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| marantzo |
 Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:37 am |
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James Baldwin was a colossal asshole. I met him in Paris when I was with the crowd that set up the event to celebrate the March On Washington which took place that day. We were all in a two floor club of some kind. Piano and drinks and a lot of famous people who lived in Paris. I went with my friend Buttercup Powell and another friend who was the daughter of an American author of Western books (can't remember his name). James Jones was there and I had a nice conversation with him. He knew the woman's father who was an author. Hazel Scott was at the piano (with one of her hands in a cast) and played and sang and I had a lot of fun with her and Buttercup, listening to some funny stories. Then Baldwin showed up with a team of British cameramen who were filming some kind of documentary about him. He pranced around for a very short time. Never talked to anyone and left quickly. Buttercup and Hazel greeted him when he came in, but he never said anything back. He was completely involved with himself. Jones never bothered to even say hello. He obviously knew him well. After Baldwin left, the crowd, (mostly Black) were disgusted with his attitude and called him a lot of very bad names. This was a tribute to MLK and the March On Washington and he didn't seem to give a damn.
He was a class A jerk! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:34 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote: In Carmen Jones she is amazing--sexy, vivacious, sexy, evil, and sexy--and does one of the best jobs of lip-synching I've ever seen.
Agree.
She's sexy as well.
Let me know what you think of Teddy Bear.
There's a lot to like there.
Some of the ambiguities worked well for me.
And if it's available be sure to check out the short film Dennis (18 mins) which was the precursor to Teddy Bear. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:42 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Got an interesting Dvd haul today:
Night Across the Street (2012) - Raul Ruiz's final film.
One of the great unknown filmmakers
Pablo (2012) - a doc about "famously unknown" Pablo Ferri who designed lots of trailers and opening sequences for films, including Dr. Strangelove.
Bert Stern -- Original Mad Man -- A doc on the photographer BS
and a 60's portmanteau film Love in the City.
There was another Film Movement film with an ethnic cultural mismatch. Foreign Letters, I think it was called, in which an Israeli girl befriends a Vietnamese girl. I would have picked it up but the disc had a large scratch on it. Vietnam and Israel makes for an odd pairing -- and oddly two countries with a close connection to the US over the last half century.
Is anyone familiar with Mud a recent film, or Yelling at the Sky?
Saw those around but didn't know anything about them. |
Last edited by gromit on Fri Aug 30, 2013 2:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:59 pm |
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| I haven't seen Mud, but it had a lot of favourable reviews. I was going to see it but it was gone the week I planned to see it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Gary--Always had the feeling Baldwin was what you said. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 5:58 pm |
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| Your feeling was correct Billy. I didn't know much about about him, though when I heard or saw him on some short interviews he seemed egotistical, which a lot of authors are, but they are usually quite personable. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Oh, whatever. Baldwin may or may not be that. I don't think one evening when he's occupied by a camera crew filming him is the best evidence on which to judge him. And it doesn't matter anyway, as he's one of the best novelists and essayists America has produced, and that's what people will or won't remember him for. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 6:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Joe is right in the long run, of course. Ernest Hemingway was by all accounts a jerk and worse, and Charles Dickens was apparently a true horror. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 6:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Finished watching Teddy Bear. A strange, unique, and truly lovely little movie, one worth anyone's time. It had us both lilterally applauding some of the plot turns in the privacy of our living room.
Btw, the movie employs one coincidence to further the story, but as opposed to Woody Allen's ham-handed "Andrew Dice Clay just happens to be walking past a jewelry store in Manhattan" moment, this one is believable, since the action of Teddy Bear takes place in a very small city and the coincidental meet-up is in a shopping mall. It's the difference between "could occur" (unacceptable in drama) and "might very well occur." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 4:08 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Floating Clouds: Two lovers return from Japanese-occupied Indochina, he to his wife and she to, well, a place where she really doesn't have a purpose. The two are repeatedly drawn together and separated until I wanted someone to conk them on their heads and send them to Siberia and Patagonia, respectively. This is Naruse's most highly regarded film but I found it more to be an interminable soap opera. Hideko Takamine, who I liked so much in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is good except when she starts wailing.
I think this film would have worked at about 90 minutes, but at over two hours, I just had to say enough already. [This film is very highly regarded in Japan, so go figure.] |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 4:47 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Dickens was a dick?
Danes need to go to Thailand to find women? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 6:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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bartist wrote:
Danes need to go to Thailand to find women?
I assume you're just being snarky. This is a specific character and a superb character study with an indelible performance by heavily tattooed champion bodybuilder Kim Kold. I deeply recommend it. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 12:35 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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Gromit....see Mud. It's got an atmospheric deep south. Matthew McConahey has never been better.
Gary...what a memory you've got and always in places where things are happening. In the summer of '64 I was living in NYC and checking out a James Baldwin book from the public library.
Joe...I agree..we don't know people from one encounter. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 1:01 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Gromit, what she said. Kudzu will start growing up your leg as you watch.
Weeds - me? snarky? No, really, I plan to rent it.
Gary, not surprised by your anecdote of Baldwin. My uncle heard him read and said something like, "He seems to believe every good thing that's been said about him." One of those major potholes on the road of fame, seems like. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Today TCM is running Hitchcock movies, and this morning they showed "Murder"--circa 1930, I think, starring Herbert Marshall as a distinguished actor who is on the jury of a woman who is convicted of a murder she doesn't remember committing. He becomes doubtful of her guilt and starts looking into the theatrical group to which she and the victim belonged, and tracks down the real killer in time to prevent the actress's execution. It's a very good little murder mystery, if you can get past the improbability of a woman being sentenced to death on such flimsy evidence and without much effort by the police to find any other suspects.
I also saw "Spellbound" for the first time--I could have sworn I'd seen it before, but had it mixed up with some other movie. It's terrific. |
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