Great Moments In Movie Staches

If you've looked at social media in the past two days you've no doubt seen everybody listing their "Top 10 movies since 2000" lists thanks to a feature in The New York Times making the rounds -- I'm not doing that! I'm not breaking my brain with that list right now. So don't get your hopes up. (Or the opposite I suppose since I don't know how you personally feel about my opinions!) What I am pointing out though is that I think a full 75% of the lists I've seen have had Wong Kar-wai's 2001 masterpiece In the Mood For Love listed on them, which is just and good and correct. And it reminded me that this movie is getting a theatrical re-release for its 25th anniversary! At least in NYC (on June 27th) and LA (on July 4th) but you can click here to check for other locations and times. And they'll also be screening alongside it the hard-to-see short film In the Mood For Love 2001! That one also stars most-beautiful-people Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, just in different roles -- apparently WKW had intended to do a entire trilogy of ITMFL films but didn't (unless you count the bits in his movie 2046 anyway). You can watch the trailer for both the main film + this short at this link, but as you can see here Tony Leung has a mustache and wears a pink shirt so your eyes might melt outta your head from the hotness. You've been warned!

Yura To Warhol & Everything Criterion Between

I was just literally thinking, "Hey I get paid today," when an email arrived in my inbox (not a euphimism) that reminded me the smackdab middle of the month also indicates something even better -- it's Criterion Announcement Day! And it turns out that the drop for the forthcoming April is a hefty one -- seven titles strong! The big one being Sean Baker's extremely popular 2024 film Anora, which will assuredly get a bank of Oscar nominations come Oscar nomination morning (whenever that happens, since they keep moving it due to the wildfires). I have my issues with Anora (which I've mostly gotten into on social media) but I think it's a fun, fine piece of entertainment for the most part, and the three leads (Madison, Eydelshteyn, and especially our boy Yura Borisov) are all pretty excellent. Anora hits 4K on April 239th and the disc is loaded with special features, check them all at that link. Also being released from Criterion that same day -- Baker's 2008 film Prince of Broadway, which I've never seen. Any fans of that one? It's actually streaming on Criterion Channel right now so maybe I'll watch it this weekend.

The other big titles from the April releases that I haven't seen are Claude Berri's 1986 double-feature Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, which adapts Marcel Pagnol's book into two grand and grandly expensive movies starring an incredible French cast including Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, and Emmanuelle Béart. Nor have I somehow ever seen Kenji Mizoguchi's 1953 film Ugetsu, a wartime-set ghost story that stars  Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō (this one's also on Criterion Channel right now which I know because I've had it on my list for years and never yet gotten to it -- sighhhh). 

Then there are the usual 4K upgrades, which include Won Kar-Wei's masterful Chungking Express -- I have the WKW box-set already so I don't know if I'll get this but it is a masterpiece so we'll see. Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro in 4K is awful hard to resist! Also getting the 4K upgrade is Billy Wilder's comic classic Some Like It Hot. Which, like,  what can I say about Some Like It Hot? It doesn't get better. It's, like, hot.

But wait -- there is one more! And this is my number one pick for the month. We're talking Julian Schnabel's 1996 film Basquiat, starring a maybe-never-better Jeffrey Wright as the famed painter making his way through the NYC art scene in the 1980s. I haven't seen this in literal decades but I remember really loving it, and it's been a difficult movie to get one's hands on for a good long while, making this upgrade extremely overdue. I mean -- David Bowie playing Andy Warhol! Come on now!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Ashes of Time (1994)

Ou-yang Feng: People say, when you can't have what you want,
the best you can do is not to forget.

The great Leslie Cheung would've turned 68 today. 

We miss you, Leslie!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Days of Being Wild (1990)

Yuddy: I used to think there was a kind of bird that, once born, would keep flying until death. The fact is that the bird hasn't gone anywhere. It was dead from the beginning.

