#84 - Good Morning

with #84 we are introduced to acclaimed Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and his second color film, alternately known as "the fart movie"  - LOL

Ozu is one of Japan's well known directors - if Kurosawa pioneered Samurai cinema, Ozu pioneered the family film - his films usually tell stories of the dynamics of families - the most famous one being Tokyo Story, which we'll get to later

This is actually only my second Ozu film - (the first I've see was his last, Autumn Afternoon) - I can tell you he has some interesting framing choices - he likes to shoot from low angles - like someone sitting down on a mat - and when characters are having a dialogue, he doesn't always go for setting them both up in a shot, but will frame them talking to each other as if talking to the camera - with a cut to the listener replying back, to a cut of the other person - staring like they're staring at you into the camera

This is a bit of a comedy about some boys who want a TV and how their antics cause drama in this little Tokyo suburb - (I think it's Tokyo) - it's also a bit of a commentary on neighborhoods and gossip - and it's a pretty good story that went by and was very enjoyable to watch and to see on the screen

One of the things about Ozu is he started directing in the 20's but didn't go to sound till 1936 - (most of those silent films are lost but fragments of one and another are on the blu-ray special edition) - and he didn't start shooting color till 1958, again later than some of his peers - but when he did, that color was like an explosion - the lighting and color and sets in this one are just fascinating - and maybe a bit claustrophobic, because these houses are pretty close together - LOL

there are some fart jokes in this film - in fact a lot of them - but hey - it's comedy - LOL

a pretty good start to Ozu in the collection and we look forward to much more.

#83 - The Harder They Come

#83 was not easy to find by any stretch of the imagination - neither netflix, nor filmstruck when I had it, nor my local library system had it - you can rent it on Amazon Prime though - but without the commentary the Criterion collection has which would have been interesting

this is what I understand is the first full length feature film to come out of Jamaica - it brought with it the sounds of reggae to America, which in and of itself is a treat - (although by then some North American artists like Paul Simon and used it in some songs)

The song reminds me a lot of Sweet Sweetback's Badassssss song - (not just cause they're both black films) - but they both have a protagonist who ends up being hunted by the police and I suspect, based upon what I read, that audiences responded to both in the same way - both systems had a level of police corruption that's hard to imagine today

Jimmy Cliff is our main star - who I guess I'll mostly remember as the other club owner in Club Paradise - but of course, he's an international music star and his website has him still making dance music so good for him -

pretty cool film - I'd love to hear the director and Jimmy's commentary on the Criterion version

and yes, I watched this on Christmas Eve but I'm still at work for 90 more minutes so it was on company time for once - LOL

Kind of a cool one

RB

#82 - Hamlet

I think my feelings on Shakespeare can be summed up by a Canadian Folk Duo named Dala

"I don't want to read what Shakespeare wrote, I just want to feel it"

I only did Macbeth in High School, and truth is I came into this movie totally unknowing of the plot of Hamlet which probably makes me an uneducated cad.

At the end of the day, let's say this is the 2nd of 3 Shakespeare movies that Olivier directed - (we already saw Henry V and we won't see Richard III until the 200's) - It's considered one of the more definitive versions of the time up until more recently - the play is crazy long, and at 2.5 hrs, even a good chunk of the dialogue and characters were cut for time - (I guess he took to calling it in later years a STUDY on Shakespeare)

It's not bad but in my mind I've always imagined an air of desperation in Hamlet's soliloquy "To Be or Not to Be" that
Anyhow, it took me two viewings to finish cause yes, I started dozing off on the first one - watch for quick scenes with Peter Cushing and Patrick Troughton, who would go on to play the 2nd Doctor in Doctor Who, admittedly the only role of his I knew before this :)

at least now I have a general idea of the story of Hamlet - LOL

RB

#81 - Variety Lights

What is this, our fourth Fellini film?   They musta got a discount when doing the initial licencing - LOL

This is Fellini's first film from 1950 - codirected with Alberto Lattuada, who we'll see again in the 400's.   It has a nice light feel of 30's and Vaudeville film although it's meant to be a contemporary acting troupe.   The story is of an accomplished performer in a troupe that's having hard luck, who stumbles upon a muse.  He leaves his professional and romantic partner to try and bring this Muse to life, and the story just goes down that route

Very light hearted - very fun - with only one serious moment or two near the end - I suppose this wasn't that unusual for 1950, five years after the War

The two leading ladies are both the wives of the directors, including Guilietta Masina, who we last saw in Nights of Cabaria.   Unfortunately this one is out of print at the present time.   Because it was an art-house collection release, it had virtually no special features, so you get the movie in all it's raw form - (obviously not restored - lots of spots on the print) - but a humorous story - I'd put it right below Nights of Cabaria in terms of how much I liked it - (if we're ranking so far it's like this)

1. - Amacord
2. - Nights of Cabaria
3. - Variety Lights
.
.
50 - And the Ship Sails on

LOL

ah man....Hamlet up next - blech

#80 - The Element of Crime

#80 is the breakthrough debut by Lars von Trier.   This is actually the first film of his I've seen and based on it alone, I'm not sure how far into the catalog to go - LOL

This is a pretty dystopian/noir heavy crime thriller - it reminds me a bit of the scenes in Brazil or Children of Men but on a scale much more decayed - almost Mad Max levels of dystopia.    I don't think there's a single set in the film that couldn't be labeled a shithole

There's some pretty heavy noir elements here too - serial killer being tracked and revisited thru hypnosis.   I think another viewing might give me some stuff I missed but this was not an easy film to get thru.

The lighting and camera angles really dominate the film - the whole thing is almost show in a yellow/red lighting that looks incredibly washed out.  I did some reading and I guess they used a lot of sodium light and monochromatic filtering.  Lars seemed to take delight in unconventional camera angles - a lot of top down shots and a lot of also seeing reflections coming back in the same shots - sort of two points of view in the same shot - That was kinda interesting.

Lars won't show up again for a while in the collection but it's an interesting introduction - there's a special feature of a 90's documentary on here but I probably won't be getting into it - better to save it for later

As stated - this is a man coming back to Europe from Cairo to pursue a serial killer - He is using the methods his mentor described in a often-referred to work called "The Element of Crime" which includes reconstructing part of the criminal's routine to understand him.   All of this is being recalled under hypnosis so there's no saying if the decay and noir are part of the real world or just his recollection. 

