Again, it's been a few days since i've blogged, but have been seeing movies. Today, went to the rpess screenings for "Film Comment Selects" at the Walter Reade Theater. Very pleasant. Not because of the movies (three more dour films it would be hard to imagine) , but because it was fun running into people. George Robinson, Ira Hozinsky, Tony Pipolo... Elliott Stein had some info on upcoming retrospective films at the Tribeca Film Festival, a new print of "Stairway to Heaven". Anyway, the three films were the German film "Longing", "Bardo" which was an "experimental" video from Taiwan, and "These Encounters of Theirs", the final film from Danielle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. The Straub-Huillet film was... discreetly beautiful, i guess is a way to describe it. Rather gentle in a passive-aggressive way, which is typical of Straub-Huillet. It's a film of further dialogues from Cesare Pavese....

Anyway, in the past few days, have seen Peter Whitehead's "Daddy" (a collaboration with Niki De Saint Phalle) and his "Pop Films" (a selection of his musical shorts... the one of Nico is particularly stunning), "Brick", "The Dead Girl" and (again) "The Blossiming of Maximo Oliveros". Before my free Netflix subscription ends (on Friday), hope to see "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints".

A tornado ripped through parts of Florida.

"The Dead Girl" is one of those curiosities: it's hard not to say that it's consistent, that it's a sustained and fully realized piece of work. But dreary! Talk about your dose of misery! However, i'd like to say that Marcia Gay Harden is better in "The Dead Girl" than she is in "American Gun".

And i've been reading. Read Karen Joy Fowler's "The Jane Austen Book Club" and am in the middle of her "Sarah Canary", and finished Gavin Lambert's "The Goodbye People" and now near the end of "The Slide Area".

But have been thinking about movies, and am looking forward to seeing "The Wayward Cloud" tomorrow.