The great Leslie Cheung would have turned 67 today.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Happy Together (1997)

Lai Yiu-fai: I didn't see Chang, but I saw his family.

I finally understood how he could be happy running around

so free. It's because he has a place he can always return to.

A happy 61 to the legend Tony Leung today!

In the Mood For Infernal Power X

I'm jumping the gun on this a wee bit since Criterion hasn't hit up their social medias with this even yet, but they probably will have by the time I finish writing the post -- the November 2022 releases have been dropped on their website though, so we have see what they have in store for us there! First and foremost they hinted yesterday on Twitter that they were releasing Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog and sure enough! Check out all the details and pre-order your copy of the best movie of 2021 right here -- it's in 4K and there are heaps of features! Hoo lil' doggy sign me up on that one. Next up...

... but hardly second-place is Spike Lee's Malcom X, baby! And also in 4K too. and I think this is already in the Collection on regular blu-ray, isn't it? I think I own it that way? But I'm sure it will stun in an upgrade. Check it out here. That hits on November 22nd. And also getting the upgrade to 4K treatment is one of the most beautiful films ever made...

... namely Won Kar-Wai's masterpiece In the Mood For Love. I was just thinking about this movie last night -- I mean there are many nights where I am thinking about ITMFL but I re-watched Everything Everywhere All at Once (what a terrific movie it is) and that film riffs directly on this one in all of those romance sections between Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. Anyway I imagine watching In the Mood For Love in 4K will be akin to shooting heroin into one's eyeballs, only, you know, just without putting needles into your eyeballs or whatever. All the highs, with none of the needly lows!

The final pair of November flicks ain't no slouches, but I'm pairing them up because I personally haven't seen them -- there's the Hong Kong crime saga of the Infernal Affairs trilogy also with Tony Leung (no I ridiculously haven't seen these films, but that will obviously be rectified now) which are hitting disc on November 15th. And then there is the Czech New Wave classic Daisies from director Věra Chytilová, which I have seen portions of, but never from start to finish properly. My friend Daniel had a party once that was themed to the film and it played on a loop on the TV, so I've seen big chunks that way. Now I can finally watch it the way Chytilová intended. It seemed like a stunner.

Quote of the Day

“Maybe it’s because of my childhood background, which made me distance myself from people,” he says. “Since then, I’ve learned to find something that I really enjoy doing whilst I’m alone. Because you cannot always rely on being with people to feel happy, right?”

The legend Tony Leung was interviewed by GQ magazine this month -- because of his role in Marvel's Shang-Chi movie, and also because he's Tony fucking Leung and don't you forget it. Ever the mystery man the quotes they get from Tony seem kind of few and far between in the piece but I have to admit I found the stuff about his lonely childhood, after his father left, pretty moving and relatable, especially the bit above. Go check it out! And I've got the full photoshoot for y'all after the jump...

Going Gay All of a Sudden

I feel like me telling anyone who visits this site that there are a giant pile of queer movies on the Criterion Channel right now is pointless -- anybody coming to this site already knows this. But maybe I am incorrect -- it's not like that's uncommon! -- and so I tell you, here and now, whether you know this already or not, there is a giant pile of queer movies on the Criterion Channel right now. This link here is a good place to start (Teorema and Cruising and Poison, oh my!) but they've also got a collection of Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein's films (including their wildly moving and effective doc on Harvey Milk) and a collection of Dirk Bogarde films (Fassbinder's Despair anybody?) and a collection of films directed by Mitchell Leisen (on that note I really recommend this piece on him at The Film Experience)... actually you know what, they have a page on their site for this, right here. I don't have to link to these separately. Everything from Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together to Gregg Araki's The Living End to James Bidgood's Pink Narcissus, to Maurice to BPM to Fox and His Friends and Querelle to Weekend to Mishima; really I would be living on the Criterion Channel right now if it wasn't for Tribeca happening. 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder died on this day in 1982 pic.twitter.com/UTTui1jokf

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 10, 2021

Speaking of Tribeca, though -- please do stay tuned for my first sputtering bits of coverage of that Film Fest, now ongoing, which should go up online starting at some point in the next couple of days. Yes perhaps even over the weekend, even though I don't normally write on the weekends. And it's a three-day Summer Weekend for me, at that! Wild and crazy stuff! Yeah we'll see how it goes. But it'll mostly at The Film Experience and Pajiba, although I'll try to remember to link to all of it from here too. Bye!

