HUD

Paul Newman (being roused out of bed by his teenage nephew): "I sure do hope for your sake that this house is on fire!"--Hud

Last night I went to see Film 101 at the Event Screen.  They showed Martin Ritt's Hud from the novel Horseman Riding By by Larry McMurtry, one of my favourite writers.  I'd seen it before, but only on TV; photographed by the famous James Wong Howe, on the big screen it's a revelation!  Paul Newman's in rare form as the carousing, amoral ranch heir.  The scene where they have to shoot their whole herd to prevent the spread of hoof and mouth disease is still pretty shocking, though they didn't hurt any real cows in filming it  When Murray Pomerance asked for audience feedback after the movie, I pointed out the obvious comparison between that movie and Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, also based on a McMurtry novel.

Tonight at the Bloor I saw Afternoon of a Faun, a documentary about Chantaquil LeClerc, a great ballerina who inspired George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins but was crippled by polio in her prime.  Lots of Debussy music.  This was the movie's last night and I almost forgot to see it, but during dinner Moira mentioned something about Balanchine and that reminded me.  I owe her one.

I've been seeing quite a few movies at the Bloor lately.  I saw the trailer for Satan Came to Eden and the one for this movie several times, and lately I've been seeing the trailer for Teenage, a documentary about adolescent culture in the twentieth century, and The Missing Picture, about a Cambodian recreating the unphotographed Khmer Rouge autogenocide through miniature dioramas.  While I was there I also got a schedule for the Hot Docs festival, which starts tomorrow. (They have a documentary of Jane Campion filming Top of the Lake!)

Yesterday I was replenishing some medication at Shoppers Drug Mart, and I also bought a lot of post-Easter candy at a markdown.  It included some Ferrero Rocher, which I now think is my favourite candy, sold in an egg-shaped container.  They were selling chocolate in the shape of a high-heeled shoe, but I skipped that.