Good Morning, World

Even though it's a sad way to start out the week we obviously must take a moment to memorialize Alain Delon, the French superstar and "most beautiful men ever captured on film" says me, who died over the weekend at the too young age of 88. Actually given how shitty his political stuff had gotten in the past few years maybe it wasn't too young, but I liked he was still around -- especially after losing Belmondo in '21 -- and since I'm not living in France I could easily ignore the right-wing shit he'd been saying. Out of earshot, out of mind -- I could just watch Purple Noon in peace. Even more so now -- the bad stuff will fade away with his actual person and we'll be left with his astonishing cinematic output. For such a pretty face he sure turned in some legendary performances in legendary films. He certainly wasn't restrained by his beauty.

I think the much discussed "cruel edge" his beauty carried aided him in that regard -- he certainly wasn't bland in his prettiness. I only just watched Melville's Le Samouraï a couple of weeks ago for the very first time (Criterion just dropped the 4K and iut's gorgeous) and as cool as he looks in that trenchcoat and fedora it's not a film that especially leans hard on his beauty -- it feels more concerned with his symmetry, his sharp angles. Melville shoots him like a pencil sketch of a human. Anyway tell me your favorite Alain Delon performances in the comments, if you like! Peronally I'll always love his Ripley the most, I think. But La Piscine, The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers, L'Eclisse -- you can't go wrong. I'm curious if there are performances later in his career that you consider must see? Like I don't think I've seen anything he did after the 1970s! Did he just coast on being Alain Delon all that time? I mean he earned that. he was Alain Delon after all. But he kept working until 2019. Any recommendations?

Trench Coats & Tighty-Whities

Happy Criterion Announcement Day! Every 15th of the month (or thereabouts) our pals at Criterion announce their slate of releases for an upcoming month -- today's are for July of 2024 (my birthday month, holla) and let's kick them off with their drop of Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 classic Le Samurai starring Alain Delon, in 4K baby! Delon plays a iconically trench-coated hitman who's too cool for school in this -- the set, loaded with Criterion's typical swath of extras, drops on June 9th, pre-order it at the link above. (In related news there is an Alain Delon series happening at Film Forum right now through this week, so if you're in NYC go see this gorgeous man on the big screen stat!)

Next up -- in bold red! -- we have the two-some of Glauber Rocha's Black God White Devil from 1967, an "existential western" out of Brazil, and Chen Kaige's 1993 classic Farewell My Concubine, which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes that year and features a gorgeous performance from the legend Leslie Cheung. This'll be in 4K too -- it's such a deeply gorgeous movie, I cannot wait to see this remaster!

There is a lot this month! Next up is Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid starring James Coburn and Kri Kristofferson from 1973 -- this one is also coming in 4K and it looks loaded as hell with four discs of material, including two cuts of the film. I have never seen this -- I guess a big selling point is the music is by Bob Dylan? And he's in the movie too? I think young hot Kristofferson is my main selling point tbh. And then we have last year's Perfect Days from the great Wim Wneders -- also in 4K. Criterion tripling down on 4K for everything, it seems. I liked this movie but maybe didn't love it like a lot of people seemed to -- that said there's no disputing that Koji Yakusho as the genial bathroom cleaner the movie follows gives a lovely subdued performance. 

And finally, last but hardly least, there is the great 1983 pop classic Risky Business starring one Mr. Tom Cruise  -- and as seen down below they chose the perfect cover, too. I might have to add this to my list of "Hottest Criterion Covers" that I did last month with that Querelle announcement! There's no denying the power of Cruise's gams in thoise tighty0-whities -- they made him a star. That said this movie is a far richer and more emotionally curious than you think it's going to be given the super-80s plot, and Rebecca De Mornay as the call-girl who comes Tom of age has always been my main takeaway from this film. She's fantastic. Well her and that killer Tangerine Dream score. This one lands on July 23rd. Also in 4K!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

L'eclisse (1962)

Vittoria: We spent the whole night talking things over. And for what? I'm so tired and depressed. Disgusted and confused. What can I say? There are times when holding a needle and thread, or a book, or a man. It's all the same.

The great Monica Vitti was born on this day in 1931.

