*gasp* Golan-Globus!

Oh my god. Rowlands is totes amazeballs. Totally riveting.

This movie is fabulous. Cassavetes playing the heroically pathetic rich (but cultured) guy, and Rowlands playing the distressingly crumbling woman… it’s… it’s like nothing else. It’s not even like any other Cassavetes movie. Did the Golan/Globus money finally free him to make the movie that he envisioned? After all those years of financing his movies himself?

Rowlands is always good, but Cassavetes has never been better (as an actor) than in this film.

The last fifteen minutes were really frustrating to watch. I mean, that’s the point. But it was hard.

I’m now watching the documentary extras on this Criterion bluray… And it turns out that Jon Voigt was meant to play the guy! But he pulled out three days before shooting was supposed to start, and Cassavetes himself stepped in. That’s… just mind boggling. With Voigt in that part, it would have been such a different movie — I can’t even imagine it. OK, I can, but all I’m imagining is… sheer horror.

Love Streams. John Cassavetes. 1984. ⚅

Oh! The Golden Globes people (partly) financed this restoration? Well, then I don’t know why people are so upset with them!

Anyway.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI87_X52wmk]

I got this Cassavetes box set, and this is the remaining movie from that set. It’s Cassaveteses (that’s a word) first film?

Yes.

Oh, this is very Nouvelle Vague.

But it’s not Godard — it’s not all thought out and stuff. It’s… it’s not that accomplished? I mean, I like it, but it’s just got these technical problems (with lighting, mainly, and, well the actors not being French, which is very technical indeed) that seem to make it totter on the verge of being an American B movie instead of an art movie.

Shadows. John Cassavetes. 1958. ⚂

So this is Cronenberg’s second movie… and I guess he’s still at the university? It’s got that kinda vibe.

His first movie, Stereo, was a lot more visually interesting, but it barely had a plot at all. This one has more of a plot, and isn’t visually interesting at all.

So we’re kinda edging into Cronenberg’s first commercial movie — Shivers — which would arrive five years later.

What!? Cronenberg is remaking this movie? With Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen, of course.

Cronenberg was born in 1943, so he’s… like… almost 80 now. He should be allowed to retire! But if he wants to remake this movie, why not.

But this movie is Cronenberg’s creepiest movie! I hated it when I saw it in the late 80s, and it’s still a lot to take in.

Perhaps Cronenberg wants to do a new version so that when somebody googles the name of it, they’ll never find the first version.

It’s a really loathsome movie.

Crimes of the Future. David Cronenberg. 1970. ⚀