Anyways can't ruin anymore of it for you but it's an interesting film - seems like something a college film student might have done in some of it's techniques but hey, go big or go home -

I was even googling to make sure I understood the ending - LOL - it's just so out there

RB

#79 - Six Short Films

and now we have six short films - (one silent) that comprise the bulk of the shorts work that W.C. Fields did in between his main films -

they're kinda hit and miss for me - one was so funny - (The Golf Specialist) that I asked my wife to watch it with me - a couple others weren't nearly as humorous and seem to just be like The Bank Dick, short vignettes stitched together from 2-3 routines - the physical humor was especially good in The Golf Specialist

This one is out of print but several of the films are in the public domain due to copyright renewal screwups and can be easily seen on YouTube or the internet archive so if you like the guy go looking cause you're not violating the law to watch them

The DVD had no special features but it does have subtitles if you like those on your english flicks - somedays I feel like my hearing is going so bad it doesn't hurt to have them :)  Or maybe it's the quality of the sound on these old chestnuts

allrighty - thanks W.C.

#78 - The Bank Dick

And now Criterion introduces to one of Vaudeville's enduring characters - W.C. Fields - I won't get too much into the bio of stuff here except to say that the next 6 short films are on a DVD and cover the silent period up to this film, which was possibly his best known and near the end of his career

it's physical humor, with a bit of verbal in there - the W.C. Fields caricature is well known - drinks like a wino, hates women and children - gin blossoms on the nose and the "oh, yesss" line often used. 

This is just a short 70 minute movie with two or three little sketches stitched together but in it the fellow has a string of good luck thru no help of his own and ends up being the hero a couple times. 

To me, W.C. Fields was a cartoonish character in Bugs Bunny films - I honestly haven't seen anything he's done up til now - I'm sort of not looking forward to the six short films but I'll knock them out in the next couple days - the disk is at the library

Otherwise, an ok film from an actor near the end of his long and varied career - good for 1940's humor but somewhat dated today.

meh - even he'd be the first to say he's not Bardot - LOL

#77 - And God Created Woman

#77 is the film that made Brigitte Bardot an International star.   ...and God Created Woman was directed by her husband, and it's mostly a vehicle for her, it feels like.  I guess the term "sex kitten" was coined for her after this film - LOL

I think it's my first Bardot film but she didn't fit the image I remembered - when I looked at Google, I realized my image was the 60's sexpot star she had become - whereas here she maintains at least in part, a fresh innocence, even if she doesn't act like it.   It reminds me of the early Elvis, where he started out as an "aw shucks" kinda fella only to use it to his advantage just a few years later.   Or maybe a very early Marilyn Monroe when there were still traces of Norma Jean left in her early performances.

It's a decent film - it makes St. Tropez look good, as in the film it hasn't quite become the jet-set tourist destination yet.  I guess it was a bit risque for it's time and they had to have US cuts of the film that protected the decency of Americans - ha

I got to watch this on my wide screen monitor and it looks great in 2.35:1 ratio - the DVD doesn't have many special features - a quick restoration piece - that's about it - but hey - sometimes these get re-released with a lot of special features

up next - a LOT of W.C. Fields - not sure about that...he's no Brigitte Bardot -

#76 - Brief Encounter

#76 is a Noel Coward play dramatized for the screen - This is a charming tale of unconsummated love between two married people directed by David Lean who we last saw in the two Dickens Adaptations of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.

I'm starting to think I don't like this time period very much - the 1930's and 40's British films - (Remember "The Lady Vanishes very early on?" seem to bring a sort of odd cultural reference to them I don't like - I guess it makes sense that a guy who likes French New Wave would be unimpressed by overwrought Melodrama with Orchestral Soundtracks. 

I have more David Lean/Noel Coward on the way but thankfully not till the 600's - I liked Summertime but this stuff - meh - I guess it is really well liked, famous, and popular but it just didn't do anything for me - until next time I guess.

#75 - Chasing Amy

big ol' #75 - man...that's a lot of movies - (well, technically only 72 since I skipped 3 but maybe I'll go back)

I saw this when it came out probably in the late 90's - I am almost certain I was barely if at all familiar with Kevin Smith's first two films other than he shot Mallrats here in a far suburb of Minneapolis - (I thought Mall of America but no, Eden Prairie mall, according to google) - Kevin makes crazy films and I love that, especially his characters in this "View Askew" universe.

I was looking at the special features that were with this disk (which I didn't have - I got a blu-ray off netflix and it's discontinued) - and it seems that this is his first real attempt at trying to make a personal film as opposed to Clerks and Mallrats - and by this point he's starting to get the craft down.

I like Kevin Smith - I loved Dogma and Jay/Silent Bob strike back, but for some reason these earlier films don't feel the same - but it was fun to see this one again with 20 some years and soundtrack by Dave Pirner, who was riding some pretty serious career success with Soul Asylum around the time.

and Joey Lauren Adams just kills it as Amy - Jason Lee is phenomenal as well and you can see why Kevin liked using him in so many films, right?

the Criterion essay by Kevin Smith is pretty cool to and that IS on the website so def. read that if you're gonna watch this one - I guess I was just too far out of the loop at the time to realize what a success his first film was and how hard the 2nd one got hammered - reminds me of Paul Simon after he had his commercial flop in "Hearts and Bones" - you have a clean slate and no expectations for the next one and for Kevin Smith, it was this film - and for Paul Simon, it was Graceland

allrighty - maybe Netflix or the library can get me one more before Saturday night.

RB

#74 - Vagabond

#74 is another great Agnes Varda film - These are the first two films of her's that I've seen and I know I have a few more down the line, but these first two are really stellar - I bought a copy of the first Cleo disk on sale last week - (not part of box set, so no special features) but maybe at some point I will get that.

In one sense the two films are similiar - they follow the path of a woman as she wanders thru the world, but whereas Cleo was a 2 hr snippet in Paris, Vagabond is a few weeks of a woman wandering the French Countryside

The very first scene sets you up for the downer - her body is found in a ditch - the rest of the movie then proceeds to trace her steps of the last few months as she came into contact with people.   The film cuts from her to the people talking like in a documentary to the camera about their impressions of her.  What is striking is the mystery of this woman - she is and remains an enigma throughout the film.   One scene that strikes me is after a particularly bad incident, she is sitting looking at seven postcards- they are random sort of pictures and you wonder their significance - in another she pulls a small painting out of her pack that has gotten ripped - perhaps it was stolen but a strange thing to carry on the road.   These things are never explained.  They show a brief bit of her as she explains she had been a secretary in Paris, but at this point she has totally turned her back on the system.