Criterion Says It's Gonna Be May

How does time even work anymore? I have no idea how a month has passed since the last time I did one of these Criterion announcement posts -- it feels like I was just telling you about The Girl Can't Help It yesterday, but that was four full weeks into the past. So here we are today, with the films that Criterion will be releasing onto blu-ray in the month of May! Okay, sure, great, let's do it. The big title, the one they're giving the 4K treatment, is Billy Wilder's classic noir Double Indemnity, which stars a spectacular Barbara Stanwyck, ice blonde as we ever got her as perhaps the greatest femme fatale of all time, stomping the heart and soul out of the sucker Fred MacMurray. And man do we love to watch her do it. This is one of the movies that lives up to its perfect reputation -- they don't get any better. And the extras on the disc look pretty special, so make sure you check out all that on Criterion's site. 

Also pretty damned exciting is the 4K restoration of Mira Nair's romance Mississippi Masala, which stars Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury and which has long been sought by collectors as the DVD's been out of print for awhile. I think I saw this back in the 90s around the time it came out but not since, and have been dying to revisit -- especially with Choudhury being the only good thing happening on the Sex and the City reboot (yes I watched that thing, I have no idea why). Also this is Prime Denzel Time...

I mean look how gorgeous those two are! Damn. I bet this movie is gonna play like a revelation all these years later. The other three films hitting disc in May are "Wayne Wang's Chan Is Missing, a mistaken identity in World War II–era Paris in Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein, and... the maker of Tampopo, Juzo Itami, takes on the Japanese way of death in The Funeral." I haven't seen any of these but per usual can't wait for the chance to change that now. I mean any excuse for Alain Delon, after all...

The I-Do's of March

Ohhh I was so distracted with the picking of my Sundance movies this morning that I totally spaced that it's also that monthly holiday known as Criterion Announcement Day! Good day for movie stuffs all around -- good work, everybody. This month's titles will be hitting come March o' 2022 (I used to shortened "'o" there because of St. Patrick's Day obviously), and the first one up is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1970 crime flick Le cercle rouge starring Alain Delon and his mustache. Unbelievably I have never seen this movie -- I'm actually really behind on my Melvilles, I've only seen a couple. This one has Delon playing a thief plotting a heist with Gian Maria Volontè and Yves Montand all while, you know, being Alain Delon. So you know, swoon. 

I guess this is where I admit that all five of Criterion's March titles are films I have never seen -- I have never seen the 1997 romance love jones (no capital letters, dammit!) starring Larenz Tate and Nia Long, although I have heard great things about the heat between those two, and...

... I mean look at hot little Larenz there. I'm so there. And I have never seen Martin Scorsese's 1978 music doc The Last Waltz, which documents a performance by the band The Band in San Francisco of 1976. Scorsese has done so many music docs I have no idea about! I should do a binge of them one day.

Nor have I ever seen Robert Aldritch's 1965 disaster movie The Flight of the Phoenix, which has a plane going down in the desert forcing the survivors -- which includes the rag-tag gang of Jimmy Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Dan Duryea, Peter Finch, and George Kennedy oh my -- trying to survive the deadly Sahara. But holy god does that sound up my alley! I love a disaster movie, I love George f'ing Kennedy. You can't go wrong. And finally I have never seen Marta Mezaros' 1975 female-friendship drama Adoption, about two women in Hungary who go through some shit -- it actually sounds similar to Pedro Almodovar's terrific Parallel Mothers, which is coming out soon (and which I obviously recommend). Anyway who's seen any of these? Tell me about them in the comments!

Which is Hotter?

I am more than well aware that Alain Delon has turned out to be a pretty shitty person in real life but, having lost both Jean-Paul Belmondo and Nino Castelnuovo in the past six months, I still want to mark his birthday while he's around and kicking at 86 -- his body of work (ahem) has sure meant a lot to me. Try to not be so shitty, Alain! I'd love to focus on said body of work when I write about you rather than all of the far-right political leanings and misogynistic bullshit. For today I'll split the middle and focus on the body, period.

bike tracks

6 Off My Head: Visconti's Stunning Menfolk

It's the 115th anniversary of the birth of Luchino Visconti, our problematic king -- the Italian aristocrat turned film director made some of my favorite movies of all-time, from his early Neo-realist masterpieces like La terra treme up through his baroquely crumbling critiques of the aristocratic bullshit he knew so intimately like The Leopard and The Damned. He made less than twenty movies but I have yet to see a single one I haven't found absolutely riveting. But even more importantly -- obviously! -- is the fact that he had one of the greatest eyes for male beauty we've ever been blessed the opportunity to share sight with, and his movies are feasts for those of us who appreciate such things. And so now that I have seen a majority of his movies -- not yet everything, but a majority! -- I feel safe in finally making this list...

