Cutter's Way (1981)

 Out of the Past....comes Cutter's Way (1981). Thought about it for a while...

Saw this when I bought the DVD 20 years back or so...through the grapevine it came through the Coen bros' Big Lebowski, as it's one of the influences for the film.

Revisited now...

As we stand today probably the best known Ivan Passer film (my tops go to Born to Win -1971, best ever George Segal performance, as in Cutter, John Heard as Alex Cutter is his career best and a unique performance)

Based on the 1976 novel "Cutter and Bone" by Newton Thornburg. Title was changed in order to avoid a confusion on a film comey about two surgeons (!!!)

Passer wasn't the 1st choice to direct as neither Bridges and Heard were to act in it. But the Gods of Cinema found a way...

Uncanny& unsetting music by Jack Nitzsche, in the style of the one he did for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, featuring glass harmonica and zither. 

“The film moves with an easy uncoerced swing: moment by moment, scene by scene, we are unsure what to think or where we are going. It is a fascinating, organically grown drama.”
 – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“[Heard] is one of America's great lost actors.”
 – Antonia Quirke, The Financial Times

Bill Wyman -Drive My Car (2024)

Bill Wyman put out an album at 87. Drive My Car, some wonderful covers (among which a nice rendition of Thunder on the Mountain from Bob Dylan's and 3 originals. Sounds a lot like J.J. Cale....

87? Eighty-Seven ? This is definitely the oldest rock musician's album yet. 

Also Wyman (former Rolling Stones bass player and co-founder) is retired from over 30 years (1993). In 1997 he formed The Rhythm Kings aka  Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, more of a club band. He joined the Stones for last year's Hackney Diamonds, playing the bass on the "Live By the Sword" song.

Surely on my Top albums of 2024. Made my Day (and what a Day :)

Review on Louder, here. 

                                                             "....but drive it Slow !!!"

MaXXXine (2024)

MaXXXine ends the X trilogy, continued with prequel Pearl (2022). Of course he just made it up as he went along...

It might be Ti West's most ambitious yet, more Meta and auto-referential. Plus the whole Hollywood puns and the 80's cheesy sleazy world of addiction and decadence. It's also the most self-ironical, self-conscious film of the three, more like a parody than the others, cynical, tongue-in-cheek, movie universe based, locked & loaded.

This is an article mentioning 7 films related to MaXXXine. Psycho (again!, after Pearl) and De Palma's Body Double (complete with a Frankie Goes to Hollywood sequence !)

Adding to that Sunset Blvd., What Happened to Baby Jane, Profondo Rosso,  Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, even Chinatown... the elevator from 8 Millions Ways to Die, a showdown at the Hollywood sign...  

And that damn Alligator has a cameo, this time on the small video screen, not from Tobe Hopper but from the Sergio Martino's the Great Alligator (1979) ;)

an interview with Ti West (here's my notes on his western, In a Valley of Violence, and the cult film The Sacrament), on the Konbini video store series, about his models, references, favorite flicks here or below: 

His BFI top films list is a classical (and classy;) one.

RIP Nicu Covaci

Cei ce ne-au dat nume ...se duc acum cu totii...

Nicu Covaci a fost Phoenix, "insa eu"...

19 aprilie 1947-2 august 2024. 

RIP....End of an Era...

Fotografie de Cristian Radu Nema de la premiera filmului lui, Phoenix: Povestea, pe 16 octombrie 2022, cu Nicu in forma festiva, alaturi de Laura Baron.

more later...

i-am vazut, ca o intreaga generatie care i-a asteptat cu infrigurare dupa fuga lor din 1978, in Parcul copiilor, in toamna tirzie aului 1990.