(no subject)
Dec. 27th, 2004 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaAlthough I smugly avoid gift exchanges at this time of year, I am apparently not averse to buying a ton of presents for myself. After cutting a swath through eBay this week, I capped the year by buying myself about half the Criterion Collection DVD catalogue of films. And a good thing, too.
Because I spent most of the long weekend nursing a cold, eating leftover Chinese food, and watching all my favorite black-and-white movies.
I wonder if yall in the Younger Generation ever get to see these movies from the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s on a big screen? Do college film societies even show The Seventh Seal and Rashomon and Beauty and the Beast and Blood of a Poet? Breathless and L'Avventura, Rules of the Game? And the best of them all, Children of Paradise?
These movies were old when I hit college, but they were still radical--and they still are. Some of them I hadn't seen in years. And oh! I had forgotten (how could I have forgotten?) how good they are.
How extraordinarily beautiful black-and-white is.
How magical film can really be.
The opening credits of Beauty and the Beast alone are amazing. I watched them 3 times, enchanted.
So, what "vintage" films do they show on campuses these days? If it's Logan's Run and The Godfather, I will just go commit seppuku now.
* * *
The Internet is a marvelous engine of commerce. This weekend I also bought a clutch of new epiphytes, because in these dark days, both literal and metaphorical, one cannot have too many symbols about the house of benign symbiosis. (Benign, I said.) I stoically resisted the urge to buy some live Brown Recluse spiders, though I can think of several people who, were the world a righteous place, would get a little box of them by priority mail.
* * *
Having wandered happily among the online flora and fauna, I offer the following to the several Rats who dwell in LJ (and for the Rat Bastard as well: I know you are reading this, RB):
Fescue
Cactus
Because I spent most of the long weekend nursing a cold, eating leftover Chinese food, and watching all my favorite black-and-white movies.
I wonder if yall in the Younger Generation ever get to see these movies from the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s on a big screen? Do college film societies even show The Seventh Seal and Rashomon and Beauty and the Beast and Blood of a Poet? Breathless and L'Avventura, Rules of the Game? And the best of them all, Children of Paradise?
These movies were old when I hit college, but they were still radical--and they still are. Some of them I hadn't seen in years. And oh! I had forgotten (how could I have forgotten?) how good they are.
How extraordinarily beautiful black-and-white is.
How magical film can really be.
The opening credits of Beauty and the Beast alone are amazing. I watched them 3 times, enchanted.
So, what "vintage" films do they show on campuses these days? If it's Logan's Run and The Godfather, I will just go commit seppuku now.
* * *
The Internet is a marvelous engine of commerce. This weekend I also bought a clutch of new epiphytes, because in these dark days, both literal and metaphorical, one cannot have too many symbols about the house of benign symbiosis. (Benign, I said.) I stoically resisted the urge to buy some live Brown Recluse spiders, though I can think of several people who, were the world a righteous place, would get a little box of them by priority mail.
* * *
Having wandered happily among the online flora and fauna, I offer the following to the several Rats who dwell in LJ (and for the Rat Bastard as well: I know you are reading this, RB):
Fescue
Cactus
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-27 07:07 am (UTC)I don't know if that's the case now, particularly outside certain cinephile enclaves. I would hope so... though I wonder if people raised on post-MTV rapid editing would have the patience for long, meditative shots and a slower pace (though they'd probably still love Godard).
no subject
Date: 2004-12-27 09:48 am (UTC)I remember seeing most of those movies on the big screen long ago. I was tempted to say, "watchoo talkin" till I remembered, we live in New York. I bet people do see those ones. I mean Breathless and L'Avventure--those are from the era that's still hip.
What I wonder, in terms of old movies, is if people still watch the old fluff movies, just for fun, on the big screen. They do on the small screen -- hence TCM. But remember that late 60s-70s nostalgia that brough constant festivals of the Marx Bros and Fred and Ginger to local cinemas? *is happy*