Bunny Lake is _______

Bunny Lake is Missing - (1965) Directed by Otto Preminger

Starring Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea

Otto Preminger is the master of opening titles. Anatomy of a Murder, The Man with the Golden Arm, and now Bunny Lake is Missing; the opening credits to these films are executed so stylishly, Preminger's choices for soundtracks and design are really something else, they weren't ahead of their time (I won't settle for that cliche) No, Otto won't be simply judged as anachronism, he just made others notice how behind the times they were.

As good as the opening credits are, they are just that, the opening credits; and therefore only the beginning of this great film. Black and white never looked so good, unsteady cameras and long shots that kept you with unease while you attempt to resolve for yourself what's happening to the main character, Ann Lake, played by Carol Lynley. Preminger keeps giving you information, but its never enough to piece it together before the film does it for you, this is a good thing. I'd definitely plan on owning and viewing this film many more times.

There's something to be said about films in the 60s and the cameras that were available at that time, as well as cinemascope and color. Especially color, by the time this film was released, color films were finally at a place where it truly worked, this happened sometime in the 50s and it only improved. The manner in which this affected black and white films is both good and bad. On one hand, the cameras and cinemascope format made for such a beautiful black and white image on screen, in the hands of a good director and cinematographer (in thos case Denys Coop), this was such a treasure to the viewer. Orson Welles, I think once said, that a beautiful could not be made in color. I partially agree, I believe they could definitely be made now or even as early as the late 70s but in the 50s and 60s, this was the height of the power of black and white films. Proof of this, for me, is found in the fact that if you shoot a black and white film today it would still look as if it were filmed in the 50s or 60s. I could be wrong...

I'm no director or film buff.

I'm just a jerk with two eyes and an ego.

She Makes Me Touch the Machine

The Lady from Shanghai - (1948) Directed by Orson Welles

Starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles

Not too crazy about the story, even though it does get better as the plot thickens. Welles still manages an interesting film through his direction.

The Death Dance

Welcome my dear to the last 31 days of the year. The first ten years of the 21st century are now coming to a close. Celebrate my dear, because we'll never see the close of the first decade of another century, or rarer still, another millennium again.

A Happy Death

I'm Going In

by Lhasa De Sela

from the album Lhasa,

released Apr. 2009

When my lifetime had just ended

and my death had just begun

I told you I'd never leave you

but I knew this day would come

Give me blood for my blood wedding

I am ready to be born

I feel new as if this body

were the first I'd ever worn

I need straw for the straw fire

I need hard earth for the plow

Don't ask me to reconsider

I am ready to go now

I'm going in, I'm going in

This is how it starts

I can see in so far

but afterwards we always forget

who we are

I'm going in, I'm going in

I can stand the pain

and the blinding heat

'cause I won't remember you

the next time we meet

You'll be making the arrangements

you'll be trying to set me free

Not a moment for the meeting

I'll be busy as a bee

You'll be talking to me

but I just won't understand

I'll be falling by the wayside

you'll be holding out your hand

Don't you tempt me with perfection

I have other things to do

I didn't burrow this far in

just to come right back to you

I'm going in, I'm going in

I have never been so ugly

I have never been so slow

These prison walls get closer now

the further in I go

I'm going in, I'm going in

I like to see you from a distance

and just barely believe

and think that

even lost and blind

I still invented love

I'm going in, I'm going in

I'm going in

There Will Be Love

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

Day by day, you are that thought which has been spanning throughout my mind. Yes, darling to me you are like an imperialist, who's power and ambition recognizes not any limits or boundaries. The thought of you in my mind, steals land, kills or cheats landlords, marries memories and all their fortunes; yes dear, the thought of you in my mind is doing quite well for itself.

Today -

I pass you by and pretend to not notice you, betraying my every instinct to stand directly before you and into your eyes, stare until sight or its focus, expires from me. In your department with your girls, your voice heard here then there, how it travels and so faithfully is it, how I follow. Its perfume to the ears, and then when coursed with a visual accompaniment, it becomes flavor to the eyes--an aromatic, gourmet cuisine. As fine as you are yet you starve me, or more so to the point, I starve myself from you. I chase myself away, the perfume I treat as a stench and the flavor, like an acrid taste, which I then dry heave with perfect disgust.

Am I like the beggar who pretends the banquet is nothing more than a culinary compilation of vile slop, simply because he isn't invited to any access of it?

O love of mine-not-yet-mine, if only that you could see through the facade; perhaps I reveal as much, when distanced from my countenance. Know that my disgust is the darkness from which I invite light to evolve. I want to hate you, despise and detest you so that I may savor every subtle dissolution that transforms, slowly, that enmity into love. Experiencing every atom of love that gradually collects until a planet results, and hatred becomes an atmosphere that shields that love and all of Life within it.

To you, all this love and further, all its future.

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

A Handbag!

The Importance of Being Earnest - (1952) Directed by Anthony Asquith

Starring Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Edith Evans

Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

This movie is so good. Hilarious! Edith Evans can say any line as Lady Bracknell and I'm guaranteed to be in stitches.

USSR: Thats Short for Russia

One, Two, Three - (1961) Directed by Billy Wilder

Starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin

Billy Wilder delivers once again, this time in a comedy starring James Cagney as Coca-Cola's main man in West Berlin. Constantly tugging at Cold War sensitivities yet mindful enough to not make it the center focus of the film, One, Two, Three is a good comedy brought to the screen by a master director.

The pace of the film is fast and matched admirably by James Cagney in the role of C.R. MacNamara, the fast talking, multi-tasking, schemer who represents not only Coca-Cola but Capitalist US of A. MacNamara manipulates, cheats, and lies throughout most of the film but is still as charismatic as ever.

Horst Buchholz was animated and indignantly exasperated every chance he could get, he's so good at that and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the performance. As Otto Piffl, the idealist youth who's caught between communist and capitalist and is coming to terms with what both competing social ideologies' practical definitions are, Horst is primal, energetic, and distrusting; much representing of the world that either of the mentioned ideologies seek to conquer. The gags do not unfold as they would in a slap stick comedy but the script is full of jabs and quick punches to both capitalism and communism.

Lilo Pulver as Cagney's secretary-sometimes-mistress seals the deal for me. Her table striptease to Aram Khachaturian's Sabre Dance has just made it to my list of best uses for that musical piece in a film.