HAPPY BIRTHDAY Noah!

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Photos by Yale Cohen:

Jane & Sr. Zuercher

Ruby & Jake

Great Movies according to Pupazul

Movies I like:

A Face in the Crowd 

(with guitar pickin' Andy Griffith;  Explains why I hate 'folksy wisdom')

Ace in the Hole 

by Billy Wilder

(with megalo-maniacal journalist Kirk Douglas)

Blues in the Night 

(starring hyper-activated Elia Kazan)

Ushpizin 

(an Israeli odd-couple movie which warms our hearts to the Orthodox)

Tristam Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story 

by Michael Winterbottom

 (A great movie about making a movie)

24 Hour Party People 

by Michael Winterbottom

(A rock bio-pic that won't leave you bored or embarrased)

Cassandra's Dream 

by Woody Allen

(Underrated film starring Colin Farrell as the paranoid brother)

Laura 

by Otto Preminger

(A real freaker) 

Sunset Boulevard 

by Billy Wilder

(Wow, Buster Keaton at the card table!)

Bullitt 

(Long cars jumping off Mason Street in San Francisco)

Old Joy 

(with Will Oldham)

Spirited Away 

(escape to an anime schvitz)

The Wild Blue Yonder

by Werner Herzog

 (Herzog might put you to sleep, but the dream starts when you're still awake)

California Split

by Robert Altman

 (From a time when sweaty/hairy Elliot Gould was king)

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill 

(San Fransico in full color)

The Lady Vanishes 

by Alfred Hitchcock

(Hitchcock on a train with cast in full British smarm)

Days of Heaven 

by Terrence Malick

(more trains, dust, fields, and the American west)

Thin Red Line

by Terrence Malick

(Best WWII picture)

Bad Santa (Funny)

Christmas in July  

by Preston Sturges

(A young clerk is driven by the dream to rise from the office pool.  Preston Sturges is king of comedy.)

The Sin of Harold Diddlebock 

by Preston Sturges

(Harold Lloyd in a talkie.  There's a lion on the fire-escape.  Goofy as hell.)

Sullivan's Travels

by Preston Sturges

(A man's quest to write the great American movie called, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.")

Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind 

by Steven Spielberg

(A family-man follows his irrational obsession to the end).

The Long Voyage Home 

(One of my favorite movies.  A Euguene O'neill nautical voyage that ends where it starts.  Full of booze, chantys, native girls, loathing, and rigid fate.)

Lifeboat 

by Alfred Hitchcock

(Hitchcock + several strangers + fear + a small boat).

Veronika Voss 

by Rainer Werner Fassbinder 

(Someone stop this incessant rain.)

The Fortune Cookie 

by Billy Wilder

(Walter Mathau takes advantage of the situation)

Fail Safe 

(Dr. Strangelove not played for laughs)

The Day the Earth Stood Still 

(The real one.  "Klaatu Barada Nikto.")

Anatomy of a Murder 

by Otto Preminger

(For those in the Lee Remick fan club).

Experiment in Terror 

by Blake Edwards

(San Francisco noir starring Lee Remick)

Ladykillers 

by the Coen Brothers

(Only the Coen Brothers seem interested in making a polished movie about the contemporary American South.  Features actual gospel music.)

Gosford Park

by Robert Altman

(Many rooms)

Mystery Train 

by Jim Jarmusch (Sure, why not.  I'm cool, right?)

Billy Budd

by Peter Ustinov

(Nautical adventure)

Monkey Business

(Marx Brothers:

Margaret Dumont:  "Was that an innuendo?  I'll call the captain!"

Groucho:  "Ahh!  So love goes out the door when money comes innuendo!")

Limbo

by John Sayles

(What?)

What's New Pussycat

(O'toole + Sellers + Allen)

Dr. Strangelove

by Stanley Kubrick

(.)

Children of Men

(real apocalypse)

Waking Life

by Richard Linklater

(real dreaming)

Last Orders

(The british do it better)

Wonder Boys

(Better than the book).

Stardust Memories

by Woody Allen

(film school was right)

Honeysuckle Rose

(100% Willie)

Downtown 81

(New York in the 80s.  Real music.)

Saturday Night Fever

( "I work hard on my hair, and you're always hitting it.")

Footloose, Flashdance, etc.

("You mean it's illegal to dance in this town?")

Clambake

(Elvis on a boat, in the garage, in the lobby, at a clambake, and in the lab working on a secret potion)

The Harder They Come

(Johnny Too Bad)

HELP!

(Beatles: In color, without beards, playing their best music)

ROCKERS!

(Dub reggae's answer to 'The Harder They Come')

The Last Picture Show 

by Peter Bogdanavich

Texasville 

by Peter Bogdanavich

("When are you going to wear a shirt that I don't have to read?")

In Bruges

(More sweaty crying Colin Farrell)

Purple Rain

("Ready Wendy?  

Ready Lisa? 

OK.")

From Here To Eternity

(Monty Clift fan club + Hawaiian shirts in full glare).

The Misfits

(Montgomery's first movie after the accident;  Clark Gable's last; & Arthur Miller wrote it for his ex-wife Marilyn Monroe whose movie it was her last, as well).

Sabrina

(The original with Audrey Hepburn, Bogart, and William Holden).

Atomic Cafe

(The cold war as it really was)

F is for Fake

by Orson Welles

(One of my favorite movies)

Beat the Devil

by John Huston

(More of an idea than a movie.  Truman Capote wrote a movie as it was being filmed in a small coastal town in Mexico.  Bogart and Peter Lorre do their thing.  Certainly, some cases of Scotch and Gin were involved).

Matewan

by John Sayles

(Will Oldham as the boy preacher)

Raising Arizona

by the Coen Brothers

Bad News Bears

(It's still funny to see drunken Walter Mathau throw half-empty Schlitz tall-boys at cursing racist kids).

Salesmen, Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter

by the Maysles Brothers.  

(Cinema Verite)

Barton Fink

by the Coen Brothers

(Old Hollywood)

Putney Swope

Rope 

by Alfred Hitchcock

(One night in a New York apartment in one long shot)

Russian Ark

(History of Russia in the 19th century in one long shot).

Gods & Monsters

(Old hollywood.  The only one on this list with Brendan Fraser)

The Hunt for Red October

(I remember loving it as a kid)

On the Beach

("There is still time, brother!"  As, the world ends.)

I Vitelloni 

(Italian movie coming-of-age movie upon-which 'Diner' was based)

Diner

by Barry Levinson

A Home at the End of the World

(Based on a book by Michael Cunningham.  About friendship and tragedy coming out of the suburbs.  For people who liked 'The Virgin Suicides.')

The Swimmer

(Burt Lancaster swims his way across the pools of affluent Connecticut.  Man driven to fulfill an obsession (definitely a theme in this list).  Gives you something to think about as you roll down the Merritt Parkway).

Le Mepris (Contempt)

by Jean Luc Goddard

(The real Fritz Lang tries to direct a movie produced by loutish American producer Jack Palance, who nonchalantly seeks to steal fine, fine Brigitte Bardot from a nebbish, chain smoking Frenchmen.)

Happy Pesach 2009!

Stay away from that golden calf,

lest ye be found wanton!

(And a few prunes after the seder don't hurt either).

Early April