2/13/2005|||110831740156992603||||||

SCREENINGS

Norm, Norm! How can you not like "Sideways"??!!

Ah well, it would be a boring world if everyone had the same taste. I haven't yet seen "The Aviator", and after my recent experiences with Scorsese films, I'm more than happy to wait for the DVD. (I seem to be the one person on the planet who loathed "Goodfellas". Whereas I never get tired of "The King of Comedy")

Stop press: the French give "Sideways" the thumbs-up. At least, Le Monde does anyway, the paper's critic detecting parallels with Manuel Poirier's film, Western. (Must get hold of that.) Meanwhile, this Guardian reader thinks the American movie is a, ahem, hommage to Eric Rohmer:

[T]he film is essentially a gender-shifted remake of Rohmer's Conte d'Automne, in which a cranky, plain, middle-aged oenophile divorcee is pushed by her good-looking, empty friend towards a relationship with an equally soulful wine-lover.The relaxed, low-key assurance of Payne's film is largely derived from a French style that is almost completely lost in its native land.

On the subject of celluloid, my friend Martha B has just started a series of reviews of books on cinema. Is it true, as she says, that there aren't many good ones to choose from? I've started running through a few in my head: "Final Cut", "Adventures In The Screen Trade", "Eyes Wide Open", "Monster", "Adventures of a Suburban Boy", "City of Nets". Obvious choices, I guess, but aren't there plenty of others? I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Martha's list. She knows her stuff.

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2005/02/screenings-norm-norm-how-can-you-not.html|||2/13/2005 05:54:00 pm|||||||||

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