I have watched it before, however this time it was with Jon Lee Anderson’s audio commentary. Che Criterion Collection Edition #496 Far from a conventional biopic, Steven Soderbergh’s film about Che Guevara is a fascinating exploration of the revolutionary as icon. Daring in its refusal to make the socialist leader into an easy martyr or hero, CHE paints a vivid, naturalistic portrait of the man himself (Benicio Del Toro, in a stunning, Cannes-award-winning performance), from his overthrow of the Batista dictatorship to his 1964 United Nations trip to the end of his short life. Composed of two parts, the first a kaleidoscopic view of the Cuban Revolution and the second an all-action dramatization of Che’s failed campaign in Bolivia, CHE is Soderbergh’s most epic vision.
This requires patience. Céline and Julie Go Boating Directed by Jacques Rivette • 1974 • France Starring Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” meets the freewheeling invention of French New Wave gamesman Jacques Rivette in this giddy surrealist fantasia. When magician Céline (Juliet Berto) meets librarian Julie (Dominique Labourier), it’s not long before they are launched through the looking glass and straight into a labyrinthine comic adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder mystery as, all the while, the line between illusion and reality grows ever fainter.
The Eyes of Orson Welles Directed by Mark Cousins • 2018 • United Kingdom Starring Mark Cousins, Jack Klaff, Beatrice Welles Visionary cinema historian Mark Cousins (THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY) charts the unknown territory of the imagination of one of the twentieth century’s most revolutionary artists. Granted unprecedented access to hundreds of sketches, drawings, and paintings by Orson Welles—tantalizing, never-before-seen glimpses into the filmmaker’s rich inner life—Cousins sheds new light on the experiences, dreams, desires, and obsessions that fueled his creativity and inspired his masterpieces. Playful, profound, and as daringly iconoclastic as its subject, THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES is a one-of-a-kind work of visual archaeology, a fresh way of looking at a cinematic giant whose singular worldview—fiercely humanist, defiantly antiauthoritarian—resonates now more urgently than ever.
Criterion has lifted the paywall on a selection of Black films in response to the current protests. One of them was recently uploaded on The Tube as well. In it a Black hustler, baited by the filmmakers, recounts stories from his life that work like the give and take of a prostitute and a client. And as a viewer - by the end of the film it's hard not feel like the ultimate trick. I started to write that The Portrait of Jason is a 1967 documentary by Shirley Clarke that would probably not be made in the same manner today. But considering the current moment of exploting truth for profit (of several kinds) perhaps it's just the right film for now.
I’ve been dabbling in the Saul Bass films. Somehow I had never seen “Ocean’s 11”. The montage of Saul’s opening credits and the brief interview are worth the time.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion Rififi Fail Safe The Out of Towners Betty Blue Director's Cut The Anderson Tapes Un Flic I'm pretty picky about what I watch on Criterion....I'm pretty mainstream.
Wow! Invention for Destruction Directed by Karel Zeman • 1958 • Czechoslovakia Starring Lubor Tokoš, Arnošt Navrátil, František Šlégr This eye-popping escapade revolves around a scientist and his doomsday machine—and the pirates who will stop at nothing to gain possession of it. Freely adapting the fiction of Jules Verne, and inspired by Victorian line engravings, Karel Zeman surrounds his actors with animated scenery of breathtaking intricacy and complexity, constructing an impossibly vivid proto-steampunk world. Released abroad at the turn of the 1960s, INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION went on to become one of the most internationally successful Czechoslovak films of all time.
I didn't think Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion was that mainstream. Creepy and well made, yes.
Subscribed today to the channel. First up tonight was Shampoo, which I love and hadn’t seen for ages and expires on 6/30. Looked ok, not great but don’t know what their source print is. Had some issues activating service thru Roku but eventually got it going. I’m really excited. Wished I’d signed up a couple months back. Easily 25 films I would like to see before the June expiry but won’t have time.
I'm not a huge Fassbinder fan, but this is great. Veronika Voss Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany Starring Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Cornelia Froboess A once-beloved Third Reich–era starlet, Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. Struggling for survival and haunted by past glories, she encounters sportswriter Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) in a rain-swept park and intrigues him with her mysterious beauty. As their unlikely relationship develops, Robert comes to discover the dark secrets that brought about the decline of Veronika’s career. Based on the true story of a World War II Ufa star, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s VERONIKA VOSS is wicked satire disguised as a 1950s melodrama.
Apparently well known in its time, but not to me. I still wouldn't use the word 'safe' to describe it. Awards The film was highly regarded in its own time, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Grand Prize at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival. Also it won the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture from the Mystery Writers of America. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion - Wikipedia
The Milky Way Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1969 • France Starring Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Bernard Verley The first of what Luis Buñuel later proclaimed a trilogy (along with THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY) about “the search for truth,” THE MILKY WAY daringly deconstructs contemporary and traditional views on Catholicism with ribald, rambunctious surreality. Two French beggars, present-day pilgrims en route to Spain’s holy city of Santiago de Compostela, serve as Buñuel’s narrators for an anticlerical history of heresy, told with absurdity and filled with images that rank among Buñuel’s most memorable (stigmatic children, crucified nuns) and hilarious (Jesus considering a good shave). A diabolically entertaining look at the mysteries of fanaticism, THE MILKY WAY remains a hotly debated work from cinema’s greatest skeptic.
I also forgot I saw In Cold Blood for the first time. The print looked fantastic, like it could have been shot yesterday (or at least in the 70s).
Chantal Ackerman's News From Home from 1976. Filmed in Lower Manhattan after she had moved there. She reads letters from her mother over the footage. The color footage of the city is beautiful. NYC before it was transformed into what it is now.
Robinson Crusoe Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1954 • United States, Mexico Starring Dan O’Herlihy Master director Luis Buñuel’s first color film (and first of only two he made in English) is a fascinating, unjustly neglected adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s classic survival novel. His take on the story—in which the eponymous shipwreck survivor (an Oscar-nominated Dan O’Herlihy) faces both physical and psychological peril while stranded for decades on a desert island—succeeds equally as a gripping adventure saga and as a subtly subversive, typically Buñuelian deconstruction of traditional notions of civilization, religion, and man’s place in the universe.
This is a rewatch and is a rather remarkable film. Daughters of the Dust Directed by Julie Dash • 1991 • United States Starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O. Jones Julie Dash’s rapturous vision of black womanhood and vanishing ways of life in the turn-of-the-century South was the first film directed by an African American woman to receive a wide release. In 1902, a multigenerational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina—former West African slaves who carried on many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions—struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots. Awash in gorgeously poetic, sun-dappled images at once dreamlike and precise, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST forges a radical new visual language rooted in black femininity and the rituals of Gullah culture.
Tonight.....Dead Reckoning w/ Bogart & Elizabeth Scott. Had never seen it. Very enjoyable. There’s a number of noir films available thru month end I need to see. Only had the channel for a week. Watched original Oceans 11 from 1960 last Friday. Hadn’t seen that in decades. And a bit of trivia, in an early scene one of the crew, but not the name talent goes into a store and in the corner of the shot is the same Zenith tube table radio that my wife bought for me about 20 years ago. I was floored when I saw it.