by Sam Juliano
The Greatest Childhood/Adolescent Films Countdown is now down to the final three-and-a-half weeks after a lengthy run that began back in mid-June. The essays throughout have been first-rate and all the barometers of measurement have been most impressive as of late after it lagged a bit in the middle stages. Upon completion, the site will go back to a wider focus, what with an assortment of film and music reviews and the late November launching of the Caldecott Contender series. The latter project will be pared down from last year when 51 reviews were published over ten weeks. There are a number of reason why that kind of volume will not be happening again.
Today is officially the first day of autumn, but nothing about that brisk and colorful season is anywhere near fruition, what with unrelenting heat and summer like aspects till in full force. This is a great time of year for movie, opera, music, baseball and football fans, as well as for those who look forward to the annual book festivals. I was so disappointed that I erred on the date for the Princeton Book Festival, which was held this past Saturday as I always look forward to it each and every year, but this coming Saturday I will attend the equally celebrated one in Warwick, New York (where I’ve never attended) and then to the one in Chappaqua, New York on October 3rd. Later this week the renowned illustrator Frane Lessac and her equally celebrated author husband Mark Greenwood will be doing book presentations at our own Lincoln School. I arranged for this long-awaited visit, and it will be a great day for sure.
On the domestic front everything remains hectic, what with the college commuting and weekend back and forths on the schedules of my son Sammy and daughter Melanie. Nothing will be changing anytime soon. On Friday Lucille and I will be seeing Pope Francis in Central Park, as the result of an incredibly generous offer from a benefactor friend. Certainly something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.
I am presently reading the superb Pulitzer-prize winning Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Herbert Donald.
On Saturday night, our entire family attended the latest rock show by Nemyses at the Oak Ale House in Maywood, New Jersey. Melanie filmed segments of the event, and the three-member group learned two new songs just for us: the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” and the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes.” They did a fabulous job with both!
Foe numerous reasons we haven’t been all that active on the movie front as far as trips to theaters but we did see the new film starring Johnny Deep that received decent reviews:
Black Mass **** (Sunday afternoon) Ridgefield Park Starplex
The at-home viewing included re-viewings of:
The Leopard Man (1943) ****
Ghost Ship (1944) ****
The Body Snatcher (1945) *****
The Seventh Victim (1943) *****
BLACK MASS is a hard hitting, sometimes gruesome gangland thriller set in Boston, that features one of Johnny Depp’s finest performances as infamous mobster Whitey Bolger.
Here are last week’s links with some revisions:
At Noirish, the renowned writer (and voracious reader) John Grant has penned an extraordinary review on the 2010 Indian film “The Impossible Murder”: https://noirencyclopedia.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/impossible-murder-the-2010/
Joel Bocko has published a brilliant review on Murnau’s silent “Faust,” an enduring work of German Expressionism at I Lost It at the Movies: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-favorites-faust-91.html
Aaron West has penned a terrific review of the new blu ray release of Stephen Frears’ “My Beautiful Laundrette” at Criterion Blues: http://criterionblues.com/2015/09/19/my-beautiful-laundrette-1985-stephen-frears/
At Mondo 70 Samuel Wilson has posted an extraordinary review of the 2013 Italian film “The Mafia Kills Only in Summer.”: http://mondo70.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-mafia-kills-only-in-summer-la-mafia.html
At Tuesdays with Laurie, our great friend Laurie Buchanan offers up a delightful “Cheese and Whine”: http://tuesdayswithlaurie.com/2015/09/13/cheese-and-whine/
Over at Attractive Variance Jamie Uhler offers us an authoritative musical capsule piece on The Who’s revered John Entwhistle, titled “One Day of Bass”: https://attractivevariance.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/one-day-of-bass/
