Mike Meltzer

Tonight's film is this Rear Window style thriller starring Elizabeth Taylor from 1973. Has lots of sideburns and good horror movie style flashback dream sequences:

Today's film at NYFF is Wife of Seisaku from 1965:

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows "exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation," with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty." Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down." The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote. Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Today's film at New York Film Festival is the restoration of Sholay:

#NowWatching ACE IN THE HOLE (1951)

Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97

I grew up going to Zabar's. So many of my childhood memories center around the best lox in NYC (which is saying something). With Saul Zabar's passing today, the Upper West Side has lost a legend who turned his parent's humble store into a culinary institution.

This week's films at New York Film Festival are restorations of Sholay, Wife of Seisaku, and The Arch:

Sinatra is backed up against an alley wall, checking the gunshot in his shoulder, beside him a woman cowers

Frank Sinatra in SUDDENLY - NYC premiere this day in 1954 - Italian release poster

Watching the Tinto Brass film Deadly Sweet:

Libraries Can’t Get Their Loaned Books Back Because of Trump’s Tariffs Libraries have shared their collections internationally for decades. Trump’s tariffs are throwing that system into chaos and can ‘hinder academic progress.’

Got a tip recently about how Trump's tariffs are preventing libraries from sharing books, and causing their loaned books to get stuck or lost in other countries: www.404media.co/libraries-ca...

Watching Robert Altman's Pret-a-Porter:

The other day I watched Werewolf of London so today I am watching She-Wolf of London:

Just finished reading this great book on the history of Richard Wagner's The Ring:

About to start reading this book on the history of seven French women from the 1600's who were the first writers of fairy tale stories.

Sunday movie is John Ford's How Green Was My Valley at the Paris Theater:

This is really specific. I wonder how many paragraphs they had to type into an ai to get all the little background details they wanted.

Excited to see this Jeremiah Johnson scene on the big screen this weekend:

Seeing two good film rewatches on the big screen for the first time this weekend at the Paris Theater: Robert Redford in Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson and John Ford's How Green Was My Valley

Friday movie is Ringo Lam's City on Fire:

We are the daughters of the witches you couldn’t slam in the back of your dragula.

Wednesday movie is Devil Times Five aka Horrible House on the Hill aka People Toys:

Michael and Paulie Walnuts being beamed to the Enterprise

Like this is just good internet

One Battle After Another and Sinners both lay out a formula for cinema success: diverse movies where white nationalists get duffed in the most graphic way possible shot and presented in increasingly baroque high resolution formats.

Sunday movie:

$5 Pick up

Watching this cool looking Steve McQueen 1980 film Tom Horn because Paul Thomas Anderson said it was the last great film he watched when he was on this week's Big Picture podcast:

CHOTINER: But you’ve had romantic entanglements in the past. For instance, Lucy Westenra?
DRACULA: Tragic case. The poor girl.
CHOTINER: Died of acute blood loss, I believe?
DRACULA: Attacked by a wolf, I think.
CHOTINER: You can turn into a wolf, right?
DRACULA: That’s right.
CHOTINER: Thank you.

Interview with the Vampire but the interviewer is Isaac Chotiner