The 6 Sexiest Men in Visconti Movies

Massimo Girotti in Ossessione (1943)

(see more here)

Helmut Berger in The Damned (1969)

Farley Granger in Senso (1954)

(see more here)

Antonio Arcidiacono in La terra trema (1948)

(see more here)

Renato Salvatori in Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

Alain Delon in The Leopard (1963)

(And Alain also counts in Rocco too, obviously -- Alain in any movie he ever starred in, ever! -- but Alain with that black bandage over his eye is a personal kink!)

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What are your faves?

I Will Wait For You, Nino Castelnuovo

I don't feel as if I can write a proper memorial to Italian actor Nino Castelnuovo because I've only seen a very small handful of his movies. But his most famed role -- that of "Guy" in Jacques Demy's 1964 masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, one of my all-time favorites -- is so crucial to my love of the movies that I can hardly not give him a loving mention here on the site. Especially since he's got his own wee little Archives, which I heartily recommend clicking through. Other films I've seen him include Luchino Visconti's very brilliant Rocco and His Brothers, which put him opposite Alain Delon...

... for which every gay for all of time owes Luchino a debt of gratitude. And then the 1975 giallo with the fabulously perfect giallo title of Strip Nude For Your Killer, a film I covered pretty thoroughly right here, at least gratuity-wise. 

Not too long ago Arrow put out a great blu-ray of that film, by the way, and if you have any affection for giallo it's one you should check out. It's not particularly scary but it's got that vibe in spades, you know the one, that giallo one. And then later in life I guess he had a small role in The English Patient...

... which I never knew or noticed until it got mentioned in his obits, not even when I watched that movie just a couple of weeks ago. Shame on me, but the role's really not substantial and we are talking twenty years since the last time I'd seen him. And I think that's all of his that I have seen? But Umbrellas is an annual watch for me, sometimes even more often than that, and his Guy remains the swooniest lead in any movie musical according to me, hands down. 

I re-watched the film for the ten millionth time last night in his honor (you can see the Twitter thread here to go along with that) and that first chapter of the film, as he and Catherine Deneuve fall in love and then are forced to separate, makes me cry every time just from the perfect exquisite beauty of it -- seriously my boyfriend looked over and laughed at me because at only the twenty-minute-mark I already had tears rolling down my face. It's probably the most romantic sequence ever put on-screen. Anyway if you've got more recommendations from his filmography please share in the comments, and I'll give you a few more worthwhile photos of him after the jump...

Criterion Wants Us To Sweat Come July

Oh snap, did Criterion just give me an excuse to spend ten minutes looking up photos of Alain Delon in Jacques Deray's 1969 sweat-classic La Piscine? They did, they did -- that title is topping their July release announcement, out today. I've never been able to decide whether I prefer Deray's film or Luca Guadagnino's 2015 re-do A Bigger Splash -- this is made possible by the fact that I only saw La Piscine a year or two before Guadagnino's film; otherwise the use of the word "never" would be a stretch. Now, with this blu-ray release, maybe I'll be able to properly judge! We're all winners.

Another definitive highlight for my birthday month will be Howard Hawks' classic slapstick farce Bringing Up Baby, which has Kate Hepburn rattling her tasty bones at a friggin' leopard alongside Cary Grant (who just goes gay all of a sudden). Classic stuff, that. Also on tap -- Bill Duke's 1992 L.A.-Noir Deep Cover with Lawrence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum (never seen it), Lizzie Borden's 1986 sex-work slice-of-life Working Girls (never seen it), and Andrei Tarkovsky's 1975 hallucinogenic mind-bender Mirror (which, dare I say, I have also never seen). A lot to chew on for July -- I hope these hit the Criterion Channel too so I can check them all out! Check them all out and pre-order at their site!

Good Morning, World

Yesterday I found myself suddenly out of nowhere thinking about Toni Collete's upcoming movie called Horse Girl -- when they hell are they going to release Horse Girl? -- and then before you know it I suddenly had found myself googling these photos of Alain Delon riding a horse in nothing but jeans in Mexico in 1965. Not that I don't worship the sod that Toni Collette treads upon, but I think that we can all agree the second inclination of mine there was far more in character for me. Hit the jump for several more... 