There is one character in the film that suggests her fate - he says all the wanderers he knew either quit or died cause the loneliness got to them and they fell into drugs and alcohol.  I think that's what happens here - you see her slowly get worse and have a tougher time of things, and watching her, you feel incredible sympathy and the whole time you're stuck knowing her fate as her life plays out

I will probably have to buy this box set - wonder if it'll ever make Blu-Ray - great great film

RB

#73 - Cleo from 5 to 7

Allrighty - that's more like it - French New Wave, with Paris as a supporting character -

Agnes Varda is a director I FEEL like I should know more about - she's put out quite a body of work over the years but this is the first film of her's I've seen - another film of her's is up next so we'll get to that -

This is almost a real time - (a' la 24) film of two hours of a woman's life as she is awaiting results of a medical test - we see how a woman in Paris were catcalled 24/7 and essentially controlled by the men around them, and I think this is what Agnes intended - The Film follows her from stop to stop, but what strikes me is how much of the atmosphere around her is also captured and how it must have been spontaneous, as opposed to planned on set.  There is one scene in particular where she and a friend are driving in an open top convertible, and as they go by everyone turns to stare, and while it's easy to imagine they're staring at her, I think they're staring at the cameraman in the vehicle/trailer AHEAD of them as they just film live in the streets of Paris

Guilty pleasure - I often try to find identifying parts of Paris (streets, corners, restaurants) and google map them just to see how they look today - sometimes it's only slightly changed, which I love about Paris.

let's face it - I'll always have some favorites, and this kind of dialogue, live driven film will always appeal to me more than musicals - in fact I'm going to see if I can maybe find it used somewhere - there are some special features I couldn't get to - (thanks filmstruck) such as an actual motorcycle ride down the spots where the movie was filmed, that I think would be incredibly interesting to watch.

That's all for now - wife is out of town for a week - but availability thanks to Roku fucking me over is going to be limited to what I can scrounge out of the library, Netflix, or the internet - pisses me off to no end that Roku cancelled filmstruck right as I couldn't renew for one more month thru other means - just a total bullshit move - I'll never sign up for a service thru Roku again - they fucked their commission over on that

EDIT:  - a month after I wrote this I finally got a Library copy that included the special features, including one of my favorites, a tracking shot thru the Paris shooting (well a bumpy tracking shot) but also some great remembrances from Agnes and Corinne from a 2005 documentary - where I learned among other things, that they shot the movie sequentially, and there's a small error in the last shot that I totally overlooked - LOL

#72 - Le Million

Another musical...oh goodie...

I mean at least this one was shorter - I am sure there's a lot to be said for the history of it - a film where the director used sound and music to great effect in ways that wasn't done before - a cool opening scene that melded from stage to miniature and back to stage that is hard to beat...

I just don't like many musicals - (or opera) - with the obvious exception of the brilliant Blues Brothers - (think it about it - it is a musical)

It's a nice French film, and at least it WAS short - the music wasn't memorable but the story was somewhat comical and yes, it does have echos of Chaplin, who I guess was sued at one point by this Film Company for comparisons to another of Clair's films and "Modern Times" - that's really the vibe I got from it - Chaplin film in French.

I think the next one has some echos of French New Wave - I'll take what I can get at this point - as long as it's not another musical

wasn't a bad film - just didn't like it much

#71 - The Magic Flute

Just gonna lay this out for you - I hate opera, and I did NOT like this movie - sorry, Ingmar - maybe next time.

I'm actually writing the review in the last 15 minutes before it ends - that's how much I want it to get over - ach -

ah well - they can't all be Seven Samurai.

RB

#70 - The Last Temptation of Christ

We're really going to cram these in the next 4 weeks - my HOPE is to get to Tokyo Olympiad at #155 cause it's hard to find and it's on filmstruck - let's see what we can do in 30 days

#70 - I wasn't old enough to see this when it came out and as a good Christian kid I wouldn't have but I remember the controversy.    Seems so far away now -

The Last Temptation of Christ is a good film - it's not Orthodox, and neither was the book it's based on - right off the bat the movie tells you this isn't about the Gospels - but it's not a work by men without faith either - A good chunk of the story is a straight up condensation of the life of Jesus - I think Scorsese wanted to do a film about the Life of Jesus, and as the Wikipedia tells it, Barbara Hershey gave him a copy of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, and the rest worked itself out.

Shot in Morocco on a shoestring budget and timeline, the film doesn't suffer from it much.  Peter Gabriel does the music, and like people have said, it's probably a better film than the Passion of the Christ, which although more orthodox, was a film that near the end relished in the brutality. 

There's a lot I could say about the faith here, but I'll just leave it as a good film

RB

#69 - The Testament of Orpheus

And we off!!!! - the final stretches before Filmstruck shuts down - well, ok - this one I had to get off Netflix.

This is Cocteau's final film and the capstone on a career of trying to make poetry out of film - Here the Director himself plays a poet wandering film sets, breaking down the 4th wall and being led/guided by characters from the film Orpheus, who he recognizes as characters from his film - so yah we're back in the surreal a bit, and according to an essay, he states that he wanted this to be a bookend to his Blood of a Poet film - he does well.

There is an essay on the DVD where he laments the expense of making film and how he hoped he could inspire others and that the walls to making a film could come down financially speaking - I guess in a way we've done that but it's interesting how the seem to be less creative but here in the 21st century with filming being more and more possible on digital, and the outlets for releasing a film are so much more varied - (hell put it on youtube) - it's kinda nice in a way to think that those walls have come down. 

We'll only see one more Cocteau film in the future - a collabaration but he did two or three othersout there - perhaps at some point we'll get those released as well - I'd be curious to see them

we're going to get a lot of films done in the next 4 weeks kids - hold on :)

Side Tangent - R.I.P. Filmstruck

I feel like I need to take a few moments here to lament on the loss of Filmstruck - a lot of people I follow in the community either worked there or had very close connections - it's a loss for all of us to not have this kind of cinema readily available - Netflix certainly won't be picking up the slack.

I obviously came for the Criterion, but got to enjoy many other good films around this time - in fact in the last month between updates, I knocked out the Sorrow and the Pity, Hitler's Hollywood, and had added a number of films from a Bengal director to my watchlist.  I almost got around to watching some of the WWII German films as well - (propaganda in repressive/totalitarian regimes is fascinating to me) -

Where am I going to find these films again?   God only knows - I suspect Turner/Warner will do some dogshit thing where it's broken down into 2-3 streaming services - I know Criterion has committed to putting it's Channel out there again somewhere soon - maybe back to Hulu?   (Listen up Hulu - I'd resubscribe) - but one thing is for certain, we've lost a great resource for classic films, and in a world where the modern blockbuster is about blowing up shit or robots, watching films like Orpheus is like finding hidden treasures - sadly they are treasures people don't look for - I live in perpetual fear the Criterion label will go out of business like indie music labels and we'll just be stuck with freaking Transformer/Marvel sequels for 30 more years.

anyways, just wanted to register my sadness and sorrow at losing a great resource - I guess it will be back to libraries and Netflix for most of my viewing but I'd really, really like to sign up for the next incarnation of the Criterion channel when it comes out and I hope quite a few of these other films make it as well

RB

#68 - Orpheus

And we're back! - (Wife is gone for a week after Nov 7th so expect a flurry - especially in light of the announcement that Filmstruck is shutting down - SOB!)

