Passages

[jbeall]

Holy shit. Can President Obama get a new Justice in before the elections?

You never know with this Senate. I mean, anybody Obama might nominate would be better than Scalia, but the GOP does control the Senate. If this had happened over the summer or fall, they'd almost certainly ride out the clock. I'll quote what one of my friends posted on facebook: "I think we can prepare to see every precedent regarding the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice ignored in favor of the type of repulsive childhood actions we've come to expect from the GOP."

[Donald Brown]

Construction of his special circle must have been an elaborate, lengthy project. It's finally complete; he's summoned home.

[doh286]

Tommy Kelly, best known for playing Tom Sawyer in 1938 film version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

[HelenLawson]

Vanity

[JamesF]

Vanity

Vanity starred in two of my favourite 1980s cinematic guilty pleasures, The Last Dragon and the indescribably bonkers (and frustratingly unavailable) Never Too Young To Die. She was also in a Larry Cohen film with Billy Dee Williams called Deadly Illusion that I've yet to see - will be correcting that soon though!

[Numero Trois]

Indie comics publisher and editor Alvin Buenaventura has passed at the age of forty.

[dx23]

George Gaynes

[McNulty]

Andrzej Zulawski

Just yesterday it was confirmed that Kino Lorber acquired US distribution for his first film in 15 years.

[beamish13]

Andrzej Zulawski

Just yesterday it was confirmed that Kino Lorber acquired US distribution for his first film in 15 years.

Holy shit, this is devastating. A huge retrospective of his works toured a few years ago, and it was an overwhelming experience to see films like On the Silver Globe, La Femme Publique and Szamanka in gorgeous 35mm prints. He was inarguably one of the finest directors of the past 50 years, and his loss is an enormous blow.

[MichaelB]

Arrow has just confirmed on Facebook that they've acquired Cosmos for the UK.

Which, insanely, will be only the third Żuławski film to get a proper commercial release in the UK - and the first new one in over thirty years.

[beamish13]

Arrow has just confirmed on Facebook that they've acquired Cosmos for the UK.

Which, insanely, will be only the third Żuławski film to get a proper commercial release in the UK - and the first new one in over thirty years.

Yeah, I believe COSMOS is his 3rd to get a North American release (after the recut POSSESSION and MY NIGHTS ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL...)

[colinr0380]

I’m afraid that I have barely explored Zulawski’s work as yet, but I get the impression that the wildly symmetrical and dualistic Possession is less an extreme outlier than a characteristic work! That scene with Isabelle Adjani freaking out in the underground station, smashing her eggs on the ground and letting loose a stream of milk in a blunt but apt metaphorical image, is still astonishing! It even got somewhat copied in a couple of later Japanese cyberpunk films, perhaps most obviously in √964 Pinocchio (Be warned though that both of those linked videos are probably NSFW and not really safe for anyone who doesn't like loud screaming and lots of vomit!)

I’m sure that Michael can speak to this better than I could, but was On The Silver Globe much of an influence on Hard To Be A God?

[thirtyframesasecond]

I’m afraid that I have barely explored Zulawski’s work as yet, but I get the impression that the wildly symmetrical and dualistic Possession is less an extreme outlier than a characteristic work! That scene with Isabelle Adjani freaking out in the underground station, smashing her eggs on the ground and letting loose a stream of milk in a blunt but apt metaphorical image, is still astonishing! It even got somewhat copied in a couple of later Japanese cyberpunk films, perhaps most obviously in √964 Pinocchio (Be warned though that both of those linked videos are probably NSFW and not really safe for anyone who doesn't like loud screaming and lots of vomit!)

I’m sure that Michael can speak to this better than I could, but was On The Silver Globe much of an influence on Hard To Be A God?

Possession is one of my favourite films and I always have to be very careful when saying that to people in case they think I mean the A.S. Byatt adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow!

I've got On The Silver Globe on DVD - I think it's the POLART release. It's not a great DVD to be honest so the films deserves better distribution. And obviously the film was censored and production halted, so it's not really complete either. I saw The Devil ages back too and my memory of it's not great so I'll watch this again too.

I think the word to describe Zulawski's work is 'indescribable'.

[MichaelB]

The three 1970s Polish films have recently been restored and will hopefully come out on English-friendly BD somewhere, but I'm not sure where yet.

[gorgeousnothings]

Does anyone know if Possession actually has a R1 release in print? Amazon seems to be out of everything.

[antnield]

Harper Lee.

[swo17]

Does anyone know if Possession actually has a R1 release in print? Amazon seems to be out of everything.

The Mondo Vision releases are only available from the third-party seller Toufaan, which is just an alternative to buying them directly. I don't believe Amazon (or any other store) was ever allocated any copies to sell.

[Calvin]

Umberto Eco

A sad day indeed in the world of literature. The world in general really.

[Mr Sausage]

That's too bad. The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, for all their faults, are both very entertaining novels. The second half of The Island of the Day Before was often quite brilliant, too, enough so to make up for the turgid first half. Never did get around to his others.

This Is Not the End of the Book, a record of his conversations with Jean-Claude Carriere, Bunuel's long-time screenwriter, is packed full of great information and anecdotes. Eco was a capable raconteur. Recommended.

[colinr0380]

Umberto Eco also wrote a number of non-fiction books on linguistic symbols and meanings, or semiotics. Probably the last book he wrote on that, Kant and the Platypus in 1997, is the most widely available in English.

[jwd5275]

The Limits of Interpretation is a particularly good read if anyone is interested in his theories of semiotics and hermeneutics. It really is the philosophical framework from which Foucault's Pendulum sprung. Travels in Hyperreality is also great, if only for the piece on the Madonna Inn. I remember those bubbling stone waterfall urinals from when I was a kid.

[MichaelB]

Bruce Lacey, eccentric British performance artist and experimental filmmaker, a compilation of whose works was released by the BFI a few years ago.

[flyonthewall2983]

Piotr Grudzinski, of the Polish progressive rock band Riverside

[dadaistnun]

Douglas Slocombe

[thirtyframesasecond]

Douglas Slocombe

He worked on so many great films, especially the Ealing ones, but his work on The Fearless Vampire Killers deserves serious props.