seeing Moin, Still House Plants, and Mabe Fratti in the space of a month is a pretty good London autumnal mood enhancer

youtube's autogenerated subtitles pick up shoes stepping on gravel –– across pavements and asphalt –– as [applause], and that is very beautiful

a handful of Pollet's title cards

thought this was Garth Marenghi

Make no mistake, not only are these going to be incredible programmes and huge successes, but the ICA are establishing a culture of proper full retrospectives in London — something we have lacked, outside of some big names every few years.

the ICA doing cool programmes again is great news –– everywhere else is gristle, fat and bone: A24 autoerotic asphyxiation, in the mood for love spamming, and hey have you heard of this film called Stalker

Godard interview on 9/11 from 2002 –kinoslang.blogspot.com/2009/03/godard…

Drôle de jeu (1968), which Pollet made with Pierre Kast, is basically a big flat cold fish but hey it has some great trench coats and a really good bit where communist youth smash up a Nazi census office

Rosenbaum's film collection list can be seen here: rb.gy/j7vzle

Manny Farber in 1957 is basically swinging for fauxtentious a24 lookbook films: an "engineered middle-class blitz" that apes the avant-garde but doesn't have the "talent or idealism for rebellious creation"

in his '68 interview with Cahiers du Cinema, Pollet describes a film like Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967), which he probably hadn't seen: "we could make a fantastic film, which would be a single, fixed shot, where there would only be arrivals, exits from the frame, etc."

the toilets at the BFI may be new, but there's still a guy who shouts "rubbbbish" after the obligatory pre-film Lloyds ad. and that is very good.

I forgot about Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975), which I saw a few weeks ago –– with all its leery funny self-strange admixture of music, politics, optimism, place

followed by Gloria (1980) –– Cassavetes' blustery-anxious crime caper; totally bananas (doubtful, furious) performance from Gena Rowlands ofc

scripts, notes, scrawls, scribbles from Jean-Daniel Pollet's many-many-many scenarios

you know I had to rewatch Michael Mann's Heat (1995) –– for all the pew-pew it is really an archly sentimental noir

yhss this is the stuff –– "clumsiness has the effect of a sort of handwriting"; errors, 'mistakes', "drifting into shot", aberrations, fumbles are what make film interesting. I want to see the filmmakers' thumb prints and their glue stains!

real larger-lout hours; respect