Posted on by mwhybark

Cities in dust

On my way to NWFF tonight, I walked around my old neighborhood gawking at the massive changes that two years have brought. I was gawking at the new buildings, but evidently crime is up as well. Lots of shiny new restaurants targeting an upscale demographic, lots of closed mom-and-pop storefronts and empty old standbys.

The old standby I selected ws Bill’s Pizza and Pasta, mostly empty (as were the majority I walked by).

The first song to roar off the jukebox as I settled in was Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Your City Lies in Dust.

Posted on by mwhybark

Yub yub

Spencer screened the oddball 1929 silent/sound hybrid The Mysterious Island at NWFF tonight, and according to his presentation notes, the film was budgeted at over $4m – the equivalent, according to this, of from $40m to $400m today.

You could, as they say, see the money on the screen, in huge and elaborate sets and miniatures and in a peculiar grand finale involving what must have been a thousand midgets in rubber suits.

All in all, a film I found worth seeing, but one which must be characterized as muddled in construction. Other folks have written about it at length.