Lypsinka

But, what about Kamala's laptop and emails? (I'm kidding!)

Wow.

I saw on Criterion Channel a very good movie. I've been aware of it for decades and finally watched it. It's Peter Bogdanovich's first feature: TARGETS from 1968. Criterion is showing a good print. It's always fun to find a good movie that's you've known about, but didn't realize it was going to be that good.

It stars Boris Karloff and he's wonderful. According to Wikipedia it wasn't his last movie. It was shot in 1967. He died in 1969 in London. (Where Judy Garland died the same year.)

TARGETS on Criterion is part of a series they have right now called Hollywood Crack-Up: The Decade American Cinema Lost Its Mind. A very interesting series that includes IN COLD BLOOD, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and others you may not know.

Karloff was ill, and he kept working after this one, but not doing serious work like TARGETS. He just kept doing junk.

Bogdanovich is also an actor in the movie. I think he was attractive. His wife Polly Platt wrote the story with him and she was production designer. There are those who think it was a mistake for Bogdanovich to break up with her. They were a great team for a while. She worked on THE LAST PICTURE SHOW with him when he met Cybill S.

It's very amusing to see Bogdanovich and Karloff lying on a bed together. But the film IS meta-cinematic. Cinema wheels within cinema wheels. And it's obvious that Bogdanovich had studied Hitchcock. Perhaps the film deserved a more apocalyptic ending. But given its constraints, it's satisfying. Some people think Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD was his take on Bogdanovich's film, and there are parallels. I found this on Wikipedia, quoting Tarantino: "The most political movie Corman ever made since The Intruder. And forty years later it's still one of the strongest cries for gun control in American cinema. The film isn't a thriller with a social commentary buried inside of it (the normal Corman model), it's a social commentary with a thriller buried inside of it... It was one of the most powerful films of 1968 and one of the greatest directorial debuts of all time. And I believe the best film ever produced by Roger Corman."

If you don't have Criterion, you can see the movie here. And also below an interview with Polly Platt from 2005. She died in 2011.

https://archive.org/details/targets-1968-peter-bogdanovich

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/archive/interview/polly-platt/

And here's the Wikipedia entry about the film with more critiques. Don't read the plot before you see the movie!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targets

I saw FAYE. Enjoyable and interesting. I think Crawford was also alcoholic and bipolar. I wanted the movie to be longer. I wanted to hear more about the making of the movies. There's no mention of LITTLE BIG MAN, THE ARRANGEMENT, THE DEADLY TRAP (a film she made in Europe with Barbara Parkins), THE TOWERING INFERNO, VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, THE HANDMAID'S TALE, or the TV movies about Evita Peron or Aimee Semple McPherson. We see only glimpses of SUPERGIRL and the Musketeers movies. There's a nice section about PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD and Anne St. Marie who inspired the film. Dunawway mentions that she made a film with Mastroianni, but the docu doesn't say anything about the film. I think we see the title: A PLACE FOR LOVERS. Her son seems like a very nice guy.

"Say: liquid eyeliner!"

"LIQUID EYELINER!"

I watched the 1978 movie THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. I had never seen it and don't know how I missed it in '78. It's only okay. Franklin Schaffner was an ordinary dye-rector. The film needed the crazy visionary madness and the sense of humor of a Roman Polanski or Brian De Palma. It's a good thing I was able to watch it with closed captioning because otherwise I would have only been able to understand 50% of what hambone Laurence Olivier said. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see him with Uta Hagen (pictured here in the film, which is in color) and Anne Meara. Towards the end Olivier has a scene with another hambone - Gregory Peck, this time playing against his image. He's the villain. One timely and disturbing aspect of the movie - let's hope You-Know-Who is not literally cloned. He's already being cloned in other ways. THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL comes to a grinding halt at one point so a doctor, played by Bruno Ganz, can explain cloning. Michael Gough, Joan Crawford's co-star in BERSERK! and TROG has a small role. I saw the movie on Prime, but you can also see it here on Tubi. https://tubitv.com/movies/465163/the-boys-from-brazil

After the success of the movie WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? there were a few films that got made based on the fact that Sandy Dennis was now a movie name, and most of them are interesting: THE FOX (lesbianism), THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (directed by Robert Altman just before his success with MASH), UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (about the NY public school system and based on a successful, unusual book; the movie is more conventional), THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (an anxiety-ridden film about life in NY as seen by a couple from Ohio; it was to have been a monologue in the play Plaza Suite, and wisely cut; Sandy is funny in the movie) and this one THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH (aka A TOUCH OF LOVE). I'd been wanting to see it since 1969 when it was one of many new films listed in Parents Magazine in the Hazlehurst High School. I finally got my chance because it's playing because it's streaming on Watch TCM until July 30. It's good. The dye-rector Waris Hussein tamps down Sandy's tics and tendencies and she's very good. (Mike Nichols did not tamp them down in VIRGINIA WOOLF, but that was appropriate.) Sir Ian ("Serena") McKellen is handsome and charming. But the revelation was seeing Eleanor Bron playing a character that is not stylized. In HELP! and BEDAZZLED and WOMEN IN LOVE and TWO FOR THE ROAD she's stylized and unlikable, but she's very natural and charming and attractive in this one. Proof of her range. Pictured here with Sandy is Rachel Kempson, wife of Michael Redgrave and mother of Lynn and Vanessa. Lady Rachel is buried in New York State in Dutchess County near Lynn and granddaughter Natasha. Waris Hussein does a good job as dye-rector. He was primarily a TV dye-rector but he also had a period where he made feature films, including Shirley MacLaine and Perry King in THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY. On television he dye-rected LITTLE GLORIA...HAPPY AT LAST which means he had to wrestle with Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Glynis Johns, Maureen Stapleton and Christopher. He made the TV event DIVORCE HIS, DIVORCE HERS starring Liz and Dick. And Carrie Nye! Really good print of THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH on Watch TCM. Beautifully photographed. Not the usual Hollywood junk. It's too bad Hussein didn't get more feature work.