A sailor's life for me... pic.twitter.com/JakKXH52e1

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 10, 2021

Happy Together With Wong

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I had a very happy moment yesterday when the Criterion boxed-set of Wong Kar-wai films showed up in my mailbox unexpectedly, a full two days before the release date -- manna from heaven, yo. I snapped a few more photos and tweeted them out if you need more -- it's an absolute stunner. The packaging, I mean -- I haven't actually had time to put in any of the discs and watch any of the movies yet, of course. What are you, crazy? That'll take weeks. Anyway I previously told you the specifics of this set back here when it was announced; if you haven't ordered your copy yet what's keeping you? The price tag? Rack up that debt, baby -- that'll all be wiped out when the floods come!

It's Wong Kar-wai's World...

We've 99.44% known this was coming for months, since the start of 2020 really, but Criterion finally today announced their next big boxed-set will be of Wong Kar-wai films! The pandemic delayed this, no doubt -- it was always meant to coincide with the touring screenings of WKW's films that are currently screening online here in New York at my beloved Film Society and will be traveling around the country (virtually) for the next few months. But finally, the details -- it will include 4K restorations of seven films...

... including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, and 2046. Eight films if you count the new version of his first, a short called The Hand, which has apparently been lengthened. ETA here's a trailer for the set, and yes you should get your body ready to swoon:

There was some drama online last week about how much WKW changed the movies from their original cuts for these new restorations -- apparently he made some quite large switcheroos having to do with their formats and frame-shapes and coloring, but he released a thorough statement explaining the changes which can be read over here.

Wong Kar-wai talks the changes he made in the new restorations of his films! Some of them seem pretty big! https://t.co/5YftrAJQpx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 1, 2020

I haven't had the time to watch any of the new versions over the past couple of weeks -- although I did just re-watch In the Mood For Love a few months ago, and it remains utter perfection. But it doesn't sound like he did much to that one. Oh and I only saw Fallen Angels for the very first time over the summer! I try to meter out WKW's movies because I never want to run out of them to watch. It's such a vivid world to get lost unto every damn time.

It's Wong Kar-wai's World

This past Friday I told you that FLC here in NYC had finally announced that they were kicking off the long rumored and desperately desired Wong Kar-wai retrospective on November 25th with the 20th anniversary of his masterpiece In the Mood For Love -- read all about it here. Well today comes a little update in the form of the poster for the series seen above, and the gorgeous trailer for the series, seen below. Not that you could use footage from Wong Kar-wai movies and have it be anything but "gorgeous." They could've looped the Benny Hill theme music over Tony Leung staring longingly at Maggie Cheung and my heart still would've burst with swoon. You can see the entire schedule at this link, along with info about buying tickets. Now onto the trailer!

In the Mood For Wong

I'm having a pretty freaked out day about the plague numbers here in my fair city, which are on the rise again (especially in my own neighborhood), so this terrific news here couldn't come at a better time to distract me from gloom -- Film at Lincoln Center has finally announced the dates for their big Wong Kar-Wai retrospective! I mean announced them a second time -- I first posted about this series way way way back in January, and then... well, speak of the plague. No! I am not speaking of the plague! This post is for happy thoughts! 

