IdyllopusPress Presents

Category: Cinema

  • Entertainment for the evening

    H.o.p. and Marty are spending the evening reviewing Hayao Miyazaki films. I’ve no clue what I’m up to. OK. I’m puzzling over the back of the “Seattle’s Best” cup, which reads, “It all began in 1970 on the Seattle waterfront with a desire to create a smoother cup of coffee and an old peanut roaster.”…

  • L’Eclisse

    I went to sleep running scenes from Antonioni’s “L’Eclisse” across her eyelids, then I fell into one and was startled awake.

  • “My Favorite Year”

    Marty and I are agog with amazement at the overtones in Peter O’Toole’s opening cough in “My Favorite Year”. We tried to duplicate but couldn’t.

  • "The Hole Story" is exactly that

    Yesterday, I put on Alex Karpovsky’s The Hole Story. I put it on despite the fact I was already expecting to not like it. I wasn’t in the mood for a mockumentary and Karpovsky’s plot sounded feeble. A director is looking for debut story in a mysterious hole that appears in the middle of an…

  • The 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (my few sundry notes)

    I watched “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” last night. The 1978 version. There are several notable parts that may work as keys to the rest of the film. And, if you don’t mind, in my descriptions I’m going to just use the actor’s names here rather than the names of the roles they play. –…

  • Cinema Moment via the iPhone

    Cinema Moment via the iPhone

  • The Cox Brothers as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

    I was watching William Sterling’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1972) and taking particular delight in the performances of Frank and Fred Cox as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, a very poor recording of which you can watch here. Their performances, the music and cinematography, in my opinion make for one of the more interesting scenes…

  • Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers

    About 9 years ago I did an interview with an individual who was in Daniel Boyd’s Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers! I was reminded of it because I was going through the Big Sofa site this past weekend, giving it a minor face lift (one that would let people know this was a…

  • Kubrick’s Lolita

    Kubrick’s Lolita

    In which James Mason and Shelley Winters beat Lucy and Dezi into the ground with baseball bats, then hop up and down upon their comedic graves Clare Quilty, the chair That I’d been directly immersed into the chaos of someone’s revealed dream is how I felt the first time I watched Humbert Humbert (James Mason)…

  • Masculine, Feminine

    (Originally placed online in 2000. Am migrating it over from another section of the website.) Whistling under the credits. MA SCU LIN FEMININ Sound of gunshots. 15 scenes Straight to Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the face (or one of them) of the French New Wave Cinema, a role he’d occupied since starring in Truffaut’s “400 Blows”…

  • Paths of Glory

    Paths of Glory

    (Originally placed online in 2000. Am migrating here from another part of the website.) Unusual for him to do while watching a film, about a quarter of the way through Paths of Glory my husband got up, went in and sat in front of the computer to check the email. I waited a moment then…

  • Sunset Boulevard and Cocteau's Orphee

    (Note: Originally placed online 2000. Am migrating it over here from another section of the website.) “I put him on the massage table in front of the fire. He always liked fires, and poking at them with a stick.”Norma Desmond–“Sunset Blvd” My son is two and a half years of age. He is standing in…