#68 was a much better experience for me than the last one - Orpheus isn't just a modern telling, but it's a re-imaging of the myth and an exploration of the art and immortality of poetry.   Jean Cocteau does his usual stellar job here of creating some magical film effects, and there's even a feature about that on this Blu-Ray/DVD/Stream

In this film, Orpheus is a modern day Elvis/Poet, who is enamored with a woman he meets at the site of a traffic accident, who actually turns out to be one of the incarnations of death - in this story, he is not merely going back for Eurydice, but for Death herself

The film is a great art-house film - there is one line that stuck out to me - at one point Orpheus says he is a poet - someone corrects him and says he's a writer - and Orpheus makes the remark that "A poet is a writer who doesn't write"  - In a sense, I think that's what Jean is also saying with film - it is poetry that isn't written - I'm looking forward to the 3rd and final film in the trilogy as a result of this powerful work, and that really says something about it's impact.  Cocteau is about poetry, and as discussed previously,

Jean Marais FEELS like an actor I should know - but his only other stint so far in the blog was Beauty and the Beast - he and Cocteau were very close, and he was in almost all his films - (close in more ways than one - according to IMDB they were lovers, but Marais was also married during some of those years) - He just has that rugged movie handsomeness. 

My last observation is that if the opening scenes at the Poet's Cafe in Paris don't make you want to find a time machine and go back to 1950's Bohemian Paris, you have no soul ;)

At this point I can kinda see why this one is still in print and readily available - I might find myself picking this up during the next flash sale at Barnes and Nobles.

up next - the final film in the trilogy

#67 - The Blood of A Poet

I call this entry - "The Blood of a Poet, or what the hell did I just watch?"

This is a surrealist sort of film, meant to provide images rather than a plot or narrative - this is a good movie to have a cliffs notes or wikipedia entry read BEFORE you watch

Of course, as the director points out Surrealism wasn't a thing in film when he did this - if there were 50's or 60's it might feel like a drugged out college director's debut but of course, Jean was a poet, and sought to create and make images out of the poet's struggles and lives

Might be worth a second watch at 55 minutes - an incredibly interesting snippet is that it was commissioned by a French Viscount who had a scene in it where he's in a balcony applauding, but when it was realized they were applauding over a gruesome scene filmed seperately, they forbid their footage and the balcony members were reshot with actors

a bit of a whacky film but no worries

RB

#66 - The Orphic Trilogy

So evidently, now the boxed set spines have a number and then the movies - So technically #66 is just the SPINE for this box set but my OCD won't have me skipping numbers - so I have an entry to talk about

Jean Cocteau was here before in film #6 - Beauty and the Beast - This series of three films are various takes on the story of Orpheus - (what now we'll have four in 68 films?) - The first and last films also bookend the film output of Jean, being his first and last film.  He was also a heck of a poet, writer, etc, but we're only doing films here, man - films...get with it

Not sure what I'm going to make of these but the first one is only 55 minutes so it should be doable

Most of this set is out of print - good ol' Netflix comes thru - even Filmstruck only has one of the three in it's library right now

#65 - Rushmore

#65 was probably added to the collection almost as soon as it was released (1998 release, 2000 addition) -

Amazingly, I never saw this when it came out till just now - I was more of a band and music guy in the late 90's - but this is an excellent film

Jason Schwartzman cements the lead role, with Bill Murray and Olivia Williams providing the three sides of the love triangle at a private Prep School where these three characters push and pull at each other with great amusement and dialogue.

I think what's most interesting about this film is there is a LOT to not like about Jason's character, Max Fischer.   Max is, for lack of a better word, probably today what we would call a serial harasser.  His attempts to woo Olivia's character, Rosemary, play out quite often in real life and end in restraining orders, toxic masculinity, and the like.  What the movie succeeds in doing is giving us just enough to root for him still, despite his obvious failings and arrogance. 

You never truly feel either his character or Bill's is a bad guy - just decent guys getting pulled into some bad behavior

Of course, Wes Anderson has a filming style all his own - you can almost identify one of his movies based on some of the little things he does in a film, like tone, music, and dialogue - I love that you can recognize a director's style by the kind of story and the way he films it and that he can make it a unique thing, instead of being an interchangeable cog in the machine.

Fun fact, he co-wrote this with Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson gets a small part - good for him - LOL

#64 - The Third Man

#64 is considered by some to be one of the best British Films ever made - a Noir flick about racketeers in Postwar Vienna - The Third Man

Disclaimer - it took a while to get thru this cause I was interrupted a lot - I'm sure one complete viewing would have been nice - maybe someday...

A pretty good film with Joseph Cotten as an American going to see a friend in Vienna for a job, and later investigating his mysterious death - the city of Vienna really stands out here as a set piece - not for it's beauty necessarily, but for it's devastation - 4 years later, the remains of the war were still obvious - half destroyed buildings, ruined and burned out cars - quite the contrast from films that highlighted the beauty of places like Rio or Venice as I've seen in some of the other films

the music was interesting too - probably the first soundtrack I've heard on a Zither -

There's a lot of good Criterion features including some voiceover, two commentaries, some documentaries, etc - BUT the disk is out of print on Criterion - and it's not even on Filmstruck and even has a delay thru Netflix right now.

I would have enjoyed it more had I been able to watch it straight thru but it is what it is - the camera angles and lighting and B/W make it a jarring piece at times - and the accents make me wish for subtitles occasionally, but it was a pretty good film that kept you hanging along for quite a while

RB

#63 - Carnival of Souls

#63 is a B-movie horror film with some interesting influence and backstory - a true cult classic - Carnival of Souls

Story goes the Director saw a spooky pavilion out by the Great Salt Lake, and decided to write an entire movie around it.  This is a low budget horror film about a woman who survives a car crash, only to move to Salt Lake City and begin finding her stalked by ghoulish figures, the main one being an old man played by the director himself.

The first thing that struck me immediately was how it could be (and was) an influence for another cult classic, Night of the Living Dead - Black and White, with a woman being stalked and chased is right up there with the opener of that film.   In another amusing similarity, both films had forgotten to put a copyright mark on their print titles, so both passed into public domain.