At Movie Classics, Judy Geater has posted a fantastic piece on George Cukor’s 1933 classic “Dinner at Eight”: https://movieclassics.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/dinner-at-eight-george-cukor-1933/
Our longtime friend the film maker and movie lover extraordinaire Jeffrey Goodman has posted Part 29 of his series on four films that recently has impressed him. His latest roundup contains some great stuff: http://cahierspositif.blogspot.com/2015/07/favorite-four-part-twenty-nine.html
Jeff Stroud brings a higher level of thought to his wonderful new post at The Reluctant Blogger titled “Blank Page”: https://jeffstroud.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/blank-page/
Ever exploring new angles the resilient Tony d’Ambra has posted a brilliant piece on “Noir Beat: The Finnish Connection” atFilmsNoir.net: http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/noir-beat-the-finnish-connection.html/
Over at Patricia’s Wisdom, the terrific book reviewer and friend Patricia Hamilton has posted an excellent review on “The Fury: A Thriller” by Shane Gericke: http://criterionblues.com/2015/09 h/19/my-beautiful-laundrette-1985-stephen-frears/
At It Rains….You Get Wet Robert Tower has written a beautiful post entitled “Friday Song- Kathleen Edward’s “Change the Sheets”: http://le0pard13.com/2015/09/18/friday-song-kathleen-edwards-change-the-sheets/
Marilyn Ferdinand has penned a marvelous review on Ernst Lubitch’s 1926 “So This is Paris” at Ferdy on Films: http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/2015/so-this-is-paris-1926/25872/
J. D. Lafrance’s offers up a splendid review of “Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke/Next Movie” at Radiator Heaven: http://rheaven.blogspot.com/2015/09/cheech-and-chongs-up-in-smoke-next-movie.html
Shubhajit Lahiri has penned an excellent review of Wim Wenders’ 1975 “Wrong Move” at Cinemascope: http://cliched-monologues.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-wrong-move-1975.htm
Weeping Sam’s latest post at The Listening Ear is a terrific consideration of Iggy Pop and the Stooges in a post titled “Radio Burnin Up Alive”: http://listeningear.blogspot.com/2015/09/radio-burnin-up-above.html
At Overlook’s Corridor, the cinematic storm trooper Jaimie Grijalba is involved in a remarkable series focusing on Hispanic American films that have won awards. The latest in his impressive string is the 2014 Cuban work “Vestido De Novia”: https://overlookhotelfilm.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/5dop-5-vestido-de-novia-2014/
Terrill Welch’s incomparably beautiful Creative Potager blogsite offers up all kinds of nature-inspired sublimity, and the latest post “A Narrow Artistic Perspective on a Mayne Island Morning” is a stream-of-consciousness beauty: http://creativepotager.com/2015/08/25/a-narrow-artistic-perspective-on-a-mayne-island-morning/
At Filmicability Dean Treadway’s latest post is a superlative examination of the film year 1947: http://filmicability.blogspot.com/2015/09/1947-year-in-review.html
Sachin Gandhi has posted an utterly fantastic report on the 2015 Calgary International Film Festival, where he served as one of the programmers: http://likhna.blogspot.com/2015/09/calgary-international-film-festival-2015.html
At his new site Enic-Cine, murderous Ink has penned a brilliant piece on 1949’s “Late Spring” titled “Ozu, Pickles and Rice Bran” (Part 1): http://www.enic-cine.net/ozu-pickles-and-rice-bran-part-1/
David Schleicher has posted a riveting look at the most anticipated films for the 2015 Fall Season: http://theschleicherspin.com/2015/09/09/the-spin-on-the-most-anticipated-films-of-fall-2015/
At The Seventh Art the exceedingly gifted writer Srikanth offers up reviews on two Hindi films under the banner grouping titled “Love in the Time of Gonorrhea”: http://theseventhart.info/2015/08/02/love-in-the-time-of-gonorrhea/
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Writers/Founders
Wonders in the Dark 
Thanks again for the link! My two comments to this post couldn’t be further apart. 1) I’m a big fan of The Body Snatcher. Glad you enjoyed. 2) I am envious that you get to see the pope. Imagine it will be a madhouse. I’m sure we’ll hear about it next week!