Ahem. Sooooo happy thoughts -- the series will open (virtually, of course) up on November 25th for the 20th anniversary of In the Mood For Love, which.... I mean I always want to say that ITMFL is WKW's undisputed masterpiece but I'm sure there are people who dispute that and love like I don't know 2046 more or something. I think those people are weird, but bless 'em, we love the weirdos. You can read the full details on films and dates at FLC's website here, but they follow Mood up with "Chungking Express, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Ashes of Time Redux, Days of Being Wild, 2046, As Tears Go By, and a never-before-seen extended cut of The Hand." 

There are more than one of those that I have never seen -- specifically As Tears Go By, Ashes of Time Redux, and The Hand. Needless to say this is a thrill, but this would be a thrill even if I'd seen all of the films before, because Wong Kar-wai's movies are a fucking thrill one of a hundred times in. We're still waiting to hear what's happening with Criterion's boxed-set, which they teased also in January -- I assume they wanted to release it alongside this screening series, which was meant to be "a traveling roadshow" of sorts. All that remains a question mark, and with today's announcement of their February releases it would appear that won't be until March of 2021 at the soonest.

Killing Them Hardly

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Less "two steps forward, one step back" than it is "two screeching leaps forward, one violent trip onto your face back," Kirill Sokolov's debut feature titled Why Don't You Just Die! (out this week on demand and also on blu-ray) is kinetic action in a chicken coop -- Run Lola Run if Lola was confined to a kitchen cabinet. A kitchen cabinet on fire. A kitchen cabinet on fire with four other folks inside beside her. Four other folks inside beside her who are all holding running chainsaws. It's a big swing and, if you ask me, a gorehound's new goofball classic -- nihilist neo-noir to the Looney Tunes Nth.

I don't know that anybody has ever asked themselves, in the history of being, or of thinking, what it would look like if you were to smash up early Sam Raimi at his violent slapstick wackiest with the slow-mo hyper-saturated groove of Wong Kar-wai -- like seriously who would have thought to ask such a thing? But if they were to consider such a query out the other end of their brain would've popped this  nutso little trinket, an Evil Dead starring Russian Gangsters, Dirty Cops, Scheming Daughters, Sacks of Cash and the prettiest snub-nosed dumb-assed sucker mark you ever done seen.

That snub-nosed dumb-assed sucker mark goes by the name of Matvey (played by the leaner, stranger Jai Courtney doppelgänger Aleksandr Kuznetsov), and the film opens with him standing on an apartment doorstep ringing the doorbell with a big ol' hammer hidden behind his back. The door will eventually open and all hell of the hammer-sort will break loose, over and over and over again, doubling and tripling and possibly quadrupling (I definitely lost count with the flashbacks) back upon itself, all in order to shake out the who-what-why's that led to that doorstep and that hammer and every square inch of violence hidden inside those cramped, crumbling quarters.

The main beat is the apartment belongs to Matvey's new girlfriend's Olya's parents, and believe me unless your name is Hatfield-McCoy (or perhaps Capulet-Montague) you've never seen a "Meet the Parents" riff quite anything like this one. You know the old line about the father holding the shotgun to the groom's back beside the pregnant bride? This is like that just run through a paper shredder, taped back up, and then translated into Russian. Everybody's got ten secret intentions, two hidden partners, and not nearly enough time to explain any of it before the next part's started -- this is ninety minutes of go go go, where those go's are standing for good gore and gone before the mutilated carcasses hit the floor. Great fun!

To Wong Kar-wai, Thanks For Everything

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On New Years Day Criterion released their annual drawing of cryptic clues about what they'll be releasing this year and per usual they got figured out pretty fast -- they'll be dropping four big boxed sets including one of Bruce Lee, one of Agnes Varda, one of Fellini, and most exciting for me one of Wong Kar-wai films.

