Sunday, June 3, 2012

requiem


Is it any worthy approaching women I don’t like just because there are no approachable beautiful women at all in this city (or that’s what it seems to be happening for ages here)? Is it any worthy just to approach for the very sake of approaching, when it actually truthfully feels like an awfully hopeless warm-up to the nothingness of it all? Am I a Buñuel born a whole century before cinema was invented, the double of Casanova that proves Raskolnikov’s theory of two Napoleons: one the superman and the other just his mere useless excuse for a shadow?

Beauty is life, not a lie, and I’m so tired of breathing. I never even did that right.


P.S. Chelsea: you were my only muse, my only wish. Remember me. It was worthy.
P.P.S. I leave all my money to my mother, Rosa, and all my books to my sister Jackeline.

~Christian D.



Editor’s Note: These are the last words still known to have been said by the man who hanged himself at the corner of *** and *** Street, in this city with a very forgettable name. In our newspaper’s case, we endorse the opinion that a soul seemingly as sensitive as his couldn’t survive the dreadful atmosphere created by the competition and their utterly unfair advantage over our much better sense of journalism any longer. We salute this man of our time, this lost samurai, this Quixote who betrayed himself and fell, his own Judas and savior. Rest in peace, at last away from the paranoia of all the security guards and the angry boyfriends of the very few and very gorgeous ladies you were able to know in your wasted existence, away from the so cruelly ugly women you couldn’t touch with a mile-stick and yet did with your idealistic imagination and compassion --a holy fool’s tragic soberness. Kudos, (high-fives), hats off to your doing of the things we guys everywhere usually can only dream of doing when we have the fine taste of even thinking about it --and no, I’m not talking of your approaches done out of existential defiance, let alone the ones that occurred out of your metaphysical, almost divine desperation. It’s game over, but you were a real artist, and your legacy will live on wherever and whenever beauty and women go together. (H.H.)

June 2, 2012

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD CHALLENGE



01- Five films you’d pick as the TCM Guest Programmer
Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
The Philadelphia Story (George Cuckor, 1940)
The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931)
Baby Face (Alfred E. Green, 1933)
  
 02- Film that got you interested in Old Hollywood
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) and From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)
  
 03- Favorite Actor
Marlon Brando 

04- Favorite Actress
Greta Garbo
  
05- Actor or Actress you think is underrated
Debbie Reynolds

06- Favorite movie from your favorite Actor
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
  
07- Favorite movie from your favorite Actress
Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939) 

08- Favorite Old Hollywood couple
Cary Grant & Randolph Scott 

09- Old Hollywood stars you wish had worked together
Peter Lorre & Lillian Gish
  
10- Favorite movie
Out of the Past (Jacques Torneur, 1947)
  
11- Team Bette or Team Joan
Team Joan 

12- Favorite Barrymore
Ethel 

13- Classic movie you just couldn’t get into
Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954)
  
14- A legend everyone appreciates, but you can’t personally stand
Currently, Dolores del Río
  
15- An Actor or Actress you’ve been meaning to give a chance, but haven’t gotten around to it yet
George Raft --Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) and Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) aside
  
16- Favorite director
Elia Kazan 

17- Favorite line from a film
"This is Eddie Bartlett. He used to be a big shot."
  
18- Actor or Actress who should have won an Oscar
Anthony Perkins 

19- Who’d you like to party it up with in the afterlife
Jean Harlow 

20- Favorite Silent film star
Lon Chaney 

21- Old Hollywood couple you’d watch a sex tape of
Next! xD
  
22- If you could go back in time and trade places with an Old Hollywood star, who would it be
Fred Astaire

23- A film you think is underrated
Vengeance Valley (Richard Thorpe, 1951) 

24- Favorite film from Hollywood’s greatest year, 1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra) 

25- Which character from a film do you fantasize about being
Van Heflin as David Sutton from Possessed (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947)
  
26- Which unsolved scandal would you most like the answer to
Robert Wagner's freedom 

27- Who’s death hit you the hardest and why
Brando's. I must be his biggest fan. 

28- A movie you never expected yourself to enjoy
Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953)
  
29- Who’s private lifestyle shocked you the most
Rin Tin Tin 

30- Which 5 Old Hollywood stars would you invite to dinner
Charlie Chaplin
Maureen O'Sullivan
Joan Blondell
James Cagney
Natalie Wood

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Year of the Dragon Movie Poster


This poster conveys so much of the Cimino/Rourke classic it represents with so little, with so precise and bold simplicity. Much, much, much more than the tagline (rather cliche), it is the image (from the climactic scene, and the Chinese letters) which made this poster a memorable one.