I hear ya Aaron!!! Great to hear you are a big fan of one of the great Lewton films, one that may well contain the best performance of Karloff’s career! As to the Pope, when you consider all the madness involved you may not in the end find the hectic traveling around too desirable. 🙂 I will of course have a report here. Thank you my friend!
Looking forward to your summer series, Sammy, and your thoughts of the Pope’s visit. We’re currently scorching out here in SoCal on this first day of autumn. Typical. Thanks again for kind words and linkage, my friend. 🙂
Thanks so much Robert my friend! I will surely have a full report! We had a cooler day today but tomorrow it is supposed to be back in the 80’s. Let’s hope summer loses it’s grip soon. Have a great week!! 🙂
As ever, many thanks for the shoutout!
That’s very exciting that you’ll be going to see the Pope. With the exception of John Paul I, Francis is the first pope in my lifetime for whom I’ve been able to generate much enthusiasm. I assume there’ll be a massive report here afterwards!
The Warwick Book Fair, hm? I didn’t even know it existed, and we’re up in Warwick often enough. Is there a handy URL? Assuming the weather’s okay, Pam and I will certainly go along to it. Would it be fun to meet up and see if both families can get evicted for over-raucous behavior?
Not much movie-watching here, alas. We did see (DVD) the 2012 version of Daphne du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, which I liked very much indeed and Pam liked quite a lot. It was interesting making comparisons between this and the 1959 bw version with Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. The more recent one measures up really rather well against the old,, I thought: I’d not like to have to decide which I think is the better. What I found especially interesting was that, whereas I think a great strength of the 1959 version is the ambiguity of its ending (I cannot say more for fear of the Spoiler Police), in the 2012 movie that ambiguity is resolved — and, to my surprise, I found that this worked very well too.
Ah. Just found the URL: http://www.warwickchildrensbookfestival.org. I hadn’t realized it was a children’s book fest rather than a general one. It’d still be lotsa fun to meet up with you lot, but the fest itself is less of a draw.
The bookshop that’s involved, the recently installed Ye Olde Warwick Booke Shoppe, is well worth a visit, if you’ve not been there. It’s pretty tiny (if you’re not careful, you get to know other customers rather better than you’d intended as you browse the shelves), but it has a nicely chosen and surprisingly large stock.
John, thanks so much for the fabulous comments and for the time you invested in posting them!! Very much appreciated my friend! I agree that Francis is most deserving of the enthusiasm, and that John Paul was also admirable in a number of ways. As far as there being a “massive” report, yes I am guilty as charged! 🙂
I see you found the URL for the Warwick Book Festival!! I’d LOVE to meet up with you and Pam there, but I see in your follow up you were a bit disappointed that it is strictly a children’s festival. I’ll DEFINITELY check out “Ye Olde Warwick Booke Shoppe” on your intriguing recommendation!! I love quaint stores like that. I haven’t seen THE SCAPEGOAT (2012), but would like you after hearing both of you are fans. I did of course see the older version. Nice to hear the new version works equally well. Have a great week my friend! Many thanks!
Sorry, Sam, we’re not going to be able to make it to Warwick tomorrow. I’ve still got the best of a day’s work to go on the editorial project I needed to clear if I was going to be able to take Saturday off. I briefly thought of pulling an all-nighter but (insert phthisic wheeze here) I’m not as young as I used to be.
Hope you lot have a whale of a time and don’t bankrupt yourselves buying books!
John, I completely understand. Your schedule is intense week to week, with not too many open windows. We did adore Warwick, and I will be penning a full report on tomorrow’s MMD. A splendid, rustic town, and the Book Fair was a real celebration!! Met some friends and added to my collection!! 🙂
Sam, I like your choice of reading. Can you recall if anyone has ever turned the caning of Sumner by Preston Brooks into cinema? I can’t think of any film that shows it, yet it’d be dynamite on film if you could only come up with a story — not necessarily a Sumner biopic, but why not? — where it’d fit.
