I'm assuming anyone within reach of LA already knows about this, but it bears mentioning nonetheless. The American Cinematheque kicks off a 17-film Bava retrospective tonight with a double feature of BLACK SUNDAY and BLACK SABBATH. It's been far too long since I last visited the Egyptian, and events like this really make me wish I lived close enough to become a regular.

Mario Bava: Poems of Love and Death

It's gonna be great, but please note that it actually starts next Thursday, on March 13th, so nobody should jump into their cars to speed down there tonight, or they'll be seeing a program of this year's Oscar-nominated short films. This weekend they're showing a 70MM print of 2001.

Oops. Apparently I managed to stare right at the dates on the Cinematheque webpage, and somehow think the 13th was today. I think I'm getting a bit punchy after spending 25 hours at the office over the past two days.

They will also be auctioning off several copies of my book MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK at the screenings, so if it's something you want but haven't been able to afford, here's your chance to maybe score one for the price of a movie ticket.

Bring your own wheelbarrow.












That NEVER gets old.

Yeah! What right have they to cram a bunch of those books inside a movie theater, of all places? People might want to be able to see the screen, ya know! ;)

Wheelbarrows are timeless.

ask William Carlos Williams

"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow"


Hopefully The 'gyptian'll have a wheelbarrow rack next to the bike rack.

I may just modify my kayak, install a wheelbarrow inside, and come from Olympia, WA through the Juan de Fuca Straights via Puget Sound down the Pacific Coast to Hollywood in order to bid on the scribe Lucas' Bava Tome.

A friend of mine who is just now dabbling in euro-horror asked if I wanted to go to tonight's screening of "5 DOLLS' at the Egyptian. I agreed as I haven't seen it in a while. It was a pretty good print and the audience (a very good turn-out) enjoyed the film immensley. I know quite a bit of the film is campy and amusing, of course, but some of the audience's guffaw-laughter during the glass-ball rolling sequence, for example, was kind of annoying. Exactly what's so funny here? I guess mainstream audiences have to look for somethng to laugh at in practically everything. In any event, it was a fun screening overall and it appeared that some virgin viewers to Bava really liked the vibe and will probably check out some of the next films on the schedule.

Tim, they mentioned your book nicely and hyped it up. Viewers can enter to win a copy of your book over the two weeks of the screenings or if someone becomes a deluxe Cinematheque Member, they get the book for free (as supplies last or something like that) - I have the book so I wasn't paying that much attention, sorry! I do know it was a very limited amount of the book for giveaway promotion purposes and that makes total sense considering its value. It would have been cool if Chris D. could have held up an actual copy of the book to show its mass an size, but he descrbed it pretty well and I saw a few people in the audience suddenly start to fill in their entry form as soon as he mentioned it's thickness and retail value! The Cinematheque is apparently also going to be giving away some of the Anchor Bay Bava DVD sets as well.

I didn't stay for BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and I'm not sure if I'll be going to any others this coming week unfortunately. Elke Sommer did cancel her appearance for the "Lisa" screening (bummer), because that would have been really cool. I do hope to check out DIABOLIK and PLANET next Thursday, though, if schedule permits.

A few years back (and maybe as many as ten), some scholar wrote a book about the distinctly American strain of discomfort/self-consciousness that results in grandstanding shows of bravado or the need to diminish the impact of almost every form of stimulus with derisive laughter. It's not a distinctly American problem but he found interesting particulars to the American brand... and I think the basic hypothesis is true. I don't think we talk enough about how fundamentally uncomfortable most people are in their own skin and the many annoying ways that go about denying that through "big" behavior.

When I used to live in New York, I once had five or six New Haven friends come into the city to visit. They were generally good people but the minute the stepped off the train at Grand Central they turned into absolute assholes... I couldn't believe the transformation as their volume got louder and their behavior unconscionable, laughing at every typically New York thing and even being somewhat insulting to vendors, homeless men or just passers-by. It was so transparently whistling past the graveyard, trying to show The City how tough they were so they couldn't be hurt by it.


Maybe I'm unusual. I can be a little enigmatic, I suppose. A woman with whom I was once intimate commented that I can laugh without smiling and cry without tears; while it's not literally true, I suppose there's truth in the remark, as my reactions to the world at large are generally inward-looking. I have a poker face, I suppose, but no interest in poker. On the other hand, I was the only one in the cinema to laugh out loud when Charles Durning told his henchman to kill Kermit the Frog in THE MUPPET MOVIE.

It's a funny old world, isn't it?

In addition to a lot of (Euro)Cult film audiences acting this way, I've also found the same type of behavior holds true whenever I see a Film Noir with an audience. These folks are unable, or unwilling, to put themselves into the time, place and mindset of the film, and a handful of them have to laugh derisively or guffaw at anything we would currently consider naive, inappropriate or anachronistic.

It's sad. :(

I was there for the 5 DOLLS screening and the laughter that popped up during the glass-ball sequence seemed kind of strange but it was also kind of an isolated moment during the movie. Well, maybe not entirely, but the nature of the movie does allow for a little bit of a response here and there. But fortunately, the audiences by and large over the past few nights have been surprisingly respectful and, as far as I can tell, receptive to the films. On Thursday for the BLACK SUNDAY/SABBATH double bill the large audience was almost shockingly quiet for the most part, especially during SUNDAY. I hope the crowds continue to show up for the festival.