Criterion has re-released it in blu-ray and DVD with lots of special features, sadly only a couple of which were on my disk 1 from Netflix.   Not on filmstruck either, sadly.   BUT you can find several copies online and I see it all the time in those budger 50 horror film packs you can get at the used book store.

Surprised I hadn't seen it yet and it was pretty good - I won't spoil it for you except to say that it's even worth a second watch to hear the commentary

A spooky organ makes up the majority of the soundtrack, and gives the film a little something extra, especially as how the woman is an organist.

good for Halloween and other scary movie events - and probably it's on Mystery Science Theater 3000 - LOL

RB

#62 - The Passion of Joan of Arc

#62 is widely regarded as one of the finest films in Cinema, and I think it's our first silent film? 

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a masterful film about closeups - costumes/sets are sorta shortchanged here - more like an artistic mockup of a real castle/rooms/inquisition than an authentic set piece and I heard the costumes are the same

But this film's primary focus (and an unusual one for a silent film) is on the closeup - especially the closeups of Renée Falconetti who we won't see again in the movies.  Her acting here is astonishing as with just her face, she conveys a full range of extreme emotion from fear to terror and joy - all with those eyes that seem almost angelic upon closeup

There are some great stories about this film  (discussed in the extra) - about how the first negative was lost in a fire and they rebuilt the film using ALTERNATE takes - eventually THAT version was lost - and some versions had extra cuts and missing scenes cause the Church objected -

fast forward to 1981 and a copy is found in an Oslo closet of the first print - no one is sure why, but it's the first negative with all scenes intact, so we get this wonderful print here.

Also some interesting essays about 20 vs 24 frames a second (personally I was fine with 24 and 100 minutes is a little long for me on a silent film - I prefer 80 - LOL) - and lots of soundtracks - 3 separate ones you can use and audio commentary

Like Autumn Sonata, I think every aspiring actor/actress could watch this film and realize just how much the face can and should give you - good stuff

#61 - Monty Python's Life of Brian

Sorry this took a while - moving and all

This was the fourth most popular film in the UK in 1979 and probably got most of that viewing on outrage and calls of blasphemy - but it's a decent film - I noticed right away the quality of the sets was very good, and it turns out they borrowed some in Tunisia from the film Jesus of Nazareth filmed the previous year

It's a fun Monty Python romp, although I do think the Holy Grail is better, IMHO - and it goes pretty quick - however the Criterion version is out of print - there are some decent more modern Blu-Ray versions on Netflix -

Not to come back with a yawner review - but it's just a Monty Python film :)

#60 - Autumn Sonata

#60 is what some call Ingmar Bergman's tour de force of his later career - (all the remaining movies he did were telemovies, so to speak) -

My only exposure to Ingmar up till now has been the Seventh Seal, and as I watched the trailer beforehand, it was very clear to me this was NOT going to be that kind of movie - LOL - in fact I thought the trailer was kinda dull

But it's a pretty good film - a mother and daughter reunite 7 years after their last time together when the mother's husband (lover?) dies.   Both of them bring a ton of baggage with them and that's kind of how the movie plays out

some thoughts - I guess close-up's are one of Ingmar's signature moves but I was surprised how much of this movie was closeups - Sometimes it was in dialogue, or sometimes watching a face as a slightly off-kilter piano performance is played for a period of a couple minutes.  If I knew an actor/actress who was looking for inspiration, I'd probably recommend this one as there is a lot of subtle playing out of emotions on these faces, especially Ingrid's face during her daughter's performance

as a side bit of snark, this is probably the kind of expression that can't happen today in modern cinema as the botox revolution practically takes away most of the facial expressions an older actress can make - but snark aside, to see an older Ingrid in this role is a stark reminder of how few good roles are available for women after a certain age

There is a ton of literature out there to suggest there is some biographical hints in this film in Ingmar's life as well as pointing out it pairs Ingrid and Ingmar together for the first time.   Liv Ullmann, who I guess was Ingmar's muse and lover for several years, plays the other lead role.   As I keep watching his films it's my understanding she pops up in a lot of lead roles in other films and for this one she is made up to look almost twice her age with none of her beauty.

I regret I did start to fall asleep on first viewing - (at 1am - dialogue driven movies in a foreign language can be a little tough) but I got thru it fairly well

in regards to special features, there's the usual interviews, an alternate english track.  If you love the film, there's a ridiculous oversized 3.5 hr documentary about every facet of the film-making, from table reads to costume trials, etc that you can watch and enjoy.

as a whole, I liked this movie more than I thought i would which is good cause some of these European dramas can be a bit of a chore - part of me wishes more external shots of the beauty of Norway were available - (dialogue in Swedish, but shot in Norway) but c'est la vie

I might get one more movie in here this month but I'm about to move so I've got to start looking at packing and starting up again when i get back to Minneapolis

RB

#59 - The Night Porter

Ugh.... I checked my phone a lot during this one - I'm not a big fan of the Nazi S/M exploitation category and I was sorta not fully aware of where this one was going.

there's a lot of stuff said about this film - some good, some bad - but like Salo, I'm not sure really what it contributes as a whole to the issues it's trying to address -

I just didn't like it - and I don't have much else to say about it except I wouldn't watch it again unless forced to at gunpoint

#58 - Peeping Tom

you can tell when the wife is out of town - I get three films in a weekend - being on call and not able to easily leave the house helps

here we have another film from Michael Powell - (The Red Shoes was the first)

Interestingly enough, the opening scene almost flashed back to the Red Shoes - a shop window on what is obviously a set of a street, almost like a stage is where we start, and it's very reminicent of the performance set in the Red Shoes - in another scene Moira Shearer gets a chance to do a dance number 12 years later

The movie as a whole is an interesting thriller released about two months before Psycho - (rumor is the reviews for this one were bad enough that Hitchcock decided to show Psycho two months later without any press screenings) - it has been rumored to be the first slasher film, and the killer does a great job of showing his creepiness

Of course, I couldn't help but think of the themes of voyeurism and cameras in a modern context where everyone wants everything they do on film and everyone carries a camera now - probably a good essay there

it was a good film - but currently out of print in the Criterion collection - it is on Filmstruck if you want to watch it though

RB

#57 - Charade

Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Paris - what else could one ask for? 

