Just watched in Mubi. I wished rhe characters had a better direction and less dialogues. Incredible anyways

Opportunities of just transfering to a better job & better community are more rare than you realize.

I don’t know. Some of the scenes were way overdrawn.

fantastic video! I would have to agree that out of the blue is far and away his best work. it’s my favorite (and maybe the best period?) deconstruction of what the 60s and the free love generation had wrought, painting a very disturbed portrait of the world in the late 70s. dennis knew this damage quite well; he’d lived in the thick of it. thanks for such great work!

If you can't get enough of the Cassavetes universe do watch Cabaret Maxime, an unofficial remake of Bookie set in Lisbon (with its own Mr. Sophistication!, played by a legendary subversive portuguese musician). "Cosmo" is played by, surprise, Michael Imperioli. Yes, it's nowhere near as good, but I find these kind of sincere homages to be really beautiful in their selflessness.

Yup, a talent not fully exploited. Bit like me really. Thanks for that!!!

You are amazing at reviewing! I just watched this today and haven’t had time to think so analytically yet!

The hotspot is super entertaining. There are a lot of great comedic elements in it as well. The movie works.

An excellent breakdown of a less than perfect film. You’re right, it is very immersive like all of Yang’s work and hyper realistic throughout.

Great review, very thorough and was spot on for the most part. Cassavettes did seem to have a very self-aware persona. Perhaps it was this burden of self-awareness that drove him to the bottle. You mentioned Sunset Blvd. I definitely see the parallels as well as Muholland Dr. for that matter.

nicely thorough and pointed analysis, well done. we were shown this film in an introductory course during my first year at film school over a decade ago. the movie made me cry back then and has stuck with me since. in recent years i've come to understand it as emblematic of america post recession, even tho the recession was very freshly happening when it came out. the harsh individualism of american society breeds a type of loneliness that has only grown with the slow decay of our culture at the hands of economic forces larger than ourselves. the cruelty in how people are treated as a reflection of ideological frameworks nurtured under those oppressive systems really shines through in this movie for me. and it accurately depicts what navigating the fringes of that kind of society feels like and how disposable and disrespected one can feel living in poverty. spot on video, cheers

Ben Gazzara was the most talented actor to step in front of a camera. Top fucking notch.

This film was revolutionary when it was first screened. Because Antonioni had used a style of directing and visual composition that had not really been witnessed before. His camera often lingered over an actress or a scene mush more leisurely in an effort to expand time and make it more expansive, like real time. Most people were not ready for this. He also had an ability to compose complicated scenes in order to bring out their thematic meanings. The whole long last scene is simply masterly from beginning to end and the final shot is iconic.

just watch the film

Thank you! A wonderful movie!!

And yet here we are, talking about his films 50 years later. While I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I can't help to think, he got what he wanted. Longevity and legacy.

So this whole movie is about a white woman living similar to a poor black experience.

This was my first Cassavettes film and I really loved it. Though, I’m a big fan of real sleazy feeling movies, characters that you can’t look away from but aren’t necessarily great people. It was perfect for me, I loved it, I was surprised to see Cassavettes other films and find none really resembling Bookie. But you can very much feel the influence the movie had with things like Uncut Gems, which reminded me a lot of this movie. I love it.

This is one of his most accessible movies too. Incredible film. I was mesmerized

great remarks, please provide the list of films seen in the intro

I wish these folks would also restore RUN ACROSS THE RIVER (1961), which was discovered along with CUCKOO BIRDS, and is now at Harvard.

thank you

Yeah it's a hard watch because Cosmo is so phoney in that American way. it could easily have slipped into a psychological horror thriller were the sheer unreality banality of terror delusionalism is outted. A very uncomfortable thing to view I always feel something is lurking in the scenes. Was it just a formal exercise in anti cinema new wave? Nah there's another film inside this one or half of it. A vision of hell psychosis. But whatever that self cannibalism might be will have to wait for it's extrapolating??? Uncomfortable to watch right in the guts. No wonder it died in its day. Forgot how creepy odd Cassavettes himself looks and acts.. Taxi Driver was just a b movie in comparison. Yeah that retro 20 /20 vision irks now. It was way under that radar.

Lololol

Just watched today. Watch a Masterpiece!

what a great video

I show people these movies and they all come back saying it was “boring”. I stopped being friends with them afterwards.

