Film Flare

THANK YOU FROM THE HEART        FOR LIVING DOWN TO MY EXPECTATIONS.       The Chief [to Bob Weston] in Sex and the Single Girl              ★ ★ ★ Directed by RICHARD QUINE Starring NATALIE WOOD, TONY CURTIS, LAUREN BACALL and HENRY FONDA So Sex and the Single Girl is a crazy, over the top, arrhythmic sixties comedy -- it's allowed . There's no point in trashing it for what it is meant to be. Still, if this doesn't sound like your poison, you should stay clear. Unless you find such a cast too good to dismiss, which were my thoughts exactly -- then it is definitely worth a watch. Either way, be prepared for a lot of nonsense. Bob Weston (Tony Curtis) is a sleazy reporter working for dirt magazine STOP, who has recently wrote a trash article on psychiatrist and author of love advice books for women, Dr. Helen Brown (Natalie Wood). The story was a success but he wanted to dig dee...

AND AS THINGS FELL APART,       NOBODY PAID MUCH ATTENTION.        Talking Heads [novel's epigraph]               THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS BLOGATHON .  The second obstruction consists in reviewing a film and conducting an interview about it -- extra points if the person you're interviewing in related to the movie. I've chosen my beloved American Psycho , since a dear friend of mine has very recently watched this bloody, cinematic gem.  In the late nineties, director  Mary Harron envisioned a film adaptation of  American Psycho - the highly controversial novel by notorious american writer,  Bret Easton Ellis . It follows the daily life of 26 year-old yuppie Patrick Bateman, from his meticulous morning routine, to his extensive office "work" on Wall Street in the eighties, fancy dinners, coke-fueled parties, and occasional homicides. Wait, ...

Directed by JOSEF VON STERNBERG Starring MARLENE DIETRICH and GARY COOPER Legionnaire Tom Brown ( Gary Cooper ) and cabaret singer Amy Jolly ( Marlene Dietrich ) meet in Morocco, both running from their previous lives and distrustful of the other sex: he's a classic womanizer, she is emotionally hurt and consequently detached from men. There's also a rich man with a pompous name ( Adolphe Menjou ) who is interested in her and keeps getting in the way. But he doesn't really matter; not when two now legendary actors fall in love in an exotic setting. I myself am beginning to fall in love with these little affairs between Dietrich and her boy toys, who happen to be favorite actors of mine (first Grant , now Cooper, perhaps Stewart is next). Her dominance over them may not be as self evident as say, the one of Mae West , but it is there nonetheless, in the sheer intensity of her being which hypnotizes both men and women.   But her co-star is not far be...