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A Wong Kar-wai boxed set will be 2020’s saving grace https://t.co/wIkGkpwIsQ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 1, 2020

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Well today we have some adjacent news to that last one, because Janus Films has just announced there will be a touring roadshow of the same new 4K restorations of Wong's movies that will be collected on that boxed-set that will open on June 5th here in New York at the wondrous Film at Lincoln Center! Titles included as follows:

As Tears Go By (1988)

Days of Being Wild (1990)

Chungking Express (1994)

Fallen Angels (1995)

Happy Together (1997)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

The Hand (2004)

The Hand (which I've never seen) is billed as a "director's cut" not a restoration. Anyway they note that this year is the 20th anniversary of In the Mood For Love -- it was released in Hong Kong on September 29th 2000 -- which makes me wonder why we haven't just shut down the entire world to celebrate that perfect perfect movie all year long, it is so so worthy of that honor. 

What's your favorite WKW movie? 

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Good Morning, World

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A happy 43rd birthday to Crouching Tiger and Happy Together actor Chen Chang, who'll be turning up in Denis Villenueve's Dune film with our boy Timothée next year -- Dune will be a 2020 film right? You never know with these special-effects heavy films. Anyway we told you about Chen's casting at this link -- he's playing Timmy's doctor. And you can see more of him at this lick. Ha I mean "link" but I'm leaving that type. Morning!

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Chang Chen Four Times

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(via)

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Elizabeth: So what's wrong with the Blueberry Pie?
Jeremy: There's nothing wrong with the Blueberry Pie,
just people make other choices. You can't blame
the Blueberry Pie, it's just... no one wants it.

Has anybody watched this film lately? I only saw it the once when it came out but all of a sudden I want to watch it again, even though it left not much of an impression at the time. Perhaps it's a forgotten under-appreciated gem? I have the sense though that it was generally seen as a slight misstep from Wong Kar-wai (who's celebrating his 63rd birthday today, by the way) and that's why he hasn't make any more English language movies since (not to mention Norah Jones hasn't really tried acting again). Thoughts? In summation here are a couple of shots of Jude on set with WCW that I'd posted way back when during filming:

5 Off My Head: Righting Scorsese's Wrongs

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Making lists is a futile sort of business. The second you've made one, and every single second thereafter, ten things you totally forgot about stampede across the roof of your brain, having their way with you. It's utter torment. It's probably one of the mid-levels of Hell, like the staircase between the third and fourth ring. So I forgive Martin Scorsese for forgetting some vitals when he listed "The 39 Essential Foreign Films"...

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Martin Scorsese’s list of 39 essential foreign films. pic.twitter.com/eLh09iojJ3

— Dharma Bhagalia (@Kloppholic) January 17, 2019

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Before you ask no, I do not know the context of that note - who he was sending it to or why. I guess it's to "educate" someone - hence there being no films later than the 1970s. Anyway laying the blame on forgetfulness when it comes to the titles "missing" is awfully brassy of me - perhaps it stands to reason that Martin Scorsese, a 76 year old heterosexual film-maker from Queens, might have different tastes than I do? I suppose it's possible! Anyway I figured I'd take a little of Marty's torment on and make my own (far less substantial) list and give us...

5 Foreign Films I'd Add To Marty's List

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
-- directed by Jacques Demy --

In the Mood For Love (2000)
-- directed by Wong Kar-Wai

Persona (1966)
-- directed by Ingmar Bergman -- 

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (1975)
-- directed by Chantal Akerman -- 

Belle de Jour (1967)
-- directed by Luis Buñuel -- 

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Of course I could go on and on,
which is part of the problem in the first place.

So y'all give me your five in the comments to keep it going...

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Days of Being Wild (1990)

Yuddy: I used to think there was a kind of bird 

that, once born, would keep flying until death. 

The fact is that the bird hasn't gone anywhere. 

It was dead from the beginning. 

The great Leslie Cheung was born on this day in 1956.

What a shame that we lost him so damn young.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Happy Together (1997)

Lai Yiu-fai: Turns out that lonely people
are all the same.

A happy 56 to Tony Leung today.

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