In other more interesting news, Renoir's excellent 1955 FRENCH CANCAN is on Watch TCM until August 12.

I watched this having never seen it. I thought I should since Herbert Ross dye-rected it and Buck Henry wrote it. It's a funny satire about Washington, DC and the media. That is, until it gets sentimental in that formulaic Hollywood way that some people in Hollywood want. And some of the public wants it too, I guess. Buck Henry did not always get his way. Herbert Ross (who I knew) was portrayed in FEUD: CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS as a gay man who married women. Interestingly, the gay characters in the movie are portrayed, if amusingly, as sympathetically. In 1984, mind you, as the Reagans were quivering over AIDS and g**s. Another reason I wanted to see it is because I also knew Mart Crowley (gay) who was friendly with Ross' first wife Nora Kaye, and the two of them went to Tunisia for part of the filming, got bored, and went elsewhere, probably Italy. Jean Smart is funny in a supporting part and it's always interesting to see Kenneth Mars. I recommend it, and you'll be cued by the music as to when the sentimental stuff begins. Cue: eyeroll. (It's not THE GO-BETWEEN.)

Shelley Duvall has died. One of her most under-rated films (with dye-rector Robert Altman) was THIEVES LIKE US, filmed in Mississippi. Here's the film. I knew a couple of the actors in it. Pauline Kael praised it, but it did little business.

Thieves Like Us (1974) : Robert Altman : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive When two men break out of prison, they join up with another and restart their criminal ways, robbing banks across the South.

Sandy Dennis in THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH (Brit film from 1969) is on Watch TCM until the end of this month.

An interesting movie on Watch TCM until August 1, THE WALKING STICK. It was not a success in 1970. Samantha Eggar and David Hemmings. I watched it because it's based on a novel by Winston Graham who wrote the novel MARNIE.

In case you missed THE GO-BETWEEN on Watch TCM, it's here at no cost. There will be commercials, but usually only about three of them.

The Go-Between (1971) Follow the romance between a woman of the aristocracy and a farmer, told through the eyes of the boy who is hired to deliver messages between the two.

You can see the camera operator's denim pants in this moment from NEW YORK, NEW YORK. The seat he's sitting on and the camera too.

Another interesting movie on Watch TCM is Summer Holiday. A flop at the time. Marilyn Maxwell was a star!

Sandy Dennis in The Out-of-Towners is on Watch TCM. Interesting movie. And I'm not really a N. Simon or Lemmon fan.

A favorite guilty pleasure. I'd love to be in this play.

A friend said, "Now they're nothing but politicians."

I watched SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY again. So good. Daniel Day Lewis is one of the child vandals. I'm pretty sure this is him.

Some reviews of LYPSINKA: TOXIC FEMININITY on Letterboxd. Film is streaming thru July 1. You can find it on my website. Spell Lypsinka correctly and you'll find the site.

Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity (2024) Award-winning actress and filmmaker Chloë Sevigny returns to the director’s chair bringing her own instinctual depth and glamor to the short film Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity, a singular work centering around downtown legend Lypsinka, the surrealist and iconic stage creation of John Epperson. Inhab...

I re-watched THE GO-BETWEEN on Watch TCM through June 30. I can't say enough good things about it. And this time I noticed that perhaps (there's a lot of "perhaps" in the film) Marian's mother (pictured here, played by Margaret Leighton who got an Oscar nom) and her father and her fiancee know exactly what's been going on, but they're all repressing it. And repression is one of the things Marian (Julie Christie) has had enough of. Devastating movie.

THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE BROKER is on Watch TCM until 6/30. Cute G. Cukor movie with Thelma Ritter as the star.

2 reviews of LYPSINKA: TOXIC FEMININITY, streaming until July 1. The reviews are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Both posted the same day. You get to decide. See the film for free at my website, not this imdb page. You can probably guess what my website URL is. Spell lypsinka correctly and you'll find it.

Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity (2024) - IMDb Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity (2024) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...

THE GO-BETWEEN and SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (both 1971) are on Watch TCM until June 30.
Don't miss! Great films.

THE QUEEN is on Watch TCM until July 21st. It's fabulous. And it's fascinating to see [International] Chrysis (pictured here) when she was still a boy and before she got her teeth fixed.

Lypsinka appears briefly in the new Netflix documentary called
OUTSTANDING.