Up here in Albany autumn’s arrival was heralded by a drop of about a dozen degrees in temperature. Pretty neat, huh? Well, I hope you and His Holiness have good weather Friday.
Samuel, I well remember you are a history major and earned degrees in that field!! I’ve been on a binge as of late, spurred on by such day trips to historical locations. But I have been a Civil War buff for many years, and I respect Donald as one of the finest writers on this period. The book is quite fascinating. I don’t know of any film that was made of the Sumner caning, but I completely agree it would be a great incident to build a film around! What always amazed me was that Preston Brooks never served a day in jail and that his colleague successfully restrained other elected officials trying to end the onslaught. Amazing that Sumner survived, though he reportedly had health issues for the rest of his life. Sumner is fascinating for so many reasons, but this subversive variation on Hamilton-Burr is indeed one for the records! I am very happy to hear that you have enjoyed some seasonal weather in Albany now. I hope it holds up! It appears weather will be moderately hot for the Pope. Thanks so much for the fantastic comment my friend!! Have a great week!
Although we are having rain again, it is still quite warm here and we were in shirt sleeves this weekend once again. There are a few stunning Autumn trees around catching our eye maybe because of the extremely hot summer?
I am now walking a mile each morning rain or shine and that has been wonderful. I still need the leg brace on but am encouraged to walk barefoot around the house still trying to get the right leg to work properly and on cue. I must remember that nerves only grow 1 mm a day – and that will make it a 16 month healing process – only 4 months down.
We are hoping the lookers who came Friday and Sat. to look at the house will make an offer – we have just internet now and no TV and with painting at the new old house and moving what we can there has been no theater visits.
I wish I could go to those book fairs coming up. Envy attack!
Thank you once again for the shout out and your kind words on my latest review – THE FURY is quite the read
You said one time that you were going to read Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman. It is our October book group selection and I just can not make myself purchase it or read it. How did you find it and was it a good read?
Have a good week and may the hectic smooth out a bit into a routine.
Do you think there will be any good movies for our family tradition at Thanksgiving? I haven’t heard of any everyone would want to see? I could use a suggestion !
Patricia, there is no doubt about it – Fall is Coming. We also have had some periods where summer is taking a back seat to the general picture. I hope by the time you read this you will have had some letting up. Good luck with the house sale! Hopefully (again) by the time you read this you will have a sale!! I know you would appreciate the book fairs as much as anyone I know that’s for sure!! I did get the vibe THE FURY is an exceptional read indeed! GO SET A WATCHMAN is better than many of the nay-sayers have voiced, and well worth a read for a vital delineation of Atticus Finch, but of course it is not remotely the work MOCKINGBIRD is. Still worthy and I’m sure down the road its reputation will climb as more revelations are deciphered. There are several movies set to release in November and December indeed. One is Todd Haynes’ CAROL, but I will be abreast of the situation as we move forward. Many thanks my great friend!
Sam, that book by David Donald does intrigue me. Hope you’ll say more about it or will write a full review. I hope to see Black Mass soon.
The Giants blew another game they had in the bag. But the Yankees did well taking two from the Mets.
Have a great time seeing Pope Francis!
Peter, I have had to curtail my reading of it the last several days because of the insanity visited upon my family, but I will get back to it very soon. Fabulous, fascinating read by a tremendous writer! Well the Giants did win the third game, so they are back in the picture but have a long way to go! I will have full report on Pope Francis on tomorrow’s MMD. Thank you my friend!
Ah, you’re seeing the Pope on Friday, which oddly enough coincides with a Friday night religious event for me too—I’m finally seeing Ride live, an event I thought I’d never get the chance to experience (they’ve reformed after almost 20 years apart). I can’t wait to bask in the transcendent shoegaze noise. While the Pope drones on with his faux-progressive agenda, a few hundred miles away noise will deliver us to the heavens.