Here's a 1963 comedic spy thriller set in you know where with Audrey as the Lead - never heard of this one but it has a lot of the big name American actors of the day - Matthau, Kennedy, Coburn

It was a pretty good film - as Bruce Eder's essay pointed out, it was a time of macho spy thrillers, but this is the only successful one to center on a woman who is trying to figure out who killed her husband and the where/why of the finances

I always enjoy seeing color Paris of the 1960's - if I could time travel it would probably be Paris and Vegas of the 50's and 60's - a different time and world we'll never get back

some extras are included - this one isn't on filmstruck though it is still in print - so head off to the Netflix or Barnes and Nobles if you want it

#56 - The 39 Steps

Another classic Hitchcock film for #56 - The 39 Steps - it is an adaptation of a story from 1915, and was done in a couple other formats (Radio Dramas) before he got to it

Like his other early work from England (#6 - The Lady Vanishes) - it's a bit of an unusual feel - it does feel very English

the one thing that stuck out to me is that Hitchcock mentions this film as a pioneering technique of using a Macguffin, which is to say a device to drive a plot that may or may not even be known - I think the most famous one I can think of is in the Movie "Ronin" with Robert DeNiro, where the Macguffin is the Silver Briefcase, which drives the movie, and the actual contents of are never known.

Ya know - this was a decent story but I don't quite get the whole "One of the greatest films of the 20th century" drive behind it - but I'm dumb

Lots of good extras - features about Early Hitchcock, some audio that Francois Truffaut did for an interview - a radio adaptation from 1937, and some other things -

I didn't HATE it - I just didn't feel it the way some people seem to in their souls - LOL

RB

#55 - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

#55 is one I had heard the title of for years but never gotten around to - The Unbearable Lightness of Being - a story about the lives of bohemians and lovers in 1968 Czechoslovakia at the time of the Soviet Crackdown

This was based on a novel, and at 3 hrs, must have gotten most of the source material in, I hope - an exquisite performance by Daniel Day Lewis, Juliette Binoche, and Lena Olin -

I've always been fascinated by the ideas of intellectual revolution and what one keeps hidden in a repressive authoritarian regime - A German film called "The Lives of Others" takes place in East Germany under the similar circumstances of Communism over all

As a whole the film got my attention but at 3 hrs I was hoping it could go a bit quicker - the Criterion Edition is out of print but I think the 2006 print by WB has the same commentary with the director, writer, and Lena.

Possibly my favorite part of the movie is the invasion where authentic footage of the Russian invasion is interspersed with the actors interacting - for example, in one scene, footage of two covered bodies is seen, and on the other side you see new footage (in B&W) of the actors cut into this historical footage - and with other scenes of action and motion it's even more pronounced - it's almost worth watching that part again for those 20 minutes alone

It's a book about life, exile, and love translated to the big screen - I heard the writer was unhappy with the film's adaptation and never allowed another one to be made of his books.

I liked it - not greatly - I wouldn't buy it but I might watch it again :)   BUT that's what we got - they ain't all gonna be Yojimbo - LOL

Interesting sidenote - Milos Forman was asked to do this film but turned it down because he had family living in Prague so he couldn't put them at risk doing this subversive movie :)



RB

#54 - For All Mankind

#54 is probably our first full Documentary - (not counting Nanook, which is sort of a docudrama) - This film is quite simply a document of the Apollo missions as shot by NASA, who apparently had thousands of hours of film in the archives that had never been seen before by the public.

Strictly speaking it is footage of all nine missions, and they are intercut to appear as one mission, from boarding the spacecraft, to launch, to the lander and moonwalks, back to re-entry - the Astronauts on the missions narrate some of the action and what they saw.

It's honestly something I wasn't sure I'd get into too much but when you remember again what we did - (and haven't done since) - it seems like such a massive undertaking - the sheer size of the Saturn rockets, the amazement of Earth from a distance, and some of the footage was incredibly clear - (and some was 16mm grainy) -

it's a pretty good film - there's a few extras on Filmstruck - There is also apparently - (though I didn't find it) - an ingenious use of closed captioning that is used JUST to identify faces and voices in the documentary, as you might be curious which Astronaut and mission is being seen at the time.

it would be very interesting to see an extended version with lots more footage released - (they certainly had the footage) - but as it stands it seems like just the right length - good stuff and a nice change up from the usual foreign film fare.

#53 - Sanjuro

#53 is the follow up to Yojimbo - the entertaining sequel called Sanjuro

Many of the same actors and production team are in both movies - In face, we have the same guys playing the villians, including Tatsuya Nakadai.   The interesting transition is that this time we have left the lawless world of bandits in a town and moved to the formal world of the Samurai and a corrupt administrator.   Sanjuro takes it upon himself to help a number of young samurai attempt to flush out the corruption.

In that regard it's a totally different vibe - the young samurai now look at him like the ruffian and gangsters from the first movie - he is unkempt, undisciplined, and shocking to them at times.   The Swordplay at times is excellent, and the ending is one of those eye openers the first time you catch it.

Interestingly, I learned that Tatsuya filmed his roles in these two films in breaks between parts 2 and 3 of The Human Condition, a 9 hr. epic that spanned 3 films.   Suffice it to say, now that he had gotten a chance to act for Kurosawa, he was going to work his tail off to make it happen, and he would be one of Akira's goto guys in the later samurai epics Kagemusha and Ran.

The commentary is interesting - Stephen Prince goes out of his way to highlight some of the most interesting parts of the story - in both these films, Kurosawa makes great use of the telephoto lens to flatten the action and allow you to see large amounts of in focus detail. 

Mifune would go on to play a similar character two more times - in "Zatoichi meets Yojimbo" and in "Incident at Blood Pass" but not the same one.   Nevertheless, the archtype of the scruffy ronin was one he did to great effect, and of course, he would play regular Samurai in many other period pieces, as well as a multitude of contemporary roles

I don't remember if I've spoken in detail yet about Tatsuya Nakadai, but at some point he will come up again and we can talk about him more - suffice it to say he's not usually a villian, but in these two films, he runs the gamut from crazy bandit to noble, but corrupted retainer.

Two great widescreen movies that can be found in a complementary box set with some extra documentaries, commentaries, and features.

#52 - Yojimbo

#52 is a classic - utter and complete classic - it has inspired copycats in the west - (A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing) - it made an international superstar out of Toshiro Mifune and continues the great collaborations between him and Akira Kurosawa.

I'm going to do something a little different here - I'm not going to talk about the film yet

I'm going to talk about a time when I had seen Seven Samurai, and had bought the boxed set which included that, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and the Hidden Fortress.

Also I was semi homeless - living out of a friend's spare bedroom - and drinking heavily - I also had a band practice space which had a small couch but not much band practicing.

And I went out and bought one of those combo DVD/TV units - and I'd walk 3 blocks to the store, buy some rumplemintz, walk back to the practice space, and watch these DVD's on the 4:3 little TV which I put at the end of the couch, and I'd drink to excess and watch samurai movies.   I think I watched them all twice

Later on, after I quit drinking, I'd find refuge again in a two week theater run of Samurai movies in Town.  Right when I was beginning my sobriety, I would play video games or watch TV or (meh) smoke weed - but early on there was a two week stint of Samurai movies at the University's Theater, where I got to see Yojimbo on the big screen, as well as other classics like Sword of Doom and Hari-Kiri, which may be my favorite Samurai film of all time.

