Movies We Like

Husbands

Dir: John Cassavetes, Starring: Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes. Comedy.
Husbands final"Like I've been telling my wife for years: 'Aside from sex,’ and she's very good at it, goddammit, 'I like you guys better.' I really do." 

—So proclaims Harry, brazenly played by Ben Gazzara in Husbands. This bromantic refrain of love for his two friends characterizes the crass, yet affectionate honesty of John Cassavetes's 1970 comedy about life, death, and freedom.

In Husbands, three middle-aged men, after the death of their close friend, begin to express their discontent with life. After a few days of drinking and carousing, the men fly to London where their bond with each other gets tested against their connection with women. Husbands is a film about brotherhood, about the camaraderie men share with each other, how simultaneously shallow and deep those relationships run, and how the struggle for expression and connection is a lifelong one, feebly attempted by the perpetually childish. 

Rosemary's Baby

Dir: Roman Polanski, 1968. Starring: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer. Mystery/Thriller.
Rosemary's BabyAlong with the original versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Night Of The Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby was one of the most frightening film-watching experiences of my life. And what really makes Rosemary’s Baby an even more special film is that if you took the "horror" elements out of it and you just had a film about a young couple in New York City in the late '60s it would still be completely entertaining. It’s a great lesson in storytelling: interesting characters first will make the "horror" more powerful.

The perfectly taut screenplay credited to director Roman Polanski follows Ira Levin’s novel almost scene for scene, line for line. There is not a loose shred in the script, which may sound simple enough on paper - newlyweds Guy (John Cassavetes) and Rosemary (Mia Farrow) move into an old Manhattan building where they become friends with the elderly couple next door (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer). Slowly the pregnant Rosemary begins to suspect that they and their creaky posse are part of a witch’s covenant of devil worshippers who are hungry for her unborn baby.