Film Forno

One thing I have always noticed about David Lynch’s films is that the performances are often amazing and yet a lot of the actors are never as good in films by other people. I’m not talking about The Elephant Man, which featured some of the finest British actors of all time, but films like Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks. Some incredible performances,In Mulholland Drive  Naomi Watts blows the roof off the theater, especially in the scene with Chad Everett. Amazing!

Patricia Arquette is so great in Lost Highway.

Sheryl Lee , Lara Flynn Boyle Sheilynn Fenn, so great  in Twin Peaks,

Kyle McGlaughlin, so cool in Lynch films.

I was wondering why this happens and I thought Lynch is a Buddhist, he meditates everyday. A tenet of Buddhism is to see the limitless potential in every human being and this is something Lynch did. He saw things in people that they did not see in themselves and they often say just this. His belief in them, their trust in his unshakable vision propelled them to unexpected and often unequaled heights. Rewatching the original Twin Peaks I am struck by how much thought, atmosphere, mood, character went into every single frame (of the episodes he directed). Even though the pace is kind of leisurely there is so much going on in and around the frame that its never boring and the more you know about what’s happening the more intriguing it becomes. A great recipe for something that bears rewatching again and again. Anyway a few random thoughts on the late, great David Lynch, a true Artist.

Here’s a video I made from a song Lynch did. My friend Pascal worked with him and remixed the tune adding the great harmonica part.

Directed by a trio,  Miloš Makovec, Jiří Brdečka and Evald Schorm, this gem from 1969 is now available at Deaf Crocodile.

Here’s the trailer ,Check it out!

Here is a great film by the wonderful Georges Melies. father of the Fantasy Film. A magician of Cinema. I heard he had a hundred nuns at a convent hand coloring his films!  Check it out.

I’ve been in a Buster Keaton mood lately, so here is a little masterpiece, SHERLOCK JR. I understand it was not a hit when it came out, as a matter of fact I think it was his poorest performer at the Box Office. Since then it has risen quite a bit in the public’s esteem. I believe his masterpiece, THE GENERAL was not a big hit either and now is recognized for the work of genius that it is. Anyway Buster Keaton we salute you. Your work is getting the respect and admiration it deserves.

And here is a short about the making of SHERLOCK JR.

Bruce Lee , the amazing martial Artist/ Movie Star/ Filmmaker was working on this film when he died. A version of it was finished a year later. Now someone has found lost footage of Bruce and it’s pretty cool. this is an edited sequence that I assume Bruce put together with his editor. I don’t really know the whole story but I’ll try and find out. Any way I love Bruce Lee, I met his daughter after the premiere of Man With The Iron Fists, a film I edited. I told her how much I admired her father, she was very nice. But check out these action sequences, too Bad he didn’t get to finish the film.

Here is a very cool film dirrected by the master opf atmosphere Jean Negulescu. Based on a very good book by Eric Ambler, the greatest thing about this film is the re-pairing of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, fresh off their intial work together, Casablanca. Negulescu started out as a painter and his visual sense is evident throughout his films, especially his Film Noirs, like this one. Anyway Enjoy! I found a link to the whole movie on the Internet Film Archive. But first here is the trailer.

https://archive.org/details/1944maskofdimitrios

Here is a very informative documentary on the great Georges Melies, father of the fantasy film. He invented a lot of techniques still used today.

And here is a great website with an excellent article on Melies:

Méliès, Georges

Here is a great film that I just watched on Amazon Prime. It was recently restored and looks great. What a cast, Simone Signoret, Marcello Mastroianni, and Silvia Milo, who is amazing in this film. This was made at the height of Italian filmmaking, so much talent! The settings, the camerwork, the clothes by the inimitable Danilo Donati. This film is a joy to watch, a masterpiece. Check it out and see what you think. Here is a scene from Youtube.

Here is a German film of an Edgar Wallace mystery. Creature With The Blue Hand, starring everybody’s favorite psycho Klaus Kinski as twins no less! Double your pleasure, double your fun! There were a lot of Edgar Wallce films made in Germany. This one I was turned onto by Quentin Tarantino, he programmed it as part of a personally curated batch of films that aired on Spike Tv about 10 years ago. Anyway it’s a nice clean version in German mit subtitles so Enjoy!

Here is an animated short film by the late great Adam Beckett. I saw this at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974. It blew my mind. What a great talent, such a sin that he died so young, just after he worked on Star Wars. An early alumnus of CalArts, the great experimental art school that’s now in Canyon Country, although I believe Beckett started there when it was in LA at a closed Catholic school. Anyway check out this genius of the elaborated loop, hand drawn, optical printed, super Cool

Here’s the trailer for a cool movie about Leon Theremin, Russian inventor It’s a great story, check it out.