Ace in the POLL!! BILLY WILDER DIRECTS

Sabrina is nearly flawless filmmaking, I’m stunned to come here and see zero votes. Any NYers catching the Film Forum retrospective?

Haven’t made it over there yet

Saw Sabrina there tonight and sensed the astonishment in the audience. It got applauded.

I remember enjoying the first hour a lot, but then drifting as the romance takes precedence over the comedy

^^^ same.

Fedora is the real sleeper.

I can't with the late Wilder: he loses any semblance of rhythm, tonality, humor.

Yeah, Fedora just seemed like an especially dull giallo, though it was nice to see Gottfried John outside of RWFworld.

UCLA’s new restorations of The Major & the Minor and A Foreign Affair look absolutely gorgeous

Love love love Foreign Affair.

Now I've finally watched some Lubitsch on Criterion, it's tarnished Wilder for me very slightly -- it's easier to see what he was aiming for but (sometimes) missing.

Unrelatedly: when I was younger I never understood The Apartment, but I just hadn't been disaapointed by life yet.

Foreign Affair is pretty good, but I mostly feel bad for Jean Arthur in that.

Kiss Me, Stupid tonight. I was really with it for the first 40 minutes or so when it felt like a pretty funny, kinda sharp satire (on mid century American society blah blah blah). Then the sex farce mechanics kick in and the film loses much of its weight. Kim Novak, though physically right for the role, is not good here. Ray Walston was fine but original casting choice Peter Sellers would’ve been much better in his role. I was expecting some kind of dark twist at the end but it ends quite conservatively. Btw why is this film in black & wihite, it screams out for color.

There was an overloud laugher at my screening, it felt like having a constant intrusive laugh track.