 

Good Morning, World

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Some mornings you just have to wake up

with Alain Delon. I'm sure you understand.

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Good Morning, World

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The legend Toshirô Mifune was born one hundred years ago today!  I've posted far less about this star in the heavens than I should've at this point seeing as how I'm a huge fan -- it seems I take to Twitter more often when it comes to him.

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Toshiro Mifune Break, Part 1 pic.twitter.com/YxnyeuFVkR

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 2, 2018

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Anyway thankfully Nathaniel and friends at The Film Experience have picked up my slack and spent the past week celebrating the man's centennial with a heap of ongoing content -- click on over to TFE to revel in it. And by "it" I mean Mifune's breathtaking talent...

... and beauty. And then watch one of Mifune's films today. 

I might try Terence Young's 1971 western Red Sun with Mifune...

... acting opposite the unlikely bunch of Charles Bronson, Ursula Andress, and Alain Delon! Just cuz the whole thing's online right here and that makes it easy. Anybody seen it?

Good Morning, World

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Can somebody transport me 

straight into that photo, please?

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Tune of the Unknown Sad Gay

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I think it's safe to say this is a little bit of A Gay Cinephile Event here in New York this week that's very clearly worth my mentioning -- Anthology Film Archives is screening the "long-lost masterpiece of hardcore gay erotic cinema" from 1980s France called Equation to an Unknown starting tomorrow and running through November 20th. The film was very clearly a big influence on the filmmaker Yann Gonzalez, whose recent gay slasher Knife+Heart I absolutely adore -- Anthology quotes Gonzalez in the press materials even:

"The most melancholic porn film I’ve ever seen. It’s very sad, and aesthetically beautiful. Just a young man wandering through several depictions of love and choreographies of love-making; it’s like a ceremony, a ceremony of fantasies, especially the last sequence where the main character recalls all his previous fantasies, which come one by one around his bed and make love to him. I think it’s one of the most beautiful film sequences of French cinema.” 

The great folks at Altered Innocence just restored Equation, so this'll be a pristine new print -- as you can see in their NSFW trailer below the film looks stunning (in that very specific period porn sleaze milieu, that is);
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Alongside the film for the first three nights (that is to say tomorrow through Saturday) Anthology will also be screening the 17-minute short film Le Journal d'un combat from director Guy Gilles, which apparently documents the process of Francis Savel, Equation's director, painting a painting in 1964 (and it's apparently narrated by Alain Delon!) All these arty gays of their moments mixing it up -- nothing's changed!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Purple Noon (1960)

Philippe: That's why you took my bank statements?
Tom: Exactly.
Philippe: So you kill me and you're rich?
Tom: Don't miss a trick, do you?
Philippe: It seems awfully complicated.
You'd be caught immediately.
Tom: No necessarily. I might not look it,
but I've got lots of imagination.

Oh I don't think anybody's ever truly doubted that you've got a lot of imagination, Alain Delon. A happy 84 to the actor slash legend today! For some reason when I googled for a photo from the above film a page full of photos of Alain on a sexy sailing excursion in 1968 with Brigitte Bardot and the legendary yachtsman Eric Tabarly (looking seriously strapping in a skimpy bathing suit) popped up, and they seem worth sharing, hit the jump to be transported...

Big Screen Beauties

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Every year the New York Film Festival has two sidebars to the main festival, one called "Retrospective" where they screen some older films connected by some theme of their choosing, and another called "Revivals" where they screen new restorations of classics. Basically it's all just the world's best excuse to watch some great films from the past on one of the greatest screens in the world. Well this year's batch of movies is beyond, just beyond, if you ask me. The "Retrospective" series is highlighting the great cinematographers, and as such they'll be screening masterpieces like Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, John M. Stahl's Leave Her To Heaven, Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and my beloved Street Angel from director Frank Borzage, starring my beloved Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor.

Those are just a few of the titles -- see the whole list here. The Street Angel print they're showing is a brand new 4K restoration, and speaking of, you can also see all of the restored films that NYFF is screening for their "Revivals" series at the above link, a list which includes Bunuel's breathtaking L'age d'or, William Wyler's glorious Dodsworth, and Valerio Zurlini's Le Professeur with Alain Delon...