So the genre has a special place in my heart - they're my westerns - I still want to go to Japan but the wife is too paranoid about radiation so I'll probably never get to go - but I'd go on a tour and I'd look at famous Japanese history from the 1600-1850's

It's a deeply entertaining film - the music, cinematography, and action are top notch - it looks great on a Blu-Ray and I even listened a 2nd time with the commentary because Stephen Prince brings a lot to it, and will tie it together with the next film, a sequel with the same character, who Mifune would also play a variation on a couple more times in future cinema - just as Clint Eastwood would play a different "Man With No Name" character in some of his later westerns.

It's a great film - I wish everyone could enjoy it in the theaters again

RB

#51 - Brazil

#51 is a 1985 picture meant to evoke 1984 in a comical, almost satirist kind of way - it probably would have been OUT in 1984 if there hadn't been such a heavy conflict between the Studio and Terry Gilliam - LOL

Half the story of Brazil is told in the drama between a studio head and the director as to what kind of film was going to be put out and what kind of happy/sad ending it was to get - as it stands...this is the director's final cut - and bears his image of what he intended - Terry Gilliam did a couple shorts between this and Time Bandits, but this was his next main film. 

As far as films go - it's a little plodding - I'm sure the effects in 1985 were killer - I can understand if some folks walked out bored or just having W.T.F. syndrome - I found myself drifting a bit but as a whole thought it was an interesting film

the idea of being trapped in Bureaucracy is interesting - as that's basically the vise that grips all these characters and all they do - it actually reminded me of a totally unexpected film coming up later on, "Ikiru" where the inertia of trying to get things done in the govt. cause a rebellion in a civil servant - but this is meant to be funny, comedic, and oppressive at the same time, and it pulls it off fairly well

One could easily imagine a remake for today but I'd prefer not - LOL  - this kind of film can only be made once and they did a pretty good job - I'd watch it again with friends

Lotsa special features - it's not on filmstruck and I got stuck with a 1999 box set in 4:3 and not incredibly good detail, but the jest of it came thru

honestly, I've really been waiting almost the whole blog since I started for #52 - so that helped me get this out in a hurry :)

#50 - And The Ship Sails On

#50 - (well, we've skipped 3 but official #50 on the spine)

I can't sugarcoat this - I thought this was a boring film - I think I'm going to sigh every time a Fellini film comes up at this rate - I thought the story was dull, the effects unimpressive - and maybe there's something about European Life revealed in here that I missed, but as a whole I was so bored I almost fell asleep in broad daylight watching it -

Not much else to say about this one

RB

#49 - Nights of Cabiria

Ah yah...my second Fellini film - I thought it was my first but forgot he directed Amacord which I watched about 14 months ago - THAT film stuck with me as one of my initial fav's - so much so I almost bought the blu-ray

THIS ONE - took some time to get into - I guess it's one of the last of Fellini's Neo-Realism films before he got more into his surreal style.  I honestly struggled to get into it the first two times and had to stop (and go to bed) about 1/4 and 1/2 way in but then I finished it up and got a lot more sympathy for the protagonist in the second half.

Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, plays Cabiria, the prostitute with a heart of gold? in this film - she brings an almost vaudeville approach - (others have said Chaplin) to the character.  It made it a little hard for me to find sympathy for her early on, although the first scene in the film is a hard luck one

the DVD is out of print on Criterion - the film is currently on Filmstruck - as I was able to find it at the library, I can confirm there are some interesting interviews, clips on restoration, and commentary on a scene which was deleted from the initial print and readded a few years later - (and in this edition, before I knew it had been deleted, which is a decision I don't disagree with the producer on) - some interesting early clips where the character briefly appeared in a 1952 film, and the like.   It won't be my favorite Fellini film, but now that it's done I can say I'm glad I watched it, and I have another one in the barrel which I guess might make Fellini my most watched director up to this point BUT we also have some more Kurosawa coming up too.

Not a bad film - just takes some time to get into and if you're tired, watching a film with subtitles that you're not terribly into is a good way to fall asleep in the lazy-boy - good times

#48 - Black Orpheus

#48 is a visual and musical tour de force I never heard about - Black Orpheus -

disclaimer - I think it's like one of FOUR Orpheus movies in the first couple hundred Criterion releases but I'm betting it's the most original  (Edit 12/26/2018 - this comment uh, didn't age so well - all of the Orpheus films were sorta out there - LOL)

The story is a South American take on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Rio De Janeiro at Carnival time - While I think they caught a lot of the atmosphere they maybe didn't do enough to truly capture the city except from the Mountains.   I think this movie could have done for Rio what Summertime did for Venice - but what I DID learn was that it did bring Bossa Nova music out of Brazil to a wider audience and that's got to count for something - I also heard it was Barack Obama's Mother's favorite film but that he personally had issues with it when he went to go see it with her

There is a beauty and life to this film that's hard to beat - The Color is excellent, the actors are very telegenic, and the music is awesome - music infuses the background of the whole movie and the child actors bring a strong sense of levity and joy to the film

some great special features, interviews, etc - it was a Brazil/France co-production - and as such there is some controversy - some folks feel it's an outsider's take on Brazil and glorifies the poverty of the folks there - but as a colorful and beautiful film it cannot be denied that it's a fantastic film

side tangent - thoughts on Cobra Kai

figured I'd take a bit of a small break here to talk about something coming up - it seems as if there is going to be a Youtube Red series called "Cobra Kai" about the two main characters from the Karate Kid, what...33 years later now?

Disclaimer - I met Billy Zabka at a youth group retreat in the mid 90's and loved the Equalizer, so he always gets props with me.

but even without that I have to admit, I'm excited.

I was a preteen/teenager when The Karate Kid came out - I think at some point I even took Karate lessons on or around when it came out.   The class was much more low key at the local Athletic club though. 

But here's the thing - I was a REALLY UNCOOL kid growing up - like virtual leper/pariah - horribly nerdy and incapable of really holding down real friendships in rural redneck Montana where a bus ride with the kids who weren't going to do any better than fixing cars was hell for me until I got off the bus.  Even as I got further up in the High School chain, I barely had the respect of my peers - a few of us nerds got together and played games over lunch.   I never got in any full bore fights but I had a few assholes trip me and shit - and I was also one of the scrawniest kids around. 

