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- Sept 23. THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Harold Pinter at the Berlind. An ugly tale of two hoodlums breaking into a boarding house
to apprehend and torture a man who has fled from them for a year. Leaves an ugly taste in one's mouth.
- Sept 27. DODSWORTH (DVD) Film starring Walter Huston and Mary Astor. Dodsworth, egged on by his social climbing wife,
sells his motor car business to GM and retires to a life of idleness and luxury. He hates it and goes along with his wife's
plan of long visits to Europe. There she meets a series of playboys like David Niven, who are much more exciting than her
stay-at-home hubby. Leads to breakup but Dodsworth finds happiness in the arms of Mary Astor, a divorcee.
- Oct 4. THE THIN MAN, DVD, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. A 1934 mystery done with one-liner quips and tongue
in cheek. An inventive genius is bedeveled by relatives who want his money. He disappears and three others die. The police
think he is the murderer. Close, but no ring.
- Oct 5. THE LADY EVE, DVD, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Henry plays a rich idiot who lets Barbara run
rings around him. Absurd plot, eg, he falls for her a second time when she changes her personna to a British aristocrat. Earlier
he had rejected her as the daughter of a crooked card player on luxury liners.
- Oct 6. THE TIN DRUM (DVD), based on the book by Gunter Grass. Three year old boy, disgusted by adults, decides not to
grow up and to spend his life banging a drum. He survives the Nazis and WWII. Explicit scenes of sex and butchery, especially
when the Russians take Berlin. Not for the fainthearted.
- Oct 12. DIVA (DVD). French thriller about a mailman who loves opera and a famous diva, records a pirate disk of her singing,
and is pursued by the police, killers, and blackmailers. Exciting and unbelievable. The most suspenseful scene occurs when
he drives his motorbike into and out of the Paris subway without hitting or killing anyone. Absolutely impossible.
- Oct 14. La Gioconda at the Met Opera. Opera by Ponchielli; extremely melodramatic story set in Venice. Great performances
by Zeljko Lucic as Barnaba, a mean and nasty spy of the Inquisition, Violeta Urmana as La Gioconda, a street singer, and Olga
Borodina as Laura, the wife of Badoero, who loves Enzo, who is loved also by La Gioconda. Lots of opportunity for mistakes,
killings, etc.
- Oct 20. I'M ALL RIGHT JACK, DVD starring Ian Carmichael and Peter Sellers. Sellers became a star as a result of this film.
Great postwar British comedy, featuring crooked management and militant labor, both intent on reducing British competitiveness.
- Oct 21. TRANSLATIONS by Brian Friel at McCarter. In 1837 a British army survey group enters Donegal to map and translate
the Gaelic place names into English. The action centers around an Irish hedge school, where the locals are taught Gaelic,
Latin and Greek, but not English. One of the soldiers loves the country and its people, but makes the mistake of falling in
love with one of the local women. His death leads to complete destruction of the village. The Gaelic is rendered in English,
leading to reams of ridiculous dialog.
- Oct 27. THE THIRD MAN (DVD), starring Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles. One of the great English movies,
taken from a novel by Graham Greene, ever made. Harry (Welles) invites Martins (Cotten) to join him in postwar Vienna,
occupied by the 4 powers. As Martins arrives at Welles apartment Harry has just been killed in an auto accident. Just
the beginning of a beguiling mystery/thriller. Super mood setting and superb scenes of Vienna after the war. Unbelievably
good.
- Nov 21. TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE (DVD). A reclusive French composer, obsessed by his dead wife, lives in a chateau
with his two beautiful daughters. One day a talented young violist comes around. He is put down by the composer, but he captures
both of the girls. The elder gives birth, but he rejects her for a position in the French court. She lives a short,
unhappy life, while he becomes famous--and fat--at the court.
- Nov 30. THE SERPENTS'S EGG (DVD) by Ingmar Bergman. One of the most nihilistic of Bergman's films. In 1923 a trapeeze
artist loses his job in Berlin after his brother commits suicide. He is drawn into the frenzied activity of Berlin during
the great inflation. People are killed randomly in the street by thugs, often police. The papers are full of denunciations
of the jews. He is drawn unknowingly into illegal experiments with people. He can't sleep without becoming drunk. And this
is 10 years before the Nazis took over! Don't watch if you are squeamish.
- Dec 2. EMPIRE OF THE SUN (DVD) by Steven Spielberg. A spoiled English upper class boy living in pre-war Shanghai, loses
his parents in the confusion of the Japanese takeover. He hangs around his family home until the food runs out. When the servants
come back to seize the furniture, he shouts at them, and in one of the most satisfying episodes in the film, the Chinese woman
slaps his face. Later he meets some Americans and is interred with them in a camp for the duration. The film explores his
growth from a spoiled brat to someone who helps out the camp's most needy prisoners.
- Dec 3. Fellini's ROMA (VCR). Roman life in the thirties compared with life in the seventies. Contrast of the family-oriented
life with the sprawling, dangerous life after the war. Forgot that I saw this thirty odd years ago. Remembered it when they
show the subway drillers breaking into a 2000 year old Roman home with the magnificient fresco paintings that disappear in
minutes when exposed to the wet outside air.
- Dec 23. DON CARLO at the Met. Philip II of Spain didn't waste time worrying about his empire. Instead, he worried about
his wife, who seemed to be carrying on with his son Don Carlo. A cavalcade of great voices: Samuel Ramey as the Grand Inquisitor,
Rene Pape as Philip, Dmitri Hvorostrovsky as Rodrigo, and Olga Borodina as Princess Eboli. Marian almost passed away.
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