Ornette: Made in America (August 15th and 18th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[ ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA screens Saturday August 15th at 9:15 pm and Tuesday August 18th at 8:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I just figured out how Bill Cosby could engineer a career comeback. He could co-star in a bunch of Woody Allen movies. Maybe Roman Polanski could be the guest director. Thank you, you've been a great audience. Drive safely. Good night.

Oh, is there a movie review to do? Sorry, I've been so busy filling out job applications, I didn't notice. Just as I didn't notice this past June when "free jazz" composer and Afro-American arts icon Ornette Coleman died at 85 of a heart attack. I suppose since it wasn't a police shooting incident or anything sordid, it didn't make the headlines - except possibly in Fort Worth, Texas, where Coleman is a favorite local son.

The celebration of "Ornette Coleman Day," September 29, 1983 (I remember that day; I think I was filling out a job application. Nothing came of it) in Fort Worth kicks off ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA, the eccentric 1985 docu-meditation on Coleman that was also the final feature of maverick counter-culture filmmaker Shirley Clarke. 

The Connection (June 13th and 14th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE CONNECTION screens Friday June 13th at 7:15 pm and Saturday June 14th at 9:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I'm sure we whose hearts have been broken by movies for so long have undergone this experience: finally getting around to seeing some "masterpiece" of world cinema only to find it lacking. Primitive, inert, perhaps ahead of its time, sure, but only a little bit interesting and unduly hyped. In my POV that's often - not always, but often - happened with pics in the "experimental" and foreign realm. The big heartbreaker for me was Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS. Some Godard titles I have found quite diverting. And you'll get no argument from me that Jean-Paul Belmondo is an icon (he outgrossed E.T. - THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL when those two went head to head in France) but that grainy talkfest (BREATHLESS, I mean) just bored me silly. This is the masterwork that ignited the French New Wave and changed cinema forever? I don't get it!

Portrait of Jason (December 7th and 8th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[PORTRAIT OF JASON screens Saturday December 7th at 9:25 pm and Sunday December 8th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I can't really recommend you visit University Circle for very much this holiday season. Too much sordid stuff going on. You know that sprawling display of gingerbread houses at the Cleveland Botanical Garden? Police just found that inside one of them there was a gingerbread man holding several gingerbread women hostage as sex slaves for ten years.

Yes, well, I would like to know how stable YOUR mind would be if you had to watch about seven hours of Power Rangers Zeo just to make $20 with a freelance review. Mine is a career that male prostitutes look at and say, "Well, at least I can tell my folks I didn't end up like Charles Cassady."