More on noise and politics in my cultural goings on wrap up here:
https://attractivevariance.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/recent-cultural-happenings-noise-doesnt-annoys-end-of-september-2015/
Jamie, your variation of a religious event sounds like one with a metaphysical context. The word transcendent seems appropriate. I am thrilled to see you have brought your own version of the MMD over at Attractive Variance and have linked it here. I will be there to read and comment. Have a great week my friend!
Sam –
The children in your school are in for a tremendous treat with illustrator Frane Lessac and author Mark Greenwood as honored guests. Oh my gosh, what a gift for Lincoln School!
And you get to see Pope Francis. A life-time memory!
As our mutual friend (who hails from Georgia) would say: You’re walkin’ in TALL COTTON!
Aye Laurie, we are anticipating quite a day on Monday, with our long-awaited school event! These two are the real deal!! And the fact that I graduated with France in the same year in the same high school and knew her then makes it all the more sweeter. As a prelude we saw France yesterday at the Warwick Festival too! The Pope experience was both exhilarating and like-affirming!! Hahaha, I love walking in TALL COTTON my friend!! Many thanks, and hope you are enjoying a great weekend!! 🙂
I wish I were so lucky Sam. The pontiff is a worldwide sensation, and the catholic Church has never been so invigorated.
As I have stated other times, I love Frane Lessac’s work! Quite a day planned.
Yes indeed Celeste! As far as the tickets, I was lucky to get them, and never expected I would be seeing Il Papa, even from the very long distance I am anticipating despite a planned early arrival. And totally thrilled to have France Lessac and her husband Mark Greenwood at the school! Have a great week my friend!
Hello Sam and everyone!
Hope you had a wonderful week, as this surely shows, and that the upcoming weeks just continue to be the great year that it has been for most of us, for sure. Hope the family and everyone else is ok. Of the movies you saw, must say that I rate The Body Snatcher and The Seventh Victim with **** each.
These are the movies I saw last week:
– All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula) ****1/2 As it goes into the technicalities of the case itself it turns less interesting, but it is spiced up by the weird and contrived ways in which the protagonists do their investigative reporting, which at the same time turns the whole movie into a tense ordeal that only gets more and more exciting with time. I adore these kind of films, those in which the procedure isn’t police-related as much as its politics-related. I’ve sung praises of films like these before, specially Recount and Zodiac, which delve into other genres for sure, but that also are these constant accumulations of data and investigations and procedures that suddenly start to unveil an underlying relationship of things hidden behind. The sense of unveiling something is more powerful here, but at the same time, while the ending is powerful, I think I would’ve liked to see how they got there.
– Dante’s Inferno (1924, Henry Otto) **1/2 In more than one way, half a movie. Maybe it has some reels missing, but it doesn’t stray away from the fact that it’s not a straight adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, as much as it’s a moral tale that surrounds certain passages and sequences from Dante’s Inferno, and some of them lifted from the 1911 Italian Inferno picture. Its depiction of hell in certain moments is striking, but the surrounding melodrama is weak and the message on how our protagonist is bad is also not strong enough for it to build a good metaphor of what we see onscreen.
– Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino) ***** Still the best movie of this decade.
– The Last Samurai (2003, Edward Zwick) *** There’s something about the two Edward Zwick movies that I’ve seen that rub me in the wrong way. There seems to be an eagerness to please a crowd that is at both times massive and at the same time eager for award recognition. That makes me watch at the performances more closely, and while I thank this film for opening Watanabe for the rest of the world beyond Japan, I think that Tom Cruise seems 5 seconds away from snapping out of his own skin and scream out that he’s an actor playing a role. You could say the same thing happened to me while watching Blood Diamond and DiCaprio, as for much of it I saw not a character but an actor struggling with the character, and while interesting in a Brechtian way, it only distracts from anything interesting or great that could happen in a film.
