#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