Three Brief, Utterly Unrelated Asides
Self-Styled Siren — ... Finally, Flickhead celebrates the great Claude Chabrol's 79th birthday with a ten-day wonder of a blogathon, June 21 through June 30. The Siren plans to be there, and so should you. ...

Women in Wonderland, Part 2 - Alice, or the Last Flight (Claude Chabrol 1977)
Bright Lights After Dark — ... story?) Note the use of natural countryside in the clip below, one of the film’s most memorable aspects, as well as the absence of dialogue. This is pure visual storytelling. Note also the use of mirrors and the chessboard pattern of the floor tiles, an obvious shout-out to Through the Looking Glass. And don’t forget the upcoming Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon (June 21-30, 2009) hosted by Flickhead. ...

Nikkatsu Noir - Eclipse Series 17
Eternal Sunshine Of The Logical Mind — ... Limeyninja Quiet Bubble Side Two The Sheila Variations [image] All Hail Fela Kuti Zombie by Fela Kuti No Agreement by Fela Kuti Crazy Afrobeat by Tony Allen Nu Tones by Nomo Voodoo Soul Stew by The Daktaris Donkey by Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra Loading Playlist... [image] Blog-a-thons The French New Wave Blog-a-thon (April 9-12, 2009) Ten Days' Wonder: Claude Chabrol Blog-a-thon (June 21-30, 2009) [image] Toronto Film Festivals ...

On Location
filmscreed — ... On a related note, Flickhead is hosting Ten Days' Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon between June 21st and 30th. Swing by his site for more details. ...

Summer Blogathons
C I N E B E A T S — ... all over the world no matter what their native language happens to be. The idea behind the Japanese Cinema Blogathon is to unite Japanese film fans in an effort to “promote Japanese cinema” and “help readers discover films” that have often been overlooked. This is a subject that’s near and dear to my heart and I’m glad that Michael has made an effort to put this blogathon together. For more information please visit the link below: - Japanese Cinema Blogathon June 15-21 [image] June 21-30 Flickhead will be hosting a Claude Chabrol Blogathon focusing on the ...

Coffee Break
Coffee coffee and more coffee — Jacqueline Bisset in La Ceremonie (Claude Chabrol - 1995) Le blogathon de Claude Chabrol commence a chez Flickhead.

The Claude Chabrol blogathon: The Road to Corinth
Coffee coffee and more coffee — ... he could at least work with Otto Preminger's discovery. If you want to see Jean Seberg's best acting performance, see Lillith. In The Road to Corinth, it's enough that Jean Seberg is blonde and beautiful, and that every man in the film falls in lover with her. Even if one jettisons questions of Claude Chabrol's style and authorship, Jean Seberg's presence alone is enough to justify a view of this souffle of a movie. For much, much more on Chabrol, visit Flickhead.

Que la Bete Meure (This Man Must Die)
filmscreed — ... A contribution to Ten Day’s Wonder – The Claude Chabrol Blogathon hosted by Flickhead. A small boy in a yellow raincoat happily gathering clams on a foggy beach. A speeding black car with radio blasting. These two opening images, and the way they are intercut with each other create an uneasy feeling within the viewer. Something bad is going to happen here, and it doesn’t take long. The child wanders onto the street and is cut down by the car. The car contains a man and woman, and she reacts with horror. The man angrily tells her to ...

Les Biches
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] Few directors have as acute an eye as Claude Chabrol for patiently observing and tracing the petty cruelties and shifts of power that run through intimate relationships. His best films seethe with the undercurrents of frustration, jealousy, revenge and betrayal that flow between those ...

Dreams... or Nightmares?
Cinema Styles — ... "It's heavy. What is it?" - The Maltese Falcon, d. John Huston "What is it? It's heavy." - The Bridesmaid, d. Claude Chabrol It's also Day Three of the Claude Chabrol Blogathon taking place at Flickhead's. I plan to contribute a much better and bigger piece than this screengrab post but just wanted to point out the two shots anyway because whenever one movie makes me think of another movie and it isn't because it's churning out the same cliches over and over, it makes me feel ...

Que la bête meure
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] In Que la bête meure, Claude Chabrol, interested as always in the mechanics of genre, engages with the form of the revenge thriller. Of course, Chabrol does not simply reiterate the staples of the genre, but digs into them, examines them, questions the basic ...

This Man Must Die (Que la bête meure, 1969)
Ferdy on Films, etc. — Ten Days’ Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon This Man Must Die (Que la bête meure, 1969) Director/Coscreenwriter: Claude Chabrol By Marilyn Ferdinand This review is part of Ten Days’ Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon hosted by Flickhead. What do Claude Chabrol and the Coen Brothers have in common? They’ve both sought inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey. While the Coens provided an impeccably turned-out riot of music and over-the-top adventures with O Brother, Where Art ...

Le Boucher
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] Claude Chabrol spends nearly two-thirds of Le Boucher establishing an idyllic country setting, a small rural town, peaceful and quiet, where the lonely, middle-aged schoolteacher Hélène (Stéphane Audran) develops a friendship with the butcher Popaul (Jean ...