ALIENATION IS OUR NATION could be a better title for the work. REGRETTABLY, you completely failed or chose to ignore to position the film into the POSTNOIR sub-extension genre. The most recognizable determinants of the actual film noir are hiding in plain sight all over. The mentally jammed-up protagonist is constantly projecting the self-image of an existential refugee by putting up various role-reflections on what other people erraneously point out as "the self" - which actually does NOT exist as a monolith @ ALL. It is an evasive biological unit dressing up just as variously & randomnly as the tit-chicks performing onstage. The flux of urban hell, generally known as everyday market-based reality expectations and demands in daily life, produce here an interpretation of the entity of the seedy side of the not-so-glamorous side of the asphalt jungle of L.A. in the 70s. Carnally and effervescently, a certain inverted homage and an ode to SUNSET BLVD will evaporate out of the seems of the concocted script via the adequate usage of the tools of the trade the director so fathomably allows himself to portray, creating an aura of blatant exactness furnished with mundane mechanisms - much similarly as in Schrader s HARDCORE (from the same period). Urban realism is here more vivid than it actually could be. It is inasmuch as it can not mend itself. All corrections are corrupt, all amends doomed to fail, the bleak ideals rule the cityscape, the dreams have become succumbed. Failure is normalcy. LA has fallen - once again. Heroes have become extincted. Obfuscation is the only rule, the only way of life : putting up a front has become the only religion, our only daily Bread. Authenticity lies in lies, most vehemently, most ineradicably. Darkness carries all in its harness, in its limitless veiled truth. Its mouth is the bottomless pit - manifested in the film by the menacing mob, a miniature of capitalist evil, an analogy of dereliction of being a man. Cosmo s motto is as sartrean as it can be : "It does not matter who you are OR what personality you choose". It such democratically declares : choosing is losing if u aint got what winn7ng takes; life is a sham in the wilderness of the western syphilization, as is philosophy, a strange game of shifting shadows, odd variables, - nothing is permanent, the only stabile state is there is NO any such. Trust has been obliterated; "The Self" is an illusion, a fallacy, as is acting. They both only begin when they end. That happens every second, every mode. The ideal is ecstasy in nothingness of being - mysticism without god ! What a peep into The Deep ! No wonder John Coltrane & John Cassavetes have the same holy, unholy initials ... What about Jean Genet & Samuel Beckett (?) 🇫🇮

Great analysis! Definitely a film I need to watch again

Lovely video dude. Not watched Taipei story but I'm writing an essay on Yi Yi which is also set there - this video was very helpful! Thanks :)

You nailed it

Keep up the good work brother. This has to be one of the best pieces of film appreciation I have ever come across. It captured everything I felt but didn't have the vocabulary to express after watching the movie.

Criterion Channel???

Well said❤❤❤

Not to clog your comments thread,

Perhaps more west coast theater than east coast filmmaking. And improvisation. This is much looser than Scorsese. Damn! Thank you for what you are doing! American cinema of the 70's is (sometimes) understated and wonderful.

I've moved around the country quite a few times over many decades and have had far too many different cable companies to name. Almost all of them have an info button on their remotes that tell you the movie you're watching (or that is upcoming), when it was made, who's in it, and the film is rated by the service for quality, usually with 1 star as its lowest rating and 4 stars as its highest (a few would rate on a half star scale, but most were on full star scale). In all those many thousands of movies I've seen rated by hundreds of cable companies over many years, only two movies did I ever see that received both 1 star (lowest available) and 4 star (highest available) ratings on different viewings. Those movies were Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and Killing Of A Chinese Bookie. I love both of those films, and regard them in high esteem, but I can certainly understand someone thinking they were utter trash also. I think it's a special type of awkward brilliance (and Peckinpaugh and Cassavetes both fit that bill) that could produce such polarizing opinions of a film.

YOU BEEN HERE 7 YEARS, YOU DONT KNOW WHAT THE PARIS NUMBER IS??

I think there are a lot of similarities that can be drawn to uncut gems which is one of my favorite movies of all time

Antonioni is not existentialist, exactly the opposite

My favorite film is Broadway Danny Rose, and I see a few resemblances between Danny and Cosmo. I actually think Cosmo loves his club more than Danny believes in his acts. Both movies are really special IMO.

Thanks for this. This is my 3rd JC film and enjoyed it. The strip club looked a right good night back in the day.

One of the best videos on youtube. Great job.

I see him as a modern Sam Peckinpah

Thank you for this, but what is your take on what their situation is an allegory for?

What a fantastic analysis. I indeed found this movie mesmerizing, but also walked away from it feeling as if I hadn't picked up on some of the intended meaning. After watching this, I feel even more appreciative of this film and its impressive subtleties - may have to give it a rewatch someday. Thank you.

I watched this movie today - but I found the ending very unsatisfactory; we never found out what happened to Anna and the man seems to be excused at the end in a kind of 'boys will be boys' kind of a way.

This was fantastic!! Thank you for this :)

A wonderful essay on on this crazy guy's films! Thank you

On my college campus in the early '90s, there was a film club that showed obscure films around midnight on the weekends. One Saturday night I was on my way to a party, but was kind of early so I thought I'd kill some time watching a little bit of whatever they were showing. It was John Cassavetes Husbands, and I must have been one the 6 or 8 people watching in that massive science auditorium. I immediately felt discomfort to what I was watching. Loud, unlikeable people screaming or shouting, no music or soundtrack, sounds of dishes and glasses crashing, story sequence confusing, ugh...- I kept want to get up and leave, but I was also mesmerized by what I was watching. I gave up the party, and stayed for the whole movie! I wasn't even sure I liked what I just saw, but the following week I couldn't stop thinking about that "horrible" movie! Finally I broke down and went to the film library on campus to watch it again. That day, I think checked out every movie John Cassavetes was in or directed. Life long fan ever since and Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is his masterpiece. PS: Check out Cassavetes take on screwball romantic comedy- Minnie & Moskowitz!