John Cassavetes Made Awful Movies

“Pauline Kael called Faces (1968) ‘dumb, crudely conceived, and badly performed.’ ‘Muddle-headed, pretentious, and interminable,’ was what John Simon had to say about A Woman Under the Influence (1974), while Stanley Kauffman called it ‘utterly without interest or merit.’ Variety jeered at Minnie and Moskowitz as ‘oppressive,’ ‘irritating,’ ‘shrill,’ ‘numbing,’ and ‘indulgent.’”

AND THEY WERE BEING KIND! I hate every movie John Cassavetes ever made and instantly know that someone has his head up his ass when he says he likes the movies of John Cassavetes.

“Among later generation critics, David Denby is still unconvinced that Cassavetes' work merits attention.”

Hurray for David Denby!

Movies Watched -- Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

135 minute running time so 40 minutes too long … who wants to decode another movie from creepy weirdo David Lynch? I guess this is a “prequel” to the Twin Peaks television series. Lynch is interested in surface normality (bucolic small town America and nuclear families) and hidden corruption and rot and terror, the dream world and the waking world, fantasy and reality. Serious and disturbing issues like sexual abuse leading to drug abuse and sexual promiscuity … he’s interested in this. He’s also interested in the relationship between women, the jealousy and competitive nature of female relations, this is a constant theme. He makes the same movie over and over and over.

Mullholland Drive is better than this because it’s more comprehensible, the story makes more sense in the context of the failed Hollywood starlet and her suicide.

I AM your best friend.

Bluebird American Express Prepaid Debit Account Member Agreement

I’m going to get one of these Bluebird cards as an experiment … it looks like the lowest-fee prepaid debit card out there.

18. Fees and Limits

The section below makes you go hmmmm:

19. Restricted Activities

4.  Purchase or sell, or facilitate the purchase or sale of, illegal goods or services (including, but not limited to:

• unlawful sexually oriented materials or services and

• counterfeit products),

• unlawful gambling activities,

• fraud,

• money laundering,

• the funding of terrorist organizations, or the

• unlawful purchase or sale of tobacco,

  • firearms,

  • prescription drugs, or

  • other controlled substances;

If you breach this Section 19 or permit others to do so or conduct (or attempt to conduct) any transactions that we believe are not permitted by this Agreement (such as one of the activities set forth above) or Applicable Law, we may, at our sole discretion and without waiving any of our rights, freeze, close, cancel, suspend, or limit your use of your Account, Subaccount, Bluebird card, Subaccount card, Goals  and/or Walmart Buck$TM balance.

Triumph TR4/4A Colors

Black

British Racing Green

Jasmine Yellow

Powder Blue

Royal Blue

Sebring White

Signal Red

Spa White

Triumph Racing Green

Valencia Blue

Wedgewood Blue

Movies Watched -- The Third Man (1949)

104 minute running time … zither music fairly maddening plus all the cockeyed angle camera shots, but this is a legitimate classic, a green-go, telling a story of post-war corruption in rubble-strewn Vienna, Orson Welles plays a good bad guy (like he did in The Stranger) … the final scene is perfect and apparently Carol Reed had to fight David Happy-Ending Selznick to get it made right.

Pity for dots that stop moving forever, old man?

Movies Watched -- The Matrix (1999)

136 minute running time so 30 minutes too long … cutey Keanu when he was young … turns into a John Woo style shoot ‘em up at the end … it’s not bad, it’s OK, everyone who likes action movies and sci-fi should probably see it. I’m sure many consider it a modern classic.

Spread ‘em

Zippo Armor Zippo Art Deco No. 24095

Black Ice… (link scrubbed, web exclusive lighter) … I like it… big art deco fan. Bought it.

Movies Watched -- Blue (1993)

In French. 93 minute running time … looked sort of promising in the beginning and Juliette Binoche is stunningly beautiful, but I got bored of it pretty fast and went to fast forward and can’t imagine watching the whole thing at normal speed. Another “Greatest Film of All Time” you can miss.

Do you have a cigarette? [Of course, it’s a French movie.]

Movies Watched -- The Red Shoes (1948)

135 minute running time so at least 35 minutes too long … Technicolor … probably popular with homosexuals (let me check if Farr liked it… yes, of course he recommended it, lol) and people who are into the theater and ballet, but I didn’t make it too far in before quitting. Another “Greatest Film of All Time” you can miss.

Why do you want to dance?

Movies Watched -- The Watermelon Woman (1996)

90 minute running time … amateur movie made by black lesbian with a shaved head … the story of Fae Richards looked interesting, but there wasn’t enough of it and I quickly quit watching this one. Clearly this is on The BFI Greatest Films of All Time list because it ticks the boxes of being a movie made by a black woman and a lesbian (a two for one deal!), but it doesn’t deserve to be on any list. It’s terrible how politics have invaded these lists… this is why it’s so important that I produce my own Greatest Films of All Time list that are truly great.