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NEWS OF ATHENS’ CINEMA SCENE
Sophistication and Sentiment: A friend who's
perhaps too aware—and indulgent—of my,
urn, proclivities gave me a biography of Ernst
Lubitsch for my birthday a few weeks ago; I'd
long intended to read Scott Eyman's Laughter
in Paradise, but had never bought myself a
copy. Now that I have one. I've been using
whatever spare time I can find to soak up a
bit of it here and there. And as I'm sure my
friend could have predicted (and much to my
wife's inconvenience), it has occasioned a
mini-revival of Lubitsch films in my house—
including the Maurice Chevalier musicals!
Eyman's book is good—it's nice to get a
sense of Lubitsch's actual personality, and
not just the nebulous one I've assigned to
the idea of him from watching his films—
but I'll admit his critical metrics don't quite
agree with mine. He seems to be trying a
little too hard not to register as an all-out
Lubitsch partisan and deals more harshly with
the director's non-masterpieces than is really
necessary. And, of course, using this scale of
appraisal, a wonderfully entertaining work
of imitation like Rouben Mamoulian's 1932
Love Me Tonight—the only musical Chevalier
and Jeannette MacDonald made without
Lubitsch—is judged a hollow, ingratiating
counterfeit.
Maybe that's why I decided to jump ahead
and re-watch Heaven Can Wait (1943) before
I got to it in the book (though I'm sure
Eyman considers it a high point). In it, the
sleek Deco interiors against which Lubitsch's
characters were made so gloriously animate
in his early sound films have been replaced
by a plush Victorian milieu that, while still
opulent, radiates the warmth of home and
in which physical spaces are imbued with a
deep psychological resonance. The sexual
politics, too, so spiky and blas£ in the early
musicals and sound comedies, have acquired
consequences that couldn't be more personal.
Lubitsch's embrace of what might be described
as a mature sentimentality began to be
strongly felt in Angel, Ninotchka and especially
The Shop Around the Corner, and is here fully
and seamlessly integrated with his style. I
can't wait to get ahold of Cluny Brown.
V Get Ready for a Lot of Bolds: The Rock Docs
portion of the AthFest FilmFest at Cine kicks
off before the festival itself this year, with a
couple of recent, high-profile music films. The
Runaways, a rock-you-drama starring Kristen
Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as
Cherie Currie (if you dig, you dig) opened on
June 11, and When You're
Strange, a documentary about
The Doors narrated by Johnny
Depp, will open on June 18.
Also that weekend is the local
comedic feature The Gallon
Challenge. Things get going in
earnest with the AthFest Music
+ Video Show Wednesday,
June 23. Thursday, June 24
(right before the Flagpole Music
Awards Show!) is the Athens
premiere of Spenser Simrill,
Jr.'s new tour documentary Of
Montreal: Family Nouveau.
Friday will feature an advance
look at longtime Athenian
filmmaker Erica McCarthy's
in-progress doc Vic Chesnutt
Celebration, a chronicle of the
performances and performers
at the February tribute shows
at the 40 Watt commemorat
ing the life and work of the
great local singer-songwriter,
as well as a rare screening of
Pete Sillen's amazing 1994 doc
Speed Racer: Welcome to the
World of Vic Chesnutt.
The Athens Picture Show
program runs Thursday through
Sunday and includes a fat
bunch of locally produced
filmstuffs, including the fes
tival's Short Film Program
and Athens TeenScreen. Also featured will be
the return of Not Since You, produced by our
own Ashley Epting (which actually begins its
run the previous weekend), as well as former
Flagpole film writer Patrick Franklin's zombie
pic Pushin' Up Daisies and the ubiquitous but
still essential 1987 doc Athens, GA: Inside/
Out. And one more thing—a program of shorts
called Athens Horror Show, including two
films by gOnZoRiFFiC schlockmeister (and
local film writer) Andrew Shearer will screen
late Saturday night. Most of these films will
have repeat screenings, and you'll notice I
haven't listed any times. Full information
can—and must!—be had at athensdne.com.
Mmm... Other News: Don't forget about Bad
Movie Night at Cin6 June 16 (now!): the 1991
Joey Travolta vehicle Wilding: The Children of
Violence... tficole Holofceneris acclaimed com
edy Please Give opens June 18 at Cin6 and
runs concurrently with the AthFest stuff (and
hopefully a little longer), and Cinq's Summer
Classic Film Series begins July 2—more on
that in two weeks... Finally, the ACC Library's
iFilms series will feature James Moll's docu
mentary Inheritance June 17 and the long
awaited A Man Named Pearl June 24. Go to
clarke.public.lib.ga.us.
Dave Marr film@flagpole.com
The Runaways, a rock-you-drama starring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett
is at Cin6.
706-548-1316
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