Best Cassavetes movie

i think Minnie and Moskowitz is ny favourite.
Cassavetes movies are usualy wayy too long, but not M&M,which is a lighter effort but no less wonderful

close 2nd:opening night.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb52/The_Playlist/husbands.jpg

What a poster, eh?

good poster, though one might think it's a gangster flick, which is quite the opposite

Too bad there's no "none" option.

Haven't seen the early Hollywood ventures. Faces is the only one that didn't bore me silly.

"Haven't seen the early Hollywood ventures"

Shadoes is a masterpiece, and is different from his later stuff, more close in spirit to the french new wave, only with an amteure actors and a strong "realism" effect

too bad Mikey & Nicky doesnt count. I went Chinese Bookie; WomUtInfluence & Opening Night are particularly annoying.

"A Woman Under The Influence" although i've still to watch a few of them. i've had "Love Steams" here to watch for ages.

Man, this is hard. I think "Woman Under the Influence," maybe. But "Husbands" kicked my ass. Gena Rowlands is one of those people I could watch for hours and hours. "Love Streams" is truly weird, and pretty evenly split between terrible and awesome.

What is terrible about Love Streams?

Alpha Dog!

Woman Under The Influence always looked too melodramatic to me.
Gian Rowlands is the best actress ever probably, but this one is exaggerated

What is terrible about Love Streams?

Hmm. I guess I'm generally sensitive to play adaptations, and I think it's just too stiff and 'theatrical' in chunks. Cassavetes is a bit over the top, I think (I love him as an actor, so, so much, but it's occasionally hard to watch him in this I think).

"Terrible" was unnecessarily hyperbolic.

Chinese Bookie for me and for the win I'm guessing. I love his whole longwinded-ass schtick tho.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

still think he peaked with Woman, which just edges out my namesake film. It's probably a sympathy thing, although Cosmo's plight in KoaCB is at least as tragic, and definitely more restrained.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

what's the better "...Chinese Bookie"?

the original, longer one.

Husbands? Really?

Husbands is actually the only one I can sorta recite from -- Falk's monologue on sports: "Badminton, that's a helluva game."

never seen any of these!

oops

THE PARIS NUMBER?

Cassevetes, Falk, Gazzara, Cavett.

"Husbands? Really?"

otm.

should have been replaced by Shadows

IS IT ON? THE PARIS NUMBER!

ARE THERE LETTERS ON THE WALL?

turnout here is pathetic, this should be redone - whether you rate C or not, he's a major figure in the history of film

^

Would vote.

i can't imagine the results being any different, at all, really, but it'd be nice to have the thread for discussion. he has come up a lot lately, i guess re: a lot of recent films that are 'emotionally' 'intense' in a different way.

we could poll performances/actors? i remember seeing claire denis' i can't sleep & just knowing how intense it was going to be because of its actors, each who mainly specialises in just standing-there-smouldering:

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTpbe7OUR32x8Ece79zhqmoAdEjGgeOmlZ-SDICornJC8-iyPisw
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSHPnNZuDR9wH49ZJiP-NtKGna3VQMySY9Bps_YSw2ZwoPx15Iu
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3DUZTdw091o4CcOGL8c4LfZEyQD0ZkblHuSXYbI79sObesLtR

gazzara, cassavetes, falk, rowlands all have the same human-nitroglycerin qualities. we could poll explosive relationships in cassavetes' films.

I haven't seen I Can't Sleep, is Gallo in that? Or did you mean Trouble Every Day (which I like)?

oh shit - i didn't, but i was actually referring to nenette and boni, and had conflated the two. there are other smouldering performances in i can't sleep but it's really the range of moods that makes it so weird - the kinda airiness of daiga's perambulation, the atmosphere of the late night scenes, the various usually contrasting territories trodden by the two characters whose deeds inform the plot. it's a weird but good one.

re: cassavetes:

