Cinema Aspirant Birthday Event March 9th: DEATH WATCH

Some films regularly pop up on my list of favourites because I think they're great works of film art - Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence, say. Others are there because, while I think they are good films, they strike deep and resonant personal chords: Bruce Sweeney's Dirty, for instance, or Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La Mort En Direct). For my 39th birthday event, I'll be showing a rare European cut of that film - with Japanese subtitles and a substantially different ending from the previous North American release - at Blim, at 197 E. 17th avenue at Main. The film starts at 8, and there'll be free sampler CDs on hand for the first 15 or so people who arrive (after last year, when I made a big whack of these for a screening of Love Streams, actually ON my birthday, March 7th - and had two friends attend with me - I am trying to be conservative). The film deals with voyeurism, technology, the responsibility of making images, and male-female relationships; it stars Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider, Harry Dean Stanton - and, in my favourite of his many roles, Max von Sydow. Hope some folks will attend!