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Showing posts from August, 2009

LANDMARK THEATERS UPDATE: A RAY OF HOPE

So, I got an email that the Twin Cities Landmark Theaters were finally going to get something exciting-- Thirst , the new vampire movie by Park Chan Wook of Old Boy fame. But then I never heard anything in the weekly emails or the newsletter and started to suspect a bait and switch. We went to see Ponyo at the Edina 4 and didn't see anything about it there, either (not that it would be appropriate to see the trailer before a kids' movie, but there could've been a poster or something . . .) Dr. S kindly agreed to call up the theater, all prepared to chew them out, but lo and behold, they are having it after all on Sept. 18. I have to support them whenever they have something decent, so everybody out there who still goes to movies, try to go to Landmark whenever they have something that's actually foreign or different, but not when they're just showing something like I nglorious Basterds where you can see it at any old multiplex for less.

WOMEN IN, ON AND AROUND FILM

Over at the Bitch Blog , they were talking about female movie directors, so I had to make sure psychotronic faves like Stephanie Rothman and Doris Wishman were given their due. I hadn't known that one of my favorite female badasses, the Kill-Bill -influencing Dag from Bury Me An Angel (introduced to me by Dr. S ), was also a woman director's creation (should've known). Then I put in a word for the woman who started me on my movie-obsessed path, the fabulous Pauline Kael . She taught me to own my loves and hates and call 'em as I see 'em. Maybe some people wouldn't consider her a feminist icon because she didn't always like the "right" movies, but read her review of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore for some keen feminist insight. She totally terrified those guys in the movie boys' club. I mean, George Lucas named the villain in Willow after her! Here's Kael on the New Testament: Pasolini's The Gospel According To St. Mathew