Random and Informal Notes

- If one wants to see third-rate 1960s Preminger imitation, check out Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler (1968).

- Claire Denis' No Fear, No Die (1990) is a near-masterpiece that I wish I'd seen long ago. So effortlessly complex. Wow! So aside from this and Hellman's film, what other great cockfighting movies are there?

- Film scholarship I've read and liked lately: Paul Willemen (on Amos Gitai), Robert Ray (selections from How a Film Theory Got Lost), Nicole Brenez (on forms of questions in Godard from For Ever Godard). This is what I like and want to emulate well: rigorous but not programmatic, willing to propel itself forward, to go down tangents, but always on the heels of its query, never letting it or itself get lazy or predictable.

- If I could take a week off from the real world and just sit and watch 35mm prints in a private screening room, at the moment I'd be interested in looking at the oeuvres of Jack Arnold and Takashi Miike. Even if it was a full-time gig, I'd need more than a week, though, huh?