Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
April 2006 activity
Total Log Entries: 73
- Adam (8)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (2)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (4)
- Jenny (5)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (15)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (18)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (6)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 32
- Lady Snowblood (0)
- Lost Highway (6)
- The Ring 2 (0)
- The Proposition (0)
- King Kong (0)
- Club Paradise (3)
- Good Night, and Good Luck. (0)
- Missing (0)
- You Are My Sunshine (1)
- The Passion of the Christ (0)
- Finder’s Fee (1)
- Days of Heaven (0)
- Eat The Document (0)
- The Gladiators (0)
- L.A. Confidential (1)
- Dead Man’s Shoes (0)
- Inside Man (0)
- Rhythms of the World Anthology (0)
- Mr. Arkadin (Corinth Version) (0)
- Thank You For Smoking (0)
- Frenzy (0)
- Pulse (0)
- A Walk Through H (0)
- Bend of the River (0)
- Oh My God! (0)
- The Pity Card (0)
- The Devil’s Rejects (3)
- House of 1000 Corpses (4)
- Clean (0)
- Sex & Fury (0)
- Days of Heaven (0)
- My Grandmother’s House (0)
- They Live (0)
- The Double Life of Veronique (1)
- L’Enfant (0)
- Possible Models (0)
- Thank You For Smoking (0)
- Point Break (0)
- Max Headroom (0)
- Big Time (0)
- Scary Movie 4 (0)
- Wolf Creek (0)
- The Stepfather (0)
- Saw (0)
- The Intruder (0)
- Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (0)
- V For Vendetta (0)
- Match Point (0)
- Jarhead (0)
- A Very Long Engagement (0)
- Gerry (0)
- Brick (0)
- Friends with Money (0)
- Solaris (4)
- Westworld (0)
- Hardcore (0)
- Tenebre (0)
- BMX Bandits (2)
- Cursed (0)
- Rumble Fish (0)
- Condemned to Live (0)
- The Talk of the Town (0)
- Shivers (0)
- The Best of Youth (0)
- Full Metal Jacket (2)
- The Parlor (0)
- Bully (1)
- Lumière (0)
- The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1)
- Welcome To The Jungle (0)
- Return Of The Secaucus 7 (0)
- Wake Up Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2)
- 3-Iron (0)
Full Archive
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Big Time / USA / 1988
In the early ’80s, Tom Waits decided he’d had enough of his smoky late-night-bar scene piano melodies. What the new decade needed was off-kilter rhythms, blaring horns, an accordion, maybe some vibes, and a gravelly voiced troubadour growling out line after line of colorful, stupefying, and at times terrifying, lyrics.
Big Time is this new Waits ethos captured on film, and any Waits fans out there who haven’t stumbled upon this treasure need to spare no expense in seeking it out. (And if you’ve never heard of Waits, the film is as good an introduction as you can get.)
Woven through the intoxicating footage of a pencil-thin mustachioed Waits stomping and wailing through tunes from Swordfishtrombones, Raindogs, and Frank’s Wild Years, is an odd narrative thread centered on a down-on-his-luck concert promoter (played by Waits) who spends most of his time either dreaming of the very show we are watching, or attempting to lure new customers into the performance.
This strange framing device, coupled with Waits’s incessant, and hilarious, between-song comedy bits, not to mention the apparent lack of any audience witnessing this madcap performance, lifts Big Time far above the rank of mere concert video and into the realm of a wholly entertaining cinematic experience.
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: 35mm Print
16 Apr 2006 11:39 AM | Submit Comment