it the first time around, here is how queue de grâce works: for one solid week i turn over complete control of my streaming netflix queue to someone. during that week (excluding visits to actual theaters) i will only watch content curated by one of you guys and report back daily as to how i am faring and give the good citizens of vitagraph, american the lowdown on your cinematic proclivities.

in the on-deck circle this time, we have cabby lawry. say, hello to cabby, everyone.

cabby hails from columbus, ohio these days and is the guiding light behind outloud columbus, a great resource for columbus' LGBT (and friends) community, providing an informal gathering place for folks to explore all aspects of LGBT culture and history via art, discussion and activism. she and i go back a lot of years together as veterans in the kitchen wars. having been in the trenches with her, i am well aware of her ingenuity and craftiness. hence, i am very excited about what she has in store for us. the attack of the cab monster begins on 2.1.11 and runs through 2.7.11. i guarantee a good time.

cover me

during the course of an average workday i see a lot of dvd cover art. when you see that many, patterns begin to emerge, threads start to develop. i am continually puzzled by one thing in particular - how can so much marketing budget be spent on such shoddy, lazy work? you know they have invested a great deal of time and money in figuring out just exactly what images are going to move the most units. by extension, these must be the images people truly respond to. in this recurring feature we're going to take a gander at just what it is the dvd buying public find most compelling.

today's installment - "it's an a-brah-mination!"

apparently, there is no quicker method of transport to wretched humiliation than surfing. we all know most surfing movies are horrible. that's a given. but are they satisfied with surfing being shorthand for "here's ninety minutes you'll never get back"? no. let's see. i don't think just the inclusion of surfing communicates how wacky things are about to get up in here. what's missing? i know! swords! quarterly reports! steel claws! rob schneider! all of that is ridiculous enough but leave it to giant jim belushi to take us past the point of no return. his shooting the curl on top of charles grodin's car in whatever shriner's parade they are in is just over the line. he might as well have slapped us in the face with his carefree abandon. and by that i mean his penis. his dreadful, not-half-as funny-as-his-brother's penis. cowabunga!

trailer tuesday

this week's entry is in honor of peter yates, whom we lost this week at the age of 81. i admired yates' work because it was never flashy. he built a solid and dependable machine. there are a number of notable films on his CV but my favorite is the friends of eddie coyle (1973). it is a minor key masterpiece of desperate, two-bit hoods filmed all over the grubbiest parts of massachusetts. i think it's beautiful.

starlite winter break

hey, gang. the latter half of january is full of work schedule changes, a skydiving trip and band business. as a result, starlite cinema is taking the month off. not to worry, though. we will be back in february with a valentine's program that will more than make up for our absence. until then, consider these alternatives to fill that starlite-shaped hole in your heart:

my beloved paramount theater is showing a doozy of a double feature on the 13th, 14th and 16th. for less than a sawbuck you get both out of the past (1947) and laura (1944), two of the finest from hollywood's golden age of film noir. twists, turns, crosses and double crosses. a man would do a lot of wrong things for a dame like jane greer. and by a man, i mean me.

also at the paramount this month is a pairing of james whale's frankenstein (1931) and abbott and costello meet frankenstein (1948). dracula and the wolf man also get in on the action to make it a monster bonanza! look for those shows on the 21st and 22nd.

if neither of those options is funky enough for you the alamo drafthouse has the cure. for music monday on the 17th they are showing james brown live at the boston garden (1968). this concert took place the day after martin luther king, jr. was killed. brown insisted the show must go on and others conceded that it might do more harm than good to cancel this concert in one of the few major metropolitan areas that wasn't rioting at the time. WGBH pitched in to broadcast it live, urging people to stay home, off the streets, and enjoy the show. the godfather puts on one of the best shows you'll ever see. just two bucks!

arthouse at the jones center also hosts special screenings. this month's offerings begin with tampopo (1985) on the 9th and include a couple of more experimental programs later in the month. these screenings are held in the arthouse community room and are free unless otherwise noted. here is their screening schedule.

and if you'd like to come see what it is that we do, musically, you can come to one of our shows at the end of the month. we are very excited to be helping our dear friend alexa woodward celebrate the release of her new record, "it's a good life honey if you don't grow weary". here is but one reason why you should come.

damn, i love that song. we will be with her in austin at the central presbyterian church (one of the best listening rooms in town, as it turns out) on the 27th, in huntsville on the 28th and nacogdoches on the 29th. if you can make it out we would love to see you.

sorry again about no starlite this month. believe me, it hurts me more than it hurts you. back soon with details about the february program.

i see a darkness

i was finally able to see debra granik's winter's bone (2010) this week and it surpassed my every expectation - damn high expectations, at that.

