Movie review in 75 words or less: "The Purple Rose of Cairo"

Not quite a great film, per se, but still just about a perfect movie. A square-jawed explorer in a 1930s studio comedy becomes smitten with a woman in the audience and magically steps off the screen to meet her. This sparks problems for the other characters, for the theater owner and his patrons, for the up-and-coming actor who plays him and, most of all, for the object of his affections -- a bullied and beaten-down naif who uses the movies to escape both of her depressions. Woody Allen's funniest and most successfully realized supernatural riff works on a variety of levels, most importantly in the way it celebrates the power of fantasy but also subverts it. The ending is like a terrible punch to the heart, not softened in the least by its obvious inevitability.

Movie review in 75 words or less: "Duel in the Sun"

Q: What would happen if “Gone with the Wind” overdosed on Spanish Fly and wandered into the desert? A: This, which is a Technicolor fever dream from David O. Selznick’s speed-addled memo pad. Jennifer Jones comes between saint (Joseph Cotton) and his cruel brother (Gregory Peck, eons from Atticus Finch). Jones is frequently shown scrubbing floors on all fours, boasting of her bareback prowess or literally writhing with sexual frustration. Her mind-boggling changes of, um, heart make this much more fun than it might’ve been, as does Lionel Barrymore’s snickering, racist patriarch.

Movie review in 75 words or less: "Day for Night"

Low-key, amiable behind-the-scenes pastry from Francois Truffaut about a film's clumsy production. Props go awry, actors flake out, love is won, lost, teased. Truffaut directs onscreen and off. Amusing but neither the fictional film nor the general article amount to a lot (Wes Anderson’s homage covers almost as much material in two minutes). Most absorbing when it depicts just how hard moviemaking is (Valentina Cortese’s breakdown is excruciating; a problem with a kitten, hilarious).

Movie review in 75 words or less: "Crank"

As close as you can get to a live-action Popeye cartoon – poisoned hitman Jason Statham has to keep his adrenaline flowing full-stop as he searches for an antidote or he'll die. Cartoon violence galore, but frequently witty and has fleeting moments (like, two) of actual sweetness. Sounds like a splitting headache and almost is, but utterly sold me on its crazed premise and bizarre worldview. Also does its thing and wraps it up in one hour, twenty.

One month later?

May was busy. Sorry, silent masses.

Pieces of the weekend

Spotted early, early Sunday morning while watering grass: A 40-something dude in gargoyles and a pick-up truck, windows rolled down, cranking The Marshall Tucker Band at a volume usually reserved on car stereos for music with a vocoder and a bumpin' bass. And it would've been funny and kind of cool, too, if he hadn't been singing along at a similar volume, sounding like a cat getting a pedicure. Where was he going? Home Depot? Famous Anthony's? Fishing? Into a Larry Brown short story?

Yesterday: My car sat under a thick layer of green dust, making me think of comic book villains, Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy. When I ran El Honda through a car wash it dawned on me that I hadn't washed it all winter, rock salt or not. This morning my blue Civic was just as green as it had been the night before.

Housecleaning: Takes me forever because I find so much stuff to look at -- I can get distracted just looking thru the register of an old checkbook. I created more files yesterday -- business papers colated and categorized; snippets of scripts and short stories corraled; countless notes and postcards from Truck finally tucked away in one place so I can avoid stepping on a landmine every other month or so; clippings from magazines and newspapers archived.

Things I found I thought had been lost: My map of America; a bootleg of a '68 Who show at the Fillmore West; the third arrow for my crossbow; a WSJ piece on John Kennedy Toole; the rejection letters for "Wave" and "Jones," which are hilarious and perhaps only slightly less wrong than I remembered.

Things I'd like to secure before the day is done: A new pair of jeans to replace the beloved old pair of jeans which developed a whole in, of all places, the crotch (not gonna happen); six pairs of extra-large (size 12-16) grey athletic socks (if the jeans don't happen, the socks ain't gonna happen either); a pizza from Bellachinos (shouldn't happen); some sunshine (it's right outside).

Final shot

A photograph of director Jean-Luc Godard, cinematographer Raoul Coutard, actor Jean Paul Belmondo and the passersby of Paris '59 during the filming of the final scene in "Breathless." (click on the photo for an enlarged version)

I've always liked candid shots of Godard working because he always directs in a nifty suit. He's doing that here but he's taken his necktie off. Thanks for my friend J-Sap for pointing that out.