The astonishingly protracted production—as wild and free as it was methodical and meticulous—is described in detail in Ray Carney’s indispensable book “Cassavetes on Cassavetes.” A hallmark of the best modern directors is that they don’t just invent results, they invent means: they rethink and personalize the entire process of filmmaking. Cassavetes is one of these directors; his films are among the most emotionally powerful and aesthetically original works of his era.

this is richard brody on husbands, and it's what i think is one of the most interesting things about him - as someone who prizes carney's book and is as floored reading about the films and plays and their dogged genesis as i am anything, it still feels like there's a lot to debate on how successful he was - there is so much to love in his process, but there is the issue of whether he ended up making noble films that achieved without satisfying, somehow; that he achieved better means than he did results (although the emotional fabric of the films is always an achievement in itself, sure).

ben gazzara!
rip
he was one of the greatest for me

rip
he's now off to meet Patrick Swayze in the Great Road House in the Sky.
;_;

I was gonna say the first to mention Road House wins tonight's Hipsters Ain't Dead We Love Shit award.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFyKbrqgvI&feature=related

hipsters shmipsters, i bet that almost everyone will think ben gazzara = road house (echt hipsters will throw in "big lebowski" and [maybe] the steve mcqueen OG version of "thomas crown affair"). no-one but film nerds (and whoever wrote mr gazzara's NYT obit) watched cassavetes films. (which isn't an insult to cassavetes or his films, i'm merely stating a fact!)

i didnt remember he was in lebowski til u mentioned it, havent seen road house in 20 yrs, 1st thought of chinese bookie, dam i am the 1 percent

this is the way culture dies, not with Anatomy of a Murder but with Eisbaer

ive never heard of road house

id guess his international rep owes more to JC films, save for in italy

I think of the Cassavetes films first, then Anatomy, then the couple he did with Bogdanovich. (Haven't seen Road House.) Worth noting how close his death was to Falk's. His IMDB filmography spans 60 years.

think "hipsters" might also remember this one fondly too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yWEs74FsIM

the NYT obit didn't even mention road house and had quite a bit about the cassavetes films. so culture is not yet dead yay.

nor Gilbert Gottfried's bit about aliens who land and ask him "Ben Gazzara's a good actor, why doesn't he have a series?"

he is so godam sexy in anatomy of a murder

yeah, wow, ben gazzara. i never thought much of chinese bookie, but he's great in it. the penis scribbling scene is my favorite gag in the big lebowski. i remember him seeming very warm and likable in an avclub interview a couple years back:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/ben-gazzara,35105/

hes one of those guys, even though i havent seen a ton of his stuff, where the stuff that you do see really sticks with you. like anatomy of a murder. curious about his italian language work!

also I knew he had done TennWilliams onstage in the '50s, but did not realize he was the first Brick in Cat on Broadway.

One of my favorite actors, sad he died of the kind of pancreatic cancer. Loved both Husbands and Chinese Bookie. Loved him here too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-dClTQ7yPc

oh shit :(

r.i.p. original Cosmo Vitelli, you and cassavetes pulled off some magic there. I even got seriously excited and sentimental to see you and Gena hangin out in that Paris omnibus a few years ago. godspeed.

he is so godam sexy in anatomy of a murder

when he and Lee Remick drive off and Jimmy Stewart gives them a look that says "I'll be seeing your ass in court again soon" while also envying the fuck out of them.

i remember him seeming very warm and likable

years and years ago I dated his editor and was lucky enough to have a few dinners with Mr. Gazzara and I can tell you that he was incredibly warm, and generous, and an all-around lovely man. Drank me under the table, unsurprisingly.

he definitely seemed like a super-great guy. very sad. :(

http://media.tri-cityherald.com/smedia/2012/02/03/23/07/959-11Jf8k.St.55.jpg

also can we just take a moment and look at lee remick? no objections? OK:

http://i2.listal.com/image/1242359/600full-lee-remick.jpg

http://static.life.com/ugc/091/ugc1157091/watermarkcomp.jpg

which version of Chinse Bookie do I screen: the 108- or 135-minute cut?

108

tf @ these results, this needs to be redone