the story centers on ree dolly, a seventeen year-old girl living in southern missouri who is heroically raising her younger brother and sister amidst the wreckage of a culture decimated by poverty and the attendant epidemic of methamphetamine manufacture/addiction that follows swiftly on its heels. her near-catatonic mother is of no help in the daily struggle to keep the wolf from the door and her father, chief among the meth cookers, has jumped bail, leaving the family homestead at risk of seizure. ree has about a week to get her father into court or they will be turned out of their home. clock ticking, she sets out to find some answers.

now, when my dad was a much younger man, he knew one or two unsavory types. he was no criminal, but he probably had a weekend or two that ended with him picking parking lot gravel out of his face and he damn sure knew a couple of guys that you didn't ask a whole lot of questions of. because of this, very early on, he impressed upon me the importance of certain things - listen first and listen hard, mind your business and if you are not the man in the room who is willing to go further than everyone else you had best be able to quickly ascertain who is and keep a close eye on him. unfortunately for ree dolly, she doesn't have my old man around. she is forced to figure these things out on her own, working on instinct. complicating the matter is the fact that the nest of vipers she is forced to navigate is almost all family - suspicious, nefarious and potentially deadly family.

ree's circumstances are firmly, but economically, established immediately. the landscape is littered with remnants of someone else's consumption. it looks almost post-apocalyptic, as if those who remain are surviving with only with the cast-off provisions hastily left behind by those who were able to escape. most of the time the soundtrack consists only of scattered, distant rifle reports and the barking of scavenging dogs. with a simple trip through this backdrop to deliver her siblings to school, granik underlines ree's isolation with a trio of shots of her observing the activity in the school, all three of which she observes through the narrow windows of classroom doors. in every instance there is a barrier between her and what should be her normal, seventeen year-old life. in every instance we see her rigidly and narrowly framed, on the outside looking in. when she is the object of scrutiny her isolation is even more pronounced - the shifting gaze of every other character in her sphere cataloging her movements and conversations with sheriffs and bail bondsmen. more than once in the film she is handled almost like livestock, rough hands pulling her face close, examining her as if she were an animal they don't know what to do with. to a degree, it's true. her nobility makes her a rare breed among her kin, ancient and preternatural at once. she is operating on a plane they cannot hope to understand and it is precisely because of that that she makes it through her odyssey alive, one beating wiser, one beating tougher.

i can't say enough good things about jennifer lawrence's performance in this. what she communicates is powerful, especially so because she does it with such understatement. it is never too much, even though anyone facing these dire circumstances would have a right to be a little melodramatic. even when charged with the horrifying task of retrieving the evidence that will verify her father's death she is not hysterical, only very real. she imbues this character with a steadfastness and love that leaves you with no doubt that this child would walk straight into the mouth of hell to protect her brother and sister. she faces trials that would be terrifying to most adults and she does it without protest. if she asks for anything from these bastards it's only for a square deal. she never misses an opportunity to give the kids another lesson that will allow them to make their way in this world, another skill they are going to need to survive. she manages all this while demonstrating an innate understanding of when to observe and when to ignore the protocols that dictate the smallest interactions in this pocket of the ozarks. her heart is exhibit A for the important difference between resolve and resignation. and on top of all this, she goes toe to toe with john hawkes.

and he is not a man to be trifled with here. he plays her uncle, teardrop, brother to the missing father and he is the aforementioned man who is willing to go further than you. this makes him a sort of teacher also, though he administers lessons you hope you are never in a position to need to learn. he, too, understands and abides by certain codes and family is, without a doubt, at the center of those. it is that fact that eventually brings him to ree's aid in her hour of darkness. you watch the way this man and this girl dig into this deadly business and you know you are watching an old, old story. they are the two sides of humanity's oldest coin - blood money - and they invest this story with a such a grim understanding and deep acknowledgment of humanity's profound and ineluctable struggles and limitations that you feel as if it is almost detached in time.

as strong as the two central performances are, the success of this film rests on it being a truly ensemble piece, and i am not referring to just the cast. i mean that in the most inclusive sense because without granik and company's respectful and thoughtful interaction with the community, and the dedication, effort and friendship received in return, you would have no film. the work and care everyone put in is evident and granik never adopts a mocking or derisive tone. none of the principals give any indication of feeling they are above the material and that is crucial. without that, it wouldn't hold up. it would fail. as it stands, it resulted in one of the best things from 2010 and is evocative of the best part of ree's most complicated lesson to her brother and sister.

"never ask for what ought to be offered."

all atwitter

i have finally joined the fray and started a twitter feed for the blog. if you are so inclined, you can follow me here. i probably won't use it for a great deal but it's there just in case.

TWEET!

trailer tuesday

this week's entry is for one of we here at vitagraph's most anticipated films of 2011, terrence malick's luminous the tree of life (2011). can't wait for this one.