David Lynch spoke at Yale this week. “Oh that’s so chill! I wonder if he talked about Dune.” No. Yale let him yap about transcendental meditation. Patheti-sad. When we have world famous directors here (Scorsese, Waters, Coppola, Demme, etc.), we tell them what’s what and they like it. And they always talk about film and chicks.
And the Yale Film Series?! It only has 2 films a week. We have 4. Double the pleasure. Double the fun, you blue-blood hoity-toities. And their film facilities are super lame. Meanwhile, Yale students strut around acting like their film facilities are not super lame. Jack Reilly ’07 said it nearly best: “Yale…more like Pales in comparison to Wesleyan.”
I would have to advocate our Film Series instead. And I do so with more fervor than a Bruce Springsteen Wespeak writer. This isn’t just column filler. It’s truth.
FRIDAY (10/7): A CLOCKWORK ORANGE 8 p.m.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Starring Malcolm McDowell.
Originally rated X, for milk, Beethoven, eye paint, and sadistic rape, A Clockwork Orange didn’t make your grandmother’s Top 100, but it did make AFI’s (#46). See Kubrick splatter his id all over the big screen in this mega-classic.
Also, I better see this in next week’s Argus:
Public Safety Awareness Report
Friday Oct. 7th
A Lil’ Bit of the Ol’ Ultra violence- Olin Microfilm, Vegan Café
Public Safety observed a roving posse of Singin’ in the Rain-humming moral reprobates committing multiple acts of sodomy involving the nose.
SATURDAY (10/8) RAN 8 p.m. FREE
Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Jordan Schulkin says: “A septuagenarian samurai, more sinned against than sinning, strives to right a classic wrong. RAN is the most sumptuous war epic of our time. ”King Lear“ never looked so good.” Basically, King Lear as samurai via Kurosawa. Seeing a print of this film is a must. If the Almighty came glorious rainbows, this would be the palette it fell on. My favorite film on this side of the calendar.
WEDNESDAY (10/12) SIN CITY 8 p.m.
Directed by Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino. Starring Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Rutger Hauer.
Frank Miller’s graphic novel gets a significant frame expansion. “Sin City” is a rigorously faithful adaptation down to the triptych plot structure. “Sin City’s” look and feel is that of an anime/noir cross-pollination. The actors aren’t so much filmed as rendered in a dazzling comic/reality hybridization. The surreality of the proceedings allows “Sin City” to get away with bloody murder. There’s stuff here you can only imagine seeing in a grind house if at all: spurting limbs, detached viscera, Elijah Wood as a heterosexual.
It is a tad histrionic, but whatev. The most over-hyped, overwrought, just plain over film of last year still delivers the most jaw-dropping, visceral, eye-gouging bang for your buck in sublime 35mm.
THURSDAY (10/13) SINGING PICTURES: WOMEN PAINTERS OF NAYA 8 p.m. FREE, WITH DISCUSSION
Co-Directed by Akos Ostor, a Wesleyan professor, this elegant documentary on a singularly fascinating Indian art form has its Connecticut premiere. A Q&A with the directors will follow the screening. Come out and support your own, he would do the same for you.
AND COMING UP AFTER FALL BREAK…
WEDNESDAY (10/19) ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM 8 p.m.
Ken Lay to Enron employee: “Are you on crack? If you are that might explain a lot of things. If you aren’t, maybe you should be.” I think this question could better be addressed to the United States government: how could Enron become the seventh-largest corporation in America through creative swindling, doublespeak, and fleecing the everyman? Observe the real axis of evil in action. Marvel at how a government handle-cradles big business’ balls. Discover that when you run a county in a top-heavy manner it is bound to topple. Warts and all, see how the smartest guys in the room became the most diabolical.
THURSDAY (10/20) VIDEODROME 8pm FREE
Directed by David Cronenberg. Starring James Woods.
I am the Video World made Flesh. Long Live the New Flesh. I am James Woods, with a VCR in my stomach. Do you want to touch? It is my new orifice. Put something in there. Maybe Rainbow Brite: The Movie? I like it. It feels good. Come and atone for calling “History of Violence” a “Cronenberg film.” Make penance for waxing intellectual about that faux-arcane horse slop. Get the real goods.
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