– El regalo (2008, Cristian Galaz, Andrea Ugalde) ***1/” Slightly homophobic, but finally body-positive. How weird is that!
– Soylent Green (1973, Richard Fleischer) **** Unexpectedly great, after all that reputation about how “it’s not that great”, this one actually surprised me as it kept me going forward even if I knew the final twist. While a big part of it, I think that this science fiction film works exceedingly well because it creates a world within itself and it doesn’t bother with explaining what got to it, at least in an specific manner, as all we hear and see is hearsay or controlled propaganda from a unionized vision. I think that what mostly talks about the state of the world is how our protagonist, as member of the police, can do whatever he pleases and no one ever stops him. What bothered me the most but I still applaud was the thing about “furniture”, and while I can understand that’s how the world works, it’s still highly disturbing.
– Tokyo Chorus (1931, Yasujiro Ozu) ****1/2 Fantastic film about how Japan was gearing towards change before the start of the WW2. A wonderful portrait of a man who fights for what he thinks is right and how he has to pay for it. Later we’re introduced to the idea that hard work pays, no matter how much you have to do and how “low” you have to start, and the values of friendship and respect. He might not respect some superiors, because of their inner inadequacies, but he respects those that gave him what he made him the man that he is today. It’s incredible how organically Ozu managed to put all these “lessons”, as if it was a catalog of his morals and his point of view in life. It’s incredible also how Ozu had the modern life of the salaryman so pinned down, not only in this but in all his work, even though he never had a work like that nor he had a family like the one presented. It rings true, as if he had a higher understanding of life without necessarily living it.
That’s all, have a great week Sam!
Yes Jaimie, this is indeed the greatest part of the year. (by the way my friend, I just realized that I didnt respond to your comment last week, but I will definitely do so later this evening when I get back from the Reniassance Fair in Toledo, New York. Looks like you saw quite a few super films here this past week, and as always your capsules are of the first-rank!! I adore TOKYO CHORUS too, and would like to watch it again soon!! Lovely review of it here!! Great stuff! I also think SOYLENT GREEN got a bum rap, and is a much better film than many thought it was when it released. Your one disturbance is most understandable though. Haven’t seen EL REGALO. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is an American classic without question. DJANGO UNCHAINED is my favorite Tarantino film ever, so I can’t blame you for that definitive praise, and well remember your awesome review of it! Yeah THE LAST SAMAURAI is not a film to revisit, though Cruise is decent enough in it. Alas I have not seen DANTE’S INFERNO, but am thrilled that you wrote about this rarity here and commend you on your sustained and thorough examination of the form. Many thanks for this banner submission my friend! Nice to that you rate those two Lewtons highly!! 🙂
Hi Sam,
I was wondering about “Black Mass”, its trailer being eye-catching. I will catch it, definitely.
I’ve been watching a series of thrillers (movies and TV dramas) based on Seicho Matsumoto’s novels. One of the most successful Japanese thriller and mystery writers, his novels have been made into movies and TV dramas more times we can count, and still going. Some of the movies are great, some heavy-handed. As I go through these DVDs, I find some of the early TV dramas quite satisfying and well-acted and directed, because they are so minimal in their approach. One of them I saw this week, “Wind (1977)”, was 50 minutes long, 4 actors and 4 sets, basically. They are dated in spots, but I admire the extremely bare-bone approach to the material, which, in this case, worked. I realized we are getting used to the trend of big-budget TV dramas these days, but sometimes, stripping down to its skeleton may be quite refreshing.
By the way, I hope you will catch a glimpse of Pope Francis!
