Girlfriends

Girlfriends (1978) - Weill Criterion recently put out the 4K restored version of Girlfriends and I can't recommend this film more. It's really fantastic. Susan (Melanie Mayron) and Annie (Anita Skinner) are roommates in a tenement apartment in New York City in the 70s. Susan is an aspiring photographer and Annie is a writer in the beginning of their career. They are best friends who can help each other out on their work when they need a second pair of eyes. Susan takes gigs as a photographer at bar mitzvah and weddings with the help of an older rabbi (Eli Wallach) at the local synagogue.

Things change with the news of Annie announcing that she is getting married and move to the suburbs. Susan is happy for her friend but also protests, "How can you marry him? You don't even know him!" It's a financial burden to cover the rent all by herself but also liberating to have her own space. Susan paints the wall red and starts going out with a young local artist she met at a party. Even though she spends most of the time in his apartment, she doesn't want to give up her apartment/independence. He could be annoying sometimes. She also starts relationship with the rabbi who is married.

Visit to Annie and Martin in the suburbs further illuminates the different life paths they took. Married life with a kid in the suburbs or being single in the city and struggling? Susan feels that their friendship is fading. On the way home, Susan picks up a young woman hitchhiker, Ceil (Amy Wright), a dancer who is very insistent about crashing at Susan's apartment until she gets her shit together. At first the arrangement is fine, but Ceil's inconsiderate behaviors are getting to Susan who needs her own space.

After landing a show in a downtown gallery with a very supportive, eccentric gallery owner, she invites everyone. But Annie doesn't show. Martin who came alone says that Annie's not feeling well. Susan decides to visit her by driving up to Annie's suburban house after the show. She finds out that Annie had an abortion. It turns out the married life is not what she thought it would be. They look at one another and share an understanding smile before Martin gets home.

Girlfriends is a very natural, great depiction of being a woman in the beginning of her career. It's not preachy in any ways and not judgmental about the characters it portrays. It's their decisions to make those life choices and will have to live with them. There is no wrong or right choice. There is only her choice. Independence is the key word in Girlfriends. Then there is sisterhood. It's a great film. Male supporting characters include, Bob Balaban and Christopher Guest.

God is an Alien?

God Told Me to (1975) - Cohen

Larry Cohen (The Black Caesar, It's Alive!) directs this gritty, low budget cop procedural/Sci-fi that plays out like a good X-Files episode. It starts with a young maniac with a rifle on the top of the water tower in New York, plucking off unsuspecting pedestrians. When a tough NY cop Peter Nicolas (Tony Lo Bianco), catches up with him, the young man tells him that god told him to do it before jumping off to his death. After series of mass murders, with all perpetrators having some connections with a long haired androgynous young man, religious Peter finds himself deep in the rabbit hole involving alien abductions, virgin births and his unknown past.
 

The civic unrest ensues after Peter drops the bomb to the press about the perpetrators' famous words. But the film doesn't let its religious implications bog down from going forward. It is very much a self-contained NY movie too. All the verité style location shooting is brimming with raw energy that equals Dog Day Afternoon. Many of the recognizable NY b-movie actors also make appearances. The film is truly bizarre in every aspect and earns a place in my collection as one of the classics.

Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester

Across 110th Street (1972) - Shear

Capt. Martelli (Anthony Quinn), a Harlem veteran, honkey with loose knuckles, is obviously displeased when a young black Lt. named Pope (Yaphet Kotto) declares himself in charge in a high profile murder case of money laundering gone awry btwn mafia and black folks. Bringing Pope in was a political decision by the higher-ups. The three suspects of the massacre are on the loose only to be hounded by mafia and cops alike. The (anti)hero of the film is Jim Harrison (Paul Benjamin), a down and out parolee who pulls out the job with the others and dreams of a small time happiness with his aging girlfriend who works at a club. Even though he is a ruthless killer, you root for him somehow, feeling his sadness all the way through the final shootout.

110th St. is that archetypal 70s New York film: dirty streets, scant characterizations, appearances by many NY character actors and moral muck all captured in energetic and gritty handheld camera. Even Bobby Wormack's titular song is in its mono-glory, quite different from the superslick cleaned-up version Tarantino uses in Jackie Brown. Its un-stylized violence and melancholy without cornball make Michael Mann movies look like high school plays. It doesn't cater to John Singleton style hammering approach to make a social comment either. I loved it.

Lonely Hearts Hotel

Hotel Monterey (1972) - Akerman Interesting. It starts on the lobby level with the shots of (mostly elderly) patrons coming and going. Then it's from inside the elevator going up and down, its door occasionally opening up to reveal ill lit, narrow, empty hallways. The hotel patrons disappear after ten fifteen minutes and it's kind of a slog with endless static/tracking shots of corridors in grainy 16mm. This 1 hour silent tableaux, documented entirely inside the New York hotel, evokes (as with Akerman's other NY films) the same loneliness and longing as Ed Hopper paintings or Robert Frank's America photographs. It's a rare time capsule of the 70s New York from an outsider's perspective. I liked it a lot.

I Hate Kids

Gloria (1980) - Cassavetes

My goodness. Gena Rowlands chews up the screen and spits it back out in your face. Gloria is no nonsense middle aged broad up in the Bronx. When her neighbors, a mixed race family (headed by Buck Henry) gets wiped out by the mob, she is left with the only survivor, 6 year old boy with wild curly hair, Phil. And she hates kids (especially hates her neighbor's kids, she tells their mother once). Gloria has a shady mob connections from the past and many times throughout the film contemplates ditching the kid. But for some reason, she always ends up shooting her way out with the smartass Phil tightly attached on her waist. On the run, they change series of holdouts, showcasing sleazy NY in the late 70s. In true Cassavetes fashion, the dialog is nonchalant and action immediate. It's all Rowlands though. Not exactly a dog, but she is definitely not a typical Hollywood pretty. Can't see anyone else playing this role.