Watch the Great Illusion Drown
Cinema Styles — ... walk through the old abandoned house - or at least the upstairs portion of it) but in the end Chabrol doesn't want to thrill his viewer but to engage him in something richer, more full of life. As the credits roll and Flora gazes back on us, unquestioning and unblinking, we wonder, did we just watch a love story or a psychodrama? And then we laugh and realize, "What's the difference?" ****************** This review of The Bridesmaid is a part of Ten Days Wonder, the Claude Chabrol Blogathon hosted by Flickhead. ...

Bookmarks for June 24th through June 25th
Row Three — ... Pauline Kael is one of the most beloved American critics of all times, as much for her outspoken opinions and the unabashed enthusiasm that poured out of her writing as anything else. Jason Bellamy of The Cooler hosted a series of discussions on her more provocative pieces last week - I look forward to reading through it! F L I C K H E A D: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon Ray Young of Flickhead has begun a ten-day blogathon in tribute to New Wave director Claude Chabrol. The first few days are already linked up, and he'll continue to add links to this post as he and other film ...

Juste avant le nuit
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] Claude Chabrol's Juste avant le nuit is a suffocating psychological study of a man who is overwhelmed by guilt, and who, more than that, is devastated by the discovery that what he had thought to be a stable system of justice and morality was actually a paper-thin ...

Claude Chabrol
The Listening Ear — It's already Friday, but.... I seem to have expended whatever blogathon energy I have on last week's Japanese cinema blogathon, but I need to note that there is another very good series going on now - Flickhead is hosting a Claude Chabrol blogathon. This runs through the 30th - it has already produced a nice body of postings... I've barely seen any Chabrol - 3-4 films maybe - so I'm of no use to this, and don't really know enough to follow what's being written very well... but this looks like one of those sites I'll bookmark and come back to every time I do see one.... Good ...

Jack and Jackie
Cinema Styles — ... follow breathlessly) as the first Miss USA winner ever in 1952. Also, according to one of the most exemplary Wikipedia biographies I have ever read, she is also a woman. Really, treat yourself. Jack is primarily known for Dragnet of course. In the photo above they appear to be celebrating their marriage but in reality they are celebrating Cinema Styles 300th banner, and who wouldn't? They're also celebrating Flickhead's Claude Chabrol Blogathon, the upcoming Ed Wood blogathon (no word yet on ...

La Décade Prodigieuse - Ten Days’ Wonder (Claude Chabrol 1971)
Bright Lights After Dark — ... No, the reason I chose Ten Days’ Wonder for the Claude Chabrol Blogathon is because it’s fun. Fun to watch. Fun to write about. ...

Les noces rouges
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] To watch the films of Claude Chabrol is to become aware of the boredom and triviality of everyday life — and not just aware, but acutely sensitive, attuned to the daily, all too ordinary frustrations of strangled communication and deadened sensual impulses. His characters often ...

Conversation with Chabrol
Bright Lights After Dark — ... The Claude Chabrol Blogathon continues here.

Nada
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] Claude Chabrol's Nada is a wry, blackly comic epilogue to the May 1968 period of leftist student uprisings in France. One imagines it as a kind of sequel to Jean-Luc Godard's May '68 cine-tract La Chinoise: Godard's photogenic, slogan-spouting student ...

Pleasure Party
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For ten days, Flickhead will be dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I'll be following along with many reviews of my own.] If Claude Chabrol's Nada could be thought of as a kind of sequel to Godard's La Chinoise, Chabrol's next film, Pleasure Party, might be an examination of another older film by another of Chabrol's French New Wave contemporaries. Pleasure Party ...

Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Claude Chabrol's Les Biches (1968)
Moon In The Gutter — ... that is currently running, but some prior commitments as well as this lingering bloody back injury have kept me from it. So, as an excuse to link to it at least and pay tribute to one of my favorite films, this weeks tribute in stills is to the mighty Les Biches. Enjoy and please check Flickhead's terrific running tribute to one of cinema's greatest masters. ...

Cop au vin
Only The Cinema — [This is a contribution to the Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon currently running at Flickhead from June 21 to June 30. For the last ten days, Flickhead has been dedicated to the works of the French New Wave master, and I've been following along with many reviews of my own.] Cop au vin is a quirky black comedy in which Claude Chabrol, always eager to skewer the bourgeois and expose their foibles, focuses on the shady business dealings, love affairs and murderous impulses of a group of small-town businessmen. This mess is all ...

Thoughts on La Fleur du mal (The Flower of Evil)
Coosa Creek Cinema — ... I had intended to write something for Flickhead’s Claude Chabrol Blogathon, but it took me a long time to get around to it, and I am a day late and a dollar short.  Part of it was strictly time: it’s been crazy at Chez Olson, and particularly at the office.  But another part of it was my reluctance to write about a subject I know little about.  I know, I know:  that hasn’t stopped me before.  But Chabrol is different:  a certified grand master of filmmaking, he’s been directing films since the late fifties, about as long as anyone I know of, even ...

Anecdote of the Week: Myrna Was the Lady in Red
Self-Styled Siren — ... Claude Chabrol Blogathon is now over, but the Siren hopes you have followed it as avidly as she has. It's wonderful, with some of the best, most appreciative writing on Chabrol to be found anywhere. Start here and follow the links. ...