The Del Mar

Here's a couple of photos of the lovely blue marquee of the Del Mar. Opened in 1939, it seated around 600 fine Los Angelinos before being shuttered as a movie theatre in the 1980s. It was vacant, used as a church, vacant, used as a photography studio and is currently a working recording studio. Don't hope for movies to return here, at some point the seats were taken out and concrete was poured in to level the flooring. Progress!

The Del Mar's marquee remains though and since it is pretty close to where I live, I'll likely be taking more photos of it--I didn't really like the way the light was reflecting off the marquee on the day I stopped to shoot it.

The Big Year

Make Believe

Damsels In Distress

Tabloid

Sheba, Baby

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon

Phase IV and its original ending

A few weeks ago I saw the 1974 Saul Bass science-fiction film Phase IV at Cinefamily. I love science-fiction and didn't think I had seen this movie about ants turning into a collective mass of killers, but early on I realized that I had seen this as a young kid and it had really freaked me out. I forgot the title, but I hadn't forgot a few of the scenes that were seared onto my delicate childhood imagination. I would have enjoyed just watching this lost movie from my youthful subconscious, but somehow the folks at Cinefamily found a long-rumored, barely seen ending of the movie that the studio had forced out of Saul Bass' sole directorial effort. Evidently, this sequence's existence has just been a rumor for a long time, but on this night, rumor became reality. 

So, after we watched the movie and took a break, we watched the intended ending and it was an absolute mindblower of a montage. It is a three or four minute sequence that is full-on 1970s tripped out weirdness that is proof of how criminally wrong the nitwits at Paramount were to not include as the ending of the movie. Maybe it wouldn't have been a flop had they included this ending? It is so good that Cinefamily immediately re-threaded the film print and the bulk of the audience watched it in silent reverence a second time! I wrote a short typewriter review of Phase IV after I saw it, but felt I should say a little more about it--hence this paragraph + the review below. News of this unearthing spread like wildfire to film geeks on the internet--google "original ending phase iv" for more articles about the screening. 

SJ reviews Beasts of the Southern Wild

SJ and I saw the new American film Beasts of the Southern Wild on July 4th and she liked it so much she wanted to write a typewriter review of it. It's been sweeping awards at various film festivals--Golden Camera at Cannes as well as winning best film at Los Angeles, Seattle and Sundance film festivals--and director Benh Zeitlin's imaginative and ambitious film is going to be much talked about throughout the awards season. Here's the poster and SJ's typewriter review of Beasts of the Southern Wild: 

Herb & Dorothy

[didn't get to finish my typewriter review--here's the rest of what I wanted to write]...their devotion to the art and artists they supported is incredibly loyal and genuine.

Your Sister's Sister

June movies

June was a good month for movies. I started out in Seattle for eight films at SIFF which I wrote about in a post a few weeks ago. The rest of the month saw me really watching a lot of documentaries--ten for the month in total. SJ and I saw four films at the Los Angeles Film Festival [post soon with details on that] and I saw a group of good new releases [Killer Joe, Safety Not Guaranteed, Your Sister's Sister] and one disappointing new film [Prometheus]. Seeing Tootsie with a full house at the Orpheum with Dabney Coleman killing the pre-screening Q and A was another highlight of the month. Here's the full list:

Best Intentions---2011---romania   **
Coteau Rouge---2011---canada   ***
Earthbound---2011---ireland   ***
We Are Legion: The Story of the Hackivists---2012---usa   ****
Kryptonite!---2011---italy   ***1/2
The Mexican Suitcase---2012---usa   ***1/2
Romancing Into Thin Air---2011---hong kong   ***
Rent-A-Cat---2011---japan    ****
Tootsie---1982---usa    *****!
Big---1988---usa    ****
Prometheus---2012---usa   ***
Into the Wind---2010---usa   ***1/2
Risky Business---1983---usa   ***1/2
Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times---2011---usa   ***1/2
Killer Joe---2012---usa   ***1/2
A Band Called Death---2012---usa   ***1/2
The Iran Job---2012---usa   ***1/2
Safety Not Guaranteed---2012---usa   ****
Beauty Is Embarrassing---2012---usa   ****
Your Sister's Sister---2012---usa   ***1/2
Phase IV---1974---usa   ***1/2
I Knew It Was You---2009---usa   ***1/2
Card Subject to Change---2011---usa   **1/2
The People Vs. George Lucas---2010---usa   ***