last night i went to another ucla screening. this time it was "a taste of honey" and it was at the billy wilder theater at the hammer museum in westwood. i want to see most of the the films ucla is presenting as very few of them are available for viewing on dvd. this film in particular seems hard to find in america. that's more of a reason to go to the screenings as it will be my only chance to see the films for awhile. but the main impetus for wanting to see this film in particular is that it is a favorite of morrissey and one of the works he quotes from in his lyrics. (see original sources for morrissey lyrics.)

the film screening included the cinematographer, walter lassally, as guest. he gave an introduction and stuck around for a q&a session. he mentioned technical things that an ordinary audience would not care about. since i've never made movies like he has done nor used actual film for moving pictures, those technical aspects were a bit boring though i do appreciate him mentioning it so as to learn something and watch out for those kind of things.

i'm not familiar at all with the cast, crew, nor period or movement this film may be associated with. thus, i was able to take it purely at face value. it was released in 1961 and though that was many years ago, it really felt fresh. i wouldn't date it much further back than the 1980s if someone had shown it to me without a date. especially the topics covered in it seem quite progressive for 1961, though they might not be spoken about outright. given that i learned something by lassally's talks, i'm curious to see some of the films he mentioned that he or others worked on. overall i didn't love the film but it was alright. i only noticed one morrissey quote because it was so obvious: "i dreamt about you last night and fell out of bed twice."