To this day I'm probably more successful than 90% of my tormentors and I won't go see them at the reunions - fuck those guys

So for me, The Karate Kid was a hell of an inspirational picture - it made me happy to see it and I probably have seen it almost a half dozen times?    At the end, when Zabka's character tells Daniel Russo he's all right, there's a sort of small redemption in there for him as well - we never get to see how it plays out in the next two sequels, but what did he take of that moment.   Did it define Johnny  or did he revert back - initial indications in the teaser to me is he's old Johnny again.

(and it's probably too much to ask, but could we get Elizabeth Shue for a bit - bring that triangle back - LOL - but I haven't seen her in much lately)

We've had some bad luck lately with nostalgia coming back into fashion.  I am still disappointed in how the new Star Wars trilogy is playing out - the new Indiana Jones a few years ago - more of the same - Rocky and Rambo back - meh.

But this could really be interesting - how do our successes as young men define us as we get older - has Ralph Macchio's character turned into a sad used car salesman, trying to see his kids on the weekend while Billy traveled the world seizing the day after college?   I'm really curious to see how these two protagonists go forward at this point and what the story will be.

A movie shows us a picture of a life, but a sequel 33 years later - if done right, can paint a much bigger picture

AND we have Youtube Red here in the house...so score already!

Looking forward to it
RB

#47 - Insomnia

#47 is like film noir, but in the light instead of darkness - ain't that funny - LOL

This is a captivating thriller starring Stellan Skargard as a Swedish detective trying to solve a murder in Norway, above the arctic circle, in the middle of summer.   As such, it's the land of the midnight sun.  A number of choices and mistakes, as well as said sunlight disrupting his sleep, result in a tale of a man slowly struggling to solve a case while hiding secrets of his own all while slowly dragging down under the weight of said secrets and sleepness.

I knew this was remade - (5 years later with Al Pacino and Robin Williams) but I never saw it so I didn't know what we had going on - this was also kinda close to me as I lived in AK for a few years and even in Anchorage, you could have in the middle of summer enough light at midnight/1am to work outside if you wanted to - if you didn't pay attention you'd be up till midnight without paying attention so we def. got the blackout curtains. 

This is a great film, and it held my attention thruout - there is an interview with the Director and Stellan several years later and it has been released on blu-ray.  Being that the film is from 1997, it's a nice relief once in a while to see a film that isn't marred by 70 years of dust or obsolete film techniques

I'll get some more of these in - it's my oncall weekend and the wife is outta dodge so lots of chances to watch a few more movies

RB

# 46 - The Most Dangerous Game

Usually the first thing I do is look at the next film and see how long it is and the general plot - when I saw this one was 63 minutes I decided - "eh, fuck it" and just cranked it out

Probably me and about 200 million teenagers have read this story in Middle/High School - I remember reading it years ago.  This was a film adaptation done about 8 years (?) after it was published?

Most of the names/directors/actors escape me but of course, Fay Wray as the damsel - (added for Hollywood's sake, not in the original book) - we all know from King Kong as well as the chap playing her brother, and there's a reason for that

When I first started watching this I was struck by how Fay Wray was once again running around in a jungle just like King Kong's - and I THOUGHT in my head there was some distance between these two films but in fact, they were shot at the same time - with one of the same directors, written by one of the same screenwriters, and used some of the same sets and three of the actors from King Kong - LOL

Designed originally to be a bigger production, cost cutting and issues at RKO took it down to this deeply condensed 63 minute time frame with some fast pacing and cost cutting measures.  I listened to the Bruce Eder commentary - (I was curious and hey, it was only an extra hour - LOL) - and he stated the actual timelines for the two films shooting are kinda muddled - there's a good chance that a lot of Brian Armstrong and Fay Wray scenes, for instance, were shot during the long gap in special effects that were done after they shot some of their Kong scenes. 

The film lapsed into the public domain, but you'll want to get the good copy from Criterion with the commentary if you watch it - not that colorized shit. 

I thought of it initially as a suspense film but they're calling it a horror flick which I understand - some other interesting commentary in here about how some wardrobes/lines wouldn't have been allowed 18 months later after some movie censorship codes came in - but dat's life - I didn't walk away with the hots for Fay or anything - LOL

OK - now I gotta do some work - but then again...the next film is only 90 minutes too...hmmm

# 45 - Taste of Cherry

wife is out of town for a few days - expecting to get a few backlogged features in

This is a film I've never heard of by a director I've never heard of and may be the first film I've ever seen from Iran - in fact I'm pretty sure it is.

An interesting work by Abbas Kiarostami, it follows a man driving around on the outskirts of Tehran looking for someone to bury him after he kills himself - it took me a little while to get to this cause it, well, was a tiny bit boring for me - but I got thru it the next day - I guess Roger Ebert hated it

It was an ok film - it won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival which is no slouch.   (Some of my favorite winners are Kagemusha, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and Farewell, my Concubine) - but it's presentation - primarily long dialogues shot from the alternate seat of a two seater, didn't leave a lot for me - there was also some interesting audio work done on here - my cats were very attentive to the sounds of some interesting birds/wildlife in Tehran - LOL

But not one I'd probably watch again in the future - there's a director's interview as a special feature - it was ok to me

#44 - The Red Shoes

Happy 2018! - took a few weeks to get to this - I sorta went down a rabbit hole with the Antoine Doinel movies - (#185-188) but we'll get to those...probably in a few years - LOL

The Red Shoes is one I've never heard of - a nice little colorized movie a couple years after WWII following a ballet dancer who is doing a production of a Hans Christen Andersen story about - wait for it - The Red Shoes.

Watching this movie, I was reminded of a very contemporary film - Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in Whiplash - this film has the protege and the teacher and both stories have something to say about the price of art - especially excellence and what it does to a person's soul, their relationships, and the student/teacher dynamic.  Both movies are cautionary tales about not sucking so much marrow out of art you lose what gives life meaning.

This MAY be the first film even closely resembling Ballet and the backstage life that I've ever seen.   I'm sure there are some characters here who will be familiar to most backstage folks - it's an international cast, and takes place a big chunk down in the South of France.   The visuals and music are excellent, and the middle of the movie is punctuated by a central performance of the title ballet, with some excellent camera effects and stretching of the boundary between camera and stage as sometimes you are with the audience watching the stage and other times you are the world they are trying to manufacture.

This would be worth a second viewing with the commentary track, and while I only had one special feature on Filmstruck, it involved the restoration process, which if you've read this blog, you know is one of those things I really like.   The oddness of this one, involving three separate negatives, has to be seen to be appreciated - This restoration in particular came out fantastic.

Great Movie - a combination of a musical, a dance ballet, and drama - but with some sad foreshadowing of the story to come.