1966: cinema loud
1966 is my favorite year in film: across all genres, filmmakers, and languages. 1966 cinema is stylish, wild, inventive, thrilling, and anarchistic.
There are films going on pure vibes and bright colors (ahem Modesty Blaise) and significant cultural works like Ousmane Sembène’s ‘La Noire de...’ (Black Girl) with its anti-colonial perspective that still reverberates. 1966 is a year with films outside the US-Euro stronghold reaching both prominence and global audiences. For me, it’s a year that typifies, at their best, movies as entertainment spectacle, as an art medium, and as a carrier of empathy.
I have made a list of about sixty 1966 releases to watch and profile here (twenty being rewatches, and forty being new-to-me).
Looking forward to a year full of unconstrained films!
1) Daisies
-Meg
cinema’s hottest coupleTM
plus bonus cinema’s second hottest couple™
Machine Gun McCain (1969), dir Giuliano Montaldo. A forgettable film with absolutely bonkers dubbing (why are you dubbing Gabriele Ferzetti, you cowards!) and no Falk-Cassavetes onscreen fun, but it does give us 8 beautiful minutes of pure charisma and presence when Gena Rowlands strolled onscreen. Love to be dazzled by cinema’s hottest couple™.
The Drowning Pool (1975), dir Stuart Rosenberg. A meandering film, and not in a good way: boring. (also extremely queasy exploitation of Melanie Griffith). The actual drowning pool sequence is delightful. But, I digress, ad I am really here to talk about cinema’s second hottest couple™. Joanne Woodward showing up to give us the caftan-wearing, lounging about goods.
-Meg
GIVE US THE MACHINE GUN LOVERS PREQUEL WE DESERVE! GIVE US ROWLANDS + CASSAVETES BONNIE & CLYDE!