MI
MI:
BLACK MASS is definitely worth a look-see! Not a perfect film, nor a truly great one, but solid and well-crafted. That sounds like a most worthy project working your way through Matsumoto’s novels. I’ve love to see WIND myself, and hope you’ll be writing about it at your site!! I hear what you are saying though that some of the adaptations are great, while others are disposable. Good point about the uncluttered framing with the bare-bones approach. We did indeed get a good look at His Holiness and I will be have a thorough report on the upcoming MMD my friend. Many thanks!!
Sam, Once again, thanks for the link.
Hoping to catch BLACK MASS at some point. It’s been a bit hectic with other things though we plan on seeing GRANDMA this afternoon. The opportunity to see the Pope later this week is amazing/ Looking forward to hearing all about the adventure.
On the movie front I watched the following…
Keith Richards: Under the Influence (****) This documentary avoids the been there, seen it all before pit by focusing on Keith’s evolving music background and it roots. From Muddy Waters to Buddy Guy to Hank Williams and to Elvis. Keith looks like he was having a good time making the film. Well done look at one of rock and rolls
With a Friend Like Harry… (****) Film proves you need to watch out for who your friends are. French Hitchcockian thriller that builds slowly. One needs some patience but you will be rewarded in the end.
Best Seller (**1/2) Odd thriller, written by shock meister Larry Cohen, is uneven as well as unsatisfying.
Nightfall (***1/2) Flawed but decent thriller. Definitely worth a watch.
Trespass (*) A truly dumb thriller with too many unbelievable twists and turns. Ninety minutes of celluloid wasted. Cage and Kidman must have did this exclusively for the dollars. Certainly will not enhance anyone’s career.
Have a great week my friend!
John, I’m pretty confident you will like BLACK MASS quite a bit if I have you figured right! 🙂 I will certainly have the Ope report featured prominently tomorrow. I am agreed on NIGHTFALL and BEST SELLER. I am a little less positive on HARRY, but your astute capsule is fair enough. I do need to see KEITH RICHARDS. Many thanks for the fabulous submission my friend! Hope you and Dorothy are enjoying the weekend!! 🙂
Sam, hoping this finds you having a great week. I have seen a good bit of advertisement for BLACK MASS so I was really curious to read your thoughts.
Pretty quiet here still but I did finally run down two of Godard’s pre-Breathless shorts, CHARLOTTE ET SON JULES and TOUS LES GARCONS S’APPELLENT PATRICK. I found the latter particularly interesting as an early New Wave document.
Hoping to get in more of a routine soon. Thanks so much Sam!
Jeffrey, I am sure you will like BLACK MASS, though it was strong stuff. Depp is as good here as he’s ever been. I have not myself seen those two particular Godard shorts, but they are obviously essential pieces historically. As always your enthusiastic attendance here is a blessing my esteemed friend!! Hope you are enjoying a great weekend!
Hi Sam,
Another busy week for us here with kids still getting into the flow of school and weekly activities. I didn’t get to make much time for any viewings except a tremendous rewatch of Kes (for reasons you are aware of) and also rewatched Chaplin’s The Kid. I still maintain my stance that The Kid says more about parenthood than childhood, but that’s just me. It’s still a fine and entertaining film, if not quite up to Chaplin’s later work.
It’s been rather warm here! Not feeling like fall at all, and the colors on the trees seem very slow to change this year, which is likely due to the warmer more mild temperatures. However, I’m not complaining as colder temperatures would mean that snow would be here soon enough! Ha.
I should also say we rewatched Black Beauty recently on the new criterion edition with our kids. I’m surprised that film hasn’t appeared on the countdown unless I missed it. It was quite popular back in the day, but perhaps it doesn’t hold much sway today. Anyway, hope you have a great weekend!
Jon, that is certainly fair enough in regards to Chaplin’s THE KID; I do like it more but I am happy to meet at the middle ground as far as what you are saying here. It is cooling off by us, and fall is working hard to displace the throws of summer. BLACK BEAUTY did get some support, but not enough to land it in the countdown. We have had the most torrid weekend in a very long time, thank you my friend!